 Jeff, are we good to start? Yes. Thumbs up. Awesome. Let's do it. It's 7-0-1. I want to welcome everybody to Words 4 and 7 NPA for Wednesday, the 28th. My name is Matt Hurlbert and we're going to get kicked off here. We always start with ground rules. And basically, we just have the same basic rules every week or every month. Then two others that are speaking, respect the agenda and the process. We want you to share your opinions politely, treat your neighbors respectfully, have your questions prepared as this is a forum for questions. Those that are operating in the digital format as is I on Zoom, we just ask that you keep your microphone muted until you're called upon. These are being recorded, so as always, just know that recording is in process. I'm going to move right in to community announcements. I have very limited faces on my screen. I see Milo is in the digital room, Milo Grant. Yes, I am. Thank you very much. Thank you for allowing me a few moments. My name is Milo Grant. I serve on the police commission. And I just wanted to jump on with a couple of quick reminders, as well as a very interesting report that was posted last night. As we know, we've had a lot of dramatic increase in crimes of opportunity, primarily being driven by drug abuse, which has increased exponentially in our community, unfortunately. The city sent out information regarding how to use a city's website for registering your bicycle. As we all know, bike thefts have dramatically increased, but before the city did that, there was a large part of the community that was using bike index. So I would recommend that in addition to using the city's website, also use bike index, register your bikes with both and keep a current picture of your bike as well. Bike index has some additional uses in that if your bike was stolen and was taken out of state, if it's found and the local authorities use bike index, there's a lot more information to get the bike back to you in terms of searching for bikes that are discovered. Regarding any tips for drug activity about drug activity, do not call dispatch with those tips. You want to use the online, it's called the tip line. When you go to the city's website and click on police department, it's one of the first things you see right at the top of the page. There will be a link to tip line and you can submit the information that way. If you're noticing in particular a lot of activity that's involving a lot of cars coming and going, if you can safely do so and provide license plates and things like that, that could be helpful in determining if these cars are specifically involved in drug activity in your neighborhood or other neighborhoods in the city. The last thing I wanted to mention was that there was a mental health summit. It involves 65 individuals who work at various levels of crisis intervention, counseling, groups such as the Howard Center, the United Way was involved, many, many people were involved and there is a summary of this summit that is available, was put together by Lacey Smith who is the lead CSL, supervising CSL and it's an excellent report and it's really mandatory reading for everyone. You'll see the different people who came, you'll see what they talked about and you'll see their takeaways. One of the major takeaways was the lack of coordination between all the groups working on these issues. Mental health is a huge driver of increases in certain crimes that we are seeing. People with mental health issues are very often quote-unquote repeat offenders because they don't have the resources that if someone needs to have meds and they need support in taking their meds but they can't get that support, then they fall into this pattern. Milo, we need to doc you there only because we've only got a few minutes to do it. No problem. This report is available on board docs and people can also email their commissioners to get a copy. Thank you so much for the time. Appreciate it. Awesome. Thank you, Milo. And I'll just add that Milo is a member of the police commission and we're going to invite her on a regular basis to meetings with a little bit more time to get more in depth and answer questions. So thank you, Milo. I'm just going to go around my screen. I have one other hand, David Sheehan, and then we'll move to the Miller Center with Jeff. Go ahead, David. David, you're muted. I guess. Hi. I'm just representing a new theater that's coming into the Ethan Allen shopping center, off center for the dramatic arts. We were housed in the old North End for 10 years. We closed because of COVID. And so we're a theater, a live theater, a cultural center, we're coming to the new North End where I used to live, up on Cottage Grove and look in front page for them. There's an article in seven days. We're so happy to be in this neighborhood that doesn't have a lot of cultural centers going on theaters and galleries and things like that. We're reaching out to all the neighborhood people through the front page forums to come join us, to volunteer, do shows, get to know us. We're in the UPS, was formerly housed UPS right next to the Bagel Cafe, the restaurants and the bars there. We talked to them. They're very happy to have us around and to contribute to the vibrant life of the new North End. If you have any questions, my email is davidshine at offcenter.com. Thank you, David, and welcome back to the neighborhood. I'm going to move to the Miller Center, where we have Martine and Kendra at the table. Are you together or separate, Martine, and why don't you go first? This is Mike. It is. Okay. Hi, everybody. Yeah. We have separate announcements. First of all, I just want to say hello to everybody. It's great to be here in person. I hope in the coming months, more folks will come here in person and we can be together again, possibly with some snacks next time. I wanted to simply say that I'm excited to announce, many of you know, I made it through the primary and I'm on the ballot for the general election for state Senate in Chittenden Central, which is our new district. The ballots dropped today. I just got mine and it's extremely exciting. I thank so many of you for supporting me through the primary. I did well on the New North End, so I really appreciate your support. Folks who have been asking for my signs, who've written for me on front porch forum, who supported me financially, thank you very much. And I look forward to your vote, maybe today, maybe tomorrow or in the coming weeks. My platform, as many of you know, is firmly in the education quadrant. I believe in investing in human beings early. Child care is important to me. Many of you know that I spent this last year, along with Kendra and some other folks in the Burlington School District and on the board fighting for a change to the student weights so that our students are more properly represented and funded. Students living in poverty, students living in rural areas and EL students. They have been neglected for the last 25 years. I've also talked a lot about elevating the need for school construction aid in our state. It was taken away about 10 years ago. We used up 30% school construction aid and I think that needs to be brought back to a level of urgency, especially given the situation that we've had here in Burlington. I'd love to have your vote. And if you have questions, I'm not going to spend more time on my platform. But check out my webpage, email me, give me a call. I love talking to folks. Thank you very much. Thank you, Martine and Kendra. Hi, I'm Kendra Sowers, one of the New North End School Commissioners. My topic is short and sweet. We are going to be at the Burlington Bagel right here in the shopping center from 9 to 1030 on Saturday and we would love to meet and greet anyone who is able to come. We can talk about VHS, BTC 2025, answer your questions if you have questions about any of the schools or what's going on. This is a great time to have a lovely conversation with us. So we'd love to see you there, 9 o'clock at the Bagel on Saturday. Thanks. Kendra and Jeff Kamsock. Yes, good evening, everyone. I'm here sort of speaking to everyone, all of you, on behalf of the MPA Steering Committee. And last, as you know, we took the summer off. We didn't try to put together any meetings over the summertime. And the truth is that last spring, sort of the level of frustration that the Steering Committee is feeling in terms of lack of participation in the community, I would say we felt pretty close to pulling the plug, quite frankly. And so having the summer off did us some good. And we've been talking about how to move forward and promote more community engagement and get our NPA back up to the stature that it used to be. And so one of the ideas that we talked about was to go back to having either sort of an NPA picnic or an NPA pre-NPA dinner that would actually be coordinated by the Steering Committee and as much of the community or any of the community that would actually be interested in joining that effort. So in addition to that, the Steering Committee would sincerely like to hear from the community about what you want to hear about in terms of how we put our agendas and meetings together. And I certainly invite any of the other Steering Committee people to sort of join in on this sales pitch. But one of the other thoughts we had was at some point in the near future, actually having an NPA meeting that was solely structured on a forum of gathering input and interest from everybody else in the community. So that's something that we would really like you to be thinking about to help us regrow our new North End NPA. Jeff, do you have any other thoughts? Okay. We really wanted to get everyone's feedback because we're Steering Committee members. The NPA is for every resident of wards four and seven. So it's really for everyone's benefit. And we're down to three members tonight, Steering Committee members. And you can't really run this with three people. So we need more members and more input on how we make these meetings better. I would just sort of, as a sort of a point of reference, the NPA bylaws allocate each NPA with nine members. So they're hard to up to nine members. So we could have as many of 18 people on the four and seven Steering Committee. And we've been running this bus with three or four people for quite a number of months. And so, you know, I hopefully you'll forgive our frustration, but we're committed to what we're doing and we really want to regrow this effort. So if not you, then you probably have some neighbors that might be a good. Energetic fit for a Steering Committee and we'd love to hear about it. What we can do Jeff is just take names of everybody that's in the room and we'll draw the hat every day. The name that comes up is the new Steering Committee. All right. But to take any feedback to them. Yes. Yeah, it's important that we provide this service. But it's also important that we have more participation and if that means more input on programming, we're open to that as well. I can't see in the Miller Center, do we have any other hands or can we move on? My mic is on. It's live. I'll speak to you too, since you asked the question. My feedback would be and folks may not agree with me, but just having participated over the years. I think focusing more on a casual neighborhood get together, I think would maybe be more successful. And I would also say that packing the agenda a little bit less tightly, I felt in the past that we've had some folks here talking to us about issues that were really, really important and we had them on this time crunch. We had them off after whatever two minutes, three minutes, maybe less on the agenda and more back and forth discussion type of format. A little bit more organic in the way that we, you know, handle those topics or discussions. I think would be great. But also just a more of a focus on neighbors getting together and talking. That would be my advice. I do sometimes feel like the time countdown. I know we have to stick to an agenda and it's nice to have it time bound, but sometimes that makes it hard for like organic discussions and it's meant to keep it fair for everyone that's right. Right. Yeah, maybe if the agenda were less packed, we could have longer discussions. Anyway, just a thought. Thank you. And routine any, any, you can shoot us an email, but any particular things of interest that we could come back to, and this goes out to anyone. Shoot us an email if there's a concern. We're all busy in our lives. And when we sit down for an hour once a month, we may not have everything top of mind. Anyone else in the room. Good. Thank you, Jeff and Jeff and Matt for organizing our NPA and for sticking with it. I know. I think the last time we had an NPA meeting was back in May. June. June. Okay. And it was also sparsely attended and a lot of people on zoom. I like the zoom option, although it's nice to have people here in person. I think it's a would be a great idea to have the dinners again, although that that would actually involve more families would be able to join us. It's a huge lift doing a dinner. I know the old North End, the NP, the NPA meeting there they have a dinner. But they also have their own kitchen, like I think here, the kitchen isn't, you know, you can't make a full on dinner. I agree with Martina about the agenda being totally packed or just having such a strict deadline and I understand the fairness, you know, to everyone. I know the old North End NPA goes on for an extra hour. So, so these are maybe the opposite extremes like here where you guys are really, you know, with your 32nd science. I'm sure a lot of us wouldn't appreciate staying here till 10 o'clock. But, you know, maybe having a little bit more of a loose attitude and focusing on things that pertain to the new North End, which I know you have been doing and then there's some citywide things that we need to talk about as well. So those would be my suggestions. And I think all of us who are here tonight should make an effort to reach out to our neighbors. And I meant to do that for tonight because I was like in May or June we had so few people I need to send an email out to all my friends in the neighborhood and say come on, come here about the high school and stuff. But I didn't do that because I was too busy or whatever, but we really need to make an effort, you know, to get other people here. And then one thing that we did skip tonight was introductions. So, I don't know if I was late or. No, we have been because it takes so much time away from. Oh, okay. I just, I guess I feel like the, those of us who took the time to come here, we should be able to share who we are, which is what we did pre pandemic. Right. Right. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Monica. Thank you guys so much for this heavy lift of doing the NPA. We really appreciate it. And I know it's been a struggle. So my thought is more of like what the Chamber of Commerce does, maybe we could get businesses local and like new north end businesses like, you know, or the bagel cafe or, you know, simple routes or something to host an event because I kind of agree with Martine like what, what if we made it social plus informative plus meet your neighbors plus get to know the local businesses in the new north end. So it was just a suggestion because I know when I was part of the chamber and bbsr like it's kind of fun to be like who's hosting this month and go and experience something and I know then that I've also then frequented those places more than I would have. So that was just a suggestion. And hopefully that would maybe take the lift off having dinners here if somebody sponsors it and it could just be that you know you could buy food there or you know there's something that's offered as a meal. But anyway, just an idea for local businesses so but thank you guys so much really we really appreciate it. Great idea. Thank you Kendra. Is there anyone else in the Miller Center. I have one more hand. Hello everyone I'm the, the seat of staff that goes to all the and pay meetings. And this is not something that is just affecting words for and seven all the MPAs are feeling what you're feeling. But what I will tell you right now is you have around 12 people in the room, and there's 25 online. So you are, you do have a pretty strong meeting right now which I've seen across all the MPAs all the impasse took a break in the summer and that really seemed to kind of bring people back I've seen double the numbers for some of them so there are you are doing good work. I just want to let you know. Thank you, Sam. This is on for that. I'm going to go to Morgan who's it's it's worth mentioning that Sam actually attends everybody's in PA. So he does this on a weekly basis. Thank you sale. That's good information. Thank you all words. Meeting is right. Hi, I'm. I don't, I don't feel we couldn't hear very well back there, maybe because I guess they can hear because this is on for you. Anyway, I'm Andy Kenny. I, I've been, I haven't been here in a long time, I guess because of COVID, but I did enjoy coming when it was meet the candidates and it was things relevant to our, our particular wards and and I did used to go to the old North and I used to work volunteer in the kitchen. And I, you know, so I went to all of Ward, I guess it's two and three all of those because I was a volunteer. And that was a, that was a big gathering, but it's a lot of work. That was a lot of work. I just can't envision that you're going to get that many people that want to do that put on big meals. That's just my thought about it. So I, and another thing is I saw the sign, but did I miss the agenda or did I, where was it publicized. I didn't see it on my, well, I must have missed it. I must have missed it on my front page form. Yeah, we each month, we sort of share the assignments of the agenda was posted is the new North and Facebook group, and also the four and seven for porch forums. Okay, it's always on the city's website under NPAs as well. And it's monthly by monthly. It's the Wednesday of every month of every month. Okay. All right. Thank you, Eddie. Good feedback. Anyone else in your room guys. Charlie, yes. I'm Charlie Gianoni and I've been on the ward three two and three MPAs a long time since just after Bernie Sanders so I go actually go back to like 1989 a little bit. But what happened is most of the MPAs were very quiet until about the year 2000 and that's when wards two and three got really active and that suddenly we started having 2030 people at a meeting. And so all through the from about the year 2000 to about the year to 2010 wards two and three dominated the MPAs, but then something happened. Okay, then four and seven got like three or four active people like Lee and Jim I can't remember all their names and all of a sudden exploded. The guys had like 16 or 18 steering committee meeting members, and the room never had less than 50 or 60 people in it. And during the candidate debates there were like 100. So I know that there's a lot of political interest out here in the, the new North end. So now four and seven has gone quiet and two and three has now risen back to being the predominant MPAs in the city the go to for city officials before the others. I mean, you know that, that people in wards, four and seven have everything in them to totally be much more active. So, but I have to say that there is a difference between being a steering committee member and being an active steering committee member, who actually does things because it doesn't really help just to put your name on a list. Thank you. No, thank you for the perspective. And shall now we return to our regularly scheduled program. Okay, I just have one hand that's still patiently up for Lee Morgan we are used to their on zoom. Yes, hi, are you able to hear me. Yes, we are. Great. I am using new technology, which is not my forte. I was just wondering if we were interested in joining the steering committee. How would we go about that I may have missed it. I've been kind of in and out. That's okay. You can send any of us an email. Okay, great. And where would I find those emails. Also a link on the city's website on how to become a member to. Oh, excellent. Look under NPA. Great. Thank you so much. And we have your name Lee. So we'll look for you. Awesome sounds good. Thank you very much. We'd love to hear from you. So seeing no more hands at 728 we're a little bit behind but that's okay this was a good conversation so we're going to jump right in to city council. I don't have any counselors on my screens why assume anyone present would be in the Miller Center so I'm going to rely on Jeff and Jeff for eyes and ears. Everybody. I'm Mark Barlow I'm the North District City Councilor. And I know Sarah carpenter word for city councilor would be here but she's but she's out traveling I think she'll be back tomorrow and engaged again. So I just have a couple of things I wanted to update folks on I know one thing everybody is concerned about, because my inbox proves that on a daily basis is North Avenue and what's going on with the paving on North Avenue. I also serve on the Transportation Energy and Utility Committee of the city council and we had a meeting last night and I did not leave that meeting without having a concrete paving schedule so I'm here to sort of share that with you tonight. I want to let you know that the reason it's not paved yet is because they ran into some engineering issues with with the way the water rolls off the road and so, rather than just paving it they want to make sure that they really get it done and so that's taken longer than they wanted to but in the end it'll be a better and end result for all of us. And so what I know about paving is that it'll be done. The final milling which is what they're doing now will be done by the 12th and final paving is going to start 19th through the 25th. So that's that's what's coming up. I also know Franklin Square for anybody who's interested there. Final paving is going to be done by the third and speed humps are going to be installed 930 and 10 three and markings on the fourth and fifth. So that's actually I also have information on North Avenue will be marked on the 28th through the 31st. I also want to update people on something I've been involved with is redistricting in the city. We know we've talked about it at the NBA before. And since May, the city councils had several maps we've looked at. One of the issues we run into is in a beyond the statutory requirements we have for redistricting there's a bunch of sort of community priorities around redistricting as well and there are things like keeping the new north end out of the old north end, making sure that there's multiple represent running up multiple representatives for each of the districts. We also, we also want to make sure that we divide the students up on the hill section in the university up proportionally amongst the wards up there so that we don't have all the UVM students in one word so there's a number of different things that are trying to be achieved. And we have maps and none of the maps do all of those things so we've on the city council put together a smaller working group to try to refine the maps and try to move the council toward consensus. We hope to have a decision on the city council on the 17th of this month at our meeting so that we can send something to the charter change committee and they can start the process of getting that finalized for a December ish timeframe so that we can have it on the town meeting day ballot next year. The working groups had had one meeting last week on the 21st we met we're meeting again Monday on the third 4pm in butcher, and I think that'll be probably warned tomorrow if anybody wants to look at that and you can also see the work that's been made on the city website under you know Burlington vt.gov slash redistricting, and there's a lot of information there as well. So I guess that's all I'm going to talk about I'll take any questions people have. Jeff, I'll let you lead with thanks for working on the redistricting. Some of your schemes of the plans. I'm just wondering why is there a need to redistrict. It's so the, the state requires us to redistrict and made me a visit a federal thing it's at least a state requirement that when the current awards are out of proportion with each other they call it overall plan deviation. When there's a greater than a 10% spread between the wards, then you're required to as, as identified by the decennial census, every, you know, every 10 years, then we have to do it and we were out of. We had an overall plan deviation I don't know Jeff probably knows but it was almost 20% wasn't it between wards, like I think it was one in seven highest, highest war to the lowest board. And so we're required to ask a question. Yeah. Where is our ward seven representative again. I do not know that I was with counselor Jang at a meeting prior to this meeting so I don't know if you had another meeting or, or, or what but Thank you. I'll talk louder. Yeah. Okay. Okay, that. So, Andy to, to address that actually. Our audio visual resources is another topic that the steering committee has been talking about and trying to get an answer or find a solution to because the NPAs each NPA gets a $2,500 allocation from the city council each year. And we've been trying to figure out how to spend some of that money to upgrade the auto audio visual resources here in the room. So it took a number of months to get all of the audio working so that all of the online people could hear what was going on here and as, as you pointed out the deficiency is now for the people in the room and, and that's a real high priority for us because we're trying to promote more in person participation so. So that's a problem that we're going to try to solve. Bridget, which brings me back. I'll speak louder, which brings me back to the earlier part of the session I would my comment on NPA meetings in general is that I feel that it's not only a information session which I truly value and appreciate from all of you on the steering committee by the way. It's a neighborhood thing. It's a community thing. And at a time when this community and every community around the nation really needs to feel a part of a community. So my question would be help concerns aside. I refer to all the medical experts, but is the steering committee going to at one point decide to bring back NPA meetings in person only, which would be my preference. But that's mine, because I feel comfortable being back in the public. But with certain caveats, depending on where the numbers are, mass, maybe not mass, but when I first moved into this community, I went to my first NPA meeting in this room with these people on the steering committee and I thought, Oh my gosh, this is great. And so we did not have this in Virginia where anyways, and I'd like to bring it back supper dinners potluck picnics. All of that's good with me, but bring back that sense of community. The agenda will flow from that. Thank you. Thank you. All right, back to you Mr. moderator. I have a hand on zoom. So did you have something to say. No, I was just happy just happy to hear that person speak about the NPA is and getting the community together. Thank you. I agree. And we, we have talked about do we continue with zoom. I think there's an element that still involves a lot of folks that might not physically be able to get to the Miller Center. And we feel that it is inclusive to sort of do this dual hybrid approach. So we're just we're experimenting. It's our first pandemic. We'll figure it out, but it has been getting better. Thank you for those comments. Is that a hand to say something else. It is. Yes, I appreciate having both. I, we only have one car and I have to go pick up my husband so I only get to be here for a short time but it's wonderful to see people at the Miller Center and I look forward to being there again. Well, without further ado, it's 740. I'm going to move to the state. And Emma is in the room on zoom. And I will pass the mic to you. Thank you. And thank you steering committee and I will just say as an elected who has to cover two MPAs I cover board two three and word for seven with small kids. I appreciate the hybrid option I do try to get there when I can in person and it is a tricky thing to navigate as a legislator with young kids so I will, I will be there as much as possible in person but I do appreciate this option every once a while. I do know that at least one of the emails I received, you wanted to maybe, and I don't know if Carol and Bob are in the room but open up for questions first so I could tell we're not doing that, or yes we're doing that. I'm excited to take questions first just so I'm actually saying things that are interesting and relevant to folks. Also, as everyone probably knows we're off session right now for legislature so every time I come to the MPI, I sort of guess what you might want to hear, because we're not an active session and there's not a bill moving at this moment. I certainly have a couple updates, I can, I will provide, no matter what around some state statutory changes that have happened and some funding changes around some, some federal money that was in the pandemic relief but I want to pause and just honor that. Would you like to throw some questions out. I think that's fine if the crowd has questions and just to note Bob and Carol both reached out this morning and have a previously scheduled meeting that doesn't allow them to be here so it's your show tonight, Emma. No pressure, great. I see people moving towards the light so do we have questions in the Miller Center. Matt, it appears not and we haven't, we haven't oriented folks to that change in format yet so. So thanks Emma for giving that a try. Read my email how about that. Right, well, well just know I am door knocking so I feel like I'm just pop quizzing everyone like hi I'm popping up and do you have any questions about state policy right now. Okay, well let me give you a couple updates. Also, so folks know, because as candidate season Bob Carol and I are running unopposed but we just did a channel 17 forum where we talked about a lot of policy issues both on what's happened and what we're hoping to do so I'm not sure when that gets aired but I'll certainly share some of the front porch forums and the Facebook groups in case people want to see an hour long conversation among the three of us who represent portions of the New North end. So I want to just touch on some housing emergency housing program changes that you've probably read about at least some headlines, because it was a pretty big change and then there's a bit more of a money found for the VRAM program which is the rental assistance program it was something stood up with federal money for COVID relief for folks to help essentially pay their rent as well as utility bills, because of economic strain and harm due to the pandemic. There were several thousand households on this program and the money was spent on much faster than anticipated. Unfortunately, right after or right before Labor Day was announced that by the end of September, they would take no new more applicants in that program. That was pretty jarring and abrupt. They had some step down for the neediest if you will the folks with the lowest income plan for that but there would have been upwards to I think three or 4000 households that would cease to receive assistance to that program at by the end of the month. There has been an update there was to a $20 million more found to extend it a little bit longer for those families who use that program. That's a good thing, although the program is not going to last as long as let the legislature thought we thought was going to go all the way through the end of next spring, which would allow us time to build next year's budget and figure out other programmatic changes while the news is a little bit better. These are quite vulnerable folks so we're hoping that we can do more and not just continue to do incremental extensions to this program and most importantly communicate with folks impacted by these changes with much more notice than a month that they might be ending their support. If people have questions on that I've talked a bit more with the folks in those programs so I'm happy to email offline if this impacts you. This is different than the program that people often know as the motel hotel program to help people who are houseless. The motel hotel program also was impacted where they're not going to take new applicants formally for the general assistance program, but they have a bit more of their money, different populations will extend a bit further through March, and they also the state expects that our other program that gets triggered once there's really cold weather will house their anticipating all of if not most of the people that would be in that population of folks who are houseless and need support for housing. Obviously stuff that we're feeling here in Burlington as we have encampments and other other folks in housing crisis and needs so this is something I'm going to continue to watch. I also wanted to just speak to a couple of other COVID related pieces that started to come online I serve on the House Commerce and Economic Development Committee. We passed another chunk of money through forgivable loans it will be administered this time through the Vermont Economic Development Authority that are for businesses still impacted by the pandemic who are trying to still get up on their feet. So, I can't remember the total amount but it's a couple million dollar, I can't remember the amount, I shouldn't quote it, it's in the million dollar range, but they're forgivable loans for folks to go through the application process. And at the end of it, much like the PPP loans be able to get some more support to run their businesses and whether the continued impacts of the pandemic. And at the end, if they've done everything. accordingly can have that loan forgiven through those state funds. And there's a similar amount of money that we put forward in the form of grants for the creative sector so this extends to artists, people who might do crafting or specialty foods etc, a special pot of money for that sector of our economy who I also be slowly recovering from the impacts of the pandemic and that is run through the Vermont Arts Council. I'm pretty sure, and that's upwards to $20 million or so again for grants for folks in the creative sector, both of those programs have just come online or about to come online around October 1. And I'm happy to share website information for folks who might know people, or they themselves are business people in those in those areas. And the last thing I'll mention, again the theme is COVID tonight apparently. I didn't realize that was a joke. I don't know, just to make sure everyone's still alive and paying attention to me here from zoom. But the last piece I want to mention is that is part of our workforce development bill, we put in a, a fund for just this fiscal year to provide relief dollars for businesses that want to support their, their employees who catch COVID or exposed to COVID or run out of sick leave to just continue some of the practices that employers, good employers at least have been trying to offer their employees to make sure that you could take time off if you're sick, or your kid gets sick and you have a dependent who has COVID to keep us all safe frankly right like we want safe working conditions we want to keep our neighbors who work at places safe. And when there's when people have depleted their, their sick time we want to make sure they're still funding so that program had a little bit of a snag it was supposed to come on October 1. It's voluntary for employers to tap into that funding. So we're trying to untangle that right now. But the hope is that that will be another support for employers that would benefit workers. In order to make sure that as we see continued blips hopefully not very large blips but when COVID increases that people can fall back on that and safely and economically securely take time off get healed from COVID and not expose more folks. So I'll pause there and see if that generates any questions. And I can end with a joke, like a kid joke but I won't, I promise, but any other questions out there. I don't see any zoom Jeff do you have any hands in the Miller Center. We have a polite house tonight. Wow, I can tell you one about the seagull and the bagel but I'll save that one for a future time. I have a question for Emma. Oh, oh yeah. I also have a question for them. As a second, this is army. Can you tell us about any successes that you're having me personally or the legislature or. Well, you talked about, you don't have COVID that's a success. You talked about, you know, housing and money for artists or whatever and is it making a difference and what are some of the successes. That's a great question. Well, I will say we've had a number of successes as we've all been living through this this moment it's been actually a pretty strange moment to be a legislator these last two years because it's such an infusion of federal money to make significant investments in large parts of our, our world here in Vermont. I think one huge success is that the state of Vermont extended the universal school meals program so every student throughout the state of Vermont is getting free food right now in their schools so it's not no question asked them that no matter your income, you get free access to food. And that's not just what's during the day but in sending food home with families. Again, no questions asked. I hope Vermont continues to do that we chose to actively do that after the federal program expired last June we extended it for this school year. So I would know because I serve on House Commerce we've done a significant amount of investment and attempts to help the workforce as people know that, you know, it's, we are certain parts of our workforce that we're really struggling to find nurses, for example, mental health professionals, and we made some significant investments to help with loan forgiveness tuition assistance. We did some investments in the nursing programs themselves the education training program so that Vermont doesn't have to be so high on visiting nurses which is super costly and does not help solve our broken health care system. So we've done some very strategic investments which is moving us in the right direction and I think those are things I hope that we can keep moving to help make sure that we're, we're supporting workforce sectors that really need that attention, continuing to draw down student debt in all areas right for young people to be able to stay in the state and continue to look at how we support our schools and and families. Those are a couple of examples. I know I sounded like a Debbie downer right like that's a positive poly thing for you. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Thank you Matt. So, Emma, thank you so much for the presentation and I was just wondering if you can speak a little bit about what is next about each 171 the bill that will look into childcare financing for the state of Vermont, it seems that we have a report that's that's the one question and also the second question is specific to building in high school. As our representative and also all the represent people representing the city of Burlington at the state. What are some opportunities in order for the state of Vermont to meaningfully put some funding into building our new high school. Two questions. Thank you. Yeah. So each 171 was a big investment, a big step forward in a big step, not the end all to trying to solve our childcare system issues so both access to affordable affordable high quality childcare, helping and also helping to make sure that folks to go into that profession are professionally and professionally compensated and supported and encouraged to go into that field because as most folks know that is not a well paying field. So we started incrementally in each 71 to put some investments and student loan forgiveness and some incentives to go into the field. The biggest piece is yet to come though after each 171 which is trying to move towards a goal of making sure no family pays more than 10% of their income for childcare and I'll tell you as someone who still has a child in childcare and just barely got one out of it. It is a very large part of one's budget if you can even find childcare. When I was knocking over in board seven just last weekend, there were two stories and of course a one hour pretty much across the street from each other where one one neighbor is planning to quit her job because they could not find childcare for their for two kids let alone one and another who could not it had to work limited hours because I think with that CP Smith I know it happened at sustainability Academy, they still haven't found enough staff to staff after school care. So this is a real ongoing crisis and I use the word crisis very purposely here that we need as the legislature to take another big step forward after each 171 to make sure that we're figuring out a funding system that helps to bring in some community subsidy either with employer partners or some version of investment from the state, because we can't keep putting it back on fine times up I do have a quick thing on VHS. But we can't keep putting on the backs of working families because it is just impossible to figure out for BHS Ali I would say I really want the state to lift the moratorium on what used to be the cost sharing between the local communities and local communities on basically resources for capital meaning to build buildings or to renovate buildings. I think if we're going to put expectations around PCBs and other things around toxics and other things with buildings. We have to show up as a partner as the state, local communities can't do it on their own. So I would, I want us to revisit and let that moratorium that's currently on that state construction pot of money. And with that, thank you Emma, I'm going to now segue we're a little bit behind schedule and introduce the brilliant and school board, we have Tom Flanagan who is our superintendent and I believe Jesse Beck is joining. And thank you folks for being patient with us while we run over time already today. Yeah, if school board members want to come up. We in other MPAs we have had school board members up but we've started they've sort of been different settings where each MPA has its own has its own setup. I will encourage everybody to introduce themselves so that we know who you are. We'll start with introductions. And thank you. All right. Great. Great to see you all tonight. This is just picking up for the cameras. So right. Okay. Great to see you all tonight. Thank you for for being here. And for spending some time with us tonight having us out and what we'll do is we'll run through or we'll introduce ourselves we'll run through a quick presentation that we've been doing. We've been doing around town at the NPA is the past few weeks, and then we'll leave time for questions so I'll try to keep my comments as brief as possible, so that we can really open it up for questions, but it is probably 10 minute presentation that we have. So I'm, I'm Tom Flanagan I'm the superintendent of in Burlington. Jesse Beck architect with Freeman French Freeman in Burlington, Vermont. Kendra Sowers North District School Commissioner. Monica advantage board seven school commissioner, Martin Leroc-Gulick board for school commissioner. Right so we're going to pull up the presentation that we have. And I know that people are in in kind of different places and their understanding of where we are with this project so appreciate your patience if you if you know some of the information that we're going to go through at the beginning I'll try to move relatively quickly. Again, but also have a lot of time to answer questions and if I'm going too fast just let me know. Ready. Alright so brief brief history of the project is that we we had a $70 million bond that the citizens of Burlington passed back in 2017. And that was to significantly renovate a building that had really big issues around some of the basic infrastructure in the building, like HVAC, and also with accessibility. In addition to it just being an aging building that had seven that has seven different spaces that are really spread out across the site. And so this this $70 million bond was to do a major. I don't think the board at that time wanted to call it a renovation because it was more than a renovation, but it was essentially renovating the building in a in a major way. Part of that process was to, and any construction process is to assess the materials that you're working with. And one of the things that we we found was that there were PCBs in the caulking along the windows around the outside of the windows. It's a toxic chemical that was used in building materials in the 60s and 70s maybe a little bit in the 50s. And that those PCBs we learned through that process were in the windows are in the caulking around the windows that led us to need to do more testing. And so, after we learned that there was there were PCBs in the caulking around the windows, we had to test the air. When we tested the air. We learned that there was significant air, there were significant levels of PCBs in the building. We got the testing back in August of 2020 for buildings, E and F, and there were rooms that were in the thousands in buildings, E and F, in the thousands of nanograms per cubic meter of PCBs that were that were in the in the air and those buildings that closed when we decided to close the building and and wait a wait further testing. We got further testing back from all of the other buildings, those that were that turns out there were PCBs in the air throughout the building. At that point the state had action levels of 30 around 30 nanograms per cubic meters, and those action levels determine whether what you that that you need to take an action. If there are PCBs in the air above a certain number for us it was 30 at the point. It was a very conservative number, but it led us to investigate the PCBs more we were required at that point to invest the investigate the PCBs more. And also we had to shut down our high school, based on consultation with the Department of Environmental Protection Agency, who told us that we needed to shut the building down. And also, they, along with our consultants at the time, told us that these were the highest numbers those thousands that the numbers in the thousands in buildings E and F or the highest numbers that they had seen in a in a non industrial site. So there was, they were significant, but buried across the building. So we ended up moving into Macy's Macy's as you know, and, and we, we utilize some of the funding from the $70 million bond to do this work to investigate the PCBs to start the construction project. So that's one of the $70 million of the original bond. The remainder of those funds, we did not use and are not going to use so it's as if we actually didn't borrow 40 million of those dollars, and we are returning the we have already returned and we will not the rest. So of the $70 million bond, we have, we are not borrowing $66 million. So the project that we're talking about now, which is the $165 million bond question that's in the ballot that you may have received in your mailbox today. I did is for a brand new project that is totally separate and and not related to this to this to this $70 million question. So people have been asking a lot about that so I sort of stopped to spend some some time with that. So if we go to the next slide. So then we started moving into a new, we decided that the building was totaled based on the, the, the knowledge that we had a $70 million project already for a failing building that people around the city and state have known for a long time has been failing that at this point, adding the, the, the problems of the PCBs to the renovation project made that made the project no longer tenable the building was no longer a viable building for us to have school in. And so we made that decision as a as a board with a lot of feedback from our partners and our design teams and the end our, our, our experts who understand PCBs. And so that was the decision that we made back at the back when we made that decision that led us then to making a decision to build a new high school. And so when we made that decision, we first investigated sites. So we looked at about over 20 sites across the district, we dug into about 16 sites across the district. And we ended up choosing the site that would be the least complicated and the least expensive. And that was Institute Road where the current high school sits. It was least expensive because we own the land. It's, it's sort of open land we do have to clear the building the old building but we are going to we would have to do that anyway. And, and it allows us space on the campus to build but also the land is is would have been the least complicated again and the least expensive for us to build on. In addition to that we chose. So after after we chose the site, then there were the design team developed five and a half design options. And of those five and a half design options we chose the least expensive of the of the design options. And so throughout this project, we've been really working hard to balance the impact of taxpayers that we know is very real and is something that we need to really consider deeply and make sure that we are factoring into every decision that we make with the fact that we need a high school building that serves about 1000 students every day. And that's just a part of the economic future and the economic engine and the health and viability of our community to have a high school to serve the 950 Burlington residents who are students at our school, and plus some students at the Burlington technical center and we'll talk a little bit more about that. After we after we made that decision. The, the board just chose option C. That was the decision the design I just mentioned. We did have a really great opportunity present itself to us at the airport so we had a teacher and a technical center director who applied for an earmark or grant through Senator Leahy's office to build at an aviation education program at the airport. And so that allowed us to think differently and work with our regional advisory board for CTE for career and technical education to to think about planning a part of our technical center at the airport. And so we are planning to have we pulled out 20 million of the original cost of Burlington technical center. And, and brought that over, essentially to a project at the airport that we are working on now with that has tons of potential is very exciting. We believe, because it puts students right at the at the place where they're learning, and it would be for our two aviation programs but also for an advanced manufacturing program, a pre tech program, and maybe an auto program because they're working on engines and the electric motor out there's a lot of data, there's just a lot of opportunity out there. And, and it's a and we're in partnership with the city, and the airport, the airport through the city of the city through the airport, as well as beta, as well as Vermont flight Academy so there's just a great opportunity out there. So that reduced 20 million out of the original project that of that option C. And then, in addition to that we brought on a fundraiser because we know the funding is a really critical and important part of this group that we worked with, who helped us as a, as a, as a board as a city to update the weighted people that funding that we received so we were we have been receiving a an unequal or an inequitable funding from the state for our for our to educate our students. We've known that for a long time, and our board under our boards leadership with a number of other boards in the state. We've helped that pass with our partners in our partners in the state legislature in particularly our here and in Rutland and Brattleboro and some of the rural districts helped us get that pass so that that group. And I'm talking about that a little bit because it speaks to some of the fundraising efforts that we are, we are doing to a certain extent. We're the outside fundraiser to help us do that work their name is Leon on public affairs, and, and we are, you know, committed deeply to doing as much as we can to raising funds, both through private philanthropy through federal and state programs, and through other to raise funds for this project, so that we are borrowing up to $165 million and not the whole $165 million. So I imagine there'll be questions on that. I want to, I definitely want to talk about that because there's a lot there when we get into conversation. So you can see sort of the timeline here keep moving. Here's some of the, this is the updated site plan it shows you where Burlington Technical Center sits in Burlington High School, Burlington Technical Center has about half of the technical center our Burlington students. And, and so we pulled out a half of that Burlington Technical Center programming moved it to the airport with the with the plan of not having that be paid for that half the technical center be paid for the citizens of Burlington or through through not doing that through bonding. Keep going. And then this shows you different sites of the plan. And so we're excited about the plan the plan offers flexibility, open space, places for students to congregate and collaborate places for the community to access in the auditorium in the in the common area in the in the gym spaces. And, and we believe it's a building that kind of meets the needs of our of our students and our community, and, and is a value it will will add value overall to our community by, in a number of ways, one of which is by increasing enrollment. We've already, we believe that with a building like this we will see increased enrollment, and that brings more tax dollars to the district as well so again it's a part of the health and viability of the of the of the city. So we can kind of keep going through just all those that's the north entrance you can see the keep going. You can see classroom space can see flexible space and light. This is the common so you can see space for students to collaborate to eat and to show that this is an important place of learning for our for our community and for our youth, our young people. Keep on the auditorium again opens space for community to access so that this is not only a school for students but it's a school for the whole community. Keep going. Here's the library or media center they call it now or learning center. One of the things we heard from our community from our families our students and our teachers is the need for light. We're currently in a Macy's building that has no windows and and light is is important for a learning environment. Keep going. And so this gets us to the tax implications and so I know this is what's really on on people's minds right now and so you can you can see the tax implications and so what I'm what the way we are thinking about is we're trying to be as as as clear and transparent as possible as the about the tax impact of a $165 million bond. But I also want to be clear that we are saying that this 15.67% on a on a home of $370,000 is really the worst case scenario with us not able to bring additional fund if we were not able to bring additional funding to this project. And with the weighted pupils so you do see some some language around the weighted pupil offset. The weighted pupil that I mentioned earlier the change in the funding formula was always meant to do two things. One, to make sure that we can provide an excellent education to our students to make sure that we are able to provide all the resources that they require. That's first. Second, the citizens of Burlington have been paying for some of those services already. And and this will allow this new funding formula will allow us to get more for our our dollar essentially and and and it's in levels the playing field across the state because up to now our neighboring districts are wealthier neighboring districts were receiving more of the they were they were doing better in the in the funding formula than the than the then districts with more with higher poverty higher levels of students who are learning English and and other students so it's just an important thing for us to realize that that will offset to some extent the the overall. The other thing is we are continuing to aggressively seek funding outside of that. We've applied for six. We are eligible for 16 federal grants in the current budget. We met with Mayor Weinberger and myself met with the governor's cabinet yesterday and told them we this is an emergency. They told us it's not an emergency. I said this is an emergency. And even though it's not an emergency today for tomorrow it's an emergency if we it's an emergency now because we have a limited time to build a new high school. They there is currently there are currently $32 million in PCB funding remediation funding in the in the state budget now. They're going to go back in right they have to write rules the state has to write rules for those and they have to. And so they and they have to bring it back to session in January so once they go back into session and and and the state is that is is required to build rules around this around how they allocate that $32 million. There's there's funding there so we made a very direct ask. Again, I also made a very direct ask of the Secretary of Education last April I walked him to Macy's and to the old building. He told me the old building the old BHS is one of the worst buildings in the in the state. And I made a $50 million ask of him then so we're we're going to continue pushing. And and I believe we're going to get a commitment or a signaling of some commitment soon here as well. And in addition to that long term what you heard earlier that we need to we need to mobilize around construction aid as a city and and as a state and the agency of education also is it wants to do that. And so I think that's something that we need to mobilize around together so these are the overall tax implications but again it's the worst this is really a worst case scenario if we're not able to bring more funding to the table. And so these are on your materials that you'd be able to see how it how those tax implications play out and across different homesite values, keep going. And this is just to show you that it's staged over time. So the 15 the highest tax impact is starts in 2026. But again, these are worst case scenarios if we're not able to bring additional funding to the project, and we believe we will be able to keep going. And then this kind of goes back so I won't go too much into this but I think it's important to know that we have already brought in addition to, to pulling out half of the Broenten technical center. We've already brought $10 million in the American rescue plan funds so all districts in the country that American rescue plan funds were able to bring those those dollars to this project. And we're also using the capital bond that we have so we have a bond for improving schools around around town including BHS. And so we're able to bring 10 million from that bond to this we have the 10 million congressional bond, we're able to use utilize some savings that we've been able to set aside and maybe and we'll be able to in the future but that's a smaller amount. And again, these are the, this is what we're pursuing in terms of federal and state funding. And then this is the end the timeline so we are, you know, you can kind of see where we are here we're headed up to some ballots went out they just went out they just just landed in mailboxes or my mailbox just a minute ago. November 8, and then you can see the timeline for when the project would start if the bond was approved. So with that, why don't we open it for questions. Jeff, I'm going to let you lead in the Miller Center I don't see any hands yet. I have some questions but I'd like to let everybody else go. Good evening. So you just put up some interesting information and I'm glad that I'm glad that you guys are talking about the old bond and stuff like that. One question I did notice when you were talking is that you're going to use $10 million of our current bonding that we bond for school renovations and upkeep and stuff like that to build a new high school. So does that mean you're going to neglect the rest of the school buildings for those years that you're using that money so that we turn out to be in a situation such as we are with a building that has been neglected and not kept up as Burlington high school was. Right, so the, the, it's an important question right how do we make sure that we're keeping all of our buildings up as we are also working on BHS. The building I'm most concerned about is is IAA that's a building that we know we need to we need to upgrade so we are setting aside funding still in the capital bond for other projects. And, but we also are and we have not been able to make a lot of progress on those projects yet, because we need swing space so actually we so we have to figure out how to create swing space for those projects, but we're going to set aside, we have set aside and will set aside funding to make sure the other buildings are kept up, and that we keep on a schedule for those buildings, but utilize the capital funding more the capital funding that we originally thought we might need to do for the high school, which is another reason we need to push for construction aid there's been a moratorium on construction aid since 2007. And, and, and that is hurting our school facilities across the state the longer the moratorium exists, the worse the buildings are getting across the state. So with saying that and I don't know where this magic money is going to come from that you're going to use to maintain, because you said you're going to use some other funding source then the taxpayer we're not using all of the capital bond for BHS PC. And we're using about half of that capital bond. So with that, so we're going to try to maintain our buildings, and we already have buildings and we already have buildings that we're not doing a very good job of maintaining such as BHS in the previous decade, you know, because I know when I served on the board we put money aside and I don't see anywhere and I don't see a lot of the renovations that had put money aside done to that building as well. So that's a concern. And so with new student waiting, does that mean that we will see it an additional increase in our tax. Are you guys going to bond for another 13% increase after you run another surplus next year. How is that going to kind of play into the situation. Right, so the way the updated funding formula is going to mean that we get more for our for essentially the each pupil is weighted based on their level of need. So we have students who may need services from an ELL teacher and an English teacher, and our funding formula didn't account for that the old funding formula, the new funding formula accounts for that, and gives us more tax and so so that we are able to get more for our money essentially in in this new formula. So we will be able to bring tax, the tax increase down through the new weighted pupil funding formula. And that's that, but that's not the only reason the primary reason of the front of the up of the updated funding formula is so that we so that districts like ours and Brattleboro and Rutland, and some smaller rural districts in the northeast kingdom and other places are able to provide a higher level of service for their students. I understand before I understand how the formula works. I, my question is more like, are we going to see another increase in our taxes. Are you're, are you because you're going to get more money from the state that should inevitably because of the way the funding works. So are we going to see another double digit increase like we did last year on in our tax bill 13% increase per pupil. Right, I don't anticipate that because of the weighted pupil change that weighted people change comes in in FY 25. But I think your question is a good one and that is around, what will the annual operating budget look like right and how will we keep that under under control right. And we had a real with with the appraisal of homes and the CLA this this year. There was a there. This was a hard year. In terms of the tax impact right for annual for the annual budget and we don't anticipate that to happen. And we anticipate the funding formula to offset some of that moving forward. David, it's nice to see you. Good. I know you're not. So I just wanted to a couple of things I wanted to mention. Yeah, first of all, let me remind you we don't have a high school. Okay. Totally aware. Let me let me read that we need right. Okay, great. Thank you. You are on the school board you know, as well as I know and most folks know that a budget is a value statement. Right now, we don't have a high school. So when we go to prioritize our construction around the city for our schools, the one that has to bubble to the top is the high school that we don't have. So what that's not what I'm saying, David, but I'm saying when you build a budget, you know that it's a value statement and you also know that you have to prioritize the high school has to be a priority. We will certainly have to deal with buildings that need help that have needed help for 1020 years and that were kicked, you know, we kick the can down the road. This is a priority. It's our number one priority. We have to treat it as such. You know, I know you know that and I and I, I appreciate that you ask hard questions, but the bottom line is priorities have to have to take hold. But at the same time, it doesn't have to bankrupt the city and it's in the residents of the city. We have an exodus of people leaving the city as well as people coming in. We have to be careful that we balance the budget and I understand that that's what you're trying to do. I understand it's not perfect and easy. And just so you know to we did we put a new roof on or a new we root we refinished the roof at IA this summer so we are continuing with regular updates to buildings and that will that will be a part of what we continue to do. Is it working. Yes, but it's just going into the report. Well, I had a question about the testing. You said the school is closed in August. 2020. Wasn't it. Didn't the students go home in the spring during cove. Was the school closed earlier. The school was closed during coven in March of 2020. We were preparing to come back for the school year for the 2020 2021 school year. The first days of school were in late August. And it was actually the very first day of school. And thankfully students weren't in the building because it was an orientation outside, but we had to close we that's that was the day that we received those numbers back from the two buildings and we had to close the whole school and we waited all the test results coming back. Okay. So the clues school was closed down for a while before you tested the fumes inside the building. Was there a maintenance done and circulation the air ventilation. Yes, before the. Yeah, right. Because the federal has medication options. We did we they're in the process of doing the air test air testing and we actually went back and air tested again. We with all the ventilation systems at full at full speed. And we had the same, same type of results. Another question. With the climate change issues with CO2 considered in the design process, you know, all these windows kind of takes a lot more to heat the building. And other things I'm just that's just one I just happened to notice. No, it was a lot very much so I mean we're it's a net zero ready building. It's going to be highly efficient that was one of the reasons we decided on this option to the option see that we picked it's because it's kind of contained in one space. It is going to be a very energy efficient building. I don't know if you want to talk about that a little bit Jesse. Sure. I got one more question. So we got we got quite a while to go before the schools open. I was wondering if school choice was considered an option with the cost per student until we get the school bill. And then maybe if there's a issue with it going into 2027. If school choice was on the table for some students, and we're also kind of first by the Chittenden County. If students wanted to choose to go to other schools that maybe have better performance levels, or I don't know it's just a thought was that ever considered. We do currently have school choice. And so students can opt into into other schools in other districts. And thankfully this past year. We this year, we have a bigger ninth grade class and we're anticipating because students are choosing to be here students are choosing to come back from private schools to come to Burlington high school, because our program is so good. So, you know, there is school choice some students choose out some choose in. Also, we met with Burlington, South Burlington, the previous superintendent his board chair, people have asked, you know, could you pair up. But we have 1000 students we have about 1000 students going to the school every day so it's not like we have a little high school that's just barely keeping up right we've got a, we've got a school that's winning banners and trophies and we've had the four the last five national merit scholars were humming as a as a high school. I wouldn't want my kids anywhere else. Well, it'd be their choice, but it would be. Unless I tell you, it's our choice on it's our choice on the financial level. So I was kind of curious is it cost effective for the city to goes to a choice if we have problems trying to get this voted in, or any other issues that might come up and delay the project for four or five years. Right, right. I mean, you know, I think what Commissioner Gulak said earlier is important to remember right and you're bringing it up now. We don't, we don't currently have a high school building that we can serve students in beyond 2025 2024 25 school year understand right and so we would have to, we would have to think about other ways that were awful to serve our students right and bad for our kids bad for our community bad for our state, we could do that but it's not what we want to do. I don't know if school choice would be bad for anybody. We look at it in a positive outlook. I do want to. I do quickly just want to say schools like South Burlington are they're busting at the seams they have no they would have no room to absorb our students nor would cold Chester High School or I mean they're full. So there's just not room if that's what you're talking about absorbing our Burlington students there's just no space for them. There's no choice to. That's right. Right now. Thank you. On Martin's point about priorities, which I completely agree. Here's my question with your many conversations with the good mayor and the good governor. Maybe thinking a little bit outside the box. Was there ever a moment where a consideration was given for state and city to offset the cost to the taxpayers by reducing the cost elsewhere to taxpayers in the city or state budget property tax, other kind of taxes that would load at the end of the year for many households. Well, we've been working closely with the city and and the state throughout we've been we've been really pushing the state to because we believe there. We're eligible for funding that's in the current budget. And we want to be eligible for funding in the in the future in the budgets in the future so I think as it relates to the state. We want to what we believe the biggest work there is to make sure that we have are eligible and receive funding through some of the programs that are specifically designed for problems like we have, like the 32 million in PCB funding. So that's something that that we're working on. And I think the city we've been working closely with the city we have an MOU with the city a memorandum of understanding that we signed with them. And we work collaboratively to get to that point to keep the cost down as much as possible. But most importantly, to commit to borrowing as little as we possibly can to bring as much funding to the project as we possibly can with the city. Right. And that's a that's a memorandum of understanding between the city and the school district. Yeah, I was more. Thank you, Tom. I was more thinking of the obligation on the part of the governor and the mayor working collaboratively with you to look at their budgets and the tax load that they place on households and see where there might be some savings, a part or in collaboration with the city that you suggest that they should that you reduce your revenue necessities. Right. No, I mean, I appreciate that question. Yeah, we did we did. Mayor and I did go meet with the governor's cabinet yesterday. And so we are, we are working together on this but we may need to work harder together. Yeah. You know, I'm a big supporter of the project. And I always have been but I also understand the affordability concerns that a lot of residents have. One of the questions that's been circulating and I'm not sort of trying to ambush you with this, but something to think about and maybe you don't have an answer tonight is that is the bonding period that's anticipated 20 years and if so, are there opportunities to lessen the tax impact by having maybe a 30 year bond instead and has the district looked at that and tried to understand the economics there because I also understand if you have a longer payback you're going to ultimately pay back more money so there's, you know, there's that trade off. And so I wondered if the district has done any work on modeling that out. Thank you. Thanks. We, we are working with the city, Rich Goodwin and Nathan Lavery are working together really closely on this specific issue right now. And we actually don't have to make a decision on whether we borrow for 20 or 30 years for another year or so. And so that we will be looking at market conditions. And what makes most sense. And we, when we do the actual borrowing for for to keep the cost down right, we may be able to have a longer borrowing period, but then the overall project is more expensive. Right. And we may, but that's going to depend on a number of different factors that that, you know, rich and Nate are going to be looking at when we go to bond so we're we're not full we've said 20 years, because that's sort of the standard. We're not fully committed to that we're going to make a decision that makes the most sense for the taxpayers of Burlington when that comes when that comes when that time comes in all the fact sheets are based on 20 years. They are they are there. Excellent. And there's also there are ways there are ways to do our borrowing where we we may be. Yeah, there are ways to do the borrowing that we're learning from from the state, the city's financial office that may help just in the way that we do the work with the bottom line as well. Okay, thank you. Jeff it's a back to me. Yes, I can't see I'm sorry I'm in the blind. I just have a couple quick little questions I'm not going to believe her. I've been patient. Someone tell me first, if the formerly voted 18 million or not 2018 bond for 70 million. Is that something that taxpayers are paying for now, or was that never added to tax bills because it wasn't fully taken. Right, we never borrowed the said we never. We use the 70 million dollars we use, we use 4 million. I understand. But the question is, is that in our tax bills now are we paying for is there a reduction by giving the $66 million back. It is not. It's not showing up in your taxes and won't because we didn't, we haven't borrowed that money. Okay. All right, that's cool. The question is, and this may be a rhetorical question but is it not early to put a $165 million ask to the taxpayers before we know what this is going to cost in terms of what there are for grants or philanthropy, or what the term of the loan is whether it's 20 years or 30 years. It's a definitive ask, and I think quite honestly a 16% increases a lot to put out there without a little better definition, but I don't understand how this works so can you explain to a lay person. Sure yeah I think I appreciate that question I mean I think that. Yes, I can. I was on Kurt right radio at 7am. What time is it now. The question is, how is it early, essentially, is it too early for the $165 million bond to be asked. And what we're trying to do is give you the citizens of you and the citizens are going to as much information as we can, as you're making this decision. The $165 million is is the number of the bond, but option C that we chose originally was 210 million. So we've already reduced the cost of the project significantly. Number one, number two, we do not have a high school. In 2025 August of 2025, we have no guarantee that we will be able to stay in Macy's, and that we will have a high school at all for our students to go to. And we also don't have another place for them to go, because Burlington is South Bronton is full Colchester is going to be putting campers out there full the schools around us are full. This is a an emergency, and we have chosen the least expensive site at the least expensive costs, and we've reduced that cost in the number of multiple tens of millions. And we are continuing to aggressively seek funding from lawsuits to all the way to to seeking state and federal funding. How do the taxpayers vote though if there's not really a known, you're saying worst case it's going to cost 165. What are we really voting for we approving a budget, but we don't know what. Right. So you're you're approving. Yeah, you're you're and this is actually standard. Relatively standard bond language that you borrow up to a certain amount, but that, and that's not to exceed amount right so these are our worst case scenarios, right, we may need up to 165 million that's what we would need as of today, but we're aggressively seeking funding to offset that in terms of the funding we've already brought to the table. Right. And we are continuing to, you know, do all the work we can to bring the tax impact down because, truly, we all are residents here right we understand the tax burden is is is real. And we want to make sure that we make we we contribute to Burlington through its students in a way that brings value to our to our city and our state, and not that kind of drains our city and state so we're committed to that. We have an MOU a memorandum of understanding with the city. Again, we met with the governor's cabinet yesterday. We're really aggressively seeking funding to bring that one hand that bring that number down. And that's point if we were to receive, you know, 100 million in funding somehow, then we would only go, we would only be asking for 65 we wouldn't. So, I think that was the point he's trying to make is, why is it so much when we may not need that much. It's just a hard question to put out to the people if you asked me today what I vote for 165 million. That's to increase taxes 15.6% or 15.7%. It's not a realistic request after the CLA that just occurred for most people. But if we knew it was 60 million or 80 million, that's a much easier sale to the public. But it might not be enough to do the trick. We have to be careful what we bond for because we don't want to under bond and get halfway through or three quarters through we we're trying to be as transparent with everybody as possible. It's like a credit card. This is the max limit of the credit card, but we don't need to spend the max limit on the credit card. And so we're doing all of these things and we're continuing to do all these things nonstop. So if you think that we're happy with 165, we're not happy. We're going for we're going for whatever we can bring to the city of Burlington. Part of that is Montpelier and part of that will be every every citizen of Burlington calling your legislators going to Montpelier and asking them to lift the moratorium on construction aid. So you imagine if this bond were 30% less, which it should be to the city of Burlington. So that is what we're talking about like we're in this situation from PCBs that we didn't, we didn't create and we now have a crisis. And because the state of Vermont has put a moratorium on capital spending. So that's, that's where we're at. And that is not a fair place for Burlington. I'm not just going to lay on the table. I don't think it's fair. I live here. I don't think it's fair. But this is the cards were dealt. We need a high school. We love our property values are property values and no family will move here without high school. We have to come together as a community, we need to build the best darn high school that we can build attract families and get the moratorium lifted, and we're going to continue to go after state and federal grants so that's what we do this every week and we're not stopping. And thank you and no offense by my. Another, another card that we're all being dealt everywhere in the nation and the world actually is that we're kind of approaching 1979 again. And the cost of borrowing money is not expected to get less expensive in the foreseeable future. Putting this off is not going to be making it cheaper. You Kendra you talked about attracting new families. What about keeping the families that we have as well. And if people can afford their, they're going to move, and it's it's very unfortunate that people are being pushed out of their homes who have lived here. And then I have a second question also, as a graduate 1973 graduate of Burlington. Do I need to go to my doctor and get tested for PCB contamination contaminations or you make it sound so dire. We've all gone through that school system are my kids have gone through it I've gone through it Jeff's gone through it. And I know we can't keep it, but it doesn't have to be done the drop of a hat we can think about this and get the funding in order. You can't say well we may get this money and this may work out and that may work out. I'm having a hard time with these rainbows and unicorns. Okay, so a lot of families right now have chosen to go elsewhere for their high school so we are losing money. If people decide to do school choice and send their kids to private schools and everything else so we want to keep the families. We want to have a vibrant community a vibrant community has a great has a great school system that includes a high school so we, we want to take care of the students and the children who are here, and you're right, our taxes are high. And all we seem to look at are the schools. There are lots of other things that we could be looking at right now about our taxes and I, I agree with you. Just the schools are the one thing that we all feel like we have choice with and that we can say something with but it's actually the fundamental core of our community. So that's why I was like I really want us to come together for our schools. And yet, why don't we look at why our taxes are so high and many other things I completely agree with you that our taxes are too high. We are trying to get them lower. So, the other thing about PCBs if you find them, and the environmental agencies say to shut down and you don't. We have a million lawsuits on our hands with Berlin Tonians do not want. And so we open ourselves up to anyone saying anything like if we know the problem exists and we still have school in it. And that's also an issue. Do you know what I mean like once you know, you can't kind of close the door and put our head in the sand and say, Oh, well, hopefully it's not too bad. So that we are in this crisis situation, because we know if you guys want. Is there any other comment Dave? Hey, and here we here we are once again facing the dilemma of an overpacked in PA agenda. Do we currently, and, and I do want to say one thing first, you're right, we have a lot of funding problems in this, the city and city hall and the city council are responsible for a large portion of our budget as well. But the school is also half of our budget or actually soon more than half of our budget. So let's be, you know, there's there's fingers to point everywhere. My one question was the $165 million clean up is $30 million approximately is that correct 29 22 million dollars oh my goodness. So what a savings. I get it 32 million in the state. Right, right, which has to be spread out through other buildings. How many other school buildings does Burlington own that were built in this era. As I recall, there's three school buildings that were built same time the high school in that era that have we tested those school buildings for PCBs. And if so, are we going to be here again next year. We do have other buildings that have been tested that were built right around the same time similar designs similar. Yeah, Champlain being one that do not have the same PCB issues that the high school does we did testing a number of years ago and and so it's it's we have tested other buildings we haven't found it in Burlington, the state is doing a testing program now across the state. They've started with seven schools, two of those schools have PCB issues. So what they're saying now is, well, could 20% of our schools in the state could have this problem. They also are choosing to test the schools that they're most concerned about first. So it's hard to say what'll happen across the state. We do have the good fortune of having to have having done some testing already on similar similarly aged and built in schools that didn't have this problem. The state also putting in more money every year I believe like that was I think the plan is the 20. What is it the 32 that they put in originally was like the first go around because all of these schools do need to be tested everywhere. So, how you are running on affordability isn't going to put a lot more money. I do understand what you're saying. And I emphasize with you. But that's what the legislature they're working on how you access the money and, and how much money is in there and that's where we're left right now because they're not in session yet right so the cart before the horse kind of thing we want the money we just can't get it. We will go after it. We are going after it. Okay, Mr. moderator are going to hand it back to you. Yes, thank you I'm going to grab the wheel. This was a great conversation. Hard conversations. Thank you. Appreciate it. More panel. Great thanks to the school board. We have 30 minutes of programming left with 11 minutes on the clock. So we're probably going to run over. I'm not going to belabor let's move to our next presenter, who is been traverse. Ben is my notes straight I beg your pardon Ward five city counselor, and then is going to discuss the all resident non resident voting. Thanks a lot Matt can you hear me all right and folks in the room, okay. Yeah, go ahead. All right, great. So my name is Ben Travers as Matt mentioned on the city counselor from Ward five. You're having me here this evening I'm here in my capacity as a member of the council's charter change committee. Normally you'd be hearing from my colleague, Sarah carpenter who as we speak is returning to Vermont from a well deserved vacation. But I sit on the charter change committee with Sarah, along with Gene Bergman. And we are going around all the NPAs as part of a broader community engagement effort on an item that Burlington has talked about before, and is back before the charter change committee again, which is whether or not we will place on the ballot in March a question for voters as to whether or not all legal residents regardless of their US citizenship status will be able to vote in local elections. People may recall that this is an item that was on the ballot back in 2015 voters voted it down at that point in time. It was brought back before the city council in 2020 was sent to the charter change committee at that point in time. And both in 2015 and in early 2020 there were a number of concerns that there was not enough community engagement there were too many unanswered questions as to what extending voting rights to all legal residents may mean. And then of course, shortly after early 2020, we entered into a period where we hit pause on a lot of items in our lives, including this measure which for the last couple years has still sat with the charter committee. And now we are looking at it again. When I say all legal residents population data shows that about 5% of Burlington's population are legal residents, but non US citizens. So for those individuals if Burlington voters were to pass this charter change in March, and if the legislature then enacted that change to our charter. Those legal residents over the age of 18 would gain the right to register to vote to vote in just local elections. And so what does that mean it means our city council and school board races. Any questions on local items like for example, the school bond that the school district was just discussing here this evening. I mentioned that we're having a broad community engagement to let folks know that this may be coming and to answer any questions preliminarily from you all. And as part of that, of course, I'm here tonight at the NPAs we've been going around to all the other NPAs. We've been working closely with CEDO and a program that they have called the trusted community voices program that has people in Burlington's diverse communities to especially speak to and answer questions from folks who would really be the most impacted by this which are non US citizens who would gain that additional right to vote. There is a website that if folks wanted to check out additional information, it's Burlington VT dot gov slash all resident voting. If you go to that site it has a number of frequently asked questions, information on the history of this matter in Burlington information on the community engagement program and again perhaps most importantly, these frequently asked questions are translated into, I believe, seven different languages for folks who would like to get that information that way. One of the questions we received is, is why is the Charter Change Committee taking this back up now. Okay, a couple reasons. One is I think, as compared to 2015 now in 2022 after the last seven years. I think folks are looking at participation in democracy and voting in a different light than they were seven years ago. Again, perhaps more important than that is that in 2015 Burlington would have been the first to go on this matter in the state. Since then, both Montpelier and Winooski have an active Charter Changes that extend this voting right to their legal residents. There were questions about whether or not the governor would veto it and if the legislature would override any veto, and, and those questions have been answered now these changes have gone into effect in Winooski since they went into effect they've had. I believe somewhere close to 50 new voters register in Winooski under this new law who have voted there. And so, given that these neighboring communities, especially the city just to our north has enacted the change. I think it allows the right time to go back to Burlington voters and ask if it's a change we want to make here. The matters in the Charter Change Committee right now we're going to continue to have meetings as a committee again your counselor, one of your counselors in the new north end Sarah Carpenter is on that committee. From the committee it would then go to the full city council, and folks would have an opportunity to be heard there. And if the full city council places this question on the ballot of course voters will have a chance to vote on it. It's a meeting day in March of 2023. So this is a heads up with respect to our work. I know that we're running over but would be happy to answer any questions that folks may have and invite you to submit any questions or feedback and writing or certainly come to our committee meetings or to the council meetings in the future. Thank you, Ben. Jeff, do you have any questions in the center. No, that doesn't look like it. Okay. I know we're running over Sarah Carpenter just asking me to leave one point with you all which is that since our last city council meeting. A new matter has come to the Charter Change Committee which would extend ranked choice voting to mayoral elections in addition to city council races. We were planning on ranked choice voting now being a part of our city council races. The Charter Change Committee will now be considering whether or not it should be extended to the mayoral race as well. Sarah Carpenter had reached out to me to make sure that I relay that to you all she indicated folks in the new north end have been keyed in on and interested in this issue of ranked choice voting and wanted to make sure folks knew that the Charter Change Committee will be considering that as well. It will be on our agenda for the first time as a committee at our meeting on October 3, which is posted on the city board docs website. Thank you, Ben. I appreciate you having me. Thank you. Yeah. I'm going to move to our final guest. Elise Serta and Elise is representing CSWD which is Chittenden Solid Waste District to discuss a recycling bond. Hi. Thank you for being a trooper. It's a little late. I'm sorry. Oh, no, no, that's totally okay. Thank you for having the virtual option. So I'm going to be very brief just because I know a lot of people usually have questions about recycling and sort of how we do it here in Chittenden County. But the first thing I wanted to say is this bond is actually asking for permission to bond up to $22 million. And what that $22 million or as we know, there's room to move, it's up to $22 million would be to fund a brand new materials recovery facility for the district. And that would be in Williston near the facilities that we already have on Redmond Road. And the reason why this is so important to the district is partially because Vermonters do such a great job of recycling. So our original Murph, we call it a Murph, likes Murph was built in 1993. It was built to accommodate up to 25,000 tons of material. We currently are processing 47,000 tons of material through that facility. And we have a lot of limitations based on that that current footprint we cannot expand it we are closed in on three sides. We have outdated technology which we've tried to keep up over the years but it's becoming basically impossible to keep improving or replacing that equipment in the footprint that we have. It also can't keep up with today's recycling needs. So a perfect example is COVID, who would have thought one that COVID would have hit us but two that everything would go to mail order. We saw a huge jump in cardboard and paper products and that was from all the mailing and the shipping to homes that we saw during that period of time and that doesn't seem to be lessening. Something interesting to understand because I think plastic gets a lot of air play, but plastic is actually a very small percentage of what we're taking at the current recycling facility. Our majority of our product that we see coming in is paper and fiber products. So making sure that we have the material, the technology to process that huge amount of paper is really important. And also if any of you have ever seen pictures of our current Murph or taken a tour which I encourage everyone to do. They're very difficult working environments for staff there. They're very closely packed in together and we're also a hand sorting facility. And what that tells you is we have staff standing online, recycling is coming into the facility and they are hand sorting and picking things off the line themselves and trying to put them into the right categories as it comes through. They're picking hazardous items like propane tanks off the line. They're picking things like garden hoses that shouldn't be in the system to begin with and throwing them into the right receptacle. A new job is a thankless job in that sense. It is cold. It is hot. It is dirty. It is stinky. And a new facility would actually become much bigger. We would be able to accommodate up to 50 to 70,000 tons, which would give us about 30 years of capacity. We would give us optic technology. That means that we wouldn't have to hand sort as the mainstay of sorting for our technology and we would recycle better. So a lot of what we are saying is this facility will help Vermonters recycle more. We handle over 53% of the states recycling. 93% of our material that comes through our facility is sent to domestic markets for sale. The other 7% are things that shouldn't have come to us in the first place like propane tanks or gardening hoses. So we do a lot of work with very little. Now what's interesting about this bond is, is that it's not going to impact property taxes. This will not raise your taxes because it is not being paid for by you. The first Murph was not paid for by the citizens of residents of Chittenden County, and this one will not either. We are paying for this out of operating revenue and operation revenue comes from fees to tip, hauler fees to tip your recycling at our facilities or fees at our other facilities like drop off centers, things like that. So those are user fees. We're going out for different types of funding to help supplement the district is also kicking in for this money. And just to understand that this is a ballot that you actually have to request separately than your general ballot. There was a provision that was sent through the legislature that basically we we got left out this our district got left out or in general. The district's got left out of the general election ballots from the Secretary of State. So you need to request our ballot through your town clerk, or on the my voter page, or you can request it when you go in person. So this facility will give us so much more capacity will be able to react to the recycling markets, keep recycling in better condition because it won't be out in the elements. There's huge environmental benefits. So, I'm happy to open it up to questions. Happy to answer what I can, and yeah, great. A quick question. Will the new system require fewer or less employees. We are keeping the same amount of employees because like a lot of people we have about 25 people working in that facility right now, and we need every worker that we have and we could probably use more. But the really exciting thing for workers about this is it will improve their conditions and also they will move to a higher there will be more need for skilled positions. So we'll need people to actually work with that technology and work as a QA as opposed to standing and sorting all day. You know, we'd like to see if we could move people and train people into the higher positions. So that for us is a real win. Thank you. Hi, Lisa. Jeff here. I also work as an election official so I was very aware that you got the solid waste district got left out of the, the mailing. Is there any provision for you to request a waiver from the Secretary of State's office that would allow you to get those ballots in the mail and try to get caught up on a lot of the mail in voting. Well, unfortunately, we did once we discovered that this was the case and this wasn't when we went into this bond. We didn't know this was the case. So we thought we were going to be able to benefit from mail and, you know, the mail request voting. We did work with the Secretary of State and the way that they've interpreted the legislation there was no way around that for us. And so basically what that means is the Secretary of State will not be mailing our ballots out for us we have hand delivered all our ballots to town clerks around Chittenden County. So when you do make the request by either calling them or checking the other box on the my motor page, the town clerk will actually send you that ballot but you have to request it. Okay, thank you. And I know, I think you held another public forum earlier this week or last week and how was your turnout and participation for that forum. Zero. Unfortunately. Oh, okay, sorry to hear that. We are to we are having upcoming November 1 in Williston at the Williston Central School and you'll see there will be promotion for that and making sure that we'll have public hearing that's the official public hearing that we are required to have. The other one was a community forum. But yes, we'll be we'll be live streaming that and so people could be live stream and also ask their questions and then to us. But we also will have a the auditorium there so if people do want to show up and see the formal presentation, we're happy to do that and then answer any questions. Okay, thank you. Sure. What are the requirements for your bond to pass. So our charter requires so the reason why we're going to bond in the first place is our charter requires that. So it's 50% of the actual votes, plus one. Okay, so the people that go to vote in person, you need 50% of them. And everyone who submits about so that means anyone who requests a mail in ballot, anyone who call goes to the town clerk and gets one it's all submitted votes we need 50% plus one. Could I ask a silly question Elise, and this is from sort of a lay person. I heard $22 million bond up to yes, up to move. We're voting on this as Chittenden County residents, who is impacted by the cost associated with that bond is that every resident of Chittenden County, or is it are you a separate entity you just need permission. We need permission. So the district this is something that somebody that most people don't know about the district is that we're self funded. We don't, you know, if you've lived in other places I lived in Chicago and I played, I paid Chicago a solid waste management fee is part of what I required to have my trash picked up my recycling picked up. The district doesn't require that we have the right to assess our member towns fees, but we have not done that and we do not intend to do that. So the only way that people actually end up paying us is the tip fee part of the tip fee and that's for all haulers who need to tip in our facilities we get a portion of that. And then our user fees that we have at a facility so if you go to a drop off center and you bring a couch you pay something for that and those fees go back to us and the sales of material on the market. So when we go to market, we get money revenue back from the sales of that material. But sounds like this is an opportunity to be more efficient and recycle more. And as the freak that washes everything I have more research. We appreciate that clean and dry is always. We should do a series sometime about what to put in bins and how clean and how not clean. We would love to do that for you we have an outreach team that are amazing and we would be happy to do that. Well, we'll put it to the, the peeps. We've been asking for suggestions, but this is always something that I think people need to hear. Wonderful. We have more questions at the Miller Center I can't see Jeff. No, I think we are good here. They're tearing the place down around us. We're only eight minutes past. At least thank you very much for being here. Welcome. Thank you for having us. Thank you to all of our presenters. Lots of important stuff and tough questions, but I think everybody did nice. We shall sign off and we'll let you guys pick up. Everyone have a great.