 It says, well, that's going to allow them to get started. All right, everybody, I think we're going to get started. Thanks so much for coming tonight. We have a smaller group. We're going to be flexible with our agenda tonight. We have some folks in my pillar who are still voting on the House floor, but we'll dive in. Thanks, everybody, for joining for pizza and snacks. And just to kick things off, I'll introduce myself and the rest of the NPA. Ward 6, Steering Committee members, I'm Mills Forney. We can go around. I'm Nancy Markins. I'm Peter Rapone. And then I'm the last one over here. Well, the last one who's here in attendance tonight. Yes. Dale Azaria. All right, thanks so much. So our role is basically just to try to organize these meetings. So if you have any questions, ideas for future meetings, please let us know. We'd love to hear them. Thanks, everybody, for coming tonight. We have a few updates for our call to order. Nancy, I want you to give a few of those. OK, first, the Steering Committee would like to thank Willa Harris. Willa Harris volunteered to be the Ward 6 representative to the Community Development Block Grant Advisory Board. This is a board that reviews applications for financial assistance for various local agencies or community development activity within Burlington. So this is just getting started. And we'll be hearing more about this from Willa in upcoming meetings. But thank you, Willa. Also, the Steering Committee voted to contribute to an initiative that's going to be supported by all the NPAs for all wards. And that is an NPA outreach brochure. It's going to be in the form of a small comic. And it will be in multiple languages that are prevalent in the city of Burlington and really helping people understand the purpose of the NPAs and how to get involved. And it will be available both in hard copy and for digital distribution. So that's another initiative. That's just getting started. And finally, tonight, we wanted to, for this meeting, raise awareness about the candidates, some of the candidates that will be on the ballot and some of the initiatives. And the time that we have, we're not going to be able to address these in really any depth. So we did want to provide resources where you can find more information. I'll be putting out a post in front porch over the next couple of days with pointing you to those resources. But definitely check out Town Meeting TV because there's already a schedule out there of the town meeting forums that will be taking place over the next few weeks prior to the election. There are also recordings for two public meetings that were held in January on the ballot initiatives. And there is a meeting next week on the 6th on all residents voting, so all legal residents voting. So there'll be more meetings coming up and keep checking Town Meeting TV for those schedules. But I'll be sending out the links over the next couple of days. Thanks, Nancy. It's a really good segue to talk through the Burlington Ballot initiatives and city council updates. I don't know if we have Joan, Shannon, or Karen, Paul on Zoom. I don't think that we do. You can meet them. OK, we'll jump around a little bit. We're going to be flexible with tonight's agenda. So if we're OK with it, we can jump over to the city elections candidate forum. We have Joan Shannon, who I think may be joining us later, Fareed. And then I know Will is here as well. Between the two of you, we'd love just to have you introduce yourselves. Tell us a little bit why you're running in three or three to five minutes, if you'd like. Sure. Get back if that's great. It's good where it is. I know you can pull it over. OK, great. Hello, everyone. Thank you for the invitation to the Ward 6 NPA. Obviously, I haven't made it to one of these before, but really looking forward to learning more about what happens here and how I can be a part of it. I am the progressive nominee for the South District City Council, which might seem a little bit strange because I'm a political newcomer. But I can assure you that my involvement in public policy and my ability to deal with these problems is far from new. Right now, I'm working in the state government, in the Scott administration. And before that, I've worked for a series of nonprofits across rural Vermont, deploying broadband internet and previously before that with the Federal Department of Agriculture. I'm running for city council because I've been involved with some work for the Progressive Party for a while now, developing their economic, social, and housing policy platform. And what I'd really like to do is represent you on the council to put these ideas into action. So where does it start? Right at the top is property tax reform. When we approved this school bond vote, we essentially sentenced ourselves to face large increases in property taxes. We're talking $900, $1,100 starting in fiscal year 24 all the way through potentially through fiscal year 29. I don't think that we should impose this burden on people that can't afford to pay it. So I will try to implement policies in the city council for charter changes that make the property tax a more income-focused and be more focused on properties where owners don't reside, like commercial properties and like multifamily homes that are rented out as landlord properties. To go along with this measure, of course, hearing that you'd want to increase property taxes on multifamily dwellings, you'd think that rent would skyrocket. But I also believe that we should implement a rent stabilization measure. There's no reason why renting the city of Burlington should not be tied to the consumer price index as it is in so many cities so successfully. It's a great way to improve so many socioeconomic indicators. Landlords still can increase rent. For example, under a rent stabilization measure tied to the consumer price index plus 2%, a landlord on January 1st of this year would still be able to increase rent by 9%. What we're trying to do here is mitigate really disastrous increases that can put people out on the street. Beyond that, I also have a few other ideas for housing policy, such as a surcharge, anti-speculation tax on property transfers, and also for the city to invest more in social housing to try to mitigate some of the homelessness crisis that we're experiencing. With regard to public safety, I am largely in line with the progressive platform. I do strongly believe that our police department needs civilian oversight. I don't think that we need to abolish the police or defund them completely, but I think that a lot of resources for public safety are better dedicated to addressing the root of the problem of crime, which is that people don't have the money that they need to live a comfortable life. They don't have the shelter they need to live a safe life and don't have the mental health care and primary health care. They need to be healthy. I think that we should be dedicating more research to these problems than to the police department. And for the police that we do have, I think that we need civilian oversight in order to ensure that these people are really protecting and serving us rather than any other interests. I've been pretty unimpressed by the police department's rhetoric since I've moved to Burlington and including in that of the police chief. And I on the city council would advocate for a change in leadership to someone who has more of a reform mindset. What I really love about Burlington is that this city is a absolute bastion of freedom. There's nowhere else I've been in the United States. Montreal is the only exception in North America where you can do what you want here facing as little judgment as possible. And I would like to continue that trend and not move in the opposite direction. By trying to increase our police force. I think that we should continue to be a light of liberty for the rest of the country. Civilian oversight for police reform, a great way to do that. Really look forward to meeting all of you. I'll be knocking on doors. You'll get to know my platform, trust me. You'll get to know who I am. And I really hope that you'll support me and the Progressive Party including the civilian oversight ballot initiative on town meeting day. Thank you. My name is Will Anderson. Although a lot of my friends call me Billy and you can too if you want. All right, well thank you very much Billy. Thank you. Farid. Hi everybody. Thank you for having me. My name is Farid. I live in the Five Sisters neighborhood. And I've been to this NPA before. The first time was during the mayoral election where it was that there were three candidates, Infinite and Karina, in addition to Miro. And I remember somebody from this crowd who just moved here. He was the father of a young family asking the Miro candidates if they ever felt like Burlington feels like it's going to a punk concert but all the cool bands already played. And that really got to me. And Karina and Infinite kind of acknowledged that sentiment and the mayor was like what's a punk concert? But to me it's a sentiment that I share. And even as recently as a month or two ago I heard somebody I believe was Anita who said I don't know why I go to these things because it's actually we are powerless. Like the NPA doesn't really have any team in terms of its resolution. And that has also been something that I share in terms of my feelings about the state of democracy in Burlington. Burlington is a beautiful place. We have beautiful environment but what really makes us shine I believe is the fact that we are able to combine our progressive ideals with pragmatic policies with from the same plan housing trust to the NPA itself. Burlington has been very innovative and has led the nation and the world even in terms of progressive government. We have business like Ben and Jerry, the gardener supply company and seven generation. There's numerous examples of where prosperity goes hand in hand with social responsibility and social justice. So we have earned the right to feel proud about Burlington's accomplishments but lately it feels like we've lost our mojo. I feel that there is a lot of fear and uncertainty in my neighborhood but also all over Burlington. We have multiple crisis that we're dealing with and the pandemic has exposed a lot of shortcomings in our systems. I believe if we are to survive, if we are to survive with our values intact, we must adapt our public processes and our systems so that we put the public back in public safety. We have to be in control of our public safety system and we need to move away from policing as the means to guarantee safety. I do think Burlington is an abolitionist town. I have heard the mayor as well as several candidates at the Democratic primary express that in an ideal world, police would no longer be necessary. I do think that's a sentiment that we all share and the question is just how do we get there? And I do think the first step is to reclaim our power as voters. I have been active in collecting petition signatures for two of the ballot questions that you will see on town meeting day. Will has mentioned the police oversight. So I'll talk a little more about like Proposition Zero which is bringing advisory question, binding initiative and referendum to the electoral process. Burlington is the only town or the only city in Vermont that doesn't let its voters put proposals on the ballot. We can only do advisory question and even that is subject to city council approval which is then also subject to mayor's veto. So I wanna bring Burlington's processes to be comparable to other towns in Vermont which has a long history and contradiction of grassroots decision making. I wanna revitalize the NPAs. The NPAs were created to balance the council of Aldermen back in Bernie Sanders days but over time it has been weakened and defunded by this administration but also the administration previously. So I think we need to bring power to the people and Burlington works best when people are empowered. I don't have all the answers. I think should I get elected as your city council will be my policy guy but I do know that we need to do this together and that's the only way we're gonna get through this. Thank you very much. Thank you for reading. I believe we have Joan on Zoom. Joan Shannon. Hi, everyone. I'll try turning my camera on but I am out of town and in a location where I have no desk and I have no lights. So I'm hoping this is gonna work. We can see it's great. Thanks, Joan. Great. So I don't, I didn't hear the introductory question that started a little bit earlier than I was expecting. Sure. Just a quick introduction. Is there a specific question? Yeah, actually just very general. So if you could just introduce yourself and then three to five minutes on why you're running. Oh, okay, great. I'm Joan Shannon and I am currently serving as your South District Counselor and I'm seeking the position again because I think that Burlington has really, we're currently experiencing a crisis at a level I haven't really seen before in my long service on the city council. I'm particularly concerned about public safety and I understand the need and desire for police reform and I do think that we are doing that. I think as we are moving towards a more diverse response to emergencies, that's definitely the direction that we should go in. But I think that we also need more stability in our police department. I don't think we have, I don't think we live in a utopia where we don't need policing. Although I do agree it would be lovely if we did, we just don't and I don't expect we will in this foreseeable future. I am very concerned since others have spoken about the ballot item, I will address that as well but what's being called Community Control of Police to me is interestingly not really involving the community in that process. What it does is it has a city council appoint, choose various organizations that are involved in, there's kind of a list of things that the organizations would be involved in. It's not nonprofits, it's any community group would then appoint a representative board. That representative board would then appoint the control board. So this control board is very far removed from your elected officials and any accountability to elected officials. It is stated that it will be independent of the city council and the mayor. There's no way for us to remove a person from this board and it has to be funded by the city. They have the ability to hire staff including employees, consultants and legal expertise and they will have an investigative office none of which has there been any estimate for the cost of nor any look at the redundancy of the process with what we already have. I think that the board seems to be selected with an intention towards bias against the police which is concerning because if the board were to meet out discipline to police officers and in some cases, discipline is certainly needed. It wouldn't necessarily be upheld if the board is perceived to be biased. I was chair of the charter change committee when something similar came through the charter change committee and this is what we heard from the city attorney at the time. So I think that Burlington really needs a steady hand at the wheel at this point in time. And I appreciate that you have entrusted me with that role for many years and I ask for your continued trust. I don't think it's really about what my goals are but more it's about representing the community and doing the best that I can to inform you of what's happening in the city, getting your feedback and representing you to the best of my ability. Thank you. Thank you very much, John. Are there any other candidates for city council or school board that might be here that we haven't heard from yet? Okay, well, thank you very much all of you for attending and for introducing yourselves. Next up on our agenda this evening is our Montpellier priorities. I know we have Senator Thomas Chittenden here. I think some of the house folks are still voting on the floor or coming back from that. Senator, if you wouldn't mind showing a little bit about what you're working on. Okay, so grab that microphone. Thank you. Yes, I understand the house is still meeting so I'm glad to be here. I want to start by introducing myself. I don't think I've met everybody here so I live in South Burlington and I've served on their city council, our city, my city council for the last eight years and I'm finishing up my term this coming March 6 and I want you to know that throughout my eight years I have constantly been a barking dog on advocating for a neighborhood planning association model in the city of South Burlington. I really like this, what Burlington does because we have really like four sort of five segments of South Burlington that I don't feel like they really have a voice and we don't have wards in South Burlington. We are at large for our council elections so it's just hard to have clear community input on a lot of important issues. So I really appreciate what everybody's doing here. In the legislature, I'm just starting my second term in the state senate. I'm on two committees. My morning committee is senate transportation and then the afternoon is a new committee for me, senate finance. I don't know how much time we have but I thought I would sort of connect the two with something that I'm thinking a lot about lately which also affects Burlington. So I don't know if you know this, Governor Scott has not introduced a fee bill in his three terms now. So that's kind of out of step. It's usually every two or three years we graduate or adjust all the fees like when you get your license, your permit or everything else by a couple of dollars just to keep pace with inflation and to help fund state government and so on. So we haven't introduced a fee bill so one thing that I think we should look at is doing so because right now the current proposed budget has about 12 to 18 million dollars coming from the general fund over the transportation bill to pay for transportation related activities. Now that connects to Burlington because we also are looking at needing to fund public transportation and public transportation to get more people out of their individual sole occupancy vehicles we need to fund and make accessible with high frequency public transit safe, secure, frequent public transportation. I am advocating through a variety of different means both in transportation and in finance to not only graduate the fees but I'm also and I'd love to be disabused of this notion by any of you but I'm a fan of rational assessment and I'd like to see every time an individual or a company registers a vehicle, a single occupancy vehicle. They are choosing to contribute to congestion and use of our roadways. I'd like to tack on a $3 when I do the math out that'll get me to where I need to be a $3 public transportation fee and that would accumulate approximately 2.2 million from my back of the envelope math but if it's $5, whatever it needs to be and that would do a lot to support just the little gap that we're looking at to keep public transportation frequent and available and hopefully fair free or fair fair as some people are saying. So a fair fair, that's hard to explain that. Okay, so it's hard to campaign on fees but I think it's important to look at because I think it's a fair and rational way to collect from people using services to pay for those services to achieve our public goals. Happy to elaborate on other things that might be more in the news but what would you like me to do? Thank you, I think that's great. If anybody has any questions, you might like to ask. I'd certainly be like to hear them. All right. Can you talk about the new bike pedestrian bridge and how that's going to connect these two communities? Absolutely, so that falls in South Burlington but it's really going to connect to the University of Vermont campus area. So I think we're talking about the raise grant. So it's a big fund amount that also the city of South Burlington is putting forward a TIF bond or a TIF vote for a bond that would also support the local share of that for a Iowa argue beautiful bridge that will be just south of the Cloverleaf, the most heavily traversed interstate exit in the great state of Vermont. So that's exit 14, you know where Staples is. So that is the most heavily traversed intersection just south of it. If it's approved, we approve the design, the money is there and it should be built over the next few years. It will be a dedicated bike pedestrian path that will sort of arc from the just south on this. I believe it's off the Staples Plaza and right now it's going to a but or end at the U-Mall Plaza. Now I really hope that we are having the right conversations with the new owners of the University mall so that it doesn't have to jag up or jag down but instead can actually continue on into the U-Mall for the desire path. Those are negotiations that are ongoing but I think it'll do a lot for e-bikes, mobility, a variety of different people being more pedestrian friendly opening up more of South Burlington to all of Burlington through multimodal traffic. If you ever walked across that bridge, it is intimidating. So this new pedestrian dedicated bridge I think should do a lot to get pedestrians wanting to cross over to the other side of the literal state. That's great, thank you. And for those who are on Zoom, that was a question about the new pedestrian bridge. It's going to be going over 89, right? Going up from South Burlington to the Burlington. Correct. Thank you. Any other questions from either in the room or on Zoom? I'll ask a question. I'm curious about Senator, your perspective on in the governor's recommended budget adjustment, there was roughly $13 million for extending the Motel Transitional Housing Program. The House Appropriations Committee added an additional $7.5 million. Curious what your perspective is as that comes to the Senate, just what you expect the forecast for that to be as the budget adjustment that goes to the Senate. So I'm not in Senate leadership that you do have a Senator, Senator Baruth, pro tem. So I think he would have a better answer to your question. But from my perspective and talks and hearings, the new House Appropriations Chair, Diane Lampier, speak about this. I think it makes sense. I can't speak for the Senate. I'm not speaking for the Senate, but I would anticipate the House approved amount to have relatively smooth sales. But again, I'm not on Senate Appropriations, but that's just the general question I have. Because there's lots of money this year, but there won't be in years to come. And since this is one-time money, it looks feasible. Thank you. Any other questions? Senator, my question is, I'm not sure if this is something that you can address, but what is being done, or should be done from your perspective to address the lack of mental health facilities at the state level? It's a crisis across the state, but it's very visible in Burlington. It is top of mind for many legislators. When I spoke to, if you know Jane Kitchell, Jane Kitchell is the Chair of Senate Appropriations. I remember right after the governor's budget was presented, she said, that's great. Everybody's happy to hear what's in the budget, but what's more important is what is not in the budget. And it's one concern that she has raised, and that's really falling to finance to find the money, is money too, because right now it's level funding, many of our mental health supports. And I, for one, as one member of the Senate support not level funding, and in fact, maybe raising some fees in some places to find the dollars to give more supports in this area, including new infrastructure and facilities. Beyond that, I don't know any more specifics, but I know that, and I have confidence that the Committees of Jurisdiction, Health and Welfare, Ginny Lyons, one of your other Senators, she is the Chair of Health and Welfare, and I know this is top of her mind too. So I would want to, I wish she was here right now, so I could sort of punt this question to her, but I can be happy to follow up with some additional specific actions that are moving forward on this. Thank you. Thank you. And we have a question from Robin on Zoom. Yes, hi, can you hear me? Again. Yeah, okay, I just this week got a letter printed in seven days. In fact, it's the lead letter. And I was, it's about the cost of childcare for a couple, for I think for a month is over $1,000. And then I was looking at the cost of the F-35s and flying them around, and that if we could ground some of the F-35s and use the money instead of for the fuel that's contaminating our landscape, use that money to fund childcare, wouldn't that be a perfect, a wonderful segue to a sensible society? So I guess my question is, and this is one all you candidates have faced before, what is your position on grounding the F-35s? And I guess I mean the three candidates that are currently running for office. University Council candidates like to address that. I've heard a lot of concerns about the F-35s during my time here in Burlington and can think they're a nuisance, but I just don't know if I were on the City Council what powers I would have to really mitigate the flights of the F-35s. You would have power. The mayor is, we own the airport. We control those airplanes being there. While that may be true, I would need to look into it more before being able to say what kind of approach I would take, just because I'd need to learn more about what powers the City Council actually has and what leverage the City Council has with the Air National Guard. Good, I hope you will look into that. Thank you. Any other comments? All right, thank you for that question, Robin. Ashley, you have a question as well. I'm sorry, I was trying to chime in to Robin's question. I'm sorry, go ahead. We don't actually have the authority to ground the F-35s. That is federal authority and though we own the airport, the airport has been developed with federal dollars since at least the 1950s and possibly prior to that. And with each contract with the federal government, we have allowed the federal government to use the airport for their planes, is my understanding. When clearly myself and most of my neighbors, I think, don't really like the F-35s and would rather they were not here. And a ballot item was passed many years ago asking the City Council to take action. And there was a specific action. The action that was requested was that we asked the, I think it was to ask the head of the Air Force for alternative planes. And I actually authored the resolution to make that ask. We were, so we did make the ask and we did hear back from the Air Force that there were no alternatives. And we do not decide in Burlington where the Air Force puts their planes, unfortunately. Yes, I think it was Pat Leahy who really made the decision there. It was actually the Air Force. Senator Leahy certainly may have had influence over that. I can't speak to that, but it was the Air Force that made the decision. Actually, no, I'm great, thank you. Thank you very much. Joanne and Robin for the question. Just for everybody's reference in here, that was Joanne Shim, one of our city council members speaking. It was just off camera, which is why we don't see her up. Any other comments on that question or any other questions? Actually, Ashley, you had a question as well. Hi, I actually have some comments, but I did want to speak to the F-35 issue. That is not actually true, what you just shared, Councillor Shannon. Burlington could choose not to renew the lease in 2048 when it expires right now. Burlington receives $1 for that lease. So, you know, this is a tenant. Burlington can choose not to renew in 2048. But if Burlington has the will, and if we hold our leaders accountable and continue to speak up, this can happen. I have unrelated comments to share, and I don't know if this is the time for them or not. Is it? I'm just a little confused about the timing on the meeting I was taking public forum. Was it 6.30? Did I miss that? No, we're bouncing around a little bit tonight. We have some different folks who are here and others who are coming a little bit late. So, you're not wrong. We're a little bit out of order. Okay, okay. This is a good moment for a question or a general comment, certainly. Okay, all right. Well then, I just have a couple of minutes. I'd like to read a statement. That would be wonderful. If you don't mind, I appreciate your time. Sure, if you can give it to two to three minutes just to make sure we can get to their items. That's great. Sure, yeah, absolutely. Vermont is losing about 12,000 acres of forest land each year. This is according to the USDA Forest of Vermont 2019 report along with all the carbon sequestration and support for biodiversity that they provide. According to the Burlington IRP, McNeil purchased 334,935 tons of wood in 2019, making it the largest consumer of wood in Vermont. Canadian forests in the Amazon are becoming net carbon emitters thanks to corporate greed and combined with poor policy decisions. Vermont and Burlington are pushing biomass and biofuels and they are not carbon neutral and this needs to end. It's time to recognize the science. The carbon neutrality of biomass and biofuels is a purely political decision that has no connection to physics, chemistry or forest ecology. If we're honest about reducing greenhouse gas emissions, we need to aggressively push for more solar, every rooftop parking lot, the new Burlington High School should be a beacon of purely clean, healthy energy and heat for our children. A roof covered with solar panels and heating from geothermal. This would be an inspiration for our children, many of whom suffer from despair, fear and helplessness over the climate emergency. We need to stop incentivizing biomass and biofuels which harm the climate, biodiversity and human health and shift our precious resources to truly clean zero carbon energy and heat. We need visionary leaders who will say no to promoters of dirty energy. According to the Burlington IRP, if Burlington meets its net zero energy goals, this will result in McNeil doubling its greenhouse gas emissions from 453,000 tons of CO2 per year to about a million tons of CO2 per year, all of which Burlington ignores. Our ability to sequester carbon is decreasing every year as we destroy our forests and other precious carbon banks. Are we going to wait until we reach the tipping point and Vermont forests become net carbon emitters or are we going to do something now? Yesterday, renewable energy Vermont put forth a legislative proposal that would update Vermont's renewable energy standard to phase out eligibility for biomass generation. And I'm asking all of you here tonight to support this proposal. And I'm asking Burlington to update their local ordinance as well to omit biomass and biofuels. And I thank you for your time. Thank you very much, Ashley. I think, do we have Karen on the line? I believe so. There's one at the door. Karen. Nice, wow, perfect timing. We'll give you a moment to take your jacket off. Any other public comments or questions that we'd like to discuss? Please. Good evening. My name is Hans Fenwies. I live in Ward 6 here. I'm not one to speak at these events often, but I have a real concern about the ballot item on the control board that's being proposed. Closer. I feel it's not clear to many of the voters. I think there's a lot of sides to it that have not been explained well. And I'm particularly concerned that we have a system in place where we have elected officials. And those elected officials appoint people to run departments. And if those people that run the departments don't do their job, then those elected officials have the option to remove those people from that position. And to put, so for a leader to be able to be successfully run a department or a business or a government, you need to have all aspects of leadership under your wing. And that includes discipline. And so disciplinary action belongs to the leadership, the leadership that we have indirectly elected through our elected officials. And not by a board that's sort of on the outside. I'm very concerned we create an entity that is going to be running rogue or wild. And I don't think that's the right way to do it. So I don't know how we get better information out to the rest of the voters, but I am very concerned that this is going to be something that we're going to regret very much later. Thank you. Thank you very much. That is actually a good segue for us to cover the ballot initiatives and other city council updates. Karen Paul, thank you much for joining us in person. We appreciate it. A cold night. This is the first time that I've been here in person in a long time. So I can't even remember, but I do have, I had sent you a PowerPoint, which for the people that are, yeah, for the people that are watching it, obviously this screen is very small. There are eight ballot items. So this is a large handout. And I only have so many copies, but this is, this is actually, it's all right, I appreciate it. You can if you'd like. And I have one, for someone who has really good eyesight, I have one that has on four. Okay. It's a little bit smaller. I don't know, would any of you, would maybe you would like one? And I'm going to actually use my own computer as my own copy. All right. So I was asked to speak to the town meeting day ballot items and the request was made that I just give you the information. This is not an opportunity for my editorializing. I won't editorialize them. I'm just going to try to give you what the items are in a straightforward way. And of course, do you want to ask me any questions or if there's anything else that I can answer for you? I'm happy to do that, but I'll try to run through them. So I say there's eight of them. Some of them are more complicated than others. A couple of them are fairly straightforward. So I will try to give you that information. So if you're following along on here, you can see there are, in the next slide, there are eight questions. The first one is on the school budget, which I won't go into. I assume that you're having someone from the schools that is going to be here to talk about the school budget. Is that correct? They were not prepared to come yet this month. We may have them next month. People may have voted already, but... Okay. We'll do what we can. All right. I don't, a long time ago, long before I was on the city council, the city council gave the school department and board the opportunity to go directly to the voters with school budget increases or decreases as the case may be. So we don't vote on their budget and we allow them to put out whatever budget increase or decrease they want directly on the ballot. They're not able to put bond questions directly on the ballot, but for these annual budget questions, they bring that directly to you. So there's the other seven. One is a carbon tax. We also are voting on redistricting. We are bringing back for the second time the question about legal resident voting, which has passed successfully in Montpelier and Winooski. Then there's an item on the qualification of voters and the siting of polling places, which is a particular interest in ward six. And I'll get to that. Then we're, as you may recall, we voted to allow rank choice voting for city council races. This item would extend that to other elected offices. And then there are two other items that came directly as a result of petition drives. That is the independent control board for the police and then proposition zero. So the first, putting aside the school budget, the next slide is about the implementation of a carbon impact fee for new construction and large existing commercial and industrial buildings. And this is part of our commitment to the climate emergency, following a charter change that we passed in March of 2021. And this would allow the city to create policies to regulate greenhouse gas emissions in buildings. This is the next step in the ballot item that we've already approved. The fee proceeds would go to support a number of things, capital investments and converting vehicle fleets for electric vehicles and things like that. In other words, what it means is that if a new, in simple English, if a new construction or an existing commercial building was going to make changes to its building that were not in line with following the greenhouse gas emission guidelines, they would pay an impact fee. And that's basically in a nutshell what that one is about. You can see the language. You know, it's effectively designed to get us away from fossil fuels. And that is on the next slide is the ballot language. I'll just try to go through them as quickly as I can and I realize no one in this room can probably read what's on the screen. The third question and one that we have been, the council has been working on for about a year and a half is on redistricting. In the last census, one ward, Ward One, grew much more than some of the other wards and it created a deviation that was beyond 10% meaning from the smallest ward to the largest ward, it was too big or as the case may be, others were too small. So we had to go and realign the districts in order to meet what is effectively the equal representation rule. What happened as it affected Ward Six is that we will be taking back the Redstone campus which had been in the last redistricting part of Ward Eight. The idea was, as some of you may know, Ward Eight became, and I apologize for having my back to you, Ward Eight became effectively an on-campus college ward. It was 78% on-campus students and that created a number of challenges, mostly in terms of being able to get poll workers because many of the students that are living in dorms are not, they're only there for a short period of time and it was difficult to get people to even run for office. So we made a decision to try to take the athletic campus and the Redstone campus and the other and Champlain College and divvy up the student representation so that it's a little bit more fair and not over-burdening to one particular ward. So we will have the Redstone campus in exchange for giving Ward Eight more residential streets, there are a number of streets between Maple and Maine that are now Ward Six and will become Ward Eight if we approve this. So that, this, the battle language is a lot of legal stuff but basically what it's saying is that we're going a map with a map called city edit version two. And if you look on the city website and if you have an interest, I'm happy to direct you to exactly where you can look to get that map. As I mentioned, the legal resident voting is question number four. That was passed successfully in Winooski and Montpelier and effectively what it says is that if you reside, if you're a legal resident but you're not a citizen of the United States but you reside here on a permanent or non-temporary basis that you should be able to vote in local elections. And the theory here is that if you are living here you are impacted by the people that represent you and you are impacted by tax questions and other ballot questions and that you should have the right to vote. The fifth item is, as I said, a particular interest in Ward Six. So in redistricting, the Edmunds Middle School will no longer be in Ward Six which would create a problem if you have to vote in your ward because there's only one other building that is not on the Champlain College campus that or on the UVM campus that is in Ward Six and we're sitting in it right now. And it's not phenomenally centrally located and we try to find ones that are a little bit a little bit more centrally located for the majority of people. Edmunds Middle School was an ideal location but it would no longer be in Ward Six. So this will allow us the flexibility to have a polling place in another ward and effectively you could have two wards voting in the same polling place. And given the fact that the majority of people now are voting by mail in many elections this is also an attempt to have more flexibility and it's less costly and it still is very effective. You're still gonna have the chance to vote in person but there would be two wards voting in the same polling place. Oftentimes as you know, when we vote in national elections there are several districts, like when we vote for, well actually for a Senate or for the house you're voting, there's several districts that are represented as part of Ward Six. So when you walk in, there's like three tabulators and that's, it wouldn't be quite like that because we will make much more of an effort to separate them but it's sort of the same idea. Yes. Can we ask questions as you go or would you prefer me to? I'm happy to, I'm just trying to be mindful of your time and I know you've got other things on the agenda. So of course I'm happy to have you ask a question. Hold that mic a little closer. Sure. Karen, I had a question about this polling place item and whether there is a requirement that the polling place be near the ward, even if it's not in the ward, like so that we would know that we don't have to go to the Miller Center or something like that. Yeah, in fact, I think it does say that it would have to be in close proximity as possible to the ward in which yes, you reside. So yes, it would, and when we were thinking about redistricting, redistricting is a very difficult process and it literally can sometimes get down to one block. You're down to like a hundred residents or even as small as 50 or 60 residents, one side of the street, it's a very specific, it's a very lengthy process. And one of the things that we knew was that the block where Edmunds Middle School was was gonna be a problem to keep in ward six. And so these were sort of done at the same time. I won't spend a lot of time on ranked choice voting. I would imagine you're all fairly familiar with that process. We voted, we have not used ranked choice voting with the exception of one election. It was a special election. This year is the first that we will be using it for city council races. And of course, if there's only two candidates, then there really isn't a need for ranked choice voting. The South District is going to have three candidates who are running for the South District City Council seat. So that will be an opportunity to use ranked choice voting. The majority wanted to have ranked choice voting for the election of mayor, school commissioners, or to put a ballot question for mayor, school commissioners and ward election official officers. So this is an opportunity for us to expand ranked choice voting to effectively cover all elective offices. And the last two items just wanted to, just so everyone understands, and I tried to put this, actually this might be big enough that everybody can read it. There's a Vermont statute that says that if that the, and it's in the charter in the city of Burlington, that if 5% of the voters want to put a binding charter change on the ballot, they can do so by petition. And this year, there were two items that came forward in that manner. As a result, the city council does not have the authority to revise the charter proposal. It is coming to you exactly as it came by petition. And that one of them was the one that I heard you speaking about, Hans, just before I got in, I thought you maybe had gotten a jump on me on the ballot questions, but I figured that was only number, that was item seven. So you couldn't have gotten that far. This is the creation of an independent police oversight board. And what I did in the other two, it's the actual charter change because there's a lot of strikeouts is six pages long. So it was a little bit of a challenge to get that down to a couple of paragraphs because obviously we couldn't put that all on the ballot. And this right here is the charter, is the ballot language, it's three slides long, but I'll try to sort of, I'll try to as best I can synopsize what it is. It would create an independent department of the city and it would be comprised of a community police department control board and they would have the power to review and make findings on any incident, any complaint against a police officer, including the chief, and to discipline or remove any member of the police force, including the chief. It would also create the possibility of an investigatory office that would have full investigating authority. The way that the board would be appointed would be, it's a process, there would be seven community-based organizations that would have a member on the selection committee. There would be the director of racial equity, inclusion and belonging, and there would be one city counselor. The appointees, there would be seven members of the board. They would have to be Burlington residents when they got on the board, were they to leave the city of Burlington, they could remain on the board and they would have, I think there are three-year appointments. So this would effectively take the control of complaints and investigations for really any just cause, away from what is the current model to a community control board. And the last item, and I have to say we are in the presence of the expert here, because Fareed is definitely the expert on Proposition Zero. That is the last item. And that's a little bit more straightforward than the community, it's a little shorter. What it would mean is that voters would have additional powers by petition to initiate non-binding ballot questions, binding initiatives, proposing ordinances, also repealing ordinances. And it effectively would be more of a move, and correct me if I'm wrong, Fareed, I believe it would be more of a move towards representative, away from representative democracy, towards direct democracy. Similar to what you see in California. And there probably are other states that do that, but California is to some degree well known for that. But it would just give more power in the hands of citizens who, my question decisions that are made by the city council. Those are the eight questions in as close as I can get to a nutshell. Great, thank you very much. Can the general question about this? Sure. We educate the Burlington, what are the ballots being mailed out? So that's actually, that's our last, the last one item is that we had to, we had to vote on this by the 1st of February to allow the two weeks to get them on the ballot. And the ballots will be mailed to all registered voters on February 15th. So two weeks from today. There will be, I'm sure, a lot of information that will come to the, to register voters on it. And the language that is, the long version of the language is available. If you vote in person, it will be there. I believe that it is being mailed with all ballots. It's long. And that's why we have a short form because we can never get it all on the ballot. Did you wanna ask something for you? Just what I responded to last year, if I could really quick. So we have a copy of that Proposition Zero Language here. And you know, people compare to California, as you said, but we should be comparing it to Vermont because other municipalities in Vermont already have, give this power to their voters. So that would be a more apt like comparison because California has almost 500 different municipalities with varying degree of statues in terms of direct democracy. And for us, at least hit more as a restoring checks and balances, not to supplant the representative democracy just to empower people, especially when the representative of democracy feels to be representative or democratic, which I believe is the case, since we still have about 40% minimum to win elections, which most democracies has like 50% plus one, majority rule. Thanks. Well, again, that was my, I appreciate your advice. If I might just simply say, I appreciate that I, and that is true. There, you know, many of this, many towns and municipalities in Vermont do use a similar model. But again, my goal here was just simply to try to get out the information. I'm not trying to editorialize whether I agree or disagree with any of the ballot items. Excuse me just a second. President Paul, I just wanted to mention for those of you who may have come in later that we did get some resources for the ballot measures. They are, most of them can be found on town meeting TV, but we'll be publishing those in front porch over the next couple of days. So we'll be sending out links to the forum schedule, the upcoming forum schedule and a couple of public hearings that have already taken place on the ballot measures. I also will have a blue newsletter going out trying to talking about maybe not all of them. There's so many. This is an unusual year having so many ballot items. And, you know, and also just to keep in mind that these are charter changes. They are not advisory. They are the real deal. They are binding and they will go from there and for those who aren't familiar, they then go to the legislature and then would go to the governor. Thank you very much. I know we have some folks who've been on Zoom. We've been very patient. Margaret, would you like to ask your question first? Great, thank you. I'm Margaret Joyle. And my question is actually Karen, you just started to touch on it. I was gonna ask it up for Reed. I don't care who answers it. So where we have these ballot items that people have lots of opinions about and they are the real deal except they don't end with us. We don't just pass the ballot and then all of a sudden that's law. So can one of you, either you or for Reed, just talk about what the actual process is once a let's pretend it gets passed, whatever it is. What happens next? Well, the process is the same for any of these whether they came by petition or they came but through the council, deliberative process. I would think that perhaps one of the members of, yes, you wanna say to that? So my understanding is- You wanna hear about it. My understanding is that charter changes have to then get worked their way through the legislature. And traditionally that starts in the house so it can start in the Senate and that language doesn't necessarily mean it will be adopted. For example, in 2017, city of South Burlington passed a charter change to allow us to tax rental cars in the city of South Burlington. The legislature said no. Similarly, just cause eviction which worked its way through was vetoed by the governor and then the veto was sustained in the house. So just because you pass it doesn't mean it will make its way through the legislature. We are a Dylan state where the state gives each community their rights and powers or not. So that's what would happen next. Should these pass by your vote, you would, if you wanted to continue this and get it into law, you would need to advocate through your representatives in the state house, including myself, as well as the rest of them that represent from every corner of the state. Does that make sense? Thank you. And I would just love to add on to that that, so this exact language was actually passed by Manuski in 2015. So the voters reviewed it, chose to pass it. And then it had to go through the legislature and then they said it was cool too. So this isn't something that's like, out of the blue, Manuski's already done this. It's gone through the legislature, already happened. And they're working with their city council to like make it a really smooth process which is really exciting. So this is like a proven balance of power that's happening elsewhere and from up. Thank you everyone. Michelle, I'd see your question as well. Hi there. Thanks. And thank you for everyone who's participating there in person and making this an interesting meeting for the rest of us. Karen, I have a question about the police oversight board. I'm wondering what relationship this would have with the commission and how they would coordinate if at all. I'm also wondering if the commission currently wants any of these responsibilities in terms of oversight of police officers and is this a potential conflict for the board and the commission? And how would these two entities interact in your imagination or knowledge or whatever? Well, the police commission has come a pretty long way in the last couple of years in terms of what the police commission does. Right now the police commission, we do have a process for complaints. All complaints that come to BPD are seen by the police commission. They have the opportunity to investigate. But their power is because of the way the charter works. The power for discipline rests solely with the chief of police or their designee. And that has been acknowledged by most people that that is problematic. And we would like to change that. This charter change wouldn't abolish the police commission. The police commission could continue to do many of the things that it does now. But as far as complaints and discipline, that would rest with this independent body. So you could have both. And I think that's what the proponents of the charter change would say if you ask them that this is not against the police commission, it would just create an independent body that would have the authority independently to investigate and discipline and remove officers. Really for a very broad number of causes. So I hope that answers the question. Yeah, no, that is helpful. I'm gonna piggyback on that just very quickly, which is, is there another department that has a commission and an oversight board? Is there any precedent for this? No, there isn't any precedent in the city of Burlington. School department. Okay. I have three questions or comments. Yeah. Oh, three, did you have a question or comment on that topic? I think the school department has like something like that. But if I can respond to Hans' comment and also some of the questions. We get to this place where there is this call for independent oversight because of history. It's not, they didn't just come out of the blue. And public safety crisis did not start in 2020. It has been ongoing. And in many of these cases, public safety has been affected by the police department itself making us less safe. We have had an administration that refused to conduct approved independent investigation into several incidents. I remember when BPD officers opened a shot of protesters, there was a call for independent investigation, which the mayor refused. We also have had multiple incidents of civilians being killed by the police. There has been more civilian death under this administration than all the previous administration combined in Burlington history. We have had a chief of police who lied under oath in court documents and never really got prosecuted. His replacement on the same day also admitted to surveilling the critics of this administration, breaking our constitutional right of fourth amendment. And so there is a need. There's definitely a lot of distrust with the police. And we see officers who are responsible for death actually getting paid so they can be removed from the city, from the force. The officers who are on camera meeting young people has actually been voted by his colleagues to become the union president. How are we supposed to trust our safety to an organization like that? I do think the police has a special function in comparison to other city employees. They are able to take your life for liberty, to cause injury and get away with it. I feel like this actually would be better to be handled at the state level. And one thing about the charter change is the legislature could actually change it the way as they seek fair. And that is what I'm hoping to do. I do regret having the council instead of working with us and proposing their amendments to make it better since we agree there needs to be change, both in terms of the decision-making process and also in terms of public safety. Why don't we work with us? And if you think that this could be improved, like let's see the improvement. So I do think if we pass this, I expect the state to at the state level, it could be modified. So it becomes a statewide standard, but we do need to pass it to put that pressure on. If Burlington could pass this, then I will force the legislature to take up this issue. Thank you for you. I know there's a few other questions. So maybe we just stay on this topic for a moment. Any other questions related to the police board? I can also answer a little bit, speak to the relationship between the police commission and the board. So, and I guess I didn't choose Miss, I'm Amy. I've spent a lot of hours over the past year talking to people on the street about this and canvassing for signatures. And one of the things that seems like really clear talking to folks is maybe we could have different ideas about what public safety is and what it looks like, but we all agree it's important and people seem to agree that police can't oversee themselves. And just as like a logical argument and that that's not really a wild idea, that's true of a lot of other professions like therapists or teachers or, you know, and so it's really just, it's not about being anti-cop or something like that. It's about due diligence and just, you know, covering our bases. And, you know, as a counselor Paul shared, like it is something that is shared even by the mayor, the mayor himself called the chief's monopoly on power and aberration in our democratic system that has contributed significantly to community distrust and we're likely to continue to face disputes over future disciplinary actions until this issue is addressed. So he said that in 2020, but like nothing's happened since then, right? We look at what's being put forth as a public safety plan. And yet there's nothing being put forth about changing the charter. So that the police chief is not the person with sole power here, it's all it's about. So if leadership is not taking action, then we need to take action. And this is something that is very, very, very similar to what the city council reviewed in 2020 and actually passed themselves and has had a chance to talk about. So the reason I get to that is also because when you talk to police commissioners, there often is a lot of frustration about the lack of power. Police commissioners have had increases in responsibility but not increases in power because it still holds in the city charter that the police chief has the ultimate power, right? To quote Mark Hughes, here's a former police commissioner. At that time, it was my opinion that the police commission was an apparatus that just served to present a perception of oversight. Milo Grant, who's also a police commissioner has come out in support of us strongly. And I think what actually is really interesting hearing from Milo about it is that their perspective that this actually could be very supportive of officers. So when you think about your own like HR department or something at your work, right? There's a lot of pieces that go into that. There's not just discipline, there's also like training and coaching and monitoring and all of that. And the police commission has all of those responsibilities but right now they have to focus a lot on this one narrow slice of discipline that they actually don't have a lot of power to do. And so this idea that this isn't taking over policing structure in some ways, taking this narrow slice that's around discipline and giving it to this oversight body. And this oversight body can choose to act if they feel that appropriate action hasn't been taken. And so to quote Milo Grant, I have changed my mind and I support this ballot item strongly as a way to not only protect the citizens of Burlington, but to protect the officers, to make sure that they get the support they need, to make sure that they get the training that they need. Sometimes discussing complaints is not about punishment. Often it's not at all. It's about saying, can we take a look at the training? And if the training was provided before, what needs to be reviewed again, what additional coaching can help? So putting this kind of piece in the hands of oversight board can create more accountability. And also it can free up the police commission to focus on supporting officers in the ways that they really need to be supported. Thank you very much. If I could just sort of add, Milo Grant is one police commissioner. There are other police commissioners who are not in favor of this ballot measure. So I think we should at least get that out that the police commission is not speaking with one voice. There are members of the police commission that support this and there are others that don't. And just the other item of wanting to work with people on the ballot measure that came, the charter change in 2020, I was on the city council at that time. I spent a great deal of time in outreach, trying to find compromise and there was no ability to do that. Councilor Shannon, I know you've been patiently waiting as well. If there's any other questions for me to the police oversight board, we can address this quickly before we can move on for another question or topic. Thank you. I'm just on the same topic. Am I, is it my turn or did you? Councilor, we'll come back to you unless it's on the voice board. We'll just finish up. I think it probably is. Is that what you want to talk, speak to Councilor Shannon? Yes. Great, great. Speaking to the police, yeah. Yes, thank you. So I really don't agree entirely with Fareed's analysis of history. And I also would point out that we paid a lot of money for a report to review our policing structure. And in that report, it actually did support the police chief having a final authority over discipline, not necessarily solely. They also recommended that the commission be further empowered. But in any profession, I think you want to be judged in your profession by your peers. And one thing about this bozel is it specifically cuts out any peers from serving on this disciplinary board. And it does ask that the board have diverse representation. And in the beginning, it starts out defining that diversity in ways that we would probably expect when we talk about diversity in terms of race and socioeconomic status and gender, geographic residents, et cetera. But in addition to that, I want to point out some important language that I felt should have gone on the ballot. And I was in a small minority of people and this is what you will not see on the ballot, but it's part of this charter change. And that is who is given priority to serve on this board. It says, in terms of diversity, this shall to the extent possible include members who are Black, Indigenous, or other people of color, members who have lived experience with houselessness, mental health conditions, sex work, domestic violence, substance use disorder and or arrest or conviction records. I find this concerning. It doesn't say in terms of domestic violence, it doesn't say whether we're seeking out the victims or perpetrators of domestic violence. I also want to point out that while others have said that yes, this does have to go to the legislature for approval, when we talk about Proposition Zero, that is not the case. If that is approved by the legislature, you can have legislation like this going through without any oversight from your elected officials and you as voters are expected to be experts in a six-page ordinance where you only have a short question on the ballot because you can't put six pages of legislation on a ballot. And I think that that is concerning. I know I've heard that this is the same as Winooski, but I believe that in Winooski, the ballot initiatives can't touch on money, taxes, budget, city employee salaries. There is some confining of what can be addressed with Winooski's ability to put binding issues on the ballot. Also, I would say Burlington is a more complex city than any other city in Vermont. And perhaps we shouldn't have the same thing that every other city has. But I think that this charter change is a really good example how that could be a dangerous thing and difficult for voters to determine because while community control of police sounds like a good idea, when you get into the details of this, you'll find it also eliminates the due process for police officers. Once this group determines what the discipline is, they can, they don't have a right. This takes away their rights to grievance and arbitration. They would have to go to court to appeal this. So there is a lot in here that's not on the short form. Thank you, Councillor Shannon. Before I know the question or comment in the room, before we do that, Diane, I know you've been patiently waiting. Is your question or comment on this particular topic? Or can we come back to you? Yes, it goes to the police question. Go ahead. Without going back through all the history, it seems to me that the reason we have a commission, is for the reason that we're creating now this new commission, if I can call it that. It's that we're unhappy with the existing system. So we're creating a new oversight board. So as a citizen, it feels like we should fix the system that we have rather than creating another overlay on top of the other one, just to duplicate what we don't like about the first one. So even though I've heard the explanations on both sides, I'm at a loss to understand why we can't have the existing commission do the comprehensive work that we want both oversight committee and the old commission to do. Why can't that happen? The answer is that we could, we can. And today it hasn't happened because of time or because of hotheads? It hasn't happened because we haven't been able to reach a consensus on how that would work. And part of the reason that it has been difficult over the past two years to find that consensus is that for the past two years, this petition drive has been going forward and people were a little reluctant to find, there were some level of reluctance to find that kind of compromise when there was knowledge that a petition drive was going to put the ballot item, to put this ballot item on the ballot once they reached the 5%, which is effectively, it's not exactly the same as what was brought forward in the fall of 2020 and the council voted on. It's very, very close. It's not exact. I don't want to say it's exact because I'm sure there are others who would say that it isn't and that's true, it's not exact, but it's very close. How does that comment as well? Yeah, I guess I would just say, I mean like 2020, it became clear when it was uncovered that like, we couldn't discipline these officers because of how the charter was set up and I think it was pretty clear to everybody that the city charter needed to be changed, even if you wanted to put these powers in the police commission, you could totally do that. You had two years to do that, to put it on the ballot and have the voters vote and make the city charter change, but it hasn't happened and it's still not in the mayor's plan to make it happen in any of his public safety plans. But one other thing I just wanted to correct that's I think an important detail that was brought up by councilor Shannon, you absolutely can appeal decisions that are made by the board. So that is still a place. They just go to superior court. So that's not saying that officers can appeal decision by the board, they absolutely can. What I said is they lost their rights to grievance and arbitration and they can only appeal to the court, that is correct. Right, and I will also add that there are other than the police union, the largest union in the city of Burlington, which is AFSCME is outspokenly opposed to this ballot measure. Okay. Sorry, can I say that again? Sorry, Karen. It said that is that the largest union in the city by far AFSCME is steadfastly opposed to this ballot item. And mindful of that, I know we have just about four minutes left of our evening, much of it's been spent on this particular topic. I just like to, I wanna make sure we can get to it, but I know we have a few questions as well. So I believe Andy, you have had one comment or question pending as well. If you can make it as succinct as possible. Yeah. Absolutely, thank you so much. My name's Andy Blanchett. I am transparently resident of Winooski. So I did it initially to see kind of what folks are thinking about for all resident voting. As Winooski resident, I can just say it would be a great choice for Burlington. I'm glad that you brought up the union issue when it comes to the community control of police. I'm also president of AFSCME 1674, which is the Howard Center Workers Union. There will be a press release tomorrow that will be sharing that we support the community control of police ballot initiative. So I just wanted to make sure that was crystal clear when we're talking about labor in Burlington. And I just wanted to say that I fully agree with Fareed's account of history. I think that that is really important to note. And I'd also just like to make a comment that what the speaker said before me is absolutely true on the panel there. There's been two years to decide to put the powers into the police commission that police commissioners have said they wanted. And it seems like voters now would like to go with this path. So I just wanted to share that, thank you. Thank you. And was it hot, said the leaf? Yeah, I mean, maybe it's unnecessary comment, but so this George Thieng's proposals come to table by 5% of voters supporting it. They can't, they can't. They can come through the council deliberative process or they can come through a petition drive. Right, petition drive and then can go straight into the ballot, right? Okay. And really this week is one of the first times I've heard about it. And maybe I'm one of the 25% of people that are in town at our parents that may have to head in the send because they're dealing with kids of school issues and daycare and whatever. But I really feel the education process is lacking. And I respect the people that put this ballot forward, but I feel the people of Veronton, a large portion of them have not been educated. You may be educated on it, you may have reached out to certain groups, but I know I've not been reached out to and I think I don't think I'm alone. So I feel this is being pushed down our throat onto a ballot that we now don't have a choice that's going to be voted on. And I'm really afraid there's going to be a lot of people not educated enough on this and that will just swing with, blow the wind or whatever. So I'm sorry, but I feel you feel short there. Thank you guys. I know we are out of time for this evening. Thank you everybody for attending and for our elected officials for providing such great overviews and perspectives on a lot of questions tonight. If you have additional questions or comments that have not been addressed this evening, we do have a Google forum we've included on our NPA newsletter. It's also included in the front porch forum, post that goes out. I would encourage you to please post questions and topics for future meetings. We would love to get your input for future discussions. So thank you very much everyone and stay warm tonight and tomorrow. Thank you everybody. Thank you. If anybody wants to hand out.