 I think it's up to the parents to go on a whole new life. It's a lot of work. Well, it can stand. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Are you tired and all you say, or just. I don't. They can be chamber 50 graders. I'm looking to do that. It's in Frank's style. Frank says, you mean What do I think that we're saying? And we're on the same building. They work together. I don't want to think that I would conflict with that. Right. They honestly don't know a lot of things. Somewhere else. Right. It's a heavily focused. That's where I heard. Okay. What happened to him? He was a C though. During the whole journey. Right, right, right. Yes, the part of the whole. And he was. And it's good. Yeah, people in a room. They use so much. I first. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're going to go upside down. Backward there. Yeah, I'm not quite sure. What's going on with that? That's the Charlie question. Nobody's. And then look for your life. Yeah. I have critiqued your eyes. This is me on. I was invited. Yeah. And I was. Also. So. The conversation. Sara is the. From the police department. Yeah. I had an interaction that was about an hour ago. You hear that all the time. Oh, I'm sure. I mean, they're the guy passed out flat. Thanks to the leaders. If we walk by. Okay. Yeah. My message. Police. It was. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. My message. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not sure. Yeah. Yeah. But. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You see. I don't. Perfect. Did Michael start that problem? Yeah. Six points. That's one of the things that you should probably talk to. What should we do? Yeah. So you walked by somebody to, uh, they will look into. There are no Steve Boyd and a couple of people. He's not going to be able to do that. I'll take my time. But he's not going to go out there. So I mean to me is. And do you want to blame on the sidewalk? Well, but you find me with all the evidence. They're out. So you work for the police department. Yeah. Are you the chief's. Okay. So it's a new position for now. And for the senior. Lights. Lights. In my day. Oh, no, I'm just here. I want to force. Observe and learn. I'm talking about bicycle. More day. I'm just kind of here too. This whole month. I've been going to all the different. Be a good back and learning. And I'm sure. What's. So. We were going to try to get some. And the old folks. Yeah. So somebody will be given. That's an issue that has been even asked about. Is there's tremendous number of bicycles. And. Again, what should, what should one do with that? Should we at least call it in and have it recorded? Should there be some. You know, what does the. Police department. The bicyclist people think we should do. The decision. That's a visual aid. I know. The bicycle is a pretty. Chasing. And that's. I want to ask. Be happy to sit here and learn. Yeah. Reach out to us. Invite. We like to have this meeting all the time. We like to buy. Dinner for this. Yes. So. Here's an idea. So here's an idea. City markets and our water. Wine sales. The libraries. We have a big ass party in those people. Go to the city market. Get some foods. To the Y or anything. We do that. So how much money do you have to spend the ship? I don't know. I just did about. About 900. What do I have left? Per advantage. You actually. Design services. Um, so. So. So. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Design services. Um, So. I, I, it sounds like you guys. Like basically paid for a credit for last year. So. Not every money. Because we spent so far, but I know. Cause it was just like three money. Yeah. Yeah. Seven loaves of fishes. I know that. I know that. I know that. I know that. I know that. I know that. I know that. I know that. I know that. I know that. I know that. I know that. I know that. You want to use their credit and I was like, well, I'm going to pay for this. Why? So. Yeah. I remember. Yeah. We said. Yeah. Is. Oh, yes. It was like a B sound. Yeah. I do. Yeah. You did. I know that. I wanted to be a walk party. Well I don't. You want to encourage. Having. You did. You missed a great party last Friday. In a breath. I don't want to. I want to see. Great. I'm sure I don't want to encourage some of you, but the lunch is done through the lion's hand. I'm going to be ready to run together so that we're at night. I think we'll do it the way you say it as opposed to, so yeah, so while you're upside down here. Am I out of line yet? No, not at all. I don't know. Bill, how many bikes have you had stolen? Mine. Mine have not been stolen. I lock them up. Is that the solution? I think I'm going to steal a bike. I see it. Have a good agenda. People come out. Are these just going to be conversations about bike theft and sheltering and camping? There was going to be some information shared by the old spokesman. A couple of technical difficulties. I don't know. We picked up Lauren in Ward 3. Hello, we miss her. She got across over. I was visiting Pam down in Lancaster this week. As long as you guys aren't upside down. I'm going to go back to the meeting. Yeah. Right. Can we try a different HDMI cord? Do you have another one? I like to get there a little bit early. I don't know. You just do this every month. That's just, that's just. Yeah. Yeah. It's a nice slide up on this. There's a spot available there. Nobody's sitting there. Sure. Everybody sitting there. Yeah. We'll discuss that. Okay. We have an option. Well, maybe we would do it from St. Thomas or someplace like that. We have a little money left. Sorry. No problem. I don't know. I don't know. And Tim is coming. Maybe this is indication that we shouldn't be having meetings in the summer. People have other things they want to do in the nice weather. You don't want to be at an MPA. Who would have thought that the ward 8 MPA meeting would not start on time. We'll call it. We're busy. We need to go. We're busy. We're busy. We're busy. Never seen the upside down. That's the one. I think it adds character. In your spot of high list. Okay. He says. Put the camera. Ready? Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. My name is Romion. I am a resident. managed two transit stations, one here in Burlington, another one over in Bonn-Billyard. I'm also in charge of the lost and found. I oversee any bikes that are lost to the organization or any other items as well, as well as our relationships with customers who book in nationwide. I also, the court moderator, as Bill mentioned, as well as the members of the steering committee. So I'm glad to be here and look forward to hearing tentatively when the speech ends. Thank you. My name is Sarah Hernandez-Tim. I'm the new public information and CD engagement officer with the Burlington Police Department. Hi, I'm Preston Aisley from Ward 3, Church Street Marketplace Commission, and I'm here. Does I'd like to hear the presentation on the old YMCA? Lisa Bridge, the Ornate resident. I'm also here to hear about what's happening with the old line. Yeah, I'm Jim Cohen, Ward 8 president, and same thing as what she said. Everyone knows Sam and Charlie. Don't know anything about this. Hi, I'm Sam. I work with CEDAW, and I go to all the NPA meetings. And I'm Charlie G, I work for CCTV. Thank you. My name is Tevin Goldberg. I'm visiting from Ward 5. I'm here to talk about an event we're holding at City Hall next week. Jesse Warren also visiting from Ward 5 with my roommate and colleague, Tevin, and during the announcements, we'll talk about this event. Hi everyone, I'm Dan King. I live in Ward 8, and I'm the Ward 8's counselor. So, where do we live? We just sit around here and do some ourselves. We're all over the place. Yeah, sure. So, we have renderings to show at some point, and at first, I just like to talk a little bit about it. You're not just in here. So, since I was in Cruz Baker, I'm here to talk about it. I'm Clary Buckley with Smith Buckley Architects. I'm a little more ahead of your address to talk a little bit about it. Please let me. Demo Bryant, I own 216-250 College Street. Davis. Eric again, Hanley. I'll prop in Ward 8. You're still on the funeral next to the line. We're still on the line. We're not there now. The house next door places on Bradley Street. Bryant Bryant, I'm the director of the city for community and economic development projects. Does anyone like to do some sales who happen to be on the Zoom meeting? I'm representative Mary Catherine Stone, here to listen in and pitch in when and if y'all want. Keith Biglinda. I'm Keith Pillsbury. I live on University Terrace, and I'm very interested in the presentation about the use of the old Y building. I'm Linda Risby. I am award eight resident. I attend most meetings. Okay, so I go ahead, Linda. No, that's okay. I have a bad connection, so don't worry about me if there's a lot of questions. We have a number of people interested in discussing the why. If you could wait until that opens up, we'll try to have more time for that. But are there any ward eight issues that you would like to talk about that are not on the agenda? Everything's fine in ward eight. Oh, it's a problem. We'll add that we have purchased through CEDO's help and encouragement, some banners and signs that we will use to announce the meeting. I think they're ready to go. You'll see them. They're very attractive to an orange. We'll be posting those so that there'll be more announcements of this, so you don't have to catch us on front porch form. If you're in ward eight and would like a couple of signs to put out on the nights of the meeting, that would be great. So that's coming. Any other issues or announcements? Okay, any speak out issues at all? Okay, so the next item is I just wanted to make sure because I know it's the ward eight people first. So is this, you're right. Okay, cool. All right, so yeah, my name's Jesse Warren. I started an organization called Democracy Creative, which is, we're based in the soda plant down in ward five. But I'm here today to talk to you about an event we're holding on May 31st, so next Wednesday. Because what Democracy Creative is all about is thinking about how the design of the way we make democratic decisions leads to different outcomes, leads to the way at the national level, we see the debt crisis happening. It has the design of the government system lead to that. So we're hosting events on a topic, an idea called Citizens' Assemblies, which in a quick nutshell is basically, you pick a problem you wanna deal with in the community or the state or the country, and then you choose a group of people by a democratic lottery. So there's no elections, there's no campaign finance stuff, there's no like Koch Brothers money, there's nothing like that. There's no, it's just regular, every people from all walks of life that end up representing the whole, the full spectrum of working people, every kind of person in the community. And they get a chance to learn about this issue, then they get a chance to deliberate about it over the course of a few weeks or a few months, and they're usually paid for this. And it turns out that when this is done, this has been done over about close to a thousand times across the world, very few in the US, but they're very promising. They show that people come up with really good recommendations, and they offer these recommendations then to the city council or the legislature or the national government. And they come up with very good decisions that are well thought or very good proposals that are well thought through. And they can break through basically the political divisiveness and the polarization and the gridlock that just happens in every democracy, just the design of the system. There's this gridlock and these things that happen. So this is a very promising method of trying to figure out a way to break through that so we can make progress on every issue we're trying to deal with in Vermont, in America, in the world. So we're really excited about these citizen symbolies. There's gonna be two speakers. The first one is gonna be Terry Bereishis, who some of you may know is a, he's a recovering politician called himself. But he actually, I believe as it was kind of the initial conceiver of the NPA, the NPA is back in the 80s. So, and he's kind of taken that and evolved his thinking even further. And this has gotten us to citizens in some of these. So he's gonna be speaking, he's actually like a globally known scholar in this stuff. That's actually pretty cool people of what Terry's thinking. You know what he's thinking? What? Self-righteous, probably. Well, fair enough. Well, that's us now. Yeah. Well, yeah, okay. I'll tell him now. There's other products recently passed, so. Right, no mystery. Oh, that's right. Right. Well, yeah, so Terry's gonna be speaking. We have another person, Alex Ranieri, who is, she works at one of the, the United States is leading organizers of citizens assembly. So there's a lot around the world for a few in the US. She's gonna be speaking, I'll resume. But music, apple pie, should be fun and interesting. So hope we can all make it. We're gonna pass around these invites. Classic questions that have been. Yes. So who funds this organization? Democracy Creative. Nobody. And then it's the Board of Directors. We have, we do have a Board of Directors. We're a startup nonprofit. So who would be on the Board of Directors? Who is on the Board of Directors? Right now it's myself. We do have a state rep, Emily Krasnapp who's in the Board of Directors. It's currently someone else, Claude Tomlinson, who has resigned from the board because she's just too busy. Hard to find people to serve on boards these days. And we're looking, we're recruiting. So if anyone wants to serve on the board, we are trying to build on the board. But we're not funded by anybody. I don't know if that's where we get, oh, we're trying to be in town. We don't have, we got a grant from BCL. So mommy, it's happening. But it's not, it's a political, you know, it's not, it's not partisan. We're trying, we're really trying to build something that will, this is a whole lot of human aid. We're slowly timeline, but we could go on and talk to you about it. Yeah, let's talk about it later. Yeah, okay. Any other announcements? Hey Bruce, you want us to just sort of see what you're doing? We have some revering section here. Stay back, we're going to sit. Do you want to go over here? Just go right. So you can stand these up for the camera. I'm not feeling it, so we'd hold it. So we're, we're presenting to the camera. Okay. Is that right? Yes. Okay. Yes, absolutely. Great. So I'm Bruce Baker and thank you for, thank you for coming. So first I'd like to explain why I'm here and why I'm connected to the why because it's not obvious. So I get sick of walking. Me and somebody else who I work with get sick of walking by the why and cleaning up the needles. So we decided to reach out to the people who are hotel, who have, are trying to build a hotel on the site. So the history of the site is it was permitted for a hotel by a Florida developer. The permits lapsed. It was a YMCA, which is not technically in the loud use at the time. So it's kind of in permitting no man's land. And we, I, and then these fellows bought it and I happened to know them through my banker. So I asked for the number and I called them. And it was, so my background is in permitting and some, and being a developer and being a business lawyer. So I wanted to let them know what they're, what they're up against and try to find out what they were trying to do because it's becoming a big problem in the city and on a lot of different levels. So I reached out to them and it was clear they didn't understand what they were doing in a permitting environment. So I wrote them a memo to describe it. So here's the permitting situation if you build a hotel. And that is that you have to go through the local permitting process and then you have to go through Act 250. And it's kind of a long road. You know, and the reason you have to do it in series is that there could be changes at the local level. So you don't wanna apply for Act 250 permitting until you know what you're applying for. So, so in this discussion, they turned to me at some point and said, well, they have no plans. I learned that they have no plans for managing the building. And, you know, so I started to ring bells for me. It felt like, okay, prior developer out of state had no experience. Didn't really have a strong interest in the community. And that's really why we're here. But obviously a site like that and expense like that has to make sense. So what it evolved to is now I have a contract to purchase it with a partner subject to two conditions. And those conditions are one, do your due diligence and make sure there aren't environmental hazards that and things like that. And two, and two gain permits. And one of the critical things I convinced them is, so the permitting regime you need to know about is that you can truncate the permitting process by eliminating Act 250 if it's a, what's called a priority housing project. So that's what we're looking to do is primarily housing on the site. Now I'm here now at a very initial stage because if I were you in the neighborhood, I'd be wondering what the heck is going on in the community. So this is really, so some of the questions I can't answer, like precise unit mix and stuff like that. But I'll tell you, like we're going to try really quickly. So we've already shortened the permitting process by half by doing housing. And we've already, I think benefited the community by doing housing. And that's, and by the way, I see Brian nodding over there. I wanna thank CEDO because without the cooperation on an urban site like this, it's really difficult to build. So if you think about all the trucks, if you ever had construction at your house, all the steel where it has to go, you can't build this without cooperation from the people around you. So Tim O'Brien next to me and all those people, without their cooperation, it's really a challenge to take this on. And that's why you see people building in fields and in Essex and not here because it's more expensive and it's much more difficult. You need a lot more cooperation from a lot more people. So I have to thank them for helping me to try to figure this out. We move this along. Can you take some questions from people? We have a number of people that would like to ask questions. Absolutely. Yeah, so if you'd like, we could show pictures of what we're trying to build. And the number of, I think we're gonna build at least 60 housing units, maybe more like up to 90. We have to fit it in there. We have a lot of challenges related to the site, which is one of the reasons I really wanna talk to you about. So my guys, when they go there to try to do dig test pits for geotechnical are being, they were threatened with a machete. We have some guy who took a cement baluster from a street, climbed three floors, got inside, battered a door. We had barricaded chat, knocked it down and rents rooms to people in there. So the only way we can get in there for the testing we need to do to get this permitted is to bring the police. This morning, we cleared them out again. Last week, we cleared graffiti off the building and cleaned up around it. They got tagged immediately again. If we don't get permits and occupy the site, then we can't control it. It's too big to control. It's impossible. We can't give enough surveillance to the site to make it work. Okay, thanks Bruce. I do have a question. Is this part of the historical district? It's quiet. I don't, I believe this is a historical building. Okay, because we live on Bradley and Bewell and Historic District, which has, I don't know what that means, but that might have to have a slave room. And so I'm a little bit surprised the size of the unit is out of proportion, but other people may want to comment on some of that. So if you have some questions. So I want to just comment on that. So we have limited time. Okay, but it is historic. The building is on the historic red, whether it's in a district or not, it's on the historic red. And the prior owners want to knock it all down. So we're trying to preserve the nice building on the corner and the flat roof sort of uglier portion, take that down. So, but I'll tell you this Bill, if we can't, so I have a, if we can't get scale on the site, we can't preserve that because that building is basically bricks and we have to structurally hold it up and then build inside it again. If this, if we can't get the scale, we can do it. It's just a fact. These are geotechnicals, these are, it's in the ravine. So we have to drill down 20 to 30 feet to gain bedrock so that we can, so we have a premium foundation. We have urban soils to check out to Coventry. There's not a way to do this without scale. So that's okay if the city doesn't want it. We would, we would. But let's find out what the city does. The citizens of Ward 8. Questions? No questions? I guess, I have a question. I totally for this property. You know, I grew up at the funeral home, you know, I was there all the time, but the city's going to have to really step in and fix the school problem at the end of Bradley Street. I mean, people don't understand that. I've got pictures. I should have brought them in where there's boats on South Union and Bradley Street there. So I had the property next to the funeral home, my basement's flooded. I don't know how many cars have been ruined over the years because of that issue. I've talked to Chapin about it. He knows about it, but the city's got to really wake up on that part. I'm totally for this, but they got to fix that sewer there. That building will flood, Tim's building floods. There was the ravine, the city ravine, you guys probably goes right underneath that building. And it goes right behind the old funeral home, but the city really has to step up to the plate. Bruce is a great guy. He's a good developer. He's the right fit for this project, but the city's really got to wake up on that sewer. And I've been down there where there's water this deep. The sewer drain at the end of Bradley, has anybody ever seen that happen? Yeah, I've seen it. Oh yeah, you know I am in here. They can get this high and it's dangerous too. It's really dangerous for kids and stuff, but that's a major project right there. That's, I thought, Chapin, it's two, three million bucks probably, easy. But the city's got to step up to the plate and help Bruce. Bruce is the guy. I think it's a great idea. I'm all in support of the project on percent, whatever they have to do to make it for some more housing in downtown. And he's done some good projects here. We need more housing. I have purple properties here. We need more housing, but we've got to take care of the streets too. And the infrastructure in the city is terrible. I know we're building bike paths and this and that, but we really got to start figuring out what's underneath the concrete. Okay, let's move on from that. Okay. But good, I'm just curious about that. I'm a Smith Buckley Architects, and I worked with the previous owner of this site on the hotel proposal, which we were pretty excited about. And we were moving forward with that until COVID hit and it went on hold. And then following that, the developer decided he couldn't go forward with it. So we're excited to be working on this. I think it's a win on a number of different levels. One, the existing building is a persistent problem that we were all aware of, Bruce talked about it. We have a critical need for housing. This is gonna provide it. The approach to the existing Y in this project is similar to what we permitted for the hotel, which is most of the Y was built at the same time, which most people are surprised by. There's the gable roofed portion that we are proposing to keep along College Street. But the flat roof part that goes down South Union, actually most of it, except for the newer pool was built at the same time. But that portion that has the gym has undergone a number of changes and just its fundamental expression that doesn't really comply with the goals of the city for a walk blurb and environment. So like the hotel, we're proposing to take that part down, keep the gable, the pitched roof portion that most people I think feel is reasonably attractive. And we have, although I will acknowledge that the new building is larger in scale, there's a step back at the point where it connects to the existing gable roof part. And we take in steps to try to respect the historic part that we're keeping. So one of the things that I'm tasked with doing is stopping on time and letting people have a voice. We have been through this now in detail. There's a lot of, they now know who to contact. The discussions will go from here, but I want anybody else or anybody online who happens to ask questions or comment to please go ahead and do that. Mike, do you have your hand up? You wanna introduce yourself, Mike? Yeah, I'm Mike Buscher. I own the property at 301 College. I absolutely think that this project, this property is a huge problem in the neighborhood right now. I think that going big is the only way you're gonna take care of it. We need housing. One of my questions is, are you gonna primarily target college housing? We're, so the unit mix, I think is gonna end up being three, two and one bedrooms. So I don't think we're gonna target college necessarily. We may, but we're leaving it open to see. The last time I built one, I was, where's Mansfield Hall? You're familiar with Mansfield Hall. So one of the few years ago, I built the place on College Street called, and it's now Mansfield Hall. I mean, those are college students in there, but you wouldn't hear a peep from them. They're actually college students who have autism. So I've learned from this a long time that I don't wanna get pigeonholed as to what type of, we're building housing. It may be, but I'm not really sure yet. We're doing our test fill it, hit analysis. And we'll see. I think we're certainly more... We need college housing in the area because, you know, juniors and seniors don't wanna live on campus, no matter what people want to force them to do. And this would be a great place for it. Thanks, Mike. I'm gonna ask people who live in the neighborhood if they have some voice in this. I'd like to hear some. Yeah, I'm hearing a lot of people who own property, but we live two doors away from that place. So one thing to let you know, we have outside 24-hour management there. I'm sorry. You and I are worth this. Go ahead, Lisa. Oh, I got you. It's huge. We do need housing, but it's huge. Am I gonna have any sunlight left on my third floor? It's huge. And that's an architectural piece, right? You can determine that. I think it's appropriate. It is as big as the zoning allows. I don't know where you live, so I can't really answer your specific question, but it's big. It is, yeah. A lot of those on South Union and college, those row houses are a single family. They're not apartments. They're owned by single family, older people. People would get little kids and all of them have stylites in the roofs, which is their bathroom and their bedroom. And I can't imagine that thing towering over that street and blocking all of that light from the west. And that's about parking, the P word. So there's no requirement for any parking, as you probably know. Nevertheless, we are planning to build two levels of parking, essentially below college and South Union street grades. The site is much lower on the west side, but we think that we can get 65 or 70 cars there. Can I ask you why they would build on a site that has strictly hydrodynamic problems? You're asking me that? I mean, the city, let me ask the city. If you don't own the property, if the zoning allows it and the engineering supports it, it'll be permitted, so. Because we heard that it has water problems. And I'm wondering why build a big building on a site identified as that? Well, if you correct the type of geology of the site when you redevelop it, that's gonna end up tripping to the solution of the problem Eric pointed out, not contributing to the lack of power. It'll solve the problem once it gets right. If this was built with 1920s technology or whenever it was, so stormwater, geotechnical, and all those elements in hydrology well, be treated and be better. There'll be a lot of huge tanks on the ground that will store the- A mother major kind of guy. Right. The ravine glances this site. There's a little bit in the northwest corner where the ravine ran through. That's not to say that the rest of the soils are great. We will have to go in and it gets kind of wonky, but supplement the bearing capacity of those soils. I'm not aware of a high water table. The YMCA in big problem with water table. Did they? Okay, well, I didn't realize that, but just to be clear, you mean the new Y or the- Go talk to him. I was on the building committee. I think that was over, I think that was overblown actually, but parking is at the lower level, the occupied floors are above, and this will be engineered to deal with that. Go ahead. I'm Kim O'Brien. I own a property adjoining property right next to the Y. I'm actually at a lower, not personally, but my property is at a lower level. In that area, there's not a big water problem. More upward, orchard cares, as they were saying, that's where the problem is. I don't think that's a concern. Of course, there is, that ravine has a long, long history, and that was, it was actually where they, it was a train that went through there at one point. Okay. I don't think that's gonna be that big of an issue. We did have a major flood, but that was due to a six inch water pipe that broke, and of course headed west, because that's the direction it went in. I just wanna add that the problem that's been going on is the people who have been occupying the building, people don't, it's been a nightmare. I mean, I'm not only going to this property, I live there. I mean, it's, you just, it's beyond words. I set up a fentanyl thing between the two buildings last year, you actually set up a grill where you could get a hot dog too, after you shot up, it was ridiculous. It was right outside my window. Bruce has been the best thing that's happened in the last three years since this project started. The other two owners were absentee owners, they weren't in the area, they did not understand what was going on. Bruce is a loaf of dye, he gets it. Now I own, I've lived there for 20 years. I lived on Pearl Street for 20 years before that. And my family, we've owned 15, 20 properties in this downtown area over the last 60 years. Okay, I'm a, I am a Burlington downtown dye if you've ever come across. The last three years, what has happened up in that neighborhood, I'm ready to just leave. Yeah, I don't think you want people like me to leave because I've been supporting this downtown urban area for, and my family has for over 50, 60 years. And it's, I think Bruce is going to do a good job here. I think this is what is needed. We need the housing. We need to clean up that corner. And God bless the police, their hands are tied. I really feel sorry for them, whether they have a hard time doing their job and, but they're doing the best they can. Okay, and I would just like to add, it'd be nice to untie their hands a little bit, let them get back to doing the job that they used to do. And that would help us all in that area. Do you have a microphone on your phone? Yeah, it is a huge building. I will say it's, if this isn't meant for, I'm afraid of you are here and saying, listen for low income housing, for example, because there is a need for that. And maybe that's part of it. But it seems to me that this is a way bigger problem with how we decide how that property is being used. And I come back to the top and I look at, you know, we live right in the dead center of this area that we're talking about, and there's students all over the place, not a problem with students, but I think that UVM has a certain responsibility, you know, as they continue to increase their admissions, and there's more students and whoever said that, they're right, juniors and seniors want to live off campus, I don't know who said that. That's absolutely right. And it feels like it's a right of passage, but at the same time, UVM has a responsibility to house these people and it crowds out local people here and it forces big buildings like this to pick them up just to continue. We don't know the type of people that are going to be living here. How do we know that there's not going to be more people who are going to create more social problems in this community, in these houses, in the future, either. So we don't have any, we don't have any, that's an unknown. It seems to me the bigger problem here is where it's emanating from, which is up the hill, and UVM has a responsibility to address this. And everything I'm hearing is that they're not addressing it. I haven't heard much about it. Maybe they are. We can't talk about projects that are coming forward. We can say, though, that there will be announcements and I'm sorry that I have to be so vague, but it was an executive session. There will be announcements about UVM taking more accountability for the housing issues. So we're going to go far from the issue, which is this building. And then I agree that the UVM discussion room, we can probably include that. Can I just ask how long, assuming everything goes the way which I'm sure it won't, but how long does it take to build something like that? 18 months, two years, it depends on how you define. So this process, if it goes well, I would like to be inside, we need to be inside that sloping roof building in the wintertime I would like to be so that we are taking care of this chronic problem we have with people committing crimes inside here and then demolish the flat roof portion. So, and start then, and then we'll be looking at 18 months from then, but for the first six months, we'll be inside that building on the corner. So it'll evolve from there. There's still permitting and design to do as well. Go ahead, Chris. Mr. Baker, I want to make sure I'm clear here. So you have an ownership interest or you're an advisory capacity for this project? Starting as an advisor, we have a contract to purchase the building subject to obtaining permits and other due diligence. From the current owners, which are an LLC located in Quincy, Mass. Right, that want to make our town want to do. And if I recall correctly, are you still serving on the planning commission? Yeah. And will this project come becoming before the planning commission? Planning commission doesn't make decisions. They might- Be the design, go on the re-board. Yeah, that's DRV and DAV. Okay. And if I were, I think you- I think both as a resident, I live down the street here on College Street, but also as a marketplace commissioner. I think I speak for a lot of folks when I say we're very disappointed in the manner and the stewardship of that building. We have a lot of struggles here in town with the retail and all of the other things. It does not exactly say welcome to Burlington. And we have the other issue with the city on property over on the other corner as well. And I'm not sure why that's going on, but is there any plans to remediate or ameliorate the graffiti problem anytime in the short term? Well, last week we took all the graffiti off and two days later, they tied it again. So I can't tell you enough. Wanna play some wack-a-mole? Wack-a-mole. Right, if we don't occupy the building, we can't do anything about it. There's no way. So we have somebody who took a cement ballast or climbed three stories, knocked it open, told people to come at midnight because there's nobody around at midnight and come in, any wrench room. And then we came in with police again today. I don't know if you notice. We can only go in with police because we're afraid for our people they were threatened with machetes and whatever. So, and that's usually 10 to 14 days notice because they're short staffed. So this building is a victim of criminal behavior that we're gonna have a hard time dealing with until we knock down that flat roof portion and get inside that building every single day on that. So Bruce does not own this building. No, I don't know. But I mean, but I would respectfully ask that, you know, you know, the contract sounds like it's pending if you couldn't, you know, let it know. I mean, it is a challenge for us. So I appreciate the effort that's been done. If you think five more minutes on this issue, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're only if you're okay with it, the sheltering and camping and the bicycle that we'll move on so that we can hear from the city councillors as well. I have a question. What's the city's position on this brand? Have no position or I mean, the CEDO is not in the role of permitting projects. We know it's due permits. That's not what we do. We're here to support the development of our downtown and our local economy and housing. I'm not gonna talk about our housing, but it's probably because that's all the buildings. I agree with you. I support this project. You know, as for the reason I got involved is exactly what you said, because it wasn't being taken care of it's not my responsibility nor do I really want the responsibility before I even own it to take care of it. Imagine buying a house and being responsible for no one. I don't want that. This is far worse than that, but it's not. But people aren't taking care of it. So we were going to as best we can. And I wish you luck because I know that the condition in the interior is degraded. So thank you for taking this on and trying to get it to where it needs to go. And our police department representative is not going to weigh in on this issue at this meeting, right? Just here to observe for the first one. But next time we'll be able to talk about the police issues on those happening. So thank you. Romeo, you have any last points to this? No, I mean, the only thing I can add is somebody who works at the transit center. I've equally seen how cheering things come going back. And I'm glad that you're there to help us out and get things in order. The one thing I'll say Romeo raises a good point that alerted me is what our methodology has been is to tell the folks that are camping there that we're coming the next day so they can find another place and offer them help. Ask them if they want help so that they, if they have outstanding arrest warrants or whatever they can, we're trying to. I don't know anything about this. It's a new world for me. We're trying to be as compassionate as we can, but also keep the building safe. They'll go in the building. They will, they will do things are burning fires inside and I'm worried someone will die in there. I don't want that to happen. It actually is interesting because most of these folks actually come to the transit center. So I happen to know them some of them on a name basis or just seeing each other. So the other day I went by the location and just kind of look around, and I noticed a couple of people just sitting there and scouting around I don't know if they were trying to get in or whatever. So by them noticing that I was present and the fact that they know me from transit center, they were able to pull me aside and like oh we're just relaxing we're not doing anything wrong. And so you have nothing to worry. I'm just walking around. So it was interesting interaction. Thank you for bringing this up and thank you everybody for coming because my take on this right now for what it's worth. Is this an issue which addresses all of the bigger problems in this city. And we're going to have discussions around one building but really it connects to some of the major issues in the city. And it's a different perspective on homelessness bike theft, all the stuff that we have lived with especially war day. So it's good to have discussion and it's good to have people come and interact. And, you know, one thing I will say is, we're going to have some scale can be can offer some advantages for example one of the things we do with our apartments is we hire the sheriff during critical times, just like they hire them for traffic safety, we can hire them with a cruiser and you'd be amazed at how much stuff disappears when there's a presence and they know it's coming. And we've been affected at doing that when I had nurses who were walking up to the hospital at midnight. That's what we did. And it really, really helped. So we'll have scale here we have 24 seven management our manager will be on site in the building. And we will will will offer things like that that I think will be a benefit to the community because you're going to have some people who can't do it in the summer because they're on traffic duty but in the winter will have a lot of sheriff control there once in a while just to sort of help out. So it just from my education. Those kind of comments is that actually actualized anywhere. I've been through enough development issues and war date that promises are always made but then they think. Those kinds of things which I probably agree with, can that become part of the permitting process that that actually happens. They can make any permit condition the city wants I don't think it's in the ordinance where they would make me do that. But there are lots of other things like that and we can certainly commit to doing some things I mean it's expensive so we tended to do is do it on occasion, not like constantly you couldn't. And you wouldn't want to hire a police force for one single property because there's other things happening in other areas, but that said, there are times when I know when you get graduation day from UVM. I want, I want somebody traveling around this time of year when everything's burping out into the street that that's what we do so that's how I would be willing to mobilize that that we will take critical times in the year, and we will offer a police presence. And I tend to find that if you announce it to your tenants, all of a sudden things sort of go away from. Okay, so I think we'll move on thanks for coming. Would you be willing to come back again. Absolutely, this is like the beginning of the process so we want to come back. It's dynamic. Oh, it's ready. Yeah. Okay. So, Hannah and Tim use that. And minutes. And I just don't know that. Over here and make me. Charlie to that camera. Yeah. Okay, Tim I'll start and then if I miss anything fill in I guess. So I serve on three committees HR CDNR and to HR is not meeting this month. CDNR met today and we learned about the early learning initiative we just got an update. We get an update once a year from the city. And then took met on Tuesday. And we. Sorry, I'm like trying not to. No, no, they're good. No, they're not. Okay, I'm just going to continue. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. At Duke. We just reviewed the fleet purchases. It's the lowest number of vehicles that the city has purchased in a long time. And then we also went over the water resources organizational organizational assessment. So that was interesting. We are planning a McNeil symposium. Which will happen on June 13th at six 30 and con toys. We had a meeting with the City Council. And then the last council meeting. The last meeting where things were. We had our listening session on Saturday. Talked a lot about public safety and housing and UBM. But that was good. And then. At our last council meeting, the. Big issue that we talked about was sheltering on public lands. The resolution passed with approval from every counselor. About everything I have. Thanks, Anna. I'm just going to start with the only things I think. Maybe to amplify a little bit more. We do have this. We did have past this resolution for the city to do more inquiry into potential responses broader than just sheltering on public Um, uh, individuals experiencing houselessness in the Burlington area. So we're looking forward to hearing some of the professionals from the city report back on that. Um, and I know that's on the agenda for later, both we have to talk about our views on that at least at this point. And then, of course, the other major issue was the announcement today by the mayor that he intends to appoint acting chief Murad as the as the police chief. And I have both issued statements on that, but we're happy to talk to you guys more about our thinking on that. In my own committee work, I'm on the public safety committee and the Charter Change Committee, both of which overlap because most of the work that I'm doing on the Charter Change Committee is related to these joint meetings between the ordinance, the ordinance committee and the Charter Change Committee, which are both of the committees that will have to be involved. If and when we make changes to our police oversight model because it's expected that we will need to change both the charter and the city ordinances, although that's all still work in progress. So I've been devoting some time and energy to that. Beyond that, I've been mostly just trying to get my feet underneath me as a city council person and I'll learn the job but I feel like I'm getting some traction. Happy to discuss any and all of those issues. Any of our remote people want to ask our city councilors a question or raise a concern or tell me doing a great job. You're doing a great job. So I have a question. What's the involvement of Ward 8 residents on the. We don't even have a park. How can our voices be heard and recognized at this at the city council level as part of this study, because as we talked about one time the stakeholders was a very narrow stakeholder group, which was a very narrow stakeholder group. So I don't know if it's a good study, but it does skew towards the institutions that work with the homeless. And some of us who have the homeless in our neighborhoods probably have an opinion we might like to share as part of the developing solution or mitigation. How can that what can we do that would provide you our viewpoint. I think that is in the resolution and any work that is being done. Studying this does not involve camping in parks, like a public park like City Hall Park, it would not be permitted that folks could shelter there. That is in. But there's a semantic. This too right, they could be sleep, it could be sheltering in public land, right. But explicitly says no public parks right in. Yeah, so it's important to understand that all the resolution did the other week was asked the city that folks. Sarah Russell at Cedar Russell in particular to report back on a range of possibilities. We originally put forward the proposal specified sheltering on public lands and the hand is absolutely correct. Did carve out even our friends from the progressive side of the aisle carved out the parks as opposed to public lands, but no decisions are being made on that yet and to answer your question. How do you know how to ward eight residents get their voices heard I think the first and easiest answer is that's mine and hands job. So here we are. You know where we are, we want to hear from folks. We want to hear from folks are listening sessions we want to hear from folks at the NBA, we want to hear from folks, the email I want people to call me, I know and the text me know and it does too. And it may be that we, you know, talk to you guys about coming to the, this is having continued your folks come to the next city council meeting on June 5 when this is addressed CDNR. We are the ones that will get most of the updates going to the CDNR meeting and speaking on public forum. This is at such an early stage that I think it's difficult to give input on something that we don't even know where we're going to even potentially start at is at least how I'm viewing it like it's hard to make comments about something that we don't even know how it's going to even like what it's going to turn into. I just have to comment that there's a certain sensitivity in Ward 8 that on the redistricting study, and the involvement of the ad hoc committee, and the suggestions of the ad hoc committee, and the involvement of a lot of volunteers at those committee meetings over a long period of time, which made specific definitive suggestions that were at one time accepted by the city council, and then turned around and were rejected by the city council at the last minute on a political kind of issue. I'm thinking, okay, well, here we go again. So maybe I'm just cynical. And this time we have the other, in that case, yeah, like Ward 8 got completely screwed over and redistricting, like, I think that's very clear. But also, Ward 8 didn't have a city counselor that was showing up to meetings and also there wasn't an East District counselor for half of it. And so now I think it's important that like we are both committed to showing up and doing the work and I think that is what will make this process different, because we will be at the meetings, I would assume, and be able to participate. In this situation. I do think that part of the work that Hannah and I have to be committed to is repairing some of the damage that was done between Ward 8's relationship in the city and city government in large part because you didn't have adequate representation. That is in fact, a large was a large part of my campaign was to remedy that fact. I will also point out that as much as I respect the work of Sarah Russell and the other professionals in this field because they do not work. They are not the professionals in state government who are going to be talking to us about potential, you know, responses are not my constituents, you're my constituents. So, Brian and I know have known each other a long time and so our historical perspective of what happens in the city is tainted. And you're seeing, I at one time thought that they should take the land between the university and the downtown and do what they did with the land between downtown and the lake. So I pulled all the residents out, develop it, have the developers get their share and then not pretend like we're going to have regular neighborhoods between the university and downtown. And I made that point. Yes, I can be sarcastic, but even tonight we're hearing the developers who see money to be made at the expense of a weekend ward. You know, it's one more time. It's, you know, they're none of the developers, the developers have a financial interest in what happens with Ward 8. The people that live in Ward 8 sometimes have a different opinion of how we should be able to live in a neighborhood. And it's just dwindling over time. It's just a harder case to make. We do have I'm sorry, Mary Catherine, do you want to speak up. I just wanted to give an update about the charter changes since Tim brought them up. Unless you want to Tim. But no, please go ahead. Yep, Governor Scott signed two of our charter changes today h506 which is the act relating to approval of amendments to the election boundary provisions, and then he also signed h507 which is an act relating to approval of amendments to the polling place provisions of the charter, the two that he has yet to sign are the rank choice voting charter and the all resident voting. So he has another couple of days to sign veto or allow the bills to become law without his signature, but just wanted to give that update to y'all. Thank you so much. Mary Catherine, please forgive me what district you represent 14. And is that include Ward 8. Yep, with Barbara. Okay, thank you. We have a few more minutes. Yes, anyone else have questions. I just wanted to make a comment. And I think I'll also do this at the city council meeting. The thing that really baffles me and it's not so much of a question but rather a comment is the idea that we don't, you know, just, I know this issue is not necessarily a only Burlington issue but rather a regional issue national issue and so on and so forth. The idea that we can, I mean I know Joe McGee council McGee said that, even if, you know, we don't let them camp they will camp anyway, when people are, you know, let's go their motel hotel system program. But the thing that really surprises me for somebody who was born and raised in a civil war town country and know that, you know, two decades ago, at least past two decades or so maybe three folks have been living in determined camping or, you know, like determined displaced folks and so on and so forth. I'm wondering, are we so much liking resources that we're willing to let folks eventually end up camping in masses, public land or not. You know this for somebody who comes from a place where I've seen upfront what it looks like I'm like, this is happening here is this is becoming a reality. I'm really like, why we let it things happen this way. You know, it's not that we lack resources per se because that's the term being used around. You know, so that's what I'm wondering. You know, Romeo, I, I hear you. I think that what we're one of the things city is staring down the barrel of is coming up with a response, and it's not a solution. Council McGee doesn't think it's a solution. Nothing doesn't think we're talking about solutions. I don't think we're talking to no sensible person thinks we're talking about solutions. We're really talking about responses. But what are we responding to we're responding to a decision that's being made at the state level. Right in the decision being made right now at the state level as to whether or not to continue this funding. I don't know is that is the budget going to be vetoed is not what's going to happen. And so that that is our situation. I do think the city, our city is a city of limited resources. Right. And so, every dollar that we spend on this thing is a dollar that we don't have to spend on another thing. And I want to have a compassionate, loving, openhearted response to people who are experiencing houselessness. That's the narrative that we have that response. I also, and I think others also want the city to do other things that have value and important, and how we balance those things. That's difficulty to work. The representative stone. What is the issue at the state house, how can the states support this. I mean, right now it's kind of up in the air, the budget was passed. Senator Scott likely is going to veto it and we're going to go back in June and for the veto session to override his veto or not there's a group I mean you can read it's all over VT digger their group of progressives and Democrats who voted no on the budget. The last day of the session, there weren't enough of them to vote down the budget. But we'll see. I don't know if they have the numbers or not. Jill Kroinsky is pushing the governor to sign sign the budget in the next few days to release some of the funds that are in the budget for transitions out of the Motel hotel program. We've got $12.3 million in the budget as it stands to help with that transition. So that's the, the move that we're trying to make right now, but it's a complex, complex issue. I voted yes on the budget. Barbara Rachelson voted no on the budget and neither one of us walked out of that building feeling great about it. This comes from years of not putting together a transition plan. It was never going to it was never intended to be a long term solution to a chronic problem. But people are pointing fingers in every direction, but at the end of the day that's not really getting us anywhere. But there is money in the budget as it stands now to help with the transition, but it needs to be signed into law in order to release those funds. So that's what I can tell you tonight. Why don't you try a homeless camp on the state grounds I've seen that effectively done at UVM. You know, there was a bill that was put through by Representative Connor Casey this year to put a public bathroom on the Capitol ground. So, yeah, it's really calm. It's a really complex thing. I'm happy to talk more about it. I've been posting on social media every single day. Barbara and I are going to be giving an end of session report to this next week, but yeah, it's a developing issue. You don't want to use the term solution year. What was word you used response to depend entirely on state money or is there a response. Is there a contingency that if estate money doesn't materialize that there's another approach. As I understand right now, what what we're trying to do on the city council level is to put forward possibilities of things that we can do, none of which are best options at all, if we see an influx of additional homeless people blocking the road. Also the administration has done a lot of work that they haven't been the best at publicizing but like working to find new partners for a new place, like there and we can post the like we got sent an entire memo of all of the work that they've been doing on the issue this just happens to be one issue that we had to take up because in what was it 2020 that council and as we spoke about past a resolution saying that eventually we would study this, and then it wasn't studied and so we need to continue that work. Because another council voted on it. It's also part of this. I mean, we, I don't think this, this issue to follow on with what Hannah said, should ever be framed I think it's wrong and overly political frame this question is one of people who feel compassion versus people who don't feel compassion. I think everybody that I've spoken to on the city council and all of my constituents have expressed deep compassion for people who are experiencing houselessness. And I think we all want to express that compassion and that value and policy in the city has done that the city you know I mean the city in recent years has, you know we have 30 beds for work spending $1.4 million a year on the pod shelter solution on Elmwood Avenue. We best 30 beds low entry, low barrier entry beds. We have 38 beds field Champlain Valley in I think that's running about $1 million a year the city is putting its values into policy practice I think that's something that the city, its citizens, the mayor's council should all feel right about. It's not enough because this problem is huge and we are going to run up against the limits of what we can do, given that we want to do other things in the city. And I don't, I don't think anybody knows what the answer is. I have a question. Is the, and I think Hannah mentioned that there's a lot of stuff that the administration doing that they're not mentioning or publicizing at least. I'm wondering in terms of them finding partners to help with the houseless situation. Is the city really working hard to get additional partners to help them out beyond. Yeah, I mean, CEDO is, is playing a huge role in that they're in constant communication with COTS and other folks, like it, it's an entire community of individuals that are working on this issue. Is it this community of all that. On the tackling the houselessness issue independently. Yeah, but I don't, there's like the Brownington Business Association and I know the chamber does work as well. And that addresses your organization of bringing people together, right. So, there's an issue that the business community, the homeless advocates, the, what's left of the churches, the nonprofits, the for-profits, you know, you get them all in a room and talk about ideas, you know, that's the plan, right, but I mean, I will just say, you know, this is the kind of thing that a citizen's assembly could be convenient just to kind of have the counselors think about this and everyone. It's the kind of thing and the reps like could have been convenient to say, all right, we know this is going to, we're going to run out of this money a year from now. How might we want to deal with this, the legislature, the city council is too busy with so many issues going on, but a citizen's assembly could be working on that. Working through the tough things with the different people from the different parts of the community and had a proposal ready on how we could deal with this because it takes a lot of work to figure that out and it could have been done in advance and you can do that with with lots of issues but yeah. I just want to, sorry, one other thing is that AHS, the agency of human services has build coordinators all over the state of Vermont to help with this issue and to link cities up with resources and so I can share that with people if you want to reach out to me but that is a resource from the state that we have an AHS bill director assigned to us. We also cover like in a huge area of the state that goes all the way to Middlebury. So they're not going to be the end all be all but it is a resource. And what I've learned is that Sarah Russell for Burlington is a great place to start. Yeah, right. Yep. All right, so we'll end early do do we get more money from Cedar if we end early. We can't spend the money we've got already. Any last words from anybody. Everybody for coming. We're figuring out how this works. So I appreciate everybody's patience. Romeo you want to have the last word. No, I just wanted to end it. Thank you for being here and I'm super excited what you guys presented really so look forward to seeing. I was just going to say, you know, this is a complex issue multifaceted. And I think we hear people saying well you know we need to have more enforcement of existing laws when you have more services and I really kind of categorically reject the binary framing of the issue for me it's really all of the above and we have to, you know, there are very very acute issues here. You know, with the folks struggling with substance use disorder mental health conditions. For those of us who live in the downtown the issue for us is, how do we deal with folks and the behavioral issues that come up with that. I was not going to be dealt with and it seems like we don't have a good solution. The main point I want to make though is we all know I think we don't have enough beds and to your representative stone I would ask that perhaps the next session. I don't know what the consultant could consider putting it forth a bill for the construction of operation of, I don't know, 250 bad state run hospital, specifically dedicated to mental health and substance use disorders. I don't know that even that would be an appropriate number but a lot of folks have these issues. And with the options we have now we're going to send them to jail that doesn't solve the problem they're not bad people they're not necessarily criminals are dealing with some rough times we need a place to take folks off the street and get them well that doesn't result in them becoming a criminal at the end of it results in them coming back a full, you know, human being with opportunity to get a job and if you go through the system okay well you know I've got a conviction you've gotten better. And while you're in, you know, the services you need while you've been incarcerated that's great but now you've got this charge on your record it's a huge impediment barrier to getting ahead and getting a stable job and stable housing it's almost like setting people out for fail so I'd like to see an option where we could take folks that are struggling and can't handle care for themselves to get them off the street, but involuntarily if need be, but in a manner that does not make them a criminal when they get when they are at a point where they've gotten well. Okay, so we're going to have Mary speaking then we're going to end it there. Well no Mary's had a chance and rate 15. All right, Mary, but I'm good to have you come we'll see you at the next meeting. And please, those ward 8 people who would like to comment on how we're doing and how we can do this better. Let us know.