 time is 5.40 we're going to get started because we have a busy agenda and I would entertain a motion to opt our agenda and to read the recommended action if there's someone who's willing to do that anyone willing to do that thank you thanks Councillor Barlow it's right it's it's it just was updated on on yes I have it here I move to amend adopt agenda as follows at an agenda item 5.19 communication vehicle for hire licensing board vehicle for hire modernization to the consent agenda item 5.20 communication Dana Poverman regarding resolution on tomorrow's agenda add to the consent agenda item 5.21 communication Ed Baker regarding comments agenda item comments agenda item 6.2 note proposed amendments for agenda item 6.2 per Councillor McGee thank you for that motion is there a second to that motion seconded by Councillor Travers is there any discussion on that motion seeing none all those in motion please say hi please say no we have agenda also know that Councillor Grant is also joining us by Zoom and Councillor Grant did you have a did you have something that you wanted to add I did I apologize I'm on my way back into Berlin's either do Councillor Grant if you could just stand by we're having a little bit of a technical difficult we'll get to you as soon as we can I'm sorry we could hear that small sound so we can hear you okay Councillor Grant on Councillor Travers has has his computer on audio so we might be able to simply hear you through that audio you hear us she can hello okay so Sarah Councillor Carbonary you can hear us yes I can now Councillor Grant can you hear us can you hear me great yes we can Councillor Grant if you wanted to go ahead okay thank you so I have to apologize because I missed the beginning of the motion where we I wanted to add an item to the deliberative agenda well we voted on the we've voted on the agenda we had amendments and we voted on that but if you weren't able to hear us I don't know that we need to go and make a motion to reconcile at this point given the fact that there was a technical issue if there is then we'll have we would have to do that at what would be your opinion the correct manner of doing it would be for a motion to reconsider what to be made from a member of the majority you did have a quorum of the body who vote adopting the agenda so I think you'd have a motion to reconsider which has to be made by a member who voted in favour of the motion first and I would so move okay thank you Councillor Bergman seconded by Councillor McGee I believe that requires two thirds is that correct just the majority okay so we have a motion to reconsider all those in favour of the motion to reconsider please say aye any opposed please say no okay so there are 11 of us here yes there are 11 of us here so that that passes 10 to 1 Councillor Grant please continue you I wanted to add a brief agenda item to discuss a plan of action Councillor Grant do you have anything anything for that item staff is going to be presenting something anyone that you have contacted in advance to do that Councillor Grant I have had communications with the city attorney today and I would just go to the city attorney were you able to communicate prior thing with Councillor Grant and what was your what was your opinion on this I did speak with Councillor Grant I would just speak to the agenda I think that if Councillor Grant wants to address this there is the opportunity to address it in the affairs which is part of the City Council agenda which was my advice to Councillor Grant at that time in terms of actions that this may or may not be taking it with regard to the NPAs that's something that we're still developing a strategy around but it is something that we're working to actively address her concerns as well as others is it is it is it your is it your opinion that or the opinion of the issue that you will be able to come forward with something by our next council meeting on October 23rd I think that we are actively working on it again this is a something that has developed quite rapidly and so to make a definitive timeline it's hard to say set that as a goal okay thank you Councillor Grant did you want to continue or we would then have to go and vote to amend the agenda to include agenda item is there anything else you wanted to add thank you very much so given the fact that we are not amending our agenda we still have to vote on the motion to reconsider because that's the motion on the floor is that correct even though there was no change to the agenda no I believe that there was a motion to reconsider you did vote on that and so that's there now you had it would be adopt the agenda and then you would have moved on that so I think that that's what's before you was to adopt the agenda again okay so we are doing the motion to adopt the agenda with the amendment that we already had yes okay so is there a motion to adopt the agenda thank you count and seconded by Councillor Jang um is there any discussion on that motion seeing none will go to a vote all those in favor of the motion as as presented please say aye aye any opposed please say no that motion passes unanimously so that moves us on to item 2.1 which is a communication Mayor Mayor Merrill Weinberger it's a privileged update on Memorial Auditorium as well as discussion regarding a negotiation of an agreed tank pertaining to capital investments and as these items relate to contract negotiations this agenda item contains an expected executive session before we go to those motions Mayor Weinberger it's our custom to go to the administration if there's any update that you wish to provide to the public in open session thank you all I'll speak briefly to both the first item with respect to Memorial Auditorium the council remember that we last discussed Memorial Auditorium at this body sometime in the spring after the unsuccessful RFP that did not result in any project to move forward with at the time we had discussions that we would the CEDO led by Samantha Donner our assistant director for community works would be exploring through a number of means how to go forward considering a new RFP perhaps with different constraints than the initial one CEDO has been doing that work and we do have an update to share with the council it's there is the possibility that what could unfold in the months to come would involve new real estate agreements and so our recommendation that we brief the council on this in at first so as not to negatively impact the public's position in these possible with respect to the second executive session this is the second time we've requested a session to share with the council all information regarding capital investments at the airport by the Vermont International Guard and again I think it's in the interest of the council and the public that we have the discussions in executive session there were I think it there will be no action expected on either of these items tonight I do think it's likely that we will be seeking action on both in the in the weeks to come and we will be there will be future public communications well in advance of those votes thank you mayor Weinberger with that we'll go to councillor travers if you could please make the motion the first motion executive session I'm going to find that premature general public knowledge of contract negotiations related to the Patrick Leahy International Airport and also a memorial auditorially place the city at a substantial disadvantage because the city risks disclosing its negotiating strategy if discussing the proposed contract terms and negotiations in public your councillor travers is there a second to that motion seconded by councillor Shannon thank you is there any discussion on that motion I see go to a vote all those in favor of the motion please say aye and he opposed please say no that motion passes unanimously and with that to the second motion councillor travers based on the finding of substantial disadvantage I move that we enter into executive session to discuss contract negotiations real estate purchase or lease options pursuant to one vsa section 313 one a and two thank you councillor travers seconded by councillors a motion has been made to go into executive session all those in favor of that motion please say aye aye aye any opposed please go that motion passes unanimously so we will now be in executive session we we will be going downstairs into the busher conference room everyone who is here to sit and make yourself comfortable and we do expect to be back here before 715 thank you thank you so much for your patience while we worked out a few technical details and thank you so much for joining us for the city council meeting the time is now 717 so we will resume our council meeting with item number three which is the public forum before we begin public forum I I would like to note that we do have a process for this part of our meeting and I speak for the full city council as we share a strong commitment to an orderly process and one that honors all voices and respectful discourse for those that are in con choice who wish to speak during public forum we have a timer system that is on the table in front of me and it has three lights on it the green light will shine when you begin speaking the second yellow light when you have 30 seconds left and then the last light is a red light that will shine when your time is up please complete your sentence if you are in mid-sentence when the sound and light indicate that your time is up so that everyone has the same amount of time and we can keep the public forum moving along if you're joining us online there is a timer system that will be set up on zoom we don't have a light system but when your two minutes are up then the clock winds down to zero please complete your sentence so that we can move on to the next community member we have a hybrid system for public forum if you wish to speak in person there are forms to my right in the back of the room please complete one and then bring it to the clerk that is in the on the right to the in the front of the room if you wish to speak on zoom you can go to the following website and that is our web page that is burlington vt.gov forward slash city council one word forward slash public forum when you do that there'll be a form that will come up if you complete the form your answers will come into a spreadsheet that I have right here on my computer and that way I can call you in the order in which you had requested to speak it has been our practice that Burlington residents will have first priority we will go to Burlington residents in con toys who have submitted a form in person and these are the forms that I have with me you're welcome to fill them out as we are doing public forum and then we will go to Burlington residents who have completed an online form we will then come back to Berlin non Burlington residents who have joined us in con toys and then we will finish with online non Burlington residents that have joined us on zoom during public forum we ask that you please use respectful language we would like to mine remind everyone here this evening and online that there are families who watch our council meetings as their connection to teaching their children about civil engagement civic engagement please think about that when you are speaking and remember that your words are being heard by families and by young children we ask that everyone refrain from speaking speaking and using profanity when you are speaking please face me director comments to me as the chair and not to anyone else at this table or not to anyone in the audience gathered please do not personalize your comments this rule will be enforced again we want to hear what you have to say and it is much easier for us to listen intently to you if you speak respectfully with that we will go to those that are joining us in con toys and we will start again with Burlington residents the first speaker is Stephen Whitaker to be followed by Reagan Lafferty good evening and all you need to do is make sure that the green button in front of you is on can you hear me yes you could even get closer to the microphone that would be okay so I want to address I'm going to talk fast and I ask you to consider putting this issue on a future agenda soon because the impact I cannot do this and I don't think two minutes is consistent with law we've got some misdirected reactions to problems that we're compounding we have a beautiful waterfront a treasure thanks Bernie we have facilities a shortage of facilities and our reactive mode is shutting down facilities I pointed out to the mayor that we had four concerts on the waterfront lawn with a thousand people outside of the concerts and we locked the bathrooms at eight o'clock and low and behold North Beach was closed for E. Coli so I asked the mayor what did you think was gonna happen but the restrooms at the Boat House I've reviewed the contract with Burlington Harbor Marina Boat House is seasonal because of the temperature control as is the marina there used to be 24 7365 bathrooms there at that were torn down to accommodate that marina their contract requires them to be open eight to five eight to seven on Thursdays and Fridays or Friday and Saturdays they're in consistent violation of that contract and no one reinforces it I've called it to the mayor's attention to the park's director's attention no one enforces that and it's a problem of dignity we've got a hundred people living out in the northern open lands or more than a hundred people who are living out there and we deny them dignity we're compounding the problem of addiction and and waste and hopelessness so these are big issues it's unfair for me to try to do justice to them in two minutes but the city is now complicit with the Burlington Harbor marina in allowing them to no trespass me because I'm calling attention to this issue thank you very much our next speaker is Reagan Lafferty to be followed by Andre Clark good evening hi my name is Keegan sorry Regans my apologies you're good all right first I want to say thank you to the city council president for listening to what I have to say and giving me a chance to speak and also thank you to the city council and the mayor for your thoughtful leadership and for listening to what I have to say I'm here on behalf of big heavy world we're a music nonprofit in Burlington we focus on advocating for musicians and making Burlington's music scene more equal and accessible we recently developed a licensing platform that gets Vermont artists paid when their music is used in media progress projects it gives marketing agents agencies access to authentic music and it's a large move toward fair compensation and direct benefit for artists it also moves the state toward a reputation defined by thoughtful and inclusive exposure of its creative sector so that's something that we're very proud of that we've been working on we're also working with a group of youth in our community to develop a plan for a youth led and youth run cultural space and music venue we need it's really important that we have programs that engage the youth and give them meaningful experiences because it keeps them away from dangerous alternatives like drug use violence so it's really important that we have a space like that that exists in Burlington and we need the support of the city and its residents in order to effectively provide a space like that so I just wanted to put that on the forefront of y'all's minds and put it out there so thank you so much for listening thank you thanks very much our next speaker is Andre Clark to be followed by David Maher is it working perfect so my name is Andre I'm a student in University University Vermont's master of public health program formerly unhoused so the state of Vermont is amidst a crisis when it comes to housing their citizens that requires immediate short-term solutions in conjunction with long-term plans for affordable housing Vermont has the second highest per capita rate of homelessness in the country behind only California based on the latest data from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development the point-in-time count in January 2023 found an 18.5% increase in persons experiencing homelessness in Vermont compared to the prior year this is an increase of 197% since the pre-pandemic point-in-time count 2020 this problem has only gotten worse as the state continues to wind down their motel housing program causing more strain and overburdened social service providers the housing market and directly impacting individuals health and well-being all of this comes as local shelters at capacity in Burlington where many people are likely to head as a rental vacancy rate of 1% this creates a scenario where people are forced to sleep unsheltered due to there being no other options available to them while the city of Burlington is discussing opening an emergency shelter with up to 30 beds on December 15th this is not enough beds and it is being opened too late winter is on its way now and will not wait until December 15th to make living outside even more unsafe and unsustainable there are already over 200 people who are unsheltered and sleeping outside or in places not deemed fit for human habitation this necessitates an immediate and comprehensive solution to deal with the health and safety hazards inherent to people living unsheltered that include threats to the individual the community and the environment to help remedy this scenario I propose a policy that allows for sanctioned encampments to take place on public and private land within the city of Burlington and hope that this can stand as a model for Chittenden County and the rest of Vermont as we move towards a path towards more sustainable housing options one option to consider is utilizing North Beach campground which already has the infrastructure including bathroom showers and waste receptacles to house a temporary winter site thank you thank you very much our next speaker is David Maher Dave Maher to be followed by a Romeo von Herman good evening thank you and good evening my name is Dave Maher I've lived in the Burlington area most of my adult life I'm gonna talk about the opioid crisis you know there are two sides to the opioid equation there's supply and there's demand now the police are responsible for the supply end and we're gonna hear from them in a little bit about what they're doing about that but seems to me we're not doing enough about the demand side of the equation hear a lot about harm reduction we're giving out free syringes Narcan and there's talk of safe injection sites but these actions they don't reduce demand if anything they will increase demand because they make drug use safer so I think that we could all agree that we want to get drug users off the streets and into rehab but how do we do it usually it takes some sort of intervention and a lot of times the people living on the streets taking drugs they don't have someone a family member a close friend who can take the action to do an intervention of that sort but I've got a suggestion that probably won't be very popular but I'll make it anyway and that is to employ involuntary commitment which is allowed by Vermont law now that may sound harsh but I did it for my brother who was drinking a quart of vodka a day and I'm glad I did it so I think it's a good option for people who are living on the streets and injecting poison into their veins and you know maybe that's not the best option I'd like to hear other options but we need to do something different what we're doing now we're not going to solve the problem thank you thank you very much our next speaker is romeo von herman to be followed by david call good evening good evening madam president thank you for having me I just wanted to speak to a just my support for a couple of resolutions I was already on the books one being the deliberative item agendas 6.2 as well as 6.4 but before I go into that I wanted to show my support for the people of Israel going through such a difficult and unprecedented time today and they had their own 9-11 over the weekend and it's been really gut wrenching to see the families being torn apart children being hunted down young adults being shot on site it is just heartbreaking to see what's happening over there and I hope that they get all the support that they need to get back on their feet as best as possible I don't profess to know the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians but it's just just heartbreaking to see what's happening over there and I hope that someday the city or anybody will show them as much support as they need but beyond that just want to show my support for items 6.2 and 6.4 thank you thank you so much our next speaker is david call to be followed by janna coiley I hope I pronounced that right hit the green button yes just make sure it's the light is on can you hear me yes madam chair council mayor I want to say that we're doing the best we can in this community to solve all the issues I have hope and faith in our society that we will solve some of these major issues I think sometimes we all look at the negative more than the positive but I'm a I've been a Berlin Tony and for a very long time I want to say also the Almond Avenue shelter is extremely going well and I'm proud of the work that we all have done and I hope maybe someday we could engage other community members to solve some of these odd issues that we're having now so I have faith and that sometimes which all you need is faith thank you thank you very much our next speaker is janna coiley to be followed by Megan manier and again you'll correct me if I've mispronounced your name good evening good evening my name is janna coiley I am a business owner here in downtown Burlington I own home and garden Vermont at 206 College Street I also live at 40 College Street and number 203 every day I walk to my shop every single day from 40 College Street to 206 College Street I have been doing this for the past five years five years ago I wasn't nervous I am nervous now I'm scared now it makes me extremely nervous to walk to work but I'm going to continue to do it every day I walk around tents and people laying on the sides who have made homes in front of ace hardware the old Burton building sometimes in front of my building I am sick and tired of being sick and tired I'm tired of being scared when I go out to take my trash I have to take my slicer with me not only because I'm slicing down my box cutters but because I'm scared about who is going to come around the back of the little recycling container to try to assault me I have poop on my building I have graffiti on my roof as of last week we have taken graffiti down from my building two and three times it is costing me money to get that graffiti off of my roof now whoever mother is I have to spend another $600 I'm trying to run a business a nice business I sell flowers I sell encouragement in my building it's a nice shop and I want to continue to be there my husband and I retired here from Hilton Head Island oh to seek a better finish the sentence yeah we tried to come here to seek a better life and I'm not sure about that now anyway I have a lot more to say but another time thank you thank you very much so our next speaker is Megan Monier I believe that's what I believe that's what it is but you'll correct me if I'm wrong and the next speaker will be Michael Nadel hi I'm Megan Minan sorry it looks like an R I'm Diana's daughter and she's the reason why we moved here we've been here now for 12 years from South Carolina but we live on North Prospect Street and I similarly the concern is great for that the way that the city has gone and not only for ourselves but just for the people that are experiencing the the crisis that we've seen right now the conversations that I have with my eight-year-old daughter on our walk to school our conversations about how do we solve this problem how do we care for these people and at the same time how do we keep ourselves safe if something happens that's a conversation that I'm having with my eight-year-old daughter on the way to school that's not the conversation that I want to be having and that she wants to be having she considered writing something because she knew what was happening like the conversations that are happening here and she would be here if she could so I just want to voice my support for six two tonight that we're talking about and voice her support too as an eight-year-old girl who wants to be active here in local politics and really care and love our community and really see our community thrive once again I want to see a place where people aren't saying that they are afraid to come downtown that they're actually excited to come downtown again to see a place where really again all people can thrive and I know that there are folks that are unhoused and we have we need to solve that problem as well so that we can all feel safe and have a safe place to live and in the winter have a safe place to live as well I thank you all for the work that you're doing and I just hope that we can work together to solve the public safety crisis here that we're having thank you our next speaker is Michael Nadel to be followed by Andrew Voda good evening my name is Michael Adele I live on Peru Street live within 50 yards of a preschool on Allen Street I live close to the Elmwood Cemetery I think the pods on Elmwood are a great program but they've attracted drug use and and and transients to the area and I've watched more people than they care to see shoot up within 50 yards of that preschool and climb the fence over to Elmwood and and use the cemeteries to toilet I don't wish to see that anymore I've noticed in a police log that there's three foot patrols that go up Church Street every day I know for you know this but Elmwood is really close to Church Street so if they could just continue up Elmwood three times a day perhaps that routine kind of surveillance and and foot patrol would detract these drug users and transients who are preying on those people in the pods from using that area as a drug use area thanks thank you very much our next speaker is Andrew Voda to be followed by Andrew Janice Janice good evening my name is Andrew Voda and I'm a parent and a 25-year resident of Burlington President Paul I'm here to thank the Public Safety Committee for authoring the resolution to be discussed later and I respectfully urge the council to approve it without further delay Burlingtonians myself among them have grown incredibly frustrated with the situation in our downtown in our neighborhoods our parks and across the city we are not okay with the level of property crime brazen drug dealing and use violent crime and most of all people suffering we want acknowledgement of the situation from our leaders and we want to hear you say that it is a crisis we want more data and transparency about what is and isn't happening in response we want to know why it seems to be getting worse and not better but most of all we want action there are many reasons why we're in the situation that we're in and we can't do anything about the past but what you can do now as leaders is to act with urgency and collaboration with the administration our dedicated police and fire departments our state's attorney's office judicial system state government and federal delegation to respond thank you for your good work and for the opportunity to speak with you tonight thank you very much so our next speaker is Andrew Janays I'm I you'll you again will wow okay I really didn't get that thank you welcome so hello everyone my name is Andrew I'm a business owner here in Burlington I'm also a father a husband and a homeowner prior to any of those blessings I was a broken individual who moved to a sober living establishment in the south end of Burlington in the summer of 2011 to recover from an opioid addiction over the past 12 years I've helped many people get sober and more importantly stay sober I currently help lead a group known as the family restored which focuses on speaking with families who are impacted by their loved ones in the in their current state of using during this meeting we often teach that enabling can come in many forms and that engaging in any behavior that is providing comfort to an addict or alcoholic can be detrimental the desire to change comes from discomfort I didn't ask for help until I had been arrested and was facing a lengthy prison sentence as well as my friends and family were no longer who will no longer willing to provide me any form of comfort my clients have told me that the only reason that they come downtown is is to come see me and otherwise they refuse to spend money in Burlington as they do not want to support what is taking place aside from the business I have worked extremely hard for and wanting to be successful it pains me to see the current state of Burlington downtown is dying some families don't feel comfortable walking around violence is up and there are multiple overdoses daily I see myself and the people around downtown afflicted by the illness of addiction and all I can speak on is what got me better and that was accountability and tough love there are countless amounts of others that I know that would agree with these statements I believe the proposal being discussed is a movement in the correct direction in my opinion in my experience to keep the focus on the current drug drug epidemic that of solely harm reduction will ultimately lead to more overdose deaths so I thank you president and the rest of the city council for allowing me the opportunity to share my experience with you I do believe this is a crucial moment for Burlington and I appreciate that the council is focused on the work thank you thanks very much our next speaker is Eric Cronk to be followed by Todd LaCroix good evening just press the one in the middle where it says push trying it's on it's on thank you for having us this evening I live downtown a long-standing member of Burlington and a common theme I completely support the resolution that's being proposed to address our crisis our mental health crisis and our opioid crisis in Burlington clearly our humanity wants us to reach out to our brothers and sisters in need but we also have a multi-layered problem as we all know homelessness oftentimes is overlying a drug problem which is overlying perhaps a mental health issue which perhaps might be overlying a host of other issues going back to childhood trauma brought on by poverty and brought on by lack of positive role models and on and on and on so balancing our our humanity our humanity must be a level of common sense to really find creative solutions to this problem and I applaud the others who have spoken here tonight but we need to employ some very creative problem solving on this the second thing I wanted to say is it's implied in the resolution and it's been touched upon here tonight but one example is this which is quite interesting so we spent a very nice sum of our treasure to create this beautiful city hall park perhaps one of the great hallmarks to our city and right now as we sit here there's an act of drug market happening 50 yards right over there I walked by it coming here it's let's make a deal right now right over there so I have friends in Chittenden County who quite apprehensively will come downtown in Burlington right now and we have stores that are leaving I've seen tourists shoved to the ground on Church Street so we must take some action to reclaim our city because we're driving people away thank you our next speaker is Todd LaCroix to be followed by Ryan Nick good evening you people are ridiculous you say you care about all this stuff but listen to this everybody's like what the whole society is in trouble yet you guys just want to start wars elsewhere and spend all this money on wars elsewhere making more homeless in those wars and then they all these refugees that we make with disastrous foreign policy and we're having to deal with the influx of the damage that we've caused and here we are dealing with climate refugees on top of it and then the reason why most people are homeless is because there's no affordable rents and there's no livable wages that ends up homeless and then the drugs and the problems usually get exasperated in the desperation of the homelessness and the fact that you guys don't care you talk about caring but yet here you have spent 12 years since I was abused and tortured by the Burlington police just dehumanizing me you are using the police to harass me and help destroy my life I am literally being prosecuted for stuff that is insane right now and yet you're smiling while you're doing it to me giving me $500 tickets for walking my bike for speaking out for police reform that happened the day after you cut off my mic and supported the violation of my civil rights yes you are harassing me outside and violating my civil rights and destroying my life and you're enjoying it and you're doing it to all the kids out there and you're doing it to your children too and other people's children all over the world thank you so much our next speaker is Ryan Nick to be followed by Morgan Hilla Brann Hill and Brann good evening thank you for the time to speak tonight I'm Ryan Nick a Ward 8 resident in a downtown employee and I'd like to take this time to emphasize and reiterate the urgency of the problems we face downtown the resolution you're considering tonight is a great first step but I strongly encourage you to pass it as is and move quickly on to taking actions that will improve the situation of our city the systems in place right now are not compassionate for anyone and fail the most vulnerable of our residents this summer has shown just how far Burlington has fallen an immediate action is required to get people the help that they need please do not delay further with amendments that weaken the resolution be thoughtful in your actions but please pick up the pace we cannot wait any longer and the inaction at the local and state level has been disheartening I hope the council continues to publicly call for action and funding from our state government as well as data from our prosecutorial and judicial systems the atmosphere downtown is one of fear anger and despair amongst a wide range of community members and we feel abandoned by our leaders we have seen businesses closing downtown and the ones that remain open cannot find employees for fear of their own safety downtown's fail slowly and then all at once please help us turn the ship around thank you thank you very much our next speaker is Morgan Hillenbrand to be followed by Chad mangan good evening nope there we go hi thanks for having me my name is Morgan Hillen brand and I live in Burlington with my husband and my two kids I'm a working mom and for the past 20 years I've worked on State Department and USA initiatives overseas I'm speaking tonight as a concerned parent and a career development specialist that has spent most of my life working with communities in crisis I believe that we're framing the discussion of the opioid crisis in a way that's limiting our thinking and trapping us in a zero-sum game where we feel we only have two approaches to the problem harm reduction or law enforcement which folks feel are diametrically opposed the reality is that we need we have two crises in town and we need to use both of these approaches the first crisis is a humanitarian crisis where a large population of sick unhoused vulnerable people are physically mentally and spiritually brutalized by their disease a humanitarian response to the crisis is required which means services food water shelter and yes harm reduction strategies as part of the as part of the solution but we also have a governance crisis and rule of law has been compromised in Burlington we have high crime drug trafficking public drug consumption home invasion auto theft and a host of other issues community faith and the leaders responsible for upholding the rule of law is compromised trust between the police and the community is compromised criminals thrive during humanitarian crises and the chaos that ensues holding them accountable is part of the job of a humanitarian response without rule of law societies cannot function and I have lived and worked in many of them the economics of this town are based on people feeling safe here I ask our council leaders to pass the resolution and provide care for the vulnerable groups in our community while also upholding the rule of law thank you so much for your work and your time thank you so much our next speaker is Chad mangan to be followed by and tuxbury fry good evening good evening thank you council my name is Chad mangan I live in the south end of Burlington I grew up in Burlington I've been around Burlington my whole life and I can say without a doubt that the rampant drug use and violent theft is at an all-time high the services that we're providing are apparently attracting people who don't respect our community example being doing drugs in public littering needles especially being the concern there sure we've all had our experiences additionally I think if we're going to provide these services we should provide them in a way that discourage drug use rather than allowing without any repercussions to do drugs and benefit from the services and programs that we offer while acting in a non-neighborly fashion I'm a dad of a toddler and I choose not to bring my family to the new City Hall Park because of these issues these aren't back alley drug users they're open in City Hall Park and it doesn't feel safe for me or my family and that's the first time I felt that way in the city thank you very much our next speaker is Anne tuxbury fry to be followed by Brian Boardman good evening good evening everybody my name is Anne tuxbury fry I'm a resident of Burlington I'm a long time former teacher in the Old North End presently teaching at St. Mike's and I'm honored to be here as the president of a non-profit that you may not know about in Burlington called jump jump stands for joint urban ministry project and it's been happening in Burlington for 35 years I'm just here to let you know during this incredibly important evening that we are here and we are helping and hoping to continue to serve the population that you are talking about jump is a non-profit 501 3 organization with interfaith roots and support that provides practical resources hospitality and thoughtful referrals to people in need jump was founded in 1988 and is supported by 28 Vermont faith communities foundations local agencies and partners businesses individual donors volunteers and committed leadership and a gifted staff we provide gift cards to local grocery stores and thrift stores vouchers to the laundromat as well as helping people to pay the utility bills so they won't get shut off since January of 2023 jump has served 984 households representing nearly 2000 individuals we assist residents of Chittenden County once every three months the continued housing crisis those struggling with their mental health and increase in drug use in Chittenden County has risen to a crisis level and we know that we're open two mornings a week at the first congregational church on South Winooski Avenue I would like to be able to I want you to know that we're there and we're doing our best and we would love to be connected with the city council I have business cards that are a little bit enlarged because I had a lot to say on the back and is there a way Madam Chairman that I can get them to people on the council I'm sure that the CAO would be happy to take them off your hands and we'll each get one thank you so much thank you our next speaker is Brian Boardman to be followed by Lee more again good evening are we all right you don't need to press one of those just the microphone okay great or it should be on our my name is Brian Boardman I'm a resident of Burlington I grew up here and I was not going to speak tonight but I had a really disturbing experience on Saturday being downtown just trying to get cash out of the community bank ATM and there were people behind the bank eight or ten different people camping hanging out and it's for the first time in my life this was in broad daylight ten in the morning I really felt unsafe in my own city and it just really it just hurt to the core and it though I already knew there was a problem I'm in recovery and the first step in recovery for any addict is to acknowledge the problem and then recover move forward to recovery the city of Burlington is at that point now we need to acknowledge that there's a problem and move and take the steps to move forward to get into recovery and take care of this problem the solution is the resolution that's on the table it doesn't need to be changed it needs to be voted on tonight and approved so we can move forward and bring Burlington back thank you thank you very much our next speaker is Lee more again to be followed by Isabella Farron good evening Lee my name is Lee Morgan I live in Ward 7 and tonight I will add that I am also an alcoholic and a drug addict I'm able to sit in front of you here tonight because of a very complicated blend of harm reduction and enforcement in 2007 I had an overdose that knocked out my ability to talk I sustained a chemical traumatic brain injury and I was involuntarily committed to a mental health institution I was no stranger to mental health hospitals but that was my first involuntary commitment and it was very different when I discharged my psychiatrist who I had been keeping in the dark about a lot of my stuff I told him I drank occasionally but he found out through my hospitalization that I was in alcohol induced hepatitis and in the early stages of liver failure and I could no longer talk very well so he used the powers of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to seek the appointment of my guardianship and told me if I did not want to live in an institution against my will I had to get clean and sober for a certain amount of time my intention was to get clean and sober and get out of trouble and continue drinking and that's exactly what I did in two hours into a relapse I wound up in front of more people who got to make decisions about me and while it was very difficult to go through that I'm grateful for it I know I never would have chose to get sober I know that I was in liver failure and I couldn't talk and I thought it wasn't that bad yet so you know I think we need to not fall into the trap of thinking one answer is is how to do it because I know if there was just one focus with me it never would have happened and I give a lot to the city and say what you will about me I show up in my life and what I lived through I will show up when it's hard I show up when it's easy and I'm really glad to be able to share my story with you tonight thanks our next speaker our next speaker is Isabella Fern to be followed by Christopher Aaron Felker hi my name is Bella Fern I use she her pronouns and I live in word three I'm here today with my friends and neighbors asking you to support harm reduction instead of increasing use of law enforcement and imprisonment for those struggling with drug misuse as much as I'm tempted to read off compelling statistics and I'm more tempted and compelled to tell my family's story two years ago while I was moving into my Park Street apartment I received a call from my sister we had lost our cousin to an overdose she was 23 she had a bright future ahead of her and a family who loved her deeply before this event she was had encounters with law enforcement because of possession but nothing meaningful was done on that day she had a friend her and a friend had overdosed in her car with no one there to support her no one there to save her if she had a place to go like a safe injection site maybe she would still be alive today maybe like one in five people who use safe injection sites she would have gotten the support that she needed if we continue to villainize those who use drugs and deal with their issues through increased enforcement rather than compassion nothing will be nothing will happen but more casualties of this war on drugs when we use incarceration and the criminal punishment system to solve this crisis we push people into the shadows we push people into their cars we push people to their death thank you thank you very much our next speaker is Christopher Aaron Felker and then we will proceed with Burlington residents who are joining us online good evening good evening so it's been over ten years since governor Shumlin dedicated the state of the state addressed to it focusing on the heroin crisis at the time in that amount of time this state has opened zero zero additional inpatient treatment beds as a matter of fact we've lost in patient treatment beds it's incredibly upsetting to me on a deeply personal level that politicians tend in this state tend to talk about the addiction crisis every 18 months and yet they can't manage to get anything accomplished in the last 10 years of real value we can't open beds this is a multi-layer failure of every level of governance in this state from governor Scott's office to the regulatory agencies to the state's attorney's office to write down here to Burlington we need to work together to find solutions I'm 44 years old and I've never seen so much despair and hopelessness in my entire life that I see on the streets today we talk about harm reduction harm reduction is a very broad term that is all-encompassing I support needle exchanges I support Narcan I support fentanyl test strips I do not support illicit injection sites or safe injection sites or safe consumption facilities or whatever your focus groups tell you is the least repugnant branding for this type of center the data is clear clients of these so-called safe injection facilities tend to utilize them every 10 to 14 days but we know that fentanyl addicts are shooting up seven eight ten times a day safe injection facilities will do absolutely nothing to stop people who are smoking crack and meth on our streets thank you thanks very much so we will now move to those people who wish to speak online and we'll set up a timer on the screen over here thanks very much so the first person who is joining us to speak online is Kyle Dodson and Kyle I have found you and enabled your microphone if you unmute you should be able to speak hey there chairwoman Karen can you hear me yes yes we can wow look at that technology I just want to say it's inspiring and moving to hear all my fellow Berlin Tony and speaking out tonight I just wanted to reach out with the encouragement for everyone we're in a tough time and we're moving to a tougher time the issues we're facing seem irreconcilable I don't know what the solutions are to the challenges with mental health crises opiate crises homelessness crises and it's going to take a while to move through them what Amish then personally and as the CEO of Y is making sure that we move through these challenges with the greatest amount of cohesion unification and togetherness as possible next year the election year with the national election and now our own mayoral void that we're hoping great people who want to serve our community will step up but it's going to be tough it'll only be tougher if we're at each other's throat so we have a challenge of getting all the voices in the room right it's been wonderful to people who came to speak up tonight but for each of us who came to speak up there's 10 50 100 people who are at home they're jaded they're cynical they're disconnected they're living their lives and we got to figure out how to get more of us talking thank you to the council thank you to all my fellow Berlin Tony and we at the Y are going to be presenting some opportunities for convening and talking about these issues so I just want to say I hope all you know how much I care about this community and I don't have answers but I certainly have a lot of love for you that's about it thank you very much Kyle our next speaker this is definitely going to be a name that will challenge me is Tomas Schispjorski and I don't find that name on Zoom however I find I do find someone with the same last name so I'm going to assume that they're related and will allow that microphone to be enabled it's Alexis Schispjorski so all you need to do is unmute on your end and we'll be able to hear you I believe I've located the right person and you're you are muted on your end so what we'll do is we'll go to the next person in the queue and then we will come back we will come back to this person the next person is Kelly Kimball and I don't see anyone online with that name if you are on if you are on Zoom with a different name just simply use the raise hand function and I will find you the next speaker is Sharon Busher and President Paul point of information I do see a raised hand here it is from a different name okay well we'll see would you like me sure so that's it's under the just one name Robin yes Robin are you one of the two people that I had just called off and you just need to unmute yourself no I'm I'm sorry what I am not one of those two people I am not one of those two people okay so have you signed up to speak on did you sign up to speak or just so that I know which which person you are on in the queue I already removed her permission to speak I was a little happy there with the button the next person that is in the queue is Kelly Kimball and as I've said I cannot find I cannot find Kelly so please use the raise hand function and I will attempt to find you as we move on in the queue the next person in the queue was Sharon Busher and I don't see you online or do not see you online so again please use the raise hand function the next person is Mary Cox and Mary Mary I have found you and enabled your microphone you should be able to speak if you just unmute yes we can please go ahead so I'm speaking I'm speaking in favor of item 6.2 the resolution having to do with substance abuse and the I like the whole spirit of the resolution I like the things that are in it one of the things in particular is the willingness to try innovative things and my family's been beneficiary of a program in California that tackles one small portion of the problem through a felony diversion program with low-level felonies committed by a person that has one of three specific mental health diagnoses but virtually all of them end up also having a drug abuse substance abuse problem and there it's a long two-year program with inpatient for a year in a mental health facility and then in a organ care for another year and what's interesting about this program is that it was actually started by judges in the Riverside County and they just decided they needed to do something different other than putting people with mental health problems into the jails where they really don't get the help that they need and so through this other program it's a very long program gives people a chance to learn how to have a different life and I'm looking forward to sharing more about this at a public safety committee meeting but I just wanted to say that I think that there are things all around the country the people are doing that are innovative approaches to different parts of the problem and then if we can just cobble these together that we can maybe make some strides in the right direction one other point is that the Riverside County started this program with zero funding so there was simply a willingness of the courts and of the community and of the providers to do something to solve a problem three years later they're doing great thank you very much thank you so much our next speaker is Jill Baudelato and Jill I have found you enabled your microphone you just need to unmute on your end am I here yes we can hear you am I yes you are I just wanted to say thank you for this much needed dialogue as you all know I've been pushing for this and it makes me very hopeful that we can all come together as the community that I moved here for and so many people moved here for and be together and get innovative and solve this problem together and bring our community back for everybody and I think I just really want for everyone to push for the resolution that we all worked really hard on or the subcommittee worked really hard on to be pushed through as is because I think a lot of thought was given to that and I think that's a way to quickly and urgently move forward thank you thanks so much Jill the next person in the queue is Rachel Siegel and Rachel I oh is Rachel here in person no I can't find you online so if you can just use the raise hand function I will I will I will find I will find you President Paul I don't believe Rachel's able to join us this evening she's in transit back from a trip so okay you won't be able to make it thank you thank you thanks so much the next the next person in the queue is Claire wall and Claire I have found you enabled your microphone you should be able to speak just unmute on your side thank you thank you President Paul thank you city councilors thank you citizens of Burlington that are present tonight on behalf of myself and our family I want to extend a great appreciation for the resolution that was approved by the public safety subcommittee I urge the city council to approve it tonight as is I want to also acknowledge Morgan Hill and brands test public comment tonight incredibly valuable as a citizen and a caring member of our society with experience I want to thank you again on behalf of all the citizens of Burlington listening tonight it is an incredibly critical time for our city thank you thanks so much Claire our next speaker is Tony Finnegan and Tony I have found you and enabled your microphone you should be able to speak just unmute on your end thank you so much I really appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight and I am a resident of Burlington I live at 77 residences on Pine Street we gather often many of us residents and talk about the issues and how we're all feeling and how are you staying safe and it's become a more frequent conversation over the last year and a half that I've lived in the building and I know that there's a lot of concern I know some people want to leave the area at friends that won't come downtown the city I didn't want to go into the meeting tonight because it's after dark and it's three blocks from my apartment and I don't want to walk alone at night so I am here asking you to please adopt the 6.2 resolution as is this is a crisis and I think something needs to happen thank you for listening thank you so much our next speaker is Tracy Moran and Tracy I believe I have found you and enabled your microphone you just simply need to unmute on your end somehow I unmuted you and lost you I will come back to you I for some reason as soon as you were unmuted I lost you I lost you on zoom so if you do come back if you do come back please reuse the raise hand function and I'll I'm happy to recognize you the other names that I called before were Tomas Pjorsky and I do see someone with that same last name I'll try it again just in case that is the correct person you just simply need to unmute on your end first name of Alexis and the other tune the other name was Kelly Kimball who I do not see who I do not see on zoom and then Tracy Moran one more time I don't see either of those two people on zoom if you if you do come on please please use the raise hand function I do see someone who's using the raise hand function please go please go ahead I'm not sure I don't have there's no name on it so if you can just identify yourself please I will this is Sharon Busher oh okay I'm not I'm not sure why my name didn't come across one for you but thank you so much this was a very I don't know complicated and yet encouraging public forum it was something that I'm really glad I had a chance to listen to because so many people with so many perspectives came together to offer their insights into the crisis that we all face and I was encouraged by that I certainly support the resolution that the Public Safety Committee put forward it's it's lengthy and it's complicated just like the opioid crisis is so but I also wanted to say that I also support on your agenda the recommendation by the Burlington Fire Department their proposal for the overdose response team pilot I think that's innovative and will be incredibly helpful and the other comment that I made at the Board of Finance was the other agenda item which has to do with the warming shelters which someone spoke to the fact that as I had said at the Board of Finance that our climate gets colder before December 15 and I don't know whether there is monies or resources to have that open before that time period whether it could be like December 1st I don't know if that obstacle is if there are other obstacles that prevent that from happening but I would appreciate that consideration and then the last thing that I mentioned was there was a suggestion of a morning snack and I had suggested with food and security maybe it could be breakfast hot oatmeal raisins brown sugar nothing fancy but something warm to get their stay started so thank you for listening to my comments I wanted to make them again so that the full council could hear them thanks thank you very much we will go we will leave zoom for a few moments and go back into con toys there is a non Burlington resident who is patiently waited to speak that being Kelly divine I don't have the good fortune to live in Burlington but I do represent several hundred businesses here I want I can't really say anything more than your own residents said tonight we are in a crisis and I'm going to ask the council to act swiftly on the public safety resolution which something that I intended the committee meetings to work on and I think we got some good work done there it's just the beginning we have a long road ahead of us and I would say that while I'm very supportive of that resolution I think we need absolutely some immediate action to help relieve the pressure that is on our downtown we have a downtown that is only I think 19 blocks and I hear a lot of references to San Francisco other US cities are facing the same kind of crises I don't know that many of them are safe are facing them in such a small concentrated area if we lose the vibrancy of our downtown I think we lose something that's really important to Burlington we can certainly you know continue down the path that we've been on and see what happens with that but I know from a lot of research I've done that losing a vibrant downtown is very difficult to reclaim I also would like to speak about the warming shelter there was a social media spread that said the Burlington Business Association is not supportive of warming shelters that's absolutely not the truth we were actively involved in the program starting in 2015 had a board member of ours on the advisory committee I do think that there is a place for that I do think that given the crisis that we're under the state of our downtown and the weight that is on our downtown already that I'm concerned about how we make sure that we manage the behaviors that seem to gravitate to that periphery of a of an organization like that and I hope that the city will take that seriously thank you thank you very much so we'll return there are no there's no one else who signed up to speak in con toys so we will return to zoom and finish up finish our public forum with a couple of people on non Burlington residents who had requested to speak and the first person is Daphne Hewitt and Daphne I'm unable to locate you on zoom you can use the raise hand function if I'm missing you the next person is Mariah Flynn and and Mariah I have found you and enabled your microphone you should be able you should be able to speak just unmute yourself hello I'm sorry I'm not able to join you all in person this evening for counselors I haven't met yet my name is Mariah Flynn I'm the director of the Burlington partnership for a healthy community or BPHC I'm also a certified prevention specialist BPHC is a local coalition focused on addressing the causes and consequences of substance misuse in Burlington we want to applaud the council and the city for your tireless dedication to finding solutions to the addiction crisis and to share our support for the resolution presented in items 6.2 to increase community attention and resources to this important issue we're also aware of how important this resolution is and we know how much you all want to get it right so I came here before you today to also draw attention to a gap our team saw in the resolution substance use is impacting everyone in our community in some way and our team has seen and met a part of efforts to reduce harm and create comprehensive community response to support people with substance use disorder and get them the help that they deserve but at the same time we've seen little attention and dwindling resources to support strategies that prevent the development of a substance use disorder or addiction I want to speak to advocate for more in your resolution that focuses on increasing protective factories in the community that have been proven to reduce high risk substance use substance use prevention work is not a crisis response but it's the steady long-term investment in policies and practices and education and community assets that prevent the constant need for a crisis response I would strongly urge the city as part of this resolution to make that written commitment to community level prevention strategies that are proven to prevent substance misuse and increase public health myself and our team and coalition partners at BPHC are dedicated and informed and already ready to do this work we're here as partners to support you in your next steps please don't hesitate to reach out thank you so much for your time thank you so much Mariah the next person who had asked to speak is Andy Blanchett and Andy I have found you and enabled your microphone you should be able to speak now all right can you hear me yes we can good evening thank you my name is Andy Blanchett I'm a resident of Winooski but I am president of AFSCME 1674 which is the Howard Center Workers Union I'm here to discuss a bit about what a worker from the chicken and clinic in South Burlington has had to say about city's response to the opioid epidemic and I also want to share my own experiences so firstly I want to let you know that I am personally as president of AFSCME 1674 in support of the resolution 6.2 a question I think we need to ask ourselves are do business owners and reactionary citizens want people to just disappear out of sight to no longer make us nervous or do we want people to live are we serious about working class people being able to literally live or do we want working class people in poverty to just disappear do we allow business owners in Burlington to continue to dictate public health policy or do we look towards those with evidence based solutions to lead the way a quote from someone that works at the clinic who is a member of our union said if the city were serious about harm reduction there would have already been low barrier methadone clinics located downtown years ago or some movement towards safe supply now the city can't even address wound care let alone public housing I'm tired of the theater the thing the city has most control over is housing and all they seem to want to do is do literally anything but build actual public housing after watching the city of Burlington fail for over seven years straight I don't imagine the next seven will be any different I would like to share that I think if we interrogate are not in my backyard attitudes towards harm reduction and we take actionable steps to try to reduce death we will have a better community I think when folks are talking about we need an immediate solution there are evidence based solutions that we can enact right away if that is what we want to do and the last thing I wanted to just echo here is that there is proactive solutions and if we continue down reactionary short-sighted or lackluster policies we will find ourself in a worse situation thank you thank you very much and our last person who has signed up to speak is Peter Duvall and Peter I've enabled your microphone you should be able to speak just simply on mute on your end comment my name is Peter Duvall I live in Underhill and my comments relate to the McNeil generating station and the proposed steam transmission line between McNeil and the hospital running any organization whether it's business city or utility is a series of decisions about using available resources the decisions are not zero sum but budgeting priorities are often pitted against each other in that spirit do take a look at the finances of the McNeil generating station which is a drag on the city and the state there are many entities that should be carefully monitoring plants finances and the rationale for its continued operation including McNeil joint owners to attend Vermont utilities including Burlington Electric Department which owns 50% of the plant and operates the plant on behalf of the other utilities in the state there's the Vermont Public Service Department Public Utility Commission who also have oversight responsibility as do the members of the Burlington Electric Commission City Council don't let the bystander effect cause you to think that others are fulfilling their duty to be diligent in the operation of the plant keep your attention on the business risks and costs that are involved in continuing to operate the plant and the effect those risks have on the proposed steam transmission fight thank you thank you very much and that concludes the people who have signed up to speak during public forum thank you all for being here thank you all for coming to speak during public forum we will continue with our agenda at 7 at 731 I believe that 831 I believe that our local control Commission and local cannabis control Commission were called for this hour so we will go to the next item on our council agenda and then recess for a few moments to complete those items the next item on our agenda is item number four which is climate emergency reports is there any counselor or the administration who wishes to offer a climate emergency report Councillor Bergman I just want to briefly talk about this is there clearly times that try our souls as Thomas Payne said a long time ago and one of the things that we have is a crisis around the existence of of habitable planets so I don't mean to take away much time on this really critical public safety in Burlington but that climate crisis is really important and we have as a council before us a carbon fee ordinance and we've got issues as you've just heard related to the burning of of wood to heat do thermal heating up at the hospital it's been my opinion that we need all the non-emitting sources of power generation and electricity as we possibly can and that includes the incentivization and the de-incentivization or the re the regulation of those those sources of power so I just want to mention that we have heard and we will I think continue to hear about thermal energy networks these are networks in buildings that are mostly newly built but can also be for rehab buildings that link a variety of heat sources including and I think it's a very significant the tremendous amount of waste heat that particularly larger entities have I think that the ordinance committee could take that up is one of the explicit items that we exempt from the fee as a first step I think that we at the TUC and maybe the ordinance committee as well as the administration's permitting and inspections department can look at changes in our building and zoning ordinances to make this happen South Burlington is making some efforts on solar ready and this is another area that we've got a tremendous opportunity to do our place to stop or to mitigate or to lessen the burning of the planet that we seem as a as a species intent on doing so thank you for letting me take this time thank you so much Councillor Bergman is there any other councillor or the administration who wishes to offer a climate emergency report seeing none before we get to our consent and deliberative agendas what we'll close out item number four and call to it we do have as I had said a local control commission and the local cannabis control commission meeting that we need to attend to they're very brief but we do need to get to them so we will recess the council meeting at 834 and call to order the local cannabis control commission meeting at the same time at the same hour the first item on our agenda is one point one is there a motion to accept the agenda move to adopt the agenda thank you so much commissioner Shannon chair of the license committee seconded by commissioner travers is there any discussion on that motion seeing none all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye any opposed please say no we have our agenda which leads us to the next item on our agenda number two which is 2023 cannabis applications we have one application this evening for verdant with wisdom LLC and it has been our practice to ask if owners of a business are present with us this evening either in person or on zoom and they're welcome to come forward to introduce themselves and their business they're under no obligation to do so but because we have so little information on these businesses this is an opportunity to make yourselves known if you wish to do so and I will look online to see if there's anyone who is using the raise hand function oh good evening good evening my name is Ishmael Ahmed and I actually use the Vermont pronunciation of the word verdant verdant wisdom so it's a basically a micro cannabis grow using basically old-school land raised seeds that have been grown in Vermont for quite some time so you have any questions or concerns doesn't seem so but we are we're glad you we were glad that you came and thank you for telling us about your business thank you with that we will go to item 2.1 which is which is the application for verdant wisdom LLC commissioner Shannon move to approve and authorize transmission of local approval for verdant wisdom LLC to the state cannabis control board thank you commissioner Shannon seconded by commissioner travers is there any discussion on the motion seeing none all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye any opposed please say no that passes unanimously and seeing no other items on this agenda and hearing no objection we will adjourn the local cannabis control commission meeting at 837 and call toward of the local control commission meeting the first item is item 1.1 motion to adopt the agenda commissioner Shannon move to adopt the agenda thank you commissioner Shannon seconded by commissioner travers is there any discussion on that motion seeing none all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye any opposed please say no we have our agenda our next item is the consent agenda is there a motion to move the consent agenda and take the actions indicated so move thank you commissioner Shannon seconded by commissioner travers is there any discussion on the motion seeing none all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye any opposed please say no that motion passes unanimously which leads us to seeing no other items on that agenda and hearing no objection we'll adjourn the local control commission meeting at 838 and resume the recess city council meeting at the same hour so returning to our council agenda we will continue with item number five which is our consent agenda is there a motion to move our consent agenda and take the actions indicated so moved thank you councillor Shannon seconded by councillor jang any discussion on that motion seeing none all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed please say no we've approved our consent agenda which brings us to our deliberative agenda and we have four items on our deliberative agenda where appropriate there were time limits set on each item which we have agreed to by approving our agenda and we will do our best to to keep to our agenda the first item on the agenda 6.1 which is a communication from lieutenant mike bellow and deputy chief brian lebarge the burlington police department a presentation regarding the drug crimes unit and for this item I will go to mayor Weinberger for an introduction thank you president paul and thank you all for for coming and being part of this conversation tonight I do just want to give a little bit of road map for people I know we're starting to lose people but for people watching at home still with us we're gonna have this presentation from Burlington police department on the city's ongoing drug enforcement efforts in a moment later tonight after this item we will be taking the council be taking action on two related items that deal with aspects of the challenges we're facing in a vote to approve the creation of a new winter warming shelter and a new fire department initiative that has come up through the ranks and through the chief to have a new fire department led response to the enormous number of overdoses that we're experiencing and I I mentioned that to invite people just to stay but also I think it points out that as we face these challenges the the city is acting on many fronts to try to respond I very much welcome all of you coming tonight it is I consider many of you in the room friends neighbors colleagues people I've worked with in in in various ways for years and it is I think an important community conversation that we're having with you all in the room I spend a great deal of my day-to-day time right now having conversations like this with various stakeholders constituents residents in different parts of the city especially in around the downtown I think it is welcome to have this in this public forum we have not always had consensus at this table on public safety items in the past that has changed over the last couple years we have had much greater consensus since the fall of 2021 on most public safety issues I think with your strong voices tonight and passion behind what said I'm hopeful we'll be moving forward with even more consensus going forward I'd like to take just a moment before handing over the microphone to the police department to take a step back and I think try to share from my perspective some answers to questions that I think are underlying a lot of the statements made tonight and certainly underlying what I'm feeling from from residents day in and day out there is this real question and concern about what is going on why we are seeing so much more drug use in the downtown and oftentimes a real question about what the city and others are doing about these crises from my perspective the answer to what going on it has been fairly clear for for a couple of years now we have had dramatic shifts in three major areas since 2020 the most dramatic change is that fentanyl and meth have become the dominant drugs here in Burlington and nationally and these drugs have a far worse impacts on the people suffering from addiction and on the community around them than prior opioids opioid drugs did there's also been a real shift with homelessness we have seen an enormous increase in the number of people who are unsheltered in this community even just over the last few months there was about approximately be in the spring a hundred people in this community living unsheltered that has risen to approximately 270 today a lot of that came in the immediate wake of the state ending of the motel hotel program that overnight put about 200 Burlington sorry chinning County residents on the streets a third major change since 2020 and of course is that our police department's ability to respond to issues in the downtown in the in the city is substantially less than it was just a few years ago with us down about 40% from our peak of just a few years ago following the council vote to eliminate 30% of our officers that decision has been reversed and we are building that department back but we are still suffering from the effects of that decision so what is the city doing about these three areas tonight is probably not is not a place to offer a detailed briefing on each of these we are going to hear about the police department I do just want to summarize as quickly as I can what we are doing in each of these three areas first of all with the police rebuilding we are a little more than a year since the council approved the rebuilding plan and that rebuilding plan is on track to according to the timetable laid out by the chief a little more than a year ago we're up now to almost 70 officers from a low of 60 and we have also added substantial other public safety resources community service office errors community service liaisons park rangers and all that is starting to have a positive impact and you will see in the presentation tonight how the resources specifically that the police department has for addressing the drug crisis have taken a hit over the last two years but have stayed in place and continue to work and work hard and how as we take the next steps of the rebuilding and as we all anticipate get to the mid 70s and officers by next spring how we will see a restoration of some of the drug enforcement activity that we've had in the past responding to the drug crisis continues to be a top focus of mine in the city as it has been since 2016 I continue to host a monthly meeting we call community stat that brings together dozens literally dozens of stakeholders who have some aspect of this work on a monthly basis when we have these community stat meetings we have in the room law enforcement officers prosecutors defense attorneys houses doctors drug treatment professionals and many people who have had lived experience in one way or another with with this challenge including parents who have lost children as well as people that are in recovery themselves our effort is led by an individual who works for the city who is in recovery and is extremely committed to this issue for a number of years these efforts were clearly working this was a top priority the day chief del pozo was sworn in in the fall of 2015 I asked him to review our drug crisis response and he did so and in the years particularly 2018 and 2019 we were making progress with these issues the number of overdose deaths in Chittenden County went down by 50% it stayed at that level in 2019 it was dramatic a drop as any improvement in the country and it came as as we had mounted as robust a local effort to address the drug crisis as as any community in the country we dramatically changed prescribing practices we expanded treatment access in and more that all changed the nature of this crisis changed dramatically in 2020 when fentanyl became the dominant drug opioid in this community just it is a long and detailed story why it changed so dramatically to summarize just a few points that I think point to the how dramatically our challenge is different now the main medicine that we had for treating people suffering from opioid use disorder in 2019 is no longer nearly as effective it simply doesn't work with fentanyl people go into withdrawal if they attempt to take the medicine and they give up and won't won't take it the nature of people's addictions has changed dramatically it used to be before 2020 that people would take an opioid an elicit opioid two or three times a day every eight to ten hours now with fentanyl people go almost immediately into withdrawal after taking the drug they need to take a new dose of fentanyl every two hours it is a dramatically different addiction it is an addiction that is only possible because the price of drugs has dropped just precipitously the where we used to monitor the price of drugs in the hundreds of dollars per gram and we see that as some level of our enforcement success my understanding now is a hit of fentanyl can be obtained for for less than a dollar in many cases and so it's just a dramatically different drug to try to interdict and intervene with but we still have these meetings we still convene we still try to grapple with the changes in this problem we out of these efforts come changes like the ones that will be approved later tonight other recent changes have involved investing in Vermonters for criminal justice reform to have a downtown site this has gotten more than 150 people I believe now into treatment that the state systems were previously missing only the city can will fund this kind of intervention we have brought new public health approaches to the homeless shelters to try to make those shelters vector into recovery we've added social workers at the Burlington Police Department we have we are supporting there's a new needle exchange program that is just now being launched by the Howard Center to try to respond to just the extreme increase in the needs that were we're seeing needles that are being seen around the city we have received two hundred thirty thousand dollars of opioid settlement funds from the national lawsuits that have been settling over the last few years this is just the beginning of money that is flowing to the city we have already committed to some of the efforts I just listed in others all that money and more we are moving with urgency to get that money into the field to try to positively impact what we're experiencing we do need I also because local government has been given a voice on how the state uses its funds which is a departure from the tobacco settlements in the past out of a sense that those monies were not used to effectively address the problem through the settlements half the seats on this settlement advisory settlement committee go to local governments and I'm serving on that advisory committee as well as this other individual reference who works on on this challenge for us and there are others in Chittin County are on there we have made more than eight and a half million dollars in recommendations for how the state should be investing to expand and improve access to treatment and we got an update on the legislature actually approved those recommendations almost accepted entirely what we had recommended in May we got an update from the Department of Health in August about the implementation efforts and we're discouraged to hear that very little had been done to put that money on the street and start to positively impact this issue not only that we also learned that the state has already received another 13 and a half million dollars of funds that the legislature hasn't even begun to grapple with appropriating yet I raised alarm at that issue as this happened others did as well and I am happy to say I was at a meeting with the Department of Health Commissioner Levine last week where it is clear that in the last six weeks the state has begun to move with some greater urgency to get this money on the street I welcome that the resolution calls out explicitly the help we need from the state to get this money invested in and leading to improvement finally the city is aggressively leading the response to homelessness we will have a greater discussion about this later tonight as we talk about this winter winter shelter we here too are in a deep hole that has been built up over many years and has been exacerbated dramatically by the pandemic and the substantial number of people moving into Vermont in recent years because of how well we did during the pandemic our housing production has not nearly kept up with the demand we are trying to change that as we sit here right now we have either completed or having construction nearly 900 new homes it is as much as the city in its history I think has ever had getting built at one time we also have a new special assistant and homelessness Sarah Russell who will be given a presentation later on that is trying to mount emergency responses until that supply can catch up I firmly believe that how homelessness primarily is a housing problem and we simply don't have nearly enough housing we are engaged in both long-term and short-term efforts to address it and if you're interested in hearing more please stick around for the later presentation the city can't do that this work alone and in when we act to ask what should happen next I really welcome that this resolution calls out action from others because I do believe even the great city of Burlington cannot fix this alone for many months I have been saying that the drug crisis needs to once again become our talk top public health priority I made an extended speech on that in April and I welcome tonight's resolution by the city council is consistent with this call when it what we did have this issue as our top priority for many for years governor shumlin in 2014 made this the top priority and by devoting his entire state of the state address to it and as I described before for years we were making substantial progress do we need the state to declare the crisis a top public health and public safety priority again if we're going to again turn the corner with this we need help on property crime from legislators prosecutors and the courts two years ago I called for new retail theft legislation I pushed very hard for that again last year we got no action from the legislature on prioritizing that we need action this year we also need law enforcement at all levels of government doing their their best to interdict the trade of fentanyl meth and other illicit drugs that are harming our community you're gonna hear the extensive efforts the Burlington Police Department continues to attempt to make the I do sense the gears of fed the federal government moving in this direction just three weeks ago that a new federal report was issued calling for a new strategy from the federal government for this interdiction effort we need a multi level multi agency effort to incorporate that new federal strategy with our local strategies and straight strategies to bring a very different level of interdiction efforts going forward and I am going to be very vocal about that further in the weeks ahead to summarize let me be clear to confront our drug crisis we need both law enforcement action and harm reduction efforts this administration is and has been wholly committed to both because without having both we will fail with that I now would ask the representatives from Burlington Police Department to walk us through the the BPD's drug enforcement efforts thank you can you read better good evening yes my name is deputy chief Brian LeBarge I am the deputy chief in charge of the administrative services bureau which among other things oversees the detective division with me I have detective lieutenant Mike Belevo who is the commander of the detective services bureau and detective sergeant Phil Tremblay who is in charge of the drug unit to continue with what the mayor was saying we're going to try to provide you with the overview of the drug unit operations and some information for you in this presentation next slide we can hear you in the room but it does make a dip thank you it does make a difference when people might watch this meeting later at home you wouldn't be picked up as well it so thank you so much for your attention today so as we've all heard over years and even tonight there's several pieces to this complex issue we're going to talk about obviously the department's enforcement activities from that lens today the numbers of overdoses is that 373 that slide says 361 and when I checked the numbers we are at 373 today we're obviously all working to try to lower those numbers with everything that we are working towards next slide please with that we have our detective services bureau has a narcotics unit and that narcotics unit is made up of a sergeant and assigned detectives amongst the cases that they deal with we also have a general investigations unit who handles general crimes one of those general crimes would fall under if there was a drug overdose investigation or an untimely death that may fall under title 1842 50 which deals with death resulting is a charge in the statutes the statute however only applies for person you the person's use of the drug is the proximate cause of death and so as we battle these these issues and we deal with these issues we collaborate with the state's attorney but also with the medical examiner's office and these details about a death if it's drug related come back in a toxicology report and what we are seeing and detective bellow could speak to it maybe a little bit more in detail is that it's not just one thing usually it is a mix of things in a person's system and those usually don't result in the medical examiner making the ruling that the specific drug type led to the cause of death which can be a challenging thing and heartbreaking thing for for families who loved ones past and they want you know justice and people to be held accountable and we're not always able to do that based on the way the law is currently written and how we handle these incidences next slide please chief before you leave this slide actually I think the graphic on the right especially it is an important one and requires some interpretation given how it's sort of showing up here this is showing the that state I think there is this sense sometimes that Burlington is experiencing a loan or unusually the opioid crisis what this shows is that in terms of deaths statewide the average is 17.8 Burlington is just a little bit higher Chinden County is a little bit higher than average than that average at 19 in this most recent data there are numerous parts of the state that are considerably have considered higher rates the point there being not that we are performing at an acceptable rate I do think we heard some public comment before that is if like nothing has been effective or happening I do believe that we would have a considerably higher overdose death rate in Chinden County if we're not for the efforts that were being made to get people in the treatment and to stop this so as I spoke about earlier we have a drug unit and that drug unit is temporary is technically staffed with a sergeant and three detectives and then one task force agent assigned to the DEA our current staffing we are down one of those detectives but throughout the last couple of years as an administration inside the department we as we struggled to deal with staffing issues we prioritized the Bureau and the response to the violent crime and drug incidents as a top priority we did not deplete the Bureau we understood obviously that it was important to have a high-speed unit responsible for investigating everything that took place especially when we look at what took place in 2022 with the shootings and the homicides and so without a Bureau at that point we would obviously been on a worse off place if we had shifted everything to patrol but our drug unit focuses on dealer level and higher level enforcement and not necessarily street level enforcement at a ground level which we will speak to further the department is continuing to rebuild and our priority is to fully staff all units to include the drug unit and our street crimes unit which Mike if you would you would speak to yeah Mike I'm the lieutenant over the Detective Bureau and the chief touched on it but overdose deaths yeah we're slightly above average we do see them Phil and I see every single autopsy for the city that comes through and we review them and major hurdles that we are seeing are certainly the poly drug overdoses and based on our state statutes how they're written it leaves extremely limited avenues for holding people accountable through law enforcement essentially to my left Phil Tremblay he's essentially spent the last several years specifically focused on enforcing narcotics operations he started with a street crimes unit he worked his way up to drug detective was assigned to the DEA task force and he now supervises the narcotics division within our detective bureau so I'm gonna pass them like to him to speak a little bit about that because I think he's probably our resident expert thanks no pressure hi what I'd like to point out is that I actually had an easy out I was told that I did not need to come to this this evening but I elected to come here because it's literally what I've been working on for the last several years and I take great pride in it so basically what I'm gonna touch on a little bit is kind of what we have had what we currently have and ultimately what we're trying to get to so the slide that you see up here is regarding our street crimes unit and that's kind of answering the question of what are we missing right now so the SCU as it's called is the street street crimes unit it's basically a unit that at its height was four officers and one sergeant and they were basically assigned department needs on a week-to-week basis so it's your flavor of the week for lack of a better term so if we're struggling with car breaks they might be assigned to to focus on that you may recall fairly recently we had BB gun incidents shooting out windshields and windows of cars they were assigned to that if we have a rash of burglaries they might be assigned to that so it's kind of whatever problem is surfacing that's that's the unit that kind of focuses on that street level focus so what right now we're missing that that's what we're missing so previously we've had up to four it typically we had two and then the one sergeant as well so as you can see on this graph here back in 2016 for instance we had that four-person team that was supervised by a sergeant and you go to 2020 and we've lost the ability to staff the street crimes unit we go to the next slide please so we don't have the street crimes unit so to do quick math here the available resources that are dedicated to drug investigations and so I mean dedicated we're always gonna have that patrol level response where if we to use the term inadvertently stumble across drugs right we're arresting somebody who were responding to an emergency and there are drugs present we'll address that if that means an arrest if that whatever that means it will be addressed and then the drug unit we're focusing on that higher level we're focused on the folks that are bringing in drugs they are trafficking and they are profiting from poisoning our community so I have a microphone in front of me it doesn't happen very often so I very briefly just want to say how proud I am of the drug unit specifically for the continued work that we've been able to do despite our staffing challenges because because we have been diminished to a certain respect in terms of what we're able to do that has not seen a significant drop off and I know what everybody's probably thinking here today is that I look outside and it looks like there is a tremendous drop off that's that chunk that's missing that middle ground area that's what's missing right now so the entire department I tip my cap to the entire department for our successes so what I'm going to talk about briefly here is I'm not going to go into great specifics regarding an narcotics investigation because some of that is intentional we don't want to be in the spotlight because a lot of a lot of our success relies on kind of being in the shadows so to speak so we can unbeknownst to the folks that are trafficking drugs take down an organization and that's that's what we're dealing with a sophisticated organization intended on profiting so think about any business that you know of and there's there's very specific goals in place to make money that's what the drug unit is focused on those individuals that are profiting off what everybody is seeing in downtown Burlington so I'm going to give you a couple examples I'm happy to be able to share some of the examples that are on the on the screen here but just know that I'm not going to go into great detail about how these investigations take place I just want to kind of throw them out there because sometimes it's unknown what's actually happening right in the backyard here so to start we currently have several ongoing investigations each detective will typically have each drug detective I'm sorry will typically have anywhere from three to four active investigations again that's that's not the dealer level for drug trafficking our focus right now and has been for some time is fentanyl as we've heard about is methamphetamine which has been growing every year and kind of a hot topic of late xylazine it and it's now being found in our opiates and it's having the same devastating effect that fentanyl previously had on the community when we went from heroin to fentanyl in our opiates we're having that same effect now where xylazine is added to the mix as well so a couple of cases that I want to touch on at the top here you'll notice this is a 21 BU what that's saying is that case was started in 2021 so I think that's important to note that a drug investigation in order for it to be successful and actually prosecute a drug investigation that can go anywhere from a month for a fairly small operation to this case at the top was about a year and a half to successfully bring this case to the federal government so this is an ongoing federal prosecution so I can't go into great detail but there have been press releases regarding nine members of the Philadelphia based drug enterprise arrested and this does touch on the xylazine that I previously mentioned so in this specific case that we ended up making arrests and executed search warrants in January of 2023 there were 13,500 bags of suspected fentanyl and 1.3 kilos of crack cocaine that came just just from this single group now that that was not I don't want to say that was the total amount of drugs that came up in a year and a half that was what was caught with this group so you can you can do your own math in terms of how much drugs in a year and a half's time were coming up and hitting our community the next one a gentleman by the name of Quentin Dodson from Detroit Michigan was arrested this occurred in 2022 this was also over a kilo of meth amphetamine so to say that meth is in our community that's an understatement we are seeing large quantities of meth and and oftentimes that's that's the cause for some of the behavior that we see downtown that's that's alarming ultimately results in calls for service to the police next the Melvin Hill a gentleman out of the state of Georgia he was recently convicted after a jury trial I'm sorry I should know that mr. Dodson is being prosecuted federally as well that's active prosecution Melvin Hill was just convicted by a jury down in Rutland for a federal trial for drug and firearms charges he was found to be in possession of fentanyl crack crack meth and a gun that was after multiple controlled purchases again of dealing these substances one that hits a little bit more locally Kenneth Jackson he was convicted just in September of this year in sentenced to 48 months in prison that is also a federal investigation mr. Jackson was involved in sales of opiates in City Hall Park that has been a priority for us as many have brought up today just walking through the park you can see almost an open-air drug market again our goal is not on that street level hand-to-hand dealer maybe somebody that's supporting their own drug habit ours are for the people who are actually trafficking and profiting off of that mr. Jackson was arrested regarding that investigation was found to be in possession of fentanyl and a gun and finally something of a different nature manual Francis was indicted recently again this is an active federal prosecution this is a burglary of the lakeside pharmacy so a number of controlled substances were taken during a burglary that the drug unit assisted in this investigation as well so that that prosecution could again go to the federal level you'll see at the bottom left-hand side this is a basic rundown of case loads over over the year for the drug unit what I want to make very clear is that a case in this setting it entails an active follow-up so that might mean active surveillance it might mean setting up controlled purchases it could mean a number of things this does not represent a drug tip which we're actually going to touch on in just a minute so just because a tip comes in about a drug house or drug activity that is not making this list this is an active investigation where it proceeded forward from there so just a touch on the numbers you can see 2018 2019 we're in that mid 30s to low 40s range for the drug unit specifically you see the drop off down to the high 20s and we're at 20 today in 2023 again I'm going to note that we have lost one drug detective so you're looking you can you can do the math there in terms of what that means to a unit of four for instance the person talking right now represents 25% of our dedicated narcotics team so that means 75% is not in this room right now on all these cases they have various resolutions so just because that number 43 is up top that doesn't mean there were 43 arrests there might be multiple defendants multiple people of interest there might be no arrest that might turn into a larger investigation where there's cooperation involved these investigations go all a number of different directions next slide please Chief did you want to touch on this so as the mayor spoke about the different things that we've done in the department over the years to address lower level issues one of those was the use of a street crimes team but also taking on certain stances for small amounts or personal amounts of drugs dealing with buprenorphine and how we several years ago kind of led from the front on dealing with those issues and trying to get people help knowing that those lower level individuals were being preyed upon by the higher level dealers during this time regardless of the things that we've gone through with staffing we have continued to our best effort and with our resources to continue to enforce state laws local ordinances deal with open air drug use public intoxication open containers and the likes as best we can this summer we obviously attempted to saturate the downtown with the help of marketplace patrols CSO's urban park rangers the VSP detail and then a heavy presence of uniformed officers in the downtown corridor next slide please so there was talk about community engagement and and assistance and the different ways that we build cases and gather intel one of the ways that community members can provide information through online tips which is on our website and you can submit a tip online you can remain anonymous you can provide information you can have leave a contact number for us to contact you next slide please this breaks down the number of tips over the course of several years and how those tips are taken in I'll be the first one to point out there that as we are tasked with dealing with narcotics cases and tips that come in tips although very helpful and can make a large difference in cases sometimes do fall by the wayside in the sense of the response or how long it takes the detectives to get to them we want tips to continue to come in Phil do you want to speak more to the tips so yeah regarding drug tips I'll be the first to acknowledge frustration in that you can see on this graphic 2022 we had 405 drug tips does that mean all you know all tips are not created equal that doesn't mean every single one of those tips was something that could have been an active investigation but I would be silly not to acknowledge that there is a tremendous amount of information that is probably beneficial in those 405 community members that are reaching out attempting to give information so one of the things that's been brought to my attention that we're trying to work on is responding to folks that are making these tips in a reasonable amount of time the reality is that with ongoing investigations those are going to take the priority we always are going to get to the drug tips but it might it might not be the absolute priority what I don't want to get to is a point where we we see this number diminish for the wrong reason so if next year we have 50 drug tips because people say it's not worth making a drug tip that's a failure and that's what we don't want to get to that so so at the end of the day a lot of these drug tips are coming in because what you can see around you right it's a lot more visible right now so that that makes sense in my mind on why we're getting more drug tips so one of the things that that we're trying to do as a drug unit is is be able to respond to those people who wish to receive a call back and to get further information to hopefully help ongoing investigations so what are our next steps we're obviously one of our several top priorities is rebuilding and we're making good strides in doing that but it's it's going to take time as we continue to build up all of our other resources we still are prioritizing building up uniform patrol officers currently our headcount is as you can see 68 total sworn and there's a breakdown of kind of where we are with supervision with officers either on leave or in field training we have six in the academy which is great news officers at the airport officers in the detective bureau special assignments which currently our recruitment officer and our domestic violence prevention officer we have the marketplace officers and then 25 patrol officers currently on the streets in total the uniform services bureau and at the bottom zero street crimes officers we hope that as we explore different avenues internally to retain officers who are getting close to retirement if we can be successful in doing that while also meeting our recruitment goals that we would hopefully within the next year 18 months be able to get back to a position where we can fully staff street crimes unit and be able to focus on those those gaps in coverage between patrol and the detective bureau and to build on that as I said as we continue to do those things it will obviously allow us to key in on some of these issues that are not necessarily getting addressed like they used to based on our resources as of most recently we are refocusing and I think has been spoken about with the priority response plan and dealing with a lot of the larcenies and fax and property crimes that are taking place and I know that the mayor had spoken about dealing with repeat offenders and accountability across all wakes that are involved in the law enforcement around because it is not just the department there are several stakeholders that are involved in this process in the system once the case is turned over. So the mayor went into great detail earlier about all of the things that the chief and the mayor and his administration have worked on recently and over several years so I don't think I need to repeat that but as you can see it's not internally as a department school we have different breakdowns and we have enforcement and we have patrol but as a greater department and administration we are off obviously looking at the larger picture to try to solve these issues because it's not just going to be solved at the department level it's going to involve the community and I think that we are moving in the right direction as a as as a city and as a government organization and I'm hopeful that we will be able to return to providing the level of service that we were several years prior. Thank you very much we will open open this up if there are any counselors who have questions before we get to the resolution and that would be that time on the presentation. Councilor Grant. Thank you. Just the first quick question is this presentation was not in civic clerks will it be provided and added. Yes I believe is that is that correct. Yes. Yes. Excellent. I have a couple questions. Thank you so much for your presentation. It's it's been one I've been kind of dreaming about for the last four years as I've thrown myself into a lot around public safety in the community. As you know I was a police commissioner for a few years and one of the things that I advocated quite a bit about was a particular house on Champlain Street was one of them really long time activity well known. I think that as as a police commissioner being the only police commissioner that was from the old north end I was particularly focused on what was happening in the old north end and how fast I saw certain things accelerating such as the types of property crimes that we saw more of than the rest of the city and now it is clearly all over the city. I guess I want to say that some of this information that has been provided tonight and in the past couple of weeks I am I'm hard to see because when I spoke at the public safety committee meeting on August 17th to really drive home the questions in the city questions that weren't getting answered responses that weren't occurring not even being on our agenda conversations happening behind the scenes but not fully being explained to the city of Burlington. So what you've done tonight is great and extremely informational and I know I will be and I'm sure some my colleagues on the council will be saying here's a link to this meeting here's a timestamp you need to watch this you need to know what's going on and I do appreciate because the drug tip line you're involved in a previous conversation on the public safety committee where I felt like okay are we utilizing this are we do we not want people to use it do we know how many submissions there are that was a major concern so I appreciate that at the last police commission meeting the chief did put it on his monthly report I hope to see that on his future monthly reports because to the point of yes we do still value that information we don't want people to think it's a useless thing to do and furthermore we want to educate some more people are using it I literally forwarded an email to the chief from a group text of people like hey you know the city the police department has this tip line and we're supposed to be using it did anybody know that so I think to say that we can be doing more education around that to involve more citizens reporting what they see I'd love to get you guys involved I'll be talking to Sarah Tim this week about some ideas that I have about engaging in a way that the department isn't currently and I'll just leave it at that so thank you for acknowledging the backlog on responses I think people need to hear that I think that's honest and and transparent to know that you're looking at it but you don't have the bandwidth to always respond because that has been a big concern in the community I also appreciate the chief talking about the same issue with the incident logs and I think that's important again to get that out there so worth it for people to continue to do that and it's it's not going into avoid somewhere that it is going to be looked at but just the response might not be there is there a way and this is just something to think about I don't expect an answer I've been engaging with someone who regrettably lost a child to this crisis and had a number of questions and the response time around the questions wasn't what I guess certain things could have been better how can we display information for individuals who may have be suffering in this way from the crisis so for example can we make it more known how long it takes for autopsies to come back wasn't getting a response but an autopsy wasn't available anyway due to the current time that it takes so things like that what what can family members because some of these people they're not on the street they have homes they they work they get a bad mix of something and they have people that care about them and want to know what happened so how can we improve that communication with those individuals and I just appreciate the information about the street crimes unit and I also want to encourage my fellow counselors the mayor talked about com stat I tried to go or watch the recorded meetings I think it's crucial viewing for the Public Safety Committee but I really strongly recommend everyone watch it you supportive of a drug checking program in Burlington as a well I don't really know what that would entail so short of getting into some details okay do you watch the com stat meetings I do not okay I will send you the link with the presentation and when you can fit it in there is a drug checking in a nutshell it's different from testing in that it is done to identify what is here so that we can be more proactive in addressing the mix of drugs that are coming into our community there is one that's being operated now they call it like the I-91 corridor so just south of us so for you that information because I'd love to have your feedback on that and I'd love to see our department sponsoring something like that so we can get legislation passed in the state of Vermont to initiate that type of program and have our department be the supporting agency for that because you have to have a law enforcement agency be supportive of that and I is anybody else have any other questions I don't want to just go yes there are some other questions and I will cease for now thank you great thank you so much we'll go to Councillor Doherty to be followed by Councillor Traverse and then Bergman thank you I just want to thank all three of you for being here tonight late into the night providing us this presentation and also specifically thank you for the work that you do it is I know firsthand from working with Burlington Police Department other law enforcement agencies incredibly time-intensive work requires massive amounts of time away from your family nights weekends holidays and it's also incredibly dangerous and you guys put your lives on the line and I just want to express my gratitude for that work and I know the community feels the same way my question is about we've had a number of discussions and I've had a number of discussions with community members about the distinction between folks who are suffering from substance abuse disorder particularly with respect to opioids and higher level drug dealers and at least during the time that I was prosecuting drug cases and working with BPD my understanding from the folks that I interviewed and from the cases that I was working on was that although you know folks suffering from substance abuse disorder here in Vermont would engage in lower level drug distribution to support their addiction that by and large almost to a person people who are bringing narcotics into our community from out of state did not use opioids and in fact held those who used opioids in contempt and I remember quite distinctly and I think Deputy Chief Labarge you may have worked on this case before you were a deputy chief where we had a Title III wire warrant that allowed us to listen in real time to the drug distribution organization's phones we had that up for a number of months and the dealers were very explicitly mocking the addicted folks who are blinding up every day in front of the various just drug distribution houses it's been a while since since I was involved in drug prosecutions and I'm wondering if you could speak to that dynamic and whether that is still whether whether you still see that distinction between higher level for-profit drug dealers who don't use opioids and and the lower level folks who might be suffering from addiction is that still a vivid distinction so as you somewhat dated my time I'm about a decade past that time for me so I'm gonna default to fill on his current trends and things that he's seen yeah so obviously I don't want to over generalize so I can't speak to every single person that's involved in trafficking narcotics to our community but overall yes that that's still accurate that the folks that are here making a profit and then leaving the community they enter the community with drugs the drugs are sold they leave with a profit they're typically not using their product and and do in interviews a common theme is kind of looking down on the the user community in which they're profiting from thank you thanks a Councillor Doherty we'll go to Councillor Traverse and then Councillor Bergman thank you President Paul first of all I want to echo the comments made by Councillor Doherty thank you very much for being here this evening and allow me also to extend my general gratitude and thanks for your service to the City of Burlington I know that it's been a very difficult time for the department recent years and difficult time for for policing for many reasons and I'm grateful for your continued dedication to our city and for really sticking with Burlington so thank you the most poignant part of your presentation for me was the fact that in recent years we have had to eliminate the street crimes unit and it seems like that that has been a significant issue for you all in your ongoing investigation efforts and I suppose I just have a couple questions with respect to that one is in looking at your presentation it appears that there's an effort thankfully to restaff the street crimes unit one part of the graph was 2023 the next part that you saw was 2025 I'm curious if there's any intentions between now and then and I understand it's probably somewhat dependent on on recruitment and folks coming out of the academy and so on but if there's any effort between now and then to stand up that initiative again so yes we obviously have the goal of getting back to restaffing it fully as a crucial assignment as we currently stand because we are technically down one drug investigator if staffing allows we have been allowing a like a nine month special assignment for a patrol officer through a process to join the drug unit as that fourth investigator in a temporary status to help supplement that unit while also gaining professional experience in their career and maybe mapping out what their future goals are it's going to take time you know we obviously want to prioritize getting to that spot and adding that extra person for nine months on a rotation has helped out we've also taken steps throughout the summer months to try to do a voluntary overtime assignment for people who are interested although there's no shortage of work there is a shortage of staff and it's hard for officers to balance working their shifts plus any patrol overtime and then picking up a voluntary street crimes unit over time they had they've made some progress with that but it wasn't obviously as successful as we wanted it to be it's really going to depend on what our retention looks like in these next 12 months in my opinion I don't run patrol but obviously communicate with the other deputy chief daily on that and we need to be able to respond to the 911 calls and the immediate needs and then hopefully be able to have staffing to do that somewhat and try to backfill that street crimes unit so it is a goal and we're going to push for it but I I'm not going to make any promises on timeline great and as you looked at backfill the street crimes unit do you anticipate the staffing plan is that current officers would move back under the street crimes unit do you anticipate that it's newer recruits that would staff the street crimes unit do you have any plan on that end so we obviously contractual obligations with special assignments through union contracts and so there's a process and requirements for that it is usually an officer with a couple years on and they go through a process with the detective services supervisors and then they pick from that group and usually create a list and kind of get on a rotation of interested people so like we're doing now with the nine month rotation that's in theory that is what they're doing they're doing a special assignment as we build that unit back up it becomes a one-year assignment that we usually stagger with the officers so you keep into institutional knowledge from the detective side you don't have this mass exodus you have a rollover with the people that are on street crimes as you continue that program thank you if I may the last follow-up question that I have with respect to this is I'm assuming that you all are directly involved in the department's recruitment efforts given your senior status within the department this counts over the last year and a half has from my perspective tried to take a number of initiatives to assist the department in those recruitment efforts including among other examples ratifying a new collective bargaining agreement within the police department I'm thrilled to see what appears to be some successes from your recruitment efforts and the size of the current academy class that we have since we have you here I'm wondering if you can just speak briefly to the extent to the extent we've had those successes in the current size of the recruitment class what would you account those successes to and to the extent you're still facing challenges in recruitment efforts can you describe a little bit what those challenges are and how you think we could do better on that end so part of our success or the large part of the success internally is Carolyn Irwin and Anahad Bajwa who are our recruitment officer and a recruitment coordinator they are the face of the department with recruiting and Carolyn did recruiting for seven or eight years prior to then going back to patrol and then when we had some shift in staffing we convinced her to rejoin recruiting and still move forward and be successful and she they are both doing an excellent job and we've had decent turnouts with our class size we I know from the last conversation that I had the police profession in general right now is across the nation is struggling to retain officers and recruit officers and we're we're no different and the last conversation that I did have with Carolyn and I don't remember the numbers because they didn't come here prepared for that recruitment discussion but we were not seeing the numbers recently that she had seen in the months previous and so she was kind of frustrated or disappointed in and kind of where we what we were getting for applicants that tends to I think ebb and flow but we are not receiving the applicant pool that we had in years prior I'm aware of that thanks again for being here I think it would be great for us to continue that discussion on recruitment efforts for the department for the street crimes unit and look forward to having you Carolyn others at the department back to discuss that issue thank you thanks councillor travers we'll go to councillor Bergman and then to councillor Jang followed by councillor Shannon so first let me echo what folks have said and thanks to you for being here for working hard on these cases which is they're long to to prosecute much quicker than it was my elation which I prosecuted for you guys for for many years a long time ago I'm going to actually ask you a what I think is a more difficult question related to the current state of the lack of the street crimes unit and the the fact that we are not engaged in the open drug market you know and how you characterize it I don't want to re-characterize what you what you did because I'd probably get it wrong but I'm I sat here you sat here and listened to in particular the concerns expressed about City Hall Park its relationship to not only the downtown but to this building and when I go through and listen to the report I am actually not hearing a plan to deal with what seems to be the impunity that is occurring out our doorstep the seat of government here you know it is would be if it would if it's just bad in in Battery Park as it is here then you know it's out your door too but it really is a special case so understanding the the staffing issues understanding the need to balance prevention and health well-being with it with enforcement all the things that we heard about about accountability as well I'm wondering what kind of plans what kind of ideas generally speaking what kind of programs we can have to in a nearer term than in a couple of years when we restaff the street crimes unit we can deal with the impunity that exists out there that is making folks feel that they cannot come to the heart of their city that they can't walk from their house to their business that they can't bring their kids to the splash pad that we spent so many dollars on thinking that the environmental work that we're gonna do is gonna you know displace the efforts it obviously hasn't happened and I am really curious about the ideas that you can have given the resources that we as a city have but that we may also be able to tap be they the university be they the state police be they health services whatever because it's a complicated problem I know and it's not a question of I'm not asking you how are you gonna solve it so thank you you know as the person at the most responsible for working with the chief and put forward plans I think I'll respond to that Councillor Bergman respectfully that's not what I heard from the presentation tonight at all what I heard from the presentation tonight is that despite severe resource shortages imposed upon this department they have continued to have keep Mr. Mayor let me just tonight no I just want to correct that I wasn't talking about their presentation so I wasn't criticizing their presentation I just so that you don't go down that we're not gonna get it I just want to make sure that that we don't get into a back-and-forth on that it was I was talking about the the public form comments not not theirs on it so just I don't want to I'm not being critical that's not how I heard your question that's why I wanted to that's why I wanted to clarify so that we didn't get we're still not getting into a back-and-forth you asked a question do you want the do you want the officers here to answer that question with the clarification that I wasn't criticizing I wasn't criticizing their presentation I was asking for some ideas based on what we heard from the public tonight do you have it do either any of you have a response to that I will you obviously you asked a very important question and everybody in this room everybody that walks around has seen what's taken place I've been here over 18 years I've never seen the city in this type of shape and we are doing the best that we can with what we have and I think as the city and as the department we've also as we're working towards those those improvements and increasing our staffing we've had other things in place that have been topics of discussion whether it's the CSOs the CSLs Cape and cares and the different programs that are kind of running parallel to the department to help with some of those low-level things as we spoke about when I worked patrol it was a different time and you might deal with somebody that you would inadvertently do an interdiction stop on or get something low-level and there were different ways that you would deal with that they might not be a person who is in an extreme level of addiction that we're seeing right now on the streets they might be a different level and you would utilize different investigative avenues to maybe get to that next level person we have not seen this out here what we're dealing with and so I think as we manage the things day-to-day and we build there is no short-term solution but I think we're going in the right direction with the programs where we have our civilian counterparts and our you know government or non-government organizations out there meeting with people and trying to encourage them to get help get treatment get all of the service aspects tied up so that they can maybe move in the direction that we heard some of the people speak and move on to good productive lives enforcing as far as an enforcement aspect we are not we're not going to enforce our way out with the lower-level individuals who are addicted and suffering from all a bunch of other things kind of in that bucket so we are I think in the right direction as far as the open air and I know it's tough I know there's social media I know there's things that are out there and it's shocking to the conscience as we continue to build up when I look back in 2009 or 2015 or 2019 the amount of officers that we had on patrol the amount of supervisors that we had the fact that we had marketplace on top of that we had street crimes on top of that we had SROs on top of that we had the resources that when we were handling priority calls we still had officers who could go out and do proactive policing and that proactive policing could be all sorts of things it could be DUI enforcement it could be drug interdiction it could be just patrolling for people out lurking in the shadows and breaking into cars and so our goal is to get back to that but it is going to take time and it is a tough struggle to manage our resources to meet all of today's needs but we're doing our best thank you councillor Bergman we'll go to councillor Jang and then councillor Shannon thank you President Paul thank you for being here and to break the ice thank you for dressing up better than Chief Mirat you guys nailing it right now thank you I think sometimes it's good for you to dress up like this right we saw another face of the great work that you do and I'm appreciative of everything you do every single day right and I want to recognize also what councillor Grant said I would have loved to to to get this presentation a little bit earlier and would love to be able to engage more right everything that you talked about I almost forget about it so next time please send it to us a little bit earlier you know and I think what I what I captured is you said it right basically this is a crisis everyone here public forum you talked about it you understand and all of it right but I want to understand couple of things your your work in collaboration with surrounding municipalities surrounding police right around drug trafficking and our controlling drug trafficking if you can talk about that that'd be good also if someone is admitted up at the hospital because of overdose do you follow up with that person after hand in order to identify where this drug come from and I know if someone got shot you follow up with that person to identify to try to apprehend the shooter but with the drug crisis does that happen that's your unit and okay let me allow you to answer those and then couple more thank you so I'll speak generally and and Sergeant Tremblay can maybe speak to the current collaboration as I said earlier when we briefly discussed recruitment and retention all surrounding agencies are struggling to recruit and retain people and I don't claim to know all of the staffing issues with departments in the county but I know that we're all fighting for the same individuals and we're all struggling to hire we do routinely in the past during my time period we would work collaboratively with other detective bureaus to address these issues I don't know if the same thing is going on as consistent as it was a decade ago during my time but I do know that our bureau actively works with surrounding agencies the state police their narcotics team when working cases that either touch Burlington or have connections to Burlington there used to be a time period where people wouldn't dare come to Burlington to sell drugs at least that was my experience during my time now maybe not so much but as far as the collaboration I I think it's still happening and Phil can can add to that as far as the overdose deaths I'll let Mike speak to that generally in my experience when we have had it I've had unfortunate cases where I worked patrol and we would go to a house and three or four people had overdosed at the time it was it was heroin and this is a decade ago and we're not even done dealing with the scene before they're back from the hospital basically not cooperating don't want to talk to us about anything like like they had just went out to get lunch very shocking in some instances and there's a there's a bunch of reasons why people struggling with things do or don't want to cooperate with the police and I don't think that's you know fit for this discussion here but I'll let Phil briefly discuss collaboration with surrounding agencies short answer for collaboration yes and it's out of necessity so I'm happy to say my personal opinion if we were to do say a controlled purchase where we're doing a controlled purchase of an illegal drug in my opinion the safe the minimum number of investigators to be involved would be four I believe I illustrated in the presentation that our current drug unit combined with our lack of free crimes is four so for us to do anything we are at the bare minimum so we rely heavily on other agencies and other agencies don't have those four officers dedicated to drug investigations so they rely on us we're very grateful for the collaborations and I think it's worth noting that we have a once a month meeting over at the state attorney's office where all of the Chittenden County law enforcement folks come in and that's specific to drug related investigations so that we're at least we're seeing if we're dealing with the same problems here as in Colchester Winooski which probably won't come to any surprise that we are thank you and the urgency of the problem we all recognize it and creative solutions is exactly what's needed and I think Burlington from here this is a call to please be the leader of bringing them together more than once a month and try to solve this problem this is not our problem alone right and yes now the last question I have for you is in regard of the six people in the academy right now to become police officers and was just wondering if you will prioritize having them as to join this unit and thank you so unfortunately no the trainees in the academy will go through their academy training and then they will come out and do their post basic and then their field training where they can learn to build their foundation to be good solid patrol officers the benefit though is as we build up those academy we can take our more senior seasoned officers to then look to backfill into the street crimes unit and that's obviously our goal or one of our goals thank you councillor Jang will go to councillor Shannon thank you President Paul I have a question I've just been wondering for a really long time so since you're here I'll ask it I have noticed a lot of cars around town don't have license plates or they have what appears to be bogus license plates and something must have happened during COVID that the DMV doesn't seem to be issuing the temporary plates that they used to issue and I also hear from people all over the city who are watching drug deals go down all over the city that many of those cars don't have license plates can you explain what's going on and if somebody is talking to DMV about this and am I wrong is this just anecdotal and there's not actually a relationship so I do have DMV counterparts that I could follow up with and get more information but the smaller version is obviously during COVID a lot of in-person services ceased to exist and I think if I remember correctly registrations and things that were done through clerical work at the DMV's a lot of that went to online or a lesser version of in-person and during that time period they were issuing I think people were printing them if I remember correctly like temporary plates and then you'll see they get wet or they're not protected and then they throw them on some cardboard or they put them in their back window where they tape them up and with I'm going to assume the backlog at the state level with issuing of plates they're created this window where there were cars out there operating in that nature I don't I don't want to misspeak on the details of what exactly took place with DMV but but that is my understanding and that is why you tend to see that now that doesn't mean that you know people abiding by the law and printing the plate and having it valid and waiting for their plates are doing the right thing and that other people who aren't doing that are just scribbling something down and writing and the only way that that potentially would be found out would be through traffic traffic stop traffic enforcement to look further into if there was a violation and obviously they're dealing with whatever they're going to deal with on a civil side of things for traffic interactions they would maybe find out if that was bogus or not the problem I believe at one point was as temporary registrations are in limbo in the systems they're not like your hard plates your green and white plates that are in the system when you run them thank you so you don't know what DMV is planning on doing because I understand there's still there's still just people printing off their own plates and when people are printing off their own plates it seems right for taking advantage of that system and I know when we had drug dealing going on in my own neighborhood what we were all told to do is report the plates but you can't report the plates when either it's something that's just a small thing in the window or it doesn't have a plate and there is no enforcement of actually having a plate anymore I think that this goes towards you know what one speaker said tonight this kind of breakdown of just even the expectation of having a license plate seems like one one piece of this but if you can yeah I think it'd be great if you could talk to DMV I'm not hearing you say that this is problematic in terms of addressing the crime that's going on in the city am I misinterpreting that so without getting into a whole different topic I believe in this is my my opinion as a law enforcement officer that proactive policing which includes traffic enforcement is an important tool in our toolbox when it comes to deterring crime keeping the streets safe of intoxicated drivers or anything else that you might find somebody doing that is acting in a criminal manner and so we obviously in our current situation and as the numbers show have not been engaging in traffic enforcement as far as traffic stops as we have in years past for a number of reasons and a lot of that is obviously that is a can be a proactive interaction and right now as we prioritize and triage our resources we we have to focus our shifts downtown and like this evening we had four officers on you know there's no officers like there were years ago to be out doing traffic enforcement to that level and that personally bothers me because that's not the way I came up in the department policing yes well I just wanted to add we're also slightly inhibited by certain recent policies surrounding non-public safety related traffic stops and proactive efforts to interdict beyond that traffic stop and that's just essentially memos from the state's attorney's office that we're abiding by so essentially a non-public safety stop which would be a registration issue you essentially are prohibited from enforcing the drug crime beyond that well I will say that when I I was in South Burlington following a car without a plate and I called to report that and the response was similar in South Burlington so I'm not saying it has anything to do with with Burlington really but it seems like actually the DMV should maybe enforce this and the DMV should provide something that is unique to the DMV and distributed by the DMV and not printed on our home computers and if there's anything you can do to expedite that or that I could do please let me let me know beyond that you had mentioned that the numbers for your drug tip line and that you don't you want to provide responses it's not your top priority to provide responses and you don't want to see the drug drug tips going down but aren't we seeing that from the numbers that you showed us which was 405 drug tips in 2022 and 202 and 2023 assuming three quarters that's about three quarters of the year to date which should be if it were on par it should be around 300 and it doesn't seem like our drug crime has gone down in that time frame again anecdotally feels like it's going up so do you think maybe we are reaching that point and then again maybe that's not really the most important thing and you need to focus on the other aspects of your building cases but I do know that members of the public want to be helpful in the effort there's also a difference between feeling helpful and actually being helpful so I think being honest about what you really need and what's really helpful would be good thanks thank you very much counselor Shannon did you did you want to respond to that or I apologize my apologies go ahead so I obviously can't tell you why the numbers are what the numbers are and I could make assumptions that people may or may not be calling because they don't feel that they're getting a certain response but I think as we we said during the presentation and as we said during previous conversation that we want people to continue to call and submit tips and I hopeful hopeful hopefully this was informative to people that do watch to know that they do have the ability to do it and we want the information to come in but then also understand that it's different than a 911 call and we we're going to do our best to continue to try to get to them and we've been discussing trying to prioritize like a reasonable timeline to address those those issues inside the drug unit and and we'll work towards when we do have someone who receives a call back that our detectives will kind of give them a they tend to like a very general overview of what may or may not be able to come from that tip or what we might be looking for or you know what other information they could provide I think a lot of times when people call they obviously expect to speak to somebody and if we can if we can speak with them and have that communication I think we'll be better off so hopefully this dialogue will encourage people to continue to call but also hopefully and I say I know I say be patient with us but it's hard when you have this stuff going on in your neighborhood but know that we are we are we're we're doing our best to try to handle these these issues and we will continue to do so you can put a two-minute time around me if you'd like reference the the drug tips as well I think what's important is that hopefully there's some education going on in that that's that's not an appropriate spot for drug use tips which is actually a number of them where it's hey there's somebody who appears to be you know shooting up and in this particular location that's not when when that tip is being received that's not really actionable on our side of things because it's over and done with it maybe happened two days to a week prior so there's not really much follow-up that can be done from there those tips are the most advantageous thing that comes from those tips is reoccurring behavior or or be yeah mostly reoccurring behaviors and locations and license plates as you alluded to that those are the most effective tips and I will say that when we took took upon the priority response plan a lot of the drug use things were getting sent to that drug tip line which I guess I don't have a better answer for where they should go because an officer's probably not going to respond to it live so it seems fitting to go there but just so folks that are listening understand that an active drug use situation isn't really appropriate for that we'll always take it it gets logged but the most advantageous thing is that reoccurring behavior that's helpful thank you thank you so much councillor Shannon we'll go back to councillor Jang and then we need to move on yes and this is also for the public to know that under the circumstances you are you are also doing great work if I tell you a blue house in the new north and how you dismantled that drug ring it was just really amazing people complained talk to you talk to you but you guys were doing your investigation behind the scene but when the time was right you came and took it down and I just want to say thank you for that specific dismantlement and we want to see more of those and dress up more than the chief do thank you guys thank you so much thank you I know I got the side eye from the city council president data do you have a way without compromising any investigations where you can just give a number of the current cases that you're working or and or numbers of cases that have been submitted to the state's attorney so in the moment we're at this is now we're not going to provide that type of intelligent information to individuals I understand there's a need for data and transparency and I think we do a real good job of providing that online I think it could be more of a after the fact kind of like you know this year or these cases were conducted during this month type of thing where it's not gonna okay yeah yeah you know the like Phil said hiding in the shadows and so we probably won't go in that direction as it stands now but we can explore you know kind of working backwards of this is what we had done I'd appreciate that I think the public would appreciate that as well because data is something that is is something that's being asked about in terms of what is happening around building cases and submitting cases to the state's attorney's office and then the court system because it's not state's attorney's office is a county office it's not a city office they can't specify ongoing cases they can't pull that information in that that way of just looking at anything extra that can help keep the people of Burlington informed and engaged regarding drug use which drug use going to the tip line with that still be looked at as possibly helping to provide a heat map to say okay a lot of people are reporting individuals using this particular street at these times do you ever use those for heat maps I'm not aware of us doing that obviously any any sort of data points if you're getting information you can plug into to a heat map and create that okay I think we know internally where a lot of stuff is going on as people do externally but that's not something that we I think we're experiencing most of that downtown in the downtown corridor blocks and so I don't know if there's a direct correlation to you know dealers upstairs and I'm on the stoop using but I think as we continue to move forward we you know we'll always look at different ways to process data okay thank you and the last thing I was not really questioned just a quick statement regarding the how did you put it the non-public safety stops also known as pretextual stops so one of the reasons not only our state's attorney but other states attorneys across the country have been looking at those is because of the history of the racial disparities on them so overall if departments across the country can improve that then that can come back to be a useful tool that personally is something that torments me because that'll be a tool but I know why it's not being used so I just wanted to to mention that because there was a reason for that for not using that tool and thank you very much again for your time and your information thank you councillor Grant thank you to all three of you for your work please extend to your entire team our gratitude for the work that you do on this important issue the next item on our agenda councillor Travers just briefly I would move to suspend the rules to allow for the completion of our agenda as approved we can certainly do that we do that at 10 30 but I think there's no question that we're going to get to 10 yeah that's what I was okay acting city attorney Peller when we do it earlier okay so there's a motion to suspend our rules is there a second to that motion seconded by councillor Jang any discussion on that motion seeing none all my apologies councillor Barlow thank you president only just a clarification is this to complete our deliberative agenda or was it to complete our entire agenda I believe the motion is to complete our entire agenda okay thank you so with that if there's no other if there's no other questions will go to a vote all those in favor of the motion to suspend our rules please say aye aye any oppose please say no that motion passes unanimously and just also wanted to note that councillor Carpenter is joining us on zoom the next item on our agenda 6.2 which is a resolution declaring the unprecedented increase in substance use a public health crisis and together with drug activity in our city to be our top public health and safety priority and amending appendix B rules and regulations of the city council to add a standing item to every agenda for for this item I am going to pass the gavel to councillor Travers so that I may participate in this debate councillor Travers acting president Travers okay well thank you councillor Paul this is as you know an agenda item that comes to us from the Public Safety Committee you councillor Paul councillors Doherty in grant our agenda has provided 30 minutes for this item and to introduce the motion we will turn to you as chair of the Public Safety Committee thank you thanks very much so this is the first time in my 18 months as council president that I'm passing the gavel and it's my sincere hope that this deliberative action will convey not only to the council but also to the community the profound gravity and importance of this resolution I believe this resolution is the single most important one that we will pass all year and I and we need to pass it unanimously our community needs to hear us speak with one voice and this is what they need to hear us say that we are committed to addressing the unprecedented drug activity that's harming the fabric of our city we need no other indicator than to look at the sheer number of community members that showed up in con toys for public forum and the nearly 100 community members that were joining us on zoom to show us that our committee our community is enormously concerned even with all the good work being done our community wants strong and definitive action from us and we are taking it with this resolution in two ways first with regard to harm reduction this council has been unequivocal in our support of harm reduction strategies I wrote the first two of three resolutions that this council has overwhelmingly passed on harm reduction and this resolution tonight will deepen that commitment we all want those of us that are suffering from substance use disorder to get well we all want them to be safe we also want the greater community to be safe and right now we know that many people in our community do not feel that sense of safety now we can't we can't make our community safe by simply arresting prosecuting and incarcerating those who are suffering and I in all the people that I have spoken with over the past month and or two about this issue I have not spoken with one person who supports these measures as a blanket solution but make no mistake as many have said tonight we are truly at a pivotal moment in our city and the harm and the lack of safety is palpable we are all feeling it we're witnessing an unprecedented increase in crime every day I hear from families and I'm sure everyone at this table here's from families who are weathering the psychological erosion that comes from feeling unsafe in one's home and one's neighborhood businesses are feeling the economic impacts of a challenging environment downtown which is alarming and we hear all of these voices it's well understood and well documented that if public behavior like we are seeing is allowed to continue it will become the norm and that is unacceptable to all of us no one wants to see this for our city so the resolution before us is about action steps that we'll be taking in the next month to move our public safety and our health priorities forward chief among them this resolution will create at least two forums for our community to come together I have always believed that some of the smartest minds on the planet are in our city if we can come together listen and learn from experts harm reductionist law enforcement and community members and we can exchange ideas we can come up with bold new solutions to tackle this crisis we must stop with what we are often known for which is extensive studies and years of public process together we must find and pilot new responses to address this crisis now despite the hurdles that we all know are out there we can find the solutions together and we can do that amongst ourselves in this community and with many county and state partners I believe that it is the sincere hope of this council that through these forums we will create a shared vision for our community and with vision comes decision this council will hold itself accountable with regular updates as a standing item on every council agenda in closing I'd like to offer thanks first to my fellow counselors on the public safety committee to counselor Grant who came to me with several of the ideas that are developed in this resolution I appreciate and I respect your commitment to this issue and to counselor Dority for his insistence that the time for urgency was now and finally by supporting this resolution I do want to note one thing and make sure that we publicly say this that the city council by approving and supporting this resolution is expressing our collective appreciation for our police officers our firefighters our community-based partners for their continued work on this emergency and it is with resolve that we are supporting the recruitment efforts to expand the ranks of our first responders we need these professionals in our community who are doing this hard work every day and we offer them our heartfelt gratitude and support I will begin I will end where I began we must act now and we must act together we need to speak with one voice one call to action a unanimous vote in addressing this pressing emergency thank you thank you counselor Paul I believe I am correct in assuming that you're moving the recommended action on our agenda which is to waive the reading and adopt the resolution that is the first thing that I that is the first thing that I should have said yeah I would move the resolution waive the reading and adopt the resolution and actually we needed to ask for a second yes is there a second thank you seconded by Councillor Doherty are there any other no worries are there any other counselors that wish to speak to this resolution Councillor Doherty thank you acting President Travis and thank you President Paul like everyone on the city council I'm sure I received daily communications from Burlingtonians Berlin Burlington business owners people who work in Burlington and people whose children attend public schools in Burlington all of whom are expressing worry and frustration about the current public safety situation in our city I've heard the same sentiments from folks who come to visit Burlington to enjoy our restaurants shops music art and cultural events and we heard overwhelmingly today from participants in the public forum the same thing I very much share these worries and feel this frustration but I do think these sentiments sometimes can understandably translate into people believing that the city is not doing anything to address the situation and it's important to say that nothing could be further from the truth we heard today from the mayor about the the city's ongoing policy initiatives and moreover every day our police fire departments employees as well as city employees across a broad spectrum of our city's departments are working very hard to address the opioid epidemic the resulting public safety issues and to make the city a healthier and safer place for everyone and so to the state's attorney's office the state's attorney the prosecutors and staff in that office who particularly given the difficulties in our court system created by the COVID pandemic have worked incredibly hard under daunting circumstances even in the under the best of conditions which these few years last few years have not been all of these jobs I imagine can feel very thankless at times and I want to acknowledge and express my ongoing gratitude for everybody who's currently engaged in this work and I don't think this resolution this resolution does not and does not is not intended to diminish this incredible work that's already being done every day and at least as far as my perspective this resolution is not also not intended to convey pessimism I work downtown downtown Burlington I have a business in downtown Burlington to my children go to schools in downtown Burlington and I love the vibrancy of downtown Burlington where I've spent most days of now what is the better part of my adult life and I love it more and enjoy it more every day my two older children walk and ride their bikes downtown on their own and my spouse and I believe that they are safe to do so and I'm very excited about the positive developments in Burlington including the new businesses that have been added in recent years and the progress on city place all of which I think bodes very well for the future of our city but this resolution is at least in part a recognition that more needs to be done to ensure that Burlington will continue to be a healthy and safe place for everyone that additional solutions need to be brought to bear and that there is a tremendous urgency to this situation which President Paul just so articulately stated to put it bluntly it is unacceptable that our retail establishments are losing tens of thousands of dollars to retail theft it's unacceptable that people with jobs in downtown Burlington are subject to violence and harassment when they're at work or when they're going to and from their work in the city it's unacceptable that our public school students are subject to that same harassment on their way to and from school I had the opportunity to meet with with an after school group that my son is involved with down at the high school today before this meeting and it this is a incredible incredibly important topic of conversation at the high school among our high school students what they see here and experience every day and it should be an unacceptable to all of us it's unacceptable for people to drink alcohol and use drugs in our public spaces and outside our schools where it's already illegal to do so and it's unacceptable that Burlingtonians particularly our elders and our caregivers are frightened to use our public parks and enjoy our public spaces and if we do not act with a renewed sense of urgency I believe we risk grave damage to the civic cultural and economic health of our city so with that sense of urgency there are several components to this resolution that I think make it an important and worthwhile step first as president Paul noted the resolution creates a regular agenda item in our city council meetings for us to address the public health and safety crisis which I hope will force us to maintain our sense of urgency and remain accountable to the public on this issue second the resolution reaffirms the city's long-standing commitment to a policy that acknowledges substance use disorder as a disease requiring medical treatment and the opioid epidemic is a public health crisis that requires public health solutions that center on harm reduction strategies this is long been the city's policy and the mayor's office and many people on the city council deserve much credit for their initiatives in this area this resolution very clearly reaffirms that pop public policy approach which I fully support this resolution also however does recognize and what I believe is plain common sense language that there is a very important public safety component to this crisis that also requires attention and renewed thinking too often the political discussion in this area is presented as a binary choice between those who support law and order and those who support harm reduction and social services this I am convinced is a false dichotomy that does a real disservice Burlington deserves better we can support both the compassionate response to those in need and insist that people are held accountable when they break the law and interfere with the rights of others third the resolution calls upon leaders in Montpelier to also act with urgency urgency which I think has been lacking to provide additional judicial and prosecutorial resources if that's necessary for our county and to quickly release the available opioid settlement funds that are so urgently needed and I was heartened to hear from the mayor today that that seems to be in the works by making these requests this resolution recognizes that the challenges we are facing in Burlington are regional if not statewide challenges and a commensurate and fair response is required by the state of Vermont and finally as president Paul noted this resolution calls for a series of public forums in which stakeholders and community members can gather and provide data and information and furtherance of new policy ideas we ask the police and fire departments for certain categories of data for example as well as the state's attorney's office and it may be that some of what we ask for is unavailable but I hope that this can serve as an invitation for dialogue with these stakeholders so that we in our constituents can better understand what information is available and increase visibility on these issues and finally to echo what president Paul said this resolution was the product of a very lengthy process and counselors Grant and Paul worked incredibly hard on it and deserve much of the credit for it no one got all the language that they preferred they preferred in this resolution there were significant compromises but everyone by everyone but I think that's what our constituents expect of us and I think this is an important step forward and I hope that the council will support it thank you councillor Doherty councillor McGee thank you acting president Travers I have remarks for the resolution as it is but I also have an amendment that I would like to offer so we'll do that first my amendment can be found under JM underscore all proposed underscore amendment pull this up quickly this is largely the same as the proposed amendment that I had sent to the first council to the council first earlier today actually sorry chair would it be best for me to move the amendment and then go through it or go through yes I think that'd be the appropriate action to right move the amendment receive a second and then thank you so I will move to amend the resolution using the document that I just stated and ask for the floor back after a second thank you councillor McGee there's a motion from councillor McGee to amend the resolution to reflect the changes in JM all proposed amendment resolution seconded by councillor Bergman councillor McGee I assume you would like the floor back yes thank you this amendment goes through and most of my changes here helped to clarify the language and cut down some of the wordiness of some of the clauses I online 36 in the second resolve clause I took out the language that said associated with substance use that endangers the safety of our community because I don't like the insinuation that all of the crime that we have seen in our community is the result of substance use I think this language is stigmatizing and doesn't does not help us actually address this problem the next amendments that are I think the most substantive begin on line 64 related to recruitment and retention for deputy state's attorneys in conversations with our state's attorneys Sarah George I have learned that her office is actually one in the state that does not have recruitment or retention challenges and so I think it is a mischaracterization for us to put that in this resolution and the last I think something to have information yes I was just wondering if councillor McGee is moving all of the amendments and we vote on all of them at once or will he be doing it one by one by line I believe the motion is to entirely replace the resolution with that version that council McGee has moved but is that correct council McGee that is correct so all of the amendments at once okay thank you council McGee my next amendments are to the resolve clause in this version lines 89 through 97 relating to data from the state's attorneys office this amendment comes as the result of significant engagement with our state's attorney regarding the limits of the system that they use to collect and maintain data they are not able to break out data by municipality and so I think it is wrong for us to include language in this resolution that has the state's attorney for something that she cannot provide we have tried several avenues to get this language into the resolution and for reasons passing understanding and has not made it in there yet and so I am presenting it here tonight I'm happy to answer any questions about these changes thank you thank you council McGee the question is on the proposed amendment are there any councillors who wish to speak to the amendment council grant I just regarding the data so data data data data data data data it's my mantra it's very important and I think what happened here is like wow this would be great to know we need to know this because we can all agree that we've just not been giving Burlingtonians enough information and as a council we we've had we've had information gaps and so I think I I tried to resolve this at the public safety committee meeting but I guess I wasn't making myself well understood it as we have it written it's it's not correct they're not a city office their state office the software that they use has limitations so the state's attorney came back and said there is certain information I can give you it's not to the full specificity that we would like to see it's just that software system doesn't have that capability so it would not be good to have it within this resolution when we we know that we won't be able to get those specific things thank you thank you councillor Grant council Bergman well I would just say that these seem to be technical amendments that are totally consistent with the rest of the the resolution they correct a couple of substantive errors which I think we can and we should correct if we can right now and in terms of the data clearly what this does is is totally in line for the what councillor Daugherty said in terms of even if they if they cannot provide us with the information that we're asking at least it begins the the dialogue and what this does is says let's start the dialogue we can give us the information and I hear that the state's attorney is willing to to come so I would actually hope that these would be friendly amendments and would be incorporated by the the makers of the the resolution and the in the motion and we can then move on with what I think will be a very harmonious action by the full council thank you councillor Bergman we have been in the practice of allowing friendly amendments councillor McGee are you asking whether or not the maker of the underlying motion is friendly to the amendment I would welcome that councillor Paul are you friendly to the proposed amendment I am not okay thank you the question is then on the proposed amendment are there any other councillors who wish to speak to it yes councillor Paul thank you so I'd like to explain why that why this why these resolute why these amendments are not friendly as a group and I'll I'll just give a couple of examples you know I do want the public to know that the Public Safety Committee spent nine hours of committee time on this resolution we sent several drafts of resolutions to the full council we we welcomed other input from other councillors and in fact there were several councillors who gave us input while we were doing this process we went through line by line in a four-hour meeting talking about talking about developing it with the end result being developing a carefully crafted collaborative amongst the three of us and including a number of councillors who did attend those meetings we tried to come up with a product that reflected for the most part nobody got everything that they wanted but reflecting a very well-developed well-thought-out resolution and I'll just sort of give and I'll give you one example there were prior versions of this resolution that mentioned the categories of illegal activity that are online 94 in the one that I'm looking at this is the this is the amended resolution that councillor McGee has proposed and we talked about the categories of illegal activity that were occurring in our community and we named them those categories of illegal activity were in the resolution twice and there was a concern that we shouldn't include them and so what we did was we compromised we took them out of a whereas clause and we put them into the resolve clause and even though some of us didn't want them in at all others wanted them in and that was the compromise that we that was the compromise that we struck in order to move on in developing the rest of this resolution this resolute the these and this amendment takes that out and that was an agreement among the three of us who are sponsors of this resolution that we would include it in that clause so to take it out is is not is not something that we the three of us agreed to there are other things for example and I'll just give one other and then I will I'll I'll you the floor we talk about the fact that online 43 that or 41 that we reaffirming and reiterating our strong and unwavering support for all evidence-based harm reduction strategies we have never discussed we have never as a council put in a resolution information about drug checking programs so with a compromise that we made was because there there was a counselor who wanted to include drug-checking programs we added another resolve a resolve clause and that was that the council affirms its strong and unwavering support for these programs but we have never we can't reaffirm something that we haven't previously affirmed and so that was the that was another one of the compromises that we made some people didn't want a second resolve clause but others wanted the drug-checking programs in the resolution so that was the compromise we also compromised on the fact that we did not know all of the information that we could get and there were some that wanted to be able to find that out and so what we did was as opposed to obligating the state's attorney to give us information that she might not possibly be she she might not be able to give us we added the word if pot words if possible and the three of us agreed to that so I guess this is a long-winded way of me saying that there was a lot of effort that went to into this resolution and most people that I have spoken with have said that they read it and it flows and it makes sense and it covers everything and it's transparent and is and it is what many people who were involved in this process want to see us do in moving forward so I do appreciate the effort that is made here but for those reasons I can't support I can't support the motion thank you thank you Councillor Paul. Councillor Grant did you want to speak again to the amendment? I had you next on the list. There were things where I was outvoted so be it I I guess I'm not going to speak on the amendment I will come back and speak on the resolution itself. I also have you next up on the underlying resolution. Councillor McGee I had you next before turning to you just are there any other councillors that wish to speak on the amendment so Councillor McGee will turn back to you and then perhaps turn to a vote on the amendment. I'll save the rest of my remarks for the underlying thank you. Okay to confirm are there any other councillors that wish to speak on the proposed amendment then we'll go to a vote I believe that there is a sufficient break sorry yeah right because we have Councillor Carpenter online and I believe this will not be unanimous we will need to take the vote by roll call and so we'll turn to the city clerk for roll call vote thank you Councillor Barlow no Councillor Bergman yes Councillor Carpenter no Councillor Jang no Councillor Doherty no Councillor Grant yes Councillor King no Councillor McGee yes Councillor Shannon no Councillor Paul no and then acting City Council President Travers no so we are now back on the underlying resolution vote yes could the clerk thank you for suggestions here could the city results three eyes eight nays one absent okay so the amendment fails we now return to the underlying resolution and as indicated Councillor Grant you were next up on that and then Councillor McGee the initial discussion that was the driving conversation for this resolution occurred at the Public Safety Committee meeting on August 17th I really encourage everyone to go listen to that conversation starts at one hour 13 minutes I don't take a lot of credit for a lot of stuff I kind of stand around and I I get loud about things sometimes and then sometimes things happen when I get loud it's what happens when you're not being heard and I felt that I was representing burlingtonians that were not being heard and have had it I think the term we've been using a lot is compassion fatigue right we all feel compassion fatigue I wanted especially with regards to City Council agenda I think we weren't putting anything on our agenda so we weren't actually communicating with the people of Burlington people were going to meetings and as a City Councilor I started going to the Comstock meeting which I think is probably the most important meeting that I go to with regards to this crisis and yes and the mayor will have to forgive me I go to his coffees I have these conversations with him and sometimes it's just like pole pole pole to to get out information that he does have in his head and that he is working on but is not sufficiently communicating like I think the things that happened here tonight were like the best things the the council has done with regards to communicating with the City of Burlington definitely since I've been a councilor and as a commissioner I fought for these levels of engagement to improve as well so I'm going to vote for this resolution because it is important to me and because I was kind of yelling about it at this meeting at some point like we do need to do some things and so there's been these lovely statements about it which is great but we have lost some of my intention and I I am fearful about that I'm just going to give one example and then let other people speak when it comes to the public forums it's not about gathering experts like we should be during our council meetings and through our public safety committee meetings having experts come and speak and then getting that information out these forms in my mind were meant to engage the public kind of in the way that people were engaged when they were speaking here at a public forum was that we needed members of the public to talk to people in Mount Pilier in a different sort of way we don't have anyone lobbying for us effectively and we need to lobby for ourselves and we need to tell our stories take two three minutes to say this is my story as a resident of Burlington this is my story as a employee of Burlington this is my story as a visitor of Burlington so that Burlington has a face Burlington has a voice not just emails but the audio the video and my idea of the forums was like we could be recording people making videos getting really effective with Instagram stories other social media emails to people that are not only part of our delegation because the Burlington delegation does understand but not other people that are on these committees that have to make the decisions to release money to us so we can have more resources people think we have too many resources and that just blows my mind because we do not have enough especially with trying to get people into recovery I I don't want these forums to be just they're not meant to be bitch sessions and they're not meant to have people be there who would control the voice of Burlingtonians I wanted so that the voices of Burlingtonians are heard because these specific stories when taken as an aggregate are impactful we have a current governor who is not engaged in what is happening here I think in the past we were able to have momentum because we have we had a governor who was we have a governor right now is not and and we need to get him to that space we have some state legislatures who are not thank you thank you council grant council McGee thank you acting president Travers I want to start by correcting a troubling narrative that I've heard repeated repeat I've heard repeatedly in recent weeks and I've heard numerous times here tonight I've overheard and read comments from a great many people suggesting that we somehow have an imbalance in our response to the overdose crisis focusing too much on harm reduction and not enough on enforcement and that's just patently false and I don't appreciate community leaders who continue to perpetuate this false narrative I worry that somehow this resolution feeds that narrative as well and I think judging by the turnout that we saw at the public forum tonight that that's correct we have not dedicated near as many resources to harm reduction and health approaches to the overdose crisis as we have committed to fighting the war on drugs through bloated law enforcement budgets and this is true at every level of government we've made a great effort in this country to criminalize poverty and despair by designating acts of despair is criminal we've opened the floodgates dedicating resources to law enforcement in an effort to disappear people who are suffering the unfortunate truth is that federal state and local governments have historically decided that it is easier to incarcerate or murder by neglect those who are suffering rather than dedicate resources to help them find lasting stability and I want to be very clear Burlington and Vermont have come a long way in the way that we talk about this crisis and our city has taken great action to begin to embrace harm reduction but we have not realized the promise of what true harm reduction and true health responses to this crisis could look like and it shows it shows in the ways passers-by sneer at those who have no other place to go and it bring all their worldly possessions to City Hall Park it shows in the Instagram accounts that post videos of people using drugs on a public bench because they have no safe private place to use decades of this mentality have led us to where we are now under resourced and overburdened support services in a carceral system twisting itself in knots in an attempt to arrest prosecute and incarcerate those who have been left behind I appreciate President Paul you using that line in your remarks as well folks who have been left behind by an economy that commodifies basic needs I don't think that this is the world that we want to live in and I want folks to imagine for a moment what it could have looked like if 50 years ago when the war on drugs began we had acted in a radically different way creating a robust network of well resourced support services to ensure that no one ever reached their lowest low it's time for us to wake up to the cruel reality of the system we've played a role in creating and committed to doing things differently it may be called radical some will say we are out of our minds many will caution that too much compassion could lead to more danger and I just want folks to come to this with an open mind that if we embrace true health focus solutions to this crisis things will get better and I am very wary of the fact that we continue to call for a very short-sighted solutions in name of being comfortable when we have the opportunity to radically change how we handle these things in the future this resolution is not a magic wand and even though it carries with it many things that I have supported and advocated for in nearly my entire time on the council I will be voting no on it tonight partly due to some of the language that stigmatizes those who use drugs and partly because of the process that got us to tonight because I simply can't understand why when we are told repeatedly by a fellow elected official someone who is our partner in solving this crisis why we would not make changes that they say need to be made to this resolution in order for it to be correct I simply can't stand by that I don't think any of us should I'll leave it there thank you very much thank you Councilor McGee are there any other Councillors who wish to speak to the resolution Councillor Bergman sure I I really believe what I said that the the amendments were totally in line with what we are proposing in this I understand there's a few nuances there but I really do believe that I would have loved for us to unite around that that being said I know how to lose and I also know how to to look step back and take a look at a big picture and when I read this resolution I see a basically balanced approach and I'm impressed with that I would like to have had those amendments because I think they would have clarified and corrected inaccuracies but be that as it may that'll get corrected in life and we'll we'll move on this is a next step I think that when councillor McGee talks about it not being a magic wand we need to be clear I think when the public hears the presentation and the direct questions related to City Hall Park and we get the answer which I accept and thank the officers for that it's clear it's not a magic wand this resolution that's okay there is no single solution to this problem to this crisis and I think that at its heart what it what it speaks to is the need for new and innovative actions on both the public safety and the enforcement and the and the health aspect I happen to come from somewhat of a prosecutorial background I actually believe in enforcement I don't believe in folks who are causing harm and particularly one who are profiting from harm to act with impunity so that bothers me a great deal but this as we heard consistently from the public and the police is a really complicated matter we heard that it includes not just the wellness but includes affordable housing it includes livable wages we we have a serious job it's why I actually think that the declaration of a crisis around the old around opioid epidemic is really important and the numbers that we were shown by the police really show that so I think it's absolutely appropriate that we do this I mean we have now gonna have a regular city council place for bringing this up I often bring up things related to the climate crisis I really encourage folks to bring that up in the same way it can be hard it can feel like something that we would pass over pro forma but it's not and it's very important to do the the public forums the working with the state the working with the state's attorney and the judiciary getting data all are essential and it seems clear that we're not going to get a unanimous vote but I do believe that we will get a strong affirmative vote and we should also take the the concerns that our colleague has raised about this to heart as we look at the next steps going forward because I do believe that we are very much on a a similar road if not walking hand-in-hand so I will be voting yes for this thank you Councillor Bergman are there any other councillors who was to speak on the resolution or Weinberger thank you councillor Travers I'll try to be brief I just want to make it clear I stated this during the briefing when asked by the media the briefing that we gave middle of the day that I very much welcome this resolution I welcome the Public Safety Committee taking the time to work on it further over the last month and make it a balanced resolution welcome the opportunity for the BPD to be able to present directly tonight the presentation they did my feeling is that this resolution brings the council and the administration into further alignment further clarity that it is the position of the city to do what I think we heard forcefully said tonight is pursue both public safety enforcement efforts as well as stick with and continue to work very hard on on harm reduction efforts I do do want to be clear from my perspective we we do attempt and do actively communicate about these issues frequently anyone who is watching this who is not on the mayor's office newsletter encourage people to go to the website and sign up for that we have had many updates on these issues in recent years we will continue to do so we had a mass communication about the overdose levels in July that provoked a lot of the attention to how the overdoses numbers were changing so dramatically this year and we will continue to bring forward a steady set of actions to respond to this crisis to this body we took action together in in August to fund opioid settlement investments to put money into the harmonious for criminal justice reform tonight when we finish this item we'll be taking action to have the fire department respond to overdoses in a new way we will continue to act and put decisions in front of this body to to move forward and appreciate the collaboration on it thank you Mayor Weinberger councillor shannon did you wish to speak to the resolution yes thank you I would like to thank councillor Paul for bringing this forward sorry President Paul not at the moment but I'm for bringing for bringing this forward and note that what we're really doing here is affirming work that we have done or stated before and we're opening a conversation which is a first step and what I think that Burlington really needs is an intervention and interventions don't happen out of anger they happen out of love they happen to save people's lives and like many people at this table I have my own experience with substance use disorder and I participated in my first intervention at 19 years old and you don't know what's going to happen and what will be said when you get around the table but people need to be held to account what we're doing isn't working we need to recognize that we can't solve a problem without recognizing our problems there's a reason why there's no safe space for people to shoot up and that's because in our own homes we don't allow it it's not acceptable and when the only place left to do it is our public streets that's not acceptable either and it's not benefiting anyone and we need to remember how people that are in this situation are victimized themselves I appreciate the comments about involuntary commitment saving at least one life I think it saved many many more and it doesn't have to be incarceration we need to offer people help and we need the state to help us offer that help there's certain things we can't do very well as a municipality and we really need to lean on our state and federal partners to get the help that we need for people these are our loved ones that live on the street but that doesn't mean it's okay and that and that being endlessly tolerant is going to help anyone so thank you for bringing this forward thank you for opening the discussion and I hope that we have the courage to really discuss this honestly thank you thank you councillor Shannon woe is me is as acting president to try to enforce the time limits we agree to in our agenda but we're about 15 minutes past the 30 minutes that we had allotted for this agenda item but are there other councillors who wish to speak to it I'll turn to councillor Jang and then councillor Grant thank you acting president traverse yes and again I echo the sentiments of thanking my colleagues that worked on this very hard over the past couple of weeks and months to bring this resolution actually attended at least one of your meetings and my staff also directed him to show up right so that we can discuss his better because this is such an important policy item this is a big problem that we are conquering as a city and as a state but I also just wanted to make sure that people understand this is not the first time we have been trying to do something Mira Weinberger on his own initiative had something for quite some time to bring experts together to try to solve this issue with tangible data and being also the first person who actually hired the city staff to do this work to bring because this has been an opiate crisis for so long now it has gotten to a point right something needs to be done I loved some elements of country McGee's amendments but unfortunately it was all brought together for one vote reason why but some elements I did love them right and I also know that he been also attending that the committee because some of them he was always there he cares he have brought so many other resolution around this crisis but I think it doesn't matter where we are at but it is this is currently right now a time where we can come together like right here is for us to lose but for the community to have hope that we all agreed behind this crisis I think that's one step the leaders of this city care enough to recognize that this is a problem I think that will allow us all to vote yes especially when the mayor is in support so we're sending a message of hope as a hold hand to support those who are struggling in our community right what I do definitely think about this resolution from my perspective it's not doing what needs to be done this resolution is not talking about prevention this resolution is not talking about providing more resources to the police to track down drug dealers is not providing more staffing to the mayor's opiate person for more money it's not asking this city to provide more resources this resolution is talking only about having two community forums where people can come we'll talk and we leave the best work the city has done the best work why Wellington is no because we study things we are known yes for being we study we do a lot of public process and actually that's what got this city great things we take the time we study things we take action I thought we definitely learned a lesson in 2020 with the police how it ended up how it costing us now more money because we being reactionary let's take the time to solve the problem that's what I think but I will support this resolution for the sake of the people who are struggling among us but I would have loved at least to have a task force of seven people experts who have staff look at the aging commission of the city of Burlington look at the dog tax force look at so many great people community members just coming together to try to solve one problem and those if you look at it they don't make a lot of noise but they bring solution to our problem I hope that we have that mindset of taking the time to do things and do them also very right what am I going to do and tell the governor about this problem I don't know right I will support this resolution I want to again thank those who worked very hard on it thank you okay thank you councillor Jang before turning to councillor Grant are there any councillors who have not spoken on the resolution that wish to speak to it after councillor Grant will there be any councillors who wish to speak to the resolution again councillor Grant would you like the floor and then perhaps we'll turn to a vote after that certainly thank you so Scott Pavak is a department of one he needs more resources no question I agree with that the resolution does speak to the fact to continue supporting recruitment for all employees that are at the front line of this this crisis including the policing department there have been approved bonuses approved increase in salary we've done a lot and now we need to we need to think about retention keep going back to this whole like the politics of this get dirty sometimes we really need to just keep it out we keep going back to a vote the vote didn't fire anybody they left they left Burlington they left other cities and towns in Vermont they left the Vermont State Police they left across the country wasn't about politics it was about other root causes that give me a call we'll have some tea and we can discuss it the resolution my idea was to actually address some things that we are not in fact doing which is communicating we are not communicating to the are we gonna reach every person in Burlington no I'm not asking that but there needs to be acknowledgement that we can do better and I'm on the mayor's newsletter I open it I read it is every Burlingtonian on that newsletter is that newsletter the end all get all are these things on the our agenda no and even when we had something that was important related to the funding that we have received and how we are allocating it it got dug into got put into the deliberative agenda which everyone should read but I know they don't but it sometimes is a place where good information goes to die you know anything related to this crisis needs to be simply and deliberative just so it's discussed with the people of Burlington and there's other things in there that we aren't actually doing thank you thank you Councillor Grant Councillor Paul you indicated you'd like to make additional comments it's your motion so we'll give you the last word and then go to a vote okay thank you thanks so much acting President Travers you know it I find it it's interesting that in the short time that we've been and I say short because hasn't been that long but the short time that we've been talking about this resolution there's actually a number of ideas that have been brought forward just from this table and honestly if bringing this for this resolution forward elicits that many ideas from 12 people just imagine what it will do at a community forum I I think that we have to be very careful when we're talking about a resolution that I think it does have several action steps that we not minimize them and the point of these public forums is not for everyone to get together and talk about what's wrong in Burlington we're talking about what's right in Burlington the opera the idea of these public forums is to elicit ideas and to be able to find solutions by talking with community members so that we're all coming together with the same information and we are all working towards a shared vision and as I've said before you can't have decision without vision but with vision you can move forward and that is what this resolution is saying that is that we need to try new approach approaches pilot new responses be bold and not afraid to test these approaches we're going to hear about one of them very shortly from chief Lachance that is this is this was a care carefully crafted agenda we talked about the drug crimes unit we moved on to a resolution we're going to hear about one program that is exactly what we're talking about in this resolution and there are many many more of them so you know I I think that it's important that we be positive about the fact that really truly I meant what I said some of the smartest people some of the smartest people on the planet live in this city and there are plenty of people who will come forward will be part of those community forums and are anxious to give those ideas so let's move forward from there let's not worry about for now let's please not worry about how we got here let's worry how we're going to move on and how we're going to figure this out and we're going to make Burlington better so the people who walk on the street are no longer concerned about what they see and they and they feel good about our downtown they feel good about their neighborhoods they feel good when they walk their child to school we can do all of that and we have it within all of us to get this done so that's that that's my that's my if this is the last word that is I hope that is the law I hope that is the last word thank you so much believing that is the last word and seeing no other speakers we will go to a vote will the clerk please call the roll Councillor Barlow yes Councillor Bergman yes Councillor carpenter yes Councillor Jang yes Councillor Doherty yes Councillor Grant yes Councillor King yes Councillor McGee Councillor Shannon yes Councillor Paul yes Acting City Council President Travers yes Travers Ten eyes one day one absence the resolution carries thank you President Paul thank you very much and thanks for thanks for taking care of that so that I could speak to this resolution so this brings us to item 6.3 which is the Burlington Fire Department Community Response Team and for this item we have Fire Chief Michael Chance I believe that we also have Lieutenant Kyle Blake president of the Burlington Fire Fighters Association joining us thank you so much for being here this evening we are all looking forward to this agenda item and before before we go before we come to the two of you we will go to a motion Councillor Barlow thank you President Paul I moved to approve and authorize the Chief Administrative Officer to make any and all necessary budget amendments to allocate and use the assigned opioid money fund to support the formation and associated costs of a community response team operated within the Burlington Fire Department for six months with a budget not to exceed one hundred eighty two thousand five hundred ninety eight dollars thank you so much Councillor Barlow is there a second to that motion seconded by Councillor Jang so Chief Lechance Lieutenant Blake thank you so much for being here particularly at this late hour I know Lieutenant Blake you've got a long drive ahead of you in order to get back to training tomorrow morning so thank you for your patience and being here the floor is yours thank you everybody I really appreciate everybody's thoughts tonight it's been an eye-opening meeting with a lot of good information so in partnership with the resolution that was just passed the Burlington Fire Department has been brainstorming what we can do to help with this epidemic this presentation that was brought to you was a bottom-up presentation this was our folks coming to me saying Chief just just let us go out there and let us try to solve some of these problems working together with Lieutenant Blake we forwarded this proposal to the mayor three and a half weeks ago honestly we started hiring for the positions before this meeting so will if it is successful we will move forward and we're going to be moving forward as quickly as Monday we're going to be have having this team on the road this team will be voluntarily over hired overtime firefighters we're going to have AEMTs paramedics in the field two-person team using department vehicles they will be running our unresponsive and overdose responses they're going to be the first ones out the door actually not out the door they're going to be on the road they're going to be out there when they're not running these are going to be interacting with the community they will be making connections with this this population as well as with other services available in the city we have been in contact with with the Howard Center street outreach I had a hour-long meeting with Cam leaf over at the turning point center this morning we've had our excellent CSL's right in the firehouse is talking with us about what's happening here so we're we're going to be reaching out sending a pretty wide net of folks that we can talk to here our goal I can't promise I mean this isn't the silver bullet this is just another tool in the toolbox to add to all the things that the city has already put out there and this is just one more thing that we feel like we can do to help move move the needle on this issue I have a quick presentation I swear won't take very long this is just showing some of the data that we're seeing in the fire department you can see this is call numbers we have in 2023 but we have already surpassed 2021 totals and on track for a 12% increase in one year this this data is interesting it shows total overdose responses you will see my numbers are a little bit higher than the police department which is not unusual there are times that they respond and we don't advise versus so our numbers aren't going to match up perfectly but you will see that they are close the in gray is the overdoses that are we that we respond to but do not seek transport those numbers rising is a little unnerving because those folks aren't seeing definitive care we're hoping that definitive care is a little more open to them if we if we have another service available to them you can also see monthly overdose numbers are rising this is just another chart showing the same data this is something that the team is going to be responding to regularly it's unknown problem person down that's these these calls are not all overdoses but some of these are this is a common response as you can see these numbers are rising exponentially as well you know we send a full contingent to these folks and sometimes they're sleeping sometimes they are they are having the desired effect of their substance so this will get them treatment we will be responding able to do everything al s that you would normally get but for those lower those I apologize it's late but for those calls that aren't quite as serious we will have a lesser response with the ability to get a full contingent there almost immediately what this this is an interesting one and it just shows this is alcohol intoxication and again this is at dispatch this is what we're dispatched to and you can see that that rise in calls is not really attributed to alcohol alcohol is a pretty steady metric it is in fact those overdose numbers that is an unresponsive numbers that is driving a lot of this our houseless population this is the homeless houseless transient or no address population and I put all those words there because when I do the query that's how I have to do it in order to glean all this data but you can see this year that has gone up exponentially too and those are not individual people those are runs so some of these runs some of these folks account for a number of these of these run and then again another another graph just to show that same data this is overdose responses as a heat map that shows responses you can see they are throughout the city the higher numbers are of course downtown where we would expect them to be but you can see that this this service is going to be city-wide they are going to have their hands everywhere and this is overdose responses by hour of day and day of the week so one thing I guardrails are low and getting this started the reason is I really am looking to make to use the time that these folks can dedicate to this to its maximum I plan to have we started it with 12 hours 8 to 8 I want to leave it open to have our folks give feedback and say chief we really don't need to be on the road from 8 till noon we should do this noon to 10 or I really want to leave it so that we can accept feedback and we can make this as as as useful as possible one thing that I need everybody to remember this is going to be staffed with overtime voluntary overtime firefighters these are folks that are working 56 hours these are folks that are working overtime voluntary minimum staffing as well as mandatory minimum staffing as well as time and dispatch the dispatch center and and this so can I guarantee two people 12 hours a day seven days a week I that's where I set the benchmark for funding I can't guarantee that but I'll tell you we're gonna give it a we're gonna give it a try it for sure and we already have for the first four or five days hired so I think what is coming before you today is the first time that we're actually using a triage model for these types of calls typically a 911 call comes in it's a medical emergency we're sending the ambulance and we're sending the engine and we do that because we don't really know what's going on there and operationally we have not been stressed to this level before where we could not handle that this call volume that you're seeing due to those specific call types the unresponsive possible overdose are stressing us in an operational way that is not sustainable so it is forcing us to be adaptive to be fluid and to be creative with a response so this unit will be rolling out the door arriving on scene and triaging that call determining the level of care that that patient potentially needs does that patient just need to be checked in on and say are you good if that's all they need that is all that we will we will give them we will have additional services available Narcan leave behind kits fentanyl test strips literature that advises of city resources but we're not looking to show up with a loud fire truck a loud ambulance and five people jumping off the truck saying what's going on are you okay we want to meet them where they're at ALS if you're not familiar with that term that's advanced life support if we do come across an individual that is in a true potentially fatal overdose we have every single tool that the ambulance does in this vehicle to start reversing that we have Narcan we have bag valve mass to help breathe for them oxygen AED we can do CPR and the they get on the radio and the ambulance and the engine are coming so we are we are truly trying to meet these patients at the level that they need us and this is really a first for the department to speak on the other aspect of what the chief hit this is voluntary overtime you heard it earlier this evening with the police department talking about their street crime unit right they were trying to staff that with voluntary overtime and they're doing the best they can that was a current service they were offering that then got pulled back that they were trying to meet this is brand new for us one of the biggest concerns that I got feedback from the membership about was well if we stand this up and and we just can't carry this load you know 12 days a week or 12 hours a day seven days a week indefinitely do we look like the bad guys and what I assure them is no because we are trying something and I think that needs to be the biggest message tonight is that the membership of this department came up with this idea wants to carry the load wants to push this forward and meet the city and the population where they're at but it is a heavy lift we're essentially increasing staffing from 22 to 24 seven days a week 12 hours a day with no actual increase in the amount of staff that we have and we're willing to do that because we want to try we want to make a difference we want to help this move forward I just ask that you consider that when we start coming back to you and looking at these numbers about is this a sustainable model like we we want to get it off the ground we want to try these dynamic things but we're gonna need some support down the road if this is successful and it's happening does anybody have any questions Councillor Jang yep thank you so much for staying so late and for everything that you do in the city and for the proposal what I like the most is actually the memo it was well written it very very clear I like that I also like the slides data and we're just wondering and I will add those to civic clerk I apologize just I just finished them today perfect they're beautiful well done especially the hours where exactly but do you now have like where those call come from if you take the mouth the city these are where the calls come from the most is it downtown is it do you have that I actually do one of the heat map showed and I apologize to miss it I'd be happy to share it again but we can share it on civic clerk and it does show those different color dots and it shows the areas where the exact you get the most calls I would love to I'm interested in seeing that thank you and was just wondering for example if you wanted to hire just new additional staff will it be at this level of cost full-time staffing I honestly it probably wouldn't be probably a higher level of cost okay just because we couldn't do it with say two people and honestly I think this pilot program is gonna give us an idea of what do we need and I think that you know my firefighters out there kind of taking that hit right now will answer a lot of questions for us what's working what's not and what do we need and honestly having employees be able to do that at their overtime rate is a lot less expensive than hiring new employees to try to figure that stuff out and lastly I mean I am a little bit concerned that basically this is just you trying it out and it's not full-time and I thought that it would have be better right to just hire two new staff at a lower cost right but I also understand your point this is just a pilot correct this is a six-month pilot yes and it's and it's honestly you know I think that there's been a there's been a lot of conversations about what we can do and the fact that we have current city employees that are willing to try this out I think is a good use of resources wonderful I thank you for your work and I support this request thank you thank you so much Councilor Jang was there any other Councilor who wanted to Mayor Weinberger thank you President Paul I want to thank both you for your hard and rapid work and bring this forward I think it is unusual to have this level of collaboration between Union and management and bringing forward an innovation and idea and appreciate how this has evolved so quickly I'm very grateful for the hard work the compassion that frontline firefighters have exhibited through this challenging period coming out of a pandemic in which you never got a break and we're asked to do so much you've been thrown into this expanding crisis and I know it's been extremely frustrating for the department very difficult for the department I appreciate that this effort takes that difficult experience and turns it into innovation turns it into a resource that has a chance to really fill a gap here and do proactive work that I have a lot of hope for I've seen the way in which everyone from the chief on down has engaged this issue try to understand it better and I'm very hopeful this pilot will very quickly produce some real results so thank you both thank you very much Mayor Weinberger there is no one else to wishes to speak to this and seeing no others in the queue my apologies Councilor Grant my apologies thank you real quick I continue to be amazed by the fire department I've since becoming a City Councilor I've learned a lot about your department and just the important role you play in public safety and in addressing this particular public health issue I love the communication that you have with your staff it really speaks to your leadership I love that the staff has the confidence to come to you with the idea and you have the confidence to to listen to them and to to come up with this I love how nimble you are I love the data I love that we get data without asking or having to beg for it I think that means everything that that shows that you're looking to see where you can be most effective I love that heat map I think that's important because I think also that can be used from an enforcement side if we know that you're going to the same places over and over and over again that's got to be an indication of some significant dealing occurring and I've definitely heard some of the horror stories about the places that everyone has to go into in order to treat these people so I am looking forward to seeing how this this works out and I think this is a great example of the type of thinking that we need the type of out-of-box thinking that we we need and and in some areas are willing to do thank you so much thanks so much Councilor Grant don't believe there's anyone else in the queue so I think we can go to a vote all those in favor of the motion as presented by Councilor Barlow please say aye aye any opposed please say no that motion passes unanimously with our thanks to both of you for being here this late this evening and your service to the community please when you see everyone tomorrow express our thanks and gratitude to every member of the Burlington Fire Department we will thank you very much thank you I would just like to add real quick Councilor Jang I apologize I wasn't as flashy as the PD I'll dress up better last time but you shaved I almost didn't recognize you the for the benefit of the public this is what happens when we get to a meeting that goes until 1135 we will move on to our last deliberative agenda item which is 6.4 the city of Burlington's seasonal warming shelter project that created creation of one FTE position within CEDO and the AHS grant agreements contracts and lease and for this item before we get to a discussion of the item I will go to Councilor King for a motion and did you did you check with the city attorney great I will not be reading the full motion so I wish to move the motion and recommended actions as indicated on civic clerk thank you Councillor King do we have a second to that motion seconded by Councillor McGee so good evening at this late hour to CEDO director Brian Pine and Sarah Russell the special assistant to end homelessness it's a pleasure to have you here with us you I imagine have a presentation for us or yes you have a presentation for us so please go ahead and then we'll go to the council for any questions or comments thank you Sarah I certainly this initiative has my full support and I did give a lengthy intro to the briefing earlier today I think given my extended comments earlier during the public safety public health crisis resolution I think I'll abbreviate them here maybe if you could put up the first slide you know I think I'm going to let you take take most of it I guess I just you want to set the stage reminding everyone how significant a change it's been to city capacity to have a special assistant and homelessness we created this position at the end of 2021 understanding that as we emerge from the pandemic we were going to be faced with homelessness challenges we hadn't seen before I don't think any of us imagine things we get quite as bad as they have gotten very grateful that we've had it Sarah in this role for approaching two years now trying to work at systemic levels and at operational levels to address this crisis and this is another example of a very granular detailed operational effort that Sarah is helping us bring forward and the rest of the CEDO team under under director pine and I think you will see in this presentation how approval of this with the funding provided by the state will further expand the city's capacity and commitment to action in this area going even deeper further into an area where that is new to us but that is very much needed right now so I think only to be very brief and say that this effort has gone from start until now in about four weeks and Sarah Russell is really the one responsible I am playing a supporting role but she's been doing all of the heavy lifting so just want to acknowledge that thank you so we have just a few slides tonight we'll go quick because I might be almost as tired as you all this evening the first slide we wanted to just sort of level set around the increases and unsheltered homelessness that we're seeing across Chittenden County we saw as you are aware and we reported to you a few months ago on June 1st 170 households were exited from the motel program many of these households were individual adult individuals or couples in some cases many of them had significant substance use or mental health challenges or disabilities but lacked the federal documentation to prove that so they were exited from the motel system so that's the majority of folks we saw leaving in June and as we saw those folks leaving the motel we saw our numbers of people who were unsheltered climb exponentially last summer we were seeing about 80 people who were unsheltered across Chittenden County this summer we have 227 self reports from July as you can see here the slide there were about a hundred self reports in March and that number has increased so much so we are working in addition to supporting households who are outside our folks who are outside unsheltered we also have outreach teams who are connecting with households that are still in the motel system under the June what's called the June cohort so folks who were in the motels and can remain in the motels through April 1st we've worked to connect to coordinated entry for those of you who are not aware I can provide a quick overview of coordinated entry we talk about it all the time and I'm not sure how much time we spend actually breaking it down but coordinated entry is mandated by HUD for communities that receive HUD funding to support specific homelessness rental assistance and service programs in Chittenden County we receive those fundings through our local continuum of care for the Chittenden County Homeless Alliance and they support rapid rehousing and permanent standard housing programs in Chittenden County coordinated entry as I said is mandated and essentially creates a no wrong-door approach for households who are experiencing homelessness ensuring that wherever they show up at whichever social service agency they arrive to they will receive the same level of service and have the same access to housing resources whether that's housing case management long-term supports rental assistance or household or excuse me rental units that are specifically homeless dedicated the last point there I think is important to note that we do have a master list in Chittenden County which is comprised of households who are experiencing homelessness that list is reviewed weekly by housing case managers to match folks with housing resources we talk a lot about how our our homelessness problem has grown and I think it's also important that we highlight some of our successes this slide demonstrates housing placements through coordinated entry so these are households who are exiting homelessness into permanent housing so you see the spikes there we track this by month in December we saw a Zephyr place open and when you scare excuse me in Williston that's CHT property I believe that we made 38 referrals for units to that property so you see that spike of 52 in December this only goes through April but we do have data for the last few months indicating that we're on track with averaging about 25 referrals per month for housing placements overall we've housed 176 households between January and August and we currently have 56 pending referrals to permanent units in addition to nine pending referrals for rapid housing or permanent supportive housing programs before we move on from that I just want to make sure everyone understands how significant it is what Sarah just said about hitting these goals of referring 25 successfully referring 25 people a month it was that that was what the Chittenden County Homeless Alliance committed to when the state legislature was deliberating a change to extending the emergency hotel program we are on track as a state to fully end the program in on July 1st of this year our team with partners stood up and said that is going to result in huge problems on our streets here's an alternative let us focus on this population let us help you wind this program down properly and what Sarah has just said is we have been delivering on that commitment to place 25 people a month in the hotel program in Chittenden County by next spring as projected I'm not sure and I'm actually skeptical that that kind of placement is anecdotally what I hear is that is not happening elsewhere in the state it's happening here in Chittenden in large part because of the efforts of the CEDO team working with partners and it's a real it's a real success definitely thanks for highlighting that I can say data that I know off the top of my head but it that is not on the slide is that in Chittenden County that June cohort was originally at 256 households now I believe that we are down to 177 in Chittenden County so we are taking away at the number that number of households who are in motels and connecting with permanent housing so while we wait for permanent housing to come online it's important that we provide a safe stable shelter setting for folks who are waiting to move into permanent housing in the last few years these are the efforts that the SIN transferred both ownership of the property from a new to CHT and operations of the low barrier shelter program also from a new to CVO they made some changes to the program that reflect best practice for permanent shelter which is non congregate shelter new place was running as a semi congregate shelter and CVO will shift that to non congregate meaning that they'll serve 35 to 40 folks at that shelter they will continue to operate as low barrier and people will be able to stay there as long as they are engaged in services to move toward permanent housing CVO also operates the community resource center out of Chittenden they had a grand reopening just a couple weeks ago and expanded their space with support from CEDO and to be able to serve the massive number of people that they are seeing visit that daytime shelter and meal site every day additionally as you all are aware we had this project at Elmwood and we are serving 35 folks at Elm at the Elmwood community shelter since we opened the very first week of February now we are because of the name because of the lack of shelter capacity within Chittenden County and the number of folks that we're seeing outside right now the city is proposing to open a winter warming shelter beginning December 15th fancy Samantha new temporary winter warming shelter at the VFW will provide overnight accommodations for up to 30 for up to 30 guests and we will have the potential for overflow capacity if necessary like I said we'll be operating summer 15th through March 15th the reason I heard some comments about opening the shelter sooner the reason that we one of the reasons that we decided on these dates is because this is typically the program at the dates that the adverse weather conditions program operates for those of you who aren't aware that is the relaxed eligibility criteria for motel access during cold weather during the winter months this is the time from up that program secondly there is we are working so quickly on this project it is not possible to be able to to open before the state we're fully funded by the agency of human services that includes both operations and a small amount of capital improvements there the shelter will be managed by CEDO and as you saw in the in the proposal that we sent to you will be utilizing a staffing company to fill those shifts and we will operate using a low barrier model the importance of a low barrier model shelter is critical especially at a time when we're seeing you know a great low substance use in our community we want to ensure that folks who are outside do you have access to the shelter the worst would be to spend time and resources and effort to stand up a shelter that didn't meet the needs of the people who needed to access it so we work to reduce to reduce those barriers whenever we can an important thing here and the mayor noted this morning that I really want to highlight is that the concerns around public safety are you know not necessarily related to creation of new shelter but that some of our public safety concerns come because we do not have enough shelter capacity to support people in a meaningful way we acknowledge that the shelter doesn't definitely does not meet the need as we know there are many many folks who are outside this winter we know from the extreme cold shelter last year we served we served at least 60 adults at that shelter and we're opening a shelter for 30 this year so we're we're gonna try to put our dent in there and hope that the that the state will continue to adequately fund their adverse weather conditions for the Motel State that is it for me happy to answer any questions yeah I'll just put a final point on the last slide there and just as we start the debate over this remind the public remind the council we have had a low barrier cold weather shelter every year since 2014 for five years the the facility existed in virtually the same place that we're proposing it here we have very few complaints from the public during that time we are envisioning a very similar facility being being stood up here we have done this since 2014 because before when we didn't have a cold weather shelter we had exposure deaths in this community they I think everyone agrees I've never seen hard numbers on it but everyone agrees that those exposure deaths have gone down significantly since we started operating such a facility the are there are other benefits to these cold weather shelters this has in the past as we I think basically heard from the from the BBA earlier there has been strong support in the past from downtown stakeholders from the business community for these these cold weather shelters because these shelters reduce disorder they improve the downtown I think the challenges that we are facing the complaints that we are hearing some tonight and elsewhere come not because we have too much shelter but because we have too little of it because the current system is overwhelmed this proposal will not keep the system from being overwhelmed but it will be a step in the right direction and I hope it will have strong support from from the council tonight I just wanted to add the one one thing that's unusual with this particular shelter and this project is that we'll be hiring a person which you all are being asked to approve that's very unusual to do that but it's a you know unusual times call for unusual measures so it's a measure that we feel is necessary to respond quickly the only way we can pull this off and keep Sarah from working seven days a week 12 hours a day is to hire someone right thank you thank you all thank you all for for this these comments in the in the introduction and overview so the floor is open to the council for comments or questions on the motion is there anyone who wishes councilor bergman so we heard a request by former councilor busher regarding that opening the time and also the provision of breakfast instead of snacks could you comment about those please yeah so it there like I said it's it's just not possible for us to open any earlier than December 15th with staffing and there are some capital improvements that need to be made there's some security cameras that need to be installed to the property and we're working like crazy to do that but there's just no way that we can open the shelter before the 15th in terms of having a morning meal I don't I don't I don't disagree that we couldn't provide something it's not something that I feel confident I can promise at this point so we instead wrote into the proposal that there'll be some morning snacks and coffee available for folks to to make their way to sites that offer breakfast routinely so it's not something I can promise at this moment but certainly something that we can consider thank you thanks very much councillor bergman are there any other councillors who wish to speak to this motion before we go to a vote councillor Jang and then we'll go to councillor Barlow thank you I mean I think I have substantial amount of respect for your work trying to solve this issue and all the initiatives from the mayor over the over the years decades right but I do not feel comfortable voting in support of this tonight from the perspective of what's going on downtown and also what's already happening on the street where the identified site is and you know the Elmwood all the concern that we have learned I think this is not a well thought out proposal from my perspective if it was not in in the vicinity of downtown I would definitely vote in support of it but as presented like right here and my experience also about just people and house individuals and what they definitely do need made me realize that we need to think about to start to think about this a little bit differently we have one major need is to revitalize downtown and we cannot revise the light downtown by bringing people we could really definitely do need real help right from this community and because of the location that's why I am not voting in support of it thank you thank you councillor Jang we'll go to councillor Barlow thank you President Paul and thanks again I had made some comments during Board of Finance I just wanted to sort of go back to them again I wanted to thank you for the hard work that I know went into this and it was quite expeditiously sort of planned so I'm also appreciative of that and I am supportive of a cold-weather's warming shelter but I do like councillor Jang have real concerns about locating the shelter at the VFW building it's a block from the marketplace and given the challenges that we're already struggling with in the downtown I also agree that you know it adds an additional stressor to to an already you know difficult situation there were neighborhood issues with this facility when it was run as a shelter before and if our more recent Elmwood Avenue experience is a good predictor regardless of how well we run the shelter within the four walls his presence will bring an increase of drug use potentially criminal activity and not unauthorized activity excuse me it's late for me as well in private and public spaces around the shelter and I have a concern about that and I hear that concern from businesses as well and it was expressed today at the at the downtown workers public safety forum at Nectar's I wish we had considered other locations outside the downtown core to site a warming shelter I would even be more supportive of using temporary modular units in a location like North Beach and I think somebody at public forum had mentioned that idea tonight and I know that wouldn't be popular with my own constituents but it would be better for the downtown that needs some relief at this point but it doesn't seem like we have that opportunity now what I was told that board of finances the funding for this is tied to this location time is short so this seems to be the only option that we have and so this effort has to go well from the start the downtown businesses can't take and other stress or so I think I heard at the board of finance that the administration is committed to making sure that happens and will be on top of any any issues as they arise and now that we have new newly resolved council focus on this as well we'll have opportunities I guess to to check in during during council meetings and so although I came into this day not not willing to support this I'm going to support it and hope that hope that we'll be able to make this one work right from the start thanks thank you councilor Barlow were there any other councilor grant so as someone who lived in the central district for quite some time there's always been the concern about the number of services that are in our area but I think we have to welcome this I am befuddled by some of the business response because I have talked to many businesses and I also walk up and down Church Street all the time and businesses that have the recessed entryways or the alcoves whatever you want to call it are having numerous issues with people sleeping there because they're ideal for escaping the elements so we want to talk about holiday shopping season and trying to get people downtown I mean I I think that would be one of the reasons for getting it open earlier it's like they can sleep in your alcove or they can sleep in this building which would you prefer so to not have anything and to make assumptions about what might happen I think is very dangerous when we start to go down that line of thinking I'll leave it there thank you thank you councilor Grant seeing no one else seeing no one else in the queue here's we can go to a vote all those in favor of the motion is made by councilor King please say aye any opposed please say no no my apologies my apologies to the clerk we need to do that as a roll call my apologies Councilor Barlow yes Councilor Bergman yes Councilor Carpenter yes Councilor Jang nope Councilor Doherty yes Councilor Grant yes Councilor King yes Councilor McGee yes Councilor Shannon councilor Travers yes City Councilor President Paul yes 10 ayes one day one absence thank you the motion passes so that completes our deliberative agenda thank you again thank you as well director Pine and to special assistant Russell for your time and commitment to this project we will we have now completed our deliberative agenda and we have just a few items left to complete on the rest of our agenda item number 8 is committee reports are there any counselors who wish to offer a committee report are there any counselors who wish to offer a committee report seeing none will close out that item and go to our next item which is item number 9 city council general city affairs are there counselors who wish to offer comments on general city affairs Councilor Grant thank you as I believe all the council is aware of an extreme I don't have a better word for it extreme abhorrent act of discrimination that occurred at one of our NPAs and I don't know if everyone's gotten the audio but in the strongest possible terms if you have not listened to the audio please listen to it I hope the mayor if you have not gotten the audio that you requested and listen to it when people identify differently and want to be their true selves and leave and lead their lives and that comes for a whole variety of backgrounds people who work in public spaces and and want to serve have to create a welcoming and inclusive space they can do whatever they want at home they can decide whoever they want to hang out with personally but if they're serving in a public group like an NPA or in a commission or committee they have a responsibility so there was a discussion we'll be working with the city as attorney and with CEDO to come up with some verbiage that could be presented to the NPAs so that they can make sure that it's included in their bylaws it's sad that something like that has to be done I would like to think that people would stand up for the right thing that didn't happen and I guess that's all I'll say right now because obviously people are leaving so honestly want to go home but you need to listen to the audio if you didn't listen to have you all of you left here listen to the audio okay thank you tell me if you listen to the audio okay mayor if you listen to the audio I really think it's an appropriate counselor grant but I've since you asked directly I have committed to sit with the person involved and listen to the audio with thank you thank a lot has gone into this already and I don't feel like that's being acknowledged I'm okay that's that's fine I'm just saying that whoever has it listened to the audio needs to listen to the audio because it's so important and I think that I know people get mad at me especially around issues of microaggressions this wasn't even a microaggression when you hear it you will understand why I'm so upset and why I feel that it's important for the council to to voice our concern thank you thank you so much counselor Grant I will go to counselor Jang and then to counselor Bertman yes thank you counselor Grant for being that up and I think what we have received on the 5th of October that allowed two members of the steering committee of wards four and seven to be very specific in the new north end so that serious allegations very serious that are definitely putting the health of our like all democracy at risk with no doubt and what strike me the most is people defending some of those behaviors that's unacceptable not long ago as the body we pass here a resolution supporting people from the transgender community because of some harassment that they receive in the community right we did we did a declaration of racism if we don't do something about this right the policies we vote on that this mayor is signing on let's make sure that they have no meaning we need to respect to the people especially those that are stepping up on a daily basis to serve us with no pay as volunteers now we all can disagree on some elements about how the city should look like who should lead the city but we need to do it on a basis of respect of acceptance of each other of who we are what we represent what we believe in and you we embrace you and then we build this city together but I have a problem I am respectfully asking you to respect my view what I want to see what I how I want to be called and you publicly say no you refused I have my own experiences my own problem with that same exact NPA it's been six years I've been a city councilor the longest-serving city councilor of the new north end but I continue to have those issues in the dark struggling by myself with no I can't say it anywhere microaggression on a daily basis almost these things I will be making a statement and when we heard it I replied and asked as to why we haven't done nothing about this allegation that been coming since January and I respectfully called for an investigation to take place glad to hear that our city attorney is working on it to look what are what what's right this democracy we need all of us to stand up and make sure that it's safe and it's strong it's not for us but it's for the future generation and there are things that are not acceptable I generally don't speak like this but this is something that I needed to say and it was well thought out statement will be put out soon thank you thank you so much councillor Jang we'll go to councillor bourbon I look forward to hearing this and seeing something on the NPA issue I think it's very serious but actually what I want to say is that hopefully the the PAC parks arts and culture committee will look into this bathroom issue that was raised at public forum the closing of our public bathrooms the the trespass on the of the the harbor marina of somebody who is complaining and speaking to it this is that was a pretty serious allegation that I heard and I think that we need to look into that for all the people that use the the facilities that go to those events for fundamental justice for the justice related to homeless folks and their needs there there's a lot of issues there and I hope that that committee can can look into them and that's all thank you councillor Bergman does not appear that there's any other comments on general city affairs so we will move on to item number 10 which is council president updates so I just wanted to mention that in anticipation of the passage of item 6.2 the drug crisis resolution preliminary work has already started on standing up the public forums we'll have further updates at the next council meeting and as well beginning at our next council meeting we will have a new item on our agenda as passed in the resolution we will have another standing item in addition to climate emergency reports this brings us to the final item of the evening item 11 updates from the mayor mayor Weinberger the floor is yours thanks president Bob talked a lot tonight earlier today I don't have anything further back to you move to adjourn all those in favor of the motion to adjourn please say aye aye any opposed the motion passes listening our next meeting is Monday October 23rd and we'll look forward to seeing you then we are adjourned at 12 12 a.m.