 President Tracy and Councilor Hightower are ready to proceed. You can turn your cameras on, that'd be great. I think, if there's no objection, we'll get started. I'll call the Port of Finance to order at 5.04 p.m. And the first item on the agenda is the agenda. And I welcome a motion regarding it. Move to adopt the agenda. Thank you, Councilor Hightower. Are you President Tracy? This is second by President Tracy, thank you. Any discussion? Seeing none, we'll go to vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you everyone for bearing with us as we again, have basically an all remote, firstly all remote meeting tonight. The next item on the agenda is the public forum. If you are on the Zoom and would like to speak to the Board of Finance, please use the raise hand function. President Tracy, is there anyone there with you and Memorial and Catois? No, Mayor. So also I am not seeing any raised hands. So I'm gonna call, close the public forum and move to the consent agenda, which is item 3.01. I would welcome a motion to accept the consent agenda, take the actions of the kids. Thank you, Councilor Hightower, do we have a second? Second. Okay, Councilor Powell, thank you. All those, any discussion? All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Motion carries unanimously. And we have adopted the consent agenda. So our next item, we're now moving to the section of the agenda for approval and recommendation to the city council, which is the rest of the agenda. And the first item is 4.01, the approval of Marina slip and mooring fees. Cindy and Erin, welcome. Why don't you give us a short summary of this item? So basically, and I apologize when I look to my left, that's where I have everything set up right there. So we have in front of you the mooring and dock fees for the city ordinance. We need to bring those to council whenever we're looking to increase those. And so we have that information for you. There's a few no changes, but then there's some modest increases in our seasonal boat slips. We're showing the highest increases at our moorings with the exception of our monthly slip and monthly mooring, which we realized needed to have a significant increase to make them really much more competitive as far as pricing goes. They were pretty low, but that's our information. We are very much looking forward to 2022 with the border open. It's been a pretty quiet two years down at the marina while we saw our numbers increase at the campground. They had, it bounced back campground at a full bounce back. We had the first year of all 50 states in Washington DC represented at North Beach Campground. We did not make a recuperation like that at all at the marina with two thirds of our boaters, typically from Canada. We did not make that up with other New York or Vermont boaters. Part of that is just there's only so many boats on the lake. And the second part there is that there's just much more competition since 2019, which was our last full year. We've got the full build out of Burlington Harbor marina and the expansion of the ferry dock marina, but we're excited for 2022. And we hope that during a pandemic, the Canadians all bought boats and that they can't wait to get down to Burlington and enjoy all the great things that we offer down here. Great, thank you, Cindy. I would the board like to proceed. Would further questions or are you ready for a motion? Councilor Ioannon. I'll move to approve and recommend that the city council approve the 2022 marina fees as set forth in the attach table on board docs. Thank you. Is there a second for that motion? Seconded by President Tracy. Thank you. Discussion? All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you, Cindy. Thank you. Erin and yes, we're hopeful for different summer down there on the waterfront. 4.02 contract. So an amendment to the contract with Open Gov. Catherine, can you tee this up for us quickly? Sure, you probably know Open Gov because it is the backbone of the new permitting software and one of the additional uses that we are hoping to take advantage of is this awesome new capital software that would help us a lot right now if we had it because what it does is it helps us to provide a lot of transparency to the public of what's happening with their capital dollars. The software that we're hoping that gets approved tonight would be part of our project budgeting and accounting efforts and would feed directly to a part of the city website showing what's been done, what money still left and we would also link to photos. So it would really be a step forward in terms of people being able to see within the period of the bond what's happening on a more regular basis and to take advantage of a software we already have. Great, thank you, Catherine. How would the board like to proceed? Are we ready for a motion? Councilor Paul. I'll make a motion to take the action as recommended in board docs. Okay. Seconded by President Tracy. Discussion? Seeing none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Learning opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. We will move now to 4.03 which is patient three positions in the treasure's office. Catherine, can you summarize these? Of course. So one of these is not like the others and I'll start with that one. And this first started as a request from the police commission for more support and that request came at the end of last fiscal year. We originally put that position in the planning department. We thought it was going to be more of a planning position as we spoke. I didn't speak with them, but as the Jordan and others spoke with those people who needed the support, we realized it was more administrative in nature so that fit better into the CT office. Also, it was more like half a position. So a good fit was under our licensing and voting coordinator, which is the big title. You might be like, who is that? That's Lori Olberg. And she had an administrative assistant under her previously taken away for budget reasons. So it'll be first priority police commission, second priority helping to prepare the agendas for board of finance, city council, and then other board and commission work. Then the other two positions are specifically to take advantage of really what we see is onslaught of federal money, not only coming from the federal infrastructure bill, but a lot of money coming from there as we've talked about in light of the capital bond. There's also lots more money that's competitive. That is, we are eligible for from federal ARPA money and state ARPA money. There may be, as we know, elements of Build Back Better that passes, there could be money there. As we have spoken about, there is a need for us to include all sorts of equity investments in our structural budget and there's grant money available for that as well as public health. So it is probably obvious to you, we don't have the in-house resources to deal with all of that. The mayor tasked myself, Cara Alnaswari and Megan Tuttle as a working group with coming up with recommendations about how to resource this, whether we should outsource to a firm or bring staff in-house. That group made a recommendation after some research and reflection that it was both more cost effective and more advantageous to recommend these two limited service positions because we know we will have grant opportunities for at least the next two years. And those of you who have been in this position know that the firms that do this charge a lot of money and they also take on multiple clients so you're not their first priority when those grant opportunities come up. So we were looking for a model where we hire someone who is a grant expert who can partner with our department heads in getting these grants out the door and really help us at that identification stage and then partner with department heads through the process. And those are those two positions we have a lot to discuss. So I'll stop talking unless you have questions. Okay, Heather, I think that's really helpful. The floor is open for questions or in motion. Councilor Hightower. I think just a more general question for my own curiosity is I saw in the Orchette that was attached there were several other vacant position and wondering if we can just touch on where those are in the queue and how confident we feel about, I guess, the likelihood that we'll get someone for these positions at the current salary rate. Catherine, can you speak to that? That is a great question. I have a little concern about the grants associate which I talked to HR about but we are going to mount a rapid recruit and if it doesn't work, we will come back to you for plan B. The good news is I just saw from Chatham Spencer a good outline of what's in the infrastructure bill and the mayor at every Monday leadership meeting says, we missed any deadlines, we missed any deadlines. We haven't missed any deadlines yet. We have a little bit of time here as we get ourselves together and we are continuing to track these opportunities while we try and build up our resources. Thank you. Thank you, Catherine. Further questions? Or are we ready for a motion on these? Move to recommend that the city council approve the three positions as assisted on board docs. Thank you, Councillor Hightower, is there a second? Tracy, thank you. Further discussion? Seeing none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Are you opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you, Catherine. This now brings us to 4.04, the reclassification of a project manager position in the animation technology department. Is there, see, Tony has his camera on. It's just, Catherine, you're going to take us back. I can actually start and then be supported by Tony. That'll take a break for a bit. This is actually something that Brian Lowe wanted to do before he left, but this is an incumbent staff, a project manager in IT. Who was re, not reassessed, why am I reclassified? Oh my gosh, I'm sorry, reclassified. Some time ago, it's in the memo, I believe 2018. At the time, the assumption was that the employee, because it's a little bit of a hybrid role, perhaps you could say, would only be doing IT work 25% of the time. And so the salary was not put on the same IT scale as everyone else in the department. It's quickly become apparent that that employee does the same amount of IT work as everyone else in the department. And so as a matter of equity, we are reclassifying this project manager as is just fair. So I think that's all. Good. How did the board like to proceed? Further questions or ready for a motion? Councilor Paul. I'll make the motion to take the action as recommended in board docs. Second by Councilor Hightower, discussion. Seeing none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. And that brings us to 4.05 creation of a one new position, the digital media redaction specialist within the police department. Chief Mirad and director Karen Durfee here from HR to speak to this item as needed. I'll just remind board and the public on the source of this item was, there's been a great deal of effort by the commission as well as by the administration in formalizing some of our basically body cam release policy and what the commission as recommended is an expansive release policy. And it is one that to operationalize will require significant amount of redaction to meet privacy laws. So that's a background on this. I'm supportive of us moving forward with it. We budgeted for this council approved the budget and I think it's an important part of our police safety transparency efforts. With that chief, would you like to add anything to that? I'm just sorry to feel your thunder. I just want to make it clear that this is I think an important item that I support. Oh, not at all. Sorry, I think that's exactly it. This was something the police commission asked for on behalf of the public because the public had been clamoring for it. It's something we want to fulfill as an agency. It's something we cannot fulfill without this position. Thank you with that, President Tracy. But just curious about what the editing process, like the memo says you don't edit footage. So you're not editing anything that has to do with officers or anybody who's involved in the interaction with the officers, correct? It's more bystanders and to respect minors. Can you just kind of clarify what isn't going to be redacted by this individual? Sure, that sentence was meant to distinguish between redaction and editing. So editing, as we see in a news piece or a television show or a movie is chopping up images in order to put them together in a certain way that ultimately forces perspective and concept. And that is not what we do with these at all. We do not chop them. What we do only is redact. And redacting is a relatively labor intensive and time intensive process whereby as someone has to watch the video, they have to listen to the video, they have to see what's in it or not. And then they have to determine how many frames are going to be obscured and in what way. And the obscuring is about faces. For example, faces of witnesses, faces of juveniles. If a person is nude during an encounter, which happens sometimes, that would require being obscured. There is an audio instruction that also can happen or not obstruction, but obscuring of audio when names are said or when personal information may be read in the presence of the body camera. Those things all comport with Vermont's privacy law. What we don't do is edit it. Nobody chops it, nobody takes a piece out and inserts another piece. Nobody jams it together with the exception of incidents in which we truncated at one end or another. For example, if we're going to put out body camera of a use of force, which is the first object of the police commission's stated policy, and that use of force might be a continuous video from the time the officer arrives, speaks with an individual, the individual escalates, the situation escalates, force is used, and then the individual is taken into custody. That individual may go to the hospital, that individual may then also be transported to act one, then maybe refused at act one, maybe then taken all the way up to the Northwest facility for being held there until they're no longer intoxicated or incapacitated. That's a lot of hours of footage. We do reserve the right to put out a version of that that truncates it at one end or the other so that it's not the entirety of it, but I generally wouldn't do that unless I was also putting out the entirety of it. So I would say, here's the short version and here's the longer version also available for anyone who wants to see the entirety of it, but that entirety is going to have to be edited through, excuse me, not edited, not edited. That entirety is going to have to be redacted throughout, throughout the visit to the hospital is going to be redacted. Perhaps the indirection at the beginning is going to be redacted. Maybe things are said in that long transport that have to be redacted, audio redacted. And so all of that requires listening, ultimately basically you have to do at least three times the length of the actual video in order to perform the redaction because you have to listen to it and make markers about when audio happens, then watch it and make markers about when certain visual things are going to have to be struck and then go through the whole thing and actually do it. And although there is a tool in the axon technology that does it, it's still, it's very labor-intensive, very laborious and time-consuming. Currently I have two people who are capable of doing it. Both of those are our ID technicians and their job is actually to process evidence taken at scenes. They do fingerprints at burglary scenes. They take ballistic evidence at the scene of our attempted murder on New Year's Eve. They go and do scene diagrams for a felonious domestic assault. They're doing a lot of that kind of work and they don't have the time to do this redaction work for video, which is, as I said, labor-intensive. However, we want to be able to put this out. We really do. And so what this position will allow us to do is have a dedicated person and we're gonna start with what the policy requires, which is the police commission asked for specific uses of force and specific incidents that may or may not rise to the level of where the mayor or myself or the commission designates them is important. But I'd like to get to the point where we just put every single use of force out and not only ones that involve injury or the use of tools on the part of the officer. I'm not gonna know whether or not that's something that's feasible for us until I see the current workload and the degree to which the redaction specialist can keep up with that workload. But absent having the redaction specialist, we can't do it at all. Okay, that's helpful. That's really helpful. I agree that we should get as much of this out there as possible. So if this is gonna help that, I can, I appreciate that and appreciate the explanation, chief. Thank you. Great. Thank you, President Tracy. Further questions? Are we ready for a motion? Yep, I move the motion as indicated on product. Thank you, Councillor Chang. Seconded by President Tracy. Further discussion? Seeing none, we'll go to vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Are there any votes? If you leave those unanimous. Thank you. Thank you both for being here. Okay, 4.06, retroactive award of community credits to the Lake Champlain Community Sailing Center for the lease payment due for 20 years. The lease term for the Spans 2020-2021. Excuse me. Director Brampine is here. Why don't you give us a quick summary reminder of just this somewhat usual provision within the Community Sailing Center lease? Sure. For the record, it's Brian Pine from the city's Community and Economic Development Office. And the topic is the ground lease payment from the Lake Champlain Community Sailing Center. And the way that lease was structured was that it was set at a base price that would be essentially discounted if the Sailing Center provided services of benefit to the community. And during COVID, the Sailing Center was challenged to be able to provide all of the typical services to the community they normally would. But they did continue to provide some essential services. One of the areas that they quickly pivoted to provide was childcare for essential workers during COVID. They continued to offer a number of programs and scholarships for folks have access to their programs. So they did meet some of the test, if you will, for getting full waiver. But what we're asking for is exception this year because of the challenges they face due to COVID. And that would essentially bring their annual payment down to the level it would reach if they got full credit for all services provided. So they're basically, they're requested, we're recommending a ground lease payment of $10,000 for FY21. Thank you. By the board, I'd like to proceed. Councilor Powell. Thanks, Mayor. I'll make a motion to take the action as recommended in board docs. Great, thank you. Councilor Powell, is there a second? Councilor Tracy. Further discussion? Yes. So, Jane, go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And Director Pine, I was just wondering if you have looked into all the scenarios other than such as a payment plan or, you know, all the ways, because when we talk about affordabilities, I think, you know, it hurts every single person here. I was just wondering if there were other alternatives, knowing that they have key for service. Yeah, so the great question about whether we were looking at other sources to cover this or putting them on a payment plan, I think what is important to recognize is that the sailing center attempted to keep all of their staff going, all of, you know, they have to continue to maintain and heat and power their building and cool their building. And so all their costs pretty much remain the same, but they saw, you know, a significant decrease in many of their funding sources. And what they attempted to do is to, you know, using the, you know, the payroll protection program at the federal level, but also pivoting to some new activities that would be revenue raising for them made a big difference, but they still struggled to meet their financial goals for the year. So they were way behind, you know, essentially eating into their fund balance to be able to make their, to meet their expenses this last year. So what we tried to do is in recognition of that and in the recognition of the important service that they provide in terms of making our lake and our waterfront more accessible to low income families and individuals that it was a, it seemed like a good trade-off. No further question, thank you. Thank you. Castle Chang. Okay. I'm pretty sure we'd have, this has been motion and seconded. So are there further questions? Seeing none, we will go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you to the board. And I guess I saw that the executive director and mill some of this too. And we wish the sailing center a key partner success in the upcoming year. We're happy to be able to partner in this way. So that brings us to 4.08, which is the first of the three valid items that we've been talking about for some time now, including the special meeting last Thursday. Thank you all for attending and agreeing to that special meeting at some additional follow-up since the meeting and it is my hope, express hope that the board will be taking action to recommend all three of these items tonight. And so the council has the benefit of that at the full meeting shortly. Councillor Powell, go ahead. Thanks so much. Unless I miss something, I think we're, I don't know that we covered 4.07. Yeah, that's right. I just got the number wrong, but the rest of the speech there, I think is accurate. This is the fourth, the first of the three items, the valid items, but we are 4.07 correct, which is the authorization for, sorry, it is not, is it? It's the, it's related to that. It's the authorization for the reimbursement of waterfront TIF districts and downtown TIF district related costs. So a TIF related item, but it is not one of the valid items. Thank you, Councillor Powell. So this is our annual action, generally annual action necessary to make sure we stay in line with all of the TIF rules. But for more detail on that, I see Richard has his camera on. Richard, Brian, do you want to offer anything more? Summary to kick this off. Y'all cover it at a pretty, at just a basic high level. Under the, under the Vermont statute, the Vermont Economic Progress Council has to approve the city's financial plan for both TIF districts. So we're talking about both the waterfront TIF district, tax increment financing district and the downtown TIF district. And then we have to go to the voters and get approval. And so the second step, or I should say the final step is to, is to basically get council approval to allocate the funds as we're originally approved by both the voters and by VEPC. So we're here tonight just to come back and sort of wrap this process up for this stage of the process. And for both the waterfront TIF district, which has both internal costs to CEDO salary and benefits for staff that work on the projects that are covered by within these districts as well as consulting costs that we pay out to consultants to help move these projects to completion. So the request before you tonight is to essentially to authorize the, through the resolution that's attached to utilize the accumulated tax increment from both the waterfront and downtown TIF districts in the manner that was prescribed by both Vermont law to reimburse CEDO for the expenses that are called related costs. Richard, if I miss anything, now's a good time to jump in. Now we bring this before the board of financing council every year and as you've described, it's housekeeping. Great, thank you both. Laura's open for further questions or a motion. Councilor Jain. I would like to make the motion as indicated on the product. Thank you. Is there a second? I think I heard councilor Hightower first. So thank you, Councilor Hightower. Discussion? All right, see none. We'll go to vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you, Richard and Brian. And that now we actually are at 4.08, which is the pledging of the credit of the city to secure public improvements, debt administer public improvements within the downtown TIF district. The item related to the Great Streets main street and rerouting of the ravine sewer that we have been talking about in recent weeks. I see we have both Chapin and Brian here now to answer questions on this. So we haven't been talking about it for a while. I think instead of further introduction at this point, I will look to the board. If there are further questions or perhaps we are ready for action on the side of the motion. Councilor Hightower. I have two questions. And sorry, one of them is a more baseline understanding question and the other one's a little bit more practical, which is I think I heard the mayor say in the last conversation that we had on this that we're setting aside kind of sufficient funds for the Burlington school district. And I just wanted to clarify, do they also feel comfortable with that? I know that we started to talk about that during the joint school council meeting. And then the second question, which is a more base understanding question, is on TIF, we always say that it's supposed to be revenues that basically wouldn't happen unless we made these improvements to the city. And then that's first public investment that is supposed to pay back the TIF. And so I guess I just don't completely understand then why a lot of the projects that we're using in terms of assumed income are projects that we do know will be happening or that we assume are happening, such as the YMCA hotel. I know that's not what it's called, but that's what I know it as. So yeah, just have those two questions. Great. So with respect to the first question about the high school bonding, a couple of things there. I mean, first, I think the comments I made in the past really been with respect to general obligation bonding as opposed to TIF bonding, because the TIF bonding is there with the general obligation bonding there, especially given our 2018 agreement to have this total cumulative debt policy, shared debt policy between the district and the city. That policy explicitly exempts TIF debt from that analysis because of the nature of the TIF district where this funding is segregated and legally segregated and can only be used for TIF eligible items and school funding is not a TIF eligible item explicitly. So that's at least a question. So I think you can act on the TIF bonding confident that it's really a separate conversation from the general obligation bonding, total bonding high school question. But since we're there, and since that is going to come up in a moment, if there's no objection, I will just say the point that I made there is if we go out and if the voter support this $23 million, $23.8 million are borrowing, as well as the kind of annual borrowing that we project for the coming years, the total city capacity, municipal use of the total bonding authority stays well below 50 percent of the total bonding capacity allowable under that TIF district. And that total bonding capacity allows, and I've intentionally not put a specific number on this because I really talked about this with the school district and they support this, they agree. The school district, I don't want our discussions to be the announcement of the amount of bonding that the district is going to do. But suffice it to say there is substantially more capacity available under the current metrics of that policy approved in 2018 for a new high school that goes well beyond, substantially beyond the kind of $70 million that has already been approved and actually gets up in the range of the estimates that we have talked about when we have heard discussed that is the expected need, potential need for a new high school. So is the school district fully satisfied with that? I mean, I think the school district continues to have concerns about what the cost of this project is going to be. And I certainly have had, you know, in the communications so the significant communications I've had with school district leadership and superintendent Flanagan, I think it is appreciated that this bond has been reduced, and specifically that the bond has been reduced, the general obligation bond, again, not the TIF bond has been reduced to almost entirely remove Memorial Auditorium. I think that there was a real concern expressed by some members of the school board about Memorial Auditorium, which is why you may recall that after the council approved it, but during the sort of campaign, if you will, discussions, I explicitly said that we were going to spend as little of that $10 million for Memorial Auditorium as possible until the high schools need to be clear. That's now enforced by the fact that we only have $1 million for that in here. So I guess all that is to say, to give you a succinct answer, I mean, I think there's still general concern about how expensive that project is going to be. But I do think the smaller bond is welcome by school district leaders. Thanks, and apologies for confusing those items. No, no. And then I think there was a second point to the question, which was about sort of almost a question about sort of the BUP4 issue. And I'm glad, Brian, you have your hand up, because it is sort of a fair question and a complicated one. Go ahead. It is. Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Councilor Hightower. I think that's one that it often gets thought of by people, but they don't always ask it. So I'm really glad you put it right out there. I like to put it like this. If none of the projects that we are anticipating coming forward happen at all, there is actually sufficient just background growth of values in the district to cover the debt service. So that's a really important assumption. However, if we don't make these investments in the public realm and the public right-of-way, the level of investment that's projected to occur in the downtown TIF is less, is lower. It's much less intense level of development. It's much lower level of private investment because of the public investment that takes place that is intended to spur people to make the investments in their properties that raises the new increments. So we don't need those three projects that we've highlighted, because the background growth has actually hovered around 6%, 6.5%. And we, in our pro forma, put it in at 1%, just to be really cautious. Very prudent approach is go for some background growth, but really keep it as low as we could. So we're assuming 1% growth, no growth at all in the tax rate. So literally, the tax rate would have to remain unchanged over the next 14 years. And the growth rate would have to plummet below 1% and all the projects would have to never go forward for things to start to go awry. That's sort of the level of investment, the level of maximizing, utilizing spaces in our downtown is advanced by this investment in a way that would not happen, but for this public improvement investment. Great, and if I can ask one follow-up question on that, is essentially we're saying that we think that the investment that the city will make will increase the growth rate by more than 1%. Yes. Okay, thank you. And then, I think not just Burlington's TIF district, but all of the Vermont approved districts or not all of them, at least many of them, there has been a good hard data to back up that the areas that I've seen TIF investments have grown substantially faster than the rest of the grand list in those cities. Certainly that's been the case from the Waterfront TIF district and its history is my understanding. Further discussion of 4.08? Further questions or we also would welcome when the board is ready in motion. I'll move to recommend that the city council or the attached resolution is not on board docs. Second. Great, thank you. Councillor Hightower, President Tracey, further discussion? President Tracey, go ahead. Thanks, Mayor. So just because I'm not gonna have an opportunity at full council, I just wanted to state for the record that I do support this, I think that this is a much needed investment in our main street. I specifically very excited about the opportunity to transform a street that is currently really imbalanced in my mind. One that is pretty car centric and unfriendly to pedestrians and cyclists and just basically people who are not using vehicles. And so to one that is more sustainably transit oriented or transportation oriented, I also very much appreciate the stormwater upgrades that this project will bring. And I think as I think about and look at our next item, the capital bond and recognize that that item is just a fraction of the needs that we have in terms of capital. Seeing this as one of the, a unique mechanism that we have to spur that, this project forward and not seeing other viable alternatives, recognizing the tremendous costs that we do have pending in terms of needs that we have in terms of capital investments and improvements in our city. I do think that this is a prudent investment. At the very least, I think that this does bear bringing to the voters to give them a chance to weigh in on and express, you know, whether or not they think that this is something that they would like for the city to pursue. So for those reasons, I'll be supporting this this evening. Thank you, President Tracey, I appreciate that you're making that clear. I'm excited for the possibility of this moving forward with that strong consensus between the administration and the full council, we're close to the full council. So we have a motion this second, is there anyone else who wishes to speak before we go to a vote on this item? We'll go to a vote then. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? The motion carries unanimously. Thank you. So this, the way we have it listed on the agenda 4.09 is not the other bonding item but it is the general fund tax rate increase. We discussed this at some length on Thursday. We did attempt to convert the narrative and PowerPoint that we had before us on Thursday into a memo that you, the full council received and that's where we stand. I know there are some, we continue to answer some questions from councillors offline as well. And yeah, I think I've said all that. We've talked about this quite a bit at this point. I don't think I have anything else to add. Catherine and I and there are other department heads who don't have their cameras on if there are specific questions. I think we'll open the floor for discussion on this item and a motion when appropriate. Councilor Powell. I have a question. I've had mostly because I just didn't see it in the memo. There, it does appear to a large degree that you did go and take the PowerPoint and sort of summarize it into a two page memo. I think one of the things that I don't see on here is, you talk about the strategic use of the ARPA funds, the reserve, and I think there was some concern that a couple of us had expressed at the last meeting and it appeared as though it was well addressed was the fact that the chart that you have of the items from FY 22, 23 that need funding that does not be, that if this tax increase is not successful on what the next steps are, should that happen? And that was on the PDF, that was on the PowerPoint, but I don't see that in this memo. Yes, Councilor Powell, thank you. I think, yes, I'm happy to again make clear as it was made clear in the PowerPoint and verbally and we can maybe even be happy to kind of update this memo as an important memo for the record. We could amend, we could add similar language on this that if in the event that the, if the council approves this going on the ballot tonight and voters weigh in and do not approve the general, the increase, we will go kind of back to square one, we'll assess whether that, first of all, we'll assess like we did with the capital bond in December, whether it makes sense to come back with a smaller figure, if the vote was close, it might be something we would consider if we also will continue to review all of the, as the months go by, we get a clearer picture of where we are with the budget. And as we discussed before, sometimes it becomes clear that you don't need the full authority to make the numbers work for the upcoming year because things shift favorably between now and June. If we do conclude that there is still, that there is a gap and that as a result, cuts are necessary to address that gap, absolutely we'd be looking citywide at all departments and all initiatives and we'd be coming forward with the council approval with a plan that we think is the wisest plan and in no way is the, should the list of recent investments that are in that memo and that we were proposing phasing in, we would not in any way conclude that a no vote on the increase meant that those investments in particular should be targeted and we work to make sure that no one department for kind of undue impact as a result of cuts, if cuts were necessary. Hopefully they will not be necessary and certainly I'll be working hard if the council is with the administration on this to communicate the importance of this item to voters. I hope all councilors who support this action will be as well. It's important that we get the information out there about this and secure passage. Well, obviously I agree when you do vote on something, you're voting to put something on the ballot that it not be a perfunctory exercise and that if you are doing that, that you are supporting it. So I would agree with you. I do think that the language that you used at the meeting on Thursday was a little more definitive. Not that it would not, that we will do our best to make sure it doesn't fall to one department, but that there will be shared responsibility. We're one city, if for whatever reason, this does not pass, which obviously none of us wanna see that outcome and we'll work to assure that that doesn't happen, but that there's no discussion about this falling to any one department that it won't fall to a department. So I think that I was sort of hoping that it would be a little bit more clearer than that. And then the other thing also is that, and I again did not see the resolution was just posted online, it's not on board docs for the Board of Finance meeting, just so you're aware. It's only on the council agenda. So it would probably make sense for it to be on both. But that is, I think the resolution, which again, I mean, and I did not spend, I could have spent a little bit more time myself working on this and I'm happy to do that. I just unfortunately did not have the time today to go through that resolution and add something, but I do think that that is, I do think that it's very important that we make clear to the community and make clear to the community that, this is an increase that is predicated to a large degree on inflation. This is not about any city services per se and that if it doesn't pass, we will see a shared responsibility on the part of all departments because we are all one city and no department is any more important than any other department. Yeah, thank you, Councilor Powell. I share the sentiment entirely if there's some distinction between the way we said it last week and we just, I agree with what you just said, fully and we will update the memo to make it clear. I think our position on that is, I think we're on full agreement with you on that. So I know for myself, just if I could just add to that, I mean, I don't think that any of us want to go and vote for an increase. We are not expert at this because we've been fortunate. We haven't done this any really, really long time. I'm willing to make that motion, but I'm not willing to make that motion until those changes are made. And that means including that also in the resolution. So I obviously, as I say, I mean, certainly on me for not being able to do that during the day, I have not been able to, but before I go and vote on something like that, I just wanted to be clear in the resolution that this is what is going to happen if this does not pass. I think people need to know that and we need to show a united front that this is what it's going to mean. We are all departments are going, this is what it is. And so right now. I understand Councilor Powell, certainly, I don't think there was any discussion last week about there actually being language to that effect in the resolution. So it was not drafted that way, but happy to try to come up. I think it would be easy addition to make between now and to go later. We'll circulate something to you before that that meeting starts that can accomplish that. Which is understood and it's fine if we don't want to take action here at the board. I think it's unfortunate if the board of finance is on record in some way, but maybe that's the best we can do. Councilor Jay. Councilor Jay and you. Yes, sorry. From my perspective, I feel like, you know, we have been discussing this and there has not been new information, like, you know, over the past couple of weeks or even months, at least from the board for board of finance standpoint. And I also wanted to definitely recognize Katrin Schad who has taken a lot of time during the weekend, Saturday, Sunday, going back and forth, sending the information that were requested. I really do appreciate that. It just shows a level of commitment to this work serving the city greatly. And thank you. Thank you for that. And I also appreciate definitely the memo itself. And I think everything that I want to talk about today, the memo definitely will make it very easy, right? And I think to start, let's just talk about the inflation that we have here. And also if you click on the link, you look into how inflation will affect certain categories in the American, you know, economic system, you know, and if you look at used cars and trucks, cities don't buy used start and trucks. And if it deals do, companies do. If you look at the energy, I think tax payers themselves, they pay for their own energy. City is not providing it for them. You talk about the gas service, people put their own gas into their cars in order to get to work, et cetera. The meat, fish, eggs, city don't provide that, but people do it for themselves and for their families. New vehicles, I can understand. Tabaco product, we do not give it to the consequence. Household furnishing and operation, definitely tax payers again. The inflation, one of my point being, the inflation of 7% will hit the people more than it will hit the city itself. That's one point. And let's not forget also, we just undergone a reappraisal that have hit basically many people. And I do appreciate definitely the city's efforts in helping people who have homes that were assessed of over $500,000. But most venerable community members do not have homes with that value. Mostly, we see 250 went up to 350 after the appraisal. Dr. Jang, I just want to, I don't mean to interrupt you, but I just want to make sure, I don't want there to be any confusion. The assistance program is for homes under not over half an inch. Okay. Any home up into that, that's the maximum. That's good, that's good, yes. But I mean, under $500,000, and I feel like most homes here, mostly at least in the new North end, it was very few to see home that were assessed at over $500,000 or less, certainly there was. And I also think from the inflation that will hit the people, the reappraisal also the pandemic has hit the people too. Very, very, very, very hard, right? And also we have big items coming up. At this point, we do not know yet how much the high school will cost. And the mayor, I mean, I think last time you made it very clear that if we allow the high school bound to go forward and if it passes, basically the borders will not see increases until maybe four years or three years or four years. And from my understanding, based on the timeline, the high school will be built by the fall of 2024, 2025. So that means that definitely the rates, the cost of the housing of the high school will start to get to the borders basically sooner. On top of all of this, the city also have received over $20 million from ARPA, but individuals have received, did not receive that much amount of money, right? On top of all of this, the city also had at least, unassigned fund balance. And there are ways and from my perspective, what I have heard or access is around the $9 million, right? And to me, Burlingtonians in just in December, couple of weeks ago, they have spoken. But I am very appreciative that if this doesn't pass, then we will come back to the drawing board, right? I have never voted against a tax increase, but I'm proudly voting today to not increase the taxes for the residents of the city of Burlington. Sitting in a chair is very comfortable, but the effect that this will have to many people that I know would be detrimental. We have lost so many families because of affordability. Burlington is one of the highest tax cities in the state of the month. I think it is our obligation to do everything that we can and try to give these tax payers a break. For the first time, I will not be voting in support of a tax increase right now. I just wanted to say that. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Cenk. If the, how did the board like to proceed? If it sounds like we should probably move on to the next item unless others would like to speak further so that we can make some adjustment to the resolution consistent with Councilor Paul's request. So would anyone like to say anything further on this before that, before we do that? Mayor, did you see Councilor Hightower's hand? I do now. Go ahead, Councilor Hightower. I had actually put it back down. I was just going to say that I'm fine with Councilor Paul's approach and would be happy to vote for this and we'll council with those additions. We may even Jordan has been working on some possible language even since we've been speaking. So maybe it would even be possible. Why don't we move, of course we move to the bonding item and maybe just, what's the term? Table this momentarily to come back to perhaps before we adjourn and we may have some language that we can look at, it may be possible for us to take action with that language. Does that sound sensible? Councilor Paul, did you want to? No, that's fine. I didn't know President Tracy had something at his hand up, but that's all right. Maybe he's taken it down. President Tracey, were you trying again? I think that's fine, Mayor. I just would prefer that we have that. I mean, I do have a question just in terms of process given that the resolution wasn't posted on this and to take action on that resolution, that feels a little messy to me. So I think it might be cleaner actually if we just didn't take a vote on it because it wasn't posted with the agenda like it was for the full council meeting. So I think we should probably hold off on that. I'd prefer that we just held off and took action at the full council. But I do support the approach of adding the language and increase, I do think it's necessary. And I think that it would be incredibly painful to have to be in a position of making this significant of cuts for our city. I think we would be very hard pressed to cut the services, cut any of the services that our departments are providing to city residents at this point. Departments that have in so many ways come through for Burlington to then go to them and say, we're gonna cut positions, we're gonna cut services that our residents depend on and have come to expect from our city. I think that would be a really difficult place. I think people would be very upset about that as well. And so I think that we really have to take this request. I don't take this request lightly. I know that you've done as much as you can to try and avoid this in many ways. And so I think this does bear putting before the voters in hopes of avoiding those very difficult choices. But I would just hope that we can get it right, have clear assurances around what the process will look like on the other side. Should that not happen? And also just make sure we're clean on process. Great, thank you, President Tracey. I appreciate all that. I appreciate the clear statement of support. I am thinking as much like yours. We know the people of Burlington have indicated through their votes and input in many ways, strong support for full city services. And I think it would be inappropriate to, essentially because of inflation, make dramatic cuts to those services. If the voters don't agree with that, that puts us in a different position. We would address that. But I'm thinking as much like yours, that I think we owe it to the voters and our team to take forward this proposal that allows us to maintain services. I do, and I'm fine with that. Again, if we don't, I mean, I do think it was quite clear on the warning that we would be, that the item was worn properly and I think the memo makes it clear what we're talking about. So I don't think there, I don't certainly don't think there's any like legal concern about making a recommendation here. But if there's, but if there's a preference not through that's fine as well, especially knowing it's very helpful to know presentation we have your support on this. Councillor Paul. Thanks. Before we move on to the, well, second to last or third to last item, I think it is on, you know, one thing I did want to also mention is that, you know, I think it's unfortunate the way that we, it's unfortunate the way that we have to do this. We unfortunately are voting on something months before we really know exactly what the budget is exactly going to look like. And I think one thing that would be helpful is in addition to what would, you know, obviously we have to face the reality that it's possible it wouldn't pass. But I think the other on the positive side is that a commitment by the administration and by the council in working together with the administration and all departments that we do everything that we can to, you know, as time as time moves on in the budget process to do everything that we can to look for other cost savings. And it's also possible that economic scenario could change. So I think that's also important that, you know, just because you asked for a tax increase doesn't mean that you have to use it. So I think that would, as we move forward, I think it's important for everyone to try to keep that in mind and, you know, and do the best that we can to see that we either, if we have to use it, that we use it incredibly responsibly, but if we don't have to use it, well, wouldn't that be great too? Yeah, thank you, Councilor Powell. I think that's a really important point and that's certainly how the administration will approach it. And I think here, I mean, I can imagine people might be a little bit skeptical of it, I'm sure. Well, I just, it would be not being reasonable for people to think if we asked for this authority, we're gonna use it. However, I do think we have a pretty substantial recent track record as a council administration team of frequently. Basically, I think probably every, just about every year for the last five years, we have not fully used the taxing authority that the voters have given us. We did not use it last year with a number of the items that we had to minimize the impact of the reappraisal on folks. There were numerous dedicated taxes that we were allowed, that we basically capped at a much lower level, almost a full penny, cumulatively total than the taxation allowed a year before and when the pandemic hit, the voters supported a tax increase in the housing trust fund, which I must say, Councilor Jang, my memory is you did not support that item then either, which surprised me. So I don't think this is the first time you've taken a tax increase. I don't think this is the first time you've taken a section, but the voters did support that overwhelmingly and the voters also supported an increase in the public safety tax for the new ambulance that year. Both of those increases were deferred when the pandemic hit, we did not use them and the housing trust fund won because we were receiving all these additional federal housing dollars, we deferred a second year. And then before that, we had three years, and I think we spoke about this a little bit last week, there was a, we sought, I can't remember the exact year, but I think it was for FY 15, we sought a general city tax increase and then found that we did not need to use it that year and we didn't and in fact, we then didn't use it for two subsequent years from that. So I could be, it's possible I'm not quite right on some of the detail here, but I believe we've had five years in which we have not used the full authority and I think that should be an important point, certainly a point that I'll be making to voters that we will only use this if necessary. And sometimes we do catch breaks and we find new ways to avoid that. So, okay, I'm gonna, I think we are not gonna take action on the tax rate. So the last item on the agenda is 4.10, the town meeting day authorization to issue general obligation bonds for capital projects. And how would the board like to proceed on this? Are we ready to make a recommendation regarding this item? President Tracey. I'll move the recommended action and board docs. Thank you, President Tracey. Is there a second? Seconded from Councilor Powell. Thank you, appreciate the support of the two of you after weeks of work on this further questions for the discussion. Okay, seeing none, we'll go to a vote. I'm sorry, please. Jack, go ahead, Councilor Yang. Thank you. Yeah, I think, you know, along the same lines that I expressed earlier, I do believe that this one still is a lot of money that needs to go to the voters again. I mean, I think one, we already lost $43,000 to send a ballot item in December when we could have waited until March and put both of them on the ballot, right? Because of inflation and inflation is still going to hit people very hard again. From my perspective, why I'm not supporting this, we need to just definitely bound in order to wait for the federal infrastructure bill we need to look like in order to have the matching point necessary for state and also for federal, basically. But to me, I believe that $23 million, nearly $24 million is still a lot of money for the voters right now. Again, I think we need to prioritize this big item coming up in the pipeline, which is the building a brand new 21st century high school in for the city of Wellington. As a college town, that should be our priority. But anything else, I think it could be deferred and done much better another time. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Jay. Councilor Paul and then President Tracy and then it does appear, I think Councilor Barlow would like to be recognized too. So I'll go ahead and after the board of finance members. So go ahead, Councilor Paul. Thanks, Mayor. Actually, the reason I raised my hand is because I I know that there is something that Councilor Barlow wants to bring forward. And as a member of the Board of Finance, I'm happy to make that motion. But if you could put Councilor Barlow ahead of me in the queue, I'd appreciate it. Okay, very good. Councilor Barlow, you're great. See Councilor Barlow is here. Welcome. Thank you for the opportunity to address the Board of Finance. I was having a conversation with both Councilor Shannon and Councilor Paul this afternoon and we were talking about how in the $40 million request, there were two resolve clauses that had been added to make sure that we look to other sources before we look to bonding authority to pay for some of the capital needs but also to limit the fungibility of the capital funds in between the requests and for other capital items. And I think the language online's 45 to 47 limits the fungibility and requires Council approval for that. But I would like to see language if possible that would come from the original $40 million request that would prioritize other funding sources before using the bonding authority. And I had shared that language with Councilor Paul earlier. And additionally, she had the idea and I think it's a good one that we might editorialize on the ballot item and you actually add that to the ballot item language to further convey to the voters that that was our intention as well to look for other ways to pay for things if those presented themselves from like federal dollars and the infrastructure bill or anything else that might come forward. So thank you. Thank you, Councilor Barlow. So just so I'm following properly, Councilor Paul you have specific language. I do and probably what I should be doing is and I apologize, it's not that complicated but I went back and forth with Councilor Barlow and did not include giving this to or sending this to other. So if you can just for just a moment I can- If you would like to share your screen momentarily, Councilor Paul, we could enable that. Yeah, I've got a lot of stuff that's up here. So if you can just bear with me for a second here. My apologies. All right, so what I've sent to and maybe somebody else can do this I've just got a gazillion things up here right now is I've sent to all the members of the Board of Finance, the mayor and to you, Catherine, an email that you should be getting right now. This was the email that had gone between Councilor Barlow and I. So the first paragraph is the actual wording that I think I may have taken something out of that when I was doing it quickly, I couldn't remember it was 23.8 million or 23.9. So I think that might be, I'm not sure if that's on there or not, but the rest of it would be the paragraph that could be in parentheses. And to some degree, let's see. Okay, so the first paragraph is actually is correct and that was literally a cut and paste from the resolution. The second is something that would go, be included also in the ballot language that would clarify that if in fact, we are able to secure other capital funds in excess of what are our current projections that we will do everything we can to prioritize taxpayer savings as a goal. And this was language that had come from the last, the $40 million, not on the ballot, but the $40 million resolution that we passed in December. Great, thank you, Councilor Powell. So no one has made that motion or no, actually that motion has been made. I apologize. So the motion that President Tracey made that I seconded, I would just, if I can amend that to include this language. Great, so we would be adding the parenthetical language as a resolved clause and it would be added to the resolution on after, so it would be like line 44. So it would go after line 43. There would be like a, probably one space, one line. And then this would be line, this would start at line 44 of the resolution that is on the board of finance agenda. You know, the only question I have at least is just there is a lot of sense, like legal sensitivity around the language in the, we just got to make sure anything we put in the language, there's no kind of legal concern about it. So if we had not, you guys didn't have a chance to discuss this with the city attorney. Well, I didn't, I don't know that Councillor Barlow did. However, for the first time that I can remember the school tax decrease also has language that is not usually included. So if that can be included, I'm not really sure why this couldn't be. There may be no issue. I just want to flag that. I think we do, all the other legal review, I just want to make sure that we get that done. My apologies. We did not, we, this was something that happened at around four o'clock this afternoon. No need to apologize, I understand. Was someone, did I hear someone else's voice trying to, is that, that might have been. This is Dan Richardson. Yeah, hey Dan. Hey, I was just offering that, I think the extra language shouldn't be offensive to being on the ballot. There's always a necessary sort of balancing act of not having the valid items be too lengthy but the inclusion of this particular language, it is okay, I would, or at least it's not offensive to that, to the ballot language. Okay, good, thank you. So do you want us to make that, I would make that amendment, do you want me to do that? And do you want us to vote on that or how would you like to proceed? Sure, I think why don't we, if you're making, yeah, go ahead and make, you can take that as a motion of the amendment. Making that amendment, yes. Okay, is there a second amendment? President Tracy, seconds. Further discussion? Okay, well, let's vote on the amendment. I'm certainly, I'm supportive of this. We'll go to vote, all those in favor of Councilor Powell's amendment, please say aye. Aye. And the amendment passes unanimously. Sorry, I tried to say point of information about this amendment we want to, we want to add. So Jen, sorry, I thought you were voting, go ahead. Yeah, so I mean, maybe Attorney Richardson will explain. So what will be on the ballot specifically then? Catherine, do you want to put up the language again? I mean, it's the language that we're just looking at Councilor Powell's amendment is to, as you make the language in the parentheses here would be added to the language in the resolution. There was already in the resolution and all of this, this would be the full ballot language. The two, both the two paragraphs together would be on the ballot. Is that clear, Councilor Jen? Yep, it's clear. Thank you. So we're going to do a vote. Well, we're back on the, that vote is chairing and say we didn't, that Councilor Jane was trying to get in before that vote. So that vote has not taken place yet procedurally. Any further discussion after that point of information seeing none will go to a vote. All those in favor of the Councilor Powell amendment which adds that language to the ballot which is recommending to the Council is to add that language to the ballot. Please say, aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? Believe that was unanimous. We're going to record that as unanimous vote unless the Councilor corrects me. So now we're back to the amended underlying resolution and a recommendation about the amended resolution. So is there further discussion about the amended resolution? Present Tracy. Thanks, Mayor. I will also be supporting the resolution as amended. I do appreciate the additional clarification that was provided by the amendment. I do feel that these investments are necessary. One of the things that we've heard through our discussions as a board of finances that these items and needs within our community are not going away. In fact, they only represent, they do not represent the full need of capital investment for our community but rather a substantial scaling down of the total need. So they're really what we're looking at is a fraction of the total need not the full need of capital investment. The other piece I think that's meaningful is that we did hear from the team at DPW who works with contracts and bidding out this work that so much of this is the cost of this work grows exponentially. So if we're seeing this need not only not go away but continue to grow as capital needs can contend to do if you don't stay on top of them. And at the same time the costs grow, all that's gonna result, all that not putting this on the ballot and not hopefully getting voter approval to move forward with this bond is gonna result in further deterioration of the infrastructure, potential risk. I mean, we're talking about fire trucks here and the emergency response system as the system that we're trying to add additional calls for or additional capacity to by uploading a Kahootz model to it and further deterioration of key assets. So I think that all is incredibly meaningful to me and important. And so I think that we would be very short-sighted to not put this on the ballot because all we would end up doing is seeing just further deterioration and increased costs later on when we know we're gonna have, we certainly recognize we do have a number of costs as well but those needs are not gonna go away. So I think it makes sense to put this on the ballot now see if we can get voter approval. I also think that the fact that 57% of people approved a much larger bond is meaningful. I think that hopefully this scaled down bond will reach the two-third threshold that's necessary but it is meaningful to me that majorities did, strong majorities of voters did support the last capital bond. So I don't think that that can necessarily be read as an overwhelming statement of any, of any voter disapproval of this. I mean, if a majority, a strong majority, not even a close majority supports it, it's just that it doesn't reach that two-thirds threshold that I think that that also contributes to my feeling that we need to go back and try this again, just giving this, in full recognition of the seriousness of our capital needs and the shortfalls that we face. Thank you, President Tracey. I very much appreciate you stating all of that. It was in response to your questions over the last couple of weeks. The team did publish onboard documents, what is labeled, it's a little confusingly labeled March 22 capital bond final. That item, if you open it up, is a table that is a further kind of expansion of the table. We've been looking at regularly that adds quite a bit of information about what is included in each item as well as the consequences of not of these not being funded. And I really appreciate the point, I think it's a really important point that some of the items are absolutely critical, essential public safety items that really what we're proposing here with this bonding is a cost is really a way to minimize the impact of these costs on taxpayers to spread these costs that we absolutely have to invest in. To spread these costs that we absolutely have to incur. I don't think there's virtually anyone in the city who would suggest we should not have radios for our radio system for our firefighters and police officers to be able to communicate with dispatch. I don't think there are many people who would be comfortable with the idea that we don't need fire engines, certainly so, but this bonding allows if the voter supported is those substantial costs, millions of dollars in costs to be spread out over many years. Whereas our other mechanisms for doing that, we are quite limited. So you would actually have a greater impact on the property taxpayer if we were to do something to try to pay for these items in any way other than bonding. So I don't think this vote should be recognized as a vote against this is not a vote to reduce taxes. It is very likely that at least for a number of these items a vote against this will result in more pressure on the taxpayer, maybe a need for more tax increases or greater cuts of other services. Similarly, fully almost 20% of this item is for local matching grants which is $4 million of local spending. But what that will allow us to do is to secure many millions of dollars of federal spending. So again, a vote against bonding here is not is really should be understood in many ways is putting more pressure on local taxpayers. We'll end up losing our ability to secure or constrain our ability to secure federal funding for many of these items which could actually end up driving up costs or either gonna drive up costs or lead to a further degradation of our public infrastructure. So I hope those are just a few of the rows. We've tried to list the other ways as well in which there are very significant impacts either programmatically or financially to not having a bonding authority. So with that, Councilor Powell. Councilor Powell, then we'll go to Councilor Jen. Sure, thank you. So I just wanted to sort of to some degree echo what President Tracy has said is that what I heard from most constituents who voted against the $40 million bond was the lack of specificity in the Memorial Auditorium placeholder. I don't think that people like to vote for placeholders. And while I think we went into it with the best of intentions, because we don't know that was just not a winning argument. People I think would be more inclined to vote for a bond for Memorial if there was a complete plan. So I think we've addressed that with this and 57% did vote for it, which I thought was pretty impressive even with a $10 million placeholder. And I said this when we voted on the $40 million bond that if we don't invest in our infrastructure then we really are effectively moving backwards because we have to do this work. I mean, there really are no two ways about it. Could we wait? Yes, we can wait, but we all know that the longer we wait, the more it costs. So I am supportive of this. I am supportive of moving it forward for many of the reasons that others have said. And one of the things that we did not touch or that the administration did not touch when you went back and looked at going from 25 to 23, which I thought was a challenging exercise but one that you did was that we did not touch the ambulances. And I think most people really care about that. So I think the things that you did change were things that hopefully we may be able to solve with some federal funding and hopefully we'll be able to find other sources of revenue to be able to take up, to take up those changes. So I am supportive and we'll be voting for this. Thank you. Councilor Paul, Councilor Jay. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And thank you for all the sentiments that were expressed here by board of finance members. And I think it would be imperative for me to get the record straight. I am not voting no because I do not want infrastructure because also I don't understand that deferred maintenance can be even costly down the road. I'm not voting no because I do not support three ambulances and the communications system between our safety institutions. But why I'm voting no is about the amount that I support those. I definitely do support the ambulances, the communication system and also the local match. I support those three elements. But the rest, knowing that we will be getting $2 billion from the federal government and also knowing that the voters just disapprove this, right? I think it would be imperative for us to step back and reduce this as small as possible to allow taxpayers to feel comfortable. That's why I'm voting no, it's about the amount but I definitely do support those three items. That's what I'm saying. I think also just connecting with people, educated, not educated, professors or business owners, people, what they have in mind in front of them currently is a high school. Everybody, it's a high school. And I think, you know, we need to try to basically meet people where they are at and try to compromise and try to see what the best return of investment would be for taxpayers who just have undergone a huge reappraisal and also during a pandemic, inflation. I think I liked the language that was added that if we have the infrastructure, then let's not use money, definitely. But I think those are the reasons as to why I'm voting no, but I support great infrastructure for the city of Berlin. Thank you. I appreciate the clarification. Further discussion? Okay. I think this is all, I think we are ready for action on this. Motion has been made. It's been seconded. We've had an amendment. So if there's no further. Councilor, we should be recognized. We'll go to a vote. All those in favor of motion, please say aye. And let's see this as a roll call because this is remote. And it sounds like it may not be unanimous. So I will call it the roll. And I'm just going to. I guess I can do it alphabetically here. Councilor. Councilor. Yes. Councilor. Yes. Councilor. Yes. Councilor. Hi, tower. Yes. Councilor. Paul. Yes. Councilor present Tracy. Yes. And I get a vote on this one and I will be voting yes, as I am voting us as well. So the recommendation passes by a vote of four to one. Yes. And I'm going to go to the next one. And I'm going to raise the end of our agenda and I'm sure. Present Tracy, go ahead. I would just ask mayor that if we could just get a resolution updated on that posted to, to board docs with the amended language for the full council, just prior to council. Yes. I think as soon as this meeting adjourns, I'm going to look at what. Chief of staff has come up with them. We'll share with councilor Paul, if we could get a resolution updated on that. I was speaking about the capital. The capital resolution is amended, but that resolution as well. Both resolutions, if we could just get those uploaded, that'd be great. Just meeting clarity and, and just smoothness. That would be really helpful. All right. Excellent. Yeah. Thank you. Sorry. I was confused. Great point. Catherine can. Can you and Dan somehow get that amended. New version up on board docs to the capital. Great. I think if we, I'm hoping we can adjourn now and have a few minutes before the full council meeting starts at present Tracy, is it still your intention to start right at seven or. Yes. Yeah. And if counselors can just be on right at seven, we really need to get, I'd really like to get started with the, the, the redistricting presentation and conversation as soon as close to that as possible. That'd be great. If folks are interested in signing up for public forum, you may do so by going to. Burlington, vt.gov slash public forum. And you can sign up our public Burlington, vt.gov slash city council slash public forum. I'm sorry. And you can go there and, and sign up to comment remotely and we'll address the folks who are in the room. With me here in con toys as well. And they'll just sign up the normal way. So. Okay. We have read your orange. We are, I was about to announce that we are adjourned as a board of finance at six 49 PM. I believe the fee, the zoom link. It's the same zoom link for the full council meeting. So. Counselors are on can just. Meet themselves and shut off the video and turn it back on at seven. And we are adjourned as a board of finance. Thank you. Thank you. And we're also able to, to please join remotely. And so city attorney joined us remotely this evening. We can see some of those folks up on the screen here. The first item on the agenda is the agenda. Councilor Stromberg may please have a motion on the agenda. People's Green New Deal committee coalition to stop airport expansion regarding one 24 city council public comments with the action to waive the reading except the communication and place it on file. Add to the consent agenda item 5.13 communications hold they have a motion to waive the reading except the communication and place it on file. Regarding one 24 22 redistricting support to reestablish a downtown ward as Ward eight with the action to waive the reading except the communication and place it on file. Add to the consent agenda item. 5.14. Communication Michael long regarding city debt. Tiff plus the action to waive the reading except the communication and place it on file. Add to the consent agenda item 5.13 communication acting chief of police John Murad regarding creation of one new position digital media redaction specialist with the within the police department and place it on the deliberative agenda as item 6.08 for council Hanson. Excellent. We have a motion on the agenda. Is there a second? Seconded by councilor McGee. Any discussion? Hearing none we'll go to a vote. Any opposed? That carries unanimously. We will now move into our agenda itself. The first item on the agenda is a report regarding the council's ad hoc committee on redistricting. We have some members of the committee joining us this evening as well as the city attorney. So I will recognize the city attorney and then we'll go to the committee members. So city attorney Richardson are you able to kick us off? I am. I am council president. Thank you very much. And I'm going to be speaking briefly about some of the report and then we have three members of the committee that are present. I believe one of the last is starting to log on. He just emailed me. But they will be speaking about their particular observations. And thoughts on the redistricting process. So just as a brief bit of background as the council may recall back in June. The council passed a resolution creating this ad hoc redistricting committee. And charged it to look at several important items. In the sort of initial thinking about the redistricting process. In particular the resolution called to them. To the ad hoc committee to look at the current and most recent past redistricting plans. Opinions about the number of counselors per ward district. And to consider the current ward and district. Infiguration. The ad hoc committee was made up. Of members that were selected by the NPAs. One for each ward. Some of the NPAs chose to also appoint alternates. Who most of them did attend. The NPAs. The NPAs. The NPAs. The NPAs. The majority of the meetings. The committee itself met seven times. Beginning in September. The committee. Started with an orientation meeting and committee request. And then they had. A planning session in October. And then three public meetings. One on November 1st. One on November 17th. And one on December 16th. And that was followed by two meetings. And then the committee. And then the committee. The NPAs. The board, And then the committee. And then the board. The board started to compile the report. I will not go into necessarily the. Graveman and. Details of the report, except for a few highlights in order to keep my presentation. Somewhat. Short. And to the point. The. Redistricting committee. I think came up with three themes that are stated. In the Meyerhofer Meyerhofer report. theme that emerged was that Ward 8 is not working in its current configuration. There was concern that the goals that led to creating Ward 8 were not necessarily being satisfied in practice. The report goes into some details. There was general consensus about some of the issues of Ward 8. The second theme was that residents were not in favor of the district system, of counselors. There was a general consensus that the idea of having a city counselor representing two wards as a district was not as successful in practices, was intended when it was created. The third is that the ward configuration, as we go into redistricting, must preserve neighborhoods. There was definitely a theme throughout that, that neighborhood identity is particularly strong in the city of Burlington. In the report, it uses keep the wards compact. I know that's slightly more controversial and that I know some members felt compact wasn't necessarily the right word. Cohesive was perhaps another synonym for it, but I think the theme there is that neighborhoods have identities and want to be kept essentially together. With that providing equal representation, and obviously that's the point of redistricting in at its core, is to make sure that there is equal representation for the individual wards and that one person equals one vote. Apart from that, a number of the other findings in the report were less consensus driven. There were a number of examples where people had thoughts that tended to differ. I should add, and this is in some of the staff memo, is that redistricting itself is a very politically driven process. As a result, it engenders strong feelings by individuals and that's certainly something that we encountered throughout the redistricting process. The ad hoc committee redistricting process is that there was a lot of conversation and certainly strong feelings about some of these issues. But at this point, the report itself is complete. The findings and information have been compiled. I'd be remiss in not thanking the other two staff members who have been helping support this process. I've provided limited legal support, mostly answering questions about redistricting and the legal process and stepping in for moments like this to take the lead. But Megan Tuttle has also been providing a great deal of support, information and data. And Brian Pine and CEDO have also been working to support this committee. It's been a joint effort and I think it's fair to say that certainly this type of committee and this type of work would benefit from dedicated staff resources, which in our memo, we do recommend that the council think about next time around. But that this was, you know, we have the information that the council sought at this point, it's really in the council's court to start to take those next steps, to develop maps, to look at how to redistrict with the population growth that we've seen. And it's largely driven by certain wards that have grown and certain wards that have not, that have resulted in imbalance in populations. And so I think there's a lot of good information in this report. I expect that the committee members who will be presenting will have some insights to share. But after this, I would recommend that the council move forward and I'm available for questions. Thank you. Thank you, City Attorney Richardson. We have a number of committee members with us this evening and they were each going to speak to the committee's work. Lee, do you want to kick that off? And then we can go to Greg or Gregory, I'm sorry. And I'm not sure if Jim Hallway is on. Actually, it was George Love as the third member. All right. And I see that he's on as well. Okay, great. So if each of you could just speak to your reflections on the committee as well, starting with Lee. Thank you. First of all, I want to congratulate the City Council on an excellent resolution and a great kickoff to redistricting. And I want to read the specific words because they're very inspiring. As voting and representation are so important to the community fabric, the City Council, in the interest of establishing an open, transparent, nonpartisan and independent process for redistricting, hereby establishes an ad hoc committee. They charge the NPAs with each electing a representative. Several of the NPAs elected alternates as well. We see the importance of alternates right now because I'm sitting here. I'm an alternate for Jim Hallway who wasn't able to be here tonight. And so as his alternate, I step in. And the alternates attended, as Dan said, all the meetings, all the public forums, read everything, fully participated as everything but a voting member. The committee was directed to gather feedback in four areas as per the resolution. Preferred council board structure, representation, the number of counselors, number of wards, and with regard to incumbency, would it be considered? So I want to go specifically to the memo now. And the memo is really kind of wishy-washy about a lot of things. You really need to look at the surveys and the mentee polls that accompanied our work. At every public forum, there was a poll taken of responses. Wards one and eight, four and seven distributed surveys within their NPAs via Facebook and front porch forum. So if you look at the results of the surveys, you see there, you see what the majority opinion was. And that's what I'm going to express tonight is what the majority opinion was. Theme one. The majority wanted us to eliminate ward eight as a student ward called for integrating on-campus housing into the residential wards. But important to note, eight wards was the top choice in number of wards. The majority of residents favored two reps in each ward. They wanted to eliminate districts and they said no to at-large counselors. Theme three. Dan covered this. There's a preference for cohesiveness instead of compactness. And the reason for this is that they look at what will happen when you distribute students among the four adjacent wards. You will have some lack of compactness, but you will have cohesiveness. Also look at the new North End. That split down North Avenue is cohesive, but not compact. So now we want to look at the criteria and I want you to note that the very first thing is that there was no consensus. And I want to point out that we weren't a consensus-building group. We had a facilitator. We did not have someone skilled at consensus-building. And there was never any time for consensus-building. So you're going to have to depend on looking at those surveys, looking at the public forums to hear what the majority of the people wanted. And you're going to hear it from me right now. Criterion one. Keep the current number of wards with two reps per wards. See the 10 questions survey and the mentee polls. I won't keep repeating that. That's where the survey information is. Counselors from different wards can work by consensus through committees that are nonpartisan. Criterion two. Eliminate districts. Residents like the small wards where candidates are known. Campaigns are affordable. Counselors are accountable. And personal contact with constituents at every NPA meeting is really important to us. Clearly, the feedback was that the districts are too large. Criterion three. People didn't think that an odd number of counselors or board members was necessary. Sharing workload is commented on here, but it really belongs in criterion one. It has nothing to do with an even or odd number of counselors. Criterion four. Do not pack students predominantly into one ward like that salamander ward eight. Constantly it was referred to as the salamander ward eight. Yes. Each that you'd have five minutes and you've had five. So if you could just wrap up and let us get to the other folks on the committee as well. Okay. Criterion five. No to at large seats. Criterion six. Multiple reps for district, for district for ward. Yes. Criterion seven and common seat was not an issue people cared about. Criterion eight equal representation was the highest priority. Keeping neighborhoods intact was the next highest priority. Criterion 10. Natural boundaries like the intervail swamp are more important than streets because they didn't want neighborhoods that neighborhood streets on either side to be blocked out and criterion 11. The relationship between state and legislative districts was not even mentioned. People didn't even know what that meant and I will send this to you all by email. The complete report. Thank you. Thank you. Gregory, did you want to follow on that and share your perspective from the committee? Sure. My name is Greg Sheppler. I'm the ward five rep for the redistricting committee. Appreciate the opportunity to share our work with the members of the city council. Also appreciate the fact that one of my former high school history students is a member of the city council. Good evening, counselor McGee. I'm just glad that that one missing assignment didn't disqualify you from a seat in the room, Joe. Congratulations. Well deserved. Well deserved. Also deserving congratulations are my fellow members on the ad hoc redistricting committee. They worked hard under a tight timeline and tried to fulfill requests identified in the resolution passed by the city council last June. Your resolution authorized the redistricting committee for the purpose of gathering public comment on four main issues that Lee talked about. Truthfully, and the written summary talks about this. Our public comment was pretty limited and, you know, we had three meetings in various locations. We had the survey submissions, but the total was about a hundred people. And that's a meager percentage of the overall citizens. I don't think that the lack of public comments, I mean, it was discouraging to the committee. However, the low numbers were influenced by a lot of factors, the pandemic, the tight timeline, and the complexities of redistricting itself. Community members that did participate were quite passionate, though, about their viewpoints. And I'm just the report somewhat speaks for itself, but I'm just should be taken with a grain of salt that the total number of people that participated was low. I do agree and I know that other committee members feel this way, too, that something needs to be done with ward eight. Lee has talked about that. According to your resolution, the city council will likely be hiring a map specialist to consider changing ward boundaries should be noted that individuals and groups did submit maps to the committee. But those map and those maps are part of the public record. The redistricting committee did not endorse any maps because map making was beyond our scope of review based on your resolution. This was a difficult limitation because without maps redistricting is an amorphic topic. Maps help make redistricting visual, physical, and real concerning the number of city council members. I'll just cite one example. I agree that people did like the idea of two members, but I did have one ward five community member who emailed me and advocated for a single ward. In other words, all city council elections should be citywide. And before I dismiss the idea, I considered her argument. She expressed frustration at the current election process, which leaves her one ward rep in one district rep, which is less than 20% of city council. She felt frustrated because of the limited accountability under the current structure. If she disagrees with other city councilors vote, she had no election authority or accountability over them. I had not considered this prior to her email, and this is really one of the benefits of our task listening to community members. Coming up on your time, so if you could just start to wrap up. I want to give George some time before we go to public forum at 7.30. Okay. In summary, most members of the committee support the general findings of the written report. Some members have added additional concerns, which you'll find in the addendum of the report. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. I will now go to George Love and George, are you able to share your thoughts with us from your experience on the redistricting committee? Anything that hasn't been added yet or different? George? George, are you with us? George Love? President Tracy, this is Megan Tuttle. I know that George has been having some trouble connecting. I do see that he's here, but he may be having some technical difficulties. Okay. All right. That being as it is, let's open it up to councilor questions and comments. And, you know, I don't imagine that we'll be able, maybe we'll be able to address all the questions and comments in four minutes, but we may have to just go continue this item after public comment at 7.30. So, and if councillors can just use the raise hand function, it does help me just while I'm trying to keep track of both being in the room and watching you all on Zoom. Councillor Hanson. Thanks, and thanks, Lee and Dan and Gregory. So, I'm sorry if I missed this, but was there a preference around the number of city councillors total? I heard the odd even thing and that that wasn't a preference, but it was the total number. Two per ward and eight wards was the most popular by far. So, 16 councillors, Dan. Okay. That's helpful. And with the suggestion that councillors work more in committee in multi and multi-partisan multi-wards groups in their committees. Got it. And with that multi-member wards, was there a preference around elections if they would be elected in opposite, like at the same time versus opposite years? Not discussed, Jack. Not discussed. Okay. All right. Thank you. Any other councillors? George, are you with us now? George Lowe? Okay. Not able to get George on and I'm not seeing any other councillors? Are we sure? Councillor Hightower, go ahead. Yeah. One thanks for the report because it wasn't what we had on our agenda. So, I'm not quite sure what the difference is because sometimes they don't seem to align. So, I guess maybe that's a question is how this report is different with what was on our agenda. And maybe they're not, but I'm just skimming what you said just now and it looks slightly different from what we got initially. And then I guess a question about Ward 8, which I don't completely understand because I guess the one way to get a minority group of vote is to put most of them into the same voting block. So, are folks just saying that folks don't want students to have a voting block or what was the feeling on what folks were hearing from that? The feeling was to integrate them throughout four wards so that they would be on campus. The main thing was campus health because there are such large blocks and such high numbers of students. And the idea was to put part in Ward 6, part in Ward 1, part in Ward 2 and part in the downtown ward. We didn't even get to tell you about that. The downtown ward is like hugely popular. You watch that, that's going to go. I mean, in terms of popular choice. Go ahead, Greg. Add your comment. I would just to address Councillor Hightower's question. There's two ways to look about, to look at that situation. One is called packing. And when you pack individuals into one particular ward, in this case, then they do have power, but in some cases that power is limited obviously to that single ward. The opposite of packing is cracking. You divide up that group and in some cases you do limit their ability to work cohesively by spreading them so thin. So it's, you know, it's a, it's, it can go either way in terms of the advantages and disadvantages to ensuring the strength for a particular group. I'll just add quickly on top of that, knowing that we're short on time. One of the comments that came out or observations was that Ward 8 voting rates were lower than a number of the other wards. And I know that some committee members had concerns about that. If you looked at their actual, it was significantly lower. And, you know, when you're talking about redistricting, you know, you can really have a number of different options. And certainly it seems like one of the things that went into creating Ward 8 originally was to give students a voice by putting them into a district where, you know, their, their voice, they were significant voting portion of the voting population. And that's certainly a value that the council may say, you know, this is important for us going forward. I just, I think it is a consensus that the committee felt that there were a number of different issues. And certainly Diane Meyerhoff's report digs into some of those details as does the addendum and public comments of individuals and their feedback. Was that Councilor Hightower? Yes, thank you. Okay. So before I, and thank you to the members of the committee and Attorney Richardson, I appreciate that. Before I transition into the public forum, are there other councillors, just so I know, are they on the other side of the committee members to know are other councillors wishing to ask questions or offer comments? Okay. Councillor Paul, I'll note that we can come back to you on that. I do want to get to the public forum, but we will have to divide it. So I will. So just if committee members can please just hold tight, we'll come back to you after we go to the public forum. Councillor Paul? President Tracy, I mean, honestly, I don't want to keep, I don't, I don't want to keep all the committee members on, you know, holding my comments were just simply, you know, as one of the co-sponsors of the resolution to just simply thank them for their time. And they don't, they don't need to stay to hear me say that. Okay, great. Thank you, Councillor Paul. And thank you certainly for being here and for your time for you all as well as everyone else who served on the committee and who has taken part in this effort, really appreciate it. So I think I don't know if Councillor Jang had questions too, but I didn't know. I can't, I know that. So Freeman, I can't hear you. What did you say? I said I was, I saw Councillor Jang's hand up. I know you're thinking about doing it after the forum, but I just wanted to make a note of that. Councillor Jang, did you have a question? If I can just. Yeah, question and comments and I've been raising my hand for a long time as well. Oh, I missed that. I thank you for that. I apologize. You know, folks, I'm sorry. It's very difficult to, I came into a room that was completely not set up for a meeting and had to get this whole thing set up at this time. So it's just been a really challenging time. So thank you all for bearing with me as we're getting this meeting going. And we will get into the public forum now. The next meeting is the public forum. So if you are interested in the public forum and signing up for the public forum in person, you may do so, signing up using those forms in the corner over here in Contoys and then handing them to the City Clerk. And they'll be brought to me. If you are, however, participating remotely and would wish to participate that way, you may sign up by going to BurlingtonVT.gov slash city council slash public forum. And that way you'll be able to that will feed into a sheet that I then use to to read off the public forum names. I see some folks are indicating interest in item 6.02. And this is a little bit of a quirk for tonight is that we do essentially have two public forums this evening. So we have one which is the general public forum in which people are able to speak to a variety of different issues. If you are interested in speaking to those issues, you may do so. And also you may be, you can certainly speak to the charter change issue. However, what I would say is that in my recommendation would be for you to folks to comment on the charter change, which is 6.02, a separate public hearing. So I can, we can discuss what you would like to do, but I would recommend that folks who are interested in commenting on the charter change do so as part of the public hearing. That is necessary should the council is able to make changes to the question to be placed on the ballot based off of public testimony that takes place in the context of that hearing. That hearing, however, is only to be for comments on the charter change itself. So I'll check in with folks as we go through the sign-up and the sign-up. And if you indicated 6.02, we can come back to you at a different point for that. So the comment, so in terms of the public comment itself, folks will have two minutes. And if we could just get the two minutes up on the screen, we'll have two minutes up on the screen here as well as the screen in remotely. So and the way that we do things is that we start with a, that will, we have, each person has two minutes. We will hold you to that two minutes. So I'll ask you to, I'll tell you when your time is up and you'll need to be, you'll need to complete an end at that point. In terms of the commentary itself, please refrain from using profanity and personal attacks. Within your comments, please speak to the issues. And if you can also just please not attack, in the room here, please not attack or comment towards other speakers. Maintain decorum and please keep the room. If you need to have a conversation with someone about something, please step out and have a conversation with folks about that outside. And if you're, just so that I can make sure that I'm able to to track all the different things that we're trying to track here tonight. So and the other thing about our forum is that we do prioritize Burlington residents. We prioritize Burlington residents who are in person. Then we go to Burlington residents who are participating remotely. And then after that, we have Burlington residents who are, I mean, non-Burlington residents who are here in person and then non-Burlington residents who are participating remotely. So having said that, we will go to our first batch of speakers who are Burlington residents who are participating. Excuse me. No, I'm, please don't interrupt me. The comments, the first speaker is Jeff Comstock to be followed by Richard Hilliard and Sherry Lamarsh. Welcome. All set? Yep. Go ahead. Yes. Good evening. My name is Jeff Comstock. I'm a resident of ward seven and I served as one of the alternates on the ad hoc steering committee. And my primary message this evening is for the council itself in terms of an issue that you need to be aware of because the reason that the final report is unchanged from the February, December 22nd draft that the committee and the consultant created is because the committee itself essentially became hamstrung over the issue or an interpretation of whether or not open meeting law applied to the work of the ad hoc committee. And I think this is an important issue for the council to explore because if the council is going to use this ad hoc committee mechanism for other purposes, you want your working committees to be able to communicate more freely with each other without being intimidated or constrained by open meeting law. And I've read the guidance document provided by the Vermont league of cities and towns. And to my interpretation, clearly the ad hoc committee is not governed by the definition of public body under open meeting law. So the essential impact there was because the committee wasn't able to communicate amongst themselves and share comments to complete the report. So that's unfortunate. And then the second point I really want to make is that the current conversation about mapping is actually jumping the gun because the city council's current challenge and primary challenge at this point of the game for redistricting should be to decide on the priority criteria that you're going to use to govern map making and ward delineation going forward. Thank you. Yep. Our next speaker is Richard Hilliard to be followed by Sherry Lamarsh. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Richard Hilliard and I was nominated to be the ward one representative on the ad hoc committee on redistricting. A lot of good work came out of the committee and especially the public input about statistically about 40% of which was from ward one. None of it was none of that comment from ward one was with regard to the downtown ward, which may be a good idea, but it wasn't discussed. It was a meeting to discuss the final paper that the committee chose to spend its time on other matters which had never previously been discussed. And that's unfortunate. And in that context, I fully endorse Mr. Comstock's comments, regardless. 30 years ago, I managed a factory in Southern California for a European multinational. We were acquired by a Japanese mega national and one of my first experiences was a teleconference with Tokyo. We couldn't figure out why the image on our screen didn't match what our camera seemed to suggest. So I brought that to Tokyo and the response was Mr. Hilliard, we control the camera. That experience was brought to mind during our committee meetings. Who was really running the show? Was it the city, the council, the committee, or as a fellow member suggested, alternates. The previous redistricting experience was anything but transparent. So my message to city council and city hall is this, the public is smart, often illuminating and inspiring. Please make the ensuing redistricting process transparent. It's really important. And a side note, thank you, President Trace, for your service to the city. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Sherry Lamar. Sherry, I see that you wanted to speak to the charter change. Would you like to speak now or do you want to speak as part of the public hearing? So we have just a couple of items on our deliberative agenda before that. So we have climate emergency reports which is just councillors providing brief reports, the approval of the consent agenda, and then an appointment of a city appoint. So you know, there are quite a few people signed up for public forum. So it's your call. Okay. All right. I will put it aside for that comment. Michelle Moran, I see the same you had signed up for to speak to that as well. Are you interested in speaking? Yep, exactly. The same, the charter change, the public hearing is on that as well. So it's a single item, yeah. It's part of the charter change process is that we do need to hold public hearings on it. And then the council is able to, based on the testimony from the public, make changes to it, but only in the context of the public hearing. So my recommendation to folks is if you are interested in commenting on the charter change would be to do so as part of the public hearing itself on the deliberative agenda. But it's your call. Okay. And then our next speaker is Christopher Aaron Fielker. Christopher, did you want to, okay. Good evening. I'm Christopher Aaron Fielker. I'm chairman of the Burlington Republican Party. I'm here tonight to speak on some agenda items. 6.02, we do oppose the prostitution charter change. 6.05, we oppose the proposed tax rate increase. 6.07, we oppose the municipal mask mandate and corresponding vaccine passport. CDC has confirmed that cloth masks are ineffective, just like we said at the beginning of this. And the city's mask mandate calls for cloth masks. So we don't have, our mask mandate has been proven ineffective. The desired results that council sought did not come to fruition. The governor was correct. I'm here tonight to speak in favor of 2.01. Had the pleasure of working with members of the ad hoc committee on redistricting. I have attended multiple meetings myself. We are advocating for a return to the, an eight ward two counselor model. We approve of the map that was made up that includes a compacted downtown district. So that way these groups can finally feel that their voices are being heard in our government. We've heard a lot of people who live in the church, street marketplace area that say that they feel that their voices are ignored by their city counselors. And we absolutely oppose any effort from this administration or council to roll out at-large districts in Burlington. We recognize that the cost will be a barrier and the city has made every effort to try and tear down barriers. This rolling out of at-large districts will create multiple barriers to service. We oppose them entirely. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So we've gone through our Burlington speakers who are here in person. So we're going to transition to Burlington folks participating remotely and I'll get into that Zoom. Our first couple of Burlington speakers are I see Christopher Hasley, Robert Bristow Johnson, Jody Woos, Patricia Myers and Tony Reddington. So I'm going to locate those folks right now. So Chris Hasley, I've enabled your microphone. Thank you, President Tracy. I'm here tonight to speak an additional voice on the concept of the downtown ward. The redistricting has been an interesting topic of mine for a while and when I saw it was coming up in Burlington, I started reviewing the history of the process here in Burlington and began to look at historical maps. And when I did that, I discovered that the downtown ward did in fact actually exist for over 100 years from dating back to the city's founding. It was eliminated in 1967 during the urban renewal phase of our city's development when the little Italy neighborhood here in the downtown area was raised and that was when downtown kind of lost its voice. Well, I think there are many things that we have in common with our neighbors to the North Pearl Street and the Old North End. Downtown is a uniquely distinct district. We have in addition to people living here, we have business district, we have bars, restaurants, retail establishments, a number of other types of activities that are not typically found in a residential area. So that's one way it makes us a community of interest. Additionally, my apologies here, I'm having some technical issues on my end here. So this has been a historical thing for a while and as someone who's been in the city for a while, one of the things we see is like we're part of Ward 3 now, so if we want to participate, we have to go North of Pearl Street. Used to be the multi-generational center, now it's the community center in Allen on Allen Street. So we have unique needs down here that don't always get reflected in some of the larger discussions that are happening and we would just really like to have our own voice and as a downtown neighborhood into what the city is doing for decision-making and policymaking. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Robert Bristow-Johnson to be followed by Jody Woos. Robert, I've enabled your microphone. Hello, good evening. So I want to give you some very quick technical information and then I have a proposal for City Council. The quick technical information is that we're not returning to any eight-ward map. This is the first time we've had an eight-ward map. We would be returning to a seven-ward map if we revert to something from before and a seven-ward map would be able to keep Ward 1 the same because Ward 1 is right now one-seventh of the city. That's why it's a little too big, but the consequence would be that the West, Old North and those folks would have to go up to either St. Mark's Church or the Miller Center to vote if they wanted to vote in person. That might be a problem. So if there's an eight-ward map, then necessarily Ward 1 is going to have to lose some people because it's too big. And if there's a seven-ward map and if the athletic campus goes into Ward 1, then Ward 1 will have to lose some people. In any case, I think that the big discussion is going to be about how Ward 1 is pared down in size and what moves into it. Then I believe that we're going to have to look at a lot of different ideas. There is actually an idea that people are pointing to already, but I think before the City Council considers that, I think it would be a good idea if the mandate for the committee, the ad hoc committee, continues and looks over dozens of maps. And it gives to City Council a smaller digested list of maps. Maybe City Council would look at five maps. Maybe City Council would look at more or less. But I recommend. Okay, thank you. Thank you. All right. Our next speaker is Jodi Woos to be followed by Patricia Myers. Jodi, I've enabled your microphone. Thank you, Councillor Tracy. I'm Jodi Woos. I use her pronouns and I'm in Ward 2. I'm commenting tonight on agenda item 6.03 regarding general aviation considerations. I would urge the City Council to vote against Councillor Dang's resolution. I would, however, like to thank Councillor Dang for bringing the activities at the Burlington International Airport to the attention of the City Council. According to its airport master plan, the airport seeks to expand its operations over the next decade, including a 20% increase in the number of non-military flights per year. Their plans include even further encroachment on the Chamber of the Neighborhood, a working class area which has been ravaged by years of home buyouts, and is now under assault by noise generated by all aircraft, including the F-35s. Further, this expansion will result in a dramatic increase in the greenhouse gas emissions associated with increased air traffic. The City of Burlington has always included the greenhouse gas emissions coming from the airport in its own reporting. Historically, though, the only airport emissions accounted for are those of on-the-ground activities, airport maintenance, heating, lighting needs of the terminal, and so on. As a result, the City and the airport are greenwashing when they report projected reductions in the City's total emissions. There will be no reduction in actual total greenhouse emissions from the airport if its plan is successful. We are in a climate crisis and urgently need to come up with dramatic and creative solutions to that crisis. I urge the Council to not start with the assumption that airport expansion is unambiguously desirable. Further, the City Council's priorities at this time should be first, the protection of the Chamber of the Neighborhood, second, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from airport activities, and third, the transparent and considered treatment of the existing general aviation tenants. None of these priorities are addressed in Councilor O'dang's resolution, so please vote no. Thank you. Our next speaker is Patricia Myers. I believe I've located you. Now, Patty, I did see that you were speaking on the charter change, that you'd signed up on the charter change issue, so if you'd like, I can hold off on you until you're speaking until the public hearing takes place. Patty Myers, I've enabled your microphone. Are you okay? Patty, I can come back to you as part of that public hearing as well and see. I'm sorry, I just unmuted myself. Yes, I would like to speak then. Thank you. Okay, okay, perfect. Thank you for letting me know. I'll come back to you at that point. Sorry about that. No worries. Thank you. So that brings us to our next group of Burlington residents who are participating remotely. I'll read off a couple. So we have Tony Reddington to be followed by Gene Bergman, Sharon Buscher, Michelle Borbis, Dan Castrigano, and Paul Fleckenstein. There's others to follow, but that's just to give those folks who are closer on deck an idea that you're coming up. So hopefully you all can be ready. I come to Tony Reddington now. Tony, I've enabled your microphone. Thank you, Councillor Tracey, and thank you for your service. First, I'd like to thank both Lee Terhune and Chris Passley for their work both on and assisting the ad hoc committee on redistricting and coming up with, as Lee Terhune has suggested, what will be very popular, and I agree with Lee, a downtown ward. I can speak specifically to an experience, having lived for several years in the Old North End on North Winniske, and having moved almost two years ago now to downtown, where I'm within shouting distance of the King Maple neighborhood. And being on the, at the same time on the Neighbor Planning Assembly, as some of you know, I can speak firsthand that in working the programming and the agendas and so forth for the NPA for several years, we never even understood the presence of the downtown or much less the block or two of the King Maple neighborhood as being part of our concerns, which was, were centered on the, obviously the Old North End. That has changed. And I think that rather than talking about a downtown ward, and again, thanks to Chris Passley who did the historical work to point out that this district always existed, this ward always existed, it is not only just a downtown ward, but it includes the King Maple neighborhood down to the Bob and Mill, just below Maple Street. So it's really a King Maple downtown ward that we're talking about plus extending out towards some of the, and including some of the university students that would be split up among several wards. So I can say wholeheartedly for the first time that I agree with the chair of the Republican Party of Burlington, that who endorsed before you just a little while ago, the six, the eight wards to representatives per ward and the downtown, and he endorsed the downtown, the downtown ward, which I now live in. I will lose my ward three residents. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Our next speaker is Gene Bergman to be followed by Sharon Busher. Gene, I've enabled your microphone. Good evening. I want to ask you to defeat the airport resolution because it's still predicated on expansion. It just doesn't protect the Chamberlain school neighborhood. It doesn't address aviation emissions associated with expansion and our need to reduce them as part of fighting the climate emergency. And it doesn't even sufficiently address the issues of the general aviation tenants. So I hope that you'll defeat the resolution and go back to the drawing board. Thank you. Thank you, Gene. Our next speaker is Sharon Busher to be followed by Michelle Orbus. Sharon, I've enabled your microphone. Thank you. Tonight I wanted to speak regarding two proposals on your agenda. One has to do the proposed tax increase and the other has to do with the infrastructure bond. I feel the pandemic has done a disservice to the administration and to this body because I feel you're insulated from the pain that most residents feel financially with reappraisal and with the inflation rate. I think affordability is key. You talked at the board of finance about your increased costs and why you need a tax increase. But you also have other ways to address some of those shortfalls. You haven't looked everywhere. You've acknowledged that tonight. With the infrastructure bond, I spoke about the fact that my concern for this community is that we have a priority to get a high school bond passed. That's in November. And I don't think people have the monies to support all of these different bonds. You might retort. Each one is only $13 here or $6 there, but you're nickel and diming people so that they can't afford it. That's the way you lose your income. And so I ask you to really look long and hard at the reality of what's going on in Burlington and what residents are experiencing and prioritize the needs of our children. I don't have kids in school. I don't have grandchildren in school here. But to have a high school and a technical center has to be our number one priority. I understand the need for fire trucks and radio communication. I had come to the board of finance and said, if you had to go forward, do a $10 million bond to address those items. But your appetite was greater. Thank you so much. Thank you. Our next speaker is Michelle Borbis to be followed by Dan Castragano and Paul Fleckenstein. Michelle, I've located you and have enabled your mic. Good evening. Thanks for taking a moment to listen to what I have to say. I moved to Burlington about 18 months ago and I've lived in the rural. I've lived in suburban. I've lived now in downtown and I found that it was quite a different type of frustration at times because we felt like we weren't being heard when we had concerns. So when this redistricting came up, it kind of freaked my interest, I guess you could say, with the fact that considering having a downtown ward was a positive because then we actually have somebody that we could go and speak to that lives in this area understands the things that we go through here that are very different from living on the outskirts of a city. They just aren't the same types of needs. So I hope that it is seriously considered to have a downtown ward where we would have our own representative to share our concerns, our thoughts, our needs with the city council. And I would like to also do one last thank you to those who recognize that this would be a positive. That's all. Thank you. Our next speaker is Dan Castragano to be followed by Paul Fleckenstein. Dan, I've enabled your microphone. Thanks, Councilor Tracy. My name is Dan Castragano. I'm a resident of Ward 4 and I'm speaking to the agenda item 6.03, the expansion of the airport. And my message is very simple. The burning of fossil fuels is causing our climate and ecological systems to collapse. Expanding the airport is building more fossil fuel infrastructure and it would be more planes burning more jet fuel. So I urge the city council to not expand the airport. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Paul Fleckenstein and I'll read off a couple to follow Paul. So we have Solvee Overby, Caroline Bates, Abby German, and then looks like a number of Burlington or one Burlington person who, well, Abby, it looks like you signed up twice. So you only get to go once unless you are just wanting to speak in the, the, the, you can speak to general city issues in the, this public forum and then, but you can't, but, and also address the charter change and the charter change issue, but you can't address any other issues other than the charter change and the charter change one. So I'll work through that with you when we get to that item because I'm not sure what you're, what you're looking to do. So I'm going to go to Paul Fleckenstein first. Paul, I've enabled you, your microphone. Thank you, Max. I'm wanting to speak against the airport resolution. Another way to say things is that we are in the third year of a 10-year period where the UN warns that there must be radical reductions every year on the order of 10% to avoid climate catastrophe. And we aren't seeing any admissions reductions in general and something radically different must be done. We're also seeing harms continue to be inflicted on working class residents disproportionately on people of color by Burlington airport policies and development. So three things. Two, we've heard stop for the airport expansion into the neighborhoods, revise the airport's plans to increase greenhouse gas emissions for all types of increased airport traffic. And then third, it's just very important. We have to reject the autocratic and imperious operation of the airport management. One that promoted and misrepresented and dismissed the harmful impacts of the F-35 war planes on thousands of people in the Burlington area. Unfortunately, the aviation resolution proposed to the council tonight assists the airport in continuing to do all of these three things. So the council should vote no and take a different direction. Thank you. Thank you, Paul. Paul, our next speaker is Solvee Overby to be followed by Carolyn Bate. And Solvee, I found you and have enabled your microphone. Hello there. I am speaking on two items actually, the reapportionment and also the proposed March ballot items asking for approval for additional city debt on reapportionment and the redrawing of the ward lines. I provided a communication in the consent agenda in support of the eight wards with the two city councilors per ward. I support a revision of that ward, the ward lines to recreate the downtown ward as ward eight. And this change would remove the downtown area from the old north end wards. Council seats in these eight wards are easier to campaign in through the winter and it's significantly less expensive to campaign in a ward other than, you know, then if you had to do it citywide or at large where party affiliated candidates would otherwise be advantaged financially. As for the proposed March ballot items asking voters to add $50 million of existing city debt, I ask do you really think the voters will choose to add this $50 million of city debt before hearing in mid-March the projected costs for the new high school and tech center? The 25.92 million tax increment financing debt for main street upgrades has been characterized as debt that will not cost taxpayers a penny when in fact TIF financing is borrowing that taxpayers are on the hook to pay back unless specifically identified private development takes place to raise extra property tax revenue. It's borrowing on an optimistic bet. A review of the projects listed to cover the projected debt service is on that through 2036 is unfortunately speculative and lacking in detail until taxpayers think the reappraisal on fairness has been fixed and before the bill for the new high school is known it's not logical that voters will want to commit to borrowing another 50 million. These ballot items should be on the November ballot not the March ballot with necessary priorities set. Perhaps residents do want this wish list of these items. I support some of them too but the voters need to know how much the high school will cost to cover on addition to that 70 million already approved. Thank you. Thank you. The next speaker is Carolyn Bates to be followed by Abby German and Carolyn located you and have enabled your microphone. Great. Hi, I'm Carolyn Bates. I'm in Ward 5 and I had the pleasure of working with Lee Terhoun and several other people to just look at the maps the redistricting and all the ideas and I also was most responsible for trying to keep the point the King Street Maple Street into one ward instead of two wards for years being in Ward 5 and having to you know work on Maple Street but and then only half of King Street it was I realized that it was totally not a good way. So I helped with the downtown ward which I think is extremely important. I don't think we need a Ward 8 for UBM. I like having 16 city counselors. I really find it's frustrating having sort of half a counselor plus one and I really really want to have the long census block that's in Ward 5 now broken or cracked as they said so that the northern part of that long census block which has the bottom mill in it and some private homes would become part of the downtown ward where all the King and Maple Street neighborhoods belong and the bottom half or 2 thirds which is Pine Street and businesses in the art district stay in Ward 5 where it belongs because the rest of Pine Street in the art district is in Ward 5. I'd see eliminating the UBM ward is really good. I think spreading the students into several wards is much better. The students to me don't seem to really come in great masses to ask for changes. So having them spread apart since they seem to be not a high and voting. Thank you. And I also Max Tracy I just want to thank you very much. When your time is up. Thank you. Only one. Just thank you. All right. Well thank you. I appreciate that but okay. Bye. Bye. Our next speaker is Abby German. Abby give me a second. Abby I've located you. I see you've signed up twice for I think different items like I was saying before and just so you know you can speak to the charter change it's the charter change on sex work as part of a public hearing that's going to take place on the deliberative agenda or now like I said before. So it's your call and I didn't know if you wanted to speak to some of the other items that weren't included in the public hearing now but I just wanted to just see what you're thinking is. Yes. Most of my time tonight will be about the the charter change so I'll speak then but I would just quickly like to speak now as well if that's okay. Yeah if you yeah if you yeah if you would like to speak on other yeah go ahead. Okay well I just wanted to reiterate the folks that are speaking out against the airport expansion I think that it's irresponsible and violent as well to do so and then I'll speak again later tonight thank you. Okay great thank you. Hi so our next speaker looks like we are through all of the Burlington residents who have signed up remotely so we'll transition back to non-Burlington residents who are here in person. Again see some folks who have signed up to speak on the on the the charter change issue. Caitlyn Macias you'll wait okay thank you. Erin Regan I see again okay great go ahead. I'm here to speak against the charter change I unfortunately can't stay so I'm going to speak now. Good evening everyone my name is Erin Regan I am here as a member of the world without exploitation youth coalition and most importantly as an educator. For the past eight years I have worked with high school students in the northeast. I joined the coalition because I saw firsthand how the sex trade directly affects the young people on the margins that I work with young people with whom I teach I work with and I love. The average age of entry into the sex trade is between 14 and 16 years old. The people most often exploited in the sex trade are young women and girls of color who are living in poverty. This begs the question who benefits when the sex trade expands? Fully decriminalizing prostitution which is what this resolution would do makes it easier for sex buyers pimps and brothel owners to buy and sell the most marginalized in our communities. What happens when there are no legal repercussions for buying and selling people in a study done by the nonprofit rights for girls one in five men said that they would buy sex if quote the circumstances were right when prostitution is fully decriminalized the circumstances are right. Think back to the 14 to 16 year old girls who are most often harmed and exploited by fully decriminalizing prostitution teenagers like the ones I work with every day are bought and sold. My students are smart funny ambitious they are also extremely vulnerable resolutions like this intentionally or unintentionally exploit their vulnerabilities and they make it easier for them to line the pockets of their exploiters. As an educator I stand with world without exploitation in their call for the equality model an approach that will decriminalize those sold in the sex trade so your time is up keep their exploiters accountable. Thank you. Our next speaker is Maggie Karen. Okay. Maggie is followed by um Janet Metz. Oh wait okay. Public hearing I see Stephanie Clark. Okay. My name is Stephanie Clark. I'm the CEO of Amira Inc. We are one of the largest providers of exit and aftercare services to women exiting the commercial sex trade in New England. We work with women who are US citizens and to date 61% of the women we have served in our residential program were sold for sex in Vermont during their time in sex trade. I'm speaking regarding the proposal to strike language regarding prostitution in the city ordinance. In our 10 years of work we have served more than 400 women who were sold in the commercial sex trade in the United States. We've learned through the stories of those who were in the commercial sex trade in Vermont that is particularly active in Burlington and is directly connected to gang activity. Those who survived the Vermont sex trade experienced brutalization from gangs, hospitalizations from broken pelvises, complete jaw replacements, severe beatings, physical humiliation, access to opiates and fentanyl along with continued support and abusing those these substances. Their family members were targeted by traffickers and gang members. They had an inability to go back to areas out of fear for their lives. It's been well documented that when the sex trade has been fully decriminalized in other countries and provinces there have been a significant increase in those who are being trafficked and exploited. What I have listed out has been happening now to women without the decriminalization of the sex trade. Should this happen you are guaranteed an increase in violence and an increase in the most marginalized here in Vermont continuing to be exploited in traffic. The issue is that full decriminalization does not support those who are in the sex trade willingly or unwillingly. It will only increase the demand for their bodies, increase the violence that can be done against them and support the buyers who often come from the most privilege. If your goal is safety for those in the sex trade this will not help. There are already little to no services in Vermont that provide support for those exiting the commercial sex trade. This is why I'm here representing an organization that is based in Massachusetts because we are serving the women who are coming from Vermont. I urge you to reconsider this proposal and be in conversation with those who are actively working in this field to explore other solutions that have been shown to benefit those in prostitution. Thank you. Thank you. I have one other person who is non-Burlington in person, Rachel Foster. Okay. I will put you in the file for the public hearing. Okay. We will now transition back to non-Burlington folks who are participating remotely. So I have Isaac Bissell to be followed by James Mark Lease, Jim Sexton, Henry June, Christine Rigo, and Matthew Codsey. We have a couple more after that. Those are just a few so that folks know that they're coming up. So I will go to Isaac Bissell now. Isaac, I've enabled your microphone. Isaac Bissell. Yep. Isaac, I see your hand is raised. I've unmuted you and I've enabled your microphone. Isaac, you should be able to speak. I'm not sure what's happening there. Your talking is permitted and it does look like you are unmuted. Okay. Isaac, I can come back again and try again. We'll go to James Mark Lease now. Have you enabled your mic? Can you hear me? Yes, go ahead. Okay. I urge no vote on the airport resolution. I'd just like to point out that the airport master plan says the airport now includes 950 acres and 55 of those acres are empty land already designated and zoned for commercial development. Those 55 acres are located right next to general aviation and beta technologies. They're perfectly located. Beta is using 21 of those 55 acres and that leaves 34 acres perfectly located for general aviation. Therefore rezoning 11 more acres of chamberland land is not needed. The best way to support general aviation, including beta and to protect the chamberland neighborhood is for the council to tell the acting airport director to withdraw the airport's request to rezone and chamberland and make the buildable part of that perfectly located and properly zoned empty 34 acres next to the valley available for general aviation. The council should begin planning to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as well from this city owned airport starting by saying no to any expansion of fossil fuel aviation and no to the 22 gallon per minute climate killing F 35. So please vote no on council dengue's resolution and tell the airport director to withdraw the rezoning request and make the 34 acres in the valley area available to general aviation now. Thank you very much. Thank you. Isaac Basel, I'll come back to you and see if we can get your microphone working. So Isaac, I've enabled your microphone. Can you hear me? Yes, go ahead. Okay, great. Thank you. I'm a resident of the chamberland school neighborhood in South Burlington. I'm also a member of the Burlington airport rezoning task force. I'm here to speak in opposition to the resolution referred referring general aviation considerations to the transportation energy and utilities commission. I wanted to begin by thanking councillor dang for his engagement with those who have raised concerns about the environmental and community impacts of the earlier drafts of this resolution. This having been said, I do have concerns about the language and the latest resolution. The present resolution includes warehouse clauses that are biased towards airport expansion. And this is not the appropriate framing for the issues under consideration. Additionally, the resolved clauses prevent the full examination of the concerns that have been raised relating to rising aviation emissions and the impacts of the proposed expansion on the chamberland school neighborhood. Lastly, the requirement to return the reported findings to the city council by March does not give the commission enough time to fully examine the issues at hand. The concerns that have been raised by local residents about the airport administration's active plans for expansion and by members of the general aviation about the airport administration's transparency are incredibly complex and deserve a complete and unfettered investigation by the city council or by the transportation energy and utilities commission. The resolution before tonight prevents that complete investigation. The council should vote no on the resolution and council members should take more time to engage further with the various stakeholders in order to find a path forward that will allow for a complete examination of the issues at hand. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Our next speaker will be Jim Sexton to be followed by Henry June, Christine Rigo, and Matthew Codsey. We have a couple more after that as well. Jim, I see that you are interested in speaking to the charter chain, so if you could just let me know if you'd like to speak now or wait later. Jim Sexton, you might have enabled your mic. It looks like you're muted on your end. It looks like you've unmuted, Jim. I still can't hear you. Jim, I will come back to you again for the public hearing. And then I'm going to go to Henry June. Let me just look at you and Henry June, I'm not able to locate you for this, so I'm going to go to Christine Rigo. Christine, you're interested in the charter change, so if you could let me know if you wanted to go now or during the charter change hearing itself. I am delivering testimony on behalf of another and it doesn't include any suggested changes, so I'll deliver it now. Okay, go ahead. This is on behalf of an ally and friend and sex worker client who asked not to be named. I want to thank the charter committee for voting to strike this dated and offensive language from the city charter of Burlington. This is a great first step in destigmatizing sex work and helping erotic laborers feel seen and recognized as the valued community members they are and ought to be. If the goal is to destigmatize, then promoting the stereotype that sex workers are all femmes and taking their agency by infantilizing them, all as helpless victims is not removing a stigma, it's just changing it. We also need to get over the stigma on how, on people who buy sex work. Anyone who watches porn is in this category. We're not all predators, perverts or misogynists. We're not all men either. This is personal to me as a survivor of early childhood sexual abuse and trauma and as an autistic person. After I was victimized at age four, I became extremely wary of physical intimacy with any family or friends. I never learned the implicit languages of intimacy, languages that were difficult anyway with autism. Once I hit puberty and developed my own sexuality, it became terrifying to me. I'm always held back by the fear that I'm doing something wrong when I try to flirt or approach anyone I'm interested in. I've only bought sex work legally online so far in my life but it's a source of connection and relief. It allows me to overcome my trauma and heal just a little. Sex work is work but it's more than that. Sex work is healing work and social work. Even with these legal limitations, the confidence, comfort and support I've gotten from consensual sex workers in my community has been as helpful and overcoming CPTSD as any of the normative medical arts therapy I've received. It's past time we stopped criminalizing humanity, stopped criminalizing the efforts of hurt and disabled people to reclaim our humanity. Thank you for beginning this process to help Burlington do that. I'm pretty sure I'm out of time so I will submit the full statement via email. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Matthew Codsey to be followed by Jack Garza, Lauren Hirsch, Trisha Grant, Audrey Morrissey, Abby German, Savannah Sly, Michael Chivaly, Carl Martin, and Laurie Cohen. So I'm going to go to Matthew Codsey. Matthew, looks like you've enabled your microphone. Looks like you're interested in speaking to the charter change so you can choose to speak now or wait until the public hearing later on. Hello. Yes. Ready to go? Yep. So do you want to speak now on the charter change or would you like to wait until the public hearing? I'd like to speak now. Okay, go ahead. I'm Matthew Codsey. I'm 18 years old. I'm going to college next to your town very similar to Burlington and I'm deeply concerned about a city that openly allows for the commercial sexual exploitation of vulnerable women and girls. I identified a brothel only 500 feet from my house. Cars full of men were lined up in front of the brothel late into the night. The single woman there had to fend off against a drug man's harassment and she told me and I quote, it happens all the time. She wasn't safe there and there's no issue with teenagers going to the place and paying for whatever services were being offered. It's truly terrifying to think that a college town like Burlington can soon be the center of sex tourism. What the laws that you're proposing do is suggest that for a price women can be bought by men but buying sex does not mean buying the consent of these women. No one can buy consent. At the very best they'd be buying compliance and those are not the same. It's a disaster to imagine that thousands of college students are at risk of being exposed to a decriminalized sex trade and the best I can do is tell you all that full decriminalization is wrong. It endangers women. It gives men the idea that they can exploit women with no repercussions just because they can afford it and it sets a Burlington, a college town to be one of the biggest sex tourism locations in the country. That's wrong. That's all. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Jack Garza to be followed by Lauren Hirsch. Jack, I've enabled your microphone. Can you hear me? Yes. Awesome. I can wait to speak until they hear you. Okay. I will hold off on that. Okay. Next person, Lauren Hirsch. Lauren. Lauren, I've enabled your microphone. Lauren. Okay. I see that you are signed up for the charter change and are interested in, I mean, are interested in speaking to the charter change so I can try you again at that point. Then I have Trisha Grant to be followed by Audrey Morrissey. Trisha, I'm coming to you. Trisha, I've enabled your microphone. Thank you. I will also be waiting for the public hearing. Okay. Great. I will mark that for you. I come to Audrey Morrissey. Audrey, I've enabled your microphone. Can you hear me? Yes. And I see that you are interested in speaking to the charter change. Are you interested in speaking now or would you like to wait until the public hearing specific to the charter change? Well, I'm going to speak now because I'm just going to speak now. Okay. Yep. Go ahead. All right. Great. So my name is Audrey Morrissey. I work for organization, I'm a co-executive director of an organization in Massachusetts called My Life, My Choice, where we work with vulnerable adolescent youth who have been trafficked throughout New England. Some have been trafficked through Vermont. I'm here to say that one of the things that I know for sure, if Vermont were to do a full decrim on prostitution to fill the demand, I know that black and brown children will be sold at a very, very high rate. There is no way to have an adult sex industry where there are no children anywhere that there's an adult industry. There are always children. The other thing that I just want to acknowledge is that allowing privileged men to buy people of color is something that I am totally against. And even when we talk about adult women of color who don't have a choice, if we would illegalize pimping, it will be to fill the demand. There will be a sale of black and brown children and adults in numbers that we have never seen before. And so I just ask that black and brown people to think about that, to understand that black and brown people have already gone through enough and to allow to be blunt, privileged white males to be able to purchase them is a sad state of affairs. And so I just want to say that. And thank you for giving me some time to speak. Thank you. Our next speaker is actually I was able to locate who to locate Henry June. So Henry June, let me go back to you. So Henry June, I believe I've located you and wanted to check in. Are you interested in speaking to the Charter Change? All right, I'll put for that. Thank you. Appreciate that. Thanks. Okay. Following that, I have Savannah Sly. Savannah, I've enabled your microphone. Hi. I'd like to speak on the Charter Change in the formal public hearing if possible. Sure. I will put that down. Thank you. To Michael Chevelli. Michael, I've enabled your microphone. Yeah, I'd like to wait until the hearing, please. Sure. Okay, I will then go to Carl Martin. Carl, I've located you and have enabled your microphone. Thanks. Thank you, council members. My name is Carl Martin, and I live in our state capital, Montpelier. I feel obliged to attend tonight to urge you to oppose the general aviation resolution number 6.03, because any expansion of general any aviation will mean an increase in the carbon emissions that accelerate global heating. We know that we must quickly reduce such emissions and instead construct alternative economic systems based on the well-being of human communities in our complex ecosystems. This resolution was constructed without any serious engagement with environmental damage or with the immediate impacts on the Chamberlain neighborhood. The conversion of more green spaces there is just another symbol of the subordination of the needs of everyday people to the old model of economic, quote unquote, growth. Moreover, as has been mentioned already, it's my understanding that of the almost 1,000 acres controlled by the airport, there are roughly 22 acres available in an ideal location for infrastructure improvements for current general aviation tenants. Thank you. Thank you. The Laurie Cohen is our last person I have signed up to speak in the public forum on this issue is not indicated. They would like to speak in the Charter Change hearing later on. Laurie, I do see you're interested in the Charter Change item, so just want to. Yes, thank you. I will wait. Thank you very much. Okay, great. I can come back to you for that item. Okay, so that concludes our public forum for this evening. We do have, as I said before, a Charter Change hearing on the Charter Change regarding sex work. A number of you indicated that you are interested in waiting until that hearing, so we will come back to that item. If you are interested in speaking, or if you're interested in speaking on that item and are in the room, you can sign up using the forums in the corner. If you are interested in participating in that public hearing online or participating remotely and have not already signed up, and again, if not already signed up, then please go to erlingtonvt.gov slash public forum or slash city council slash public forum. So that's erlingtonvt.gov slash city council slash public forum to sign up there. But if you've already signed up for that, I already have you on the sheet, so no need to double sign up. In fact, it would make it more complicated for that for that sign up if you sign up more than once. So if you've already signed up for that public hearing, please do not do so again. But if you are still interested in speaking, please use that sign up forum to do so. Having completed that portion of our meeting, we'll now move into our agenda, which is which continues with item number four, the actually we have to pick up where we left off, which is the item having to do with the redistricting committee. So I will come back to that item. And we had a question from Councillor Jang on that item. And Tracy, and I will start by saying thank you to the members of the ad hoc committee for your work. I don't know if Maggie, your professor is still here. Is your professor still here? No. Okay. Then it seems Leah Turner is here. And my first question is about the concept of at large city councilors. Has it been floated? And why was it in part of the report? Councillor Jang, to whom are you addressing your question? To alternate turn him. Okay. Leah, you're on mute. It was there were a lot of things, Ali, that weren't addressed by the committee. Their time was always short. And they were supposed to be listening. We were supposed to be listening to the public input and then feeding what we heard back to you. It was never any attempt for consensus. There was very little deliberation. Okay. Yeah. And if I remember correctly, the resolution has not mentioned, and I'm talking in the perspective of like a process, you know, I think like Wellington City Council. My name is Laurie Cohen. I am the CEO of ACPAT USA, the first organization. Not sure what that was. I apologize. Councillor Jang, go ahead. And I'm not speaking about, you know, this is more of a comment and also question. And the comment is basically, I think the whole process was to make sure that we have a transparent process and also members that we identified to serve in this committee to also be very neutral, right? I did not remember anywhere on the resolution where we mentioned the word alternate. I wanted to understand where that came about. Why did you, why the committee created, decided to create alternate position and where did we have alternates in all words? The NPA steering committees decided to do, to have alternate positions. NPAs that were experienced with redistricting 10 years ago, give or take, know that we had representatives and alternates from each NPA. That some NPAs decided not to elect alternates this time. That's an internal NPA process. I mean, from my perspective, we have to follow what the resolution tasks the committee to do. And if there are changes to please notify the city council that certain thing is happening. I was in Africa, but when I was hearing about the alternate, I was really confused. But again, thank you for your work. That was it for me, President Reis. Okay. Thank you very much. Any other counselors with questions or comments? Okay. Seeing none. City Attorney Richardson, are you able to just clarify where the process goes from here? Sure. I'd be happy to. So essentially, the process at this point is in the council's court, how the council wishes to proceed is not necessarily defined by either statute or charter ordinance. What has to happen, I think, is it's sort of a reverse engineering question, which is that at the end of the day, the council has to come up with a redistricting plan that satisfies the constitutional requirements. And ultimately is something that a majority of the voters of the city will approve. And so what both City Planner Tuttle and CEDO Director Pine and myself would recommend is that at this point, the council should make plans and we as staff are here to support mapping proposals that start to identify the districts and incorporate some of the feedback. Well, the feedback that the ad hoc redistricting committee has compiled and created but it's ultimately a council driven process. And I don't know if I see Megan is on as well, so she may have something to add. Yeah, just a very brief addition. I think the next step in the council's resolution was that they would consider the feedback that this ad hoc committee shared with you and would provide their perspective on the priority issues that should drive the creation of those maps for your consideration. So that would be the very immediate next step for the staff to be able to help move forward with the next step in the process. Okay, great. Thank you to both of you for your work on the process as well as for that clarification. Appreciate that. So with that, we will move into our next item, which is the climate emergency reports. Does any councilor have a climate emergency report that they would like to offer? Okay, seeing none, we will go to item number three, which is the consent agenda. Is there a motion, Councillor Stromberg may please have a motion on the consent agenda? Yes, I move to adopt the consent agenda and take the actions indicated. We have a motion. Is there a second? Okay. Seconded by Councillor McGee. Any discussion? Okay, seeing none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of adopting the consent agenda, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That carries unanimously. Brings us into our deliberative agenda this evening. So for the deliberative agenda, we have an appointment up first. Mayor Weinberger, would you like to offer some remarks? Yes, President Tracy, thank you very much. I am very pleased to be bringing before you for our appointment tonight a candidate to be the city's next Chief Innovation Officer. And my appointee is Scott Parker, who has just joined with us on the Zoom screen. And we'd like to share a few remarks about Scott and then if that's okay, President Tracy to turn the floor over to Chief Scott. Scott's a long time Berlintonian and has lived with his family in the New North End for more than 25 years. He has extensive experience with a variety of Chittenden County organizations managing IT teams and providing organizational leadership. He did this notably at MyWeb Grocer as a senior leader there for a decade and most recently with the North Country Federal Credit Union. Also, Scott I think has really distinguished himself, shown himself to be very committed to the community even before joining the city team. He has had numerous volunteer roles in the city including as a softball coach at BHS and as a volunteer for COTS. This appointment is to fill the vacant Chief Innovation Officer position. I do just briefly want to remind the public and the council of the history of this position. This position has only existed since 2014 when we created it to have a senior leader who would develop a comprehensive IT vision for the city as well as to resource our efforts to become a city that is better at collecting and analyzing data and using that data to drive decision making and to coordinate continuous improvement efforts across the city. The still new CIO position has been critical in everything from the city's permit reform efforts several years ago that led to the most significant structural change in city government in decades as well as of course our Chief Innovation Officer Brian Lowe played a huge role in the huge innovations that were required to respond properly to the pandemic, to COVID-19 in a very uncertain time. I am very confident that Scott will be a leader like Brian and like Beth Anderson before him the two prior occupants that really dramatically expand the capacity of the senior management team at the city that continue our forward progress improving our IT practices which have improved dramatically since this position was created and I hope Scott will secure your strong endorsement tonight. Thank you President Tracy and I'd like to hand the zoom over to Scott for a couple additional remarks. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Thank you everyone on the council and President Tracy Mr. Mayor thank you. I appreciate the opportunity and the challenge before us and I'm anxious and eager to get started and work with you to and the mayor and his administration to address the needs of both city employees and citizens of Burlington so I'm excited to get going and thank you again for the opportunity Mr. Mayor and if you have any questions let me know. Excellent so I appreciate that so now we need a motion regarding the appointment. Is someone able to please offer a motion regarding the appointment? Yes I'll move to confirm the appointment of Scott Barker as the Chief Innovation Officer and I'd ask for the floor back after a second. So you don't actually need a second Councillor Barlow so go ahead. Okay well I served on the interview team for the CIO position and I can report that everyone on the team was excited about his candidacy after we interviewed Scott like as the mayor pointed out he's a long time Burlington resident and fellow New North Ender I might add involved community member and has a rich background of experience in area businesses including North Country Credit Union and my web brochure and I'm just really excited to support his confirmation and look forward to having Scott on the city administration team. Thank you very much. Are there any other comments or questions from councillors? Councillor Jenkins go ahead. Thank you President Bracey and welcome Mr. Scott. I mean there is an anecdote that I wanted to share with the public and also with the council about this this this amazing person in 2011 I don't know how old was he in 2011 but what he has done is to invite his birthday became actually a neighborhood birthday he's a people person he invited a band Africa Jamano I was managing that band back then and Scott brought drumming and dance to his birthday and where he saw us our band was at flint school where his child used to go. A couple years after that Scott was working or was a board member at Technology for Tomorrow I believe right and he trained all the parent university participants about using iPads technology and then when he was done he gave them each one iPad to bring home. This is an amazing guy and I know that he everything that he will do with the city he will look it into an equity lens. Scott I am very delighted and also he is a proud new north ended so new north end 05408 represent looking forward to work with you and my best to Becky and your child welcome but this is now my question you can you are coming from basically you know private and institutional now you're coming into government politics what do you envision would be like challenges for you? I think the I think the biggest challenge is just finding ways to do what we need to do within the constraints of a city budget I mean you know when you're in a private organization a private company you can flex budgets and you can do all kinds of things that's a lot tighter ship when it comes to public funding so there's a lot of things you have to do to understand what the costs are and reduce those costs while still increasing the efficiency. The nice thing is while I have not been directly working in a paid capacity for from a public perspective I have actually taught at Marlboro College tri-sector leadership so the idea of how do we work with for-profit non-profit and public organizations to come together to get job done so looking forward to putting some of the stuff that I was teaching students into into action. Thank you. Thank you. Great anyone any other comments or questions from counselors okay seeing none we'll go to a vote all those in favor of confirming Scott Barker as our next CIO for the city of Burlington please say aye. Hi. Hi. Any opposed? That carries unanimously please join me in congratulating Scott as our next CIO. Thank you. I look forward to it. Great welcome look forward to working with you as well Scott. All right that brings us to our next item which is the public hearing on the the charter change before we get into the hearing itself. City Attorney Richardson would you be able to just please offer a an explanation of the charter change itself just so that folks who are interested in commenting who might not be totally familiar with the language itself or just the issue are able to have that in mind. Certainly the charter change that has been proposed involves section 48 of the city's charter it's a straight repeal of the city's authority to regulate the term prostitution houses of ill fame and disorderly houses the language is actually to restrain and suppress houses of ill fame and disorderly houses and to punish common prostitutes and persons consorting there with. The charter change provision simply seeks to strike this provision which from a legal perspective would eliminate the city council and administration's ability to promulgate ordinances in the subject matter area. However as I've noted in prior hearings this would not affect the state statutes under Title 13 that do regulate and do criminalize the types of activities that we commonly either refer to as prostitution or sex work. Great thank you for that explanation. We will now move into the public hearing itself. So for the public hearing what if you are interested in speaking and are here in person you can sign up using the forms in the corner and if you've already done so I have those forms because you all have signed up there. You are interested in speaking and are participating with this meeting remotely you may sign up for the just to speak to the charter change again just this is just to speak to the charter change you may do so by going to burlingtonvt.gov slash city council slash public forum that's burlingtonvt.gov slash city council slash public forum and that will take you to a form that you can then sign up on. I'm going to go first to the folks who are here in the room and I will go to Sherri Lamarsh. Hi my name is Sherri Lamarsh and I am a first-time speaker. I was born and raised in Vermont have lived in Burlington the last 18 years and have 27 years in Burlington overall. I oppose sex work being decriminalized that you are proposing. Some may be opposed to what I have to say and call it fear mongering but I will call it big picture thinking and I've done it my whole life. This proposal may attract abusive predators. I am worried about sex workers presently and even more concerned about young adults who after decriminalization may feel incentivized to engage in sex work for fast money for college rent food etc. These young adults may not have the street smarts for a lack of a better word to pick up on red flags of abusive predators that many in the industry have an eye for or feel for. I'm also concerned about men and women in abusive relationships that are looking to get out but need money and believe there they found the answer in sex work. One problem heaven forbid their abuser catches them. Second problem as a survivor I fear the emotional and physical health of not just the act of sex but also the potential of sexual assault and the trauma that goes with it. And for these reasons I oppose it. Don't let this be another destructive decision we can't get out of. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker will be Michelle Moran to be followed by Caitlin Macias. I am Michelle Moran. I'm a 25-year resident of Ward 5 in Burlington. I am sincerely bewildered by the vote of the council to decriminalize prostitution in Burlington. Why are you removing from city ordinance all criminal language relating to prostitution? Why are you stripping law enforcement of the means to investigate prostitution cases to protect those who are victimized by it? Do you not believe that women, men, girls, and boys in Vermont are being victimized within the practice of prostitution? Do you not care about those who are being sex trafficked? This charter change would only serve to protect the pimps and johns. Do we really want to protect the Jeffrey Epstein's, the G. Lane Maxwell's, and the Robert Kraft's? Please reword the charter change to add wording that will make it possible to prosecute pimps and sex buyers. Just another comment. I find it really disconcerting that there's no city councilors in this room. We have no way of knowing if they're even listening. And I find it really disheartening. Thank you. Our next speaker is Caitlin Macias to be followed by Maggie Karen. Good evening. My name is Caitlin Macias and I'm here representing World Without Exploitation, the largest national anti-human trafficking coalition with 200 U. S. based organizations that work together to create a world free from human trafficking and sexual exploitation. We're guided by the survivors of the sex trade whose perspectives are critical in developing just and effective policies. I come to this work with a unique perspective. In addition to my work with World Wee, I'm a Latinx woman and a student at the Columbia School of Social Work. Sex work quote sex work is not social work. It's actually incredibly harmful. And I sit here in opposition of resolution and anticipated charger endorsing the full decriminalization of prostitution in the state of Vermont. This charter and the ideology it represents demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the realities of the sex trade and also minimizes the lived experience of survivors. It's actually incredibly thoughtless to implement a resolution and charter that encourages the sex industry to expand during a global pandemic. Prostitution and sex trafficking are actually inextricably linked and fueled by the demand for commercial sex. Violence is pervasive. Physical, psychological and abuse and harm is the norm. The best example of why New Hampshire, actually not New Hampshire, Vermont should not pass this bill or this incredible harmful charter is Rhode Island. Rhode Island fully decriminalized indoor prostitution for 29 years. As a result, the state became a regional sex tourism hub. Do you want Vermont to become a hub for sex tourism that will bring more crime, sex trafficking and violence to your area? Instead of fully decriminalizing the sex trade, we must take a holistic approach. WorldWe and our member organizations support the equality model that provides exit services and strategies instead of criminalizing those in the sex trade. We also support policies that enable people in the sex trade to report violence and other crimes they have experienced. We know that criminalizing those engaged in the sex trade who are victims of violence and exploitation is harmful and does nothing to prevent sex trafficking and exploitation. But we also know that making it easier and less risky for third-party exploiters like pimps and brothel owners to profit off of exploitation is not the answer. So please oppose the resolution of anticipated Charger endorsing full decriminalization of prostitution in Vermont. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Maggie Karen to be followed by Janet Metz. If you could please put your mask on. Excuse me. Can you please put your mask on? Good evening. My name is Maggie Karen and I'm speaking as Vermont Chair of New Englanders Against Sexual Exploitation. Over the past several months your council has heard from numerous experts on the topic of sex trafficking and prostitution. You have ignored everything that they have said. You have also heard from many victims and survivors of sex trafficking and prostitution. People who have lived through horrific experiences of being shot, being stabbed, being tortured, being beaten, being raped, and more. You stare blank faced with absolutely no emotion to the traumas that they have been through. And then you clearly make the choice to ignore their voices and their traumatic lived experiences as well. What an enormous insult that is to the pain that they have been through. You have heard from constituents of Burlington. You continue to ignore their pleas to protect their city from the guarantee of increased gangs, increased crime, increased victimization through increased sex trafficking, enforced prostitution. More unborn babies will die due to forced abortion and men, women, and children will suffer. Burlington, once a shining star in the state of Vermont with beautiful lakefront walks and charming church street will be reduced to a sex tourism capital of the nation in fact of the world while you continue to ignore your obligation to protect the public. It has become clear that you will ignore me too so I leave my words as a plea to the people of Burlington to stand against the assault these city counselors are taking against your city. Make sure your voices are heard, stand by your city, vote no on all efforts to decriminalize prostitution in Burlington. Thank you. Our next speaker is Janet Metz. Can you please put your mask on? Janet Metz to be followed by Rachel Foster. Good evening. For the record I am the chair of the Chittenden County Republican Party and the Vermont Republican Women's Coalition. My comments today however are solely my own. Others have delved deeply into the harm prostitution inflicts on women, young girls, and young boys. What I ask you to seriously consider is what impact it would have on this city. Rhode Island's experiment with decriminalization ended in 2009 when according to local law enforcement the extent of prostitution became almost pervasive. Beyond an explosion in salacious internet ads the number of massage parlors involved in prostitution in the city and elsewhere went from just a handful to more than 20 with some scattered in downtown a short walk from city hall. The preservation of Burlington as a vibrant economic social and cultural community is very personal to me. The memorial fountain and plaza at the intersection of Berlin Battery Streets is dedicated to my late father-in-law Burlington architect and chamber of commerce president Robert Metz. He participated in the renaissance of urban redevelopment in the city in the 60s and early 70s. He loved Burlington and would be appalled at the potential impact of decriminalization on citizens, visitors, schools, cultural institutions, and local businesses. Tourism is crucial to the city's economy. Do we really want to discourage families from visiting in favor of persons seeking to pay for sex? What impact will that have on patronization of the Flynn, Echo, the city shops, restaurants, and hotels? Do we want massage parlors and purveyors of sex toys dominating the landscape on Church Street? Our educational institutions are a major economic driver. We'll concern that naive and curious young people could be lured into the sex trade make parents think again about sending their children to UVM and Champlain. What will high school students encounter on the way to and from school? Burlington has enough problems now with crime and homelessness. The city's businesses have suffered due to the pandemic. Is now the time to embark on a risky social experiment that could have long-term negative consequences? I ask you to seriously consider this before advancing the charter change proposal to the March 1st ballot. Thank you. Thank you. Rachel Foster next. I'm Rachel Foster. I'm co-founder of World Without Exploitation, which is a national coalition made up of over 200 organizations that work to combat commercial sexual exploitation, including here in Burlington. This is the third time in three months that I've traveled from Burlington to Brooklyn, New York to testify against the removal in the city charter of prohibitions against the purchase of commercial sex and brothel operating. I've come here for a third time because these resolutions are so alarming. The archaic and offensive language in the charter could easily be replaced with more appropriate language while still maintaining prohibitions against sex buying and brothel operating. Yet the city council is choosing to remove these vital prohibitions altogether. This speaks volumes about the intention to ultimately decriminalize fully prostitution here in Burlington. WorldWeb believes that combating commercial sexual exploitation is essential to the larger fight for racial and gender justice. Survivor leaders have testified before the city council powerfully sharing their knowledge and expertise and they have felt dismissed. The council has fundamentally disregarded the severity of harms of prostitution, the systems of prostitution, and minimized the experiences of survivors who have spoken out, who each represent hundreds of others who cannot safely appear before you or who are not alive today to testify. It is immensely reckless to adopt a policy that encourages the sex trade to grow given the well documented and severe harms to those bought and sold in this multi-billion dollar predatory and brutal industry. I have spent thousands of hours over the past decade truly listening to and working alongside powerful sex trade survivors from across the country, including those trafficked here in Vermont. And I have yet to meet one person who was in prostitution truly by choice or with a sense of their own agency. These women and men refer to themselves as prostitution survivors, not former sex workers for a reason. We have repeatedly heard that it doesn't matter what Burlington does here because there are state laws against prostitution. But it is clear that those who support fully decriminalized and commercial sex trade are starting in local jurisdictions and working their way to state legislatures. This is an organized, well-funded effort. Let's be clear about that. We are seeing this happen all over the country in local jurisdictions. The job of the Burlington City Council is important here because Vermont will be the U.S. destination for men who want to purchase commercial sex without any personal risk. Bringing with them all the accompanying harms of a decriminalized sex trade. Prostitution and sex trafficking are not isolated to a particular locality. Survivors all over the country as well as in Vermont and the greater New England area object to full decriminalization of this dangerous, this brutal industry. They could not more forcefully raise the alarm bells than they have in their testimony before you. The central question before you is not as some have portrayed a binary one of decriminalizing prostituted people or not. But whether the demand side of prostitution should be decriminalized, that is brothel owning, third party facilitation, and sex buying. We believe there is an urgent need to end the arrest and incarceration of people who have been exploited in the sex trade and ensure that people in prostitution do not face criminal penalties, but instead are provided with exit strategies and services such as safe housing and access to health care. However, fully decriminalizing the industry leads to an increase in the demand for commercial sex and an increase in sex trafficking along with a slew of collateral crimes as seen in Nevada and Rhode Island. Your state will absolutely see an increase in sex trafficking and exploitation. Let's be very clear. Those who benefit by removing prohibitions against brothel owning, sex buying, and third party facilitation are those with the most amount of power and privilege. And those who are harmed are the most marginalized and vulnerable individuals in Burlington and those lured in or transported here to be exploited. In a fully decriminalized sex trade, prostituted individuals continue to face brutality, degradation, trauma, exploitation, and then it is also normalized by the government. Overwhelmingly, people enter the sex trade because of systemic vulnerabilities, including discrimination, history of childhood sexual abuse, being in foster care, poverty, homelessness, drug addiction, and mental health issues. Even when there is no third party exploiter, people end up in the sex trade as a means of survival. The dark truth of the sex trade belies the notion that prostitution will be safe and empowering when exploiters and profiteers are allowed to legally operate. The council is correct that people who are prostituted and exploited should not be criminalized but decriminalizing sex buyers and third party exploiters ignores the systems of prostitution's inherent harms and normalizes and legitimizes the abuse of those who are bought, sold, and exploited. Thank you. Thank you. All right. I've gotten through all the folks who are participating remote in person, so we're now going to transition to folks who are participating remotely who have signed up for the public hearing on the Charter Change. Again, we're just addressing the Charter Change. Many of you had indicated that you were interested in participating and speaking to this issue in the format of the Charter Change. So I'm going to go back to Patricia Myers and Patricia. I've enabled your microphone. Okay. Thank you. Can you hear me? Yes. Go ahead. Okay. Thank you. Okay. I'm Patricia Myers and I would like to address the item sex workers decriminalization of prostitution. And though I can't appreciate the effort of the City Council to provide help to women in general, I don't think that this is a way to address helping sex workers. There are currently many organizations in Vermont and New England, as we've just heard, that help women who are in the sex trade. And these organizations address the real issues to help women realize their potential as human beings made in the image of God. But this action to decriminalize prostitution does not address the real issue, whether the act is between consenting adults or not. Decriminalization, excuse me, decriminalizing prostitution only encourages exploitation of women, children, and men by those who profit from the sex trade. This commoditizes women, children, and men for the sake of those who profit from their exploitation. As we all know, even though prostitution is currently illegal, it already exists in Burlington. And taking away any consequences for the sex trade is not going to enable prostitutes to get the help that is needed. And here's something for the City Council and Mary to think about. The sex trafficking trade is actually more profitable than the drug trade because those who are exploited can be exploited over and over again, every day and over time. And additionally, because sex trafficking is so profitable, more parties are attracted to its high profit margin, including gangs, drug dealers, and, you know, other terrible illegal activity. Why would we open the door to and welcome this kind of activity in Burlington? Burlington and the State of Vermont would become a sexual tourism destination state. And for me as a Burlingtonian, this is really just something I'm not proud of. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker that I have signed up is Jim Sexton to be followed by Henry June. Jim, let me just locate you. Jim, I've enabled your microphone. Yes, sir. Can you hear me? Yes, go ahead. Thank you. I have been traveling all over the state for five years, fighting all kinds of issues, constitutional issues, pro-life, a whole bunch of things. What I noticed most of all when I start talking is the people I'm speaking with. And the first thing I would like to address is that I have no idea how Sarah Carpenter or Jane Strowman are going to vote, but I want to thank them both for paying attention. This screen shows other counselors who have absolutely no respect, no concern whatsoever about what's going on. I want to thank those two ladies in particular for paying attention. I don't know how you're going to vote and I really don't care. But you've been listening to us and I appreciate that because I've been to a whole lot of places where there's people that don't listen to us at all. So thank you for that, counselors. Now to my point. Since Sarah George has become the District Attorney for Chittenden County, crime has risen exponentially. Decriminalizing prostitution will increase the drug use in violent crime along with making numerous young women victims. The war on women seems to be fully supported by the potential change from this board. How is it that you continue to push for the destruction of young lives or any life by decriminalizing this? This is nonsensical. It's just why do you people on the board, why do you believe you need to change the law to decriminalize something so horrific and important? Do you have daughters? Do you have sisters and aunts? You know, how can there be such a gap in between morals where you decide that, you know what, it's okay for somebody from out of state to come to Burlington because now we've enabled them to have sex, to pay for sex, to destroy a young life as many people have already spoken to is being abused physically and mentally. There is not one iota of anything good in this bill. There is nothing that would make Burlington look any better. Crime has risen exponentially. Look at the shootings in Burlington. Look at the drug crimes in Burlington. Do you think that somehow making prostitution legal is going to diminish any of that? It's just nonsensical. You know, y'all have the opportunity to do something good for Burlington, the state, and yourselves. Blow this freaking thing out of the water, stop proceeding with it, and think about the children and the young adults who are going to be harmed by this. Along with every one of you, because the crime rates are going to increase, the drug crimes are going to increase, the motor vehicle crimes are going to increase, there is a one possible aspect of this that can improve Burlington, and I ask you please to stop it now. Thank you very much. Thank you. Our next speaker is Henry June to be followed by Jack Garza, and I'll read off a couple other names that have signed up. I have Lauren Hirsch, Trisha Grant, Abby German, Savannah Sly, Michael Chevelli, Laurie Cohen, Elizabeth Miller, David Mickenburg, and Selena Colburn. So Henry June, I'm going to come to you. Enabled your microphone. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, I can. Go ahead. Fantastic. I hope you all survived the recent Vermont cold spell well enough. My name is Henry June. I'm the co-director of the Itch Talk Collective, Montpelier-based anti-trafficking organization with an emphasis on sex worker rights. I'm also an active sex worker or a prostituted person, depending on who you're speaking to. So the kind of economic disaster that bites at the heels of this pandemic only highlights the common denominator when we talk about victimless crime. When I say victimless crime, I'm not speaking to sex trafficking, i.e. coercive relationships between pimps, landlords, lovers, drug dealers, even civilian bosses and professors. Instead, I'm talking specifically about the criminalized work that I do, educated, consensual sex work. I do what I do at the end of the day for the same reasons you go to your job. I have basic human needs that will only be met in an exchange of time and resources. When I hear conversations about exploitation, my mind goes further than the scope of sex work, as I hope yours will, too. In the United States presently, much of our agricultural goods are produced on the backs of undocumented laborers. Even in the state of Vermont, where we tout pridefully our locally produced kale, we scarcely offer protection, let alone livable wages. So beyond sensationalized portraits of labor exploitation like sex trafficking, I do gently want to remind us all that present day labor conditions look like a super spreader event due to systems not being in place to protect the working class during these times. People are forced to risk their health and safety just to pay their bills. Exploitation does not stop for silencing consensual sex work or by laughing up false, although popular narrative around our work. Striking the language in this charter is a long awaited first step in opening an intersectional conversation about what it means for us to carve out our space in the world with dignity. We can do better as a state, and I urge our officials to consider us consenting sex workers as allies in the anti-trafficking movement, because we are. We know factually that labor exploitation, sexual assault, and more heinous things than these exist beyond the scope of sex work, and are rooted in systemic injustices far greater than the conditions around erotic labor. Thank you once again for your unanimous support in striking down the oppressive language of punishing people like myself, and thank you for your audience tonight. Thank you. Our next speaker is Jack Garza to be followed by Lauren Hirsch. Give me a second to locate you. Jack, I've enabled your mic. All right, thank you. I'm speaking today alongside members of the ISTRAC collective, one of them you just heard speak, a Vermont-based advocacy and support organization for workers of the sex industry alongside survivors of human trafficking. The current charter language grants council power to indiscriminately criminalize any members of the public suspected of providing or soliciting sexual labor. This act utilizes outdated and dehumanizing language to do this. It demonizes sex workers rather than treating them as individuals bestowed with the same essential rights and protections as other laborers across Vermont industries. And this criminalization of voluntary sex work puts workers at risk when they are placed in harmful and coercive conditions. And criminalization also limits the ability of survivors of human trafficking to escape exploitative conditions and instead places them at risk of incarceration continued victimization rather than providing comprehensive support strategies. So people who can essentially engage in sex work, I believe and I feel like most reasonable people would believe this, should not be subject to the loss of liberty or property or bodily autonomy on the basis of their profession. And conflating voluntary sex work with trafficking and criminalizing this work does a disservice to both workers and traffic persons by limiting people's abilities to safely leave violent conditions without the threat of punishment. A variety of research and policy organization including Yale's global health justice partnership have reported that decriminalization is the single most important step toward promoting the health and safety of voluntary sex workers and traffic people alike. Organizations that support criminalization and use language of buying and selling of bodies quote and unquote do so at the sake of sex workers lived experiences and do not speak for those who are actively navigating the complexities of this type of labor. More so comprehensive social support programs not carceral punishment are the only things that will help people who have been trafficked. I hope that we can continue having productive discourse regarding decriminalization based on lived experience in fact and not fear mongering. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Lauren Hirsch to be followed by Trisha Grant. Lauren I'm going to enable your microphone one second. Okay. Mike should be enabled now. Can you hear me? Yes. Go ahead. Fantastic. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Lauren Hirsch and the national director of world without exploitation. By way of background I spent nearly a decade prosecuting gender based violence cases in New York City. As the chief of the sex trafficking unit I spent more nights than I can count pulling 12 year olds out of brothels and writing search warrants to get 15 year olds out of trap houses. During my time as a prosecutor I got an up close and personal look at the sex trade and I had a few key takeaways. The first prostitution and sex trafficking are not the same thing but they are inextricably intertwined where you have prostitution sex trafficking invariably flourishes. Second in places where people are being sold for sex there is almost always collateral crime organized crime robbery burglary and gun violence and finally sure as you heard from the previous speaker there are a small number of people who voluntarily enter the sex trade but for the vast majority they aren't there by choice but they're there because of force coercion lack of options and other significant vulnerabilities and that is what is at stake here and that is why every one of our partners objects to a full revocation of this charter. To be really clear with you we agree that your charter language is antiquated and in need of change but simply striking this language without replacement language is not just misguided policy it will cause on the ground harm in Burlington and the surrounding areas. Week after week I've listened to these hearings we know the arguments being pushed it doesn't matter what happens in Burlington because there are state prostitution laws that come into play and yes there are state prostitution laws that come into play but here's why it matters in Burlington. You are sending a clear signal to law enforcement that the crimes of pimping sex buying and brothel owning aren't worth enforcing and you're sending a clear signal to survivors some of whom that you've heard from that they matter less than allowing for a booming citywide sex trade. Finally I could not sleep tonight if I didn't share the larger context of all of this. Burlington is just one part of a methodical effort to decriminalize the sex trade in its entirety around the country. Many of these efforts are being bankrolled by wealthy men who are admittedly sex buyers and they're going into jurisdictions they're connecting with local partners and they're paying them. These men have a vested interest in making the sex trade legal they aren't looking to protect people. I'd like to end with a quick story when decriminalized was being proposed in Washington DC a black sex trade survivor walked into the office of a city council member she said I'm opposed to full decriminalization but you know who supports it my pimp that is what he wants and so I urge you tonight to consider all of these things to decriminalize those sold in the sex trade that's what we want we want to make sure that those in the sold sex trade are decriminalized and given the exit strategies and services that they need but we urge you to continue to hold accountable those who exploit in your state and in your city thanks so much. Thank you our next speaker is Trisha Grant to be followed by Abby German Trisha I've enabled your microphone. Hey there everybody can you hear me? Yes go ahead. All right awesome I am a survivor of commercial sexual exploitation of children and I'm just grateful for the opportunity to share once again with you guys. It was very disheartening the last time that I was able to share and just knowing that there was seemingly already a decision made about this bill that was going to be pushed through regardless of how many survivors shared their stories shared their pain shared their experiences with you that was very disheartening as a survivor. You know being in silence for 16 years already and then having spent the past 10 years with the privilege of walking alongside hundreds of survivors and advocates. It was just very disheartening so several of those survivors that I stated that I've been able to walk alongside receive services by me via mentoring and just being being somebody there to listen and hear them and hear their stories and the advocates that I was able to put them in contact with because they needed so many services to continue on their journey of healing after experiencing being exploited trafficked and prostituted in Vermont. It's just crazy to me that that we're even having to have this conversation again but I'm going to assure you of two things. As Lauren stated fire to me speaking you can't separate these things these things cannot be separated. People who are being trafficked and exploited sorry people are trafficked and exploited into prostitution. One requires the other. The second point that I really want to get across is all of them are violent. I would say violence is inherent in the sex trade. Law enforcement and the legal system should retain its ability to act against the harm and violent perpetrated against people being exploited and yes I am using that term exploited because as I stated you can't separate them you just cannot. I'll explain that a little further but I do believe strongly that Burlington is making a mistake to pretend this violence will not hurt your citizens mainly vulnerable women and children. I know because I was one I was trafficked in Vermont. The worst level of violence that I ever experienced happened to me in Vermont. Just the thought of having to come back to Vermont to testify this evening has caused me to need extra extra support throughout my day today from my team of people that I have to have beside me walking alongside me. I have been removed from my trafficking for 26 years and the long-term impact still affects me today. Please don't tell me it's not violent. Legalizing prostitution has never been an effective strategy to keep people safe because there is absolutely no way to know who is there by choice and who isn't and how old a person is. I was 15 years old when I was being trafficked I can assure you not one person who paid for me asked me how old I was or if I wanted to be there not one of them. It took me 16 years to learn that there was a name for what happened to me and that it wasn't my fault. Please do not let other people be forced to live in silence and suffer as I have. I'll just end by stating I would be willing to have any conversation with anybody and just share my personal experiences and also to share my experience of walking alongside other survivors. Thank you for taking the time to listen to us this evening. Thank you our next speaker is Abby German to be followed by Savannah Sly. Abby I have enabled your microphone. Thank you my name is Abby German my pronouns are they them I am not a woman I am a resident of Ward 2 and I'm here tonight to voice my support for the Charter Change on sex work. First of all in response to the fear mongering that has been rampant surrounding the Charter Change I want to reiterate the differences between sex work and sex trafficking. Sex work should not be confused with sex trafficking when a person takes part in the sale of sex through threat, abduction or other means of coercion. Any commercial sexual activity with a minor even without force, fraud or coercion is also considered trafficking. Conflating consensual sex work to sex trafficking is dangerous and furthermore disrespect and disempowers the experiences of both survivors and workers. The City Charter needs to change not only because the language is sexist and archaic but also because criminalizing sex work between consenting adults is in direct conflict with the human right to personal autonomy and privacy. According to Human Rights Watch in a report published in 2020 they have consistently found in research across various countries that in criminalized contexts sex workers are more vulnerable to violence including rape, assault and murder by attackers who see sex workers as easy targets because they are stigmatized and unlikely to receive help from the police. Criminalization may also force sex workers to force to work in unsafe locations to avoid the police and undermine sex workers ability to seek justice for crimes committed against them. Furthermore, due to Burlington police's limited time and resources prosecuting sex work is both illogical and irresponsible. These charter changes should pass. This charter change should pass to create a community in Burlington where sex workers are protected legally. Their work is de-stigmatized, seen as legitimate and respected by the public and their civil liberties are upheld. Finally, if we want to meaningfully address and eradicate violence and crime, we need to radically shift society from extractive white supremacist patriarchal capitalism to a society where folks feeds are centered and met. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Our next speaker is Savannah Sly to be followed by Michael Chevelli. Savannah, I have enabled your microphone. Great. Thank you so much. Good evening. My name is Savannah Sly and I'm calling in today from Orange County, Vermont to support the sex worker charter change. I'm not receiving any payment to testify today. I'm here as a grassroots impacted advocate. I have engaged in prostitution as a sex worker since 2004 and have worked frequently in Burlington. I'm the former board chair of the sex worker outreach project USA and have spoken personally with hundreds if not thousands of sex workers across the country who desire full decriminalization. I grew up near White River Junction, Vermont and I voluntarily started sex work shortly after graduating high school. I've had many jobs over the years, but I've always engaged in sex work either as my main occupation or to supplement my income. Via sex work, I've paid off my student loans, had flexibility to be a caretaker for friends or family, and I've even achieved the dream of becoming a homeowner. Sex work has given me a lot. I don't want to exit sex work. I also don't want to be arrested for it. As a sex worker, I've had to navigate some hazards. Because my work is criminalized, I've been targeted by predators intent on harming and blackmailing me. Predators target sex workers because they know that we can't call 911 without fear of arrest. They know that we're socially and physically isolated due to stigma and discrimination. My clients are also criminalized, which makes negotiating services and getting important background information for my safety a challenge. I've had clients who have been witnesses of crimes in the sex trade and they've been unable to report those crimes for fear that they would also be arrested. Things don't need to be this way. Decriminalizing sex work would enable people like me to access emergency services and legal recourse while existing crimes like sex trafficking, child abuse, assault, and rape would rightly remain punishable offenses. Sex work decriminalization is supported by Amnesty International, the ACLU, the World Health Organization, UN AIDS, and other human rights welfare organizations. This charter change is a step forward in enabling people in the sex trade to reach out for help when we want and need it. Thank you so much for listening to sex workers and taking our concerns seriously. Thank you. Our next speaker is Michael Chevelli to be followed by Laurie Cohen. Michael, I've enabled your microphone. Hi. Thanks for allowing me to be a minister to speak. I'm Michael Chevelli. I'm with the National Center on Sexual Exploitation. I'm a 35-year career researcher and I've been through the research that has been spoken about. So far, I've spent years looking through the public health research on the impact of different forms of legal frameworks for prostitution or commercial sex. And some things are very, very clear from the balance of the research. And a caveat to any discussion of research is that there is so much of it, you can go into the body of research and pull out anything you want. I can pull out 100 studies that make it crystal clear that decriminalization is beneficial and I can pull out 100 that say it is harmful. So the only way to work through it is to be fair-minded and look at the balance of the evidence. And the balance of the evidence is extraordinarily clear and you do not realize all of the promised benefits of the proponents of decriminalization. It just doesn't happen. You can cite a number of organizations that say they endorse it and there are a lot of assertions about the benefits. But where have they ever happened? And it's very clear looking at experience, not speculation, not studies, not what would happen. It has happened. There have been experiments in relaxing prohibitions. There's only one country that's fully decriminalized sex work and it's New Zealand. And if you want to compare any other country to New Zealand, be my guest. But if you think you can isolate the impact of that legislation and say that there are benefits, it's pretty absurd. One thing that's very clear from New Zealand is under full decriminalization. Police are absolutely unable to identify victims of sex trafficking, adults or children. They just can't because they don't have the probable cause to even start an investigation. Most discovery of survivors or children that are being trafficked start with first seeing prostitution and having the means to ask questions, to take someone in and fingerprint them, to get them away from a pimp to find out whether they're there by their own free will or they're being coerced. Things like that. You can't even start those processes if you've fully decriminalized prostitution. There have been tolerance zones which are de facto decriminalization. The law hasn't changed but the police and prosecutors have said, we're not going to prosecute it. We don't have to speculate about what can happen because it's been tried and it's been a disaster every single time. Look at Boston. They did that in the 1980s and the place quickly became the most dangerous neighborhood in the state of Massachusetts. It became known as the combat zone. Right now it's happening in different suburbs of London and exactly the same story plays out. Legalization isn't any better. You could possibly get minor benefits in like one to five percent of the market and the rest of the market gets worse. It's happened in Nevada. It's happened in the states of Australia. It's happened in Amsterdam. It's happened in Germany that it just simply unleashes the free market. The vast majority of the market remains illegal and it gets more dangerous for people. So the other thing I just want to leave one comment. Several people have said across these meetings about the charter change and the related ordinances that it's really meant to just clean up archaic language and that you can't supersede the state law. In practice it's actually false. Technically I guess it's true but the thing is the police in Burlington have already absorbed the message from these proceedings. The prostitution has been decriminalized. I'm currently doing a survey of law enforcement for the U.S. Department of Justice and a respondent from the Burlington Police Department said we were asking questions about the demand-focused tactics and the police officer said well we used to do several of these things. We used to make a rest. We used to do different things but since prostitution in Burlington was decriminalized in 2021 we don't do any of those things anymore. So you can't claim that it's inconsequential in practice as long as we have the state law. I mean you've also said many of the council members have said over time that they fully support full decriminalization and really what's happening in practice is this local ordinance change is just a stepping stone to show support for a move at the state level. And we can speculate about what will happen but there's been plenty of actual experiences with it and it's never ever worked the way the proponents have set up would. Thank you. Our next speaker is Laurie Cohen to be followed by Elizabeth Miller. Laurie I've enabled your microphone. Thank you very much members of the Burlington City Council. My name is Laurie Cohen. I am the CEO of Ekpat USA the nation's first organization to focus on preventing the commercial sexual exploitation of children and a member of the Ekpat International Child Protection Network active in over 100 countries. We work closely in partnership with members of our survivors council. Ekpat USA strongly opposes the recent vote by the city council that advanced a change to the city charter to decriminalize patronizing and brothel keeping as it will facilitate the increased trafficking of children. Decriminalization of the entire sex industry will expand the market for sex buyers with traffickers stepping up recruitment of children particularly LGBTQ children, black and brown children, runaway and homeless children, children in foster care and children suffering from prior sexual abuse to meet the demand. Children who are survivors of abuse and commercial sexual exploitation experience consequences to their health and well-being that are long-term and devastating. Victims often have many hospital visits during the duration of their abuse. Chronic cognitive problems can include PTSD and other mood disorders such as dissociation, depression, substance abuse, anxiety, attachment problems, self-harm and suicidal ideation. Exploited children learn that their main value is the dollar amount that their traffickers can earn by selling them to buyers. As you know and as you have heard tonight under federal and state law any time a child under the age of 18 is bought or sold for sexual purposes it is child sex trafficking. The proposed city charter changes will effectively hand those who are fueling this brutal inherently violent industry a get-out-of-jail-free card. They will be able to use and profit off young bodies with no fear of being held responsible for their actions. As Mr. Shively just mentioned and as we have seen with our partners in the ECPAT international network where other countries have legalized or passed full decriminalization of sex buying the resulting industry is not the safe and supportive one the Burlington City Council imagines. As Mr. Shively mentioned New Zealand we have seen following decriminalization of the sex trade in 2003 the U.S. trafficking in persons report identified that country as a destination for human trafficking especially child sexual exploitation and research has found that the average age in that country in which an individual is first exploited has decreased. In the Netherlands the number of children in the sex trade increased by 300% between 1996 and 2001 and in Australia the exploitation of children in the sex trade has increased dramatically where prostitution has been legalized or decriminalized compared to areas where it has not. Instead of a model of full decriminalization I urge you to consider the alternatives that have been discussed this evening including partial decriminalization allowing people in the commercial sex trade to come forward and seek support as needed but addressing demand by holding the trafficker and significantly the buyer accountable. ECPAT USA calls on you to help create a safe and supportive city for all our children and youth and focus on real solutions for protecting children from commercial sexual exploitation. I urge the citizens of Burlington to reject this proposed charter amendment. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Elizabeth Miller to be followed by David Mickenburg. Elizabeth I've enabled your microphone. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. I so admired and and believe in the things that Michael Shively expressed earlier and I would like to just point out the obvious fact that the vast majority of the people that you've heard from tonight are bright educated women who have dedicated thousands of hours to this issue and are passionately against legalizing the sex trade. The facts are against the sex trade only a thin wall of isolated personal experiences and opinions stand for it. Now I am not as well versed as these professionals however I have had the privilege of traveling some as a young woman and I have walked the streets of the red light district in Amsterdam. I have walked the streets of Las Vegas at night with the sidewalks littered with brochures for sexual companions. I have lived in New York City with the strip clubs down the street and the carefully worded ads for prostitution in hotel bedside doors. I'm going to tell you that these places are dark and they're scary and they're high in crime and they're typically full full obviously full to those who live there of drug abuse and restless violent men. I'd like to ask the council tonight what kind of a city do you want Burlington to be in the future? I live in Shelvern I have two little boys my husband and I frequent Burlington all the time especially in the summer we love Burlington but if you allow this sex trade to proliferate to spread through Burlington and it will it will explode we don't want to be there we don't want to do business there we don't want to socialize there it will become a dark and violent place and and dangerous for women especially and children. This is not a good idea to to change the language to strike out this language I ask you I beg Burlington I beg you as a council do not legalize sex traffic the sex industry nothing good will come of it thank you thank you our next speaker is David Mickenburg to be followed by Selena Colburn David I've enabled your microphone thank you and good evening my name is David Mickenburg I grew up in Burlington I'm a practicing attorney and I'm raising my two daughters here I'd like to support the city council's unanimous support for putting the sex work charter change on the ballot I would also like to take a few moments to clarify some of the many misstatements that have been made tonight about this charter change and sex work generally first the charter change will not legalize or decriminalize sex work in Burlington if passed by the voters sex work would remain illegal in Burlington under state law second I'd like to mention that for the vast majority of individuals involved in selling and buying sex they are consenting adults for many sex workers the decisions to pursue this work are varied instead of demonizing these choices we should be making them as safe as possible which arrest and prosecution does not facilitate next while many people believe that consensual sex work is inherently exploitative and dangerous and therefore should be eradicated that's simply not supported by the evidence in fact it is prohibition that forces people into the shadows where they are more vulnerable to trafficking and danger consensual adult sex workers are also put in danger my by misguided laws intended to combat trafficking when lawmakers conflate human trafficking with consensual adult sex work consenting adults are arrested and prosecuted the ability to work safely as hindered victims face barriers to services and exploitation proliferates in the illicit market unambiguous data from countries which have implemented a prohibition model show a clear correlation between laws that criminalize clients and an increase in violence sexually transmitted infections and exploitation within the sex trade on the issue of what happened in Rila island I'd just like to mention that when in fact sex work in rural island was decriminalized the harms to those involved were reduced a 2017 journal article by Scott Cunningham and Manisha Shaw published in the review of economic studies found that that the judicial decriminalization of indoor prostitution caused a 30% decline in reported female rape offenses and a 40% reduction in female gonorrhea incidents during the six years that prostitution was not illegal and finally it is not true that the pub that the public and anti trafficking groups are uniformly supported of the prohibition model of sex work in fact freedom network this country our country's largest coalition working to ensure that trafficking persons have access to justice safety and opportunity and opportunity recently stated that in order to prevent trafficking in the sex trade consensual adult sex work must be fully decriminalized thank you for taking so much time on this important issue and we appreciate city council's unanimous support for putting this charter change in front of the voters of Burlington thank you thank you our next speaker is Selena Colburn Selena I've enabled your microphone hey um my name is Selena Colburn I'm a Burlington resident a state representative and a former city counselor and I support the full decriminalization of consensual sex work as I've shared many times with this body for reasons of public health and safety as well as civil liberties I want to really commend you for giving voters the opportunity to repeal the outdated offensive language in Burlington's charter regarding sex work doing so will not change the landscape of state law which still applies but it will allow us to remove this questionable language from the city's books Burlington is one of the few Vermont municipalities with its own prohibition on sex work without this repeal Burlington will be stuck with broad language that appears to encourage perhaps even mandate over enforcement and discrimination that extends far beyond the state's policies I agree that meeting the needs of trafficking survivors is critical and as I've done before I'd be happy to share in-depth information with the council on the state's most recent efforts to support survivors by strengthening laws and adding resources laws prohibiting trafficking and non-consensual sex work will remain in effect regardless of the repeal of this charter as well as protecting children thank you thank you my final speaker that I have set signed up is Sonia Osorio Sonia I'm not able to locate you Sonia Osorio I don't see you okay not seeing Sonia I will go ahead and close the forum for this evening and we I'll go to city attorney Richardson are you able to just clarify what the next steps on this charter change process are city attorney Richardson sure at this point the the second hearing's been held the city council has already voted to approve it if the city council chooses to amend the action it can otherwise it should vote to send this charter change onto the ballot for the voters as written okay and does that need to take place this evening or at a future meeting no it needs to take place tonight because the ballots have to be finalized tonight or the language has to be finalized by the end of the meeting okay so to that end to that effect you we would need a motion from the council that's correct okay great thank you for that clarification attorney Richardson is there a is a council are prepared to make that motion this evening council Freeman you know president Tracy um I can move that I would um ask for just uh sort of I'm sorry I didn't I didn't I thought that it would be at the next meeting I apologize I had the timeline wrong um but I suppose if the is the motion just to move to uh place the language uh as as I'm not sure I can I can offer it you know short of anyone choosing to make an amendment um the motion would be to um uh direct the city clerk to place the charter change amendment as previously passed by the city council onto the ballot okay I moved to direct the city clerk to place the charter language as previously written to um or posed um onto the onto the ballot okay we have a motion from council Freeman is there a second second seconded by councilor hightower council Freeman did you want the floor back uh I sorry I didn't I thought it would be at our next meeting I think I was maybe I apologize but um I don't really need the floor back other than that I think there was a lot of incredible testimony tonight um in in favor of this um especially um you know I'm it's really wonderful to hear come out and support of it um you know and as I said before I'm I'm thankful to anyone who speaks to um their experience on this um as many have said um there is um you know ample reason to um to change the language uh you know other than the the public health implications um I think that the fact that the um the language is antiquated um that the the state will hold the responsibility um to um you know sort of move forward on this um is the right move and uh yeah I I really appreciate it thank you thank you council Freeman council Shannon thank you president Tracy um I want to say that I have been fully supportive of this action the the language that we're striking is um arcane it's unused we rely on our state law to prosecute um sex crimes and sex trafficking but I am feeling increasingly uncomfortable tonight listening to both sides of this argument that have persistently and consistently told us that this is the first step into the criminalizing um sex work and I do not support that I respect that um some people do I think around the table some people do and some people don't but the thing that we all agreed on is that this language is arcane and unneeded to um to protect people from sex trafficking but tonight we have had both sides telling us this is the first step in decriminalization which I'm not comfortable with and we have had experts from far outside Burlington who have come to the trouble of going to an empty room to tell us how dire this situation is if we take this action and they're people with professional expertise far beyond mine and I believe far beyond anybody at this table and they're telling us we understand that there is state law that will take effect that this that prosecution isn't reliant on this language but at the same time this is the first step towards decriminalization and that it can be this can have detrimental effects for victims of sex trafficking it also sounds like both sides are creating a misperception of what the action that we're taking is and that we may be attracting sex trafficking to Burlington because of this misperception being perpetrated on both sides so I am increasingly uncomfortable and I'd like to hear from my fellow counselors attorney Richardson I sent you an email I don't know whether or not you saw it asking if there is alternative language I don't really think that Burlington needs to go on its own to create sex sex trafficking regulation beyond what the state does but perhaps we could put something in the charter aligned with what the state is doing to remove arcane language that is agreeably it is impossible to defend the existing language and I'd like to hear how my fellow counselors have received the public testimony that we heard tonight are you seeking response counselor Shannon from city attorney Richardson well I don't know if he if he has anything yet he hasn't had a lot of time to work on it and I'm interested to hear from other counsel I thought I'd give him more time to work on drafting something and interested to hear from my fellow counselors if you know if other people are feeling as I am or this is a waste of our time because people are decided on this issue but the testimony tonight has really affected me changed my mind I've been defending this all day to people um but my concern has become elevated okay so I don't think you're seeking a a um answer from city attorney Richardson so I'll go to counselor high tower to be followed by counselor Barlow great um thank you president Tracy um there was a lot of hurtful testimony and I certainly won't minimize anyone's experience or the evidence that they found um I think a lot of people I've expressed a significant fear of what happens in Burlington if this language is removed and I still mostly believe that very little if anything will change I think that this is first and foremost about removing our cake language which as counsel Shannon just noted we all agree needs to be done and is the first step and then I think the other thing that I want to point to which we actually haven't heard about at all is well I guess for alternative language we have heard from house representative that they are working on it at the state level and I do suggest that this be done at the state and national level um and what we haven't talked about today is that most language on the books but any kind of whether it's sex work or pornography or anything that is sex related tends to be um either made to criminalize the most marginalized or is then in courts used to criminalize the most marginalized and that's not just true local law that's true in state law national law that's true across our borders and other countries even if the intention isn't always to criminalize the most marginalized is you don't always get to choose how a law is used after it's implemented our own ordinance is an excellent example of a new law that is meant to regulate sex in some way that is first and foremost targeted not the folks that it should be targeted at and then again in you know after it goes through any kind of process and who you know how it's chose to be enacted and how it's chose to be enforced I think the evidence definitely shows that when we try to regulate sex that it tends to harm the people who are most marginalized and so I will be supporting this not because I think it does a lot but I think it's one of those archaic ways that we have across the country um of trying to marginalize folks further anytime it has something to do with sex and so I think that this is one of the many many sex laws across the country that needs to be removed thank you councilor hightower I have councilor barlow did you take for you councilor barlow to be followed by councilor mason thank you uh president tracy I had um listening to testimony at tonight's public hearing and also prior public hearings and meetings I've had with um um advocates for uh for decriminalization of the sex trade I I sort of feel the same way and I think councilor uh Shannon said it more particularly than I'm saying it right now but you know I would I would I think we have to strike the language that we have said we wanted to strike in both ordinance and in charter but um I'm wondering if we could put a placeholder in the charter so we could maybe have a more expansive conversation on this so the the I understand that if we remove it from charter we give up our ability to to say anything whether or not we're putting in ordinances to protect victims or or anything about um sex work so if we had a placeholder in in the charter that was essentially I think um attorney Richardson is called an enabling language that would still maintain our ability to have some sort of local setting um and not give that up completely I could I could be supportive of that are you seeking an answer mark councilor barlow I guess I guess I guess I'm asking um attorney Richardson if it were possible to have language that would enable and maintain our ability to have some be able to enact ordinance um without having any ordinance enacted about it right now if that's clear attorney Richardson sure I'm happy to respond um certainly there's a couple of different ways in which the council can proceed um if under that direction um one way would be to essentially halt the charter change process and um go back to a proverbial drawing board and do a strike and replace um with other types of of language so that instead of simply repealing the or the charter provisions um you would you would strike it and then replace it with language that might be more in line with title 13 um the other direction to go would be to continue um the direction that the council has voted to go and pass this charter change and if the charter change um was approved by the voters of earlington and then the legislature then um and frankly any time the council could take up a proposal to draft alternate language in its place because this subsection of section 48 will essentially say repealed until you put new language in at once the legislature does that um I mean those are the two primary avenues to go down um what I would say is that you know the term prostitution is defined in title 13 and then uh it has a series of statutes outlining certain behaviors and activities that have been criminalized under that statute um it's not usually good practice to simply say you know to refer to state statutes in in the charter as we want the same power as this statute um uh simply because some of those statutes do change um and it would be you're you're looking I think to define it a little bit more more broadly I can certainly come up with enabling language to the effect um of that um but those are really your two primary options you could say where thought you know and and I guess maybe there's a third that I outlined uh to councilor Shannon which is you know if one of the concerns that the city council has is that um the repeal of the city charter is perhaps sending a signal beyond what the council is particularly comfortable sending um certainly as far as the enforcement priorities that becomes an administration issue and that's certainly something that council can certainly resolve to direct or recommend that the police continue to enforce the prostitution and lewdness statutes under title 13 so that's another option altogether but you probably want a fairly broad enabling language if you're going to take that step of going forward to continue to um have a footprint in this particular area those are my recommendations thank you richards and you have the floor council barlow thank you I'm good okay I had councilor mason to be followed by council carpenter thank you president tracy um I want to thank councilor shannon for raising our hand and starting this conversation my perception of what's going on is you have we have heard from two diametrically opposed positions and each side is trying to spin an action of this council to support their position I I appreciate in addition to the um options that that city attorney has put forward I think using this public forum to articulate where we're coming from is yet another option I would agree with councilor shannon that I am I am concerned with the language that was in I mean just for the public's benefit to read it the language that's there that is being stricken um makes it a crime to restrain and suppress houses of ill fame and disorderly houses and to punish common prostitutes and persons consorting therewith um we heard you know through through this process that the city has not relied upon that or brought an enforcement action under that in years or at least as far back as anyone could remember we also learned during this process that state statute continues to exist and that was the mechanism by which the police were dealing with trafficking and prostitution I've heard nothing tonight that that leads me to believe that you know we have that language I don't think we can come up on the fly with better language I think we should continue to lie in state statute I would also support moving forward with this charter change process rather than at the 11th hour to try and rejigger it um but with the message that my at least my vote I don't speak for anyone else is not sending a message that I support to re decriminalization at a state level and I'm I'm prepared to rely upon that and advocate for that if this does move forward thank you thank you councilor mason and council carpenter thanks um I just wanted to clarify a couple of things um it's my understanding that this journey version of them the most communities do not have legislation like that is that accurate that is correct I can actually give you a little bit more um information about that just simply um researching this question there's approximately in my review of city charters there are seven municipalities that have either prostitution or prostitute language in their charters for the regulation or in this case may be suppression there the three of them are villages one is one is a town and three are cities and that includes the city of burlington uh there are two other municipalities that have um charter provisions regarding houses of ill fame but do not use the word prostitution in their charter um and then there are approximately uh seven more municipalities all villages that have language that refers to disorderly and gambling house but do not reference prostitution so trying to capture sort of a broad circle I can characterize um the municipalities that have this are there's only three cities burlington ruttland and newport sorry four burlington ruttland newport and virgins always um then there's only one town which is the town of chester and then there's a series of villages now I don't have enough information to really speculate as to why it's mostly villages that have it I think the likely reasons may be that this language and and I should say all the language seems to be of the same quality um and the same sort of origin so I suspect it probably dates to a similar time period so it may be early 20th century when a lot of these independent or late 19th century when a lot of these villages were formed and they may have included that language sort of as boilerplate as part of it now it may also be because as a village they were dealing with more urban problems than a more rural town that might not have the same sort of issues with either houses of ill fame as they were referred to or prostitution so there's only about 16 municipalities as I said mostly villages four cities and out of those four cities only three of them ruttland newport and burlington actually use the word prostitution or prostitute the rest the city of virgins just simply refers to houses of ill repute um or ill fame I'm sorry um and so in that respect this is fairly limited when you think about there's over 153 I mean just towns alone in in vermont um not not counting villages in in them as well so this this represents you know roughly less than 10 percent of all municipalities I'd see even goes low if I think well I was on math major so I won't go any lower but um it is a fairly limited it seems to all date from a certain period of time because the language follows from or charter to charter so this isn't burlington it's not the only municipality that had this type of language but most of them I mean most of the municipalities in vermont do not have this language now some of them may regulate by ordinances and I'll use Montpelier as an example Montpelier has an ordinance against prostitution but it refers to a section of their charter that no longer exists so arguably Montpelier has about as much legal authority to regulate prostitution as it does to regulate burlington which is to say not much but you know nevertheless it is on the books and I suspect there may be other municipalities with ordinances on the books but as far as charters go there's only there's only those seven municipalities that actually even have the word prostitution in their charter thank you that that is what I understood and I guess has pointed the fact that prostitution for example hasn't become a boom business in colchester and south burlington in Essex just sort of generally speaking I think we are better off tackling the serious issues of human trafficking on a state level and we need to be cohesive I was very moved by a lot of the testimony so we need to think how we do that better but removing this provision does not seem contrary to our desire to really deal with human trafficking nor does it seem like it promotes prostitution since really most of the rest of the state it's already legal or not it's not legal under state law but there's nothing in the town prohibiting it thank you thank you councillor carpenter I will go to you councillor I I have councillor jang thank you president pracey and thank you councillor preman for all this conversation that we have started here but from my perspective this is the most compelling it's a um listening session that I have ever had assisted as part of each other but not going to the to the voters and to tell you the truth I I I am no longer you know comfortable in one point because advances advances tonight here right here right now um that's exactly where I am and I from the perspective that Burlington is the biggest city in the state of Vermont and also we know there are a lot of other elements associated to prostitution you know I we heard arguments about you know drug dealing we heard arguments about you know all types of crimes and we don't want the city to become a hub about you know prostitution and right now city attorney Richardson I was just wondering you know since we are here it doesn't seem we have any amendments to amend this language and was just wondering what are our options in basically putting a break into it at this point is there any path forward that we can pose this send it back to the committee what what will be said yes or no sure I mean if you wanted to send this back to the if you wanted to not send it on to the voters that this is what this meeting is is for and the way charter change provisions work when you take public testimony if you as a council decide to um you can you could vote to you know there's a motion on the floor so from a parliamentary point of view that motion would have to be resolved either through an amendment or a vote and then you would move if it was not passed on to the voters you would move to remand it to the Charter Change Committee for further consideration sorry um can we make a motion basically to just send it to the Charter Change or the which we have to put on the motion on the floor right now you have to vote on the motion on the floor um just because that's the pending motion and so that that has to be resolved one way or the other okay and if the motion passes does it require two-third or just the majority just a simple majority okay and if it doesn't pass then we can make a motion saying sending it back to the okay correct thank you Councillor Freeman thank you President Tracy um I just wanted to quickly address um some of the concern I was hearing about you know will the character Burlington change will there be a significant change you know carrying councilor James comments about will there be an increase in violence um any of these sorts of things I think it's important to note that we are not prosecuting this currently it's it as Attorney Richardson mentioned you know it's a it's a decision of of the of us of the city of the administration how much we sort of enforce this in terms of regardless of the ordinance and the Charter and we have not enforced this really actively for quite some time I think the change is significant and that it formalizes that and it codifies something that you know as we've seen with the World Health Organization ACLU you know leading health experts and legal experts have indicated and shown that this is a sort of modernization of policy for the safety of of sex workers but also of really anyone because it reduces it reduces violence and that is from what I understand is in alignment with the practices of the state attorney's office that they are also not interested in prosecuting this so the state is moving to modernize our policy and I think Councillor Carpenter to your point you know we we are in the minority as a municipality for having us on the books it's not an issue or there's not a the sort of the fears that are being promoted as as you know this is going to become a rampant violent issue is just not founded in the reality what we do see though is like I mentioned before which can be was reported on by seven days as we had a sex worker in Burlington who was strangled by a client and then when there was you know the idea that we're going to support this person people scatter because they're afraid and you know as someone who has worked very closely with with folks who are you know victims of sexual harm with sexual violence domestic violence is someone who has experienced many of those things personally and feels really I feel real strong you know this this issue really resonates with me and I and I hear what you're saying Councillor Mason that it feels like there's sort of these polarized sites that are trying to make them these like sort of really strong cases and and just sort of or diametrically opposed but if I didn't believe that the evidence was there to support this in every sort of every way I understand that you feel like that there there feels like there's sort of two conversations going on which is one to to modernize our policy and then also this sort of broader conversation around legalization or decriminalization which are two separate things and I do not support legalization just for the record but if I didn't feel that this change and also changing the conversation around as Councillor Hightower said sex laws in general with in the country nationally in our conversations I really the the data is their personal experience to show that this is what and I mean again the World Health Organization they seal you I think you know leading public health experts legal experts show that this is the best way forward so I it sounds like there is as I think before there are folks who support this change from a difference of perspectives and I think we can continue to have that nuance with our constituents you know I hear you know Councillor Mason you said basically you know if this if the state looks to decriminalize I won't support that and I think that's that's that's fair for you to advocate for that and I would love to have more conversations with you about that to you know offer my perspective but there are different ways to move forward from this point but I think from a governance perspective this is the right way forward especially since from a law enforcement perspective from the state's attorney's office we are not prosecuting this and in the reality of it is that nothing there's not going to be this sort of like you know city of a violence that's created from this change a smart change in terms of the city. Thank you Councillor Freeman I have it is 1030 so Councillor Mason are you prepared to make a motion on suspending the rules? Yes President Tracy I would make a motion to suspend the rules I if we were in the same room I would get to have a better sense for I believe items 601 through 607 are all time sensitive I don't know about 608 which is the creation of a new position digital media reaction specialist redaction I forget I will just make the motion to take up the remainder of our deliberative items. Thank you Councillor Mason is there a second to just complete the deliberative agenda as a motion to suspend the rules seconded by Councillor Shannon any discussion? Councillor Paul. So I'd like to find out on item 607 I would want to know whether or not that can be done on the 31st of January as opposed to this evening and item 6.08 that was removed from consent you know we have a we have a terrible record of doing very important work at midnight 12 30 1 o'clock we have several items that are left if we can if we can do item 6.07 and 6.08 next week and I think we should do it. So Mayor Weinberger flipped on your camera Mayor did you want to speak to that? I believe 6.07 can I'd be interested in dance take on this but it still is before the end of the month and I think actually then they would avoid any kind of gap in the mask mandate also so I think that could be delayed the 6.08 a.m. well I don't know if keep me right is still still with us I you know we'll have an impact of a week on the creation of a position that's one that's been sought by the police commission and others but I think that would be the impact that was needed quickly I think it would be fine to probably not have a major impact okay Councillor Paul did you yes and I would I would ask if the sponsor of item 6.03 feels that that resolution could wait until next week or or not obviously it's their their choice and we would all honor that but I would just ask that question. Councillor Jang you were asked if the the resolution regarding the 6.03 is time sensitive or if it could wait till next week um it's it's not time sensitive but I yeah it can wait until next okay and then Councillor Paul did you want the chief murad to also address 6.08 as well um I I thought that actually the mayor had already done that but that I I don't need to know okay so are you gonna based on what you've heard Councillor Paul are you are you gonna make an amendment to the the motion to I yes I would amend I would amend thank you President Tracy I would amend Councillor Mason's uh motion uh to uh to move forward with items 6.04 6.05 and 6.06 the other items to be done at the meeting on the 31st of January in one week and just so I'm clear that also includes completing 6.02 the current discussion that we're yeah yes yes yes yes okay so we have a an amendment from Councillor Paul seconded by Councillor Shannon any discussion on the amendment I wasn't seconding actually I'm sorry I inappropriate second from Councillor Mason is there a discussion on the amendment um I just wondered if I feel badly when at the 11th hour we have something that was on our consent agenda it was put last on our agenda and it probably would take two minutes to resolve now we're we're not doing that so I would just ask that the items that we're not taking up tonight that we take them up first on our next agenda and prior to public forum because we've already had public forum that that allowed for public forum on these items thank you I'll note that request Councillor Shannon thank you council any further discussion on the amendment to suspend the rules okay seeing none we'll go to vote on the amendment to the uh the initial amendment to the initial motion to suspend the rules um to complete items six the current item 6.02 and then 6.04 6.05 and 6.06 with the other items to come at our subsequent meeting is everybody clear okay so let's go to a vote on that all those in favor please say aye any opposed that carries unanimously and we are back to the original motion as amended any further discussion on that we're essentially voting on the same thing now councilor shannon oh we haven't voted on the nevermind sorry any further discussion on that okay all those in favor of the uh motion to suspend the rules as amended please say aye any opposed that carries unanimously and we've suspended our rules to just complete item 6.02 6.04 6.05 and 6.06 we are now going to continue with the discussion in which we were engaged prior to this prior to that motion um with and I had councillor shannon in the queue thank you I appreciate the contributions that that many councillors have made to the discussion that I kind of requested um I feel like I'm in a hard position because I really I want to be an ally to the victims of sex trafficking and an ally to those who are fighting for them and those people have come to us tonight and asked us not to do this in no uncertain terms and as I said before they have a lot more expertise than anybody at this table um I think there's a lot of fear about the motivations of our actions but I have to look at the merits of our actions and the merits of this action I can't you know after hearing from the city attorney I I can't defend the existing language I can't defend keeping it in our charter and if I thought that there was better language we could be putting in our charter um I don't think it's urgent to get it out of the charter it's useless as councillor mason pointed out it's never been used in anybody's memory but I don't see any path forward that has us put better language in our charter because it's just not an appropriate place it's not how we are prosecuting this in Vermont I have concerns about where the state might go I want to say unequivocally I don't support well I can support amending existing language and um more uh more appropriate language I want to be sure that whatever we do gives those that are prosecuting sex traffickers and defending the victims of these crimes have every tool that they can in their tool chest but this is not a tool in the tool chest it's not a usable tool so I can't see any reason to keep it there and this is not the tool chest that anybody is going to open to find tools it's going to be the state language and so with that I will continue to support this I was considering amendments but I understand you know there isn't a good alternative that um that could be forthcoming you know I I could support the idea of sending it to committee if I thought we could do better but I don't think that we can do better I don't think that this language is needed I don't think the charter is the appropriate place for it and so with that I will I will support the language thank you counsel Shannon counsel Barlow thank you president Tracy um this is my first time where on the council where we're um moving charter changes like this so I have a procedural question about when we if we approve this tonight is there um is there like a memo that will be drafted by either the city attorney or the administration to explain the charter change that we're doing and if there is could we be explicit of an intentful about the language we've put in there um you know communicating to uh to voters that you know the um the points we're making here tonight that we're not actually decriminalizing or legalizing um sex work in any way we're simply um falling back on state language um and and and so I guess my my point is is that we're I'm trying to look for a way to dispel the sort of beliefs on both sides the the polarized sort of speech we heard tonight where both sides are looking at our action and coming away with sort of different views of what we're doing so we could be explicit about that is there a memo um that comes out that communicates the um the ballot the ballot question that we're going to put forward I guess that's directed to uh maybe attorney Richardson sure attorney Richardson or um normally not um so to be clear unless the city council uh votes to amend the charter change language it essentially stands as it is now my office can prepare uh essentially illegal memorandum um and what I've deemed to be like a public memorandum that would outline the legal implications as my office understands of these this charter change but it's not official ballot language nor would it be um anything other than a public memo that would be available to the public um representing the opinions of my office um but uh normally there's not a an explanation um charter changes are often driven by either council or advocates um that um you know then go through in some political process of persuading voters um and that's not really the function of my office I mean certainly if the council itself wants to pass a separate resolution um you know directing uh or encouraging the police to you know um continue to enforce all statutes it can it can do that I mean the police still do that it's not as if they're waiting at council but if if council wants to send a separate message but at least for my office I can certainly draft a public memo to that effect I think that would that would be helpful for me I mean um I I I do agree that we need to strike this language and I I don't have anything to offer in its place right now um but I would I I am I am troubled by the fact that folks think we are decriminalizing because I I also do not support to criminalize me but and legalization but um but I don't support the language that we have now either um so if if we were to be able to have um a communication to share with voters I mean I've been telling them that referring them to uh to title 13 but um but yeah that would be helpful I think um and the run up to tell me that thank you thank you councilor barlow I don't have anyone else in the queue okay let's go to a vote will the city clerk please call the roll councilor barlow yes councilor carpenter yes councilor jang no councilor freeman yes councilor hanson yes councilor hightower yes yes councilor mason yes i'm sorry councilor paul yes councilor mcgee yes councilor shannon yes councilor strongberg yes city council president tracy yes eleven eyes one day the motion carries meaning that the um the language will go on the ballot for a town meeting day vote we will now move on to item we decided to not take up 6.03 this evening as part of the motion to suspend the rules so we will move to item 6.04 a resolution regarding um the uh public improvements and securing indebtedness for the downtown tiff district councilor mason may it please have a motion thank you president tracy i'd like to make a motion to waive the reading and adopt the resolution as drafted and ask for the floor back after a second have a motion from councilor mason is there a second seconded by councilor hightower go ahead councilor mason thank you president tracy the hour is late so i will be brief i would like to start by thanking directors pine spencer cio shad and the administration for their work um on this matter both leading up to this vote uh in terms of the public hearings as well as sharpening the pencil um this resolution seeks to empower the voters in burlington to accept or reject um a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make transformational investment in public infrastructure without raising taxes the ballot item that were or i'm supporting putting on the ballot seeks voter approval to borrow 29 million 920 thousand dollars in addition to the previously approved 10 million dollars and adding that to the downtown tiff district if approved by the voters the repayment of this borrowing will be paid from incremental property tax revenues from the downtown tiff district without raising property taxes on brolinks and taxpayers if approved these funds will be used to rebuild main street to the city's great street standards from south union street to battery street the project scope also includes relocation of a portion of the ravine sewer which is currently an impediment to read the redevelopment of the parking lot at the corner of south linuski and main street as well as the super block which has been talked about for years that was something at least that was unknown to me and came out through this process i encourage all of my colleagues to join me in approving this resolution putting this before the voters on the march 1 2022 ballot i would also note that there are members of the administration here to answer any questions the council may have although i can't see them on my zoom screen right now thank you president tracy thank you councilor mason before we engage and open it up to discussion from the council directors pine or spencer did you have anything that you would like to add for the council uh given the hour i um i think councilor mason did a great job of summarizing uh comments that i would have made if i'd had the opportunity so i'm here to answer questions if needed okay great same thing director spencer okay awesome great so the floor is open any councillors wishing to speak to this item councilor freeman uh yes i just wanted to speak quickly i think i might be the councillor opposing this tonight i am pretty consistently um so uh opposed the uh tiff michael as a as a financing model um i i still i know um i appreciate you know former councillor fine i'm here tonight oh can you hear me yeah i'm having yeah there you go that's better thank you sorry uh you know uh being a proponent of this um uh we've discussed it um you know at many points um over the years um i still uh just don't feel convinced um i know uh that puts me um i think in a minority of in terms of this body um and maybe broadly but um it's not there on it and tonight i'll be voting no um maybe maybe 11 to 11 um i've taken a few times um and uh yeah i'll just keep it brief thank you councillor freeman councillor brawler thank you president tracy um i was wondering if someone from the administration could speak to the feedback um we got during one uh public comment speaker about the risk of having to find a way to pay the debt service on the tiff bond if the increment didn't materialize um i guess my question is has that ever happened in burlington and can you can you can you also speak to um what what actual risk you believe there is as it relates to this project sure uh director pine or the um the business of of anticipating and estimating risk in the future is one that i uh i try to stay away from as much as possible but i would say that there's a few key things that are in in uh i think in our favor uh in terms of mitigating the risk one is that the growth in in values in the downtown tiff district over the last decade have been 66 percent over a 10-year period so roughly 6.6 percent annually some years more some years a little bit less we projected the uh growth and value over the next 14 years of this district would only need to be going up annually annually 1 percent 1 percent a year it also assumes there's no change in tax rate no change at all in 14 years so that's a worst case scenario and in a worst case scenario there's sufficient essentially sufficient sufficient growth in tax value taxable value in the tiff district to service the debt that's going to be incurred by issuing the bonds for this project so we we do believe that there are three very likely projects to go forward which will enhance the um the taxable value in the tiff district uh as soon as those projects come online uh and there will be there will be others as well but we're trying to be really careful really cautious and really very conservative um in addition um vepsey has to review our financing plan uh before we go to market so when we go when the city goes out to issue bonds uh there's another layer of review and i would just say in the experience in burlington since the first tiff was created in 1996 this has never happened in the 26 years um that burlington has been using tax or mid financing to fund public improvements and um unless somebody's aware of a big federal source that uh we all aren't aware of there's there's not some other big pot of money available to do this so we're really looking at this investment as um this is the the chance to do it and we have until next march to do it so i think that's um why it's especially critical at this point okay thank you that was super helpful thank you councillor barlow i have councillor hightower to be followed by councillor miggy and apologies um director pine actually just addressed what i was going to so i will i will okay great councillor miggy thank you president tracy thank you director pine and dr spencer the administration for the many presentations we've gotten on this project over the last couple of months um you know i'm going to be supporting this tonight i you know i think that the tiff as a model for funding these projects is flawed and i do hope that we can get some movement um from state and federal leaders to find a better way to do this in the future um but i do acknowledge that this is a very important project for us to to get done and that these infrastructure improvements are are crucial so for that reason i'll be supporting this tonight thank you councillor miggy i don't have any other councillors in the queue okay sorry go ahead yeah sorry president tracy thank you um but i want to particularly you know uh say thank you to councillor parker director pine and mr mayor and i think for the first time as a city councillor i have never had a better understanding about how tiff works until this year and i think you know the council done david has a way of explaining things to a third grader that's very clear and also very concise um and you know director spencer i think that what you guys have already planned for um you know mainstream i think it's beautiful it's amazing and you know was was was was amazed by you know what it will also enter in terms of safety in terms of mobility and most importantly i think this would be a project that will at least allow the sea to be able to have a land that we can develop that parking lot because what's underneath is so um you know an arca it is archaic and now we have a land that we can develop and we just like what the mayor used to say burlington should not become a boutique city and now i think i welcome this type of development and um i love also the way that the risk associated with it with that is almost impossible or almost minimum so i am very happy and supporting this and thank you all mayors team for doing this thank you thank you councillor jeng don't have any other councillors in the queue ready to go to a vote okay will the city clerk please call the roll councillor barlow yes councillor carpenter yes councillor jeng yes councillor freeman no councillor hanson yes councillor high tower yes councillor mason yes councillor paul yes councillor mege yes councillor shannon yes councillor strongberg yes city council president tracy yes 11 eyes one day the motion carries and that will also go on the town meeting day ballot brings us to another town meeting uh related item which is a proposed increase to the general fund tax rate um which um believe we have an amended resolution but i will go to councillor paul for an emotion on that uh thanks president tracy so i've moved the amended resolution uh waive the reading and would ask the for the floor back after a second thank you councillor paul is there a second second from councillor carpenter you have the floor councillor paul uh thanks thanks very much um as uh uh councillor mason said the hour is late um this is a this is a challenging item and um i don't think there's any questions the last thing that any of us at this virtual table want to do is bring forward a resolution requesting that the voters approve um uh a tax rate increase on you know the past the past few years that we've all been gathering most of it remotely have been a struggle for many in our community um really unlike no other in modern history um we faced a perfect storm of social challenges um hopefully getting closer to the end than the beginning of a pandemic and we're seeing a lot of the scars and consequences of two years of economic strain on you know i i'm sure that i am not alone on on the council in saying that um i've heard from constituents that we as a council and an administration um are out of touch by moving this tax rate request forward um and i don't believe that we are out of touch in fact in many ways i feel quite the opposite you know we're in touch with our priorities for city services um we're in touch with our commitment to being responsible stewards of city finances um we're we're balancing needs and we're prudently budgeting on the revenue side given many revenue uncertainties um to ensure that we maintain our unassigned fund balance that we preserve these precious ARPA funds that we've all been talking about in wanting to address you know major priorities like addressing houselessness um and that we're prudently asking for a modest tax increase at a particularly interesting time when other tax rates are going to be declining um you know i think there's a couple of takeaways that i just want to mention about why i think this increase is something that we can support on and feel that it's the right thing to do for burlington at this time on you know for many years and you know i i have spent a lot of time thinking about economic indicators for a large part of my professional life for many years decades in fact on this country has not had to worry about inflation you know most people will just say well cpi it must be between two and four percent and since 1982 we've been thinking that way on this is a very unusual time on in our economic history on you know lagging economic indicators are finally coming back at us and we've seen the largest quarterly rate increase in 18 years um it's brought on by worker shortages by pressure on employers to catch up with pay freezes um and layoffs that were deployed in order for businesses to survive during covid but you know despite a seven percent increase in inflation which is by far the largest component of the overall increases that we're seeing in this budget they make up 71 percent of the overall increase despite seven percent we're only seeing a growth rate in the budget that is expected to be 2.7 percent and even with this increase the 5.8 percent request will still be below the rate of inflation which maintains our track record of managing to hold the line on spending acknowledging our high property tax burden by remaining under inflation for the past 10 years and that is no small accomplishment um but you know to not pay attention to such high inflation which erodes everyone's purchasing power on would not be responsible and to use the unassigned fund balance to a precarious level would also not be responsible on you know to balance our budgetary needs we are using some of the ARPA funds but to use ARPA funds at the peril of being able to read to address other global issues in our community would not be responsible so we have to balance our revenue sources and to do anything less would just not be prudent on it wouldn't be good long-term planning um including factoring in the fact that you know we're talking a lot about debt whether it's for infrastructure or for the high school on we need a good credit rating in order to be able to go and continue on the debt management that we have and that we'd like to have in the future so you know unlike you know as we know from the memo unlike most years the school department will be asking for a seven percent decrease or approximately there about so even with this rate increase on the municipal side we're still looking at an overall tax decrease and you know I would just say in closing that you know we're a city that values many priorities we want responsive public safety we want a cultural landscape um arts and um a good library we want strong and effective equity initiatives that speak to our core values we want our streets plowed our recycling picked up on you know we want and we also want great employees on these are all valid and important priorities you know I I guess what I would say to those people who are concerned about a tax increase that no one none of us want to go to voters and ask for a tax rate increase um and I think um I think that we all do understand and do not take this lightly um I hope everyone that's listening can appreciate that we as counselors live among you and we take this request seriously as we know this request comes um before their firm budget figures and with any with exactness and the public can be assured I believe that we all feel that we will be vigilant uh in reviewing the budget and pressing for reductions in the months to come before the beginning of the next fiscal year we have to go to the voters in March for a tax increase before we have finalized the entire budget um but I believe that doing so is the prudent thing to do um and there are significant repercussions um if we don't um and I would just say that I think together as a community and as a council that we can honor our priorities and values um uh with this tax increase and move forward together on this thanks very much thank you councilor paul the floor is open councilor barlow thank thank you president tracy um I really do appreciate all the work that's been done to minimize the shortfall um by using um you know federal money but I'm not ready to support a higher tax rate right now the inflationary pressures that the city is feeling are being felt by city taxpayers as well and many taxpayers have already had significant effective tax increases as part of the reappraisal process homeowners and businesses are having to consider ways to manage inflationary pressures by reducing or delaying some spending and I think it's reasonable to expect the city to do the same I know we're early in the in the budget development process but I would like to see what we might be able to do to do to find efficiencies even if it requires using additional art for money for revenue replacement or as we emerge from the pandemic consider revisiting property values for those commercial taxpayers who may who may be able to take on a bigger share of the tax base as businesses pick up again so ultimately we might have to raise the municipal tax rate but given where we are right now and coming on the heels of the reappraisal um where many taxpayers are already paying more and feeling of inflationary pressures I don't think now is the time thanks thank you council barlow council carpenter thanks um I I appreciate um all of these concerns from my my fellow councillors um I think councillor Paul really articulated it very well though I think it would be irresponsible for us not to go for it we have used our money to fill the gaps we have to go through the full budgeting process we need to trust that we will be prudent what we need to be prepared to have this tax increase now I don't think we're prepared at all to cut the level of city services that would be necessary if this doesn't pass and as we pointed out in total this actually we will have a tax decrease so even though this is an increase for city services in combination with our other obligations we will not necessarily see an increase and if we're prudent in our budgeting process which we we actually need to do we may not need all of this there may be more opportunities at the federal level I've never known the city staff to not take advantage of a federal opportunity if it gets presented our way but we won't know that until late into the spring and so I just believe right now it's really prudent for us to go forward with this proposal using the opera money we've put already aside prudently um to stop gap as we've done and create a really modest but solid budget thank you council carpenter don't have anyone else in the queue okay councillor jake then to be followed by councillor shannon yeah um thank you and I guess wholeheartedly agree with councillor barlow um you know I feel like maybe we are listening from the same people right um and anything that I say is just a repetition I think my arguments would be better if I write them down and also if I bring people to listen to me and we have conversation and I would want back then if we get there for please if we invite city council especially the mayor on the office to also engage right voters love the city right voters love this this this this city each each and every single one of them and you know I can tell you from my perspective and from anyone who just connected with the people this is their their biggest issue affordability affordability and if you look at every city council when we run for office we all run on and I think everyone want the city services but time have changed definitely and this inflation if it doesn't scare us right um you know let's let's also think about you know the most vulnerable among us who loves the city who's saved to buy homes right to pay taxes to want to send their kids to college one day you know and every single year almost there is an amount of tax increase and it's coming almost everywhere but this inflation has changed the dynamic the reappraisal has also changed the dynamic substantially and we should not ignore it I urge my fellow colleagues to definitely change the way we actually do budgeting because I don't know how can we approve a tax increase without looking into details each department what it entails participatory budgeting matters and from my perspective we've been saying this for quite a very long time I am confident that even high school students are ready to engage right constituency are ready to okay but we cannot put this on the ballot first and then say okay each department which one do you need where can you find you know alternative to save some money right I think I think I think the biggest item in front of us is a Burlington high school and we have to come together we have to definitely work with the school district in order to make that dream a reality a college town with no high school I think this could have been our priority over the past five years but we competing there is a sense of urgency to build a high school and in order to get there we have to you know make sure that our belts are tight and we we work in collaboration because what we have is just the borders here they've been hit very hard with the reappraisal and I think you know it would be it would be definitely and I urge you all of us to look into the way we conduct the business and on top of this we also want to put that's another discussion but I will not be supporting this tonight and I appreciate all the hard work that both Katrin Chowd and Mido Weinberg have done in order to bring this this bring us this and we have ARPA money I think that should be our what we need to use what we need to to to tap into not even the reserve for example nine million dollars in reserve 15 million dollars left in ARPA I think the reality is now and also the reality is to give taxpayers thank you thank you councillor Shannon thank you President Tracy I had a question from a constituent that I think is going to be a question that many constituents have and while the mayor did touch on it in the memo to us I think it would be helpful to expand upon it and her question is the city received tens of millions of dollars in ARPA funds why can't the city tap that money I know there are plans here to use some of the ARPA funds but can you give us kind of a summary accounting of the ARPA funds and how they can be used to meet these these needs how they cannot be used and what are the plans for them sure mayor Weinberg thanks president Tracy thanks councillor Shannon so important thing to understand about how we about this proposal that we brought to you is that it does assume substantial use of ARPA dollars in appropriate ways for the FY23 budget and it's actually projecting two years of use of ARPA funds to support the annual budget it's really there are two main ways that we are doing this and then some smaller smaller ones but the main ways are that we are budgeting our revenues to fully recover from pre-pandemic from the pre-pandemic period we have many many of our non-propery tax revenue revenue streams are very much dependent on activity in the economy our waterfront revenues related to events our rooms and meals revenues the revenues that we receive from operating campgrounds and a marina all of those revenues parking revenues all of those and more have been dramatically impacted by by the pandemic we have assumed that those revenues are coming back and coming back at essentially the same levels that they were pre-pandemic times in our budget planning we are setting aside I propose two million dollars this year and an additional million dollars in FY24 that will be revenue replacement reserves if those assumptions don't turn out to be true if the recovery is slower or more uneven than we would like so that is one important way that the ARPA funds are being used the other is that we made together in the current year's budget in response to inequities and challenges that the pandemic laid bare we have committed to significant new equity investments in in the ongoing budget that we manage for the city and those are details in the budget process last year in the budget memo and we used in the first year in this year we've used entirely federal dollars to pay for those new new equity investments with this year's budget we are starting to phase in phase out I guess would be a way to say it the use of federal dollars for those for those new commitments so that there is not a shock when the federal money runs out this is something that has been done before there's lots of precedent for this for example most most recently and notably in recent years when we were expanding the size of our police department and there's a the way the federal program work that encouraged the increase in the size of the police department is the federal dollars paid for the expansion of the police department and then local dollars over time paid for more and more of those costs for essentially doing the same thing here for some of these new equity investments and we're using two million dollars of our ARPA funds over two years to phase those new investments in beyond that one thing that's really important to remember about the ARPA dollars is they the money cannot just be spent on anything they ARPA dollars are there are restrictions on what the eligible uses of the ARPA dollars are these are dollars they're supposed to help with the their number of allowable uses it is fairly flexible money as far as our money goes we certainly are going to use the money to help us with the continued pandemic responses we are all experiencing as this meeting tonight shows we are not done with public health investments and you know direct pandemic related expenditures we may need to use the ARPA dollars more to can take get through future variant waves and the ARPA dollars would help us with that we are planning for expanded recovery services for Burlington constituents to help Burlingtonians and Burlington businesses access the new state and federal funds that are coming down in various programs we're continuing to use ARPA dollars to continue to pay for the resource and recovery center that has helped thousands of Burlingtonians in various ways during this pandemic and and the expanded basis support services that we have had during this economically tumultuous time we'll be using ARPA dollars to support those activities as well what ARPA doesn't just you know allow is for routine local costs that are not related to the pandemic they're not related to the recovery to just be paid for by the federal government that's not the intent in the intent of ARPA dollars is not just to pay for inflationary costs I think we'd be very we brought we well we can certainly continue this conversation between now and the passage of the budget we are not aware substantial additional ARPA uses that would be budget relieving and sort of help with the the tax pressures that we're talking about here similarly the suggestion has been made that maybe we should use some of our spend down or unassigned fund balance to alleviate tax pressures you know there too that we are in a strong position right now with our unassigned fund balances result will work that we've all done together for the last decade that strong unassigned fund balances benefited the city in innumerable ways it has helped keep costs off taxpayers by increasing improving our credit rating it is not a good financial practice to deal with ongoing costs by using one-time monies which is what the use of unassigned fund balance dollars would be so I don't what we are we are concerned about here are what we've laid out in the memo are structural increases in the budget largely as a result of inflation and to use these one-time funds unassigned fund balance funds to address that might perhaps there are ways that you could defer you could kind of postpone the dealing with these issues later but it is not good practice to use one-time funds for that purpose I think we would lead to bigger later troubles if we were to pursue that that's why we propose it the way it is hope that's responsive by councillor shannon it's your floor is yours councillor shannon thank you is the total amount of ARPA money 20 27 million is that correct do I remember that correctly our initial allocation was 27 million we prior to now in the various pandemic and everything that's happened up until now we've committed 12 million dollars already so we have about 15 dollars sorry 15 million dollars remaining uh uncommitted approximately and this the assumptions behind the proposed tax rate as we've tried to be clear in that memo assume that we will commit we may not end up using because some of this is uh we were always putting in reserves but we would be essentially coming to you for separate action then tonight but in the coming weeks and months we um in the budget process really we would be asking you to encumber five million of that remaining uh 15 million to um so as to uh to help essentially to manage the next two budget years in the ways that I that I just just discussed we'll also be coming forward and we'll be ready for a detailed discussion about this we're planning at the February 7th meeting so two weeks from now uh to um uh share additional um thinking on the the the plan for the the balance of the the 10 million the 10 million remaining dollars within that 15 million dollar store so the five million would be split between two years so the five million just it's it just breaks down this way we are proposing putting three million dollars into revenue replacement reserves two million or for the upcoming budget year FY 23 we're expecting another million we're saying now let's set aside another million for FY 24 um again those are replacement reserves if we don't need them they would be released later and can be used for other eligible costs later the other two million is for the phasing in you know the phase out of the federal support of the new equity investment so we'd be using approximately 1.2 million of that in FY 23 and 800 thousand um I think if I have it about right some things about I think it's 1.2 million and 800 thousand uh over the next two years are all of the 1.2 million equity investments in REIB or is that in other equity investments like in hiring or employee support or yes um there's a number of different investments that we we made together I think unanimously in this this year's budget and they are in a range of different categories um we the the list is detailed in in the memo tonight in in the budget memo it's basically the same list as that was in the budget memo last spring the major items in that are new investments in translation services and and our language access plan which is something we'd work to better implement for a number of years there is new um investment in addressing the equity issues trying to make it be serving on our boards and commissions uh open up to more people um by doing what the state has done for a number of years of paying a small stipend a lot of stipend for people who are giving the their time to city services we want a there's a substantial increase almost 300 thousand dollars in um paying the last group of city workers who did not receive a liberal wage that were not required by the liberal wage ordinance seasonal um workers who have been with the city for less than five years that that was a change that we've made in this year's budget in that there are public health um to public health positions can i just so there are numerous other things reib was a significant part of i'm not the only thing i'm um i think i'm confused because all of i thought you were saying that you were asking for one point one point two million of the arpa funds were be being used for the equity investment but in the memo you you were saying that's what's in the requested tax increase so what you're saying is that that you're talking about the money that we spent last year and and i'm trying to understand going forward what that money was used for so i do understand that in this tax increase there's one point two five million for reib there's a hundred and fifty thousand for boards and commissions um and there's a number of other equity investments listed in your memo those are not being paid for out of arpa funds so those are being that's a request for a tax increase and am i somehow confusing these two yes i think councillor shannon you are um somewhat confusing what we're proposing here the uh the there is close to two million dollars in total new um equity investments that have been added essentially to the strut structural budget they were planned as ongoing costs they were approved with the clear indication that they would be ongoing costs um in the current budget um it's about you know that's less that's um you know approximately two percent of the total budget in these important uh areas um they were paid entirely transparently with federal funds um in the in the first year but they are intended to be ongoing costs and so what we have proposed is to lessen the tax impact and to minimize the the impact of these investments um on the tax rate uh uh we are proposing phasing you'd continue and use federal dollars for the next two budget years a declining amount of federal dollars each year um and if we do it that way um you know as we've laid it out um it is uh a small part of the overall um pressure that is driving the need for a tax increase this year that's uh you know why I was accurate what Councillor Paul said earlier that on the great majority of this tax increase is being driven by inflation pressures okay thank you um I just want to say that I don't really I don't agree with everything in this proposal and particularly I'm concerned that we're paying boards and commission we we're asking for funding for boards and commissions when our school board isn't being paid and that seems to me it should be a priority over um paying people serving on boards and commissions with no you know I'm very grateful for those who serve on those boards and commissions but the burden on our school board is huge and I know that they never feel the luxury to ask the taxpayers for the money to um you know to pay themselves and and I I think that they should and they deserve that and they that's what should come first um but ultimately to vote against this this budget is to vote against our city workers who have kept us all afloat through this pandemic and um I strongly sympathize with the taxpayers the strain on the taxpayers that even though this is perceived as you know that that it's an overall um that decrease because the school isn't asking for as much money this year so it's a good time to increase the municipal rate and we've held the line for a long time and all of those things are true the residential taxpayers are paying a bigger tax bill than they ever have so tax rates are one thing and tax bills are completely another thing unfortunately as we transition um into the reassessment so I will support I will support this despite um not really agreeing with all of it because I think that we can have that debate as we go into the budgeting discussions I think that there needs to be accountability in every department for what programs are delivering to city residents um and real measurable accountability in that in that process um I am concerned that we're asking for so much because I think that the taxpayers may be willing to give us something and maybe they're not willing to give us this much but I suppose we'll cross that bridge when we come to it and I want to say specifically with the the largest increase that we're talking about here is five million dollars in salaries and wages and um we have uh I am for the first time serving on the HR committee um under the leadership of counselor carpenter and I have become acutely aware of how many positions we have open in the city that um uh the private entities are more nimble and um able to adjust their pay scales and their benefits package to to meet the needs of workers today and we're not moving very swiftly in that direction as a city because we're a city and it's complicated um we we need to be able to hire people for these positions and for the city workers that are here we have colas um that need to be paid and I wanted to just express my sincere gratitude to all of the city workers who have supported us the the residents of Burlington through this pandemic and especially the public works um employees who are out there in the miserable weather making sure that water is flowing to our homes and sewage is flowing out um so for that reason I will be supporting um this proposal on the ballot thank you council shannon councillor jang uh thank you president racy um I just heard one characterization basically against voting against this is voting against like city employees I don't think it's a fair characterization voting against this is voting in favor um of supporting the taxpayers who would be hit mostly hard by inflation than the city of Burlington if you look at the federal document it states very well what what inflation which categories it will hit the most but it's not basically you know stronger municipalities that has over let's say nine million dollars in city reserve it's it's completely wrong and I think voting against this is also just getting people ready that there is a big item on the pipeline that we need to focus on I think that's what it is but now I have one question for the mayor it seems the REIB when it was created it was even before the pandemic I still don't understand as to right now why we have an embedded REIB funding into the general budget since 2019 why still in 2022 we don't know where the funding of the racial equity inclusion belonging would be coming from was that mayor wanberger did you are you asking council chair president tricia I mean it is true that we created the REIB director position in the fall of 2019 the so there was one position in the pre-pandemic budget but since the pen but there's been a dramatic expansion of the department in response to since the pandemic started and and so that's why we that we moved quickly to during the pandemic to address equities that were laid bare in that period and I can think they're clearer than they'd ever been both locally and nationally and so you know that's we were very clear together against council jang the budget that was passed last year that was approved we were clear that we were making this very substantial expansion and that we would need to work together to figure out how we were clear that we were using one-time monies for it and that we would likely need explicitly in the budget documentation that we would need to fund work together to find figure out how we funded this these new commitments longer term and this vote tonight is one of the first examples of how we how we do that from my perspective and how we find a way to make sure that we make good on the commitments that we made in the find a way to make long-term good on the commitments that we added to this year's budget um while also continuing um the long-standing or or more long-standing other commitments in in the city budget and this is an important step in in that direction um I do want to be clear if um I want to be clear that and you know because these are new commitments that our pandemic responses it's appropriate and authorized by the federal legislation that we use the ARPA dollars in the ways that we are proposing and I think that's you know this is an important strategy for achieving these you know achieving what I said we would have to work towards of achieving these um long you know making this a long-term commitment I want to be clear that if the council um doesn't support taking this step tonight or if the voters uh you know are not um able to support the work we're proposing here um the those commitments are as much be the more recent commitments are much as part of our commitments as any and um we will have to really go back uh as as we had extensive conversation and at the board of finance and as is in the documentation of both the resolution and the memo um I if we don't succeed at securing additional revenues and need to make cuts will be a lot looking city-wide in every department and in every program um and I'm looking to to spread the need for cuts out um uh you know broadly and uh we certainly will not be taking an attitude that the most recent investments are the first ones to go that's not at all what is is uh planned here in any way and and uh I just want to be really clear about that concept Tracy I I think yeah I'm I'm gonna stop asking questions because I don't want to go back and forth but maybe the last question is specific to the unions that we have in the city and it seems that most of them there will be bargaining this year we are asking voters a tax increase not knowing exactly what those bargaining will entail we made an assumption that there will be just you know wage increases because of inflation but we don't really don't know the details about that what I'm saying is about the process in which we're using to make this city budget it's no longer about you know 2018 times have changed and I think we have to do a much better job in bringing a structure where community members can have input where also we already have all the details about all elements sorry um are you all I'll set comes a drink counselor Shannon um thank you I'll be very brief I just didn't want my comments to be misinterpreted when I said that I I may not have stated this correctly but what I was trying to say is as I think about this vote I would feel that casting a no vote would be a vote against the city workers that I want to support but that is in no I I don't mean that to be projected on any other counselor really just my own thinking about my own vote and why I have decided to vote yes on this with some pretty deep reservations um so I I apologize to counselor Jang and anybody who is is voting no this is a hard decision and and I don't mean to say that it's that your vote is for that reason or should be interpreted that way at all thank you counselor Shannon and there are any further comments I don't have anyone else in the queue okay let's go to a vote all those um actually will the city clerk please call the roll counselor Barlow no counselor carpenter yes counselor Jang no counselor Freeman yes counselor Hanson yes counselor high tower yes counselor mason yes counselor paul yes counselor McGee yes counselor Shannon yes counselor strongberg yes city council president tracy yes and i's junez that motion also carries and will therefore go on the town meeting day ballot we are now on to item 6.06 which is a resolution regarding the authorization to issue general obligation bonds for capital projects counselor paul thanks president tracy would move the resolution waive the reading and very briefly asked for the floor back okay we have a motion is there a second second by counselor mason you have the floor counselor paul thanks very much uh so we've been on quite a journey with this uh this uh general obligation this infrastructure bond 57 of our voters um supported it in december but in order to get this past the finish line we needed a little bit more um and so i know i don't know if everyone was in this boat but i did hear from a lot of constituents uh that if they did not support it the reason that they didn't was the memorial auditorium placeholder that it was a little too murky a little bit too vague and a lot of money and uh the new bond that is being proposed and was approved or actually was it yes on retains the important public public safety the three ambulances the communications and and still includes a number of the infrastructure improvements because we know that infrastructure improvements do not decrease over time they only increased over time so to not move forward with these addressing some of these um it's only going to move us backward um you know we can we can't really continue to defer investments um that we know that we need to make so and you know there have been some that have said that we should incorporate some of these somehow into the general fund as opposed to bonding that is actually more costly um and it also is not really as fair um over time so the only thing i just want to bring to your attention um with thanks to councillor barlow who encouraged bringing forward additional language for the resolution and together we were able to incorporate that into the ballot language so you'll see that there is a in fact i probably should have said that to move the amended version sorry about that on just wanting uh voters to understand that at the very end of the ballot about language it says that if the city succeeds in securing other capital needs in excess or other capital funds in excess of the current projections which can be used in place of general obligation bonding that the administration will prioritize taxpayer savings and may and may not reallocate bond proceeds to other investments um except with the explicit city council approval of that reallocation so i hope that uh i hope that we can all support placing this on the ballot on it's a pared down version of the one that almost got voter approval and hopefully we can move forward with this and get voter approval for this one thanks thank you councillor paul the floor is open councillor jane yeah um thank you council ball thank you president racy and i think i have stated all my arguments as to why i'm voting i'm not i'm voting not in support of this tonight and it doesn't mean that i'm not in support i'm just not in support of the amount there is a way as to why we need two-third of the vote in order for capital bounds to pass because half of the population doesn't say the story of of of the rest right 57 yes it passed but the people that i represent made a very strong statement a couple weeks ago and from my perspective we could have done a much better job to look into what is needed in terms of safety the communication devices the ambulances um the fire trucks and also the local funds we need to get prepared to welcome all the funds in the city of burlington but i also know we also know that you know maybe by the spring the state of vermont would be getting over two billion dollars in federal infrastructure from my perspective we have to get ready for that it is all about timing right um those are the reasons as to why i'm voting not in support of this and again there would be a time would be invited to have a conversation about this let's engage the constituency more more more public engagement about this and what it entails in order for them to make an informed decision people are just not happy and people want the high school to be built and from my perspective that should be the top priority thank you thank you councillor jane i don't have anyone else okay let's go to a vote will the city clerk please call the roll councillor barlow yes councillor carpenter councillor carpenter we couldn't hear your vote i think you're on mute yes councillor jane no councillor freeman yes councillor hanson yes councillor hightower yes councillor mason yes councillor paul yes councillor mickey yes councillor shannon yes councillor strongberg yes city council president tracy yes 11 eyes one night that motion also carries and therefore we'll go on the town meeting to valid we have completed the items that we had said we were going to complete as part of the motion to suspend the rules so a motion to adjourn is now in order moved moved by councillor mickey seconded by councillor jane any discussion okay i'm seeing any so we'll go to a vote all those in favor of adjournment please say aye hi any opposed that carries unanimously and we are adjourned at 1149 we'll see you all next week everyone