 What month, you know? Oh, well, we haven't addressed this schedule directly, but we will probably start with town meeting day issues and candidate forums in January meeting, OK? So, you know, the school budget and candidates and those kinds of issues will resurface for January. And for those, anybody who hasn't really focused on the calendar, town meeting day is actually March 7th this year, so it gives us another whole week, actually two weeks between our February meeting at the end of February and town meeting day. So it gives us a little more space to split the candidate forums, town meeting day issues between the January and February meeting. So that's kind of where I see our planning going. And of course, when we get together for a steering committee meeting next week, we can hash that all out. Well, we're not meeting in December, so we won't need to settle in January. Oh, well, I thought we were having our meeting in December. Yeah, OK, well, yeah, all right, we'll figure that out. Because we, yeah, I was going to show up at Jeff's office and nobody was going to be there. So yeah, I guess that's another opportunity to say that we are going to skip the December meeting. There will be no December and beginning meeting because that would fall on the week between Christmas and New Year. So we're going to try to work on our planning in the meantime, but Mark says they're adjourning now, so it might be 20 minutes from now. OK, all right, so with that, Sarah, can I invite you to the music. Why don't you sit at the back, OK? OK. OK. Useable chiners. OK. Please speak first. Right. So before Sarah gets up and rolling, I guess we'd like to open the floor. Are there any questions that folks have for topics for discussion with the city counselors that you'd like to put on the floor to start with? Would like to say that I am among many citizens, I'm sure, are extremely happy that construction is finally happening downtown Burlington and that our downtown will come back to its life. And so thank you whoever was involved with that. I'm sure the city council mayor, but the cast of thousands, it's very exciting. And equally as big on the North Avenue since we last met. Yes. Does anyone know what's happening on the corner of Word 27 in North Avenue? What's that? Is that a good question? Do you know? It's a failed bay and there's a water outhaul, and it's not a great thing, and it was not expected. It's not part of the North Avenue patients. I think it just happened. May I add something? We have one first question. Steve Hamlin? Recycle total to the tax. What that's going to be for some kind of time? I don't want to get a roll on that. Are you referring to the Champlain Solid Waste District? Yes. Covered. I think it's a good question. I think it's a good question. I think it's a good question. I think it's a good question. I think it's a good question. I think it's a good question. I think it's a good question. The Cali Shingon Waste District? Yes. Covered. Wasn't that a bill that was passed by the city capitol? Oh. I guess I may misunderstand. There's the bond for the capitol, the consolidated, particularly Cali Solid Waste District, passed. They're going to build a new recycled, $25 million worth of recycling processing. I thought you were asking about the toaters. I need to refresh myself, at last I knew we've ordered 4,000 new toters and they're sort of backlogged. So we passed the requirement that everybody will have a toter. There's a phase in period for people to do that. And I think the Burlington waste people are going to be advertising that. So by a deadline, and I think it's late winter, everyone's going to have to get themselves a toter that are being subsidized by the city. And we'll no longer have the blue boxes, basically, that's the bottom line. As a follow-up to Steve's question, I thought I had read somewhere or something somewhere that us as residents are supposed to pay or cost share for our toters. Has that requirement been waived? It has not been waived globally. There'll be individual ways to waive it. It's a pretty modest price, but you'll have to pay for a portion of your toter. If you have it picked up, you still have the option of doing your own recycling. So you can bring it to the waste district on Patten Road. At this point in time, the pine tree default is still only accepting food. They are trying to figure out a way to expand that. Did I have everyone mute themselves and their speakers were raging kind of swap over now? So if I were to mute their microphones and their speakers, they don't have problems. My gut reaction to that is that I'm kind of disappointed that the city's not going to cover those costs. Given the amount of money that the city has spent on all sorts of other projects, I think that providing, covering the cost of our team toters in order to facilitate that recycling I think would be more than appropriate on the city's part. That is my personal view. It's about $500,000 that the city is paying. So your contributions are to reduce it to $500,000. Again, they are willing and have all along to make it so appropriate that they really can't pay the $30 or the $25 that it costs to the toter. They pay for the recycling, so it's more than the communities do. Well, they'll be the small, the one with the cover. Okay, so I don't know. There's three sizes, three prices I think, like $10, $20, $28 or something like that. Larry, you have a question earlier? Well, in answer to your question on the Facebook, North End, Form 7, I took a whole bunch of pictures and shared that with everybody. It's really a phenomenal engineering feat. You see how far down it goes, what they have to do. It will save North Avenue in 127. Yes, I mean, like I said, it was unplanned, but it can't not be done. And I do believe that a chunk of the cost of that is being paid for state dollars, because Glint 27 is a state highway. And so I don't know quite how it divides itself, but we are getting support from the state. Okay, I guess that's it from the floor, so are there other topics on your... There's always lots of topics. Just trying to think of what would be of most interest. As you all know, and Mark really is the one who can inform us the best, but we've been spending a lot of time on redistricting. We're sort of narrowed down to a couple of options, hoping to consider that on our next meeting or the meeting after. Most of the discussion really doesn't end up affecting the North End. The big decision that was made to go or to continue with eight wards, as opposed to seven wards, was sort of the dividing point for the North End. The North Ends in that decision was made phenomenally to support the interest of the new North End and the old North End of not blurring into each other. So that's taken a lot of time. I'm going to try to think of the other sort of hot issues, so I'm definitely open to questions. I know that I saw that at the last City Council meeting, there were several charter change projects that I know you have been working on. I serve on the charter change committee. There's actually at least three. One of them you've heard about, which is a provision to allow legal, non-citizens to vote in local elections. We've been discussing that on and off for a number of years. It sort of came up just pre-COVID and then got put on the shelf and back on. In the meantime, the cities of Manuski and Montpelier have packed ordinances and charter changes to reflect that. We're really following suit. Our change looks very familiar, similar to Manuski, and that will be on the March ballot. I think I was not able to come to the September meeting, but I think you did hear about that. Not much has changed on that. We've been doing a lot of outreach with various constituencies and folks that will be infected, so that's going to happen. There will be a charter change to allow more flexibility in the siting of polling places. That's really being presented as an option for a couple of reasons. There's been an interest, really, in this end of town about whether there might be more flexible space, and the current charter language prescribes it to be in the ward that the voting is. This might allow us, for instance, to combine. Maybe we could put a polling place in the new high school for both wards. As we look at redistricting, there may be some need to change. For instance, Edmonds may be affected depending on what ward configuration. It's an option that would allow us to consider spaces, either combined or not physically, in the location of the ward, if that is necessary. We added good language to do that in consultation with the ward clerks and the other elected officials. That's on the batter. The third one is reinstituting instant runoff voting. Two years ago, there was a strong interest by some number of people to bring it back. At that time, there was concerns about it. What I had thought was sort of a compromise, which was, let's see how it works, reinstituting it for council races. That is in fact happening. It's happening next week in the East District. Subsequently, there was a group of people that wanted to reinstitute it quicker for the mayor's race. Then it subsequently moved to include all elected officials, including school board, ward clerks, inspectors of election. That's what the ballot change at the moment will reflect. I'm happy to try to answer any questions on that. That's one that I was following, so I'm surprised that way. Jeff, you don't need to keep on moving to yourself. What's that? It came on fast. From my personal perspective, I did not anticipate we were going to do it this session. Myself and Councillor Bailão were in the minority of that decision, and it is going forward. Given that Mr. Bristow-Johnson is with us this evening, I'm going to ask this question on his behalf. Anyway, is the potential charter change provision to allow the city to redistrict without going back to the legislature? Is that going to make town a meeting day or not? It is not, which I personally think is unfortunate. Nobody was on the council opposed it. I think there was a sense that we already have three other initiatives that it would be confusing to people to have the actual redistricting item on the ballot and then this other item that would allow us the ability to have the city council itself determine redistricting. I have been promised, and I'm saying it publicly here, by some of my peers that we will try to do that next year. Remember I said that, and test me next year. That may appear as somewhat of an inside conversation. If anybody needs sort of an explanation of what that question is about, please raise your hand. Right now, we're behind schedule. Part of our problem with redistricting is we've been very governed by having to make our own decision, and then we have to send it off to the legislature, which effectively slows everything down. There are a few communities in the state that make their own decision, basically. The voters decide. In either case, the voters will vote. You all will vote on a map in March, but the problem is it has to be in March, and that just doesn't always fit our timeline. And if we could get away from having to do it in March and just do it whenever it is reasonable, the Montpelier thing I think allows that to be considered in as little as five years. I hate to think of that again, but one of the problems with the city is it has spots of growth that you can't predict, and so waiting ten years to make, keep you out of whack. And there's probably an argument to be said that we should look at that every year, not that you do it every year, but if you move all of a sudden and have a thousand more residents in one district, you really should do it sooner than waiting ten years to figure it out. Thank you. Sorry, Peter Ireland's words have it. At the polling, they were doing a questionnaire on whether we should allow to put things on the ballot without having to go through the city council. What came of that? There's a citizen group who are trying to gather, you know, signing petitions and support to put that on the ballot. Right now, our charter is written. We don't allow for effectively referendums who are at a fairly high petition level. So they want to make it essentially easier and binding to put things on the ballot. So that was a citizen initiative. It is not under active consideration at this point in time of the city council. I'm expecting in the next year we'll probably see something, but there's nothing currently about that. Councillor Dain, is there anything that you would want to present to the NPA? Of course, of course. Glad you're here. Good to see you. Thank you again and everyone for being here. Representative Hooper, good to see you. Lee Morrigan, good to see you. My friend Sandrine in the back and everyone in a while. I hope that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving break and looking forward to Christmas. So talking about Christmas, did you know that... What's his name? We have someone here in the New North that just moved here. Do you know about it? Because of Eddie from Chilly Chips. You heard about it? Randy Quinn. He's in Ward 7. I'm like, yeah! I'm going to have to do this tomorrow. Did you buy a house on Randy Lane? Randy Lane. Yeah, it's amazing. So I heard about it. As a transition, this came back from the Parks, Arts, and Culture Committee. And we had an extensive discussion about public safety in the parks. And today we hosted the Chief of Police. We also hosted at my neighbor, director of bird interpreters and recreation Cindy, right? To just tell us about enforcements that need to happen in the parks, especially in downtown Park, City Hall Park. As you all know, there has been a murder not long ago. And drug dealing, map cooking, map smoking, everything is just like a mess right now. But now we're looking into the spring of 2023. What can be done right now, so that when spring opens and people start to come up, what can be done in terms of enforcing the city existing ordinances that are already in this. Great wonderful conversation happened. And also we all agreed that we need to move away from punitive approaches. You know, not a piecemeal approach but a punitive. We need to move away from it. And as you know, the park patrol are doing an amazing job in terms of within relationships with people who are affected. And also this discussion will continue. And I believe that Consulate Barrow did put something on the front porch forum inviting people to show up. And that would be amazing. Next time if you can show that would be great because more perspective, the better. Evan was there today and he brought an amazing idea that even the chief of police agreed upon. If Evan is here, he can talk about it more. So that's one. And I think two, as you know, the racial equity inclusion and belonging as a new director, right? It is amazing. Clarkson and she unfortunately doesn't live in the New Northland, but she lived in the Old Northland. That's good. And you know, the REID committee is exploring the creation of a commission. It's like park commission, police commission or commission that will look into racial equity inclusion and belonging in the city of Wellington. I believe our next meeting is on the 20th, which is in December for these five days before Christmas. And we also would love people's perspective before we send it to Charity Energy in order to go to the ballot potentially in March 2023. Right. And I think Councillor Cardfander did talk about right choice voting. Right. And basically it would be on the ballot, but this time it would be for Mayor as well as for the commissioners of the Wellington School District. And also, you know, many of the elected officials that have the people who are taking care of the voting. And for me, those were the most pressing issues currently in front of us. And I'm happy to listen to more. Yes. Mr. Hooper, I know representative Hooper, I know that you do an amazing job in helping the city find the money to pay for the high school. I know you will do that. Thank you, guys. Questions? Right as a check. Yes. And congratulations. The commissioners, all of you for the great job that you've done to put it on the ballot and pass by 76%. Good to see you, people. Are there any urgent questions? I have a question. Okay. Sarah, on the... It's working online. Okay. Sarah, on the non-citizen voting question, what's the definition of residency? Is it green card holder or property owner or long-term resident? It's legal. I would need to give it to you specifically, but if you have the right to be residing in the United States, a green card, I think it's one, but I don't believe it's the only one. And I can get it to you. It's in the charter language, but whatever allows you to legally reside here. It is visa, which is asylum. You have asylum you're living in the bulletin. You can vote. You have a legal visa in the city. You can do it and green card as well. I guess I would just like to add to that that, you know, one of the things that, you know, the city will have to be careful about going forward is in past elections, administrations have put city ballot items on the November general election ballots. And so if the all resident voting passes that practice will have to stop because, you know, the residents that are eligible to vote on municipal questions under all resident voting will not be allowed to vote on the general election ballots. Don't you technically get two separate ballots to do with them at the same election time? Don't you get two separate pieces of paper? I believe you do. I mean, I guess I'll have to look into that. The problem we had in the Salahway district, which is unrelated, but a similar problem, which was nobody remembered that we have county elections every once in a great while. Okay, I guess I'm kind of remembering that we may have seen those on the same piece of paper in the past. But yes, that would require separate ballots. And on that question, Mr. Hooper from government ops, would you like to weigh in on that topic? Yeah, thank you. And good to see you again, Mr. Alvine and Matt Carpenter. First, I want to say thank you everybody who showed up in November and checked the box that puts me here on your screen. And happy holidays. We have had at least two communities that have adopted the non-citizen voting. Montpelier and Brattleboro, I think. Secretary Sagan. It's Bonuski and Montpelier. Brattleboro actually, I think, simultaneously has something similar to what we're proposing or planning to, I believe. But there's also a legal challenge, I think, that has been entered. And I don't know if it's been resolved as to allowing that to happen. The Secretary of State's office has been consulting with how ballots need to be prepared and distributed. So there is not that intermixing that you are mentioning, Jeff. You basically have a separate list of persons who are qualified for the non-citizen ballot, but then people that are qualified for the broader than just the local community ballot. So if you, in Burlington, your non-citizen would be able to vote on school issues, but not on tech center issues because that crosses the geographic line. And that's where things get a little funky, similar to what happened with the solid waste district thing. Which was specifically excluded from that bill by the committee because there is no conformity as to variations on lines for solid waste districts. In Burlington, it's kind of a town in the Northeast Kingdom. It's four or five, six, seven towns across three counties. So those are things that they just have not worked out yet. So yeah, there we go. That's at least ranked choice. While I'm speaking though, I probably would, or that's non-citizen. While I'm occupying your ears, I say that the ranked choice thing is going to get a little touchy because when we approved ranked choice last time, there were a lot of representations made by the city attorney who then became a judge and other people that this was going to be a trial for the city council and be reevaluated. And at this point, it seems like the camel got the nose under the tent and then the hump tried to get through too. I would not be surprised that there will be a lot of people that will want to look a lot more critically at the system that's being reviewed in ranked choice and how much of a Pandora's box it's opening up because when basically a fifth of the population in the state falls under a particular system, as attendance do migrate and if it's not the best system then it deserves examination. I think you may recall that probably close to a year and a half ago I set out something on Front Forge Forum that basically said, do you understand what this was that you voted for because there are several different kinds of ranked choice voting and I was shocked at the amount of mail I got back with people saying I thought it was just one thing, what do you mean, explain it to me more. So I think there's a lot more information needs to be spread out and a lot more critical parameters set up for what it needs to be. Thanks Bob. I'm going to have to sort of move on at this point and I would definitely like to come back to that conversation in the future but in order to obey my own rule about respecting the agenda we're going to have to move on to our next presenter. I'm going to have to wait and if we have time later on Mark we'll have to come back to you but we're kind of already 10 minutes into our next presentation so if you'll excuse my prerogative. I would invite you to join us at the table. I hope that everybody can hear me. Okay so the microphones do not amplify. It's only for the camera. So people online can hear but you'll have to project across the room. Good evening everyone. Thank you very much. My name is Sandrine Kiwi. I am originally from the Democratic of Congo and I've been a resident of World 7 for the last, well since 2006. When I moved to Vermont I've been in the U.S. for 20-something years. I moved to the U.S. in 1997 and I am here today being invited, thank you very much, to talk about the new New American organization that I am president of, the Vermont New American Advisei Council. We are a group of New American leaders from different spectrum of the world We are a group that was formed in 2020 and the major interest that we have had to come together was for the need of the New American community really to participate into the civic engagement process. Voting is, as you know, a very important part of every single community being as a participation to that voting process from most of the community actually does bring that feeling of a sense of belonging, a sense of having a voice and really participate to what is community which is being able to say and being able to decide on what we are all experiencing as a life within the community itself. The second reason why we have created which is now a 501c3 nonprofit organization was to dismantle all those barriers that we know are present for newcomers that really put difficulties when it comes to their progress and their journey to fulfill economically, culturally, socially a life to a home that is called Vermont or to a home that is called Burlington. What's seven? You know that for me. As part of our mission which is really in a sense very important and very crucial for all of us you have seen that most New American communities as today I think at the N.I. we have the two I do believe I don't know if that's the first one but other communities here, New American communities but I'm not present and it's not that there is no will most of the group that are community leaders they are a wide range of people that have been through the process understand the system, understand the process we have program managers, we have directors we have really some kind of the elite there but people that leaves among us are not really present you might see one or two or three or several families coming and passing through when it's time to vote but the understanding of what that vote means and what they vote for cannot be underestimated we have a need to make every single citizen understand why and what they are voting for and this is what we are trying by educating our communities to really make them engage and participate in this process that are actually supposed to be a common process a common goal so to talk about VINAC because I can go over and over for a long time talking about why we have come to the point where we thought that we needed really an organization to push that initiative forward we have been, and I don't know if you have seen us the VINAC group, but we have had a few activities since the 2020 because this is when the group formed we became a Favon C3 Mead 2021 so COVID was right there so we leave that but our measure funders are aware and are the Vermont Community Foundation we were also funded and it's always through and for civic engagement and participation to the New American community so ARP funded us and right now the city of Burlington Racial Equity, Office and Belonging is also funding some of our projects so what have we done, you may ask so we have done a water registration drive this gave us really a good sense of who actually were coming so we had a few success in several communities but not as we hoped so we knew that there was definitely a problem with this is something that we assess communication is one, information is two and education is three and actually the action and voting for whom and why and for what we have done some mayoral candidate forums about two or three since 2020 and we have done also the the candidate for the election of governor in 2020 we have done the mayoral candidate forum in 2021 we have done another one for the senate candidate in 2022 and we also have been we have had the opportunity to participate to wide range topics such as environmental justice we will record because if some of you see me and recognize me as an employee of the Champlain Valley Economic Opportunities I am and sometimes I wear two hats and this is what in that sense for environmental justice policy that was voted last this year at the beginning of the year we were part of the testimonial team that were really pushing for that policy to be voted we have provided a wide range of recommendation when it comes to the future of Vermont we have had forums for near-American communities for them to be able to talk to elected officials and then ask the questions and then really try to get to that habit of for the people that are in this type of decision making position to be approachable that only that because the perception that all cultures are the same it's a force there is a wide range of people that are terrified of you as because just about title and that ability to just be in presence and communicate it's the first step right communication and talking is the first step we were part of the black experience that happened in Juneteenth this year as well right now we are doing in the process of doing a project with the city of Burlington that is a youth and support for families engaging in violence that's one and you know we plan on having oh you know coming up this type of educational really community meeting with an understanding and learning process to this very complicated field that is devoting or the civic a necessity for people to be there to be present to participate to be engaged and to actually know about all that you just talked about I can tell you that there is a few things that I didn't know that I just got right there so I don't know if you have any questions this is not chair like Woody Condance when I was supposed to be there 10 minutes it's a long time I don't want to mess up your agenda so I can do that all by myself I don't know if anybody has a question we are present we are in Burlington and I want to actually know that the way the website is noted on the agenda has a mistake on it it's a scene of the V at the end of it it's Vinatica and not Vinav but any questions that you might have I am more than pleased to answer them if any what would you say the organization's biggest need at this point is it's definitely capacity we are a very very very very small group and we we definitely have the opportunity to have several community leaders for several communities as part of this group majorly we have worked with the Somali Bantu community the Congolese community the Nepalese community the Sudanese community but as you know when it comes to anything that has to do with the topic as large as civic engagement of as large as you know how do you come to a sense of belonging to where you know where you live you really it takes time and time that we definitely don't have a lot to give in that sense that the capacity for every nonprofit is an issue and it's for us an issue as well so funding is one to actually to get to the point where we might be able to get enough people to work on that very important very very important topic Sandrine in one of our earlier conversations you made kind of a kind of a off off the side comment about you you felt like many of your members would be working so that got me thinking about sort of the community engagement process and so do you do you see kind of a big distinction in sort of the employment patterns of your directors versus most of your members that so how do how do the employment patterns of your members sort of get in the way perhaps of civic engagement and and I ask that question because as part of the steering committee we've talked about the concept of an NPA road show and we're sort of wondering you know do we need to be holding these types of meetings at other times and places to facilitate the kind of engagement that you seem to be saying is lacking there could you elaborate on that perhaps sure I can well in ever since of diversity that's something that should be thought about you need to be culturally responsive in order for it to be welcome people will not come if they don't feel welcome people will not come if they feel that they actually will be heard right especially that in those kind of settings so yes please do and being creative is great you are calling it you are calling it what the NPA leading show road show so meaning that you'll be okay taking on the world very good because yes on prime and those schedules are definitely a huge issue as you know depending on where you work what is your occupation you might work at night you might work in the morning you might work in the afternoon you got that children you cannot leave them that's childcare that is transportation that is scheduling that is on private that's all this set of things that needs to be taken into consideration it doesn't say that it cannot be done it's just working on it to make it happen because actually I think that this is something that we all are as community member I hope willing to do we are not all here this is what I'm saying we are not all here and there is a lot of other people that would love to come if they were invited if it was welcoming if the understanding of the necessity and the really importance of this type of forums is understood so I'm just going to follow up on that and it would be helpful to us if you could talk to your members or if you could help us figure out how to make it more welcoming and what accommodations might be useful you know a different space a different time a different setting I mean it's Sunday at five better than Wednesday at seven is meeting at Northgate more inviting than the Miller Center I mean any thoughts you have on that I think I don't want to speak at this chair committee because it's hard to second-guess what would be right helpful the first thing that I will actually give you that you know you might be thinking about it is information how do you actually spread this very important topics that must have even us understand right they're complicated enough for us and you know English is not the second language you can tell you know some of these systems and some of these you know language and you know I need some explanation but I have the opportunity to be able to ask them you know I can consider I then say hey Sarah what's that supposed to mean and then you know because we are we are fortunate enough to be in this place where we I think are welcoming enough we are accessible enough for people to come to us but the thing is that they need to have the information in order to do so sometimes you know the information sharing needs to be in a way accessible to all and you know the city has done you know a great truth through a pandemic so it does work right it does work but moving forward with because you can say yes city business is huge but you know what's happening you know it's it's it's just us so how do we communicate so that's that's history for example by by by by words why not you know I'm glad you're bringing this up we actually a couple months ago we had an all words meeting and one of the topics we talked about was language access and luckily there is someone on CEDA who has experience working with language access and is very passionate about it so that's something we're working on behind the scenes you know whether that's using translated recordings of meetings translated agendas a citywide translated mailer of what the NPA is yeah I'm excited because it sounds like we have a we have someone who has experience and is passionate about language access so yes we will view the city of Wellington language and we made recommendations and if there is a will you know that's that's what it starts with so more than we were we are more than happy to connect and make it possible this is really interesting Sandrine and I have to sort of step back and think of what it's like to leave your home and relocate to another world and something that you just said kind of struck a chord World Ward 7 and Ward 4 but it reduces it from United States from Vermont from Chittenden County from this big city to just a neighborhood and you know it's a start it's community and it is community and you know the whole city is community but by continuously reducing reducing reducing it might make it more comfortable and one of the things I've been doing recently is sort of stepping outside my comfort zone to do something I wouldn't normally do don't want to do and not comfortable to do and most people don't like to do that I hate it but when I do it I find I love it so I'm just thinking how can we as a tiny little community do something to reach out and bring it a little bit closer whether that's a meeting or you know just ideas but just to start a conversation yeah that self not be comfortable there is a lot there are a lot of people that would not and that's okay but at least the least that we could do it's to reach out it's to connect is to communicate it's a choice and it's okay you need to be able to you know respect everybody's choice but but but that initiative that and that was that's what it was said you know we are small community but it starts it's up with one and two great so we can start to what seven would for and then all of a sudden it's anyway right let's let's stop local and then let's let's make it happen thank you thank you as a leader have you thought maybe knowing where your stakeholders your members your colleagues in which words do they live are they predominantly in Ward one two three four five or are your family scattered throughout the Burlington community there's a reason why I ask it but before I and we can have another conversation about it but you know have you plotted where your member which words they represent the data and I do believe the city must have the data who is new Americans or foreign born but the thing is that and they are everywhere and number doesn't matter number does not politically yes yes yes yes thank you but they matter and then as you know officials and political this is what I would say so I've been in what seven since 2006 do you know many officials that I came to my dog I don't live far after that interest right there to in a voted every single time right but I know they came to me and talk to you to people and Ali actually is doesn't live far from me I see all the time so it doesn't really go to Ali but to say Sarah I met I met her at most meetings specifically before before COVID but besides that even during election time campaign to 2006 what is that I do not understand right so yes it's good to say we will but I do believe that if you want somebody's vote you need to show up and you need to communicate not to only the people that you know but to everyone even the one that you do not actually know and then I guess right here to be able to accommodate that we want that communication to start up we want that understanding we want that relationship to be built because if not no voice and like I said no power right because we want to have our officials being accountable for what they say and they do for everything on one of us so yes I did answer do you all have meetings similar to this similar to this meeting I mean we do meet we have community meetings would it be beneficial for other NPAs to come present to your team and say you know how would we integrate and participate together more or even better go ahead please thank you yes I think there are several questions and I think the NPA does not go to any organization to present there NPA is actually invite organization just like what this NPA did to invite somebody I think that's something and I think there is also question about where do your members be not is a statewide organization we have members in Wienersky, Shelburne, Ward 8, Ward 4, Ward 7, Wienersky all yes yes and I think you know what to do I think in terms of you know bringing more diversity and I think the one things to start is for people to consider stuff scrutinizing people of color all over the place I am a candidate I've been a candidate but there has not been anybody from this hearing committee that didn't run against me what I'm saying is true right these are the people we have also another candidate who was a school commissioner has people even bothered to really start to understand why he stepped up after one one problem he did step up I think sometimes spaces that we create and we talking about diversity we have to be genuinely there in order to invite people and also to bring them part of the process just wanted to add that but we also have done so much work with the State of Vermont such as the office of professional regulation we consulted with even this ballot item about you know non-citizen voting we are representing you know circles about youth mental health you know the national guard so on and so forth we do so much work because people value our services they come to us and then we provide some kind of consulting without any money right we want to be a part of this community we just need to be acknowledged and appreciated because our participation too much thank you thank you Centrine those are ready to learn about your organization and I know you mentioned you're a small group I'm supposing a small group of leaders but you're probably open to other new American cultures so I'm just wondering do you recruit like there's a lot of Bhutanese Nepali in our community so I'm wondering if you actively recruit others and then my other question is like when we have voting you've talked about voting and civic engagement do you this your group go to Franklin Square or Riverside Avenue to talk to these people and encourage them to vote or just that they know that they can vote if they're citizens and maybe if this non-citizen thing passes more of them will be able to vote I know myself and fellow school commissioner went to Franklin Square and knocked on everyone's doors just for the high school vote so and we were well receptive there so those are just some questions so so okay so yes recruiting it's something that we are planning on actively doing and when it comes to the process in which we get in contact with the community members it varies the Bhutanese community the Nepalese community yes we are in contact with like I said the communities that we have been working with Bhutanese Nepalese Somalian Somalian born to Sudanese all this community have different cultures that that's the thing you go to Franklin Square right you knock on somebody's door what do you say they don't speak English you turn around right that's why it is community-based information that is being right there is a culture understanding of what voting means or how do you vote or who you vote for or what it actually whatever is on the ballot what it means to you what are the consequences of saying yes and the consequences of seeing no we are not in the business of telling them how to vote we don't want to tell them how to vote we do not do that that's why it is very important for them to understand the choice they make and that knocking on the door and say yes during the campaign I would love to have all those candidate go and knock on people's door and do just that but when it comes to our our work and our message it is done in a way that is culturally responsive see the end of ways to do that and for to be able actually to make your message fast through somebody's understanding of what it is they need to trust you this is what the thing is it's not just to say and then but they need to trust the process they need to trust what you are trying to educate them about and for them to make their choice so that's what funding is very important that's what capacity is very important that's what time is very important this is not something that will be done just tomorrow next day there is not one click solution on this community building as you know is very very complicated process a very hard process you need commitment and there will not be be not coming and all of a sudden all the you know they oh yeah this is something that we have to do together as a community it is a process of joining yes I'm still thinking about the the process of civic engagement and from her from your perspective where are the points of intersection where do those points of intersection need to be with like with your steering your your leadership council or at your membership meetings or you know so so if we're trying to if people are trying to sort of expand awareness and engagement I'm trying to get at what what do you think are those specific times and places where those intersections need to happen does that question make sense to you not it's not really clear I think it's where where are the opportunities that NPAs can meet and speak and listen to your members yeah I mean for us specifically I guess as NPA yeah does does you know but that's one example but the concept would go beyond that and that does our NPA team need to talk to your leadership team or does the NPA team need to come and meet with you know when you have a membership community meeting does that idea make sense about you know in turn where does the interaction and the messaging yeah how do we communicate with you when we don't know your language you don't know ours and like you say we knock on the door and they start speaking to your language what do we do normally you run jail what option do we have it's suggestion to create your forum in a forum with an interpreter with people presenting the facts here's where it gets touching we need people to give the facts and the truth of an agenda or an opponent not their individual agenda or party move right this is a problem that's not just cultural this is a problem every year but in Ward 4 and 7 we could put a handle on that and then migrated to others and then it'll take off Steve water adding doesn't go fast enough but multiplication does teach five send them out they get five more send them out all of a sudden you get the popcorn effect everybody's communicating we have interpreters people that'll step up and go okay I can speak your language invite me in we'll talk yes but recruiting within it's what what I think will make it more impactful because yes you are right when it comes to the interpretation of the language or the understanding and the agenda you know depending on who does that's it was invited and so on and so forth but I do believe that you know we all talk about diversity equity and inclusion right we have a we have an office right and what do you see because it stopped by seeing you need to see and you need to reflect the community with what do you see right what what what what's coming it's the words are good yeah you can see what if you can say it every single language it's anyway every single language on the earth but if you don't belong and you don't feel that sense of belonging what I do you need to reflect the community how do you attract that because it's not only you going they need to run so how do you attract them right you need to look like attracting me within diversity is exactly it right so first and first stop yes you can come job you kept you are on one of our meeting and you start talking about you know the whole aspect of NPA on good it is some great it is and how you can do this I can do that if you have somebody comes they want to or three would they find themselves here welcoming there is a two sets it's in and out working with them working out that's that's what that's that's why the work it's just not one set of things there's several things that could be that several things it doesn't have to be right now every single I don't know no but that's what planning is that's what strategy it start with a movement of a will of change right so yes let's discuss that further willing to do it a couple things you said that it really stuck with me and you just touched on them is people need to feel welcome to come and people need to like trust you to also want to participate and I that's so relatable because I think so many of us belong to groups that may not be welcome everywhere and as you were talking about that I can picture there are definitely been spaces that I wanted to participate in and without even really being there you kind of see some obstacles and like don't really feel welcome there already is there is there and I know this is obviously like you said there's a lot of components I'm trying to think is there's something about this set of how we put out notices that is unwelcoming is there is there like is there something that you can point to about the NPA that may be up front unwelcoming to new Americans thank you okay I can jump in I mean I think I think we again thank you so much for this genuine and wonderful question and I think this is what exactly what is missing about the NPA in general and this I'm just saying from my from my experience this is not about teaching new Americans like someone commented about okay how do we teach you and if I teach you you teach others multiplication it's not about that but it is more about embracing the difference if you are a male black gray hair whatever you are you have this sense of power you don't even think about the other the experiences and experiences whether they get lesbian transgender whatever they are I think starting with that and just understanding there is it all the person this is not me this is not my deep experience is that how do I embrace that person and provide the platform where they can come and feel that this is my space I can evolve in this space I think the NPAs need to start with that the way that they need to do it it's very simple among your neighbors your neighbors identify if there is someone who's not like me and generally invite them to come to come here right and then if they come they come back again invite them to be a member of the steering committee but that's what we do not do in the city in these NPAs in many different type of things we do not someone has to step up and that's what being at is actually doing to change the narrative you just say hey there are all the people that are like you and me that are here you have to be genuine that genuinely is key to what we try to achieve here build relationships in your work in your neighborhood your conference try to build relationship with the people that's it and from there the relationship people will start to trust you invite them in places they will show up I personally do not think right that there was an opportunity here that we let go which is the neighborhood the dinner the dinner that we used to have before the NPAs that means to come back if that comes back let's be genuine and just say today is Nepali dish that we doing here in this community the Nepali people will show up because it's about them it's about the culture it's about their food they will be here and at least you will return one or two that would continue to come and taste Congolese and taste American and taste all the things to your question I think it's really genuine and thank you for that thanks for the feedback so to add to this wonderful thank you Ali you said a lot of the things that I wanted to say yes you know every single meeting or forum or platform that has been as a business it is a serious business and tend to be cool right how do you work this out after COVID this is you know in person meeting you're transitioning into it very good how do you transition into it the same way you did before COVID is it the same is it the same way or did you change anything how do you think it's different they're zoom now as well that's true just say you're on this tape yeah it's different yeah yeah so you know they had a dean and if you had a dinner dinner oh my goodness that's what building community this is what this is what it is supposed to to start with building community and there is things that you don't have to invent to build community you already know you have done that stuff with just going back to what you know best what have what has been successful and then add a notch to it it's a human-human connection right COVID killed us it killed us with this with the zoom thing yeah right so transitioning to that bring people bring people back to that and yes one-on-one one-on-one commitment acceptance is all there is without acceptance there is nothing thank you thank you I think it's also not about four or five members of steering committee writing someone it's you know the whole community but it's not with one one person has to invite someone it's not whoever they are it doesn't matter it's not with one but it's just reaching out in human correct the human connection stuff with that really bringing down to community building yeah down to like a person a person Marvel and I think NPAs are a really great way to demonstrate the power of community building I mean just this conversation I've learned so much and making my notes and underlining and circling and I this has been really great we have been talking about diversity equity inclusion and you know special equity and you know justice here justice there it's good to talk about it it's really hard to start it this is a really good occasion to do to do it coming actually give us that opportunity to stop something new so let's do it thank you we will talk to you again oh thank you all right well done thanks for everybody for participating in that conversation our next speaker there with broken electric department oh and Jen yeah thank you so much thanks for having us to lead you out of the conversation I will kick us off and Darren will do the meat of our presentation before we get to the questions so I'll let you do your own formal introductions sure yeah thank you so I'm Jennifer Green and I'm at the I'm the director of sustainability for the city and I'm housed in Darren shop at the Burlington Electric Department and I have Darren here with me tonight Darren's going to walk us through some potential building electrification policies that we're thinking about but before that I want to frame it up for you all so that we're also starting from a the same place in space so you all remember that in 2014 Burlington became the first city in the country to source our electricity from renewables so that was very exciting and upon that accomplishment decided to take it to the next level which was to transition to net zero energy so essentially move away from fossil fuels in the built environment and the transportation sector so along with this and to help in that process Burlington Electric is fortunate to have an office or energy efficiency team that provides technical support we have rebates and incentives to help people with building electrification heat pumps for example electric vehicles we partner with car share to help them with their fleet electrification so lots going on but the city council came to us and said we've got to do think about policy as well and so per the city council's request we are going back to them with some ideas that we've been formulating with some of our stakeholders it's now an okay time to kick it over to Darren? Sure. Thanks Sam. Hi everybody Darren for General Manager with Burlington Electric Ward 7 resident glad to be here this is our second to last MPA meeting in our roadshow that we're doing and we've got Ward 6 tomorrow night and then we'll be at the city council on next Monday on the 5th to talk about the outcome of some of the work that we've been doing and for folks who remember the town meeting day vote 2021 we had a vote on this question of whether the city should have a charter change related to regulating emissions in buildings it passed with about 65% of the vote then the legislature considered it earlier this year and passed it the governor signed it and in May the resolution Jen mentioned was passed by the council asking us and the department of permitting and inspections to look at new construction look at large existing buildings look at city buildings major innovation come up with some ideas we had an interim report in July that's available that I think it's up on our website we can share a link if that's helpful to share with the MPA and we've done work including a couple of different stakeholder meetings with folks who develop projects in the community design community the energy efficiency community and large building owners like UVM UVM Medical Center the Champlain College the school district the city itself and we've also worked with a group called the Building Electrification Institute which is a national group that works with cities and examining these policies and all of what we're doing is in service of trying to find ways to cost effectively and practically reduce emissions in buildings and so where we've kind of I think started to land in terms of our recommendations are a couple of different things the first would be for new construction we currently have passed in 2021 a requirement that new buildings have to use a renewable heating system and actually South Burlington just passed a very very similar requirement based on Burlington's requirement just happened so the work here in Burlington actually spurred some additional interest in South Burlington which is great what we're going to look at recommending for new construction is potentially going beyond just the heating system and saying that for other thermal uses in the building things like water heating or cooking appliances that those should be renewable to if this was to be enacted and there's a lot of different ways we define renewable in the ordinances of Burlington can be electricity because we are 100% renewable with electricity so we have heat pumps and other technologies that work can be with a renewable fuel in a conventional heating system or for appliance things like renewable gas biodiesel other types of renewable fuels they all count in Burlington's ordinance would heating counts for example so there's a lot of different ways that something would be renewable but we're looking at proposing having all of new construction or the majority of it be renewable if this was to happen starting in 2024 and also to offer that and this is part of the charter change that was enacted if a building can't meet a portion of that requirement you could have a carbon impact fee just like you would have a development fee impact fee that can happen and that would look at the carbon emissions from the system that's being questioned over its lifetime and use a rate of discount and have it be a one time fee right at the part of the permit process and so the idea there would be a level of playing field for renewable technologies relative to fossil fuel technologies for new construction the other piece of what we're looking at is in large existing buildings which we're really thinking about 50,000 square feet and larger I think there's maybe 80 buildings in the city that would fit that characterization they would maybe have a similar requirement for heating systems and water heating systems if you go to pull a permit after 2024 you should use a renewable technology or renewable fuel or you could pay the alternative compliance fee and one of the things would be a new thing for the city if this was to happen and I should mention that if we if we propose and the city council decides to put this on the ballot it would require another town meeting they vote to authorize it so voters would get a chance to weigh in I think in March on this question what would the fee revenue proceeds go to and a couple of the ideas that we would propose is one to help the city in its own efforts to move towards a electric fleet of vehicles so some capital support for that and in addition there was an advisory ballot question question seven in 2021 that also passed that said that the benefits of this transition should also go to lower income residents in Burlington so we would propose that there also be a new fund within the city that could support clean heating technologies for lower income residents renters lower income homes and et cetera and then lastly there could be an opportunity for the existing buildings that pay into this to have a portion of the fee be available back to them to do emissions reduction projects in their facility because a lot of as I mentioned a lot of the large existing buildings are really part of a campus in some cases they might be a school a university the city itself et cetera and so having the opportunity if you had to pay into the fee to be able to get a portion back if you wanted to do something else on your campus that would reduce emissions could be an idea as well so those are the ideas that we've had that we've been vetting with stakeholders and sharing with folks at NPAs and taking feedback on and we'd love to hear if you have questions or thoughts for us on that or just we like visiting the NPAs in general and so sometimes folks have questions about either our climate work in the city or Burlington Electric's work in the city we're happy to answer those too and we want to thank you for having us here with you tonight. I'll kick off the questions if I could. I actually have two questions but they're pretty easy. In your description were you talking about not talking about public and commercial buildings and not privately owned residents? Yes thank you for that question because that's something that's come up a lot. Nothing we are proposing would affect existing residential or small business buildings. We're really only for the existing buildings looking at above 50,000 square feet and we would not propose residential even large multi-unit buildings we're not proposing policy related to that. And my second question is so we don't have solar panels on our house in Ward 4, we're contemplating it, we've had two different messages from solar panels installed. What we would like to do and probably a lot of our neighbors would like to do is in your program is pay for panels on the roof, generate the electricity for our home and our car and then give it back to the grid and then somehow get a price break on the bill on a bill. We've had very conflicting explanations of that. I'm sure you've contemplated this. Yes, and I have that exact set up at my house too. So I think what you're referring to we call net metering with solar and there's a program it's a state program that we have in Burlington as well. And it basically says that if you put solar on your roof you're going to get credit for the kilowatt hours that you're using at your house that you're not pulling in from the grid and you're also able when you have extra to send it to the grid and be paid for that as well. So if you're a net meter customer on your bill there will be kind of a different presentation than what you have now and it'll show your solar credit and how many kilowatt hours you use, how many kilowatt hours you send back to the grid. And if you are an electric vehicle customer we also have a special rate for residential customers if you want to charge off the peak and in that case you can also get a bill credit for being able to charge off the peak because that helps us save for all customers. So yeah that's kind of the setup. Now some solar companies do a lease as opposed to if you finance and own the panels yourself and those can be differently structured so it's worth exploring whether you want to lease the panels or whether you want to own them and finance them and there's a number of good credit union program for that as well. I wonder if it's worth mentioning Darren just about the technical support that we can offer. So if you were to call BED we would put you in touch with someone that could help you as a trusted person and walk through the proposals that you have and maybe help you make a more informed decision. Thank you very much. Just in that vein I think we should make that more known and I have people call me about the conflicts sometimes there's conflicts actually in the building code requirements and they don't know what to turn to so I just think that's something we could make more well known to people because I think it is confusing. No absolutely. Darren if I may quickly I thought I remember some conversation in the legislature last year about capping sort of the number of net metering capacity statewide. I don't know where that conversation ended up and would that impact Burlington? Yeah. So this actually goes back I was deputy commissioner public service department back in 2013 to 2015 we had this issue back then where net metering as a state program would hit a cap and it would be shut off essentially so it used to be that it was 2% of the statewide utility peak and then in 2012 I think it was got bumped up to 4% and I worked on a bill back in 2014 where we moved it from 4% to 15% and then ultimately no cap and that's where it is right now is that there is no cap on utilities being able to accept net metering or being required really to accept net metering. There is a discussion on the pricing so the price was a lot higher several years back to try to support solar to try to support the industry getting going the price for panels have come down so the price that the PUC the public utility commission allows has also come down so there is a lot of discussion around that and obviously some solar developers would like to see the price higher the utilities that may be paying for the net metering might like to see the price lower in some cases so there is some discussion around that but as of right now there is no cap for customers there are caps for individual projects so if you are a large customer and you wanted to do solar your cap usually at 500 kilowatts for that project which I think everybody here would be able to get everything they want on their home or small business but you know 500 would be more like almost like an acre or more of solar. How are there caps at all? Oh good question. Yeah so well net metering is really intended I think if you look at it like over the course of the country it's really intended to be exactly what you were just describing. Like I put solar panels on my house I'm generating some of my own electricity I'm sending some back to the grid. What we've done in Vermont you know to support the development of solar was we said you can have a virtual net metering. We can put a 500 kilowatt project out somewhere and everybody here can kind of have a slice of it and it's basically an above market grid. But it's being put on the grid and then people are taking the energy out. Right but it's basically the highest cost renewable that you can get. So your solar panel is the highest cost renewable? Net meter solar is the highest cost solar that you can get. Like if you were to go if you were saying to us we'll talk about the rate the rate that the homeowner or whoever would be paid by the utility. Correct. From the procurement side of things if you were to tell us that we're only electric go get solar and do it as cheaply as you can. Right. You know might be able to get it for 8 cents or 10 cents a kilowatt hour and with net metering we're paying sometimes 17, 18 cents a kilowatt hour. Well I want to just look just pay you know pay the rate that you would be paying anyway and let the you know whether if they can get their solar economically or not that's kind of a a market decision for that homeowner or for that business that I have. That's an interesting proposal and you know why even have two meters one for incoming power and the other for outgrowth power. Why not just pay the same rate that we're paying you when we take the energy off of the grid. We would be interested to talk about that it's a statewide policy so it's not a rate decision that we get to make individually but what you're talking about is maybe a way forward for the program. I mean how would you even know because I mean I know how an electric meter works I'm an electrical engineer myself and if I were to put solar panels on my house and then sometime of the month I'm putting energy back in that meter's going to run backwards and it's going to run backwards at the same rate per watt as it would be running forward. That's what I was taking that many watts from. What the state program says is that you have to have a second meter that miners to solar. That would be illegal if I was not. No not illegal you would just have a different setup but it wouldn't be as that would take just to you financially. Well I mean I wouldn't expect to get paid more per kilowatt hour supplying the juice than I would be taking it I would expect it to be other way around. That's what it is and that's why it's like we're paying a subsidized increased value for putting energy onto the grid then what we're paying for taking it off. Correct you got it now you understand the dilemma. That to me seems very odd and that's part of the discussion at this stage. I thought it was the other way around I thought that you guys had two rates so that when we were putting energy on the grid we weren't getting paid the same amount that we were being charged I thought we were being paid less than more. The first ten years of the system's life there's a credit or adder that is accounted for from every kilowatt hour you generate whether you use it on site or not and it's above market. It seems to me it should just be the same meter but you might want to come to the legislature I think it will be a discussed topic you know this session I mean like you wouldn't even have to upgrade the meter that's the more very traditional version of that meter okay that's right the microphone is over here and thanks for coming and talking to us about this tonight I'm a big supporter of electrification and I do support smart policy to do so and I'm just wondering if any of the communities around Burlington have anything analogous to what we're thinking about doing because one of the things that is always a lens that I apply to a lot of policy in Burlington is are we keeping Burlington competitive regionally and it's always a concern of mine when we start to drive development away from Burlington because of policies we have here so we can just elaborate on that a little bit that's a good question I think what South Burlington just did actually went a little further than what we have currently so we I think 2021 we had a renewable heating ordinance and what they've passed now is a renewable heating and a renewable water would be we'd be catching back up I think to South Burlington and maybe going a little further in certain respects with new construction I think with the existing buildings with the large existing buildings we'd be doing something a little bit novel but we'd be essentially asking them in their capital planning to assume that if you're going to pull a permit you should have a renewable system we've engaged pretty constructively and heavily with a lot of the stakeholders who would be meeting at the Department of Permitting and Inspections with folks from Main Street Landing and Burton and the hospital and UVM and the school district and others and we've been able to share kind of ideas back and forth and make sure that what we'd be proposing would be something that would be constructive and something that in a lot of cases they have their own initiatives to try to move in this direction something that would be supporting by every stakeholder but we've tried to really get to a practical point for existing buildings and with new construction at least it seems like South Burlington and Burlington are moving in the same direction and it's possible other communities might be inspired to do the same Thank you Thank you Darren for being here and Tim and we'll just want to give you a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit and we'll just want to speak a little bit about how the rebates are going in general from last year compared to last year in this year Yes, thank you for the question In terms of rebates we've had really strong uptake on heat pumps we continue to have a lot of customers who are interested in heat pumps We've had very strong interest in our electric lawn mower program that continues to be very very popular I think it's our second largest program now and then electric vehicles is the third largest and I think what we saw with the electric vehicles is that the supply chain disruptions really had an impact we had not a lot of used electric vehicles available not a lot of new electric vehicles available the price was going up and up and up over the last year or so because of inflation and other factors so we didn't see as many customers switch to electric vehicles during that period of time but on the other hand these other programs like the lawn mowers where there hasn't been the disruption we've seen really strong progress and as you know Councillor Jang will probably have some new programs to announce in January every year we try to add some new incentives and rebates so we're looking at ways that we can support customers with some of those new programs as well but I appreciate the question and we will have a net zero update for the council probably in the April timeframe as well to give you you know it's funny to me that from our first panel from the from Sundering with the new Americans to you there is a an exit in that if one of your family or one of our community members doesn't know about a rebate program for an electric lawn mower then that's exactly the kind of example of information sharing that is useful to you and it's useful well it's useful to all of us I didn't know about electric lawn mowers frankly so there we are yes I could talk about electric lawn mowers all day but I'd probably be a good time to mention our work and our growing work on equity too yeah yeah we're really committed to ensuring that all our customers regardless of where they're from what they speak at home where they go to school whether they rent or homeowners have access to this transition away from fossil fuels so we really think a lot about that and so in a case where someone might not be in a position to buy an electric vehicle this is where we look to our friends at car share and say how can we help you car share in making sure that your vehicles are placed in areas that are most accessible to folks and that the rates are accessible so Annie does have a it's free to join based on your income level we're also helping people to taste electric and be involved in the electric transportation revolution without having to own a vehicle but you're right I mean similarly this is why sometimes policy is really important so if you're a renter and you can't control any of the inputs in your property because you don't own that property this is where we think our weatherization policy is especially meaningful so this was passed last year and essentially it says that if you're a unit dwelling property owner and your building uses more than 50,000 BTUs British thermal units which is how we measure natural gas you've got to drop that load and so we're really fortunate to be working with the Department of Planning and Inspections to make that policy come to fruition so it's happening now and buildings that are the most egregious BTU users are on the docket now to come into compliance over the next year and we'll be working down to that 50,000 mark so totally agree with you and I'm really excited about some of the exciting staffing additions that we're going to have at BED to help make sure we've got some really good connections with the new American community I hope that you're not going to use those those BTU static controls British Thermal Unit is a matchstick it's basically if you lit a match so it'd be 50,000 matchsticks worth of energy but that's really important it is really fundamental is how we communicate in the language that we use but I was thinking during your presentation of a while the same things because we survey our customers we just did a survey we do one every three years and we learn a lot through that process about the people who participate in the efficiency programs that we have generally are very happy but we also tend to find out that not enough people know about them sometimes half of the community is not aware that we offer these programs and we also have a pretty high population of renters and students relative to other utilities in the state of Vermont so even if we do a great job of telling everybody about our programs three years later it may not be the same folks but there's a lot of people who leave and they just out and yeah I walked around my neighborhood here in the New North End and I have a neighbor who got an electric leaf blower and didn't know we had a reading and I feel like I talk about this stuff I didn't know so we always have to do more I have a question for you online. Bob, Cooper, you got your hand there? I do have my hand. Well, I have three actually now. I'll get down to two. Darin, thanks for coming. I was going to... you threw in leaf blower and, you know, in the spirit of the season. You also got snow blower than... We do. Other things that... We do. I guess you're a little cautious to grab a hold of, because you don't think they're going to be as good as the gasoline thing, and, but frankly, they are. I'm wondering... well, a comment and then a question. With Robert's discussion about paying out the same pay-in, I assume that we're talking about a return on investment for the person that puts $10,000 into the top of their house. That would sort of stifle that initiative, I guess, which is not something we want. And then secondly, as a greater worm on the end of the hook, what do you pay for filling up your car at night under the residential rate that most people have? Good points and questions. Thank you, Representative Hooper. So we do have a snow blower rebate. I have an electric snow blower. I'm talking about those a lot, too. We just got it. And then I'll just say the great thing about the electric lawn equipment snow blowers is if you get the same brand, they all have a battery that's removable and you can use the different batteries in the different pieces of equipment. So you always have an extra battery. So I definitely encourage folks, if you're getting an electric snow blower, lawn mower, trimmer, leaf blower, try to get the same brand, whichever one you get, and then the batteries are all interchangeable. In terms of the net metering discussion, it's true that we did, I think, as a state, put more emphasis on incentives for those rates to help people be able to invest in solar, have a reasonable payback. I think with the recent action at the federal level to put the tax credit back up to 30% and the cost of panels coming down, there continues to be opportunity to sort of lower the cost structure and still ensure that people are able to put solar on their roof. That's a fine balance that we always have to get right. We support solar, we have over 9 megawatts of solar in the city of Burlington, and we are about a 65 megawatt peaking system. So in the summertime, when the hottest day is happening in the afternoon, we might be getting 13% or so of our electricity is coming through solar that's right here in the city of Burlington on that given day. So it's an important resource, it's a good resource. To your last question, the great feel that we have, especially was really good when prices were $5 a gallon, still good at $3 a gallon, is if you do have an electric vehicle and you are on our off peak rate, you can charge up overnight for the equivalent of about 70 cents a gallon of gas and you're getting 100% renewable electricity. And when you spend a dollar with us, more than two-thirds of that dollar typically stays in the state of Vermont. If you spend a dollar at the gas station, about three-quarters of that dollar is leaving the state of Vermont because we don't have a whole lot of supply chain when it comes to the oil industry, but the electric utilities tend to have more local spending. So it's a great by-local opportunity as well as a renewable and cost-saving opportunity. Can I go back, I have a question going back to the policy side of things. I was very intrigued to hear you talk about the 50,000 square foot criteria. I guess my underlying concern is the initial Charter Change ordinance that passed that talked about residential electrification was pretty open-ended in my understanding in terms of how it applies. So for the ordinary, I think Virgit asked this question, for the ordinary homeowner kind of thing, where are the policy guidelines going to be in place to sort of keep that limit from ever lowering and encroaching on ordinary homeowners? Is that a policy discussion that you talked about? Yeah, and in this context what we really advocated for was a focus on new construction and on these larger commercial buildings that really, when you think about it, they're doing capital planning for 10, 15, 20 years, and if we put a policy in place and say, Burlington wants you to plan for renewable, they can accommodate that within their long-term plan. It's very different if you're a homeowner or if you're a small business and you don't have that kind of capital planning and you're trying to keep things going until they break and then you're going to be in a lot of cases in an emergency replacement situation, we think that at the moment our incentive programs are the right way to try to reach those customers. We want to convince you to put in a heat pump and help you with the cost of that or to put in a heat pump water heater or to do energy efficiency measures in your home or switch to an electric vehicle, hopefully because it's saving on your costs or helping you with your costs but also as a lot of folks are motivated by climate, a lot of people are motivated by renewables. So we really want to be persuading customers that this is a good opportunity. We're not looking at residential and you're right that the charter change does permit the city to look at that. We think it'd be great to get a lot of experience with the sectors that we're looking at now before we would look at any sort of further policy. So that's kind of the way we've talked about it. Doesn't mean something couldn't happen in the future but you would also have a vote on that as well. My reservation is that the enabling ordinance, if you will, is quite broad and we would just sort of be concerned about long-term mission creep, if you would. I think it's important, just a quick point, is that there's some really great programs available right now from the state and from the federal government, from the spending that came through COVID. There's $20 million through the state legislature that is helping people who are income qualified to upgrade their electric panel because sometimes you can't put in a heat pump or an electric vehicle or a heat pump water heater if you don't have the right electric panel upgrade. So there's going to be programs to help with that for people who need help or income qualified programs to help switch to a heat pump water heater. So I think it's important not only we get the message out about the lawn mower programs and the other programs, we need to get the message out about our state assistants and federal assistants too. Thank you. I think I'm going to clarify something for Jeff. When we went for the charter change, the driver for the charter change was really this carbon offset fee which was not allowed within our charter. As I understand it, the city of Burlington yesterday and today can prescribe residential heating standards. So we never needed a charter change for that. What we really needed it for was this carbon offset. So it got a little bit confusing, but last year or five years from now, the city can set residential standards and there's been no discussion that really was always driven by commercial. Councillor Carpenter is exactly right and there are residential building codes that apply to residences and there will continue to be standards. But we're not pursuing any kind of carbon fee or anything else relative to residential or small businesses. So we are closing in any last questions or comments? Are there still rebates for cars? Absolutely. We offer incentives on our website. The state has some rebates and the federal tax incentive still exists, but it got a little more complicated with the recent legislation. Cool. No. Okay. I think we did it. We are going to manage to close our meeting on time, which is another popular thing to do. So thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much.