 Good afternoon. We convene this special meeting in the City Council at 109 Friday afternoon, March 29th. Would you please join me in resigning the Pledge of Allegiance? So one more time for the City Council. I thought we met the last time Monday, but we got one more. So first item on the agenda is the agenda. Councillor Nodell. President Rod I moved to adopt the agenda as presented. Seconded by Councillor Hartnett. Any discussion on the agenda? Hearing none. All those in favor please say aye. Any opposed and that's right we have Councillor Tracy on the phone and is there anyone else on the phone or just Councillor Tracy? Just Councillor Tracy. Okay welcome Councillor Tracy. So we have the agenda and do they say anybody opposed? No. Anyone opposed to the public agenda? Hearing none we have Councillor Shannon. I'm just noticing that the recommended action for adopting the agenda included adding an agenda item and wanted to be sure we. Councillor Mason is online now too. Welcome Councillor Mason. I'm sorry. So I just wanted to make sure that we had a proper motion on the agenda. That's all. City Attorney. If there was an additional communication from Mr. Senville that came in and so that is what that's being that's referencing. Does that need to be amended? Does that need to be amended on to the agenda? Posted on to board docs. As an amendment. Point of information. Hold on. Point of information Councillor Nodell. What time was this document posted? I don't I don't have it. Is there one communication is there a second communication from Mr. Senville? Yes he wrote a short email additionally after he had sent his open meeting. And just remind everybody like any other council meeting everybody use your microphones please. We'll set councillor Nodell. So my intent was include that communication in my motion to adopt the agenda. Okay. So the intent was to include that. Councillor Paul. Thank you. So just for clarification we now have two items that are 3.01. Is that correct? That would be included under 3.01. They're both 3.01. That's everybody. I don't councillors please don't different councillors talk at once. Is that the way we're doing that? Yes there's two attachments. It's the open meeting law violation Senville PDF. And then there's the second one. They're both listed there. But Mr. Senville requested that we add that. Okay. So that's part of councillor Nodell's motion and that's included under 3.01. Okay. Well good on that. Anyone else? Councillor Jang. Yeah the second the email from Mr. Senville. Is it possible for us to have a copy in front of us? Thank you. We will continue to move along while that gets printed out and gets distributed to us. Okay. So if everybody's good we will move on to item number two which is the public forum. And the public forum it will be like all of our public forums. You have three minutes. And I don't know if there's someone able to work the light system. We have the light system. Okay. So three minutes as you might think you know there's a time light keeping system in front of you when the light in the middle goes off your time is winding down when the red light goes off you need to conclude within a sentence or two. So we'll open up the public forum with Wayne Senville. Mr. Senville. Good afternoon. Welcome. Make sure you pull the microphone in. We can't hear you. Donna Walters and Lila Shapiro will be donating their three minutes. And we're still you got to pull out a microphone and wait. Donna Walters and Lila Shapiro will be donating their three minutes or transferring them or giving me a development credit. Okay. So Donna will not be speaking or Lila. So good afternoon. Most of you know that I serve for 11 years as a member of the Burlington Planning Commission including service as its chair and also serve for two years on the development review board. Over the course of the past 31 years living in Burlington I have been involved in numerous city and neighborhood activities and committees. It was also named in 1999 by the Vermont planners Association the Vermont citizen planner of the year. I've worked as a planner and a journalist serving as director past director of regional and local planning assistance in the Vermont Department of Housing and Community Affairs. And after that for 25 years as editor of the Planning Commissioners Journal. Let me now turn to what's before you this afternoon. Vermont's open meeting law provides and I'll quote at an open meeting the public shall be given a reasonable opportunity to express its opinion on matters considered by the public body during the meeting as long as order is maintained. What went wrong at the past Monday at this past Monday's city council meeting is that members of the public were unable to comment in a meaningful way about agenda item 4.06 the resolution for the contract for to authorize reconstruction of City Hall Park. Important information critical to the council's discussion and debate about that agenda item was not made publicly available online or in council chambers until after the meeting started and after the public forum portion of the meeting had concluded. In fact none of this information was shared with the public until after the council had become begun formal debate on the resolution itself. The information in question includes one a table showing line by line a series of major and substantive changes to the park's design materials and furnishings that city staff had apparently prepared over the course of several days before the meeting and an accompanying plan map city council member Tracy during the council's discussion of City Hall Park the City Hall Park resolution noted that this information about City Hall Park construction the City Hall Park construction bid resolution that I just mentioned was only posted on the council's only publicly posted after the council's evening meetings had already been in progress. This was confirmed by information on the city's board docs page that indicates when the documents were published at 644 p.m. At that time many members of the public were already in the council chambers sitting in on the council's immediately proceeding work session was clearly insufficient to provide any opportunity for even a cursory review of these documents before the 7 30 p.m. public forum. The table of proposed changes to the City Hall Park's design was not displayed on the meeting room screen until after the council had actually begun its debate on the City Hall Park resolution. It was only after that point that paper copies of the table and accompanying plan map were also made publicly available by city staff in the meeting room yet apparently this information was available before the meeting as at least some members of City Council had access to it. City Council member Brian Pine for example incorporated the table in question into an amendment to the resolution that he offered and that you adopted. Vermont Supreme Court Justice Dooley writing for the court has noted that and I quote the open meeting law implements the command of chapter one article six of the Vermont Constitution that that officers of government are quote trustees and servants of the people and are at all times in a legal way accountable to them. As is noted in the Vermont Secretary of State's guide to open meetings public comment is often the one opportunity that members of the public have to speak openly about their concerns yet the opportunity to comment is rendered meaningless unless the public also has access to the key information the council is considering at its meeting. This was at the heart of the failure at Monday's council meeting. The end result Monday Monday night was a public meeting where a dozen or so members of the public commented on the City Hall Park plan based on outdated public information. Unaware of the most recent and highly significant changes to the City Hall Park plan that city staff had already prepared and provided to at least several council members as a result and you were here. Most of the comments were not surprisingly irrelevant to what was actually the focus of the city council's discussion that night. So to me the bottom line is that there was no real opportunity for meaningful public comment. It was as if the council were elevating the form of public comment over its substance. Look look I realize that this is not a black and white legal issue that you're facing in my complaint. I have no idea what the city attorney will be telling you and presumably you'll meet in executive session. I would certainly be glad to have the chance to respond to any of the arguments he'll be making to you after you come out of the executive session if you desire. I hope you take action today to acknowledge the open meeting violation and then take steps within the 14 day front timeframe that you'll have to either properly ratify or as I hope to clear void your Monday vote. That concludes my comments and again I'd be glad to remain here and respond to any questions after you come out of the executive session. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Sanville and I want to make clear that not creating any precedent here by allowing one individual to take you know to have others times given to that person going forward in future public forums. This is a special circumstance just in case anybody ever thinks they can speak for 45 minutes by accumulating a dozen people. Shereen Hart is the next person up to speak to be followed by John Bessange. Welcome Ms. Hart. I want to thank counselors Dean Nodell and Hartnett for all of your work. I'm very grateful and counselor Jang who represents me in word seven though you're going to still be with us but thank you all. I'm here on this issue. Let's be clear. There is no open meeting law violation. I am speaking personally. I live and work in Burlington. There is no open meeting law violation. I defy you to read that law and find a violation in what's been alleged. Moreover if you look at the city council's rules there is no violation there. It does not say that you can't supplement what has been filed three or four days in advance. I can't remember what the rule requires. The fact is these materials went before the board of finance directly before. I don't know how they possibly could have gone to you sooner. I find this whole process why we're here today so offensive to the system. You are the counselors who worked on this most closely for the last two years. It is your vote that counts. To me it doesn't matter. This isn't for the new council to vote on. So that's my position. And then it's this very reason that we see our expenses going up. The longer we delay delay delay the more expensive it gets and the more critical services and attributes of this park have to be cut. So in my opinion there is no violation of the open meeting law and there's nothing to do today other than the vote that you don't see that there's a violation. Thank you. Thank you Ms. Hart. John Bosange. Good afternoon Mr. Bosange. Welcome. Good afternoon. I'm John Bosange. I'm the vice chair of the parks recreation Waterfront Commission. And I've been involved with the original envisioning of the park and the subsequent planning for I think about six years. I've watched numerous iterations come and go and changes evolve over the years especially during the past two. I've attended multiple forums and presentations so I know what's occurred and I know where we now stand. Public input on this issue has been continual and open as is often the case it's been exhausting but very appropriate and necessary to sustain a representative democracy. Yet we still have some who have not gotten away and continue to threaten our democratic process of finding compromise and consensus and that's why I'm here this afternoon. It appears that we have Burlington's own version of a national tea party obstruction at all costs obstruction by all means until I get my way. I'm guessing that's the goal of those who have now pushed for another way to stop the City Hall Park project. Like the tea party they seem unable to understand how harmful this is to our democracy here in Burlington. Imagine being a city counselor listening to years of important public comment considering valuable input and suggestions and go through three votes to move forward and now this. I'm not going to comment on the petition I'm far more concerned on the impact on our counselors the mayor the residents of Burlington and those who might one day want to run for an elected office. How discouraging this must be to see this as yet another attempt by those who did not get their way and refuse to accept the results of a thorough process. As a citizen this wonderful city as a registered independent voter this is embarrassing. It does not respect the good hard work of our counselors the mayor the recreation parks department and other city officials who have made adjustments on top of adjustments to this project in order to have it move forward. Democracy works by consensus cooperation and compromise. A tea party mentality destroys that. Continual obstruction wears down a democracy. We can't let that happen anywhere. We don't get away all the time. Responsible citizens understand that and responsible citizens understand that there is a time to move on and that time that time is now. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Basanc. Grace Visak. I'm sure that I have that and Hannah King. Hello my name is Hannah and I live in Ward 8. I was disappointed to hear of the claim filed regarding an alleged open meeting law violation. The City Hall Park renovation project was developed over several years with significant community engagement. Excuse me please pull the microphone in closer so we can hear. While I agree that it is hard to get public engagement perfect I feel that our community needs to be more thoughtful about how our system of government is supposed to function. Those who oppose project seems to seem to be willing to use every last effort to disrupt the process. While I believe that City Hall Park has the potential to be a revitalizing force which would make the heart of our downtown more accessible while also better protecting urban green space I respect those who disagree with me. However myself and many others many of which who find it hard to come to these meetings are growing concern that some in Burlington are willing to undermine the democratic process to simply get what they want. Unfortunately this strategy works our president has taught us that but it has no place in Burlington. To close I wanted to again say that this process was not only open but fair and legitimate. This challenge that you are all dealing with today is an anti-democratic attempt to derail a public initiative and needs to be called out as such. Thank you. Thank you. Hi my name is Grace I live in Ward 8 also and I was also disappointed by this complaint. City Hall Park is an important part of our downtown and of our local urban environment. The much needed regimation this plan includes um includes critical environmental protection measures that are necessary for the well-being of this park that some trees will be removed that others may live is more than reasonable in my view. I also agree that an attempt to undermine this legitimate process by making what seems to be a baseless claim in regard to open meeting law is deeply undemocratic and shows a lack of care for the well-being of our community. I know that I speak for many others who are watching when I ask that we as a community focus our attention on the much more important issues we face and stop wasting time over and over again on these trivial issues. Thank you. Thank you both. Grace Hanna. Alright that concludes our public forum item number two and item number three is the deliberative agenda with 3.01 being the alleged open meeting law violation complaint regarding regular city council meeting March 25th 2019. Um city attorney. Yeah I was going to make a sort of short statement on the on the issue and then I think if there are legal questions due to attorney client privilege and the potential of litigation that we enter executive session if members of the council had sort of further inquiry. Okay do you need to say anything else that's obviously we had a communication. Yes I do sorry I was just sort of is that alright. Yes. Our office unequivocally believes that there is no open meeting law violation. The open meeting law sets forth certain requirements. I apologize can you pull the microphone in a little closer you really need to be on that. Sorry. Thanks. Our office unequivocally believes there's no open meeting law violation. The open meeting law sets forth several requirements largely around notice and putting the public on notice about what's going to be considered by a public body. Uh that includes for regular city council meetings and regular meetings giving 48 hour notice of the agenda. Um so people are aware of what may be deliberated. Uh the city really does go above and beyond by providing the supporting documentation that's not required by the open meeting law to the extent that the city does it. Um I think to say that the public wasn't given an opportunity to express uh its opinion on the reconstruction of city hall park at that meeting. This was I just don't believe that's a valid legal claim. Uh this they had plenty of opportunity according to I think the law in our office is incredibly comfortable with that analysis. Alright thank you so our options at this point now are to one if we have further legal questions of you we should go into executive session. Yes. If we do not want to go into executive session my understanding is we have three choices one to vote that we agree with the complaint and and then we would have two weeks to cure the violation. Two that we um vote against the complaint taking your advice or three that we take no action. Yes. Okay so city council let's open the city council Councillor Busher. So um president right out I'm going to need some guidance some uh visual cues from the city attorney if I touch on something an open session that I shouldn't touch upon but I'd like to make a couple of statements generic statements regarding this meeting today if that's okay. Yes proceed. So um so you know as we were all the recipient of um of this information that you passed around um regarding um Mr. Stenville's comments and his concern about the open meeting law um as a member of the city council I believe that um the attorneys give us good guidance about open meeting law regarding quorums and not to engage in conversations and not put ourselves at risk but there is an awful lot about the open meeting law that I don't think we have um a refresher on so I want to go on records saying that I think that you know some of what is being discussed today is useful and I don't want to minimize this um about as a member of this city council and yes we are a city but we're a small city in Burlington Vermont where we really engage in we want people to engage in a process we encourage that engagement so I don't want to put up walls or suggest that that engagement should be limited or not um an engagement that is as fully informed as it can be I think that would be a mistake leaving this room today with that message going out and that's what I sort of heard today from some comments and that is concerning to me you may not agree with what's going on today but I think that you know people are entitled to raise an issue and see if and if they believe it's credible and and then bring it forward and I don't want to be one that wants to stop that from happening I once again raise an issue if it's credible if they believe it's credible and they research it and as I believe this has has happened today so I just want people to know that um and and my request would be that the council is more engaged and informed regarding open meeting law um rules and regulations and how we can do it better or continue stay the course I have a specific question and that this is where I'm not so sure um there were two parts to um the um the allegation about violation um but one had to do with the um timeliness of material that wasn't available in advance and the uh lack of opportunity for the public then during that item to weigh in in a more fully informed way I can is that something you can speak to in open session maybe after maybe after a short executive sessions I think you're starting to broach a little okay well that's where I'm looking to you to figure out if if I've gone too far because I'm I'm not sure okay all right I will wait then thank you very much president right for allowing me to make these statements thank you councillor was your councillor councillor nodell I would like to move that this council determined that no open meeting law violation has occurred as alleged for the march 25 2019 regular city council meeting and that no cure is necessary motion has been made by councillor nodell seconded by councillor hartner is there discussion about the motion councillor tracy again to talk about this particular issue um as we said in open session at the meeting on Monday night I had significant concerns about the process by which we were discussing the contract for city hall specifically that information was being posted while we were still while we were already in a work session and that the public did not have adequate time to adjust that information and put that information into a you know thoughtful comment on what it was that that we were deliberating and these were significant changes to the plan that had evolved over the course of several days without you know sort out of the view of the public and information that's clearly been shared with councillors prior but had not been shared with members of the public and I think that that to me is is incredibly unfortunate because and I think open the door to yet still more questions about a process that has already been incredibly controversial and divisive and in order to I think help us to move forward we need to make sure that we are trying to give the public as much information and not give openings to have questions around process but I think the way that we do that is by making sure that we follow the best possible practice of giving the public enough opportunity and actually taking our time I think that clearly there was a rush to get this this particular vote in before the new council was sworn in because of a feeling that the new councillors might vote differently and so we rush to get it done and in rushing we really miss key steps of checking in with the public so for me I do think that there is a violation that we should go back and make sure that we have to give the public an opportunity to weigh in fully on the issue with all information presented and then and then move forward so that we don't have continue to have further questions being raised about the validity and actions of this council thank you thank you councillor tracy councillor nodel yes president right thank you um I heard no argument there about the open meeting law itself and and exactly why based on the language of the open meeting law why there was a violation um and I would like to remind members that at the board of finance there was a detailed review of the proposed additional round of five hundred thousand dollars of cuts and several individuals who have been very involved as members of the public which is laudable in this issue were in attendance and did see that walk through in a detailed way and further that at public forum we did hear comments on some of those cuts and so I failed to understand um I failed to understand why we have a violation we all know that at in the workings of the council and in a representative democracy all citizens are important but not everyone's roles are the same and elected officials have different roles in a representative democracy and unless though that is is observed um we are going to have paralysis in government and I for one believe in an activist government that can act on behalf of people because if we have a paralyzed government what we will have is only a private sector that can act actually act in effective ways to realize their goals and I don't think that is in the interests of the people of Burlington mr president thank you councillor nodell councillor shannon then councillor mason and councillor jane thank you president right uh I think that what we're being asked to do is like uh councillor nodell says um become a paralyzed body if the public expects us to be responsive to what their needs are and they come to public they come to public forum they give us suggestions we often well often may be relative term but uh it is not infrequent that we respond to what we hear a public forum and we bring forth amendments one of the things that we heard at both the public forum on monday night and previous public forums was that this plan was too expensive so the process of making it less expensive is by nature going to involve bringing forward amendments we cannot both be responsive to the public and not allow ourselves to make amendments on the floor that have not been publicly warned when I was council president I implored this body to bring forward your amendments prior to our meeting because it's not great process it's not uh it's not because it's a violation of public meeting law it's because we do better when we have our information in advance we also have deadlines and it's not always possible so that was never a strict rule and many people at this table broke that rule but we tried it's a good goal to set to have the information as far in advance as possible both for us and for the public but I would be surprised if even the person bringing this forward has not made amendments the night a decision is being made to be responsive to either the public or a new idea that's brought forward it's it's the way we um we make our our laws and our decisions better and to preclude that opportunity because the time has passed and it was not put up on board docs in advance would not be good governance and I hope that nobody at this table would want to go down that road because every single person at this table has made amendments that haven't been warned thank you thank you councillor Shannon councillor mason pass councillor jane thank you president um and thank you everyone for being here but I think I have a couple of thoughts around this and one of them is specific to the timing definitely that's true that this administration and member of this table especially that side used to not vote on issues because it was presented to them very late there is this culture of holding information until at the last minute that that that's a fact definitely but to this specific issue the only thing that I think and I need help with that is an open meeting is a violation of this is because the public comment is subjected to reasonable rules established by the chairperson usually we give people three minutes but on Monday we gave them only two and I was wondering if that's actually a violation of our law and I will certainly address as council president um that has been around for a long time that is not a new practice I can tell you that councillor shannon employed that when necessary when there were many speakers so that the council can actually can actually conduct business and previous council presidents have employed that too that is a long standing practice and if city attorney would like to add anything to that certainly you can absolutely agree that was all thank you all right thank you councillor jang uh who else was in the queue councillor hartnett thanks um I certainly agree with councillor nodell and don't feel that any opening meeting law has been broken but the other things that have been mentioned here tonight so I just feel like I got a comment on a couple things I am surprised that the amount of pushback we're getting back from warning this council to vote on this right this council should be voting on this this council has done all the work on this this council has the most knowledge of this project right I froze my ass off on a Friday afternoon at one o'clock snowstorm with vj out there learning more about trees I've ever learned before in my life do you think I should vote on this you're dare more I should vote on this should I have a final say I should does it get frustrating it does do I respect the people that have fought this and keep the part green people I do but time after time after time there's been a roadblock and let's not kid ourselves isn't about the money it's never been about the money for this project is expensive it is an enormous price tag for this part I'll be the first to say that but it's needed but that was never the fight on the other side okay and in some we were in some ways they kind of won Monday night right because what we did was we downgraded this project right we took the cornerstone of our city the thing that we should be most proud of here in our city in the center of our city and we're going to have beautiful granite work and we're going to have beautiful bathrooms and members of this council got nervous because they kept hearing about the price tag and they wanted to give this group something so we gave in and we're going to have less of a project because of it and we're going to spend more money in this park down the road because of it using concrete instead of granite no public bathrooms now but maybe later that all means more money later means more money and that's unfortunate it is a lot of money but it's worth it here in this city and if we want to stay the same then we're going to fall behind and if we continue to fall behind people aren't going to want to come here and businesses aren't going to come here and I don't want that I don't want that for my daughter I don't want that for our next generation I don't want that for the college students that come here that want to stay here and this this process has been more open and transparent and more meetings than we have ever had before and anything I've dealt with in my life here in the city of brongton you might not like the project that's fair I got no argument with you there if you don't like it but hopefully today will be the last day we'll move on and we'll get this done thank you thank you councillor hartnett we have councillor jane I have a question and this is just a question to the administration and we know that these changes have been you know many consoles working on it the weekend right but why did you choose to wait until seven during the console meeting to update to share the information with the public why didn't you do it sooner what are the reasoning behind that and I don't know whoever can answer that question Mr. Mayor we did do it sooner and we had an extensive public meeting before the city council meeting where the information was brought and as soon as it was done we were responding to input from councillors right up until shortly before the meeting so we uh people a lot of people work very hard to deliver the information that was delivered as timely as it was I didn't hear what president right I didn't councillor busher what what ultimately you asked him he said it was posted sooner that's what I didn't understand it was shared publicly sooner at the board of finance meeting and public session thank you thank you mr. Mayor uh councillor chancellor jane galsett yeah the question is between board of finance and the council and and the agenda item right why wasn't it posted in between those in in that specific why wasn't it posted then did city attorney want to respond according to the uh board docs and to mr. senbills complain it was posted 644 the final updated documents that night on monday so in terms of just for clarity's sake thank you council roof just really quickly for folks at home who are maybe looking and saying what what is actually going on here right because the question in front of us is not about our feelings or our frustrations or our personal takes on process the question in front of us is whether or not there has been a violation of a law and our legal advisors have unequivocally told us that there has not been so i think that we we should be we should take that we should vote we can air our frustrations maybe in a different form but quite frankly i have to get back to work thank you councillor roof anyone else so councillor busher sorry um so the president right the attorney initially when i made my comment said that he would respond after there might have been an executive session it was a specific question regarding new information and whether or not uh his his read of that was that um that there was no opportunity after public forum for the public to weigh in and i thought you are going to address that potentially and uh since it doesn't appear we're going into executive session president right i wouldn't mind having him just speak to his interpretation of that thank you okay and uh just going off of that but you're asking information that comes up when exactly i guess the timeline i'm just of your question in terms of people are put on notice of what will be discussed uh by you know via an agenda of what will be discussed at the meeting and then they have the public forum in which they weigh in on and if there are supporting materials that informs those comments but i i feel like i'm missing part of your question so it was it so i don't want to belabor this because i appreciate counselor roof saying he really needs to get back to work like other people do um my my point is there were two parts of the open meeting law issue that mr senville pointed out and one had to do specifically with the introduction of information um earlier not by amendment these but earlier um that would but not in time for people to potentially incorporate those in public forum and whether or not the council um would have uh should have offered an opportunity at the specific item for the for the public to respond let me just say that our office continues to believe there's no implication of the open meeting law in it in a potential violation with what you have outlined i think it's thank you thank you yes that council busher i think we are ready for the question if there's nobody else all right all those in favor of the motion which is to deny the claim please say i any opposed that pass that passes with one point where do we have to what what what point of order councillor higher net what is your point of order uh yes in fact we because there is one no vote and the person is not here i believe by rules we have to do a roll call so the clerk's office shall call the roll please good call councillor hartnett once in a while it comes to happen yes yes yes yes yes yes councillor shannon yes tracy president right yes the motion passes every council here but i thought of 10 to one motion passes uh and city attorney just before we go to the next motion uh so the claimant now has the opportunity to take us to court if they desire to do so yes the open meeting law basically instead of going as a first step to court it allows a body to discuss it but now i uh yes the next step if for the all right mr senville yes thank you uh motion to adjourn moved by councillor hartnett second by councillor shannon all those in favour please say aye opposed this city council i think is in fact adjourned for the final time and good luck councillor nodell hartnett and dean we appreciate your service one more time