 and you're a moderator tonight. We also have our NPA members, Michelle Morales and Nelson Martel. And Joe Fitzgerald, he unfortunately has had, just suddenly had the mess. He's on our committee as well, but then this should come up or he's gonna have to miss tonight. So we can go ahead and begin. And our first 10 minutes are for public comment. And Michelle, just explain, Greg, that you wanted to, you wanted to go first. Please, please go ahead. Oh, okay. Thanks, Michelle, for telling them that I wanted to go first. I didn't know that, so good, thank you. Yeah, I'm a word to six clerk and we are having a town meeting or as it's called, sometimes city meeting coming up on March 1st. And as part of my duties, I'm supposed to organize the workers for 10 meeting. And there are several things that happen before the day itself. One is we, because of mail-in ballots, we are now pre-processing, I guess you could call it, ballots, we're not opening the ballots, envelopes themselves, but we are, the city hall is doing most of that. But then when they have a batch, we go down to city hall as a group, at least two elected officials. And we open the ballots and put them in the tabulator, excuse me. And that gives us a head start on March 1st. We'll give us a head start on every election, actually, as long as we have the mail-in ballots. So there is a sign-up that we have done on an app called sign-up genius that Kirsten Wilson, one of our inspectors of election, has put out. And I'm not going to give you that link, but I will say that you could email me if you're interested. And my email address is Gregew2, Gregew2 at BurlingtonTelecom.net or you could email Kirsten at KMWilson678, that's KMWilson at, sorry, KMWilson678 at gmail.com. And we'll send you the link and you can sign up. So the pre-processing, we're going to have one a week of the 14th coming up and I think the 17th or 18th and then another one on the 24th. I think we're all set with that, but we do have set up the night before election and the day of from we started probably 6 a.m. and go till whenever we have the ballots tabulated and the votes counted and certified. And that winds up to be these days, probably no later than nine o'clock. So we're looking for two hour shifts. You can sign up for one two hour shift or more than one two hour shift, that's up to you. And no experience necessary. We have any Burlington resident whose registered voter is an eligible poll worker and 16 and as young as 16 and 17 year olds could work under adult supervision, but if you're 18 and older and a Burlington registered voter you're eligible to work and you're paid $12.55 an hour or you can volunteer and give your time back to the city. So you can collect ballots at the door. You can sit at the check-off voters at the checklist inside. You can help distribute ballots, assist voters. He placed clean and so on and so forth. So I think that's all I wanted to cover. I mean, it's a good opportunity to be civically engaged without having much training. We'll handhold anybody who hasn't done it before. We'd love to have you. It's a real time to have some camaraderie and meet folks. So we hope you can join us. All right, great. Thanks a lot. Thank you very much. Okay, we have a little more time for public comment. One thing we did wanna do is make a call for a call for committee members for the Ward 6NPA. And Michelle, would you like to do a little description for that or would you like me to? Say you go for it, Matt. Okay, all right. So the committee members we have, we're all up for election every year. We actually have a couple who are through with their five-year term this year. So everybody is always eligible to run for the committee every year. It's a one-year term and you can serve for five years. That's super rewarding and interesting and not very time-consuming engagement if you're interested in meeting the people who are representing you in the government or the people who are running the city or our state representatives. We really get to, you really get to interact with a lot of interesting people that you normally wouldn't otherwise. And the time commitment is pretty minimal. We plan about one hour to plan the meeting once a month and then of course the meeting is a couple hours every month and there's usually maybe another one hour of miscellaneous work in the course of the month. So we're making a call because our next meeting we will have the election. We have had interest from a couple of citizens already which is great, but as many people who are interested in doing it, everybody is welcome. And if you're interested in it, you can go just on the city's website. There's a, you can look up Ward 6 NPA or just Google Ward 6 NPA Burlington. You'll get our list of all our emails and you can contact any of us if you want to ask some more questions. Be easy to explain everything. Although I think I pretty much explained it pretty well. Is there anything else you wanna point out, Michelle? Yeah, I would say that I wanna sort of reinforce what you said about it's a great opportunity to contribute to your community. It's, there's a timer going off in the background so I'm distracted. It's a fairly minimal effort for a really satisfying outcome and I'm just, again, I'm gonna repeat what Matt said. You really get to know your elected officials and you get to form the agenda. I mean, you have great input into what you present to your fellow Ward 6 residents every month. So I think it's, yeah, it's a great opportunity. The more people on the committee, the less work for each individual so we can have up to five steering committee members and I hope that each of those seats is filled with our election that's coming up next month. So please seriously consider participating on the steering committee, throwing your hat in the ring anyway for our very informal election next month. Thank you. Okay, we're got like one more minute for public comment. Does anybody else have a quick thing that they wanted to bring up? You can raise your hands in the Zoom participant panel. I'm not seeing anyone. Hey, Matt. Oh, sure. Matt, would you say a few or I guess I can just say it. So my name is Nelson Martel. I'm part of the steering committee. So as we're going through the meeting here, like you might get the offer to be promoted to a panelist. That doesn't mean you need to speak or share your video or anything like that, but it would allow you to sort of do to be sort of visible to other attendees if you want it to be. So there's no pressure to do anything more if you want to accept, but you would sort of be in the virtual room with us and visible and it's a little bit easier to call on you to speak. But you can also speak from the attendees side as well. That's it. Go ahead, Matt. All right, thanks. Okay, time for the next item. Our next speaker is going to be Brian Pine. We've invited different people to come and talk about some of the ballot items. And Brian's going to talk about the ballot item having to do with the new TIF district, part of the Great Streets Initiative. So Brian, please go ahead. Thanks a lot, Matt. And the rest of the NPA steering committee really appreciate the opportunity, especially at the beginning of your meeting. What a treat. There's a night meetings can really go on and I've been on some late ones lately, but I would just note that the team that has been working on this effort for quite a while now is includes Laura Wheelock and Olivia DeRisse and Olivia, I see her name on here and maybe she'll be running the slides because I don't see Laura. So I, perhaps she has joined since I checked the names a minute ago, but if whoever's moderating or hosting can let Laura in as a panelist, we are going to run the slides from Laura. So I actually have talked about this a few times. So I don't know that I necessarily need the slides, but I think they do help to convey the information that we're trying to convey here. And I can give a high level overview before we start to offer slides, but the downtown tax increment financing district is a mouthful and I'm going to use TIF, but that's the acronym that is for tax increment financing district. And I'll explain in a minute what a TIF district is and how it works, which I think is something that if you were to ask the average person on Church Street or on Main Street, I don't think they would be able to explain it because it's rather arcane. And I'll just give a quick little bit of history. The reason why we use tax increment financing as municipalities, it's used all across the country, although Vermont's approach to using this tool is very unique and specific to Vermont. It is a tool which allows municipalities to essentially create a district and within that district where the property values grow over time, the growth in value is essentially captured, if you will. So just think of it as a special assessment and as the property values in that district grow, that growth is what's used to repay a bond which was incurred to provide, to make public improvements. So it's really a way to finance public improvements more than anything, that's what TIF is. And honestly, it's super complicated. We wouldn't be using TIF if we had enough tax revenue or if we had a federal government that still supported municipalities the way they used to before the tax reform of 1986 when the federal government stopped doing something called revenue sharing. And at the time, Burlington was receiving roughly a million dollars, which today doesn't sound like a lot of money, but in 1986, our general fund budget was just north of 10 million. So it was 10% of our budget came from the federal government, a year in 1986 that went away. So municipalities had to come up with a creative way to do this without putting the burden on the taxpayers today. So that's the whole idea behind TIF is to use that growth and value within the district and using that to repay the bond. So great, we've got our slides up, we're ready to roll. And next slide. So this is what we'll cover. Hopefully be able to cover everything here. You left us enough time, so I think we'll be good. And then we'll wrap it up with questions and answers. And I would just add that the following item is a more detailed dive, deep dive into the actual Main Street project, as opposed to sort of the TIF piece, which is what's going to the voter. So the voter item is really, how do we pay for it? And the project is yet to be sort of, has to go through more of a public engagement process before the details of the project are finalized. So next slide. Let's just add Brian. I don't think that this presentation has been updated to kind of take out some of the more concept-focused stuff in terms of the new concept and stuff. So you can kind of go past that if you want because I'll be covering that in my presentation, so. Okay, great. All right, so we'll go to the next slide here, which does try to do what I just explained without a slide. And I'm gonna try to help walk you through this. So up at the top in the box is an attempt to show how a TIF district is established. When it's established, you take the original taxable value, all the properties that are taxable within that district, those tax dollars that are coming to the city and the state education fund continue to come and flow to those two taxing authorities as if nothing has changed. So all of that stays the same. So it doesn't divert any of the existing taxes, a tax revenue. What it does do is as the growth in value occurs, 75% of that growth is essentially captured from the state education fund and used within the district. And 100% of the municipal portion is captured to use, to fund, to pay back the bond. 25% of the growth goes off to the education fund. So just to clarify, original tax revenue coming within the district stays and added 25% goes to the ed fund, but the remainder goes to repaying the TIF bond that is incurred to pay for the public improvement. So it's still kind of a challenging concept, but over here is our diagram, which creates sort of a circle with the municipal bond being sort of the first point at the top, you issue a bond, which means you sell it to investors and they give you their investment and you have cash to build the infrastructure. You see additional growth in terms of property values through reinvestments and new developments that occur. That's at the bottom. And then going up the side of the clockwise is a creation of the increment that incremental growth and property taxes is what's captured to repay that bond, which was at the top there. So that's, I think the, hopefully the clearest way to describe how it works. Next slide, please. In our downtown TIF, I should, in another slide, I think it's the next slide. I'll show you the difference. We have two different TIF districts. Burlington is unique because we started this way before the legislature figured out how to essentially adopt this public policy. And so our waterfront TIF district is completely separate. And I'll cover that in just a minute just so you can see the difference. But what we have here is a diagram which shows you essentially the project scope here runs from Union Street at the east boundary of the project area down to Battery Street. So really from Memorial Auditorium to the building, to the end of Main Street at Battery Street. Already the voters have approved a $10 million bond for work within the TIF district. And we'll talk in a minute about what that is for funding, but that's already been approved, some of which has been applied already to the block between Church Street and St. Paul Street along City Hall Park. And so really the approved part which the voters have yet to approve is both the sewer ravine relocation which we'll talk about in a couple of minutes with the aid of a slide that I think is very interesting for folks, as well as the two blocks that run from Main Street from Union to Church Street. And then picking up again down at Pine Street to Battery. So those are the total of four blocks that voters will be approving. The voters have already approved this TIF financing for the block between Church Street, I'm sorry, the two blocks between Church Street and Pine Street. So next slide. We're gonna get into the project a little bit, but I don't wanna spend too much time because I think either Olivia or Laura will cover this in a little while, but basically I want it at a high level to point out that this is a complete reconstruction of everything you see in the public right of way. And on Main Street, the public right of way is very large because you've got substantial sidewalks, you've got parking lanes and you've got travel lanes. And so it's that entire public right of way. And the goal here is to really rebalance the right of way. And that's sort of a, that's like a transit or transportation planner lingo for ensure that all the users have, their needs are being met by the right of way. So it's the pedestrian transit vehicles, bicycles, it's everybody has the infrastructure and their needs being met within the public right of way. The public amenities, which will be described in a little, here's a great slide to show you that. So this is looking up, going east on Main Street, the building that appears in the brick facade is City Hall. And the building on the very bottom left would be, I think it's North Star Cyclery. And on the bottom right is the old armory. People know it as the comedy club. So you've got essentially a wider sidewalk. You've got a belt of an area that is dedicated for both a tree belt, as well as tables and chairs, benches, things that create sort of a place to gather. You've got a dedicated bike lane, followed by a barrier that separates the cars and the parked cars. So you've got a lane of cars, a travel lane, another lane of parking, and then the same thing on the other side of the street. So you'll hear more about this in a few minutes, but I just wanted to provide an overview of what this actually will look like, broadly speaking. So this is what it looks like today. I think most people are familiar with it. You know, it's sort of a nondescript street. It's an older New England city street and it hasn't been, you know, it operates, but it doesn't function sort of at its highest level in terms of pedestrian safety and handicap accessibility. And it certainly does not accommodate major storm events in terms of stormwater and runoff. So another key goal of this project is to essentially treat stormwater before it reaches our lake to really reduce our contribution to pollution of Lake Champlain. As well, obviously creating the infrastructure to support all of the users has other benefits and builds sort of our commitment to sustainability, resiliency, kind of the community building activity that happens when you create, you know, spaces that you can see now on St. Paul Street is a great example of that work. Next slide. So this is the fun slide to show you, which is, I think it's 20 to 30 feet down below the surface parking lot at the corner of Maine and South Winooski, so across from Mr. Mike's is the sewer, the ravine sewer that really runs through a good part of Burlington starting way over in the old North end near Hyde Street and Riverside Avenue. And it runs all the way down to the South end and comes out, I believe in Anglesby ravine eventually. So it does eventually end up in our lake, although in this instance, it's obviously it's a sewer system, so it connects to our sewer system, but the ravine itself does go that far. The age of this system is estimated and I've got to look at my cheat sheet for how old it is, but it's over 140 years old. And the condition is, you know, it's not at risk of imminent failure, but there will be time when it will, it'll need some significant relocation and restoration and perhaps relining. But in this instance, what we're trying to focus on is if you look in the diagram on the left part of the screen, the aerial view, you can see a fuchsia line that runs through, I don't know if you can use your cursor or do I use my cursor here? Yeah, there you go. It runs past through the library, so underneath Fletcher Free Library, which is right there. And then it goes behind the fire station, sort of tucks in there, and then it goes across the parking lot. And you know, you might think that's not a big deal, although that parking lot is a good site for redevelopment in our downtown. It's a good location for development, but in order for development to occur at sort of its highest and best use and maximizing the potential, you can't actually put a good size building on top of it now because of the ravine and the sewer, the ravine sewer that's there. All the geotechnical engineering that's been done to date suggests that that needs to be either substantially rebuilt at a very high cost or relocated is a more preferable option, we believe. So this project would include dealing with that issue to allow for redevelopment to occur, which is actually one of them, that's the one of the main concepts of TIF, but for this public improvement, development will not occur on that block. Next slide, please. So here's the map showing the two districts that won't stay too long on this one, but the waterfront has a TIF district. It has sort of a finger that sticks up from the waterfront and includes the whole property that you think of as Burlington Town Center and the adjacent properties there, which would include the Marriott, the Hotel Vermont, part of the garage, what used to be Macy's, all of those buildings are still considered part of the waterfront TIF district. And that's because when the state approved Burlington's first TIF district, the city made the case that the urban renewal phase of Burlington's history left a lot of land that at the time was still just surface parking lots. And if you think back to before Macy's or Filene's came and all those other buildings, that was just basically a big old gravel lot. And the goal was to redevelop that but that public investments and public improvements were necessary. So that's why that district, so the blue hatched area is the downtown district. And that's what we're talking about when we talk about the downtown TIF district. Next slide. So the State Vermont Economic Progress Council, which is the governing board that oversees all the TIF districts, there's eight of them in Vermont. And the first one was the waterfront district and the voters established our TIF district. Actually the city did and then the voters concurred with the city's creation of the district actually in 2012 but the approval from the state came in 2011. We incurred the first debt in 2016 after voter approval that occurred in 2015. We have a deadline for borrowing money to make the public improvements. And that's the final date for new debt is March 31st. So just over a year from now is when the deadline arrives. And at that, we've already had two extensions but when that deadline arrives, we cannot use TIF to finance improvements after that. We can continue to capture the increment and retain the increment to finance a bond but you can't issue, you can't go borrow money after that date is what I'm trying to say. So the final year for retaining the increment is 2036. So from the time we incurred debt until 2036, we have that sort of our amortization period. That's like our loan period. Next slide. These are the projects that have already occurred and I'll run through them quickly but you think of the work that's been done on St. Paul Street and that's the two blocks from Maine to Maple, significant public improvements there. The marketplace garage repairs, Brown's Court parking lot, which is where Eagles, it's called Eagles Landing. It's a housing that is occupied by Champlain College students. Have ground floor commercial with public parking actually tucked sort of behind the commercial. That was a brownfield, meaning there was contamination there from some previous uses far in the past. It was actually a gas station and some work needed to happen to clean up the pollution that was there to make that site suitable for development. Stormwater upgrades on Main Street which is a substantial project that was related to the renovations at City Hall Park. So those are the projects that have been done to date in the downtown TIF. Next slide. What we're proposing is essentially taking those standards which you'll hear more about in a minute from our DPW colleagues, extending those standards all the way on Main Street all the way from Union to Battery. So it's a complete rebuild both above grade and what you don't see below grade. And so that includes all the subsurface utilities, all the systems, the reconstructions necessary, replacements, extensions where necessary. And obviously the big item is the relocation of the ravine sewer or potentially upgrading. But I think the engineering on that suggests that a relocation is probably the most suitable approach. There is a additional item here which is we both have to... Well, the state requires that we explain this last item which is related costs are those costs which you would associate with project management and the management of the TIF district, the annual audit, the annual reporting, all of the work required for the entire life of the district is called related costs. And the state requires that we explain to the voters what the related costs are and to point out that we don't borrow money to pay related costs because they're not eligible for bonds. So we use the revenue coming from the TIF district annually to pay those related costs. So just to point that out, that's an important point to mention. So it doesn't include it in the bonding. Current finances, the original, the OTV stands for original taxable value. And in 2011 when we created the district was 170 million. Today that district has a value of 285 million. So that's a 66% increase in a 10 year period which on an annual basis of about 6.6% is considerably higher on an annualized basis than the surrounding areas of both our downtown and certainly the rest of the city. Voters already approved 10 million in bond issuance for the TIF district. We've only incurred 5,420,000 of that 10 million that the voters approved giving us a remaining bonding authority of 4,580,000 that would be applied to this project. Next slide. So here we have the summary, the Great Streets, the relocation of the ravine sewer, the new debt request. And this is important to distinguish between the one we've already sought and received voter approval for of 10 million, the new debt request for the TIF district is 25,920,000 with related costs going from this point forward to the year 2036 of 1,470,000 in related costs. The projected increment from the new private development that is already occurred or is underway in the district is actually already sufficient to service this bond. So just to be clear, we don't actually require any new growth other than the growth which we've estimated at 1% per year over the next period between now and 2036 to have enough revenue to service the debt that we would be borrowing to make these improvements. Just a quick reminder, there are other items on the ballot which do result in tax increases is actually a tax decrease for the schools but TIF does not result in a tax increase for taxpayers. It actually doesn't result in a tax increase for those within the TIF district. That's just an important point that has been misperceived or misconstrued perhaps by some and certainly the media gets confused sometimes by this because the last time it came out in an article in Vermont Digger suggested that taxes would not go up for most property owners but they would go up for those in the district and that is not at all how TIF works. That's not how TIF works at all. So questions and answers, questions and hopefully answers if I can do it. All right, I see, I had seen Mary, Twitchell had her hand up. Mary, did you want to, that was the one I saw first. I know there's others too. Maybe we'll go back to Mary. I see Dale also has a question. Thanks, Matt. Thank you, Brian, for a great presentation. I was just sort of, I was wondering as you were talking about how the increased property values, whether how and whether they suffice to pay back the borrowing. And then I was sort of surprised right at the end when you said that there's already commitment that there would be enough to pay back this new $25 million of debt. And I was just surprised to hear that because I thought that it had to be development that would only happen because of the TIF bond and the TIF investment. So how can you be so confident of that at this stage? That's a good question, Dale. I think that was a, I think that was, I was glossing over that unintentionally. And I think what I really meant was all we need to happen over the next, between now and 2036 is for the overall growth in the district to be at 1% annually. So that's the growth rate we need to see. So that would result in enough incremental growth to service this bond. And so we don't need to go to the full 6.5% roughly, which is what it's been over the last decade. You could cut that down to a 1% annual growth rate and property values within the district and still have sufficient increment to service the bond. So that's... So then just to follow up on that, to understand it a little better. So if the district does keep growing at that 6% rate and not just at 1%, where does the extra money go? Yeah, it's a great question. The extra money at the end goes to the taxing authorities. So essentially we'd be building up a surplus that would go to the city and the state Ed fund. So if there is a surplus, they get it back. Yeah. Okay, thanks Dale. Are there other questions for we continue on? And we're gonna kind of continue on this topic a little bit, but any other questions from Brian? I'm not seeing any answers raised. Okay, so Olivia, I think you were going to go next. Is that correct? Okay, Olivia, why don't you please go ahead and introduce yourself and go ahead and take over. Great, I'm going to share my screen. One takes me a second to find the right one. Okay. Yep, okay, great. So I word six, I'm Olivia Dries, I'm an engineer with the Department of Public Works. Thank you guys for having us today. I know it's a busy time of year and we're so grateful to have the opportunity to come and talk to you about the Main Street Revitalization Project. So this project, Brian described falls under the Gray Streets Initiative, which is the same initiative that brought you St. Paul Street and City Hall Park. So we're excited to talk to you a little bit about this project tonight. As for tonight's agenda, go through some introductions to the team. We will provide a little bit of project background, history and context. We'll take you through the project team's approach to the project, what it means to have a functional street, what we're doing to ensure this is more like a community led effort and what makes a street beautiful and unique in terms of the Gray Streets Initiative and standards. And then we'll open it up for questions and discussion. So let's meet the project team. I'm Olivia Dries. As I said, I'm an engineer with the Department of Public Works and co-managing this project with senior public works engineer Laura Wheelock. Laura was also involved in the City Hall Park and St. Paul Street efforts. So she is well-seasoned in these types of projects. This is a highly collaborative project effort between all city departments, water resources. I guess this is like a top to bottom project. So not only are we focusing on the infrastructure on the surface, but also below the surface. So water resources can play a very important role in kind of upgrading that infrastructure that you see under the roadway as well. Cito, obviously Brian's been working with us and wants to be collaborating with other departments such as REIB, Church Street Marketplace on the stakeholder business outreach, Parks and Recreation and Burlington City Arts and some of the functional components of the street as well as some of the public art components. So we have brought a consultant on board to help us lead this project. DHB is a multidisciplinary engineering and environmental consulting firm. They have offices all up and down the East Coast. They do have a location right in South Burlington. So they have worked on many, many projects in and around Vermont. In New England as a whole, they have a lot of transportation and planning experience on these types of complete streets projects. They'll be handling kind of the more functional components of the design and I'll get into what that means in a little bit. They've collaborated with agency, design and landscaping. It's kind of like the landscape architects on the project who will be helping kind of complement the functional components of the design and make them really unique and beautiful and also collaborating with Brayscale Collaborative who will be helping us through kind of the outreach piece of this project. So we're not gonna host a live poll right now, but for any of you who attended the neighborhood meeting on Tuesday night, we did hold a live poll during our presentation and kind of give us an opportunity to provide a little more of an interactive experience. These questions will be up on the website as part of like a survey monkey survey. So we really wanna ask you, encourage you to visit the website and answer some of those poll questions there because it's going to give us a lot of really great feedback at this stage of the design development. We're looking from feedback from the community. What is your relationship to Main Street? Do you live on Main Street? Do you work on Main Street? Do you live in Burlington and visit Main Street? How familiar are you with the Great Streets Project and that initiative for you? Did you play an active role through advocacy groups for any of the City Hall Park or St. Paul Street? Have you not been involved and now you want to get involved? Again, that's kind of feedback we're looking for to try to meet the community where it is in this design process. And I will share the project website a little later on. So you have that. So getting a little bit into the project background. So in 2016, the city launched the Great Streets Initiative, which again included the initiation of St. Paul Street, City Hall Park, as well as the downtown streets standards. So this set of standards was adopted in April 2018. And again, it really provides, these standards provide a pallet to work off for these Great Streets projects. So what I mean by that is it kind of gives us some options as far as how we choose to configure and compose the streets. So what that means in terms of providing wider sidewalks, bike lanes, activating intersections, providing tree belts, like what are those kind of functional components of the intersections? How do they serve the purposes that they need to serve? As well as providing these placemaking opportunities. So activating the intersection, giving people places to gather, which would be complimented by benches or something like that, places that maybe people to eat their lunch or to sit and hang out and wait for a friend or watch the sunset or something. Just like really activating these areas along the corridor to make them more destination to really attract people to stay a little bit. Bikeways, any of you who are familiar with Main Street know that there are no committed bike lanes currently on the project. So that is a component of these Great Streets standards. Treat ecology, rain gardens, trees, how the kind of landscaping interfaces with the kind of like stormwater components of this project, how we can help alleviate some of the burden from our shared combined system, Main Street is located on the combined system. So how the treat ecology can really support those bigger goals of like releasing some of the burden on the stormwater system and keeping pollutants out of Lake Champlain. And so, and then again, we're focusing on more of like the tangible materials and the furnishings available within these standards includes everything from benches to light posts, tree grates, to trash cans. And again, the idea behind this is to provide a palette of materials to really create like a unified feel between all these projects, all these streets within the downtown, but not necessarily uniform. So we still want each of these streets to be able to like represent their own unique characteristics and have a little bit of flexibility in how they're used. And we'll talk about that a little more. So again, it's not showing the completed projects against St. Paul Street, City Hall Park, Main Street. The conceptual phases for all these projects were launched around the same time. So that means that we do have, as Brian showed in his presentation, a general concept for Main Street that's been developed, City Hall Park and St. Paul Street moved a bit faster than Main Street in that regard. So those projects get completed first. So this, the completion of Main Street will really complete this kind of, this network here that unifies the downtown and connects the downtown core to the waterfront. So it ranges from all the way up from Battery Street up to South Union Street and includes six, that's six blocks and total seven intersections. Six of these intersections are signalized. One is unsignalized, but again, really creating a strong connection within this downtown area leading people through the downtown and down through the waterfront district. So project approach. So Brian did show this graphic briefly, but again, we're looking at the downtown street standards. This isn't, again, this is concept. This was 2016 conceptual phase. So what we'll be looking at for a final design will likely be different in a lot of ways, but kind of the bones of this layout will remain unchanged. So the goal is here to provide wide sidewalks that are accessible, wide enough to service the level of foot traffic that we anticipate. Wide tree belts, eight foot wide tree belts, pervious pavers again to help infiltrate some of that storm water and soil cells underneath to help promote optimal health of the trees. Anybody spend the same policy. Don't know if you noticed, but the trees are thriving there. And that's thanks to soil cells. Bike lanes, protected bike lanes, particularly, kind of separated from traffic, perhaps on the same level as the pedestrian activity, rain gardens along the corridor, again, helping infiltrate that storm water, have slow, slow down things during large storm events and again, just try to keep those pollutants away from our lake. And then you see here the kind of the activated intersections place to sit, trash cans, maybe sit and eat your lunch, hang out with friends or whatnot. And so you'll see the same thing on the both side of the road, that's another important point is that by kind of reconfiguring the parking of the parallel parking, creating a lot more space for these other facilities. So we're able to have wide sidewalks, bike lanes on both sides of the road, really restoring the tree canopy there. And again, just re-balancing the right of way for all its needs and uses. So the three components we've kind of identified as part of a great student, you have the functional component, you have the, I'm sorry, unique and beautiful component. The community in the community led component and I'll get into what each of these mean in a little bit. So sorry, I'm gonna go close my door. So- Nothing never happens, it's incredible. Okay. So when we're talking about the functional component of a street, we're talking about the components that really allow all the uses on the street to flow as they need to. So providing the sidewalks, riding lanes for travel, the parking lanes, riding all the stuff underground, the underground utilities, the stormwater management. Again, kind of the bones, the technical engineering aspects of the design. And then you have the unique and beautiful component which adds character to the street and kind of personalizes the street, the, you know, it's intended use and desired aesthetic. And then the community led component which bring, you know, ensure that we're accommodating, again, all ages and abilities and activities and making sure that, you know, we incorporate the needs of the community into this design. So, again, I went over that. So functional main street, again, when we talk about functional, what do we need in order for the street to operate properly and efficiently and accommodate all users? So that's everything from establishing safe connections with, you know, accessible crosswalks, providing a single transit options, places that people don't mind waiting to catch a bus, incorporating those stormwater management components into the design, placemaking, accommodating people of all ages and abilities and supporting those local businesses and curbside uses. And that could mean everything from supporting the storefront to maybe providing some flexible spaces out on the street, for instance, a parklet or maybe a place for street performances or again, just like a place to gather and eat some takeout and all the things that make Burlington what Burlington is essentially. So for who pedestrians, cyclists, drivers, it is still a transit route and it is a, you know, a main artery. So, you know, we always need to accommodate vehicles but we also want to make sure to accommodate all the other types of users that need to utilize this corridor and obviously, of course, the business and property owners along the corridor. So the community led aspect. So here's where we are in the project phase. We're currently in project phase and the project pickoff phase will be in this phase through April. We held our first community meeting on Tuesday. Some of you might have been able to join us, really introduced the project to a larger community. We have been attending NPAs and DPW commission, Transportation Energy and Utility Committee, Parks Commission, all those kind of leadership meetings to really just get the word out. If you haven't heard from us yet, are you thinking like this is weird? This is the first time I'm hearing about it. That's because we're really just getting started with this effort. So whole point of this phase to get out there, get the word out, get people engaged, all, you know, get the word out about all the ways we're getting people engaged, the project website or social media preference and to really collect that feedback. What are, what are, what's the community's goals for Main Street? What do they, what does the community want to see? That we're taking all of that in right now, as far as, you know, kind of block by block what the community envisions for this project. So, and we're also trying to reinforce that we're completed today. So back in 2016, there were some outreach efforts that occurred and we're, you know, trying to kind of reconcile that as well and utilize that feedback as well. But a lot's changed since then, where we're in a very different age, COVID's changed a lot of things. So we want to recognize those differences as well. Yeah, Olivia, just like five more minutes. And so it's just a lot of some time for questions too, if you're in the course. Okay, I'll speed it up. FACEB will take us through in April, the approval of the concept design, that design development and permitting will be holding another community meeting. We go into the city council to hopefully obtain approval of the concept. We'll be holding focus group conversations. I'll get into that in a little bit, vetting those concepts. And again, really evaluating that concept and refining a final plan to go through the permitting process. And then FACEB would take us through construction, permitting, staying connected with the community. That's very important to us. We're, you know, not only staying connected with the community through the design development phase, but also through the construction phase. So, I'll leave that. That's the ways in the future. So I won't spend too much time on that. But focus groups, as I mentioned, we recognize that a lot of groups just don't, you know, it's difficult for some groups to engage with certain projects for one reason or another. And we're really making an effort through this project. You get some of those groups that we don't hear about, that we don't hear from as much as we'd like to. So focus groups include youth, BIPOC groups, seniors, and differently-abled immigrants and refugees, businesses, and nonprofits. So if you or anybody you know would like to participate in one of these focus groups, please reach out to me. I'll be showing a site with my email on it or my contact information is also on the website. So you reach out to me if anybody would like to participate. And then for the unique and beautiful concept, again, the uniqueness we recognize that Main Street can almost be split into four different sections. The Waterfront Gateway takes people, leads people down to the Waterfront, the middle transition connecting the market core to the Waterfront Gateway. That market core really has the area between St. Paul Street and South Winooski. It's the flattest section. There's a lot of opportunity in there to use some flexible spaces, maybe create a strong connection between the Flann and City Hall Park, allow for some space for street performances or extra gathering. So that's an exciting area. And then of course the Hillside Gateway which will take you up to UVM. So another couple of poll questions that you can find on the website. Just want to hear your unfiltered thoughts. What is Main Street today? What do you want Main Street to become? Is it open-ended for a reason? We just, we want to hear it. We want to hear creative answers. We want to hear your feedback. And yeah, that's very important to us. So next steps, a very rough project schedule but now through May we'll be refining those concepts. We'll be moving through design and permitting. May through summer of next year. Construction slated to begin fall of 2023. That's an expected minimum of two years but could be much longer if the ravine sewer that Ryan mentioned does get incorporated into this project. And then the public and stakeholder engagement will be held throughout again, every phase. We're going to be including the community feedback on the design but also staying, keeping that strong connection with the community through construction to ensure everybody stays informed. Everybody's heard to hear the needs of everybody who may be impacted by construction either directly or indirectly. So Great Streets BTV website has a full list of engagement opportunities you'd like to visit. Here's that website again. Here's my email. We'd like to open up to questions and discussion. Now, what are you most excited for? What are you most concerned about with this effort? And yeah, here to answer questions. So I'll leave this up for a few more seconds if people want to write it down and then I'll stop sharing so we can see each other. Yeah, we'll put it in the minutes too. Okay, great. We'll be able to see it done. All right, people have questions. Press the raise hand at the bottom of your screen. Well, people are getting me to do that. Let me just, I thought of a question. Can you, are there some lessons learned from the St. Paul Street experience that you think are going to apply to Main Street? What are your, what's your thinking about that? Yeah, I can start with that one. I have had the privilege of managing that project from its start to its completion. I think we learned things with every project on St. Paul Street. We hadn't done enough preparatory exploration work as it relates to the soil, as it relates to some of the other existing conditions for the water or the sewer services. And we've actually already taken samples out on Main Street. We've already gone out, we've already sampled for contaminated soils. We've gone out, we've dug holes in the road to locate the water sewer, understand its condition. So that's probably one of the largest lessons learned with working in such a constrained right away with a significant project. The second huge one is outreach. And this is a, an iterative process. We found a few holes in our outreach strategy that the kind of the email contacts that we had received weren't dynamic enough to update for some of the, the least changes that happen on the street as well as just our strategy for being prepared for such a significant project. And with this one, we have a contracted dedicated team to really help us with our outreach efforts. So a couple of big lessons and we still learn things all the time. And you're Laura, right? I am Laura and I somehow can't change my name. Yeah, Laura, great. Okay, Laura and Olivia, we've kind of run through the time you're, so I'm gonna say thank you very much. Thank you guys. Brian, thanks a lot. Sorry to run over, thank you guys for your time. Oh, that's great, it's great. Okay, next we have Don and Dave. And I just wanna thank Karen, Paul for reaching out to Don and Dave to come to the meeting. Really, really appreciate it. I know they've been working together and so they both graciously agreed to come and give us an update on city place. My name is Matt Grady, by the way, I didn't meet you at the beginning and I'm... I'm Matt and I'm Don. Hey, Don. Okay, so we're gonna turn over to you all to give us an update. Great. Well, let me start. I'm Don Cinex, thanks for the invite and we're happy to be here to provide an update. Dave is with me, where did he go? There he is. As you get, a little history probably is a good way to start this discussion. A few years back, we decided or Brookfield decided that it wasn't gonna pursue the deal any longer so I engaged in a prolonged negotiation to buy them out of the site, which we were successful in doing. And as we were concluding that and working on our plan to take it back through the entitlement process, DRB, for a revised development program for phase one, we were hit with a number of lawsuits, which delayed us, who knows whether it's six months or nine months in that effect. All of them have been reasonably settled, satisfied, and we are now moving towards mobilization and the start of construction of this coming spring after the... And you're having a storm hitting you this evening. After the frost is gone and the land is more malleable, I should say, we hope to start construction in the spring. We are in application with a lender for a $130 million loan. That is a serious step. We put up a significant deposit with the lender. The lender is going through its final underwriting of the project, the economics, the returns and so forth. And they ran into a bit of a delay with... I think it was COVID related in the reopening of the economy. Their appraiser wasn't able to get the appraisal done. We met just three weeks, two weeks ago on site with the appraiser. The appraiser continues to do its work. The schedule is mid-February. The appraisal will be done, which is what the lender has actually been waiting for to take the loan application to final committee approval. So we're hoping that happens at the end of February or the very, very early part of March, which is the last, if you will, obstacle to start construction in the spring. We're already engaged with our planners and our designers to do the construction drawings. And we would hope to start the foundation, call it as soon as late April, early May, something along those schedules. I don't see anything that could disrupt that schedule at this point, but one never knows. Of course, this project has had its ups and downs over the years. Dave, would you like to add anything to that? Yeah, just again, to thank Karen. I know she's one of our most dedicated and patient supporters in Burlington. Yeah. I see her picture down at the bottom, but she's on mute and no video. Oh, okay. I saw Laura on there earlier. We worked with her. Yes, yes. That's Joan. Hi, Joan. That's a picture too. So we worked with Laura's group at DPW quite a bit over the fall on the Great Streets as they passed by our project on the St. Paul Street and the Pine Street, new extensions and what we're doing along Bank and Cherry Street, worked on the details of the road passing underneath 100 Bank Street once we settled with those guys on their lawsuit. But like Dawn said, it did cost us probably six or eight months from when we got our permit approved back in February or March of... March of the DRB approved it and then we were sued within days of that approval. I think the next day. The next day, yeah. But we have been working on it and making good progress. And I think we worked out a lot of issues and details with DPW on stormwater stuff and sidewalks and the trees and how we're gonna build the roads and how we're gonna protect the adjoining buildings. So that was all good work that had to happen anyway. So we got that under the bridge. And like Dawn said, we're just patiently waiting for the appraiser to get back with the construction loan bank and give us the green light and we're ready to roll. Yeah, and just because there's not a lot of discussion of what's going on, trust me, when you have a project of this size and with these added complications of building the two public streets for the city and all the interaction with the city from the TIF perspective as well as just the permitting, there's a lot of things going on under the surface. The construction drawings take an enormous effort of coordination. You've got to have the mechanical and heating and plumbing. You've got to have the architectural, you've got to have the structural. All this stuff is going on right now which is not sort of fancy or glorified stuff, but without it you can't build anything and this is a complicated project. And as Dave just said, and as I had mentioned, we're looking to finalize the construction loan commitment within the next month. And that will be the green light that'll give us mobilization and to get started in the spring. And that's this spring, right? Yeah, that's this spring. A couple of people were texting me, is he mean 2023 or okay, I understand. I've had a long history with this project. I bought it from GGP in December of 2013. So either I'm stupid or stubborn, maybe a little bit of both, but this is something that I decided. I can vouch for the stubborn. Maybe it's the Irish, you know, is the stubborn part and I don't know where the stupidity comes from, but I think this is a great project. I think it fits Burlington extremely well. Remember, this is only the phase one of what will be a three phase project. Everybody walks up and down Church Street. You see the remnants of the old mall that still fronts on Church Street. It's now essentially empty. There is no tenants in that space. Starbucks was the last one who moved out at the end of October of this past year and LL Bean is moving to Williston in June or July of 2022. So while we're working hard to get phase one underway, we're already planning phase two. I was on the phone today with the architects and some of the engineers talking about what phase two is going to be. And we expect to be filing for the zoning permit in late spring about the same time that we expect to start construction of the first phase. And we know that'll be a process throughout the summer, but we'd like to be in a position when we're underway with the first phase, we can then coordinate and mobilize to take down the last remnants of the old mall, which is the phase two site. That would be the old office building on Cherry Street, address 101 Cherry. It's where the LL Bean sporting goods store is located. And then the old mall that connects out onto Church Street, which is effectively non-operational and empty at this point in time. So we're moving ahead on that planning phase and expect that as soon as LL Bean vacates the premises this summer, we would have a permit. We could then start demolishing that and coordinate it with the development of phase one to accelerate that. Recognizing that the project has suffered long delays for lots of different reasons, Brookfield's indecisiveness, the time it took to buy them out, the lawsuits by the city, the lawsuits by Franco, the lawsuits by 100 Bank Street, the revisiting of the entitlement process to the DRB and so forth and so forth. But if we could get a jump on phase two, we'll make up some of the time. And I'm thinking that right now, we might be looking at phase two could very well get underway maybe 18 months to 24 months sooner than it might otherwise have gotten underway. So we think that's a positive as things have developed. Okay. I'm sure there are a lot of questions. And I see, I mean, I kind of like to let Ward 6 citizens have our first shot at questions. If I see, we've got a lot of interest and there's a lot of people attending, but if you'd like to ask a question, if you could click raise hand, I'll just start things rolling. So the first phase, will that involve opening St. Paul Street? Yes. So the tip or the public improvements that we like to refer to them are the new Pine Street on the Western side of the site, the new St. Paul Street on the Eastern side of the site, and those will be completed as part of the phase one. Okay. Okay, Mary Twitchell has a question. Okay. Okay, Mary. Hi. So we're wondering if you have any visuals to show with us to show us now at this point? I couldn't hear you, Mary, any what? Visuals, any images of what the latest iteration looks like. You know, you're talking to an old line developer who doesn't quite know how to share those kind of files with you. So unfortunately, I have no visuals. Maybe my younger partner, David. I'm looking right now. Can you throw something up? Yeah. Just give me a minute. I've got a lot of stuff here. I have to see what. Mary, if you think of the site, it's sort of a square on the North side is Cherry Street. On the South side is Bank Street. The new St. Paul will run along the right hand or the Eastern side. The new Pine Street will run on the Western side. And on the Northern side along the Cherry Street, we're gonna have a large building which is gonna essentially be market rental apartments, a garage to the south of that and then to the south of that, a second building, which will also be market rental apartments. There'll be street retail all along Bank, all along the new St. Paul and all along Cherry Street. Hopefully, Dave can pull it out. Yeah, I got something here. Matt would do a screen share. You should be able to do it yourself. I won't be able to share your file. Okay, sure. Oh, you see it, yep. Yeah, the bottom share screen. See that? Hey, there you go. So Mary, this is the building along Cherry Street. You can see on the left-hand side, the existing 101 Cherry Street building which has the LLB or retail store at the street level. So across on the right-hand side, that is the new St. Paul Street and that's the existing Cherry Street. So this building is a nine to 10 story market rental apartment building with retail all down St. Paul and all down Cherry Street. This is a plan view from looking above and you can see the four streets as they lay out around the property. It's kind of flipped from what we just saw but LLB'ing over on the upper right-hand side and 67 Cherry, which is the high school now at the old Macy's is on the left-hand side, the west side. So you'll see the new St. Paul Street and these might have changed a little bit because in working with this city, we kind of straightened out St. Paul Street a little bit and changed some of it. But this is the basic plan of the four-sided block here with this U-shaped building running mostly parallel along Cherry looking towards the north at the old Catholic Cathedral with a hundred bank down in the lower left-hand corner which is existing building where the road pine streets gonna pass underneath and straighten out and get back up to Cherry. And then that south building is a standalone building part of the whole project phase one but a standalone building that is like across the street from what's there? It's like the... Three Pebbles Restaurant. Yeah, what's it called? Single Pebble. Single Pebble, that's it. And on the other side of the new St. Paul Street is the old Vermont bank, it's the NBT bank now. So that kind of gives you the shape of the whole project. Do you have a rendering of the south building what it looks like? Right there. Right there, there's the south building. So we've mixed the architectural, the building materials where on the north side, the Cherry Street style it's gonna be a traditional brick. If you went up to the University of Vermont campus you would see many buildings with this color brick, the red, I call it the red Burlington brick and then on the south side we wanted to break it up a bit. So we've had this sort of different style of building and this is meant to be a limestone building with glass in the first two stories below. So this would be the new intersection of the St. Paul Street and the Bank Street. So this is the southeastern corner of our site looking at this building. This is where in our agreement with the city on the top of this building we would have the observation deck so members of the public would be able to go up and observe the southern part of the city, the southeastern part of the lake and maybe some views of the northwestern part of the lake. There also is a plan that there could be a restaurant with a rooftop outdoor dining area on that western flank over here if you can put your cursor there, Dave. That would be up on the top. This is where the over in this left-hand corners is the observation deck. And then on this corner, this is the second floor level where we also are providing that community space, some conference rooms and meeting rooms that not sure how that'll be made accessible to the public but I think it's gonna be through the CETO office. They'll do some scheduling to be able to have like NPA meetings or community events there. Can I take a couple more questions? I got to have a couple other people. Absolutely. Okay, so I think Francine had a question. Yeah, hi. Oh, hi. Go ahead. Am I unmuted now? Yes. I was just curious because I was just listening to Miro talk and he was talking about the goal of disconnecting from fossil fuels and I guess his term is electrifying the city. And I was wondering if there's any thoughts about that incorporated into the new building since it's such a large footprint. Yep, it certainly is. We had agreed in the revised development agreement with the city that we would take all measures in planning and endeavor to make the building an all-electric building. And that's what we're doing. So this building will be 90% plus all-electric. The only fossil fuels, if you will, that will be in this building will be a minimum amount to drive our standby generator, which will be gas, natural gas. But we're expecting to be essentially an all-electric building consistent with the mayor's goals and the city's goals to make Burlington a carbon neutral city by 2035, is it? I forgot the exact date. Yeah, somewhere around then. Well, thanks very much. You're welcome. Good to hear. All right, Dale, did you have a question? You had your hand up a few minutes ago. Dale, you're muted if you're talking. There we go. Thank you. My question was answered by looking at the visuals. Okay. Okay, good. Other questions? Diane, did you have another question, Diane? I think... I did have a follow-up question. Okay, please go ahead. And then Greg. And thank you for putting the plan up. That was very useful. But after Fran's call one, it leads me to ask what happened to the co-gen part that was originally part of this project? When you say co-gen, what are you referring to? I think she was talking about maybe that district energy initiative. That was... Yeah, we were one of the planning partners in that. And we contributed towards the feasibility study that was undertaken by a firm out of Canada. And I think that it just... It finally ran through the process and they decided that there wasn't enough economics to drive it. We were obviously very interested in doing that. We saw great economies of scale and savings to us by doing that, but it just isn't gonna come to fruition at this point in time. So we've now switched our planning to make the building an all-electric building. All right. Hey, Tiff and Gabriel and Barbara, we're just gonna go like a few more minutes. You're gonna be next. I'm sorry, we do have a... I just wanna let people ask a few more questions. Okay. Hey, Greg, I think you were next. Oh, my questions were answered. Thank you. Oh. Okay. All right, other questions? I'll just ask a quick one while I'm waiting for another hand. This entire phase one, are there the kind of stages for how that's going to go, do you think? No, this is what we expect. What we plan, we're planning and mobilizing to start construction and build the entire phase one in, if you will, one effort. Now, we will most likely start on the northern building, which means our cranes will be in the center of the site and the southern building, which is far smaller than the northern building, we'll get started six to nine months after the northern building is underway, but that's just logistics and construction logistics planning. It'll all be done within 20 months, I have 22 months after we start. Now, here's a picture of the entire site. The upper part would be Cherry Street, the left side looking at it would be Pine Street and St. Paul on the right hand side, the southern building or the building on the south part of the site down below. And what this shows is the street level retail that we're incorporating in the development plan. So you can see most of the retailers along Cherry Street, it'll be a great effort to drive activity and life to Cherry Street, which on any given time now can be reasonably dead. As you walk from Church Street down Cherry towards the hotels, for example, and then we'll have plenty of retail coming down the new St. Paul Street and retail along of the quiet Bang Street. And remember St. Paul, and to the right of that is the phase two development. That's where the old, if you will, Dave, can you put your cursor on where 101 Cherry Street is? So that's the existing 101 Cherry Street building, which when all being vacates this summer, we will hopefully have a permit and we'll be able to demolish that and demolish the old mall that goes on to Cherry Street and plan what's gonna be coming on that site. So you'll have retail on the eastern side of the new St. Paul as well. Yeah, and you could point out eventually through phase two, there'll be a direct connection from Cherry Street right through what is the existing mall promenade that goes walking west as is used to head towards Macy's and it'll be dropping out on to St. Paul Street somewhere. Dishwasher. All right. So, yeah, somewhere in the center of this project will be an entrance that'll reconnect to the new phase two, which will have some mall and retail component that ties all the way back to Church Street. Okay, I think we have time for maybe one more quick question if there was one. Okay, maybe we're done. Oh, wait. I'm happy to put this out to anybody that wants to see it. You know, it's continually being refined so some of these little spaces may change back and forth, but if anybody wants to do a deeper dive and kind of get into some detail about what's going on there, I'll share as much as I have for information. And also if anybody has any questions that didn't get raised tonight, feel free to contact us by email or call the office and we'll get back to you with answers to your questions. All right. Maybe we can have you back at the NPA after a little time. You know, you kind of get things developed and get things going. This has been great. This is really good attendance for us. I think a lot of people, there's a lot of interest and really, really... If anybody's listening who has a business, by the way, if they're interested in possibly leasing some of the space, by all means come and talk to us. By all means come and talk to us. We'd like to lease all the space to local tenants. We know that's not probably going to happen, but we'd like to and therefore we want to encourage any local entrepreneur or any business, local business operator, if they have a business and they're looking for more space or a second location, talk to us. We're building it. We need it to operate successfully to make the project successful and to activate and enliven the streets. So if you have a good business plan, we're happy to talk to you. All right. Lydia, do you have like a really quick question? I saw you, just as I said, that's it. Hi. You raised your hand. Hi, yeah, I do have a quick question. It's a logistical question. I've been in the middle of putting my kids to bed, but I wanted to make sure I understood how this, if it is at all showing up on the ballot, just so I can help talk about it. Cause I, if it's showing up, I want to be able to speak to that, to my friends and everything. I don't think that this one is on the ballot anytime soon. Recall, we were on the ballot in 18 where we had the rezoning of the site, which was approved roughly six to four by the voters. And we also had the initial TIF referendum, which was also approved roughly six to four by the voters. And we're pretty well set from that point of view. So this is just a friendly update. Sorry? So this is just a friendly update. This is just not a good, yes, yes, yes, yes. Just enough. Great. Thanks. That's all right. All right, Donna, David, I just wanted to thank you very much again for coming on. No problem, it's our pleasure. All right. I was just going to put a little plug in for the ballot vote. And any of these public improvements that get done through this TIF really help develop Burlington and every improvement that they make to the infrastructure and the roads and these great streets is going to help the whole city. And, you know, slowly we're going to pick away at this thing and it's going to be great, greater. Indeed, indeed. All right. All right, great. Thank you very much. You're welcome, Matt. Okay. Thanks, everybody. All right. Okay, see you. Thank you. Bye-bye. Okay. Wow, we've got all-star cast here of our state representatives. Everybody is here, which is really great. So Barbara and Gabriel and TIF, I'll turn it over to you to tell us what's been going on in the latest session. Great. So I think we met or talked a little bit earlier and tried to organize the time. So I'm going to kick it off. I'm representative of Barbara Rachelson and I am the legislator that represents Chittenden 6x which is part of the NPA 6. So the three of us are going to cover different items and there is a lot going on. It has been a session that sort of started with no fanfare, just many, many issues that we're all going full steam ahead on. So I'm going to talk about two issues and each of us sort of are highlighting a few but we all want you to know that we're available individually as a group to do follow up to send you materials. We've been trying to do meetings in addition to the NPA and there's just a lot to digest. So the two issues that I'm going to talk about is the house passed S30 last week and I just read that the Senate passed it today which is a bill that adds some sensible gun measures for public safety. One of the, let me just say very briefly a few things that this bill does. One item it does is it prohibits people from bringing firearms into hospitals and this bill was in House judiciary which is the committee I serve on and we heard lots of testimony both for and against it and my strong belief and the legislature so far has shared that is that people don't really need to bring a gun to the hospital. There's been a lot of violence in hospitals. OSHA recently made hospitals a highly violent, volatile work space and has sort of based workers comp based on that and we heard from a lot of medical professionals that work in emergency rooms across the state talking about just how stressful and threatening things have been. S30 also will make some changes in how people can purchase guns. In Vermont, when you go to purchase a gun there's a background check and right now the assumption is if nothing comes back in three days when they go to do the background check you can legally purchase that firearm. It's known sort of as the Charleston loophole and I'd like to let people know that in the past two years in Vermont there were 28 firearms sold without a background check that would have fallen into exactly what we're talking about as the Charleston loophole of no results came back and in those cases guns were handed to people who we didn't know if they could legally own a firearm. They were able to go back and look at the research and of those 28 people, nine of them legally should not have been able to purchase a gun. So it clearly is an important safety measure to make sure that we're not selling firearms to people who are likely to use them in unsafe ways. In unsafe ways. And so this bill will change that automatic process from three days to 30 days. And we've been told that 30 days is well enough time to get people's background checks. The other thing to know is something like 97% of all background checks clear within three days. So we're not talking about thousands of people who are gonna be inconvenienced by not being able to purchase their gun within 30 days. The other piece of this legislation is it will both collect data that will be important to us to have and will tighten up restrictions related to having guns and relief from abuse orders. So I know Burlington felt very strongly about sensible gun measures on the ballot and wanted to give you that update. The other update that I wanted to talk about is the budget. We just completed the budget adjustment. It has not been signed by the governor yet. And that is to make some changes in this fiscal year FY22's budget, which will end June 30th. The Appropriations Committee is going ahead right now working on the budget for FY23 starting July 1st. So each of our policy committees work with appropriations to make recommendations. I happen to be the judiciary committee member to the House Appropriations Committee. And so right now I'm working with them on funding related to the Attorney General's office, the Center for Crime Victim Services, not the study, sorry, et cetera. And I wanted to let people know that if you go on the website you can look up House Appropriations or Joint Fiscal Office. And there are tons of documents by department on the budget. There are also public hearings coming up February 8th and 9th and you can either sign up to testify for I think it's two minutes or submit written testimony. You can also let any of us know about issues that you care about that are in the budget, either issues that you are concerned about the funding or you have information you want us to know. The budget's a big deal and we want to make sure we're spending money in the right places and we're spending it responsibly and making sure that it's being used well and really take seriously our fiduciary responsibility to use public funds in the best way possible. So I'm gonna stop there and I forget if you're next, I forget how we're doing it. Yes. Thanks. Thanks Barbara. So, you know of consistent concern to folks on the school board here and to parents and to our city council members is this issue of people waiting. Oh, I'm sorry. There's somebody who had a question. Robin, did you have a question of Barbara? You are muted. I'm not muted there Robin, I'll just say. Is that better now? Yes. Okay, well, thank you so much for your report on the process of the gun policy going through the state legislature. I remember two years ago or so, there was an effort and some good things were passed but the assault rifle issue was not fully dealt with and I'm thinking again about Century Arms up in Georgia because there is a lawsuit from Mexico concerning all the guns that flow into Mexico from gun manufacturers in the United States that are used by the state legislature cartels down there and in this lawsuit, 11 gun factories are mentioned and of the 11, one of them is Century Arms. So I am very concerned about that and I would like to talk with you more about could something about assault rifles leaving the state be added to this bill that you're working on? I mean, I just became aware of these things so I'm sort of at the last minute, but. So Robin, you raise a great issue. The original bill was a Senate bill that came to the house and we added measures to deal with the Charleston loophole and there was concern, a lot of concern that adding anything would put the bill in jeopardy of the governor not signing it. I have heard in the last day or so that the governor does not like this bill which now again is gonna go to his desk in a day. And so I think any other sensible gun measures that would be taken would be done in a different bill. And given that we're in the second year of the biennium and it's sort of, I think that that is probably, I hate to say this, but I don't think that that's gonna happen in this session. I'm really worried and hope that we would have enough votes to override a veto if the governor vetoes this bill because it really is not taking very huge steps at all in terms of gun safety and the governor has in the past supported these measures and I don't know what his change of heart is now but if you look at what I think it was in, I don't remember if it was Digger seven days but he said he doesn't want any more gun laws. So he thinks we have enough and I think it's gonna be a struggle. So he's willing to have gun deaths instead of gun laws. Hey, I'm upset about the mask man and trying to not have COVID deaths too. So I don't know. I mean, obviously people contacting the governor and sharing their views is important. He needs to hear how people feel. He knows how a lot of us feel because we are pretty vocal but we're only one vote and he does need to hear from the constituency and the people of Burlington. Okay, well thank you for responding and I'll be in touch, I hope. And I will continue to work on these issues. I mean, these have been important to me since the day I got elected. So. Robin, thanks a lot. Hey Tiff and Gabrielle, I kind of wanna, we're gonna go over here because it's my fault. I'm not making it very well but maybe like another five to seven minutes because Claire is waiting next. I totally understand it, I'm sorry. I just saw the question and I thought I shouldn't maybe keep going if I. So. Pupil waiting has a big impact on the Burlington School budget and at issue right now really is how to count and compensate districts for students who, for whom English is a, sorry, for students who are English language learners and that, I have been trying to follow this very closely over the last week and a half as it's in the Senate and it is almost impossible to track where things are right now because the testimony seems to be swaying this way, that way at issue is whether aid should be kind of baked into the base formula of funding that a district will get, which is called waiting or it should be a grant. And we have argued as a delegation and there are a number of people throughout the Vermont who have been arguing for a change so that ELL students are weighted more heavily than they have been previously. And that would mean a lot of money for the Burlington School District at any rate. It is really hard for me to tell where things are. It's in the Senate now, Senate Finance and Education and what will actually be recommended from the Senate to the House is unclear. But I guess I would really, for those of you who care a lot about pupil waiting, I would really recommend that you contact the Senate pro tempore and let your views be known because this is, I think that that is going to sway the day, how vocal people are. I just say a quick thing about housing, they're right now, the governor's recommended budget has line items for housing, both kind of that relate to long-term needs and also to short-term needs that would include emergency shelters and warming community centers where people could spend the day. We're gonna be looking at those, my committee's gonna be looking at those recommendations and evaluating them in light of all the testimony that we have taken so far on housing needs from advocates and we're working closely, several of us on the committee with advocates to evaluate what the governor has recommended and I'll be able to share more when we actually see those numbers and talk with Human Services, which is an important committee in that discussion. And I'll turn it over to Gabrielle now, given our time. Great, thanks. And if you hear screeches in the background, that's the four and a half year old who does not wanna go to bed just yet, but really should have gone to bed an hour ago. So you might hear that, sorry about that, but that's life. So I'm gonna touch upon the four charter changes that Burlington voters supported quite a bit of time ago. There were four, one was related to ranked choice voting, another was related to just cause eviction. The third was related to allowing the city of Burlington to apply a fee if you ended up hooking up new construction buildings to fossil fuels. And the fourth was a change adding one legal voter from the city of Winooski, an additional legal voter of the city of Burlington as members of the board of airport commissioners. It ended up being such that the airport charter chains was separated last year and that just passed the Senate. So hopefully we'll see that make some headway. The other three are still currently being discussed in house government operations. There's a lot of questions and concerns, but also a lot of support raised in both the conversation about what it means to be a renter and what it means to be a landlord with regards to just cause eviction and the thermal charter change. There are questions with regards to the fact that the charter change language generally for these is relatively broad with the understanding that the next step is once you get the charter change, you, sorry, once you get it approved because it has to get approved by the Burlington city voters, then it has to get approved by the legislature, then it comes back. And so all of those checks and balances, then it goes to an ordinance process. And the ordinance process is when you really get to the details. And so a lot of the back and forth in house government operations right now is about, is there concern with how much broadness there is in the language? And it's just, it's a delicate dance because if you get too specific in a charter change, it becomes perhaps not the charter change that is really needed for now and into the future. So the three other charter changes, rank choice voting, just cause eviction, thermal charter change, those are all still making their way through the house government operations. Happy to answer any further questions from anybody anytime. And the other thing I was just gonna touch upon is as many of you know, Global Warming Solutions Act was passed two, three years ago. As a result, it kicked off a really deep, thorough process to establish a climate council which worked over the last eight or nine months to basically evaluate, investigate higher separate consultants of which in full transparency, I happen to be one of the sub, sub, sub consultants in my other job. And to model what it takes, how many heat pumps do we need? How many electric vehicles do we need? How many more train rides do we need? How many more bike paths do we need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions? And as a result, there were over 200 recommendations presented in the climate action plan. And I'll say that right now, the ones that are taking the most testimony is a weatherization at scale. This is an ongoing conversation. It's been going on since, you know, I mean the early mid-2000s that really we should stop heating the outdoors and we should insulate and air seal our homes. That is Senate Bill 284. There is also an environmental justice bill that is Senate Bill 148. Looking at how do we make sure that this is just and equitable, that this process to a new, more efficient, more comfortable and less polluting world is available to everybody. Then there is in the House side in the Energy and Technology Committee a discussion regarding a clean heat standard. And this was actually just brought up, I think on the radio today. And it's basically, right now we have a renewable portfolio standard which basically says, hey, all your utility companies, you've got to reduce, you've got to make the electricity that you purchase or that you own cleaner. And this is kind of the same thing only it's for companies that provide fossil fuels. So, if you order your oil from a local family oil provider, they've got to be able to figure out how to reduce how many emissions they ultimately end up producing either by giving you weatherization or air sealing or heat pump options, you name it. But basically it's a way to round out the market and bring other businesses to the table to help us overall reduce our emissions. And then I serve in transportation and we do have a Transportation Innovation Act. It is House Bill 552 and it has lots of things related to biking and walking and trails and railroads and electric vehicle incentives. And of course the transportation paving roads, bridges keeping things safe. Happy to answer any questions. I just want to say one other thing there was a comment made earlier this evening by an earlier presenter with regards to whether or not there would be an opportunity to sort of expand upon some of the heat potentially from the McNeil biomass plant and the information you were given was, basically I'll say that Burlington Electric Department continues to work on this and is continuing to investigate opportunities to move forward with this. So just so you know it's not dead as what had been it might be dead for that particular project but it is still being discussed by your local municipal electricity provider. Thanks. Thanks, thanks Gabriel. Okay, I'm going to wrap it up here. I really am so appreciative of all three of you would come to our meeting and we'll keep bringing you in. It's always really great to have you. All right. Okay, Claire's been waiting for us here. So I think we'll bring her in next. Hey, Claire, you're on mute. Hi. There you go. Should I begin? Yes, thank you. Oh, okay. Thank you, Ward 6 steering committee for affording our Ward 6 residents this monthly opportunity to connect with our city business. I'm here tonight as school board chair and to share that I will be running again for election on March 1st and in your ballots that are being mailed home. I am running unopposed and I am grateful for the time to be able to still speak to you tonight. The most important thing that I know are state legislators who are on the call as well know about that we've been working on that I want to adjust first before we specifically talk about the school budget vote for our town meeting day. And also the election is our district wide funding throughout the state of Vermont. I want you to know that over the last two years in 2019, Tammy Colby, a professor of leadership and policy studies at UVM along with Rutgers and the American institution for research on the request of the agency of education evaluated our Vermont educational funding throughout the state. And over the past 20 years they could not find any impending empirical derived weights of reasoning of how we weight our per pupils here in the state. That has caused over these past 20 years the inequitable funding of how districts in rural and metropolitan areas equate to those in other areas throughout the state. Therefore providing a disadvantage to us. And specifically I'm talking about English language learners that we that make up most of ours are specifically I'll give you an example of Burlington and Winooski. So the state was tasked with reviewing the recommendation and they put a task force together. And the task force really started working on their own ideas of how they felt we could best fund it. And it really feels like a band-aid situation by identifying English language learners in categorical funding. So this week especially we are asking Burlingtonians and what this all means is that a pupil that a per pupil spending in Burlington it costs more than a pupil let's say in a neighboring Chittenden County school district that is not a sanctuary city or does not serve learners English language learners. And so this week we are asking them to adopt this study which gave numerous examples of all funding that has happened in other school districts throughout other states that is ethical and quite frankly our funding is as superintendent Flanagan said in a quote, board is on systematic racism that you're underfunding individuals within your school district. So we are asking people to call Senator Becca balance office the pro temp and I wanna give everyone if they have a pen and paper 802-828-3806 because it really is right now the Senate Ed committee is making a recommendation to the Senate Finance Committee and this has to change. There is no reason why we are fighting this neutral report that is so comprehensive and readily available and really should be a model for the state. It is we started the Vermont coalition for equitable funding for students this year with our, I mean, over the last year with numerous school districts throughout the state of Vermont that believe in this. And I just ask for your support and to become educated if you haven't learned or heard about it please call me directly or email me and my contact number is on the ward six but it really is time for us to stand up and fund effectively because Burlington again is has been hurting and we've been partners with numerous, numerous school districts throughout the state. So that being said, that is really critical because our dollar doesn't go as far as all the other school districts dollars and our needs and our staffing and our support that we offer high quality education of which we do and have so many rock stars that have graduated through our elementary middle school and high school that we are so proud of, but it does cost more to educate roughly 60% of our students than typical other school districts and we are not being funded for that and that's not equitable. All right, so onto the school budget. So thank you for listening to that because really that is the crux of all our work the last two years as we begin to really hope and look to our state leaders for making the right decisions and supporting all the districts not just Burlington and Manuski but our rural districts as well as throughout the state. I know it causes some districts, wealthier districts to want to shy away from this but you would really want all students in Vermont to be funded equally and we hope that's the case at the state level. Could you just specify exactly what we should say when we call Senator Ballot? Yes, we ask that you thank you tell our legislators to implement the findings in the student waiting study that was completed in 2019 and not to adopt individual ELL funding not to specify. And Claire, if I may, it is I apologize for budding in but we all have six senators also who serve on Senate education and Senate finance and I just want to say Senator Christopher Pearson serves on Senate finance. He lives in Burlington, he's a good one to call and then we have on Senator... Yep, Senate education. You have Senator Thomas Chitman in South Burlington and Senator Ginny Lyons in Williston. So all three of those are your senators and they are supposed to represent you and our children. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for sharing that because that's who we have been writing today and I didn't want to overwhelm anyone but I will follow up with a front porch forum as well but thank you for your collaboration and sharing that. I really appreciate that. So our FY23 school budget which we will be voting on is starting when ballots start coming home and on March 1st. Our budget request this year is for $98.2 million. It is an increase up from $95.1 million from FY22. This increase is due to health insurance wages, debt services, utilities, totaling 2.5 million increase and also $600,000 budgeted for downtown VHS. It's a 3.29% increase. What is difficult for all of us as we look at Vermont statue in how the ballot reads is what I want to spend time explaining. So it will say that number of $98 million but it'll say that the estimated budget spending is 13% higher per pupil than in years past. The per pupil spending is $19,000. The reason why it will say 13.13% is because we over the last two years have lost over 200 students in the Burlington school district. We can identify that loss of students is to first, most blatantly COVID has hit us, hit our community and people have decided to pick alternative ways to stay at home over the last year and a half. Second is PCBs at the high school and shutting down our high school and our tech center. We have lost a tremendous amount of students to private schools that were open five days a week or had less population to manage. And secondly is our new American population even though we are a sanctuary city we were not receiving refugees based on reasons that we can all understand from past administration but we look forward to this month receiving and we already have five new families from Afghanistan in the Burlington school district. So we are supposed to Chittenden County be receiving 160 refugee families of which we opened with wide arms and are excited to have in our community what makes our Burlington community what it is. So the lack of the decrease in students will make us but so that being said, so it will say, wait a minute so our increase per pupil went up that is because of our decrease in some of our population but the bottom line for taxpayers will be that there is a $90 million ed fund surplus. Therefore, the education taxes in Burlington will see a decrease in as high as 6.98%. That will also be on your ballot. We added sort of an asterisk spending at this level of which we just explained what I just explained will show a property tax rate decrease of 6.9%. So this year, there'll be a decrease in your taxes based on prior years but knowing that this is because of this surplus we will have to make some hard decisions based on our population going forward next year whether it's staffing or potential consolidation of some schools again not something that we're talking about right now but that we recognize based on our information that we have worked over the last year and a half evaluating to get to this place for this year's budget. Next, so the final, so that's the budget. Then we look to your support starting now as we have over the last three years in what is the outcomes and future, not outcomes what is the future of Burlington High School and Burlington Tech Center? We have then public about where we're going we are going back to BHS Institute Road we look to build a new high school and a new tech center combining into one campus we will be, we returned our past bond of 70 million of which we spent 4 million over the last two and a half years that bond gets returned, we start over we bring the taxpayers to hopefully by spring a real number that we believe this campus will cost and it will be up to the taxpayers to approve that money and that bond and that reality of us building a new campus our only high school in the city of Burlington we serve 4,000 students they all lead to that we have 13 schools they all lead to that one high school and our tech center of which we have had regional support we support nine ascending schools throughout Chittenden County that come to Burlington Tech Center we are energized by the support such as innovators like Beta, Kyle Clark who are excited and motivated to help us make Burlington Tech Center the success and our own governor and spoke at the state of the state how career technology education is what Vermonters what we need here in the state of Vermont and we're committed and really excited about these next opportunities but it will all come down to us educating the taxpayers on this investment and going forward the reality of it and I will share that again, more information I need more time but just so everyone's clear Vermont does not have construction aid so we are an anomaly I think we're the only school district in the state looking to build a new high school because we desperately need one that being said and we're in a state of emergency quite frankly because we don't have one that being said, we do not want this sole burden of this cost to be on taxpayers so we will be working with our governor and our state legislators as well as our federal Senator Leahy, Representative Welch, Senator Sanders to try and get any funding we can for this campus so that is our goal, we have our work we have been working on it night and day since our campus closed and for the reality of next steps and we are committed and dedicated so why am I running again? Because there is so much work to be done and I'm not going to even though I have won my last third child as a junior, we'll probably be graduated I am committed as a Broentonian to see the success as I've shared many times before I know UVM is planning a new dorm on the Trinity campus the investment in our state university the investment in our private colleges and institutions of higher learning work college town, we provide practicums at the high school and the tech center this is something this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to get it right we have been slammed by this PCB situation and we are working through it with everyone's support so along the short of it I can talk much more and educate everyone as best I can our website is full of information our superintendent is strong and committed with three students in the district two in elementary, one at the middle school his children will be coming here our finance director, Nathan Lavery is has continually provided along with my leadership for the past four years a frugality and consciousness on spending and we again always appreciate the value of our citizens supporting our school budget our students and our greater community and I don't, I probably have taken up too much time but... Okay, Claire, thank you so much I'm sorry, I've really gone over on everyone and I've still got Karen and Joan I would normally want to let people ask a lot of questions Well, email me and I'm happy to take time over the snowy weekend All right, thank you very much for coming All right, all right Karen and Joan, sorry to have made you wait so much but I appreciate you coming in for to talk about the rest of the ballot items Karen of course is up for re-election so can I please hand it over to you? To me? To Karen, yeah, both of you Okay, so I didn't know if you wanted to talk about the ballot items first or how you want to go about this, Matt Yeah, I think you and Joan were really going to whatever about the ballot items that are left you two are the ones who can give us a little information All right, well, as Claire had talked about the first ballot item is the school tax and this is a very unusual year because the schools are coming to us and asking us if it's okay with us if they take what will be close to potentially a 7% tax decrease, pretty unprecedented At the same time, the city of Berlin, the city the municipal side, you know what has gone on in the economy has finally come back to us lagging economic indicators are finally coming home and we've seen the largest quarterly wage increase in 18 years, which is the result of worker shortages pressure on employers to catch up with from wage freezes and layoffs that were due to the COVID recession and the consumer price index is at its highest rate since 1982 so we've all gotten used to just being able to say well, CPI is around two or 3% well, it's now 7% and that 7% increase has caused a situation for this municipal side that we cannot sustain on just simply the revenues that we have so even with a 7% increase and by far the largest component of that increase of the tax increase that we are coming to ask the voters for 71% of that is due to inflation the rest of that is due to a combination of many things but by far almost two thirds actually three quarters almost is due to inflation and we're trying to balance the overall tax rate with a lot of other things for example, everyone knows that we got ARPA money we are using some of the ARPA money but to use too much of it imperils our ability to do what our community really wants which is our survey told us that the public wants us to use most of our ARPA money for housing and to address other community long-term community needs this is a short-term need and we don't wanna squander this once in a lifetime money by using it to fill the budget so in doing the prudent thing we are coming to the voters and asking for an increase of 5.5% and because of the fact that the schools are asking for nearly seven the taxpayers are going to see a decrease of about one and a half percent so we're hoping that the voters will support this tax increase it's four cents as we all know we went to the polls in December 57% of the voters approved a general obligation bond which would normally be wonderful news but you need two thirds and we didn't get two thirds so we went back and said you know we heard loud and clear that people are feeling it's too much so we came back we are coming back with a geo bond that is just under 24 million and the majority of the difference is that we heard from people that asking for $10 million as a placeholder for Memorial Auditorium was a little too nebulous and until we have a plan we took out nine million of the 10 million only one million is gonna be there basically to stabilize the building and so we're hoping that people will support this smaller geo bond it ends up being about I think it's around seven trying to remember now but it ends up being around $7 for an average I think it's $35 a year that it will cost the immediate on a median home so it's not a significant sum and we're hoping that people will support it this time around the third item is a TIF bond and from those who know what tax increment financing is this is another once in a lifetime opportunity to take and make an investment in public improvements without raising local property taxes it was started this is the downtown TIF and what we are asking for is the ability to borrow $25 million and the funds will be used to rebuild Main Street to the city's great street projects that go from South Union to Battery Street I can talk about that more if others are interested and then Brian did that at the very beginning that's great thank you so I don't need to he can do it much better than I can so and then the last item is the issue it's a charter change to remove language that is rather outdated regarding sex workers basically right now the council has the power to quote restrain or yes restrain and suppress houses of ill fame and disorderly houses and punish common prostitutes and persons consorting therewith this charter change will take out that language but it's doing more than that it will mean that we will no longer be able to regulate that part of the charter there will be nothing in the charter so we cannot go back to it and say we wanna regulate it and I think that most of the thing that I've heard most from people is they wanna know well what exactly does that mean and what it means is that there is a state law it's a shared power with the state and if the city removes it there is still state law that would still be good law and still be on the books and that would mean that the state what really happens is that if this were ever to come to us there really isn't much of a difference the old language in the ordinance is really arcane and outdated and it doesn't really reflect our current values and if it ever came to us wanting to enforce this it would be up to state law so it's not as if overnight we decriminalize prostitution the other thing that I just wanted to add is that there are only seven municipalities out of the 251 in the state of Vermont that even have anything like this on our books and I think one of the concerns by some is that if we were to remove this charter language that all of a sudden we would invite overnight that this would be an open invitation to this kind of work and that has not been the case South Burlington doesn't have it on their books Williston doesn't our surrounding municipalities don't and so it doesn't appear as though there's really any direct impacts because we have state law and so I just would conclude with just saying that on these items most of them passed unanimously of the four there was one I think that passed 11 to one that was the tax increase past 10 to two and the GO bond passed 11 to one I am supporting them and hope that others will as well I think Karen covered everything very thoroughly as always I'll just add a couple of things or maybe some emphasis on the on the tax increase I don't know if you can see if I put this up Oh, it's upside down, that's okay but you can see here can you see it? You need to turn it the other way Yeah, your camera, your camera it's like a mirror, yeah, there you go Okay, you see that Yes You can see that most of this tax increase is in the wages and salaries as Karen had mentioned and I just want to note I am for the first time in my long council career on the HR committee and have become acutely aware of how short staffed we are in the city we have many positions that are open if you know anybody who is looking for a job please send them to the city website because there's a lot of positions open and some of these, you know, I look at them and you look at what the city is paying people who are fixing our frozen pipes outside and honestly, it seems to me there are many easier ways to earn that wage so we really need to become more competitive than we are the positions that are open are really needed positions and we, oops, sorry, there we go so I hope that people will support that I would also note on the capital bond that last time around I did not support the capital bond in December for a variety of reasons one of which was I didn't think we should be voting on a capital bond in December, there wasn't a really good reason to put it forward at that time March is the appropriate time when everybody, you know, is showing up at the polls I also was concerned about putting that before the school bond but what has changed since that time is it's really been pared down I like that it's on the March ballot I'm still concerned about the school bond but I think that this we do, you know, there's a cost to defer there is a certain amount of capital improvements that are absolutely necessary and I think we now have this bond pared down to that level it also has an increase there's an increase in expenditures for matching funds so that we can leverage those federal dollars and decreases in some other areas which was another one of my concerns is we didn't really know what we were getting from the federal government we still don't know with complete certainty but we know a lot more than we did when we voted last time so with that, I would say that that tax increase here is modest it's needed it's counterbalanced by having the school tax rate go down so I do support that and I agree with Karen about the number five which eliminates the prostitution language in our charter which is really just offensive and I personally struggled we had, this was very controversial at the council we had heard hours of testimony from people concerned about drug trafficking that removing this language takes away the tools that are needed to fight drug trafficking but, and we were being told that by people on the front lines fighting not drug sex trafficking and that weighed on me but the truth is nobody remembers this particular charter language ever being used and it's not the way sex trafficking would be prosecuted there is it's coming forward in part because there are people that are looking to decriminalize and legalize sex work and I would just say that personally I don't support that I think that our our laws can certainly be updated and modernized to better reflect what we're trying to get at which is not really punishing women who are often victims but rather to prosecute sex traffickers but it is not my motivation in putting this forward to either decriminalize or legalize sex work that is something being pushed forward and I think it's going to be pushed forward at the state level but despite that kind of despite that concern to me there was no way to justify keeping the language that we have in our charter which serves no good purpose All right, and John and Karen thanks a lot for staying a little late to go through that since we're at the end I would like to let people give a chance for a question I got a little poke earlier Michelle you had a question and Tiff Tiff is still here maybe you would like to Just still here Yeah, this is actually unrelated to anything that's been discussed tonight but Tiff, I'm looking at you I've been put up to bringing up this topic Yeah Is Karen leaving? No, but I I thought that I was going to have an opportunity to talk about I guess not Okay No, about your candidacy I will put my question on ice Okay, thanks Karen Yes, please go ahead Thank you I know the hour is late I would like an opportunity if I could just say a few words about that while I am running out of post I am very proud of the work that I have done with each of you and with the residents and all the residents of Board 6 I'm grateful for the collaboration and the confidence that all of you have shown in me over such a long period of time you know, public service has been a part of my life and a responsibility that was instilled on me when I was very young and I see it as a particularly with the city of Burlington a proud and inescapable bond given that I grew up here and as a very young child saw my father serving on what was then the Board of Aldermen what is now the city council and was very honored to be able to serve in the same seat that he occupied when I was very young so decades ago it would be difficult for me to talk about all the things that have gone on the city council over the last couple of years one thing I do want to note is that for those of us who are serving in public life the only way that you can do this is by having the support of your family and I do want to say how incredibly grateful I am to our three children who were really young when I started, when I ran I would go door to door and they lived on basically take out pizza for six weeks while I went door to door every night and I'd be out on some street and my husband would come looking for me to try to figure out what street I was still on in the incredible darkness of a February night the priorities that I've had over the last year my last years on the council to a large degree remain the same above all fiscal responsibility we can't do all the things that we dream about doing if we don't have fiscal responsibility housing as a human right I wrote the resolution that really encouraged that housing on the Trinity campus and then just so many other things addressing food insecurity a strong resilient innovative and community supported public safety system work on harm reduction and substance use disorder and also on rent issues concerns about safe housing for renters so that's just sort of an encapsulated version of a lot of work and a lot of priorities but I just wanted to close and saying that the greatest highlight of this role as a city councilor is the people that I've met addressing constituent needs be they navigating someone who has a permitting issue or handling a noise complaint they're incredibly rewarding and energizing moments and the joy of making these things happen that enhance your life is the best part of this job so again, thank you so much to the voters and to the residents of board six for your confidence, your trust and support and I would ask for your vote so that I can continue to expand upon this work and to be here for you for the next two years to come, thank you. All right, thank you. Okay, Michelle, can we let your question what do you want to do here? I just want to know how TIF would vote on the house bill to regulate the application and use of neonicotinoid pesticides which is really bad for bees which has something to do with my family lineage so I've been asked to ask you that is an issue I have to just need to study a little bit more because I don't know very much about it but I know that we need to do everything we can to preserve the bee population so I would love to talk to you about that, Michelle. Great, thank you. Yep, thanks. All right, well, we went over but I thought this was an awesome agenda really appreciate everybody coming in. Good to see everybody again. I hope we'll be back to hybrid I think Omicron's getting the heck out of here so probably we'll get back to where we can be together a little more so we'll definitely let everybody know Thank you, Matt. And just for the folks who are left here please encourage anyone you know who might be interested in joining the steering committee to come to the meeting next month where we'll have our election. Matt and I are wrapping up our 10 years on the committee and so we need some folks to come on board and help Ward 6 be a strong force in the NPA world. Thanks so much to both of you. We'll be able to celebrate you next month maybe and maybe Matt is correct. I hope Matt is correct that it'll maybe there'll be that in person. I haven't been inside the Greek church and so long it would be great to be there. All right, yes. Okay, thanks a lot everybody. Good night. Thank you everybody. Good night. Thanks presenters.