 Welcome. I'm Diane Meyerhoff, host for Town Meeting TV's presentation of the Burlington Ballad Items, part of our ongoing Town Meeting 2021 coverage. The show is being aired live on Town Meeting TV, Comcast Channel 1087, and streamed live on our YouTube channel. We welcome your comments and questions. If you're watching this program live, please join the conversation at 862-3966. I'm joined by the Burlington City Attorney Eileen Blackwood. Thank you so much for joining us, Eileen. We appreciate it. And we are going to talk about the four Burlington Ballad Items and tell us what our voters need to know. Sure. Let me start by, I'm going to share my screen with you, and I'll show you where folks can find these online if they want to educate themselves ahead of time. That's fantastic. Please do. It can be a little tricky navigating the website we were talking about, so I appreciate it. Eileen can get us right there. So this is the City of Burlington website, and you'll notice up here, if you can see my cursor, it's Burlington.gov, and then it says slash CT, which stands for Clerk Treasurer, which is the office that handles elections. And then you would get to the City of Burlington Clerk Treasurer's page, and then I have clicked on Under Elections. I have clicked on Sample Ballads, and it's brought us to this page. Great. Okay. Warnings and notices. Yep. Sample Ballads, Warnings and Notices. You will see for each of the different wards, there's a sample ballot. That's because there are different candidates in each ward. So each ward has a different ballot. I'm going to skip you down here to the one that says Official Copy of Charter Changes, because that's going to give us the actual language of the ballot. And I'm actually going to switch over to a PDF because it's a little bit easier to read. Great. And then I will just go through the four, there are four questions, and I'll go through the four questions for you. Fantastic. Please do. So the first one is whether the Charter of Burlington should be amended to adopt Ranked Choice Voting for the Election of City Councilors, beginning with the March 2022 election. What you'll see here is the regular upright print is the existing Charter Language, where we have crossed off and put in brackets that's being deleted. And as we come down farther, it is underlined as what's being added. So subparagraph A here is the current system for election of the mayor, all city councilors and school commissioners. That's the current system. We've taken city councilors out of that, and instead they're going to be in a new section B here that will describe the Ranked Choice Voting. I'm scrolling down and this is so this is all the language that is going into this section. All elections will be by a ballot using a system of Ranked Choice Voting. And this Charter Change gives four guidelines for how the city will set up that Ranked Choice Voting. And the overall ideas that voters will have the option of ranking candidates in order of preference so that if there are four candidates for city council in their ward, they will be able to rank those one, two, three, four. If any candidate receives a majority over 50% of first preferences, that is their rank number one by at least 50% of the voters, then that candidate is automatically elected, and it's just as it would be in any other in the current system. Then if, however, if no candidate receives a majority of first preferences, then there is a retabulation by the election officer. The election officer is a city employee who works in the clerk-treasurer's office, and that is conducted in rounds. The candidate with the fewest votes at the end of the round is eliminated so that if they're in the example I gave you, there were four candidates, the round two would drop off the lowest level candidate of those four and would re-rank the three remaining candidates. If no one got 50% at that point, then there would be another round after that. But if someone got 50%, that person would be elected. Okay, got it. And this is only for city councilors, though, not for mayor. Correct. So that's a change from last time we did this. It is. Okay. Thank you. That was helpful. I didn't realize that. And the last part of this allows the city council to adopt additional regulations to implement these standards. So the idea is this is general charter language that is talking about the system, and there are a number of different tweaks that can be done to the system, to a ranked choice voting system. And the idea of this was not necessarily to try to answer all of those questions, but to allow there to be some regulations later to address some of the things you might want to tweak. Okay. Great. Thank you. That was a very clear description. I appreciate that. Because it always sounds so complicated to me. But that really worked. Thank you. And it's not terribly complicated. You're right. All right. So then this is question number two, is whether or not the charter should increase the size of the board of airport commissioners to seven members, which includes adding a representative from Winooski as well as one from Burlington. So we're looking at two. So right now, I'll just run through it. Right now there are five legal, sorry, right now there are four legal voters from the city of Burlington and one from the city of South Burlington for a total of five. This is going to increase the size of it to seven by adding one more. So there are five Burlington now, one South Burlington and one Winooski. Got it. There are changes to two parts of the charter because this issue is laid out in two different sections. And the second section, there is a sentence ended that says there's one legal voter to be appointed by the governing body of Winooski, which means by the Winooski City Council, the serve for three years. Gotcha. The third question on the ballot is, shall the charter be amended to give the council the power to adopt an ordinance? That's what it means by to provide by ordinance protections for residential tenants from evictions without just cause. So the topic here is just cause evictions. And what, and this one is probably the more complicated of the questions on the on the ballot. We had to have at least one. Exactly. And what people will see on the ballot is a short form question of this. So all of this language isn't going to be laid out on the ballot. They're going to see a short form of it. There are short forms. Sorry, there are short forms of the others as well. So you won't necessarily see all of this printed language. The only one that doesn't have a short form is the last one. So this number three. So this is going to say that the city council can adopt an ordinance. So this is adding, there's a section in the charter called powers of the city council. It's section 48 of the charter. And this will be the 66 sub part of that section. So the city council has a whole lot of powers in the charter and this so that in this case they can adopt an ordinance that will say that residential tenants may not be evicted without just cause. This goes on to say where just cause shall include but is not limited to. So just cause will meet these definitions, attendance material breach of a written rental agreement is just cause, attendance violation of state statutes regulating the tenants obligations in their lease, nonpayment of rent and failure to accept written reasonable good faith, nonrenewal terms. So any of those things would be just cause. The ordinance could make other things just cause as well. That's what the but is not limited to says. So then subsection B says the ordinance will shall exclude from just cause. In other words, this is not just cause the expiration of a rental agreement as the sole grounds for termination of a tendency. So coming to the end of the lease doesn't mean that someone can get evicted in. There are some exemptions already in state law to the landlord tenant provisions but in addition, the ordinance will exempt from this provision about the termination of a tendency, the expiration of a rental agreement, sorry, the expiration of a rental agreement being not being grounds for termination. The ordinance shall exempt from that provision subject to mitigation provisions things like sublets in unit rentals owner occupied duplexes and triplexes properties being withdrawn from the rental market, including properties to be occupied by the owner immediate family member and those in need of substantial renovations. So those are the reasons these those properties, among others, the ordinance can say others will not be required to when the lease comes to an end to have it have the tendency continue. See, and you can see why I'm saying this is a little more complicated, right? Yeah, well, this is this is there's a lot going on here. Now, tell me something. Does it does it address a month to month leases as well or no? How is that how all of this would there is no specific mention of month to month leases. They would they are included in here just like other kinds of leases. Subsection C says the ordinance shall include provisions that mitigate potential negative impacts on tenants, including adequate notice reasonable relocation expenses, provides for a probationary period after initial occupancy and three limits unreasonable rent increases to prevent de facto evictions or non removal renewals, which means to prevent using a rent increase to force somebody out of out of their apartment. Although this shall not be construed to limit rents beyond the purpose of preventing individual evictions. So the key is that that you unreasonable rent increases does not mean you can't that a landlord can't increase the rent means you can't do it for the purpose of trying to make somebody leave. If you're if the costs go up things like that it's leaving it. Okay. And then D says the ordinance shall define what is reasonable and adequate notice when it defines just cause. And in addition it shall require that landlords provide notice of just cause and other legal requirements as part of the rental agreement or lease. So it is providing a number of protections for tenants that requires just cause and sets some notice requirement and allows shouldn't say it sets them it allows the city council to pass an ordinance that sets notice requirements. Okay so there's still another process. There's still a step. Okay if this passes there is still another step of adopting an ordinance this charter change in and of itself doesn't automatically make any of these things happen. Okay and I want to I want to talk about a little bit about what happens with charter changes but let's do that at the end. All right and the last one is shall the charter be amended to permit the city council to regulate thermal energy systems in residential and commercial buildings things like heating systems. And this is again is an added to the powers of the city council that that that the council will have the the power to regulate thermal energy systems including assessing carbon impact or alternative compliance purposes. However they cannot do a carbon impact or or require an alternative compliance payment unless there is another vote of by a majority of the legal voters of the vote of the city at another annual or special meeting to say yes we want to impose those kind of payments otherwise there will just be general regulation of thermal energy systems. Okay and that is the four charter changers that will be before the Burlington voters. All right fantastic now talk to me about voters vote on these whichever ones move forward or are passed by the city voters what happens next? Four so the voters will vote I'm going to stop sharing so we get there you are hello the the when the voters vote if the voters vote in favor of one or more of these charter changes then the charter changes we the city puts together a packet they get delivered to the to the Vermont legislature the Vermont legislature then starts them in its process and they these charter changes generally get their primary hearings before the house government operations committee and then eventually get voted on by first the house and then the senate and if adopted by the the legislature goes to the they go to the governor for for signature and the effective date of them depends on the content of the of this when the governor gets them what the legislature decides makes sense for when it should start. And is there a period of time that the legislature is required to act once these are sent to them is that the right expression? They are sent to them and uh no there is not a time frame and and unlike other kinds of bills in the legislature that expire if they don't get passed within a certain time charter changes don't expire so once the voters vote on them they could could sit around um technically I guess they can sit around for an extended many many years. And do they? Does that happen? Well for example the city a number of years ago 2016 maybe um um voted in favor of some gun charter changes that the legislature has not acted on and that are still sort of sitting there in the legislature. So somebody could decide a legislator could decide to bring it up at some point in the future? That's my understanding. It's very interesting I wonder if other states do that too I mean I'm getting off topic I suppose but I'm just curious it's a curious kind of thing and I I think often voters don't completely understand the process because you feel like when you read them you think okay we're gonna we're gonna do this if I'm for it or against it whatever and I think that that next step and sort of the amount of time it must take even if even if it sails through there's still going to be quite a period of time before it comes back to the city council to actually write the ordinance right? So it it could be passed in within the legislative session it could be patched and passed in March or April or May after it gets to the legislature depending on the complexity of it how controversial it is and how busy the legislature is with other matters. For the most part I think many of our charter changes go into effect July one following the legislative session so they aren't always seen as urgent to pass early in the session but again it depends on the timing of it. Right right one of the thing I would say is just that I think it's important for voters to know that the charter the reason the charter is particularly important in Vermont is Vermont is among a minority of states in which municipalities only have the authority the state gives them and they don't have authority to do things like this just by having our voters the the town the town or city voters vote but it has to go to the state in many other states the municipalities have what's known as home rule and they can they could pass these things all on their own. Interesting and this is just historical just historical yeah because home rule sounds like something Vermonters would like okay so we've got we've got four valid items let's just run through them again number one is number one is rank choice voting okay and number two number two is the size of the board of airport commissioners to add a Wenuski representative and in in addition add a Burlington representative okay and number three number three is is the just cause evictions giving the the authority to to adopt an ordinance about just cause evictions and number four is giving the authority to adopt an order to adopt regulations or other procedures so there doesn't have to be a single ordinance it's generally giving the council the ability to regulate thermal energy systems okay regulation okay good it could be added to say a building permit requirement or something like okay okay so many ways to do that yes sounds like yeah okay good all right um okay so these are all on the city's website so folks can go and read through them and they can also look at their own ward ballot which is part of that as well um so whichever way works for folks and let's talk a little bit about how folks are going to vote this year in Burlington so let me share my screen one more time good and on this same page um where when you get to the clerk treasurer's office you can go down to a in this blue box how to vote and it brings up this notice so all active registered voters so anybody who is registered to vote as of the time that these ballots go out will will be getting mailed an absentee ballot and they the clerk treasurer's office believes they're going to get them all out by next Wednesday February 10th okay if you haven't received your ballot by Friday the 19th you should be sure to contact the clerk treasurer's office and there are multiple ways to return your ballot you can mail it back in notice that the clerk treasurer's office is recommending that you do that by February 22nd a week before the the election to make sure that the ballot gets there in time yeah there are drop boxes that are available 24-7 until 4 30 p.m the day before the election now remember that those drop boxes will close so that the ballots can be collected and brought to the polling places to be counted gotcha and and there are four of those drop boxes one at city hall one at the department of public works down on pine street one at fire station number two on north street and one at the miller center in the new north end um there's an indoor drop box on the ground floor of city hall and folks can go there and there is during um hours 8 a.m to 4 30 there is a security person who can check them in and point them to that folks must wear a mask and and then the polls will be open as usual uh at the same your usual polling places 7 a.m to 7 p.m on election day there are many ways to vote that's that's awesome and it looks like if you have any issues if not sure if you're registered or uh you're not sure which ward you're in etc you can always just call the clerk's off town the treasure clerk treasurer's office as well and get the information directly from them fine so uh yeah so many ways which is great which is what we encourage right um do you want to get out and vote on on march second tell meeting day you can do it in person or you can do it through these other methods as well so this is just a totally off the wall question do you think um that some of these same protocols will stay in place for a while even past covid because of the convenience of it well the we had to get um um specific authorization from the legislature to be able to mail absentee ballots to all active registered voters and that is only a covid related authorization at this point interesting i think that's probably yet to be seen interesting okay i hadn't i hadn't realized that that it only applied for these times shall we say yeah yeah um so far yeah well and we've always you know we've had the early voting for quite a while too which is which is somewhat similar i mean it's not as as convenient as having put it in your mailbox admittedly but i'm sure there's a cost associated with that as well so there is a there it's a pretty large cost too i don't know the number specifically but yeah yeah yeah good all right well um anything else we need to tell the voters before we wrap up i don't think so except to remember to vote and be sure to ask questions there will be lots of public uh fora and the various candidates who are running for office also are available for for questions and comments um as well and um talking about you said that there would also be more presentations on these uh i on these items i know town meeting tv has done um a number of programs on each of the different ones individually in addition to the summary that you and i have done i'm so i but there's also another one that you will always do on town meeting right right before the city always does an informational meeting and unfortunately i don't have the date off the top of my head but you can find it by going uh to board docs which is where the city puts up in uh in the meetings of the city council and uh or check the burlington weekly the weekly calendar that is available on this website that right up here you can see it says calendar you can go click on that and on the weekly calendar you can look and see when that informational session is great okay so many opportunities to get more information about the ballot items as well as obviously candidates um and uh tell everybody that they should be sure to vote on uh on town meeting date if not before exactly all right wonderful eileen thank you so much for joining us we really appreciate it thank you very much diane all right take care bye bye