 petition for a charter to the city to change its charter. The change could allow a new city council to adopt a just cause eviction law. Residents can vote on this item on the town meeting day election on March 7th, 2023. Read the charter change language, which you may tell along with there are printouts along the info sheets on the chairs in the chambers. So this change asks, shall the charter of the city of Winnussey acts of 2015 number M9 as amended be further amended to give the city council the power to provide by ordinance protections for residential tenants from evictions without just cause by adopting and adding a new subsection to read as follows. To provide by ordinance protections for residential tenants, as defined in chapter 137 of title line of the Vermont statute's annotated from eviction without just cause, where just cause shall include but is not limited to a tenant's material breach of a written rental agreement, a tenant's violation of state statutes, regulating tenant obligations and residential rental agreements, nonpayment of rent and attendance failure to accept written reasonable good faith removal terms. Such ordinance shall exclude from just cause the exploration of the rental agreement as sole grounds for termination of tenancy. In addition to the exemptions in chapter 137 of title nine, the ordinance shall exempt from misprovision, subject to mitigation provisions, sublets and in-unit rentals, as well as the following properties but not limited to, owner occupied due flexes and triplexes, those being withdrawn from the rental market, including properties to be occupied by the owner or immediate family member as a primary residence, and those in need of substantial renovations which preclude occupancy. Such ordinance shall include provisions that mitigate potential negative impacts on tenants and property owners, including but not limited to the requirements of adequate notice and reasonable relocation expenses, provide for reasonable probationary period after initial occupancy and limit unreasonable rent increases to prevent de facto evictions or non-renewals, although this shall not be considered to limit rents beyond the purpose of preventing individual evictions. The ordinance shall define what is reasonable and adequate notice in defining just cause, and shall require that landlords provide notice of just cause and other real requirements as part of the rental agreement. So at this time, I would like to open the pub up here. This is the time for folks to make question, I'm sorry, make comments, ask questions. We have a staff and council here ready to respond as we can. I'm gonna start with folks who are in the room. If you could please come to the table at the front of the microphone, state your name and tell the residents, and then you may make a comment or ask a question. Do other of you wanna come up to speak? Here? Yes, please. Yeah, thank you. Hello, my name is Samuel Kernan, and I live on Mallets Bay Ave. I have not been evicted, thankfully, but I have been a renter for many of the last 10 years, and I absolutely know that when you're a renter, knowing that you could be evicted or not renewed is something that shapes how you engage with your landlord and with your housing. So for instance, one place I was living had some plumbing issues that stemmed from a little bit of a shoddy flip job that the house had been under, and so the plumber had to come sometimes, and there was a pushback and forth between us and our landlord about, is this because we're not falsely and totally correctly, or is this because you have a pre-existing condition in your house that you bought that's your job to fix? And it was definitely in our minds when we were going through that process of deciding under the lease, whose responsibility are these repairs that if you push too hard, the landlord can decide, it's not worth my trouble anymore, and I'm just not gonna choose to rent to you next year. I think that that shouldn't be in people's minds when they're advocating for themselves to have a stable, comfortable place to live, because as we know here in Winooski, which is a renter majority city, tenants, renters, they have homes to not just people who own them, and yeah, they deserve the same knowledge that someone with a mortgage does that as long as they abide by what they've said they'll do, pay their rent, uphold their lease, that they'll get to stay. And when I've been reading things about what people don't like about Just Cause eviction, I've seen some people say that it goes too far, it will make it impossible to profitably build or manage housing, and then I've seen some other people say, well, it barely does anything, and it's not worth our trouble to fight to put it in place. I think it's neither of those things. I think it's not a solution to Vermont's entire housing crisis. However, it is one important fundamental right that homeowners pretty much all already enjoy and that we should extend to the tenants of our community as well. Thank you. Thank you. You do. Hi, Brian Sweeney, I live in Winooski, and I'm a landlord in Winooski, was also a renter for a very long time. So yeah, I just wanted to speak up a little bit. I'm a really strong believer in doing what we can to provide safe, affordable housing, especially in Winooski. I'm a small landlord, I have one building with two units, and I try really hard to maintain that property as affordably as possible, and as comfortably as possible for the people that live there. I have a three bedroom and a two bedroom, and they're well under market, and I really, I don't look at this venture for myself as a real business opportunity. I look at it as a way to provide housing, and someday when they sell that building, I'm sure I'll make money, especially these days. But I do things to try to, a couple of things I try to do with my property is one, stay out of the way of my tenants. I did live there and rent one of the units while I lived in one for quite a few years, and I really think there's this issue with landlords too, kind of trying to be too involved in people's business in their property when I really look at it as like that's their home, and I'm here to support them when some of the breaks or they need something, but not to be too involved. And I concern that just cause eviction will almost force me to be more in their business. You know, like I really look at like an end of a lease term as an opportunity, a couple of different opportunities, right? It's an opportunity to encourage a tenant to stay by resigning a lease or doing month to month. It's also an opportunity when it's not a good fit to move on. And I think there's times when you can go through a formal process of eviction, which is honestly daunting, confusing, expensive. I've never done it, but I've heard horror stories from friends and relatives that have had to evict people before. A lot of times what's easier is to wait. It might be a little bit of a, maybe not dispute, but you know, the two tenants don't get along that well. Somebody parties a little more than the other tenants want, right? You can either start a formal eviction process or you could wait two months, right? Like, and usually if I'm talking to my tenants, I've had these situations before. And I say, I can start, you know, really documenting this and moving forward with eviction. They say, no, we're fine, let's just wait it out. Like, let this person know you're not gonna renew their lease, give them the time to go find a place and, you know, help them on their way. You know, I think what this is gonna do for some landlords is force them to almost immediately start evicting everybody, right? Like it's keeping a tally. It's going through all the like motions that you need to do to file an actual eviction when, you know, if someone's gonna be 10 days late on rent one month, I'm not gonna make a big deal of that. You know, like those things happen. But if I need to start to like build a case just in case, that's what I'm really worried about is having to be too involved in everyone's business like that. You know, some questions I have are, you know, are we solving an issue that's real or are we just creating issues to solve? You know, I don't know if there are a significant volume of complaints around this in Winooski. It's not something that I've heard, but I also don't hear everything. But I'd love to know like, you know, if there is a basis in this for our community, you know, we do have a really high percentage of renters. And, you know, I truly believe in the protections that we are trying to put with them. I'm a supporter of the rental registry. I don't always like paying the bill for it. And I hope, I've got a microphone, so might as well say it. I hope that you can, you know, encourage more communication to landlords on things like this and other things happening in the city so that they're, you know, one, aware of programs available to the tenants, two, aware of changes that impact them or their tenants. You know, we pay into the system, so hopefully to get an email is not too much to ask. And I did get the one about this. Thanks, Paul. And thanks to everyone that set that up. Easy low-cost stuff to provide value to both the renters and landlords. But yeah, so that was just one thing there was the question on, you know, is this an issue? The other thing is that I just don't know, and hopefully you can answer for me, is timeline for the charter changes. I feel like there was something that happened with timeline for warnings and things like that. Are we good or are there issues with timelines? I would hope that we're not forcing anything through that doesn't meet the kind of schedule for these type of changes to happen. And, you know, I'll get out of your way here in just a second, but the last couple things, you know, that concern me just to my point earlier too was like, you know, waiting it out sometimes, you know, try to go through these like, you know, worst case scenarios that may happen and they don't always, but sometimes they do. And, you know, I get concerned about not being able to, you know, complete a lease term with somebody, because that's what it is. We're like, I don't really look at like letting someone out of, you know, moving someone along or whatever when a lease is done. It's, I mean, it's a set amount of time. There's vehicles for like extending that or shortening it, right? But like, there are certain times when it's just not a good fit, but maybe it's not an evictable offense. You know, I think about like, maybe things related to, you know, free speech people's right to kind of like hang whatever they may want in their apartment. Like I also think like if, I mean, extreme, right? But like someone has Nazi memorabilia on their walls and I see this at some point, like that's someone I'm not gonna wanna extend their lease. Can I evict somebody for that? Probably not. I wouldn't think because it's, they're right to have whatever they want on there. But like there's certain things that like, just scare me like that. Not being able to remove somebody when it's, you know, there's too many gray, too many gray areas. And the last couple things, you know, that concern me in here, you know, in section C it mentions reasonable relocation expenses. I don't know what that means. I don't know why there would have to be relocation expenses for anybody. And again, it's just gonna, you know, these are all things that impact affordability and that's the scariest thing for me. I mean, it's already hard enough to like, scrounge up a security deposit and, you know, rent. And then to add these other like provisions in here, which like, they're not just gonna come from nowhere. Like, you know, that's the scary part. You know, limit unreasonable rent increases. I don't know what that is. I charged $1400 for a three bedroom apartment with two off-street parking spots, washer and dryer, dishwasher. It's like clean, affordable. There's a yard, a lot of pets. An unreasonable increase would bring me to below market value still. So do I need to like raise rent before this happens to stay ahead of this so that I can get moderate increases when I have tenants in there. They've been in there for three years and I haven't raised the rent a dollar. You know, like these are the things that I'm really scared about that I just, I don't wanna like, I don't wanna have to like, increase cost because of the risk associated with this. That's my biggest fear. And there's also times when you think like, yeah, for like the larger kind of like slum lords, let's be honest, like there should be some more controls implemented in some way. I don't know what it is, but I don't think it's this. So I'd be really interested to know if there are other like reasonable steps that can be made to like help protect tenants and maintain affordability and not put, you know, all the risk on somebody that's just trying to, you know, provide something and get by. That's it, thank you. Thank you. We do have a couple more people. Okay, there's a couple of questions there to address. Elaine, would you be able to speak to the timeline question? Yes, I'm an apology for not being there and we're putting air here and we expect myself to be there, but I'm sick, so we want to get in on all six. Also why I'm not on camera. So the timeline is okay, the state statutes having here from the error that we've made, which is that I need to advise council to warn their first hearing when enough. There needs to be 30 days between the warning and the holding of a first hearing. This is the hearing, it's within 30 days. So it's a minor procedural issue, so the statute provides a cure for that if the city holds a validation vote at a later time. But if you look at that handout at the very bottom from the front, we're at the colored boxes, at the very bottom that says the validation vote would need to be held later. It says could because if it, you know, the legislature might do something with this before we gave and then it might make it loose, but that's the point of that. Assuming that we were in a bad mood, we would vote and then whatever the vote was, we gave it that kind of validation vote. There's no timeline for the planning that needs to be held just in a later time. So that will be a decision by council to fund it in a small sense. Does that answer the question? Yeah, thank you and I explained that very nicely there on the table. Thank you. There were two other questions raised there. One, is this an issue we need to solve? Is there, I interpret that as, is there a significant amount of like no cause eviction happening? We don't have access to any specific data on evictions and we definitely don't have access to non-renewables data. So we really can't answer that. The question about reasonable re-unification expenses or unreasonable rent increases, this is a resident petition that has been brought to us. It's not something we've spent time on. This charter change were approved by voters with being moved to the state legislature for them to actually approve. It's up to them to approve changes to our charter. I would anticipate that those terms would be under discussion in the work of the legislature that they could put some definitions to that. Did they not, and it comes to us and that's still unclear. Then again, that is something that we would have to sort out as to what that means. We have someone else in the room. We do. Yes. Hi. Hi. So if you just say your name and what town you're from. Yeah, my name is David Weisberger. I live here in Wynuski. My wife and I have a small detached cottage in our backyard that we fixed up in 2018 and we rent it out. So one bedroom. And I'm sorry that I missed some of the earlier speaker. I don't want to repeat what he said, but I do have some concerns about tenants not being a good fit. Our first tenant sort of we really felt uncomfortable around him. We felt uncomfortable with the way he interacted with our children. We're fairly sure he was smoking, which would have been a violation of the lease, but we didn't have a way to prove it. I don't even know how you prove that, right? You know, the fire alarm will go off, smell like tobacco, but we didn't have proof. So we did wait to the end of the lease and ask him to leave. And we would have had to try and evict him probably otherwise. So I'm concerned. And the reason I'm concerned, I'm not sure how I feel about this for large apartment buildings, but I'm concerned that the language as written would apply to us because it's not an owner occupied duplex. So if you do move ahead with this, I'd urge you to consider adding accessory dwelling units or detached cottages to the exemptions. And I guess my one question that I would have would be, the language being forwarded to the legislature seems very specific. And I wonder, I don't quite understand, is that the only thing you would then have the power to enact? You know, what is left to you? I mean, you guys can modify that, I guess, right? And then send it on to the legislature or do you have to only send on what is proposed? So the mayor can respond to that. Yeah, we have to send in what's proposed. This is the language that's gonna be presented to voters. And so we have to send that along, whatever voters approve. The legislature, however, can adjust the language as much or as little as they see fit. They have completely waited you that. And you can't adjust what's going to the voters either because it didn't come from you. So there's no possibility for any amendment to this, basically, is what I'm hearing. It's either this is what's gonna happen or it's not gonna happen. So like, if I ask you to put my R-type of apartment in there as an exemption, there's no way to do that without sending a new charter change to the legislature. We can't adjust the language. The course of action would be if this reaches the legislature, to then be a part of their process, provide testimony there concerning suggestions for them to make changes to the language. It seemed really like, I don't understand there's different jurisdictions, but it really seems like circumventing the city council here who should have the option to define these things to me. I don't think my voice is gonna be heard as much there as it will be here. I think that's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you. Can I ask a follow-up question, David? Yes, I think that's fine. Yes, can you just come up to the mic? Sorry, it's Brian Sweeney again, Winooski. So if I'm looking at the timeline, if voters vote on the change, yes, state looks at the charter, they approve. Winooski city council votes to move forward or to stop. So even if voters approve this, the state approves it, city council has the ability to stop it at that point still with a city council vote. Procedurally, I believe that's correct. Well, yeah, because the language empowers us to enact this ordinance, it doesn't require that we do. But that's a council decision, right? Like if voters said they want this, do you not do it? Right. I think it would be a part of our charter because it's a charter change, but the ordinance would be what we need to enact it, which... So that's a fair point because we would be able to draft the ordinance. We would have to do that in the attorney to make sure that it works. We have to look into this more. Perhaps other exceptions come through the ordinance, but what is here would be what is in the charter. We could indeed be from... Right. Like if the charter is saying order occupied due flexes and triflexes, I have an exception. I believe we have to retain that exception. I'm wondering if we should add more to the ordinance. Oh, please step in. Right, I mean, that's more or less the case. You know, the funny thing about the charter is that we might bring it a specific, but a lawyer might see other opportunities. So it's very hard to know, sitting here on this edge on the process, what options there are without having to go through the process itself, of what was possible. But it seems like there could still be an avenue of city council rejecting and then deciding what to do next, which could be your own proposal for whatever iteration of protections could be implemented or not. So Brian, the charter, we couldn't deviate from the charter, or the council could deviate from the charter with the ordinance. The charter basically says, tell this council what they have the power to do. If it's final on it, they don't necessarily have the power. It's, I say not necessarily because, again, there could be some going for a legal interpretation. So I should understand that whatever the charter if it passes and the legislature adopts it, that's what their apartment will do. So they can't just dump them all together and come up with something else. It does include, like we're saying, not limited to. So there is some flexibility here, but we really have not been able to explore that with our attorney, right? To know exactly what we can do. Right. So there hasn't really been sufficient time for city staff to look into what's feasible for changes after like a decision is made by the legislature. Gotcha. I guess I'm confused on what you're voting on then after that. If you need to vote, there's a yay vote and a nay vote option. So like what, but so you have the ability, even if it gets through the legislature to reject it at that point. Is that correct? We cannot reject it. This would be in our charter. This is giving us the power to create an ordinance when on what timeline we create an ordinance is what we have decision making on. And so this is saying we have to include exceptions for owner-occupied deep lexes and triplexes, for example, but it's not limited to that. So I think to the previous speakers suggesting about ADU and detached college, I believe we could add that, but I can't commit to any of that because we haven't done the legal review necessary. And I think to Brian, what Brian's gonna add this middle box in the timeline on the sheet is the confusing portion. So am I understanding that that is the city council voting on your proposed ordinance as it relates to the charter change? Yeah. Correct, yeah. It's the yes no on the charter, oh, sorry, could you move? Yes no on whether you create an ordinance now. So it could still be no. At the ordinance stage. Right, so it would be in your charter with no ordinance if that happened. Okay, understood. Sorry, that. It takes a while to get through, sorry. And I'll note too that if we vote to move forward with an ordinance, we will open up for more public input at that time as well. So there are other chances for folks to weigh in. Right, gotcha. Okay, thank you. Yeah. We do have someone else in the room. Would you like to speak? Yeah. Hi, my name is Lulay Sienangelo. I'm a reporter from the Burlington Free Press. I am here to just ask a couple of questions because I have you all here. So I'm wondering if this is passed and if the ordinance is passed, like who would enforce this in Winooski? All right, do you want to take that one? It's unclear at this point. I mean, we haven't had time to figure out what that one, what an ordinance would look like. It's possible, you know, someone suggested that I'll vote for the courts, but there's just going to be other still in the questions. So it's unfair. It's possibly the right ordinance, you know. Yeah, and I read something that you guys considered kind of doing something like this through council but decided not to, was that because of the expense of enforcing it? Or am I wrong on that? So the discussion we had was whether or not to put a just cause eviction charter change on a 10-day day ballot, and we chose not to because we did not have sufficient time to work out these details for this 10-day day. We, it is very open, like we don't know what enforcement looks like. Who would do that? Do you have the staff capacity? So we have not explored those details or had the time to do so yet. Okay, I think I had one more question. I can't think of it right now, but I will let you know if I have it later. Thank you. That's it for everyone in the room, for the time being. Okay, great. Well, you want to bring over our first Zoom hand? And does her in Zoom that he wished to speak? Please just raise your hand and we will work you over. Thank you, Mayor Blanchett, and thank you for being patient. Let's start with Andy, whenever you're ready. Awesome, thank you. This is Andy Blanchett, a resident of Woodusky. Thanks for taking the time to talk about this. I'm glad to see that there's good questions coming up. I just wanted to first kind of mention my own personal experience with this, and then I would also like to just address the questions that are coming up. You know, the first thing I want to explain is that we are in a rental housing crisis in a county. So I do think that there is very much a reason for this. It's telling that, you know, Woodusky is already considering putting this on the ballot. It's known that this is becoming an issue here. The directors have certainly been discussing this for very, very long time. And, you know, this law is, this charter change allows for there to be flexibility in a way that the municipality wants to enact it. And I think that that is a benefit for Woodusky. And just to kind of talk about enforcement, like typically just cause eviction laws are not enforced by the municipality and the enforcement mechanism is going through the courts and the law. And so, you know, this would just make it so you can't just choose no cause when you need to file for eviction. You need to provide a reason. And that seems more than fair for renters like myself. I had to go through being told that there was no chance to renew lease as a voter. And that type of housing changing hands and then people who are currently living in a situation being uprooted is not great for a stable community. And honestly doesn't really allow for people to engage locally in where they live and engage in local politics. It seems like an important first step in being able to make sure that community members that want to be engaged in their community can. And, you know, as for anything regarding the questions about this being circumvented by city council, I just would like to note that, you know, hundreds of residents signed this petition. This didn't just come up by hand, both people decided that they would make this happen. Like this was voiced very loudly by the community as a need and as a desire to vote on. You know, this is, this was just to make sure that people can vote on this. So I think that that's important to keep in mind that community members, residents, registered voters who live here signed the petition to get this on the ballot. And I just think that's worth noting. Thank you. Thanks, Andy. That's a good point. For those who don't know, the difference is 5% of voters should get something on the petition of the ballot this way. So 5%, at least 5% of voters already, you know, in terms of being on this. Let's bring over our next speaker. All right. Looks like we have Megan and Tedder in the re-write. Great, thank you. And just to jump off of that, can you give us a roundabout of what 5% of the Lewinsky population, just to give an idea of how many people that's representing? Jenny, correct me. It's, it's around 200. We had, we received, it was required 271 votes for those 5% of our registered voters at the time. Did you say 271? Correct. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I just wanted to drive that in just sometimes because 5% are kinda hard to visualize what that means. I will admit, I do not live in Lewinsky. I live in Colchester, but Lewinsky, I'm right on the border. I feel like Lewinsky is my community. I've been a renter. I ranked in affordable housing. I work in affordable housing. So this whole conversation and this work is really important and something that I spend a lot of time researching. One thing that I just want to call out because it's a very frustrating thing for me is the term not a good fit. We don't want those people living in our building. We have for years used that type of language to overshadow discrimination and yeah, other things that I think are really not appropriate for this space. And I think that the city council should be considering that in these comments that we do not consider discriminatory comments as part of this discussion because things like not a good fit is a very opinionated term and has led to discrimination and racial segregation in our housing for decades now. Even the example of violating freedom of speech, I totally get it because I do, I have my own opinions and leanings and so forth but I don't think that is a justification for impacting someone's rights. Also from affordability standpoint, affordability is a very complex thing. It's not just so one person view. It's not just one thing that's impacting that. It's probably more the fact that we have changed housing from a right to a commodity, a commodity that's money that's passed around to gain wealth. It's a primary driver of generational wealth building. There's no getting around that. Just wanna name those facts. And I do think to get into tenants business, if it's something that's impacting the neighbor's right to peaceful enjoyment of space, that's the responsibility of the landlord in affordable housing. We basically de facto have no cause of addiction. We still are able to evict people. We still have rights as a landlord but it does allow our tenants to feel safe and secure in their housing. I know it's expensive to evict. I know that firsthand it's the numbers and it may be easier to not renew but I don't think that convenience is more important than basic protections for renters from being displaced. And I had experienced this firsthand. I had someone, which is why I'm actually in my affordable housing units because I was displaced during the pandemic through this crazy housing crisis. Someone came in, bought my building and over doubled my rent. There was no way my income and my budget was gonna be able to just take all of that on. And he could do that because there wasn't any protections and that's one of the things that's being discussed in the just cause of addiction is ridiculous increases in rent because that's de facto displacement that's basically evicted someone if they can't afford it. And I think it was a true loss. Like I was engaged in the community that I was a part of, I knew my neighbors. I had connections. I would like watch people stop in the neighborhood, all these different cultural connections and that was all lost when I got displaced. Now it's more of a transient population in there just to have these points before about engaging in the community that that's a real loss. I know as a renter I often feel like it's like I'm not included in the community. Like when I do try to come to the table that I'm not valued, not even close as a homeowner. There's no way. And so I think that's kind of frustrating that this could help people feel like they're actually valued in the community. And then one more. I just want to speak towards one, the context of that. We are just talking about putting this on the ballot. There were all those signatures of people voicing that this is an issue. One thing I want to note is I'm just thinking about or I was just writing down who's at the table at this conversation. I'm a half white young female and we've had now three renters as part of the conversation. Two landlords reporter. I'm just thinking about looking around the room and whose voices are really not part of this conversation. And it's probably the people who would benefit from this. So I would definitely urge the city council to be a little bit more mindful and proactive about engaging the diverse population that represents when you speak. Thanks. Thank you. And this is not our only public hearing and we do have an outreach plan but very good point to be mindful about what we see here today and making sure we close those gaps. We have another Megan, I believe, next. Hi, everybody. Yeah, hi. Thank you. My name's Megan Downey. My pronouns are she, her. I live in Wynuski as a renter. I've lived here seven years in the same building. I am a social worker and I always felt like I had a stable housing situation until two years ago when my landlord decided to sell our building and our new landlord wanted initially to raise our rent by 70%, which would have effectively displaced us and some other tenants in the same building had that occurred. So one of the things I just wanted to speak to is I heard Brian say earlier that he does not rent housing to earn an income but most landlords do. Most of them will tell you explicitly that they do. Mine has told me explicitly that he does and there are absolutely no protections right now for me as a renter to stay in my home of seven years. This is a very baseline first level protection that allows people like me that are engaged in the community, part of this community to stay in our homes and feel safe. Even when the threat of losing my housing started coming up to my lease renewal last year, it was one of the most stressful times in the last two years and I'm in a pretty privileged position where I have people with resources that I could have been okay had that happened, even though I would have been displaced from my home and unlikely from this entire community, I would have had somewhere to go. There are many people that would not and that would risk houselessness. What happened at 300 Main Street with the Bows evictions that were planned was a no-pros eviction. So it also surprises me to hear someone say that they're not sure why that this is a problem because I just have so many friends, neighbors, myself, who have experienced housing insecurity over the last couple years since the pandemic and there's also this very public instance of that that I think we all heard about. So another thing is just as a social worker, many of the other folks that I know who have experienced housing insecurity due to no-pros evictions are other social workers, teachers, nurses, people providing vital services to our community that are significantly undervalued and underpaid and whose wages are not rising with inflation. So right now with no rent caps and no need for a landlord to give a valid reason to evict someone, those services in our community are also at risk. So yeah, I guess that's all I wanna say. I just really wanna encourage folks to support this ballot measure. I think it's essential. It cannot wait. I think we'll have plenty of time to iron out the details that need to be ironed out because it does need to go to the legislature in terms of how it will be enacted, but it is extremely vital to get this protection for renters, which are the majority of people living in Lundaysky as soon as possible. Thank you. Thank you, Nany. I think Liz is next. Are you able to hear me? Yes, welcome. Okay, sorry, I didn't know if I was on mute. I'm not the most tech savvy. My name is Liz Wolfe, I live in Lundaysky. I've lived here, I think since 2006. I own a home here and I have an accessory growing in it in my downstairs, which at one point, I rented it out and it's always been well below fair market value because that's an important thing to me. I've been an educator. I love this community, I love the diversity, and I appreciate all the perspectives that I could share in this meeting. It's helpful for me to hear. And then I started thinking about my own situation, too, is that at one point, the accessory growing in it that I have was really like I had a partner, we had a double income, and so it was sort of just a nice way to have a buffer. And now where I am, I'm kind of facing this place where my life circumstances have changed a lot and it's actually the primary source of my income, which I hope changes, but it's actually how I stayed in my house. And I've had tenants for years and years and years and the only reason they haven't rented any more is because they've moved on or been able to save to buy their own home. But I think for me, I have a couple questions. That's who I am and the perspective that I'm coming from. But I guess I get tangled up in a lot of legal verbiage and so I came in about 15 or 20 minutes late to the meeting because I was working, so if I'm repeating, I'm sorry if I'm repeating things that were already stated, clearly you're asking things, but. So my understanding from what I've heard since is that there will be a vote on March 1st and that if that passes, it goes to the state and if the state approves, it'll come back to Meduski and Meduski will sort out the specific language and potentially or there is the possibility of then having other input and feedback for the exact language of that. Charter change? Yeah, so you're almost there. This language is what goes to the state legislature. If it's approved on time, you maintain. The state can change it to their, as much as they would like to. That ends up permanently, and they move forward, right? Because they also could just not do it. So saying they also move forward, whatever language they approve, that's what's in our charter. We have to abide by that. Learning trip then, we choose to draft an ordinance. That is where more input can be received and we can make adjustments. We don't have a broad sense of exactly what those are, but the example that was discussed earlier was in section B, it says that there are exceptions for owner-occupied duplexes and triplexes, but not limited to that. So maybe there's a conversation about ADU detached college. So there is more opportunity for public input for the process before an ordinance or something is actually in place and there are several steps where there needs to be a choice to keep moving forward. And one other question is March 7th is town meeting day, not March 1st. Thank you. Yeah, sorry, that was my mistake. Can I ask a couple of questions? Thank you for that. That's helpful. So on March 7th of the info, what is the timeline like in terms of it going to the state and then coming back to a risky? And if everything is approved in it's sort of like most swift fashion, when would that ordinance take effect? So we would pass this along to the legislature right after the vote. They can do whatever they want. They could take it up right now. They could wait till next year. They could decide not to. My suspicion is that they would look at it next year, but not guaranteed. If it came back to us, I think what's on the sheet, there's like at least a minimum of two months to do public hearings. So like the council would have to go, yes, let's draft an ordinance. We have to work on that ordinance staff, attorneys. Then there would be public hearings for public input. If we adjust the ordinance with input, there's another public hearing. So I don't know. I feel like it's at least six months to a year if we were acting on the fastest timeline possible. And Mayor, there's the validation vote as well. That's right. There's also, we warned the first public hearing incorrectly. So there's a step where we may have to do a second vote to validate the original one, which is a little in the leads and... Okay. And thank you. I appreciate all that. And then just more out of curiosity with the language that's currently in it, is an owner-occupied duplex... Is that a different thing than an owner-occupied with an accessory dwelling unit inside it? You know, like I have my house, it's one contained thing. I'm not officially a duplex, but I in a sense am, but it is on the books. It's called an accessory dwelling unit because of the zoning of my street. We're not allowed to have additional duplexes, which actually in some ways is also a, anyway, separate agreement. It's on the books and we just do this an accessory dwelling unit. Elena, are you able to answer that? I am not, of course I was. That's the sort of legal groundwork that staff has not been able to put in to be able to actually fit in with it. And is that, I mean, just out of curiosity, is there sort of an initiative, because it's surprising to me that an owner-occupied duplex would be listed, but not an owner-occupied. It almost seems like that would come first for a duplex given that a duplex has more right for income because it doesn't have to be owner-occupied. So this was drafted by an organization outside of the city of Munozki. It doesn't necessarily align to our explicit zoning. So that's, I mean. I can't speak to the decision-making under there, but I can see why it doesn't closely follow the definitions that we use in our regulations and that is something we would have to sort out. Okay, that's helpful. Thank you, thank you so much. I think, so what I'm hearing is there's a lot to sort out. There's sort of a basic framework. The vote will really be, in a sense, I mean, not really, there's legal language, but it's really in the spirit of, the hope is to keep our community together and not have practices that are booting people out. Anyway, I kind of get what you're hearing, and it sounds like if all continues, the city is gonna continue to give this more thought and write it or enforce it or whatever in a way that is reasonable and meets people's needs and also protects tenants' face. Absolutely, we have to have a lot more time in discussion around that stuff. Thank you, I appreciate it so much. I appreciate it, thank you, thanks everybody. Thanks, thank you. Shall we bring Amy back over? And then if there's still some other folks on Zoom, if you wish to speak, please use the raise hand feature and we'll put you with you. Thank you very much, I appreciate it. So I just wanted to hop back on because something that I think is also worth mentioning that some of the other speakers kind of made me think about was that it is going to be much easier when there's further public comment, if this passes for folks who own houses, perhaps run them out to kind of talk about maybe their experiences with renters, their experiences with being a landlord and the work it takes to keep housing livable and safe. And something that I think is just worth bringing up is that it is much scarier and riskier for renters like myself and others to publicly share our experiences. We don't have the same power and protections. That's part of what this is about is of just about being able to live and feel like you can stay where you are without having your rent double or go up 70% in one year, which is sort of a way to push people out. There are renters I have spoken to across Monewski that would love more than anything to share their experiences as a renter that feels scared to do that because they're worried that they would get no cause evicted by doing so. And I don't think that every landlord in Monewski would do that. I don't think that every landlord in Monewski is out to no cause evicted all of their tenants to raise rent. But I just want folks to keep in mind that like it is so much harder as a renter to talk about your experience and feel like you won't be retaliated against. It is scarier. And as of right now, there is no protection. So that I just want people to keep that in mind when we're talking about, yeah, who's at the table, why certain folks can come in the table and speak incredibly candidly and why other folks may not be able to do that. And I also hope that perhaps at the next hearing it might be possible to provide some sort of language interpretation service in case folks want to know, actually. That's all right. I look for that. Thank you very much. That is fantastic. Such great news. But I just wanted to bring that up because it is really hard to talk about when you're still renting and you might not have the safety net. So thank you. Thank you, Nene. I'm not seeing any more hands in the ceiling. Is there any one of us? Is there any more? We're gonna come back up. Thank you. Any more questions or comments? None at this time. Okay. Last call. Is there anyone in the same light who's still wishes to speak? Any questions? Seeing none. Mayor, there is another hand. Oh, I missed that one, yes. Thank you. Oh, thank you. I just ordered the other person and said that the panelists were facing twice or even 70% increased 70% of the meeting job. So I don't know where she's getting her new phone. Thanks, Sheldon. I believe that speaker was sharing a personal experience with their actual rent from their actual landlord. I'm sure she's probably been twice. I've never heard of that, but it seems... I wanna be personally, however, there is no regulatory prevention for doing so. There's nothing to report, essentially. I'm not saying all of them, so I've been at the local level. Burlington has different regulations of their own that we don't have here when you speak currently. And then I'm not stating why yet, if they have no one specific. Thank you. Can we bring Prashant Nest? Hello. You're welcome. Yeah, thank you. So even I am really tempted like what he was saying, because I am a landlord also and I haven't increased my rent since last five years because of COVID and all those issues. And now they are not... And then they started a program from the rental place and I was getting rent from the rental department of Vermont. And now they are not paying rent because that program is stopped. So what should I do now? Because everything that we're talking is just for the tenants. There will be nothing for owners and no one will come and invest in the scheme now. That is not me. And I will make sure that next time I raise my rent so that I'm covered for my next two years. So this will make this be a very bad place to invest and put people on rent. Thanks Prashant. I think you do a program you're referring to. A little nippy if I don't need the great person to contact you about that. We will be there for them and now my tenants are not paying me also. And I'm not paying them no cost tuition for them now. Oh, but that would be an addiction with cost Prashant. If they're not paying rent, that is a cause to a victim. Yeah, that is a cause. That is a cause. And if you don't pay for them no time, I don't know what to do. They're not even ready to move out. Right, so because they're not paying you, you have that protection. You're able to evict them from nonpayment. You would still have that protection with this organization. We have to accept that taxes are going out every year, right? And this year also, we are going to raise it like anything. It's crazy here in University. But I don't raise my rent, right? I do not raise it every month. So challenges is future for all the open corners. Thank you. Thank you for sharing. Thank you. Megan? I'm the person who's rent went up to 100%. All I can tell you is that if I don't have a term, I can only speak to my own experience. And it's really unfortunate that you have trouble believing all of the stories that you're hearing tonight just because you wouldn't do the same thing. The thing is that when there is not a legal limit to how much rent can increase, any landlord that would like to make more money can increase rent in an occupied unit as much as they want. When we're in a housing crisis, we are still in. People are desperate for housing. And people with more resources then end up in homes. And people with less resources end up without homes. I'm not going to share my landlord's information because I don't feel safe doing that just like Andy was speaking to. But I just wanted to speak for myself that it's true. And also, yeah, Mayor Lighty kind of covered it. But there are still evictions with cause that landlords are protected to enact if a situation warrants it. So tenants not paying rent. Tenants not following the terms of the lease. Those would all still allow landlords to evict tenants. It would just also allow tenants some protection to stay in our homes if we are abiding by the law and abiding by our lease. Thanks. Thank you, Mayor. Andy, we can take you again. I'm sorry, Mayor, apologies to everyone present. I didn't intend to speak this afternoon. I did just want to just share for folks that are listening that this might be brand new information. And understandably, this is a red flag for someone that maybe has not heard about just cause eviction before. And I understand that. And I just want to make clear just cause is it's not even the equivalent of a good cause of eviction statute. It is just making sure that when folks are to be evicted that there is a reason provided and then there are reasons that are justifiable. And a lot of other places do have this in place. It's been adopted in four states, like California and New Jersey and Oregon and New Hampshire, and including a bunch of cities like Seattle and Washington DC. And it's being considered in Boston, Chicago, and New York. And so I just want to kind of affirm that this isn't a brand new thing. This has been implemented in many places. And it's unfortunate that there are folks that take a housing crisis and double, 70% double rent. And it happens. That's the reality of the situation that we're in. And this is just something to allow folks to have a justification to force people out of their homes. It wouldn't even end that. So I just wanted to really clarify that. Thank you very much. I'll pause again and see if there are any more questions or comments. Nothing on the room, Christine. And if possible. Just if possible, if Paul can drop the link to the web page in the chat for folks to see. Come together. Great. Thank you. Yeah, so we have another public hearing. I feel bright and maybe Saturday, February 4. 11 a.m. This is where we help provide language interpretation as well. And then there are a number of presentations we'll be doing for town meeting day, including the budget. But we'll also be sharing information about this ballot item. And so there are more opportunities to ask questions. Can also reach out to myself, a member of city council or city staff, if you have additional questions or comments to share. So saying no additional comment, I will now close the public hearing. I want to thank everyone for coming to engage. This is a really important topic. And admittedly, I haven't been able to spend enough time thinking about all of the different paths and opportunities. This may feel new to quite a few people. So we have a lot of time to continue engaging on it before town meeting day and then before potentially anything else happens. This is the only thing that we have on this meeting agenda tonight. So I will adjourn us at 7 o'clock, 7 p.m. Thank you very much, everyone. Thank you.