 Today is Monday, September 18th, 2023. Thank you for joining us in person in Contoy's Auditorium and online for the Burlington City Council meeting. The time, thank you, Councillor Travers. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, please say no. We have our agenda. That brings us to the second item on our agenda, which is 2.1, a communication litigation update with an expected executive session. We don't have the administration here. We have the city attorney. So normally we would go to find out if there's any information that can be conveyed in executive, in open session to community members. Don't mean to get you as you're walking in the door, Mayor. Do you have any information that you wanted to share in open session before we go into executive session? Thank you, President Paul. I don't believe so. I'd look to deputy city attorney, see if there's anything. You feel like you'd like to share? Short, the purposes of this update is just for the city attorney's office to bring city councillors up to speed on any pending and possible litigation before the city and due to the sensitive nature of our positions in these various litigation matters. That's why we're requesting the executive session, but it's just a general update to city councillors that we wanna provide to you periodically to make sure you're up to date with what's going on in our litigation world. Great, thank you very much. With that, we have two motions to go into executive session. I'll go to Councillor Travers for the first. I'll move that the council find that premature general public knowledge of legal advice and information concerning the details of probable and pending litigation to which the city is a party or has a stated interest would clearly place the city at a substantial disadvantage. Thank you, Councillor Travers. Is there a second to that motion? Seconded by Councillor King. Is there any discussion on that motion? Seeing none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed, please say no. That motion passes unanimously. Recording in progress. That motion passes unanimously. And based on that motion, Councillor Travers, if I could have the second motion. Based upon that finding, I move that the council go into executive session to receive confidential attorney client communications under one VSA section 313A1F in appending or probate civil litigation matter. I'll also pursue into one VSA section 313A1E. Thank you, Councillor Travers. Seconded by Councillor King. Is there any discussion on that motion? Seeing none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you, Councillor Zhang. Any, we can't see you, but we do hear you. Any opposed, please say no. That motion passes unanimously. And we're now in executive session. In order to have executive session, when we have participants on Zoom, we need to go downstairs to the bushel room. So we will go downstairs. We were expecting this item to be about a half an hour. So we're hoping to be back here at around 20 after seven. The time is now 7.52. Thank you so much to everyone who has waited for public forum. We do have two people who have asked to speak in public forum, who are Burlington residents and are here in con toys. The first is Kurt McCormick to be followed by Jada Bearden. Kurt, thank you so much for waiting for us, please. If you just use the press the button in front of you that says push. It's okay, Madam President. You folks work really hard, I can't believe it. So this will be a little bit of a change for you, I think. I'm here to talk to you about engine idling. It's becoming an epidemic around the country, including in Burlington. Department of Energy estimates that six billion gallons are wasted a year on engine idling. That's 16 million tons of CO2. And if you've ever noticed UPS trucks, they always cut their engines, they have to. It's software on board every truck, including the smallest delivery trucks. A driver's got a problem if he forgets to turn the engine off when he stops. They estimate that they are saving $515,000, a half a million dollars every hour. Every hour, a half a million dollars in fuel costs. So it's much more than you might think, and it's obviously more than a lot of drivers think. About half of it comes from passenger cars and the other half from trucks, but they're both very damaging. So we have a city ordinance against idling. It's a very good ordinance, actually, well written with good exemptions. And we also have state law making it illegal to idle your engine. So when a person idles their engine in Burlington, they're breaking a city ordinance and they're breaking a law. I have asked the mayor and I have written to the chief of police, this is back when the chief of police was Del Pozzo, asking them to simply request of the police to inform motorists of the law and make them aware that idling your engine is not a good thing, it's actually against the law. No ticket, no citation. So I'm making that same request of you. Please request of the police to inform idling motorists that they shouldn't be doing it. Great, thank you very much. Thank you, thank you for being here. So we do have, the other person who would wish to speak during public forum is Jada Bearden. And just wanted, we have very few people who wish to speak during public forum. I just wanted to also remind you that there is a light system in front of you on the table. The green light will shine when you begin speaking, the second yellow light when you have 30 seconds left and then the red light when your time is up. And just ask that you complete your sentence when your time is up. We do have two people that are joining us by Zoom and I'm trying to co-host the meeting so that I can call on them. I'm not sure if we have someone who is co-hosting, who is online. Is there someone who's doing that, Lori? Okay, so she can make me a co-host so that I can enable their microphones. And then just also just keep in mind that the only other rule that we have regarding public forum is that you please speak respectfully and do not personalize your items, do not personalize your speaking just directly to me as the chair. So Jada, you are a second speaker. Thanks so much for waiting for us. Please go ahead. Yeah, can you wait for me while I finish my water? You know, lubrication is important. Public speaking. All right, hello. I'm Jada Bearden of Africa, not of Vermont for any word per se. Yes, I am here in response to last week's meeting like during a general comment from the counselors. One of the counselors had a lot to say that night. And unfortunately, you know, I had to leave because I had work in the morning. So that's why I'm a little like annoyed with the chair because it's about to be eight o'clock. Y'all, I got school. I'm a tutor, you know? And I'm also a black artist and an activist. And I do my best to abide by the laws. Also, I'm a disruptor. But one of your counselors who is a white woman like had two things to say, right? Or I didn't spill the water this time. I'll pick that up, please, please. Yeah, so the chair, I will address the chair but I'm talking about a counselor, that's allowed. Yeah, they were like, the person Todd didn't complete his public forum comment, which was wrong. Like Rachel only got up because he was going over time and berating black people who were sitting to the right of us. And two, she also commented that people should stick to the agenda meeting and the two minutes, right? So that counselor was very contradictory. And when you communicate in a way that's passive aggressive, micro aggressive and not healthy or mature, you shut down dialogue, right? So as a city counselor, a public official and a private citizen, get your life together, right? Yeah, and since we're speaking on city counselors, I'm gonna hurry up. Perry Freeman, an ex-city counselor, attacked me last June. Point of order, point of order. Thank you so much. You said I can finish my sentence, you remember? You have your two minutes and that was your two minutes. Perry Freeman attacked me at T-Rugs. I'm sorry, but you're two minutes is up. This past June, Perry Freeman. Yes. Perry Freeman. Your two minutes are up. Okay, I'm gonna finish my sentence. Your two minutes are up. Perry Freeman attacked me at T-Rugs. Point of order. And ex-city counselor. Your two minutes are up, thank you so much. put her hands on me and I'm a black person in Vermont. I'm gonna stay here. I'm gonna stay right there. I'm gonna stay right there because it's public forum. I'm gonna get off your mic, but I'm gonna say this because Perry fucking Freeman put her hands on me in Burlington, Vermont. And as a white woman, as a white woman, you will not silence me. You will not silence me. You started to fucking see me 20 minutes late, bro. You all see me time tonight, bro. As a white person, I'm reclaiming my fucking time, bro. And you've had your two minutes. Thank you so much. Next week, bitch. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Please let us finish the meeting. Let us can stop, stop. Point of order. President Paul, may we have a recess, please? May we have a recess, please? We'll take a recess. Thank you, President Paul. Requested to speak during public forum that are joining us by Zoom. The first is Katie Lesser. And I don't see you, Katie, on, there is someone who, one telephone number, but I believe I know that number. So, Katie, if you do rejoin, if you do rejoin us, then we'll, we'll be happy to recognize you. The other person is Peter Duvall. And Peter, I have found your, I have found you on Zoom and enabled your microphone. I'm not sure if we have it set up with the timer, but we do. Okay. We do have the timer set up. We just can't see it on our screen. But we'll, we'll let you know, I guess, when the two, two minutes is up in case you can't see that. We now have it in front of us. So, Peter, please go ahead and thanks so much for joining us. Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the McNeil generating station and the super silly steam transmission pipe. And thank you for making public comments so convenient. Can you hear me okay? Yes, we can. Thanks. The McNeil joint owners met September 11th, the news of which may have been obscured by the Electric Department's webinar on September 12th. But there was a lot of disappointing information in the materials of the September 11 packet. I'm sure some of you read it and were disappointed that Putin's war had only a temporary effect on McNeil revenue, making it momentarily profitable on paper. The new financial statements made clear that the plant's gone right back to unprofitability and its old money losing ways. And of course, it's a most polluting stationery source in the state. It's just a matter of time before the plant must be retired. As reading energy's Black River plant and soon we're just biopower plant in New Hampshire following Governor Sununu's detail of the subsidy bill. When the city and the state finally come to an acknowledgement about the McNeil financial disaster, sure, heads could roll. You could clean house at the Electric Commission and demand resignations from management. But how are you going to recover all of the energy efficiency funds that have been misspent goofing around with the silly steam pipe? Sue VGS or see if the BUC would take money out of BGS's profits or shift the burden of responsibility from ratepayers to taxpayers. They're the same people. I don't envy you. Good luck. Thank you. Thank you so much. With that and seeing no other speakers and I'm still looking for Katie Lesser, my apologies for the public forum starting as late as it did. We will then close public forum at 8.09 and continue with the next item on our agenda, which is item number four, climate emergency reports. Is there any counselor or the administration that wishes to offer a climate emergency report? Mayor Weinberger. Thank you, President Paul. Yes, there are a couple upcoming events I wanted to alert the Council of Public Two. One is that this Saturday will be the second annual, I believe, Net Zero Energy Festival hosted by the Burlington Electric Department and there will be information, electric vehicles, various electrical appliances and more available for the public to use, enjoy, ask questions about at the Burlington Electric Department all day on Saturday and encourage people to check it out and consider going. And then in addition on Wednesday evening, there is a panel discussion that is taking place at Main Street Landing and it is a viewing and a panel discussion of a documentary on energy, empowered energy heroes. And this is a documentation documentary that's been in the works for a number of years and it includes a significant focus on the Burlington Electric Department and various efforts that BED has made over the years to become a net zero energy city, to become the first city in the country to be 100% renewable and to electrify everything. And I would encourage folks to consider joining us at Main Street Landing on Wednesday evening the 20th, I believe at six o'clock and you can find more information on the screening on the Burlington Electric Department website. Thank you President Paul. Thank you so much Mayor Weinberger. Are there any Councillors who wish to offer a climate emergency report? And I also just wanted to acknowledge that Councillor Jang is joining us via Zoom. It's a little bit difficult because we can't see him, but he is there. Thank you. Are there any other Councillors seeing none? And Councillor Jang, if you can just speak up, unfortunately for whatever reason, we can only see one person at a time. So if you wish to speak, just kindly let us know. Thank you. Seeing no others, we'll close out that item and go to item number five, which is our Consent Agenda. Is there a motion to move our Consent Agenda and take the actions indicated? So moved. Thank you Councillor Traver, seconded by Councillor King. Any discussion on that item? Seeing none, all those in favor please say aye. Aye. Any opposed please say no. We have approved our Consent Agenda unanimously, which brings us to our deliberative agenda and we have only one item this evening on our deliberative agenda. That is item 6.1, which is the fiscal year 23 fiscal health report. And for this item, I do believe we have our Chief Administrative Officer, Catherine Shad, who's joining us by Zoom to speak to this report. And Catherine, I think you have a PowerPoint that you wanted to share with us. Again, we can't see you, but I believe that you're there. Okay, can you see me now? Now we can now we can see you. Yes. Okay, great. I was messing around with the setting, trying to improve them clearly. I failed. In any event, I am home with COVID and so I have asked the mayor if he would take over since those of you who attended board of finance know that I already gave a lengthy presentation tonight. So Mayor and Bureau Weinberger, if you would please give the presentation. I'm going to run the PowerPoint. Thank you. Great. Thank you, Catherine. And just to make sure we're coordinated, you said you are going to run the PowerPoint still, right? Great. I'm pulling it up right now. Excellent. So this is a PowerPoint that basically expands on the report that Catherine submitted to you all for tonight's meeting. This fiscal health report is something that we've done most years, going back for a decade now. It was initially requested by counselors in the wake of the vote by the public and and counsel to take what at the time was somewhat unusual action and and approved something called, we called it at the time, the fiscal stability bond. It was a $9 million bond that allowed the city to replace $9 million of short term borrowing that the city had been forced to do in the wake of what happened with Burlington Telecom and replace it with this long term amortizing debt and the thinking at the time or the discussion at the time was that it was would be important and difficult for the public to understand what exactly the bond did and this report was requested and I do think it is a good time for us to check in on this again because what because there are some updates with respect to our credit rating and borrowing that this report speaks to. So that's the background and maybe Catherine if you could move forward. The this would do a quick review of the way the city's credit rating works and the history here this is sort of the the full range of credit ratings and municipalities can have and where you fall on this spectrum from all the way at the very lowest very high credit risk to lowest level of credit risk where you fall as a municipality in this range has an impact on the cost of borrowing the in 2012 in the summer of 2012 the city was downgraded three steps to BAA 3 and given a negative outlook which meant that Moody's was telegraphing that they were likely to downgrade the city again in the next 18 months or so if action wasn't taken had there been a further downgrade from BAA 3 you fall into that gray area substantial credit risk people you know colloquially that that gets referred to as junk bond status it's a significant threshold there's a number of covenants that covenants the city had and at the time that would have been triggered had we fallen below that threshold and it would have it would have been quite costly it could have resulted in the revocation of the one short-term borrowing instrument the city had access to at the time had we fallen below that the city you know could well been in a true financial crisis that could you know threaten the city's ability to perform basic financial functions like making payroll so having that having that alert was a wake up call and causes take action after that that was really in many ways the the precipitating factory that causes to seek this fiscal stability bond and get voter approval for it in the fall of 2012 and to take a number of other actions that were highlighted in the audit that we had that year and that when all these actions took place it took years but between between the passage of the fiscal stability bond in 2012 and 2019 the city was upgraded six steps all the way back to the AA3 rating that it had been at prior to prior to the start of the Burlington telecom challenges and you can see AA3 is considered a very low credit risk and thus the borrowing costs are substantially lower and really what the report tries to do so a couple this was these quotes come from a new document that just came out in August of this year was a credit opinion which is Moody's puts out a range of different types of documents sometimes they take new credit action in this case they weren't taking any new credit action but they it was basically a credit opinion that gave further detail and explained why the city had the has the AA3 rating that it has and these are a couple quotes about about why why they felt that continued to be the right right rating what what's the impact of this the the report tries to put into terms that will be meaningful to the public what the impact of these upgrades is the the report makes a distinction between two types of savings one has to do with the recent 130 million dollar bonds for the new high school that we just closed on last week those bonds were issued at an interest rate of 3.84 percent so still despite all the interest rate hikes that the Federal Reserve has imposed since the start of the pandemic because the city has this AA rating we are still able to borrow money long-term for less than than 4% the what that sorry just to go back real quick but the slide is showing there is if the bonds if we if we were still back in the 2012 2013 2014 period and we were trying to do this borrowing at BA3 the interest rate the current interest rate would be 5.31 percent so point-and-a-half percent difference which may not sound enormous but when you apply that to 130 million dollars in 20 year borrowing the impact is substantial it's about a 20 the net present value savings are 20.5 million so the actual savings are greater than that but there's a a discount since some of those savings are for for years as much as 20 years in the future this is in addition as the next slide says shows this for the all the other borrowing that we have done in the period going back to when the credit rate increases began in 2015 the current dollar savings of the remainder of the borrowing that has been done by the schools by the general fund borrowing as well as by other rate paying agents agencies enterprises you add all that up the rate payer and taxpayer savings has been 24 million so the combined total is just under 45 million in locked-in savings as a result of these credit rate increases there's a couple things that I think are worth at the port speaks to as to why have we gotten these credit rate increases and I think they're worth reviewing because of the decisions that we have have to make on an annual basis as administration and counsel on one of them has to do with the unassigned fund balance we think of this as sort of a rainy day fund we this is something that factors heavily into the the rating because it goes directly to the confidence that Moody's has that we will be able to make our payments to our bondholders no matter even if they're unforeseen events I think we have a graph on the next slide that shows kind of maybe do we still have do we have that graph maybe not here it is so shows you know one of the reasons Moody's was so alarmed and did the big rate decreases back in 2012 was that we actually didn't not only do we not have any kind rating ready day fund we're really we're about 15 million dollars in the red we're only able to pay our bills at the time because the short-term borrowing that we were doing the fiscal stability bond as well as some other actions quickly got us out of the red and you can see through the following fiscal years we got back up to what is now the policy of having somewhere between 5 and 15 percent of the general funds operating totals in in reserve and we have been able to maintain that those levels despite you know through the pandemic and afterwards and I think we continue to be at a little over 9% is where we believe we are now as we're still waiting the final audit numbers for FY 23 the other factor that I think is maybe the the last well let's see sorry yeah go ahead go to the next go to the next year you can go to sorry did you want to say something Catherine no you just wonder where you want me to go because we're sort of out of yes go just go to that bulleted page and then I think we'll wrap up and see if there are any questions so I think I basically spoke to all this the only thing that's worth noting that I thought I thought I had seen a slide on it but maybe not but it is I did just want to share that as we were going through this process for the most recent Moody's action we had a little bit of concern that there would be that the large increase in the amount of indebtedness that the city currently has with the $130 million in bonding for the high school that that might cause concern and we and you know counselors who were here when we were which I think is everybody when we were considering approving the high school bond or just about everybody knows that we you know we had public discussions about that and we took a and we were aware that the $130 million in borrowing was going to put us out of compliance with the relatively new debt policy that we created together with the Burlington School District in 2018 and that it has us exceeding those the the targets that we had set there but if what we it was appreciated and Catherine correct me if you were on this part of the call and I was not but it was noted that we had not changed the policy in response to the new the new borrowing needs and that instead we had laid out a detailed specific plan that both the school board and the council had publicly committed to of coming back into compliance with that debt policy as soon as possible and to not make a commitment not to make any additional unplanned borrowing until we reach that threshold that had been noted by the agency and was seen as a strength that there had not been you know some attempt to change the policy in the face of new circumstances and they had already if you if you dig into the details of the the August credit document which we did send out as a press release today you'll note that in many ways the city is really deserves a higher credit rating than we have the the they had already anticipated because of years of past discussion that we were going to need to do quite a bit additional borrowing and it is on the the borrowing numbers we are at an a as opposed to double a rating and that factors into the overall score so they had already taken into account that we would be borrowing a large amount for the new high school did not they did not see a need to downgrade us as a result of that they already factored it in and the joint action that we took together of being intentional about how we were doing it and committing to come back into compliance with the the policy was was appreciated and noted I think it was it was part of that credit that strong credit report that basically other Ray Catherine do you want to add anything to that or anything else on the report that's exactly right nothing to add great president Paul I think with that then happy to answer any questions appreciate this opportunity to talk about you know get into some of the weeds of the financial management you know because I think it's important that we have these discussions because as wonky and sort of technical as these conversations can be getting this right fundamentally you know fundamentally drives whether or not the city is able to take actions like bonding for more than 150 million dollars for high school and doing it on favorable terms it goes to our ability to respond to a unexpected pandemic when it occurs these these getting these fight the financial management right goes a long way towards us being able to achieve the many social economic and other goals environmental and other goals that we have as a city and I hope we can continue to take the strong actions that we have over the last decade together into the future thank you very much mayor Weinberger and thank you CAO Shad for being here with us we'll open this up to the council and go to councillor Shannon thank you president Paul mayor I was wondering if you could kind of explain how the bond rates work with the borrowing I thought that what we usually do is we don't borrow the whole bond at once we borrow it incrementally as we're using it so that we don't have to pay interest on money that we're not quite ready to spend and so the the rate that you showed was there kind of quickly but I thought it was like 3.85 or something which is an amazing rate and what about upcoming bond what is there that we haven't locked in a rate for or what rates can change from here not due to our credit rating but because but because the rates have gone higher thank you councillor Shannon let me try to speak to that so the hundred and thirty million dollars that we closed on last week for the high school that did include and it's possible again Catherine correct me if I don't get part of this quite right but the the school district had had some kind of interim financing instruments in place up until now for tens of millions of dollars of his expenses that they have been incurring in the years leading up to now with the high school project and some of the early remediation and demolition work and so I believe of the hundred and thirty million sixty million of that was for refinancing existing debt and kind of replacing existing debt I think the balance of seventy million was their projection of what they would be spending in the next year they will be taking district will be taking steps to put the bond proceeds that they are not using in the next like 30 days or so or I don't know exactly the cutoff but goes into interest bearing accounts so that it can be earning some money while it's waiting to be deployed so they have a whole you know that's about the extent of my understanding of their cash management and interest management plan but it it it sounded prudent from my my understanding of it hopefully by the time that they are you know over the next year it is I think it's a reason to be hopeful that the interest rate environment has plateaued and that we might even if if inflation continues to head in the right direction as it has most of the time and in recent months we you know the truth to be hopeful that we may be entering you know coming to the end of these interest rate hikes and so we won't have exposure to further increases in the future that said no one has a perfect crystal ball and exactly what's what's gonna happen there and we for the remainder of the borrowing so the other up to thirty five million dollars of borrowing that they could do that isn't we're not protected from her for their interest rate hikes there if that's your question yes that answers on the school side but what on the what about on the city side are there other bonds that we haven't drawn on yet that are on the city side go ahead Catherine yeah just to provide a little bit more clarity on the hundred and thirty million dollars for the school it is forty million dollars that has been refinanced and counselor Shannon we have just completed the financing for our annual bonding this week maybe so I can get that for you but it is in that range so let me send that to you so there's not anything outstanding beyond those items this now wraps up sort of our annual bonding and any kind of special bonding we have outstanding that's inclusive of the the downtown TIF bonding that is necessary for the Main Street project has our we've gone to market for that several months ago and the all of the TIF investment the bonding related to building the new streets through City Place also we've completed that transaction as well so I think I think you actually are asking this question in a moment where we have very little yeah we're really there isn't anything we're we're still working on in the immediate future for for borrowing thank you counselor Shannon are there any other counselors who wish to offer comments or have questions about the report counselor Grant thank you I guess not necessarily a question about the report but just looking into the future so we have this huge commitment that we must make with regards to the high school and I've been very concerned as I've been finding out more information about deferred maintenance in the city so down the line we may have more issues where things that have been deferred are become like an emergency situation that need to be looked at so our ability to borrow more money because of what we're borrowing for the high school will be limited so then we'd have to look at property taxes so I guess it's not as much as a credit as much of a statement that we really need to to think about that and and plan for that and since I've been here as a counselor there really hasn't been any detailed discussion about property tax reform so I just wanted to I just wanted to mention that thank you thanks so much counselor Grant counselor Barlow thank you president Powell I would just ask that the presentation be added to the to the agenda item along with the report thank you are we able to do that CAO Shad yes as soon as I take myself off mute of course great thanks so much seeing no other seeing no other counselors who wish to speak no one else in the queue we will close out that agenda item and I would just need oh mayor Weinberger thank you president Paul I'm sorry I wasn't sure if you want to go to other counselors first but did just a couple final reactions the counselor Grant is quite right that we have that the commitment we've made to the high school as well as the commitment to not to pursue unplanned borrowing until we are back within the within the the policy limits does present a real challenge with our capital investments in the future and unfortunately we have for the last seven years been making unprecedented levels of investments in many areas of the city's infrastructure and we have tens of millions of dollars more coming from the federal government for other infrastructure investments and we do still have FY the remainder of FY 24 so much of FY 24 and FY 25 we have elevated capital available to us beyond what we've had historically because of the most recent round of bonding so we have some time to figure out how we deal with the period of time from FY 25 until probably around 2030 without new borrowing and it is certainly something that we flagged in the budget process last year that we needed to be working on and that we did we've started the conversations with the Board of Finance about our various financial challenges we just had a lengthy session tonight really focused on the operating budget but we have a similar challenge on the capital budget that we we do need to be to be talking about I don't think there are easy solutions but I do think we have the time to to figure this out and in the meantime if there are true you know emergency it's one of the things I'm rainy dame fun can be used for is true emergencies we certainly have the ability and need to use the ability when we have unsafe conditions that arise to address them but we do need a more we need to continue the proactive capital work of the last decade and make it a permanent part of how the city goes forward the we have some tools for doing that we didn't used to have we have we have software we have staffers who are working on this but we have we still have considerable work to do to really be where we need to in terms of having that kind of stable long-term capital management thank you mayor Weinberger seeing no others I will just need a motion to waive the reading accept the communication and place it on file with every emotion to that effect so moved thank you so much second counsel counselor Grant I don't I don't always see you at the very end of the table like that with no one else with with thank you so much and seconded by counselor Travers is there any discussion on the motion yes yes president yes go ahead and you know I have to say CFO Chad thank you so much for being here with us know that you're not feeling well much appreciated and congratulations mr. Mayor so over the years what I noticed is Moody or whoever's providing these reports will show up in front of the council and I was wondering why this time around they're not here I don't actually recall Moody's ever and then I don't think they would agree to they don't really like to because Councillor Carpenter is laughing it is sort of that's not really the way they operate to come out and make public presentations or statements we we have and perhaps what you're thinking of Councillor Jang we do have a bond consultant a professional that works for the city firm called PFM that I think at times we have heard from them in the past as well as our auditors if there was a desire for some something specific we could we could arrange for that for sure thank you thanks very much councillor Jang councillor Carpenter I was giggling because the folks from the credit rate agencies operate under cover I've never seen them in a public meeting but I was just gonna add the press release that the mayor's office sent out included this a summary of the credit rating report and it's interesting you might just want to look at it we might even want to put it on the agenda because it it just puts medians and factors of the economy in Burlington and there's a lot behind it and it's it's it's a positive document and we should you might be interested in it thank you councillor Carpenter I would agree we have a first and we have a second any further discussion on the motion seeing none we'll go to a vote all those in favor of the motion to waive the reading and accept the communication and place it on file please say aye aye aye any pose please say no that motion passes unanimously and many thanks to the chief administrative officer Catherine Chad for your work and the work of your department along with the efforts of all department heads city staff the administration the city council and also to the community for their support in prioritizing our city's fiscal health with that we will close out our deliberative agenda we have just a couple of items left the the next item is item seven which is committee reports are there any councillors who wish to offer a committee report councillor Grant thank you so the public safety committee is starting has started discussions about putting forth a resolution this is something that has been really I guess I take it very personally because it's something I've been concerned about for some time now but I know that all the residents of Burlington and employees of Burlington and visitors of Burlington have been very concerned about which is our overdose crisis and purpose of the resolution would be to in a nutshell make sure that this crisis is an agenda item on each meeting and that we are keeping up on informing Burlingtonians with what is happening such as any opioid funds we receive how are we spending those we discussed at the last meeting but also to rally people to be part of a movement to implore the state to release more funds and to also pass legislation that is crucial for us to do harm reduction and I think also to have a review of data people always ask questions around data and we don't we don't really have a way or we're not we're not in a coordinated fashion giving people the information they need that's what it really comes down to is coordinating our efforts and making sure the citizens of Burlington the residents of Burlington know where we're at with that so invite everyone to attend this Thursday evening's meeting which please remind me the start time is at 5 30 or 6 5 30 Thursday night and it is a are we doing hi just zoom we are looking for a meeting room and I don't know that we have secured one yet sure there will be zoom it's so at the bare minimum it would be hybrid so if people can't come they can definitely log in and we're really looking to for our residents to step up to talk about what they've been seeing because I think we need Mount Pilger to really know what's going on in Burlington the fact that we can't get this money released to us the fact that this legislation is getting vetoed we have to put more effort in thank you thanks very much Councilor Grant Councilor Barlow now thank you President Paul the Transportation Energy and Utilities Committee will be meeting on 926 next Tuesday at a time yet to be determined either 4 30 or 5 but we'll know that within a day or so on our agenda is proposed language for another survey to the North Mooskey Avenue corridor stakeholders and review of a solar ordinance that South Burlington recently passed thank you thanks so much Councilor Barlow any other Councilors with Committee reports yes President Paul please go ahead the racial equity inclusion and belonging committee will be meeting tomorrow at 5 30 Sharon Bush a room and the main agenda items are updates from the racial preparation task force also the gun violence task force and probably will have a bringing Burlington home a presentation about home business thank you tomorrow 5 30 Bush a room and also thank you great thank you so much Councilor Chen Councilor Hightower great the city and our committee is meeting tomorrow it was supposed to be at 5 but it's been moved to 6 it is remote only and we are on the agenda we're talking about update and update on NPA support a public hearing on CEDOS consolidated annual performance and evaluation report and also getting an update on homeless initiatives from CEDO thank you great thanks Councilor Hightower any other Councillors before we move on to item number 8 which is City Council General City Affairs are there Councillors who wish to offer comments on General City Affairs Councillor Shannon thank you President Paul just wanted to speak to the same public safety committee issue that Councilor Grant just mentioned I appreciated the that you President Paul had informed us about that meeting about the resolution which was originally a public safety resolution and kind of morphed into a public health resolution and the meeting is going to conflict with another meeting I have which I think is the ordinance committee some meeting with Councillor Travers but I yeah I won't be able to be there and I just wanted to say that I think that the public safety element of the resolution that was brought forward originally was lost in the second resolution and I very much hope that the committee will bring public safety back into it we are in a public health crisis without a doubt and we need to address that but there is also a public safety crisis and I think sometimes it's difficult for us to have the conversations that we need to have we are worried that we might offend somebody but we need to have honest conversations and we need to wrestle with different ideas because what we are doing is not working and our residents don't feel safe they are being victimized by chronic theft needles in areas where children play as well as all over this all over the city and our residents want to feel safe and they need to have their property protected as well people are having the vehicles that they use to get to work whether it's their cars or their bikes stolen on a regular basis it needs it does need to be addressed and I hope the public safety committee will take that to heart I'll be in my other meeting thank you thanks very much councillor Shannon just to follow up on what councillor granted said the meeting is the 22nd 21st I'm sorry that it conflicts with yet another meeting we did try mostly because of the fact that we wanted to have a quick turnaround after the meeting on the 7th of September we're following up two weeks later there will be a draft agenda of draft there will be an agenda posted tomorrow as well as a draft resolution in my understanding is that there are others that committee members that will be coming forward in not myself but committee members that will be coming forward with different edits and suggestions that we will then be discussing so my apologies for not being able to make that but it will be posted tomorrow councillor grant and I just wanted to follow up on on that that it was discussed at the meeting that the this is a work in progress the final resolution will be a combination of both but if I can put my police commissioner cap back on and I know this is not a popular opinion and it is something that is difficult for people to understand is that part of the discussion around public safety is really being really understanding what police can and cannot do we can have a hundred officers on the street tomorrow they cannot be next to every unlocked car with the keys in it running which is the way we've had many many vehicles taken unlocked cars losing things unlocked doors this was something when I was a police commissioner I talked about the increasing sometimes people called crimes of opportunity crimes of poverty crimes of circumstance many many other labels the root cause had been drugs for some time so even for the period of time where incidents were still declining from previous years we had certain types of incidents that were soaring the larcenies of course drugs directly related to the overdoses the the card that so we we saw the drugs that drugs were influencing all of this and then this influencing people's quality of life and the dramatic increase in needles etc so we all know what's what's going on but there definitely has to be a public safety element for it I don't think people I have been really trying very hard to fight labels I think we need to stop politicizing this I think politicizing public safety and not addressing the issues that are concerned to Burlington and that is not only our public safety but also equity and other things we've slowed progress we've slowed progress so I don't think people should be afraid to to speak their mind but I do think people need to make a point to listen to the meetings that is something that's really really difficult because a lot of people didn't hear the meeting on the 17th where this is discussed in great detail what the general purpose of the resolution was going to be and I think if people go back and look at that meeting if you don't time watch the whole thing always recommend you do especially there was some really excellent and poignant comments made by the chief of the fire department chief Lachance I think of really important for people to hear I just think that what's the best way to summarize this the more meetings that people actually watch even if you're just watching particular topics that you're most interested in you'll have a more rounded understanding of the discussion sometimes people come in at different parts of these discussion and I was concerned last week where people started making all these assumptions and not really listening to what was being said so we do care about the public safety aspects there definitely would be I feel we need to have some things with addressing what we need to do about dealing I definitely want to see a strategic plan for that because we don't really have that right now in addition to the harm reduction because we have to do both we have to do both we cannot do one or the other we must do both you can arrest someone but if you don't give them treatment then they're going to go back to using and then possibly repeat activities that they did that got them arrested so it has to be both harm reduction and public safety and thank you so much for listening thank you so much councilor grant are there any other counselors who wish to offer comments on general city affairs seeing none we will move on to item number nine which is council president updates I don't have any at this time which will move us to the final item of the evening item number 10 updates from the mayor mayor Weinberger the floor is yours great thank you president Paul three pretty quick updates for me hopefully quick first of all this Thursday at noon there will be celebrating the reopening of the community resource center and it has been closed in recent months for new investment and upgrading and that during this period there CVO is continued and feeding shouldn't have continued to provide services but having actually a physical center for doing this is is much better and this will these services will resume at the site on Wenuski Avenue on on Thursday CVO is increasingly a partner to the city in numerous areas we're thankful to them for also it's by the time that we meet again they will have taken over the operation management of the shelter on Shelvern Road that up until now has been operated by a new place and between their management and the ownership of Champlain Housing Trust so that property we think this really strengthens the way in which that important shelter will will function going forward and we're grateful for their partnership there the shelter is going to be operated there in a different way than it has since its inception there will be less beds there will be less people housed there and they will be it's really moving to a more of a model more like we have at the on Elmwood Avenue with where individuals guests at the shelter will have a space that's dedicated to them for an extended period of time so longer as they are upholding their responsibilities and so I do just want to share the council and I'm sure it will be discussed further at the CDNR committee meeting that was mentioned that the city is working hard to ensure that there not be a gap in services for as winter approaches here we are in conversations with the state trying to understand what kind of shelter program they intend to run for the upcoming season and we are also taking steps to ensure that we have a winter winter warming shelter that it is operating in the city as we have every year since I think 2014 so just want to share with the council the public that that was very much a focus right now and I'm sure they'll be considerable further discussion of this in the weeks and months at thank you so much for that update mayor Weinberger that brings us to the end of our agenda and I would just ask for a motion to adjourn please from someone so moved second okay that was made by councillor Barlow and seconded by councillor Grant all those in favor of the motion to adjourn please say aye aye any opposed please say no that brings us to an adjournment at nine oh one thank you for joining us this evening our next meeting is Tuesday October 10th and we will look forward to seeing you then