 That's why it's like an institution. I don't know why. I don't really mean anything like that. We have to like get out of this life. I don't want to. It's all right. That's fine. That's fine. But then we move it to like, brewery in some way, not like, not a matter of public offer, people can't afford to know each other. So, I think it's a good thing. Yeah, but it's whatever you're really talking about. We're talking about we want to we want to we want to we want to we want to we want to I mean, see, one makes an energy point. You have any, you know, the analogues, the way he was a politician. And that's all it was. He didn't have any, he didn't have any body defense. He might have a superior. No, he didn't have any body defense. He might have a superior. That's what we're going to talk about. Onwardly. Yeah. Right. It was not. It's not that we don't want. A passive audience. I think it's a decision. Check out like a petition. We are actually getting signatures for. We actually are. Where's more power. That's not. No, it's for. I know. This is over in the city. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So. Okay. Yes. And. We found out. When we didn't really talk about like when we get the most. Yeah. Yeah. And so again. What we did. It was like, like, like really. Right. Right. Now people are so proud of that. So. I think. Right. And. That. Right. Right. What. They. Oh, Yeah. And. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the. No, but they can pick up. Oh, yeah. That's what. That's what we said about them. I guess that's what I'm referring to. We just didn't want to. No. I don't think it's for me to be talking about this. But so, so these are the charter teams. And so we have the. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Okay. Yep. Send it to me. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's what we're working on. We're working on it, but we buy favorites all over the years with both yes. I think about, I don't see, like, I don't see any of my Icons going out or we can think anything. Yeah. I don't get how we can do that with the revenues, but it'll be like expanding the British page and what we'll be able to do is get the opportunity to break forth. But we're not getting through it. We're not getting through it. I'm not going to share the details, because it's And then we have, we have like, a lot more power. And then we have like, a lot more power. Can you see the screen? Yeah. and so that's when we're going to continue like that, we're going to use the ability to do it, and then very much as people apply it, it's fine. So I want to work on it, but we have to relate to the people, and where as always, you need to be, and I'm going to talk about how we'll move on. You do that for now, but it's very hard. if you have a problem with that. So that's good. So yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. because I know I need a reason where we're trying to put it. If we get $2,000 signature by December, then we do have this on the back of our money. And that was part of the idea. And also that any single city after that value is going to be distributed. So right now, we're recording from here. I believe also is one of our, you know, the more you know, the more you. These things. And that's. Everyone. Everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to explain. Sorry. We are wondering if it's a lot more. Yeah. About. Hello, is anybody there running the. Zoom. You can't hear. Hi, Greg. We'll be starting the meeting. Oh my. Yeah, I just wanted to mention, I just wanted to make a couple of very brief comments about the election and the public forum. Yeah. Oh, where do you want to. Oh, where do you want to. I think. And they have been asking. It's about. Yes. I think we should be able to. Tiff or Barbara. Can anybody hear me? I can. Thank you. Okay. We are going to call our meeting to order. This is the ward six NPA. November 3rd, 2022 meeting. Welcome to everybody. Welcome to everybody and more people online. Welcome to everybody wherever you are. We were sorry to not have dinner before tonight's meeting. We are going to try to get back to that again in December. And I have a feeling that we have a lot of people who want to make public comment. Or announcements. I think we should be able to get back to the room. We have a Farid from Lord five who asked for some time to make a public comment or announcement. Great. Do you want to go ahead? Thank you. My name is Farid. I live on legendary street. Right across the street. I am here as a volunteer. For proposition zero. Which aims to put on a ballot charter amendment. Giving Berlin voters more power. I think. I believe that it's important for a Burlington. To maintain its. Grassroots decision making. Processes and. Let people. Put forward proposals for consideration. By the whole city. The charter change that we are advocating for. Will allow. Neighbors to organize together. And collect enough efficient signatures. To put their proposals on the ballot. To be. To be considered by the whole electorate. We are more than halfway through. Our target is 2000 signatures. We have 1200 and something. And counting. And we're hoping to get to 2000 by December. So if this is something that. It's interesting to you. And if you want to get involved with. The campaign. Please sign the petition. We are also looking for volunteers to canvas the polls. On election day in on Tuesday. Our website is proposition zero. Thank you very much. Thanks for read. Before we get to the next public comment or announcement, it was suggested that the steering committee. We're going to introduce ourselves. So I am Dale as area. One of the ward six steering committee members here in person. To my right. I'm Nancy Harkins. Another steering committee. Committee member. And over here also in the room with us. And. Online. We have. You to Reagan. We are on Zoom. You had said that you wanted to offer a public comment or announcement. You want to go ahead? Yes, I do. Thank you. You can hear me correct. Yeah. Oh, good. Thanks. Yeah. For those who don't know, my name's Greg Epler would. I'm not the word clerk for word six. And. We started our processing of ballots last Saturday. And we're going to do more this Saturday. And so far we've processed. About 800. Ballots, which includes both of the. The regular ballot. In three districts that are in our ward. And the CSWD ballot. I don't have a breakdown of the count, but the total is around 800. And I expect we'll probably do another 800 this Saturday. That's or more, perhaps, I'm not sure. So I want the only thing that I wanted to mention. To point out to those who are. Intending to or want to vote for the CSWD. Question. And have not done so. We will have those available. At the voter checklist desks. In Edmonds on Tuesday. And you can certainly, if there, if you're not even, if you're not asked for one, you certainly can ask one. Ask for one. And. The. The only complication that we see is that we would like to have the CSWD ballots. Placed in the. The district where you live. And as you come into the gym, you'll be asked whether or not, whether or not you know which district you're in either 13, 14 or 16. And if you are not. If you don't have a, if you're not voting with the regular ballot and only the CSWD ballot, then we would like you to make sure that you're inserting your CSWD ballot in the correct district tabulator. We'll have three tabulators there. So that's my, that's, those are my remarks and comments. Thank you for that. And thank you for the work you do making sure our votes all are counted and properly. We did have somebody from Chittin and solid waste district here last month. So regular attendees who know a bit about that initiative. Are there others who would like to offer public comment or announcement? Jeff, you want to go ahead? Sure. Thanks, Dale. I'm Jeff Wick, the school commissioner from the south district. And I'm just here to ask for your support for the high school bond. I won't belabor the point because there's been a lot of information out there. There's a ton of information available on the school district's website. And we're really getting down to the wire here. So I'm just here to ask for your support for the high school bond. And also if you have any questions between now and then you're welcome to reach out to me. My phone number is on the BSD website. My email address is two. And I look forward to speaking with you if you have any questions. So thanks so much. And I'm crossing my fingers about Tuesday. Thanks, Jeff. And thank you too for your service on the school board. Thanks, Dale. It's a tough job. Are there others in the room or online who would like to make an announcement or offer a public comment? Not hearing any. And I don't know if folks online, I'd suggest that you just, if you want to make a comment, you can unmute and speak up. And otherwise, I think we'll turn to our first agenda item, which are some updates from the Burlington police commission. Stephanie is here with us in person. Thank you for coming, Stephanie. My pleasure. Thanks a lot. I'd like to just invite all of you who are online or here to think of questions you'd like to answer like me to answer. I think that might be much more helpful than me. Just going on and on, but I would, I will share a few thoughts about what we are seeing with regard to policing and public safety in Burlington. One of the things that the commission did last year was to really look very deeply at what were the trends and incidents and what types of incidents there are. There's, I think a general sense that Burlington is more unsafe than ever. And, and in fact, part of that is the way the data is capped or the way that the data is reported. One of the things that has been so striking to me is that most of the incidents that many of the incidents that we observe are due to social problems, and that is addiction, suicide, overdoses and mental health problems, an extraordinary number related to mental health problems. And those are not really amenable to policing as a solution. There was stopgap method. And so last year, the commission urged the city council and the mayor's office to mount a mental health summit. One of the things that we've understood is that there's really not any coordination amongst mental health providers in the community as well as in the state. There are problems in terms of the hospital with beds at the hospital. The department of mental health again doesn't have enough beds or, and there's not really enough support for people who are trying to address addiction. And so we haven't heard an official report out from that summit. It took place at the end of August, but it confirmed what we had been hearing, which is there is a severe lack of coordination. And in particular, the city does not have a mental health coordinator. So one of the recommendations coming out of the, the summit is that the city should have a mental health coordinator that coordinates with not only social service agencies with Howard street outreach, but also at the state level in legislators, right? Some of this it needs to be addressed with legislation. So I really want to, I think we in the commission really wanted to alter the narrative that there is a lot of so-called criminal activity of bad people. There are a lot of people in Burlington who are suffering from social ills. Some of that very much COVID related. Some of the things that we're seeing here with regard to stolen vehicles with regard to large city and so forth, but I think that there are a lot of people in the commission who are not aware of how much of this is done by people who are addressing their drug addiction in that particular way. And so we will continue to talk about this and to urge the city to address this more directly. And also to help to reshape the narrative, which I think has been not quite captured what is really going on in the social ills that are going on in the community. So I think that's one of the problems that we see. I could say a lot more about the work of the commission in terms of our day-to-day work. I will say that we, the work of the commission has changed dramatically over the last two years. And we are very much acting more like a civilian oversight body. And that requires enormous amounts of time of people with full-time jobs to make sure that we have enough hours to watch if we have complaints, for example, we are trying to change policies. So for example, our mental health policies in terms of how the police are required to interact with persons with mental health distress are outdated. The language is outdated. So we're looking at that. We're looking at our juvenile policy and we're looking at our complaint policy. I think, you know, there's a big divide in Burlington. We're talking to the police and the police and the police department. We're talking to the police and the police and the police department openly. And there are very different perspectives about the role of the police department, what public safety should be, and so on and so forth. One of the things that I think we are very proud of is that we advocated for the hiring of more community service liaisons, that is social workers as well as community service officers who are to build trust, quite frankly, between the community and the Burlington Police Department. And reviewing complaints is a way to do that. I think if people realize there's another body that looks at complaints and reviews them and provides input on them, it can be a vehicle for building trust in the community. But in general, we are trying to do that work. And I could go on and on, but I'm gonna just stop there and see if anybody has any questions. If Blumlee's got her hand up, I just wanted to ask a quick, when you talk about reviewing complaints, does that mean complaints about police operations? That's correct. So that's correct. So we get complaints about police interactions with citizens, how they've handled particular incidents and so forth. I didn't finish my thoughts. My fault, I got distracted. So one of the things that we would like to do is to make complaints public with appropriately anonymized information, but so the public can see that many of the complaints we have are not actually that serious, but there are some serious complaints. And I think that what is needed for our system is greater transparency and accountability. A few years ago when it was acting chief, I believe, Jen Morrison who was here, my understanding from Chief Del Poso is that she actually did not want complaints to be public. So I'm sorry to even be shared with the commission. So I think we've come a ways. And really we are just building this institution that is the police commission to act as a civilian oversight body. And it is bumpy. The police department understandably has not had scrutiny before and is, I would say suspect of civilians providing oversight and input into a profession. They believe that we don't understand. And so that's the nature of where we're at. And I hope that we can just embrace that that we're in this moment of transition that a lot of what we do can be generative that is complaints or an opportunity to communicate with the police department and to share with them community values around how policing should be conducted, for example. So I welcome any of your questions, but that's a short brief on the work that we're doing. Thanks. Thanks, Stephanie. We have a couple of questions lined up. Tiff, you wanna go ahead first? Yeah, thank you, Stephanie. Thank you so much for the work of the commission because I know it's really hard work. And one of the things that I have been trying to ascertain through conversations with people, both when I've gone door-to-door or when I've talked with folks to the police department or on the city council, is the state, where is the state responsibility? You talked about the city's responsibility in addressing these issues, but a lot of these things are systemic and they relate to cuts in funding that we've made year after year after year to services, particularly the mental health system, losing the hospital in Waterbury has had consequences. And I'm just wondering what you see as the, what would you challenge the state to do? So many of you know me, know that I'm honest to a fault. And so I will answer your question honestly. I think the state has really, has failed to step up with regard to mental health in particular, as well as drug addiction. And some of the things that you mentioned, more broadly in the United States, not just in Vermont, but in the United States, we have defunded social services for many years. And I hope that people can expand their thinking to understand that many of the problems that we see with regard to criminality and public safety are really people who are struggling. And if we don't support them to get to a place where they can live flourishing lives, we're gonna continue to see some of these problems. And I think you're right Tiff, that many of these problems are systemic and need to be dealt with, not just at the community level, but at the state level. In mental health, as I said, it's one of those drug addiction is another. I think there are many areas within policing itself that the state could benefit from intervening in. Many of you may have seen the report from Doug Hoffer's office, the state auditor, that the Vermont Criminal Justice Council, which should monitor training of police officers, has actually not been monitoring training. So I think there's a broad sense in this community, for example, that de-escalation should be the first line of defense in many kinds of incidents that we see, but we don't really know what the track record is with regard to de-escalation training. So not only the legislature, but also state agencies, I think have an obligation to step up in that regard as well. I don't know if that answers your question, but... Yep, and I would welcome anyone else to help advise Gabrielle and me, because I think that, I mean, I don't wanna be presumptuous about winning the election next week and serving another term, but I think that it is gonna be critical for the legislature to address some of the issues that you've identified, because they've been persistent and we have failed to do so. Thanks. Michael, you look like you're next with a question. Well, it's a question that's also coming. Can you hear me all right? Mm-hmm, yes. Just very quickly, I vote Democrat. I'm a nice guy. I worry about the people that we're talking about. We have a very, very difficult problem dealing with homelessness, dealing with addiction, et cetera, and I understand all of that and feel this terrible ambivalence because the first words that we're spoken at the beginning of this meeting had to do with safety. And when I heard that, I assumed that it was, ah, let's be honest, safety for people like me. I work up on the Hill teaching engineering and I work a day and a half week in city hardware. And I was assuming that we were talking about the safety of me. I do not feel endangered by the police and I'm not for a moment saying that all police behavior has been ideal. I feel endangered because a paving stone was thrown through the window of the store where I work. I feel endangered because we have had to take many products off the shelf in this otherwise store that everybody loves because at last we have a downtown hardware store. I feel endangered because of the bullet hole in the glass window of Burton and another one in the bank window next to it. And what I hope in all of these conversations and every conversation I have in the ivy covered walls and behind the door of city hardware is that we not fall prey to the usual political divides. I think we absolutely have to be clear that when people come into the store and say, well, I can't take my kids to the park anymore. I'm afraid of what they'll see. I'm afraid of what they'll hear, that that is valid. And then when you look at people across the street whose lives are so lost that we can easily stand in our window when the business is slow and take videos of people shooting up or living on those benches with all their worldly belongings all day long, those are both problems. And I hope that in this conversation and every other damn conversation about it that that doesn't become one or the other problem it is both and that's why. If I might respond to that, I really appreciate that thoughtful response. And I think you have it just right that there are short run solutions in terms of public safety, whether that is more police on the street, hiring more police officers and so forth. And then there are the long run solutions, right? Many of the causal factors require long run solutions and we can't solve them in the next few weeks or even the next few years. But if we don't begin to solve them, then we're gonna continue to see some of the public lack of safety that you're referring to. And so I think you're absolutely right that we have to think complexly about this. My remarks are really influenced by what I see as a, I don't wanna remind people of the social causes of many of the problems that we see, which is not to say that we don't need to address this in terms of having policing on the streets. But there is a sense in this community, the way that this is discussed is that there's criminality. There are good people and bad people. And I just want to encourage you, there are people who struggle. We are in the midst of a mental health crisis nationally due to COVID, many of the problems that we're seeing in Burlington exist all over the country. Bennington, which has one third of the population of Burlington had 17 gunfire shots this year compared to Burlington, which was a little bit more than that. So it's not just Burlington specific and it is induced by the, as I said, COVID. And now the problem of inflation, the problem of higher interest rates that makes housing even less affordable for people. So my point to all of you is that the solutions are not just simple, they're not narrow. It's not just putting more police on the street, neither it is, and it has to be broader than that. Thanks for your comment, that was, appreciate it. Comment. I think we have a question for the comment. Yes, Stephanie. In a recent coffee with the mayor, the mayor mentioned crisis response teams that are being put together to address some of the issues you talked about. Is that the same as what you referred to as the social workers and the non sworn officers? Can you give us- Yeah, thank you, that's a great question. The crisis response team includes people from the street outreach team, from Howard, the CSLs, the community service liaisons and so forth. And I might just add that I believe that there are, I've forgotten actually the number, I think that there are six, I may be wrong about that, but we have heard that they've actually done a great job of reducing the burden on police officers. I've done ride-alongs with police officers who tell me, for example, that they're not, they don't have mental health training to respond to a number of incidents. And so having community service liaisons out on the street, doing preventative work, developing relationships with people who are struggling and so forth has been helpful. And again, the CSOs have also relieved some of the burden on officers. So it's a start, but you may all recall that $400,000 was appropriated a couple of years ago for something like Eugene Oregon's, what's called the CAHOOTS program, which is an alternative response to mental health crises that rely less on the police and more on mental health workers. My understanding is that there was one bid for this RFP and that it came in at a much higher cost than the city had funding for and the city's working with the state to see if they can find some alternative resources. So that's a, I think a great initiative if we can move that along to begin to address some of these issues. And are they, would they be dispatched through 911 instead of a police officer? I think that's a work in progress. Okay. But that would be the idea that it wouldn't necessarily, that is been one proposal. And I believe that's what happens in Eugene Oregon is that there is a centralized line and calls can be triaged so that they're not going directly to the police department but maybe going to mental health workers depending on the type of call. Yeah. Yes, right there. And then Greg, you're next. I'm Bob Lighty. And I've read where Portugal is extremely successful since they've legalized drugs and they've put their money instead of policing and prison times into social services. I believe also, I think there was a settlement today where CVS agreed to give $5 billion for opioid addiction funding as well as Wal-Mart. Walgreens, I think the other also gave $5 billion. Is there a, who's going to put together the state plan that utilizes the Sackler money, the CVS money, the Walgreens money for this purpose because we don't want to spend it on something else. No. I actually don't know the answer to that question. Maybe Tiff can help us with that. I did want to say something that your question stimulated and made that is true that Portugal has done this and it's been very successful. There are safe injection sites and widespread access to addiction recovery programs. I don't know if all of you know this but Vermont spends $57,000 per year per prisoner. And there's a lot of evidence that putting people in prison leads to recidivism. That is that because of that environment and because it's typically not a rehabilitative environment. And so I think we are ready for a big think and a really big change with regard to, broadly speaking, the criminal justice system. I had understood a few years ago that the head of corrections had proposed that Vermont build a Norwegian type prison, which is more like that there are many services that is truly rehabilitative but we haven't seen that move forward. So I want to say, I think there are many solutions. The question is where the political will is going to come from to address the problems in not in the old ways that have happened. I mean, there's a really big change in the United States and how people think about criminal justice. And we have moved away from the model that people should just be punished to understanding that people need different kind of supports to become flourishing citizens. And I don't know where that's gonna come from in Vermont other than the governor's office and hopefully some efforts from the legislature but we are more undoubtedly due for that. Greg, did you have a question or a comment? Yes, yes, I do. Excuse the Amtrak promotion behind me. Yeah, I'd like to know whether maybe Ms. Aguino knows the statistics. Has there ever attempted a, what would you call it? A survey of the folks that don't have housing that in Burlington with the question. The state, I think I agree. The state has a great responsibility to assisting in this problem. And I was thinking, you know, Bennington was mentioned and certainly Burlington is a kind of a magnet. I mean, we have a very inviting, you know, positive kinds of location for folks to arrive. And I'm guessing, and that's why I'm asking about whether or not a survey has ever been done, is that a good proportion of the folks that are in Burlington are from, originally came here from other locales, maybe in Vermont, but certainly some outside of the state. And because if my thesis is correct, then certainly the state does have a lot of responsibility to help us out financially and in other ways. People, the CSLs that work with the homeless population have a pretty good sense of folks from out of town. They come from places like Brattleboro or Bennington or other parts of Vermont. They, I believe, are a small percentage actually of the homeless here in Burlington. But what you're alluding to is something that's often discussed and that is if our social benefits are too high here, do we become a magnet for attracting people who are struggling? And I don't know the answer to that question, but I think it is a question for us to answer as to what is our obligation to help people who are struggling, whether they be from Williston or Bennington or Brattleboro. And I think you're absolutely right that there's only so much burden of community can shoulder and that this is also an issue that the state should be helping communities address. I mean, the pods that have been adopted here in Burlington is such a great example of an innovative response to homelessness. And it would be great to have at the state level an entity that actually supported other communities that these are demonstration projects, right? Burlington did this, we now know how to do it. Can the state coordinate so that other communities can learn from Burlington's experience or experiences in the other parts of the country? Pods are not new in the United States. Actually, Burlington learned from other communities across the country. That's how they kind of got the know-how to do this. And so the state could coordinate and facilitate that. And I think that's a great idea. I think Tiff is here. I hope she gets reelected so you can start working on some of these things. But it is, it really, it does start, I think with the governor's office to have a vision about where we wanna go and with the support of the legislature to help with the regulations and policies that need to get us there. Thanks. Thank you. Yeah, did you have something else to add to the conversation? Yeah, I just wanted to add that. So there was a question about, well, what's gonna happen with this money that is coming into the state? How's it gonna be allocated? There was an opioid settlement advisory committee was created and Health Commissioner Levine is on it. A member from the state Senate and House, I don't actually know who those folks are. I think that was announced probably in September and I don't serve on the health committee so I didn't get an automatic announcement. Healthcare providers and a couple of people who've lived through the experience of opioid use disorder, a judge, et cetera. I don't, I believe that they would have started meeting. I know that, I know a couple of people have been appointed and at any rate, I can share that information through from Port's Forum post, just so folks know. As for, as it relates to one of the big problems is there, you know, when people are transitioning out of substance abuse treatment, they often have nowhere to go. That is safe and supportive and that's a problem. We have not been able to pass a bill that people can agree on, both the advocates and the housing providers to date. I'm hopeful that that will be different this year. And there, you know, I think that all of the housing providers are really struggling with how best to meet the demand for housing. And we are, we're falling short and we've dedicated over $300 million to housing over the last several years with the help of federal aid. And a lot of the projects are still in the pipeline because of the shortage of materials or labor. So we're not gonna see some of those projects come online for a little while. But I think, you know, all of, most of these issues are, you know, continuously intersectional and figuring out kind of how to address them, requires addressing all of them to some degree. And so I am happy to talk with anybody I'm happy to talk with anybody about, you know, where the legislature has invested money in housing to date. And I would love to hear your thoughts about when you have a chance to, about what you see the legislature's work in the coming session being. Sorry, I took so long to say all that. Thank you, Tiff. Stephanie, did you have anything you wanted to say to kind of wrap this up? I'm gonna just take the opportunity to respond to Tiff because her point is well taken that these problems are interrelated, that public safety is related to, for example, the housing crisis. So one of the causes of the growth of the housing crisis is the rapid increase in housing prices. And that has a lot to do with investor-driven buying of homes that are driving up prices. And during COVID, the fact that we had many wealthy out-of-staters purchasing homes in Vermont. The hospital, for example, the hospital has contributed to it in its hiring of traveling nurses and traveling nurses are given $1,800 a week for housing and food. So that's roughly, I don't know, my math is $7,500 a month. And Airbnb's and others have responded in places like Burlington by jacking up their prices dramatically. So really to address even public safety, we need to have a systems approach to understanding it. And that's what the state government is for, right? Municipalities can't solve all of these locally, but we have to be thinking about all of the ways that these are interrelated. My two cents. Thank you. And thank you for your work on the commission. It's a big job. All of these are big jobs. And speaking of big jobs, we've got two more folks here on our agenda, our two city council, city councilors, I guess, Karen Paul and Joan Shannon. Thank you both for coming. And we had asked for updates in particular on the downtown development, which has been so much in the news the last couple of weeks, and about redistricting, which I think one or both of you had kind of teased us with a few months ago. I'll just toss it to you and let you address these issues. And I'm sure that folks here are gonna have questions too. Is it easier for the camera if we are in a different location or what? I think he can pull right around to you. Yeah. I mean, I can move. I can move to another table. I guess I can move. Yeah. Maybe it would be easier just so it's, you know, so there's nothing in the way. But if you want to go, you can do that. I had some, I just had some, for starting with redistricting, maybe we can pass out some information. That'd be great. These are two different maps, actually. On your assistant. Why, thank you very much, assistant Wick. So we will be discussing redistricting again on Monday. And the information that I'm passing out just shows kind of where the, you know, why we have to redistrict. You know, Ward 1 has a much higher population now than it did back in 2010 when the last, which our last redistricting was based on the 2010 census. And one of the other goals of the of the redistricting was to get rid of what is the current Ward 8, not necessarily to get rid of eight wards. So something is still called Ward 8, but the characteristics of Ward 8 that we were looking to eliminate are that it really was a gerrymandered ward so that all the students that are living in the student dominated neighborhoods are in one ward with the with the dorms. And so you have a student ward. Residents in particular who live in that ward weren't too pleased with that. But also it's become clear that it's really hard to get get the volunteers that we need to run elections and fill all of the volunteer positions from that ward because there's not enough of a long term resident group to draw on. And we know the city has a multitude of volunteer opportunities. Some of them are ward specific. So we have drawn lots of maps and it's really challenging to figure out how we're how we're going to eliminate these characteristics in the current Ward 8 and not recreate that someplace else. And there's been a lot of push in the process to put the dorms into Ward 6. So some of the dorms were historically in Ward 6. Redstone was historically in Ward 6. The athletic campus was not. But the athletic campus historically was in Ward 1, which is now overpopulated. So population needs to come away from Ward 1. So there's more pressure to put those dorms into Ward 6. And then we really need to look at, you know, are we creating Ward 8 in Ward 6 now? So do we have that population base that we need to to have a ward that's stable where we can get city counselors to step up, school board members to step up? All the people we need to run the polls and that it won't be overrun by students. And students in dorms, they can only live there two years. They have to move unlike students who are living in residence, who may be able to stay there even after they graduate. So what I what I passed out are there are some different maps that are on our agenda tomorrow. But when I did these, we didn't have our agenda yet, so I didn't know what the maps were. So one of the maps is called, let's see. Joan, if I can just interrupt for just a second, because we do have a bunch of folks online. They won't be able to see these. But is this available? If Barbara Hedrick on is Barbara. Well, there is a easy way to look at them. Yes, I'm here. If you want to go and share the screen, you can go on and look at all of the maps that are going to be discussed on Monday. There they were posted live a few hours ago. And Barbara is Barbara knows where those maps are. And she was prepared to screen share to show you. Fabulous. Great, excellent. So one of the eight of there are others. There are. Yes, there are. There are lots. This particular one is word eight, North Hill v one. That's what it's called in the on our on our agenda. The other one that I showed you is a working group map, really, just to kind of show you some of the differences. Barbara, just so you know what I handed out was working group for. But it just kind of shows you some of the different choices that we are looking at here. And when we maybe our council president can can speak to the goals of our meeting, but I think we're trying to weed down our options at our last meeting. We did eliminate. We did decide that we are looking at eight wards and 12 counselors, even though this is really not a lot of people's favorites, including my own. Um, it's where we seem to be able to reach some compromise. So we're now just looking at maps that are eight wards and 12 counselors. So maintaining the districts that most of us don't really love, but we can live with them. So we need to continue to whittle down our options and find something that everyone can agree to that has, you know, hopefully a sense of fairness for for everybody. And I could talk about city place, but I don't know if Karen maybe wants to add to that. Well, I mean, we can, you know, I mean, whatever. Or you want to talk about city police? I mean, whatever. Whatever people just while the maps are still up, maybe I'll just ask if anybody has any questions or wants to offer any opinions about that. First, looking around the room to see if anybody does. Bob, go ahead. I just have a simple question for the joint wards. It seems like the joint wards are not. It would be to me, it would make a lot more sense if it were one of the suburban wards married with one of the urban wards, as opposed to the way it is today. There's four urban wards, there's four suburban wards and it creates a political divide in our council. And if we had a more intermingled ward, I think it would be better for our our democracy. I think that's a really interesting idea. And I haven't heard that before. I I actually like the idea of having some at large counselors because I think that we do end up very divided. And I think it's good to have some people kind of looking out at the city as a whole. Probably where that happens to some extent is the combination of Ward 8 and Ward 1 now. We can, of course, combine these in any way that we want. I haven't heard that desire from from others. In fact, I think that they feel a little bit more like their their community is divided, if you look at wards two and three. The neighborhood feels much the same where the boundaries are drawn. So they might not want to be separated. But I do like the kind concept of rather than matching like wards, matching unlike wards, we are we are going to have to vote on that. So that will be that will be a discussion because we do need to we do need to make that decision. I mean, as per the charter, what the what the residents are going to vote on, what we all are going to vote on would then have to also delineate which which Ward, sorry, which Ward is with which Ward. So while that obviously that decision was made 10, you know, eight years ago when we did it the first time, we will have to make that decision formally again as well. And I have heard from others that would like to at least have that discussion about which Ward would go with which Ward. That has that has been mentioned. Greg Epler would you're up. Yes, hi. What I'm about to request may be a little bit too much for the committee. But I don't know if it's ever been looked at as part of the discussion that Ward six right now has three districts and 13, 14 and 16. And at the far northwest corner of our ward, as we look at the map, there are two square blocks of that has a total of 80 registered voters in it. And it's it's just two square blocks. And I believe I'm embarrassed to say if I believe it's a district 16. And if there are any if there's any way to just move those two square blocks into a different ward, that would really ease a lot of the problems that we have with our three tabulators, where the only ward with three districts and three tabulators. And so it would be wonderful if that could be done. And I'll say when I was trying to figure out who to invite here last month to talk to talk to potential voters, I screwed it up because it's so complicated, especially those two blocks. Well, once upon a time, not that that's really the issue, but yeah, once upon a time, we did think about trying to make them just like the districts that didn't go too far. So one of the challenges with the just aligning exactly with the districts is they have some that are one representative versus some with two representatives. And nobody seems to object to it at the state level. But there is a lot more objection to it at the city city level. So and we we have had some cognizance about that, Greg. And it's one of the reasons why we didn't go with our 12 Ward model, because I think we would have further exacerbated that problem all over the city if we had gone with 12 wards and 12 counselors. Yeah, well, it would seem that I don't know if you did it for us, you would have to do it for everybody. But just those two little square blocks, I think we had five votes that came in in the primary from those two square blocks. And for that, we had to have an extra person. We had a tabulator to count on. So it seems like to me, an anomaly, I haven't examined the entire city for anything like this. But anyway, it would be really nice to eliminate those, get those into a different ward. Thank you. I've got a question on this. How will this affect the school commissioners? Just like now, it's going to be exactly the same for the school commissioners as for city counselors. So at least that's our assumption at this point is it's going to be eight and eight, four combination, eight wards, four districts, one representative from each. Plus two counselors per ward, et cetera. Yes. What was the problem? Well, we looked at there is a strong desire among some of us not to have 16 counselors. There was a willingness to go with two counselors per ward. If it were six wards or seven wards, but not with eight wards, we couldn't reach any agreement on the drawing of boundaries around six or seven ward. Six or seven ward options. So when we went with the eight wards, the compromise was that we would do 12 counselors. Joe, I've got a question that will reveal my ignorance. This exercise, is it a state mandated exercise every once in a while? Or is it because the council is dissatisfied with the existing wards? No, this is not something that we would be doing if it were not being required of us. There's a certain amount of deviation that is allowed. And once the census comes out, we find out that we're outside that that deviation and we're required to redistrict. Kind of like a reappraisal. Right. Right. We don't do it just for fun or for political reasons or anything like that. It's as you know, I think, Jeff, it's it's a painful process that we wouldn't volunteer for. I don't think I wouldn't. Well, I don't see any other hands right now. Maybe we should go on to other topics. And if people come up with other questions, I assume it's OK if we come back to this. Yeah, Karen, did you cover city? Well, before we get to city place, I do want to mention that and we did have a special day with city place on Tuesday. We had a special council meeting, but we also had what I think is an incredibly special event that happened on Tuesday and that is right behind us at the Greek as we're at the Greek church. And that is after a dozen years, we on Tuesday at 10 a.m. the roundabout became fully functional. And yes, it was, you know, I think now when people see it, it's really as as we intended that it would be. It is a safer way to get through what was the rotary. It improves traffic flow. Definitely makes it easier to walk around the road around the roundabout. I mean, no more of this looking both ways and running. It is a much safer way to walk. And because of the tight the tightness of the of the roundabout, it absolutely slows down traffic and people will get used to it. If there are probably some that will find it a little bit slow. But in time, I think they will hopefully marvel at the fact that it's a pretty amazing spot and will probably become a quite a landmark for the city of Burlington. So it wasn't supposed to be done until June or July of next year. And S.D. Ireland worked over the winter. They had gotten a little bit behind because of some blasting, some rock that they found on, but they worked over the winter last winter and made it possible for us to avoid another winter with construction. So, you know, kudos to them for for doing what they did to get this thing up and up and running with really six months ahead. Now, how many it may have taken us a dozen years to get here, but how many projects are there that are construction that are six months ahead? So I think that's pretty impressive. And then later in the evening, the council unanimously approved the amended development agreement for city for city place. It's an agreement with the now owners of that phase of city place, which is Dave Farron, City Place Partners is Dave Farrington, who actually lives in Ward six, lives right on the Shelburne Road side of Ward six at Prospect Street or yes, Prospect Parkway. And also for Scott Ireland of S.D. Ireland and Al Seneca, the are the three partners. And, you know, they started this project, took took on this project. It was a challenging, challenging situation about a little over a year ago. They had a number of lawsuits. They had a difficult arrangement with an outside partner that we all know. And and a year later, the lawsuits have all been resolved. They are now the owners of this phase of the project. And they intend to begin pouring what they call the podium. What we would probably refer to as a foundation that includes also the first floor over the winter, they're planning to start in mid December. They're doing they will be doing excavating work in November. And the first housing units will start. The steel will go hopefully go up in the spring and completion is slated for 2025. And I won't get into all of the nuts and bolts of the development agreement. I mean, effectively, what we did was we made it possible for them to begin construction or to recommence construction on not having assembled all of the financing and construction project contracts for the entire project. The theory here being that what we have now will be enriched and they are using, you know, there are a lot of it is their own capital to start this project, which means they have when you talk about skin in the game, they have a lot of that. There's also a couple of things that we wanted to have changed with dates for the tax increment financing. And one of the reasons why we made the change was because of was the city's desire to be able to go and apply for grants that hopefully will mean that we will be able to do more public improvements around around the project. And that was one of the things that we needed to have done was for those tiff dates to be adjusted. So that's probably the easiest way of explaining it. I can't get into all the legal ease. There's a it's a long document, but those are basically the highlights of of the changes that we made. And hopefully we won't have to do another amended development agreement for some time. But, you know, like any complicated and this is a very highly complicated project on with Champlain Housing Trust, who has stepped up to do the affordable housing piece and a lot of other things that are going on in retail and housing and parking. Hopefully it will be a while before we have to do another amended agreement. But this will get us at least started. So that's it was it was an exciting night. It was a as I say, it was unanimous vote and definitely a sign of support that the council gave for to the partners and hopefully and to local partners hopefully to get this well on its way. And they are committed to getting it done there. They care about the community and they are deeply invested and are excited to get started. Thank you, Karen. Matt Grady, I see you've got a hand up. You want to ask a question or make a comment? Yeah, you have a quick question. Thanks. Thanks a lot, Karen. Can you tell us what's what's going to happen with St. Paul Street? Is that going to be one of the first things? We connected. I'd heard that was like the early plan, but what's the story with that? Well, so that would that's that, you know, that is I mean, you know, as you know, from having watched this for a long time, it is a it is a private public partnership, but it is private land and the TIF financing and the agreement that we have with you know, with the partners is to reconnect those the lost streets. So that will happen early on. You know, obviously it's a it's a little bit complicated because one of the streets has a building that wasn't there a long time ago, but is there now so they will be working around that. And and that was the reason why we have a development agreement with them because we have a vested interest in seeing them reconnect those streets. And they they have a desire to do that. So, yes, that will be one of the first things as well. Hey, thank you. Are there other folks with questions or comments? I think it's fair to say it can be on these topics or anything else you want our representatives to know about. There is a square concrete platform in the middle of the roundabout. What's going to be on it? Oh, that's a good question. You're talking about the round, the round, roundabout part. They're like, I don't know if you've seen it. There's like a square concrete platform there is a lot of concrete. Some sort of statue. Yeah, I actually I actually had asked about that too. And I was also interested in the fact that it's it's not flat. You know, the roundabout part of it is not flat. And I was wondering what are they doing with that? What I've been told is that the the middle of it will have some sort of art, but they have not yet figured out what that art is. So I don't believe it's going to be a statue. But I but I don't I don't actually know the answer to that. But that's what I've been told is that it'll be some sort of art form. And if you're asking me how that's going to be, how that's going to be arrived at, I don't know the answer to that. Like, do we park statues? Yeah, having like some pushback and people to reach out to the neighbors. So something that that would be weighted there. Well, the the roundabout itself went through hundreds and hundreds of hours of community input and the only thing I can think of that may have gone through more input was the Cliff Street sidewalk that also went through hundreds and hundreds of hours of community input. And I can assure you that what goes in the middle of the roundabout will definitely go through many hours of public input, because it is important. I agree with you. Are there any other questions? Oh, I see one of our attendees has a hand raised. I think the attendee has to talk. Oh, OK. Alan, a bear, you've got the floor. OK, it's Lucy. I just wanted to say I love the roundabout. They did such a good job in such a short amount of time. We should all be very, very proud of it. That's all I wanted to say. And thank you both for all your work on the. Many. The roundabout was underneath the roundabout or underneath what was the rotary were dozens of cables that were conduits for all the utilities. And now through that, you know, what we have now is that they're all centralized. So, you know, it's a it's sort of hard to imagine what is underneath it, but it's all very, very modern, whereas before it was just a hodgepodge of just it looked like, you know, a bowl of spaghetti. So we're I think it hopefully will serve us for many years to come. The other thing I did want to mention is just that there will be a number of charter changes that we will be voting on on between now and the deadline, which is in early December. And some of them are still in the Charter Change Committee, and some of them will be on our agenda on the 21st of November. But there will be a number of items that we'll be voting on in March. But I don't know exactly what they are. We don't know exactly what they are, but we'll be happy to come back and discuss those when the time comes. Great. Other questions or comments in the room or online? OK, well, we did have one other item on the agenda. We were hoping to have a representative from the police department come. We weren't able to make that happen this time. They were here a few months ago, and I think Stephanie did a great job on filling us in on a lot of the issues that the police commission is addressing. So may have answered some of the questions that we would have heard from the department. At next month's meeting, I just want to mention two things. One is we would love to hear from folks about what kinds of things you would like to see on these agendas, community conversations you want to have. We're going to put that question out in December over pizza and maybe even more better offerings than pizza. But we thought that would be better done when when most folks are here in person. And hopefully that'll be December. And I had another one that went straight out of my head. The grant. Were you going to talk about that? I think we'll talk about that in December. Well, whatever it is, it can't be that important. We'll put it on transport. Thank you, everybody, for attending. And both in person and online and have a good month. We'll see you the first Thursday in December. And do I need to do anything official?