 So, do we have to adopt the gender? Because there's no rules right now, are there? We do not have to adopt the gender. Okay, but if anyone has anything that they wanna talk about, I'm sure we'll have plenty of time. So yeah, we're starting with introductions. You can say your name, pronouns if you decide to share and your street. And for those of you who aren't in this ward, you're bored as well. I'm Fosca, I use she, her pronouns. I'm the NPA Public Engagement Specialist with CEDO and I live in Ward 2. Hi everybody, my name is Scott Rogers. I'm a Community Development Manager with CEDO and I use he, him, pronouns. You don't have to, we're gonna speak. Sorry. What? Sorry, I don't know what you're talking about. Ryan Necker, he, him, Ward 8. And we have some wonderful food here from the people's kitchen. Hannah King, Ward 8, she, her pronouns. And I'm the Ward 8, stay outside. My name is Jake Schuman. I use that in my program. I lived in Ward 1, Hanover, here at Ward 8. Well, I'm Fareed, I'm in the People's Kitchen, Ward 5. So could you describe the menu tonight, please? We have a vegetable curry with root veggies and collard greens. We have some rice. And we have vegan dumplings, beef fried dumplings and beef fried dumplings with crackers. So I look really well with the curry. Thank you. Yeah, thank you so much. Thank you so much for bringing a wonderful food. We really appreciate it. Maybe this can, you know, maybe Ward 8 can start to include food more regularly. Maybe it'll bring people out here. Anyone have any announcements that they'd like to share? Yeah, sure, Jake. So really, it's complete tomorrow. Is it at one o'clock in Montpelier? There's a rally, a stand-in in solidarity with the people of Palestine and not on board. I have been working with Lund. They are, they're in like a lot of need for new toys in their playroom. They have not done it in a really long time. So if anyone, I'm gonna post a song from Fort Moron tomorrow, but if anyone is willing or interested in joining any new Unwrapped Toys, let me know. I'm going to add the lead and build a playroom. So come to the meeting that all you could have is the opportunity for new toys and there's also a section for the adult coloring books. You can help them out, so more information is found. If they need any of those, like, we'll hear the activities, certain things. Yeah, they're not necessarily long. Yeah. Great, thank you, everyone. If there are no further announcements, we can go on to the next quick thing because of Ward 8 usually meeting on the fourth Thursday of every month, December, that would be December 28th. I personally won't be around, but if you guys want to meet, you're welcome to. But yeah, just to see whether it makes sense to have a December meeting or if we should wait until January. So any comments? I will say, I think that, and I was only talking about this right now, so I had put together a collective thought fully, but it could be interesting to try to do like a holiday celebration, less formal NPA. So then you don't necessarily need, like, CEDA obviously could always welcome you, but like it wouldn't need to be recorded necessarily. It could just be like a Ward 8 gathering and maybe that's here, maybe it is structured in an NPA way, but kind of something social and see if that helps. Generate. Yeah, bring some energy into the NPA and that could be depending on how our discussion goes later on in the agenda. Maybe we can invite more people to come to the mixer or we want to make a mixer. So I think that could be kind of like a, like a way to get involved without needing like a stronger team. Yeah, definitely. We can, we can all keep talking about that or you guys can work on that, plan that, whatever. Yeah, and then one last thing, you can watch the recordings of these meetings on CCTV's website. And you can also request a time slash present at an NPA with CEDA's request form on their website. And so next on the agenda, I'm going to share my screen one sec. Can you have a quick suggestion? Mm-hmm. Sorry, I should have realized as well, when you were, when you were doing the agenda, I think it would make sense if we avoid the new scaring team member before we CDBG, Rev, just because right now, I'm making only 48% of the program. So. Okay, yeah, share it. I just feel like it is like, I'm the only person, like I feel like it would be better if like, Brian's on the video before we get into that discussion. Okay, sure. I feel like that would make sense. Also, since we've been technically both without the agenda. You don't have to. No, it'd be fine. Yeah, so we can, we can talk about that first. I think, Ryan, I met with you and we talked a bit about this. I think if there were more people here, I would probably do a little bit of a presentation that I did last night, but kind of talking about what the role of the steering committee is. But since we are so few here tonight, I think we can just go ahead and do any appointing of steering committee members if you have, you know, appointing nomination. And then, Brian, Nick, to join the awarding NPA. I think, Brian, I've consistently seen him step up and, you know, be willing to support his community in a lot of different ways and his new awarding community specifically. I think being willing to join a steering committee which has no members is a big task. And so I appreciate his willingness to jump into it. And I'm excited to see the work that you do. So, well, all right, Ryan. Do you need a second? There's really nobody to second it. So I would say at this point, if you accept a... I accept a nomination, thank you, Captain Jack. Wow. We need to do a vote. That really... Second myself, take it yourself and... Okay. All right. And all in favor. All right. Okay. You're officially... Steering committee, Ryan, congrats. Thank you for being willing to step into this position. All right. So, now we'll just quickly talk about CDBG, board eight representative. And I think since there aren't many people here, maybe just... So you all know what that's about. So if you know anyone who might be interested, they can reach out. But I'm gonna share my screen, quick. I love CDBG. I did it on my birthday. There's no one. I think I'm into it. I'll say it's the 10th one. I had this one here, Captain Mark. Sorry, one sec. No rush. I've got a question, like... Yeah. What's the plan to fill out the result? That was a great thing to do. Get some more people in the room? Yeah. Generate interest? What will that be like about our election and the next FDA meeting? I think it was like a... Correct me if I'm wrong here in my new role, but there's a minimum membership of like... Right, great. Yeah. Well, it depends on the board. Bylaws, you guys don't have bylaws. So... You just decreased something, though. Yeah. But yeah, I think... Yeah. Tell us this time we got here. I think we're just gonna have to... We're gonna figure it out. Well, we have the budget. We should like... I feel like we've spent so many years talking about using the budget to advertise the FDA. I've never seen it actually happen. That's not Shade to you guys. It's Shade to me. Like four years. So we should just... We should talk about actually doing stuff. If we can talk about people, I think we'd be great. Yeah, that would be awesome. We'd be great. I'd encourage them to show up. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. You can even tell them to... You can give them my email and I can talk to them about what it would involve and stuff before if there's another meeting so that if they're interested, then they can come to a meeting and see what it's about. The first real meeting probably would be in January, right? I think so. This would be a social... Yeah, probably. I guess it's really great to do something like that. But Ward 5, when we were like, we had more people in Thursday week. We want summers, obviously. It's like, it's different. We had a barbecue where like 100 people showed up and like generated like ideas and what you would like to see in the ward. And we are definitely seeing more attendance at our NPA to stand. Great. So maybe I should say what I've done to help advertising Ward 8 NPA. So what I did is I sent a message to Gail Shantwood and he has some sort of public engagement and video that I made several times with the City Council today. And also I did the same thing with Nick Anderson from Shantwood College. And I basically told them what the situation was and it took a great opportunity for people, residents of Ward 8 to actually join the NPA. And the reason I notified them is because there was a survey that came out a couple of years ago that said approximately 90% of all people living in Ward 8 were below the age of 30. So I just made an assumption that a lot of those people are associated with universities. So my tactics was basically notified Shantwood Lane College and UVM and leave it to them to advertise to their own people, their own community and hopefully that would generate some. And I'll pace into that. One of the things that I mentioned at that time was I was hoping that the new Ward 8 Steering Committee would focus more on the residential area of Ward 8 plus the downtown. So I was thinking Ward 3 and Ward 8 and hoping that those two Ward will spend more time focusing on their particular part of Burlington instead of just doing what I said last night at a different NPA meeting, just focusing on the city saying what they wanted to communicate to the public which is a standard procedure for a lot of the NPAs. They just wait for the city to say we're looking for a time when you're agenda. Okay, and then that's what the agenda gets filled up with these things that generate the city. So I was hoping that Ward 8 would focus more on specific issues of young people, especially in their neighborhoods and not prioritize what the city was asking. So I made that clear to Gail Shantboy and Nick Anderson. I was hoping that that's what we have. Outside of that, that's all I did. I think we really put it back. So basically just left it with them to send that message to their community and I was hoping that that's where you came from but obviously that's not the case. That's not where Ryan came from. So that's all I have to say. I just wanted to say what I've done. So it is our restart. Thanks. Yeah, I think we can also work together on plans to do outreach, talk about doing tabling for a lot of the different NPAs and think once we get that going, we could, since CVM is a public university, I believe anyone technically can table there in the student center. So that could be a good way to get outreach to students we're passing by. Free food or little free goodies are always a good thing. Okay. Yeah. And there are some lawn signs of the map. We'll need to be updated on them because it's... Yeah, so I haven't snagged those yet from Bill's porch. Without a car, it's a little difficult but we can work on that together, maybe. And so that could be a good way to put signs out for the next meeting. Word one, the meetings for us lawn signs still have word one and word eight in mind. I am not sure. Could be. Okay. Yeah, I'll look into that. Yeah, I'll look into that. And then I think looking also at what other NPAs have done to do outreach, I know words two and three, they have a website, they have an Instagram account, a Facebook page. They send emails about each meeting and they send a recap with meeting minutes and stuff. You have QR codes with links. And I think their Instagram has a few hundred followers. And so I think if you're willing, if there's steering committee members who are willing to utilize social media and it's not too hard, then that would be a great way to get, I think a certain population to start coming to the meetings. But yeah, if anyone else has more ideas. Mediums, that is engagement department. Publishers and newsletters, every single one reach out to advertise it. I think, yeah, like Tablin, Pleasuredry Library, Lock Doors. Just a season. I'm really, really excited. We could have the meeting on this if it was going to be one of the students that we're going to work for right now. Yeah. We used to do a meeting about why. How do we meet any of these? In the lawyer. Just going to follow up on something that I've just said. Why? We did it at the Y. Yeah. We did it at Pleasuredry. I think Pleasuredry said there was like some sort of reason why it couldn't have gone there. More like the politicization of it or something like that. I think you'll have a very difficult time getting back into Pleasuredry because they're not open those hours. So they had to have a staff member. Staff those hours. So I don't think you're going to get back in there, but that's just my opinion. No, that's a good point. But it raises another thought is like maybe a different time. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, definitely. All right. I think I'll just quickly talk about the CDBG. So basically the CDBG stands for the Community Development Block Grant. And there's an advisory board made up of multiple different members. Every ward has a representative who volunteers to be part of this board, gets trained and dedicates a certain amount of time to training sessions, board meetings, reading and reading grant applications. So basically the idea is to make recommendations about how to spend 400 to $600,000 to reduce poverty in the city. A certain amount of that goes towards services and others towards development projects. And so in terms of what is required of you, if you decide to do this, attending all training sessions and board meetings, reading and reading grant applications, usually around 15 and nine pages each, developing a balanced budget, taking the amount of money requested and pairing it down to 50 amount of money available, working with others to develop funding recommendations for the mayor and reporting back to the body represents, so like your NPA. And so total time commitment is about eight hours of meeting time plus time to read and write applications, which is estimating the amount of money to read and write applications, which is estimated to be around eight to 12 hours. So a total of like 16 to 20 hours or so. And yeah, any questions about this? In the past, what has the CDB grant gone towards? There was an example of a project. I'd like some for me already, but I don't know the likes. So like there's different, there's different sections, different categories. Yeah, yeah, right now, there's different categories and there's a specific amount of money that you have. And then for the most part, like the committee, I don't know, do you know how much money is allocated this year? Yeah, I think it depends. So like I know the second term that I served on it, we got really lucky and the amount of money that folks requested perfectly matched the amount that we had. So just were able to get that really wanted. Other years, it's more competitive and you like go through the process more. But yeah, it's a champion. That was an address, community health center. Oh, okay. Yeah, local nonprofit. Yeah, local nonprofits who will like send in an application basically, and then you're reviewing those to see like who you can allocate funding to. And like depending on, you know, a bunch of criteria. So it's not like a guy who has a nice front lawn, it's like I want to put a part in my front lawn. No. That is, thank you. It's a good thought. Yeah, yeah. I know we're looking for parts more days, so. So if you know anyone who has some time on their hands, that starts, I think January or February, it'll start and be a few months. Yeah. So given that before the NPA isn't meeting in December, does that mean that like a decision has to be made tonight? Because it's only two of you. Yeah, did you want to introduce yourself at all? Oh, sure. Do you mind coming up to him, Mike? Because of the recording, thank you. All right. Hi, I'm Nick, pretty recent ward 8 resident. I moved in August to do a master's degree at UVM. Just interested in learning a little bit more today and maybe getting involved with. Awesome, thanks for being here. And I know Christine would like to have somebody named by January, so. Yeah, January 18th. So yeah, either tonight or technically people, if they're interested, could also email her and say, there doesn't necessarily need to be an official vote to choose someone. But if anyone here who is a ward 8 resident is interested, that would be great too. Can you get a call? I can still answer that. Do you have any particular interest in learning on the vote? Just first meeting. So I'm going to pass. Yeah, usually do too. I think the requirement is one year, but you can stay on for a second year. OK, so you could select someone tonight. In the past, when we've had this issue, same issue all the top boards had the same issue trying to find someone to do the CDB. And so sometimes what happens is a steering committee member will volunteer to start, but basically volunteer to be the person. But as long as you find someone to replace you by first orientation, you can switch. So if someone were to commit to do that tonight, then you can continue your search. And if the search fails. So in describing Hannah probably knows as well as I do, most of the work you do for this committee is basically at home. All you can do basically read the different portfolios. And you need about four or five. You really only meet together four or five times here at City Hall. So it's not really that much of a. In braces comes down to how much time you're interested in reading the applications and seeing how involved you want to get to that. So that when you do get together with the other steering committee members, you can basically have something intelligent to say, like, well, I think we should fully fund this one, but I think we should only have fund this one for some reason or something. So the more familiar you are with the portfolio, the applications, the better. And so I've done it myself. I've done the CDB, you think probably four or five times in the last 20 years. Usually it's because we couldn't find anyone else. But a lot of the problem is that people think it's more of a commitment than it really is. It's not, it's not as much of a commitment. And you do get to meet other interesting people in the community who are, like Mike, who are interested in, you know, basically funding nonprofits and helping your neighborhoods and things of that nature. And you can get to meet city officials and you just become a little bit more involved in the government here in Burlington. And so it's actually a really cool thing to do because you learn a lot about the nonprofits and you learn a lot about city government. So it's really cool thing to do because that's why, as a last resort, I'll always step in and do it myself. But so that's just my... It's also a short term. Yeah, it's over five. It's like two full nights, right? You know, yeah, it's like... Well, because then you not present to like a reference. But yeah, it's not that deep. Also, like you have an entire other community of people and so they can jump. It's not like you're doing hours of homework and are expected to get like your speeches on every single thing. I know like for me, it was like one year, the only concern that I've had was like one application didn't speak about like diversity and inclusion. And so I gave them like a three instead of a five or something. And then you just say that at the meeting. But again, it's not like you're... I mean, unless something crazy happens and like these applications are already vetted also, but if these aren't like you guys are forcing to see it program, it's really not that... Yeah, it's... From what I understand, it's a really cool way to have kind of a say in like funding for projects that are gonna influence your neighborhoods. I know Jake was... It's gonna be representing Word One, so he'll be working with Jake. And... Yeah, so if you're interested, just let us know. Or if there's more than one person interested, you know, we could have a vote. But... When do the applications have... Would you use the automated volume? And you can use it, which I made? Yes, so do you mean applications for the... Yeah, let me... I have that, I can pull it up. I'm just starting from the grant or the serve on the... Okay, questions. And sometimes you can use anything. Yeah, I'll get you the... Timeline. Yeah, if you want to apply, you need to do it very, very soon. Yeah. There is an application if you're on the... Okay, so the... Oh, let me start, let me just share this. So I'm not sure when the application deadline is for nonprofits or organizations that want to get funding. It may have already passed, I'm not positive. But in terms of being on the advisory board, this is the meeting and work schedule. You can find it on the city website as well. So it seems like the first orientation meeting is at the end of January, January 26th. And then there's a few other meetings, February, March, and then an optional last meeting. So it seems like the last meeting would be March 23rd. Yeah. But Farid, I can probably find out. So the advisory board just made the recommendation, right? They don't want you to sign the grant set. Well, there's not... It's also like the mayor just went off the side. I mean, maybe someone else can speak to this who's done it before. I think the recommendations of the committee are presented to the council. I think ultimately the council approves it. But I don't know if there's ever been a time when the council doesn't do it. Okay, so basically they'll just take the recommendation and then do it. And are the members of the commission, are the committee just elected or appointed one? No, there's a few other representatives. I think... Yeah. Yeah. I think maybe... Yeah, I believe there's a few states. I think the MPAs are probably... Yeah. Yeah, each word. So like the MPAs that have two words, there's two representatives. And a youth representative they're also still looking for. Someone between the ages of 15 and college during like 22, it would be interested in doing this as well. Yeah, we're good. We're good. We're good. Well... I don't know what your text is, but that's... All right. Yeah, so any comments about that? Anyone interested here? Or wanna... Okay, yeah, that would be great too. I didn't know a lot of silence would be used to go. All right. Sounds good. Okay. And if everyone's... Okay, we'll move on to the... Talking about the word by resolution. That was recently passed. I'm afraid you may have some more background on this, but I'm gonna share my screen so you can all see. Oh, yeah, it's my name, it's my name. Yeah. So my name is Faris, again. I'm on the steering committee for word five. We recently passed a resolution and I enraged PONS due to an incident at ward four and seven. But also in general, we wanted to make the... We wanna make it clear that we are an inclusive MBA and that everybody is welcome. And we surprised to make everybody feel welcome. So I think we started this process because we were concerned about some of the things that were going on, especially in ward four and seven, which the steering committee members there refuse to acknowledge one of their primary members of the pronoun. And the situation that so escalated that the person actually ended up resigning because they felt really not welcome. And this was after like a whole year of trying to basically reconciliate with one particular individual there. So since the MBAs are basically autonomous, we wanted to do it in a way that basically like that's from the bottom side. We were not looking for the city to tell us what to do because we liked our independence and the economy. So one of the founders of the MBA is the class resolution. And so the steering committee members for our ward got together and came up with a proposed language to be passed by the whole ward five MBA which is basically everybody in our ward. And so, and also the intent was to show an example and kind of shame like only an MBA into like adopting something similar because we really believe like this is a basic respect that is required in the democracy and the MBA is like a directly democratic institution not probably the pioneer even. So we passed the resolution in our last MBA meeting, the text of which is I think available and you can see it on the screen. And it's also available on our website, on the series website. And so yeah, so the hope is like other ward will take a look at what we've done here and hopefully come up with their own. So that way we all can be a very welcoming place for everybody who wants to have a say in how decisions are made, decisions are not impact all our life. And hope again, like this is like to us if it seems to be basic respect that we are performing to every member of our community. Thank you, yeah. And from what I understood too, it seemed like it was okay that if other wards wanted to adopt the same language. Yes, yeah, definitely. Obviously, every MBA is different just because every neighborhood is different in Barlington. So we believe like this is like the basic level of language that everybody should be awarded at every MBA. Thank you. And I attached it to the agenda for tonight's meeting. Unfortunately, I didn't print it out, but it's online on Civic Clerk. If you go to the Ward 8 agenda for tonight's meeting, you'll find it there as well. But yeah, if you know, open it up to you all if you wanna talk about it. I just wanna add because I think it gets lost in the dialogue about this. Like let me just say from the outset like, I think that using somebody's preferred pronouns is a really easy, basic way to show the most minimum level modicum of respect to somebody. But this situation in particular, I think it's easy for folks to assume that like somebody was using the wrong pronouncing the system there, but it wasn't just that. It was like another level up. So like I could say for read, listen, worth, right? But this person that was being so cruel and callous so this other person kept finding a way that was like totally unnatural to normal speech patterns to say things like for read is a man who lives in Ward 5. So it wasn't just pronouns, it was like actual like gender labels. And that was used to make a political statement. And it was just disgusting. And I hate that it went on for so long. I have a comment, two questions. One, my first NPA related meeting of the all hands sort of like a second, but the all hands a couple of weeks ago now, I was shocked that this wasn't already in the bylaws and just like the general NDAs. My two questions are one, what kind of notice do we have to incorporate a largely similar without the exact same language into our own newly formed bylaws? And the second one is just, where does the link go to? Is it a link or is it like a highlight of any other characters that you've made? Yeah, so that I'll answer the second question. The link goes to basically, I haven't clicked the link myself, but they were talking from what I understood for read that basically they wanted to ensure that any characteristic that was protected by law would be protected through this resolution for the meeting. So if more characteristics were to be added, like they would be included without having to update the resolution constantly. The step is like the resolution is kind of more like a affirmative, like general like value statement. And then the three committee will take that and actually work out like the legal definitions of bylaws and then we'll have to warn that there's gonna be a bylaw bill that's nice. So then the bylaws will then have to be voted as well. So that's, but if you guys don't already have bylaws, I think it's just like the best to do it. And so that's a wonderful first resolution. Yeah, I mean, and I think the only thing that you need in a bylaw is just like, how we change the bylaws. That's like, once you've got that, you're good. So I think we have to work in order to get it. Yeah. And do you want to say anything about? And the city attorney will come back to us with a base, what needs to be included. I suspect it will mimic what the city has in this non-discrimination statement, which I think makes sense. The city has a very strong statement on that. So yeah, there is time to get these together. The city attorney noted that we would like to have the bylaw work completed by the end of January. I suspect it might go a little bit into February. I would also encourage you to look at wards two and threes bylaws, which are really tremendous, really tremendous. They actually already really include this. So some wards didn't have this level of detail, whereas others did. What we'll do going forward is ensure all wards have that level of detail, at least on these base human rights characteristics. Yeah. And I don't know if you, generally like for the resolutions, from what I understand, usually a meeting to talk about it and then you can vote on it kind of the next meeting. I don't know if there's any, since there is our no bylaws, I'm not sure how that works for this one. You just don't want to follow what the city will do. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 10 days, I think I'm gonna vote. I'm gonna vote, yeah. Okay. That's what we did. And then when we're ready with the bylaws, language, then we'll also have to do the same thing. Okay. Thank you. Maybe that's what we're gonna do, is general kind of thing. And then now some of that should be done. I don't know, I hope it's supposed to be veggie, but sure, yeah, take your time. I don't know if I'm gonna cry, but we're gonna be like six hour long meetings of all of them. All right, we'll do my last. Sorry, what was that? Okay. Yeah, any other comments about this? Your suggestions? No? Okay. All right. Please better reply. HMTA only kind of has problems with this, but like sure, with like a top down like dictated decision. And we are like available if you all need probably like the process or like, or anything we're happy to like. Well, January meeting with everyone in coffee, everyone are ready to pass. And you know, the market obviously see fit. Yeah, it was great. Like you were all workshopping it on the screen, like through a document and talking about it. They really simplified the language during the meeting because there's all this extra jargon in there. Yeah. Yeah. Like online and so like show that. But the fact that you got it down to like, you include a lot. Yeah, sorry. Yeah. It's like nine pages document initially that I'm just like, what? Yeah. Yeah. Not always. At least to say. Yeah. All right. So then we can move on to talk about public engagement and rejoining with word one. We I think spoke about this a little bit, but yeah, I think Jonathan mentioned to you at the awards meeting, you know, that idea about rejoining with word one. You can maybe speak more to it. I don't, I wasn't part of that conversation, but. And they followed up with a very bubbly email. Oh, nice. And not knowing much about why the division was created, but I don't see it every time why we shouldn't rejoin. I guess I would entertain more of tax about that, but. I think that it is really important that while you're, like that was the discussion about whether or not rejoining happens, we should think about how we should do that. There's something on the board forum, the board eight neighbors to see how they're feeling given that there was and it's tricky because it the division happened at a time when I just left the steering committee. So I'm not even fully like, I was not in tune with those conversations, but I think doing like a neighborhood full would be good just to see. It's obviously, you know, if 80% of the neighbors say that we don't want to rejoin. Yeah, exactly. There's some grand breeze and whatnot. Yeah. So I think that doing the other thing, I think that it would be great to join with them. It feels weird that we're separated because we're here and I'm coming together for a really long time. This is obviously a very small NGA and I often think that like more organized groups, obviously more people may be willing to go to it. I think right now we're causing like city staff who have to come into NPAs to you guys and then also any presentations that are not, and to have to come to a meeting there. I don't have to go to a meeting. Yeah. I know it's like for me, but I think having to come and present a meeting where there are three of us and one of them is a counselor that I've already seen the presentation does not feel like a great use of city funds nor like a great use of time for the other folks in the room. So I would love to see us rejoin in a way that feels good for everyone involved, but I do think it's going to take a little bit of work to regain trust in any case. Yeah. You know, the award-winning award, a reference happens even before I was involved in the city council. So I have only heard sort of second-hand I think we all know that it has at least partly of its roots in the hard healings around the redistricting. I'm not sure if Leon would have, I don't really know a lot of sort of what I've heard. You know, all kidding aside, I think you mentioned that. We all just, when you joke you right about like, it's not an insignificant consideration, the question of city resources and some of our first-person resources and the level of leadership. If it could be done in a way that felt good and listen to everybody, it would be a, it's not a good significant issue for your district. It ends for city staff. Yeah. I mean, I think it's the only district that doesn't have joint aid. Am I right about that? Five of six. Five of six. No, they both have like three for five. Yeah. Yeah. They're good. They're okay. They're very effective and sad versus people who showed up but they were out of numbers a little bit. I know. Kind of worries. What they're about to let the separate people, I don't have a great question. Okay, that's it. I didn't even talk to you, it was Keith Pillsburg. So Keith Pillsburg has been your awarding steering committee member for 20 years or since COVID-19 was created. So he was, I've talked to him about this several times. So he was feeling isolated and when he would go to ward one with ward eight, MPA. So he was feeling isolated that all of the agenda items and all the attention was going to ward one and not ward eight. So he got frustrated with that. And so that's why he wanted to split. At the time he was almost the only steering committee member on that. Now, Lauren was also on it, but she kind of came in at the end. But so people really need to talk to Keith Pillsburg. You can get his opinion before I would do anything. Yeah. I mean, just before I published him. And then another thing that I should say that. So when I, a few months ago at the Wards two and three MPA meeting I got up and I spoke for a few minutes about the difficulty of finding people in the new ward eight and in the new ward three to serve on city committees and commissions. So there's this strip of land of residences in Burlington. It starts at UVM and it goes down to the waterfront. And it's bordered basically by Pearl Street or whatever and Naples Street or something. And if you look on that, if you go to, there's 50 boards and commissions in Burlington. It's not just the city council, there's 50 of them. And if you go and you look at the addresses of all the people who serve on those committees, you would think, you know, you basically have eight MPAs. So technically on the development review board, 12% of the people on the development review board should be from ward eight, you know, and the same thing with like cemetery commission or whatever you want to talk about. But I think you'll find if you go and you look at research that a little bit, you're going to find that ward eight and the new board three, which is downtown, you're only going to find like 1%, okay? Outside of the city councilors and school commissioners, very, very, very, very few. And it's traditionally been that way in Burlington forever. So, and that's one of the reasons I've been trying to help ward three and help ward eight get back on your feet because it is so difficult to find people. And so one of the things I suggested is if anybody wants to get on a board or commission in Burlington. So on the application, it's not going to ask you your wards, it's just going to ask you your address. But if it was me and I have an application, I could be writing all over that application. I'm a resident of ward eight. And so when it goes to the city council, those city counselors should say, whoops, this person's applying. So there's two people, one from ward one and one from ward eight, one from ward five they should be giving very serious considerations of giving that seat on that commission to the ward eight person. And so that's why I would write all over that application. I'm a resident ward eight. See, because it's going to be very difficult to get. As I said, traditionally people in that strip of Burlington just don't join boards and commissions. So it's going to be very difficult. So that's why it's such a wonderful opportunity for anybody in those two wards. If you want to get on that board or mission, you've got a path. You've got an open path to do that because basically you just have to emphasize that to your city counselor. We should then take that to the city council and say, look, we don't have anyone on the parks commission ward eight because person wants on. So let's get our act together and get that proceed. That's the way it should work. But if it was me and I was thinking about doing a survey for ward eight and whether people wanted to rejoin ward one. So the thing is just make sure that those steering committee members from ward eight assert themselves. So when they go to ward one and they have a common meaning that they're just a little more forceful about it and say, well, you know, we don't just want to talk about the little parks or landscaping or something in ward one or their relationship with the university. We want to talk about something more critical to ward eight. And that's so Keith got frustrated. And so he just left. So he just, you know, he's kind of an action kind of guy. Award one MBA with ward eight. Yeah. So I'm just saying just if you've got steering committee members from ward eight there's no reason that you can't dominate the one. It's like ward one is traditionally dominated. So it all comes down to the character and the enthusiasm of the steering committee members. So Keith got frustrated and he split. It's better to be, as you said earlier, it's better to be connected with another ward. So when your ward gets in trouble and you lose some members, you've got the other wards to lean on. Which is what's happening right now, where it's too late. If it wasn't ward one, I'd get them out. It was more like ward eight. Right. Okay. Well, that's better, right? I guess, yeah. Slightly. Oh, I got it. Now you have to control that. Yeah. Yeah. They even invited us back. It was very nice to us. I know. I love the ward one steering committee. I always tell them to be great to serve them. Okay. I respect you. I didn't leave. Okay. It was not me. I have a couple of thoughts. And now I have a third thought. And my third thought is, thank you, Charlie. I like when you step across that towards wall and participate. You have good institutional knowledge. So two thoughts. One is maybe one and he could be like co-located. So they're not one NPA. They could be mostly one NPA, but then do a breakout every once in a while. There's a little room that would accommodate a breakout group if they wanted to be concurrent for it and start late a little bit earlier. That's one thought. Another thought I had, which is a little more radical, is have the Ward 8 NPA merge with the Ward 1 NPA and then have a UDM and Champlain, like maybe a specifically university NPA. I know it's written into the language, establishing them that they align with the words, but I don't see why that could be changed. The council has the option to create voting precincts within the words. So an idea that I've been cooking up for a month or two is taking a chunk out of one, taking a chunk out of eight, taking a chunk out of six and having those precincted out so that UDM can have an on-campus voting place to encourage more student participation. I just think that we have a civic crisis in this country and we've got to take very seriously that we are this radical progressive or we're thinking woke town where we got thousands of young people coming here learning how to be adults and we got to teach them the participatory part of the class and I think kind of siloing out like a way for them to like kind of that safe environment where they're all together and participating in a very meaningful way could be super fricking bad. So that's the option. They used to meet on the hospital at one on eight or two meetings at the hospital over the longest time and then popularly for eight or more than one. Oh, it is. Okay. I mean. Yeah. I would say I think that it's really important that there wouldn't be a separate NPA of students just because I think the whole point of NPA is to strengthen the community within a neighborhood and I always felt like, and I've talked about that I would probably not be in Burlington or on the council if it wasn't for the community that I built for getting involved with NPAs and being able to meet in groups that were older than me. And so I think slightly. Slightly. I'm sorry. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. And when you're in a place like me where you're simultaneously older and two old NPAs. Yeah. Sorry. I wasn't trying to, I was thinking about what the issue is. So that's like when I worked five at the conclusion. Yeah. Yeah. Now it's gonna be painted as an A-just. It's fun. But I think that it is important that we strengthen engagement from all sides and like make sure that students feel welcome in this space and that long-term residents have the opportunity to meet students and see that they are functioning members of society and deserve to live in our neighborhoods They don't think that we always see that rhetoric specifically in spaces like this. And so, I think that it's just another thing that we need to work on. Yeah, just to add something, I think, you know, maybe those discussions about like either rejoining with Ward one or not I think, you know, in the meantime, it'd be probably beneficial to kind of build up wordy. And then, you know, once because otherwise if you join and you know you barely have anyone going to the meetings or participating around the steering committee, those same issues could start again. So, yeah. All right. Unless anyone has anything else to say, I want to turn it over to the city councilors to give any updates that you have or would like to share. Well, you know, I missed a good portion of our last city council meeting, because I was out of country. I did participate in the carbon tax ordinance discussion and vote but beyond that, everybody's aware of. I wasn't wasn't present for the last city council meeting so I would have to turn it over against our team. It feels so long ago. Just playing up the It was the Monday before Thanksgiving. Yeah, now I was in Berlin, so the time you change six hours. Yeah, a lot. The dates are all over there. So, just look at this. We, we, sorry, I mean fumbling this is wrong. Well, yeah, we talked about the ordinance change. There was a lot of work done there. Kind of behind the scenes with Edie and counselors amendments were brought forward. I know we actually voted separately, differently. Yeah. Which is the first time. Wow. I supported the Bergman amendments, because I felt like they were important and a lot of board constituents were in favor of them. I did not support those amendments. The amendment did not pass. So nothing really changed there. But we ultimately both voted in favor of the ordinance overall. That was a big vote and then you did not participate in this vote, but I did on the McNeil plant project. I voted no, again, for the same reasons as a lot of board eight residents specifically student activists were very against the project. There was someone so many hours and so much work done to change that project even like into the council meeting. And so, it didn't go the way that I wanted it to because that project still passed but ultimately I think the work done by Edie, Holly, Jean, Mark, all of us got it to a better spot than it probably wasn't to begin with the the McNeil vote was really close. So that was unfortunate. There was, oh, the Great Streets Main Street project we approved funding for that. It's a huge six part motion on the on in the packet so people are fast with both that you can reach out and I'm not going to go through it. And then, oh, and then we just said the other thing was we approved $40,000 for the fire department to get a new coloring system. And that was, that was everything. Anything from you. I mentioned that from getting the meeting I'm helping one with age boy dry for the holidays. And I can also have me. Yeah, or they can text me. Yeah. You, like I said, I had to miss the meeting and I was getting this problem. All right, great. Anything else anyone wants to bring up anything any questions, comments, suggestions, but you're free to book sale. Yes, this weekend right. Okay, yeah. books. Yeah. We're just either. Thanks. So a lot for the. There's a fundraiser. They're victims of your day on Saturday. Thank you probably, but okay. Yeah. You can send it to me and we can. It's just sort of strange to talk about updates when city has been gripped by. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's on for a long time. Great. Well, if there isn't anything else, we can adjourn our meeting. Thank you. Thank you. Great.