 Well, welcome everyone. Sorry for our technical difficulties. Welcome to the Ward 2-3 NPA. I'm Molly Flanagan. I'm a Ward 3 steering committee member. Tonight we also have Jess on Zoom who's a steering committee member. Chris is one as long with Kevin. So thanks for joining us on Zoomland here in the room. We have Charlie who's a steering committee member here at the community center. So we have our meetings on the second Thursday of every month. So our next meeting is January 13th. We always welcome agenda suggestions. You can make those through the CEDAW website. So please let us know if you have ideas of things we should be discussing. We will be talking about the upcoming grant cycle that the NPA runs later in this meeting, but we currently are accepting applications. They are due January 4th and we will be discussing them at the January 13th meeting. So please stay on the meeting to learn more about our grant cycle. And finally, recordings of these meetings can be found on YouTube and on CCTV's website in case you need to sign off or watch them later. Okay, with that, we have public forum. If anyone wants to make an announcement, we would welcome that now. Please keep them to about two minutes or so. So I'll start off with anybody here in the community room. If you would like to make a public announcement, please come up here so that you can speak directly into this white owl. Anyone from the room? Okay, it doesn't look like anyone in the room has a public forum announcement. Does anyone on Zoom have one they would like to make? Jess. Great. Thanks, Molly. I'd just like to remind people that the local amazing nonprofit called Hands, helping and nurturing diverse seniors along with a whole host of other organizations and businesses is putting on a free holiday dinner for seniors on Christmas day. It's completely free, delicious food, either a ham dinner or vegetarian lasagna with mushroom and squash, and that will be delivered to anyone 50 years or older in Chittenden County on Christmas day and to reserve your meal, call age well at 802-865-0360. And you need to make that reservation before December 17. And if you'd like more information about the Hands holiday dinner, go to HandsVT.org. Great. Thanks, Jess. Anyone else on Zoom have an announcement? Okay. With that, we will move straight on to our first agenda item, which is the North Manuski Corridor Study. We're going to start off with a presentation and then hopefully have the majority of the time for public comments. So I'll go ahead and turn it over to John, who I think wants to share a screen. I will. And while I'm sharing my screen, I'm going to turn it over to Nicole first. She can give a little bit of introduction. Thank you, John. And thank you for having us on the agenda tonight. I'm Nicole Loesch from Burlington Public Works. I'm joined by John Slason from RSG and Brian Davis from the Regional Planning Commission. We have been working on a parking management plan for North Manuski Avenue for several months. And this is a follow up from the Manuski Avenue Corridor Study that City Council approved, I believe at the beginning of last year, right before the, right around the pandemic started. But we are here tonight to really talk about some strategies for managing the on-street parking. And to make the most of our time, I'm not going to go too far into the introduction. I'm going to turn this right over to John and let him walk us through what we're working on. Thank you. Great. Thanks, Nicole. Just double checking technology all set. I assume so. Great. Thank you. All right, well, we'll move quickly through here because we definitely want to hear from folks and have a dialogue at the end. So we'll do a quick introduction. Nicole already introduced herself and then the rest of the project team, as well as the genesis of this project and then the role of the stakeholder committee. And then the project management plan overview. We'll discuss a little bit of the data and the experiences and focus the majority of the time on the management options. The team consists of the city of Burlington as the lead and then the regional planning commission with which we have Brian Davis here on the call as well representing he's been involved from day one on this project. RSG has been the prime consultant on the project and we've engaged others throughout the process. It is originated from the corridor study and now in the parking management plan. The city council conducted an 18 month plus corridor study that was the original foundation for what we're discussing today. There was a creation community led initiative that evaluated 13 corridor options. And one was recommended to move forward. So in the course of the process zoning has also changed, which is I think important for context here is that the city has removed all requirements for parking minimums for land uses along the corridor. The preferred option was accepted by the city council with some requirements that I'll just discuss briefly, but by and large, the physical infrastructure was to install bike lanes at each direction north and south. And an impact of that is to remove the east side parking for two segments of the corridor south of North Street. So between Pearl Street and North Street and then north of Union Decatur Street up to Riverside Avenue. We're sharing the presentation online. And so you'll be able to click at the bottom here to get access directly to the Winooski Avenue corridor study if you want to learn more about that process. So why a parking management plan. The city council when they accepted the core, the preferred option. They put these pieces into their decision. On road bike lanes in both directions, much as I just described, there would be an impact of removing some parking along the east side of the corridor. And we would be creating a parking management plan that would be created prior to putting the bike lanes in and would be identifying practical strategies for balancing the supply and demand. They've developed the city council directed a steering committee to provide oversight and provide input throughout this process. And we've had a change of members do the election but we've had these three members from the Duke, Mark Barlow or Councillor Barlow, Councillor Hanson and Councillor Stromberg, and then city council community members. I'm going to start off with Charles Sizemore, Kelly Duggan and Kristen Kirsten Serpiro and Maxwell Horowitz. So I really appreciate their willingness to participate throughout the number of meetings that we had for this process. And their involvement has been really helpful for getting community input and involvement through the parking management plan and the recommendations that we're going to be tabling. The parking management plan overview is that how do we identify those strategies. We convene the committee. So the parking model that I'll describe here briefly in the next slide. We then also during this time of cove it has been a struggle, and it has been a focus to try to engage the community and get insights from them in a comprehensive way. So I'll discuss some of the methods that we've done there. And then lastly we're identifying those management strategies that influence parking demand. We used a nationally recognized standard from the Urban Land Institute called the shared parking methodology. This is the national gold standard for estimating how many cars are typically demanded by a unit of land use. And we use that data to provide us a national context which then we were able to calibrate for a locally observed condition. And because of COVID and the changes that has been resulting from people working from home, or changing their working hours or unfortunately changing their employment status, all of these things have reduced in change parking. And so because of that we had collected data through the corridor study. So we were able to calibrate the national data back to pre COVID conditions, and we're using that to forecast how things will continue to change in the future. We realized that this is a point in time. It's a it's a it's a merging point in time where conditions are continuing to change and we acknowledge that. And so the best that we can do at this point is to use the data available to us and that's the national data and the pre COVID observe data. But we realize that particularly in the non residential sector things are going to continue to change dramatically. And we're trying to be flexible and sensitive to that. There is a presentation also for you to acknowledge that there is more resources to learn more about the parking model and some of the initial results. This is the study area that bounds our parking management plan. It in essence is one block off of Winooski Avenue in each direction east and west. And we have Winooski Avenue starting from Pearl Street up to north up to arch ball up to Riverside. Within the study area there's about 1700 1679 estimated parking spots and that includes all of the private spaces off of the street as well as those on the street. There's 238 parking spaces along north Winooski within the study area that's both sides of the street. There's another 141 along the side streets. And in essence the balance is about 1300 total off street spaces. Part of the reason of acknowledging those off street spaces is that the parking management plan is goal is to strategy to better use that total supply. We acknowledge that there's many opportunities for improved sharing and better utilization of some of those off street spaces. And that's part of the management strategy. Public survey was a critical part of this management plan process, acknowledging that we have not been able to get together in the same ways that we previously have for some of the public meetings that preceded the parking management plan. We conducted a comprehensive web based survey, acknowledging the limitations of web based. However, there were explicit efforts made to overcome some of those challenges. We had it open throughout the end of the summer into the fall. We received 766 total responses which is a good response rate for a web based survey, particularly covering this small geography of a city. But there were concerted efforts to get a really comprehensive outreach, and that was through direct mailings to all the study area addresses. There were numerous front porch forum posts. We have the, I don't know what you call them but the political type of lawn signs that were printed out and placed along the green belt within the corridor, trying to encourage people. There were ways to just scan a little Google code and get access to a QR code to get access to the survey. There were also then direct engagements to businesses and agencies all along the corridor where there were physical pieces of paper and flyers handed out and said please take your survey. We also had a conduct a direct engagement with specific communities of non English speakers, or as English as second languages, where we had the ALD provide translation services and they the translators themselves had done some direct engagement with some of the communities. And because of that comprehensive way of collecting information, we were able to wait the survey data to become representative of the residents in the study area, which is a really unique and valuable asset that the survey is providing us input on. You can click down below again on this slide so once you get access to the PDF, you'll be able to get access and direct to a steering committee meeting where we summarized that survey. I'm going to quickly go through this because the management plan is where we want to spend our time but some of the preferences that came through they varied by the audience. So residents did acknowledge that there was a willingness to park off street within one block. So maybe there's opportunities for sharing spaces. They're not generally opposed to opportunities for residential parking permits that we have in other parts of the city and one grant street in this study area. There's a general hesitation to pay for parking for dedicated parking particularly employees, they would also be willing to walk a block. They do not want to pay for dedicated parking and they're not generally motivated for employer paid alternatives to parking so transit passes and the like didn't seem to generate much interest from employees. So if you realize that there's an opportunity for visitors, however, many of them acknowledged that they would not be impacted if they had to deal with some short term spaces and there was a general a media modest willingness to pay for a short amount of parking if that was to be of interest for this plan. And they acknowledged that they would bike if the facilities were safer, which is a key goal of the quarter study. Business owners and community property owners both agree that it would be more difficult to attract and retain employees if parking was more difficult within the corridor. And if there were short term spaces that might reduce willingness for employees. However, there was a general split in the responses for the willingness of business owners to say, we wouldn't we would entertain some shorter term spaces, maybe a one or two hour time periods to get turnover, and to allow more visitors to frequent the businesses along the corridor. One piece of note is that while there was an interest both of residents and employees to share off street parking spaces. There was a general unwillingness for those who own the spaces to share that parking. So there needs to be some additional work there to see if we can unlock that opportunity to better utilize the extensive number of spaces that are off the street in private blocks. Some of the observations here that I hope that they align with peoples of other observations and comments that we've received is that residential on street parking is particularly difficult between Grant Street and North Street. The community health center has has not enough parking on site for the number of employees that they have and they already do a rotation schedule, and we acknowledge that there's on street parking that's providing a service for that important land use in the community. We acknowledge that there is a general tension between residents and some of the visitors employees, particularly for those blocks closer to Pearl Street. Moving into the strategies here. We realized that there's a continuum here between easier and harder strategies and starting off defined parking spaces, we look at more sharp short term options. We look at time limits. Then we go more progressively into paid parking and more restrictive options such as residential parking permits. Lastly into some more difficult ones is to identify new off street capacity, or even remote lots which some major employers in Burlington currently offer for their employees. And then how do we achieve long term mode shifts how do we get people to not own cars and therefore not require car parking, and those fall into the more difficult strategies. Moving into a parking management plan process, and it is a process, it's not a day one solution to anything it is a behavior change that will emerge and evolve over time. And we are just starting that process with this plan. The identified is that we will start with removing on street spaces in those designated areas, and it will increase competition for those spaces, and people will be changing their behavior, accordingly. Some segments will be affected more than others. And we estimate that about 50% of the affected vehicles that where they might have had parking on the street. We estimate right now that 50% of those would be able to find parking within two blocks of their current destination. That's about 600 feet of distance. We acknowledge then that without behavior change there might be others that will have more affected and they will have to park further away, or they will have to shift their their behavior. And it does go block by block, we're looking at developing strategies that do vary specifically along the segment lengths. And after we develop these strategies and next part of the process will be identifying for the, for the city and in the report identified specific populations that might be affected more than others by these strategies, and to identify our other options that we can have that would minimize their equity and and impacts across certain populations. So moving into these strategies, the most northern most section. I think is that we would remove 22 spaces on the east side of north of news to Avenue. We realize that Riverside is very highly utilized, particularly given its proximity to the health center. It's going to remain, it's currently about 70% occupied during the average PM weekday conditions and the model says that it's probably going to remain about the same. So there's some general interest in these spaces and yet there's a few blocks that that hopefully will remain the proposed management strategies by the committee, we recommended that time limited parking to be extended. Currently, there's a few one hour spaces and a few two hour spaces on the northern most end of the corridor. And then we propose that they would be extended further south along the whole block space. And this would benefit particularly the commercial entities in the area. Most of the residential has enough parking to meet their needs from our observations. And so that time limited parking should provide turnover and opportunities for the businesses in the corridor. Early evening times and night times and early mornings, it would be unmanaged and so the time limits wouldn't apply, and therefore residential users could still park there in the evenings, and maybe after 6pm, that's the current limit today is 6pm for these hourly spaces. So these times of the day could could vary with greater community input. And so to preface community input after I go through these is that we particularly would love your feedback on these proposed management strategies, whether these time limits do you have recommendations are they one hour two hour four hour. Are there specific loading requirements there's no loading zones currently along the segment. Should we introduce some. And then lastly, is it okay to manage it in the evening. So those are specific areas where we do continue to want feedback on this policy. Another section between Archibald and the Union Decatur intersection is that we would be removing 18 spaces along the east side of the road. It's very highly occupied today, approximately 77% of the spaces. It's also a street with a very the largest off street supply. It seems to be an imbalance between where the demand is and where the supply currently is and maybe there'd be greater distribution of sharing opportunities. So there'd be a long term policy objective to try to unlock some of those spaces. We do forecast that the parking demand along the west side will be extremely full. It's in high demand, particularly given some of the land uses here and some of the nature of those uses, getting certain peaky conditions where our yoga or other events happen. And there's definitely a competition for some of those spaces. The management strategy in that area is proposed to have time limited. So two hour parking probably throughout that corridor with some specific loading zones, particularly right across for Dolan's area and the McClure center would be some short term spaces. I would recommend that most of the area in front of the McClure center would be dedicated for loading or short term parking needs to meet some of those commercial uses. Next moving south is that this section has enough width between the curb to curb space to fit the bike lane and keep the one lane direction south way southbound. So we forecast that the amount of parking occupancy will slightly increase in the future with the removal of parking both north and south of this section. And it's recommended today that it would be unmanaged. So it would be remaining as is today. Those parking spaces be unmanaged. So for the management plan, we would be proposing community engagement processes like this NPA meeting to say how can community members elevate if parking becomes a problem to say, hey, we need to look at this section. What else can we do. So moving just to the further south, south of North Street is that we would be proposing to have 29 spaces removed on the east side. There would be 31 spaces remaining on the west side. So just less than half the observed parking today is somewhere north of 84% around there. And the parking model aligns with that. It's about 80% in the parking model. And that we forecast with the removal of the parking on the east side. Sorry, the removal of parking on the east side is that that parking would basically be full up most of the time. And that would be with no management strategy in place. Currently, there's no meters or time limits along this western section. And that as part of the management strategies, there was a proposal to extend the current mix of brown and blue meters further north to occupy this block. And that would provide a bit of a flexibility for some people who are employed employed in downtown or employed elsewhere in the corridor. They might be able to utilize the brown meters, and then blue meters would be for short term turnover. They're limited about three hour time limits. And then there'd be the opportunity in the evening at some point of residential parking permit might be appropriate. We want feedback on that concept and whether there's a certain time of the day that maybe that should be applied. Then the lastly the most southern most section of the corridor. Just to orient we have Grant Street here with the residential parking permit, and it's definitely underutilized. There are spaces on that road versus the other section of Grant Street is is higher occupancy because it's unmanaged. The western side of the street will remain available for on street parking and we don't propose changing the mix of the brown and blue meters that currently exist. But the east side parking would be removed, and that would be removing the current brown and blue meters that exist in that block. It's currently highly utilized, depending on your time of observations, the average is somewhere north of 88% and that we would forecast that with the removal of the east side that parking will just increase in occupancy will increase in the amount of demand. We'll say that the parking model does not do it perfectly for for all instances but there are limitations to the fact that the meters just have that amount of turnover. And so the parking is an imperfect model to estimate the full occupancy but we expect whenever metered parking occurs, there should be greater turnover to accommodate more short term uses. So apologize for the spelling there but in the daytime the meter would be retain the current brown and blue meters. We would move the loading zone that's currently on the east side to the west side, there's some space here, and actually that's where a lot of trucks currently use the larger trucks unload there today. And then what we would maybe recommend is that the evening may consider residential parking permit. The residential uses along this block are interested in exploring that. And again, the actual time of which that starts is at 6pm seven. That's up for conversation. So I've moved through quite a bit but I was expecting some feedback and comments. So just to give you a sense of the next steps before our discussion is that our MP a meeting is tonight. We're going to draft a parking management plan document that will be submitted to the committee in January to review, and we'll meet in January to have that conversation. And then the plan is that hopefully in a successful adoption will then result in a recommendation from the committee to take it to the city council and the public works commission in February of next year. Now, Nicole, I'll turn it over to you do you want to discuss quickly about the prepare for the 2022 paving. Yeah, because they do want to leave as much time as we can for comments. The trans is coming in to repave north when you see next year, recognizing some of the feedback that we've received along the way and developing the parking management plan and throughout the corridor study itself. We have just recently hired stand tech, who is doing the paving marking plans for the trans so that they can help us identify any other opportunities to potentially build pockets of parking in place of the green belt in some areas where we're really trying to maximize any ways that we can retain as much parking as possible along the corridor. We expect to get some feedback from them in early to mid January. So in time, hopefully for our next committee meeting. And I think with that, our contact information is on the next slide here so we're going to take as much feedback as we can get tonight, but if we don't have time or if you have additional feedback, don't hesitate to reach out to any of the three of them in our contact information is right here. I'll leave this on the slide for a little bit and then I can stop the sharing so we can maximize the screen for others. Great, thanks so much john and Nicole for that summary and that presentation. We'll move on to comments and questions. And the steering committee got some feedback before the meeting that there's a lot of interest in this topic, a lot of strong feelings on both sides about parking and about the use of the street. So, we want to make as much time as possible for comments so I might extend this agenda item a bit further if there is substantial feedback that we want to make time for. But we want to make sure that both people in support of the plan and who have concerns or negative feedback on the plan have time. So we are proposing that we will alternate with people who are supportive with people who are not supportive or have concerns. So that we have equal time for people who want to share their thoughts and we'll go back and forth. It might lead to a little bit of awkwardness to help figure out which side people want to speak on but we are committed to making time for everyone's So let's start off with we'll kind of alternate between zoom and here in the community hall so let's start off with two comments from the community hall and we'll start off with a supportive comment and a critical feedback comment and then we'll move on to zoom. So, and I think the people who are giving feedback here have to have to sit where I am and speak very loudly into that owl thing so I'll get up and somebody can come up and speak. Sure. Hello, my name is Jean Bassette I'm a resident on North Windy C Avenue, and I'm speaking because my neighbors and I are very concerned about the process leaving out residents business owners nonprofits employees. We did, I agree with the presentation that the survey was very well advertised but unfortunately that's how most of us found out that this was happening at all. And so what we are concerned about is that the data does not reflect our experience. I live on the grants to North Street stretch 84% is an extremely generous reading of what is mostly maybe one space maybe to most of the time zero that are open and we simply cannot imagine having that have where we live on the North to Grand Street is where the metered parking from south goes up. So it's already quite congested. We are also concerned about the fact that the parking management plan is advocating for what sounds like metered during the day. So potentially resident parking at night, this to me seems like it really privileges people who work in white color who come home at six. Most of my neighbors have much more unreliable work schedules and I do not know where they're going to put their cars during the day. I also am. Let's see. I'm concerned that the corridor vision as it was set out the goals that have not been met. For example, it says that the goal is that businesses will flourish because of this convenient access. However, most of the business owners I have talked to are terrified that they will no customers who are able to drive to their businesses. I'm also concerned about my disabled neighbors for whom biking is not an option. I'm also concerned concerned for myself. I am a regular cyclist. I tried to biking north on North Union yesterday, and it's an it's an on. It's a bike lane that has for which parking had been removed, and it has not been plowed. So I biked in the middle of the road and so we do not have a plan for the maintenance of these bike lanes. We do not have a plan for the 50% of cars that have nowhere to go. We do not have a plan for the business owners who own these parking lots to actually have any kind of incentive to do this they have categorically said they're not interested in sharing their parking spots and we don't yet have a plan to encourage them to. And so we're putting the car before the horse by, by bulldozing the parking and then putting our hands up and saying well, it's gone. Thank you. Molly we can if there's someone speaking now we can't hear on in zoom land. Oh, sweet. Alright, how's that much better thank you. So in the survey said residents responded. Well, well, business owners did not. But there's a lot of business parking on the areas where the bike lanes are being put in for time out priorities I think the priority should be put on the on the residents and their approval but I put one more resident and I'm looking forward to having a bike line and thank you for the plan. I like it. Let's move over to zoom and get feedback there. Jeff, could you call on somebody. Yeah, so we have a number of five people six people now with their hands raised on zoom, and I will call on you in the order that that your hands went up. And so, we have first Thomas, and then Miami, then Kara, then Jane, then Randy, then Chris, and I see a someone waving their hand and then came and came as well. So we'll start with Thomas please. Thank you. Yeah, so in keeping with the order I am against the plan but I'd like to say I'm a keen cyclist. I'm in support of there being bike lanes that are usable by the community. I'd like to point out that we already have a bike lane. I'm sorry, I'm a resident living on the ground streets and North Street corridor. We already have a corridor. It includes Union streets with a bike lane going north. Wasn't that long ago. I forget like five years or so ago that they revamped that bike lane. What was wrong with that plan. I'm supportive of bike lanes in general, but why install a useless bike lane when there is already one one over, and I'm not convinced that introducing bike lanes that allow people to cycle counter to the flow of traffic is particularly safe that doesn't seem like a great idea to me. I think the one way sections should remain as they are they already have bike lanes, and they need to go. They just need to be maintained and used I don't see the problem, at least on this block. I don't see why North to Pearl shouldn't retain the current layout that just seems to be nothing that's being gained by this change. It looks neat on a map, because the bike lanes are on the same streets, but I really just understand my situation, and the plan itself seems to involve a lot of magical thinking, beginning with the idea that you can come up with an accurate accurate model by taking the national average. And then why are we looking at the pre COVID data. Now the data is extremely limited very few data points to average, you quite an average but I don't know as much data. So it seems to me as we've got consultants descending from 10,000 feet as your background indicators. And, you know, running their lovely shiny model, which, you know, regurgitates whatever assumptions you put into it with just no, no consideration for what the conditions actually on the ground, and the people who will suffer. You might want to shift behavior. That's not what's going to happen what's going to happen is that the people will move out, who are unable to, you know, if they can't park, maybe they can't go to their job, they have to go somewhere else you're driving people out of downtown, Burlington, for no good reason, I just don't understand it. So, I've got more things to say but I've had my peace thank you. Thank you, Thomas. And next up we'll have Miami. Hi, I will be talking about the Archibald Riverside area because that is where I live. I can think of this isn't, sorry, I'll turn on my camera sorry. This isn't, this isn't a good idea because number one, who have a lot of people who are differently abled or disabled. And they need to have parking close to where they live because that means it's a mobility and independence issue. And number two, you know, it's just a dumb idea, it doesn't make any sense. You have the food shelf, you have Taco Gordo, you have the bakery, you have that, I think it's Barrio is the cafe, you have so many businesses and residents that will be affected by this. And I walk this daily because I live on Willow Street, I haven't been out a lot now because it's the pandemic. But you're going to, I mean, this is a rural state and you're going to take away parking. And even though we live in an urbanized area I feel like every time we do studies like this we don't take into consideration that this is a very rural state. People need to have cars in order to survive, but 60% of Burlington residents don't have cars. And for those people that do have cars. It's very rare that apartment buildings have off street parking so if you have it people like to stay where they are, because it's at a premium. Hello. Are you still there maybe. I got a phone call on my phone but I don't, I don't see this being workable. I really don't like, I looked at the data and it doesn't look like it jives with what we have because if you go, like if you go, like it say I were to go there on a day, they were giving out groceries during Thanksgiving, you would find that park, you would find that whole place mobbed and and to take out, you know, even from even to take out all the spaces that you're going to take out it just, it's not feasible it's not going to work. And that's just my opinion. Thanks. Thank you, Naomi. And now we're going to go back to the community center for two comments and then come back to zoom for the next for the next two comments which will be Kara and Jane when we come back to zoom but I'll turn it over to Molly for in person comments. Hi thanks for everybody for being involved and obviously this is a very tricky balancing act between priorities. I have with a lot of kids in the, in the schools and music programming and also in the after school programs. And I just want people to realize that the network of bike lanes and the sidewalks are a crucial way in which kids access these programs, and it's unfortunately a way in which a lot of kids are denied access to after school programming there's sort of a shuttling back and forth between the Edmond schools and the, the old north end neighborhood. And as well as downtown, and that is, you know, kids need to get back and forth in order to access these enrichment programs and just quality of life programs. And a lot of kids who take advantage of the bike lanes and kids who need that safety of the bike lane, the bike lane provides in order to get their musical instruments or whatever back and forth so I think this is a crucial link in our transportation system. Thank you and you know a tricky situation, but that's my opinion. Okay, it seems like we want to yield to zoom just if you want to call in the next person. Sure. So the next person up is Kara. I go ahead Kara whenever you're ready. Can people hear me now. Yes, we can. Okay, terrific. Thank you. First I just wanted to respond to the last speaker from the room there. Everyone I know that's on the call it anti side of this corridor issue are also bike avid bikers everyone that's spoken here that I know is also an avid biker and we're not anti bike lane there is a bike lane on north, on North Union that is on north so those children that you were talking about can easily use the existing bike lane, just wanted to say that first off. I live north when you ski between Grant and North Street. I'm concerned, as someone else mentioned I think Jean talked about faulty data. I was there for the city hall meeting last month and one of the statistics from the assessment that's being used for this plan was that there's a 40% vacancy rate on this corridor. I would invite anyone here or anyone at all to come visit our street in the evening, and tell me that there's a 40% vacancy rate. Tonight, my partner came home just a little while ago to get on this call. He drove around the block twice to find a parking spot. I've had to drive around the block three times. The basis for this plan is faulty statistics we've got we've got a problem. It's just not accurate to say that there's lots of room to absorb parking, especially in the evening. I'll also say that I'm an avid biker as I said earlier I bike to go grocery shopping I bike to go to work I, I love biking and I love bike lanes and I'm proud of our community for having them. I go south on North Union, and I go south on North Manuski. It works for me it works for other bikers that I see what we really need to do is start maintaining those lanes. And finally I'll just say that I'm really concerned that a minority of bike advocacy people have been prioritized on the decision for this corridor plan over those of us who depend on cars, and are also avid bikers but also depend on our cars to get to work to go grocery shopping to transport children and to transport I work for the Howard Center I transport clients around town. A two hour parking meter is just not going to do it for me or any of my, my colleagues and friends in the neighborhood. Last month, myself and several other friends who live on North Manuski went out and canvas the area. The vast majority of people, I'm talking about residents here, residents and businesses that are on North Manuski did not know about this plan or knew about it, and they responded that they were very much against it, and felt unheard about their opinions. So, I just, I just don't see those most affected, which are the residents nonprofits and businesses being prioritized in something that's going to dramatically impact their lives. Thanks. Thank you Kara. The next up we have Jane followed by Randy. Okay. Good to hear all the, you know, positions on both sides of this issue which I followed from the very beginning. I do think that the council made a mistake in March of 2020 when it decided to commit to removal of the parking on street parking spaces on the east side of the street, before doing this analysis of parking supply and demand. So the consultants were not asked, you know, can this plan work. They were asked, what's the best, what can we do, given that we are now decided to remove those parking spaces. And then the, and they've done, they presented the best strategies that are available with seem to be revolving around this idea that if we actively manage the parking spaces, which is going to involve active enforcement ticketing. We're going to somehow free up the spaces for people who really need them. But unfortunately, I don't really, I was ready to be convinced, but I don't really see any evidence that the people who now really rely on that on street parking that this plan is going is not going to adversely affect them in a very, very serious way. And so I really hope that we can reconsider and keep thinking and, and stay open to other alternatives. Thank you. Thank you, Jane. Next up we have Randy and then there are still three people in the queue. Chris Kim and Christie. And so we'd ask everyone to, to be brief in your comments because we, we are we are running a little behind schedule but we want to hear from everybody so thank you so much and Randy you're up. Hi sorry I'm not very good at this. Yes, we can hear you thank you. I also live between Grant and North and share similar views of some of the people who have spoken tonight. I've also shared some of those views with some of the folks on the committee already. My fear is that this, you know, I suppose it's a done deal I understand that, but that no one is really willing to listen to what some of the comments have been and the fact that it's not a plan. If it doesn't really work. It's not a plan if it's based on faulty data. And a lot of this is. I'm kind of a statistics kind of person but not, you know, kind of in a layman's way. I go around as I've already been mentioned go around the block sometimes at night there's absolutely no parking. We put up with people parking across the end of driveways because they don't have any place to park. People park park on lawns which is obviously not a very good idea as well shouldn't be happening. But again, you have to feel for a vast majority of these people who have absolutely no place to park. I do two comments or about the approach or possible plan. The idea of either permitted parking or metered extending meters would make absolutely no sense to residents who need to find a place to park at night who live in this area. There's somewhere between 130 and 140 households between North and Grant. That would allow people supposedly the right to as many as 260 to 280 permit resident permits for 31 spaces. That's the proportion is ridiculous. Our neighbors as well as as we are small landlords we own occupied. We just lost their tenants recently to the fact that there's not enough parking already. When we talk about businesses and how they'll be impacted, sometimes landlords are left out of that consideration. I think Burlington once people who are responsible as landlords, these, these small situations these small operations that are accountable for their tenants. If we're losing them were also being put at a disadvantage to other parts of the city. There could be some reassessment of this plan, especially for our block in the block south of us. These are two of the most densely populated residential areas in the whole city. And nothing that's been presented so far. You know someone referred to as kind of glossy or fancy statistics none of that supports a plan that would actually work. We're dealing with already much less losing half of those parking spaces. Again, also to echo we're all cyclists we we support the idea of bike lanes there is a bike lane a block over already. It's not worth the disruption to so many hundreds, if not thousands of people along this corridor to cater to relative small minority that would benefit from this. I could say, you know, ultimately, I'm a little concerned about how much this feedback is taken in to a factor into account by by any of those on the committee but I appreciate the chance to talk. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Randy. Next up we have Chris followed by Kim. Well, thank you for the opportunity. My neighbors have spoken very eloquently and have mentioned all the points that I would like to make I guess I would just simply add as someone that's not in favor of this move for the committee to just please reconsider take a pause and reconsider this because there are many folks on this street I live between North and Grant who want nothing to do with this. They're bikers. They have cars. They have friends that come over that need parking they have their own needs for parking. And it's, it's something that really needs to be reconsidered. I guess I would just find in closing I guess I would just say we a number of us went around and canvas the neighborhood that was mentioned earlier this evening. And we had a chance to talk to, I don't know how many signatures we got, you know, well over 100 maybe 200 people we talked to. And there was really only just one person who didn't say he was for or against just didn't want to talk to us but everybody to a person was feeling that this was a crazy idea. They maybe didn't fill out the survey. And it's unlikely that many of the young people that we talked to that are renters along the street that have cars that need places to park. You know, we're, you know, kind of shocked that this was actually going to happen. So, thank you please reconsider. Thank you, Chris. And then we have a few people left and we just want to urge everyone to please keep it. Quick if someone has already said something you want to say just say you agree with them and we want to make sure that everyone has a chance to express their opinion but we also need to move on with the agenda. So Kim, you're up next. Thanks Jess and everyone should listen to my high school band teacher Chris Rivers who just spoke. Hi, Mr Rivers. Hi everyone my name is Kim Anderson I'm the director of development and communications for the community health centers of Burlington. I don't think anything that I say is really going to be new information tonight that that poor Jonathan Brian Nicole haven't heard already. Because, you know, I've attended so many different and voice concerns at so many different public meetings and testified when this first started in front of the city council met directly with counselors Hanson and Tracy distributed the survey to over 300 of our staff at the community health centers and and thousands and thousands of patients in our newsletter and even applied to be on this committee, but was not selected and really have had very very little success ultimately with with feeling like there was any progress toward an alternative solution with this I think Randy said it best I think you know we can all acknowledge that there's potential negative and even Jonathan you were saying that there's feedback and and negative impact to our area. But I think, you know, in those public comments but I think what's blowing my mind right now is the fact that we're still pushing this through after years folks. And I think to give my neighbors just a quick brief synopsis of what the community health centers faces is that Riverside Health Center is our most public and utilized site for the community health centers and we have about 17,000 patients going through that building every year. Those are unique patients and so I don't know if I don't know about you but I go to the doctor a couple times a year and so actually we have almost 70,000 patient visits that 70,000 times, somebody walks through that building. And again, don't know about you. They're sick when they're coming in. Most often. And so, you know, I think there's just been it's been a really frustrating process with the fact that we just keep pushing knowing that we could be negatively impacted. Even a two hour, two hour time slot folks is not going to be sufficient for our staff and speaking of that I think CHCB to what what the neighborhood needs to know is that to better serve the health needs of our community. We've actually planned a significant increase in the number of patients going to our Riverside Health Center upwards about a 20% increase in the clinical footprint of our Riverside building, in addition to adding an onsite affordable pharmacy. And so this growth will substantially reduce the amount of parking available in our garage that we have onsite, and also just increase the need for our on street parking. To eliminate half of it will absolutely cause undue stress, undue burden to staff and patients coming through so I do, as always, for years, really urge a reconsider for a moving through with this plan. Because and or look re looking at the models because if I'm just going to get on my soapbook for two seconds just there was a model. Everyone there was a model that had both parking and bike links when this was first presented. And if it's a money issue, then we need to look at the city councilors and really urge them to say, let's find the money so that we can do it right, because it shouldn't be about, you know, the folks living in the area versus bikers or who, you know, cars versus bikes. It's truly not about that. It's about trying to make everybody happy and safe. And in my case, healthy. So again, thank you so much this really doesn't have to be a tricky situation. If we can just reconsider moving forward with this plan. Thanks all. Thank you Kim. Next up we have Christie and then Chris and then Greg and just a reminder to please, please be brief so that we can get on to the other important items that we all want to talk about today. Thank you so much. Yes, so I agree with the very first lady that came on to zoom at the community center. And my issue is, of course, the money aspect of this. If the city is hurting that much for cash, you would think that with all the people that I see because I'm right next to you young lady there just spoke at the community health center. And I watch a lot and I mean a lot of people for one, they don't completely stop at the lights. They talk or text on their cell phones at the lights, which has made it a very dangerous situation right here at the pinnacle of North Manuski. Riverside and high street is the section that we're at right next to the community health center Riverside Avenue. So if it's the money aspect that the city is looking at, as far as you know all this parking parking model and stuff goes, then there's traffic offenses in the city that should really be paid attention to, and followed up with, because that would be a lot of tickets that would be a lot of money. Imposing this horrible setup on this community is just making the gentrification of the old North and even worse, because you're driving people out. Now the mayor promised parking in the city would improve. You're not improving it by removing parking spaces, especially in residential areas. It just doesn't work. You've got to find a better way to do it. I don't agree with this model. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Christy. Next up we have Chris and then and then we'll finish up with Greg. Yeah, I applaud the city for taking the initiative here. Clearly, things are evolving and we have more people using non motorized transportation and I think having these kinds of conversations is, is good for the community. But before I get into my commentary I had a couple questions from Mr. Slason regarding his presentation, you would be so kind as to entertain those for a quick second. Specifically here I'm just looking Mr. Slason from the slide I took a screenshot of the existing parking slide. And if I'm reading this correctly it's just under 1700 parking spots for that in the corridor between the on street and the off street spaces, and the majority of those being off street spaces. With respect to the 379 on street spaces that currently exist. What is the total number that will be left after this plan gets implemented. There will be a reduction. I want to be sure I think it's 82 spaces will be removed. If I, I have it correct. So, I was only focusing the 141 will remain on the side streets, and then there'll be 156 on North Winieski Avenue. Okay, so about 80 about 20% then. Okay. So the plan if I understand correctly is, is there are some existing parking private parking for example and the side streets where the utilization is not what it could be. So the thought process was is that, when the spots get removed what will happen is that'll cause an increase in the utilization some of these other spots to account for the spots that are different so should all come out and wash. Some spaces true, and some spaces will go to other on street. And yes there's assumptions that some spaces we've observed are underutilized there's, there's definitely on street. There's driveways there are difficult to access. And so some people prefer to park the street. And then in some cases there's some off street lots that should increase in utilization particularly for some employees and visitors. And then later on I think in the, in the presentation I think mentioned where we had the, the perspectives of the residents the employees and the visitors. If I remember correctly, the majority of the residents and the employees, it didn't sound like they were really willing to share the private parking that may be available to kind of offset that is that kind of consistently what you've been hearing. The employees and the residents want to share they're willing to share. However, the people who own the property may namely the larger lots in the corridor. At this point, without clarity of liability and some other risks, they're not willing to their hesitant to share those lots. So given that the number of the private lot owners seem to be unwilling at this time to share them. I'm not really sure that that's really much of an opportunity to replace the spots that are going to be going away it seems like we're just going to lose approximately 80 spots and may not be able to regain them. That's what they're most of the spots are going to be absorbed by the side streets off of Winooski Avenue. And that's okay. Yeah. And then just to clarify for tonight's purposes. This is the point of tonight was to get feedback on the plan not so much as to whether or not we're going to actually do it the decision of whether or not it's going to be done has already been made. So this is more to get like feedback on how to ameliorate the effects of the implementation of the plan. Pretty much, and it's how to find how can we prioritize certain sections of the corridor that those users most affected can be tried to minimize their adverse effects. And yes, that's, that's right. So whether it's time metered whether it's residential parking permits. We heard that there's different segments of the corridors that have different priorities. Parking as a resident of the downtown I certainly sympathize with the folks that spoke is parking is certainly an issue here in the downtown core. I'd also just want to call out that you know looking into this issue I decided to refer back to the parking study from 2013. And it was curious that there was a diversity of members on that committee but I don't recall seeing anyone that was actually a resident, and I'm not sure that there was an opportunity for the people who actually live on the corridor to participate. I don't recognize like the committee member but I think certainly that might be an opportunity for us moving forward and ways to get people more fully engaged. Yeah, I can't speak to the 2013 study, but it will. Thank you Chris. And then thank you Jonathan for the additional information. So our last commenter will be Greg, and thank you everyone for your your patience tonight it's a really important topic and I'm glad we had the opportunity to give folks the opportunity to comment so great go ahead. All right, thanks. First, I want to just say that I am one of the bicyclists who's in favor of bike lanes. I think that they do a lot to make traveling by bicycle in the city, both safe and comfortable. I also ride the bus sometimes and you know sometimes when I ride the bus I have to walk a couple of blocks to the bus stop, and it's not the end of the world. I feel like everybody needs to provide me super free convenient on the on demand transportation all the time. And I feel like drivers have been really privileged and on the whole they just don't want to give up something that's really free and really convenient. And many of them are able bodied enough to to walk two blocks and they simply don't want to. And that's, that's an attitude that I see a lot. I realized that some people do need parking that's closer and I hope that the, the, the team working on this parking management plan takes that into account. I know there's some handicap spots for folks who cannot walk a block or two. But I just wanted to point that out that we need to provide a safe and comfortable accommodation for all road users. And just because you've, you've had something for free for many, many years doesn't mean that you necessarily deserve it. So I want to say thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Greg. And thanks just for helping moderate zoom. With that, I think we'll wrap up this agenda item and thank you very much to our presenters, Nicole, John and Brian for for sticking with us and making a little bit more time to hear all the feedback from our words so thank you very much for your work. Thank you everybody. Thanks for having us. Have a good night. Charlie and I at the community center would just like to say also thank you everyone for sticking with us with the sound and tech issues we've had tonight we're, we're charging through this brave new world of hybrid meetings that will keep making it better for future months so thank you for sticking with us. We'll move on to the next agenda item which is the ad hoc redistricting committee and their input survey and they're seeking feedback. We have our two committee reps here in the hall. Oh, we lost one of them. Thank you, Dan for sticking with us and George had to step out but I'll give you my seat so you have the sweet spot on the mic, and you'll give us an update. As a sound everybody. It's good we can hear you thank you. Great. I just wanted to talk a little bit about the ad hoc redistricting committee. Sort of what we heard at our three input sessions that were held all across the city, and then sort of where redistricting goes from here. What is this ad hoc redistricting committee so this was created last year by city council resolution to include members from across the city and actually be a body that's independent of elected officials. The task of this committee was to gather community input with regards to redistricting review the past plans, namely the all ward model that two by seven that the city had up until 2014. And then this hybrid ward and district model that we have now with 12 total counselors and hear opinions about the number of counselors. And then this hybrid ward and district and to consider that current configuration. So like I mentioned, there was three public meetings. And there is also a survey that will link to at the end here that, although it showed up a little late in the process will be another way for you to give feedback about your, your main priorities when it comes to redistricting or alternatively about the discussion here. And we're kind of getting to the end of the committee's sort of tasks so there's going to be one December 15 kind of wrap up meeting where we're going to discuss the memo that we are going to present the city counselor to city council in January, where then the actual elected will get to carrying out redistricting process and really what this looks like is they it's actually the council that's going to develop and approve the plan so that's the actual boundaries of the districts or wards and districts. However, that finally lands with hopefully, you know, a good chunk of our input being considered. And that actually goes to the voters for approval and the plan now is to get that on the ballot for the November 2022 election. And in between there will be public hearings. And since the redistricting process requires a charter change, it requires approval from the state house and the governor's signature, before it actually gets added to the city charter. So, what happens here and these like for, you know, these kind of stages for through seven is there's only going to be one option for the voters to weigh in on, but one sort of discussion item that came up at our final listening session. Just, he was it last week so last week was the idea of having an advisory item on the ballot in March, and that was the first I had heard about that so I'd be interested to hear what our MPA members think about actually having multiple maps to consider where the voters could identify, you know, sort of how would how it might need to look like given given our current population structure what an eight district map versus a seven district map would look like, and be able to give feedback and that way. Before, you know, the final vote comes that you know will actually be acted on in the charter where they essentially could only be one option. So these are a lot of the considerations that, you know, a lot of folks have been talking about and we've been seeking feedback on, but a lot of it kind of goes down to how many counselors we should have. Should we have districts overlaid over words. So actually counselors whose districts include multiple words, you know, so they have a larger constituency than others. The other question that came up a lot was student populations and specifically ward eight, which I'm sure a lot of folks have ideas on, as well as the idea of at large city counselors, and less so the number of representatives per ward, which, you know, it's been, we've had two representatives with both plans previously, as well as even or odd city counselors where some other considerations there. So, I think I've already kind of like justified the need for redistricting but since there was a deviation over that 10% mark. There was basically like a requirement to actually redraw the districts in some way. And as I kind of alluded to, there might be also variations to the actual plan the way the boards and districts are constructed, like I've been talking about but I'm. Oh, yeah, and here are basically the map between the two kind of plans I discussed the seven district model which was in place until 2014, and then this eight ward model, which is what we currently have now. That's essentially all I have prepared for the presentation but I kind of want to use the remaining time to kind of solicit feedback on this whole process I have in this PowerPoint. I'll put the link to the survey which you all could take on your own time, but I'll be available like via email. And I'm looking forward to hear what people think so sort of will kind of focus on those bigger questions like thoughts about the different sort of wards and districts, as well as like concerns that are specific to Ward two and three. So just by virtue of the different words growing at different rates, even if we were to stick with an eight word model the actual boundaries between the words might need to And a big issue is kind of concerning this area here, which might be included in one or more of the new north end including wards, which might just be an inevitability just the way the actual population structure is so the new north end currently has two wards, but with the, you know, growth rate of the population in the city they have less than a quarter of the total population. So there's kind of like a short choke point going up North Avenue, and it is possible that the districts may need to be redrawn if the one if we were to stick with the eight word model. So that's all I have prepared, but I would like to open the floor to discussion. So if anyone has a question or comment on from zoom please raise your hand. So we can and we'll call on you. It doesn't look like we have any questions from zoom is there are there any questions or comments from from the Community Center. Oh we do have a question here from a comment from Miami, go ahead Miami, and you're still muted. If the districts are redrawn how will that affect like the, how will that affect the numbers, and how the words are. If the districts were to be read drawn. What do you mean by by that. I mean like like say, say for some reason, the decision was made that I don't know say for example, our wards needed to be redistricting what like kind of what that would look like and how would that happen like what input would Yeah, okay now yeah now I understand so yeah if we were to stick with the same number of words and districts yet there would be redrawing that sort of beyond the scope of this ad hoc redistricting committee. So we actually weren't making any maps or making any recommendations about where the lines should be drawn. So that's where these like more big picture kinds of things like should we change the total number of districts, which would inevitably require changing more boundaries and a lot of places. But we didn't consider sort of where really yeah where any of these changes are going to be taking place. So that's actually that map is going to be drawn, essentially with city council guidance after January. And we have another question or comment from Chris here on zoom. Hey thank you. So I just want to say that from my perspective the three priorities as I see them are trying to have the boundaries or the words of the districts is close to equal size and population is possible I know that there's a 10% deviation under statute but I think the closer we can get them to being equal the better will be the second thing is I think contiguities also important. We want the words to be contiguous and then the third thing kind of tying into that is you know preserving neighborhoods in communities of interest, which leads me to the king pine street or king maple neighborhood which is currently split between words I understand that that is one of the largest communities of color in Vermont. I think it would be important moving forward in the next iteration that that community of interest be preserved and not split among multiple awards. Thank you. Thank you Chris of Miami I see your hand up again did you have another comment. Oh, no sorry I forgot to take it down. I'll do that. Totally fine. Yes, actually I could pop that in the zoom link for attendees, and it'll also be available in the presentation that I could send to the steering committee. And we were just saying that the, the presentation will be shared with the minutes. Yes, yes, I will be happy to, and I have it actually on my phone so I could read the link out loud if anyone wants to take the time now, and it looks like Arlene just. Thank you go ahead Arlene. Hi. I'm new to one of these meetings so pardon me if I didn't read the full information that the nice young man presented. But I just wanted to know in redistributing the words. And I do understand that there is a choke hold especially what the other young men. Mr hazy mentioned preserving communities of color right now at this present point of time is absolutely critical. I just want to know, what would that look like. Maybe, there is no answer for this but if there is a redistribution of the wards, would that also affect educational spending and funny because money and funds for other recreational aspects or what it just pertains specifically to campaigning and where the populace would be. I'll read the latter one. So it's just the boundaries for elected offices in the city, and related to education this includes the board of education. So the board of education is elected in the same way as the city council. So that are, yeah, I mean, yes, so yes, it'll it'll influence the boundaries of the board of education commissioners as well but it has nothing to do with the actual distribution of funds or it really isn't used for any other use other than elections. Okay. So the MPA boundaries as well. That's that's that's good. So that brings me to my second question is there absolutely a way to in order to survey in as this progress as this as this is discussed in other tables in another room is there also intake from the community as to what seems to be the current current situation going on in Vermont, as racism is marketing mental health crisis and is specifically affected in wards two and three. I am a registered voter award three. So there is quite a bit of top ability that the racial tendencies and with the racial discrepancies that are happening in the state, I being one of them affected severely in the state. So I asked if it's possible to include substantial community input and it doesn't have to necessarily look like a big name, it can actually look like high school kids. It could look like shop owners, it could look like moms that are in the store, it could look like poll cert poll taking like census, something in order for a much more stable community insight to be shown and I think that this offers in a bit of an availability to make the strong lift for community connection with the legislation. I hope that makes sense. Okay. Thank you, Arlene. And may you meet your hands up again did you have a comment. Yeah, for wrong, but it almost sound like, like someone was talking about red, red lining, the old north end and if that's the case. That's not something that I'm going to be in support of as a person of color and a person who is also low income. Because then that disenfranchises voters. Thanks. Thank you, Miami. Let's see. We have representative Gina has his hand up. Yeah, I just want to respond to Miami because I see your point because like, like, we want to make sure we don't split up existing communities but if we start dividing up the city by race like that that's when you talk about red lining it had to be a real estate but I see your point it's like, we have to be sensitive about wanting to maintain neighborhoods but also not necessarily strategically starting to look at race as we divide the city up I see your concern I just want to validate that they date that because I could see how that could go down a bad path someday. And as a person who's part of the BIPOC community, there's BIPOC in every part of the city right now we have to honor that every single word. So, I also want to just say that, even though there's might be more in the old Norfolk. Thank you, Brian. Yes. Of course I can. You could visit tiny URL.com slash redistrict dash BVT tiny URL.com slash redistrict dash BVT. So we will be sure to put that link to the survey in our meeting notes and on our website. And is there a timeframe that that survey will be live for. Okay, thanks. Yeah, so he said until December 15 that survey will be live so if folks could fill it out I know they would love their feedback. Thank you. Great. We will move on to the next agenda item which is MPA fund grants and funding from 2020 and 2021. Thank you, everyone who's speaking with us we're running behind schedule but it's been a great important meeting so I'll kick it over to Jess to talk about our current grant cycle. Great. Thank you, Molly. So, each and each NPA receives $2,500 from the city to use for a community oriented purposes. And for the awards two and three NPAs. We, we allocate the majority of those funds as community grants. And so the, excuse me. And so the funding can be used for any community oriented activity that supports the NPA benefits the ward that that it's open and accessible to all residents and that helps build community in our neighborhoods. And so in this past year in the 2020 financial fiscal year. We allocated the funds to towards interpretation for election forums. And then we had money. And that was $600. We allocated some funds towards NPA operations which went towards the snazzy signs that you've seen around the neighborhood to help get more people interested and involved in the NPAs and that was $300. A little over $1,000 was allocated to the community dinner to replenish some some really important supplies so that once we can get back to in person community dinners will be able to have all the things that are needed to make that happen and we're really looking forward to that. And then the remaining the remaining funds were allocated to community grants and we had some really good applications for a variety of different of different projects and you'll hear from each of the grantees and in just a moment or two. Next I wanted to share some information about this year's grant round. So this year's the information about this year's grant round is available on the the the wards two and three website. There's a link to it on the agenda. And it's at wards two and three npa.weebly.com under community grants and the application deadline will be January 4. And then we'll be posting the applications publicly and applicants will be invited to present at the January 13th NPA meeting and that's when we'll have the community vote to allocate the funds. The folks who are awarded the funds will have until June 1 to complete their projects. So the application is available online on the website and if you'd like to to request a printed version of the application or need any other type of alternative way to to apply we'd encourage you to contact us. So I want to turn it over to our four grantees from from this year, and we've invited them to share super briefly. So, like one sentence to answer each of these questions and then I think they might have something to share on the screen to. So we've asked our grantees to tell us how the money was used, what the community impact was, and any advice for future applicants. And so we have our grantees here we have Brian Perkins from the Old North End Band, Trav Fryer from Repair Cafe, Kenroy Walker from the Old North End Multicultural Festival, and Shelby Glass from Walk Your Own Path. So we'll start with Brian, and, and then move on to Trav and then Kenroy and then Shelby. So Brian, please, please briefly share a little bit about your project. Hi, everybody, thanks again for participating in this. And the grant project was a great way to kind of highlight the connection of the Old North End Neighborhood Band to the Neighborhood Planning Assembly. I'm sitting in the in the room in which the band has performed in years past. And so I'm looking forward to further reopening. The grant went to fund a number of sessions, musical sessions involving young people in Roosevelt Park. And we conducted these throughout the summer on a weekly basis jam sessions in the afternoon and we invited kids who are interested in traditional music. And we played from both music that they already knew and also from a curated list of tunes associated with the historical communities that have made their home in the Old North End. So it was supposed to be a sort of a opening up of the neighborhood. And we find that this opening up post COVID opening up is receding farther and farther in the, in the distance, but it was a wonderful way to connect with a bunch of young people. And we dovetailed it into the, the, the parks and rec food program that is a really successful event that happens in Roosevelt Park. So we dovetailed with the programming of the Boys and Girls Club. So a lot of kids were involved and a lot of music was made. And hopefully we reinforced the kids commitment to playing music and to studying their instruments and to studying their community. And this is an ongoing process which it is gradually bearing fruit, but it's a slow process. And so we really appreciate the support of the NPA in making this happen. And there's a lot more to be said about the Old North End neighborhood band, but certainly we're in the neighborhood. So I will see you. And you can certainly see our website which is at Brian Perkins music.com. So any, any questions happy to advice for the, well, the program, the granting process was wonderful and that brought us together. But it's also what was literally fundable was a tricky question which took a long time to answer. And so if that was more, more clear from the start, the granting process might have been smoother in terms of people knowing the timeline and what was a fundable use of the money. I know that the NPA has really sorted that out in the last year. And that's, and so that was my one bit of advice. And I'm happy to answer any other questions, but that's basically, I want to keep it short. So thank you. And open for questions. Thank you so much, Brian. Do we have any questions and certainly happy to turn it over to to the next, the next folks. Yeah, and we will we will we can have questions at the end after all the presentations as well. Okay, I'll be here. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Turn it over to Trav. You hear me. Right. I'm trapped fire. I help organize the laboratory be repair cafe repair cafe it's an international event that we do one here in the old north end. We do it monthly at lab be at 12 North Street it's to the event anyone can bring anything you can carry in bring things that need to be repaired and volunteers will repair it or help you repair it for free. So we do textiles computers bicycles appliances furniture, literally anything you can carry in. We have three events in 2020 that were supported by the NPA grants and so far I've had eight events this year. We aim to do them monthly on the third Saturday of the month. The money this year was spent to buy a pop up tent so we could have the events outside. And then the rest of the money went to food for the events in the form of a city market gift card so we can feed our volunteers as well as some of the people with items. Community impact so we don't have numbers for July but we've estimated to have repaired a little over 50 items this year. Many more than partially repaired in trouble shot and as well as folks have been learning new skills so we do some sort of training with people as we repair things and advice for future applicants. I'd say keep it simple I don't know I, we just sort of said we need a pop up tent and we need food and that seemed to work out well. I think I remember seeing some proposals that were a little bit. If it's too elaborate, it's confusing maybe. Anyway, the next one will be December 18 12 North Street. I won't be there, but it should be there. And more info is at laboratory be.org slash repair cafe. Thank you so much. Next up with Roy. All right, can you hear me. Good night everyone and this just trying to keep it brief I did utilize the few pictures I'm just going to share a screen really quickly if you're able to see this. Let's see one moment. I believe if you're able to see the the assorted chicken scratch on the screen please. We actually give it initially. Oh, wait, there is now. Here we go. Okay. All right, this this is my short of hand but I'm just to give a quick overview. The old North and community outreach program as designed or initiated on the 7th of August 2021 from 1138 am to 730pm at battery park. It was empowered by the grant given through the neighborhood planning association wards one two and three sponsored with its assistant sponsorship from the racial justice alliance at sponsorship and assistance. So this program was exciting during this, this time, especially during the, the, the COVID awareness session where a lot of information was was important to get out to the community. It took space in this. This, I think it was more of a social experiment for community building that turned into something with legs. I advocated for public bathroom access at battery park park cleanup initiatives that was held on this day. I was able to engage in self and wellness programs just in reference to inviting the community out to participate and bring activities that could help you know engage such as you know hula hoops and and engaging activities like soccer balls. There's a couple things that we did in community highlights I was able to highlight the neighborhood planning association community dinners to the community upcoming a highlight events such as the first African landing day. I was able to enter the following month, or that month, and the information in reference to COVID updates and what to expect I had a roster of information that I presented throughout the schedule for that day. I did have a bit of a schedule put together but the main part of this grant funding was put to towards the, I guess the, the tool for putting this all together and keeping track and to keeping a good roster of the of the connections that I put in place. And the importance of this is to actually connect the community that that has been in the battery park, kind of going into somewhere if I'm unable to connect immediately to the two pictures by with time I'll just go ahead and verbalize it. The community that's been at a battery park, a mix of, of, I guess, Old North and residents from years back. A lot of new Americans that live on King Street, a little bit around that, that, and a lot of individuals that were housed in the hotels around during that period and for a lot of reasons we're trying to connect to their next place of shelter. So we saw the ban shell being used as a space of immediate shelter during the month of June, for four weeks during that space I was able to advocate for the bathrooms to be open it was quite a but it was a point of connecting and bridging information so I was able to with this event connect that through a full day. And throughout that day we saw community members come through we saw individuals that had different points of references to throughout Burlington be able to connect. And I was able to connect with the, the, the, I'm so sorry this is the breaking chains Christian fellowship group. There's its organization that gathers at that battery park and they committed to engaging specifically with that community area every Tuesday, except for right now with the seasons and they provided food, a little bit of information of where to go. So that's one of two organizations that was successfully able to connect and I hope to continue this type of engagement and reach and bring it out to more and bring more organizations to the front of it to connect with the community and that's why the, the name of it is called the community community outreach or the community festival. I mean those that can be very well updated in the future but it's just a point of reference where we can actually see engaging space in battery park, especially during the summer months. Thank you so much for it. No problem. And, and finally we have Shelby. Go ahead. Hi everyone. I just want to say thank you for the grand money because so I made a project, I called it walk your own path. I'm going to try to share my screen. So walk your own path was a mural I proposed made from chain strokes and guide dog paw prints. I don't know if anyone's seen it it's outside of sangha studio 237 north of a new ski. And so my idea was, I work with folks who are blinded to the name pair and so my idea was have me as my old students, paint the sidewalk black and then have people put chalk on the end of their canes and as they walk. It would leave a mark and then we would paint over it and then there's guide dog paw prints. So, as you can see, it worked out. The idea came to life. And so, and so the my money went towards supplies and a lot went towards this sign here. This sign was where my money went and it's large print and there's you can't tell from this picture but there's Braille. So it's more accessible and there's also a description of what the mural looks like and also a description how to orient to it so if you were totally blind you know how to experience it. And one of my, it's just editing this I wanted to show this picture of my proposal but so I had to go through many groups to do it but I ended up doing it on in the very beginning of October. And that was perfect because it ended up being for white cane awareness day. So yeah the money was used for supplies and the sign. The community impact has been quite large actually I'll just go through the rest of the pictures this is when I facilitated I made a tactile map so a blind participant could understand what it was going to be like and how the, or, you know, it was actually an environment to know like where the table was and where north is and things like that. And I put chalk on her dog's paw prints which has been really like. This is one cane user. There's chalk on her cane and it shows the strokes and is one of my students that I had working with me painting over and bright. So it's just a nice close up of what a block looks like. And so what's really incredible is that I've had this in really huge momentum forward a few weeks after I revealed it, it got on the news I have a little news clip here I'm not going to play it but it got on the northeast cable network news and now. So let's do my job I'm a certified orientation and mobility specialist and now orientation mobility specialist around the country wanted to do it. So I've been talking to someone in Portland, Maine and Michigan and I'm hoping to like lead a webinar and presented the international conference so this can be kind of like the goal. I didn't realize this was my goal but it's really to bridge the disconnect between the sighted in the visually impaired world because there is such a gap in our society of like disability. Comfort with disability and knowing how to engage and and how to start conversations and so I presented this to different. Support groups for adults in Vermont experiencing vision loss and I got this really amazing quote on Wednesday or yesterday from this woman and she said, the gift of the mural is that it's an invitation to start a conversation. What this is is because change doesn't typically happen without experience it's giving people the opportunity to experience a visual impairment and start thinking about, you know, life in a different way. Another comment people made they said they like that it depicts disability in a positive light, and by appreciating the beauty of cane of a cane and creating art from it sighted people might view visually impaired people as more approachable so if this I wouldn't have been able I wouldn't have done this if I didn't get the funding and so the fact that I was able to kind of. I don't I feel like create a small movement towards mending this gap with this funding it really means everything to me. So I'm really grateful. Oh, you can see this but it does stay on the sign. At the bottom, funded by the war two and three NPA. So yeah, it's impacts been really big actually. And for yeah for our community and for communities everywhere. And what advice to have for future Afghans I think that people mentioned some really good ones. For me it was really challenging with funding because I had to get it approved by the town and the BCA and so I had to like buy use the money before I knew if I could do it. There was risk involved. But, um, yeah I think like the timing which seems is going to be better this year. Find out in January instead of June. I mean it does make it additionally challenging because you have to use the money like like the winter spring. But that's probably just how it is. And then, yeah I guess like knowing, like what's accepted and what's not. The one thing I wanted to do was to pay my students, you know to give people with disabilities jobs was one of my goals but that's all right. And that's all. Thank you so much Shelby and thank you to all of the grantees these just for really inspiring projects and you all help make our community better and stronger. And it's amazing when you think that just a few thousand dollars made a huge impact you in our communities and then, and then beyond so thank you. Thank you all. And so for the applications for this year's grant round or due January for the information is on the awards two and three website. If you have any questions at all, reach out to the steering committee. Ask lots of questions. You know there are as our grantees mentioned there are some limitations to how the funds can be used they can't go to directly benefit a person. And often they're reimbursement based, but we're happy to talk through any ideas you have and we're really looking forward to seeing the applications from this year. So thank you all so much. Yeah, that's awesome. Thank you everyone and thanks, Jess. That's really inspiring. Great well we will move on to our last agenda item, which is hearing from our representatives who have bravely stuck with us thank you everyone sorry we are running behind schedule. But it looks like we have representative Tina and city counselor Max Tracy. So why don't we get started with our state reps and then move on to city counselors. So representative Tina would you like to get started. Thank you. I'm kind of glad I get to go first because I want to say that what we just saw is it with the way that community members used this money is like an example of exactly how the government should be spending money. We should be spending money on these local neighborhood efforts that change the world locally because they do have impact globally. I was impressed by that I just want to say that I really loved, even though we're late I'm glad I got to hear all that. And I want to thank you all for that. So, I just use like 30 seconds saying that I'm sorry. Can someone tell me an approximate time limit because I would like to stick to it is two minutes reasonable, or two minutes is like a comment about three minutes. All right, I should have said 20. And then I have a statement from representative Colburn that I could read at the end after the live people go if there's time. Yes, Council President Tracy. Yes. Thank you I have a point of order representative Tina which is that representative Mulvaney Stanek is in the waiting room. Your point of order is well taken. Will the sergeant arms please let them in. All right, so I'll keep going I'll set a little timer for myself for three minutes and and thank you for your patience right. Go right so I did take some notes to keep it focused so I'm currently experiencing a tsunami of mental health needs that are flooding our system of care, and our health care workforce is drowning. Today, the House Health Care Committee had a special meeting in which we heard testimony on waiting times in the emergency rooms for youth and children. And we were only just so the tip of the iceberg of the problem and we're committed to digging into this in the next legislative session. I can tell you as a clinical social worker or my private practice. I sometimes have to see up to 10 people in a day and phone calls keep coming in from people seeking help that I can't help them. And there's waiting lists everywhere right now. And when I work at the Howard Center as a crisis clinician. Every time I work there's a line of people waiting for reassessment up to 20 a day. Those are reassessments people boarded in the emergency room sometimes for two weeks straight. And there's a line of people waiting to be seen immediately. It's it's it's I've never seen this in 23 years working in in in Burlington. And many of my clients are living in hotel rooms right now because there's no housing for them. But they're getting treatment there's so many others in our hotels who are being who are cut off from health care and I cannot and other needs like education and training that could help them improve their economic situation. And when the city forcibly removed people from Sears Lane I started visiting there to hear people's stories about how they fell to the holes that are social safety net. And this continues this next torn further as the pandemic rages on. And if housing is health care what's our our long term plan for the thousands of people living in hotels camps or cars during the pandemic. These are all things we're going to be looking at in the next legislative session. I've been working with unhoused people service providers and advocates on a proposal that could use the unprecedented windfall of federal money to create a three to five year plan that would combine workforce development health care housing and year round agriculture. So we could guarantee all people the right to housing to food into a good job. And to do this we must better fund and realign our health care system, building on our password to improve training and address health care disparities like we did in age 210 to promote health equity. We need to increase evidence based approaches like harm reduction and pure focused approaches. And we can do this and retrain the existing workforce and pay our workers a fair wage while investing in a whole new generation of health care workers who could be pure support providers. And they would end so we can give work to people who have lived experience in our recovery. You know we could also expand agriculture in every region through workforce development, so that we can have year round food production in Vermont, and this would help feed our state as climate change impacts global supply lines. So I'm hoping that in the next year we could look at launching a bold public works program in the state that would address our environmental and social problems by putting people to work rehabilitating existing structures and building new housing that they could then afford to buy. And if they can't buy it at least they can afford to rent it because things that doesn't we're people can't even afford to rent. And you know we can reinvigorate our health care system by training and paying people better to serve our community in a better functioning way. And we can put people to work feeding each other and making sure that everyone is fed and which restores the connection between between people in the land beneath us so the last thing I would just say is that if we set our hearts and minds to it. The recovery from this pandemic can tackle the greatest problems of our time, and it can bring forth a just transition to a better way of life, where we take care of each other better and our planet better. So I'm hoping that that's what you will achieve I did go 40 seconds over I'm sorry but I will hand it over to the city counselors and if there's time I'll read or summarize representative culvert statement. Oh, Emma, you're representative of any static you're the next rep so I'm going to hand it over to you. Yeah how about we do state reps and then we'll have a brief question period and then we'll move on to city counselors. I think you're muted. I'm muted I have been on non stops him today sorry oh hi everyone I'm Emma Mulvaney Stanek I'm the state rep for the west side of the old North end, which is largely half aboard three and then goes up to battery, sorry, battery where am I I don't know where I am. Battery Park up to Ethan Allen Park and Letty Park. So it's just in six to that's a one seat district, and I just wanted to share a couple highlights to build off of reports I've given so far as we head into the January session. The legislature this week received a fiscal briefing, which is an annual event in December where the economists and the folks who work for the joint fiscal office offer an analysis of how our economy spent basically doing. They look at a whole host of indicators, including the obvious big one right now is the pandemic and how it's going to continue impact our revenue and the needs of the state budget. So it was very interesting and just a couple very quick notes on that there is a ton of ARPA money the American Recovery Act money which is still unassigned if you will. So we are sitting on an unprecedented number of resources and there's still money to come. The bill back better act which still hasn't passed on the on the federal level. So there's a lot of money floating around and there's even more money that the state of Vermont can leverage, we can sort of get more per capita. If we start to really leverage a lot of the grant opportunities that will come through the infrastructure bill but also that bill better back bill better. It's been a long day, bear with me you know I'm talking about the bill better bill. So that passes and whatever the final details of it are. I am one to say we should not I think this the first thing the governor is going to say is give a tax break I bet some more moderates in the State House will also say give a tax break, because there's also a very large surplus in our education fund right now. This is not the moment to to move us away you know away from the opportunity to move resources to those most impacted by the pandemic and who need support so I'm hoping we can push some progressive fiscal policy ideas forward and make sure that this doesn't just become a trickle down through tax relief because that does not support low and moderate income people who need the support the most. Let's see the other couple things I'll just briefly say is that there's a bill that I two bills I want to just highlight I've talked a lot about unemployment in past sessions and what the bill that I'm submitting next session is going to be really focused on starting creating an unemployment advocate within not sorry not within the Department of Labor very purposefully but external from the Department of Labor, much like the healthcare advocate office that was established about 1520 years ago that's run through Vermont legal aid, largely because the stories are heartbreaking and difficult to continue to hear about folks who've been put through the ringer trying to access unemployment benefits, as well as knowing that for good two to years from now, people will still be stuck in that system without a lot of support and understanding how to get the claim the unemployment claims which are unemployment benefits, which are really rightfully due to them to help bridge them to their next employment. So I'm really proud about that one and that will be introduced early on in January. The second and last thing I'll just mention is that I also am putting forward a contractor bill which the state of Vermont is a major economic driver in terms of offering contracts out to businesses. And yet we know very little about the trends of where we're spending our state dollars so we don't know how many BIPOC businesses and women owned businesses and non gender conforming folks who own businesses how much business they're getting to do with the state or not so we can understand what the barriers are the mayor of the new mayor of Boston just put an initiative to purposely make sure that their city dollars are going their contracts are going to more BIPOC owned and women owned businesses. For us to get there which I want us to get to here in Vermont, we need to have information to make the case and it's very it's like a morass of information right now with what how the state provides information on contracts. So I'm hoping that bill will appeal to the transparency claims that Republicans like to put out there, and we can get some real movement on that in a policy world. The last thing I'll just say before I pass the mic because I'm practicing also celebrating wins today I was honored as the VDSR legislator of the year. That's a huge honor. I'm very proud to do that in my first year in the State House and I've been proud to really link arms with a progressive organization who's thinking about people centered and planet centered policies and workplaces so I just wanted to highlight that it feels awkward to do that by and practicing because I'm pretty darn proud of that accomplishment and I wanted to bring that home to my, my favorite MPI here in my neighborhood. Thanks all, and I shall pass or any other do you want to read Selena statement or we're going to wait till the end, Brian on Selena's statement. I don't know. Just you tell us do you want us to read it now or we do a summary or do you want us to wait till the end of the live part. Why don't you have the mic now so why don't you read it now. I think it'd be good to do that and she said she timed it at around three minutes so I'll time myself just because I like doing that for my own personal growth, and then I can tell her how much how long it actually took me to read it. And I think as legislators, we should celebrate our successes and we should be transparent that we're not perfect and it's a work in progress. And so timing myself is a way to like get a better sense, because my sense of time otherwise is blurry so that I said all that as I was setting up the timer and I am ready to go so here we go. I wish I could like, I had time to put on a wig because I could have totally done a Selena impersonation but maybe next time. All right, so right. Thanks so much for the invitation to share an update. I can't join you tonight due to a migraine and I'm grateful to my colleague for sharing this on my behalf. As we head into the 2022 session will continue to be focused on the COVID-19 pandemic and the state's response. I believe it's imperative that we also focus on another epidemic in our midst. The overdose fatality crisis in 2019 Vermont saw a modest reduction in overdose fatalities for the first time in many years. Additionally, this proved short lived, like much of the country the pandemic exacerbated this crisis and saw a rise in both people struggling with substance use disorder and in deaths. Vermont saw an increase of nearly 40% and fatal overdoses in 2020 newer data suggests that Vermont is experiencing the highest increase in the country. In my time in the legislature I've wanted us to tackle the situation with more urgency year after year, and the time is now. In collaboration with legislators service providers advocates and people with lived experience to help move forward possible solutions that are grounded in evidence based harm reduction strategies. For those just tuning in I'm reading representative Colburn statement by agree with this 100%. A syringe exchange is a place where people can get access to clean needles overdose reversal medication aids and hepatitis testing drug counseling and increasingly life saving medication assisted treatment. We also want to expand the criteria for what kind of organization can host a syringe exchange in the state of Vermont. So settings like low barrier homeless shelters peer networks based based organizations or others can provide these critical services. We are so lucky to have safe recovery based right here in Burlington Burlington has led the discussion on overdose prevention sites, like those that just rolled out in New York City. We've come to these sites to access many of the services just described, but can also use drugs in a supervised setting where they do not have to be alone and someone can reverse an overdose. States Attorney Sarah George reports monthly on Shannon County's overdose deaths at the Burlington Community Stat group and the majority of these deaths occur when people are using alone. Hundreds of these sites exist around the world and to date. No one has ever died. I continue to introduce bills that would create a framework for these sites at the state level. I really want to express my gratitude to the Burlington City Council and their wine burger for pushing this issue front and center. There was a terrific article on this topic and yesterday seven days. Finally, it's past time for us to reimagine the relationship between drug use. We need to understand this is an issue of both civil liberties and public health, so we can begin to dismantle the racist and classist impacts of the drug war. I introduced a bill to decriminalize the possession of smaller amount of drugs and to reimagine this as a public health issue and continue to work and coalition on these efforts. I think the council of state governments recently recommended that the Vermont legislature could address racial disparities and sentencing and incarceration by revisiting our drug crime penalties. So this is a question that will be coming up in the legislature in some form. If you would like to learn more get involved in these efforts please reach out. We need all hands on deck as the saying goes. I'm also happy to be in touch and answer any other questions about our work in the legislature. And that was Selena Colburn statement, and that was three minutes and 15 seconds. Moving on. Nice work. Thank you. Let's take one question, because we are running short on time but questions are some of the best parts of MPI. So I see Arlene's hand raised would she like to ask her question. Yes I would thank you so very much I'll keep it very brief I'll probably maybe do less than a minute. So the question is to the representatives. There was recently a bill that I believe had passed the house's review, and that was bill age 265. The Office for Youth and Family Advocacy as a person that's deeply been affected by the DCF racism that is a very pragmatic excuse me, is a very serious problem currently right now in the state of Vermont. So what do you guys expect that would happen with this bill on the Senate floor. I believe that maybe it was well received, but what would happen per se going forward in the Senate floor this year. What kind of dive, what kind of adversity would you find in this particular bill. Thank you. I, it's hard for me to speculate exactly what the Senate would do sometimes the Senate does a little sometimes the Senate does a lot. It depends on the testimony they hear. So if they hear this testimony that reinforces what the House did it may not change much, but, but sometimes the Senate can catch mistakes and fix things. So if you have concerns about the bill and you share them with legislators or with senators, they may change it if there's problems with it one thing I can say is I have spoken with the, the Commissioner of Children and Families. During the Sears Lane situation it came up that DCF that was not only involved in people's lives at the camp through economic service but also through family services. And the commission and I spoke with the commissioner about this bill and he says that the administration supports the bill. So I would expect it to pass, but that doesn't mean people shouldn't advocate for it to be better. And we, it doesn't mean we don't have to fight for it because you, we always have to push till things happen and even then it's not, it's not over. I don't know if that answers your question. It does. Madam Emma, do you have any questions on it, or any answers and say, Arlene you know it's Emma, you know, you know it's Emma. I just reinforced with Brian said as a new first, literally first year legislator I haven't yet seen when we straddle two years into the next biennium how that might impact a bill that's been sitting in the Senate since May, but it moved pretty. I recall and Brian can correct me but it moved pretty smoothly through the House floor. And I and again unless there's pieces that need to be improved upon I would imagine would have the same course given what Brian just said. And you should definitely check in with your Chittenden County Senators and I'm happy to connect you to them if that's helpful. Yes, please. I'm, I'm also happy to also want to connect with any other senators not just in particular with Chittenden County because this is something that as an effective person specifically defected by racism. This office is well needed and it is a very powerful instance that's felt across the entire state. So I'm happy to connect with any and all senators about it. In order to see where revisions could be made, and that could possibly maybe mirror off of the models that were proposed for the bill and really provide some community function and service for families in need. Thank you. Thank you for the question. Thank you both for attending our meeting. Let's move on to city counselor if I'd love to get to everyone's questions but just in the interest of time. Let's move on to our two city counselors. I can go first just to follow on representative Colburn statement about overdose prevention sites because I did also want to just touch on that from the council perspective. I really appreciate council representative Colburn's just statement of support and all the work that she's done on addressing substance use disorder in our community and really statewide. And I fully support the idea of opening an overdose prevention site here in Burlington. What happened in terms of advancing that concept in Burlington is that last year the city council approved a resolution to develop to have public health officials working for the city develop a full analysis of what such a site could look like and what might be the criteria for where to locate such a site. And so that work took longer than we had hoped because the person who was going to do that work left and then we had we had other they were also operating the BIPOC vaccination clinic as well at the same at the same time. It was real challenge but we're at the point of them being ready to present their findings to the council on the 20th so not this Monday but the following Monday we'll get the full report on overdose prevention sites from the public health equity manager for the city, Marielle Matthews. So if you're interested in learning more about what that concept could look like for Burlington. I would certainly suggest tuning into that city council meeting. Our meetings are on Mondays and they get started at around 730. So it's just really exciting to see progress on that. I think that we had talked about I believe it was at the last meeting was around the police chief search. So, again, we were thinking that this was going to come that the, that the mayor was going to bring a proposal regarding some of the things that he had asked for from the council that however did not take place and the indication is that that will come at our that the discussion around the next steps in the police chief search will take place at our next council meeting. For folks who weren't closely following that the mayor. He basically suspend has suspended the search and said that and put forward a number of criteria that he wants to see from the council. So, in addition to hiring a firm he also wants to increase the salary substantially. And then he threw in a number of other positions that are not necessarily related to the chief but that are just positions that he would like to see BPD create. As well as have the council commit to giving the future chief, the remaining continuing to have authority over disciplinary decision making which has been a big piece of the conversation around police oversight and where to vest that authority currently and where it falls to the chief and so what we're what more likely to discuss is that is that sort of all of those proposals my my position really is that we should certainly I you know I'm open while I'm open to hiring a search firm to look into look into additional candidates and try and help us to find additional candidates I at this point I'm having a hard time really supporting additional salaries and if you don't know the chief already makes well over $100,000 a year. I think that the other pieces that the mayor put forward also really aren't directly related in my mind to this conversation, and we have heard a lot from the community, especially on community oversight that they that we really need a different model for oversight so hopefully we'll be able to find a way forward on that at our at our next meeting so those are just a couple pieces that I wanted to report back on. I want to go to talk about more of this meeting, since those items are likely to come at the next meeting. Thanks Max. So before I get into what we're going to talk about on this coming Monday, I wanted to just mention again. After we discussed this at our last MP a meeting. Just a reminder that the Council on November 8 passed a resolution to look at the reappraisal process and do that through an ad hoc committee made up of nine members residents from all four districts to include pretty owners and renters, as well as folks with experience on the Board of Tax Appeals and the Board of Assessors. So that would be a nine member body that will be appointed on December 20. The work begins after the first of the year. First with public hearings happening in January and February and then to continue to look at some recommend recommendations to make to the city council as to how we might be able to make that process more fair going forward. Make it more understandable for property owners based off of the concerns that we heard from this most recent city wide reappraisal. So the applications for that committee are due next Wednesday, December 15. I am happy to answer any questions that folks have if they have interest in serving on the committee. We're absolutely looking for folks to step up and engage in this important work so if that's something that might interest you please email me, my email is J. McGee. That's JMA GE at Burlington vt.gov. So I would absolutely welcome phone calls also so just want folks to keep that in mind to know that that deadline is coming up and I'll probably post on front porch form as well in the next few days here so folks get that reminder. As for Monday's meeting on our deliberative agenda is three items, the first being a letter to the legislature. This is concerning the pupil waiting factors report which is being considered by task force currently that will make recommendations to the legislature as to and the school board members I am sure will be able to speak a little bit more eloquently than I on this but this letter basically asked the legislature to implement the recommendations that were made an initial report. That was released by a group that conducted studies on the way Vermont currently waits. For our school funding so right now the people waiting factors don't consider students who live in poverty and English language learners which are schools in Burlington when you ski have very high number of. So this letter calls on the legislature to consider that in the way that this initial report from 2019 laid out. And right now the task force that has been looking at that report has been considering ways to maybe pivot away from that and not implement suggestions recommendations to the full extent so I would absolutely welcome any of our school board members to weigh in on that as well and kind of give more background there. The next item on the agenda will be the next two items are charter changes that will be put on the ballot. That will be considered by us and if we pass them will be put on the ballot in March. The first being charter change related to counselor pay. And the language can be found on board docs. Right now, as it reads counselors receive an annual sum of $5,000 this would change that language to say counselor shall receive such annual compensation, as shall be voted by the city council, but the same shall not be less than 5000 per year. So that would create flexibility to raise counselor pay. The next charter change that will be considering on Monday is the charter change around decriminalizing sex work here in Burlington. And that just removes language from the city charter. And that is antiquated and outdated and acknowledges the, the current thinking around sex work more broadly and how these laws are incredibly harmful. If folks have questions or concerns around any of these items. It's a pretty short agenda for some Monday. I think we'll get into some more. Some larger issues in at the December 20th meeting so if anybody has any questions and happy to answer. Great. Thank you both. Does any, well, I think we have time for one question if anyone wants to raise their hand in the next two seconds. Miami, what's your question. My question is, is that we've seen a lot of, I'm not quite sure how to word it disastrous product projects with the city, for example, our big hole. Why is the city council not listening to people who have valid concerns, and then you just push the project through anyway, and we're end up with a hole in the middle of our downtown and now our mall is dying. Well, it was dying anyway but now it's made it that much worse. You know, because that Macy's was a draw to bring people to church street. And now we have a whole. So what are we going to do about this. Yeah, so I can answer that so I was opposed to the project, you know, from the beginning, and I've tried to push to hold the developers accountable. One of the things that we, as a council did agree to last year was or earlier this year I should say was the, an agreement where if they, the, if the developers didn't meet deadlines, going forward that they first of all that got the land to rebuild the connected streets. And then if they didn't meet the deadlines in order to, in terms of moving their project forward that those that they would not only have to give us the land they already gave us that land they've deeded that land over to the city so the city now owns that land and didn't have to pay for it. But then the other piece is also that that land that they'll have to build the streets if they're not able to get construction moving on that project within the timetable so there were accountability mechanisms built into that going forward. I think we're going to have to certainly as you're indicating like it's still, you know, still not seeing activity on the site so continue to put pressure on the developers. I think we've seen at least not that not that they've let the council know that they've been able to secure financing which has been one of the big roadblocks to the development so that's one of the things that were said that I at least still don't have that they've received financing on that project so I think we're going to need to continue to put pressure on them to make sure that that that we we see something take place in that in that location. So I don't know if that answers your question but that's that's kind of generally where things stay. Thank you, Max and Joe for joining us. Sorry, we're not going to make time for other people's questions we're just trying to trying to go through the rest of our agenda so thank you very much we'll try to make more time at a future meeting for these important issues. So I believe we have all three of our school board members thank you for sticking with us. Maybe if we could just give an update and questions and 10 minutes and try to wrap up by 910. That would be great. But please go ahead and give us an update from school board. Hi, can you hear me. Yes. Okay. For those of you who don't know me. I'm Polly Vanderputten and I'm the Ward three school board representative. I'm just want to let you know that we have out the ward elections coming up in March that Steven carry who's also here he's the word to representative will not be running again. We're looking for somebody for Ward two, but that I do plan to run again so we'll just put that out there for now looking for somebody for Ward two. Currently I plan to run for Ward three. I have a few different things that I wanted to talk about tonight. First to give you a BHS BTC update from our most recent meeting, you have probably read or heard that the Vermont Department of Health changed its allowable levels of PCBs in the air from 15 nanograms per cubic meter to 100 nanograms per cubic meter, which threw a lot of questions out there about the viability of the current high school on 52 Institute Road. So one of the things we learned on Tuesday is that even with these changes that school. Well, it's not an option because there are like 30% of the classrooms that still have levels that are higher than 100 nanograms per cubic meter. That the BTC part of it is completely out of the question that they were in the thousands of nanograms per cubic meter so that would not be a place for us to use. And that there are still PCBs in the construction materials like that have seeped into the concrete that are in the window caulking. So it's not viable, however, there have been people who have said well why did the school board, like on a whim last year or make this decision as if, as if there were a decision for the school board to be made other than we have to close down this school. And it was made really clear on Tuesday, this past Tuesday, that we were given no choice, and I want that to be out there in the community and for people to understand that it's not like the Department of Health said, Oh, well here are these numbers and you can go ahead and decide it was like you really don't have an option, you need to close this down and go to remote learning. So not only did we not have an option then we don't really have a viable option now to make it our full time location. What we could do is look at possibly using it, maybe in the next few years, some of the spaces that are deemed safe, so that we can get some students out of Macy's or downtown BHS as we're calling it, and use that as a swing space because we have other schools in the district that are badly in need of repairs. But we're not currently looking at this as like let's go back to the plan or plans that were existing a few years ago to just renovate the school. The other thing I wanted to talk about in terms of downtown VHS, this is kind of a highlight was the Macy's Parade, I don't know if anybody saw this incredibly wonderful humorous thing that the school put together before Thanksgiving, but they had kids playing drums and they had like an Elmo balloon floating through and posters and it was just like a really wonderful creative heartfelt way to acknowledge that they're in kind of a different situation, and they're having fun with it. So maybe later Commissioner Kerry can talk about on VHS and how it's doing. I think he visited there recently but I just wanted to put that out there as a highlight. One thing that I want to say is that with not having high school or not having a permanent high school. We are facing actually the biggest economic crisis in our city like this is the biggest thing. The biggest problem that I can see right now. And I personally know people who are leaving the city, or who are sending their kids to private schools. And I'm, I'm honestly shocked that we have money pouring in as we heard tonight from representative Janik and representative China there's money coming in, and we get these surveys from the city council that say how would you like your $15 million to be spent, and not anywhere. Is there any talk of our high school, and how badly this is needed, like I have yet to hear an elected official talk about this tonight, or anywhere. So, I would really like to paraphrase some things I heard tonight about local neighborhood efforts that have an impact globally as we were looking at some of the initiatives. There is no better local neighborhood effort than having a high quality public school. This is going to affect everyone everywhere that we have an unprecedented number of resources coming in more money than we know what to do with, and that we have yet to hear anyone say, let's designate this toward our school. The superintendent superintendent plan again has said that $10 million of our current ESSER funds will go toward our new high school. But I think there's a lot more that could be used that could be earmarked. So I'm going to just reiterate this for the representatives who are here and city council members who are here. This is currently the biggest crisis that we have economically facing our city in the long term, that we do not have a permanent high school, and we badly need to find funds, because this serves literally everyone in this city. Maybe commissioner Kerry or commissioner Walt would like to speak about the weighted per pupil funding or some of the other things that I said tonight but thank you for listening. I'd be happy to go next you're okay with that Steven. Well, the weighted people situation. I just have to say, it's been so discouraging to hear that this task force was formed. They were, they had basically recommendations from the study that were vetted meticulously. And in the end it well first of all on this task force there was no representation from Chittenden County, and the folks that are on it. You know, it's an election year. I don't know how to say, I'm just not going to beat around the bush. Everybody has their pet projects and might be just stuck on their agenda. And instead of recommending to change the weights and update them with those recommendations. They just opened the can of worms, they started talking about changing the way they even fund education. And instead of fixing the system that we have. They have decided to put a patch on it. So, and in doing that. We're really stepping away from a more equitable approach and unbelievably they have separated funding ELL students through weights and are suggesting using categorical aid, which is an annual process that has to be vetted So 80 page report, I believe it just came out yesterday. Tomorrow is the last task force meeting. I really urge our reps to check it out. It's a, it's a huge deal for Vermont period. I mean we are talking about the weights. Having been inequitable for the past 20 years is one thing. So you can imagine if this doesn't get corrected in a more equitable way, we're talking about at least another decade before things are corrected. So it's really important that this opportunity does not get wasted, because it creates haves and have nots. And we all know that that creates prejudice and that fuel stereotypes and we know where that goes. And I'm just saying I feel like part of education is should be dismantling systemic racism. And here is one of those systems that has fueled it. And here's the chance to make some positive change and it's not being taken. And it's been so painful to watch this happen. But it's not a done deal. These are just recommendations. It goes to the next session and that's when things will actually be decided, or maybe they won't, because isn't this a wonderful way to kick the can down the road. And I'm just saying it's very discouraging situations is one of my first firsthand experiences with really caring about. Oh, this is an opportunity for change and watching and watching hundreds of people testify in support of this change. And it, it's like, it's like they never said a thing on this task force. Okay, on a more positive note, sorry, it's been a really long day. It's Mars their last meeting, and God darn it. Yeah, yeah. Um, on a more positive note, the Burlington School District is forming. I hate to overuse the word task force but there is going to be a community led LGB to TQ plus task force, and they are looking for community members to participate in the Google form. And I'm going to, and I, and it's, we're hoping that people can fill it out before December 15 we're hoping people get involved, and I don't have a chat I can paste it and so I'm going to email information about it. Thank you to the Google form to Jess. Thank you Jess. And I just hanging out with a man oh man bunch of really smart kids over at IA high school, kids from middle school, the gamut and community members doing some stuff around their practices. And this is this is the best quote ever. So I'm explaining what I do on the school board. And I was like, Well, the school board's responsible for making sure that the superintendent actually does his job and kids says, So are you like, So you're kind of like, are you like a boss boss or you're like his friend. I was like, Oh, this kid, this kid is smart. And I was like, No, can't really be his friends we have to have a good rapport, but it was really, it was amazing. She basically was saying like, I hope you're taking your job seriously. And I was like, Okay. Thank you, Jeannie. We're at time but I want to create space for stuff and to give us one update if you have one. I'll be quick. I just want to reiterate some things that my colleagues have just said but thank you Joe for mentioning that letter that the city is passing on regarding the way to super pupil study because it is extremely important for Burlington. And it seems to me like there are secret deals going on behind closed doors that's going to prevent that from equitably distributing fund and Burlington is going to take the brunt of it Burlington and Windows key and other schools around the state who need that that funding change to happen. I'm kind of disappointing as Jeannie has said so eloquently, just in terms of the, of the high school, you know, everything is still on the table has been a lot of talk about the new PCB level release and what can we use of the old building and on Tuesday we're going to start to look at some new plans for what a new building could look like out there on North Avenue. And everything is still on the table there is a possibility that some parts of the old can be used like specifically the gym and the auditorium that might be say maybe not. But, but things are still on the table in terms of the designs that will be presented and they the vetting that will be will be done to determine what would be the best way to move on that in that direction. And then on a positive note as well, I had, I had the, oh, I do want to say that you know I heard, I heard some, you know, I heard the idea, tons of money. I heard huge surplus. I heard more money from build back better coming into the state and again no legislator talked about the need for the state to provide funding for school constructions. And I found out recently that no state east of Indiana does not do this except Vermont, Vermont's the only state east of Indiana that does not contribute to school construction costs and that needs to change I believe it was in the 90s. When that went out the door and it's never come back and here we are with these dilapidated buildings in many cases we have beautiful buildings in Burlington some are absolutely fantastic. But there's a huge need for reconstruction and construction of schools throughout the state and the state legislature needs to devote some of that windfall money that's coming in to that very needed expense. But let me end on a positive note, I visited Burlington, downtown Burlington High School today. It was, I do see through rose colored glasses, but for me it is an unbelievably beautiful place. It's absolutely spotless. The teaching and learning that's going on around the building is amazing. I'm a retired teacher and I'm current substitute in different buildings. I was so impressed by what I saw not only not only from the students and from the teaching that was going on and the noise level is not as great as one might believe. It's very brightly illuminated even though it's not natural light. So I was really impressed there are some issues for sure. The students and the teachers and the administration there have made such adjustments that they are providing an excellent education for our students in this prefabricated space, which, which is functioning as best as it possibly can right now because of those efforts of the teachers and students and administrators there who are running it. So I was really, really impressed. I can't wait. I'm not going to be on the board any longer after, you know, April or May. And I'm looking forward to actually subbing downtown Burlington because I want to get back into the on the on the lines kind of work with with students now in my career. But anyway, I'll stop there. Great. Thank you. Yeah, go ahead. We'll make your last one. I know it's late but I stayed here to hear the school board members, because I know things are rough right now and it frustrated me because I don't feel like what you said was totally accurate so I just maybe you don't know my position or your delegations position on these issues, but I will say that I support using the unprecedented funds for a public works program I talked about that during my piece in the beginning and about training people in the construction trades as part of that we need to invest in the school systems all over the state. And when I was on the school board we went through this with the high school we were trying to come up with a replacement because of disability access issues that was the one of the main things driving it before we even knew about those chemical problems. And I have been asking I introduced a bill and co-sponsored a bill with other reps like Carol Odie, asking the state to end the moratorium on helping construction so we have been fighting for that. And so I just I think I heard someone say no one publicly says this. So I was like I have to publicly say that that I support using the money to replace our high school that I'll fight for that with you. And I'm not the only one that we should reverse that moratorium that we should invest in training people and giving them good jobs building these schools and housing and everything else we need. And I agree with you that this is the high schools needed to be replaced for a long time so I just feel like you should hear that if you haven't heard that clear enough from me. I didn't hear tonight Brian from you and I appreciate your perspective on that as a past school board member. I'm glad to hear you say that again publicly tonight. I think you said it at the last meeting. I didn't hear it tonight. And it needs to be every single time every time I speak I knew the issue was coming up now. And that's why I'm here now. So I'm telling you now. All right, and then in terms of the pupil waiting. We talked about that last night in the ward one a mpa I knew it was going to come up now I wasn't going to use my three minutes to talk about it because there's a lot of other stuff to talk about. I'm here now we're being totally I don't even know how to say it nice screwed, you know, by this, and it came up in the city council meeting. When counselor Shannon asked about this, and one of our senators blew it off and I had to like force myself in and read from the bill and be like actually it was amended, and it's being changed. And you had a senator waiting, who we could have asked about it but he left and that was part of why I was getting frustrated as I was like, ah, we have a chance here. So we're being totally rolled over right now. And some of us are trying to talk with the leadership of the task force to understand their perspective because right now I don't, I don't. So I'm with you on it. And it's frustrating, but I didn't bring it up during my update because I knew it was going to come up now, and I was trying to cover a lot. So I want you to know that doesn't. It doesn't care about it, you know, thank you Brian, thank you know. Thank you for your support. And come January 3. We're going to be really busy. Right. I hope we are going to have a fight and we're probably going to lose honestly, but we're going to. Thank you everyone there's never enough time to talk about all the important things going on but I think we're going to have to call that a wrap our battery power is running low over here at the community center so thank you everyone and we'll see you later. Thank you so much for your support. Please put in your grant applications. Bye. Stay safe everyone.