 Good evening, Burlington. This is Gene Bergman. I'm the Ward 2 City Councilor, a progressive, very proudly a progressive and we are here for the third of our monthly shows on the progressive agenda. And I am very happy to be joined tonight by all of our counselors, Milo Grant and Joe McGee and Zariah Hightower who's just coming in. And we have had over the last couple of months some people from the community to talk about police oversight, somebody from public assets to talk about statewide issues, particularly about inequality and ways that we can address that at various state and local levels. And tonight we're going to talk with the four of us about our agenda. And I'm going to start with our newest member, Milo Grant. Thank you. And Milo, hi and congratulations. Thank you. We only have a half hour or so. Let's get right into it. Get right into it. First of all, I do want to very quickly thank my supporters. I've been very humbled by the trust that people have put in me, so it means a lot. The committees that I will be working on are going to be the licensing committee, REIB and the public safety committee. I would like to really encourage people to look out for REIB, the Juneteenth celebration this year. It's going to be fantastic. There was a wonderful presentation that is posted online on board docs. If you don't know how to navigate board docs, please reach out to us. And we will be happy to help you do that. But it will be held primarily downtown with shuttle buses bringing people in from all over the city. So I think it's going to be a really great event. And they're bringing in an organization called OK OK, founded and run by an individual who has a long history, haven't grown up in Burlington, returned to Burlington. So I'm very excited about that. In terms of public safety, I want to continue as a former police commissioner. The commission is very near and dear to my heart. I want to support and protect that commission. And also when we start to talk about the commission's role with oversight and accountability, I think we can all say we're going to be talking about that a lot. The chief's report this week. So once a month, the chief of acting chief Murad does a report. And it summarizes part of the report summarizes types of incidents. So drug overdoses are just through the roof. It is I just don't really have any words. It's dramatically up. We've all been talking about this, that there we don't have sufficient resources. We don't have a sufficient plan. Things such as the cahoots model are moving a little bit slowly. Although we now have the money, but it's a matter of who's going to administer this model. How is it going to be set up? The vetting process is missing, but I do encourage people to look at the chief's report. We're looking at stolen vehicles being way up. Last year at this time we had 55, 2021 we had 16, 2020 we had 18, 2019 we had 16, 2018 we had zero. And so far this year we have 105. I don't often agree with the chief, but I agreed with him when he said that it's not victim blaming to say to the people of Burlington. We cannot at this time leave your car running with the keys in them. This is literally how cars are being taken. We don't have any sophisticated network that's driving cars and putting them on, you know, sending them overseas. That is not as what's happening. People are grabbing these cars when nobody's looking, driving away with them, living in them, using in them, etc. So we just cannot do that. We must always lock our doors. Do not leave your car running unattended. Even for a second. Even for a second. I think some of the colder weather we had in January when people were warming up their cars. That's when we lost a lot of those. Mental health issues still high. Larceny still high. Still continues to be a lack of coordination, lack of follow-up. One of the other things I'll be learning about is the ComSTAT process. And I'll be attending my first meeting this week. And just briefly what ComSTAT is, what? Well, I will hopefully learn more about it. We'll touch base then with other folks. It meant to kind of look about how different parts of the city in different departments are looking at our crisis. Drug crisis. And what is being done. And too much fentanyl. Too much meth. Too many overdoses. And I will leave it at that. Well, we have a lot to do on public safety. Luckily, we have at least spent a lot of time over the last many years trying to develop an alternative to the solution is just put more cops everywhere and think that that's going to solve things like overdose problems. I will quickly say, I don't like that word alternative. They want to use it in some of the position, the special director that'll be like at a deputy chief level, call it alternative. This is part of our community safety response. Got it. Makes sense. And we shouldn't make it seem like I just think that the word alternative doesn't give the full credit to how important these positions are. They are part of our community safety response. Okay. They're just more appropriate for some things and others, but we shouldn't look at it as an alternative. I guess it's part of that transformation word that used to be thrown around. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Milo, for that. Let's turn to, so you are our newest member. Luckily, Zariah, you got here just in time as the oldest member of this caucus right now. I'm the oldest member of this caucus. Yes. I love it. Black women is the newest and the oldest. I love the oldest. Woo! The senior. Yeah. And maybe I'll talk to you. I'm very grateful that Milo joined the council. I feel like she and Joe are just breaths of fresh air in terms of helping us think about public safety. So I'll focus on housing, which is kind of my bread and butter and where I started, even though I did spend a lot of time thinking about public safety the past few years. And I think there's maybe three big things that are happening. One of them is, of course, two of them are things happening at the state level now. We've just had a dramatic increase in folks who are houseless in Chattanooga County. And so the city is currently not prepared to deal with what happens when the Motel voucher program ends or wanes, I guess, is the more appropriate word for what's actually happening. And so finding a way to be prepared for that. It's going to happen regardless of what we want. And so having some alternative housing for folks, even if that's unideal. So talking in CDNR, which I chaired, which Joe is on, on how we can provide folks a place to stay. What do people want CDNR? CDNR is Community Development and Neighborhood Revitalization, which is this wonky committee that mostly works with CEDO, which is Community Economic Development. So definitely I think that's going to have to be kind of a short-term, high-priority issue because it's really hard on city staff, it's really hard on folks who are houseless to just have to have the same interaction over again if you have nowhere to go but you can't stay here. And is the administration stepping up sufficiently at this point? Honestly, we're in the opposition. So a good, and they used to say loyal opposition, but a good opposition is both praises when it's due, and we just heard an example of that, and criticizes and calls for more when it's due. I will say the Democrats of a party have been allies in working on this, and I will say the administration has maybe been a little bit slow. I was glad to see obviously that Elmwood, which was done like an initiative led by the administration, but at the same time, I think especially around camping, I think there's politics to that that the administration doesn't feel good about, and so they've been quite frankly obstructionist, I think our Democratic colleagues would agree in terms of moving the needle on. So there are particulars in terms of the housing and relationship to the houselessness issue that we should be at least thinking about. You mentioned camping and the motel. Yeah, so I think one other thing is just we've got a lot of housing. Sometimes we forget, but it's like we've got so much housing that's going to come in, both with the pit being scaled for development and then with the south end zoning, and I think just being, I originally ran for city council because there was a scale back of some of the inclusionary zoning that I saw while I was on the development review board, and so just making sure we keep those things strong and also have housing that is specific to helping folks exit situations where they're experiencing houselessness or where our inclusionary zoning, which is really for families that make minimum wage and other. So making sure that there's strong protections for that type of housing that we are building is kind of a more long-term view. And then the last thing that I'll just speak to is we had passed as a city overwhelmingly just cause eviction, and that is making its way through the legislature again. So fingers crossed that this time with a democratic and progressive majority that if the governor does decides to veto that, that that will still come to pass in Burlington. And I do think that once we, like I think that's going to be a whole ordinance on itself to figure out which I'm excited about and I hope that that comes to pass, but I think that will also start to help us build other tenant protections because you can't really do anything to help tenants until they've got, until they can't be elected for no cause because if you don't have that, you can't add anything else. I mean, and my understanding is that the state of New Jersey has got a just cause eviction statute in there that has been there for a long time. I know because the folks in New York state have been fighting very hard for, just read an article in The Nation about the rights of tenants. We would certainly not be the first. There are millions of Americans who live under just cause eviction laws. Joe, the middle child. You were elected in a special election and have been, so you've had actually three victories and you're in the middle of the, this term right now. Two, thankfully. Only two elections. Thankfully I haven't had to do a third yet. There we go. I stand corrected. So what is on the plate generally speaking for you? Sure. Yeah. There's so many pressing issues in the city and we're working together collaboratively on community safety, I think, is front of mind for so many people right now. And a particular area that I'm focusing on as a member of the caucus is really around harm reduction and addressing the substance use crisis and the overdose crisis, particularly as Mila mentioned, the overdose numbers that we have seen this year are outpacing. This time, where we're at right now, is outpacing where we're even in June of last year. And so this points to a drug supply that is increasingly dangerous and unpredictable. And there are a number of things that we can do to reduce harm for folks who are using drugs to save lives. Last year we lost 237 Vermonters to overdose. That's up from 217 people in 2021 and significantly up from the numbers of folks that we lost in 2020. And so, you know, this crisis is getting worse. We have evidence-based approaches that have been implemented in other parts of the U.S. and around the world that would go a long way to saving lives and keeping folks alive so that they're able to access support. Housing is a crucial piece of that. So really working on a Housing First model, which I think is something that we're really pioneering with the Elmwood shelter community, I think we've seen folks transition out of the pods already. And so I think I would like to see that model replicated as a reasonably quick way for us to provide shelter for folks who are unhoused right now and sleeping outside. I understand that there are concerns that folks have around camping and encampments in the city. It's hard to see. It's hard to be confronted with the ways in which society is failing so many people right now. I know folks have concerns about finding discarded syringes in our parks and on the streets. And I think the Parks Department has done a good job of working with the Howard Center street outreach team and with Substance Use Policy Analyst at the city to come up with solutions for increasing the number of sharps containers that we have in the city so that we can safely dispose of those syringes. And a core piece of this that I've been working on for a number of months and will continue to work on is standing up an overdose prevention center in Burlington. And we've seen this working in Manhattan. They've got two centers in New York City operated by an organization called On Point. On Point has reversed over 700 overdoses. They've helped connect folks with services. And we've seen there are 200 overdose prevention centers operating throughout the world. Not a single person has ever died as a result of an overdose prevention center. And we're seeing numbers of discarded syringes going down, numbers of overdoses where folks are using a loan and in unsafe settings going down. Transmission of HIV and hepatitis C is going down in areas where those services are offered. And this is really, you know, something that we could start here in Burlington. We have people with the expertise to start an overdose prevention center. But we really need support from the state to be able to do that. I think we've seen that when we take this harm reduction approach where we take this approach of investing in supporting people rather than criminalizing substance use or criminalizing houselessness, we see far better outcomes long-term for folks who are struggling and better outcomes for the community. Vermont spends $57,000 a year to incarcerate somebody. So a question that myself and I think all of us are asking is how can we better invest those resources to support our neighbors who are struggling right now and really start to ask those questions about transformation and those non-police responses that are so crucial. And Tamilo's point about the language or an alternative, it's, you know, I think in a perfect world where we're trying to make these changes, we want these responses to be a primary response in a number of situations. And so looking forward to seeing the crisis response team started and, you know, we're going to have a number of conversations, I think, in the next couple of weeks here at the council level about that. So I encourage folks to tune in there. We've got activity on harm prevention that will be in front of the council that you've been really active on. We've got a number of housing issues that are going to probably be in front of the council in the coming future ordinances or through CDNR and we've got public safety oversight and then the comprehensive and smart way of making a safe community as part of this plus the racial equity work that people can get involved in. Just briefly for me, because I'm trying to be this facilitator here, but so I'm really happy that we moved through the democracy charter changes, the ranked choice, the all resident voting and then the flexibility of the voting places in this last term. The charter change committee of which I chair is going to have the opportunity to work with us all around public safety because the needs of the community have not been met just by the defeat of the proposal that we supported very strongly and I think a significant number of people supported oversight despite a massive campaign against it. So the fact that almost 40% of the people of Burlington voted for it says that there is a real appetite for oversight. So we'll see that starting in May and in June with joint committees of ordinance and charter looking at things and obviously the commission is going to be really central to that. Briefly, the other committee that I'm on and the work that I've really been focused on is around climate change and so what is very clear as we sit on North Winooski Avenue is that transit equity is a tremendous issue for folks. The ability to get the places that we need to get in an affordable way needs to be front and center because people can't get to work on the buses, the buses don't run on time, cars are expensive and we are for many, many positive environmental reasons reducing the amount of parking in the city. So there's a lot of tension. So that's something that the Transportation Energy and Utilities Committee is working on. We've made some progress here on North Winooski Avenue where there's been a lot of dynamic tension on that. Briefly, the other thing has to do with carbon emissions that we've been working on and both the McNeil plant which we will have in front of us the district energy question and it's a complicated issue but the role of biomass is very complicated and doing it right is really complicated and I'm actually pretty excited that we're hoping to have a symposium sponsored by the Duke Committee to talk about the burning of biomass and its impact on greenhouse gas emissions. Straight science so that we can know what is right and what is wrong and then we make policy choices. So looking forward to doing that and looking forward to actually allocating some money to get some experts including critics of the burning of fuel. This is something where Massachusetts has just eliminated the sellable credits for biomass and it will change the market dramatically if that spreads. The other thing is the airport. We get daily reminders from the F-35s of not only the military aspect of that but the tremendous emissions that are spewing out of those planes and there's a lot of very good active people both in South Burlington and Winooski and also in Burlington who are questioning airport and airline emissions and their role in the climate crisis and so we've been pushing that. I've been pushing that but as I said I've gotten good support on all of these issues from my democratic and independent colleagues on the committee and that's been really good and as a result for example we unanimously passed as a council a resolution to fund mass transit to call for there to be mass transit funding that's sustainable and equitable and it's making its way somewhat through the legislature and I think that we played a part in that so we'll continue to do that and our budget will reflect some real choices that we make about mass transit. Okay, we've got about ten minutes left maybe a little bit less. Milo, let's do like a lightning round this is only half hour so sort of a lightning round of something that you really want folks to hear that they want you to know. I would like to really encourage people to watch more meetings. I think this is a major problem it's a major problem in the central district people aren't keeping themselves informed and because they're not actually watching the meetings and what's happening in the meetings you're more subject to misinformation and I think that one of my goals and I'd like to think that we all think about getting more people to vote. It is literally voting brings power we don't vote the way we should which is why we don't get the attention we should in the central district our numbers are half what they are say the new north end it's about half right? So it's and also the south end and that is why they get nice things. We got five minutes to go lightning is going to strike down there she took some of your thunder I think the other one is just a reminder that folks are struggling I think sometimes in Burlington we can forget because we have a lot of and a lot of the voters specifically middle class, upper middle class and homeowners like me we don't see the increase in rent prices it just doesn't hit us in the same way and so I think just remembering that post-pandemic we see that in all of the things we just talked about mental health, finances like folks are really struggling and just having empathy around the issues that we're talking about whether it's housing, whether it's community care I think just want to remind folks that just because they're not struggling doesn't mean the rest of the community isn't really understanding how hard it is for people right now the rents are so outrageous they are just exorbitant they are unbearable and they're a big reason why we're losing young people we are losing a lot of 20 somethings greed is a terrible thing rents are high everywhere but they can get literally for the same amount better conditions Joe I guess I'll just take this opportunity to plug the fact that the four of us will be at Vivid Coffee on Cherry Street tomorrow Wednesday the 26th yeah 26th from 8 to 9.30 on Cherry Street so I look forward to seeing folks there and having conversation about concerns that you have and many of the things that we just discussed here this evening and we're going to try to do that on a regular basis right? yes for me and it goes nicely with the rest of y'all the interplay between government and movement I don't think can be can be understated or be overstated it's really in order for any real change to happen it requires people to be organized and active and engaged including voting but not necessarily alone voting and so we can only do so much when the airport wanted to expand into further expand into the Chamberlain neighborhood and exacerbate the housing crisis as well as the climate crisis I worked with a group of people who opposed that and they were successful in South Burlington and we in Burlington helped that the just cause is an example of that the oversight does not happen without an active people saying this must stop and harm prevention we've got tons of folks crying for change and demanding change and as a result we're bringing things forward so we are not saviors we are just part of a bigger piece and I want to thank you all for being there with me on Mondays it would be terrible without you I think and I want to thank CCTV because otherwise all you get is Fox and the rest of the corporate media we can't have that and get anywhere and we will continue this conversation next week or next month I should say we're trying to do this every month and get some other voices and so with that I thank you all and I guess that's a wrap