 All right. Good evening and welcome to the ward one neighborhood planning assembly meeting for December. It's December 14. And we're here at the friends meeting house in Burlington. So with that, I'd like to formally start the meeting and start with people introducing themselves. We're going to start. Hello, my name is Troy Hedrick. I live on billy do court. I'm also the state representative elect for district 15. Nice to see you all. Hello. Good evening. I'm Maya Brandt. I'm East district city counselor sworn in on Monday. And I'm happy to be here. I'm Jonathan chapel so cool. I'm Ward one North prospect street and a member of the steering committee. I'm Angie chapel so cool. I live on North prospect street. Many people mistake me for Sharon busher, because we both have a lovely head of gray hair, but I don't have her political talents. I'm just making it clear. Yeah, they all well, I live on Burlington resident actually live on South prospect street, but I was I'm crashing your meeting. I'm Vanessa going to a South prospect street. My name's Carter new Bezier. Sorry, the, I don't want to like wrap stuff in here. My name's card new bizarre live on Colchester have and I am on the MP steering committee. Hi everybody. My name is Julia or sake I'm with Burlington public works and I also live on hide street so nearby. I'm Julia Likowski and I live on East Avenue in Burlington co housing. Cheryl green also Burlington co housing. I'm Carol Livingston and I'm on the steering committee. I live on a clerical court, just south of the cemetery. Okay. Someone right in back of you. I live online. You want to start Dave. Sure. I live on this place. Part of the old East End. Sharon, you're on mute Sharon. Sorry, thank you. Hi, good evening. My name is Sharon for for a little on East Avenue. I'm the other white haired woman. Here. Pat, you're on mute Pat. Right, welcome back. Hi, folks. All right, Sam, you want to introduce yourself. And air heart. Hi folks. There. Nice to see you all. Sorry, I can't join in person. Here's 60 growth rate. And Oh, Sophie. Sophie question. The old East End on Chase street, Ward one. Okay. And Patty there. I am here. I am here. This is Pat Seelen. I live on Nash Place in the OD stand. Okay. And I forgot to introduce myself. So my name is Tom Darenthal. I'm on the steering committee here and I live on Nash Place as well. And again, welcome everyone to our December meeting. I'm Chris Haseley from Ward 3. I'm here tonight in my capacity as a True Street Marketplace Commissioner. Thank you. Introduce myself. I'm Catherine. Excuse me. I'm Catherine. Sorry. I'm Catherine Vermean. I live on North Street, Emeril. Okay. So do we have any announcements? And I guess we're going to merge announcements and speak out because they're more or less the same thing. Oh, wait, we have Zariah. My name is Dee Dee Mcnau from Prospect Hill. And I'm Zariah Hightower from Hildred Drive. Okay. Just remind people that the microphones do not amplify your voice. It's only for the camera and these people here. So you need to talk to everybody in the room. Karen, are you going to introduce yourself? I'm Karen Long from Henry Street. Thanks. Okay. We're going to shift into announcements. Does anyone have an announcement? Anyone in the room? I'm seeing no, I'm Harold. Okay. This is okay. This is actually from Glenn and Holly McCray. And they just wanted us to be aware of a non-profit called, this is what you bring at 12 on the one street. We're going to show broken stuff and we'll find 50 or help you do it. Great. You need to see stuff lined up in a landfill, all kinds of stuff, posters, lamps, computers, software, electronics, bikes. And it's at 12 North Street and they're laboratory being done by the non-profit laboratory. And I will include their contact information in the minutes. They're at 12 North Street and open from 11 a.m. So that's the repair cafe. Thank you. One Saturday from 11 in the morning until 3. And you'll see it advertised on front-quarter form and probably other places. And it's advertised when it's open on a situation. They'll warn you ahead of time. Okay. Do we have any other announcements in the room? Yes. So as I mentioned earlier, I'm here with the marketplace. I'm one of the resident commissioners. That means I don't have a storefront on the marketplace. We did not elect to meet this month in December largely due to the holidays. We will be meeting in our usual time in January, which is the third Wednesday of the month at 9 a.m. in the Sharon Bush or conference room. And we're going to have a little bit of a work session the first time around. So I'm really interested in hearing what individual residents want and need and concerns that they may have about the marketplace. Certainly we hear a lot from the business owners there, but the marketplace belongs to everybody. So just if you have thoughts or concerns or opinions, I'd love to have you hear from you. We don't get a lot of participation at the marketplace in terms of public forum. So certainly have room if you have a thoughts that you want to share. And again, those meetings are the third Wednesday of the month at 9 a.m. in the Sharon Bush or conference room. Thank you. Thanks. Any other announcements in the room? Okay. So my name is Catherine Vermann. I came to the last meeting or the, I think it was the last one and I spoke out and I don't know. I didn't know the protocol. So I'm speaking out again on the same thing. So, Zariah, I read really carefully the, that you just put out and, excuse me, I don't know why I'm feeling a little croaky. And I agreed with so much of what you said. I so appreciated the sentiment how we as a community need to provide, you know, good schools and housing and healthcare and all of that. And I have a concern as well. So I don't, my concern does not negate all that you wrote. And my concern is that I feel like this beloved place that we live in and has become polarized in its thinking and politically. And I don't want to live in a world of polarization. It's too much in our world now. And I don't, I don't want to live in that world here. And I feel the way it shows up is this demonization of the police force. And this, this idea that they're, they're, I don't know, bad people and that they have to be watched. And I feel in my, in my neighborhood where I live that we do not have enough police protection. Yes, I'd like to live in a world where we didn't need that police protection. But we do still. And when there's a feeling that houses can be broken into and nothing's going to happen, or there's not going to be a response for hours. It's just, it just leaves me feeling vulnerable. My next door neighbor was broken into it. He's scared. He's scared to leave the house. And I just think that we need to work, we need to create a life in Burlington where there's a level of safety for everyone, for those who need housing, for those who who need better health care, for those who are seeking excellent education and for those who want to feel safe in their homes as well. I'll go first and then have your tea. Sorry. So my name's Karen Long. And I just listened to VPR and the South Burlington police chief made an announcement that they are suffering from far more burglaries and car thefts. And he even mentioned, and we are not, you know, like short staff, like some of our neighbors are. So I thought it was kind of telling that he was saying that he said one of the ways they're combating that is they have 12-hour shifts. And, you know, it's helping, I guess. But I've lived here a long time, you know, 40, 45 years. And on Henry Street, we had more burglaries 10, 15 years ago when we had, I think we had 120 police chief or policemen. So I don't really think it's that there's not police walking up and down my street, if or or your street, and that's why people are getting broken into. I think truly times are hard for people. And that is why it's happening. So anyway, just to reflect on what you said, and I agree, Zariah, what you wrote was amazing. But the other thing that I wanted to mention as far as the marketplace is the smoking on the marketplace really bothers me because people are not supposed to smoke there. And I think it also might be City Hall Park, I'm not sure. If that's still, well, we have a security guard working on City Hall Park with a big yellow jacket that says security. And he was smoking there this weekend standing at City Hall Park smoking with his, you know, official jacket. So that, but I thought, well, maybe City Hall Park doesn't count. I don't know. But anyway, that really bothers me that we can't be polite to people, you know, people that want to smoke and need to smoke, I think should be polite to the other people. But the last thing I wanted to mention was, thank you, Zariah, for bringing up, you know, the that people really wanted eight wards and 16 counselors. Yet we are going to have eight wards and 12 counselors if we approve it. But we don't have to approve that we are going to get to vote in March. And regardless of the way the line lines are, if we don't want to have those districts and only have 12 counselors, we can all vote against that in March. Anyway, thank you. What's in my hair? Oh, yeah, sorry. Well, yeah, I mean, my speak out was on policing and also on redistricting. I was also just frustrated that, you know, one of the things I think that I saw that got lost in the redistricting conversation was the fact that the overwhelming majority of like the feedback during the formal public feedback process, the Committee on Redistricting, was that we didn't want districts. I mean, that was like, near unanimous. I think it was Ann Brenna from Ward 8 who's sort of disagreed with that. But you know, I mean, I talked to Lee Terhune over in the New North End, she was like, I don't know, like this is so almost overwhelming. People don't want districts and we ended up with districts. So anyway, I thought I just have to throw it out there. I just think they're less democratic and make it harder for working class people and young people to vote. And I think it makes different neighborhoods less or less adequately represented on the City Council. Yeah. And then on policing, I mean, I'm sorry that like, I don't want anybody in our community to feel safe. So I or not safe. Sorry. I want people to feel safe. Lord have mercy. Can you imagine? Yeah, you know, I will say communities all across the state, one are facing trouble hiring police that is not unique to Burlington. I think one of the things that's also including our state police. I mean, that's just a fact. Gun violence is up across the state and across the country. All the different things that we're experiencing in terms of public safety challenges are up across the state and across the country. If this was somehow, you know, the result of efforts to make sure that our police do a better job when it comes to racial disparity and how they treat working class people and how they treat folks with mental health challenges and are suffering from addiction. You know, it just doesn't track, you know, it wouldn't be popping up in other places in the same way. We just went through three years plus of a COVID pandemic that isolated all of us. We're social creatures. We need human contact. We need community. That's part of why the NPA exists and like why it's so important. And I can tell you from personal experience, I'm in a 12 step program. And there was people who had 30 plus years who went back out and who took a drink or a drug during COVID because no in-person meetings, which are so crucial. So yeah, we're facing like some mental health collective challenges as a community. And like, I think we have to recognize that. And I think the impact of COVID is continuously getting lost in this conversation. And I'll say I'm really concerned that there's conversation about appointing chief Murad as permanent chief. I mean, it's someone who still has not acknowledged racial bias in policing. And the police transformation stuff didn't just happen in a vacuum. We had the Melly brothers who were not bad kids. They grew up here and are well known in Burlington. And they had their heads bounced off a brick wall. We had someone who was punched to death and died in the hospital later by a police officer. This idea that like our police didn't have a lack of trust with the community before and somehow that like, this is a reaction to like some national movement that's really not applicable to our community. I just think is not, I don't know, I just don't think it's hitting the nail on the head. I think we need to like think long and hard and remember the challenges for years that our police force and city leadership have created by not acting in a way that elicits trust from the people that they're supposed to be helping. But I'll get off my soapbox, but that's I just had to voice that. Thanks. A quick question. Can people online hear what's being said? Yes. Yes. Okay. All right. Erhard, you're on. Thanks. Thanks, Tom. I'll try to keep brief and not reiterate what folks have said before. I really appreciated Karen and Carter's remarks about the policing. So not to reiterate, I do just want to say I think that the service has been done by the politicization of public safety. And I think much like I run into people around the state who don't want to come to Burlington anymore because they don't feel safe here. I think a lot of that has a lot of people's concerns and people's fears, not that they're unfounded. I'm not trying to say that, but I think they've been exacerbated by the politicization of the public safety issue. Not denying or obviously break-ins that are happening. Our house was broken in, though as Karen pointed out, on Grove Street where in the old east end where I live, we haven't seen a state of break-ins since we were broken into in our neighbors over 10 years ago. These are things that happen really pretty, I would say pretty constantly and fairly regularly. And I just want to emphasize that it's unfortunate that it's been politicized. And I think that has helped stir the fears that I know many folks have. The other thing I wanted to say was also about redistricting and just to say thank you to Zariah for her work trying to get a just and equitable redistricting plan for Ward 1 and the rest of the city. As other folks have pointed out, she's absolutely diametrically opposed to the advisory committee on redistricting had asked for and had recommended. I was also deeply disappointed that a map that I worked on with our neighbor from up in the new north end, Robert Bristow-Johnson, who's a great map maker, was summarily rejected by the city council because it had not gone through the official city planning process. And I want to thank everybody who wrote in. There were quite a few emails that the city council received around redistricting and an equitable solution for Ward 1. Unfortunately, the way things turned out, there was a path that was posted at 4.30 on the afternoon of a city council meeting at which counselors were going to vote. And I just can't believe what a horrendous public process. No one really had a chance to digest that map or to really comment on it unless they were refreshing the city council's website like every half hour on Monday. So really bad process. I know it's been really tough for counselors and it's been contentious. But I'll also just emphasize what Karen said, it's not a done deal. We can vote against it. And the other thing is that there will be public hearings. I don't know if Zariah can announce whether those have been scheduled yet. There will be public hearings because it's going to be a charter change. Folks have another chance to weigh in on it. And the city council can certainly amend the proposed charter change based on the comments that it receives during public hearings. So I'm hoping that folks will continue to comment on the inequities in the redistricting map and hopefully we may yet be able to change the city council's, the majority of the city council's mind on this before it gets on the ballot. Thank you. Thanks, Erin. Sharon? Yes, hi. I wanted to touch on, there's so much to touch on, but I'm going to focus on a couple of things that haven't been focused on. One has to do with the rezoning of Trinity campus. And there was to be a continuation of a public hearing last night, but that was canceled. And so they're looking at the 20th, which I have issued with the 20th of December, having that public hearing for feedback regarding a proposed zoning amendment, which I hope people have seen, which really talks about adding density, which we all really support, but it's different types of setbacks depending on height. And not, and UBM has been unwilling to look at existing surface parking lots to put buildings over those as opposed to eating up open space or green space, which is very frustrating to me. It's frustrating to me that the students themselves who really talk about, you know, the environment aren't really pointing this out that, you know, the elimination of trees and open space that deals with creating more runoff and creating more heat is not the way we should be going. But having said that, there's an opportunity still, you'll have to look at the meeting calendar to find out when and if this continuation of the public hearing occurs. And you can weigh in and look at what is being proposed and share your comments. You may agree with the zoning, I don't, but you may find that acceptable. So I just want to encourage people to understand what's going on in their ward and have a voice. The second thing, Tom, is something that's on the agenda a little bit later, but it's not totally germane to what's on the agenda. What's on the agenda for East Avenue is traffic calming. And I wanted to just point out, since there's someone from public works here tonight, that right where the stop sign is, where University Road is and East Avenue, there is, if you're coming from Williston Road and going south, I'm sorry, going north, there is a dip in the road right beyond the stop sign that is significant. And cars bottom out, trucks try to avoid it and go in the other lane, and it's getting worse and worse. And I think it's a safety issue. It's not quite a sinkhole, but it is something that really is depressed and creating problems. And I just wanted to point that out. I think it does damage to some cars, and I think at some point someone may go in the wrong lane of traffic and actually cause an accident. They shouldn't be going fast, but we all know that people don't stop at stop signs. And that is also because I really do appreciate having eyes at various places in the city that have the ability to give tickets for violations. I think when there are pedestrian crossings and people don't stop at stop signs, you're putting someone's life at risk. And we used to have this patrolling, rolling police presence that would give tickets. And once people knew that there couldn't be a ticket given, they would maybe comply for a while, not forever, but for a while. And I miss that. I think that that was important. I know I was on the council and I know Stephanie Ciguino presented all the information about traffic stops and the bias that was reflected in that data. And I can't refute her data, but I can also say that not doing something about violations is not the way to go either. Thank you. I see one more. Thank you. You're done, Sharon. I am. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Thanks, Sharon. I just want to say thank you, Sharon. I agree with you. I do remember when we had Chief Del Poso and Chief Murad was assistant chief or whatever he was then, they came to our NPA and they told us that they do not give out traffic violations. Like this was six years ago. Had nothing to do with what's going on now. Sharon, you were there too. I'm sure you remember, but they do not. They did not give out violations for speeding for stop signs. That's just not remember. Do you guys remember this? It was like they said it hurt people's self-esteem. Something ridiculous. I'm not kidding you. Do you guys remember? I mean, because we actually, my husband and I went and met with Murad afterwards because we were appalled. And then there was somebody hit on East Avenue who was wearing dark clothes and the driver wasn't blamed. It was the person wearing dark clothes. Well, most people wear dark blue jeans, black pants, you know, anyway. But so unfortunately, that is the way our police was six years ago and continues. Tom, I just want to say one last thing. Sharon, I don't disagree with you, except that the reports about bias in stopping had started years and years ago and the police department backed away from enforcing. I don't think that's the way to say that you've improved the fact that you've addressed bias in policing. I think that's just not gathering the data. I think if you really have addressed the issue, you could still do enforcement and you show that there's an improvement. So anyways, that's it. Carter, we have one other person who wants to speak for a second. So you've got 30 seconds. Go ahead. I totally agree. Just stopping enforcement isn't the answer. I think stopping enforcement and designing streets to decrease speeding is really, really important. And there's a bunch of really good city planning resources like narrowing streets, bike lanes, other things like that. It's a lot of ways to reduce speeding is how we design the streets. All right. Sorry. I'll take off the commissioner hat and put on the Burlington resident hat for this one. It was going to try to steer clear of redistricting, but a lot of people have opinions on it. And as those of you know, that was actively involved in that process and tried my hand at drawing a few maps. And while I think there's a lot of reasons why the product that came out of the council is lacking, not the least of which is it fails to address many of the concerns that came out of the public process last fall, districts being one of them. For me as an individual, the biggest issue is I think that the map has done a good job of addressing the concerns for some residents. But at the end of the day, the dividing line between Ward 3 and Ward 5 is gone Maple Street. And that's the same kind of thing that we had 10 years ago. And that's important because that dividing line goes right down through the King Maple neighborhood, which is Vermont's largest community of color. It's also home to a number of new Americans, many of whom are facing language and access barriers and really didn't participate in the public process. And I just, you know, I found that kind of amazing that we had this kind of a rubric if you will with different criteria that folks wanted to see. And when you look at the final map and you square it up against the report, it's just it kind of comes up short. So to reiterate what others have said, if you're not happy with it, certainly exercise your rights at the polls and vote accordingly. I did want to follow up on some of the public safety comments. My position on that has evolved a bit as I've started to get more information and it is a divisive issue. But I think for me personally, at the end of the day, regardless of where you fall on the issue, we have a lot of people coming out, people are still engaged and they're not tuning out. So that kind of gives me hope that we can still come together as a community and find a solution that will ultimately bring people together and hopefully lead to some of the end of the polarization that we're seeing. You know, it probably won't be an easy process and it probably won't be a quick process. But the fact that we have so many people engaged in the process, I think is a good thing. That leads me to another point regarding process. I'll make it really quick. Memorial Auditorium, there was a public process there, the RFP that came out really didn't seem to match up with that. So yeah, process is important. And that's, you know, what I'm seeing is, you know, for the contentious issues in the city, you strip away the layers, really get down to the brass tacks. It's a lack of public process or lack of respect for the public process that kind of ties everything together. So thank you. For a close speak out, we're going to move forward into city council updates and we have our senior city council member, Zariah. Okay, I have a lot. I don't know if we want to wait to introduce her just because I feel like she should be. Okay. I am good at baking. Yeah. I have a lot of things on each topic. I'll pause, you can add. I also don't want to put you on the spot since you're still just joining, but I'm just going to update on a lot and then feel free to ask questions. How much time do we have? 15 minutes. Okay. I'll be quick. Okay. So Memorial Auditorium, I was actually also going to touch on, which is just to say that there were basically two proposals that were looked at. One of them is for an immersive arts experience and one of them is for housing. I don't actually know how much I'm allowed to say about that. There was a discussion, there was a committee which Joan Chan and I are the city councilors on. I don't know how I'm allowed to say about how the discussion went, but just to know there's two proposals. One of them is for an immersive arts experience, which would include an auditorium and whatnot and the other ones for housing. I have no idea. The bids are public. Yes. You can go look at the bids. Yes. There was a scoring that I think is not, there was a scoring that was done by the members of the committee that is supposed to become public. I just don't want to get ahead of anyone. Anyway, so that's just to say that Memorial Auditorium is moving forward. Just quickly on divisiveness, which I think, it's like everybody, I talked to Jonathan a lot about this. I think we started to talk about this. We are in a very divisive time and I don't know that that is led by our community. I think that it's where we are as a country. It's where we are and the way we talk about it. I think I just want to say, I think there's a lot of trust, I think even within the council and beyond in terms of as much as I disagree with everyone, I feel like everyone's trying to make the right decisions for Burlington. I think just starting there and then having a conversation is the most productive way forward. I think that we can disagree on a lot of things and still trust that we're all trying to do the right thing. Redistricting. I didn't vote for the map. I did vote to ultimately put in front of the voters. The reason I didn't vote for it was actually very well articulated by Chris at a meeting, which was, I don't think it did any of the things that we set out to do when we did the survey. It didn't keep the Maple King neighborhood together. It didn't make Ward 8 look any less gerrymandered. It didn't keep kind of like the continuous, it's not a very, none of the neighborhoods look as continuous as I think they could or should. There were some other things that I'm forgetting now, but oh, the districts, it didn't get rid of the districts. The only thing it did do was keep the old North End and the new North End separate and make people in Ward 8 happy enough, which, anyway, so I didn't vote to put it on. I mean, I didn't vote for the map. I did vote to let folks vote on it. Trinity campus. The last time I talked to the mayor about this, he was like, I don't want to take the, like, I think Trinity campus is problematic. I think that the university is basically stopped coming to the table in terms of negotiations when it comes to what Trinity campus is going to look like. The last time I talked to the mayor about this, he was like, I can't take the fall for not allowing them to build more housing because ultimately they want to build more housing, which I think is a good, which we all think is a good thing and better housing, better quality housing. But I think that we have to put some conditions on that and have some some asterisks on what that looks like. And they very much said that they don't want to have that discussion anymore. I said, I told him just let the progressives take the fall is like we will happily vote no on not having that housing. If it doesn't come with those asterisks, you don't have to take the fall for it. We can. We don't have enough people to do that anymore. So I'm hoping that other people will also, I think, I think Joan Shannon is not happy with the way things are going. I'm hoping my my fellow East District Councilor will, I just, I think that there's some accountability that has to come with UVM and that they need to step up, sign an MOU with the city again, like come, we need to be partners at the table and I don't think that's how they're approaching it right now. So that's my current take on Trinity. I feel like I'm running out of time. Houselessness, which is just there's one, I'm just there's a report which I sent to the steering committee members, which is just that this is like in terms of like things are getting harder if we look at like the folks who were sheltered and unsheltered together. And if you can just scroll down to the bar graph only touch on this one thing that one. So we've done a much better job of sheltering people in 2020 and 2021, but there's also been quite the jump in the number of folks who are experiencing houselessness and even and I think this is the one thing I think we're doing a better job on as a city is finally dealing with this problem in a more comprehensive way. As you know, we've got the unwood shelter pod that's coming but that's only going to be 30 something households, which as you can see those numbers are this is rich in county as a whole. But it's not. It's only a small fraction. We're also starting to do a better job of some of the housing that's being built, especially by Champlain housing trust is parts of the fractions of the units are going to be dedicated to specifically folks who are coming out of houselessness. So I think that's a really good advantage that's going to be integrated with other types of housing. So I think we're starting to do the right thing as a city and saying because I think better early we haven't done anything to stop houselessness at the state level. We haven't done enough. And I think the city starting to step up and say, we have to deal with this because nobody else is going to do it and the state is starting to help fund. I think we're hopeful that they'll help fund the whole Elmwood shelter and because it's such an effective and then hopefully effective. And right now it seems like fairly monetarily efficient initiative that they'll fund that the state will continue to fund that. The last thing that I'll just touch on is policing because I think it's about to come a lot in January. I think we'll have a lot of hearty discussions, which I'm sure will seem very divisive, which one like on crime, I think there's been lots of data on like how much has happened and how much hasn't happened. I think it's undeniable that people feel differently right now than they have in years past and that that feeling of safety has changed. And at the same time, just want to echo what everybody else said, which is like, we're not unique in this, like COVID has done all kinds of things from increasing houselessness to increasing how people feel to the need in our community. And I really like one of the things that I put is like the Cahoots model. I feel like I'm starting to be like, I hope that we can as a community just say, we don't care what it takes. Like we're going to start funding this. We've been talking about this as a community for more than two years. If like we have fewer officers than we have, why can't we, why can't we stand up the alternative right now that we've been talking about for so long when we've got a community partner that's willing to take that on, which they're not always, they're not always willing to take on things. So it's like, I think that that's one of my asks is just that we stand up and say, this is important and we need to do this sooner rather than later. And then I, my conditions for voting for Murad, if that comes in January, have not changed. I like, I think all of you have probably seen what those were initially, which is admitting that we have racial bias in the Burlington Police Department, having some agreement with the level of oversight. I think that there was something that you said about being watched. And the, I think that there needs to be a culture shift at the police department. And I've spent more time with the police department on this than I have with activists I used to meet with every week with two of the officers on the school resource task force. And I really like, yes, I'm sure that it's not a comfortable feeling to always feeling watched. And I think it's the first step in community trust. And you don't do an audit when you're like, Oh, we have fraud, you do an audit every year. And you should, you should have oversight of the most expensive department every year. And see when people have complaints, like the police commission, I think Stephanie is somewhere around here, they worked really hard to get some like oversight of just the complaints that were coming in. And it shouldn't, it shouldn't be that hard to just get some public process and some public input in, in what that looks like. So anyway, and I so that's the other thing is I need, I think that's one of the things that I would need acting chief mirad is the racial bias and saying the and saying that he at least supports the mayor's model of oversight, not a general. That's all. Thanks, Araya. And now we have our brand new. Yes, our junior. Thank you so much. You know, it's such a pleasure to work with Zariah and to meet her. And I was sworn in on Monday of this week, and was able to join with the voting and the votes were unanimous. There was great communication, lots of goodwill in working for the city. I've been assigned to the ordinance committee, the licensing committee and the racial equity inclusivity and belonging committee. And I did meet with Kim Carson and who was so dynamic. And, and we talked about issues within the city, something that's fascinating that came up. And I think I can talk about it. It's not always clear, you know, what is open for public discussion. But the terminology of what the city and the people of the city are trying to do is still so new that there is discussion about actually dropping the word racial in the department, which is racial equity, inclusivity and belonging and having it simply be equity, you know, inclusivity and belonging, because that is really what we're after. So there's a lot of fine tuning and tweaking of what the name of this department should be and the committee and eventually a commission as well. With regard to your comment, thank you very much. I believe that that the police department moving into the future is something that we can help shape now. And I do not want to vilify police officers. The work is difficult. It is dangerous. And there's a just now, during the comments, there was an announcement by the city that there was a shooting on School Street, I believe. Stables Plaza and there was a call out to be careful to avoid that area. So I just wanted to let everyone know about that. Okay. This one. Yes. Can't hear. Stay clear of Stables Plaza because shots were heard at 716. Yep. This was a UVM catalog at 716. Reports of shots fired on off-campus adjacent locations. Stay clear of Stables Plaza on Williston Road until further notice. No further notice yet. I will update if I get another catalog. So it is, these are real concerns. We need to keep each other safe and informed. And I just, I love these NPA meetings and being in touch with people. Please talk to me about you know, concerns and ideas about decision-making. There's one last thing I'd like to say and that is to to say a little bit about Bruce Seifer, who passed away, who was a dear friend. Bruce and Julie were amazing. Bruce was with CEDO for many, many years. He was a, he loved Burlington. He was such an advocate for the city. When I was working on the art hop, when it was very small, we met and he as head of CEDO said to me, whatever you need to make this successful, I will, I will help you in any way I can. And the city is behind you. And it was, it was wonderful. And we set up all kinds of public transportation. The city buses were set up for the art hop over the course of three days, along with, you know, wonderful introductions just to make an event that would come to be an economic powerhouse successful. That was Bruce. So I was hoping we could just do a moment of silence for him. Just, you know, whether you knew him or not, let's just like send him off. He's with Bentley. And if we could just take a few moments. Thank you. Thanks. Yeah. And thanks, man. Yeah. Here you go, Tom. We're a little bit behind schedule. So we have time for one question. And Erhard, you've had your hand up for a while. You want to make this quick? I'll make it real quick. Congratulations, Maya. And thanks for recognizing Bruce. I think it's safe to say that without Bruce's visionary efforts and abilities, there wouldn't be a south end art hop. There wouldn't be a south end arts district. And the way the city looks now would would would have been a lot different without without him and his good work. But I just quickly wanted to make sure that I don't know if you misspoke, Zariah, but you said something about how the federal government has done nothing to resolve or alleviate homelessness. And I just want to point out, again, I'm speaking in my personal capacity, but as someone who's been involved with housing and actually works for a federal office now, I could just say that, you know, all of the money that has been invested in housing and homelessness over the last two years has come originally most of it from the federal government, including the pod shelter community on Elmwood Avenue is virtually wholly funded with federal ARPA, American Rescue Plan funds. And those funds, which have gone through the state, have thus far resulted in creation of about 1000 units of new housing, which is about four times the annual production of affordable housing in the state of Vermont, and also brought in 352 million dollars into the state to provide housing in motels for people during COVID, so that they were not freezing out on the streets or living in overcrowded congregate shelters and other places where they could not be safe during during COVID. So a lot of what's been accomplished over the last two years really does flow from the federal government. I just want to make sure that that was clear to folks. Thanks, Earhart. Sorry, Earhart, that was my ideology talking as someone who's like, oh, the federal government wanted to solve houselessness, it could. But I know you work for Brunner's office and that we've really gotten a lot of support federally by, so I did misspeak. I apologize. Understood. Just a real quick question for you, too. We need more time for the councilors part of this meeting. I think that's up to you. It's like, to some extent, I think that having an in-depth discussion about one thing sometimes serves our community better rather than getting 20 updates from me, so I don't know that that's the case. Okay. All right. And I can give more written updates. I'm working on it. I feel that we're a little rushed. That's why I wanted to ask. So we plan for a group. So thank you. We're sure. New CAT update 746. So 30 minutes later, the shots were unfounded at this time. No harm was caused to anyone or the community. Officers have left the scene. Area is all clear for normal traffic. All right. Thanks. Thanks for that update. They were not. We're going to move ahead real quick. Kathy? I don't know. Hot seats over here. So, uh, Tuesday nights, um, board meeting, I have to say I missed for having a cold and coming back from North Carolina, I was too late for it, but I can kind of give you an overview of what we did or I didn't, but the rest of the board gave the recommended the board to, of the contract to construction, abate and demolish the existing BHSBTC facility to Enviro Vantage for 11,439,895 dollars. And that abate, that will start in January. The only thing that we, since we are suing Monsanto, their lawyers have to be given the time to go into the school before we can actually demolish it completely. But we can't start building until everything has been taken up and to this group, which will do, I think it's most of it will be incended because they, they can't just put it in landfill, it's full of PCBs. So, and the other thing is we have started on our next year's budget, which I mean the state has put out their letter, which doesn't look too promising that, but the hope is that by June, when we finally finish our budget, that it won't be as much of an increase as they're proposing at the moment, thinking it should be between, you know, it was high. So I was kind of taken aback by it when I read it only because we have just had this increase in property taxes and I didn't think it should be this way, but often it goes back down again by June. So let's hope that's what happens. So that's pretty much it. We've, we started on working on the budget and we looked at half year the, the superintendents, you know, if he has met his half year proposals where he thinks he should be and he is in most of that. I must say then this is something that I think a lot of people don't know and I want them to know that this year we, for the last year, he took a lot of the money, money from the ESSER funds and actually looked at reading curriculum that's based on brain science. So, and based in phonetics, which is what we haven't been using to teach our children to read. And as a result, we have very low scores and we are, this year he used the money, the ESSER funds and teachers have been trained during the summer. It's been put into all of the grade schools and there are people coming from the company that wrote the, the curriculum. They send trainers into the school and I think they're one or two days a week checking up from room to room of teachers in grades K through through three or yeah K through three or four, making sure that they're really implementing it the way it should be implemented and giving them pointers on getting better at it a lot. So, I'm very happy with that because I think if it's anything basic is to teach our children to correctly read and if we can't do that then you know that's for me a problem and so it has been a problem for me for years that our reading scores have been low and I'm so happy that the superintendent finally, I mean and as he said and I have to give him this to, he said if it wasn't for ESSER funds we wouldn't have ever had the amount of money that it took to change this and change it correctly so that all teachers who are teaching it are properly trained and someone is overseeing how they're implementing it. So, thanks. All right. I actually, are there any questions? If not I've got a quick one. The budget is got to be set before the March election is that right? So it's not going to be June. No, no, no, no, no. I know but often we set a budget and the state sets theirs in June so it ends up that our taxes end up being lower than what we put through in a budget because they can't get it done until June. Okay. All right. So thanks for the clarification. Yes. All right. Next up is East Avenue traffic calming. Julia, are you, you're going to share some slides? Yeah, I believe Sam is going to pull them up for me. Okay. So hi everybody. My name is Julia Ersaki. I work with Burlington Public Works. You can't see her right now but Laura Wheelock is also online. She's our senior transportation engineer. So tonight we're going to give everybody just a quick update on what's happening with the East Ave traffic calming project. The scope of this project, basically what we're trying to accomplish is to design a 25 mile per hour street. So this is really a safety project looking at slowing speeds on East Ave. What this project doesn't include is different and new types of bike in pedestrian facilities or anything beyond trying to achieve the speeds of 25 miles per hour that we're looking for on East Ave. Just a little bit of history on kind of how we got here with this project. There was a traffic calming request in 2017 from the neighborhood. And then a few years later in 2021 we installed the RRFB, the rectangular rapid flashing beacon, those yellow flashing lights at the East Ave Crosswalk Ability Court. And then finally in December of 2021 we kicked off this design and engineering project to do the traffic calming design on East Ave. Then we brought some concepts to the neighborhood in February earlier this year. Based on input from that meeting we kind of went back and refined our concepts a little bit more. We had a second neighborhood meeting in August and we are back here tonight to share our concept with you all. So just in general the project area goes from Kerrigan Drive. Originally it was up to Colchester Ab but based on feedback that we got from our first public meeting it now ends at University Road. So there's two different types of traffic calming features that we're recommending on East Ave. The first is this median chicane feature that is basically these curved islands that force cars to kind of vertically deflect in the road. So there's a little bit of a jog forcing people to slow down. So we have a few of those and in the coming slides you'll see exactly where those are being recommended. And then the next traffic calming feature are these raised crosswalks. So the one at Billidoo and the one at University Road. Those crosswalks are going to be raised to basically these speed tables that will also slow traffic down. This is a picture from one that we just built on Mansfield. So here we are looking at East Ave. To the left on the screen is route two and up is where UVM is just to help you get orientated. We've kind of switched a little bit. And the first median chicane island that is in our plan is between Kerrigan and East Village Drive. It is going to require removing three parking spaces and it will retain 14 of the parking spaces along this stretch. And then in the next section there's another median chicane and three parking spaces will be removed on that block between East Village and Billidoo. And then you can see the raised crossing at the crosswalk on Billidoo. There we're not changing the parking at all between Billidoo and Case Parkway. And then a little further down the street we have one more median chicane just north of Case Parkway where we are removing three parking spaces and keeping the four that are there. And then finally at the University Road crosswalk you can see another raised crossing. We've also realigned that crosswalk a little better. It's kind of skewed right now and matches up with where the old path up to UVM used to be. Now it's more square with the road so it's the shortest crossing distance and hopefully a bit more of a predictable place to look for pedestrians to come out of the road. So we are still working through our design and all of the engineering drawings that we need to be able to build it. So that's going to be happening through the spring and then we are hoping to actually build this and you'll see it on the road either next summer or the following year just depending on how our schedule goes and what our funding looks like. So that is the overview. This is my contact info if anybody wants to reach out later and happy to take some questions. I saw yours go up there. Yeah sorry this is more of a comment than the question which is I love speed tables and traffic coming and I don't want to speak for the people in Mansfield but I do have one of my friends lives on the corner of Mansfield in Loomis and I think the speed tables we've put in haven't been terribly effective because they're very low. They're the same texture as the rest of the street. So I think if we're going to use tables effectively either it needs to be like brick tables or something that has a different texture is a little higher. That's all I got. Any other questions? We do have some from online. Cindy? Yeah thanks Tom. I really like the concept of the raised pedestrian crossings. I think that could help a lot. It would be great to learn from the Mansfield Avenue experience and see if there's something else that needs to be done to make them really effective. But I was so curious if you're planning on anything else at University Road there was talk of several other possibilities. I'm not advocating for it. I'm just curious of what else you're planning there. For example straightening out it looks like you have it now so it's more perpendicular to the road than it was before. Yep so the crosswalk is more at 90 degrees than it is today and we have the raised crossing there for the for the crosswalk and an ADA landing on both sides of the road right now. It's only one time. Yep. Erhard, you're next. Thanks Tom. Thanks for the presentation. This looks great. I can speak as someone who usually speeds down some of our have to confess speeds down some of our neighborhood roads. The raised crossings on Mansfield Avenue definitely slow me down so but my question is when can we get something like this for Grove Street where I live in the old East End. I remember talking to Dan Bradley who preceded you by a few years. Dan retired quite a few years ago. About Chicanes many years ago we've had a demonstrated need for this. We had some traffic calming that was implemented by Public Works many many years ago and much of it what was there has been removed and not restored as a result of Baybury Commons. I think some of it was supposed to have been restored. I kind of couldn't keep track of everything that was like going on in the neighborhood. We have a very active neighborhood association, the old East End Association. I think we're ready to partner with Public Works on the same kind of traffic hopefully Chicanes here on Grove Street. Thank you. Tom, might I make a quick response to Erhard? Sure. Thanks. What we were told years ago Erhard was that DPW had a queue system and that the sooner you got in the queue the better. I hope they've changed that for one of public need but back in 2017 they said get in line and so we did and here we are today so it's great we're here now but thanks for that Cindy. Like I said I talked to Dan Bradley about Grove Street I mean literally 20 years ago before there was a queue. Yeah. Okay, Sharon, I think you're next. Okay, yes, whoops. Yes, I'm unmuted. Hi, thanks for the presentation. As a resident of East Avenue I wondered if this was consistent with what was discussed and agreed upon in August and if DPW planned to come back to the residents on the street before implementing. So yes this is consistent with what was presented in August. If there is a desire for us to come back to the neighborhood and talk about it more we can arrange that. That's not the current plan but if there are some questions or concerns we can certainly have another neighborhood meeting. So the reason I raise this is because parking is becoming tighter and tighter and tighter and people are having difficulty finding places to park and I don't recall I didn't recall nine spaces being eliminated I recalled something like six that's why I was asking. So is that a total of nine spaces being eliminated? I was just quickly writing it down you know. On the whole on East Ave. Yes on the whole sections you did section by section you said three spaces here by East Village then three here and three in different blocks. That's 13 spaces total that we are proposing to remove. 13 spaces. So I know other people that that bike and don't drive can't stand this conversation but the reality is they have cars and they're sections and I don't know if there's adequate off-street parking for all of those cars that's why I would like to suggest that you come back so that people are fully aware. It's good to make people aware even though this is the way it's going to be so that they can plan accordingly. I care about the people that live on the street that don't that depend on on-street parking and I and I value them as neighbors and I want to give them that heads up so I really feel like it might be important to come back or at least at least if you don't come back to a neighborhood meeting at least find a way to disseminate that information not just electronically but because sometimes it goes to like but go to UVM sometimes leaflets I know that sounds antiquated but it does get the information out and I really want people to be informed that's that's what I'd like to say thank you. Thanks Sharon. We have time for one more question. Sophie you've been waiting. Just wanted to say that we did get in line. Gross Street Chase Barrett we did get in line. We got all the signatures and we handed it in. It was either 2018 or 2019 but I was worried because soon after we handed it in public works announced that they are changing their whole system so I was hoping we're still in line I don't know what you can tell us about that. We do have a new traffic calming program that evaluates traffic calming requests based on data that we collect so we look at traffic speeds and volumes and crashes so it's not first come first serve anymore it's more based on a safety need of the road and I'm sorry I don't know where Grove Street falls in there. Grove Street in Chase is the curve on which everyone slips whenever it's snowing and it's the curve with two stop signs where everyone goes without stopping. I think she's referring to where on the list Grove Street is in the request system not where it is in the city. I've got a request. Can you post that from Forums where Grove Street is in this process? Sure because that way everyone will have a chance to figure it out and then they can respond to you as they see fit. Thank you and just a quick plug to let people know when we can expect construction. Sharon said it's going to be a big deal for a number of residents if there's some way that you can get word out in advance so we know what to expect that would be fabulous. Yes absolutely. The next outreach that I anticipate for this project will be for the parking removal which will follow our DPW commission approved outreach to all of the adjacent neighbors which includes a paper delivered or a paper mailed piece of information for notice of the meeting so that is at least one more piece of outreach coming for this project. Thanks. All right thank you very much. Thank you. We're moving ahead with Burlington Community Justice Center. Richie. Okay. Do you want to give us like a verbal overview while they're figuring out how to get the an overview of the project? Yeah sure well I'll just I'll go ahead and introduce myself and give some context for their presentation. Yeah so my name is Lauren Monaco Eddings. I use sheave pronouns. I'm a restorative justice practitioner and a victim services specialist for the city of Burlington and I work at the Burlington Community Justice Center and Bridget is also a victim services specialist. She's based at the Burlington Police Department and she also works at the Community Justice Center and so our presentation is on community-based approaches to public safety. Bridget and I over the last three to four months have been working with folks in a lot of different contexts all within or adjacent to criminal justice, public safety and public health to field some research for the presentation as well as the need for the presentation. We work really directly with community members impacted by crime, harm and violence in Burlington and so we hope that our presentation today can reflect just you know the diverse expression of what folks are feeling right now in Burlington in regards to public safety and as well as offer up some solutions or just you know some information about resources that we have and we've also got some slides on root causes of crime and harm. I do want to let people know this is a pretty I would say as far as presentations go it feels like a pretty dense one. It is technically 45 minutes but we've kind of taken it and squished it into 20 and so if you're feeling kind of like wow this is a lot that is normal and we get that and we're available for questions hopefully at the end and also by email and our doors are open if folks want to talk at any point in the future. So is the Zoom set up? Great. So yeah so we'll say we'll be doing our most of the next slide. Great so we can see them. We have all right I'll make a signal. Awesome great well welcome and yeah thanks for having us here and I think we can go to the next slide now. So my name is Bridget as Lauren said so these are just some objectives that we're going to be looking at today to review current crime or issues facing Burlington knowing what to expect after a crime happens understanding the root causes of crime as well as identifying community-based approaches to public safety and harm becoming familiar with community resources and as Lauren said a Q&A at the end. Go next. Because we are community-based and community focused we're gonna introduce the presentation with some quotes from community members and what public safety means to them. So I'll look to you. It is not criminal to be poor to be mentally unwell or to have an addiction and yet we treat it like it is. Mutual respect between police and people. Yes to more community-based social workers. Not jumping to the conclusion that an unusual situation is a dangerous one. Community doesn't jump to fear-based reactions. Decriminalization of substance use addiction. Neighbors knowing each other saying hello to each other not being afraid of being friendly to each other. Police departments that are supportive of progressive police. So what that shows so as Lauren kind of spoke about we can see that folks are interested in community approaches to community violence which typically involves a relatively small number of people but has a lasting impact on the entire community and we also know that violence is learned which means that the circumstances that increase a person's risk of becoming a victim or offender can be undone. We will discuss prevention later in the presentation but first we wanted to take a look at the current issues facing Burlington. So if you this next image shows this is like the most up-to-date police data that we have as of mid-November. What you can see here is that these are reported incidents of crime and we also recognize that this depiction does not capture unreported incidents of crime but is a good representation of the general climate of crime and other issues that we are facing. So of note there has been a considerable increase in incidents of gunfire, larcenies, mental health issues, overdoses and stolen vehicles. And it's important to note that things like an overdose that's not a crime right and yet we do treat it as such when we involve a police response. And so in the next slide so yeah that's just highlighting again those major increases that we've seen thus far and this is just another depiction of the previous slide that shows percentages of those same categories and I realize I see people kind of leaning in. I know it's small but basically that box is kind of like those numbers that I had mentioned earlier. It's something I've noticed so stolen vehicles is on the bottom there with like a 456% increase I think it says 435% increase. What this shows us is that even though incidents of stolen vehicles is high, recover rate is actually pretty high as well but the condition of the vehicle upon return is not the same as you might expect. So what the so the car is returned it's eventually found abandoned. It has needles, bodily fluids, stolen items and personal items from the person who stole the vehicle indicating that the car is being used as shelter or consumption room for substance use then left abandoned when gas runs out so the data of stolen cars is really indicating a need for housing and support for substance use. In a few moments we will discuss the root causes of crime and how to use data and program implementation to address the needs of folks in an effort to determine them from using crime as a solution. And so this I know that this part looks very difficult to see but basically this is supposed to show like a simplified flow of what to expect after a crime happens. I also want to recognize that some of you in this room may be very familiar with crime in Burlington and know all too well what happens after a crime occurs. We at the Burlington Community Justice Center realize that the incidents of crime and harm in our city have had a tremendous impact on individuals, families, neighborhoods and the community at large and these impacts have been significant. Losses have been emotional, tangible, physical, monetary and traumatic. We are sorry that some of you have been victims of assault, larceny, burglary and stolen vehicles to name a few and we hope that you have felt supported by the community in the aftermath. If you have not felt supported that's also partly why we are here. As Lauren mentioned earlier we've had a lot of discussions with folks over the last several months and we sense that the community is feeling disconnected, mistrustful of neighbors and systems in place to help them and we want you to know that there are resources available which is what we'll get into at the end but this is also just a good flow for those maybe who are not familiar or confused about what happens during the process. So at the top there a crime occurs, the person then has the option of making no report which Lauren will kind of discuss and then we're making a report. That report can go directly to an officer or online reporting, investigation ensues and if there is a suspect that can be identified an arrest is made. The officer then is able to send that referral directly to the Burlington Community Justice Center where the person who is a victim of that crime is supported by us parallel justice as well as a victim liaison. The person who is responsible for the crime is supported by a coordinator and they go through a restorative justice process. The officer also has an option to send directly to the state's attorney's office for a review. The state's attorney's office then has the decision to either prosecute, decline or send to diversion so as it's kind of color coded so green is all state's attorneys and the blue is Burlington Community Justice Center. So as you see there diversion it goes back to the victim liaison to do that restorative process. If it is declined parallel justice is still here to help and it kind of so even though there's not a formal victim services like advocate which is what you would get when you if the crime is prosecuted we just want to let you know that we would be a resource in that case. Yeah and there is also a line that connects a no report over to parallel justice and that's also to express that there are a lot of folks who actually never end up reporting the crimes that they've experienced and that's for a variety of reasons some of which include people not feeling comfortable going to the police people having gone through the criminal justice system and haven't found justice that way and so our door is open the entire time after a harm has occurred it's also open before a harm has occurred because we work with preventative services as well and so this is just to say for folks that either just have a lot of questions about the criminal justice system process or who know for sure that that's not the route that they want to go we are available at the Burlington Community Justice Center to hold space around that answer questions safety plan and come up and create with a creative you know that person's own plan for what justice could be for them. And then the next slide you'll see that not all investigations lead to an identifiable suspect and that could be frustrating and discouraging but a real possibility and in those cases the beginning of the process is similar so crime occurs you can either choose to make no report or report with an officer online the officer conducts a review of the online report or opens an investigation but if the investigation turns up no leads or solvability factors the case may lead to no arrest solvability factors include things like date and time witnesses and supporting evidence which are not clear in all cases such as a larceny from a motor vehicle or vandalism so maybe you've parked your car you don't use it for a few days and you come back and realize that a vandalism has occurred it it's short it's small it lessens the window of like leading to an identifiable suspect so even when an investigation leads to no suspects we just want to let you know the victim services are still available at this we offer information that's what they're on the bottom information resources emotional support safety planning and limited financial assistance and some context for why we have a slide all about what happens and what to expect without a suspect is when we support uh folks who've experienced crime and harm one of the statements that we've been fielding is well the police aren't coming the police aren't doing anything and that's because we don't have any cops and it's important to understand that when there's not a suspect there is no investigation and so if it's an online report that you had to made because you were told to do so by an officer or an officer never came to do that report in person if there's no suspect regardless of whether or not the police show up there is no investigation and it's important to to think up on that and to think regardless of whether there's an officer there's still a need for support there's still a need for victim services and so at the community justice center that's where I think we can come and fill in a need that exists when people experience harm oftentimes they are experiencing trauma as well and material losses just to name a few things and so we are there to support you folks through that process yeah so to prevent crime we need to understand and respond to its roots and people who experience multiple arrests which make up for a quarter of all arrests each year are people who experience significant health needs that are overwhelmingly unmet before during and after criminal justice system contact fortunately in chinenden county we have a growing emphasis on services for people with mental health and substance use disabilities who come into contact with the criminal justice system it's a step in the right direction of treating substance use mental illness and poverty as public health issues and i'm really excited to live in a community that has increasingly shown its support for community members who experience these significant barriers in health equity so there's a graph here that is used data from the national survey on drug use and health and the prison policy initiative conducted this study using that data and they found that for the at least 4.9 million people that were arrested and jailed in 2017 at least one in four of those folks were booked into jail more than once during the same year and the graph there will show you that half of those folks had serious psychological distress with 25 percent experiencing a serious or moderate mental illness and 27 percent of those booked more than twice had no health insurance the report also concluded that people with multiple arrests are disproportionately black low income and unemployed and that the vast majority of the arrests for that year were for nonviolent offenses low level offenses like drug abuse violations disorderly conduct those offenses make up for over 80 percent of all arrests each year with serious violent offenses occurring for less than five percent of arrests so another way to put all of that is to say that people who experience multiple arrests each year don't pose a serious public safety risk and are actually people that are being punished for not getting a lot of their most basic needs met for me in my position I can't help but consider how at present we're relying on a system of punishment to address an issue of health and life chances research information relationship building and understanding however can direct public and community investments in care this would include employment assistance education and vocational training financial assistance mental health and substance use treatment and checking in on your neighbors these investments can help heal conditions that lead our community members to police contact in the first place I was surprised to find that there's a lack of research on the relationship between adverse childhood experiences and that's known as an ACE assessment and adult criminal justice system contact considering that exposure to trauma particularly in childhood has been associated with a greater risk of substance use disability and mental illness and that a significant amount of adults who go to jail each year experience these adversities then the lack of research on this relationship is a critical limitation and it's a key area for crime and harm prevention so ACEs are determined by an assessment that was created by the center for disease control and prevention the assessment uses a scoring system that attributes one point for each category of adverse childhood experiences the questions cover a domain of trauma and these all refer to experiences that occurred prior to the age of 18 higher scores like four or above with the highest score being 10 indicated increased exposure to trauma especially when that score is informed by adverse community environments like racism poverty poor housing quality and affordability lack of opportunity and overall community disruption so you'll see here in the picture that ACEs and adverse community environments are shown one of which is the roots and that's the community environments like poor housing quality and affordability violence poverty racism inform the tree and those are experiences like mental illness incarceration homelessness domestic violence substance abuse and this is to say that it's really in our best interest to consider a person's experiences and environment leading up to an arrest and not simply the choices that they made prior to the arrest arrest in order to understand how a person got to police contact and so the research that I was able to find on this was actually from August 2022 which is extremely recent and that research study actually confirmed that there was a significant lack of research on adverse childhood experiences and criminal justice system contact in adulthood and the research study was from the academic pediatric association and it confirmed that there was a lack of research on that relationship and also that it is overwhelmingly true that people who score four or above again with the highest score being 10 on those assessments are overwhelmingly likely to experience police contact later in adulthood so considering that the criminal justice system right is disproportionately composed of adults who've experienced childhood adversity punishing these individuals is not an effective approach to improve lives that have already been so characterized by harm as you know we are victim services specialists so we work with people who've experienced crime and harm on a day-to-day basis in addition to being community focused we are also victim informed and victim centered and so it's really important that we have this slide here and the slide reads that victims prefer increased investments in treatment options than prisons and jails this may come as a surprise to some another thing that I found really interesting about this study is that again this was a new study it was the first of its kind this is a national survey on victims views and the study examined victims experiences from diverse backgrounds and also from violent and nonviolent crimes all types of crimes to gather this perspective and it's really important to our presentation because in terms of moving forward with criminal justice reform if we're not listening to victims then we're going to cause a lot of harm in that process well we talked a little bit about the Burlington Community Justice Center and where we come into all of this as a community-based approach to public safety so we spoke about the parallel justice program with Bridget and I we both run that together I'm based at the community justice center I support folks primarily who want to look outside of the criminal justice system for justice and healing and Bridget is at the Burlington Police Department where she does that and she also supports folks that are already involved in their criminal justice system and need information emotional support resources and safety planning in addition to that another program that we have which is an alternative to the criminal justice system is our conflict assistance program so Zoe she's our conflict assistance program coordinator she actually built this program from the ground up we celebrated our the one-year anniversary of that program a year ago so Zoe looks to the community to identify conflicts that folks have and she works she does one-on-one conflict coaching she also works as a mediator and she does workshops across the city on conflict and building up skills around conflict these are all services that are sliding scale and nobody is turned away for lack of funds great so when police are contacted to manage a mental health crisis and an armed officer arrives at the scene people with mental illness are 16 times more likely to be killed by cops than those without mental health challenges 31 years ago the city of Eugene Oregon developed an innovative community-based public safety system to provide mental health first response for crises involving mental illness homelessness and addiction and so that's cahoots or crisis assistance helping out on the streets they're a mobile crisis intervention program and they offer free confidential services in Eugene and the Springfield metro area in Oregon and it's a free response that's available for a broad range of non-criminal crises and so that would include homelessness intoxication disorientation substance use mental illness and then also disputes resolution and so folks actually call 911 and then through dispatch dispatch identifies who to send and oftentimes if they're not sure they just send both so they will send if it's a situation where it sounds like there is violence they'll send a mobile unit team and so that's a licensed clinical social worker and that's also a paramedic as well as an armed officer so that's a holistic approach to public safety that's been going on in Eugene Oregon for the last 31 years and then here we have the crisis advocacy intervention program so Cape for short that's housed in the Burlington police department so myself as well as the community support liaisons which is the new position social workers with the police department along with the domestic violence victim advocate and the domestic violence prevention officer basically just do a coordinated effort to help and provide services to people so maybe like a victim comes to me and is presenting with multiple issues that maybe needs like more long-term case management I can pass them off to the CSL and they can support them in those more like chronic needs such as like if it's homelessness substance use and things like that and then in the next click you'll see that there are also a lot of community-based approaches to public safety that we have here and sometimes it can be like hard when we during this meeting we found out that there was you know potentially a shooting that happened at the Staples Plaza you know like so we're inundated with a lot of information all the time but it can be easy to forget that we have these great places great organizations in place already Howard Center has a street outreach team that builds rapport with our folks that are either living on the streets or you know you see them on the streets very often so they build a relationship with them as part of like a preventative effort um Turning Point Center is a peer recovery group peer workforce development they just got a grant at the pathways to help people find their way into the workforce New York City has a great Office of Neighborhood Safety that is basically similar to like what we have as com stat for substance use they have a group of people with multiple stakeholders that meet and talk about neighborhood safety so yes that's just like an overview I know that we are running low on time likely but to end to end the secret to a healthy community lies in our relationships to one another this is something that Bridget and I talked about before we um had the idea to do these presentations during the you know while we were developing these presentations and now because we really believe in that as Bridget noted um there are a lot of folks in the community who care a lot there are a lot of community-based organizations who have been here for some time who have a really good pulse on the situation um who care about you all and oftentimes are just a phone call away and that includes us um and I think it's really easy to turn away from one another in times where it hurts and I think we've gotten really good at doing that from the pandemic especially closing our doors and going in to keep ourselves safe and we don't need to do that as much anymore um and so you know wherever you are in this question of what public safety means to you um and if you have questions or if you just want to talk you can give us a call even if you're not sure you know we'll be able to help oftentimes we've learned that just that phone call that we have with folks can mean so much um and so yeah we'll leave you on that and we're excited to answer some questions and thank you so much we have questions in the room here I do also want to say thank you so much to all the folks who were on that screen before and that includes Karen of Asteen who is also on the call right now thank you Karen just wanted to give you a shout out for Karen Angie yes um I don't have any question well I have a million questions but I I won't ask them now I'll just say how much I appreciate your presentation that you showed up here and the CEDO in our city has this program I haven't needed to avail myself of it fortunately but for all of those people who do need it I'm very very grateful that you do that work thank you your questions in the room yes I want to make a comment I too want to also thank you so much for your work and I want you to say that I have right here in ward one witnessed your work and it was a situation keeping confidentiality where um police officer recommended you all rather than arresting a person it was that kind of channeling to you it was highly highly successful and the person graduated from your program and returned to just full participation and stability um which was really brilliant to see so thank you so very much and I want to know how um how often that happens so and it is clear that a police officer always has that choice possibility because this was the situation where the person could have been arrested and they weren't so how often do you see it happening that police are making the choice to turn to you that's okay yeah so I I don't know a number but it's pretty it's very common like I think um we have a lot of cases yeah I was gonna say I'm trying to think of like case though like I know Barb she does victim services and her case load maybe right now is 40 um I would say like weekly referrals and it was it was Barb okay yeah also Barb is our victim liaison for adult cases um so yeah if hopefully you know you never find yourself in this situation but if you do that's what we're here let's you know that Barb will hold you and care for you um and walk you through everything um and the officers do yeah like it's used very well um as far as like doing referrals the reason sometimes it would go to like the state's attorney's office is like let's say it's somebody who has I mean maybe like a lengthy criminal history or somebody who like maybe in the same week has committed multiple you know crimes and so in that case maybe they would send it to the state's attorney's office and the state's attorney's office can review to see if it's a prosecutable case or they can send to diversion or kick back to the officer and then the officer can then send to us so there is so even though that flowchart is like very simplified um but as far as numbers I think I don't have a number and we didn't touch on youth either in this presentation because we find often that they deserve an entire presentation just um for themselves but I am a victim liaison for all of our youth cases and so that means um so that could be a youthful offender so a 22 year old and also a 14 or 15 year old um so I work I work with the victims on those cases and oftentimes those victims are youth as well um but sometimes they're adults with a property crime for example so that's where you would you would um get to meet me you know God forbid that happens to you but um I try and and live up to the work that Barb does as well and largely I support youths well thank you very much all right thank you okay so um again I'm Nick Smith with SD Ireland here I'm joined by Laura Wilson who is and she can maybe answer some of the questions uh you know that I might punt away from a little bit here but anything that has to do with the development we can get into that really quickly and then I'm sure maybe some of the other questions we can we can get through as well but I'll just go through this really quickly again I was here uh I think it was two months ago now for a meeting and we did our brief presentation and since then we've had a little bit of um additional plan work done we've gone through some of the planning process with the city as far as sketch plan goes um and you know try to address some of the comments that we had here with the community a little bit as well um maybe we should go to the second sheet of this just so this is the existing development which is the 12 modular homes on the loop on Grove Street and the one apartment building um this is our proposed design here which we've done some minor sorry can you just orient us to where we are actually yeah of course yeah sorry this is um this is Grove Street this is just uh up from Baybury as you're leaving heading towards South Burlington there so this is right on the city on the Burlington South Burlington line and there's the Velco right of way that runs there um I think this is just before you're going the 89 um underpass over past there so is that help orient you with Bay as far as Baybury goes and on on Grove Street Grove Street yes sorry is Baybury or no this is different this is a separate project from Baybury but that's just easiest orientation wise so this is just up the street from there this is an existing loop yes yes and we're looking again sorry I know I'm kind of breezing through this hoping that we can draw from the last meeting but this this was um essentially we've got 12 modular units that are kind of falling in disrepair they need some upgrades and um a lot of them are really at the end of life so um you know our analysis was really the best means forward was replacement of these not only to kind of increase the unit numbers but also to help service the community by you know we were providing more housing number one number two um really the type of end style and the um quality of housing as well so so these units are duplex units kind of in the same vein of the the Baybury duplex units and we have some architectural that we can jump to if we if we want to but really I think the biggest change on this plan from the last time we're here is kind of the garage layouts and things like that we just wanted to um and then the detail that we're showing so really that is very similar feel we're still lining the street kind of creating this face this um this street facing um neighborhood here on the inner loop and then we're also facing grove street with the units that are along grove street um some of the improvements you know we're looking to do some amenity area um in the center loop there uh and along with you know stormwater treatment but there currently isn't any on the site so we'll be doing some increase to that so that'll be a benefit as well I'm happy to um take questions or direction on this I know we had a lot of comments last time that we didn't really get to so a couple of the things that we talked about and just okay and folks um I think as an NPA we're sort of um we talk with Megan kind of a little bit we're just trying to get clarification about what our role is I mean listen to you developers come to us and you're not heard obviously we're just wondering um if you know how this particular project fits into the overall Burlington housing plan there is such a thing so that was one of the questions of the other one was just um the LED scope of you know uh for the property itself it was an effort to to ensure that it was you know those kind of standards of environmental impact um now I think we also asked about um the transition for folks who are living there now most of the three things I can remember maybe others um that you all remember as well yeah maybe this is where I let Laura kind of jump in a little um so the housing the Burlington housing you know plan overall how does this redevelopment kind of suit the plan well I would say on two points it increases housing stock so it's going to increase rental housing it's going from 15 to 26 units and then it's going to double the IZ or inclusionary zoned units that are currently there so right now we have two and it will increase to four in terms of you know the residents that are there now we have currently nine of the units are occupied um six are vacant so as they have naturally turned over and moved out we have not moved people in these units are at the end of their useful life um and we had a decision to make so we have held a resident meeting this fall with the existing residents to talk about future development to show them the the proposal um we have surveyed all the residents as well um to find out what you know how we can help relocate so we can start the development um we are working with each and every resident um of the ones that have responded or come to the meeting um we have about four households so far that have asked for support in relocating which we will be doing with our current portfolio um we have the luxury of having about 600 rental units in portfolio so we have a lot of availability to rehouse people um and in terms of the affordability for those folks I am using the IZ model to offer the IZ rents that the Burlington City of Burlington sets right now as we integrate them into our other communities um we have actually about three households that are buying homes so they'll be leaving into the home ownership um we also have some affordable town homes coming for sale to market in south Burlington we have a household interested in pursuing an affordable home ownership option within our portfolio um so overall I think um we've had great communication with the current residents and I feel like we have a good command for everyone that wants some support from us so are you when you say you're housing them somewhere else with the option of moving back into the new the renewed house they're in because you're also breaking up a neighborhood of people that are all neighbors so offered the current residents um priority should they choose to move back to once the um property is complete and actually as of now no one has selected that option but I also there's two households that we have not heard from and and what would the rent be would it be at a lot higher rent or no we haven't set the rates we haven't even done cost estimates but they will be market rate housing with the exception before inclusionary so can I ask a question this is Sharon busher um you heard me at the DAB meeting um so I you know I campaigned here in 2020 and it was a neighborhood and there were families and a lot of the housing that you created um isn't is is one or two bedrooms so I'm not sure how you accommodate families hopefully you've got a larger portfolio than I'm aware of um I was very concerned when you came about the displacement of people um and those units were I was around when this was a writing stable and and a and a farm and so the brick house that is there that was built in the 1800s is significant and the fact that your plan talks about demolishing that is concerning to me um and uh I think that I just wanted to put that out there the other thing is that the homes that were built um the modular homes were less expensive than other homes at the time so it allowed more affordable housing and I think it's germane to really understand what they currently pay for rent and what they'd have to pay as they move forward I was happy to hear that you were addressing affordability um but I am really concerned about the fact that without knowing the numbers I don't know whether or not ultimately the number of people that currently live there will have affordable housing and one of the things that I think this community is missing as we go forward with building housing is that yes we need housing but the underlying factor is affordable units we have a lot of market rate units we need affordable housing units and I'm I really am concerned about that also so I'm worried about displacement you're starting to address that thank you so much I'm worried about the significance of this brick house in the and the historic nature of that property and that house as being kind of the pinnacle of that that memory um I've been around in Burlington a long time and I certainly support adding housing but I am concerned about the cost of the market rate units that will replace these current modular homes thank you thanks Sharon just really quick before we jump into one more comment I will address just the historical nature of the building we actually there was some um there was a clerical error in the DAB um this is a design advisory board with the city um so that building is not listed on the state register or the national register so it's does not it's not currently this is a historical structure I understand that this obviously this building is from the 1860s I believe and it does have some you know the Greek style architecture that could be considered historically significant but um you know we have a full report prepared by an architect that that specializes in historical significance evaluation and we'll be going through the full state process I mean the the general conclusion right now is that this this building actually isn't even eligible for historic um register anymore so um it was 20 years ago before there were some alterations that were done prior to um us taking over this project but since then you know that there's been some deterioration replacement of a lot of the existing exterior and things like that so you know I think as we progress through this process it'll become much clearer that that that building really the historical um nature of it I understand like a lot of people are kind of envisioning the building as they drove by 20 years ago but that that same building you know doesn't truly exist you're seeing that singular face along the street I mean the remainder of that building really has had very significant work to it so and again sharing out you know we'll provide that full report so that you can see it and it's going to be confirmed with the with the state historic architect um uh Devin Coleman so just just to address that comment thank you yep um I was I understand about the 1850 building being uh beyond you know not being worth hanging on to but you mentioned some other other are there other buildings that are considered to be uh not ready to be demolished I mean some of these buildings are quite recent uh relatively speaking yeah and I mean as as Sharon kind of alluded to too these these buildings were modular units at the time and this was kind of a little bit earlier in the development of modular units where the the construction methods and material really weren't up to snuff compared to now and so while these units came in and they were really cheap to construct they really didn't have the longevity that they were hoped for so that's why a lot of these are actually deteriorated and and the ones that aren't currently how you know housed um part of that is some of them just you know we've elected not to bring people back in and and rent to but also some of them just aren't actually fit for it so so these are like 20 years old 25 correct yeah 20 to 22 is like would be the latest that they the first one that was installed was I think 2000 so they really didn't last hardly at all I mean a couple of decades it's a pretty short life for a house yeah we agree I'm really I'm sort of astonished that that that was well I'll just leave it at that um sorry I didn't want to wrap you with the court um yeah I guess my question was I'm also concerned about um the displacement of residents when you first came that was a big concern but you talked a little bit about that I guess the other piece is um yeah I just have to agree with Sharon's comments like we have a ton of market rate housing and if just building more market rate housing was and this isn't necessarily to you all I think this is a city issue when we're thinking about developments um your role is to build housing and make a profit off but um but yeah I'm just really concerned about you know that yeah just the fact that we're like IZ yes we have a minimum and that's the minimum and so I I guess I would hope that and and I heard you say you don't have cost estimates together on like what rent would look like what project costs would be um there's a difference between like costing something out and then actuals and things change when you're building something but I would really be interested or I think it would be at least helpful for me to have you all come back when with that information and say here's what rent is now here's what rent is you know list unit by unit um you know here's the number of units or number of bedrooms in these units currently one through I think 17 you said one through 26 like this is the percentage profit we're making um because I think it's I don't know reasonable for our community to know that um and with the understanding that your for-profit business that needs to be able to afford to build this project yeah I mean can I just briefly address one aspect of this um you know trying to address the housing need here so you know um us to Ireland a lot of times we we try to partner with like CHT or Summit or something like that but to bring affordable units in our project so you know we're actually you know we've got a building that's going in Sunderland farms in Colchester that CHT has um purchased and and they're doing the construction on that lot um now so you know what what we try to do is we try to help partner with them when it's feasible now CHT and a lot of other of these non-profit organizations that help with you know the affordability housing really aren't looking for these you know projects that are you know more single family oriented because they have a very unique cost structure built into their model they really do focus on kind of like a 30 unit plus building so that's why you know the we understand where you're coming from and wanting to see more of that and you know Laura can talk to you later full background is affordable housing over 20 years in the city of Burlington and for a private developer to build affordable housing we would have to go after the same buckets of funds that CHT Cathedral Square and the lights go after to do their work um and when I worked for a non-profit and for private developers started getting into the arena it's really carving out or taking away from the good work they do and um this is going to be a market rate I don't believe we're going to share what that information is going to be and in fact I may not know it until a couple of months before we open the market is changing and we constantly reevaluate it and we do try to partner as often as we can typically it's in support for land that they can build on and just to echo what Nick said we do try to co-locate to help that happen I wasn't going to speak on this but I have to start with that one I guess the question is response to your just recent comment is if the goal is to increase the supply of housing and produce affordable housing does it really matter if it's a private developer or if it's a private uh a non-profit and it sounds like you know when you're saying competing after the goal of funds it sounds like there's some protectionism going there where the government or whomever is essentially picking winners and losers and it seems to me if someone wants to build housing it shouldn't matter who it is if they're going to be building and making a commitment to affordable housing let's get it done to manage the programs like those organizations do because the money just comes with a lot of regulations that we don't even manage you know we don't have the the debt than our bread and butter is that yeah what I really see lacking is building housing and selling it so people can be homeowners or building condominiums or duplex you know selling a duplex and letting people buy each unit because it does seem like for years and we have really increased the housing around here has really increased you know as far as rental housing with bayberry and you know all over the place but very few developers build a house and then sell it why is that this profit or there's a number of factors I mean I think you can speak to a few of them but I know there's a trend towards rental units as well I mean I know maybe that is partly market driven as well but I know a lot of especially young adults aren't looking to purchase a home well I trust me I agree don't yeah I've been there too so but by a lot of people too are looking for you know less maintenance less you know some of that some of the quirks that come with home ownership too that they're trying to get out I'm not saying that's the majority of people but there are some obviously and I agree with you that trust me from I bought a house a few years ago and I ate as a first time home buyer and yeah it's definitely a challenge now to get in the market just to answer the home ownership we are SDR Island is building currently it's just not in Burlington in South Burlington duplexes and there's 30 units and 15 will be affordable sold as affordable with home ownership opportunity and one of the um renters currently at Apple Grove is interested in one of those properties so I just want to be in person I'm sorry what are you your hands up yes my hand is up I you sparked my interest what I'm jealous why is South Burlington getting a project no serious like this about the same size and we'll have half of their units affordable and the ability to purchase and why is Burlington I think Burlington is really light on home ownership and we've got an awful lot of rental property and I think we want to bring things need to be in balance and sink and I feel that we're out of whack and we're out of balance and and we've been asking even when Ireland built Bayberry we asked about could some of them be owner occupied could could it be a mix and and that never was realized and now you haven't built this I know you've got a plan but I I really am concerned that South Burlington which has more owner occupied property than Burlington is getting that mix that I think Burlington really needs to to have also and how do we entice you the developer to create that for us I think that there's two portions maybe from my experience on that question number one is that that South Burlington project is the South Village project in South Burlington which really is 300 plus units so it's it's a sliver I mean there are rental units in there too we're doing a there is a combination there but but the other answer really comes down to kind of market driven factors I mean the South Burlington market there's there's a request and I know not not just from the neighborhood community but also from you know people interested in housing that that are looking for sold housing versus rental housing so I don't know if Laura has anything to add but that's kind of it I can bring that back to our development team for future pipeline Sharon and I can I'll leave it at that I would very much appreciate it because this is this was I feel like a broken record but many people that are in the room in person like Karen Long and others we were all here with Bayberry and we all asked those questions about owner occupied to have a mix and so this is not a new request and and maybe there are new faces now at Ireland that will hear the request and maybe reevaluate the real need to have that mix in Burlington also so thank you um Earhart did you have a question not so much a question but just in response to some of the discussion and I'm not going to speak to why you guys are developing more home ownership opportunities in South Burlington than in Burlington but in terms of condominiums and home ownership generally you know things Karen you asked about condos financing for condominiums changed significantly and after you know 2008 and the changes that happened in banking changes happened for home ownership as well because of the what was big you know the great recession in large part was driven by by the mortgage market that failed and it failed because there were a lot of loose practices and that really changed the market for condominiums it also changed the market for home ownership so that requirements for home ownership were more stringent and it made it less profitable for for developers generally to develop condominiums and and also home ownership opportunities I'll also point out that cathedral square not cathedral square sorry shamblin housing trust is you know in partnership with ferrell at camry and rise is developing quite a few affordable shared equity home ownership units as part of as part of camry and rise and shamblin housing trust continues to offer and increase home ownership opportunities through their their shared equity programs so just that I throw that out things really changed after the mortgage meltdown of 2008 and I think we're still feeling a lot of the repercussions of that the other thing that's obviously happening with inflation and construction costs have gone absolutely sky high both from a labor standpoint because of labor short workforce shortages as well as materials and it's just becoming increasingly difficult to provide home ownership opportunities that are within the reach of you know what we would normally consider as you know modern income to you know middle-class families and I'll note that the housing finance agency just unveiled a program called the missing middle home ownership program it was just unveiled yesterday with the bank in middlebury down in middlebury it's partially federally funded through a share of the state's american rescue plan fund so I think there is stuff happening in the home ownership sphere and and there are challenges on so I'll just leave it at that all right any other questions all right last last comment on my soapbox um yeah I mean I may I may be naive a little bit in the sense that I do think it's important for our community to have hard numbers um around how much developers are profiting um you know when we think about like you know fundamentally I think it's probably a bad idea for the community to have housing as a commodity in the market and it is and so at the very least I think it's a reasonable ask given the impact both on public safety on just our community as a whole when folks making money off of housing particularly if it's housing that's going to be long-term rental which is a I mean grade investment my guess would be it's a the rental market in burlington is quite more profitable than the rental market in south burlington but in the long run which may be part of the reason but you know if companies like sd ireland which are you know on the scale of companies better perhaps um or at least local um yeah like our community does deserve to know and have a say in how much profit is being made given the long-term ramifications of projects like these on our housing market like I just think that's a reasonable request and um we don't have to go back and forth on it but I would hope that we would get that information not two months or three months before units are available for folks okay all right I think we are done so that concludes the NPA meeting of December 14