 All right. It is now about 6 30. We're going to start our meeting. First, I'd like to welcome everyone. This is the June meeting for our words one and eight NPA. And we're going to start off by introducing ourselves. And why don't we start in the room here and keep you want to pick up. Okay, I'm keep Pillsbury on the NPA steering committee for Ward eight. And I live on University terrace. Richard Hilliard live on High Grove Court and Ward one. I'm Tom Derenthal. I also live in Ward one. And I'm on the steering committee. I'm Jonathan chapel so cool. I'm on the Ward one steering committee and I live on North Prospect Street. I'm a resident of Ward four. I'm here to introduce myself tonight to say hello. Hi, I'm Leo Grant. I'm on the police commission visiting for Ward three. And I'm connected via video is it looks like Jack. Hey everybody. I'm Jack Hansen. I'm the East district city counselor. I live in Ward eight on College Street. Good to see everybody. Gene. Hi, I'm just sitting in here. We'd like to be an attendee, but they need more participants. So I might join in later. Hi, everyone. I'm Ali. I'm no Ward eight representative. And Sharon, Sharon, you're on mute. Sorry. Hi. Good evening Sharon busher East Avenue. And Kathy, you want to introduce yourself. You're also on mute. Kathy all well, Ward one school board commissioner. I'm the East district school board commissioner, but I live in Ward one. Okay. Well, welcome. I introduce myself. I'm sorry, Carol. That's all right. I'm Carol Livingston. I live in Ward one on Calarco court and I'm also on the steering committee. And I'm sorry, I miss Fletcher as well. But you're on mute. You say my name. Yes. Sorry, I'm having technical issues and I can't really hear. So it's more of one name is larger. And I may or may not be able to hear you. Okay. We're next moving to announcements and. And speak out. And you have a man, you have an answer. I should have, you should have, you should have announced. That's okay. Hello, everyone. I just, I'm, I'm Sam Heinrichs. I'm the CEDO liaison for the NPAs. And I just wanted to let everyone know that there's going to be an upcoming virtual meeting on the Trinity campus rezoning project. That's going to be taking place on June 23rd from 6 to 7 30pm. It is virtual. So there's no in-person option. There will be a zoom link in these notes for this meeting as well as all the other NPA meetings that will proceed this. We want as many people as can come who are interested and want to have their opinion shared on, on this project. Move ahead to speak. Oh, Carol. Hi, I just had a quick announcement as part of the steering committee. July and August, we will not have our usual NPA meetings. Our next meeting will be in September on the 14th. And we're hoping to start serving some food. So hopefully look forward to seeing us again in September together over a meal as well as the meeting. Thank you. And Sharon, I see you got your hand up. Yes, am I unmuted now, John? You're good. Okay, thank you. I have two things. One is that it was reported that and the school board members know that the amount of money that the school can bond for is about 150,000, 150 million, excuse me. And the price tag for the new school is over 200 million. They have some money in reserve, but there's a gap of $35 million. And I had been, I'm hoping that there will be unity between the school administration and the city administration and the school board and the city council to prioritize bonding for this high school. We've already had such an impact on the students in this community. They're deserving of a high school and a technical center that is, I think, close to the high school because some students actually take courses in both scenarios and to suggest to move it to the airport. I feel would provide a disservice and a disconnect for some students and make transportation another challenge. I hope that the administrations will trot down to Montpelier and ask for some financial support since they applied a restriction on our contamination that was not able to be achieved by any any institutional building in the state. And now they're having to rethink that. So I feel that the state really should financially help us fill that gap. That's statement number one. Number two is that as all of you know, that we are having to be focused on redistricting. And I would respectfully ask the Ward one and eight NPA, but especially the Ward one segment of this joint NPA to ask their representatives, counselor high tower and counselor Hansen to explain their positions on redistricting and the impact it has on Ward one. I've been following this and I highly recommend that all of you listen to the tape on this past Monday to understand some of the positions held, but I feel that they should speak for themselves. I feel some counselors are definitely advocating for their sections of the city and trying to protect the integrity of the ward. And I feel we're very vulnerable. We have we already know that we have over. We, we are home to more students that live off campus than any other ward we we won that we we got that award, maybe 2015 or 16. So attention on Trinity campus, we will have more students than any other ward if you combine on and off campus. I feel that we really need to also have a good balance of homeowners in our ward and those boundaries need to be looked at carefully. And I respectfully asked the NPA to ask for our counselors to provide them with the information. And just like they're having a special meeting on the Trinity campus which is very important. I think redistricting is key and I hope that you will ask for some kind of involvement there are maps that this ward should look at and weigh in on and give feedback to our counselors. Thank you very much. I think there might be a question. I'd like to address this to our city counselors and anyone from DPW happens to be looking in. Some of you know, I have been working as a school crossing guard for the last five months. It's the beginning of the year. And I could say a lot about public safety, but one of the quick fixes that we could do. And my beat is North Street is to, for the first time I believe for three years, start painting the white the lines on the pedestrian crossings and stop signs and traffic lights. We saw crews from a company and Barry working weekends to put bike lanes signified on many of our local streets. I think it's just about time we started looking after pedestrians and children and, and those who have a tough time with pedestrian crossings, including drivers and put some clear white lines to distinguish where cars should stop and where pedestrians should be able to cross. I think it's a grave delinquency and a disservice to everyone except for cyclists who are not as far as I understand subject to any city municipal discipline whatsoever. Thank you. Yeah. Okay, thank you so much. I'm timing myself so I don't speak to too long tonight. I know you're not doing a candidate forum so I'm here just to say hello and introduce myself. Martin LaRocque, you look I'm running for State Senate, I am your neighbor in Ward four, and an active NPA participant being here tonight is so interesting and I'm thinking we should cross pollinate more because I love hearing about the the lines on North Street. I was really thankful that Sharon brought up the high school. Thank you and the tech center Sharon thank you for bringing that up. But I'm here just to say hello and to tell you that I am running for State Senate as a Democrat. I am someone who grew up in Vermont. I went to South Burlington public schools. I've been a teacher for 30 years a coach a librarian and this year in particular, being on the school board I'm in my third term on the school board. I really spent quite a bit of time in Montpelier and I'll tell you a little bit about that journey. But obviously, I know that you've all acknowledged that the high school and tech center had, you know, had a really hard couple of years, not just with the pandemic but with the forced closure of our campus. But let me tell you a little bit about the journey that I had this year in close concert with Kathy all well. The two of us worked with a group called the Coalition for Vermont student equity. And we testified in Montpelier and we did a lot of advocacy around the student waiting formula. Some of you may be familiar with that. It is a way that the state funds education students are funded in different ways and in Vermont students living in poverty English language learners or masters of other languages and students living in rural communities are funded under with some what was called a waiting formula and in 2019 there was a study done to see how that formula was behaving. And it was discovered that for about 20 or 25 years those weights have been out of line with what they should be. So we advocated for the implementation of those weights, because obviously in Burlington, we have students who fall into those categories and I can tell you as a high school teacher, working in a different district I saw the disparities firsthand. And I always wondered what was going on why one school district was so well resourced when another one wasn't. So we did a lot of advocacy we got the house to pass a bill called s 287 which was then passed in the Senate and the governor signed the bill a few weeks ago. We obviously still have work to do in terms of the implementation, but it definitely felt like a win. And I realized during that journey that there was a need for more educators and folks in Montpelier who really understand education. It's a big chunk of our budget at about a third of the state budget the Ed fund. So I'm someone who really wants to be in there, working on issues that are critical to families and to children. So I'm here in Chittenden Central is a new district. It's most of Burlington, most of Essex and all of Winooski and a little chunk of cool Chester so people are still sorting that out but the south end is not included in the central district as part of the South district. And there are three open seats with one incumbent and there are six people running. So I would be grateful for Burlington support as one of your state senators. If that's almost four minutes I went over the two minute limit a little bit but I would be happy to answer some questions or at least try to answer some questions if you have any questions. I'd like to say, as I said, informally before that Martin has presented to the NPA, the ward one NPA on two or three occasions in the past, and being a compelling advocate for everything that's good in Burlington schools. So I wish her every success. Thank you. Yeah, last time I presented we were at the hospital. So this is a new location but thank you very much for that. And I have a website if you want to check it out, martinlarocculic.com. And I'm going to be knocking on door so I hope to see a lot of you and I'll be seeing our city counselors very soon as we work toward a solution for the high school and the tech center. Thank you. Thank you. All right, our next agenda item is a discussion on public safety and we have You are, thank you. Thank you. People that are listening in, please write your questions down if we go along. The effort here is to make sure that we bring forward questions that we've heard throughout our community in the East District and make sure they're asked but also to help people put together their own questions after this discussion so that they can talk to you. And we really appreciate your time. Thank you very much. Milo and john. Okay, I'm just going to ask the questions and you when you're finished I'll ask the next question okay. The first question is please introduce yourself and include your vision for public safety in Burlington and your role in accomplishing that vision. I'll let you trade out. I can start. Is this on hello. Okay, my name is Milo Grant. I identify as a black female. I was born and raised in New York City. I came to Burlington the fall of 82 to go to UVM, and I decided to make Burlington my home. I lived mostly in wards two and three with a brief stint in the South End, and I've owned a home in Ward three for about 20 years. I started becoming involved in issues of policing after the incident with Jeremy Milley and his brothers that really stunned me in a way I didn't expect. I put an application to be on the committee to review policing policies and then later I joined the police commission and I've been serving for almost two years now. I do feel that my vision is simple, but I recognize how hard it is to obtain. I feel we want a public safety system in our community that treats everyone fair and equitably regardless of their background and incorporates a variety of options, such as the rules, which I'm sure everyone's heard about lately. We have park rangers coming on in addition to our sworn officers. And I feel that type of combination is what's best needed in order to properly address the wide variety of issues that lead to the type of incidents that our department has to deal with. I see my role is an advocate for people in our community. I talked to a lot of people in Ward three and in Ward two. I've been as an educator around policing issues and also I feel I try at least to play that role sometimes with the police department to educate them on how the community feels or what the community is lacking in terms of engagement. I would like to talk about the engagement or what I perceive as a lack there of a lot. And that is something that I'd like to try to be more involved in, but I'm not sure where that would go at this time. Thank you. Hi, thank you. Thanks for having me. My name is john mirad. I'm the acting chief of police and have been since June of 2020. I was born here in Burlington, and grew up out in under hill my parents were both professors at the university. I left the Vermont for college and was kept away by jobs and other opportunities for a very long time but always wanted to come home and got that opportunity in in October of 2018, where I came back here to be the deputy chief of operations under then chief del pozo. I, my vision of policing is simple, the police exist to keep people safe by preventing and responding to crime and disorder with and for their neighbors. And that is an encapsulation of an ethos that has existed since at least 1829 when Sir Robert peel created the London met and the first modern police agency, something that superseded or took the place of what had previously existed watches, city watches, unfortunately in this country histories of both labor opposition and slave catching were components of what policing was but the met changed that, as did northern police agencies, starting in the 1840s and the 1960s, including this one that dates back to 1865. So, that's, that's my, my sort of vision. How do we accomplish that. You know, I think there are a lot of different ways. We are at the cutting edge of a lot of different things that are being talked about in policing around the country, we're doing them here in ways that not many other communities are. Many of those things have come out of of the department itself with regard to expanding the role of the community service officers or CSOs unarmed unsworn people who are capable of addressing certain kinds of quality of life issues. But our community support liaisons which we created I created just last year really to fill a role that was missing to address a significant service gap between what officers or employees of the department can do when arriving at a scene. And then what happens before you can get to various kinds of social services. So these are mental health care experts social workers, people with backgrounds and substance use disorder and in houselessness, who are employees of the city and the police department and do follow up work on cases after officers have addressed them. Now a lot of this is discussed at much greater length and I'll be able to discuss it here and also with pictures and different kinds of imagery. I think that we just posted on our city website, a modification to last year's priority response plan. We created last year, a priority response model because we were experiencing drastically reduced headcount and increasing calls for service, particularly priority one calls for service, as we categorize them, that has only continued into this year, our head count is more than it was, we have had to modify that priority model. We are only sending CSOs to certain kinds of calls which are delineated in that document, and we are also reserving certain calls for detectives and also for online reporting. This is that document, the priority response plan. It's about 30 pages long 20 something pages long. It talks about our downtown deployment plan it talks about numbers as of the first June, with regard to certain kinds of calls calls for service and incidents. And it talks also about the gunfire incidents that we've been experiencing, although it does not capture most recent one that involved a possible exchange of gunfire at Roosevelt Park, and the, and the injury of a former city council member. And it doesn't capture that because it happened after June 1, but all of that is in that document. There's a whole bunch of other data that is at that website, huge amounts of effort with regard to transparency and opportunities for the public to understand what it is that the department does and what the data around the department is. What is your view of the current status of the police department and what are your concerns about the department. John. Um, thanks again for that. Our start our concern is staffing, we are drastically understaffed and we cannot provide the kinds of public safety that our community has grown to expect and that frankly our community deserves with our current staffing. Um, we, uh, when, when the discussions about staffing began in June of 2020 on this date, as a matter of fact, in June of 2020, there were 61 officers available for patrol, and that is not our entire with there were 91 officers, but there were only two police patrol, three lieutenants, six sergeants, 46 officers, one emergency response officer, two SROs or school resource officers and three officers on field training at the time. Right now, from that 61, we are at 29. We have one lieutenant, we have six sergeants and we have 22 officers available for patrol. And at this moment right now, where we have two sergeants on duty, we have two officers on duty and one officer in field training who does not count as a solo officer because he cannot patrol by himself he has to be with one of those other officers. We have two CSOs, we have built up that capacity. There are two officers at our airport, and there is one street outreach worker or a Howard center employee who's currently on the clock and probably will be off in about three minutes. So, when we look at what we have to provide services to this city, we are drastically under staffed. And that is the single biggest issue that is facing this police department and the city right now. We do not have adequate public safety resources for a city of our size and a city of our scope. Thank you. In regards to the staffing crisis so one of my great concerns has been the narrative within the community about what has caused the staffing crisis, and the political, making it very political. Take of the murder of George Floyd, and others, Eric Gardner before him, Sandra Blunt, Brent land rather be on a tailor a mod Arbery and the list goes on and on and on. The protests that followed the increased scrutiny on police departments, not just here but national. We are not in a bubble, we are, we need local solutions, but we are being affected by what's happening nationally and within the state, the amount of resignations and retirements increased dramatically. And we were affected by that with regards to the vote to adjust staffing there wasn't anything that was voted on that fired officers they chose to leave. The concern has continued to be, are we really doing our best to to address the root causes of why they left. Someone asked well the mayor asked me he said why you don't believe them and I said of course I believe them I never said I didn't believe them. I'm not really truly addressing the issues of why they left and one of the big issues at the top was a feeling of not being appreciated or welcomed into this community. I think a lot of that is due to how politicized everything was made, it was made into a very us versus them, and instead of and I'm going back to engagement and instead of improving the engagement and addressing concerns in certain parts of different communities in Burlington, you know as a person of color I can tell you that our experiences can be very different from a white person in terms of experiences with police, all overall experiences of how responses were built in certain neighborhoods. And I think at times that some of that just hasn't been heard, and people responded by voting for particular counselors that listened to these concerns and then those counselors voted a particular So we have to understand we live in a representative democracy, and we can't just blame counselors when they're put in place by their community. We have to address what's going into the community in order to improve the relationship and make these officers feel more welcome especially the officers that have chosen to stay they they need support I'm not one of these people things oh you got to abolish I mean I see what certain things that are happening that do require an officer, not appropriate for CSL not appropriate for CSO they will require an officer so we do have to support more the officers that have remained but we have to be honest about what needs to be done in improving engagement and communication to the community communication with the communities. Thank you. You will do you want to pick this next question up and go first. Sure. The brilliant in police department annual report was released recently released as we saw. Well, issues in this report will you be addressed will will be addressed by implementing the CNA recommendations. Maybe you could just explain what CNA stands for. Certainly CNA was the consultant that was chosen there was a RSP that was put out, several companies replied. These companies were reviewed by a police commission and the city council public safety committee and CNA was chosen to do the evaluation of the department. I do recommend that everyone take a look at the spreadsheet that was created. There's really not enough time to dwell in it but there is a summary of each recommendation. There is a summary of the status of each recommendation. Is it something that is actively being worked on? Is it something that will be worked on in future quarters because there was just no way to address everything at once? Is it something that's been addressed? And it's not really done because we don't want the recommendations to be considered done. We want them to be on changes that are ongoing and incorporated into the day to day of policing in our community. There are a number of things that are itemized as being related to the contract negotiations, which have started. So we won't know what how those will turn out until the new contract has been finalized, but anything related to that is itemized. In terms of the report, I feel that in general things that advise the department with regards to updating certain practices so that they reflect best practice. Things that talk about oversight, transparency, things that talked about some of our directives that needed to be updated. Sometimes it's just a simple change in language to make sure that the language in the directives is person centered. And also for the department to recognize and consider that bias could play a part in the continued racial disparities that we have experienced and advocating for training with respect to that and other things. Thank you. Thank you, John. That was a very good summation of it. There's really not a lot more to what we have with the CNA report. It had a number of recommendations approximately 150. They were poured over by a committee. We're awaiting sort of a final tally of which ones are to be looked at and to start going for. I think there's a final report that's due or final piece from the public safety committee. And several of those things are things that we'd be able to put into place relatively quickly, particularly small changes to directives. Others are going to be longer term others are already in play of the 150. I believe that the police department agreed with in whole or in part or was already doing about 93% of those. So we're eager to try to implement some of those. Hey, John, you're in the month of May in the old and the old North and East and Centennial Frontport forms in Ward one. There were 16 postings under the heading crime report. And eight disgusting eight discussion posts concerning illegal drug use. So the community is clearly concerned about with the level of illegal activity. How does this institution, the bro and the police department and the bro and the police commission monitor and respond to local concerns. Thanks for that question. So with regard to local concerns that are operational or crime oriented, we have a button for at the website that allows people to make narcotics tips. And that increase greatly the number of narcotics tips. We have obviously our system is based on calls for service that is the bulk of what police do is respond to calls for service. We are more in a responsive posture than we've ever been because our ability to be proactive and to be out in the public looking at some of these things are attempting to forestall them before they become problems is drastically limited to, as I said, if there are two officers on the shift tonight, the likelihood that they can pull away from those calls for service in order to address things that they know are happening in places. I have heard ad nauseam from my lieutenant my area lieutenant and we don't have those anymore either, but it used to be that I I've heard ad nauseam from my area lieutenant that the folks on Mansfield have are really peeved about people going too fast or running those stop signs. So I'm not answering calls right now I'm one of the two officers that are only dedicated to see area, I'm going to go up and park on Mansfield and wait for some people to run some stop signs and see what I get. It's impossible when we have two officers patrolling the entirety of the city. When we have the best case scenario for us right now is four officers on a shift and all four appear for that shift and that's not always the case people, we only have officers 86.3% of the time by contract, because people are entitled to leave. Our availability factor which is a mathematical structure based on the contract is that I have each individual person 86.3% of all the days. And so that alone minimizes the possibility of us having all four officers on shift. Then we have other issues. Are they training, are they sick, are they do they want to go to their kids graduation today. And as a result, most days we do not have the four officers who are assigned to each shift four officers on each day shift four officers on each evening shift and two officers on our midnight shift. When I have all four, we put two in what we now call the CCA the city center area, and this too is described better and with visuals in that report that I mentioned on the website. We put two in the CCA we put our two CSOs that are assigned to each shift in that CCA as well. Again, I don't always have two CCOs two CSOs they to get vacation. And then I take one officer as a Rover North and one officer as a Rover South with which this question references. What does that Rover South cover covers everything from maple down to South Burlington and covers everything essentially from from Union up the hill. That is way too much for a single officer far too much for a single officer. So what is that officer able to accomplish in that near radio response, keeping up with the radio is a full time job. And they can't do any of the kinds of proactive engagement that would have been a part of enforcement in the past are narcotics unit is down to one permanent officer, a supervisor and one officer who I'm sacrificing from the road. I don't know how much longer I can do that, but I don't have that officer on the road because I have him in that narcotics unit so they can address issues. I know there have been a number of complaints about Macaulay Square. I know that we have concerns about activity there. And their concerns that we take seriously. So we have this narcotics team, looking into a variety of cases across the city. People's complaints drive where we go with the resources that we've got. So, you know, how do we respond to local concerns in an operational sense in that way with regard to local concerns in a complaint sense not a complaint, a criminal complaint. In other words, somebody broke into my car or I believe that there's narcotics activity in this park, but complaints about officer conduct, we deal with those directly with the Burlington Police Commission. So every single complaint goes to the Burlington Police Commission and gets reviewed with the police commission. Furthermore, a source of concern in any community is the ways in which officers use lawful force. Police officers are empowered to use force and they have to at times there is no avoiding it. And every single use of force conducted by the Burlington Police Department is made public and is available at that same website that I talked about. You can link to them. You can read them all you can see the demographics of each incident. You can see the pattern of each incident and the explanation of each incident and I've been working on this for quite some time and have not yet been able to do it but I am authorized to hire a redaction specialist so that I would be able to put video of certain kinds of uses of force out. I'm having a hard time hiring actually I just got an influx of a couple of additional because college is ending and some folks with with good you know AV skills are potentially interested so I'm hopeful to get that position hired. But once that happens I will not only be putting out narratives of every single use of force I will be putting out video of most uses of force as well. So, those are how we respond to to local concerns my door is always open my in the days before COVID attended every NPA meeting. I still make an effort to attend them when I can. Last night I was in the old North End for a meeting at the boys and girls club with residents who are concerned about some activities associated with people who are houseless in the intervail and the cusp of the intervail and we're concerned as well about that shooting that we just had the 12th of the year. So, those are the methods in which we address concerns. Thank you. Okay. I do not want to get into a long diatribe. I will just say that the, I strongly recommend watching the last city council meeting which reviewed the annual report. When you look at use of force regarding incidents where a person is being violent, there's no difference between black and white. That's what I'm saying. You look at use of force against individuals that are nonviolent. We still have racial disparities. Excuse me. You know, can everybody here. Can everybody hear me though. I'm having a little bit of yes. Everybody here. Okay. Okay, got you. Thank you very much. Regarding the annual report. It shows that when you have use of force, where it involves someone suspect who's being violent, there is no difference between black and white. When you have use of force, when a person is not being violent, it's not a violent crime or offense or incident. There continues to be disparities. The statement that there is no avoiding use of force is not completely true. I have seen incidents where things could have been handled differently and where officers were not in immediate danger and that's really important. I would not expect an officer to put themselves in danger. So I feel that is very important to say because I feel that acting chief Murad has been very misleading in that way. And the only other thing that I would add is from a community engagement standpoint, what I want to hear more from the department, we know they're short handed that is clear. What can the community do to help the department. Help keep us safe. What needs the community to be their eyes and ears. Now in some parts of the community we don't have that trust that trust doesn't exist. So that's going to make it harder for some things but overall if we can build that trust, the community being the eyes and ears for the department is going to be crucial. I've seen many things posted online but I've also seen things where people post this is what was taken. This is what it was looked at looks like this is the report I filed this is the officer I talked to if you see it, call this officer, and there are situations where people are getting things back because someone saw something and called it in. So, we need to expand that we need to take more of an active role in our safety we're in the time of year where crimes of opportunity normally increase anyway. And because of the issue with drugs and people looking for, you know, funds or things they can sell for a quick fix. We have constantly cars being broken into we've had an issue with car thefts but we have a lot of issues where you have people not locking things that they need to lock we have not been a city. I've been here and from 82 was like you what you leave your stuff open yes I was from New York yes I was more conscious, but it is not been a city where you can leave your windows and doors open we have always had crimes of opportunity, and we shouldn't fool ourselves to think of something that police can prevent. They can come in afterwards they can try and see what they can do to get things back. But you can put 100 officers on the street tomorrow they cannot be next to every unlocked car, every bicycle that's not chained up appropriately. And we have to be mindful of that we have to help ourselves, we have to do a better job of knowing our neighbors. If someone doesn't look like they should belong wait I don't know you and you make sure you tell your neighbor I'm going to be away, or I have guests coming, we need to increase that communication among ourselves. So, I would like to see the department do more engagement to say what can the community do to help them during this time and ongoing and ongoing. Thank you. I just I think she answered she answered question six we were going to ask you both, did you want to add anything about the NPA Milo before I asked john to talk about that. Yeah, what do you see as a role the NPA can be part of that communication that community communication. I think it's a way to communicate with the department, get information from the department and then get it out into the community. What are the trouble spots making sure everybody knows to use a tip line things I get called in the tip line are not really appropriate to call in 911. People being educated about the tip line people being educated about see click fix if you see needles, right we know that with many reports all over the city about discarded needles. So, that type of thing I think the NPAs can help with. I'm sorry, sorry. Thank you Milo. John, would you go on to six that question. Or, as I said I attended every single NPA, not just when I was speaking, I would just go to them as a deputy chief, when they were live, and the pandemic definitely interrupted that. This is just the opportunity to go. I believe that that it is an opportunity to talk to people to just be a presence for folks to make complaints that they have or to raise issues that they've got or concerns. And I do think it's an opportunity for us to share information about how people can be proactive around their own safety. Instead, nothing has changed in the city with regard to the frequency with which people leave things unattended or unlocked or otherwise unsecured, and yet our larcenies and our vehicle thefts and other kinds of crimes including burglaries have skyrocketed. The fact is that there is study after study that talks about the fact that near police presence is in fact a deterrent it is preventative. The idea that it's not is absurd. And we also take great issue with the idea that I am misrepresented. It's not true. So, and you are. I am not you are with regard to the Austrian cases public regard to uses of force that don't involve violence. I actually went through many of them with the police commission when the report was revealed, and of the uses of force that are ostensibly for nonviolent misdemeanors. We have a use in which the crime was drug possession which is nonviolent, and it was a nonviolent misdemeanor because it was a misdemeanor level of drug possession. What was the incident, the incident was a report of two college age males wearing and these are all black subjects because that was the issue 15 incidents that involved black subjects who were arrested for nonviolent misdemeanors and were the subject of a use of force. Two college age black males wearing black and gray hoodies pushed their way into a residence and assaulted the caller officers located the two men in a car and then saw a third hiding under another car and they ordered him out at gunpoint. The use of the gunpoint was the use of force upon taking him into custody they recovered cocaine from his person. That was the misdemeanor nonviolent drug possession. A DUI suspect who tried to flee after crashing his vehicle officers used force to stop that flight and take him into custody DUI is nonviolent, and it was physical force, no injury, non compliant handcuffing, which is a use of force, anything that is not a person turning around and voluntarily putting his or her hands behind their back is considered a use of force. This is a female with mental health issues known to be aggressive towards law enforcement. She had been the subject in five previous incidents that day moving from parts of the city committing acts of vandalism and simple assault in this particular instance she was arrested for an elude and lascivious because she was partially naked and taken into custody with non compliant handcuffing. A negligent operation and this was relatively a sad case, an elderly male who was driving very erratically he tried to elude officers and then crashed his vehicle. They spoke to him at the side of the vehicle attempting to get him to exit voluntarily for quite some time he did not they ultimately had to bring him out of the vehicle. That was a use of force gentle pulling under his armpits to get him out of the vehicle. They called it a use of force it was negligent operation of a vehicle that's a nonviolent misdemeanor. Disorderly conduct fighting. This is an incident that actually involved a gunfire discharge, but not by the person involved the person involved was given a disorderly conduct fighting charge that has been erroneously included as a nonviolent misdemeanor it should be a violent misdemeanor disorderly conduct is almost always a fighting charge. He was a part of a large melee at the corner of the vicinity of the city market and a gunfire gun was discharged during that incident so responding officers held everybody at gunpoint until they could determine what had happened. A methamphetamine possession again nonviolent misdemeanor, but officers pointed firearms as part of an execution of a search warrant. There were other people in that incident who had felony amounts of narcotics because this was a long time narcotics case that they'd been working on for quite a while. And they pointed firearms at a drug crew out of Connecticut during that arrest one of those individuals was not arrested for a felony, but was arrested for a nonviolent misdemeanor drug possession and had a firearm pointed. There are many others and I don't want to take up the entire meeting with it but every single one of those incidents is explainable and clear and is a legitimate and lawful use of force. Again, we make every single use of force public so that the public can ascertain for itself what these incidents are or are not. But the idea that there is a problem there or that I am misleading or misrepresenting I take great issue with, because in fact I give all of that information to the public in as complete a way as I legally can. Can you see the role as of the of the mpa and public safety. I think that again I think that the component of my belief of what public safety is is that public safety police exists to keep people safe by preventing and responding to crime and disorder with and for their neighbors, and the four part is probably the clear with part is incredibly important. And I think the npa is an opportunity to meet people who are engaged enough to be here in this room on a Wednesday night, who care enough about their community to to invest the time to actually come and sit and answer and ask questions. Okay, I, I, on the way down I thought I saw two needles. I use my glove and pick them up. What do I do with those needles. Does anybody do who finds them. Sure. There is a description online that I can share with you that talks about how exactly to dispose of them in a safe and proper manner. You can also report them via C click fix and C click fix will assign somebody to come and take them. Police will take them if they are in a place where public safety is immediately imperiled for example a playground. But generally a sidewalk in a sidewalk or gutter is not going to be a police response it is going to be in generally they're a DPW response. Okay, or in some cases, the, the needle exchange, you might have you might have explained to some of our people what we should do with needles when we see them Thank you very much. The new the new downtown public safety and activation plan will surely will surely be beneficial to the parts of the East district covered by the downtown patrols and supports. How can you reassure us that a single rover South officer will be able to handle issues in the remaining extent of the East district, along with the entirety of the south end. John Oak ledge to the Winooski Bridge into Baybury Commons. I lost who will goes first. Thank you. Well, I think the chief covered some of this earlier, but I would yield to the chief with regards to this answer. I cannot reassure you. I cannot reassure the city that that is sufficient for that area. What I can say is with regard to the question of what the community can do. We have a rebuilding plan, the mayor has articulated a rebuilding plan, something that can get this department back to a functional level of service both with regard to officers and with regard to these new resources that we have invented and built here in Burlington CSOs CSL's it will take a strong contract it will take resources that are need to be allocated in this coming budget, but it exists as a plan and it has a potential for us to be back to functional numbers by by the end of 2025. It takes far far longer to rebuild something than it takes to break it. And it takes resources to rebuild something. How do you, how do you each of you see the role of the police department and the role of the commission. What is the role of each and addressing public safety in Burlington. Is there anything you want to add to that. That might be one of that. No, I mean, I wake up every single day thinking about public safety in Burlington. That is why I work 55 and 60 hour weeks. That's why I'm not home with my family right now. That's why trying to figure out when I go to my daughter's graduation tomorrow afternoon is I mean morning is difficult with the meeting that precedes it and things that follow it. One day afternoon I would took some time my wife and I went and saw often box or fail and hell down in Middlebury it was really wonderful. And within 10 minutes of arriving back home I had a call that I had to go to Roosevelt Park because we'd had another incident. I live and breathe this every single day. So, what is the role of the BPD in that the role of the BPD is that they are at the front lines of it they are not alone in it. They have to have the communities support and the community. The community's cooperation public safety is a shared responsibility. It is a shared responsibility from between all, and talking again about Sir Robert Peele and sort of the notion of you know this idea of Peele and ideals. He said the public are the police and the police are the public, and the difference is that the police get paid to do something that is incumbent on everyone on some level. So, I believe that the role of the police is to be at the forefront of doing things that all of us need to be doing with regard to keeping a strong safe community. Community it's a tautology to say it but a strong community is a strong community and a community that behaves as if it's a strong community is a strong community. We cannot seed the public areas, despite the fact that we're concerned about activities in them, or concerned about people who are in them that make people uncomfortable. We cannot seed our public areas we cannot seed our ability to have shared public space and great events and take advantage of all the things that make this city, the best city in New England I came back to this city to live here because I love it as much as I do. And we cannot allow it to be to revert to things that we have moved past. I think we really need to be honest about the state of community engagement, we need a lot more of it, we need to repair relationships and certain parts of our city. We cannot build back up the department. If we don't look at these things, honestly, and address them, honestly, because if you're an officer in another part of the country, thinking about a lateral transfer. And you Google us, you're going to read stuff that's going to make you not want to come. So we've got to create more positive outcomes with regards to community engagement and support of the department that will help to counteract some of these things that people would see. The Kathy Austrian case would happen to her and her child that is a that she went public with that I encourage people to read about it. I encourage people to look at it and tell me if that was something that was necessary. I am open to discuss this with anyone who would like to talk about it. The other thing I would like to add with regards to number six and also a little bit of seven is that I would like to see more people watch and listen to when and I know with everything going on in our lives right now it can be difficult. But if you can watch a little bit at a time on town meeting TV on their YouTube channel but to watch the police commission meetings to watch the city council's public safety meetings. Read the reports, listen to the data, have a better understanding of the data so that you're less successful susceptible to false narratives, less susceptible to having things be politicized. Things can be true at once which is that we have a trend over the last several years where incidents are down, but we have certain types of incidents that have increased. So those two things can be true at the same time. The commission has done what I feel is a really great job in terms of inviting public speakers to come to our meetings when we're not reviewing things like reports, and we try to educate the community on both sides of the issues so we've talked about wellness for enforcement. We've talked about extreme situations that officers face and how their responses can be affected we had a great series with Nicole, the National Association for civilian oversight and law enforcement. Those trainings are available online, really helping the police commission to look at oversight and look at transparency and what we need. I encourage people talk to your state representatives, send emails to the governor, you know, let him know what we need in our community to be successful in terms of dealing with things like mental health issues, and dealing with things, having to do with our drug epidemic. He has not been on the forefront of some of these issues as much as he should be so it's not just about the counselors yes you should be involved in your city counselors but also take it to the state legislature as well we need more beds. Some people it is not appropriate to put them in jail you can put them in jail they come back, they do the same thing because they haven't gotten the proper treatment for mental illness which might be causing the original problem. Certainly, so sorry to interrupt we couldn't online we didn't hear that question at all. Certainly so I was mentioning encouraging people to watch the police commission meetings and also to watch the city council public safety meetings, the town meeting TV here now thank you. records these meetings and then post them within one to two days of the meetings being over so you can go to town meeting TV. Click on videos, and you're able to specify which videos that you're looking for. Also the most recent videos tend to be the ones at the top. And if anyone would like any links by police commissioner email is m e grant at nvt.gov or Milo grant m e l o g r a and t at gmail.com. Thank you. Sure. I'm again sorry to interrupt but we can't hear this online whoever speaking right now. Can you hear me now, Jack? Yes, yes. I just wanted to say that everyone is going to be welcome to ask questions and then of our to our commissioner and our police and our police chief and Tom Berenthal will be the moderator but I want to thank you for taking time to come we know that it's a hard job that you're doing we're all relying on your job and your work, and we really appreciate all the hard work that you're doing, because it will have a positive impact on our city. Thank you. Tom. All right, we're open to questions if you have a question or you're online please just use the raise hand function and we'll go from there. Yes, I would like. Thank you. I'd like to know if the police commission listens and acknowledges complaints about police activities. I'm wondering if they also listen and acknowledge compliments and accolades for what it is. What police do every day because I can sit in the chair and have ideas about what the police should be doing but they're the people who are doing it. I want to make certain that because of the missteps a few years ago on the part of the whole city coven a mess. Portland. A lot of stuff. Well, that Portland was forgive me for interrupting Portland was Portland, it did not represent the movements nationally Portland had some very unique things going on in that city, and should not be used to. I'm not saying that you're doing that but it has been at times used to denigrate a national movement for justice and equity. I think my point is that I'd like to see more civility in the civics of these interactions and more respect, and less disdain on the part of some people who judge others about what they do. Because I for one, appreciate that appreciate the services that each of us are doing in our community every day. And so I just want to be certain that if the police commission here's from people that the police department is doing a very good job, they need to let them know that and support them. Certainly. So if you have time to watch the police commission meetings, and it's also listed on the minutes. There is a segment at each meeting where if we've received messages, commendations, those are reviewed during police commission so that is meetings and those are very welcome and they are reviewed. Complaints due to the nature of the complaints they have to be reviewed in executive session. So, due to privacy issues and possible discipline issues so those are always reviewed in executive sessions, but commendations and praises and any messages from the public regarding excellent service that they receive from the officers is indeed reviewed publicly at each meeting. If we've received them. Questions. Nancy Kirby. Hi, I'm Nancy Kirby, and I live in the Hill section of Burlington. I grew up here. I stayed here for the same reason john came back. I love my city. I have a business downtown with my former husband, and we've been together 48 years and communication is a big issue around town. And I think that we've set a good example of how we've gotten through our issues. And I have a plastic container in answer to your question about needles that I received from the health department so that when I find needles. I can very carefully safely take care of them. It's an often occurrence downtown. And I know everybody knows that. We're coming up in Burlington, and still in some little neighborhoods we have neighborhood watch. We have signs that we posted a few years ago, see something say something. When a child is first born to a family. It takes a village. Everybody says that it takes a village. And this village is our community. And it makes my heart ache when I hear people complain about the police department. They're working on a shoestring. I know that I work downtown. And it's nice to see a black and white car go by, you know, um, but when I walk around my neighborhood if I see something, I say something. And I might be five feet tall and 102 pounds, but I'll tell you my voice is strong. And I think he was out there watching on zoom. I like being in person, like john said when he would come to the NPA meetings. I think zoom is a very impersonal circumstance that we've all had to deal with. Um, I think it's very important that we all start coming back to our community meetings. I think it's very important that we nurture these kids that are out on our streets. They're lost. Some of them are in trouble because of it. We need to pull up our bootstraps tighten our belt, roll up our sleeves and get busy. That's what we're here for. And thank you for allowing me to speak. Yes. Um, I guess this question is for john as a retired social worker who from all of my working years worked with youth and in this city. Many of the years, but I have worked in Germany as well. And drugs have been a problem in this city since I moved here. Sometimes worse and sometimes better. I, I guess, as as also a social worker working in youth work. I also worked as a street worker in Germany. And I often wonder why we in this country don't use them. I know we have a few of them from Howard. But I worked for a group that was organized in different neighborhoods all across the city of Stuttgart, which is a very large city. And when you say that you have two social workers fight you're down 30 policemen. Why have we not hired or try to hire more social workers in the interim, because we know in towns, or cities, where they have used a lot of social workers, that that things are better they they are not in a uniform and people have an easier way if they know the neighborhood and work in the neighborhood of calming things down. And I also had two years ago. Remember there was a whole discussion about cuts, I think or cuts or something like that. It's an anachronym. What has happened with that are we working towards that Burlington or not. Those are, those are great questions. So with regard to hiring in the police department we've hired as many as we were allocated by the city council. I'm hopeful to have that allocation increased from three to six. And that was the original plan that I presented to the city council in December of 2020 and then again in January of 2021. But the final number that was approved was three, I hired all three of those as quickly as I could in the next fiscal year, and they've been working incredibly well I'm really really proud of having created this system and the way it's working. It is functioning as a, as a equivalent really of detectives in the same way that officers on patrol will divert calls to detectives. Once a call is determined to be a little bit beyond the officers time, the officers skill set the officer's ability to dig in. In the same way that that happens. We also have officers deferring cases to our CSLs, our community support liaisons. I responded says the officer last night to a scene, I intervened and stop the immediate threat but I don't really know what we should do next. Can you help and the CSLs take that and they liais with the person and they help guide that person towards a variety of different services, and they act in a way that really ultimately is a it's a downstream response from an officer's intervention, but it creates an upstream benefit, because we don't end up seeing some of those people again because they're being addressed and their needs are being addressed by the CSLs. So, I'm very hopeful that we can get some more put on the books, I am also hopeful that Howard is expanding it's got a stronger presence than it's had in a while on its street outreach team, which is very similar to what you were describing, really strong with the CSLs. I put together an RFP for that program request for proposal, we promulgated that RFP. It described a program that we envisioned, essentially the difference between cahoots and street outreach the the most salient difference is the fact that the RFP actually deploys with medical personnel people who are trained as either EMTs or paramedics, and can do certain kinds of medical interventions in the field. And so we devised a plan that incorporates that key component. We did get responses to that RFP. I don't know that they're public yet. We were a little bit higher than we were thinking as far as allocated money we are currently working with the state in an effort to see if we can bridge some of that monetary gap and get that program rolling again. But it's definitely something that I've been working on I've been I again I with Lacey Smith who is our community support supervisor she's in charge of my three CSLs. Lacey and I wrote that RFP and are putting together that plan. I'm really hopeful that we can get farther down the field with it. I would also like to say that these positions the CSLs the cahoots model have had tremendous support within the community. They have been discussed numerous times at police commission meetings. Our speaker series included individuals who bought forth the model in particular wanting to deal with issues initially around children that were in mental health crisis. So that's another great police commission of meeting to look at to get that additional information. The police commission also supports the additional CSLs and we have made that support public thank you. Thanks. I think we've got time for one more question alley. You've got your hand up. Hi, sorry it was taking me a little bit to unmute. So yeah, so I have a question. Kind of specifically going off of the like, or two questions ago that was asked. So, with regards to first call as I as I understand it first call is. What you were referring to when you were talking about the, like the Howard center crisis line. If that question is for me know I was talking about the Howard center street outreach is what I mentioned. Okay, okay. Gotcha. Okay, that was. Sorry, that was just my I just had that clarifying question. And then I had, I had sort of a second sort of follow up question to that so I know that there are certain circumstances under which, like Howard center is obligated to respond kind of in tandem with police and I'm curious if there's been any given to creating a policy within BPD in which BPD is is obligated in certain types of calls to respond in tandem with an organization like Howard center, or in partnership with something like is good. Which for those of you who who might not know what is good is is kind of like an initiative that's been proposed by Brian China, who who actually works for first call, kind of to have folks respond, sort of is like community liaisons in the neighborhood and I'm curious if BPD has given any thought to responding in tandem with those kinds of programs based on certain calls that you might receive. Well, we routinely go to calls and request first calls presence and very often unfortunately don't get it. They're facing staffing challenges just like many others. And I started tracking the instances in which we call for either street outreach or first call, or for that matter for an internal resource like a CSL, and are not able to attain it I don't have those numbers yet we only just started doing it but anecdotally my officers have been very frustrated, our cities officers have been frustrated for a long time by the inability to get certain other kinds of alternative response to a scene when they need it. And so the idea of going when they are there vast majority of the time we're there first calling for assistance and assistance is not available, owing to again staffing issues, etc. Now, the other issue is that many instances are not appropriate for the arrival of either street outreach or first call until the seat has been secured in a way and rendered stable. There are many instances in which the crisis is such that only officers are going to be able to respond in the, in the moment. And those other resources are going to have to remain on the periphery until that situation is stabilized. But the idea of corresponding as you're describing or going with these other entities, we work with them regularly and that includes not just street outreach or first call but also DCF, and we have relationships that when they are going to do with thing that they believe is going to require additional sort of protection or security. They do call us if they're sadly there are times where DCF has to go and take custody of a child and that is something that oftentimes has negative implications it can go south in a lot of ways. We will work with them and accompany them on those calls if we are available and depending on our staffing first call doesn't do that as often but every now and then their instances in which first call is going to execute what is called an emergency evaluation or an emergency, it is essentially an arrest warrant for mental health reasons on a person a person has been demonstrated to be a danger to himself or herself or others, and has been that has been signed off on by what's called a QMHP or qualified mental health care provider, and then an EE can be issued and that allows for an involuntary custody of a person for a temporary period of time until they can be evaluated. When first call goes to do EE's they will very often contact us first and have us go up and assist them. We are also capable of executing EE's on our own, but we are very reluctant to do it absent some explicit threat to a person or someone else in that exact moment. This is actually because the idea of sending armed officers into extract people who aren't actively harming themselves or others is brings more risks than benefits. We got one really last question. Thank you. Some things that I've heard tonight from each of you or both of you is that the staffing levels that we're currently at and will be at till the end of 2025 perhaps. We're hopeful, but it forces reactive behavior on the part of the police department that there's not enough staff to actually have a benevolent presence in the community. On the other side, there's this problem of engendering trust that there seems to be an, there seems to continue to be an issue of mistrust of the police force. And how do you, how do we fix this in the next couple of years where where staffing is not sufficient to actually create more proactive or benevolent relationships with the community when there's not enough people to do it. I want to hear from both of you on this. It just seems to be a paradox at this point that the solution and the problem are in two different worlds. So before the, I call them the before times before we had our staffing crisis back actually when I was on the committee to for policing policies. I've been begging for more community engagement. You know, I am, I, for those of you don't know I, I DJ, I'm in the community a lot in different ways. I do a lot of free DJing for different community events. I do training up at the university at the college station, I'm on the board at the media factors I'm out in the community in a lot of different ways, talking to a lot and so I could see and I can hear what's happening so I am hopeful that we haven't missed the boat. I felt that there was, you know that my concerns sometimes people feel that I'm, I'm overblowing things. I believe that we can make some changes to increase community engagement. And we're going to have to do it in different ways, because of the reduction in staff. Now this can be done. You can, if officers are willing, we can have people go to the police station. One of my projects was, you know, give all the officers hey during world call top five things you want the people of Burlington to know the top five things that you see that are unnecessary for you to respond to. It would be very interesting. I think to the public. I think giving the public more information about what they actually do, you can describe these incidents in various categories but to have more specific examples to really educate what is actually happening and then also to give the same information for the CSOs, what are the park rangers going to involve but you can take cameras to where they are. And for those that are willing to talk or you can record them, and you can put together a lot of pieces with. You can do this with high school students you can do this with volunteers there's a lot of things that can be done through the media factory to make it a worthwhile project that I think would be really important to people, but there has to be the recognition full recognition that it needs to be done needs to be done differently. Press releases are important but I think there's been an over reliance on press releases, press releases do not get out to the public in a way that they should so we have to have different ways to communicate. And I think local media would jump on some of these different types of ways to communicate different types of ways to tell stories. That would help improve the relationships and the interactions between our department and our community, but there, there has to be a will. So really, and Chief, thank you very much for coming. I think I actually have my own questions that I'm not going to ask because we're way over time. But I think we are back there and for the discussion, but thanks for showing up and I appreciate the discussion. Next in our list is City Council updates. And I think we have all three City Councilors here. So it's really up to you guys on the piece of paper I have to write your first Jack your second all your third but you guys can go whatever you like. Awesome. I'm happy to start just because I think you've gotten a few things from me over the past few days which first is and I want to say I think I've said this before but for folks who haven't heard it. I'm sorry, it's really hard to make to make it in person because I have the board meeting for my job. Just before this meeting that goes till seven so I often can't make it on time, much less make it there in person so I'll probably be continuing to join online until that schedule changes. And yeah, I think two things is redistricting which we heard about there's some maps that are online and curious to hear folks thoughts I know that there's some principles that we have in terms of wanting small words, wanting multiple representatives, and the Council has had a really hard time making any decisions going forward. I think I've selected where I'm at right now which I haven't talked to Jack or Ali about but is, I'm kind of where I think I want us to look at a six word system and potentially have. Two words but basically split into six different words and then one of the words is actually split so that the old north end and the new north end would be separate so they would only have one representative and the other. And then there'd be five represent so there'd be five words that are normal sized with two reps and then there'd be two smaller ones that each have one rep, which is a little confusing but it's really hard to draw maps in a way that the old doesn't get split up into the new north end just because of the way that we've had population growth so that's one of the things that we're looking at. The other thing is maternity campus folks got an update from me yesterday, I think maybe was today I think it was yesterday. And I'll also share that. Although I'm waiting for communication from the city attorney, but the university has decided not to renew their memorandum of understanding with the city that we've had for, I don't know, quite a long time, which has some implications. So I think just generally the issue that matters to me the most and all of that is Trinity campus and how we're thinking about what the agreement is between the city and the university in terms of housing students and so I really hoped that the university would take a kind of more collaborative approach they haven't done that yet. I don't know if the mayor to talk through strategy at some point this week, but I'm, I feel strongly that this is a moment to ask the university to be a better neighbor. And I think there's enough of only enough of us on the council who feel that way that I'm hopeful that will come to some resolution but I don't know what that looks like yet. So those are the two big pieces there in the front porch front porch forum, as well both the link to the maps and I'm sure Tom can include that in the notes. And then also the Trinity campus update, and I'll pause there and also. Yeah, just wait for any questions and let Jack and Ali speak. Sharon brought up something earlier about the impact of the Trinity campus. We can't hear you. I think Sharon Bushard brought up the earlier discussion, something about the impact of the Trinity campus, perhaps on redistricting. Let's see if there is a deal where say five six 700 beds are added to the Trinity campus will that change. How will that change the mix of people in what is now word one, and how will that change. How we elect people. The mix of community would change and it would actually, it could throw the whole balance word to word out if that was to, you know, come to fruition in a short time like within a couple years. Yeah, it's, and I don't I mean there's like the theoretical thing of like, oh what is the best thing to do so we've definitely looked at like how much do we so word one is strange right word one is the biggest word by far of any of the words already, which means that we have to make it smaller, how much smaller smaller we make it in order to anticipate like there's different. I guess like schools have thought of like how much we should try to predict where growth will be in the city and go ahead and re, like make those are ready at least to the 10% like degree of difference that you can have right so do we make 1% do me do we make word one smaller than, then even like where it should be to get to even again in order to accommodate future growth. I think that's a definitely a possibility I don't know how hard I would advocate for that because I think predictions are hard, but I think also this is, I think we have to have the current I've never actually talked to you the envy on the one time they presented at the city council meeting to see like what it means if they're like what the negative light right if we're, if we say you can't have the allowances on the zoning if we don't have an agreement, I don't know what that does to their plans I think we have to have more of those conversations. And the one thing I want to add just because I remembered that I have a question on the sidewalks versus the the bike, the bike infrastructure painting and DPW address this in board of finance on Monday. And I don't know why but for some reason they have all of the lines on the street, as well as the bike lanes drawn by a company and they do all of the sidewalks in house. So they're working on it but because they had some short staffing they're delayed on the crosswalks, but that's for some reason I don't I assume it's something about logistics they do that work at house and then have all of the like long streets gates done by an outside contractor which is why the sidewalks are delayed and I hear that they're supposed to be done this year and that's that's all I know and that All right, do you do folks want Ali and I to share and then we can all three take questions or do people keep want to ask direct questions to Zariah. You can go there. Okay, yeah I think redistricting is a big one I want to hear from folks that I can share my thoughts on a couple other things that we did on Monday so we yeah we just met this past Monday. We delayed the short term rentals again so that's been you know debated for a few years at this point. We're working to hopefully get something in place at our next meeting but it's it's very contentious it's very. The council is very divided on it, but I've definitely taken the stance of trying to be as restrictive as possible to to people using investment properties to short term rentals. And a couple other things so Burlington Electric Department we approve their budget they are doing a rate increase of about 4%. But they're also rolling out a new program that allows low income customers to get a 12 and a half percent discount on rates so I'm pretty happy with that program and that's going to begin on on July one. And I'm happy if people need more info. It's on their website about how to enroll in that program. District energy district heating or district energy that the idea of taking waste heat from McNeill is continues to make progress. Senator Leahy was able to secure pretty significant funding from the federal government so it's not a firm decision yet but we we got a presentation on that and they're going to decide there's a group there's a partnership there's several entities involved but in the city's obviously a main a main stakeholder but the decision is going to be made by the end of the year on that. It would move relatively quickly if it was approved. And then yeah ranked choice voting. It might be confusing if you haven't followed it but I think it's a good excuse to remind people that city council races from now on are going to be conducted with ranked choice voting. We solidified the tabulation method on Monday it's it's the same method that was used previously in Burlington and is used basically everywhere that uses ranked choice voting it's what was on the ballot as well but the legislature had stripped it out of the charter so we just placed that into ordinance. But yeah redistricting I my thoughts on redistricting I mean I really believe in simplicity like having a smaller smaller words and closer representation is a huge thing that I am advocating for and also simplicity I want a system that everyone can understand and know who represents them on council I think the system right now fails on both fronts the districts are are huge you know they're let it's 11,000 people for one person to represent. Which is really difficult when you're barely getting paid and are working full time it's really difficult to be responsive to a constituency of 11,000 people. So I think it's really flawed in that sense. And it also takes more money to run that size and takes more resources so I'm really advocating for, you know, smaller wards and eliminating districts and having smaller wards, and then from the simplicity front is, you know, not having this dual system where you have as a voter you're, you know, voting for different size districts that you fall into on each alternating years so I think. But of course I want to reassure everyone because I heard Sharon busher chiming at the beginning is that the word eight piece and and, you know, eliminating the gerrymandered word eight to me is non controversial I don't I haven't heard anyone defending even attempting to preserve the gerrymandered word eight that's why I haven't focused on it as much because I don't. I don't see it I haven't seen any risk of that happening it seems like everyone on the Council is is on the same page about getting rid of the current configuration of word eight so I certainly will advocate very hard if I hear that anyone's trying to push that through that hasn't been a concern for me and I would love to hear and I and I understand I feel like everyone's on the same page about that. So I'd love to hear people's thoughts on. You know, do you want the difference between having one and two counselors and just smaller words versus larger words because those are some of the big questions that we're also trying to work through on Council. Sorry I'm having a little bit of technical difficulties I don't know why my computer doesn't want to unmute. But yeah I mean at the risk of sounding like a broken record. You know there's there's the issue of redistricting. And obviously you know I'm the word eight representative. And I think I've, I've benefited in certain ways from from that system and how that map is is drawn but I'm certainly not a fan of it and I've heard from just so many people in including many within this meeting who are not a fan of how that's drawn either and so that's certainly something that I, you know and advocating for in this, you know redistricting process and you know I think unfortunately this is a tough issue there's no quick fix and so obviously we're going to have to make some some sacrifices in this and I'm I'm also interested to explore the the six word to representative option that Zariah had mentioned earlier. And so I would I would love to hear input from folks at this meeting and you know I appreciate all the feedback and the ideas that I've heard so far and yeah I mean this unfortunately won't be an issue to solve but I do you know I do think that we can come to some kind of solution I would I would love to hear more from folks. And yeah I guess related to short term rentals as Jack had mentioned it's being delayed again. And I think our district in particular faces a lot of really unique challenges. When it comes to housing. And so I, I also have have taken the stance of trying to be as restrictive as possible. I think that we do really have to take advantage of all of the available housing stock that we can. But I also don't want to lose sight of the fact that there are are bigger fish to fry if you will, when it comes to this, you know, the problem is causing a housing crisis period and I feel pretty surprised to hear that they're choosing not to go through with an MOU. And so I, I think that we as you know the words and the district that are disproportionately impacted by this issue. You know cannon and should really put our heads together in the coming weeks and months. Yeah, I'm also really open to any ideas that you all have in terms of that. And I also I also want to take this time just to echo Commissioner Grant statements on about community engagement and that being absolutely crucial to to making strides and in public safety and I really encourage anyone here to to attend our community safety committee meetings and be open to sharing and also to learning and, you know, we welcome people we would, we would love to have you. And I guess the final thing that I'll say kind of related to like just some other stuff in the city is we have the Juneteenth celebration coming up June 17 to 19. It's the theme this year is a love story. So the whole the whole event is sort of focused around the theme of like love and there's going to be music there's going to be food some really interesting speakers and yeah I think I think it would be a great way to to build relationships and celebrate with neighbors. Thanks. Um, we're moving right ahead here, unless there's questions and I don't see any questions. Yeah, I've got a question. They're a comment actually. Shall I go ahead? Thanks. Thanks. So two things. And I'll try to be quick. I'm very interested in hearing folks perspectives on redistricting. I just, you know, totally Jack agree that the large districts, you know, the one like the one that you represent are just totally unwieldy and it is, you know, they should be eliminated in whatever scheme. Yeah, I'll come up with I do believe and I've kind of pushed some lines around on a map myself. I do believe that there could be a way to equitably design either a seven or an eight ward system that really preserves ward one and preserves a lot of the balance between town and ward one. And happy to talk to you guys, you know, offline about that because, you know, it gets into the weeds and it gets complicated real quick. So, but just to let you know, I do think I do think it's really important, you know, as a long time ward one resident to try and retain as much as possible the historic boundaries of ward one, knowing that that, you know, involves some challenges. The other quick comment is, you know, very disturbed to hear that the University of Vermont does not want to continue negotiating with the city. A little bit of history. I was City Council President when we negotiated the first UVM agreement and, you know, that set us on a path of UVM finally realizing that they had to address the impact of students on housing in the city. We also saved Centennial Woods as a result of that, which Sharon was involved in as well. Just as a footnote to history, the reason we got UVM to the table back then, and I'm not suggesting you do anything like this now. But we had to play hardball with this, with the University because they refused to sit down with us and we basically held up a zoning permit. You know, somewhat questionable legality, but we held up a zoning permit on a major building, the Stafford building actually, and that is what finally got UVM to the table. So I would say, you know, not exactly suggesting that, but I'm also suggesting don't be afraid to be pushy and to play hardball because you need to get the University's attention. That said, Tom, I don't know if you've got my email. If there is, I know you're running late. If there is a moment on the agenda before you break for me to just say a few words about my Senate, my candidacy for State Senate, I really appreciate it. And thanks. Sorry if I can just very, I'll be so brief. The Seven Ward map, like perfectly basically keeps Ward 1's lines because it has been so big that it's so easy just to keep Ward 1, Ward 1, and I think some of our colleagues and a lot of the Old North End folks are very anti Ward 7 because there's no way to keep the Old North End and the Old North End that way. So I don't, it's my favorite for Ward 1, but I think I'm the only one of the very few counselors who loves that map for that reason. Let me, let me put a link to Airhards map, which is an eight Ward map, which I think is really good, but it would involve potentially different, it would involve some two member and some single member wards. It also still needs some work, Jack. I wanted to say that it seems that we are really coddling Ward 4 and 7. I don't understand why a suburban Ward needs to have be called unique when the urban core of our city has all kinds of issues and the people that are basically going to be the ones that have to continue to continue to maintain or to work through those issues over years are underrepresented because of the students and it seems to me that I don't know why you think that Ward 4 and 7 have to have their way. I was watching you guys on Monday night. It seemed like they were the big, they were the big things you had to please. And I'm thinking, well, you know what, there are other parts of the city that really have issues too. And you seem to, you just seem to be going along as you are and you demand this and this and that. And even the people that came to talk to you from that at listening committee. That was just an alternative person. And I think that whole listening thing was a joke. They didn't really listen. And when I presented the facts, which they're all repeating now, I was attacked for repeating for giving out the facts of how governance and Ward 8 is very, was very hard. And it will be hard if you have a whole student ward. Although the one thing I like about Ward, the 12 Ward map is that putting all the students together. I think with their student government association, they can get a lot more done and be represented much better. If they work together and get somebody on the city council from the student government association that that's one appeal to me, but governance with a 12 Ward is going to be a nightmare for Ward clerks. Okay, we're going to, we're, we're running out of time so we're going to have to move ahead. But I think Keith, you would be well advised to send your additional comments. I have, I, I think they've already seen my comments. I had real quick, Kathy, do you have a school update for us? You're on mute. Yeah, I mean, I can you hear me now. Yes. Okay. I was just going to talk really shortly about the $150 million bond, because it was in the paper today and I don't know. Many people may have read that we are still working with the city, and that is not set in stone so we have concerns on both sides about the death, the debt debt policy and how much we can, we can actually bond for, but that number is not set in stone we are still working on that we have been closely working with the city, collaborating and we want to keep working together in order for the betterment of our kids and for the taxpayers. What we have, you know, what Sharon referred to about taking some of the kids, some of the programs of BTC out. And also not a done deal that is, we are still discussing that that it has not been set in stone either. And there are a lot of pros and cons on both sides of this. The board will meet again next week and make a decision. But there is a public forum on June 29 that we would like people to please come to. And we are looking at the 60 million, we are not looking at a 60 million funding gap, but it will be between 15 and 35 million that gap. We have set some monies aside, and we are also planning to go after other funds, doing fundraising be it the state and the federal government to find support for that so that's kind of it in a nutshell. Thank you Kathy. I think one of our last items here is a Burlington partnership for a healthy community and Evan you've been very, I think you're still on. Yes, I am very patient. Thanks. And you've got the floor. Actually, I'm going to see the floor. I'm so glad my coalition director, where I have Flynn is able to join us but. Wow, what a fantastic NPA meeting and we couldn't have asked for a better segue. Given the conversation about like what is a healthy community and how do we define that so thanks for opening the floor for us and we'll be we'll be as quick as we can because we know you've had a robust evening. Thank you so much for having us. I am just going to share my screen if that's okay. Let me do that. Great. Here we go. Okay. Again, as Evan said my name is Mariah Flynn I use she her pronouns I'm the director of the Burlington partnership for a healthy community which is your local coalition focused on substance misuse prevention. And we are a coalition of partners that work together with the support of staff on strategies that help reduce the causes and consequences of substance use in Burlington. There are a whole bunch of strategies that we work on. But today I'm here because we just wanted to share one specific tool that communities might find useful and give your neighborhoods the opportunity to think about how this might be useful for your ward or folks in the community can think about that. And I'll try to go through quickly because I know that you all have had a long night of very full agenda with lots of interesting things to already think about. So first I just wanted to draw some attention to the Vermont prevention model. This circular graphic on the screen is the Vermont prevention model it's a socio ecological model for prevention. In order to effectively prevent substance misuse communities have to engage in strategies at all of these levels. And the strategies that have the greatest impact our improvements to policy systems and the community environment. So that's where our coalition focuses our energy. On those two levels but it's important to note that there are a lot of other organizations doing great work in the community. There are programs that work at the other levels and that it's the how all of it works together that help really helps prevent substance use. And another thing that's really important to know as you frame as we frame this conversation is that our coalition focuses heavily on strategies that prevent and delay use for adolescents for as long as possible. The reason why that's really important is because we know that 90% of the people who develop a substance use disorder started using before the age of 18 or by 18. So addiction or substance use disorder really is an adolescent disease. And the more that we can create environments that normalize non use and support kids to remain substance free while their brains are still developing and helps them have better outcomes and can help the community really thrive. So I'm going to talk a lot about kids today, even though some of these strategies are also supportive for adults. I've got my notes on a different screen sorry so just. I have a lot of data around substance use for youth and adults in Burlington and I don't have time to get into a lot of it today but I wanted to just give you a really quick snapshot to show you a little bit of where we are around substance use in Burlington. So we just pulled out this one kind of data point around substance use the most commonly used substances at Burlington high school or alcohol cannabis and nicotine. You'll see me use the words marijuana and cannabis interchangeably because I tried to stay and use the language that the survey tool uses, but, but all sometimes call the cannabis because that's in Vermont, that's what we've changed the language to. So on this slide you can see that alcohol use is the most common substance use of choice for youth and it has been for a long time. It's also the most commonly used substance by adults in Vermont and the most easily accessible in our communities. But in recent years cannabis use has really increased and is starting to match alcohol use rates for youth. So our in 2015 in our youth risk behavior survey data in Vermont we started tracking use of electronic vapor products which is that purple line you see there. And you'll see that there's been a really drastic increase in the last few rounds of survey taking for kids of electronic vapor use. It's something that we're hearing anecdotally that a lot of our schools and youth service providers are also dealing with. And we'll know more about where kids stand with the 2021 youth risk behavior survey data which should be coming up this fall. But one of the things that is pretty standard for kids is that the substances they most normally start using with or alcohol cannabis or marijuana or nicotine products. So, when we're thinking about helping to prevent or delay use for substance substances for youth and support responsible use for adults what we really want to do is help make the healthy choices the easiest choices in the community. And kids are heavily impacted by what choices adults are making and normalizing. So when sometimes in our work we focus on adult use and because it supports and normalizes behavior for youth and it also helps support folks who are in recovery and trying to remain a substance free lifestyle. So in the fall and winter of 2018, we completed an assessment of all the tobacco alcohol and tobacco and alcohol retailers in Burlington. Our staff and our youth volunteers and some adult volunteers and Department of Health staff went to each of the stores in Burlington they tracked things like product placement advertising location of advertising. Was it under three feet? Was it on the doors or outside the building? And we compiled all that data from the audits and we used it to create maps and to look at the geographic impact of retail outlets on our area. We looked at density of retailers and the impact on the surrounding populations where there are a lot of stores near school or youth center and advertising near those places. And then we put that all into an online interactive tool. So that's the resource I wanted to come and talk to you about today. We overlaid some of those maps with things like census data showing poverty rates, things like the location of schools so you can look at the distance between retailers or density of retailers and help neighborhoods think about and look at the impact of substance use on the community and help increase some conversation about healthy community design and how to design the community that you want and to help grow in that direction of what you want to support for kids and families. So we are currently in the middle of updating that during the pandemic. We took a little break from this work and so we're getting back into it sharing this resource with the community. We're really excited to do that and to let you know that we are in the middle of working with the Department of Liquor Control right now to update all the audits. So we'll have data on the current state of the state around some of this. Although I will say that not too much has changed. We've got some a little bit of movement around retailers, but a lot of it's still the same. And once we have the new data entered, we'll add that to the same story map site. And then we'll go through a little bit of a revision again when retail cannabis starts in Burlington in October of 2022 this year. So I pulled out some data from the tool because I think looking at the online tools a little tricky although I will share that as well. But I thought just seeing the visuals on the screen might be helpful might be easier. So to set this stage, just to kind of help us think about why we pulled out this particular data when you're looking at community level is that there's some things that have been identified by research as the root causes of youth substance misuse at a community level which is community normalization of youth, access to and promotion of substances in the community, low perception of harm of that particular substance, and then early onset of misuse. I also wanted to share that all of the images that you see in this presentation and on our website that we created our pictures that we took of the Burlington community so they're all from Burlington either taken by Biosur or youth that we worked with who wanted to highlight some of the images that they saw as problematic. And I also wanted to just note that we know that kids are much more significantly impacted by advertising than adults are. And while we know that for alcohol and tobacco, the same is turning out to be true when it comes to cannabis advertisements. So, in the communities that have or the places where commercialization of cannabis has already started in other states. We know that they're seeing some of the same things that we see with alcohol and tobacco where, where the more kids see advertising the more likely they are to have favorable attitudes about use the more likely they are to start use at an earlier age. Okay, so, like I said strategic placement of advertising, like when they, when places put it at a children's pilot level normalizes substance use in everyday life. And it's an increased risk factor for, for use for youth. One of the things that we saw in Burlington with some differences between, between other groups like ours who did some of the same assessment in their communities so we found that 57% of our alcohol retailers had ads on the outside of the building that were outside the store, whereas the statewide average for that is 32%. We also found that 67% of retailers in Burlington had advertising inside advertising for alcohol, compared to the Vermont average of 59%. And I only pulled a tiny bit of the data, just in the interest of time today but you can read more on our website. And we also found that there was a number of places where they were advertising under three feet, which is something that as a coalition we're really trying to encourage stores to move away from because the only ones who really see that are the, that's really at the eye level for very young children. I pulled out this map for you all for this word. And I'll, and I've shared it with one other word for whom I think it's relevant as well. One of the things that we wanted to share for word one and eight is that well, these one and eight have a comparably small number of alcohol, tobacco and tobacco retailers, and probably the cannabis retailers as well and they start in October, physically located in the ward, you will likely experience some of the heaviest impact from density of retailers that are close by and neighboring words, and maybe that will change as the redistricting happens that you bump up against. And so we wanted to show you that this was actually some work that some middle school students did for us when we were pulling all of this together, where they were noting that there was a lot of tobacco retailers right around Edmunds and middle Edmunds elementary schools. And that there was a lot of advertising, particularly at the time for electronic paper products, as they were walking by on their way to school. So students that folks who have kids in the district, something to be thinking about the impact of that. Additionally, research suggests that when there's a higher density of on premise alcohol outlets, close by an area where a lot of college students live or young adults live. And that relates to poor drinking outcomes for college students increases in heavy drinking frequent drinking and other alcohol related problems. So, so while the density isn't happening in your neighborhoods, it might likely have an impact on your neighborhoods in a way that it will not for some other words. Okay, so quick just, I just wanted to share with you the online tool. I'm only going to like really briefly go through what we have here so please do take some time to check it out on your own. And I have the link in the PowerPoint which hopefully can be shared with folks but it's also on our website which I'll share at the end. So the first part is just a bit of a preamble again just a reminder that all these images are from our community in Burlington, but I wanted to just pull you down to the actual maps. So, we have kind of three things that we're looking at at the moment but we are interested in hearing feedback from folks about what other things are you interested in, would you like us to be able to provide to help you understand the impact of this on the community. So we're looking at you can look at density, the types of legal substances, substance use that we have in the community and what types of stores they're in. And then we've overlaid that you'll see some of there's some things on this key that are like a school or a community center. So this map is really looking at density areas where there's denser retailers. The second map is looking at proximity to schools or or youth centers. So, so you'll see those mapped and then the the darker blue circle is a 500 foot buffer from the school and the lighter blue circle is a 1000 foot buffer from the school. So I'll show you what what retailers follow within those, within those barriers, and one of the things that some research suggests is that you want to create a buffer from vulnerable populations. And that this is how you can visually see what that will look like. Yeah. Yeah, we're going to lose our room in about two minutes. Oh, okay. So I'm going to go back then to the presentation, you can look at some of that detail one of the other things that we look at is is poverty in the community and using census data and where you see greater density of poverty rates. You'll have to check it out on your own. In this presentation, we probably won't have time to get into it in detail but on the website as well we have strategies that are recommended to help prevent initiation and use when it comes to community level prevent. And those are at the end of the website, things like prohibiting use that in public and at family friendly events that you might have in the community and limiting advertising and advocating for buffers for adult only products from vulnerable populations. And the kind of in summary what I would say is that just, I want to repeat that the earlier people start using substances the more likely they are to develop problems. And that we want to delay youth use for as long as possible while brains are still developing and our legal substances are the ones that kids almost always start with. And I would just end by saying that we have a work group that wants to work more on this issue, thinking about how to help communities make the easy choices the healthy choices. If you're interested and you want to get involved can reach out to me or coalition. I would just add a story map on our website. If it's okay I might just add one quick thing we, in the other words that we visited we got some questions about cannabis retailers and the licensing that's happening right now at the state level with the cannabis control board. And I would just say that communities have the opportunity to define what they want that zoning to look like but they are definitely running out of time to do that if that's something that that a community wants to do. And so if that's something that you're interested in learning more about or want to talk about we're available to do that but as soon as licenses start being issued to retailers they will be grandfathered in and so you really won't be able to do that if that's something that the community wants to pursue. So thanks for letting me add that. Aaron, are you still on? I actually am, yes. I would love that thank you and thanks for the presentation Mariah and it's really, and Evan, fascinating stuff and thanks for your good work. Thanks for the minute just to reintroduce myself to folks that already know me and introduce myself to folks that don't. My name again is Erhard Monca. I'm running for state senate from Chittin Central, the new Chittin Central District. I know you heard from Martine earlier from running in that same district. I'm a close to 40 year resident of Ward 1. I was actually one of the charter members of the Ward 1 NPA and help started all those many years ago. I was city councilor when Bernie Sanders was mayor and served as city council president for for one year. I've been a long time affordable housing advocate for folks who don't know me. And, you know, I think it's safe to say that probably one of the greatest crises that is facing our state and our district is the affordability of housing. It is something I've worked on for years and would be one of the focal points of what I would hope to improve if elected to the legislature to represent you all and the rest of our Chittin Central neighbors. I've had over 20 years experience as an advocate at the state house, not just for affordable housing, but on a whole host of issues, including a stint of 11 years representing the city of Burlington and its interests at the state house. So my policy experiences is really quite broad and goes significantly beyond housing. And I say that just also to say that with all of the folks that are not returning to both the Senate and and the house, one of the things that we, well, we always want fresh voices. And of course, we want more younger folks to, you know, to be part of the discussion and the decision making process there. I will just say that I do have the kind of experience with the state house so that I could hit the ground running and really be effective, I think on day one. So I'll just kind of leave it there. There's many other things I could talk about. And one suggestion I have Tom to you and Jonathan and the other steering committee members is perhaps maybe the NPAs could get together and have an all NPA candidates forum. I know that's been something that's been done in the past and I, you know, with early voting coming up at the end of the month and the primary coming up on August 9th. It would be great if all the candidates got a chance to talk to all the NPAs at once. So thanks again for, you know, giving me a couple minutes here just to reintroduce myself to folks and really appreciate that. I like the all NPA forum idea. Thanks. Can't hear. Oh, I was just saying I like the all NPA forum idea. So thank you. Great. Hope you can make it happen. Thanks. Thanks again. All right, I think we're done. Thank you all for participating and our next meeting is going to be in September, August or September, September. No later than September. We can plan things for the summer that are necessarily Wednesday night meetings. But we need to adjourn guys. Right. Thanks everyone. Take care. Thank you.