 agenda this evening with a motion to adopt the agenda. Would somebody be willing to make a motion to adopt our agenda? Councillor McKee. I would move to adopt the agenda. It seems there are no amendments this evening. Tonight is an easy night because there are no amendments to our agenda. We're running on a pretty good track record with that lately. Is there a second to that motion? Councillor Hightower, thank you. Is there any discussion on the motion on our agenda? Seeing none, all those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed, please say no. We have an agenda and just for everyone in Contois as well as everyone online, we have two Councillors that are joining us by Zoom. That's Councillor Freeman and Councillor Shannon. So we're gonna move on to item number two, which is a forum on redistricting. And this is going to be an opportunity for community members to express their perspective on redistricting and for those who have worked in groups to create mapping alternatives. That's the reason why we're here this evening to give everyone another opportunity to discuss this important issue. The forum is, we're going to try to end the forum at seven, but we did start, we are starting late. So we will do our best to accommodate all who want to speak. There are a couple of people who have filled in the public forum online forum. And so I will call on them later. And if you wanna speak during public forum, that's fine. If you wanna speak just simply to the forum on redistricting, that's fine too. You'll let me know when we get to you. So there were three people that we had extended an offer to speak because they had done additional work. And I believe those three individuals who are all here doesn't matter to us, which one of you would like to go first? Jeff, that's great. So if you could just state your name for the record and we're happy to listen to you. The one thing that I have asked of the three people that are being given additional time is that you have up to 10 minutes. You don't need to use all 10 minutes. You have up to 10 minutes and we would just ask that you please be respectful of the time. Thanks so much and good evening. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Jeff Comstock. I'm a member of the Ward 4 and 7 NPA Steering Committee and I also participated last fall and winter in the ad hoc redistricting committee. So very quickly, I guess the outline of what I'd like to cover this evening. I have four major topics. One is addressing the Ward 8 challenge, the reconfiguration of Ward 8. Some thoughts about the size and structure of the council. I might throw in a personal preference for a ward map but then I also want to talk about some future redistricting considerations. So if I could borrow a phrase from Sound of Music, how do you solve a problem like Ward 8? And to be specific, when we talk about the problem of Ward 8, we're addressing the difficulty of staffing and conducting elections, recruiting and conducting a full-scale NPA committee. A very disproportionate ratio of school board members to students, Burlington School District students in that particular ward and then most of all the very chronic low voter turnout that occurs in Ward 8. So I think for a new configuration for Ward 8, what really needs to happen would be to distribute the campus student population into the adjacent wards as evenly as possible. Back at the May 23rd council meeting, if I heard the planning office correctly, they stated that in one of the draft seven and eight ward maps that contained approximately 60% students and 40% long-term residents in the proposal for Ward 6 in those versions. So to me, this approach isn't really a solution because it essentially is transferring the current problem with Ward 8 to Ward 6. And so just moving that problem doesn't really fix it. Secondly, I'd like to talk quickly about the size and structure of the council. And this is where I've undergone a major change in my own thinking since the ad, you received the ad hoc report in January because one of the significant concepts and topics of feedback during the ad hoc committee process that I think has been overlooked since is the desire for more, as in multiple representation on the council from each district. And my current thinking on this is that this is where the district or the at-large counselor approach can actually play a positive role in the future structure of the council. And I think it would also accomplish some of what people ask for. So personally, I think I favor an eight-ward map similar to the draft number two option that the planning office created. And I realize that the council is not gonna go to 16 members. Therefore, this sets up a couple of potential options. For a 12-member council, you have a potential of eight wards and retaining the four-district concept or going to eight wards and four at-large counselors. If the council decides to go to 14 members, then you have a potential for eight wards, four districts and two at-large counselors, which I think could be an interesting hybrid of those concepts. So in my view, having district and or at-large counselors expands the accountability and actually increases the reputation for individual residents that people asked for during the ad hoc process. And I think it's important to point out that the at-large counselor concept does not violate any equal representation issues because equal representation is about how many members represent me as a resident, not how many people or residents each member on the council represents. And then finally, so a council structure of eight plus four or eight plus four plus two still would provide access for new candidates at the ward level. And so part of that potential criticism is that the larger wards or coverage geographic areas makes it more difficult for people to access the council or campaign. So I think there would be several options and people who would choose, could simply choose to campaign for the larger seats. In my view, 12 ward single seat district will be detrimental to good governance in Burlington and will most likely exceed the 10% variance standard well prior to the next census, therefore most likely making that model obsolete in the shortest amount of time. And then lastly, sort of thinking about future redistricting considerations, my other major concern is that redistricting must include a charter change provision for Burlington to have authority to conduct city level redistricting with voter approval, that's an important consideration but without requiring legislative approval because this approach would allow Burlington to implement redistricting at least two years sooner than this effort or the previous effort. And I do realize that there is some work to that effect going on in the Charter Change Committee. And I will conclude by asking that on that issue, I'm curious if the council or the Charter Change Committee is considering presenting the redistricting plan for the new ward configuration and the potential Charter Change Authority or redistricting authority as one question or two questions on the ballot. And I think that actually deserves some consideration going forward. And that's it, thank you very much. Thanks, Jeff, thank you very much. So I guess you flipped a coin and Robert, you're gonna go next? I guess. Okay. First gets to bring up the rear. So my name is Robert Bristol Johnson. I was on the Ad Hoc Redistricting Committee. I was representing Ward 7. Also, I've done a lot of work with the maps. Also with the state redistricting maps, I was unsuccessful in persuading House Government Operations Committee to look at a couple of them. That was anticipating problems that we're gonna have now. Robert, if you could just get a little closer to the microphone. That would be great. And Amy has gone and collated your presentation so you have it. I did not make a PowerPoint. I just sent Amy some PDF files. So there's one that has some kind of 10 talking points or 10 points on it. That's maybe the first one to toss up. So what I've been thinking about, at least in terms of presenting today is just to tell you a little bit about the choice between eight wards and seven wards. If we stay with eight wards, it is necessary that Ward 1 be reduced in size. That cannot be avoided. And from what I understand, that there's some real resistance from folks that live around Prospect and Henry Street and that area for change. I mean, that's something we heard from the Ward 1 representative a lot. And if any part of Ward 1 gets moved out, it's probably gonna be the Riverside Avenue part. Everybody who drives home on Riverside Avenue is gonna find themselves an award too. So that there is a slide that is the eight ward. It's not meant to be an offering. It's just what possibly an eight ward map would look like. Is that it? That is not it. That's a seven ward map. That's another seven ward map. There's a third map. That's it. Okay, so you'll see in that map that Ward 1 takes kind of a beating. That's a bigger beating because the other issue is the hot potato, which is the UVM Athletic Campus, a single census block with 2,600 people. And the question is, if we don't have the Salamander Ward anymore, which is a rug we swept this problem underneath, so that out of sight, out of mind, unless you happen to be living in the rug. And that's where all the trouble happened with Ward 8. So Ward 1 or Ward 6 is gonna have to take that Athletic Campus. This is what it would look like if Ward 1 took it. And you can see that lots of Ward 1 goes into Ward 2. So let's go back to one of those seven ward maps, maybe the first one, the V11A1. So about a week ago, counselors Barlow and Carpenter and I collaborated on a map. And this is the first one that we came up with. With seven awards, Ward 1 is snug as a bug in a rug. Ward 1 will not need to change at all because it's already 1 7th of the city. But what necessarily has to happen is all the other awards have to expand from being 1 8th of the city to being 1 7th of the city. Then it's necessary that a new North End Ward must come down into the old North End. That cannot be avoided, but we can minimize it. And the way that we minimize it is what we make Ward 7 and Ward 4 as small as the Constitution will allow us to do it pretty much. And so Ward 7 is about 2%, minus 2% deviation. Ward 4 is minus 5.4% deviation, but Cambrian Rises and Ward 4, it's gonna maybe have room to grow in that. And so the absolute minimum amount of encroachment of a new North End Ward is essentially everything west of Park Street, but nothing east of Park Street if we bring it down all the way down to essentially the fountain at the end of Pearl Street. So what will happen, and then Ward 2 has to expand too, but if we're not gonna expand into Ward 1, there's nothing to gain population-wise expanding north, it only can expand east or west into the current Ward 3. And so as a consequence, Ward 3 is getting squeezed out of the old North End, not completely, but mostly. But Ward 3 changes an identity from being like an old North End downtown ward to being central Burlington. That's not a bad identity for Ward 3. So it's like downtown Burlington with appendages, an appendage in the old North End, a little bit of the old North End, and appendage to the Bewell-Bradley Historic District, Champlain College, and then the King Maple District. Now, I don't make too many apologies about Ward 8, but one thing that I should have been slapped up silly for was putting a line down King Street. That was a big mistake in our current map. So the King Maple neighborhood is a neighborhood to respect. And the Bob and Mill apartments are really more part of King Maple than they are any other part of Ward 5. They have a lot more to do with King Maple than they would say with five sisters or the Oakledge Park thing. So this puts the King Maple District into Ward 3. It also puts Bob and Mill apartments, which means we have to divide a census block in order to not bring that all the way down to Lake Side Avenue. But there's no population affected. One last thing, there's a small division of a census block around Champlain College because there's one home that if it's not put into Ward 3 with its Champlain College neighbors, it ends up having Raul and Jensen Hall and some other dorms basically dangling by a thread. And so we needed to move one home, which is two people from Ward 5 into Ward 3 in order to connect that better and make the map compact. So that's basically it. That's that map. There is a variation of this map. That's the other seven ward map that this is an idea from Barbara Hedrick. She was thinking about dividing the athletic campus. So the living learning complex, which has a well-defined population of 576 people so that when we divide the census block, we know how many people to move. If we put that into Ward 1, then that allows Ward 3 to expand into Ward 1 a little bit in the Williams, Willard, Pearl College block, whatever you call that block. And then Champlain College gets divided up between five and six and six gets to kind of come over and it gets to keep Edmund School in six. That's about the only way that six is going to retain, you know, be able to go that far west. Otherwise, six is going to take all of the athletic campus and it's going to lose everything between Willard and Winooski and below Maple. So that's another variation. That map has 10.4% overall plan deviation. That could be fixed by moving a block. It'll make the map ugly. The other map that I think is better has a 9.2% overall plan deviation so it should satisfy the course. That's approximately it. There's another map that is the state, which we don't have to put up, but when we consider the maps, we better look at how the lines fall along with the state, district representatives because we're going to have to put up with, some wards are going to get three voting machines and three checklists, but we sure don't want to have to have any single ward have four voting machines and checklists. So we have to kind of watch those lines. That's it. Thank you. Thanks very much, Robert. Chris. Can you guys hear me okay? I always have trouble with the mic when I come up here. So I want to say thanks for the opportunity to come and speak to you on the redistricting topic tonight. I think rather than come here and try to pitch any specific maps there and really wanted to talk to you kind of about the process and some of the larger questions that are going to need to be answered as we move through this process as a city. So I'd like to start with one of the maps, I think that was presented by the independent mapping group a while back. It was the eight ward option one map because I think that this map does a pretty good job of illustrating some of the more central questions of the redistricting conversation. Amy, was I able to share screen? You should be okay to do that now. You've been promoted to a panelist. Let me find that there. So this was the map one that we had sent out and I think that this does a pretty good job of illustrating again some of the major central questions here is Mr. Bristow Johnson had just recently pointed out. We've got the question of where the athletic campus should reside. In this particular scenario, we chose to put it in Ward one, which is where that census block resided for close to 50 years. Simply out of a desire to kind of bring some balance between the on-campus student populations. The trade-off of course is that you end up with a kind of an odd looking shape in terms of the ward here. You know, by a similar matter you see up here on the top, this is kind of the census block as defined by the Census Bureau that follows a natural ridge line. So that's kind of why that has that shape. But you know, you look at it kind of at the first glance, it's like, hey, this looks kind of a little funky. So I think the issue really with in addition to the placement of the census block camp, but you know, as Robert had indicated, with the A Ward map and Ward one currently being above the target population of 5600 people, there would necessarily have to be some changes to that ward. And when you kind of look at the map and kind of zooming in here at the city's map under the current ward, you have the Winooski River to the north and the northeast. You have the boundary with South Burlington to the east and the southeast. And you have the population growth kind of right over in here at the former S.D. Ireland quarry, which I believe is now called Baybury Commons. So if your borders up here are all fixed and you've got copulation growth over here, then it seems to reason that your border is gonna have to be adjusted somewhere along the western edge. So if the council chooses to go in an A Ward configuration, that's something that's gonna certainly come up in that discussion there as well. So in addition to having an issue in the A Ward configuration, we also have the same placement issue with the census block for the athletic campus or what I guess used to be the former University Heights neighborhood in a seven ward configuration. The effect is a little less acute in a seven ward map just because with seven wards, we have a larger target population per ward to the tune of about 800 people. So it's not as much of an issue. So I wanted to kind of pivot to some of the seven ward maps that we had discussed as well here. And I started with the map that Nancy Stetson had prepared for the city. I bring that up because I kind of like that and kind of use that as a starting point here, particularly the, by my mouse here, the division here along the, for the old north end. And I think that that highlights pretty critically a trade off there. It's that, you know, the whole point of the exercise is to equalize the populations and with a seven ward map, just to make the numbers work, there's going to be some pretty significant changes to geography there. So it's kind of a six or one or half dozen of the other as my grandmother would like to say. So we had come up with using the city's map kind of as a starting point. We kind of brought the lakeside ward down a little bit further here to keep the separation as well. And also made some tweaks down here on this block to bring in the King Maple neighborhood here as well. So that was kind of the option A. We also have an option B, which is similar except that it runs a straight split right down North Avenue, the entirety of the avenue. So it uses the, not as so much a natural boundary, but a primary roadway as a separator as well. I think this one brings about some clean lines, but again, the mathematics are such as that, to put the athletic block here, you're going to have to make some changes on kind of the lower hill section. And so that's kind of how we came out here as well. There is a third option, which I don't have up in front of me, but that third option is as some folks have surmised, which would be to divide the census block for the UVM athletic campus or the former University Heights neighborhood. And that would also allow a more balanced distribution of the on-campus students as well. So I think at the end of the day, whether it's seven words or eight words or some other number, the fact that the Census Bureau gave us one large block with over 2,600 people is certainly an issue that's gonna need to be addressed. And breaking up the UVM census block is certainly one way that it can be done. We have the bed counts from UVM, so it should be able to do the math on that if that's the direction that folks wish to go. Finally, this is a map that I just recently came up with. It kind of builds upon some of the work of Nancy Stetson at the city, as well as some of the ideas that Robert Bristow-Johnson had put together. It keeps the interface here, mainly for population numbers that was proposed with the city's map, but it keeps the split. But it juggles a couple of census blocks down here, mainly for the purpose of getting the King Maple neighborhood together. So I think in collusion, having had an opportunity to review and digest the city attorney's memo, we really tried to put the focus on the statutory requirements with this go around. And tried to really focus not only on meeting the letter of the law, but also the spirit of the law. And we did explore configurations with some higher overall deviances, but at the end of the day, I kind of felt that having a map that was kind of more middle of the road might be a little bit more safe from a legal perspective. So those are kind of some of the pitfalls or kind of questions I think that will need to be answered. If anybody has any questions, I'm happy to answer them. Thank you. Thanks very much, Chris. And thanks to all three of you for the tremendous amount of work that I know that you have done that we all are greatly appreciative of. There are a number of residents who would like to speak to this item as well that are online. I don't know if there are people who have asked to speak specifically to this issue that are in con choice in person. There are not. Okay, if there are, if anyone changes their mind, you can fill out a form that's on the, I do this every time. It's the, to my right to your left in the corner and just bring it over to the clerk and we'll give you that time. What we've agreed to do is those people who wish to speak at this forum will have as much as three minutes to do so so you can see the timer set behind me is set to three minutes and we'll do the same thing online. The first person who had asked to speak online is Maddie Posig. Maddie, I have found you and have enabled your microphone and you're able to, you should be able to speak now. Good evening. My name is Maddie Posig and I live on Hunger for Terrorists in Ward 8 where I've lived for over 40 years. I'm a member of a neighborhood group called West Hill Neighborhood Association and we are all very concerned about the final outcome of the current redistricting plan being residents of Ward 8. Having just barely heard the three different presentations and maps, I would like to say that I agree with almost, this is me personally, I'm not speaking for my group because I didn't have time to meet with them but I really agree with everything that, almost everything that Jeff Comstock stated, particularly all the issues with Ward 8 which I live. I've remotely attended all the work sessions and city council meetings where redistricting has been discussed and as a result of watching these meetings, I've come to the conclusion that there are two primary perspectives that are driving the decision making of what the final redistricting map will look like. In my opinion, the city councilors are primarily concerned with how many wards there will be, seven, eight or 12 and as a result, how many councilors there will be. It makes sense that this aspect of redistricting is driving the city councilor's decisions as a number of wards and thus the number of resulting councilors impacts the governance of the city council. However, what I believe is of greater importance to me personally, to my neighborhood group and to the other citizens that I've heard speak are both the Ward boundaries and the configuration of the neighborhoods within each ward. We believe that a map with balanced wards that has democracy and fairness as its overriding principles will be the best map for the citizens of Burlington. The way the current Ward 8 map is configured and UVM's policy of not allowing the general public to campaign in the dorms makes a large portion of this ward inaccessible to any candidate that is not a UVM student. This has created an unbalanced Ward. I would hope therefore that the city council would recognize the disadvantages Ward 8 presents and seriously take that into account when evaluating the final map that will be voted on in November. Every city has its own unique characteristics and the tradeoffs necessary to achieve democracy and fairness in one city will differ from these in another city. I believe that in Burlington, democracy can best be achieved through balanced wards throughout the entire city. Thank you for consideration of these points. Thanks very much, Maddie. Thanks, Karen. I mean, councilor Paul, sorry. That's quite all right. So the next person who had asked to speak was Suki Rubin. And Suki, you put yourself down twice. I don't think that the agenda item, I think you may have misspoke on the agenda item. So I'm gonna just simply ask you if you could let me know. Is that, did you want to speak now or is it to the public forum in general? And your microphone is enabled. Suki. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Go ahead. Thanks, I was muted, I guess. Thank you for considering me, but I am just here to listen and to observe. So thank you very much, I pass, but I will listen. All right, okay, that's fine. So the next person who is, the next person on who asked to speak is Keith Pillsbury. Keith, I have found you and enabled your microphone. Please go ahead. Thank you, Councillor Paul. I don't have a prepared speech because I wanted to hear what the other gentlemen had to say regarding their maps and kind of like all up in the air, but these are my general thoughts. Number one, I am the Ward 8, Ward Clerk. We are having an election in August and we have new tabulators. And I have to have all new volunteers to help run the polls. And the new tabulator is something I'm not familiar with because when I went to training, it didn't work. Number one, number two, I've been looking at the map of where University Terrace is. And I've noticed that I don't think it's correct on the map. We're at a dead end street of about 22 buildings, half of which are owner-occupied or long-term residents. And the other half are homes that are supposedly have only four unrelated people in them. And we've lost those students. We probably have about 40 to 50 students. They just left on May 31st and they're all coming in new. And there's not one Vermont state plate among them. Yet they will be able to vote on local issues coming up in August because as a Ward Clerk, I do a lot of registration. I do want to say that University Terrace is a long-term residence for many of us. I've been here 48 years, but there are people here who've been here longer. I've never understood why we were, as a kind of a residential street, put in with Ward 1 and then Ward 8 rather than put in with Robinson Parkway and Henderson Terrace because we're more connected to them. The families on our street do more interaction with them rather than walking across the whole campus to meet with our neighborhood, supposedly a neighborhood in Ward 1. We're actually isolated. And I would really ask that we be put into a district that allows us to be part with other people who are very similar to the majority of people on our street. And it's also important to us that even though we have a small number of voters that we are able to have a voice, in the last five years as a Ward Clerk, I've never felt that we did because there were large groups of students coming down from the athletic campus who could outvote us by just the sheer numbers. So I would like to ask you when you look at the Ward Bams, you'll look at democracy and a balance of people with their interests and that therefore, all of us can feel part of this city. Thank you very much, Councillor Paul. Thanks very much, Keith. So the next person who had requested to speak is Sarah Kinney. Sarah, I have found you and enabled your microphone. Welcome and thanks for being with us. Thanks so much, hopefully you can hear me, okay. Yeah, so just a little, if you can just speak a little bit louder, but we can hear you. Sure, thank you. So I'm Sarah Kinney and I live on Ward Street in the Old North End, a proudly Ward 3 resident. I've lived in various places in and around Ward 3 for over 20 years and in our home here for 15. We intentionally chose to live in the Old North End and raise our child here because we love this community. We love our vibrant diverse neighborhood, our neighbors, our neighborhood elementary school, our community center, that's just a few blocks away where we go for community meetings and our MPA. So I was shocked to hear that the proposals under consideration would redistrict our neighborhood out of the Old North End and lump us in with wards in the new North End. Every seven Ward map I've seen so far would take our Ward, Drew, Strong, Blodgett, Pick and Crowley, Manhattan, Washington, Vols, Combin, Square and more neighborhood and move us into Ward 4 or 7. This makes absolutely no sense to me and runs counter to the city's commitment to support thriving cohesive neighborhoods. In the same manner that Mr. Bristow was just discussing related to the Boba Mill and King and Maple neighborhoods, the Western side of the Old North End is a part of the Old North End community and deserves to remain intact in that way. The community centers that are out in the new North End are more than two miles away from our homes. Why would you wanna break up the Old North End and transition us from a community that's just through our community where we're just a few blocks away, walkable and bikeable to our community centers to one that's two miles away where many of us would need to drive and that's much less accessible to people who don't have cars. Most importantly, this splitting off of part of the Old North End negatively impacts the vitally important sense of community here in the Old North End. So I'm asking you to please find an alternative and not break up our thriving neighborhoods here in the Old North End. And I realized that these are very thorny and difficult decisions, but this is not a theoretical math problem here. It's our community. So I'm asking you to please not break us up. Thank you. Thanks very much, Sarah. The last person who had asked to speak during this community forum on redistricting is Liz Curry. And Liz, I have found you and you should be able to enable your microphone. Good evening. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Thank you, Councilor Paul and President Paul. So I just wanna thank the committee for the work they did. I know how archaic and difficult this is. And I'm just, I have so much admiration that they could manage this process. I did notice that the city council guidance was pretty minimal at the outset, but the one request that appears on the redistrict UTB website is that the new North End remains separate from the Old North End. And I'm requesting that you honor your own request by preserving Convent Square and South in Ward 3. The committee states that it's not possible to create a seven word plan and achieve this. So I believe that the seven word plan should be rejected. And if the eight word plan, which I'm sorry, I haven't had time to digest all the plans. If that also carves out the separate seal North End, I'm sorry, breaks it up, I oppose that. But moreover, my concern, I went through this. When I joined the school board, we were having this conversation. And a lot of the conversation was about increasing the size of the council and the school board. And I just wanna say that given the council's authority and the school board's authority under a Dylan law state and what you can do as a municipal government, powers are limited. And the more you stack these boards with people, your deliberations become slower. There's more people to, you know, discuss the issues with. And the other thing that happened is rank choice voting will, I think, mitigate some of the need for more bodies on the council and the school board. I also think that right now our wards loosely follow our elementary schools. And that's an elegant design for the school boards because commissioners are responsive to their immediate neighborhood schools, even though they are citywide, they do have an affinity with their local schools. And I think that going to more counselors and school board members is just a mistake. So I just would really, I'd really advocate for the 12 word thing. I know it's problematic in terms of where people vote, but those are more administrative concerns. I think the 12 word thing actually would allow for greater participation in campaigns because you can reach more constituents in a smaller area. You'll have more competition. You'll have the same size city council and you'll have, I think, stronger neighborhoods. And I think it tends to solve like the long ongoing NPA debate about wanting more voting power or ability to influence things. And if we have smaller wards, I think it will help empower neighbors and empower people. So I really, I haven't heard much discussion about the 12 word plan, but I really ask that you all dig into that a little more and keep an open mind and stay with the same number of counselors. Thank you. Thanks very much, Liz. There is no one else who has asked to speak at this, at the community forum. And I don't believe there's anyone in Contoy's who has requested that either. So with that said, we'll close the community forum and go to the next item on our agenda, which is an opportunity for the council to discuss redistricting. In order for us to keep to the timeline we had agreed, the last council agreed to, so the majority of us at this table tonight, we need to begin to narrow down the preferred ward configurations from the current three that we gave to the mapping specialist, which was a seven ward map and eight ward map and a 12 ward map, preferably to one, but certainly to two. And the floor is open to anyone who wishes to speak. And hopefully by 7.30 we will be able, we've had lots and lots of time to think about this, lots of opportunities to hear from the community and online survey. We've been talking about this for some time. So if we could come to some consensus on a preferred number of wards and any other further direction that we wanna give to the mapping specialist, they would then bring that back to us for the June 20th meeting. So with that said, who would like to speak? Councilor Barlow, we have a brave soul here, go ahead. Thank you, President Powell. No, I've thought about it a lot. I've talked with Chris and Robert and Jeff and others. I'll just, I'll tell you where I'm at and then maybe that'll help precipitate additional conversation. I do not support the 12 ward map it. I'm always an incrementalist. I like to minimize the amount of change and this proposal represents the most significant changes and challenges, I think. I support eight ward plans, but not 16 counselors. So I would support an eight ward plan that either maintained districts or at-large council representation, understanding that's a ward that we're all desiring to eliminate, but it may be the lesser of the evils to live with. And I thought it was interesting, Jeff Comstock's notion of a 14 counselor representation with two at-large four district and eight ward counselors. That was interesting to me. And I'd also support a seven ward map. It's the most challenging geographically because of the problem of the encroachment of the new North End into the old North End, most notably. And I've worked with Councilor Carpenter and Robert Burso Johnson to see if there were ways to minimize that. And we came up with something to minimize it, but I'm not gonna say that it isn't significant to those who live in the old North End. But it only expands the council by two. So it's this balance of the most elegant geographic with the most, with council size. And so that's where I'm at. And I'm interested to hear where my colleagues are. Thank you, Councilor Barlow. Councilor Bergman to be followed by Councilor Hightower. Well, first as a person who is not on the council, the last time I don't feel bound by the deadline that won't be effective for this election in any event. So I just wanna put that out. I think it's an artificial time deadline. I think we've got more time. I don't buy the breaking up of the old North End and I particularly don't like either of the maps. I think that's fair to say that at best it minimizes the disenfranchisement of which I think it really in effect is of a huge swath of the old North End. And I do not support at large counselors. I think it means that only the wealthy get to run citywide. The last mayor election cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. This is just not what we need in terms of the city council. I'm open to a 12. I do think that the 12th ward and the representation and the administration of it is difficult. That's the one ward that I think has the most administrative problems. But that being said, I'm open to us looking at that. And if we can eliminate that, then I'd be up for that. An eight ward seems to me the best but the question of the size of the council seems to be a point of contention, maybe a blocker on that. And that's for political reasons. I disagree with it being unwieldy. I think that we have enough work to do to be able to deal with that. But let me sort of end by saying the problem actually is that the growth of the city has been not in the new North End. And so therefore perhaps we need to look at something even more innovative by reflecting that lower density and that might even mean having single, I throw this out as a new idea, something that came to me, single councilor wards in the new North End, two of them. You could keep 14 people with six two-member districts and two single-member districts. I think that there are some issues that do that that would be problematic, but you would keep the old North End together. So I just want to throw that out, which is maybe a reason why we don't have to railroad ourselves, jump on the railroad and railroad ourselves to a June 30th or an early July deadline on this and we can maybe look at even another interesting option that I've just heard about recently. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Hightower. Yes, I, and I think Ward 1 obviously loves the Seven Ward map because we are the biggest ward and that keeps us where we are. But I think recognizing that unless we pursue something like what Councillor Bergman just talked about where we are creative with the, how that's split up in terms of governance, I don't think that it's fair to put a lot of neighborhoods, a lot of neighbors who closely identify with the old North End into the new North End. So I think even though it does a lot for my ward, I don't think we should stick to that. I'm still really interested in the 12 Ward plan. I think it does some of the things to keep communities together. And I think one of the reasons we wanted to draw it is that it's much easier to put wards together again. So this can still be, so this can either be 12 single ward things, single rep wards, or it could be six wards that are each still two representatives, which I think is, those are both, those are two competing priorities that we talked about, which is both the really small wards that people feel really close to the representatives or than having the two representatives. But I think the map as a whole is something we should stick with, especially because I think it keeps a lot of the character issues that we just heard about intact. So I think the most important map to keep is the 12 Ward map, even if it doesn't mean that we end with 12 wards, maybe it means that we end with six wards. I don't have a huge problem with the 8 Ward map. I would have a huge problem with one that removed Riverside Ave, which is the poorest part or the lowest income part of that ward and puts it into the old North End. I think that's consolidating the low income folks a little bit too much. I would definitely advocate for moving the line towards the East instead. If we were gonna do that, and I know some folks won't like that, but nobody's gonna like everything that we're doing in this plan. So I would advocate most strongly for the 12 Ward plan, understanding that it might turn into a six Ward plan. And then I could live with the 8 Ward plan, but I do not want us to go back to district. I think having six times two from a governance perspective actually makes a lot more sense than what we had. And I would never support at-large counselors for the same reason that Councilor Bergman just mentioned. Thanks, Councilor Hightower. Councilor McGee to be followed by Councilor Hanson. Thank you, President Paul. I have been opposed to splitting up the old North End from the beginning of this process, so I won't go on about that tonight. I think first from some residents of the old North End that do not wanna have to travel upwards of three miles to vote. And that is something that I've heard over and over from neighbors in Ward three. I am a fan of the 12 Ward option. I would be a fan of a six Ward option with two counselors per Ward. I would like some clarity if we were to do a 12 Ward map, what the administration would look like in terms of polling locations. And because I think that is somewhat central to the neighborhood identity that somebody folks feel. Being in Ward three, voting at the Sustainability Academy, having it be a five minute walk from your house rather than having to drive three miles or get on a bus or ride your bike in the middle of March. So I would like some clarity on that. I don't know, I know last meeting we had discussed potentially getting some clarity from the city attorney's office. I don't know if that was something that we were able to get. So I think I'll leave it there for now. I would be in favor of any Ward option. I don't think out-large districts make a lot of sense. I think share the equity concerns that have already been brought up on that. So thank you. Thanks, Councilor McGee, Councilor Hanson. Great, thanks. 12 Ward map is my preferred option out of what we're looking at. I think it's the most, it gives people the most opportunity to participate in government and especially people who aren't participating today. Your representative is gonna live very close to you in that scenario. Your polling place is gonna be very close to you. Your council, your counselor is gonna have way less constituents than they do now. For a district counselor, it's cutting it in a third. So there's more opportunity to engage with that counselor and have your voice heard both on the campaign trail and during the rest of the time as well. So I think there's a lot of benefits. Really the, and it also allows neighborhoods to stay compact and keep their character as well. The only concern I've heard with it that I think holds some weight is that people like having two representatives on the council and I think that's where Councilor Hightower's idea of six wards with two representatives each is a possible path forward. But yeah, I think in my mind, the smaller the better and I think districts are, they're too large and they're also just confusing for people to have two different overlaid maps of council representatives. I just, I know so many people who don't understand the current system that we have. I think it's really important that we get to a system where people know who their city counselor is and have easy access to their city counselor. So I, in terms of the seven word map and the issue of splitting up the old North end, I think that is a big concern. So if we eliminate that, I don't really have an issue but I think we need to keep the 12 wards in play and consider the six two member wards as well. Thanks. Thanks, Councilor Hanson. Don't see any hands. Oh, I do see. Thank you. Councilor Carpenter. Yeah. Sorry, excuse me. You're still gonna, one of those 12 wards will still come down into the North end. And if you went with a six word map, you'd have a shotgun marriage of half of an old North end neighborhood and half of a new North end. So just because of, I'm just looking at it here and I don't think there's any other way to cut it. So a six word map will not achieve that goal. The other thing I just want to make a comment on is I think we want to be very careful about ward configurations totally around polling places. The new North end, which has by far the highest voter record only had 500 people come to the polls because they were doing it all out of mail-in ballots. Some had a few hundred. So I think we can get around polling places if we're creative and I wouldn't let that be the showstopper of how we, and I think, and we have discussed proposing the combination of polling places in my end. It's just in part because people feel uncomfortable voting in a church has nothing to do with wards. So I hope we just set that aside. I think the seven word map is difficult, but really did seem to be the way we get to the right size of a council. I don't have any problem with the eight wards, but I have a big problem with 16 counselors. And so somehow we've got to figure that math out. Thanks, Councilor Carpenter. If I might, we do have Nancy Setzen and Megan Tuttle here. And if you don't mind, I know I had said that you were just gonna be here to observe, but another potential configuration did come forward is the idea of potentially taking a 12-word map configuration and perhaps finding a middle ground given that people want more than one counselor as their representative, but want to keep the wards small, whether or not there is a potential for a six-word map that uses, that builds upon the 12-word map and what your thoughts might be, given the priorities of trying to keep the New North End intact to preserve the Old North End as well, and then also the issue of the UVM campus. So I would say a six-word map actually has similar problems to a seven-word map where you would need to combine some of the New North End with the Old North End. The exact configuration would be different, but the way the population works because the New North End has such a defined population, it just doesn't fit into the number of counselors needed in the six, or a number of the population needed for a six-word map. So that wouldn't, the eight-word works out with the population, but a six-word would end up creating a similar problem. Yes. Yeah, just a, whoops, sorry, that was very close. Just to follow up on that, just looking at the current Ward 1 and the 12 Ward, I mean, I don't know how far we can get on the deviation, but it looks like just a tiny chunk of the Old North End is still in it. And then I guess depending on what we consider the Old North End, obviously the pieces along North Street would still be included. But, and then I know we said maybe we're okay with having more of a closer to 10% deviation in that part of the Old North End, assuming some growth. Go ahead. So the current 12-word map that's on the website has three wards in the North End currently. So that would make, that wouldn't be, there would be one and a half wards if you went to six wards up there. Right, got it. Sorry, or you could end up in a configuration where you had six wards, but different numbers of counselors in each of the wards. Right, which is what Councillor Bergman was talking about. Thank you. Are there any other counselors that wanna offer some comments about this? If not, we're going to have to try to, oh, I'm sorry, my apologies. Councillor Shannon, please go ahead. Thank you, President Paul. I just wanna kind of comment on some of the things that I heard and where I agree or not. I agree with Councilor Bergman about the timeline. I'm not feeling like this is something we urgently need to do on the previously determined timeline. Actually, even though I did vote for this, I always questioned the timeline. So I wouldn't mind adjusting it, but at the same time I wonder where we'll get in having more time. So that's kind of a concern for me. I, having lived in various parts of the Old North End, I agree with the sentiment about splitting up the Old North End that it is preferable to keep the Old North End whole or contiguous with various other parts of the Old North End or downtown. As I've said before, I was redistricted out of the ward, out of Ward 3, where I worked at the polls and was very active in the community and redistricted into Ward 7 where I couldn't even find the polling place. And that issue that Councillor McGee raises is real. But I also think that Councillor Carpenter is right and that the polling place issue is something that could be addressed. Councillor Hightower mentioned that, one of these maps only takes a very small part of the Old North End and puts it into the New North End. But I think that's referencing the 12 board map which would have to become that particular ward if you were to make it a six ward map, it has to be combined with another ward. And I see two problems with that. One is, if it's just again, Lakeview Terrace, getting redistricted into the New North End, that is the worst possible way to divide the Old North End and the New North End because you cannot get elected from Lakeview Terrace when you're in a New North End ward. And that's not fair. I mean, I think that that is something we should really guard against. The way some of these maps have been divided, there's almost equal numbers or they're at least heavily weighted so that nobody could get elected by pandering to one side and ignoring the other. So I think if there has to be some division or maybe it's more of a coming together actually of Old North End and New North End, the better way to do that is by having enough people in both groups that you have to have, anybody to get elected would certainly need support from both constituencies. The 12 ward map I see as very problematic. I agree with Councillor Carpenter that if you turn the 12 ward map into a six ward map, you don't have any advantage over the seven ward maps in terms of how the Old North End and New North End are treated in those maps. The 12 ward map has kind of exacerbates the problems that have been identified regarding, finding representation for your school board and for the various duties within wards that are very heavily student populated, transient and just not really able to produce the number of volunteers that we need to support the ward. So I also agree with people. My list of what I don't like honestly is a lot longer than my list of what I do like, I'm sorry to say but I don't like the districts either. Given the many issues that need to be justified somehow, I guess the districts, and I also never voted for the districts. I voted no on this configuration when we first adopted it but at this point, because it has been adopted and it's been established for as long as it has, I don't see it as the worst outcome. I think people are somewhat used to it. I don't think people love it but I think I could live with it. I think the public could live with it if we needed to. While I don't think that there's support on this council for out-large counselors, I will say that I like out-large counselors. I think that it could work. I don't imagine that it would be like a mayor's race in terms of fundraising because you don't have the power of a mayor or the salary of a mayor if you went with that configuration. So I don't think it would be open just to the wealthy but it's done in many communities. It's not only done in wealthy communities, there are communities all over the country that have out-large city counselors and a high functioning local government and diverse local government. So I guess that's enough from me from now. Thanks. Very travers. Thank you, President Paul. If we are, which it sounded like we were about to move to a straw vote of sorts with respect to these maps, I thought I'd take an opportunity to explain why I am not comfortable today in supporting a 12 ward map. Well, I don't think this is true for everyone across our city. I do think there are many in Burlington who identify with their ward. I do think this is one of the reasons why looking back at the report from the ad hoc committee on redistricting, they did not truly consider a 12 ward map. The report talks about six to nine wards. I think it's why when we as this council had our first brainstorming session for lack of a better term with respect to this matter, there was a discussion about to the extent we could maintaining existing ward boundaries. And if we were to move forward with a 12 ward map, I just don't know that we've spoken to the right folks with respect to that matter because it does as Councillor Barlow pointed out, it shakes it up more than any other proposal. I'm thinking in particular about our NPAs as someone who spent five years on the steering committee of the ward five NPA. I know that there's quite a bit of identity around our important neighborhood planning assemblies. And I would not feel comfortable moving forward with a 12 ward map until we have a long discussion with respect to our NPAs and what that means for them. So if we are moving to a straw vote on a 12 ward map, I would not feel comfortable with that. I am curious about Councillor Hightower's proposal with respect to a six ward map and would like to see that when the council last went through this redistricting process. I believe there was a six ward map that was put before the council for consideration. And obviously our population has changed since then and would be curious to take a look at it. But while I understand the comments folks have made and appreciate there may be some benefits to a 12 ward map, I don't think there's been enough public input on the matter and I wouldn't be comfortable moving forward at this point in time. If we want to take more time though, I agree with Councillors Bergman and Shannon that I don't think this needs to be on a November ballot and I don't think the timelines are ones that we necessarily have to follow if we want to take more time with it. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Travers. So there were three people that came onto the council after we made the decision to stick to the timeline. And two of them don't like the timeline. And the good thing about this is is that we do need to, I believe, and in fact you certainly correct me if I'm wrong, Megan, we do need to do this and we need to do it by March of 2023. Is that correct? As far as a hard deadline, I think that one of the challenges with moving this forward is just that it has to go to the legislature after a vote. So I think once you start getting past town meeting day in March of 23, it starts pushing you into the, what would it be, 2024 legislative session, which makes it really difficult. As far as having to do it, yes, it is an obligation of the council to move forward with redistricting just because of the population changes under your current configuration. Thank you. So the resolution that brought this forward and created the ad hoc committee, we did agree to a timeline which we then extended. But again, that was the former council and even for those who were on the former council, you can always choose to look at circumstances today and change your mind. If we are going to have this on the November ballot, we need to start making some decisions, which clearly we have shown this evening is not gonna be an easy task. That said, if we were to vote on this in March, we would be effectively talking about this from now until November. So open to suggestions, this is our joint decision if anyone has any ideas or if it is the will of the council that we delay this and vote on this on town meeting day, Councillor Bergman and then Councillor Hightower. So there are conversations, I know we've had them in the Charter Change Committee regarding polling places. There are, you know, and whether they, we can change the way we do things to open up the flexibility. We've had conversations about a charter change that would make this an internal as opposed to a legislative change. That will require Charter Change. So there's actually a fair amount of work. If we railroad this, railroad ourselves, we will not have the ability to actually do those things in time to get it on a November ballot. I'm just telling you, and we've been meeting, you know, there are other things that are on our agenda and we will work on this as well as work on those other things. I think that we do not need to drag out the conversation. So, but I do think we need more time than what the November requirements allow us. So I think that we should try to wrap things up as quickly as possible, but give ourselves enough time on that. And I think we have the ability to do all of that and get those other items fleshed out. There was a public comment asking about the Charter Change Committee and bringing things forward. I mean, we're intending to be out as much as possible into the public. So that too requires time. Thank you. Great, thank you, Councilor Berkman. Councilor Hightower, and then we'll have to go to public forum. Sorry, I'm just, mine's more of a point of information, which is that I guess what we're saying is if we have it on the November ballot, we still don't think we would have legislative approval by March to make this relevant to the March elections. Is that correct? That's correct. Okay, and then, I don't know, I don't know how we wanna move forward from this. I do think I'm both still interested in the 12 board map because I think for NPAs, it's very easy just to combine boards. Most of us do it for NPAs already, not so much the South End because I guess the South End is the South End. I do agree with Councilor Shannon in terms of if we're going to have combinations of historic characters, to some extent, it's nicer to have it then be big combinations if we did something with the 12 board map, either with single member councils, which I know we also won't love, but it seems we're gonna have to do something we don't love, or if we combine them so that it's half old North End, half new North End, it just feels like that makes it more feasible for the outcomes of elections to be from either instead of having a small section of the old North End included in. I don't know, do we want to take a straw poll on each of the numbers of boards to try to see which ones we want to move forward? I don't know how to move us forward so that Nancy's got a little bit more direction than our disparate opinions. Well, I think that probably would make the most sense. I mean, I'm happy to try to do that. On the other hand, and I'll come to you in a minute, Councillor Shannon, if it is the will of the council that you feel it best that we allow ourselves and thereby allow the community a little bit more time as well, but allow ourselves a little bit more time to come forward with not only a redistricting chart or change, but also one that would change the way that we do this via the charter, then I think that's probably the first straw poll that we need to take. If the majority do want to move forward and try to get this on the ballot in November, then we need to go to other straw polls. I assume the floor is still mine. I think for me, I don't want to rush this, but to some extent, I think we need to make some kind of decision tonight, regardless of what we choose, we need to make decision points to move us further. And so I think even removing, like now we're talking about six, seven, eight, and 12 board maps, I think even removing one or two of those would be really helpful. And so I think I would still vote for, I would still advocate for some kind of straw polls, and if we have to do that after public forum to get to that, I think that's fine. Okay, all right, why don't we do that? It's now 7.35, and we have two people who wish to speak in the public forum, and I don't believe there is anyone, I'm gonna just check and see. There is no one who is requested to speak online who hasn't already spoken on the public forum on redistricting. We may ask you to come back, just so you know. So there are two people who wish to speak in the public forum, who are both present, who are both here in person. Just to keep in mind, the table in front of us has three lights, a green light will shine when you begin speaking, the second yellow light when you have about 30 seconds left, and then the third and last light, which is the red light, will shine when your time is up. We just ask that you please keep your comments and address them to me as the chair, and keep in mind that there are many people in this community who use the city council meeting as a way to be informed with their children on civic engagement and would just ask that you keep your comments using respectful language. Well, there's now three. So the first is Robin Lloyd. Robin, nice to see you. Please have a seat. Do you have the microphone on it? There's a little button that right in front of you that light would turn green. There, it's green now. That's great, thank you. I'm Ward three, I think. I'm on the north side of Maple Street. Seems to go back and forth. Anyway, it's been wonderful to listen to you in this congenial way to determine the boundaries and the borders of the various wards because what is happening in other parts of the world is that people are using guns and artillery to determine the borders of their countries in Europe. And that's the issue that I've come before you to talk about. Last weekend was the meeting of the conference of mayors and a wonderful proposal came before them which I didn't have time to bring to you before the conference took place. And I frankly, I don't know what happened at the conference. I think our mayor was not able to get there but I did put it, give it to him and to Jordan Rendell. It's called Forging a Path to Peace and Common Security. So I'd like to just read a few pieces of this and I will send, I will email it to you and I don't know whether it might come something that the next meeting you could actually vote on if that was reasonable. So Forging a Path to Peace and Common Security whereas a new report, Common Security 2022 for our shared future sponsored by the Olaf Palm Memorial Fund finds that in 2022, humanity faces the existential threats of nuclear war, climate change and pandemics. This is compounded by a toxic mix of inequality, extremism. This isn't, what, you're just starting? No, actually, that's the end. The end of what, three minutes? It's actually two minutes. Oh, it's all, just two minutes. Okay, I'm sorry, I didn't realize it was so short. Let me just, if I could take. Well, but you're actually, you're welcome to leave that for us and we will make copies of that. Thank you. Anyway, it calls for restraint in US military engagement in Ukraine and maximizing diplomatic efforts. So all right, I will leave a few copies and then I will email it to all of you. Great, thank you so much. Thank you. Our next speaker is Todd LaCroy. Todd, welcome. The rest of the world has watched as you've turned your schools into war zones. Over 230 mass shootings so far this year and one in nine of them, over 30 in schools. That's a war zone everywhere else in the world, isn't it? But yet, at the same time that you argue about this, you all are in unison on wanting to get together to kill Russians and sending weapons of mass destruction out there again for more school shootings elsewhere too. And you put the people who've been trained in torture, military people in charge of our schools for 20 years and it's only gotten worse. And yet you still can't have the conversations, serious conversations and do the actions that are needed to do anything about it. That's called schizophrenia. The way that you want to kill Russians but yet you don't want your children to kill each other. You people are schizophrenic. Your system is schizophrenic and your kids know it. And maybe you should look at the spiritual thing. You keep making orphans elsewhere and like killing people. They're gonna be reincarnated amongst you and if you don't heal yourselves and your communities, they're gonna take revenge. And I have recently had experiences with 911s, failures and the local police's failures. Do you guys have any concern for your children? Cause the rest of the world sees that you don't even love your children, which means we're probably headed to nuclear fucking confrontation. Thank you, Todd. You don't love them. The next in our last speaker is Phil Carlton. Welcome. I was here two weeks ago. I think your microphone may not be on. Is it on? It looks like it's on. Okay. Maybe I'm not just not talking loud enough. But I was here two weeks ago and I said I worked in the downtown transit center and I see the social chaos that's happening there. Since that two weeks, there's been quite a bit that's happened that really illustrates this. Our second amendment to the constitution begins a well-regulated militia even before it talks about the freedom to bear arms. Yet somehow we can't seem to follow the wisdom of our elders and actually do what the amendment says. Here in Burlington, we're sliding down the same path in a more leisurely way in that we have the shootings in a small way day after day after day. But the problem is the same and that's that we do not have the judiciary under control. We have young people who have 100 interactions with the police in a year and they're still out on the street. That's the problem. And again, the judiciary, if you look at it, it's a nice fortress down the street where you're not really welcome to go in, you really get searched, that they take very good care of themselves. They do not take very good care of the people who are on the street. Working in the downtown transit center, I had an elderly woman say another day in hell. That's what it's like to be on the streets in Burlington. It's another day in hell. Why? Because she can be assaulted, beat up on the street and the person who does that will be out on the street the next day. He can do it a hundred times in a year and be out on the street still. People don't give up power voluntarily. You have to tell them you can't do that anymore. And that's what we need to do is tell the judiciary they can't do this anymore. The Constitution says we have a right to be safe. The Constitution says we have a right to justice, promptly and without delay. That's what we need to fix. Thank you. Thank you so much. I don't see anyone else who is asked to speak in the public forum and there's no one online. So with that, we'll close the public forum at 745 and go back to our conversation about redistricting. Councilor Hightower, did you want the floor back? Okay. So we'll go to Councilor Shannon and then we'll try to move to a few straw polls. Councilor Shannon. Thank you, President Paul. I would be open to a vote on whether or not we extend the, extend the timeline to the March ballot rather than November ballot, but I'm not ready to express an opinion, I guess, on some of the larger issues that Councilor Bergman raised. The other thing I wanted to request is I thought that a lot of the maps that we saw from members of the public tonight were both interesting and helpful. But they're not on board docs. Could we get those on board docs? I think so. Certainly that the two that came forward with those maps and I know Jeff had written comments, we could certainly get those put up on board docs. Thank you. Thanks very much, Councilor Shannon. So it appears as though not really sure where to go from here, but I guess the first thing we can try to do is, and there's no, this is not, this is an informal thing, as they say, is a straw poll, there's no motion being made. How many Councilors are there who would prefer to extend the timeline? And I mean, I'm just throwing this out there, have a decision so that we don't literally go to the end and then find ourselves in a potentially similar situation. Who would be in favor of extending the timeline and having a vote on this by the end of September? Okay, so there are, the majority of us would prefer to extend the timeline. I apologize, Councilor Freeman. I'm not sure if I saw, did you have your hand up or? Yes. I did. Okay, so it would appear as though there's two, four, five, six, seven, eight, maybe nine, 10 of us who would prefer to extend. Now, the next question is, based on what you have heard and the information that we have gathered for quite some time, how many of us would prefer to start narrowing the field and coming up with a little bit more information to give to Nancy and to Megan this evening so that we could start moving forward on map configurations? How many people feel comfortable being able to give a little bit further direction to Nancy this evening? I'm not seeing two hands, oh, I'm maybe seeing one. One, two, three, four. I don't see a majority of counselors who are ready to start narrowing the field. Please keep in mind that eventually we do have to do this and one of the challenges that we had in 2010, Councilor Shannon and I were the only two of us that were there. Councilor Bergman, I'm sure remembers this well, is that this went on for years and we faced potential lawsuits because we were out of conformity with statute. So I'm hopeful that even though this is a straw poll, that we will keep to the September deadline and as Chair of the Charter Change Committee, Councilor Bergman, is that something you feel comfortable being able to commit to? Yes. Okay, Councilor Freeman. Actually, I think I do want to narrow it down. I'm not sure exactly where the consensus is at this point. I don't know how other counselors feel about this or how you feel about this, but I don't know if we could just do a straw poll and go through the couple iterations and a few iterations we have and see which ones counselors are just straw poll or sort of looking to move forward just even for my own information. Because I feel like I've heard from some of the counselors, but also if that's a bad idea to do at this stage or if that's confusing, that's fine. I feel like maybe we're not ready to come to consensus as a body, but there probably is, I think all of us have certain versions that we're sort of leaning towards, putting forward if that makes sense. Like if we had to choose to, which two would they be sort of? Why don't we try that exercise even though you might not be entirely comfortable? It doesn't mean that you can't vote for more than one obviously. Counselor Carpenter, your microphone. There's the maps and the number of counselors. So I don't know that you can, I think you have to ask the question together, I guess. For instance, there's eight wards, but eight wards with 16 counselors, eight wards with the district. So I think we need to have some pairing up of things. And I just also want to add that when I was not originally supportive of 12 map because we didn't pay any attention to it, there's not been much work done on that one. And embedded in it are some things we said we didn't want to do like an all student district. So could that be fixed? I don't know, I haven't looked at it. Okay, thank you. So we'll go to Counselor Barlow and then Mayor Weinberger and then we'll try a straw poll exercise. Thank you. I just want to concur with Counselor Carpenter that I'd also like to do a straw poll on the willingness of counselors to continue with the districts that we none of us want to, but might be willing to under certain circumstances and at large as well. And I think I know the answer to that one, but with the districts, I'm not clear on where people are and I'd like to be. Okay, thank you, Counselor Barlow. Mayor Weinberger. Thank you, President Paul. I guess I have a couple of concerns I wanted to raise here. First of all, I just want to remind the council that both Megan Tuttle and Nancy Stetson are city employees with enormous other responsibilities and we have to be, I think, very careful about the use of their time. My sense of the enormous, I've not heard anything approaching a consensus in the discussion tonight or in the lead-up to the discussion tonight. I have real concern about with this move towards having more time, which I don't object to making a decision to put this on the March ballot and so the November ballot. I do have a concern about this additional time becoming an invitation for staff to go out and just generate lots more maps. I don't think the current level of lack of consensus is going to be addressed simply by a proliferation of maps. I, when we started this, when we sought to work towards a limited number of maps being generated by staff several months ago, my request at that time was that there be a formal council resolution passed that we had clarity that seven members of this body were supportive of city effort being put into the generation of more maps and that's still my request. I'm quite uncomfortable with this straw poll, the sort of proliferation of straw poll concepts here. I don't recall this ever happening over the last decade and I think there's a reason for it. I'm not, I don't believe straw polls are consistent with Robert's rules as a way of sort of making council decisions. So I, that's my concern. Thank you, Mayor Weinberger. We need to move forward. So there's only really two ways of moving forward. One is to informally get our preferences and try to do it in a meaningful way or to do as the mayor has suggested and for someone to come forward with a resolution. Councilor Hightower. If the president would allow, I think it would still be really nice to do those straw polls and then I'm happy to work with the administration or anybody else barring more than six councilors on bringing resolution forward for the next city council meeting. Thank you. So let's start with this. We got a report from the ad hoc committee. There were several priorities that were put in that, there were several priorities that were in the ad hoc committee report. Just by a show of hands, how many councilors are committed to a redistricting map where each, where constituents will be represented by two city councilors? I'm gonna ask the question. I'm asking the question. How many city, how many are there of us who wish to be represented, feel that it is important to be represented by two city councilors? Forget about the maps for a minute, okay? I understand, I understand. We have to do it in some order. So we're either gonna, I mean they work with me here. So what I'm seeing is that the majority of city councilors do not feel that that is a, that that is, that the map configuration is more important than the number of people that they represent. So now we will go to the ward maps. How many people are there who wish to see a ward map with seven wards? How many city councilors are there that would support, and I think the answer there was around five, maybe six. How many are there who would wish to see if I was counted in that? You were. How many city councilors are there who would prefer to see an eight ward map? Okay. It looks like there's probably about. Clarification on. Yeah, I mean we're trying to figure out whether or not there are maps that clearly are not at all supported. Point of information. Yes, Councillor Jang. I'm not even sure like what the mayor just said. Yes. Allowed by Robert's rule for how to take the temperature of the room by just raising hands. To our parliamentarian, is this allowed under Robert's rules? If you could speak into the microphone, please. Robert's rules specifically states the straw polls are not in order. The reason why I have not raised my hand in any of these questions. And if you allow me for me to speak what I kind of think a little bit. Of course. Thank you, President. From my perspective, I feel like we do not have the right information to make any decision at this point. We had a resolution. We had several maps. We tailored them down to those we have in front of us. And I was one of those people that requested that we have extra eyes, which is the three community members that we requested to come right here today. It seems a city council here today offered the opportunity to work on a resolution just like as the mayor alluded to. I think that should be our next step. Anything that we do should be external, maybe via email. Whoever's working on a resolution can ask the people one by one, what do you think? Maybe something along those lines. Whoever has offered, right. And I think also fundamentally, personally, what I wanna see is the input from my constituents. And what we have in front of us is beautiful, which is a website that the city staff has created. I think next step is for us, as city councils to interact with our constituency specifically about that website. Then we will have at least an idea about where people are at. Today, we received only three or four people from the community forum. World Aid, World True, and World Old North End, and East District. What about the rest? Yeah, so I am not ready in making any decision right now. I think we need to move forward if we can. Thank you. Thanks, Councillor Chang. So given the fact that star polls are not allowed under Robert's rules, we will cease doing them. And we will close this item. And we will move on in our agenda. The next item on our agenda is item number five, which is climate emergency reports. Is there any city councillor who wishes to offer a climate emergency report? I do, if you allow me one minute. Councillor Jang. So I think I asked this question also during Board of Finance, and it is specific to what we're trying to do in terms of internal energy. It seems there are many concerns from many constituents that what we're pushing, we are forgetting the most important element which is customer satisfaction. People are not happy about the terminals that they are purchasing. And they are requiring basically for BED to start to collect data about where people are at. And if there are opportunities also for us to talk about that as during this specific agenda item, to bring it forward and to invite people also to speak about this perspective. I think it will be important. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Jang. Are there any other councillors or the administration who wishes to offer a climate emergency report? Mayor Weinberger. Thank you, President Paul. I just briefly say I think coming up momentarily later in the agenda, there is an important item with respect to Burlington's work to address the climate emergency and that the district energy system effort that we've been embarked upon for numerous years has some action on the agenda tonight. And we continue to think that the single most significant single step that can be taken to reduce emissions involves capturing the waste heat from the McNeil plan and using it to replace fossil fuel burning at the institutions that could be a significant reduction in fossil fuel consumption. As a result of this, and you'll have a fuller report later on in the night. Thank you, Mayor Weinberger. Seeing no other city councillors with climate emergency reports we'll close that item and we'll continue to item number six, which is our consent agenda. Is there a motion to move our consent agenda and take the actions indicated? So moved. Thank you, Councillor McGee. Seconded by Councillor House. Is there any discussion on the consent agenda? Oh, Councillor Hightower. Sorry, I know we don't often have discussion on the consent agenda, but I just wanted to note that there was an item 6.03 from the Burlington Business Association regarding Great Streets Main Streets. I don't know that we need to spend a lot of time on this as a council, but I think we did in our last vote move forward with having continuous sidewalks and separated bike lanes, which I think is great. And I think that this is a very reasonable request to continue to work with that community in order to mitigate any impacts on them that I found very reasonable. So I hope that if it is council that TOOC and or the administration just continues to honor that work and want to make sure that we've noted that. Thank you, Councillor Hightower. Any others? Seeing none, all those in favor of the consent agenda taking the actions indicated, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? We've approved our consent agenda, which moves us on to our deliberative agenda. There are 11 items on our deliberative agenda and in the interest of time and being able to accomplish everything on our agenda and at a reasonable hour, there are as in the last couple of agendas, there are minutes allotted to agenda items. And as per our council rules and approving the agenda, I will do the best I can to try to get us to adhere to the approved agenda. The first item is item 7.01, a communication for Mayor Murrow Weinberger on the FY23 Mayoral appointments, Mayor Weinberger. Thank you, President Paul. As in past years, I am honored, proud to bring to you an outstanding group of talented, collaborative and committed department heads that I have the privilege of engaging with, working with every day and that I know serve the people of Burlington extremely well. What is different this year is that this reappointment request comes at the end of two pandemic years that have been very hard on city workers here and in cities across the country. And have we've come through two years that have resulted in many, we've seen it. We've seen it at this table, we've seen it in other ways. I've seen it with my colleagues among mayors. So many people at this point are stepping away from public service. We saw it in the legislature, it's happening right now and from municipal service. I am very grateful that this group is stepping up, once again, is eager to continue to work for the people of Burlington, work for this administration, work with this city council to make life here in this great city even better to address the challenges that have grown over the last two years to move us forward to recovery in so many ways. And so it is my hope that the council will give a strong endorsement of this group that is behind me tonight. Thank you, President Paul. Thank you, Mayor Weinberger. Before we would get to any councilor comments, we'd need a motion on this and I'll go to Councillor Travers. Thank you, President Paul and thank you, Mayor Weinberger for your comments. I could not agree more and in so doing would move to confirm the FY23 mayoral appointments as listed on board docs, thank you. Thank you, Councillor Travers. Motion was made by Councillor Travers, seconded by Councillor Carpenter. Councillor Travers, would you like the floor back or? No, I probably out of turn already made my comments which is that, thank you, Mayor Weinberger. I could not agree more. The folks here are in many respects the face of our city and I think Burlingtonians are lucky to have them leading the city departments and I'm excited to support this slate. Thank you. Thanks very much, Councillor Travers. Are there other councillors who wish to speak to the appointments before us? Seeing none, we'll go to a vote on the motion. All those in favor of the motion to confirm the FY23 mayoral appointments as listed, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? The vote is unanimous. Congratulations and thank you to all of you. The next item on our agenda is 7.02 which is a special event outdoor entertainment application for REIB for Sunday, June 19th, 2022. Councillor Travers. Thank you, President Paul. At the beginning of the meeting there was an updated permit that was presented on board docs and so the motion here is to approve the one day only special event outdoor entertainment permit application for REIB Sunday, June 19th with the revised copy on board docs which would be from South Winooski to St. Paul Street. I believe the Juneteenth celebration dancing by patrons. Yes, amplified music. Yes. Thank you, Councillor Travers. Motion has been made. Seconded by Councillor Hanson. All those in favor of the approval of this one day only special event outdoor entertainment permit application please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion passes. We'll move on to item 7.03 which is an umbrella entertainment permit application for June 3 through 12. The Flynn Center for the Performing Arts, Burlington Discover Jazz Festival, Councillor Travers. Move to approve the 2022 umbrella entertainment permit application for Flynn Center for Performing Arts, Burlington Discover Jazz Festival, June 3rd, 12th, 2022 various locations within the city, various hours. Thank you, Councillor Travers. Motion has been made. Seconded by Councillor Hanson. All those in favor of approving the umbrella entertainment permit application for Flynn Center for the Performing Arts, Burlington Discover Jazz Festival please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Please say no. The motion passes unanimously. Which moves us on to item 7.04 which is a communication from Sarah Reeves the executive director of the Chittenden Solid Waste District on the proposed FY23 budget. Ms. Reeves, are you with us via Zoom or are you here in person? Oh, I'm, oh, okay. Is that under CSWD? Right here. Good evening, can you hear me? Great, Sarah? Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much for joining us. I understand that you have a few words that you'd like to offer and then we could go to comments from the council before we go to a motion. Thank you. Yes, indeed, thank you. And so again, thank you for your time and I will respect that time. I did have a PowerPoint, but I will just read to you the high points of that and then I would love to take any questions you may have. So for those who are tuning in, you may not know who CSWD is, the Chittenden Solid Waste District is a municipality and we were created in 1987 by our members of which Burlington is a founding member to oversee and manage the waste generated in Chittenden County. And because I'm here presenting the budget, I do every year, I like to remind folks how we generate revenue and where we do not receive a revenue. Our revenue is three main streams. It is user fees, which are essentially fees paid directly to us by customers at our facilities like our Drop-off Centers or our compost facility or the materials recovery facility. The other fee is a solid waste management fee and that is a fee that haulers pay when they bring material for disposal to the Coventry landfill. And then the third stream of revenue for us is revenue from the sale of materials that we sort or produce or such as compost, products, paint and the sale of recycling. We do not receive any revenue from our member communities. We do not assess any per capita fees. We do not receive any of your property taxes. Burlington does pay tip fees at the materials recovery facility because you do collect recycling on behalf of your residents. But you do not receive any other bills from us. We provide these services and paper them out of those revenue streams. For fiscal 23, we are anticipating revenue just over $14 million. We subtract out the cost of goods sold to things like paint buckets. So we put the paint in, leaving us with a gross profit of $13,859,000. We are budgeting expenses in the amount of $13,808,000, which is a very, very narrow buffer there. There's practically nothing, but we do have some room for movement. So we have to get down to zero. So we do some transfers in and out of reserves and then that gets us down to zero. Our solid waste management fee, as I mentioned, is one of those items that is one of our streams of revenue and it's directly tied to the amount of tons that are disposed in the landfill. We are budgeting a very, very small increase in tons subject to that fee from last year. The tons subject to that fee are down significantly from a very high level of 2018, 2019. So COVID definitely had an effect on the tons generated and tons generated that are subject to that fee tend to ride very closely along with the economy. So as the economy blooms, those fees, those tons go up when it is not booming, the fees go down, the tons go down. So we are seeing a beginning to see a recovery to some of that economic activity, which is one of the reasons that we're seeing an increase in tons. In addition, we are seeing some population growth in Chittenden County and that is also directly tied to those fees. At the Materials Recovery Facility, we are anticipating a very large increase in our expenses. That is due to a renewal or extension of the contract that we have with Cassella for the operations of that facility. And we're also experiencing some increases there for materials management, hauling services are increasing. So our costs that we paid to them are increasing as well. This is where we may have some wiggle room on our revenue. We are budgeting very, very conservatively for the revenue on the sale of recycling. We do think that we will see excess revenue above what we budgeted, but we like to budget conservatively because we don't control those markets. We are not raising the fee at the Merc. So that number is budgeted at $80 a ton for this upcoming fiscal year remains the same that we budgeted for this current fiscal year. Our Organics Divergent Facility, the Compass Facility is the only operation that we are seeing a small increase. We're increasing the fee from $60 per ton on the inbound to $65 per ton. And this is part of the strategy to bring this facility into a realm where it is self-sufficient, self-supporting. And we were headed in that direction. We did excellently the past two years actually generating a small profit in both years. And then this past year, over a third of our inbound tons were diverted away from our facility to Kasella's Depackaging Facility in Williston. So we've brought some of those tons back for composting, but the majority of the Kasella tons are still going to that Depackaging Facility. And that is where we're realizing a significant drop in our revenue from those tons. Our compost sales are still strong. They are going back to pre-COVID levels, but they are still very robust as people are continuing to garden, which is wonderful. As I mentioned, our Drop-off Centers is one of the areas that we are again not raising our fees. Those fees are staying the same for this year. We are looking at the fee structure because there are a lot of items that we do subsidize and our board wants to make sure that the reasons that we subsidize those materials are still valid as we go into the future as all costs are increasing. But for this year, there will be no increases in fees at the Drop-off Centers. One of the areas that we do heavily subsidize is our environmental depot. And that is because we want to make sure that people always have the incentive to bring us the material at no cost. One of the items that changed this year going into next year is the Community Cleanup Fund. And council may know that this is a fund that CSWD supplies an annual allotment into for specific use by each of our member communities. And Burlington has $10,000 that they can accumulate in that fund. I know you've used some of that over the years. You have a little over $8,000 you fund right now. The change is, is that instead of having a smaller allotment in each of five years that you can build up in bank, we are going to now fully fund what would be essentially five years worth of that fund each year. So starting July one, you will have a new bank of $10,000 to use throughout the year. It's not a matching grant. It is just, it is money that you can use for any number of cleanup projects that you might want to use for matching grants for carts. There's a slew of different items you can use it for. You won't be able to bank it going in further years, but each year you'll have a new pot of $10,000. And that is something new this year for that our board decided to do. For our capital plan, it's again another heavy capital year. We are building out our compost facility that will be done in the first quarter. We are looking to hopefully build a new administrative building, but we have to see what the price tag is going to come in on. We're making plans to make some improvements to the Milton drop-off center. We are purchasing a new compost screener and we're looking to do some site preparation for a new Murph. And that frankly is the most exciting part of my presentation. I think our board of commissioners has approved our Murph project materials recovery facility project to go to the voters in November. We will need to bond for a new Murph. But our Murph, the current one, has been a workhorse since 1993 and we need a new one. It is undersized. There's no more capacity for growth even if we wanted to take more materials in and we do, they physically can't fit in that building. We are still hand sorting all of our material that's coming in. So we wanna build a new facility, doubling the square footage, built on land that we own in Williston and bring in new sorting technology. The key for all of our member communities to know is that we will again, we are not intending to assess any per capita fees to cover the bond, the debt service. So the debt service again will be paid out of the operating revenue from, so again, a tip fee from the sale of recycling. And again, if we need to tap into the solid waste management fee, we will do that, but we will not be sending you a bill for this new project. We are seeking funding from a variety of sources. There's federal money available for the first time ever. We have the option to apply for a, which we will a zero interest municipal loan. We have been told that we will be receiving some small grants and then the rest will be through municipal bonds. That was a lot of information that I just threw at you. And I didn't receive the packet and I had a new conversation back and forth with Councillor Hanson today. So I know there may be some other questions out there. And I would love to turn it over to the council. Thank you so much. And thank you also for the, not only the presentation, but your budget and all the other communications. I would agree that it is exciting what you've got to look forward to this year. Are there questions or comments from the council for Ms. Reeves? Councillor Hanson. Great, thanks. Thanks for that. And thanks for the email correspondence as well. I was just hoping if you could touch on some of what we had discussed over email. And really, you know, I think a lot of people might not know that the mission of CSWD is not just to manage waste, but it's to reduce and manage waste. And I think that's excellent that we have this institution that is first and foremost, you know, focused on reducing waste, at least in its stated mission statement. So I'm wondering if you could speak to how, what results we're seeing, what we're expecting around waste reduction and what the plans are to accelerate waste reduction in the coming fiscal year. Thanks. Yeah, no, thank you very much, Councillor. And our mission is to manage waste that's generated in the county in environmentally sound, effective, efficient and economical manner. And we do that in a wide variety of ways. And really the key is yet waste reduction is important, but really waste prevention is critical. And that's where we wanna be heading as an organization and hopefully as a county. So the more that we can do to prevent the waste from occurring in the first place, that's what we wanna do. So we are out in the community and every single day we have a very dedicated outreach and communications team. We are in the schools, we talk to our businesses, we are working at events, we are working through policy, through legislature, legislative actions such as working on extended producer responsibility, which would put some of the burden of managing waste back onto the producers of the waste such as packaging manufacturers and brands. We are working on, I have a variety of workshops that are free to the public. We have them both virtual and in person now. We're happy to get back to be in person workshops, but it really is focusing on how can we help people learn, how to not make more waste or even any waste. And so really featuring those tools on our website, we like to highlight people who are doing things in a new and interesting way. So I would encourage you to sign up for our social media channels where we feature a lot of folks who are doing things that are super cool. And again, I would love to do even more, frankly. And I think there's so much more to do because it is such a looming crisis in a lot of ways. In Chittenden County though, we do a really good job. And I wanna make sure everyone understands that. We have the highest waste diversion in the state and we have one of the highest waste diversions in Chittenden County in the country. We divert over 60% of our waste from landfill. And that's astonishing. The state's average is around 35, 36%. We wanna get to 75% or more. So that's kind of where our path forward is, is to get more into the community and help people understand kind of where their sweet spots are and answer questions and work with them. So that's, as our goal is to increase our education and outreach wherever we can. There are other questions that you might have had, Councillor Hansen. I'm all set for now, thanks. Okay, all right, thank you, Councillor Hansen. Are there other Councillors who have comments? And I can't, just wanna make sure I can see Councillors Shannon and Freeman. Are there any others? Seeing none, we could go to a motion, Councillor Barlow. Thank you, Councillor Powell. I'll move to approve the CSWD proposed FY23 budget. Thank you. Motion made by Councillor Barlow, seconded by Councillor McGee. All those in favor of the motion to approve the CSWD proposed FY23 budget, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Are there any, thank you. Are there any opposed? Councillor Hansen. So the vote will be 11 to one. Sarah, thank you so much for joining us. Enjoy the rest of your evening. Thank you very much. Thank you. Our next item is item 7.05, which is a communication from Darren Springer, the general manager of Burlington Electric regarding the BED FY23 rate change. Director Springer, thank you for being with us. My understanding is you also have a brief presentation and then we'll go to Councillor questions and comments. Thank you. Good evening, Councillors. Darren Springer, general manager with Burlington Electric. Here with my colleague, Emily Stebbins-Willock as well. We are here to talk about the FY23 proposed rate change. And for FY23, we are proposing a 3.95% rate change and just some context for kind of where we are. We had gone 12 years without a rate change prior to the pandemic. And then last year we had our first rate change in 12 years and it was a 7.5% rate change. And we committed at that time to our customers, to the council, we would seek more regular rate changes and try to have them be more moderate than the 7.5% that we had last year as just a way of keeping up with the cost of doing business and avoiding any particular year having an overly significant impact in terms of rates. At the Public Utility Commission last year, it was documented we actually needed 11.8%. So partly with the 3.95% were completing what we actually needed from last year but we didn't ask for all of it at the time because we were conscious of the burden that that would have for our customers. In terms of some positives economically for Burlington Electric, we actually experienced the most expensive winner in the history of the ISO New England grid, particularly January. And a lot of utilities may have seen rising costs due to that because we are 100% renewable. We not only insulated our customers from those cost impacts but we actually benefited our customers economically during that time running our renewable plants like McNeil during those high cost times to offset that what otherwise would be a significant energy market impact for our customers. In addition, the net zero energy revenue bond which the community voted to support last year has been issued. It's an important source of capital for us. It's funding a lot of important projects and it's keeping our rate need lower, all things equal. I had communicated previously that we thought we would need a 4.9% rate change to the council but we're able to do some work during the budget process to lower that to a 3.95%. In terms of what's driving some of our upward pressure, perhaps most significant is transmission costs which is the cost that we pay essentially be connected to the ISO New England grid. We've seen that cost rising over the last several years. It's rising again in FY23. In terms of the process for the rate change, if it's approved this evening, we would intend to file it with the Public Utility Commission in mid June such that it could take effect as a surcharge on customer bills in August just like it did last year, similar timeframe. And then the PUC would review the rate change proposal and if it's appropriate, approve it in rates and if they find any discrepancy between what we've proposed and what they ultimately approve, then that would be refunded to customers later on reflecting the difference between what the PUC approves and the surcharge. I also just want to mention and the council's already approved this item, but we are going to have our energy assistance program for low income customers boosted to 12.5% discount starting July 1st. Currently it's a 7.5% discount. Customers can sign up by going to our website and it's for customers who are at or below 185% of the federal poverty level. They can sign up and get a 12.5% discount starting July 1st and that will more than offset not only this year but also last year's rate change for eligible customers. And I'll pause there and we're glad to answer any questions that the council may have. Thank you so much, Director Springer. Are there questions or comments from the council? Councilor House, please go ahead. Thank you, President Paul and thank you both for being here tonight. And I appreciate the rate change for the PUC, the bill credit for Montres of Low Income. I have a question for you all about that. So in the rate change memo, I see that you all have set for eligibility requirements. It must include being enrolled in the fuel assistance program or the housing choice voucher for section eight. Is that true? So it's for people who are enrolled in those programs. One of the ways that we verify is we don't actually do income checks. We're not really set up to do that. So one of the ways that we can verify is if a customer is enrolled in fuel assistance or is enrolled in section eight then they can automatically be enrolled in our program. If we had a customer who was not in either of those programs but was eligible, they're able to contact us and we can work with them. And in some cases we work with CBOEO as well to try to verify their eligibility. Okay, thank you. And so that information is, how is that provided to folks? So if you go to burlingtonelectric.com slash rates we have a web form there where folks can fill out and sign up for the energy assistance program. Or if anybody is interested they can always call us 802-865-7300, talk to our customer care team as well. Thank you. Yeah, I just know from personal experience how difficult it can be to get on public benefits even if you qualify. So yeah, I'm curious just what like alternative avenues to actually being enrolled in that program there could be. Thank you. Absolutely. And we wanna make sure any customer who's eligible gets to access the benefits. So if there are other ideas that folks have as we're implementing this, please let us know as well if we're missing something. Thanks, Councilor House. Is there any other of Councilor Jang, please go ahead. Thank you both for the presentation. And I asked this question, Board of Finance and you got me the answer is, what does it represent the 3.9% in terms of amount? And why is it important? Councilor Jang, if you could repeat the very last part of your question. I didn't hear you. Basically it's important. Why does better service or... Okay, thank you, thank you. Yes, so at the Board of Finance earlier Councilor Jang asked us how much revenue... If you could use your microphone. How much additional revenue? The 3.95% rate increase would result in for BED. The answer to that question is just under $2 million, $1.9 million of revenue is anticipated additionally. And the reason we need the revenue is to make our budget work essentially and to provide additional sufficient cash and sufficient net income to support the Moody's credit ratings that are important for us to maintain our credit rating and continue to access finances at low cost, low interest rates for the rate payers. Thank you. Thanks, Councilor Jang. Any other Councilors? Councilor Hanson. Great, thanks for the info. Just to clarify for anyone watching these, the rate change would be seen immediately, right? On the July, customer's July bill, they would see the new rate. August, sorry. It would show up on the August bills. Okay, great. Thank you. Thanks, Councilor Hanson. Are there any, Councilor McGee? Thank you, President Paul. I just had a quick follow-up on the energy assistance program. Would you all accept VWRAP documentation, folks that are qualifying for rental assistance? Yes, we're interested in any documentation, particularly verified by the state that shows that somebody is at or below the 185% poverty level, just because we don't have the capacity to do it ourselves. So if somebody had that type of verification and they were not on section eight or fuel assistance, they could submit that to us and we would work with them. Great, thank you. Thank you, Councilor McGee. Councilor House. Thank you. I also had a question, sort of I hope this isn't too tangential, but I think it relates to VWRAP and this particular assistance program. I know there's a little bit of a delay between kind of when VWRAP, as I understand it provides you all with the funding versus when customers are presented with their bill at the end of each month. Is there any way to get the word out to folks, particularly folks who qualify for this program, kind of to hold off on like paying their bill so that they can actually reap the benefits of VWRAP so that they're assured that you all are reviewing their VWRAP paperwork. There's just a bit of a delay. So I think, I think in terms of the rearages and then the energy assistance discount. So in terms of VWRAP, we've definitely encouraged customers to sign up for it. We've supported a number of customers with that in the previous arrearage program, which was the VCAP program. And actually thanks to the council and the ARPA funds that were provided, we were able to eliminate essentially every pandemic related arrearage for residential customers as of a date certain and get those back to sort of pre-pandemic levels. But that said, some folks may still fall behind and still be eligible for VWRAP. So we encourage folks to sign up and then if that was their means of verifying for the assistance program, we could certainly kind of do that as well. I think what we've seen with the current assistance program is most folks have been able to verify either through fuel assistance or section eight. But the timing of when they would sign up for VWRAP, you know, as soon as they apply for the assistance program, we would start working with them to try to verify regardless of which source they were using. Thank you, Councilor House. Do you have anything else? No, okay. Thanks. Great. Any other Councillors who wish to have any questions for Director Springer or comments about the BED rate case? Okay. Seeing none, we'll go to a motion. Councilor Hanson. I move to authorize the general manager of the Burlington Electric Department or their designated file, tariff, amendments and supporting documents with the Vermont Public Utility Commission requesting an increase to the Burlington Electric Department rates of 3.95% beginning in fiscal year 2023 as proposed. Thank you, Councilor Hanson. Motion has been made and seconded by Councilor Bergman. All those in favor of the motion before us, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion passes unanimously. Thank you very much. Thanks for all your work. Please don't go too far because we have another BED item on our deliberative agenda. The second item is a resolution supporting the McNeil Generating Station District Energy Project with Vermont nonprofit, Burlington District Energy Incorporated. Before we get to the presentation, I'll go to Councilor Hanson for a motion on that. I'll move to wave the reading and adopt the resolution. Thank you. Motion has been made to wave the reading and adopt the resolution seconded by Councilor McGee. We'll go to a presentation and then questions from the Council. Thank you very much. I wanted to note we're joined by Michael Herne from Evergreen Energy, who is our consulting partner on the District Energy Project and would be the operator of the nonprofit that was mentioned in the resolution. And Evergreen has significant experience running district energy systems around the country, including one of the best known ones in St. Paul, Minnesota. So in terms of the District Energy Project, we're at a, I think, an important moment. We had earlier tonight on the Consent Agenda approval of a grant from Senator Leahy that he helped secure for over five million to support the project. And the resolution before you is to support the creation of a 501C3 that would be a nonprofit that would support the additional District Energy Development work that we have planned for the remainder of 2022. And if we reach a go decision on the project would ultimately support the permitting, financing, construction and operation of the District Energy System. Where we are in the process is we are working on a letter agreement with our various partners, not only the city, Burlington Electric and Evergreen, but Vermont Gas, University of Vermont, University of Vermont Medical Center and the Intervail Center to guide our work for the remainder of 2022. The project is further along than it's ever been in its history and this is, as Mayor noted, at Board of Finance, a 30 plus year endeavor with District Energy. We've come further, I think, than any previous iteration ever has. We are facing a few headwinds at the moment. One is construction pricing obviously is increased now from when we were looking at this a few years ago. The second is interest rates for debt financing are also higher and potentially more volatile. And then third is that fuel costs and energy markets are also volatile. And so what we're hoping to do is start the process of creating this 501C3 because our goal is to be able to build this project in 2023 and 2024 and have it operate in 2024 provided there is ultimately a go decision by the end of this year based on the updated financial terms that we're hoping to have by the end of this year, including updated construction pricing, updated financing. My understanding from Michael and his team is the 501C3 process will take many months, potentially nine months to a year to complete. So we wanted to get that process started with this resolution this evening. But ultimately we would plan to come back to the council later this year, possibly for a work session, possibly multiple sessions as needed with the Duke and other committees to really brief on all of the details of the project because if we are at a point where we have consensus for a go decision, it'll be a major project, major undertaking and a significant commitment from the city BED and all of the partners. But so for tonight to summarize, all we're asking is support of the resolution that would help us create this nonprofit to manage the district energy work. And I'd be glad to take questions. Also, Michael is here to take questions if there are any. Thanks, Director Springer. Thank you, Michael, for being here. Also notice that you have another BED employee as well here with us and Emily, thank you also for being here. Are there any questions from the council, Councilor Bergman? I have supported district energy since that plant started and I get to look at the heat going out of the stack every morning, night, noon and night from my house. In fact, the reason that plant that I own my house because that plant caused such an uproar in my neighborhood that people moved and I offered a program to help people sell their places in 1987. I bought my house as a result of that. So I have a keen interest in that plant which I supported at the time. But I've got some questions about the details on the formation of the nonprofit. And to me, this is looking at me signing over a blank check. And I don't know that I'm really ready to do that because I haven't seen the background information. I get to use the excuse that I'm just starting here since April 4th. And so even reading the mayor's announcement with the details that are part of the link that you've had to the memo, that you've got to the memo. The details of the governance of this operation, its relationship to public power of which I have a strong and abiding interest is something that I'm interested and I'm concerned about not seeing the details on. So we support an application, but I might have missed it, but I didn't see the application. You know, the governance of it and the relationship of the parties to it and who's on the board and the relationship of the council and therefore the democratic voice of the people is unclear. And I guess what I'm wondering at the risk of pushing it to possibly the next council meeting is whether there is a harm in terms of the timing of this to have you come to the Duke with some of those details so that with those details, which I don't see here to be able to explain the relationship of this to the democratic process that we've got. Happy to respond. So in terms of, we've briefed the council and the board previously on the kind of evolving concept of district energy and in our prior work, phase three is now completed. So we've had three phases of feasibility work over multiple years with Evergreen and with the various partners. And the kind of completion of phase three, what we had determined kind of going into phase three was there was not appetite to have this be a project that the city was going to bond for and run itself. And it's not a core competency of BEDs to run a thermal steam system. We have a great partner who's willing to perform that for us who has that core competency. And so there wasn't really a publicly owned version of this that had support that we could explore. Likewise, I think there was a lot of interest in exactly what you're mentioning, which is having it be a community project having, so we're trying to set up a nonprofit entity to run it. The governance of the nonprofit as contemplated would be that the customers of the project, which could be the university, the university medical center, the interval center as three potential customers, BED as a partner to the project, VGS as a partner to the project could be the city, could be part of the governing process for the nonprofit, but essentially there is nothing to govern yet. We don't have approval for a system. We don't have approval for financing, for permitting, for operating. All of that is to be determined and would all be subject to the council's input and approval. So all we're really trying to do at the moment is create, for lack of a better term, a kind of umbrella entity that could start to become a 501C3 in time to be able to finance the project in 2023 if we reach a go decision. Is there a harm to waiting two weeks? The only harm is essentially that we would be a couple more weeks behind the process of getting that started, but I guess I would say, I'm not sure that we would have new details to share kind of beyond what I'm able to offer now because we're still in the process of trying to create the structure for the project that has buy-in from all the partners, at which point we would bring it back to you. I appreciate that and I can actually support moving forward with the understanding that we'll be getting the details about that. And that would include sort of the financial arrangement that McNeil will have. I mean, this is your heat. I know we can't do anything right now and it's not doing us particularly good by going up in the air, but it is the source of power and I wanna also make sure that those customers include the businesses of Burlington and the people of Burlington. I mean, that is right on the bank, over the bank of the old North End and one of the poorest areas and we should be able to get the benefits just like the rich folks up on the hill. So as long as we can work through those details that would be something, I could support this knowing that we're gonna be going and that we will be able to have input into those decisions and we're not gonna be given fates of a complete. No, I appreciate that, Councillor Bergman. I'd be happy to come to the Duke with our partners and go into deeper detail on some of the prior feasibility work and some of the model that we've come up with for the project, both from a physical engineering standpoint, also a kind of a community renewable project standpoint and happy to talk about all of it. None of it is finalized. So there's very much consideration that we want the city council and the various partners to all have a bigger voice before anything would move forward. That would be great. I appreciate it. I think the people of Burlington would be very excited about socially equitable, climate-friendly, ecological, blah, blah, blah, blah program. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Councillor Bergman. Are there other Councillors who wish to speak to this item? Seeing none, we have, oh, I'm sorry, Councillor Hanson. No, I just wanna say because I don't know that anyone said it is, I'm just really excited. This is, I don't wanna celebrate too early because we still haven't made that go decision, but every time we make a step towards it, I think is huge and just thanks so much to you both and everyone in the administration and everyone who's worked on this. It's a huge opportunity and I'm just really excited to see that we're making progress, so thanks. Thank you. Thanks, Councillor Hanson. Seeing no one else and not having, while I was waiting for that hand to come up and I waited. Sorry, I missed you. That's all right. Sorry, President Paul. That's all right, Mayor Wilber, go ahead. I just wanted to further respond to Councillor Bergman and really, you know, we had a discussion about this, the Board of Finance as well, Councillor Hightower and maybe others. Similarly, wanna express the desire for engagement. This is not the, as I think is clear, this is far from the final vote. This will be a major if and when we get to the point where we have a path forward, which is still much, very much under analysis and work. It will be something, a major decision that we, you know, at least is a product of some kind of work session or briefing for the council in advance of the decision in addition to the kind of committee work that Darren's just committed to in the upcoming weeks. So this is, we certainly see this as a consequential action if we're able to pull it off with decades of implications and it will be one that the council is fully briefed on before being asked to weigh in on that. Thank you, Mayor Weinberger. If there's no one else who would like to speak, we'll go to a vote. We have a motion before us to waive the reading and adopt the resolution. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That is unanimous with the exception of Councillor Freeman who had to leave the call. The next item, and thank you. Thank you so much, my apologies. Thank you for being here and another step forward in the district energy journey. Item 7.07 is in ordinance chapter two, administration article one in general, sections two through nine, which is the implementation of ranked choice voting in city council elections. Councillor Hanson, I'll look to you for a motion. Microphone. Thanks, so I'll move to suspend the rules and place in all stages of passage and I believe that I need to read the ordinance as well. Yes. So I'll do that. It is hereby ordained by the city council of the city of Burlington as follows, the chapter two administration article one in general of the code of ordinances of the city of Burlington, B and hereby is amended by adding a section nine to read as followed, striking two dash nine, two dash 17 reserved and adding two dash nine implementation of ranked choice voting in city council elections. A purpose and authority, the purpose of this section is to implement ranked choice voting for the election of city councilors. This section is adopted pursuant to the charter of the city of Burlington, section five acts of 1949, number 298, Vermont General Assembly as amended, B, instant runoff retabulation in the election of city councilors if no candidate receives a majority of first preference and instant runoff retabulation shall be conducted in rounds in each round. Each voter's ballot shall count as a single vote for whichever continuing candidate the voter has ranked highest, the candidate with the fewest votes after each round shall be eliminated until only two candidates remain with the candidate then receiving the greatest number of votes being elected, two dash 10 through two dash 17 reserved. Before we get to a second, Councillor Hanson if you would like to briefly explain the purpose of the motion, you're welcome to do so and then in line with what our parliamentarian has suggested we'll go to a second after that. Yeah, I'd be happy to do that. So this is just to give a little context of why this is happening. So this council took up this issue of ranked choice voting in November of 2019. We debated at length past one version was vetoed, passed another version. Ultimately we sent the charter change proposal to the voters with this exact language that I just read. This language around retabulation, this is the standard methodology for counting votes in ranked choice voting and it's the one that voters approved in the charter. The legislature then when they looked at this charter change, they actually took that language out of the charter change proposal. So now I'm proposing that we put this language into ordinance but it is the same language and the same, the substance is the same as what voters had approved in March of 2021. Thank you, Councillor Hanson. So Councillor Berkman thank you so much for the second, the motion to suspend the rules requires a second which we just got and it is not debatable. So based on that we're going to go to a vote. The motion to suspend the rules and adopt the ordinance requires a two thirds vote. And I think we'll go to a roll call vote if we could CAO shed. Yes, just have too many papers here. Of course. Councillor Barlow. No. Councillor Bergman. Yes. Councillor Carpenter. No. Councillor Jang. Yes. Councillor Freeman is no longer here. Councillor Hanson. Yes. Councillor Hightower. Yes. Councillor House. Yes. Councillor McGee. Yes. Councillor Shannon. No. Councillor Travers. Yes. City Council President Paul. Yes. Eight ayes, three nays, one absent. So the two thirds threshold is reached and the motion passes. We will continue on with the next item is a public hearing regarding the allocation method and standards for common area fee formula and establishment of common area fees for the Church Street marketplace for fiscal year 2023. I'll open the public hearing. I am going to look on Zoom to see whether or not there's anyone who has their hand raised who wishes to speak in the public hearing. And I don't believe there's anyone in con choice who wishes to. So give that a second here. Don't see anyone on Zoom going once, going twice. Seeing no takers will close the public forum and go on to the next item, which is a motion on the resolution for the allocation method and standards for common area fee formula. In the establishment of common area fees for the Church Street marketplace for fiscal year 2023 and we'll look to Councillor Barlow for that motion. I'll move to waive the reading and adopt the resolution. Thank you, Councillor Barlow. Motion has been made to waive the reading and adopt the resolution. Is there a second to that motion? Thank you, Councillor Jang. Are there any comments or questions from the council? We do have the Church Street marketplace director, Cara Alnaswari with us, if you have any questions. Councillor Travers. Hi, Cara, I appreciate your being here. I just have a question with respect to, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that the per square footage fee is applied to every property along Church Street equally, regardless of if you're on the southern end or the northern end of the street. Is that correct? Correct. I'm sorry, just for clarification, ground floor. Right, the ground floor, right. So the question that I have is particularly with businesses leaving the northern end of the street with respect to city place development and given what we hope is coming in short order here with respect to the northern end of Church Street, which will no doubt involve further construction. I'm wondering if you can speak to the marketplace's plans for in the coming years sort of equity for lack of a better term in programming between the northern businesses and the northern side of Church Street and those on the southern end. I say this because just for context, I have heard from some folks in the northern end of the street that are very excited as I am about number of developments on the southern end of Church Street, including of course, City Hall Park and a number of the events that are happening there. We've heard at tonight's meeting, Jazz Fest outside, very exciting stuff, but I'm wondering if you can just speak to that over the coming years, especially with potential, hopefully construction to come on the northern end of the street. Yeah, absolutely. Historically, the top block, which is the northernmost block by the Church has had a lower level of foot traffic. We have found now though, however, the top block is fully leased out, which we welcome, absolutely, and we have found a higher level of business happening up there with the introduction of crude coffee on the top block, and we're also hoping with the introduction of a new restaurant right around the corner, which will be on Pearl Street. Any programming that the Church Street Marketplace department itself does, we equitably have that throughout the street. For example, this fall, we had our 40th anniversary and we equally programmed all four blocks. However, when the space is used by a community partner, they often only choose to activate one block, which is their choice. I heavily lobbied the Flynn Theater to have a stage on the top block for this jazz fest, but due to personnel shortages on there, and they were unable to accommodate that. We have also tried to program the area in front of the now defunct mall. So for example, you will see high school bands playing there this week for jazz fest. We will also be having, from July through the end of August, we will be having weekly musical performances on that block in front of the mall space to keep it as activated as possible. So we are trying to do as much of that activation as possible. In addition, the holiday tree is always a large drone that always ends up on the top block. Thanks for that answer and thanks for all the work you do. It's been very exciting this summer to see the activity along Church Street with the marathon on the Memorial Day jazz fest. It's nice to see the area coming back to life. So thank you. Thanks, Councilor Traver. Sorry, there are other Councilors who wish to speak to the resolution. Seeing none, we will, let's see. We did make a motion. There was a motion made and seconded, yes. Seeing no other comments, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? And please note for the record that fortunately, Councilor Freeman has been able to rejoin us. We'll move on to the next item, which actually- Point of order, President Paul. Yes, Councilor Shannon. I wanted to understand what happened on 707. When there was a motion to suspend the rules, which I understand is not a debatable motion and we voted on suspending the rules. But I think that there was another part of that motion that was debatable and that was the adoption of the ordinance, which would be included in the all stages of passage part of the motion that was made. And so I just wanted confirmation that we had done that correctly because there was no debate on that. And given how we were doing it, I was expecting a second vote on the adoption piece. Thank you, Councilor Shannon. I would look to our parliamentarian, Stephen Ellis, who we did have a lengthy discussion as well as one over email on exactly how to go about doing this. So I'll let him speak to that. Thank you, Councilor Shannon. I do think it's a close call. It was my judgment after reviewing the relevant provisions of Robert's rules as well as the rules and regulations of this council that because it was presented in a motion to suspend the rules and requires a two thirds vote, it's a motion to suspend the rules and is therefore not debatable. And I think that is consistent with section 14 of the rules and regulations that states that a motion to suspend the rules, a proposed ordinance may be adopted if approved by two thirds vote of those present in voting. So because it's presented on a motion to suspend the rules and a motion to suspend the rules is not debatable, it was my judgment that this motion is not debatable. But I do think it's a close call. Thank you. Thank you parliamentarian Ellis. Councilor Shannon, did you have any other questions or comments? I will say that I think that interpretation is problematic to the function of the council, but I don't imagine that the council wants to challenge that. And if other members do, I would leave that to them. But I think it is problematic for us to not debate the adoption of an ordinance, which was secondary to the waving of the suspending of the council rules in this case. And we have not in the past not debated these adoptions when we have suspended the rules. So it has been a long council practice to debate that. But I do understand attorney Ellis's point that the piece of it to suspend the rules, that is not debatable and we've been doing it incorrectly. Thank you councilor Shannon. Did you have anything else you wanted to add attorney Ellis and your microphone? I do think it's a close call, but it was my judgment reading the Roberts rules and the section 14 of the rules and regulations together that because section 14 calls for the ordinance to be adopted by two thirds vote on a motion to suspend the rules and because a motion to suspend the rules is not debatable, it was my judgment that this motion is not debatable. Thank you very much. Thank you councilor Shannon. We will, so what we have before us are our final two items, item 7.10 and 7.11. The first being an ordinance, housing and taxes, short-term rentals, BCO section chapter 18 and sections 21 through 31 and 7.11 is an ordinance, the comprehensive development ordinance, short-term rentals, ZA 22-08. In discussing this with attorney Ellis and given the fact that the items do go together, there is a, we're going to bring those together and for that I will look to a motion which you all have received via email and we'll look to councilor Travers for that motion. Thank you very much, President Paul. I'd first ask for unanimous consent to offer a motion to suspend the rules that might interfere with a motion to postpone consideration of items 7.10 and 7.11 to a date certain of June 20th. Okay, does that require a second? Yes, so we need a second to that motion made by councilor Hightower. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Well, point of order. I think we're seeking if there's any objection to unanimous consent. You're absolutely right. So is there any objection to unanimous consent? It does not appear that there is. Just a moment, councilor Shannon. Attorney Ellis, if you could walk us through this, we're not, we don't usually do things this way. So if you could just let me know what is the, what is the next point in the next step in this? The request was for unanimous consent to postpone the consideration of these two items to a date certain. Yes. If there's no objection, then these two items are postponed. Okay, so asking for unanimous consent, we do not take a vote on that. We just, someone would have to say that they do not consent. Right, someone would have to object. Okay, so looking to see, I guess, giving people a few seconds. I mean, we do need to give people, go ahead, councilor Travis. No, I mean, point of order. I was of the understanding that if we were to combine these two items in one motion, 710 and 711, that the first order of business was to seek unanimous consent to suspend the rule such that I may offer then the motion to postpone consideration until June 20th. If we are able to in one sort of fell swoop here simply move to postpone both items 710 and 711, then I would not seek unanimous consent. I would withdraw that request and so move it. And with a second, ask for the floor because my understanding is that that motion would be debatable and that there's interest in debate. So again, there is no, there appear, there is no objection and then you would make that and then you would do step two, which is what you are just doing. Okay, right. Fair enough. So is there objection? I don't know what, what, the objection to what? Councilor Shannon, we did read, there was an email that went out with these, with the, with this procedure as identified by attorney Ellis. Attorney Ellis, if you could speak to Councilor Shannon's question, please. I actually think Councilor Travers was correct that the unanimous consent that was just requested was unanimous consent to suspend the rules so that both of these items on the agenda can be moved to be postponed to a date certain together instead of having to take them up one at a time. And that's the first unanimous consent that's being requested. Okay, and so does that answer your question, Councilor Shannon? Yes, you're asking for unanimous consent that we postpone two items on the agenda. Yes. I do not object, thank you. Okay, then we go to, if there is no objection and you have already moved the, do you wanna say that again? Well, as, as a point of order, just with respect to Councilor Shannon's comment there, and excuse me if I'm getting my point of orders and parliamentary inquiries mixed up here, but, but I do just wanna be clear that the, that the request for unanimous consent is not with respect to postponement. My understanding is that in order for us to consider a motion for multiple agenda items together, that the first request is for unanimous consent to suspend the rules for us to consider these two items together. And if there is no objection, then I would present a motion to then postpone the consideration of these two items. Okay, that is, that is my understanding as well. So the motion to postpone is debatable. And as Attorney Ellis has explained it, we may still consider the substance of the short-term rental legislation at this time. That was my understanding that there are a number of Councillors this evening who, while do not wish to vote on this tonight, do wish to have the opportunity to discuss it. So with that said, are there Councillors who wish to be recognized to discuss these two agenda items? Well, just as another point of order, is there a second on the motion to postpone those two items? Oh, yes, you're right. Okay. Thank you, Councillor Perlman. And I would ask the floor. Okay. All right. Okay. The floor is yours, Councillor Travers. All right. Thank you, President Paul and thank you, colleagues. So the version 7.10 before the committee is one that was considered by the Ordinance Committee twice and voted out at our last meeting. The version that's before the committee is 7.11 is as it was presented by Councillor Carpenter at our meeting, I believe, on April 11th and has come back in that same form. The Ordinance Committee met last week with respect to 7.10 and I heard from Councillors prior to this meeting that they would like additional time to review the changes made in Ordinance Committee regarding short-term rentals. This is understandable. The committee added some new elements to this discussion. It's an involved piece of legislation and I'm happy to accommodate the request from my colleagues. I will say that the city has been considering short-term rental regulations for all of two years though and I'm very hopeful that another two weeks will finally get us to a well-balanced proposal that can secure the support of this council as well as Mayor Weinberger. Right now, as we've heard from the administration and as we know from just logging on to airbnb.com that owner-occupied duplexes, owner-occupied three or four unit buildings, accessory dwelling units on owners' properties are all among the types of units that can be short-term rented as bed and breakfasts and as we know, bed and breakfast permits continue to be issued for these types of properties which to me is problematic because once a zoning permit is issued, it becomes more difficult for the city and for this council to regulate short-term rentals as I believe we do have a consensus we want to do. We also know that the so-called square peg round-hole nature of our existing regulations and surrounding enforcement has resulted in short-term rentals currently being operated in single-family homes and in large multi-family buildings. We also know that some hosts are operating multiple short-term rentals in multiple different buildings and while I know that the city has attempted with the ability and the bandwidth they have to enforce our existing regulations against these properties, again, it's square peg round-hole regulations and I know that there are some of those properties that are contesting the city's ability to enforce our regulations against them. There are benefits to be found in short-term rentals. Travelers have come to expect them in communities around the country without available Airbnb's and VRBO's. More travelers to Burlington, particularly families, will look to stay outside our city. These families are not just coming to Burlington for leisure. Many of them are coming here to work. Many of them are coming to be near a loved one, receiving medical care and I think it's worth noting sometimes it's lost in these discussions that there is a whole economy in Burlington that has arisen around servicing short-term rentals and extensive restrictions on short-term rentals is also extensive restrictions on folks who have come to depend on income associated with servicing the short-term rental industry here in Burlington. I also know that as the council has considered this issue, consensus has clearly arisen around their needing to be clearer restrictions on short-term rentals and I admit that this has come into clearer focus with clearly an ongoing housing crisis. Allowing short-term rentals to operate outside a host's primary residence will keep some long-term housing options off the market and I understand and respect the concerns around that. I don't know that it will be to the extent that many have stated but it's a reality that we need to consider here. I'm also uncomfortable however, with telling a new homeowner who bought their property with the adjoining duplex or with the accessory dwelling unit knowing that they may be able to afford their mortgage by being able to short-term rental that unit or telling someone who built an accessory dwelling unit knowing they would be able to afford the construction cost by being able to short-term rent it or telling an elder in our community who has built an accessory dwelling unit because they intend on aging in place but aren't quite ready to move into that unit. I'm uncomfortable telling those individuals that they're no longer allowed to do so. So the question here is what is the right balance and I look forward to having the discussion tonight and I look forward to this matter coming before the council in two weeks time. I do think there's some great new elements in the piece that came before the council here. One is it does restrict the number of short-term rental units that a host can register. It makes nearly all short-term rental units tied to a host primary residence. If a host was to register a short-term rental unit outside of their primary residence they would have to also afford a unit within that same building that meets inclusionary zoning standards, which was something that Councillor Carpenter and other folks had submitted previously. And I do think that, well, before I get to this last piece there's a new item in here that if a landlord were to unfortunately evict a tenant or refuse to renew a tenant's lease because they intended on converting a long-term housing unit to a short-term rental unit the matter before the council would require that that landlord pay the tenant's relocation expenses which it cites to another section of our ordinances but those relocation expenses would not only include the cost of actually moving but it would also include having to pay that tenant's security deposit in whatever apartment they end up in. And finally, and I think this is the most important element that's been introduced in the ordinance committee's discussion is the application of a higher gross receipts tax to short-term rental units. And I appreciate Mayor's Administration, Megan Tuttle, Scott Guston, Bill Ward, Patty Weyman, Kim Sturter in the city attorney's office really taking a deep dive on this issue as well as former city attorney Dan Richardson. Right now there is a 2% gross receipts tax placed on short-term rentals. The proposal before the council tonight would increase that short-term rental gross receipts tax to 9% and while we don't have perfect data on this we have seen presentations from the city indicating that that could result in more than another $400,000 annually being generated for the city's housing trust fund which I'm particularly excited about. I personally believe that the matter before the council now strikes the right balance between the considerations that we have here. I understand colleagues need more time to consider it. Again, looking forward to the discussion tonight and hoping we can come to some resolution a couple of weeks from now. Thank you. Thank you so much, Councillor Travers for that detailed explanation. So we all have a really keen understanding of what happened at the ordinance committee. Are there other councillors? Councillor Shannon. Well, my understanding of a motion to postpone is the only thing debatable about it is the motion to postpone. Meaning whether or not we should postpone it not the substance of the resolution or ordinance before us. So I'm hoping that that's where we're headed is limiting the discussion to the motion to postpone. Thank you, Councillor Shannon. When I spoke with Attorney Ellis I actually had said that there were councillors who did want to discuss it. This were the, these were the motions that I was given and which I then gave to Councillor Travers. Attorney Ellis, are we able to discuss the substance of the short-term rental ordinance at this time? Unless somebody objects on the grounds that it's not germane to the motion and I haven't heard such an objection. I'm objecting that it's not germane to the motion. I second that. Yeah, this was, thank you, Councillor Shannon. I, I'm sorry, Councillor Jang, did you have? I second that if it's allowed. Okay, I mean, I'm, I, I'd be happy to make a parliamentary ruling on that. The discussion can be germane to the motion if it touches on the same subject matter and the substance of the motion is germane to the question of whether the consideration of the motion should be postponed. So for that reason, I felt that it was appropriate that it would be germane for some discussion to be allowed pertaining to the merits of the motion and not simply the motion to postpone consideration. Okay, I mean, you know. There's a limit to how much discussion would be appropriate about that since there's not gonna be a vote on the motion tonight. The only vote that's being taken is whether it should be postponed to a date certain June 20th. Okay, so if there are comments from councillors that are germane to the motion before us, then those comments will be taken. We'll try not to stray from that. Not sure that that was really the gist of what I was hoping to get to, but it is what it is now. Are there councillors who wish to speak to, to speak to the motion? Thank you, councillor Bergman. I just wanna say that I appreciate the extra time. There are a lot of details. We have spent time in the budget process. I know that I have done that and was not able to go and concentrate on the ordinance committee. I think there may have been some other conflicts, so I really appreciate that and I will do my best to look over the hard work of the ordinance committee and get folks my comments, some of which may be very technical because I can't help myself having a long history of writing ordinances and thinking about this stuff and others may be more policy-based or try to link them to and do it in a way that does not violate the open meeting law. Thank you. Great, thank you, councillor Bergman. Are there others who wish to speak to the motion? Councilor McKee, go ahead, please. Thank you, President Paul. I am also grateful for the extra time, I think. Because we've spent so much time on this to take two extra weeks to make sure that we have come up with something that we can all be satisfied with that addresses not all, but many of the concerns that folks around this table have had over the last couple of years, I think will be the better for it two weeks from now, so thank you. Thank you, councillor McGee. Councillor Shannon, you still have your hand raised. Did you wish to be recognized further? Sorry about that, no, I didn't. That's quite all right, quite all right. Are there others who wish to speak to the motion? Councillor Carpenter. I just wanna thank the ordinance committee who spent a lot of time on this and I believe it's well thought out and I agree with the other councils if we need two more weeks to make sure everybody understands what was the detail of it. I appreciate that because I want everyone to understand and hopefully come to the consensus that this is a well-written ordinance. Great, thank you, Councillor Carpenter. Other councillors seeing no hands or councillors in the queue will go to a vote and this is a vote on the motion to postpone. These two items for a vote until a date certain of June 20th, our next council meeting. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That passes unanimously and with it is the end of our deliberative agenda. We have four remaining items on our agenda. The first is item number eight, which is committee reports. Are there councillors who have committee reports? Councillor Bergman. Well, the Charter Change Committee has just got a little extra work on it and a little extra speed that we're gonna have to work with in terms of redistricting and that will include extra items that Councillor Carpenter has been raising. So look forward to that. The legal resident non-citizen voting Charter Change is moving with there being some language that we have adopted and now looking at a public engagement process. I'm really appreciative of the work that CAO Shad is doing with CEDO in terms of the translation and other services that will get this out into the community. So thank you very much for that and look forward to getting back some products for you all to see and comment on. Thanks. Thank you, Councillor Bergman. Are there other committee chairs who have committee reports? Councillor Hanson. Yes, the Transportation, Energy and Utilities Committee will meet on the 21st at 5 p.m. We're also, before that meeting at 4 p.m., the Vehicle for Hire Board, I guess I would call it, which has been taken over by the members of the Transportation, Energy, Utilities Committee will be meeting and I guess I would use that as a reminder that if anyone's interested in serving on the Vehicle for Hire Board, we could certainly use members as we have none right now and this committee, the Transportation Committee has stepped in but it's meant to be a citizen board. So encourage folks to apply for that, thank you. Great, thank you, Councillor Hanson. Councillor Travers to be followed by Councillor Carpenter. Thank you, just to note that as noted just a moment ago, the Ordinance Committee met last week with respect to short term rentals. Thank you to Councillors Hightower and Hanson for a long meeting going through that matter. We do not have our next meeting scheduled yet but we'll certainly get together on that. We do have before the committee a request from constituents to review the city's noise ordinance, which perhaps is a matter that the committee may take up. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Travers, Councillor Carpenter. Thank you, this is actually not my committee I was gonna comment for Councillor Hanson because this came up at the boards and commissions hearing that perhaps two working with the city attorney would like to review the whole vehicle for higher concept and whether that's still a updated ordinance that we want given the difficulty in. So that's a task I was gonna suggest you might wanna look at. Councillor Carpenter, as the acting chair of the Boards and Commissions Committee, maybe you could bring us all up to speed on where we stand with that. Yes, so we had one meeting and I don't know how many committees we have, 25, 30, a lot. And we advanced in a number of circumstances, primarily when effectively there was no competing applicants and we have a lot of well qualified applicants. Those members or those applicants were advanced to be put on a slate that we will all consider in total. For the Boards or Commissions where we had more applicants than positions, most of them we held off making a decision and we will be interviewing them. There were some circumstances where we had some strongly qualified incumbents and we made the decision to advance some of those and then we will interview the remaining positions. I encourage you to encourage anyone you know, your neighbors and friends to go back on the city website and look at the positions that have been re-advertised. There were still a number of vacant positions and we're hopeful that we can also interview those reapplicants or not reapplicants, people that we didn't get. So there's a window of time right as we speak that if somebody is interested in a Board of Commission, there are still some commissions with vacancies and I would encourage you to ask people to look at that. And we'll meet again on the 15th. Thank you, Councilor Carpenter. So the second meeting will be on the 15th and you'll go from there if you happen to. It is our hope. It's gonna be a long session. We will interview all of the people that we have asked for an interview plus perhaps a few more new applicants and it is our plan to be able to bring to you a full slate for our meeting on the 20th. Great, thank you, Councilor Carpenter. Any other Councillors wishing to give a committee report? Seeing none, we'll go on to our next item which is City Council General City Affairs. Are there Councillors wishing to report on General City Affairs? Councillor Bergman to be followed by Councillor Shannon. It gives me no great satisfaction to say that I've been getting a lot of emails and calls related to public safety issues. I suspect that some of you have been getting them not really great to have a shooting in my neighborhood at the neighborhood park that my babies were raised in and I continue to umpire Little League and that somebody gets hurt there. Now, we know that education funding and housing and economic equity and opportunity funding all drive down crime and disorder and people having issues. We know that drug and alcohol and mental health services do the same. We also know that there needs to be an active public safety presence. That public safety presence doesn't have to be uniformed. It can be park rangers, CSOs, it can be mental health people like the folks that we have going up, the workers from Howard on Church Street. And it also includes what I think is a transformed public safety system. But we really do need to understand more of the dynamics of the public safety issues that we are confronting to know exactly how much is the right thing to spend because we don't have unlimited time nor money to do that. And so what I am using this opportunity to do is to ask the administration to get us some demographics and some metrics on the types of incidents that we've been having the results of those incidents. That would mean things like arrests or non-arrests, convictions, if we've got demographics on the people who are involved and the areas that they're involved in, whether there were CSOs or CSLs or urban park rangers that were involved, mental health workers, drug and alcohol folks. Basically, when I look at public safety transformation, I have to look at it in its fullest context. And I'm just not getting that information. And if I'm not getting that information, I don't know how the public is getting the information. And they are, I'm not gonna use a foul language, but I would. They're scared you can fill in that last, that next word. And it's just not right. And it's also not right that we're continuing to get the we don't have the resources to deal with this as the response. So I know that the mayor put out a statement about the shootings and is gonna have more coming up. I welcome that. I thank you for that. It is important to put what we are trying to do with the budget in particular into this bigger context and frame because that's where it is. We are not in my estimation going to solve this by putting the cop on every corner, every minute of the day. I just watched and I'll end by saying I just watched a great documentary about Ray Parker, Jr., the author of the song Ghostbusters. But he grew up in Detroit during the riots in 67 for those of you and there are not too many here who remember those days, it was not a pretty sight. And there were cops on every and National Guard on every street in his city going up and down with automatic weapons and armored vehicles. And that did not solve the problem. We cannot solve the problem that way. We've got to be able to do it in a different way. And part of that is gonna be getting the information. So I ask you to get that information so that we can begin to have a much more robust discussion about what we can do. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Bergman. We'll go to Councillor Shannon. Thank you, President Paul. And I appreciate Councillor Bergman addressing this and also appreciate just how literally close to home this is for Councillor Bergman. I visited the site today, the home, where an innocent bystander who wasn't really even a bystander, but somebody just gathering with friends at a table in their own backyard was struck by, I don't know that we know what something shot out of a gun, whether it was shrapnel, a bullet, I'm not sure, but struck in the head and causing serious injury that could have been far, far worse in an enclosed backyard because of stray gunfire. And I certainly think as a nation, we need to evaluate our priorities with regards to guns. There are things we can regulate. There are things we can't regulate. From this council, we can't actually effectively address that piece of it and we've tried. But there are other things that this council can do. And I think that it is problematic and a disservice to victims when individuals, which is very different than mass riots, when individuals aren't held accountable for their actions. And we have a problem both with shootings, with chronic and massive theft, with people who are chronic repeat offenders who aren't being held accountable. And we need police to solve these crimes. When somebody is shooting, I don't think a CSO or a mental health worker is really the person to take the lead to address this problem. We need armed officers in these situations. And we also need those CSOs, the mental health workers. I am fully supportive of having more of them because a lot of what we're seeing are social problems that are playing out in our streets. And they can help in potentially preventing certain crimes. And they can help people and people need a lot of help. But I don't think that we can continue to deny the role of our police officers and our police department in addressing the needs of victims in our community. So I hope that the council will give that consideration as we go forward. We're in a very bad position right now. And I know that the police were very attentive when this happened, as was Chief Murad. And I thank them for their service running into a very dangerous situation that neighbors were victimized by. So thank you. Thank you, Councillor Shannon. Are there other councillors who wish to speak to General City Affairs, Councillor Chang? Thank you, President. I am going to talk about something a little bit different. Somewhat related at the same time, which is a war on drugs. Yeah, I think that a particular focus need to be done on that. And also how it's also related to mental health. Most of the time in this community. And NAMI, which is an organization working to dismantle mental health in the state of Vermont, it is a national affiliation, provided a presentation to a council for Shittington County and they stated that 60 to 70% of people with mental health have some type of connection with drugs. I think sometime our priorities, we need to strengthen our priorities in order to solve the safety issue in the city. What is happening in this park here, this beautiful park that we all worked on very hard to put together, what is happening is just deporable. Most of the time. And I think substance use in general is killing a lot of people. I think Mayor Warnberger has made it a priority over those deaf. And now with one of his staff who particularly look into substance use in the city, policy analyst which is Scott Pavek. Tomorrow at 12 o'clock from 12 to 1.30, five Vermonters will be telling their stories about substance use disorder. It's through Zoom and thank you to all the city councils that signed on to watch to come hear their stories. You will not believe what people are going through in this community. I am very particularly happy that the city has a focus in substance use disorder and also let's not forget mental health in here. Tomorrow it's via Zoom and it's on the Building Bright Features website and we are doing it in collaboration with Vermon Department of Health. Three months of planning, those stories will change your mind about safety in the city. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Jang. Any other councillors wishing to speak to General City Affairs? Councillor Barlow. I just want to say I was troubled by the action this council took tonight to suspend rules and eliminate discussion about an ordinance change in one motion. And I believe it undermines the function of this body. Some of us weren't here during the Charter Change discussions and we've heard concerns about precinct some ability and we've heard concerns about the ability of IRV, the way it used to be implemented or was implemented before we repealed it. I'm sorry, I'm having problems with my mic, but we know that there are open questions about this and we don't have to have this ordinance in place until town meeting day of 2023. It seems like we had the space and time to do some additional deliberation, have good public process around this and we stifled that tonight. And I don't think it's what we should be doing so I'm hoping we don't do that going forward. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Barlow. Any other councillors seeing none, we'll go to the next item which was council president updates. I do not have any updates to share with you which will move us to our last item of the evening which is comments from the mayor, Mayor Weinberger. Thank you, President Powell. I do have a number of things I'd like to speak to you tonight. I wanted to start by essentially reiterating here the statement that I did put out earlier today regarding the shooting last night, the gunfire incident last night. I want to be really clear, gunfire incidents in Burlington are dangerous, they are illegal and they are unacceptable. The individuals who are putting themselves and the public at risk through these reckless shootings should be on notice that the city is doing everything in its power to hold them accountable and to stop now. To fully protect the public from gun violence, the BPD does need action from other law enforcement agencies, this body, and state and federal lawmakers, and Chief Mirad and I will be further detailing those actions and what we're looking for to reduce gun incidents later this week. I want to address some happier events that took place this past weekend and important events. One was a remarkable ceremony, unlike anything else that I have experienced over the last decade at Lake, at the Lakeside Cemetery this past Saturday where there was a re-interment ceremony for veterans from the War of 1812 who had been removed from their graves by various activities over the last 20 years, various construction activities, and after extensive research that has allowed Dr. Kroc at UVM and his team to really document an enormous amount of detail and learn a great deal about living conditions that those soldiers experienced and that the city was experiencing during the war were re-interred in a new granite column barium that is in a prominent place just inside the entrance to the cemetery. If you just did what's striking in the same week as Memorial Day that we, on Memorial Day we gather rather every year in Battery Park and we honor the ultimate sacrifice given by so many Berlintonians and Romaners in various American wars over our 200 plus year history. In almost all those cases, we are honoring soldiers who lost their lives on distant jungles, shores, deserts. In this case, this was a ceremony regarding some of the very few veterans who have lost their lives serving the country right here in the city of Berlinton. The Community Necromotive Development Office put quite sustained effort into this over the better part of 20 years led by former CEDO employee Kirsten Merriman Shapiro to seek out federal funds to make this re-interment possible and it was, I want to thank the CEDO team as well as all the partners that were involved in that. Another event on this past Saturday was the first of our BTV market events in City Hall Park. It was a very successful start to this new initiative which is expected to run, which will run for the next 17 consecutive Saturdays. And so if you missed the first one, I encourage you to come out to a future one. There were approximately 50 vendors who participated as well as all sorts of activities going on in the park itself and really brought life back to the downtown that we have not seen on Saturdays since before the pandemic. Looking, well, something that is happening right now and that will continue through this coming weekend. I just want to remind the public and the council, of course we are, we are well into the 39th annual Jazz Fest this year's festival got off to a great start this past weekend and it continues through the week and including numerous major events this coming weekend and almost all of the events for this year's festival are again free and open to the entire public. Also coming up between now and when we meet again, great annual event, I want to offer my congratulations to the graduates, soon to be graduates of the Burlington High School who have had a high school experience unlike any other class and so much of their time has been displaced. We will be talking a great deal in the coming months in this chamber at this table about how we move forward with high school project to find a permanent home for future high school graduates as quickly as possible. And then finally, I do looking ahead to next weekend, the, we will be on the 17th, 18th and 19th for the second time. So your Burlington will be hosting a major Juneteenth celebration and I hope to see everyone here and the public at this important celebration and the REIB team is working hard and as well as other city partners to a great weekend. And with that, President Paul, I'll hand it back to you. Great, thank you, Council. Thank you, Mayor Weinberger. With no further business, we have concluded our agenda and would ask for a motion to adjourn. So moved. Motion made by Councilor McGee, seconded by Councilor House. All those in favor of the motion to adjourn, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? We are adjourned at 9.50. Our next meeting is June 20th, two weeks from today. Have a great evening.