 We'll have a little bit more of that. Yeah, yeah. Good to see you. I'm like, I'll be pretty sure to take. Yeah, you should be asking me to. Anyone online hear us? Yeah. Oh, Sarah. Let's see. I can actually give you audio now too. The last board one. 23. We can have one next week if you really want. Okay. My name is Aaron. I'm a facilitator tonight and I want to welcome you. And we're Sam. Sam is the one who made the chili that you're enjoying. As we usually do, we're going to go around the room and introduce ourselves and we're going to start right up here. And there's microphones around it because. I'm not afraid to use it. Thanks, Charlie. I'm Brian Pine. I'm the director of the community and economic development office. But I just have to share that a long time ago I lived just around the corner and just getting out of UVM. I joined the ward one NPA steering committee. In 1985. Hi, I'm Carol Livingston. I haven't been on the steering committee as long as Brian, but I live on Calarco court. I'm on the steering committee and welcome. Good evening. Gary golden. I'm the. East district school commissioner. And I also live on Calarco court. I am precisely interloping from ward three. I serve on the steering committee for the word three NPA. And I'm here to say hello and check out your agenda. Have the all well. Oh, are we just fine. Yeah, the. Yeah, the all well. Prospect. North prospect. Katharine for man. North street. Carter newbies are on the steering committee running for ward one city council and I'm over on Riverside F. Thanks. I'm Cheryl green and I live in Burlington co housing on East Avenue. Peter Likowski co housing. And I'm on the steering committee. I am Dave cawley. I live on Nash place and I'm part of the old East end. Hi, I live on below the court. I'm also state rep for this district. Catherine Bach. I live upstairs. Richard Hill yard. I growth court. I was on the steering committee for a long time. Some of that time was with the Jeff hand, which who some of you may know, but it was my pleasure to serve with him. Thanks, Richard. Good evening. My name is Jeff hand. Nice to see many of you and Richard. Good to see you again. I live on Henry street and I'm running for city council and ward one. As Richard mentioned, I think he and I and maybe Wayne, Senville were on the steering committee from early 2000s to 2007 or eight. So it's like an alumni night here. It's nice to see you all. And look forward to getting to know some of you better. Thanks. Right over here and say that again, because if you can see the camera, I'm being blocked. Sure. Yes. Hi again. Jeff hand. I live on Henry street running for city council and ward one. And as I just mentioned, former steering committee member here at the NPA. Thanks. Okay. Joel, 20 chase streets in the old East end. Samantha, Chase street, old East end and member of the steering committee. And I'm still Tom. I live in Nash place and I'm also on the steering committee. And then online. Yes. So Sarah flash. Also part of co-housing on East Avenue. You can't hear me at all. Anyway, if you can hear me. My name is Sarah flash. I'm also part of co-housing on East Avenue. So we can have your people online. Okay. Well, we do people online. We do see it. We saw. Sarah and Sophie. And I think there's one other person. All right. Well, you guys are trying to fix that. I'm going to. We'll circle back to that. So. Next is announcements. And before we open it up, I've got a couple. And it's about the community forum. There's two. One is tomorrow at September night. Our 14th. At 6 p.m. And it's going to be talking about drug trafficking. And crime. And a number of people, including the U.S. Attorney. And special agent. From the bureau of alcohol. Back to the firearms and explosives. And then. December 19th. Also at 6 also. There'll be a substance use. Disorder and property crime. Discussion with a number of people, including. The state attorney, Sarah George, the mayor, a bunch of other people. Anyhow, this should be available. Where. Probably online. But it'll certainly be in our minutes. All right. We'll sort of back up. Sorry, I thought I already did that, but I can see I'm somewhat live now. So, um, Sarah flash. Also part of Brunton co-housing on East Avenue. Board one. Okay. And, um, Becca, Becca, you're on mute. All right. We're going to go to Christine. Hey, everyone. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. I'm Christine Longmore Hughes. I live on Riverside Ave in Burlington. Um, I'm the director of the Richard Kemp center. And I believe I'm on the agenda towards the end of the meeting to do a brief presentation. Okay. Thank you. Um, We're going to ask Jake. Jake here on mute. Here you are. Hello. Am I introducing myself? Yes. I am Jake Schumann. I live on Hiltred drive. Anything else? And I think, uh, Dean Hopkins. Okay. I just got permission to unmute myself. I'm Jean Hopkins. I'm Jean Hopkins. And I'm very interested in all you're doing. Thank you. And, um, Mark Hughes. Good evening. I'm Reverend Mark Hughes. I'm the executive director of the Vermont racial justice alliance. And I'm also fortunate enough to be Christine's husband. And I have no official capacity tonight. Yes. Uh, and I miss anyone. Can you hear me Sophie quest? Oh, Sophie. Yes. I can hear you. Chase street. Oh, they stabbing you. I mean, oh, this neighborhood coalition. Excuse me. Glenn. Hi, it's Holly. Shane or McCray. I'm with Glenn. We're on Mansfield Avenue. And Glenn. Yeah. Yeah. He's here too. Okay. I was told this is my mic. Hi, I'm Tim Doherty. I live on colonial square. And I'm Sam Doherty. I also live on colonial square. All right. Um, Do we have other announcements? Thank you. We're on Mansfield Avenue. And Glenn. Yeah. Yeah. He's here too. Okay. And we have someone. Here. I was told this is my mic. Hi, I'm Tim Doherty. I live on colonial square. And I'm Sam Doherty. I also live on colonial square. I'm Sam Doherty. I'm Sam Doherty. I live on colonial square. And I'm Sam Doherty. I also live on colonial square. I also live on colonial square. Oh, yeah. We have other announcements that you can like. I have your copy of the petition. As I apartheid city. Anyone would like to have a chance to read it and sign it. See me up to the meeting. Inside of here. Okay. Other announcements. Yes. I had spoken with Julia or Saki at DPW. And I just wanted to let everybody know that sometime, I think in 2024. They are going to start their plan BTV vision zero, which will just be DPW kind of looking and. Getting a kind of like a task force of people who are looking to improve walkability, bike ability transit in the area. And I think if I'm correct, she said that there will be a representative from each ward that would be. Joining the task force. So I think. In the next couple of meetings, we're going to try and get her. Or someone from DPW here. Okay. Okay. Just, just quick welcome. Welcome Carter and Jeff. Candidates for ward one city council. We anticipate in January, having some kind of a public form. For the community, the NPA community, at least to get to know each of you a little bit better. So we hope you have, you can clear that spot on the calendar. So that we can have the conversation. Thank you. I would also like to just mention it was, it's in the civic clerk. We talked about it a little bit when Ben Travers was here last month. We're, we're trying to circulate. I'm trying to circulate a proposal for a resolution for the city council, which would help describe something about the relationship between NPAs and the city council. I think it's important to make sure that the city council's at least consider resolutions that need to be reviewed by city, by NPAs before they get voted on. So it's almost illegible, but it's right there. I didn't make copies. I should have made copies to hand out. There's no time rush on this. I can make a ton of copies for next month and we can hand it out. And then maybe the month after that, we could vote on it. But I'd want to, I'd want a good. I think it's important for the city council to consider at that. Are there any other. Yeah, just quickly, we're going to be over at co housing, having a conversation at 7pm on Wednesday, the 20th. So not this, not today. Next Wednesday, just about local issues. I think it's important for the city council to get to know me, grow me on what you're wondering. And yeah, should be a good time. So just wanted to invite everybody. Any. Announcements from people online. Very none. That brings us to speak out, which is a little bit different from announcements. It's something if you, there's a, something you want to talk about. More of a discussion item, right. Yeah. Now is your chance to bring up. So we have. You guys are shooting the room. Yes. I may get a little weepy. I'm starting already, but. I just want to say to our neighbors, particularly those who live on prospect street. That we're with you. That you're an amazing neighborhood. And we support you and understand that. Even if we don't live on prospect street. We, we, we feel the struggles and the pain. And this, the fear and the hope. That I'm assuming was generated by, by the shootings. I also would urge you, I had a chance to listen to the interview between. The two. Mikaela, the frack on Vermont edition today, she interviewed Elizabeth price. Who you probably know is the, is the mom of. Hashem who lived, who is now in rehab down in Boston. The interview was pretty incredible. And Mikaela asked her about. Her feelings about Burlington and, and whether she would come back or whether she'd gotten alienated by being here and what had happened to her family. And she just was radiant about Burlington. And about your neighborhood and our neighborhood. And I think it's something that would really help you feel the hope. She was really clear that this could happen anywhere. And I think it's, it's caused a lot of us to realize. Burlington could be anywhere. There's nothing so special about us. But what is special, I think. Is, is the hope, the resilience, the power, the strength. She felt her whole family has felt so supported and so loved and so taken care of. By all of you, by all of us. And that's what I hope this event leaves you with is that understanding of. How hard that was and how difficult that was. For her family and for you all, you know, that you went through this really, really hard time. And that there is hope for us as a strengthening community. And we certainly have that opportunity every time we show up together and invest in this community. So thinking about you guys very, very much. On that note, you've, I'm sure you've all seen the green hearts of our neighbors stand against hate. And there are more out on the table if anybody wants one. And that color comes from what happens if you mix the blue and Israeli flag with the green in the Palestinian flag. And one of the Quaker meeting members, one of the young mothers made that. So you're welcome to take and put them on your window wherever you live. Anything else from speaker. Of course you can. Anybody online and have anything to, to have to speak up. So we're going to move forward to. Commissioner of the. Gary. Gary Golden has been very patient with us. Off the agenda sometimes. And so he is upfront. And our. Good evening. Again, Gary Golden on the. Good evening. East district school board commissioner. And I have regrettable news. We have an opening coming up for the ward one commissioner position. The key list is graduating. Next May and has. I'm sorry. A may a year from now. And just doesn't know what his plans are. So he's freeing up the position for. I just want to throw that out there and thank him for his service. It's Raya or Kathy feel some void in their lives about service. We could do a draft. You know, petition for one of them to, you know, step forward. So we are headlong into. Both the budget. Time. Which is always a battle Royale in Vermont because we are the weirdest combination of local control and state control of any state in the country. Most. Most state Supreme courts would have never. Pass would never. Seen to the validity of the Brigham decision back in 1993, which basically. Was a family from Southern Vermont. And so that was after I'm trying to remember 20 years of a foundation support program that the state had. Airheart. Foundation formula. Yes. That was also. Or it. So. That with that big taste though is a sort of a. Given take process that will happen has started in October with. Our approaching this. Submitting to the state our numbers for. Numbers. Our total population. And that started sort of the chain reaction of formulating. What kind of educational fund will be available. What stipend we will get from the state. That's not the word. And I'm. Struggling for the word. Which. Is a combination of federal money that we might get. Say IP. Special ed. Reimbursed. Funding or grant funding, which we've gotten a lot of lately. They're called the Essar funds. Which I had to look up elementary and secondary school. Emergency relief funds. Are you impressed? As a fund. As a former spouse of a school board member. I'm looking at Brian for a lot. And Kathy, I'm going to let you off the hook today. So that's that money's running out this year. And that's really having. A huge impact on our budget. And budgets across the country. Particularly in Vermont, because we did programming with that money and that money's going away. So those are all. Pieces that are happening. So the 18, 17, 18%. Increase in. Property taxes that was publicized by. Mostly out of context by a lot of the. Outlets. It's not. Guaranteed. It's not that simple. Yet. It will never be simple for one thing. But we are in kind of an interesting crunch. So. Please. This is an open offer after you read my post today on. Front porch forums. You have any questions, please. Email, write. Email is probably easy. Email is probably easy. Email is probably easy. Email is probably easy. Email is probably easy. Email is probably easier. Email is probably easier. Email is probably easier. Email is probably easier. Because there's a lot of. Some technical pieces. And there that I'll. It would be easier for me to share you. With you written material. Because of all those gyrations that are happening. But we're we're going to get money from the equalized student fund. My story. part of a grant at Barnes School, I'm gonna call it Barnes because Lawrence Barnes was a pretty amazing person and predated the addition of the sustainability magnet school component. But we over a summer picked up a full classroom of Somali Bantu students with minimal English. So we were providing food, we were providing socialization, we were providing basic English proficiencies and that came out nowhere that was not part of any budget, it was not a part of any forecast. While the students were or the families were placed here through the refugee resettlement program, there were no attached funds federally for that. They got translation services for six months, they've got the public subsistence money for six months and then they were off the books for both of those expected to be working, they had host families mostly from religious institutions, but Armando Aseca, thank you. Toured, at that point it was the department of education and he was the director. Toured the building, saw everything we were doing, oh, you know, make clucking, appreciative noises, went back, we were not the only city getting students. And that was 2004, we've never received a cent from the state for that population. Now we will, through the weighted student program. You gotta read it in the stuff I sent you because it's too, it's basically the state admitting that there are some districts that have additional cost based on their populations, ours being EL students. Our global majority is, try to look it up, 35 to 40% of our population. So many of them are getting, most are getting liaison services, which we pay for. Many are getting EL special instruction, smaller classes, I sat in on one seven students. Back in the spring, you know, that's a really hard staff student ratio to manage. Those costs are finally gonna be acknowledged by the state and will that formula still be worked out. And Martine Gluck, who's both on our board and a state senator saying every district out there has their reps trying to undo that piece. So any support you wanna give your rep, please do, because they're fighting an uphill battle. So all those pieces are keeping this a pretty fluid process. Locally, our principals have met, our meeting with their school staff, with their admin support, and looking at what they're going, what they have money for through our internal weighted student formula. Each school has a different makeup of number of IEP students, number of, you know, what's starting to happen and some behavior programs that need to be either started or reinstituted that were canceled, probably one superintendent ago. And they're needed again. And so that's gonna be additional funds. They, you know, that should be in the formula. So all that's to say, this is a kind of a moving target right now. We're still waiting on a more concrete number from the state, which we'll get in January. And that's what we'll start building our budget on in earnest that plus these conversations that are happening in each building. I'm pushing back a little that I'm thinking for if we're gonna be cutting school staff, we should be looking at commiserate admin staff cuts. You know, that's what Vermont's, you know, State University has been going through with their declining enrollment. Seems a little logical that, you know, if we have a choice between, you know, I'm biased as a former teacher that the pain should be shared across the whole school system as far as staffing. That's just my bias. That's kind of a new, that's being considered. I'll keep you posted on that. Otherwise, Sam is on his second or third principle. Sorry, yeah. Yeah, and we'll have a fourth in the fall. So we're sort of canary in the coal mine as far as administrative pictures for the state. When I was working here, they were just trying to count at least five or six principals who had plus 20 years in the job. We have our veteran right now seven years. So times are changing. It's a difficult position. I'm also former minister and it's sort of similar. You have these jobs that call for five or six distinctive skill sets. Everything from public speaker to motivator to numbers to teaching adults, which is a whole different skill set. That's what you go through every council meeting. And it's being principal, being administrator is an incredibly difficult job. And as our societal norms change around schools and discipline at home that carries into schools and makes being a principal an incredibly difficult job that doesn't know nothing commensurates the money that's in time that it takes to be a principal. So we are moving to starting to grow our own. We had one internal high school teacher who stepped up to be an administrator but had to step down due to pregnancy and then third child. Francesca's back, but we'll be talking to her. That's the model we need to live after we're our own. No surprises. We also need to be looking at growing our own teachers of our global majority. And that's something the state used to have money for that has also gone away. So we really, if we're gonna talk about trying to have a population of adults who look like our students, we gotta do it here. We competing in the other states for those teachers is incredibly difficult because you have a school district showing up with 20 or 30 contracts that the person with the contracts can actually provisionally hire someone at that open house. And we are three or four interviews to get to that same spot. So we're a huge disadvantage plus, moving to Vermont and trying to find housing. Good luck with that. So that's sort of our life in a nutshell in the district. We have many, we sort of stuck our foot collected foot in our mouth around some of the curricula we put out for the Israeli Hamas conflict. Part of that was there were people who looked at the title didn't really dig into the material and made assumptions based on the title. But we're going to do a better job of that as far as vetting material and publicize that vetting as we release the material. Otherwise, it's sort of life as usual. Though it's been a really weird fall. I mean, the shooting in the car that happened in Bristol with one of our students, the principal position, just the general Islama and past Arab or Arabic hatred out there, they manifest themselves in our district. And I'm hoping Sam can say what we're hearing as the teachers are out and talking more during the common times, during lunch, trying to make connections to have conversations. Is that kind of accurate? I could really notice that. Okay, I will pass that over to you. Thank you. Thank you. I could really notice that. Okay, I will pass that along. Because that's our hope. But it's also, teachers have to have meetings during lunch. They're calling back parents from the morning or emailing back. But that's our goal is to have parents out, or not parents, sorry, teachers out, having those difficult conversations with students. Hopefully maybe having an advisory. Not so much, all right. That's okay. Thank you. Pretty, I'll have two others in my car later, so I'll find out. But no, they're good samples. All right, so any questions so far? Good question, Magdere. Thank you. Good question. That's right. Thanks. Gary, I just want to say as a parent of three in the public schools and one in the high school, as you mentioned, thank you so much for doing this work. You maybe undersold it a little bit from my perspective as to sort of the challenges of the time that you're facing in your role right now. And needless to say as a father, particularly with respect to the high school, really, really concerned about the turnover in the principal role, not assigning any blame, but concerned about it, obviously, when you combine that with the fact that the kids are in the temporary space anyway, which I think everybody is doing, making the best possible situation out of a difficult situation, it's still not ideal. You add that to these other issues that you alluded to that we're all feeling incredibly deeply and it's just a really, really fraught time to be a kid in Burlington. And I just, I really, really appreciate the work you're doing. Most of it's behind the scenes and a lot of it is completely thankless, right? So thank you. Thank you. I'll bore you with this, but it's really interesting being on this side of the table after having been in the district for eight years as an employee. I've quipped that I kind of know where some of the bodies are buried, so that helps, but it actually does. I'm hoping it's been a positive experience for you otherwise as you went through Evans. Yeah. As our daughter did, you know, probably similar paths. It's, I'm Mr. Skeptic, but I think I can say as a whole, we have a really capable staff that love their kids. We have a great superintendent and who's, I think if students aren't feeling too many bumps, it's because he's absorbing them and is handling most situations pretty well. Is that your feeling, Kathy, as a former? Yeah. I mean, I think we're really lucky to have him. I mean, he's just, it's no drama. It's just no drama. It's, if I'm wrong, I call it, he's wrong. They call it that we're looking at what happened. I mean, they've done sort of, what's the, I'm trying to remember the military term, but you know, they've done pretty much, they call campaign reviews. So we've looked, they've looked back at what didn't work about Laura McBride for her to leave early. What didn't work for, you know, some of the other principals who left. What didn't work for Deb through her hiring. And I think we are, there are a lot of things that are going to change for the next hiring period that I think we can be more hopeful. Hope isn't just my, when I was a behavior specialist, my saying was hope is not a plan. And we can't really base our that. We really have to be, you know, we have to wait. The skills that prospective administrators come with to what we want. And it's going to be complicated because, you know, we also have strategic goals around making our staff look like our students. So, and, and, and, and, you know. So like, there were two people who, and I'll say this, I think I can, two who applied, who had either no or for the interim principal physician who had no or bad experience as a principal. Did they get even considered? No. So, you know, we're learning, it's, we're learning. But thank you for both, you know, appreciation and the reality check that, you know, we are a district in flux. Some of this has been out of our control with the PCB and the numbers. We will be joined by many, many, many other schools in that difficulty. As a progressive light, I will quote Bernie 21 or two years ago who said, if we go to war, every school budget within 20 years will fail. Our infrastructure will decay. Just the whole lineup of what we're seeing. So, you know, here we are. And we'll make the best of it. I'll keep you posted. I'll finding that with board governance there's limits to what commissioners are able to do. But I will do certainly what I can. I was quipping with Carter about nice guys, nice people being in public roles. My daughter, I don't know if I can say this out in public. Her nickname for me is Rat B, a gopher there. And that side is starting to kind of show itself a little bit because I'm, you know, I think Kathy would agree there. Sometimes you get sort of so-so answers. And we are entering a period where those just do not work anymore. Cause, you know, it's going to be battle royale to some degree about who, what wins out, who wins out. We're in one with the state, you know. So it's going to be interesting. I'll keep you posted. Any other questions for me now? Oh, Kathy, go. Yes, we were, the school board had a committee that organized all the schools around the state to fight for this, that ESL kids were seen in this formula. With any, I've heard that there are people in some of the more affluent areas of the state that are trying to fight this. I thought we thought it off because in the end it got passed. But I've, then someone said to me, oh no, those forces are coming back again. So have we gotten that committee back up again and running across the state? Because we literally organized and had them all together and I, with that number, we could win again. I just, I think those, there's a certain level, schools are bureaucracies and change is difficult. And if you've had an easy road for a long time, you like that road and you don't really want to pay a fair share of everybody else's cost. And so I think on one hand there was the noble feelings about, yeah, this is a fair process, but I think there are others who have been fighting that for years and were not pleased with the outcome. And so they've regrouped and probably new strategies, but Martine is certainly aware of it, is working with the Senate body from Chittin County. I think Emma and others could be rallied to, she'll say there's not a lot of meetings or support with the Burlington reps, but hopefully they will, yeah, they have to kind of find that themselves, but that could be. There wasn't when we started putting out organized, that's why I'm just worried that it's, we'll put like back into that group that were statewide. Yeah, you won't win, that was the first time. Yeah. Oh, there's been. It's proud of the state organized against, yeah, for the support of something. So I'm really worried that you're saying that they haven't. It's, yeah. You don't know if that committee is there. I don't know about the committee, I'll bump something to Martine and get back to you. Erhard. Well, this isn't the question I was gonna ask, but as someone who used to, as somebody who lobbied for the city, including for the school board for 11 years, if this is a reality, I would urge the board and the superintendent to talk to the city about getting the city's lobbyists engaged in this because it's not just gonna be a matter of the Burlington delegation. For something like that, if it's really under attack, it needs someone working on it actively that's not themselves a lawmaker to rally those lawmakers. So just, yeah, I would take that back to the board and to the superintendent. Yeah, that's, if it's under attack, I mean, the thing is, you can work to get something affected and implemented there one year and if you're not vigilant, it's gone the next year or two years down the road. You just have to constantly be on it. But that wasn't my question. So my question relates to, I've been in touch with a young black professional who lives out of state and have a couple of questions that have been asked of me that I don't know the answer to. And one of them is, there's actually three questions. One is the school department doing at this point to encourage retention of black professionals within the system. That's question one. Question two is what is the percentage of folks that are currently teachers in the system and maybe administrators that look like the students as you put it? And then the third one is I've heard that there has, totally aside from the BHS principle that left, has there been a visible, have there been visible black professionals leaving the system to your knowledge over the last year or two? So if you need perspective, my daughter also went through three, I think three principles during her time at the high school. So the first one that I had direct, there were several Old North Inn principles that had, it was sort of that wasn't my district or wasn't my school is after I left the district as an employee and my daughter didn't go through them. So I don't have the stories totally about those, but there at least was one, I believe it was IAA principle who was a gentleman of color who left under less than great conditions. The ones I have more to in touch with would be Null Green was an interim principal at the high school at the tail end of Superintendent Bang's time. Crossed over the first year with Superintendent Flanigan and abruptly resigned February or March that year because the board had not moved to make him permanent. And both Claire Wool, our president, board president and Tom said that it was in the works and thought they had communicated that to him, apparently not to his satisfaction. Lishan at Sel's Whitmore Lynn, and what was public and what I've heard since, let her license lapse during COVID. My educated guess was that it wasn't just recently laps, it'd probably been over a year and I'm not sure, I think that's accurate. I know we have, thank you. And then her Perez, also at Flan, was, had to be let go over an incident. A ill advised restraint. And then, yeah, so yeah, four and four years. So yeah, we've got to look at support. I think we, there are built-in systems of mentoring new hires at least for a year and then that can be extended at their request or if the principal feels like they need more time. As far as teachers, I believe we're, I would have to look at the number, it's less than 20 for sure, perhaps less than 15 total, but that's not the full staff. So those numbers might be a little hard to parse out, but I would do that, I think that's all three. But I think overall it's a good system. Are we learning? Yeah. So, you know, the questions, please, I put my contact info in my letters and on the front porch forum, ggolden at vsdbt.org is my email. Please reach out as, any questions you have and I'll keep you posted on the process. Thanks, Gary. All right, next up, I think it's a city council update and tenure first, the public safety committee update. Great. Hi everyone. So as I think everybody knows, I'm on the public safety committee along with city council president Paul and councilor Grant. The big thing that I want to push tonight is to encourage as many people as possible here in ward one and across the city to participate in our upcoming public safety forums. So the first one is tomorrow night, December 14th. And we have, it starts at six o'clock, it's at Contoy's, Chief Murad is there. Lieutenant Bellevue, who runs the drug unit, the United States Attorney, Colo Charest, will be there, a special agent if I don't know from ATF, will also be there. And then the second community forum is on the 19th. Also at six o'clock at city hall, Jess Kirby from Vermonters for criminal justice reform, commissioner Mark Levine from the department of public health, again, the chief, the mayor, state's attorney, Sarah George, who's our state prosecutor as opposed to our federal prosecutor, Colo Charest and then Rachel Jolly from the Community Justice Center. And I think that we've discussed this before, but by way of background, these community forums were a product of the resolution on public safety and public health that we passed back in October. And I think they're a really, really important opportunity for members of the community to come and have the opportunity to hear from the professionals in the public health and public safety offices that do the real work, make the real decisions and who can provide, I think, much needed sunshine on both the criminal justice process and some of these issues that are affecting people suffering from addiction. If you go to the website, if you Google it, go to the city website, there's special city website, there is an opportunity to submit questions, which I encourage people to do. If people have questions that they want, also that they want to ask, I'm happy to also help facilitate that. From my perspective, there is so, I hear so much misunderstanding and misinformation, not through anyone's fault, but people generally have a lot of misconceptions about the way our criminal justice system works, about the way law enforcement investigates crime, interacts with the prosecutorial authorities, misconceptions about people who are suffering from addiction, experiencing homelessness and the relationship between those issues in crime. And my hope, and I think the hope of the other counselors is that these forums will be an opportunity to sort of clear some of that air and bring a little bit of sunlight and answer some of these questions that I constantly hear sort of circulating over and over again. My goal, and we discussed this last night at our public safety committee meeting, my goal, our goal on the committee is, is that out of these forums, which are of course not solutions in and of themselves, obviously, that the hope is, hope not a plan, I liked that Gary, but the hope is, is that we're gonna be able to identify some of the areas that are really truly within the city council's purview, where we can make some appreciable differences in the public safety arena. And so, the goal is, is that coming out of these forums, we're gonna be able to move forward with some action items in January, February and March that will make sense and that will be well informed. And that, hopefully the community will have a sense as to where they came from based upon some of the dialogue that comes from these forums. It's just a really good opportunity to meet with these professionals and really ask people who are doing the work, what the work entails. So please come. The quick question, can you give a couple examples of those misconceptions? Yeah, so one misconception that I hear about and that I used to hear about a lot when I was a federal prosecutor was this issue and this has been a topic or conversation in our public safety committee meetings. I think generally in some of the city council interactions is this question of like, well, we've gone under the tip line, called and notify the police that there's an active drug distribution situation at a particular location and nothing happens or it seems like nothing happens and I am watching people show up and do hand-to-hand drug transactions on a daily basis. Maybe I take some pictures. I see needles everywhere. I see people handing over small amounts of cash and plastic bags. I know they're dealing drugs there. Why can't you do anything about it? Police prosecutor and that is an extremely reasonable response to a pressing situation. The reality is, is that neither Sarah George nor Colo Caresc nor any of the prosecutors in their office are going to be able to go before a state or a federal judge and get probable cause to execute a search warrant at that location or to get arrest warrants, which is what you need to do to move a drug investigation forward based upon a neighbor say so, no matter how accurate the neighbor's observation is. It isn't a question of doubting the truth of what the neighbor says or what the many neighbors may say or observe. It's a question about gathering admissible evidence that is sufficient to meet the preliminary standards, which is probable cause to get into the house and to make arrests and execute lawful searches. That is a really difficult time intensive and labor intensive process. In order to get a search warrant for a house in Burlington, you need to have either an undercover officer or a cooperator wearing a wire under close observation, using recorded purchase money, making what are called controlled purchases under incredibly close supervision. And that process can be incredibly difficult even to get to the first step of doing it, let alone to do it well in a way that gets the prosecutor admissible evidence sufficient to meet the quantum of proof and to ensure that everybody involved in the process is as reasonably safe as it can be. So how does that sort of translate into sort of misconceptions and I think less than helpful sort of public policy discussion, right? You end up with people saying, oh, you Mr. Prosecutor or you Mrs. Prosecutor aren't doing anything. Why aren't you doing anything? And the truth of the matter is the thing that needs to be done is difficult and time consuming and that's frustrating but there's really good reasons for that. There's really good reasons why the standard of proof to prosecute someone is so high. There's really good reasons why when you go before a state judge or a federal judge, federal magistrate judge is typically the person who handles it. It is not a rubber stamp to get into that house. The judge may find that you do not have probable cause. If you don't have probable cause, you gotta go back and do more work to get it. And the prosecutor, and we have wonderful defense bar here. And in my experience, really, really strong ethical prosecutors in both the state and the federal level, good prosecutors like Colo Charest and Sarah George will not take cases forward if the cops haven't done a good enough job in getting to that level of evidence. So that translates to a totally understandable feeling of frustration, a totally understandable, not just feeling, but actuality of things are not happening quickly, but there is a reason for it, right? And that reason, although complicated, sometimes dictates the pace at which things can happen. So that's just one example that was a little long-winded but that's just one example of something that I think people need to understand. People could have the opportunity to understand better about our criminal justice system and how that sort of translates into some of the frustrations that I and Zariah and others on the city council keep hearing about. There's drug dealing in my neighborhood. There's drug dealing at that house. I know there is. Why can't they just come and stop it? Well, I don't, that was a lot of talking for me. Any other questions about this? I really think this is a wonderful opportunity. I know people want action. I know this isn't an ordinance, but I think it's a really important step in the process. So I encourage people to take advantage of it if they can. And if they can't, I'm happy to help to the extent I can get those questions answered. I get a good question. The meetings that you talked about once tomorrow are the ones that can be. Yeah, they're gonna be, will there be opportunity for questions? You can submit questions. So if you have a question, you'd be well advised to write it down before you go. My understanding is that we've set it up is that there's not gonna be, I don't believe that there's gonna be an opportunity to sort of just raise your hand and ask a question. But if you go to the website, there's a link where you can sort of submit questions. Okay, all right. There is gonna be a moderator. And so it is gonna be a moderated. It's not gonna be free for all. It's gonna be a moderate. Like our meetings. Like you. Okay. I'm gonna see. I'm sorry. Thank you. Any other questions? No, we're gonna move forward. Sorry, you're gonna talk about it. Please raise your hand. Oh, I'm sorry. I missed somebody. Ann, or no, Jean, you're on mute, Jean. Okay. Can you hear me now? Yes. Yes. Yes. Can we submit questions prior to the meeting like tomorrow morning or? Yes. Yes. If you go to the website and I've got it up in front of me, the Public Safety Community Forum's website, you can get to it just by Googling that. There is a link to submit questions. Good. Okay. Thank you. I'm very interested in gun control right now. Okay. I'd love to talk to you about gun control. That's something that I've been passionate about for 20 years, so let's talk about it. And I think one of the things that I'm interested in doing is reviving the city ordinances that we've attempted to get through in previous years and that have gone to Montpelier to die. That, I think, is one of the things that will be discussed, certainly, I think should be discussed. Great, thank you. Back soon. Well, I might be fairly short-winded tonight because I'm on the agenda to talk about the status of the MOU between the city and UVM, which I can't say a lot about. So I don't think that we've gotten an update since the last NPA that we had. So the, and the last that the city council got. And so I think the only thing I can say is the same thing that I said then is I think the administration is, I don't think, the administration has said that they're happy with the direction that the MOU is trending. I would not be supportive of the MOU as written, although I can't share any details about what is written in the MOU. The UVM has said that they don't want to make that their board doesn't wanna make any long-term commitments. Obviously any rezoning that we would do is a long-term commitment. And I think given some of the lack of trust, it feels like that needs to be balanced. That's all I can say about that. The second thing that I can talk about is different UVM is the medical center, the MOU for their land agreement is coming up next year, I believe, for renegotiation. And so they're gonna have a community forum in the new year, I assume sometime in January and early January, the date's not set yet, otherwise I would share it. So they've reached out to Tim and I for meetings and recently, I think it was yesterday. So and our planning on having a community forum about that MOU, and that's all I've got as far as MOU is, but happy to answer any other questions about anything else. Oh, and one more, yes, I'll take questions on that and then I do have one more update that I wanna talk about with Church Street. I have one sort of process point that might be helpful and Jonathan, you and I were talking about this earlier today in terms of the timing on the UVM MOU issue, Zariah has advocated for and I completely agree making sure to the extent that it's within our power that there is ample time for the community to be made aware of and to provide input on this MOU and this discussion of the zoning changes and we both feel exactly the same on that front. I think that the agenda, I was speaking to Megan Tuttle on my way over here. I think that there is going to be an agenda item put forward for Monday's city council meeting in which they're gonna do question and answer, no action item, but question and answer on the MOU on Monday and I think that the plan is to then have more opportunities, including an opportunity to have city officials come and speak at the NPA in January with a vote tentatively at some point in January. And one of the issues, one of the questions and I sort of put this out and you guys can give me feedback as you want is whether you would prefer as an NPA to have Megan or whomever is the right person from the city team, potentially the university itself if they'll agree to do it, come to our NPA meeting or whether or not a sort of general meeting, community meeting is sufficient or both. I can't guarantee an outcome on that, but I do know that they're sort of looking for feedback on that, which I'd be happy to convey, but that's the sort of rough timeline as I understand it. I didn't even know it was coming back to us on, I don't see the agenda until Thursdays or Fridays though. Well, I got some inside information from Megan. So that's the sort of timing of it, as I understand it. Sit down, class, slow down. We always seem to get the information in the same month that they're making their decision. So there's no way that really we have any input because we're hearing about it and then it's a fair complete. So can we not have it be voted on in January and maybe voted on in February so that we at least have one more NPA meeting in between before you vote? We do not decide the agenda that is up to the council president and the administration. And so we can ask for it. And then of course the majority of the council can vote to table something, but we can't, I have asked many, many times, but I cannot actually control that. And so I think if it does come, and we feel like we need more time to review it, that's definitely writing to the city council and saying, please table this or to Karen Paul to say, can you move the vote to a later agenda item or a later date? And just to be clear, we're talking about the MOU Monday of this month is the beginning of that discussion and the first opportunity to have. So it isn't quite the same month, but I certainly absolutely want particular awards, one and words eight, right? You know, who are the two words that I represent. And, but also, you know, I would say arguably most affected by this to make sure that there is plenty of time and I'm very sensitive to this question of feeling like things are coming at the last second and it being a rush. And I'm committed to doing everything in my power, which may not be enough, but I'm committed to doing everything in my power to make sure that that is not the feelings on the way it handled this handle. Could we not as an MPA send message to Karen Paul that we asked the, I mean, if they really want community input, then, you know, then they got to give us time to give the input. I think being proactive is always a good idea. So I think asking for a minimum number of days between the release and the final council vote would be a good idea. And you had said you wanted 14 days. I said, men, because most of the time I've been getting like five days lately. Like at least two weeks, but I think at least 30 days or 45 days or whatever you want as considering, especially how long this has been on the table. I don't think it's too much to ask. So Tom, do we want to propose a resolution time? I'm just asking the result. No. We're behind schedule. Well, I guess maybe one way is that we would like to put a proposal out on front porch forum and see if people agree with it. And as individuals, we could send the same letter up. You know, you can get multiple signatures based on what you have until porch forum. Right. But we would avoid sending something out as a NPA per se. Brian, did you have something? Okay. I guess I need that one. Just to say, just to say I'm part of the city team working on this. And I would say the counselors have been very strong advocates and it, it's heard right now and it doesn't need to be necessarily a resolution. Although I think resolutions carry a little more oomph maybe, but I will be certainly relaying this back to my boss, the mayor, and to counselor Paul that the NPA sentiment here, the sentiment of the body, even though you're not taking a vote is at least a month of time. It sounds like. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's true. Yeah. And there will be a public information on Monday. So when the counselors mentioned that it'll be discussed, they'll actually be public information available on Monday. So, yeah. And then I just have one more note. This isn't an update for me, but if folks watch not the last city council meeting, I'll share just one more piece of. Misinformation misperception, whatever it is. If folks saw the update from the church street marketplace commission on the flow of traffic and church street. If you didn't, there's basically four slides that are great. I'll share them in an update this week. I've got a slew of updates coming because I've been behind, but it basically shows that foot traffic is at, it's not that people aren't in church street. It's not that people aren't walking around on church street, church street. It's not that people aren't visiting or that they're not going to restaurants. It's just that they're not shopping in the same way that they were before COVID. And so I think that. I think that. I think that. I think that. I think that. Both foot traffic and. Hospitality gross receipts are at or higher than they were in on average than. Pre COVID. So years 2017 to 2019. And the thing that is drastically down is gross receipts of retail. I think that both as we continue into the holiday season and then into the new year, I think that's just some news to share as folks who are still very incredibly proud of our city and want to share it with other people. And I'm sure we both can say, please go down to church street and shop locally during the holiday season. All the door to Christmas shopping this year, Sam, if I can get on church street, you're not getting it. And I mean that down. I don't know if anybody's been on church street lately. I know. I know we have our political issues on this and debate. Church street is gorgeous. I'm down there every day. I love being down there. It's gorgeous. Go down and enjoy church street. It's beautiful. The lights, the shops. Take a walk if you don't want to shop or position to, but really please. It's wonderful downtown. It's pretty hot job. Yeah, I would like to just echo that, that I was there on Saturday and the impression was completely opposite from what the hearsay is. They were actually people with bags all over the place in and out of the stores. It was streets were full. Youth were singing. People were happy. It was a beautiful sight. Hi. I just want to, um, from all of us give a big appreciation to Zariah and Tim. This meeting on this last Monday. Um, with this just robust, amazing public forum. Which meant that. The work for the two of them. And 10 others went from five o'clock that afternoon until midnight. They were still making decisions and working. Some of you may know of that. So. Standing room only. In con toys and a bunch of us on zoom. Um, thank you. Thank you. Very well. Just a quick question. Are there two. One between the city. Second one between the medical center and somebody else. I don't even think that those are the only two MOUs specifically. The UVM one is the land agreement, the land. Land use agreement. Um, but yes, that is with the medical center, the one that we've been talking about, which is, but it's just with the university. The medical center land is owned by you. I do. I've not looked at the agreements yet. Don't. I've not done my homework on this. I'm just telling you that it is coming up. I do not know the substance of the agreement yet. Maybe somebody else does. No, I just wanted to put out my mark. And follow up on. Comments with the microphone. Okay. And then I know Eric had a question. I don't know. Over there. Yeah. Hey, I just wanted to follow up on that. Um, while I, the numbers are good overall, I just want to remind folks that though overall that, you know, there are still, if you talk to some of the merchants, there are still some individual places that are struggling with the, the situation here. And what folks may not be aware of is we did hear from Mark Sherman, the owner of the outdoor gear exchange at the last marketplace committee meeting. And one of the things that he shared was the feedback that he had received regarding the opening of the new store in Essex and how people were overjoyed to be able to support a local business and not have to come to downtown Burlington in the process. So we still have a little bit of a ways to go on the perception issue, but you know, we're still going in the right direction. So again, get out and shop and don't only get out shop, get out and go see live music too. Any other questions? Yeah, just a comment. Um, I mean, every time I see, uh, folks talking about the marketplace on TV, it's always like hand ringing and how terrible things are. And this sends a terrible message around all over the state and it's been sending a terrible message for literally a couple of years. Um, I, I, in my travels around the state when I was working, still working for Bernie, uh, I would often talk to, you know, folks in other parts of the state that are like, I don't want to come to Burlington. It's too dangerous. Uh, there's no parking, blah, blah, blah. And part of that is that the message that I think that we send out as a community and I'm not going to fault anyone individually, but, uh, when the downtown business association has a representative on TV, they're always dour about what's going on downtown. And I, I just think we need some real positive PR spread around the state on CAX and on PTZ, uh, to tell people that Burlington is open for business and that it's doing well. I, I, my office was until very recently was downtown. I was downtown just about every day during the day. I'm downtown at nights as well. And it's a lot of this is a perception problem. I think that is just unfortunately snowballed and gotten out of hand. I, I don't want to minimize that, you know, there are businesses that are struggling and a lot of that has to do with COVID and everybody's transitioned to Amazon and, uh, shopping, uh, shopping online and people haven't stopped shopping online. So as a national trend, retail is down and retail is struggling all over. So we have shopping malls that are closing all across the country. But I think, you know, we've got a marketplace commissioner here, Chris, um, if, you know, I know your, um, your, your, um, executive director, whatever her title is, I can't remember, has actually been pretty positive when I seen her on TV. Um, but, uh, others to talk about downtown have not. I've got one more funny note at least before I leave, which is that I was in St. Albans, um, doing a community forum and, um, it was very funny how many people are like, Oh yeah, nobody wants to go to St. Albans because it's like to, you know, like too busy and there's too much stuff going on and all this. So we're not the only big city in Vermont that's having, um, these perception problems apparently people from outside of St. Albans have the same same story. I, for whatever, for whatever it's worth, you know, it is a really difficult for me, uh, a really difficult issue to talk about. And you, you want to, we, we discussed this a couple of meetings ago. Um, you know, I don't, you know, I don't, I, as I'm imagine, don't completely agree with you. You know, I don't believe this is just a perception problem or just a question about online shopping. Uh, in fact, I know that this is that there are very serious grave issues facing downtown, um, that are directly related to public safety. Um, and I think it's really, really important that when we talk about it, we don't engage in hyperbole and don't sort of look away from all the incredible positive aspects that are downtown. So I just wanted to make sure that my views on this work were clear because I'm sure I'm going to be coming back to you soon and giving you more information if I'm given the opportunity about some of the real imminent challenges that are happening downtown directly as a result of public safety be above and beyond the perception issue, which I do agree with. And I just, I want to try one more time. Big appreciation for Zariah and Tim and Gary. This isn't about church suite really quick. I'll make it quick. Um, about church suite about the shopping. Sure. So I don't speak for millennials. I don't speak for everyone in every age group. However, millennials, we were raised on anti consumption media, Catholic planet. We were raised on Fern Gully. We were raised on like buying what was kind of necessary and phasing out this consumerist buy, buy, buy, accumulate stuff and combine with, you know, wages, getting outpaced by inflation. I think there's just some like really big overall trends that are changing. millennials also love cafe culture. We love just just chilling like really just I'm tired of the where a lot of us are kind of tired of the advertisements and tired of shopping. A lot of us don't really own homes, so we're not buying home goods that much. So just something to kind of keep in perspective that some things might be changing in that sphere too. Yeah. All right. That said, I wish the best for church suite, of course. Next on our agenda is uh, Brian, you're going to do this. Yeah. Uh, talk about the um, gateway block for Thanks, Tom. Um, I'm Brian Pine, the director of Community and Economic Development Office. Samantha Dunn is my colleague. She is joining us remotely and I'm going to ask Fosca to help advance the slides as we go. So, um, you can go to the first actual content slide. So when we refer to the gateway block, we're really talking about this entire area from um, Main Street going north on Union to college, going west on college to Southmanis Gavano, and then back down to Main Street. This is the hallway gateway block. It is um, particularly unique um, block in the city in that there are a number of publicly owned properties. Um, a church and um, and a small amount of private sort of what we call in holdings or I sometimes refer to as the hole in the donut, which is the pink shaded area here. So that's all privately held. Um, what we are um, attempting to do is to take a look at the entire block rather than just, you know, trying to address Memorial Auditorium or seek a proposal for a redevelopment plan for just the parking lot, but to really look at basically Memorial, how it relates to the rest of the site, how the fire station either stays or gets relocated, really looking at the whole thing from a really a broad master planning or should say comprehensive planning approach. We're trying to get away from that word um, and for good reason um, we are um, really trying here to address the uh, a number of key public policy goals. Memorial being one, a huge goal and that is to deal with a city asset that is um, also has a fair amount of liability attached to it. I don't mean just legal liability. I just mean the fact that the city owns um, a building that has been um, declared unfit for use and habitation for the last seven years. Uh, and really I think it was Sharon Buescher who said when someone asks me why Memorial is in the condition that it's in, she said you can go back to the mayor starting even before Bernie when dollars were shaved off of maintenance budgets and Memorial was largely um, part of the city infrastructure that wasn't adequately reinvested in and I'll talk a little bit about both the politicians role in that but also the public's role in turning down key questions that came before them over the last 30 to 40 years to reinvest in the property. Next slide. So just another view of um, of this area of our city recognizing that the goals of um, you know, downtown development to meet our needs as a community to ensure that we have adequate housing, that we have commercial activity, that we have places for people to um, meet their needs. Um, this currently certainly does not represent any of the best practices, if you will, around urban planning and land use. The fact that we have a massive site with parking which was once the county jail and had a gorgeous structure on it, but that was torn down in the 70s which is the county decided to build a jail down in South Brilington. And then the city purchased this and created a parking lot. So we've had a public parking lot here for the for the last over 50 years. The, um, opportunities that exist here were identified. I think next slide is good. Um, um, let me just actually give a little background here. If you could, I won't read through the slide because we don't have that much time. We're trying to compress what was a 30 minute presentation to about a 15 minute, I think. Um, sorry. So there's a, yeah, there's a, um, a list of efforts here going back 1994, the voters just narrowly approved. 50% was the margin, but there was a little over 50, but you need two thirds to reinvest. At the time, this was 30 years ago, a million dollars into memorial would have largely short up the structure, new roof repairs to the masonry, a whole bunch of work would have happened that did not pass 30 years ago. Um, fast forward to the to the process that, um, that in, uh, the two mid, uh, last, last seven years ago was a basically a decision that the building itself was really unsafe and could not continue to serve the public. Um, followed by a public process to really identify what we could do with memorial. And there was a very robust process that had um, a couple of thousand service respondents who basically really, you know, it needs to serve the community and be a community hub and be a place where activity would occur. All of that was, um, was laid out in the, in essentially an assessment which looked at what it would cost to take memorial and, um, repurposed it for that. And at the time, um, it was a about a 30 million dollar proposition, essentially to repurpose memorial. So in 2019, the city put out a request for proposals to find a private operator. It wasn't particularly successful, but it looked like the idea still had some merit. And then, as you know, 2020 hit and all things went on hold for memorial and a lot of other city projects went on hold. Um, we then were of course faced with a, um, significant financial need at our high school, which essentially took up, took up all the city's capacity to bond, to borrow, to do capital projects is tied up, um, in the high school. And, uh, I don't know if that's motion activated or just on its way out, but, uh, on its way out. And it's out. So, next slide. Um, these are some of the previous proposals that looked at, um, both memorial and actually the whole block. And we even had in this process to look at where the high school would go. There was actually look, it did take a look at this site as a possible location. It was deemed not to be as good a site as the high school itself. Um, we had a proposal to move the YMCA to memorial and have mixed income and mixed use development happen on the parcel that is the parking lot. Uh, but because of the private in holdings, there was not able to be a coordinated development plan because we didn't, couldn't get control and couldn't get agreement from the owner of the private land, uh, in the middle of the property or the middle of the block. Um, we most recently had an RFP in 2022 requests for proposals and we got a couple of proposals and one that had seemed to have a lot of, um, public uses and public benefits was one called, um, Bob Arusa, which is a, um, concept that I actually don't know that I can fully explain, but it's called immersive art. Some people have been to immersive art and, uh, Montreal and also Meow Wolf, which I think maybe some folks have been to, but, uh, it sounds very interesting. It was a very intriguing idea, but the development concept never got off the ground. They determined that they didn't have the financial, uh, wherewithal to pull it off. Next slide. So really in the context of urban land use and development, plan BTV was the time that the community came together and looked at, you know, what do we want to see in our downtown and part of that result of that was that we, um, as a city, um, want to focus growth and development where we already have the infrastructure. We already have bus services. We have sidewalks. We have all the amenities that you're looking for for development and this, this was a site. This was really identified as a potential location for, um, both some commercial development, uh, mixed use, mixed income housing. Um, and so that's the, that's sort of the planning policy that was laid out for the community, by the community. Next slide, Fosca. Um, again, just another view. This is actually with the old Midtown Motel still there, right in the center of the photo there. Um, and we have, um, some drawings here that depict the type of development that, um, was, was envisioned or it was least laid out as potential development that could occur at a much higher density and, uh, uh, taller buildings, um, than what is there now for sure. Um, but really recognize that this is the core of Vermont's largest city and that having dense development in our downtown core, um, achieves a whole bunch of public policy objectives in addition to trying to address the chronic, um, under supply of housing. Uh, next slide. So what now for the whole block? Um, we have real pressure with, with memorial. It's in, um, extremely dire condition, even though we just approved, um, in 2022, um, some funding to essentially shore up the building and those improvements have been made. Um, the building is showing its wear and tear because of the years of neglect. There is really a question as to whether the, the funds are ever going to be available to restore the building. And so we're really trying to keep an open mind and hopefully, um, try to track the developer who has a desire to repurpose the building as much as possible and work with it. Um, so that's a possibility, but I should also say that there may be an eventual decision for that. The building has to come down. That's a possibility. So I don't want to, um, surprise folks by saying that at a later date, that we have to come back and say, um, the building won't be able to be repurposed. Um, we are, um, as a city trying to meet the need for, um, growing the tax base, um, providing more housing, activating that site for just from an urban development standpoint and creating, um, you know, the type of vibrant downtown that we all, I think value, um, while also dealing with the fact that we as a city have, uh, a piece of property that is, um, is largely costing us in the, in the neighborhood of over 100,000 just to sort of maintain and keep it as it is, um, with really no noticeable public benefit on the horizon. Next slide. We just wanted to give, um, highlight some of the priorities that came out of the 2018 public process. Um, these are certainly in, um, you know, making sure that these don't get lost. I mean, these were priorities that the community identified for Memorial. And if we are going to have a redevelopment, um, we're trying to advocate for as much, um, of the public space as we possibly can to continue to maintain it as a, as a community hub of activity and a place, especially for young people to, um, to be able to get together and do music and performance art. Uh, next slide. So we're trying to address these priorities here. Um, obviously we want this to be as the gateway to Burlington. It ought to be a place that you, when you see coming into Burlington, it's a shining example of, um, sort of our pride for our community. Um, makes them, makes income housing, of course, recognizing that it was built as a, um, as a Memorial to veterans from the first world war. And there's large plaques that are in the, in the foyer of the building that, um, no matter what they will be, um, preserved and restored, um, hopefully, uh, in place, um, we seem to line up with the other slide feedback about what was identified. Well, Chris, can we just get to the, can I get through the presentation please before you start? Yeah. Um, we'll get back to, um, to questions in a minute, but I don't have that much time. So I want to try and get through. We're really trying to ensure that Memorial and the entire block get viewed as an opportunity for sort of comprehensive thinking about redevelopment and not be just focused on, um, necessarily, um, you know, be limited by the possibilities that Memorial itself has on its own because seen in light of the whole, um, block and in light of the, or within the context of the potential for, for other development opportunities, there's much more, um, that can be accomplished than just working with Memorial. So we're trying to approach her from that perspective. Next slide. We had some serious challenges with previous development proposals. There's a very large ravine sewer that crosses diagonally on this property. Um, that folks may know about. It's a very interesting piece of our history as a city. Um, but yet it does prevent development from occurring on the parking lot. Um, certainly lack of city control over the private land has been a real challenge for us to work with. Um, and obviously with our limited bond capacity, as I mentioned earlier with the high school, the city doesn't have the capacity to borrow funds to, um, to renovate and operate Memorial auditorium. So next use. Next slide. We have tried a number of initiatives to try to attract, um, other development opportunities, um, with the relocation of the ravine sewer, which is going to begin, uh, this coming spring as part of the main street project. It really does open up that entire parking lot now becomes, um, a site that can be developed reasonably in terms of the, the cost without sitting on top of a city sewer system, which gets very complicated and would be from a technical standpoint, would be really extremely expensive and very difficult to do. Um, obviously we as a city want to grow our grand list in our downtown is a really ideal way to do that to hopefully relieve the burden on the rest of our city when it comes to things like our school budget and our municipal services that, um, we are facing some real challenges with, uh, as we look ahead to the next year or two in our city budget. Excellent. So we've been, we've been approached by, um, the, uh, those who control the in holding, the private in holding land, um, which is Eric Farrell and Joe Larkin. They are two local developers, um, local people who have a track record of, um, pulling off fairly large complex projects. And what they've essentially proposed to the city is that we would enter into a partnership where, um, at this point, a letter of intent, which I'll go into in just, I think the next slide is to look at the feasibility of a partnership and what that would look like. What would the city's, um, benefits, what would the public benefits be? What type of, um, you know, essentially the development concept here is housing primarily, um, with a, um, a hotel and public space of some sort in, whether it's in Memorial or whether it's in a new building, um, all of that needs to still be figured out. Um, there's essentially a four month in due diligence period, which we're in right now. The city council just approved a letter of intent and that process is underway with the, um, with this partnership with, um, Farrell and Larkin to look at, um, essentially what are the, we're not going to, we're not going to know for sure, you know, exactly how many housing units will have an idea, roughly sort of order of magnitude, what they're thinking about in terms of housing. Um, we're going to have an idea of how much public parking there would be in the end. We'll know what they're proposing for other commercial uses, some ground floor retail, um, a number of factors or a number of potential, uh, options will be considered and next slide. So these are the sort of highlights of the letter of intent that the council approved a few weeks ago, maybe a month ago, um, looking at all of the, um, relationships between the developers and the city and in terms of, um, you know, what's the property worth, what's the city's, um, ultimate goal with respect to, um, community space, with respect to public parking, um, and achieving the housing goals, of course, um, with a mix of, of, of housing types and housing, um, targeting different income levels. This will look at issues around, um, other barriers. It could be additional technical, geotechnical, and environmental barriers on the site. We don't know. We think based on what has been done in the past, um, that it's largely deals with the ravine sewer as the biggest issue. Um, but this will look at everything and really the issue of the fire station, whether it stays or whether it gets relocated about five years ago, this did a study looking at, um, how to ensure that the city has the best coverage for fire response and that location was by the consultants and by the fire department itself was viewed as not the best location for the central fire operation of the city. Geographically, it actually fits a little bit better south of Main Street. So sort of down the Pine Street corridor as far as call volume and where the largest number of calls are that generate the most, um, response from the fire department. So that issue will be looked at in much, that's a much more extensive issue regarding do we relocate? Does this development pay for a new fire station? I mean, there's a whole bunch of issues to be figured out, uh, which is all part of this due diligence period. And next slide. This is the time period for, um, for the feasibility work. We're in this initial due diligence period until the end of March. Um, if it looks like it has, um, real potential and the, um, the city and the developers can come to agreement, there'll be a development agreement that lays out responsibilities, obligations, benefits, um, some costs, of course, but I think in the end it's going to be, you know, is there a, is there a feasible project here that we can do as a public private partnership? And that will know hopefully by the end of March. I think that is it for these slides. Although I did want to point out, there's a lot more detail here on the website. It's CEDO's website. Um, it is listed under capital. Capital projects is the heading. If you go to that, um, you'll find a whole section on Memorial, which has the history of Memorial, um, prior redevelopment studies, both from Memorial, but also for the entire block as well. Um, so now we're open to questions. Questions. I have questions, but I'm going to refer to one of folks. But Kathy's hand. Are you going to push or whatever's built down there? One speed green. And, and. That it's green. I mean, when we did the high school, we were pushed to do all of this stuff. To make it really. Ecologically sound into a millennium. And I have no problem with what we did. I, I actually was for it. But I just, I just want to make sure that when these are private, public partnerships that the private is made to do. What, you know, the rest of the buildings that are publicly owned should be doing also when they're built. Yeah. The standards for, um, energy performance, for instance, will be, um, at or exceeding the state energy code. And I think that's a very, very high level of energy performance. There's also no new fossil fuels to be used in new buildings. So we're going to see a basically an all electric building. If they can, I mean, I don't think, I don't think they're. I mean, if they have a way of determining whether there's any renewable energy that they can do on site, I think they'll, they're looking at that as well. They're definitely very interested in that. The other thing in this is less of one. If Farrell's doing it. Downtown doesn't look like North Avenue. Aesthetically. That's a point. Quite well taken. Other questions. Well, just like clarifying. So, so I heard you in saying that like you're looking at the whole block to maybe increase like more folks having interest in different projects. What was unclear to me is like, is the library in the church being moved? Is it just the parking that would be affected? Yeah. Like how does that tie into the point? I didn't speak much about that. The library itself doesn't, is not impacted in that way, but there may be a parking solution that means that the library doesn't need to have the parking lot that they have right now. Like they could be that there is a reworking of parking. So that's all to be determined when I do diligence period. And the church also just wants, they want green space. Actually is what they want and to have parking nearby. So it may be that you get some green space between the library and the church, and then there's parking in a parking structure. So that may be part of the solution. Yeah. John. Just. I got, I got. Thanks, Mike. Just, just in terms of the library, the library is on the threshold of embarking on a renovation project. One aspect of their renovation project is, is energy related. And we are doing geothermal test wells. Any day now. And our, and we also are looking into PV and our aspirational goal is to work with this project and make the entire entire building, the entire building. And we're looking into the, the entire, the entire, basically be an energy neutral block that we work together to build this power plant essentially. That we can run in the block that's aspirational, but that's kind of what we're thinking about right now. My understanding is that there may be no surface parking. Is that right? I can say right now, the city ordinances will not support surface parking here. Yeah. Let's go to this question online. Hey Brian, it's Mark. I'm wondering if you got these folks, the private folks, I forgot what the other name is. Do they own this hole in the donut here that's in the center? They have site control, so they have an option to buy if they can get through this due diligence period. So they kind of control it, but they don't actually own it. Okay, is that the reason why the partnership exists? Exactly right, yep. Okay, all right. And just kind of off to the side, it's outside of the scope of what it is you're talking about, but is there any talk about what's to become of that gas station on the corner there on the other side of the street? Yeah, it's privately owned and the private owner is not someone we've been engaged with. I know in the past the person who is a commercial broker who's connected to that private property owner has said that there's some interest if redevelopment begins to happen in the area. And with you all doing the new VFW CHT project and this happening potentially would be, I think it would help spur some activity across the street. Yep, that's why I asked, thanks. So I think I was next. So I'm just a question about the auditorium and the shape that it's in understanding that there's no guarantees. But are there additional renovations that, given the timeline, this is going to take several years based on the timeline you showed, Brian. Are there additional repairs that need to be made in order to stabilize it to at least maintain the possibility of it being kept? Yeah, the voters did approve up to a million in upgrades to shore the building up and a lot of that work has been done already. So it's in decent shape to hold up for a few years. You alluded to those. I just was asking if there's additional stuff that's needed given the timeline of a couple more years. I'm not clear on whether there's additional work that will take place other than to ensure you got to keep people from being near the building. It's that dangerous that materials can actually fall off the exterior of the building and hit people. So that's an issue that needs to be dealt with. So there has to be a fence around the building, unfortunately, and that's going to happen sometime in the next six months. Those kinds of risks can't be repaired in the meantime. No, the masonry damage is significant with the freeze thaw freeze thaw. Yeah, significant. Yeah, I think if I understood correctly, the 2018 process was looking at auditory memorial auditorium kind of in itself and now we've kind of expanded the purview to the entirety of the gateway block. So looking at kind of the bigger picture, just want to make sure that, you know, we still have an articulated community desire for community space. And make sure that doesn't get lost in shuffle. I would think that a city as big as Burlington, the largest city in Vermont, 45,000 people. We ought to have some kind of public civic center for us. Not only is a valid community space for the community and youth, but also for economic development purposes. And, you know, what are we passing up as a city because we don't have suitable venue for certain types of events here in our town? The question I had was related to the presentation was, as you said, I think this other word ownership up there. Is that kind of implied to me that the ownership of the city owned parcels may be in play and that there may be some consideration that those parcels couldn't possibly be sold to a private developer at some point? I think sale is less likely than a lease, long term lease and hold on to them as city property. That's a more based on what the council has said. That's really the direction. I think it would more likely go. That's a capital idea. So ideally the city could potentially have the title to the land. And if it were, say, a vacant lot such as the parking lot, a private developer could erect a private building. The city would get revenue from the lease payments and then get additional revenue in the form of taxes from the building. Sounds like a really good proposition. Thank you. Other questions. In your hands. You're welcome. Thank you, Brian. All right. The final issue tonight is the Richard Kennedy Center. Mark, are you going to give this presentation? No, I was actually going to do it, but I think I'd prefer to maybe get put on the next agenda since there's nine minutes left. I'm always trying to try to put it on the next agenda. Well, it's just it's right now. Right now, which is not much time. Right. Right there's very little time. And we're, and we're sorry. The microphone so she can have that. Yeah. The request is can we not do it today because we don't have enough time. You're all certainly welcome to come by and visit if you haven't already, which would be great. Yeah, I think maybe we should move it because it's only fair. And I apologize for, for your having to sit through this whole meeting, although it might have been interesting. It was very interesting. I learned a lot. Okay, so we'll invite you back in January. But since we do have just few minutes, can you summarize what the Richard camp center does. And then we'll get all the details in January. Yeah, it's actually right there. If you're all seeing the presentation. We're expanding programs that already exists in the community and supporting black from honor as wellness preserving culture supporting youth and advancing racial equity and justice. And again, I, you know, we just invite folks who haven't already been there to stop by and visit and then I'll plan to try to get on the agenda for a future meeting. Okay, and you're, you're located. Where the old unfinished would furniture place was on north planuski. Right across from the community health center. Okay, and I, I actually was in their location last week. And it's really nice. So, I'd encourage everyone to go and visit. All right, we'll reschedule you for next time. Okay, thank you. Thank you patient. So, since we're talking about agendas and future agendas and tonight we were talking about this. The schools and, and that was on tonight's agenda and we were also talking about the accessibility to the city council and the things that they're in the mayor's office is talking about. Let me just say that back back about five to 15 years ago. Boards two and three NPA routinely had the superintendent of schools attend the January boards two and three NPA meeting. And superintendent sort of made the rounds a little bit but basically it was focused on words two and three and four and seven. So there's nothing to go back now the new superintendent we have has never done that. So I'm saying it would be a new idea to invite that person. I'm just saying it was routine in the past to have the superintendent of schools come to each NPA and talk about because that that's in January is when the school budget is pretty much settled. And so the superintendent can say really intelligent things and accurate things about to do the same thing. We're also talking about the city council. So there's nothing to prevent the NPAs from inviting the president of the school of the of the city council to come to their meeting. Now I'm not saying that city counselors are not overburdened already, but in the past like words two and three also would invite the president of this city council to come and talk to and get introduced to and meet the people from local NPAs. Okay, well, I'm just saying that's all I wanted to say. Thanks. Can I can I just echo that we did do that. Historically we invited the superintendent the same way in January when the budget was up something we did regularly. All right, thank you very much. I think we are done.