 Okay. Hello everybody. Welcome friends. This is the November meeting of the Ward 5 NPA, Neighborhood Planning Assembly. It is November 16th. And we're going to start off just with a little welcome. Help yourself to food from the People's Kitchen. Fareed, do you want to tell us what this wonderful food is? Sorry, I know you're eating as you speak. Hi everybody. My name is Fareed with the People's Kitchen. We have fried rice, chicken satay, plain satay. We have tofu and tempeh, barbecue, teriyaki, and we have vegan chowder with guava. Also some deep fried tapioca crackers and peanut sauce. I mean, thank you Fareed. Okay. So next slide. Yes, I'm ready. We've got some guiding principles for our Ward 5 meetings. And we start with these because they're important always no matter what we're doing or talking about. The first is that this is a safe space. We're here to provide a welcoming forum for all of the folks who live in Ward 5 and our friends and our guests from other parts of Burlington and other parts of the world. This is supposed to be an accessible space. We're doing our best to review barriers to participation and engage with all of our community members. If you ever have feedback for us on how we can do a better job of that, you can reach us. Our Google group, I think, is on the next page. So we'll get there in a minute. We're here to be respectful. We're going to be talking a lot about that today. We're going to, we aim to respect cultural and economic differences and value diverse perspectives. The idea of the NPA is to be relevant, creative and fun instead of irrelevant, dull and irritating. Again, if you have feedback on that, please let us know. And we are non-partisan. We do not endorse political candidates. All right. And who is the we here? We've got Roger who's not with us tonight. And then Joe. And I'm Lena. They, them pronouns. And three and Harry and Jason. And that's all of us. We've got a website that's both our own. We also have a site on the Burlington website. And then we have Fosca here running tech, holding us accountable to doing things correctly, et cetera. And there is our Google group. If you're like, wow, what an irrelevant, boring and irritating meeting, you send us a note and we'll see what we can do. Okay. So next, we're for folks online. I think we've got the hang of this by now, but just a reminder that you can mute and unmute your audio and mute and start and stop your video as needed. Raise your hand. And Fosca will let me know if I'm not paying good attention to the screen. Feel free to send us a chat or a Q and A of any, any tech stuff is going on. That's not ideal. I think we're good on that. And here's our agenda. So we're doing the welcome. We hope you feel welcomed. And in just a moment, we're going to start the public forum. This is a time to hear from folks about what's on their minds. Unlike city council, we do not have a two minute limit. But we ask folks to keep it brief. We'll get to public forum guidance in a moment. Next up, we're going to elect someone or choose someone for the community development block grant role, which we'll talk about. And then the real juicy part of our meeting tonight is that we're going to be discussing a resolution affirming norms of respect within the Ward 5 neighborhood planning assembly. It's a mouthful. And we'll get more into that later. Thank you to folks who showed up tonight just to talk about this. It's really good to have you here. And we hope you'll keep coming. We're going to vote on that resolution. And then we'll call it a night. And we'll see how long it takes. Sound good? Excellent. That would be great. There aren't that many of those. We'll have it up on the screen as well. That's okay. Yeah, we can, there's a link. Slides. Oscar, you already have some. You said you have some as well. Okay. I don't need one. I got it. Wonderful. Oh, no, we don't do that. Can we start next month? That's really fine. We'll start next month. That was the first. I have one more. I guess I've got that microphone. If you're online, you can go to our easy to type website, npa5.org. And you might have to click on events. And then you can get to the forms that will be used for voting tonight. We're going to probably do a secret ballot on these items. And also this thing that was just passed around, we have the Google Doc copy of it. The latest. Thank you. It's all over the place. And then maybe if folks are struggling to find it when we get there, I like that. Cool. We'll get there when we get there. But first, public forum. Our ground rules are we'd like to hear who you are. Let us know your name. Where do you live? If you're affiliated with someone you're speaking on behalf of. No time limit. But let's keep it short. And lots, lots to say always. But in the interest of getting to hear from everyone who has something to add. Without further ado, would anybody like to speak in public forum? Go ahead. All right. So my name is Keegan Lafferty. I use she, her pronouns. And I don't live in Word 5. I go to UVM, but I'm here speaking on behalf of Big Heavy World. We're a music nonprofit. We advocate for artists' rights and also to create an equal and accessible and inclusive scene for Burlington. One thing that we're working on is we're working with a group of youth in our community to develop a youth cultural space. It would be a music venue. Many of you, I'm sure, are aware of 242 Main and Memorial Auditorium. And there's a lot of things happening currently with that. But it was for over 30 years a youth cultural space and music venue. And it was super, super valuable for the youth in our area. And it's really important that as we continue to do developing and figure out what we're doing with the space and also as we just continue to exist in Burlington, it's really important that we re-implement a space. Similar to this one, a youth cultural space, a music venue, a safe space. It is really, really, really valuable for the youth in our community. And I do have here a printout. It's over 30 pages of comments supporting a petition with over 2,500 signatures to implement a space like this. And if I would love to send it to you to put on the minutes and agenda, if possible. Yeah. And yeah, it's just a really, I wanted to bring that to your awareness because it's super, it's a very important thing that I think is needed in Burlington. Thank you. Else. Go ahead. My name is Peggy Owen Sands and I am, my pronouns are she could and I do live in the South End, right near Christ's King School. I am also here on behalf of Vermont Interfaith Action and we have created or started using a public safety survey started within the King Street neighborhood, which overlaps a little bit the defined area that we used overlaps a little bit with Ward 5. So we are asking people who live between Maine and Maple and South Manuski and Battery to join us on November 30 to come and hear the results of the survey that people took, people who lived, who live and work in that area were asked to take a public safety survey. So the results of that survey have been collated. We're going to present that we're going to allow people to have time to share with their neighbors experiences that they have had around public safety living in that area and talk about what the next steps are from the results of the survey. So it's November 30th from six to seven thirty food will be provided as well child care. So we really want people to come we're trying to make it good. Sorry, location. It's at the Kestrel Cafe. I can't fold it seven April straight. Cool. Thank you. All right, go ahead, Milam. Thank you. Can you hear me? Loud and clear. Excellent. I just had two quick things. One, I was not able to find the zoom link on the information that's on the city's meeting calendar. It leads to a page that has a 404 error. So just to mention that that someone might want to look at that for future reference, I ended up checking the NPA page which had it, but not everybody who might want to attend. They may not be aware of that other page. So just want to mention that to you. And I just wanted to do a quick follow up from the discussion last month where we were talking about how it's not always easy to find information to who you would call when you had public safety issues that may not warrant a call to 911 or would not be considered a priority one incident. So just wanted to say that I've gotten that process started to get a consolidated list of information and also to get some ideas as to where it can be posted on the city's website probably in multiple areas like the police department area and another area that I hope will be intuitive and easy for people to find and then also shared with fellow city counselors, the NPAs just so people can share that information and that's all I had. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Appreciate the follow up. Fareed. A couple of announcements. My name is Fareed. I live in Ward 5. I am also volunteer with the People's Kitchen. This is the holiday season is upon us and so this is going to be the People's Kitchen's fourth year of doing the colonized giving, just our way of actually helping make a holiday meal happen for our neighbors who might not otherwise be able to afford them. So if you know somebody or if you do want a holiday meal for Thanksgiving Day and let me know. You can also if you want to help make this happen also let me know. We are on Facebook and on Instagram People's Kitchen VT or 802-4913-491 and the other thing is we also realized that Santa likes rich kids better than poor kids so for this holiday season we work with the Toys Ferry to bring toys and warm blankets to our neighbors in the South Meadow neighborhood as well as in Salmon Run housing complex in the North End. So look for the announcement in your front porch forum and on social media and so and would like to ask everybody consider well participating this year. Thank you very much. Great. Go ahead Andy. My name is Andy Simon. I live on the Locust Street in Ward 5. It is the beginning of holiday season. It's also the beginning of election season and at least in Burlington and the municipal election this year is going to be wild and woolly with lots of open seats for city council and an open seat or not no incumbent running for mayor. The other exciting thing about this election season is that there are currently four women running for mayor which is very exciting. There has never been a woman mayor of Burlington since we were incorporated in 1865 and I think it will be an interesting time. I am endorsing Emma Mulvaney-Stanik who's running as progressive and is here with us tonight in Ward 5. There are many hard-working, smart, experienced women running for this post. I determined that Emma and I share progressive values and that's why I'm supporting her. I believe she's a listener. She's a hard worker. She's experienced as a state rep and in the past as a Burlington City Councilor and I look forward to helping with her campaign and I hope you'll keep your eyes open for opportunities to get to know her and make a clear decision for yourself. Thank you. Primary would be 7 o'clock. 7 o'clock at the Old North End Community Center on Allen Street. Right in the Old North End you can also park on the street side. That's the progressive caucus. This would be inclusive. The Democratic Caucus is December 10th. I'm not sure of the timing of that or the location that I'm sure that someone in this room might know but that is December 10th and to be even more inclusive I'm not sure the Republicans have organized the caucus at this point. But I'm happy. I wasn't going to say anything but if anyone has any questions I'll hang as long as I can before I have to go do kids bedtime duties that I either find more information through Andy or by Neil Lines for information. I'm always happy to be with those. My main mission is right now. Thank you. All right. Public forum. Anyone else? Anyone else online? Cool. Lots of good updates. Thank you everyone. So on to our first agenda item. We tonight are tasked with choosing someone from our award to be a member of the advisory board for the Community Development Block Grant Program. What is this? It is a chunk of federal money that comes to our community and the purpose of this money is to address the roots and consequences of poverty. So this money gets distributed all over the country and communities decide to disperse it on their own terms because we have this cool award system and the school NPA system. We get to have an NPA discussion and choose someone from our award to hold this role. It's a year-long position. And if you'll go to the next slide. Oh, it's two years. Great. I'm so glad other people are here who know. So these process questions. Does every board get a rep or every NPA? How does it start? Every board. Yeah. And commitment is one year, but it's strongly encouraged to stay on for two years. But that's the maximum amount of time. Thank you. That's great. Okay. And it's kind of interesting. I pulled this directly from, I believe, the city's website. And this represents their NPA, obviously, but not every NPA is just one word. And do you want to add anything about what the report back to the NPA is like for this role? Like what's the relationship between this person and the NPA once we choose them? Sorry to put you on the spot. Yeah. I think it's informal. I think like the residents who was basically the NPAs are a way to find residents who are interested in this, but there is no requirement for the representative to then report back in a certain way to the NPA. But that's a great way to remain involved. So we just need a representative from each board from the city to do this. And then you and representatives as well. If anyone knows someone between the ages of 15 or 16 to college age, it would be interested in getting involved here also looking for that. Cool. Yeah, go ahead Charlie. So the position is technically for a year or two, but you only need a few times. Yeah. So I do have on the next slide all of the time commitments. Yeah. And just before we do that, there are this set of responsibilities is like you go to meetings, you look at some applications for who's who's asking for money. And there's a couple other there's some city counselors on the advisory board as well. There's a youth representative and this group from what I understand makes recommendations about how we spend this money as a community. Okay, now we're ready for the time commitment. So you've got about 12 hours of training and meetings and about eight to 12 hours of reviewing applications. You do some budgeting work and you work as a group. The last person who held this role did come to our NPA a couple of times and gave us an update on how the projects went or how the which projects were selected. And I believe gave an update when the process was about halfway done. So we could kind of get a sense of what was happening with this money. And I think the process for doing this is pretty informal. So unless there are questions, which would be totally reasonable about what this is and what the commitment is, we can see if anybody would like to do it. Any questions first? So $1 million by $733,000 in change and then another $400,000 from the home project, well administered through housing and urban development. That's that amount of money for city-wide? That's sure. Yeah, it's administrative through CEDA. Projects are done. They have 12 applications right now for the money. It's stupid among the applicants. Projects can be about anything. It has to be related to addressing the root causes poverty and its consequences and it's targeting low and middle income people who live in poverty. 100 percent of that has to be for housing and a certain percent for like a smaller percentage services and the rest of it. Any other questions, thoughts before we invite folks to step in? When does the work start? I think the orientation is in January. Yeah, read. All right. Okay. I don't see any parts there. Is there anybody here who's actually done this? No. Can I make a nomination? Would like to nominate Terry? Okay. Anyone else? So moved. We have a representative. No, we don't need to vote on it. No. Okay. There's no competition. Very good point. I checked beforehand. I promise. No, I was just thinking about voting and not stopping to check that there was actually a choice to be paid. Well, perfect. All right. It's Terry. Yeah. All right. Cool. Congratulations, Terry. Giving my acceptance speech. I'm not really a fan. Make us proud. Okay. Thanks for doing some community business and on to some more community business. So we tonight are talking about a resolution. Introducing and voting on a resolution is one of the things we can do as an NPA. There are not a whole lot of things we can do as an NPA. So it's good to do the things in our in our purview when it feels important. So we are bringing forward a resolution and we is the Ward 5 Steering Committee. There was some unpleasantness at another words NPA recently in which a member of the steering committee was repeatedly spoken to and about in a way that was disrespectful of them because of their identity. And in response to this offense and which kind of opened the door to this broader lack of clarity about what are the guidelines for NPA is what are what standards are we held to who's holding us to those standards? How do we decide what the standards are? There there has been a lot of discussion amongst members of steering committees and also on the city council. The city council passed a resolution if you want to say a couple weeks ago. October 23rd affirming anti-discrimination policies at NPAs and kind of requesting that NPAs raise standards of anti-discrimination policies through resolutions and bylaws and stuff like that. So the city council and the NPAs are different. When the city council does stuff it you know that's a rule but when the NPA does stuff that's not necessarily a rule but it's a set of guidelines that we can hold ourselves to as a community and we get to decide on what those things are and we hold each other accountable and that's I think powerful in its own right regardless of what the city council does. So before the city council even introduced this resolution we got together as a steering committee and said it would be really great for us to introduce our own resolution laying out what we want to see how what kind of environment we want to have at this NPA and bring it to our community and see if we can get something passed in favor of open and accessible and respectful NPAs. So that's kind of the the origin story of why we're doing this why we're doing this now. Last night we had a meeting that was an all-words NPA in which many of us from steering committees across the city gathered along with some city staff other members of the public to talk about a bunch of stuff including the resolution from city council and the resolution from our NPA and the idea here is to to have a discussion to to kind of set a standard for ourselves maybe other NPAs will take up similar resolutions but this is ours and we can talk about it for the next 30 minutes 45 minutes however much time we need and hopefully we can vote on it and take it from there. What did I miss? Can I add one thing? Please. So there's there's really two different things that we can vote on formally as an NPA. One is a resolution like this which is a statement of sort of shared intent just like Leana described. The other is a bylaw change because the NPAs are in charge of their own bylaws and our intent is to draft an amendment to our bylaws that essentially is a non-discrimination statement in line with the resolution. The resolution essentially says here's where we want to go and the bylaws say okay here's how we're going to do it going forward. So that those two are paired and really the idea here is we want to set the right direction. I'm going to have the resolution in front of us up here momentarily. There's some copies floating around. Would it be helpful to read it out loud? Okay I do not think you need to hear more of my voice. Would somebody else like to read it out loud? Great. This is a resolution affirming norms of respect within the ward 5 neighborhood planning assembly in the year 2023 resolved by the ward 5 neighborhood planning assembly. Whereas the neighborhood planning assembly's NPAs are grassroots neighborhood organizations whose mission includes fostering an open space for all community members to gather and exchange information to have their voices heard by the community and to have a say in city policies and whereas the NPA's ability to foster such a space depends on NPAs being an inclusive and welcoming space for burlingtonians of diverse backgrounds and identities and whereas a norm of respect for gender identity and expression as well as other diverse identities is an essential part of ensuring that NPAs and our community in general are welcoming and inclusive. Now therefore let it be resolved that the ward 5 NPA affirms that all community members regardless of gender, gender identity or expression, sex, sexual orientation, race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, place of birth, pregnancy, age, disability or any other characteristic protected by law are fully and equally welcome at NPA sponsored events as part of the fundamental commitment of the NPAs to creating an inclusive and welcoming space for all members of the Burlington community. Be it further resolved that the ward 5 NPA unequivocally rejects transphobic sexist, racist or other discriminatory speech or actions at NPA 5 sponsored events as inconsistent with such a norm of respect and therefore incompatible with the mission of the NPA. Be it further resolved that all participants in NPA 5 sponsored events are called upon to respect the gender identity including stated pronouns of all other participants. Be it further resolved that a failure to respect such preferences on the part of any participant is detrimental to the functioning of the NPA and compromises its ability to carry out its mission. Be it further resolved that if any such discriminatory speech or action occurs during an NPA 5 sponsored event, the NPA steering committee will explicitly note the occurrence as well as re-emphasize the norm of respect and commitment to inclusivity. And be it further resolved that in keeping with Burlington's commitment to restorative practices, if such an issue is ongoing, the NPA 5 will seek assistance from the community justice center and or CEDA to address the problem. So as we go into the discussion segment, just want to remind folks that our guiding principles of the NPA 5 are that this is a safe space. We are trying to be accessible here and reduce barriers to participation. We're here to engage with everyone. We are also here to respect our differences and value diverse perspectives. And we request that folks offer constructive feedback. If you're reading and hearing these words and thinking, this does not reflect my community fundamentally, please just vote no. We're bringing this forward with the intention of reflecting not just the anti-discrimination policies of the city, but also with reflecting the existing culture that we've built at this NPA. And we can edit this because it belongs to us, but the idea is that it should more or less at its core remain the same as changed by us as we see fit within reasonable bounds. And I think we can leave space for folks to say their piece, but if you're talking for 10 minutes, I'm going to start waving at you. Any thoughts? Go ahead. I'm a new resident of Charlotte Street, and so it's great to be with you all. I was curious about the paragraph where it says, be it for the resolve of the failure to respect such preferences. I think the language of preferences is confusing. I'm just going to put this near you. Yeah, that's fine. You don't mind back up just a little bit so folks online can hear. Maybe not too close. No, no, no. Sorry. Rewind what you were saying. Okay, great. Jamie Cone-Twa, Ward 5, Charlotte Street. New resident. Nice to be with you. I was looking at the paragraph that says, be it for the resolve that a failure to respect such preferences. So this follows the respect of gender identity, including pronouns and all other participants. I was curious about the research you did into the word preferences. I think it would be better stated to say be it for the resolve that failure to respect someone's identity. I think preferences has a slippery slope with the words like choice. And then I'm also curious, I haven't seen a resolution like this, and I understand we have freedom of speech. So I'm curious about why there isn't something here about interruption of harm. I see here be it for the resolve that if any such discrimination speech will be noted and will reemphasize the norm of respect, but there isn't anything about finish like stopping harm. So I'm curious in public spaces, people here probably know more about what the norms are. If somebody's here calling me slurs, then they're not asked to leave the room, so they can keep harming me, then you can interject, make note, talk about the norms are, and then I can continue being harmed. So I'm just curious in these kinds of spaces, what does that, what other tools are available for interrupting harm? And I don't know the answer to my own question. That's allowed. All, all great questions. I'm trying to do a little, a little live note taking to just capture some of the feedback so we can see it. Does anyone else who's been working on this want to respond a little bit while I just make a note of what we just heard? I don't know what the best way to describe it would be. So perhaps what we could do is take your comment and then bring it under consideration again. One thing I'll note is that I remember doing a scan for exactly that question earlier, and there was one other place in the resolution where we made a change very much in line of what you said. And I think we just missed that. It was in the paragraph right before where it says called upon to respect the gender identity. That was previously phrased more along the lines of the paragraph that you noted. And we changed it. I think we just missed the next one. So speaking for myself, just as an individual and a member of the steering committee, I would think that the change that you're suggesting is consistent with changes we made earlier and we just weren't complete in those changes. Yeah, that seems like a friendly amendment to bring us into consistency. If you just refresh this when you have a minute, I think you'll be able to see the things that I'm doing. So hopefully we can just swap out preferences for identities. And then there was another question about interrupting harm. We were trying to learn a little bit more about this because I don't think we can kick people out of NPA meetings. That's my understanding. And I'm not sure what the process is for addressing harm. One of the things we heard about last night at the All Wards meeting is there's a new in-progress process for filing a grievance about something that happens at an NPA and that hasn't existed before. And so that's kind of a follow-up step. But in terms of the moment of harm, I feel like we've been kind of struggling to figure out where's the line between keeping this an open space for the public and interrupting a situation like the one you described. Does anyone else have any insights on that? I think this kind of gets to the heart of the fact that the NPAs are we don't have any authority. The function of the NPAs is to be a space for discussion and information sharing. So it's not like there's someone in charge who can say X needs to happen. Even this is one thing that came up at the All Wards NPA meeting last night, we as the steering committee don't have any authority as in there's nothing that we vote on or make decisions for. We're essentially a vehicle for making these meetings happen and having something organized that people can engage with. But if there's ever any vote of the NPA, it's the NPA, not the five of us. So yeah, that's kind of at the root of why it's a very gentle statement because the question of how that's addressed is still an open question and kind of beyond what the steering committee can do. Right. Yeah, Farid, I see your hand, but I know that Milo's online and I'm wondering if maybe she can help us out with this. I'm sorry, I'm multitasking. What was the question? We're going back and forth about something in our resolution that somebody's brought up. Is there what happens if we're trying to interrupt harm that's ongoing in the middle of an NPA? How do we not run afoul of open meeting laws and also hold the line in terms of protecting folks who might be getting harmed? I think that's where the grievance process comes in, right? That we were talking about the situation that occurred at the NPA in question that kind of generated all of this. There were numerous attempts to address the issue and there needed to be a intervention is not the right word that I want, but there wasn't a grievance process. So I think that mentioning that will be important. I think in the ideal world we should be able to say to individuals that their language and disrespect is harmful and doesn't foster community. But if that isn't sufficient, it's that next level of being able to file a grievance outside of the steering committee in order to get assistance, be it with CJC or CEDA or REIB, depending on what the issue is. In terms of the meeting itself, in the moment, is it appropriate for steering committee members or members of the public to ask somebody to leave an NPA meeting? I don't think there's any kind of authority that can be asserted there in any formal way. We should have the authority to run our own meeting the way just like how we ask for people to limit their speaking time to a certain amount of length. We should have the authority to actually like this is how we run the meeting. That's true because you did at the beginning, you stated what your rules of engagement were and asking everyone to respect that. It's kind of similar with the city council because we had a very difficult meeting back in August and we actually ended up having a retreat to discuss what happened. How do we respond? Well, if we have rules of engagement that we state and we state that people need to address the council president and not anyone around them and people don't respect that, then what steps do we take? Without going into the whole thing, there was different scenarios discussed depending on the situation. I think it's an interesting discussion to have, especially in the context of the last week where we witnessed people in the United States Congress threatening to fight with each other and Bernie Sanders having to remind colleagues that they're United States senators and Congress people making fun of each other and elbowing each other as they passed. You denied that. You denied it, okay. Nevertheless, I think it's also about we're stating an intention of what kind of community we're creating in the NPA, in this meeting, in this gathering and that I think we hope that the community that we're creating will be strong enough to protect vulnerable people or not even vulnerable people, but people who are being harmed as Jamie brought up in the moment, whether the authority is there structurally or not, that we should be able to do that as a community. I agree and I think the authority is a moral authority. This is what we agree and we're going to stand behind it. I don't think we have much beyond that unless we just shut down. There are these de-escalation tactics that we can employ. We take somebody to the side and just basically occupy their time while we're protecting and basically stopping the harm and also respecting what this person has to say. When I have served on other bodies, I'm new here. There's usually legal counsel. Legal counsel usually is available to all subcommittees of a city. Just asking legally what is the process by which people who are exercising freedom of speech can be interrupted without violating their constitutional rights is one pathway forward and then a second pathway forward is creating the moral norms in the resolution because of the authority that we have with each other because it was very clearly stated that resolutions are intent but not more powerful than that. You can say quite a few things in a resolution and saying things such as and maybe interrupting harm is chop talk. Maybe there's a better way to say it that's more universally understood but explicitly stating that when an individual is harming the identity of a person in a marginalized identity that they will be interrupted. They will be invited to with they'll be asked to stop. The norms in the meeting will be read and if the person continues to perpetuate hate speech or whatever they're doing that they need to they'll be invited to leave the room and speak with somebody who's a part of the NPA steering committee and talk one on one in a different space. That kind of thing would probably need oversight of legal counsel before it was included in a resolution. Thanks for that. I think I want to make a distinction between what I think we can put in the resolution and how we can edit this resolution to reflect these intentions and then there was a lot of discussion last night about what that grievance process looks like because it doesn't exist yet and I think some of the stuff you're talking about like having somebody be you know escorted outside by someone and there's legal counsel and there are all these kind of things in place. My inclination is that maybe that belongs in the grievance process and not in the resolution but now that it's in our notes we can get it into the feedback for what the grievance process looks like. I want to just draw your attention. I've been taking some notes as folks have been talking trying to reflect some of what we're saying. The first is a friendly amendment for consistency or spopping preferences for identities and then with respect to this piece about if we want to interrupt the thing when it's happening I've added be it further resolved that if any such discriminatory speech or action occurs during an NPA 5 sponsored event the NPA 5 steering committee and or members of the public because we know that we are all involved in this group accountability project will attempt to interrupt that harm explicitly note the occurrence and re-emphasize the norm of respect which maybe we'll revisit and commitment to inclusivity and then I added a little bit at the end about the encouraging folks to file a grievance how does that look in terms of reflecting what we were just discussing is there something else we want to add is that not quite it yeah yeah I I'd like to say that I I'm very happy to see this resolution and to see a statement of inclusivity I I sometimes have trouble you know I have acquaintances who are transitioning or are of indeterminate gender and I sometimes have trouble remembering what the preferred stated pronouns are and so I resort to just using their names so that I'm not incorrect and I'm just wondering if that conflicts with the statement here about using the preferred pronouns and also I like the discussion that's going on about you know different way different harms and I I'm not sure that this is broad enough really I mean I I know we're reacting to an incident that happened within the last couple weeks but you know there's lots of ways to disrespect other people's gender identity then misusing stated pronouns and you know sarcasm or belittling or doesn't have to be get your what did they say get your butt up and put up your dukes in the center and so you know I would welcome I don't know if it's as was stated here just some power of the steering committee to choose or limit the speech of somebody who's not being respectful so that's my comment say one thing yeah go ahead Jason I think this relates to part of what you said Steve one thing I've been struggling with with this resolution is as you noted it was prompted by a specific incident that was specifically about gender identity but then we expanded it to be sort of a non-discrimination resolution in general but I think that it's it's still the it does the bat them it's it's holding those two things sort of uneasily and I don't know it's it's like trying to be two things at once specific about an incident and brought about all forms of gender discrimination and it kind of hops back and forth between the two in a way that I don't think we've gotten quite right yet and I don't quite know what the answer is but we're we're essentially trying to do two things at once respond to an incident that really wasn't okay and make a broader statement about the larger universe that you know that incident is as a part of and I I'm saying this not in having any answers because if we had the answers we would have you know already done some edits but rather to kind of put that out there if anyone has any thoughts on how this resolution can effectively do those two things at once wait I just before we go into another yeah I want to just go back and make sure we're addressing some of your specific questions yeah I don't see using people's names as in violation of this at all the the specificity I see in this text is about deliberate and repeated speech that harms people based on their identity and I I hear what you're saying and I appreciate the thought of like there's so many ways to disrespect people and that I think is really beyond our purview in terms of freedom of speech and to this earlier point like we're we are building a culture of respect here and I think that the goal right is not that we we write exactly the right set of rules to make sure that everybody behaves really well at the NPA but instead we have an understanding as a community that regularly gathers about how we treat each other and if somebody chooses to diverge from that it's not just it's not just the steering committee members it's not just the moderator who are saying that's not that's not how we treat people at this NPA so I'm I don't know how we walk that line without infringing on people's freedom of speech and protecting people to the fullest extent we can well if I if I may make a suggestion perhaps the steering committee could at least call for a consensus of the people who are at the meeting about whether the the the person is engaging in offensive speech or they're just exercising their rights of free speech I mean if you have the whole uh the whole people attending thinking gee they they just called Steve an idiot and you know that he you know was his intellectual capacity is at the level of second grader you know maybe that's pejorative or maybe it's not I think I agree it's not up to you to decide but it should be up to the consensus of the people here to decide if they want to let that person continue speaking problem is the the incident that we're reacting to was like it was the steering committee chair and that was backed by other steering committee members who weren't doing the harm um he's been replaced right oh no they all resigned yeah okay there is no word four and seven word seven all resigned yeah go ahead steer us I'm just thinking about like the discussions that were had last night at the awards and pay meeting and and what you just mentioned too I don't know what exactly is allowed like legally and all that like open meeting law you know what you can actually put in this resolution in terms of processes for like dealing with someone who is harming someone else um and so I wondered like if emphasizing that you want to create a space that's inclusive and respectful um could be something you emphasize more in the resolution and then once kind of workshopping begins with different entities about the grievance process then potentially doing work within your bylaws to to create those changes um and then I forgot what I was gonna say but I think what you said about the consensus thing like maybe if it is like a member of that public body right who's at the meeting who thinks I'm just gonna be a being a person I'm just going to say he's something to this person is harming this other person or or try to deal with the situation not as someone like maybe it's not up to the steering committee cells right like maybe just as a person you know anyone in the meeting could step up and say something right if something is going on um I don't know like that's possible what you guys think but that's that was an idea I just want to acknowledge that these are hard conversations and I'm very pleased that we're talking about hard stuff in a civil way and we're probably not going to figure everything out tonight but even just having a conversation like this is important so thank you all and with that let's keep going I I want to have a just a small footnote about NPAs in general um Jamie's point about you know legal counsel brings up the fact that the NPAs are kind of a unique institution they're not a city body as such they're created by city council um they're not something that every town or city has except in the Vermont tradition of having a town meeting for every every town this is sort of continuing as sort of a neighborhood town meeting every month um to get to know the town the NPA better the um the all the Allworth group authorized commissioned this little pamphlet that was done by a local artist um this year was in the last year and I encourage you if you want to know more about about NPAs then pick up one of these um and and learn more but I think that I want to appreciate what a unique and wonderful institution NPAs are and and tag on to Jason's comment that you know there's a really good discussion that's the really um wonderful that we're even creating the faithful I in reading through this I I am a person who likes fairly straightforward easy language and so all the viet for the resolved stuff is that required and if not then can you just say we as word five NPA agree and affirm that we will and and then put what it is that we want the the purpose of this is really we want to have an inclusive safe community for all and we want this and we will we agree to whatever that language is and and here's what we agree to and you just list them I would I think the things of how you resolve what happens if things are not going well would be better maybe in your bylaws that this should really be a statement of what we want to have happen and then if it isn't happening you bring it forward and say here's what we want from from our community here's how we want to be together and and if that doesn't continue to happen or if it changes somebody's behavior great if not then you know her bylaws that okay let's step out in the hall let's have a conversation about this so I just feel like the language is cumbersome it it just I really like straightforward let's get down to the what the nitty-gritty is that we really want to say yes I'm done so it sounds like we've had some questions called about our resolution really important questions and we as steering committee might want to take back and have a conversation about either have answers to questions but then raise and then come back with another resolution in December that that would be what I would recommend so we received some guidance last night that we're we're not really supposed to be hanging out as a steering committee crafting things and that we actually have to do this as a community so and and I I actually think that we can get there pretty soon because there's right like yes this is really complicated but it's also not that complicated as you have brought forward I agree with you that this language is really cumbersome and I I think a good next step for the steering committee this is something we should be crafting amongst ourselves is a summation of what this says in in very plain language I'm not sure if we're obligated to do this but I think the intention is to reflect some of the the the heft that city council resolutions have in them I don't know do we do we have any idea if this is if this format is required you know I wish I knew okay Andy do you know I don't I don't think so at all but not illegally finding right yeah I don't think that it has to be like that great that's that's good news so it seems like we yeah go ahead thank you Robin skank I live in this board I like a lot of what you said and I I understand and agree with the cumbersome language but the second piece I heard that really resonated with me was that we are the NPA we are making a resolution to say we are here to be respectful and inclusive and I really wonder a little bit about Jason I'm new to this and I'm new to saying anything like this but I like putting the positivity forward and do we need to be reactive in that way if we're saying that the bylaws are going to be the way we addressed when somebody breaches that I like to put forward the positive hope and the positive resolution that we are here to be inclusive and respectful and I don't like so much that we're being reactive in the end of the document and I'll leave like the the consequences to the bylaw to be decided later is that we're talking about that's I mean that sounds great to me I mean that was going to be our next step anyway was to yeah I think that's a more involved conversation I'm gonna do a lot of research after this because I'm curious now about all these questions but one thing that I have seen in community meetings is community agreements that are put on the wall and the norms of what is agreed upon this kind of resolution can be really useful in creating the norms for whoever's in the room at the moment it's passed but creating consistency for new people who arrive works really well when there's something printed at the entryway that talks about what the community norms are and then I think the only reason a process needs to be laid out and in some way bylaws as somebody who's written a fair number of bylaws in my day they're for nerds and not too many people in the public read them so the challenge is how do you take the policy the behind-the-scenes stuff and make it relatable for the public and where I think that's useful is there's a lot of examples in probably all of our lives where we're in a conflict situation and somebody in a marginalized identity is being harmed and later we think to ourselves boy I wish I had and so there's trainings in how to interrupt harm and how to support folks to do this in a really effective and thoughtful way that doesn't further harm the person who's harming so one thing I would just name that's really important as a part of this process is how do you make sure that there's a clear pathway that that pathway is communicated effectively and that's because when you create a plan it actually allows you not to be negative but to have a positive response that really reinforces the humanity of everybody involved so that's what can happen I think when these kinds of systems are thought out and then documented agreed to and then communicated you volunteering to be like a member of the committee really there's no there's no actual limit on how many people could be appearing yes hi I'm Maria Mercurio she her um I live on home out this is my first meeting thank you for having me um say your last name one more time I didn't get it Mercurio thank you um I could just use a little like clarification because we're talking a lot about bylaws about what that conversation about how the bylaws would be changed would prohibit us from being able to pass this resolution as it is you know like where does that kind of conversation come into play follow the norms into the bylaws this as here's one of the norms as it sort of says in the title right right reaffirming that works okay the bylaw the bylaw would contain less of this language and more of them okay some would not follow the norms what are you talking about what powers do they have but that's not what's on discussion tonight a change in bylaws that would happen at a later okay that has to come back okay when you heard that are in attendance well how does he how do you want access to bylaws so and one bit of background regarding you know sort of this is just my interpretation tell me anybody else if you disagree part of the reason why this resolution includes the language at the end about you know the sort of what happens if language that we're now considering moving to bylaws is that when we started talking about this um bylaws weren't on our radar you know a bylaw change wasn't on our radar as something that could be part of the mix so we're kind of trying to write a resolution that covered the whole ground and I think where we're what we're sort of arriving at now with the guidance of this larger group is you know we've got these two different vehicles if you will let me right want to separate out what is covered by each but but that that's the history is that bylaws weren't on the radar we started right I have a proposal um would you scroll down please again um I'm hearing that there's there's kind of a keep going there's a second page now um I'm hearing from a lot of folks that there's that we want kind of a delineation between what we are what we are saying and committing to as an mpa in the form of a resolution there's some work to do on the bylaws which is not going to happen tonight um and then I also heard some next steps um specifically clarify what it looks like to address harm in the moment um and have a clear process that we share with everyone um I think that that kind of that is the development of that process goes hand in hand with the broader development of a grievance process um so we make sure they they go together well um and then we also can update our community agreements we have some guiding principles which we looked at earlier in the meeting we could revisit those and we could just change those to be community agreements I left your suggestion of having them printed out so that when folks come for the first time to this meeting it's very clear who we are and what we expect of this space so I'm wondering first wondering is I pulled out some of the language in the above resolution that's that's specifically about the kind of space we're trying to create here and I just brought it away from the other stuff maybe let's take a moment and look at this how does this read as a resolution it's I I pulled out all to be it further resolved and the other really big thing that's missing is the what we do in response to harm which clearly needs a little bit more work what is it so then it's are you just to make totally clear I understand are you proposing this as a complete replacement for like set that aside let's consider this instead yeah and it's it's the same if you wouldn't mind just scrolling up it's the same stuff yeah much condensed and it's really I I'm hearing I took out all the where as is um that's the best part but I also was hearing that there's there's kind of a a bumpiness between trying to make a broad statement and trying to respond to what happened four and seven a few weeks ago and I I took out everything that is broad and brought it down so that we can just have the broad stuff and see if that maybe can stick as a as a resolution will you go back down please sure does somebody else want to read out loud no pressure great award five npa is fundamentally committed to creating an inclusive and welcoming space for all members of the burlington community the ward five npa affirms that all community members regardless of gender gender identity or expression sex sexual orientation race color religion national origin ancestry place of birth pregnancy age disability or any other characteristic protected protected by law are fully and equally welcome at the npa sponsor events the award five npa unequivocally rejects transphobic sexist racist or other discriminatory speech or actions at npa sponsored events as inconsistent with such a norm of respect and therefore incompatible with the mission of the npas that's much shorter okay i really like this revision i'm wondering about the protected by law why don't you just write any other distinguishing characteristic because i don't know exactly what's protected by law or what isn't protected by law changes so that was a nice thing i mean what if someone comes in with you know tattoos or a headdress or you know you know i don't know yeah we were the i think the advice from the city is that there's there's pretty clear standards for what constitutes anti-discrimination policies and it's it's you know what what falls under that umbrella is is pretty clearly defined by law and that you know best practice is to sort of hue to that so maybe you could add to the end of that sentence in the bylaws because that's what the city was really after at the time they were suggesting the language for the violence right i'm not sure what you're asking the resolution essentially says that the npa bylaws ought to include this non-discrimination clause and it was spelled out pretty similar to what we have here at the end which are not in our current bylaws but most of this actually is it's that any other characteristic protected by law so i think that's how i ended up in here maybe but i guess i understand it's not totally necessary for what we're doing here tonight okay i'm also i'm just bear with me i'm i'm thinking about your your example of somebody with tattoos if we limit this to any other characteristic if somebody comes in with a fascist symbol tattooed on their face i would really prefer that we don't allow them into the meeting um if that is protected by law you know i don't i don't know if i don't know if it is okay great well screw me um okay yeah maybe i my understanding though of removing the protected by law is that then we kind of open the door for interpretation that's really broad to the point where it doesn't matter that we said anything at all that you're understanding that we said all those other specific things that those all those other specific things work doesn't make it less important that there's more that we can't put in our very long sentences so this is this is this is a significant change we've heard some positive feedback on it very curious what other folks think it's just the the human rights commission in vermont at least states what's protected classes by law i think it's the human rights commission it might be used in the mom term i like the edit lana that you proposed i just think that the paragraph that talks about respecting gender identity including stated pronouns be really nice to see that added back in i think i hear the argument that there was really broad and then there was more specific i think that that paragraph stands really strong i don't know what happened at this other word meaning so i don't know about the reactions but it that's a specific example of ways that people have been harmed and it i think the resolution loses a lot of its power if we don't include that paragraph um so i would like to see that go back in just the section that said um npa5 sponsored events call to respect called upon to respect the gender identity including stated pronouns i also really like that sort of active use of called upon as opposed to just saying these are the things that we believe generally we're actually calling upon people to respect people in this way that people have been so often disrespected as of late so i would i would like that to go back thank you for measuring it great okay it's back in there one other thing to note i think this is just a tiny bit of messiness in the translation from the previous version to this one is the last paragraph says with such a norm of respect in the previous version there was a mention specifically of norm of respect earlier and this is sort of casting back into that with the such a language i think so great thank you um jane online please go ahead um yeah um i i've had thought thought thought if is it possible and it talks when it says all all everything that is protected by law well i mean how can is it possible to list everything that is protected by law um that's a good question okay and the reason the reason for the or any other characteristic protected by law is that the law changes from time to time and we want this to encompass that without having to go back and change this language so if something else gets added after this then it's kind of swept in how does that sit with you jane that's it's okay if there's so long as it's published as it's published as it's publicized when when when it does get added sure i wonder if there's um if there's a link to a civil rights framework that we can include so that folks have access to that information as it gets updated yeah okay so it's 8 20 um this has been cool thank you everybody for your participation it's not over um but it looks to me like we're arriving at something that reflects a lot of the concerns we heard about and we have some some next steps um and just as a reminder those are updating our community agreements to reflect this resolution if we decide to pass it and then clarifying what our protocol is for addressing harm both in the moment at the npa should that happen and more broadly with the the city filing agreements outside of the bounds of of this room and our preview um what do folks in the room think are we are we maybe ready to vote on this is anybody feeling deeply unready to vote okay um would you bring us back to our slides please just to note that the um jayme just brought up the list of what is in fact the factory in vermont and it's a longer list than what's in here and i my my personal take is that including this whole list would be unwieldy so having the other protected classes is useful not only for future changes in the law but also for stuff that's you know one of them is breastfeeding hiv blood tests a variety of things that are important in their own right but it the whole thing would just kind of probably get into unwieldy if we tried to include everything so just a cross check there i think we're in the right place great and i just made a note in the draft of the resolution um that we can add a link to that so that whoever's looking at it can access the the full list okay yeah take your time um the thing that we will see in a moment um is there's a a little url just a tiny url if you would like to type it into your phone you can go to the next slide um and that will take you to a google form for voting would you just move the box on the screen yeah so we can see the important part of the link thank you um thanks so much fosca um if you'd like to do this on your phone great i also have some little sheets of paper if you are not trying to do it on your phone um i can just send those around um and as you'll see as you open up the form you can vote yay or nay or yes or no whatever suits you um i okay if you prefer pirate speak um we're yay that's allowed um we're doing uh oh let me thank you for the reminder so everybody who lives in ward five is eligible to vote um and that is i believe the only rule we're doing we're doing a hidden vote be what yeah and and you have to be here um and folks online let us know if you're having an open time accessing that hang on everybody we got some process explanation going on okay um i think if you if you've got a sheet of paper in the room or if you're on your phone you're welcome to go ahead and vote um they just do one of the yeah please please don't vote wise um i mean yeah December 12th do we go through this are you you should be from this ward yeah so you have to be you have to live in ward five you have to be here or you have to be online yes you may vary on my pen um i have some more pens if anybody needs any we need a pen yes okay just gonna send the bundle here when can i put it in order for 10 000 carats while i'm at it sorry everyone so if it's graph paper i have um December 12th at the old northern community center you can buy potatoes okay awesome do you want to count things please collect them okay well i wear a nametag so you're welcome i can't see him from over there all right well you need glasses he's an old guy with people memory at that eyesight yeah all right uh go me granted but yeah i guess if you wanted to do like confidential voting like this would be yeah we were we were asked to do it kind of like which is why we set it up like this can you go there sure that would be great okay and um i think we're gonna see what pops up on the form and then it was not actually by bernie sanders by the city council under bernie sanders and all i was saying was that while we are okay now are you able to act on that that's a great question really part of city that's like we're not go created the form of joe so joe should be able to act all right thanks you want to you want to be the results person resolution from from the nks all right i'm not sure can be we can ask city council they can do this is sort of the same right but not a government body as such but we i got it i have it i was just saying thank you you know i'm an expert there are online but we're not you know a legislative right body either well thank you well oh well i mean the idea is that um it's not a fun community meeting you can ask me thank you sir both campaigners you can tell me everyone the results are in You've all been on the edge of your seats. But we had 20 people vote. And we have 20 yes votes and zero no votes. So good work everybody. That concludes our meeting. We'll be doing our next steps and reporting back on them at our next meeting. The resolution online. Oh, you want to hear the next steps again. No, I want to hear the date for the next. Oh, the next meeting is. Okay. That's a little spicy. We should probably do it anyway, though, huh? That's important. Yeah. As a new resident, I've looked for information and it said the end team meeting was happening on September 21st. And that was the last reference online. Were you looking on the city website or on our website? I think I changed that like yesterday, maybe. I don't know when you looked. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. It should be updated. Okay. Great. Thank you. Always, always want to hear that stuff. Yeah. I didn't know how else to find it. Okay. Thank you. That slipped through the cracks and we'll be more on it. Make sure that the city website and our website are clearly linked to each other. And. That the city website is up to date as much as our own website is. Yeah. That's a good point to have the bylaws at least linked to those places. Yeah. I do that. No. That's why we're clapping. Yeah. Oh, and the last item of business at every one of these meetings is to take more food. Yeah. Yeah. Invite your neighbor. Okay. So that concludes our meeting. Thank you everyone for coming and for the robust discussion and for voting and for your time. We'll see you on December 21st. Food is 6 30 meeting at seven and right to us. If you have thoughts, questions, concerns, wildest dreams. Good night.