 Okay. So it's, it's on now. Yeah. Okay. It's, I'm just going to cord, I haven't played it so long, I probably will screw up, so. Okay folks, to beg, beg your attention a little bit here. Normally, we have four speakers in the hall, we just got the hall back today. So nothing is up in place where it's supposed to be. This is why everything's a little jinky today. So if you would, when things are going on, if it's possible to lower your conversations so that you can hear what's going on and we don't get feedbacks. Yeah, that's okay. So the other thing, these are our brand new lights. They're nice but not programmed yet. So they can do all kinds of things. They can, you know, chocolate fountain comes out of it and everything. But not quite yet. So we're gonna leave them, they go on and off. That's what I'm saying. So we're gonna leave them on. You'll also notice, gee, yeah. Yeah. You'll also notice that there are no fans in here because we have these wonderful air conditioning units that currently have no holes in them. So they're not actually doing anything except looking like torpedo shoots. But again, in the next few weeks, they will poke holes in them and activate them for our use. So now, oh, about those. We're wanting to disguise them. There have been several ideas about how to do that. We are looking for artists who can turn them into something nice or make them invisible. So come see me today or any other day about ideas, about turning silver, torpedo shoots into something that held a lot nicer. Anyway, right now, we have today's cranky show. Are you ready? Malcolm's gonna start us off in an old Irish tune called Teetotter's Reel. It's over my arm. It's not over the string. This is a song by the late Utah Phillips. Those are rolling through my end of town. Swings and they knock at ours. They paved. They knocked down the hot shop. Chinese cafe that was open and CS restaurants to serve the elite. Then where do they go? Developers plan into hit them as contracts. They hollers and nobody shouts is upscale fast freight train. You can travel this country and you never will see an iron ball flattened homes of the super wealthy to save the world over. Native people are uprooted in their homes. Before I forget, I want to thank Ben Bernstein for always doing the good sound here. He runs around with his head cut off. A lot of times he has another place he has to run to at the same time. This is Malcolm Sanders. He plays every Wednesday night is Irish night at Lamp Shop next to Radio Bean. Starting at what time? Seven, Malcolm? Seven to nine. Starting to nine. And in back here is a celebrated and well renown cook. If you found a grasshopper in your soup, this is the guy. He's always on mushrooms, but I don't know why they have him working back there. But he's good at cranking this show. I can't pay him nothing, but his parole board says he has to do community service. Oh, I don't count. I'm a saint. That right there is Mr. Tom Azarian, also known as Tom Banjo, the originator of the cranky show. Okay, here's an old children's song that probably comes from England. There's different versions of it. Okay. King Kong, kitty, kitty, kimi, went to Miss Mousey's store. King Kong, kitty, kitty, kimi, oh, she said you've been here before. King Kong, kitty in the bed in the bumbley. King Kong, kitty, kitty, kimi, he took Miss Mousey on his knee. King Kong, kitty, kitty, kimi, oh, pretty little mouse, will you marry me? King Kong, kitty, kitty, kimi, oh, she said without my uncle rat's consent. King Kong, kitty, kitty, kimi, oh, be the president. King Kong, kitty, kitty, kimi, oh, and a bumbley bee. King Kong, kitty, kitty, kimi, oh, uncle rat left to think that his knee should be a bride. King Kong, kitty, kitty, kimi, oh, you buy his knee so wedding down. King Kong, kitty, kitty, kimi, will the wedding supper be? King Kong, kitty, kitty, kimi, oh, way down yonder in a holler tree. Wing Kong, kitty, kitty, kimi, I am a bad and a bumbley. King Kong, kitty, kitty, kimi, first come in was a little flea. King Kong, kitty, kitty, kimi, oh, wedding supper be. Thank you, Patrick. What will the wedding supper be? King Kong, kitty, kitty, kimi, oh, a fried mosquito in a fried mosquito in a black eyed pea. King Kong, kitty, kitty, kimi, first come in was a Mrs. Ma. King Kong, kitty, kitty, kimi, oh, set out the spoons and the tablecloth. King Kong, kitty, kitty, kimi, was a bumbley bee. King Kong, kitty, kitty, kimi, oh, danced a jig with a fly and a flea. Next come in was a Guernsey cow. King Kong, kitty, kitty, kimi, oh, didn't know how to dance, but didn't know the bee. King Kong, kitty, kitty, kimi, next come in was a big black snake. King was a wedding cake. King Kong, kitty, kitty, kimi, next come in was an old gray cat. ate up the mouse and ate up the rat. King Kong, kitty, kitty, kimi, a lion, a bat, and a bumbley bee. King Kong, kitty, kitty, kimi, well, froggy rantily came to his hole. King Kong, kitty, kitty, kimi, oh, a little piece of cornbread is sitting on the shelf. King Kong, kitty, kitty, kimi, more verses gotta make them up yourself. King Kong, kitty, kitty, kimi, been through. King Kong, kitty, kitty, kimi, oh, from all of us to all dreams come true. Kimo, and a bat, and a bumbley bee. Thank you everybody. There's some dessert. We're gonna start in five minutes. I hope you all stay for the meeting. I hope you enjoyed the food. Come in a couple days before we start up again at the beginning of the season. But it all worked. We worked their tails off today, so a big round of applause for our workers. They're really vegetables. We're donated from the Interveil Community Farm and Diggers Mur. A lot of that is so delicious. And then also we get support from City Market for all of our workers and for buying some of that. But beyond that, it still costs a lot, usually about $300 or $400 on top of that to put this meal on. And so if you haven't had a chance to hit our donation bucket down there, if you can contribute, that would be very, very helpful. There's also brownies down there. And if you were looking for gluten free brownies, we found them. So they are out there for any of the gluten free people. But the whole reason that we have this dinner is because of the Neighborhood Planning Association meeting, which is coming up next. So we hope that you will stay. There is a raffle tonight at the dinner for Need. At the end of the meeting, there's a raffle and it's for, it looks like it's Need Bakery tonight. Again, one of our local wonderful restaurants in town. And if you'd like to fill out one of the entries into the raffle, they're just over on the side by the board. And at the end of the meeting, they will pull for a gift certificate from Need. There's a big agenda. And so we're going to start the meeting right now. So we hope you, thank you for coming and we'll see you throughout the evening. Let's thank Janet and her staff again for this wonderful dinner. This is our first meeting of the year. I want to thank Ben Bergstein and the people who came in early, especially to help set up the room. Thank you. My name is Barbara McGrew and we're going to start the meeting now. I'm so glad you're all here. The first thing on the agenda is NPA announcements. And the first thing on that announcement is the financial report and Jim Lockridge is going to do that. So we're a little, we're a few months past July when this announcement was first made, but the good news we have to contemplate is that between the mayor and our city counselors, the NPA system has a budget of $2,500 per ward this year. The all wards was successful in their request for a total of $20,000 for the NPAs. And the city has provided some guidance for how we would spend that money. It's a guidance that is what we would expect. It says that we should have a robust voting process, which is something we'll all look forward to as we decide how, what directions this will go in. They also provided some suggestions and I'll mention these just so that you have an idea of the scope of where our imagination can go here and beyond. Meeting supports, outreach supports, projects, equipment and facilities to help with meetings and recognition of end costs. So we don't have an internal process yet for deciding what to spend our $2,500 on per ward, but we should all feel creative, creatively inclined and reach out to the steering committee with ideas and expect that ultimately things will be put in front of the whole NPA to be decided on. So that's our state, our status. Thanks. I'd like to introduce Amanda Hannaford, who was very instrumental in putting together this meeting and this agenda. She's going to introduce the steering committee members and something else, I think. Okay. Amanda, she's also going to be our timekeeper. Hi. I'm terrible with microphones. Can you hear me? Yes? No? Okay. Thank you, Sean. So I'm going to introduce, I'm going to ask this members of our steering committee to introduce themselves, the ones who are here. And then we're also, we have three new people who want to be on the steering committee. So I'm going to let them quickly introduce themselves and then we can vote on them or you guys can vote on them. So I'm Amanda Hannaford. I'm in Ward 3. Barbara McGrew, Ward 3. The rest of you just stand up and introduce yourselves, will you? Thank you. Tony, come on, come on. Jim Lockwood, you've already met. Tony Reddington. Amanda Hannaford. Who else is here? Kevin, where are you? Hi. Hi. Infinite. Where are you? Hi. Okay. Anyway, they're listed on the back of your agenda. Patrick, say hi. Okay. Good. Okay. All right. Okay. What's next? So we're actually moving up the nominations for new steering committee members because one of them, Alex, is hosting a debate party. So he has to leave. So if the three people who are interested, Alex, Charlie, and Francesca just want to come up quickly, they're going to come up quickly, introduce themselves, and then you guys can vote on whether you want them to join our steering committee. There's a kind of infinite number of positions undefined. Hello, I'm Charlie Gee. Most people, many people here know me. I was actually first on the NPA back in 1989 when people like Michael Sheridan and Eugene Resnick and Pat Standin. So you guys know who I'm talking about. And Digger Fair and Danny Fisher. Save Danny, free Danny Fisher. Does anybody recognize me saying free Danny Fisher when you got arrested for one of the Waterman takeovers? Anyway, so I'm Charlie Gee and I'm interested in being the steering committee and I have a little bit of experience. So I'm glad to rejoin if you're generous enough to vote me in. Thank you. Ms. Francesca, I live in Ward 2. I'm interested in joining the steering committee. I've been to a lot of NPA meetings at this point. And yeah, I would love to join. Thank you. Dear neighbors, Amanda Hannaford mentioned there was an opportunity to help on the Old North End NPA steering committee. So I jumped at the chance and arranged my week to reserve Thursdays for NPA work tonight, notwithstanding. This NPA is the most vital and useful to our city's future. And it would be my privilege to put aside my own perspectives during our NPA and connect you all with your city. Thanks, Alex. Okay, we could vote people individually or as a slate, do people have a preference? Okay, so I would move, I don't know much about Slate, but I would move that we vote on Alex, Charlie and Francesca as a slate. All those in favor of having them join your steering committee, your NPA steering committee, please raise your hand. All those not in favor, please raise your hand. Jean, put your hand down. All those not in favor. It's unanimous, congratulations and thank you guys very much. Oh, yes, yes. Before that, we're going to start the public forum now, but I need a couple of volunteers to take handheld mics around the room. Do I have a couple of volunteers? This, this is a very nice man. Thank you. Stephen is going to do one and I need somebody to do the other one. Whoever. There's another one there. Good. Thank you. What's your name? Okay, thank you. Okay, we're open for a public forum. Any announcements, comments, issues, suggestions, one minute per speaker. Of course. I'm, I'm a little bit afraid that when the mayor gets up to talk, we're going to have hecklers or people denouncing him. Could we please treat the mayor respectfully because I really want to hear what he has to say. Thank you. Did you, the man in black there, do you have something you wanted to say? Yes, yes ma'am. Thank you. Does this again hear me? All right. Okay, I'm Sean Malin. I'm speaking on behalf of Jess Hyman. Those around the room, do you guys recognize this little card? Excellent. Good response. So the O and E challenge, we had 37 businesses just wrapped up on the 9th and we had 37 businesses participate. It was very popular and we, it was a good first round and we'll be looking to continue it possibly in this winter or at another time. So definitely keep an eye out for that. And yeah, keep your money where your heart is in the Old North End. Thank you. Thank you. There's somebody behind you. Hi, my name is Martha Ahmed and I live on Archibald Street and we've been having a lot of trouble. Speak up please. We've been having a lot of trouble with traffic and there are no crossing guards at Ato Wheeler. They let out school at the time that the police are changing shifts. So they're unable to come and help cross the children there. Between Intervelle and Archibald, there are stop, four-way stop signs and nobody stops at them. So they just keep going and then by the time they get up to Thamel and Maple, they put on their gas and they go like crazy. I would like to see that traffic was slowed down and controlled there somehow and I have X's of where they really need stuff. And anyway, that's about it. I've talked to the neighbors and they've given me several suggestions. Let's see. One of them is to put a bump to skinny the road down. The one is rumble strips. The other is a speed bump and a sign that blinks on how fast you're going and hop stops. I don't know what that is, but that's what somebody said to me. We definitely need crossing guards or the police need to be there because we're going to have somebody hit. Thank you for speaking up and I think that your counselor is in the room and it might be good to talk to him afterward. Okay. Oh my god. Okay. Thank you. Repeated exposure to F-35 noise is physically dangerous, especially to infants, children, the elderly and the infirm, resulting in damaging effects on the heart, cholesterol, stress, hormones, hearing and more. This basing at Burlington International Airport is not civil. It is racist. Repeated exposure to the F-35 noise will impair the learning abilities of many children sometimes with lifelong consequences. It is discriminatory towards poor and working class people of all backgrounds. It is harmful. The F-35's noise may undermine or totally eliminate environmental, totally eliminate entire neighborhoods. This is environmental racism happening on our watch. We're here to stop it. Contaminants from F-35 chemical stealth coding runoff can pollute the water and ground soil and cause neurological conditions. The technically flawed F-35 may endanger the safety and lives of civilians and of military members. It is not civil to treat civilians as if we were living on a military base. It is not civil to hurt people. This basing is uncivilized. This basing is environmentally racist, and we have a movement in town to stop it. Thank you. Anybody else for the public forum? Yes. Hi. Thanks. I live on Rose Street, and recently there was a terrible beating in my neighborhood that sent two people from the hospital. There was an article about it. I'm asking at this forum that there be kind of a groundswell to ask for better push notifications from the police service. We used to have Nixle, which would show up in our mailboxes if there was an issue of public safety that we needed to know about. I use it a lot for being able to know what's happening in my neighborhood or if there's activity that I want to maybe avoid a street for. That's largely missing for a long time. I'd just like to encourage people to reach out to the police department and ask for a better push notification system. Thanks. Thank you. Tony. I'm sorry. Okay. Go ahead. I'm Liz Curry, the Ward 3 school commissioner, and I wanted to thank you for bringing up the issue of crossing guards, because this year, the city hires crossing guards on behalf of the district, and they work for the Department of Public Works, and this year we haven't be able to find anyone to fill the position. If people could spread the word, it's a really challenging shift. It's like seven and nine in the morning, and then two to four in the afternoon. I'm not positive of those hours, but if people could spread the word, that'd be great. That's part of the challenge this year, but we had them last year, so if someone got hit, I don't know. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Liz. Tony. This guy's a crossing guard. He can give the right... I may be one of the younger crossing guards, but it's seven, 30 to eight, 20 every morning, and then two, 40 to three, 20 most afternoons, Wednesday's early dismissal. But yeah, it's a ton of fun, get to hang out with kids, or for very brief periods of time. But yeah, I would highly recommend it. Thank you. Now, Tony. Tony Redington, I have a couple of announcements, and I want to also just mention that the person who was talking about the $2,500 that we have for each ward, that's $5,000 total for the combined wards. Jim Lockridge was one of the several people who worked very, very hard, trying to contact various counselors and also working with other NPAs. And to start out to Jim, you finally made it. Two announcements. First, Thursday, September 26, which is two weeks from today, there will be a hearing on the Champlain Parkway being put on for the benefit and to get a reaction from the King Maple Street low-income neighborhood, something that was sort of forgotten in the study of this $47 million project. What's important about this 530 meeting at Contoy's Auditorium in City Hall on September 26 is it's really the first public hearing that's been held on this project since 2006, 14 years ago, in which people will have, which is focused on this particular project. And since part of this project is in our, actually Main Street down to King Street, right down to King Street at the top of that low-income neighborhood, is part of the project here in Ward 3. The second announcement, so encourage people to go. Second is the Vermont Institute of Community and International Involvement, a new group, is going to be holding its first meeting about the Burlington Telecom, of which was sold privately, or somebody, some people might say, was given away by the city, and that will be held upstairs on the third floor on Wednesday, September 18. It's the first of a series of community involvement seminars by some of the folks who have been involved in various advocacy efforts in the city. Those are my two announcements, and I'm certainly pleased to see there's a few people who aren't running away for the Democratic, the Democratic debate quite yet. Don't remind them, Tony. Thank you. And I just have one more announcement that I forgot to make earlier. Speaking of Jim Lockridge, oh, speaking of Jim Lockridge, the Vermont Arts Council just announced the recipients of the 2019 Vermont Arts Award, and Jim Lockridge was one of the honorees. He was honored for arts advocacy. So I don't know how many of you know that, and I'm probably going to miss a lot of things, that Jim has worked with Vermont-made music for more than 20 years, including with Big Heavy World, which is a Vermont's Burlington-based independent volunteer staffed music office. So Jim is amazing in many ways. Thank you, and congratulations, Jim. Hey, Jimmy. So I'd just like to let everyone know that one of our city counselors who's here tonight, Max Tracy, was just locked out of Senator Leahy's office. He was there along with city counselors from South Burlington, and Jack Hansen also on the city council from Burlington, to ask Senator Leahy to cancel the F-35 basing at the airport. The first F-35s are said to be coming next week, and this is really going to be an accident waiting to happen here in Burlington and in neighboring cities. Our mayor is going to be here. He's also on the wrong side on this issue. He's going to be talking about affordable housing, but he's going to omit mention the 3,000 houses in the F-35 noise danger zone. Those are 3,000 houses identified by none other than the Air Force itself who say that children, and it's the Air Force who says that for children it's going to impair reading, attention, problem-solving, and memory. This is a disaster for children, and the neighborhoods involved are teeming with children. You shouldn't be putting military equipment like this. It isn't me saying this, it's the military itself. They require distinction between military forces and civilians. It's a war crime, what they're doing. This is literally a war crime, what they're doing in a civilian neighborhood, and it must be stopped. So we put some questions on your table to ask the mayor. Please be sure to question him about the F-35. Thank you. Amen. Thank you, Jimmy. Any other comments, questions for the public forum? Oh, sure. Thank you. Hello. Can you, can everybody hear me? No. No, okay. Yes, you need to speak up though. All right. It is on, yeah. I'll just have to talk a little louder. You have to speak up. The red one's louder. Okay. Before we go any further with people speaking, do you notice how unevenly, some people are shouters, some people are quiet, some people wave the mics around, some people keep them in front of them, their mouth by an inch. This will do it. In, in us wanting to be a participative democracy, some of you heard me say this before, we have an audience that cannot make it here tonight that are being picked up by CCTV and they can't hear you unless you speak up and you use the mic for your questions and your comments and speak in a way that they can hear. These microphones are designed to be held about an inch, inch and a half directly in front of your face. If you do that, everything will be wonderful. Thank you for coming back to our space. This is the first day we've had it after six weeks. Air conditioning has not yet been turned on yet and the fans have gone away, so we're in the, we're in the interim zone as far as that's concerned. It will only get better. We want to thank Genie Marisi's team and Champlain Housing Trust for renovating this building for the next hundred years for public use. So thank you. Thank you, Ben. Hello. That's good. Good. Glad it worked. Okay. I don't mean to take up anyone's time at all. I really don't want to, but I thought I should, I thought I should write this down and, and say it because I live in your neighborhood and I used to live outside, so maybe some of you have seen me. I don't know, but I wrote this for all of us and it's not very long, so I hope maybe you bear with me and if, if you don't like it, maybe you just keep quiet so that people who would like to hear can hear. Thanks. I'm not sure if you know me. Maybe you've seen me. I wrote this for us. It's not long, but it matters to me. True love is supported, I think, by the wind and water, rain and sun and snow, like a dream come true. If you don't know me or my family, then you wouldn't know my age. I'm 27. When we met two years ago, I was 25. I'd come from trouble and was traveling to escape it and without a home or money. These circumstances are markedly similar to those faced by my grandmother who was without a home and 25 and sleeping sometimes in a barn stable beneath the hay to keep warm. She had with her my father and three other children. She was brave and without money and Indian, Iroquois. She was in New York, Iroquois country. I was in Vermont, Abinaki, I think, pretty close. It's not much longer. I followed the birds here, so to speak, or as they say, and the animals. She followed her instincts. People and animals are of one family. All Indians know this. As do many Africans, South American Indians, Native Hawaiians and people who are generally poor from Russia, China and Essex Junction. It takes only sustained respect to find yourself within the same realization. Here we go. I'm almost done. I hope that's okay. This I want to say basically for people who are coming of age, so maybe like anyone who's like 15, 16, up through like 25, if you'd like to listen to this and maybe some of the older people too, because I think this is really important and it doesn't get talked about just as important as any other issue. I don't want to talk about it directly because I've been personally afflicted. A lot of my family members have been personally put into a lot of pain because of it, so I'm not going to talk about it directly, but all the adults are going to know what I'm talking about. I'd like to just for a moment ask for some where we just think about people that we love who now are far away or out of reach to us in some form. I just take them home and think about them and care about them a little. And then I'd ask for anyone who doesn't already know someone who's who they love, who they maybe just thought about. I'd ask for everyone who's coming of age or anything to reach for your own arms or maybe like a cup of soup or something or someone rather than something. Thanks. That was great. Thanks. Charlie, remember we have a minute per person, okay? Yes, one minute, you mean? Yes, I'm Charlie Messing. I was at the housing summit. Yes, the housing summit. What a view there was to up there at the summit, but I just, I'd like to say like I said then, as I said then, affordable housing is, well, maybe you'd agree, say $500, $600 a month rather than over a thousand. Does anybody agree? Thank you. Affordable housing, five or 600. That's it. Thank you. Thank you, Charlie. I think that's all the time we have the public forum. And the next thing on the agenda is Emily Reynolds for the Burlington Tenants Union. Ten minutes, I hope you'll leave some time for Q&A. Emily, is Emily here? Hi. Hi, my name is Emily Reynolds and I'm a renter about a street over on Peru Street and I'm part of the Burlington Tenants Union. Despite what you see on the city council being majority landowners and landlords, the vast majority of people in Burlington are renters. About 60% of us are renters. And this town is not working for renters right now. As this previous speaker mentioned, the average housing, a single apartment I looked it up, is $1356 for a single bedroom. That is insane. To be able to afford that, considered permanent affordability, which is a third of your income, you'd have to be making $60,000 a year. How many people in Burlington are making $60,000 a year? Very few of us. So we believe at the Burlington Tenants Union that our landlords are organized. The boves, the hannies, the bisonettes, they're in bed of the landlords completely. They know their names, they get along with them. They are very well organized. We have to get organized too. We have to build a union. And it has to be autonomous and run for ourselves. A bunch of us are sitting over there, so we believe that to increase tenant power, we have to improve housing quality, democratize housing, commit to housing being a human right. And not just as the mayor says a housing human right for a few, but for everyone. Every single person in the city needs a place to live. And it has... Every single person needs a place to live. So what would an agenda for renters look like? First off, we want a rent cap. No one should be paying more than a third of their income in rent. It should... Sorry, I'm not a very good speaker. It's me in public. No one should have to pay more than a third of their income in rent. It should be in law that no one will pay more. For most people, that's about $5 to $600. It's significantly lower than market rate. The mayor's plan asks what can the market do? It doesn't ask what we need. It doesn't ask for rent caps. It doesn't ask for the landlord registry that we were promised in his campaign promises to get us up to date on what kind of abuses our landlords are putting at us. There's... There should be no fault evictions. We don't even have no fault evictions. You can be evicted in the city for any reason at all. That's abominable. Like, it's just insane. And landlords are responsible for making repairs within a month. If they don't make it within a month, you have the right to withhold rent. A month is too long in the winter for us to be suffering without heat. It's too long. Like, there should be a time limit for emergency housing concerns to be addressed. I want to open up the floor to some questions, but I want to invite people to join the Burlington's Ten In Unes make housing actually a human right. So make sure that every single person has a safe, dignified house to live in in this city. On your handout, it's BurlingtonTenInUnion.com. There's also a Facebook online. It's Burlington Ten In Unes, I believe. And it's a closed group. So you just answer all the questions. If you're a renter, you can join. And then you get access to all of our conversations. I just want to thank you all for what you're starting. I think it's really important. As someone who has been a renter since I moved to this city six years ago, there are times when I'm paying like 85% of my salary in rent. That's what I'm saying. And it's true now. And I'm lucky enough to be in one of the affordable units, one of the income-adjusted, I forget what the technical name is. But, you know, it's still a big chunk of money. And I'm glad to see that California instituted rent control for the entire state. So I hope to join you all and thank you again for getting things started. My name is Austin. I'm a renter here in Burlington. I just wanted to share a little reflection. I feel like a lot of times, you know, we name the boves, we name the business, and it's like these big, nameless sort of corporate landlords that we can sort of point the finger to. But also, and I'm sure there are landlords in this room right now. I don't want to shame you publicly. And at the same time, there are quote-unquote mom-and-pop landlords that engage in the same types of abusive behavior that are so easily attributed to the big, nameless corporate landlords. I have loved ones in this city who have experienced theft of their security deposits with impunity. Other types of abuses like this, you know, relentless, you know, requests for basic repairs, things relating to air quality and, you know, units for people with asthma and other things of this nature, where it's like very, very basic requests for accommodations included for people with actual protected disabilities that have gone neglected. So these types of abuses I think we shouldn't discriminate in terms of, like, those are happening at a large terrifying scale, and they're also happening at a smaller scale of landlords that have, you know, three or five units within the city. So I think we need to be paying attention to that. Thank you. Hello, I'm Patrick, and I am a landlord. All of us aren't bad, and a lot of the time rent comes from the price of the property and the tax increase that we had just recently to pay for a city service like a new school. I am my partner on property, and we try to keep it as affordable as possible, but there's no way that that property could ever have been below market rate affordability. I know a lot of other landlords and they have the same problem. So before you started declaring rent caps, it would really, really impact those of us who invested not in the stock market, invested in our local economy by purchasing a house and make an effort to be a good landlord, which is not easy. And I have failed, but it's, you got to learn. You got to be willing to accept like, oh, well, it's a new job. I have to figure it out. Not all landlords are bad. And UVM throws a huge monkey wrench into the amount of price someone can get for a house. Along with affordable housing initiatives that may, you know, getting UVM to really participate would be wonderful. Hi, my name is Mayumi, and I rent in this city. I have lived in the city for most of my life. The landlord that I'm now renting from, my mother rented from him when I was a child. Just I find it atrocious that no matter who a landlord is or no matter who somebody is, you know, that things don't get fixed. I have heard from so many people because I work downtown. I talk with a cross section of this city. I talk with doctors. I talk with all kinds of people, and we all say the same thing. We cannot afford to live in this city if somebody who makes $50,000 a year cannot afford to rent an apartment. We have a real problem with affordability. Hi, Emily. So for the question part, in terms of what are some solid steps that the Tennis Union is taking in terms of organizing, can you talk a little about that? Yeah, thank you for asking that. The first major thing we're doing is we're putting on our own summit because we thought the mayor's was not sufficient. So we're putting on our own summit in the coming months. It'll probably be in October at UVM. We're also just giving people their rights. So we're doing a lot of rights trainings. We're talking to people at meetings. I invite you to join our Facebook group. That's where a lot of our actions come. We've been doing monthly actions, targeting the boves, the vicinets, the handies predominantly because they are the large ones. We do agree. I agree with you that the small landlords can be just as predatory. But some of these larger landlords really are affecting everyone in this town. They own this town. So those are the first kinds of steps. We're hoping to do rights trainings and also take on cases of people fighting their landlord. Take on these cases of fighting for rent caps, fighting for larger issues. Hello. I, too, have been a victim. Well, you definitely feel like a victim when you're challenged by your landlord and you're told essentially you're no good. The only thing you're good for is a person from whom the landlord can get more money in terms of rent. So I'm on an at-will tendency. I know it takes several months to get me out of my apartment, but I ain't leaving. Apparently the one I'm paying the landlord is happy about it. But the point is it's not just, and I'm a senior, seniors aren't fixed incomes. They don't get 5% and 10% increases in their pay, each their social security check. I fortunately do have a state pension, so I'm somewhat insulated. But I got for the first time an understanding of what you're dealing with, and I'm really glad the Tennis Union is active. We must do something. I wish I first looked at moving back to Burlington. I was looking at Platsburg, New York, and I looked at the rents there. The rents are $500 a month less than they are in Burlington for one bedroom and two bedroom units. You can go to Craigslist and check it out. The point is, as we're an inflated market, I think it's a collusion of landlords, banks, the credit unions, and the brokers. And unfortunately it was started, as Patrick pointed out, by the pressure on the market from the growth of out-of-state students going to UVM, which happened long ago. Thank you, Tony. Thank you, Emily. Okay, next we have Miro Weinberger, our mayor, to come up and talk about the Burlington Housing Policy Reform and remember our pledge to civility, okay? Getting everyone, it is good to be back with you. I hope everyone enjoyed their summer. Thank you to the incredible crew that puts on the community dinners each month. It is really a community gem that this happens. And you should know, if you don't, that the rest of the MEPAs, I think, have gotten the memo of how great these community dinners are and a number of them are trying to emulate you out there now and are using some of the new funds that was appropriated in this budget and hopefully what's happening here in this community will grow elsewhere. So, you know, I'm glad this was scheduled this way that I get a chance to talk, that we kind of have this continuation of this housing discussion. I do want to talk about the Housing Summit and the work that has been going on since the spring and that is going to continue on in the fall. And some of that work, there are really five specific initiatives that are moving their way, will be presented to the city council, I hope for action in October and sort of change policy. And a couple of them are pretty squarely focused on some of the concerns that you've just been hearing about. One in particular would be a big addition to the, or big strengthening really of how we try to hold property owners accountable for weatherizing their homes. Right now, we have a pretty ineffective way of doing that. We, at the time of sale, there's supposed to be a requirement for upgrades to the insulation and the air sealing, the kind of basic weatherization items, which is a real tenant issue in that right now you have this split incentive issue where 85% of our units, the tenants pay the utilities, the tenants are not in position to do the weatherization improvements that could save 25% or more of the utility costs. And one of these reforms is aimed squarely at hitting that head on and getting much better weatherization of our rental apartments. There's another one that is aimed squarely at substantially increasing the housing trust fund. So those couple I think are on point with some of the discussion we've just been hearing. I will, I want to say really clearly when this list that to push for was devised in the spring, it was a list that largely came out of this work that we did with the city council. The city council unanimously approved it. I think it was back in 2015 that had 23 housing action points. And these are five, pretty much the last five, I'm not, that's not 100% right, but most of those 23 had basically been completed or have been partially implemented. These five have been hanging out there, not moving forward and we want to advance them and get that kind of work that we've identified since 2015 done. I would say that list was not focused on directly on the concerns other than those two that I mentioned that we've just been talking about here. We have focused on housing affordability. That is the whole point, but it's sort of coming from a different direction of housing affordability. And well, give me a chance to get my point out here. Okay. And I will say we have heard the voices of the tenants union at the first housing summit and at the second summit. And I have directed the community economic development office to take all of the ideas that were just mentioned and more look out across the country at the, the renters tenants movements that have been kind of resurgent and energizing in recent months and years in New York and California and the Pacific Northwest and to advise me and the city council as to whether there are things that are not already in our ordinances and in our protections that we should consider. We have very strong tenant protection laws as a community. This comes out of this long tradition here in Burlington going back at least when Bernie Sanders was mayor of being very focused on tenant rights and tenant protections. And that has been a major part of what Burlington has had for a long time. And it was the strength of that I think caused us to focus elsewhere in the 20 in the housing action plan and in this agenda that we announced in the spring. We are now again the CETO by the end of October will produce a report for me and the city council that will review each of these ideas and ask the question are there ways to strengthen our our our tenant protection laws and practices and I do expect there's going to be three four things that are going to come out of that that we are going to move on. I I will say really so full stop on that I hope I hope you hear me on that I hope people see that that is an additional piece of work that's been added to the housing summit for near term discussion and movement and and I'm eager to keep working you know talking with you about those and I would welcome partnership with people who have been speaking up tonight on feedback on those you know that that memo and those ideas when we come out and seeing what we can do there. I will tell you and I'll be really clear about this I was you know see infinite here tonight we debated this a little bit in the last mayoral campaign I think I've made my position clear on this and I and I and I I will tell you I will not be supporting rent control when it as a strategy for the simple reason that I I do not believe it works I believe pretty much every place that has attempted rent control has implemented has then made there have been efforts to to pull it back later and here and here's why and it kind of goes to you know Tony's chuckling over here Tony makes the point about how much in expense much more affordable rent is in Platsburg and surely it is more affordable it's it is it is more affordable not because of some mysterious collusion it is more affordable because the way our economy works today and will work until there is sort of fundamental change in the way the American economy works relies on supply and demand and people you know I know they I hear when I talk about this I hear people shout trickle down and whatnot this is not some exotic trickle down theory this is basic supply and demand and in Platsburg there's a lot of housing because it used to be a productive area where a lot and and and they lost their thriving economy they lost their military base they lost the drivers of the economy there people don't want to live there anymore there is a lot of supply and there's not much demand and the housing is inexpensive as a result Burlington fortunately in some sense is in a different situation where we are very desirable place to live we are great city we have our thriving city people want to live here and if we want to keep this place affordable I'd say make it affordable because I completely agree and have been saying for years that Burlington today is not affordable for the average person the average person is spending at least 44 percent of their income in in rent which is a terrible ratio it is not it is one of the most expensive ratios of any community in the country I believe the answer if we're going to fundamentally address this and and and this also goes to the housing conditions and putting pressure on property owners to do a better job taking care of their apartment and to be more responsive to tenants one thing you can do is have a tough code enforcement and we do that and we and we're doing that better today than we ever have I firmly believe but if you the the ultimate answer to addressing this in our our economy and this is a conclusion that progressive small people aggressive liberal communities are concluding across the country the way to it if you really are serious about making housing a human right you have to build a lot more housing it is just a basic supply and demand issue and we have to build as a lot more housing a permanently affordable housing we need to build as much as we possibly can and that is essentially rent controlled controlled housing because the government is making an investment in that but when the government has attempted to say to people like Patrick you can't raise your rents it doesn't work it keeps people like Patrick and enlarge your developers from making investments and building more homes and it is ultimately self-defeating and makes the places more inexpensive that's you know that's firmly what I believe and that's why why three of our proposals are aimed at increasing that supply and I you know I guess I I'm giving this an impassioned attempt to you know make it clear where I stand on this in that I look across the country and I see tenants groups and and people who have reached my conclusion after many years of working in housing and I you know I was an affordable housing developer for 15 years I came to the conclusion we're just not going to solve this problem if all we care about if all we focus on is affordable housing we need to address this supply issue as well if we're if you look across the country where in many places you know very progressive liberal advocates are coming to this conclusion as well and and and and weighing in we don't have to be adversaries on this I guess fundamentally what I'm trying to say I guess if you guys think that the only answer is rent control we're not going to agree on that but I would at least like to have a conversation with you and explore I believe we're trying to solve the same issue it's the issue that I've dedicated my whole professional career to it's the issue that I've been most focused on except maybe the opioid epidemic is mayor and I think we could team up here and actually make real change and I would welcome the opportunity to do that with you thank you mr. mayor will you take a few questions of course we're my microphone people hi I've attended the summits and I've enjoyed them I'm gonna say that I went to all of them and and I enjoyed being able to give my input and one of the pieces that I want to ask that didn't make it into the five elements and I think is very important and it was alluded to earlier it was in the 2015 proposal and it was even listed in the thing last week or was it was it last week already two weeks ago and that's the burlington that's the uvm and student housing and so it was part of the 2015 and it was taken off for this 2019 as a as one of these targeted issues and from what I've read there was 3000 students then now there's maybe two and a half thousand students because of housing that was built at that last meeting I asked that there could be more public information about the process that's been going on and I'd like if you could talk a little bit about what's happening to alleviate because I honestly think that some of the constructed pressure in burlington could be eliminated or alleviated with two and a half thousand people taken off of the apartments in burlington great thank you um absolutely there's no there's no doubt that one of the major drivers of the pressure in our market is the large number of students who are living off campus in burlington um and yes addressing that was part of the original housing action plan we set a explicit goal on that in the housing action plan we we did some analytical work with the with with both of the university and the college and identified one of the reasons the number was revised at one point is we had initially estimated there to be 3000 students some additional work and pushing out by advocates actually we refined that number upwards a little bit that there were 3400 students approximately living in burlington off campus we set the goal um which is uh you know somewhat arbitrary but we said that how would the world be different if half of them if new beds were were built for half of those and um half of those students and and we have actually made some progress towards that goal about six since that 1700 bed goal was set um more than 600 I believe new um beds were were created in the 194 st paul street project in a in the the new um uvm project on campus that you know it's a 700 the the build the project that replaced the people used to call the shoe boxes I was a net 300 new beds um and but I got it you know it has stalled out a little bit we we have not we it's been a while since we we nailed those two um steps forward um it has um it is a high priority of ours to come to a new housing agreement with uvm that um would put us on a trajectory for them to build substantial additional student beds that uh as as as much as that is a high priority we had a whole bunch of financial issues that we have spent years sorting through with them you may have seen in the newspaper some of there was a billing issue with the water there was uh we got them we negotiated it hard for them to pay for part of this big infrastructure plan that we're implementing right now so we have spent some years focused on financial issues with them the good news is those financial issues are done we it is now the issue between the city and the university is um is to have a new housing agreement and um I had very much hoped that that would be the sixth bullet on the housing summit we wanted to do like a shred uh where we could you know workshop some opportunities for new new units to be built uvm wasn't quite ready to do it um it is uh it is something that we're very focused on now and and so and then reason important point this is not the full universe of housing work that is going on those conversations with uvm are also going on the cito memo they just talked about is going on um so totally agree that's the update on it hi hi my name is matt I also live on rose street uh I have a couple questions for you today mr mayor and I think they speak to some of the uh conflict you're feeling between those of us advocating for housing as a human right now you touched on a lot of uh researching communities progressive liberal communities across the country but it seems to me that the city's approach is funded in a particular kind of liberalism neoliberalism market rate solutions regulatory tweaks and developers I'll frame it in three questions and I think most of us who attend these are familiar with some of these details but your administration seems to have a pattern of kind of circumventing some of the procedures and processes that we have in place to protect the public good and some of these development projects from the st paul street pit to the city place pit to uh the f-35s uh to city hall park you know why do you guys feel the need to play fast and loose with some of these permits you know there was just a story today this week about the st paul redevelopment uh to continue you know why does the city bend over backwards to accommodate developers we change zoning laws for these developers we have deals with notorious slum lords with no plans in place to hold them accountable and then when we actually address affordable housing we have market solutions regulatory tweaks and tax incentives like where's the creative thinking do we have anything not based on a market solution to address housing in this city yes is the answer I have one more question uh it seems like the and this piggybacks uh the city keeps advancing these privatization schemes uh that enrich wealthy businesses owners and landlords while ignoring how expensive burlington is you know from the attempt to privatize the church street marketplace to the city place redevelopment all of these things I just I'm not seeing a diversity of tactics that we're hearing I'm not seeing it thank you so um little challenging to respond to that and that uh you know what I kind of would like to do is sort of debate line by line with you on that and I think there's a lot of real unfair characterizations of our record uh there um uh but I'm not sure that we have time for that or that would be productive let me just answer the question I heard in there which is there is there anything going on that's not about uh the market side of things and I uh I I unambiguously forcefully yes I mean that we have in the time that I've been mayor built built or preserved more than 500 permanently affordable homes more than 500 and we have done that because I was the mayor that said it's not good enough for us to leave the housing trust fund at the level that had been funded for decades and doubled basically the size of the housing trust fund and in the mayor who was bringing forward a proposal to say let's make sure that it permanently rises with inflation going forward instead of what we've had for since it was creation that it gets eroded a little bit every year by inflation um uh you know again I spent 15 years of my life working for Habitat for Humanity working for community based nonprofits in southwest yonkers the toughest part of yonkers working uh in here in Vermont New Hampshire um to build permanently affordable homes for formerly homeless families what's that to formerly homeless families you don't get more affordable than that you don't you don't I built some of the most deeply affordable housing you can build that was what I spent my career doing and as mayor we have continued those policies that Burlington has a proud legacy on and we've we've had as good as record you know I you know I'd be curious you know Brian Pine has seen people work through all this I we have we have we have continued those very proud Burlington legacies building as much permanently affordable as housing as possible there is a limit on how much subsidy is available and that and and but have we done create creative things yeah when the north avenue renters co co co op which was formerly a fairington mobile home park was in danger of being converted was was on the marketplace to be sold and to be all that sort of naturally affordable housing was at risk of being lost I was the guy that sat down with the leadership of the co op and worked out the details of how the city could help those owners of the trailers to take control of their future and find a way to organize as a co op and and ensure that they would they would control their future and that succeeded and that if you've been out to the the north avenue co op recently you've seen that there's been a huge improvement in the quality of the housing and the and the infrastructure there and we're still working month after month on it so is there stuff going on it absolutely and I would encourage you all to see through the miss to me the misperception and the rhetoric and frankly the lies that are told about me personally by the administration and see that I am someone who cares deeply about housing and could be an ally to you if you guys are serious about wanting to get changed on and to improve the quality of tenants here so yeah so I just well and I just well I wanted to follow up because you had mentioned one of the things on your housing on your housing proposals is the increase of funding for the housing trust fund yes and I think I I think one of the things that would be interesting is for more specifics on this and I think that was what our hope was and so it looks like my understanding is that it's currently a half a person I have a penny and the proposals to go to a penny and is there any proposal to because you you had mentioned about inflation eroding it is it will it be inflation tied to inflation so Amanda please speak calmly mayor Weinberger because you got a little bit agitated up there and and none of us yelled at you and we really prefer if you would not yell at us and there's a few people who have questions this person here has a question has been waiting to speak as well hi hi hi so just in terms of you're saying affordable housing and Cambrian rise is there's going to be 1500 new units is that no currently currently they're allowed to have a total up to about 770 and there may be a lifting of that cap so maybe maybe it's used with the 1500 because right now a one bedroom apartment is going for 1500 to 1650 I wasn't actually being an asshole about that but but that's that's the cost of a one bedroom so you're seeing that the you're building new housing to to keep the the market at the market lower so you people are living in an old orphanage and they're paying 1650 for one better apartment to live in an old orphanage and they're building new houses and you're going to say that the the Champlain Housing Trust has is building separate units correct that are going to be separate from people with money and like and senior housing is going to be separate I mean it's all one community also all mixed in there they're they're different buildings but hold on but I just want to make clear that they are different so people in lower incomes are going to be in one building people with higher totally true but in general I'm just saying seniors are going to be in one building poor people are going to poor people are going to be in one building seniors are going to be in one building people with money are going to be in one building but it's all one community but that that's I'm just I'm just stating a fact but that Is that correct? I think it's a little more complicated than that, but that's basically right. Yeah, so, but just in terms of housing, like what is being done to make it more affordable? So there's 700, there's 770 apartments. What is being done to make sure that more of those are affordable, not just 25% or 30% of the units. Okay, so with respect to Amanda's question, yeah, I think there's a lot of support for increasing, permanently increasing the funding and the Housing Trust Fund through an increase in what is currently basically approximately a half of a penny. The proposal is to go to at least a penny, so at least a doubling, and there's definitely a serious discussion about going beyond that. What is intention with that of course is, this is, we are without a doubt, a property tax burden community as well. People spend, have very high property tax bills relative to many other communities and there's a lot of discomfort about going too far with that. So we have also been trying to be, there are actually other monies that are new revenues into the Housing Trust Fund that are likely as well, but the proposal that will be on the ballot will be either to raise it to a penny, maybe a penny and a half, perhaps more than that and to do it in a way that in the future, it would rise with inflation instead of being eroded by inflation. So there's lots of details on that issue here in this handout, which Olivia from my office in the back has lots of hard copies. If people are interested in getting a hard copy, there's lots of details on the other four proposals as well. All this information is also available on the website. I, you know, if I, I hope people didn't feel like I was yelling at them. I am passionate about these issues and that, if that came out, it certainly wasn't intended to be yelling at people. So let me say that if it did. And then in terms of, okay. Well, I'm not sure I got a chance. Didn't you want me to address this? Okay. So, so, so you the, what you are, what your questions are totally fair question. And I would say the way in which the affordable housing industry and the kind of housing industry and financing around housing has evolved. It is much simpler to get buildings, permanently affordable housings built if they are 100% or near 100% affordable. I say this having built in my career mixed income ones, you have to take it extra steps. It is harder. It is not the, not the way affordable, like nonprofit developers prefer to do it in some ways. And it's certainly not the way the market prefers to do it. And so it is actually somewhat unusual to have a community like you have a Cambrian rise where you have different types of properties mixed in like that, mixing it within the building. I agree as a noble and his goal, I would prefer in some ways, but it is not, it is, it is, it is, there are a lot of challenges and obstacles to that. So it is rare for that to happen. Yeah. The amenity, the common amenities will be open to everyone. Absolutely. Sorry. If that was. And we can also bring Eric Farrell back to talk about that. I think, perhaps. Yes. Hi, thanks. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, for the five areas that you are working on. I appreciate that. And I think that, you know, I do think that we need more housing supply, but I think we can do several things at the same time. Housing is made up of two elements, your home and the land that it sits on. And so the land in the city is fixed. And that is what's driving the cost. We have higher of land values here than in Platsburg because of all kinds of community investments that are made, not necessarily by a landlord, but all kinds of community investments, public investments, private investments that drive up the cost of land. When you look at the, therefore, when you look at the question of rent control, I think it can be the answer if you ask the right question. And the question is, how do you keep people in their homes from being pushed out? And it's by controlling the cost of the land, which can be, which is value that's created by the entire community. So I would hope that when you're considering all of these different policies in the next month or two, that rent control remains on the table for discussion. Thanks. Next we have our state representatives to talk about state housing priorities, a Q and A for about 10 minutes, or less if possible, so that we can get out of here on time. Hi. So 10 minutes, MPA, time means we've got two hours. So as my colleagues gather, I'm gonna take a deep breath that was super stressful. If you wanna join me in it, please. Okay. So I'm representative Brian Cina. I'm representative Geno Sullivan from 6.2, which is a portion of the Old North End and a portion of the New North End. Also, I'm all apologizing because both Kurt McCormick and Jill Kowinski, Jill is at another event downstate and Kurt is out of town. So their apologies that they couldn't be here today. I'm vice chair of house commerce and we in house commerce are discussing housing and the need for housing and the need for affordable housing because that's a major driver in the demographics of the state. I'm Selena Colburn, I'm Brian's district mate for the Chittenden 6.4 district. And I don't know how do we wanna. Shall I ask if there are any questions about state housing policy because it's sort of featured as a Q&A unless there are things you want to introduce and see. Excuse me. I brought some handouts if that's helpful but I only brought like 20 because usually we're at the end of the agenda and there's like 15 people here. Yeah, we could do a Q&A. I actually was gonna say a one minute update on something first but if people would rather just ask. So I'm on the healthcare committee in the house healthcare committee we talk about how housing is healthcare. And we've been advocating the house healthcare committee advocated to increase funding for healthcare services and mental health services connected with housing things like pathways provides housing services to people and increasing funding for housing vouchers. Unfortunately in the state budget things were level funded. We did not get an increase but at least we didn't get a decrease and just something we hear about in house healthcare is that the quality of housing affects health outcomes and if we invest in good quality housing for people we're gonna save money in healthcare. And one more thing is financial stress that when people are living under chronic financial stress that affects health outcomes. So when we have housing that's unaffordable it's costing us money in healthcare. So I just wanted to make those points that your house healthcare committee is working on housing from the healthcare angle. And I was gonna just talk about one of the bills that we passed in the last session which is H32. The primary intent of this bill is that it has protections against housing discrimination for survivors of domestic violence. So it actually adds domestic violence survivors as a protected class in our fair housing law and then requires quite a bit of landlords for additional security measures that people might need. But the other thing about this bill is that it became a vehicle for some small incremental progress that I think might be of interest to those of you who are here really advocating for renters rights. So there's a couple of years ago the state created renters advisory board. They really came forward with a recommendation that the state should create a much stronger network statewide system around enforcing standards for rental properties. And unfortunately that came with like a price tag so it has not moved forward in the way initially recommended or envisioned but there's some continuing work on that and I can share some more details if people are interested. I also have a few copies of a really in depth handout that's a summary of the legislative sessions, housing policies from our friends at the Vermont Affordable Housing Coalition. There's maybe like 18 copies up here so I'll let people grab it. It's also on their website. Thanks for talking about housing as healthcare. It's really great to hear our state reps saying that and along those lines housing is fundamental but what really makes housing healthy is weatherization so that it's dry and well ventilated and air sealed and thermally regulated. And to that end there are states that are starting to like our neighbor New York use Medicaid dollars for weatherization because they're converting to value-based payments and using the social determinants of health and so I'm wondering if, I wanted to just say that so that it would be, I don't think the, I know the Vermont Affordable Housing Coalition does amazing work and I think that because people who are homeless need housing, there's a more fundamental level of advocacy. I just wanted to say because I don't know if you'll hear that from any advocates in the legislature but that it's a really important issue to look into and the Medicaid program is an opportunity to start funding the social determinants of health. So I don't know if you wanna talk a little bit about what we did with weatherization but what Liz was just saying that Vermont is also moving towards a system of compensation for health care that's based on paying for population health and looking at how do we invest health care dollars into improving health for people and not just treating people when they get sick so I appreciate you bringing that up because as a member of the House Health Care Committee I will take that into our discussions when we look forward and as a member of the climate caucus and we're working a lot on weatherization and one of the things we're talking about is how do we take the principles of the climate caucus into our committees and I think this is a perfect example of how I could do that so I appreciate you bringing that idea up. And we did, again, if you want more information lots in this handout but we did add some additional funding for weatherization this year and also set ourselves forward on a path for continued expansion of our low and now hopefully moderate and calm weatherization program. I also, I wanna add one shout out to Senator Sorotkin because he fought very hard to have another housing bond this year. We, the state of Vermont has had two bond downgrades which is huge. We used to have a natural AAA rating in this state. It means if everything is now but gonna be more expensive. The downgrades were because of our demographics that people who are sitting in this audience can't afford to live here and are leaving or not moving into the state. Everyone understands one of the key components is housing and I know that Senator Sorotkin in the Senate Economic Development Committee is gonna be spearheading that again and that push and I think that there is a stronger sentiment in the, I know in the House side I'm on the House Commerce Committee and I know our Commerce Committee is very supportive of another housing bond. So that's gonna be a big lift but I think that we have some opportunity there to really put some more money into it like we did to the last one for 30, 35,000, 35 million. So I just, I had printed out Senator Sorotkin's front porch forum post and I was just gonna ask how how this would work and how fast it would be pushed through and I don't know if you can answer that quickly or not and how that might, and also how it might affect the residents of Burlington. What does this front porch forum post say? You're gonna just have to refresh this. Oh, about the bond. Okay. Do you wanna handle that? It's that what I, we know that, look, we're paying Boston rents with Burlington salaries here. We all know that. Housing is a crisis throughout the entire state. We can't recruit people because of housing to move in here and we're having a hard time keeping people because of housing. I think that because of the second bond downgrade and the push that people are realizing we are going to have to take that leap of faith and I think there is support to get that money and when that money, so let's say hypothetically we get the bond. Then the next dynamic is how does it get spent and where does it get spent? And that is a whole other discussion. So I can say that I think what I'm looking at from my committee standpoint and I know that the Senate is feeling the same way that we really, we need to get this done and we need to put more money to it. The other thing to be quite honest is we're looking at Act 250 and one of the biggest problems with Act 250 is permitting, not the criteria. And one of the problems, one of the things I'm really hoping that this session will finish with is they really streamline the ability for a developer to develop in this state because literally it costs them millions of dollars through and they're filing multiple permits in county permits, state permits, local permits. There has got to be a way of streamlining this and that's got to be, they have to deal with it in the whole, as they're looking at Act 250 and the other criteria, what they have to look at is how do they just physically get those permits faster and cleaner? That will make a big difference for developers. I think this is on now, okay. I am a big nerd and love transportation and the issue of housing and transportation is often ignored. In fact, it's not part of the housing summit at all. And I'm wondering on the state level what is happening in terms of housing and transportation and how do we get more people more easily through their neighborhoods and communities because I think that's a way to make housing more affordable through better public transportation. I'm gonna jump in really fast because honestly that is a brilliant question and you're absolutely right. And towns are, it really is, it's three. It's housing, it's transportation, it's childcare. That being said, I won't try to answer that but please ask that next month. Curt McCormick is now chair of house transportation. That's transformative. They are doing brilliant, brilliant work in that committee and I really want him to be able to tell you in full what they're looking at, what their goals are. We had a chair in that committee who did literally nothing but try to build more roads and pay for more roads and Curt is about transportation, public transportation, alternative forms of transportation and I think there's some really good news there but he needs to answer that for you. Thank you. We'll finish this off with Gene's comment on the question. Okay. State law prohibits the city of Burlington right now from enacting rent control. It has tremendous defects in our ability to hold landlords accountable. Montpelier passed a charter change that would have had it be allowed to adopt energy efficiency standards for all their housing including their rental housing and the, I think it was a house government affairs. Operations deleted that and there was strong opposition to tenant protections there. This is in a democratic, the democratic controlled house of representatives. So I wanna know if the Burlington delegation will stand up for the Burlington tenants' needs and fight for those reforms within the statutes and we'll also commit to explaining to us the impediments and how we can overcome them, the organizing, who in the legislature, what other towns are we gonna need to be putting pressure on? Just like rights and democracy does around the raise the wage which the Democrats failed miserably in my estimation. So I wanna know whether you can't commit to the Burlington delegation but to whether you will take back to a Burlington delegation a strong commitment to fight for the needs and the rights of tenants and low income people around housing and then keep us informed and involved in that state struggle because the state is an impediment and I hear Jean say yes and I thank you. We've gotta get it out of GOV-OPS, we've gotta, oops sorry, we've gotta get it out of GOV-OPS, put it in general housing and military affairs with Tom Stephen who's the chair, get it to that committee first but we can, that's a very good organization, we should do it, we should work on it and it's a law, it'll be a push but everything is, if it's worth it, it's worth fighting for. Thank you Jean for making that commitment and I know that we will love to see the results in the future, particularly during the session. Yes I also say yes and my favorite part of being a state representative is actually meeting with people and not legislators, no offense. And so I'd be happy to meet with people especially if you wanna get together between now and January because January our lives get really difficult but this is the time and if the tenants union and others wanna meet I'm happy to sit down and get in and talk with whoever else wants to join about strategy and about the obstacles we're facing and what we need to do around the state to improve tenants' rights and also just work towards the system of universal housing. I also say yes, of course yes but we could think about between now and December, early December when our drafting requests are due, if it makes sense to introduce a bill like the one just passed in California that caps the amount of rent inflation that can happen and add some other measures so that we're not relying on town to town to town, charter to charter to charter changes so people wanna work on that, I'm up for it. I just wanna say one more thing about meeting with people and working with people that when I went to the mayor's first housing summit and he had the city council president or a city councilor from Minneapolis talk about what they did and she said that the first thing they did is they had meetings all across their city in every neighborhood between renters and developers, between landlords and tenants, between, they had houseless people and advocates, they had homeowners, they had everyone meeting together to come up with their ideas and it seems like in Burlington, our housing summit we went in and we were told that and then we were like and then these are the five things we're gonna do what do you think about it? All right, we're doing them anyway and so I really appreciate that the tenants union is having your own summit and I would like to attend if I can and maybe the tenants union could, if you're interested in being a galvanizing force, we work together to have more housing summits all over the city and do what they did in Minneapolis, do it for ourselves. Thank you all of you. Okay, very quickly is Sandrine here? Yes. Okay, five minutes please. Oh, pleasant. You'll be my favorite presenter. Oh yeah. Hello, thank you for having me. Hey, it's Steven. My name is Sandrine Kiwi, I am the Cheetah Nen Community Act, I'm sorry. I am the Director of Urban Tenants and Mobile Home Programs at the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity and I am bummed I should have gone before the Burlington Tenants Union because unfortunately I don't know if there is any of you here but I can tell you that when it comes to tenants, right and responsibilities, Vaman Tenants has an educational program that is free, accessible to anyone to actually learn this information based on the law, Vaman's law. The other thing that I want to tell you is there is nothing that can be done because all that was talked about over here is based on the law. You want to change something, start by doing that. Security deposits, all that has to do with anything under the sun actually that you talked about when it comes to structural damages, all of that is actually in the law. And anything that you need to know about complaints and issues that tenants have here in Burlington, we have served in our hotline because I was supposed to start with that. We have two services under Vaman Tenants. I was supposed to talk about our housing coordinate services which includes Vaman Tenants mobile home programs and for housing, but I think that the most important thing to do today would be to tonight, we need to talk about our Vaman Tenants services. So we have two services, we have the hotline. We served last year 946 Burlingtonians. 37% of these calls which are based on complaints and issues that actually our community members are having is about habitability. 37% of 100, 37% of our 946 residents and 451 families in Burlington. We do have the data and I have to tell you that the Burlington Court Enforcement Department fund portion of this program. I don't know if you are aware of that. They're trying to do things. The thing is that one thing that is missing is we do advice, we do refer services, referring services to the court enforcement. We do that. Health officers that goes to your home and then do those reports that you have to tell you wait for 30 days until the landlord comes in and has to do anything. We have a very good relationship with them. The only thing that is missing I was about to say is that we do not know what happens after we do door fall. And there is nothing that can be changed under the sun if you do not have data. In order to change the laws, you need to have data. You need to have backup. The thing is that it's not nowhere. It's not an existent. It is existent. We do have the data. We do provide reports to the city every single year because they are one of our funders. We do have the data when it comes to what's happening to tenants in Burlington in particular but we are a statewide program. All that is seen in Burlington is seen all over the state of Vermont when it comes to tenants issues and tenants complaints. I am, I think, five minutes over and I'm sorry but if you do need any type of assistance when it comes to education, when it comes to hotline, which is crisis line, okay? Please call us at 864-0099. 864-0099, you have some template just at the table here. Rent is a very important. The thing is that we have rights but there is also responsibilities. You need to get the right information, the right information to get it. Call us or you can even email us. The information is at the table. Thank you. Thank you, Sandrine. Okay, our city council Q and A and updates. I think everybody's here. Perry and Brian and Max. Thank you. Given the hour and that as Brian, Chino remarked, it's been kind of an intense exchange. It would be helpful. I think for us we decided, and it's been a few months since this group has been together that we would have a chance to, rather than give what we think are updates to ask you what you would like to talk about, what you'd like to hear about, what you'd like us to talk about. So you can go into the microphone to yell out what you wanna hear about. Patrick. Patrick asked about the new ordinance regarding stuff, oh, junkyards. It's mostly, okay. It's a first, it's what's called a first. Oh, I definitely voted on it. I went to the ordinance committee where it was discussed. Yeah. Okay. Do you want me to go? Yeah, that'd be great. Patrick, if there was an unintended consequence or impact regarding junk teaks or a business like that, that was not something that I was able to flag when I read through the ordinance. What did flag for me was a concern about how this might impact low income residents. And that was something that we discussed in our caucus and it sounded like what this was doing more, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, was it was looking to enforce an issue of a lot of trash and junk left by, in the areas where college students are living. Are you talking about a different- That's actually additionally in there. That's a different section. Junk are any place of outdoor storage or deposit that is maintained, operated, or used for storing, keeping, processing, buying, or selling trash, appliances, and or furniture, which actually squarely falls in places like resource, the barge canal, places of that nature. It really was like, oh, oops. This is what's called a first reading. So, or do we place it in passage? No, it went in and then it goes into effect in October 10th, on the 11th it came in. I guess you're right. So the impact that that will have on businesses like junk teaks and others who sell used items, resource, is something that I personally didn't fully understand. And if it's going to hurt them, then we can revisit that. But I don't think any of us were aware of that. We're hoping to have that impact. And this is, so you're saying this has changed, this is additional language that was added, or that was in the previous? The definition of salvage and junk yards as there was not clarification in the laws previously. Previously, and then that was amended into it. Okay, I mean, I can touch base. So Adam Roof, Chip Mason, and Sharon Busher, Councilor, they serve on that ordinance committee. I went to, you know, of course these, that's not an impact that I was looking to have. So I can follow up with them. I'm really glad that you're raising that as an issue because that certainly is not something that we'd want. Or I can speak for myself. That's not something that I would want. I think we all share that concern for sure. Thanks, Patrick. We'll find out what's up with that. Steven. Yeah, so, but homeless cameras, I don't, thank you. I don't like trash accumulating. I try to help keep clamps clean, but hey, you know, that's the way life is. And if the city were to use such an ordinance to help campers keep their camps clean, that would be terrific. We would love to have that kind of help, but to close camps because people have trash, that would be very bad. Thank you. Thanks, Steven. So this doesn't apply, this wouldn't apply to that. The homeless encampment policy, as I'm sure you know, and the clearing policy is right now under challenge of the city. I don't support that policy that currently exists in terms of clearing, but I don't believe that this ordinance is meant at all to do that. And again, we can check back and see if that, if this would apply to that, because that's a very valid concern. And I want to make sure that that wouldn't be the case because I agree that that would be wrong. Just wondering if you had any status updates on opioid deaths in Chinning County. And, you know, just to say, like, where are we right now? So what we had seen was at least in terms of Chinning County, we had seen a 50% reduction in Chinning County in overdose deaths. That's still, you know, that's significant, but I think it's one of those things where we need to continue opening past the Medication Assisted Treatment and then also certainly in favor of continuing the conversation around a safe injection site and how we can better promote those kinds of facilities in the city of Burlington. I'm sorry, Max, the question I should ask was what kind of data are we collecting other than deaths? What other information are we taking? So there's lots of different data points that the group called COMSTAT takes into account. So looking at everything from, like, the amount of pills that are prescribed at UVMMC to, like, arrest information. I mean, all kinds of different data points. And what all happened at those meetings is we'll focus on different topic areas as to how the opioid crisis is impacting our community. So for instance, in our recent meeting, we discussed the nexus between the opioid crisis and sex trafficking in Vermont and how that is often very much intertwined and linked together in terms of, you know, in terms of how both of the two systems work hand in hand to really exploit people essentially in a variety of different ways. So we'll usually center in on a topic and focus on that particular issue in that organization or that group, which is a coming together of organizations across different spectrum. So people from UVMMC, people from corrections, people from different police departments, people from different social service agencies, different political offices, from city council through state organizations all the way, also including the senatorial offices will send representatives. So it's really kind of a coming together around some of that information. But if there is any specific data points that you'd like, I'd be happy to track those down for you and share those and continue the conversation. Yeah, housing is absolutely a key element of the recovery process and providing stable housing for folks. I think that that would be a great topic for us to focus on in that. Is there any particular stat, though, that you want on housing that I could help you out with? Okay, thank you. Do you want to say something? Yeah, it's okay if you don't. So I've been comparing with England where every town has public housing and they have public transportation. So would any of our counselors champion the idea of public housing here in Burlington where the city already owns land doesn't have to pay out of state developers high profit margins and you can build affordable housing as public housing and get people into it at much, much lower prices and build very elegant and desirable housing. Thank you, Jimmy. As much as I favor that, Jimmy, that was ended in the 1980s. Public housing was virtually ended as a new development. Instead of that, they went to a thing called the Low Income Housing Tax Credits at the federal level. So there is no more new public housing created anywhere in the United States. It relies on federal dollars to do that. So the alternative is this very complicated program called the Low Income Housing Tax Credit which is used extensively in Burlington to create permanently affordable housing. 35% of which serves people who are formerly homeless. So it is definitely reaching the same income levels. The federal commitment to affordable housing ended during the era of Ronald Reagan and so it's never really come back. So there is no more new public housing and in many cases the federal government gave incentives to housing authorities to do a thing called Rental Assistance Demonstration Conversions where they took public housing and actually encouraged them to convert it into what's called Project Base Section 8 which is a totally different thing but it was a way to get the federal government out of the business. That's where this country went though. Were you asking if we could create a public housing program municipally based that was not at all attached to a state or was not dependent on a state or federal program? Is that what you were getting at? I mean I see, I would support that. I see the merits in it tremendously. I think we should have public housing. I think it helps to decommodify housing in terms of bringing in revenue for that and that's something that's frustrating. I think about working in this system is that like for example we don't currently have on the books the capacity to have an income like a progressive income revenue stream tax and these sorts of things so I think which I think we should be able to do that but we don't. So in terms of finding the revenue for it I think we'd have to be creative and think about that but I certainly support publicly funded housing and I think that's sort of one of my frustrations with this sort of classic NIMBY and YAMI debate which is not in my backyard which is no housing and then yes in my backyard which often works on these market-based solutions and I think one of the counters of that has been FIMBY which is public housing in my backyard which is saying we should have publicly subsidized housing and I think there's a really good case for that. I would support it, I want to know how we would get from point A to point B. Thank you very much, Max. And what I would say on that just to add is that one thing that we did put on the ballot as an advisory item a couple years ago was the idea of using progressive taxation strategies for funding affordable housing and so I think we need to, we saw Burlington voters really endorse those and support those strategies or that as least as a concept one particular strategy would be a real estate transfer tax basically or a luxury transfer tax essentially so if you basically set up a property threshold or a value and then whenever a property sells that is at or above that threshold a percentage of that gets kicked into into supporting this kind of public housing so essentially you're trying to tax and really reign in a little bit of the uncontrollable or uncontrolled kind of speculation that we've seen that's driven real estate prices up so that's one strategy but I think that again we need to continue to look for those progressive strategies that really place the burden or place a lot of the financing elements on folks who are really making a lot more in this community, that they do live in the community and we need to make sure that we're using those progressive streams to make sure that we are really using those to drive that affordable housing cost because it doesn't make sense to rely on even moderate and low income folks for that. Okay, thank you Max, thanks Brian, thanks Perry. Okay, we really pressed our time to go ahead. I just have a footnote and just to elaborate on that so Brian worked on a 1% luxury tax, correct and brought it to council and I don't remember, it just, it got watered down so much and that's what ended up on the ballot. It's frustrating, it was a great idea and I think we should support. It would have generated $350 to $500,000 and additional revenue so I think we should look at those options. Okay, thank you. Last but certainly not least on the agenda is on to hear from our school district. First superintendent Obang and we have I believe school board members, Claire Wool, Liz Curry and Gene Walts. So what do you, yeah. Testing, oh, perfect. Well, I feel like a teacher in front of a class has getting ready for recess or lunch and you're, I'm between you and the exit out there but so but I only have a few slides as about a six hour presentation so we'll be able to get through before breakfast. No, I will try to expedite this. I won't give you the full presentation but I did want to share what I wanted to share tonight was our year review and every year towards the end of the year I do a year review for the board and we look at different aspects of our districts and some of the accomplishments and things that have happened but of course year it's very challenging because there are insurmountable pieces of that that come in from the schools and from staff and we have to kind of select and try to have a good balance. Now this year when I did the review I gave me an opportunity to kind of reflect because I was thinking, wow, I'm entering my fifth year here in Burlington and when we completed the review I was like, wow, this is, we should share this with people and I think it's the first time I've ever come to the MPA to kind of share the review. We usually do it at a board meeting and be able to do that and those of you who were in Burlington at the time when I was coming to Burlington we had a few challenges at that time. One was when I was coming across there was a little thing called a visa that was giving me some challenges across the border and that was done but in terms of the district if you remember back we had some financial challenges. There were some irregularities that were happening. There was a failed budget. We had a deficit in the finances. There were some challenges in our schools in terms of high suspension rates for students. There were issues of safety that was well documented from staff and students around, challenges around safety in our schools. There are a number of different pieces that we're looking at all in the backdrop of stalled negotiations and we have eight bargaining units and when I came in we had all eight units we were stalled in terms of negotiating and since then we've acted negotiate every year because of legislation and things like that and so it gave me some great pride this year when we were able to look at the accomplishments and say, oh wow, look where we've come considering the challenges that we dealt with. So I wanted to share this with you and I won't get a chance to go through all the slides but I'll invite you to go to our website go to superintendent page and you will see the slide in its full entirely in the detailed content you can look at it, share with your friends or if you're having a hard time going to sleep at night you can look at that and that may help you go through. So I'm gonna zip through just to give you a few highlights and I'm not gonna do it justice so I do encourage you to go on and review it and I will turn it on works first. This first slide talks a little bit about our strategic goals. These items here, right in these blocks here I call the big rocks and this came out of our strategic plan process and we talk about inclusive teaching and learning, equitable climate culture and sustainable finance and facilities and those were the major goal areas we've been planning all our budget and resources and actions within the district and when we're going through this we were a little bit concerned that the state would come in and also give us more directives that may not align with but we're presently surprised that if you look at the top green part here the accountability system requirements from the state aligned really well with our goal areas so it has an academic proficiency pieces around inclusive teaching and learning safety and healthy schools around an equitable climate culture and investment in priorities which met some of the things we need to do around finance and facilities. So I'm going to share some of these areas in the buckets in the big rock areas in terms of the way that we kind of look at the work that we do in our district. Expanded learning, anyone know what expanded learning means? Okay, I've been sharing this because that's the term we use and people don't, have you heard of after school? Yes, everybody knows after school so after school is part of expanded learning programming, right, because we want to continue learning for our students, not just expand not just during the instructional time of the day but also after school and also in the summer and we have some amazing summer programs that are free for students and we feed them in the summer and we know from the research that it adds opportunities for them to increase achievement and success. We've got one of the best expand learning programs in the country, one of the slides coming forward that talks about Christy Galizios, our director who's been recognized nationally for a number of awards in terms of programming. We've gotten many grants that support the work of expanded learning and we get really good feedback from our parents. Our survey and work that we've done, you can see here, we serve 1,600 students just in expanded learning. This is larger than many districts in Vermont, just the students we have in our expanded learning programming and we had 99% satisfaction from our parents who provide, who have their students in these programs. So more expanded learning, I won't read it to you so you can go and look at it. Here's a program that we're really proud of is a parent university. This started about four years ago and it was targeted at parents to try to engage parents into understanding the nuances of school but also to help them in their own parenting. And it really started to become a niche program where we have a number of newcomer parents attend. Last year, we had 50 graduates, sorry, the year before we had about 50 graduates, last year we had about 26 but it's well-subscribed and we get people like you from the community that come and do the instruction. It's after school and we have all kinds of people who come and give the supports and we know there's a direct correlation to student success when parents are engaged in school at any level, students see that modeling and they follow that. Just some metrics around our district communications. A couple of years ago, we changed our platforms around our websites and the different communication mediums until we started to gather data on responses we're getting from community members. I know that it's improved when I'm getting responses from parents saying stop sending us information about this and that, so that means okay, we're getting more and more and more out there in terms of trying to share information. Improved student supports, we have a student supports department which covers special ed, what people commonly know, but it also covers a number of other areas around psychology and nursing and other areas as well too. And the number of initiatives that come out of that area and working with schools. I'm just gonna point you to this graphic here and right behind these students doing this ribbon cutting is a gaggle ball pit. Anybody know what a gaggle ball pit is? Gaggle ball? I actually learned about gaggle ball this year only. It's the new craze in our elementary schools. If you go around you'll see the kids playing it. So these kids had a project but they started from the beginning learning what a gaggle ball pit is to develop a plan to raise funds. They did that, they were able to establish enough money to have it built. They got in partnership with community partners as well as our facility staff. They built the gaggle ball pit. They taught students how to play it and they had this great ribbon cutting here. So there was a lot of lessons learned there and now they use it every day and they play it and I had an opportunity to be there for that day and that was at Flynn. And grade three student got me out. Early education, we've got a great early ed program. We're a five star program. Stars go up to five, five is the top. And we're in the process right now of trying to expand those programming because in Burlington, we have a high need for early ed and we know that when we have students in preschool, we start learning sooner. It benefits them later on in regular school and we have a waiting list of about at least 22 students every year and we're trying to expand the program so we can accommodate all the parents that have and many of the youngsters that we have have special needs coming at that early age and so we need to sort of start working with them sooner than later. Burlington Technical School, this is one of the best kept secrets, I've been telling people about the Tech Center and I would say one of the things I would say is, you know, traditionally, I know when I was going to school and we talked about tech centers or tech, the tech schools, vocational schools, people often looked at, oh, those are for those kids who just work with their hands or whatever stigma they would use. But we have a range of programming in every stream that we're trying to engage students to take the opportunities to explore different. We have a new health stream, which was great. Last year we had a number of students who left the health stream, went on to nursing and other health practitioner areas and we're aligned with our high schools so they can readily take these courses even while they're in high school. So you can kind of go on and read about that, go to the Tech Center, you can see all the wonderful programs. The one program that we have that no one else has in the state is the Aviation Program and if you go on to the aviation side, you'll see we've got helicopters, we've got an FBI plane that was doing it, we've got planes and our kids get these wonderful access to this and we get employers calling to say that they need students for employment and we can't feel it. We're trying to encourage more people to look that as a viable pathway. One of the things that we talk about in Browning is around closing the achievement gap but also raising the bar and often people ask us, you know, well how are the Burlington students doing and here's a profile of a number of students that have been really high achievers and have been able to jump over the bar and say, if you look at a number of different things, I'll draw your attention over here to last year we were able to honor Jackson Elder who was a presidential scholar and one of the neat things about this national award is that at least for the years that I've been here we've had national presidential scholars every year and two years ago, there were only about seven across the nation and three of them were from Burlington High School and how remarkable is that, right? And I'll draw your attention to the, there's a group of young ladies here, they won the state championships for a scholar bowl, all women team and they went and kicked some butt and we were really proud of the work that they had done and they had some other opportunities after that in terms of moving forward. Vienna Lee also won some national Brain Bee Awards and we're in other competitions as well too. English learners is a priority for us. We have over, we have 48 different languages spoken in our schools from our students and so that is a priority for us and so we pride ourselves in working with programming to try to service them and also their families and we partner with Winooski at times and other community organizations to try to develop programming and support these students. It's a continuous work and it's quite challenging too because the funding formula that we get from the state doesn't always give us the exact kind of dollars we need for the kind of supports that we have that we need for our students but we've been working on that and we've got a great director of EL that's been doing some work so I'm kind of skimming through there's a lot of things I want to tell you about this but it is late so I will go through just highlight here on this other piece we started using technology in reaching out to our EL parents because everybody has a phone these days, right? Everybody has a phone and so there was an app that was developed last year that has a language app that we can connect with our families and we're doing some work this year to improve on that and look at other opportunities through technology. This is just a screen here of, I shouldn't say just, a number of our staff that were recognized throughout the year we have principals who are named national principals of the year we have a substitute teacher of the year a number of different accolades that happened for us last year so we're proud to recognize these individuals. Quick Club and Innovation some of you might be familiar with this lake the city and lake semester project they actually house themselves upstairs so this is a special program that the students spend a semester in Burlington so they're not in a classroom but they have instructors and they go out and they work with different organizations, businesses and they learn and they do their learning through working on the lake whether it's through ECHO and I had the opportunity to go to their culminating activity last year and the students were in that class are a range of students often people think oh those are probably students who are struggling in school that would take that no we had a range of kids from kids who did have challenges to kids who were high achieving based on their academics and one of the things that they said to me that why they enjoyed the program was the different level of engagement was a different form it wasn't this old Socratic style where you just kind of teach you but they got to go and talk to real people you know what if it was a marine biologist whatever and investigate and learn and it was funny one of the young ladies was telling us about her story and she said I kept trying to get in touch with this person I think it was a government person and I kept getting the answer machine they wouldn't respond to my and she was really frustrated and I go yeah that's the real world that's what happens when you're trying to engage so some good lessons there cooking cart which was developed by students and is utilized in different classrooms and we talked about achievement in the last couple years we've been sort of working on our data and looking at how do we improve achievement for our students and we were able to get a data systems coordinator because we have to have good valid and reliable data that's now working on how do we do how do we collect our data how do we share it how do we do good reports and how do we communicate to you in a way that you can understand it and then we identified a achievement gap lead person and so they're working together and supporting our schools to continue that movement so more resources around achievement gap here's some graphics of the learning that was happening in the classroom is using data walls and the data that the achievement gap leads are working with the staff with so ongoing professional development and then just continuously to do the monitoring of closing the gap and raising the bar and I don't know if people understand what I mean when I say close the gap and raise the bar so often when we're talking about the gap across the nation this is a nationwide challenge the achievement gap and often it's the sort of targeted groups that have traditionally been in that gap students who are low socioeconomic or low wealth students of color and special ed kids so those are the students that are often in that gap so we're employing strategies that'll improve them and try to raise them but at the same time we're not saying we're gonna keep the bar here we wanna raise the bar for all of our kids so they keep going up so that's what we mean by closing the gap and raising the bar I think we have to vacate the building by nine and it's about 10 to so Okay, 9 a.m. perfect Ha ha so stated finance and facilities thank you Bronson for supporting the high school build that's gonna be a gift that's gonna keep giving for many generations and we're working on that and we're very pleased that the community supported that aspect and those also other capital projects if you've driven down Main Street over the summer you saw by Edmonds there was some work that was happening at the school and lots of and you can take a look in Edmonds inside here it's a beautiful new cafeteria and workspace new serving areas this area used to be called the dungeon for those of you who maybe had students at Edmonds and now it's a beautiful working and eating space for them there once again we wanted to thank the community for supporting our budgets the last five years straight and to know that we've taken all the investments back to students and to the community food projects we have a great food program only thing I'll say about this is you know when one of the most challenging decisions I have a superintendent is calling snow days that is like that's an all night thing right checking the weather, doing the roads but one of the elements is that when we don't have school there are students we have that don't eat our food program serves breakfast, lunch and dinner and also does catering throughout the community but we got a great food services program where that we provide food at schools and when we have snow days kids actually walk to school to get lunch they still get there so that's a major consideration climate and culture one thing I'll say we've been working on restorative practices as a district to be a restorative practice district I won't go into that detail but we've been engaging all departments including central office and all schools and we had a massive training you can see there with all staff and we continue to move forward number of initiatives like reading to end racism we have a number of personalities that go into schools during that month and read to students and we've had for two years straight now beyond a black history month we've had a great turnout from the community if you haven't been please come this year you can see the turnout we provide food, people come we provide presentations from students around the learnings they've had and we specifically placed it in March because we wanted to say okay people talk about February's black history month but we know that we want an inclusive curriculum where all histories are integrated so we said in March that's when we'll pay attention to and we'll say we'll continue on throughout the course of the year so we've been watching that student engagement gender-neutral washrooms we had a great story on this at the high school that was done by one of the television stations can't see and then teacher appreciation week and thank you and thank you, thank you so say here at this time I'd very quickly like to call if the school board members who are here I know Liz Curry is here and yes okay Jean introduce yourself because I don't know which I know who Liz I'm Jean Waltz hi Jeanine and maybe you could feel both of you could feel some questions from the audience matches your next five minutes right okay actually could I point something out so now that we're on the schools I'd like to point out the fact that we actually have two interns here from the from the high school and one of their okay Jermia and Boniface who are actually going to be thank you for these meetings going forward okay questions Tony did you have a question okay anybody yes Patrick let me get you on the mic you won't be heard if you can collect that data what does that data say great question we have a new data systems coordinator and they the data we collect usually goes to the AOE they give us some metrics to do that and we don't have it as detailed as we would like it you know we have to kind of extrapolate in terms of that so we're working on strategies where we can get more detailed around the different cohort groups around that because often it comes in different clusters and our staff does the weeding out to but we definitely know that there is a gap between high wealth white students and low socioeconomic students white students as well as students of color special ed students and students with limited English who are new to the country less than five years I've been attending the diversity equity and inclusion meetings and who've been working with the DELT team with which stands for diversity equity what else that's too long I know right anyway and there's a list of recommendations as far as the minutiae of what data between the DELT team and DEI they've come up with specifics about what data we hope will be effective one of the things I'll be frank with you one of the things we've had in Burlington is the data has not been as reliable as we would like it and that's also partly because the agency has this the vendor we're using now is power school and uh... it's a pull up and we're in the process right now trying to coordinate with them not just us all the districts in the uh... in the state to try and to have some consistency around how we collect the data and how we pull up and how do we get accurate data and even in the process we're doing right now we find that they've given us sometimes like I'll give you an example that was last year they reported back to us that we had it was something like a hundred uh... hundred and twenty EL students and we said no way we have more than that we have to do the actual counting and send it back and say this is what we have how did you get that number and so the data was not that healthy in terms so we're in the process of trying to find a way to have it more consistent I can give another example I can't give you a number because I don't have it at the top of my head because it has been inconsistent but we know that we already established there is a gap between uh... students of color who do you mean by minority students anybody who's not white well we don't call it the data that way we don't say anyone is not white but if you send me if you contact me I'll give you I'll give you what we have and you can take a look at it and see we have what's called an equity data report uh... which is on our website if you go there there's like twenty pages of broken down data from different pieces you'll probably find what you're looking for so the next time so bang you give this presentation you're going to include a slide with some challenges in the district I can't I can't that would be awesome right so that we could be real about what's really actually going on in the district we uh... you know we talked a lot about housing and how expensive it is uh... in in the city and part of it is because of the costs that we pay for the school you know the cost of schooling you know of education going up and up and to this point I'd I'm a little bit more familiar with that gap and they haven't it hasn't changed very much at all uh... in the past since I've been looking at it in the past twenty fifty years right right right so my question is so why should we vote yes on this budget for in the school district that's racist that's not closing the achievement gap that is uh... you know that has staff who are you know that I mean that is malfeasance and you know in the district why should we vote yes on the budget well I I'm not a politician so I'm not going to camp I'm not campaign for the budget but I would say that we have great staff that are committed to our students and if you come and see the work they do and you see the data we have in terms of growth they do tremendous work I wouldn't put any I'm sorry I'm not let me know no no let me finish I wouldn't stand here and say um... any deficiency is based on any discriminatory action anyone I couldn't say that anyone what I can say is that we have a number of reporting metrics that we do and we acknowledge everything is a there's a policy that we have it's uh... one point one is called look at disparities if you look at that report it talks about all the despair we have with unsuspensions achievement and we acknowledge that and we say hey this is what we need to do to do that and we're working on that and we and the staff we advocate to our board and say this is what we need is the board's job to come out to the community and say this is what's happening in this year I'm not going to sit here and pretend that we've solved the achievement gap uh... problem for the nation because if I do that I'd be really wealthy we've spent the last two years at the Harvard Institute with districts all across nations who are having the same challenge in talking about high yield strategies and we're in a process of doing that and we've seen gains already uh... just within a year in terms of the appropriate uh... strategies being applied so that's what I would say so you're right there are some amazing staff uh... in the district there are some there always will be uh... more specific question is strategy around the most uh... uh... vulnerable students in the district at on top where students were relocated dislocated from uh... you know they're building and and isolated uh... you know and a wing uh... in the school district what are the strategies to uh... meet the needs of our most vulnerable kids in the school district at on top all right how much time do you have but I would say in terms of that uh... I would say that we definitely want on top we're talking about on top horizons in terms of those two programs on top on top on top we want on top as we build a new high school on top is going to be part of the whole high school compliment that's always been uh... strategy we have a new uh... leader on on top uh... bobby riley who specifically was one of our principles and has done some great work in elementary schools and specifically wanted to go and take on that challenge because he's got a special ed background for uh... those stride those needs there and we've got staff who've come forward who want to do that work and so we're going to continue to work and collaborate with the high school and try to integrate those students and give them support that's all I can't give you an answer I can't say well this is it this is a fix right it takes work and it takes time it doesn't happen over overnight so I'm not going to sit here and pretend to say it's done I'm going to first of all compliment you all for staying I'm going to compliment you all for staying uh... one of the things I love best about war two three in addition to the dinners is an engaged and intelligent citizenry and we always give our elected and appointed leaders a run for their money so thank you amanda has the drawing and right after that the meeting will adjourn thank you for staying and thank you superintendent and thank you for coming francesca and slah she's not here well she is here right thank you all okay folks who are staying to clean up uh... i ask you to be gentle on the furniture these tables are now showing serious where from being bounced on the floor uh... it's plastic on cement the cement will win so the chairs take a pile of ten and three piles