 recording in progress. Good evening, everyone. Today is Monday, November 20th, 2023. Thank you so much. Is that me? That's you. I didn't think it was me. Thank you so much for joining us in person in Contois Auditorium and online for the Burlington City Council meeting. The time is 552. We'll begin our evening with item 1.1, which is a motion to adopt our agenda. Councillor Carpenter, are you prepared to? Thank you so much. A motion to amend, adopt the agenda. Thank you. I move to amend and adopt the agenda as follows. Add to the consent agenda item 6.16, communication Mark Boucher, Chair, Church Street Marketplace Commission, re Church Street Marketplace Commission Public Safety Resolution. Add to the consent agenda item 6.17, communication Lena Swisslaki, Member Conservation Board, re resignation. Add to consent agenda item 6.18, communication Connor Wurz, re 111723 petition to say no to dirty energy. Add to consent agenda item 6.19, communication Nicholas Persampieri, re McNeil District Energy Report. Add to consent agenda item 6.20, communication Nicholas Persampieri, re November 2023 City Council meeting agenda item 7.6, McNeil District Energy Resolution. Add to the consent agenda item 6.12, communication Dan Quinlan, letter to City Council. Add to consent agenda item 6.22, communication Ashley Adams, re thermal energy ordinance and district energy votes tonight. Add to consent agenda item 6.23, communication Gary Scott, interim network, senior vice president facilities planning and design, helium health network, corporate leadership, re carbon fee ordinance. Add to consent agenda item 6.24, communication Lucy Hillman, PE, executive director of facilities management, the University of Vermont, re carbon impact fee ordinance. Add to consent agenda item 6.25, communication Solvi Overby, support for the McNeil waste heat recovery project to get UHC off gas at its transition to noncombustion power production. Add to consent agenda item 6.26, communication Michael Long, re BED pipeline project. Thank you so much, Councillor Carpenter. Is there a second to that motion? Seconded by thank you seconded by Councillor Shannon. Is there any discussion on that motion? Seeing none. All those in favor of the motion to adopt our agenda as amended please say aye. Aye. Any opposed say no. That motion passes unanimously and just wanted to note for those who are joining us in contros you can't see them because we have the power point in front of us but Councillor King and Councillor Grant are both joining us by Zoom. That leads us to the second item on our agenda which is 2.1, the community sailing center update. And for this update we have Owen Milne, the executive director of the community sailing center with us. Owen, thanks so much for being here. We've allotted about 15 minutes for this update so if we can just make sure we have a little bit of time for questions and answers and are looking forward to your presentation. Of course. So thank you very much for taking the time out of your meeting for this and also thank you to CEDO. They've been a great community partner of ours to help get this set up. So the reason for this is that we at the sailing center community credit that's given to us as a result of our lease with the city of Burlington for our property and we want to make sure to regularly keep city council updated as to the efforts that we're doing as part of that work. So I'll keep this really brief and show you a highlight of what has come as a result of this partnership between the city and the community sailing center. So we're going to we do lots of programs. I'm just going to highlight very few just so you have a snapshot of the sort of community impact that we're making. One of the programs that is supported through this partnership is a program that we do called leadership which is in collaboration with nonprofits all over the city of Burlington organizations like Boys and Girls Club and the King Street Center and Chill Foundation. This is a program that has seen a downturn as a result of COVID. Lots of organizations haven't been able to recontinue their partnerships. This program for us is next year will be back to the levels that we saw pre pandemic. We scholarship 80 percent of the participants that come through this program. The next one we'll make mention of is adaptive water sports. So we work with an organization called Vermont Adaptive to provide opportunities for individuals with cognitive and physical disabilities to go out and enjoy sailing on Lake Champlain. Like many adaptive programs there was a significant drop in participation following COVID and of all of our programs up until this year was the slowest one to return for participation. Because of successful foundation investment in this program we were able to actually bring it back to pre pandemic level participation. You see there what our goals were for this year. This is actually one of the leading adaptive sailing programs in New England as it relates to the total number of people served and the number of hours spent out on the water. So we're very excited about getting this back to that level of participation. The total volume of scholarship coming towards this program is over $10,000 this past year and growing. This is probably one of our most well known programs in Burlington. In fact almost all fourth and fifth graders in the city of Burlington participate in floating classrooms. So it's a hands on year long experiential education program where kids get a chance to go out on the Lake Champlain. They get to experience and understand about the importance of water quality and basis species. And this is actually built into their class curriculum. So it's not a what many of you might think of as a field trip. They're actually come down for a full day in the fall. We go into their classrooms all winter working with the same curriculum. And then they come back for a full day in the spring. So this is an immersive program. And we are on track to hit our goal of 1500 kids served in this program next year or at about 1450 right now as relates to hear where we are today. And then this is one that we started three years ago. It's our diversity access initiative. So three years ago of all kids that participate in our camps, there were 1% of those and that's out of 500 that participate that were identified as BIPOC. And now as it relates to where we are today, we're at 17%. That's going from 1% to 17% in three years in a sport of sailing is a pretty dramatic change. And we're on track to hit 20%. Our goal by 2025 is to be at 25%, which in a sport like this one is unheard of. And this is the sort of thing that catches national attention is just something I'll show you real quick about sailing camp for kids. You might think of sports like archery or soccer or swimming, maybe even sailing, but sailing can often feel out of reach for many families, especially in communities of color. This statistic shocked me when I read it, only point resailing population is diverse point one guys, we hit the water to see how one sailing camp in beautiful Vermont is trying to change that in a state that has one of the least diverse populations in the country. Sometimes this thing swings over and you have to duck, right? Swing means when you tackle shot. And that means when you like change directions. Yeah, so you can change your course. Siblings Robert and Mabel White are used to charting their own course. We will just seem surprised. Why do you think I'm surprised? Because I'm the only black person that sales. They're usually some of the only minorities they see sailing on shimmering Lake Champlain between Vermont and New York. This refreshing feeling to have doesn't help you clear mind. Yeah, people were like, Yeah, the teens have been sailing since they were six. We're making our sale catch wind, right? Now they're at a camp trying to change the face of sailing, often seen as too white, too expensive, elitist and historically exclusionary. We're undoing damage that has happened in the sport from there being a whites only sign on the front door of a yacht club. Owen Milne is at the helm of Burlington, Vermont's community sailing center. Sailing is our middle name. Community is our first name to better live up to that first name. Last year, the center started providing free sailing camp to kids from diverse backgrounds in the Burlington community, one rich with refugees and immigrants from places like Nepal and Congo. What was the racial makeup of the camp before this initiative and now we might have had five or six kids for a full summer. Kids of color. And that was out of 500. And now wow, right? Five or six out of 500 is not okay. Get ready for us to sail. We're on track to hopefully get to 25% in the next few years. And we think we can get there to get there. The camp began advertising in seven different languages, including Arabic Somali and Nepali to find more campers like Adam Al-Matori originally from Syria. We get to kayak, we get sail for free. And it's very fun to just go out in the water. I used to be scared of water for now. I can just jump in right now. The idea for the camp to tackle its diversity problem came after this. The national reckoning that followed the murder of George Floyd. It's unfortunate I took an uprising for this to end up on the front of our consciousness. But the reality of is we don't want it to slip away. So that's why we've made this promise to these families that will extend out decades. The goal is to reach as many kids as possible, not just so they can learn their way on the water. But also the confidence and quick thinking needed for the next generation to learn their way on the water. And that's why we've made this promise to these families that will extend out decades in life. Donations allow diverse students like Finn Shonstrum, whose mother is Mexican and Native American, a free month of sailing camp for four years straight. That usually costs almost $7,000. When my mom told me like four weeks, four years, I was like, you must be getting something wrong. That's crazy. It's like, and it's free. Like, it's free for life. And then once they turn 15, they can work here as a junior instructor. And your participants can get a job out of this at the end. Yeah, why not? And we get great employees. Where's the wind coming from? And the chance to help the sport spread its sails. It's nice to see other people are like joining other black people. Yeah. So more kids of color like can experience the magic of being on the water. Yeah. It is pretty magical, isn't it? And that sort of thing came out of the growth that we experienced in our partnership with the city of Wellington. So this gives you a little bit of a snapshot of what we've been up to the past few years. I'll give you a kind of a quick preview on two things coming up next year. One is what you see here on this image. So if you came down this summer, this is more like what you would have seen a bottleneck of boats going 100 yards all the way from the water up to our building. We're actually in construction right now of a $4.8 million dollar waterfront redesign on the waterfront that's going to be able to allow us to have boats in the water, host regattas out of our location, have a wide area for public accessible paddle and small boat launch. Something that is needed in order to increase the access out on the Lake Champlain. And, you know, we are about $380,000 away of meeting that fundraising goal of $4.8 million. So we're right there. And then, lastly, this is a program we're working with the UVM Center on Rural Addiction for next year. So we're mimicking a study that was done out at the University of Utah and Park City Sailing to actually have a therapeutic intervention program designed for individuals that are in active opioid recovery with the intent of learning about how this might be able to grow and help support those people that are in active recovery. And then we actually just found out today from one of our supporting foundations that they're going to fully fund the Sailing Center's part of this partnership for next year. So we're currently, you know, almost all the way there on getting this funded and mostly on UVM's partnership. So that's what I've got for you all today. I know you wanted to make sure we had time for questions. Yes, thanks. Thanks so much, Owen. We'll open this up to the floor. Are there counselors who have, and if we could take that down so I can just see if there are other counselors who wish to, that are participating remotely who wish to speak. Thank you. This is for the for the council to have a couple of minutes if you have any questions or comments on the presentation or for the Community Sailing Center. I have a question. Just a moment, Councillor Grant. We'll go to the sailor in the crowd. Councillor Shannon. Thank you, President Paul. And thank you, Owen. This was a great presentation. Brought me great joy. I don't know if everybody felt the same thing watching it. And it's really impressive and important work that you're doing. Bringing this experience that has real life skills value that I think maybe the thing people who don't sail don't fully appreciate is all the things we learn in addition to learning how to sail. Learning how to work with a crew, learning how to work with a skipper, learning how to lose gracefully. I know I spent two years of learning that really, really well. But also I hope that there's an appreciation for how much investment and accessibility to the waterfront has been made by the sailing center for various uses. But the improvement to the waterfront is astounding. I remember before the sailing center existed and that was just not, you know, this is not usable and you've provided that for all of us. So thank you for all the work that you're doing. For Burlington and for all of these kids that get this experience which while it's fun it also has lifelong implications. Thank you Councillor Shannon. We'll go to Councillor Grant please. Thank you. Yes it was a great presentation, a great story about increasing the diversity of youngsters that are participating. This is especially important in our community because we're diversifying so fast when you look at the percentage of global majority kids in our school. So I think you could get to 25 percent, 30, 40 percent pretty quickly just based on the numbers of the children going through our school system especially from elementary into middle school. So thank you for that and thank you for taking that initiative. We have a lot of different things in the city that aren't always, equity isn't always taken into consideration so I'm very grateful that you did that. The other thing is not something to be discussed now but maybe you could talk about a later time. We've gotten some complaints around access to the bathrooms down the sailing center so I'd like to get some more information on that although right now isn't the time for that but just something to think about in terms of a response for later communication. Thank you. Thanks very much Councillor Grant. Seeing no others we will close out this item and thank you so much for coming and giving us this presentation. Makes us all feel like maybe summer is just around the corner. Before we continue with the rest of our council agenda we do have two very brief local um local control meetings. The first is the local control commission. We also have the local cannabis control commission to attend to so we'll recess the council meeting at 613 and call to order the local cannabis control commission meeting at 613 and give everyone a chance to get that agenda up. The first item on that agenda is item 1.1 which is a motion to adopt the agenda. For that I'll go to the chair of the license committee Commissioner Shannon. Please take your time. We can do that if you prefer. So instead of going to the local cannabis control meeting first we'll go to the local control commission meeting. Thank you. Thank you Commissioner Shannon. Seconded by Commissioner Barlow. Any discussion on that motion? Seeing none all those in favor of the motion please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed please say no. That means we have an agenda. So our second item is the consent agenda. Is there a motion to uh motion to move the consent agenda and take the actions indicated Commissioner Shannon. So moved. Thank you so much. Seconded by Councillor Barlow. Is there any discussion on that motion? Seeing none all those in favor please say aye. Aye. Any opposed please say no. That motion passes unanimously which brings us to our deliberative agenda. We have two items item 3.1 which is a first and third class liquor license application for Jint LLC doing business as devil takes a holiday. Commissioner Shannon. Moved to approve the 2023 2024 first and third class liquor license applications for Jint LLC doing business as devil takes a holiday. 111 St. Paul street with all standard conditions. Thank you Commissioner Shannon. Seconded by Commissioner Barlow. Is there any any discussion on that motion? Seeing none all those in favor of the motion please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed please say no. That motion passes unanimously which brings us to our second and last deliberative item 3.2 an outside consumption permit application for devil takes a holiday. Commissioner Shannon. Moved to approve the 2023 2024 outside consumption permit application for Jint LLC doing business as devil takes a holiday 111 St. Paul street. Thank you Commissioner Shannon. Seconded by Commissioner Barlow. Thank you. Is there any discussion on that motion? Seeing none all those in favor of the motion please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed please say no. That motion passes unanimously and seeing no other items on the agenda and hearing no objection we'll adjourn the local control commission meeting at 617 and resume and go and move to the local cannabis control commission meeting at that same hour. The first item on that agenda is 1.1 motion to adopt the agenda. I will return to Commissioner Shannon. I move to adopt the agenda. Thank you so much Commissioner Shannon. Seconded by Commissioner Barlow. Any discussion on that motion? Seeing none all those in favor of the motion please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any opposed please say no. We have an agenda. The second item the next item on our agenda is item number two which is 2023 cannabis applications. We have three applications this evening one for Haybud Lucky U and Weedy's Warehouse. It's been our practice that if owners of these businesses are present either in person or online if you're if you're present online you can certainly use the raise hand function and I will find you. We give this as an opportunity because we do not get a lot of information on cannabis licenses and you're under no obligation to do so but if you are present and wish to be identified it's an opportunity to make yourselves known to us and give us an opportunity to hear about your business. So those are the three businesses that we are approving applications for this evening. I'm going to look and see if anyone is online and if there's someone who's here in person representing any of these three businesses you can just come forward. I don't see anyone with their raised hand raised hand online and I don't see anyone here in person so we'll continue on to item 2.1 which is the application for Haybud. Commissioner Shannon. Thank you President Paul. I will just note that we when we started this process with cannabis applications we were not getting addresses. They were redacted and you will notice that the addresses are now in bold on our agenda. We got some clarification from the state and we are no longer redacting that information. So I will move to approve and recommend to the local cannabis control commission that it authorize transmission of local approval for Haybud to the state cannabis control board. Thank you Commissioner Shannon seconded by Commissioner Barlow. Is there any discussion on the motion? Seeing none we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Aye. Thank you. Any opposed please say no. That motion passes unanimously which brings us to the application for Haybud to the state cannabis control board. Thank you Commissioner Shannon. I move to approve and recommend to the local cannabis control commission that it authorize transmission of local approval for Lucky U to the state cannabis control board. Thank you Commissioner Shannon seconded by Commissioner Barlow. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none all those in favor of the motion please say aye. Aye. Any opposed please say no. That motion passes unanimously which brings is Wheaties warehouse. Commissioner Shannon. I'm going to correct my language on this one because we are the local cannabis control commission so we don't need to recommend to us. I move to approve and recommend that we authorize transmission of local approval for Wheaties warehouse to the state cannabis control board. Thank you Commissioner Shannon seconded by Commissioner Barlow. Is there any discussion on that motion? Seeing none all those in favor of the motion please say aye. Aye. Any opposed please say no. That motion passes unanimously and seeing no other items on this agenda and hearing no objection we'll adjourn the local cannabis control meeting at 621 and we can return to our council agenda. So we do have a couple a couple of minutes before public forum which might give us a little bit of time to go to the end of our agenda which is we would start with item number eight. If there are any committee chairs who wish to offer a committee report that would be item number eight. Are there any committee chairs that wish to offer a committee report? Councillor Barlow. Thank you President Paul. The Transportation Energy and Utilities Utilities Committee will be meeting at 645 Pine on Tuesday 11 28 so that's a week later than we normally meet at 5 p.m. and we'll be getting an update on a number of topics including bird bikes the Winooski River Bridge replacement and the North Winooski Avenue corridor survey results. Great thank you Councillor Barlow any other Councillor McGee. Thank you President Paul. The Parks Arts and Culture Committee will meet next Wednesday November 29th at 5 p.m. We'll be getting updates from BCA regarding planning for the solar eclipse event in April of next year as well as a preview of the highlight programming for New Year's Eve and we'll be hearing about a couple other items as well so that will be at the front conference room at Public Works at 5 o'clock next Wednesday the 29th. Thank you. Thank you Councillor McGee. Any other committee chairs that wish to offer a committee report? Councillor Grant. Hi I just wanted to state that it's still pending of the November Public Safety Committee so hopefully we can get that scheduled for next week. It's very concerning to me that we haven't had one so far this month considering how much is going on in the city. Thank you. Thank you so much Councillor Grant. Any other committee chair committee chairs that have a committee report? Okay we're going to be hearing from the join oversight later in this meeting and also wanted to note that in addition to Councillor Grant and Councillor King we also have Mayor Weinberger who is joining us by Zoom as well. Glad to have you here. That will move us on to item number nine which is city council general city affairs. Are there any councillors to wish to offer items of general city affairs? Okay I was going to mention highlight but you've already mentioned it so I won't mention it. If there are no others then I think we can move on to council president updates. Just wanted to note that the community forums when we passed a resolution on October 12th part of that October 10th that was to include on the drug crisis resolution that was to include two public forums the community forums are going to be on December 14th and December 19th we'll have further information on those in the next week or so right after the holiday. That will bring us to the last item on their agenda which won't be the last item on the agenda which is item number 11 which are updates from the mayor. Mayor Weinberger the floor floor is yours. Thank you President Paul. I appreciate the opportunity to share some updates at 6 30 instead of the meeting tonight. I want to start by acknowledging that today is the trans day of remembrance. I want queer Berlin-tonians and Rwandans to know that Burlington loves you and that we will keep working for Burlington to be a place where you belong, where you find refuge, safety, safety and a vibrant successful future. I also want to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving. The Fletcher Free Library will be open on Thanksgiving day from noon to four with meals available to go starting Wednesday the day before on Wednesday as well and I want to thank the generous support of the farmhouse group and thank the team the city team that's been working to make this possible. For holiday shoppers remember to enjoy the BTV winter market which has officially returned this year once again Fridays and Saturdays in City Hall Park from 12 to 6 p.m. and Sundays from 12 to 4 p.m. from now until December 23rd. The winter market features a rotating group of more than 20 local vendors that are using the shelters that have been set up in the in the park as we've done the last few years. There's also a fire pit, holiday games and more in the park. It's really a great event for the whole family. I encourage people to take advantage of it again that's 12 to 6 on Fridays since Saturdays and 12 to 4 on Sundays from now until December 23rd. And then finally the one of the great Burlington traditions the Christmas tree has arrived on Church Street. The tree lighting festivities will happen on Friday November 24th that's this Friday of course. This year's tree is a blue spruce standing 40 feet tall and about 21 feet frost is that right around maybe and we are very grateful to the Escorpizzo family of Williston who donated their tree for Burlingtonians and visitors to enjoy this holiday season. Please go check it out. With that President Paul I'll hit it back to you. Great thank you very much. So that'll that wraps up the end of the agenda so we can now go back to item number four which is the public forum. It is almost exactly I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I was trying to get my hands up for general affairs and apparently I wasn't fast enough. Can I say two quick things please? Sure. I just want it for people who didn't know Kismayo Kitchen has reopened Omar's family is continuing the legacy of their hard work for that restaurant space which serves wonderful food and just want to welcome them back to the community and make sure that everyone knows. The other incident was very sadly we had a local business the banana stand lower main street that was broken into and suffered significant damage of their business space and they are trying to raise funds in order to reopen and do repairs. I have to say that this could not come at a worse time for businesses. We all know that how important the fourth quarter is so for anyone who might be able to consider supporting them please do so if you can. Thank you. That was it. Thank you so much Councillor Grant. My apologies if I missed your hand being up and welcome back to that to that business that's coming back. So we now are actually at 629 which means it's time for public forum. Just also wanted to mention to anyone who wishes to sit down who is standing up that we do have seats up in the balcony that is open if you wish to go upstairs and be able to be comfortable. So before we begin the public forum I'd like to note that we do have a process for public forum and in giving you this process just want you to know that I'm speaking for the full council as we share a strong commitment to an orderly process and one that honors all voices and respectful discourse. For those that are in con toys and wish to speak during public forum we have a timer system that's on the table in front of me it has three lights. The green light will shine when you begin speaking the second uh yellow light when you have 30 seconds left and the last red light light which is red will shine when your time is up. Please complete your sentence when the sound and light indicate that your time is up so that everyone has the same amount of time and we can keep the public forum moving. Please do not interrupt a speaker no matter whether you agree with the speaker or not please do not interrupt a speaker. When you're joining us online we have a timer system that is set up on zoom we don't have a light system but when your two minutes is up and the clock winds down to zero please complete your sentence so that we can move forward to the next community member. We have a hybrid system for public forum so when if you wish to speak in person if you're in con toys joining us here there are forms um to my right in the back of the room please um complete the form um as completely as you can and bring them to the clerk to my right which is in the front who is in the front of the room. If you wish to speak via zoom you can go to the following um following web webpage and that is burlington vt.gov forward slash city council forward slash public forum. When you do that there will be a form that'll come up please complete the form um and your answers will come into a spreadsheet that I have right in front of me that way I can call on you in the order in which you submitted a form. It has been our practice that Burlington residents will have first priority to speak. We will go to Burlington residents in con toys first then to Burlington residents online who have completed the online form back to non Burlington residents in person and then we will complete the public forum with online non Burlington residents. We have a large number of people who wish to speak during public forum this evening. Please try your best not to repeat what others have said. If your name is called and you wish to yield your time to others who have not who have who have not spoken but others who have spoken your thoughts have expressed what you wish to say. It is fine to be recognized and you can just simply say that your thoughts have been expressed. We will see you and we will note that your your support for the sentiments that have already been expressed. During public forum we ask that you please use respectful language we would like to remind everyone here and everyone that is joining us online that there are families in our community who watch council meetings as their connection to civic engagement and to their community. Please use our forum to teach our children about city government in a respectful way. When you are speaking at the table that is in front of me I would ask that you face me that you direct your comments to me as the chair and that you not direct your comments to anyone else at this table nor to anyone in the audience. Please do not personalize your comments. This rule will be strictly enforced. Again we want to hear what you have to say and we will listen much more intently if you speak respectfully. With that we will go to the public forum. The first person who wishes to speak is Steven Whitaker to be followed by Andrew Voda. Good evening. Good evening Steve Whitaker. I have spoken at the prior two meetings it is I protesting assert that it is not with compliant with Vermont's open meeting law to limit people to two minutes or even one minute as you did to me last time. It's it's not consistent with holding our public officials accountable and conveying to you urgent public safety matters related to hygiene and syringes and restrooms and you you basically I've asked you to put it on the agenda you haven't done so and it's kind of a farce to pretend that you give somebody two minutes and you can whisk it away. The open meeting law violation notice was filed formally it was not included with the minutes it was not I did read the minutes of what you did you what you you met in executive session to talk about litigation you didn't discuss the merits of the complaint in open session which is required to which you then could have followed with an executive session to go in to discuss litigation. It hasn't come to litigation but it's almost like you're inviting it to come to litigation because you refuse to deal with the fact that one minute is not enough time to deal with urgent public safety issues of which I've done the homework and attempt to inform you of and you don't return phone calls so you leave me no no option it's not reasonable to pretend that this public forum is actually effective in that manner so I plead with you to put this issue on the agenda and if you could talk about the sailing center for 15 minutes you can damn well talk about public restrooms and toilets and needles and the despair that you're cultivating this town has been run into the ground it's seedy it stinks it's a public urinal and people aren't shopping here because you've neglected these issues thank you so much um before uh Andy just before you you start I believe that we have we may have some a bit of a challenge with the the light system okay my apologies we're we're all set um Andrew Vota to be followed by um Hayley Jones and Robert Inglis good evening uh President Paul I'm here tonight with my colleague Jane Nodell we are representing over 1,000 people from Burlington and surrounding communities who have oh that'll help thank you um I'll start over uh my name is Andrew Vota my parent and 25-year resident of Burlington President Paul I'm here tonight with my colleague Jane Nodell we are representing over 1,000 people from Burlington and surrounding communities who have signed on to a letter advocating for a balanced and urgent approach to the public safety and drug crisis we are facing the letter and list of signers can be viewed at Burlington safety letter dot com this effort is citizen led and is not part of anyone's political campaign we're calling on our leaders to act urgently to address the crisis the letter calls for continued and expanded harm reduction efforts as well as increased deterrence enforcement and prosecution we're advocating for greater response from and coordination between the city the state of Vermont especially the agencies of health and mental health Chittenden County State's Attorney's Office the legislature and judiciary to combat the crime and drug crisis here in Burlington we believe that failing to act in a significant enough way will endanger Burlington's residents business and community and cause irreparable harm to the character of the city in which we have invested our lives raised our families and committed our futures please go to Burlington safety letter dot com where you can read the letter and the specific proposals that we make again thank you to the city council for your good work to the mayor's office and our dedicated first responders and the Burlington police and fire departments as well as other city departments on the front lines of this crisis every day thank you thank you very much uh our next speaker is Hailey Jones to be followed by uh Robert Inglis good evening okay great as long as the green light is on right in front of you in front of you on the microphone yes yeah great good evening everybody my name is Hailey Jones I use they them pronouns and i am v vermont a new hampshire state director with slingshot an organization that works alongside most impacted communities to take aim at polluters and build community power and i'm here tonight not just in my role as an organizer but also as a longtime resident of Burlington's old north end and i'm asking the council to vote no on the expansion of a project that could lock us into false climate solutions and potentially jeopardize the health of Burlington residents i will let my fellow residents speak about the mental gymnastics required to consider this proposal carbon neutral and instead ask the city council to consider the public health impacts of industrial biomass incineration we have known for years that burning organic material releases significant quantities of particulate matter nitrogen oxides carbon monoxide sulfur dioxide lead mercury and other hazardous air pollutants these pollutants according to the harvard school of public health and here i quote can cause asthma exacerbations hospitalizations for heart attack and respiratory disease birth defects neurodegenerative diseases and death among many other health impacts we can't ignore that the smokestack of the McNeil generator looms high over Burlington's old north end one of Vermont's most racially ethnically and linguistically diverse communities today the council stands or sits at a crossroads you can choose to spend 42 million dollars on a technology that is historically risked the health of our most vulnerable populations or you can move Burlington towards true carbon neutrality pushing the city to invest in health protective solutions like geothermal solar and wind we have entrusted you with the well-being of our community and we are begging you to begin the phase down of this polluting facility by voting no on the DEP making space for truly clean and renewable energy in its place so please don't be afraid to dream bigger than McNeil thank you all so much for your work great thank you very much our next speaker is Robert Inglis to be followed by Steve Goodkind good evening hi there my name is Rob Inglis I'm an emergency physician at UVM Medical Center I'm here speaking as an individual Burlingtonian not as a representative of my employer I want to encourage the council to vote no on the McNeil steam pipeline my reasoning for that is grounded in the science of climate change and the fact that you know biomass energy while a partial solution does doesn't get us as far as we need to go the science is clear that if you burn wood it immediately releases carbon into the atmosphere the science is a bit ambiguous as to how quickly that is reabsorbed it could be anywhere from you know 20 years under certain assumptions to maybe a hundred plus years under others what the science is very clear about is that we don't have time to wait that you know 20 to 100 years to have the carbon reabsorbed because we are facing climate tipping points now and as someone who is interested in hospital energy systems I will just say that locking ourselves into this quite expensive pipeline is going to prevent the hospital from investing in other fully clean options if we spend 40 to 50 million dollars on this the hospital is then not subject to fees under the carbon pollution impact fee that was passed in March of 2023 it removes the financial incentive to invest in truly clean options such as ground source heat pumps electric boilers and other truly zero carbon options so I would encourage the city council to vote no so that the hospital can take a pause and work on instituting truly clean solutions thank you so much our next speaker is Steve Goodkind to be followed by Karen Sita to push a button or not uh the microphone should be on anyway I think you're good to go I'm going to go I've been to remain a dedicated opponent of wood burning if you kneel I also believe that the Vermont gas system steam pipe is a wasteful project that does not advance the battle against climate change if built it'll end up in the annals of history along with the rearranging of the decks deck chairs and the titanic that said the Vermont gas system steam pipe resolution language represents a watershed moment in the operations of the McNeil plant and in the city's commitment to reduce its carbon footprint McNeil's performance will now be judged on actual stack emissions rather than theoretical renewable assumptions all options will be evaluated in a public process to determine how we can best reduce stack emissions at least 50 percent in phases over the next 10 years but just as important this resolution does not speak to something BED has claimed that the steam pipe project will not inhibit our ability to reduce modify or even close McNeil plant should we choose to do so before the end of the so-called 20-year contract if that's not in there this resolution is meaningless my optimism about the resolution though is heightened because the main proponent of the misbegotten theory that wood burning at McNeil is good for the climate will soon leave office he's done a lot of damage but the time has now come for us to change direction actually reduce the stack emissions from McNeil legislating isn't pretty sometimes really good things only happen with compromise such as may happen in this case tonight if it does though i would urge the many good people that oppose wood burning in berlinton continue to oppose the steam pipe in other forms such as act 250 and more importantly to bring their considerable talents to the process that this resolution makes possible to change the operations of McNeil i truly believe that this resolution is the beginning of the end of wood burning at McNeil thank you thank you very much our next speaker is Karen Sita to be followed by uh Christopher Gutschel good evening good evening madam president she's saying that right um i do want to correct you real quickly it's Karen k-e-r-e-n i know all my life the karen's have been trying to put me in the group but clearly on a different level that's okay glad to know yes okay great you know they've said a lot about me and that's why i continue to come they say the way i practice law is symbolic they say that some of them have called me sacrilegious um and i've also learned that i lost my demure nature because i'm actively and passionately and zealously fighting for my constitutional rights and my federal rights um and for the rights of all my people especially the struggling vermonters so that's why i came here to uh right a well sorry i came here to recite a original haiku on the behalf of all the vermonters black vermonters who have been suffering all their pain and all their suffering for many times we are ignored and many times our leaders don't see our pain but i know that as miss black vermon 2019 it is my duty even though i'm no longer vermon's black queen i'm still have a duty to represent the people are you ready all right injustice prevails silenced cries broken spirits white blind eyes deny but we have hope that's the end of my haiku but i have hope in you madam president because i know that if you can do it now you'll be able to do it in the future so i'm for karen paul i'm here for a future uh a pretty leading woman i'm here for that thank you very much very welcome uh our next speaker is christopher gucciol to be followed by christine hall quest good evening thank you for your time i wanted to start with i want to say thank you for your public service i think one big thing here is recognizing the difference between an endemic and a pandemic i had the great fortune and understand that issues can coexist as a very as a relatively new north end resident as of two and a half years and a hospitality human that had a privileged time of spending my time in chicago as well as port of maine and just being a small kid for maine i kind of feel like i have at least a little bit of relevance in this um what i saw tear down at that time was the debate and debates between paul vallis and lawyer lightfoot and see progressive politics go against correctional politics in times of strife and turmoil especially at times of covid recovering opioid crisis and the difference between looking at enforcement as opposed to optics so i'm gonna lead with that working with a special person in my life that also does work at a federal capacity we have these conversations often mental health and culpability both can coexist regardless of those optics optics politics in front of that policy and growth noticeable poor steps were defunded by the police were indeed funding by the police and disempowering continued training and support this rips out a sense of safety for every and all it also prevents vigilanteism and ignorant bias for everyone this is actually inclusive because it includes everyone in that process those that look to proliferate off of ideals without aspect of others and education and experience creates discontent rounding back to how issues can coexist does not allow part-time influence dictate to dictate investment in your home remote workers gangs students dealers hospitality professionals which have made my conscious choice and communities and highest and lowest of lows and lows long-term influence from those that proliferate without ramifications or accountability those include short-term investments the da uvm will identify drug deals and some lords that long-winded uncontrolled for safe revenue identifying endemic to pandemic thank you thank you so much our next speaker is christine hallquist to be followed by bethany whitaker good evening christine good evening and thank you and thank you for your service and thank you for everybody here for your service i'm christine hallquist i have a long history of working with energy projects in vermont i was the former ceo of vermont electric cooperative we back in 2011 we were focused on wood as an energy supply as well we were working with the canadian company called air come to build two megawatt gasifiers that would be community gas fires used with wood generations fuel we were heavily supported by the agency of commerce and community development i worked closely with bob degust who was a great temp the state forester taught me a lot about the depletion of soils that occurs as the result of the use of wood read thoroughly the manament study and walked away from the project after partners spent several million dollars but i'm here interesting enough to say you should support the project and i'll say why and if you look at the challenge ahead of us in terms of carbon reduction only 40 percent of our electric supply today comes from carbon free sources so we have to increase our generation by two and a half fold just to get our electric grid to a hundred percent renewable then we have to double it again to displace the heating then only heating hvac and transportation loads so we have to increase our generation by five fold and with this because you've got iron in the ground you know we don't have to create more carbon by by building more generation sources you have iron in the ground you have what i believe without knowing it all but i'm sure you've got a long-term plan in terms of your wood supply i would not encourage anybody to build a new project but since you've got a existing project that will displace carbon sources today that's a hard decision to make it's it's much easier to say no to a project that developed a long-term plan how we're going to displace the significant power density we have today so thank you for for your hard work on this thank you very much our next speaker is bethany whitaker to be followed by dan quinlan and david uh david rand i believe it is hi good evening so my name is bethany whitaker i'm a long time resident of burlington i live on luma street i'm also a commissioner on the burlington electric department and i'm here tonight to voice support for the district energy plan the commission spent several months working with bd on this project and the entire commission supported the project unanimously so that's all just wanted to make sure you all knew that great thank you so much so our next speaker is dan quinlan to be followed by uh i believe it's david rand good evening my name is dan quinlan i live in the new north end we Thanksgiving right around the corner i'd first like to say thank you doing what you folks do and for the opportunity to be here tonight i'd also like to express my gratitude to the many people who work so diligently on the McNeil district energy project for so many years my life over the past 12 years says revolved around the health care energy projects and the impacts of climate change on human health on one side i work with hospitals on the engineering and finance of energy projects on the other i work with health professionals across the united states as they speak out about the urgent need to stop dumping carbon pollution into the atmosphere in that regard i'd like to summarize the letter from the vermont climate and health lines that you received over the weekend just five years ago the world health organization declared that climate change is the greatest threat to human health in the 21st century virtually every professional medical and us medical and health organization in the u.s. has since issued similar warnings the lives of our children will soon be overtaken by climate change if we do not radically change the track we're on given where we are today the McNeil UVM project no longer meets that standard all combustion including the burning of wood generates carbon pollution rather than investing in the McNeil plant we need to phase it out as quickly as possible furthermore expenditures made on this proposed project will further delay investments on a far far more impactful solution major investment on site and off site solar wind and geothermal until that happens across the city and all uvm health sites we remain wedded to a path that is outdated and waste rate payer and taxpayer money if the u.s. health care system was if the u.s. health care sector was a country it would be the 13th largest emitter globally that's ahead of the entire united kingdom for that reason the the inflation reduction act includes billions of dollars designed to lower the emissions of the u.s. health care sector so we would like to see that money deployed to help build out renewables great thank you very much so our next speaker is david rand to be followed by uh counter words i hope i have your name right yes great rand yes thank you thank you again to the council for your your hard work all the time for us in burlington my name is dr david rand i'm board certified in internal medicine i live in the new north end um and i come here today to speak regarding the district energy plan with some overlap uh to the ordinance assessing carbon pollution fee um burlington has appropriately recognized the presence of a climate emergency as a physician with a degree in public health i speak to the health impacts of climate change in short the time for compromise and intermediate steps is over it is long over the time to spend upwards of 50 million dollars to buttress and aging polluting and highly inefficient mcneil plant is also long over this district steam plan is 20 years too late and i'm afraid that the sunk costs that have been vested by the city and by burlington electric are driving this plan thank you for your time thank you very much our next speaker is counter words to be followed by laura simon good evening good evening uh i'm counter words i live in ward two on five oak street and i'm a community organizer for 350 per month so i first became aware of climate change when i was 16 uh spectra energy a company that now holds 40 stake in vermont gas along with onbridge decided it wanted to expand a natural gas pipeline through a neighboring town in massachusetts now when my teachers talked about climate change it seemed really urgent but the energy company said about this pipeline was that we needed a transitional source of energy something to tide us over until the grid was really ready for clean energy and they even called it a climate solution now while the constituents didn't like this the utilities argument worked for the legislators and the regulators they got their infrastructure projects and now the climate solution of natural gas will pump for decades to come so i left massachusetts for vermont thinking we got fooled once i went through college i fell in love with vermont's so i decided to stay and work on climate solutions here quickly i realized something familiar was going on this clean transition fuel argument was alive and well in vermont and burlington too but instead of natural gas which folks finally realized was bad stuff it was biofuels like renewable natural gas hydrogen and biomass we don't want to get fooled twice not with stakes this high you will all make some important decisions today and i hope you'll decide with an eye on the history of the arguments used in favor of these fuels our utilities are calling a climate solution today but might have a very different legacy in years to come so i urge you to adopt gene bergman's amendments to the heating ordinance and if the amendments don't pass to table the vote and please reject the mcneill resolution thank you thank you very much our next speaker is laura simon to be followed by saris guantino good evening good evening and thank you all for your work i appreciate it i'm laura simon i live in white river junction and as long as vermont commits to biomass we are not investing in true renewables and i know you've heard this many times but burning trees to generate electricity pumps out more co2 in the atmosphere than burning coal and cutting forest under mines our natural system for absorbing carbon and mitigating climate change it poses risk to public health and biodiversity i work with a few different groups stop biomass standing trees 350 vermont and we've end the group of dedicated individuals and with all the integrity we could put together we brought you education on biomass the past few months including a workshop with one of the world's top scientists on biomass climate dr william moomow and we heard from a top climate expert of vermont or bill mckibbin both said stop burning biomass the neil foresters say that the only the tops and the branches are used but even if that was true we should still be leaving them on the ground to convert to carbon at the pace of nature instead of going up in smoke so there's a new report called up in smoke and it shows mcneil cost rate payers six to eight million dollars per year along with the wrecks from the other states burlington rate payers are subsidizing mcneil mr springer plans to reduce mcneil's greenhouse gas while studying the transition off of biomass and this plan happened because we all shared our concerns and now some of us agree we can take these positive steps forward however city counselors may vote in favor of the steam pipe if the steam pipe plant was voted down would that mean the positive steps would be scrapped that wouldn't make any sense if they are worthy steps then why not take them first and postpone the vote for the 40 million till after thank you very much according to science thank you thank you so much our next speaker is saris guantino uh to be followed by um thio grossavich i my apologies you'll you'll correct me when you come up here sarah please go ahead thanks um my name's sarah i'm a resident of word five um trees are our first line of defense in the fight to combat complete climate meltdown it's a morbidly funny thing but it also makes quite a bit of sense um that in a city like burlington constantly touting our climate forward brand we're still burning trees in the name of sustainability and progress we're working to extend the lifespan of a plant that in most other places would have been decommissioned long ago have we not not been sounding the alarm for long enough instead of having a conversation about how to decommission mcneil and replace energy from biomass with real renewables we may build infrastructure to extend its lifespan and we're voting on potentially incentivizing highly polluting sources of energy and new buildings asking b ed to improve efficiency of the mcneil plant many years from now is not enough to make this 41 million dollar investment sit well with me i don't trust them to actually follow through on that and i ask why should i promises have been broken time and time again promises um made in haste to placate people who demand real solutions in the name of compromise and then forgotten about we've been given no reason to believe that they will keep their end of the deal we all need to use our various levels of power to try as hard as possible to provide a livable future for youth animals and ecosystems that don't have a voice we must limit the impacts felt by communities far from here feeling the impact of choices like the ones being made tonight berlington's brand of sustainability has been very intentionally crafted almost every fellow alum or student who i know that's been enticed to come to berlington because of that brand has felt let down by the reality of greenwashing in our city and by uvm will the time ever come when our commitment to climate justice is anything beyond performative please vote no and to accept jeans amendments on the decarbonization ordinance thank you very much uh so our next speaker is 30 theo cross it crossaway rick you'll i couldn't get all of the letters there um you'll but you'll correct me yeah um my name is theo crop check great welcome i'm a member of ward five um i've lived in berlington for five years and i'm here to say uh please vote no against the mcneil with a esteem pipeline um in my lifetime i've experienced um very well there's been two two floods in my hometown and um concerned at the rate of intense climate disasters and i think they're only increasing um and the the mcneil plant does not bode well for a sustainable future um um that's i i would like to yield the rest of my time thank you very much our next speaker is lily smith to be followed by david mar sure thank you welcome i ask first that you please excuse my laryngitis i promise i'm not sick um i am a resident of berlington and more um for a longer period of time a resident of montpellier vermont i live now in ward five and i am here to express my desire that you vote no for the expansion of the mcneil plant and accept jean bergman's amendments um i am speaking about this because i um i've seen in my lifetime also that industry incorporation over and over again rushes to conclusion and the individuals among us are completely undereducated and um unaware of what's being done so purportedly in their interest uh when i was on champlain college's uh campus i was delighted to see that their science department or their science classes are are educating um the students they are about the mcneil plant and they're giving them the chance to um have an open discussion about it and what i found was that most of the students had come to the conclusion through actual study that um this doesn't make any sense that the environment does not absorb carbon at the rate um that the mcneil plant's purported science put that they post on their website claims uh and in reality uh we need to be getting everybody's attention um to have real discussion around genuine carbon neutral uh energy for these are most important are most important organizations that um are the foundation of barlington thank you thank you very much so our next speaker is david mar to be followed by nick persampieri good evening good evening thank you i'm david mar uh and i've heard it said that a lack of housing is the one only cause of homelessness well i was skeptical so i did some research but first a refresher found this plot of global temperature temperature rise versus co2 concentration of the atmosphere each dot represents the data for a single year there's over 100 dots there you can see a trend line you see the data closely following the trend line that means there's good correlation and a strong relationship between co2 concentration and temperature rise so then i looked at housing affordability i plotted uh the rate of homelessness against the percentage of median income required to pay rent for each state in the us you can see each dot represents a state and you can see a trend line okay but unlike the previous chart the data is widely scattered that shows there's a poor correlation indicating a weak relationship between the rate of homelessness and the cost of an apartment so then i looked at the rate of homelessness versus vacancy rate and i got about the same sort of a chart there's poor correlation between vacancy rate and homelessness so if lack of housing isn't a strong cause of homelessness what is i believe it's mental illness and substance use disorder so i made one more chart and i found a ranking of states from the most liberal to the most conservative and i plotted the rate of homelessness against that and you can see there is what i call a moderate correlation you can see that the conservative states have lower homeless rates than the liberal states so i would suggest that we look into what the states with lower homeless rates are doing and follow their lead thank you thank you so much uh so our next speaker is nick persampieri to be followed by uh tibian goldberg or i'm sorry evan goldberg my apologies good evening i'm nick persampieri i live in ward three i'm a recently retired environmental lawyer and i spent most of my career working to protect public health in the environment back in 2007 i represented groups who opposed the expansion of a massive coal fired power plant in western kansas there was a proposal to build two new 700 megawatt coal fired units i asked the kansas secretary of health and the environment to reject the air permit application based on the plant's climate impacts the secretary a brave man named rob bremby rejected the permit writing i believe it would be irresponsible to ignore emerging information about the contribution of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to climate change and the potential to harm our environment and health if we do nothing that was back in 2007 in western kansas this was not a popular decision in kansas and mr bremby unfortunately lost his job i moved to vermont in 2010 thinking wow i'm moving to a progressive green state and i was shocked to learn that we burn wood to generate electricity even more dismayed to learn that we claim that it's part of the solution to address climate change this needs to change mcneil can only burn things and has no long-term future please reject district energy and if you're going to pass a thermal energy ordinance vote for gene birdman's amendments thank you thank you very much so our next speaker is evan goldberg to be followed by jason vandreish i hope i have that right it's uh tevin evan with the tea tevin got it okay i thought i thought when it said pronounced like evan you meant evan but yeah this tea's not sound got it hi i'm tevin goldberg i live in word five and i'm here like many others to speak about the mcneil biomass plant expansion i'm kind of moved to see how many people care about this and also how few people are speaking in favor of it that's perhaps something to pay attention to and um you know i don't have a whole lot of new information to offer i understand that uh this room is not going to solve climate change uh the berlington city council is not going to solve climate change it's a global issue uh however we do have a giant wood burning uh steam pipe in our backyard uh that might not be the worst place to start uh it is certainly symbolic of a scientifically bankrupt theory of biomass generation as somehow reducing carbon uh it defies common sense um and uh honestly we'd be better off burning natural gas than burning uh trees we need trees um it uses fossil fuels to bring trees to the biomass plant uh it just i agree with everybody that it has no future and it would be it's a missed opportunity for berlington to be investing in genuinely uh path breaking technologies that are sustainable investing in energy efficiency and in general just trying not to keep burning carbon and putting carbon in the atmosphere when we have made such a cultural uh touchstone of being an environmental city it's just completely opposite to what we like to think of ourselves so i hope you consider that when you vote today thank you thank you very much our next speaker is jason van dreish to be followed by uh john uh john weeman and harris ron good evening hi thank you president paul and counselors my name is jason van dreish i'm a 15-year resident of the south end um i'm asking you tonight to vote against the district energy proposal but before i talk about that a little bit i want to just say a few words about what is not at stake in this vote first of all this is not about affordable reliable locally controlled electricity i'm sure everyone in this room is wholly in support of that and thanks to be ed to our locally controlled utility that is not in question no matter what the vote is tonight second it's not even about whether to keep mcneil as a key electricity source for berlington for the near to medium term mcneil will keep producing electricity regardless of the vote tonight what it is about is whether we want to invest tens of millions of dollars in dramatically extending the life of technology that every climate scientist on the planet says needs to be phased down and responsibly replaced as soon as possible so i ask you to vote no tonight on the district energy proposal and i also ask you to support councillor bergman's amendment to the carbon pollution impact fee thank you very much thank you very much our next speaker is john wyman to be followed by harris ron and robert bristow johnson good evening hi good evening um my name is john wyman and i'm here to ask you to vote no on district energy and the mcneil pipeline um i moved to the old north end about a couple years ago and there's so many things i love about berlington about vermont like a few people have said there's this great reputation and i believe responsibility for berlington to lead the way on climate issues and this strikes me as a really important time to do so um i've never made a public comment before but this felt like a special time to come out and just be present and plead you to take some time to really think about this um i know it's a complicated issue and there's a lot of stats being thrown out from both sides but it's certain that 20 years from now where the climate emergency is only going to be worse and we'll be looking back at this pivotal point either as a moment where we took a pause and found a better solution or a time where we missed an opportunity so please vote no on district energy thank you thank you very much our next speaker is harris ron to be followed by robert bristow johnson and lina greenberg good evening hello uh my name is harris ron i'm a just got my berlington electric bill today so i'm a long-term resident of berlington uh and i urge you to i'm urging you to support the mcneil plan in general and the district energy plan specifically uh i'm also a forester that works um in northern vermont so i've shipped a lot of wood to mcneil and uh it's unfortunate that there's not like a you know one or two words slow in to talk about how you know forestry can be sustainable um i can give you some examples of uh you know uh harvest that i've done you know thinning out some hardwoods that allows the other trees to grow and and new trees to come in and become established uh trees you know they're a renewable resource yes we cut them and they grow back and the ones that are remaining grow uh faster uh so that's one example um another would be of a uh low quality pine stand that's been there for a long time and and it's all diseased and weeviled and uh if um you know there's a nice uh cohort of hardwoods coming up underneath it it just makes sense to take those pine but the hardwoods uh occupy that site and use it much better in terms of carbon sequestration and storage and wildlife and uh you know water and there's so many benefits so um uh i guess that's my emphasis is you know properly managed forests are a renewable resource the ultimate renewable resource uh and i wish there was a you know solution an alternative uh to the hospital um heating and you know power systems but uh they need steam that's you know uh heat pumps aren't going to do it and solar panels aren't going to do it that's what they need so okay thank you thank you very much our next speaker is Robert Bristow Johnson to be followed by Lena Greenberg and uh Steven Chase good evening right so um i just want to um refute the notion that burning wood is as bad as burn or burning natural gas or anything that comes out of the ground is um no worse than ours better than burning wood um what what has happened in the last billion years a very minute fraction of the trees that were growing and and taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere very small fraction ended up becoming sequestered in the ground and eventually got squished into coal and cooked into oil and then in 200 years we're sucking that all up and putting it back out into the atmosphere and that's a problem what took nature 200 million years to put in the ground we're taking out in 200 years but that's not the same as what happens when you take um wood that's uh produced now at at this time and burning it either way that carbon dioxide is going back in the atmosphere and so i don't think that you know we can make the case about nitrous oxide we can make the case about um carbon monoxide we can make the case about particulate matter um but the the carbon climate change argument isn't isn't really uh an argument that works um and i don't know if the mcneal plant is uh any good i mean it's old i i know that there's a lot of old awful technology that works worse than it would be if it was just torn down and replaced but i don't know that um i also know that there's an economy of scale that we don't exactly have here in burlington the mcneal plant is pretty small and we're kind of a small city and there's a lot of pipe going in between to to haul that heat that and it's not that hot anyway um so i'm not convinced that this is a good idea but i just want to debunk that that climate change argument right thank you very much so our next speaker is lina goldberg to be followed by uh i believe it's maybe steven she she chai's i'm not sure um lina good evening hi thanks for having me thanks for being here my name is lina greenberg i live in the king maple neighborhood um and when i first started learning about the information blockade of city counselors by bed i was really disappointed there are so many things i'm equipped to do in service of my community but proposing an alternative energy system is not one of them um then i met a concerned group of vermonters who have gone out of their way to collate information and scour dense studies and peer through the smoke screen from bed it was i opening to learn from people unencumbered by the will of an electric department and a city government that seem more interested in throwing festivals about net zero which is a term and a fake climate goal invented by the fossil fuel industry then genuinely reducing emissions when i first learned about mcneal i needed convincing that burning wood was less efficient than burning methane gas but i got thoroughly convinced many of the people in this audience have met with members of the council to share what we've learned building on the tuc symposium in june and many many of the people in this audience are on bed's payroll right now which is worth keeping in mind i know that many of you have fallen prey to the false notion that calling biomass renewable energy and building this pipeline is the best way for us to reduce emissions if this was the 90s and we are at the first global climate talks i might understand but it's 2023 and the clock is ticking now that i've learned about mcneal and been a part of the movement to spread the word i know that the era of burling tonians idly looking at that smokestack and wondering what it is has ended we know that mcneal is the largest stationary source of emissions in the state and that sacrifices forests and belches particulate matter that harms our children no matter what shiny presentations from bed say we are not going to forget this anytime soon and we are not going anywhere thank you very much thank you very much our next speaker is uh steven cheese cheese you'll you'll correct me i couldn't get the last three letters steven cheese like leaning tower of cheese okay thank you hi i'm steven cheese a resident of ward one soon to be ward eight and i'm here to join my fellow humans who've been requesting uh to vote no on the expansion of the mcneal plant and the steam pipeline i think a lot of things have already been said that i'll just yes i am that right now saying yes i agree with all those things said i also encourage all of you to vote to amend the building decarbonization ordinance to exclude polluting energy systems like mcneal and other uh not renewable uh energy sources that's all i have to say so thank you and i yield the rest of my time great thank you so much and my apologies for the spell at the the last name um all right so the next speaker is um has put out julie mesuka and leaf torana i don't know if you wanted to speak for together um okay sure take your time good evening hi uh leaf and i co-wrote this statement so we're hoping for the four minutes uh they wanted to be here but it's also trans day of remembrance and they wanted to spend some time mourning the dead instead of dealing with the trans folks that often come and speak here so if everyone wanted to want to just take a moment to remember some of our fallen friends i know they would appreciate that my name is julie mesuga and i am the former co-director of 350 vermont and i have spent the past few years working toward becoming a senior researcher for global energy monitor at jam we research energy systems all over the world and have created the most comprehensive and authoritative open source data sets on energy in the world as well as provide analysis the data is used by the united nations the i e a news organizations governments and the industry itself i have also spent years working with grassroots groups to successfully prevent the build out of fracked gas and coal infrastructure national nationally all of that to say i am very qualified to tell you that biofuels are a mistake gem will not consider biofuels renewable so that we don't encourage their use burlington is burning trees and methane from landfills and it's hardly different from burning fossil fuels from a technological standpoint there's very little difference between fossil fuel powered energy plants and biomass plants like mcneil you're running all the same equipment that you do at coal plants and in fact biofuels are often co-fired or even converted to coal plants globally you're burning a fuel and releasing carbon and methane actually biomass is in is needed in biomass is needed in proportion more is needed in proportion to coal to achieve an equivalent output which results in poor fuel economy as a city we already said goodbye to coal with the retirement of the moran plant decades ago and it's time to say goodbye to the even less efficient and deeply aged biomass infrastructure on top of this 10 to 20 percent of our energy bills here in burlington are already used to subsidize fossil fuel projects due to our position in iso new england now can i keep going with leafs time i mean you're here for your your your here is yourself i've had this in the past i'm sorry what i've i've been able to use okay please go ahead now we need to address vermont gases so-called renewable natural gas due to opposition and economics vermont gas has been unable to build more fracked gas pipelines to appear more environmentally friendly the company has recently been injecting so-called renewable natural gas into the pipeline system two percent of the gas in the pipeline and it's largely coming from a landfill in kubek so we are paying tariffs on canadian trash that really just perpetuates our use of fracked gas 98 fracked gas being labeled as green the proposed uses of rng not only require vast imports but subject us all to the incredibly volatile fuel markets again i track all of these things for a living burlington at its peak requires around 63 megawatts of power for her 40 000-ditch residence which while that might seem small entire countries with far less economic resources and populations of millions of people not only get by on less but are building their grids with fossil fuel and biomass phaseouts in mind i see entire towns that embrace true renewables and subsidize their citizens directly instead of the other way around please accept councillor bergman's amendments and say no to the biofilm thank thank you so much our next speaker is dan castrogano um i don't know if this person is a burlington resident there's just a name uh it looks like mere mary an are you a burlington resident great thank you so much uh so we'll start with dan and then go to you mary an hi city council i'm dan castrogano i live in ward four um a couple days ago we crossed two degrees celsius of global heating for the first time since the industrial revolution which should be a global mobilization because of the climate emergency um i come here to tell you to vote no for the mcneil expansion and to adopt genes ordinance changes um the question really is which side are you on and sort of hearing what people who are here this is an appeal to authority argument we've got our utility our public utility that green washes and says this is a good thing we've got the forestry industry the logging industry the biomass industry and the fossil fuel industry who wrote this and are saying that this is a good thing and on the other side we have actual scientists and doctors and just normal people who are opposing this so please don't listen to corporate interests and please vote with science um and no matter what happens we're coming after mcneil um we're seeing through the greenwashing and the smoke screen and we're going to shut it down one way or another because it makes climate change worse um so know that that's going to keep happening i know that there are several people in this room who are running for election whether that's for city council or for mayor know that the climate folks are here and watching um and i just wanted to let you know please vote no on the mcneil expansion and we need to stop burning things in burlington and stop greenwashing thank you so our next speaker is marianne to be followed by uh jody woase woose good evening hi i'm here and from word seven um i'm here to talk about how shocking it is time and time again to watch this body silence the people in this community who do not support transgender ideology you model hate and fear i'm thinking about the mayor and the trans mob that screamed the woman out of the library who tried to meet to discuss how transgenderism affects women instead of upholding their free speech rights the mayor dismissed them with everyone is welcome here i'm thinking also about the mayor when he allowed the trans person who came to the wednesday meeting last week with every intention to hijack it and was allowed to do so um because the person is trans i'm thinking about your hateful and punitive trans resolution i'm thinking about the hateful email that went out for the mob to protest the detransitioner speaking at regents it started with an anti trans hate group the shocking thing is that it came from a burlington church i immediately made the connection to the hate you model i'm thinking about the council chair not allowing the the person christopher felger his two minutes to speak because the trans mob took up his time heckling him i could go on i'm thinking about councillor trevers in the same meeting use the words we're not we're not gonna we're not gonna do that what we are you're speaking directly to me please do not speak about anyone else at this table silence me i've had enough of it well i'm sorry but those are the rules his words were using what we are trying to that is that we're not going to talk about other city councillors and what they have said or not said please don't do that silence me again i'm sick of it what are you trying to accomplish here because contrary to what you may believe about your behavior is neither inclusive nor deserving of respect i am deeply troubled about it in fact the person who just spoke thank you thank you so much thank you so much well i am i am sorry this is typical of your behavior thank you thank you so much thank you so much our next speaker please stop our next speaker is jody woose to be followed by louise brill jody woose ward two i don't like it's very difficult to follow that i wasn't planning on speaking tonight i was planning to be a body in support of the vermont stop vermont biomass but i read a post in front porch forum today that indicated that my ward two councillor has changed his mind and is going to vote in favor i was shocked his rationale his reasoning had to do with extracting concessions across the board from bed from vermont gas from the medical center all which were awesome but all of which were things that they should be doing anyway they're not things that then enable a positive vote for district energy i now believe we move beyond the science and we're in the realm of the politicians the fossil fuel industry and the power brokers in our city that is unfortunate that is beyond unfortunate we're in a climate catastrophe we need to have acted 20 years ago 10 years ago last year certainly certainly tonight so i would urge you to vote against district energy against the mcneil plan it is a mistake for the city of burlington and it just feeds into the fossil fuel industry's interests in our community i'd like to say one more thing and that is that i attended the working session a few weeks back where vermont gas burlington electric and the university medical center provided their rationale this was the working session not hearing from other people and i was shocked when the medical center essentially threatened the city council saying that if their energy needs were not met presumably by district energy then all future expansion would happen outside of the city that was a threat by a corporate citizen in our community it's shocking that that happened thank you very much thank you very much our next speaker is louise brill to be followed by liz curry good evening my name is louise brill 14 year resident of ward 3 i'm a senior 77 years old i live in the backyard of mcneil all summer the air quality index which is what i want to talk to you about was very high due to forest fires they said well mcneil's emissions also raise the air quality index of the air that all of us breathe in burlington and i'm very concerned about that also the waterfront is a huge economic driver for burlington if we poison the air in the waterfront in particular all the fancy yachts that come down from canada and spend money in burlington are going to stop doing that and we need to think about the economic impact of keeping mcneil burning on the waterfront that is the gateway to burlington this is a really dumb idea i hope you can find the courage to vote no against the moneyed interests that are supporting this it's hard to go against i know money runs politics i know you all know that you're politicians but i thank you for listening to me and i hope you vote no thank you very much our next speaker is liz curry to be followed by jack tiano good evening liz good evening thank you president paul thank you counselors for sitting through another long night of public comments for those of you who are inclined to support the district energy project thank you your support will allow burlington's electric rates to continue being the lowest in vermont which is critical for low income households and critical for a just transition to reach our electrification goals it will allow the medical center to avoid increased use of natural gas the extensive heating infrastructure at the hospital runs on steam which can't use low-temperature water produced by geothermal it will allow many of uvm's buildings to switch off of natural gas to use district energy it will allow the mcneil plant to run more efficiently it will allow vermont sustainable forest to continue preserving our working landscape which prevents economic pressure on forest owners to sell their land for development more than half of our electricity supply comes from out of state and the 2019 article conservation law foundation got it right when they said isa new england's gas friendly analysis deepens the region's reliance on fracked gas clf is right vermont's natural gas comes from fracking in canada which causes air pollution water pollution noise pollution and seismic activity it has broken eight treaties with 39 indigenous communities which are being violated by fracking it also fracking also releases methane which is a greenhouse gas with 28 times the global warming impact of carbon dioxide so thank you for decreasing our community's reliance on fracked gas and for recognizing there's not another technological solution for the hospital at this time thank you for ensuring that burlington has a just transition to a clean energy future thank you very much our next speaker is jack tiano to be followed by michael long and karen long good evening hello bit of a topic change my name is jack tiano ward five so i i know there's a big controversial decision on the agenda tonight but i wanted to take a moment to speak to a public safety issue that will probably never feel like an emergency but will most likely cost lives over the coming years and that public safety issue is the ever increasing size weight speed and recklessness of private motor vehicles i've been a daily pedestrian and occasional cyclist in the city for a little over 12 years now it is becoming increasingly difficult for me to leave my apartment on foot without having a truly dangerous and sometimes life-threatening interaction with a car even in the in the past month alone i've had several interactions where my explicit vigilance saved me from injury in situations where i had full right of way all of the variables that lead to pedestrian and cyclist fatalities are moving in the wrong direction nationally and without a course correction these dice rolls will begin ending in tragedy more frequently burlington as a city can't do anything about the preferences of american consumers for unnecessarily large trucks or the trend of filling modern cars with large touchscreen tablets but it can and must seriously consider its responsibilities to shape the built environment to prevent dangerous situations from being possible in the first place as a member of the burlington walk by council's coordinating committee i've stepped up to be a representative on the slowly emerging vision zero task force which will hopefully begin to provide guidance on what needs to happen to maintain a city with zero pedestrian deaths but it also requires the city council to continue standing up for safe infrastructure on your deliberative agenda tonight you'll be reviewing amendments to the main street redesign contracts that cuts key protected bike infrastructure between south monoski and south union in order to save costs there's always an excuse this time we're saying that we'll just defer until the gateway block renovation but i'll remind you that union street itself never ended up getting the permanent protected lane it was supposed to have a few weeks ago my friend's roommate was hit on their bike on east avenue sent to the hospital with broken ribs in a concussion but they survived and so it's not a news story but there are life and death consequences for a difference to the absolute convenience of cars in burlington thank you thank you very much our next speaker is michael long to be followed by karen long and then todd lecroy good evening bd is hard selling their pipeline as if it's a stairway to heaven but more objective observers committed to combating global warming say no this project may be good for bd but it is not good for the community for vermont or for the earth sometimes it's brilliant to be bold and other times it's foolish it's always wise to know the difference six years ago a big-time developer had a bold plan to redevelop our downtown mall this bold plan was a fiasco and it turned burlington from the regional economic leader to a runner-up behind wunuski in south burlington oge the homegrown church street anchor that flourished while national brand named department stores floundered is soon downsizing 40 percent and calling the impact of the pit at the or the gaping chasm as a major reason the pit was a big mistake as we all likely recognize now the plan for a miles long steam pipe from the interval to the hilltop would be another big mistake clearly more foolish than bold a new report paints a damning picture of vermont's contribution to climate change and its lack of progress in reducing emissions double doubling down on biomass in this context is senseless and it would be surprising if uvm's medical center were to sign on there's no honor in giving up fossil fuels to instead burn wood that's as dirty as coal biomass is an obsolete and ecotoxic technology neighboring states have recognized and codified this for mont should too the mcneil plant is an inefficient behemoth that for 40 years has been wasting the excess heat this project seeks to harness the steam pipe may have been a good idea 40 years ago it would be nothing but an albatross now thank you thank you very much our next speaker is karen long to be followed by todd lecroy and then uh gray delante good evening hi there so i noticed michael was kind of going in and out so do i go like this i guess okay so the bed pipeline vote should be postponed because there are more questions than answers we will have a very different council in a few months and a new mayor this decision should be made by people who will be leading our city to the future and global warming should be our number one concern we're learning new information every day but not from bed i just read that mcneil loses millions of dollars each year bed recently ran out of money for project design and engineering for this district heat or pipeline and they asked to divert five hundred thousand dollars from an account earmark for rate payer equity program if bed cannot work within their budget for planning how will they be when building a pipeline from the intervail to the medical center i have listened to daren springer's at meetings and he never said bed rate payers would have to pay six hundred and sixty five thousand dollars per year to assist in the conversion of the medical center from natural gas to steam heat how many years would we be obligated to pay this fee how much has bed spent on planning this project the most baffling question is why wasn't mcneil shut down long ago if it's losing money and polluting the air more than less costly alternatives and i will say another person pointed this out most of people who do speak in favor of this are either on the payroll for bed or selling wood to mcneil so please vote no we are all old but you vote this ahead and you have to think of the younger children that are growing up in burlington thank you very much so our next speaker is todd lecroy to be followed by greg delanti um and ross uh freedom good evening environmentally we've already hit the point of no return sadly nobody wants to actually talk about that um twelve years ago today was the occupy wall street Thanksgiving anniversary this is the anniversary of our Thanksgiving dinner it was our send-off as it ended after the man shot himself right here in the park now 12 years later i uh i started occupy wall street because i had been tortured and beaten by the police burlington police and i used to be a big advocate of them and um today i'm here to inform you that um we no longer live in a democracy that um i am being persecuted for doing nothing wrong just speaking for police reform here consistently for the last few years and um today i had um a very disturbing experience in court where i experienced that democracy does not exist and that you will get persecuted for saying stuff i want you to look around the country and want you to recognize that half of this country looks like gaza before they started bombing it i want you to recognize that their policies around the environment treat us all like palestinians and i want you to recognize that they don't care about the hostages they don't care about the palestinians they don't care about our children these people in this country in charge republican democrats both parties have failed us for decades i grew up watching them promise us solutions year after year decade after decade and they just keep pretending like they have solutions well i'm telling you that they have now criminalized caring and speaking out and i am an example of it thank you very much our next speaker is greg dilanti to be followed by ross predum i hope i have that name right have your name right hi um you you've heard me on this before but um i i'm it'll be sharp i won't say i won't go the three minutes i'd say but um i fold my son today who was was born in the hospital uh 22 now and i told him i was coming down and he was pleased and he says speak for me as well so i'm speaking for my son dan dilanti as well as myself greg dilanti um please there are other cleaner options to gas and wood burning to build what's called an improvement of mcneil generating station is now one but many steps backwards and for the future for future generations and for living creatures and certainly and certainly not a step forward and we must act now to stop carbon emissions um and even financially in the long run i think this will be more viable though i know the political system is not made for long term changes because it's harder for you to make changes because you have you want to get in the next time and i understand that but but you might take into account uh the future beyond when you're in office and can change things and stop carbon emissions going into the i will also say i ride my bike everywhere i gave up my car 10 years ago um i have solar on my roof in barlington and i cycle sorry i i did civil disobedience outside the white house with bill mckibben um and got arrested outside the white house i i i'm not just here tonight it's a constant worry for me as a single person as a person and for all the people i love and for all the people who who are yet to be born and for all the animals and plants i am against i'm afraid there are other options thank you very much uh so our next speaker is ross predim and then we will be going to uh those burlington residents that are joining us online uh evening i am a fifth generation vermonter 10-year resident of of burlington i have been a staff scientist for burlington electric now for six years and i just want to say that i'm proud of the work that we do at mcneil and i believe in burlington electric thank you thank you very much uh so we will uh go to those that are joining us online before we do i just want to acknowledge that um since we started public forum uh enduring public forum not only do we have counselors grant and king joining us and mayor weinberger by zoom we also are joined by counselor high tower and counselor travers uh if we can put up the clock and then we'll go to those who are joining us online the first of which is kathryn bach and uh kathryn i have am not able to find you online um you want to use the raise hand function will come back to you the next is ben fowler and ben i have found you and um okay there is someone who's raising their hand but i'm not sure if this is the is the correct person so there is someone who i've just enabled your microphone is this uh kathryn bach i guess so can you hear me uh yes we can just hear you it's a little bit quiet okay this is kathryn bach i'm burlington resident from ward one i'm presently on the train from vc where i joined hundreds of advocates from across the country to lobby for peace you can imagine our excitement when we were in center to welch's office and his staff looked at her phone and said beccabella just came out in favor of a ceasefire in doze war has terrible human costs but it's also disastrous for the environment i think people have said pretty much everything i was going to say but i'm also um want to urge you to adopt the amendment that gene bird men made for the vote on the heating ordinance and to vote against the district energy and then i would like to share a free indian prophecy a proverb with you only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will you realize that we cannot eat money thank you i will yield the rest of my time thank you very much uh the next speaker is ben fowler and ben i have found you and enabled your microphone you should be able to speak now uh ben you're good and just sorry about that can you remember yes we can hear you now thanks hi um thank you president paul councilors for your work my name is ben fowler i live in ward seven i have two small kids i'm a mechanical engineer and energy efficiency consultant for hospitals and other large commercial buildings my life's work has been to tackle climate change and reduce energy use both professionally and in my personal life i'm here to express my support for the district energy project this project addresses a very challenging reality our hospital like almost every hospital in the country depends on high temperature scene it's not a candidate for quick conversion to geothermal even if such a system could be quickly built most of the heating systems in every building at uvm medical center down to equipment in each room that provides heating would need to be essentially thrown away this has incredible implications for embodied carbon and no one on the opposition to this project is evaluating comprehensively that implication this project gives the hospital and gives the city time to do the careful work that makes this a rational and careful decision that takes all aspects of the project into account including how the hospital would even transition at the same time we have McNeill which already exists it exists and we're not talking about building new power plant we have an opportunity to capture heat there and increase the plant's efficiency by 19 percent relative to its current efficiency level that's a big amount and reduce emissions in the city by 16 percent and not change and not increase NOx or pm 2.5 the plant will result in the plant will result in the savings of 35 million bts per hour which is equivalent of a ymca swimming pool per hour full full of fracked natural gas we need to make this choice to allow burlington to move forward please support the project thank you very much i'm ben the person who is just him just behind you in the queue is uh is your son is he with you so i don't see him in my life he signed off thank you though okay all right thank you uh so our next um we're getting very close to uh to the 90 minute mark there's one more person that can speak and then we'll have to go to a a vote the next speaker is uh andy mcclay and andy i have found you and enabled your microphone you should be able to speak now great can everybody hear me yes we can awesome thank you so much i'm andy mcclay longtime resident of burlington vermont ward four lakewood neighborhood um this past weekend uh our family as well as several others were victims of the ongoing blight and graffiti problem that is happening in burlington um we're in a crisis right now and i think that everybody knows that um i would encourage the city council to look very hard at the burlington safety letter that uh andy voda and jane nodell have drafted i think that there are a lot of good solutions there i think that we also have to uh as community members say what is important to us in burlington there are you know several crown jewels that we have here in the city that currently are not safe to uh you know um frequent one of those being uh you know right outside the winter market that uh that the mayor was promoting we're going to go there but if you stand there between lunegs and city hall for more than 30 seconds you will watch open air drug use happening all day long it's really exhausting as a burlington resident and i just want to say you know as we sit here in this meeting right now there are unconfirmed reports of another shooting outside the roxy we need help in burlington uh please consider greatly um you know looking into this resolution and ask for help we need it thank you very much so we are uh just at the 90 minutes and uh there are nine people who are burlington residents who are remain who wish to speak online and there was one person who registered after who wishes to speak on speak in person so we have 10 burlington residents that wish to the wish to be heard this evening we also have 15 non-burlington residents some who are here in person and four of whom are online uh so with that uh what we now need to do for those of you who aren't aware of our rules we do have a rule that uh we we allow public forum for 90 minutes after we get to 90 minutes we have to then go and make a motion to extend public forum um and that will be done by the council so again there are 10 burlington residents who wish to speak and there are 15 more uh non-burlington residents who wish to speak uh councilor McGee and if you and my apologies if we could put up just take the timer down for a minute so that we can see everyone that would be helpful my apologies go ahead thank you president paul i would move that we suspend our rules to hear from the rest of the folks in attendance who wish to speak during public forum am i soaking that okay um so that means that there are 25 people uh who remain to speak um that would be one more hour of public forum right so there is a first and a second um that is i believe a debatable issue is that correct yes it is not debatable okay so who we have joining us as we have uh councilor king we have councilor grant we have councilor hightower and councillor travers in addition to those of us who are here in person that means that we would then need to just go to a vote is that correct okay um so why don't uh why don't we do that um since i'm not sure that that will be unanimous why don't we do that by roll um lori if you could call the roll for us no yes yes we online can't hear lori so yeah we can't hear lori yes councillor hightower councillor hightower i'm sorry councillor king councillor mickey yes councillor shannon no councillor travers yes city council president paul yes eyes two nays one absent okay we will continue with uh we will put the timer back up and we will continue um with those people who are joining us online and then uh we will come back to the one person who we unfortunately missed um uh who is joining us in person a burlington resident the next um the next speaker is jack hanson and jack i have found you and enabled your microphone please go ahead great thank you i'm jack hanson i live downtown on college street more date i'm the former city councillor for the east district and i run a um nonprofit called run on climate that focuses focuses on municipal climate policy as far as mcneil i would echo i think what one or two others said which is all all the good things that came out in negotiation around reducing emissions at mcneil um can be done without the pipeline and and i think should be done without the pipeline i don't think there's anything on the merits that i can really say at this point um that hasn't already been said that could convince someone to change their mind i guess my only appeal to you all and my only plea to you all is that you just take more time to consider this and this is a decision that um it's extremely complicated i supported it for the entire time that i was on city council and before then ultimately ended up changing my mind we've there's numerous people who've spent years and decades supporting the steam pipeline who have since opposed it um i've never heard of someone who opposed it you know switching over to support it and so i think the more information that folks can gather the more time that folks can take there's a chance you might change your perspective and this is a decade's long decision so i encourage you to take the extra time to do that especially given that the hospital has not yet um committed as far as the ordinance goes i've written to you extensively on this i think the way that the ordinance is currently written is far weaker than what any other city has done around regulating existing buildings and would be a setback nationally as other communities are looking for models and i would you know are going to look at what burlington does and may make the mistake may copy some of the mistakes that we're making so please pass gene's amendments or reject it outright or take more time on the ordinance thank you thank you very much our next speaker is rye Sherman and rye i'm unable to find you our next speaker is chris may and chris i have found you and enabled your microphone you should be able to speak now thank you to the city council and thank you for extending our time for public comment tonight my name is chris may and i live in word two i'm the parent of a two-year-old and i think a lot about what i want the future of the planet and of burlington to look like for her in 20 years or 50 years to me the two climate issues facing the council tonight the question of whether to expand the mcneil plant and how to implement the heating ordinance are about momentum when we invest more now in an aging polluting facility or if we incentivize polluting energy sources for our heating that makes it even tougher for us to make the larger changes that we need right now in non-polluting sources of energy i like to urge the city council to vote no on the steam pipeline and to vote yes to council councilor bergman's amendments to the renewable heating ordinance thank you thank you very much our next speaker is c green and i have found you and enabled your microphone you should be able to speak now hello my name is c green i'm a ward two resident and a trans and non-binary person i don't have more information to share other than what people have already said tonight but i wanted to join others and asking the city council to reject the steam pipeline and to pass the amendments proposed by councilor bergman i was one of the people who voted last time i voted to for the for the tax for the um for the carbon tax amendment and as someone who cares about the issue and is trying to return to looking for what my council is doing on the issue i wanted to name that this is that this is what i'm asking you to do as a constituent um i am someone who will be affected by climate change in the coming years and like the person who spoke before me just said i think the momentum to make it easier to move away from polluting sources of energy is the right one thank you for your time i yield the rest of mine great thank you very much um our next speaker uh is sharon busher and sharon i found you and enabled your microphone you should be able to speak now i guess good evening president paul my focus is tonight on downtown businesses and you know the adage actions speak louder than words i've been looking at what is being proposed for free parking downtown during the holiday season which is two hours on friday and saturday i asked at the board of finance to have the mayor look to see if he could help dpw because it's funded through them expand those hours but that hasn't happened so i think if people are really concerned about businesses downtown you need to take action and you need to remove barriers that are present and one of them is to pay for parking so i don't understand why that barrier isn't being looked at seriously the other thing is that i did ask some businesses if church street marketplace had looked to see if there needed to be their own security system because safety is another factor and if we don't have enough people on the police force and there are issues with with policing i guess from the council still i think that maybe we need to figure another way to provide safety for the people that are shopping but also for the stores that continue to get merchandise stolen and then the damage that was done to that one banana standard i guess that's the name of it i've never been there but anyways broken into twice during the week one weekend so i really want to protect them i don't want to lose any more businesses but i really need the council to take some action and not just it can't just be utter words thank you thank you very much our next speaker is daniel jordan and uh daniel i have found you and enabled your microphone you should be able to speak now great thanks thank you to the city council for extending our time so i'm daniel jordan i've devoted the last five years of my career in engineering to driving down the carbon emissions of the built environment i'm in the old north end in word two and i can see mcneil from my front yard so i acknowledge that biomass emissions out the stack are as bad for the environment as fossil fuel emissions however despite all that i support retrofitting mcneil to supply district heat from the waste heat already being generated when the plant runs to make electricity that heat is currently being wasted those emissions are already being emitted if we harness that waste heat we have a chance to offset actual natural gas emissions being used by the hospital that's what the issue is about tonight it's not really just about district energy it's about a technology called chp which means combined heat and power so i respect the view that we need to find better ways to make renewable energy and i totally agree we need better solutions to fight climate change but the fact is we simply do not have the technology today to deliver clean energy on cold winter nights when the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing much less to a hospital with very specific high temperature requirements we're nowhere near ready for the battery investment that would be needed i also want to note that in vermont geothermal consumes electricity in vermont we don't have the natural resources for geothermal electricity production so a vote against the mcneil waste heat pipeline would be furthering vermont's unfortunate legacy of nimbyism because we'll be relying on electricity generated out of state by largely natural gas and fuel oil which is used for electricity during cold winter nights so our electricity is not yet fully carbon free the mcneil proposal represents real carbon emissions reductions it is not perfect but it is the lesser of two evils a vote no is a vote yes for natural gas so please vote based on pragmatism thank you thank you very much our next speaker is maryk broderick and maryk i have found you and enabled your microphone you should be able to speak now awesome uh thank you so i'm here today as a resident of burlington in ward eight for the past two and a half years to ask the city council to vote no on the pipeline project and yes to gene bergman's amendments the fact that we're looking at this as yet again a lesser of two evils solution to the climate crisis that is very real and happening now is a slap in the face to all residents of burlington it shows a lack of dedication from city government utilities and uvm uvm mc in their commitment to finding permanent solutions to the climate crisis not band aids permanent solutions i echo the sentiments of my fellow burlingtonians in calling for actual solutions actual plans to end this crisis and not just place these intermediate solutions that we've been having this entire time burlingtonians are done with it we're start we're seeing the effects now this the flooding all of it it's because we're not acting fully we're stopping halfway and it's time to stop i yield my time thank you very much our next speaker is andy simon and andy i'm unable to find you um if you can use the raise hand function the next speaker is kaleb green and kaleb i am unable to find you either um what we will do now is go return to con toys there is one person in burlington resident who wish to speak and that person is jen green thank you good evening my name is jennifer green and i work for the city of burlington my title is director of sustainability and workforce development and i support our transition away from fossil fuels i'm also here in support of districting specifically in mcneil more generally first i want to recognize that while not perfect mcneil offers us an opportunity to reduce commercial fossil fuel use by 16 percent in the city it's unprecedented to have a technology available to us today now to meet that kind of fossil fossil fuel reduction i also want to remind all of us that in 2018 burlington solicited synapse energy economics to help us draft a roadmap away from fossil fuels districting was identified as one of four key pillars required for success the roadmap was approved by the city council in 2019 i also want to acknowledge that while mcneil isn't perfect no energy system is mcneil supports working lands and high paying jobs today and into the future it helps to ensure that private farms and and forest lands are healthy and well managed mcneil is also a reliable dispatchable source of electricity that can be deployed 24 seven to meet our energy needs people ask about solar and wind and why we can't use solar or wind to replace mcneil or to use up with the hospital to reduce its load until battery storage technology improves and prices drop solar cannot be a viable alternative to the hospital's electric needs folks also ask about geothermal and while geothermal can prospectively meet a building or campuses heating or cooling load geothermal cannot produce the required degree of electricity needed by the hospital furthermore we're not locked into using biomass as the system's primary source of energy i'll leave it at that thank you thank you very much so we'll continue with non-burlington residents who are joining us in person the first of which is zak porter to be followed by daniel betton good evening thank you counselors for your attention to all of these speakers tonight i know it takes a lot of concentration we really appreciate the time and attention you're giving this issue i'm the executive director of standing trees we're a new england wide a nonprofit organization working to protect and restore forests and you've heard by now all the climate forest ecology public health reasons that you could possibly hear about why biomass electricity is a bad idea to use words the words of bill mckibben forest carbon and biomass experts dr mumma and dr juliet juliet runivarga visited with you here just five months ago and and said all of those facts straight but even if you set aside all of the overwhelming scientific evidence the economics of biomass just don't make sense and you don't have to take my word for it governor sununu of the state of new hampshire is taking down biomass in that state purely on economic grounds and it's the same economics here mr sununu is not an environmental champion as i know many of you are and want to be if you just look at the economics as we've done recently in a report that you all received over the weekend mcneil is losing six to eight million dollars a year this will only get worse very likely as the policies around biomass continue to change in new england i think you all consider yourselves to be people who whose opinions evolve and grow as you learn new information i'm sure you all fancy yourselves that way and i i believe that you are um now is a chance to learn and grow bill mckibbin 20 years ago was promoting biomass today he absolutely realizes that was a mistake we are not locked into mcneil you have a choice tonight to get off of the biomass train and get on real climate solutions and i please please ask you to do just that tonight so thank you very thank you very much our next speaker is daniel betten to be followed by joanne margaret good evening good evening i come from bristol tonight to again urge you to vote no to the mcneil district energy proposal i don't have any new stories for you or new compelling evidence you've heard it all you've heard it many times before and there's just no reason why you can't vote no based on that evidence at this point it comes down to whether you're one who truly accepts the gravity of the climate situation or frankly whether you're choosing to turn your back on life itself tonight i look forward to finding out exactly what side you stand on thank you thank you very much our next speaker is joanne margaret to be followed by um james mark lee's hi i'm also i'm originally from the state of vermont i'm originally from franklin county st albin's vermont excuse me i don't know if uh any of the rest of you have been south to the montpayer area recently but it's like another world it's um the secretary of state's office is closed the attorney general's office is closed the governor's office and the pavilion is also closed i'm not certain about the lieutenant governor's office which is located in the uh state house but their post office has also been relocated now in the post office there used to be a congressional office that senator lehi's ran operated uh funded for many many years and uh since senator lehi's departure it would appear that the congressional office is no longer functional and with that the post office is entirely shuttered but with that loss of that congressional office is a loss of a substantial amount of rent that could go to the montpayer area also there are so ordinarily several jobs associated with um a congressional office it would appear that uh senator welch uh does not intend to continue that office at all uh i suggested at the time he was elected that he moved that particular office south to white river where he originates uh replacing what was a neighboring congressional office in uh ruttland ruttland county and ruttland vermont which was operated from the time he was in the house by uh senator jim republican senator jim jeffords um he operated both uh congressional offices one in white river and one in the burlington area thank you very much our next speaker is james mark lehi is to be followed by jeffrey womat uh then we will move along uh to jeffrey womat to be followed by um uh jennifer green uh there's another jennifer green that looks like maybe not um anyway jeffrey good evening good evening picture my name is jeffrey womat with the international brotherhood of electrical workers i represent about a thousand union members in vermont primarily with the utility industry i represent the employees and the members at bed and specifically with the mcneal facility i have members and employees here in the audience i also am here with in support of the management staff at bed who are also here in the audience one i would like to thank you for your service i'd like to thank you for your time and most importantly your patience and also your wisdom in pushing pushing the entities to get you what you need to make a decision tonight i have forwarded you information via email others have forwarded you information via email we've had many people come up and present their cases i'm not here to present my case i think i've already said my piece we do ask that you support district energy for many reasons many that have presented i do ask that you support district energy for the employees not only my members but the managers and utility industry is ever changing and the utilities in vermont are making huge investments in this change and people don't realize it and i think and hope that you do and i hope that you vote for district energy and i thank you for your time i know you'd love for me to talk for another six seconds but i will you yield my time thank you very much our next speaker is bob atkinson to be followed by brian forrest good evening counselors mayor and anybody else who's in the audience i come to you tonight as a resident of plainfield on unceded abnaki land i come to you as an energy coordinator for the town of plainfield i come to you as an engineer i come to you as a person who first read rachel karson back in 61 and also at the same time martin luther king was was talking at the same time so inspired at an early age when i was a freshman in high school i've sought the truth and i try to make the best decisions each day that i can to preserve life on this planet my grandchildren my grand nieces and and nephews and the rest of you sitting in this room i know falling when i see it this if you think about putting three quarters of a mile of whatever diameter pipe two two feet in diameter perhaps or larger having to insulate it having to bury it six feet in the ground and then hoping that it will still be steam when it gets to the hospital we know that steam rises but so does the hot air that comes out of rollington electric department and at this point if you would stop and just consider what's going on what you're being told the greenwashing that comes down the pike daily from everybody in the world who's trying to sell you energy if you take the 42 million dollars for example and i work in weatherization as an engineering coordinator you will find that for 7500 dollars per household the 42 million dollars would weatherize 5600 homes and that's where your money needs to be thank you very much our next speaker is brian forrest to be followed by kim kim hornin marcy good evening my name is brian forrest i'm a resident of wilson uh bedroom community in a downwind community from the mcneil plant if we want to leave a habitable earth for our children must cut through the bladder that burning 700 000 trees a year at mcneil is climate neutral darryl springer can fool himself on this issue but you counselors must think for yourselves can he make you believe this fable what is just another platform that we burn and mcneil burns it at 26 percent efficiency you think that we should invest 43 million dollars on this ancient technology one client plus an additional 13 million dollars over a 20-year lifespan of the project for the burlington district energy system to convert the medical center to steam this is not district heat is for one client who doesn't heat its buildings with steam it just needs steam for some special uses which could be used which could be more rationally handled by small local steam generators and use a more climate friendly energy source like geothermal for heating let's reject this attempt to breathe life into this dinosaur about no one is poorly thought out project work to replace mcneil an energy source that's working system with our climate goals thank you thank you very much our next speaker is kim horning marsy to be followed by marsy cas good evening thank you and thank you for the opportunity to share with you i um i brought you a 1971 comic it's famous it's pogo looking at a trashed swamp and saying we've met the enemy and it's us back in 1971 i was a high school kid fighting dbt with my high school club along with thousands of other kids and guess what the grown-ups listen to the young people and the science and no one is using dbt now i'm not going to repeat all the things i agree with jack hanson probably summarized best what i would be encouraging you to do but i do want to note two things that haven't been noted the medical center creates its own electricity with natural gas your unitarian church here in burlington has solar panels on their parking lot and far less funds than the medical center and far less parking lots so there are things the medical center can do right now to transition to better usage also vermont digger reported this summer that the excessive rainfall has ruined the logging industry spring summer and fall it was so wet no one could get in to harvest very often so when you're standing on the edge of a cliff moving backward is a positive step i encourage you to use your power to make burlington a climate center and to follow your citizens to follow the climate scientists and um not those who stand to benefit profit wise from what they tell you and i yield the rest of my time thank you uh so our next speaker is marcie cas to be followed by uh beth sigmond good evening i agree with um what a lot of previous speakers have said please say no to the expansion of mcneil um i live in williston i had both my children at the hospital maybe 35 and leave ice 25 and um i i don't know maybe you've already uh made up your mind and you know how you're gonna vote but i um i just i i love living in vermont and i would love to be proud of of um of my my state being an example of not doing the expedient solution that that seems to make sense and instead stepping back and doing what globally we all need to be doing and um and uh i would be so proud so thank you thank you very much uh so our last speaker who's joining us in conjoice is beth sigmond and then we have a couple of people left online good evening hello thanks for your waiting yeah it's okay thank you i was starting to wonder um thank you for um taking my comments i'm not a burlington resident but i believe this issue affects everyone um so i i do appreciate you allowing me to speak i am a physician at the ubm medical center i'm a cardiothoracic radiology uh i am representing myself but i'm also one of many authors on a letter that was submitted to the council today in opposition of the mcneil steam line uh deal uh proposal uh as you know as you've heard in very compelling testimony earlier tonight by at least two people we are in the midst of a rapidly unfolding health crisis due to the burning of fossil or excuse me of carbon based fuels of which biomass is one we're already experiencing terrible health impacts of climate change here in vermont which i can't enumerate in two short minutes uh we've already heard testimony to that effect i believe implementation of this project will extend the life of a plant that will contribute mill well we know this millions of tons of carbon dioxide over its projected meaning remaining life not to mention other potent greenhouse gases um we've heard uh others speak to the fact that there's still some controversy over what's more polluting this fossil fuel or that fossil fuel uh or or biomass burning the fact of the matter is if this proposal is approved and that that pipeline is built we will be backtracking and making excuses not to employ new renewable sources of energy for the coming decades i believe this is foot dragging for decades we've heard arguments like the ones that have been used to defend this project arguments about cost about which dirty energy sources at least of all evils about whose facts are more reliable meanwhile we're pumping unfathomable quantities of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere the international energy agency declared solar energy the cheapest energy source in history yet this city is poised to support spending tens of million dollars to subsidize biomass fuel burning thank you vote no thank you very much uh so we have uh we have a few people that are left um non-burlington residents that are joining us online so i'll put the timer back up the first person is uh david kressy and david i am unable to locate you um you can use the raise hand function if you're under another name um the next person is erin ahern and erin i have found you and enabled your microphone should be able to just unmute hi um my name is erin ahern i'm a student at university of vermont i'm currently on thanksgiving break but i wanted to come to this meeting and urge you to vote no on the mcneil pipeline and yes on the amendments opposed um proposed by councillor bergman um yeah as a young person who will have to live through the decisions made here i'm very concerned my life as well as the generations after mine will be affected by what you decide today as you've heard already there are many concerns that this project as well as the renewable heating ordinance will not help reduce our carbon emissions in regard to the climate i'm constantly told that my generation has has been given messes that other generations have lost us to clean up counselors today you have the ability to help us and to give us one less possible problem for the future please really take into account the voices that you've heard come out tonight and i urge you to vote against the mcneil pipeline and vote yes to the amendments um proposed by councillor bergman and if the amendments fail then to vote no to the ordinance or vote to postpone it thank you i yield the rest of my time great thank you so much our next speaker is fergus marsall marshal and uh first i've enabled your microphone you just need to unmute on your end you should be fine now to speak thank you good evening uh today on vermont public radio i happen to be listening to here and now where bill mccibbon environmental journalist and founder of 350 org was featured he stated some shocking news for the first time for one day the earth had an average temperature increase of two degrees celsius over temperatures from pre-industrial times i was quite alarmed because this wasn't supposed to be happening for two more decades john carrey u.s special presidential envoy for climate change was on next and stated that we have to do everything we can to reduce greenhouse emissions he didn't say we have to meet zero net zero requirements he said reduce emissions and the emissions continue to rise and other than a slight decrease in that rise during the covid pandemic atmospheric carbon dioxide is now 425 parts per million there is scientific consensus that we have to keep it below 150 and tonio greteris secretary general of the united nations recently was quoted saying we are on a highway to climate hell and we have our foot on the accelerator there's no doubt when it comes to the science of climate change 98 percent of the world's scientists are in consensus so why are we not listening why do we keep trying to get around this doing business as usual this scheme which is the mcneil biomass plant is doing just that and the trees that are burned emit carbon dioxide which goes up the stack into the atmosphere contributing to the worsening conditions but because the state considers burning trees net zero the emissions are not counted somewhere in the world the tree will absorb that carbon dioxide this is quite a stretch seeing that a tree takes 30 to 40 years to start sequestering this carbon and we have run out of time the magical accounting of being questioned by governments around the world soon subsidies for this type of dishonest maneuvering will cease when the installation of this thank you so much of over 40 million what will burlington do thank you thank you our next speaker is a sharyl joy lipton and sharyl i have found you and enabled your microphone hello yes you're please go ahead thank you um uh over the course of the past months there's been a lot of evidence given to you all proving that the continued burning of wood at mcneil is a bad idea you've been given scientific papers showing the results of legitimate studies you've heard from respected scientists testifying to the damage to human and environmental health including climate and biodiversity you've learned that two groups that studied mcneil specifically came to the split that studied mcneil specifically came to the conclusion independently of each other that mcneil should be phased out um you've had testimony written in verbal showing that continuing mcneil and allowing a steampipe is financially unsound and that the money could be used to do something else that is improving and not harming the environment and human health you know that burning wood at mcneil puts out more pollution causing climate change and health problems than burning fossil fuels you've had an incredible amount of legitimate scientific proof evidence and testimony that is that it's a bad idea for everyone the other side of this argument has not backed up its claims with evidence mr springer claims b e d and mcneil to be sustainable but and logging and sustainable forestry but this is untrue and just relying upon legal loopholes that aren't actual physical realities the only gain is financial for a handful of individual people and entities councilmen who support the health and welfare of people in burlington and the people and environment and the rest of vermont will vote no to this resolution mcneil is a terrible place harming health directly by polluting the air with we breathe causing climate change and decimating our biodiversity with its so-called sustainable forestry practices if this council passes the mcneil resolution it will increase greenhouse gases not decrease them you have the evidence now you should have the courage to stand up for what you know is the right thing to do please vote no to the resolution and accept councillor birdman's amendments thank you the next speaker so we have two speakers remaining the first is peter duval to be followed by nolan rogers so peter i have enabled your microphone you should be able to speak now the moment thanks for the opportunity to speak my name is peter duval and i'm resident of underhill and a green mountain tower rate payer i think you are familiar with my experience as a district energy and cogeneration project analyst having modeled the plant and the burlington citywide district energy project initially based on the mcneil cooling tower in 1992 i have a had a deep exposure to the many issues involved in uh in burlington energy projects um except first i want to say zack porter understated the subsidy that rate payers in burlington across vermont and downcountry in connecticut pay in calendar year 2019 b ed's consultant in rs counted 11 million dollars in subsidy seven million dollars from connecticut two million from burlington and two million from other vermont rate payers and that's an annual subsidy to keep the plant operating for just a bit more than half of the year but b ed is brought before the council is nothing like a district energy system the scheme should never have gotten out of the general manager's office let alone past the electric commission sliding around puc review and then to review by the time the steam transmission line and its cudgel the carbon ordinance makes it to a final reading at city council all of the information should be out in plain sight for months of review and that has not happened and for that simple reason everybody on the city council should be voting no on both issues 70 pages of documents in the latest version of the meeting agenda packet thank you is simply too much for you to absorb thank you very much uh our last speaker is uh nolan rogers and nolan i'm unable to locate you um uh there's someone has their hand up i don't know if this is the same person under emily adams uh is this you nolan yes sorry i have the wrong computer my bad it's okay it's all right go ahead thank yeah sorry thank you so much for um opening the forum for additional time i really appreciate that i just wanted to throw in another no vote for the mcneal plant i'm i live on north street and in i like that we have uh locally generated power and i really appreciate the effort to put in a steam pipeline and have the concept of district energy talked about in our area but i really don't think that putting more effort into mcneal is the right choice i was one of those people who thought it was sounded like a great idea originally but um i after attending the um meeting where we had numerous people from um i believe it was umass uh scientists who did significant studies um and also just talking through with friends it seems uh a little bit illogical i feel like if we decided collectively that mcneal was a good idea to have as a power station um for the next you know 25 years then it would really make a lot of sense but uh i don't see mcneal as being a good source of energy for our future right now it's it's quite bad um already and it's outdated so i really don't feel like further investment is a great idea for anybody um also i just want to throw another comment in for renewable energy credits i think it's a little bit it's just uh awfully convenient right now that renewable energy credits are given in favor of biomass i think once you take them out of the equation then mcneal not only loses a few million dollars but even more million dollars per year um and so once we get renewable energy credits out of the equation for biomass mcneal looks extra extra bad so um i think financially and just from an environment standpoint it's a bad deal so thank you so much thank you for having the conversation great thank you so much so uh that was the last person who had asked to speak during public forum um with that we will close public forum at 846 and continue with our meeting thank you to all of you who participated in public forum um our next item the next item on our agenda is item number four which is climate emergency reports um is there any counselor or the administration that wishes to offer a climate emergency report point of information uh yes counselor barlow is item number four is it the public health and safety emergency updates you know what you're absolutely right they usually go in the reverse order but for whatever reason they didn't you are correct so item number four is the public health and safety emergency updates so we'll go to that first if there's anyone who wishes to offer a public health and safety emergency report now would be that time um i do see all of you that are participating on zoom and will do my best to call on you when i see your hand raised um and the first one is a counselor grant to be followed by counselor mcgee and then uh mayor weinberger thank you i um wanted to provide some information based on questions um from the public and then also just a continuing issue of a lot of disinformation occurring right now um and i hope to have more information um about this so anyone who has reported an incident to our police department and believes that a case should have been sent to the state's attorney but they've never received contact from the state's attorney you have a right to try to verify if the case was submitted and if you need help with that just reach out to your city counselor um with regards to some of the arrests that we have seen around significant drug trafficking into our area due to the demand that we have uh there have been questions as to why um people might be given bail or they couldn't uh be held uh without bail well at the Vermont state level to put it as simply as possible we have certain guidelines in place about um how long someone can be held especially if um the charge isn't considered related to violence right but if you're arrested with a gun hello uh so what can we do to get some of these cases um up to the federal post we have had ATF and other federal agencies involved with some of these arrests so they're they're already there uh why can't they assist with the prosecution where they have different rules with regards to um holding people for charge at the federal so i just want to talk about there because there's been a lot of conversation in the community about that and i'm not sure if we lost you councillor grant um i no longer see you on zoom okay uh thank you so much for those thank you so much for those comments we sort of lost you for a minute there for a second um count yes i was i was done thank you okay all right uh thanks so we'll go to councillor McGee and then mayor weinberger uh thank you president paul i don't know mayor if you're planning to include this in your comments but i wanted to note that the opioid settlement advisory committee will be meeting on november 29th uh and this is the meeting where they will be discussing funding recommendations to the legislature for how to allocate um the opioid settlement monies coming into the state uh i know some folks spoke during the public comment about uh the public drug use one of the funding proposals that uh i'm strongly encouraging the settlement committee to consider is uh one million dollars for opioid uh excuse me overdose prevention centers in vermont uh h 72 which is the bill that would authorize overdose prevention centers in the state uh is moving through the house of representatives and uh has a one million dollar allocation to support the operation of overdose prevention centers uh i would encourage folks who are concerned about the current state of the crisis here in burlington the public health crisis here in burlington to contact members of the committee and encourage them to support funding for overdose prevention centers thank you thank you councillor McGee uh we will go now to mayor weinberger thank you president paul good evening everyone um i will be i'm a member on that opioid settlement committee advisory committee and we'll be attending and we'll be continuing to advocate for another important strategy that um was called out by the committee a year ago and which is the expanded access to methadone we are once again a period where methadone our oldest anti-addiction treatment drug is uh it is is is very important it is uh the best drug the best medicine for many people who are suffering from fentanyl addictions and yet um we're in a situation where there's only one place in chitinon county right now where you can access those drugs we need state to the point that we've heard in the public forum of urging partners to help the city and responding to the current crisis we need action from both the state and the federal level to expand access to lifesaving methadone and not only lifesaving but people who are getting this treatment are much less likely to engage in other problematic community activities as well this uh we have heard back we have consistently heard from the department of public health that despite having the money to the full access to two million dollars funds for expanded methadone access since may we are currently on a trajectory to where that money will not be making an impact on the ground for another 12 to 18 months i have asked repeatedly for the state to take some kind of action to accelerate that trajectory and so far there's not uh been an agreement to do that at next week's committee i will be making a new proposal for expanded um hours at our existing hub so at least we could expand access that way instead of having a facility that is quite limited in the hours today during the day that people can start treatment and receive treatment i also want to give the council the public an update on where we stand with um our efforts to address the enormous problem we're currently experiencing with unsheltered individuals this is a issue that i hear questions and concerns from burlingtonians constantly so i'd like to share the latest um when the state proposed closing the motel program um entirely last summer and evicting all 426 households in chitinon county the administration the city council the chitinon county homeless alliance and others advocated instead that we keep vulnerable populations in the motels while using the coordinated entry system uh to prioritize those households for placement and permanent housing understanding that that program did need to be wound down um that um proposal uh became law during the veto session this summer and the cca the homeless alliance has been working to make good on our commitment to prioritize the housing of people in the hotel program since and i have some updated numbers uh for you on this um since june coordinated entry has referred 140 households to rapid rehousing and permanent supportive housing and uh because of that focus the number of households in motels in chitinon county has gone down from 256 in june to 154 as of the most recent data um when the housing units become available we're able to house people very quickly uh but there are still um 109 households in the coordinated entry uh system that are on phase three housing meaning they're ready to enter housing but they can't do so because there's not a unit available so we remain in a uh frustrating time where there just simply isn't uh enough housing to um address the need at this point despite the massive effort that's going on to create more housing and more supportive housing um despite all that i do want to just remind people in terms of understanding what we're seeing on the street how can it be true that we have had all that progress while we still see tents um encampments in numerous parts of the city while we still see the level of unsheltered homelessness that we're experiencing right now 170 households in the county were not kept in the hotel program they were exited from the hotels on june 1st and that is when we saw a major jump in the number of households outside there are now 252 people that self report is being unsheltered um in october that's data we get from the community resource center and um uh we are working to address that we have a the city team is working very hard in an unprecedented way for the city to be responsible itself for opening the winter warming shelter this winter we are still on track to get that shelter open in december the hiring um and interviews for new staff positions are going well unfold and um uh we are encouraged the state has put out some new rules on how the hotel program will work for the winter as well which should uh in the coming weeks provide some relief as well thank you president paul for the chance to provide those updates thank you so much mayor wineburger uh uh councilor barlow well thank you president paul uh i would just like to note for the public item 6.16 on our consent agenda a communication from mark buchet the chair of the church street marketplace commission informing the council about a public safety resolution passed unanimously by the church street marketplace on 1115 it's another alarm being sounded another call to action about the crisis we have for businesses our general quality of life and the vibrancy of our city thank you thank you so much councilor barlow believe somebody um uh chief of chance i don't know if you have your hand up um for the next agenda item or if you usually we just have counselors and and the mayor who speak to public safety updates my hand is down okay um all right uh is there anyone else who has a public health or safety update uh seeing none we'll move on to item number five which are climate emergency reports is there anyone who wishes to offer a climate emergency report uh seeing none we will move on to item number six which is our consent agenda i would entertain a motion to move our consent agenda and take the actions indicated thank you councilor jang uh seconded by councilor mcgee is there any discussion on that item seeing none all those in favor of the motion to move the consent agenda and take the actions indicated please say aye aye aye any opposed please say no uh that motion passes which brings us to our deliberative agenda uh we have uh seven items on our deliberative agenda and we're appropriate there are uh time limits attached to each item that we've agreed by approving our agenda and we'll do the best we can to keep those time limits i just want to once again remind counselors of our five-minute rule please self monitor and be mindful of your time i will kindly interrupt you when the time is drawing very close and we just ask you to wrap up your comments and be fair so that we're fair and respectful to all of our colleagues uh the first item on our deliberative agenda is uh seven point one which is a tobacco license for high fidelity uh councilor shannon could you move that move to approve the 2023 2024 tobacco license application for high fidelity 163 church street thank you councillor shannon um seconded by uh councillor barlow uh is there any discussion on that motion uh seeing none all those in favor of the motion please say aye all right all right any opposed please say no um and councillor dordy uh do you have your hand up for well you did okay i guess you don't anymore um just want to also uh for the benefit of the public uh know that the license committee made about three city counselors does all of this work in approving all of these licenses and uh the chair of the committee is councillor shannon thank you thank you for your time and service on this committee um the next item is uh seven point two burlington fire department station alerting uh for this item i will go to councillor uh councillor mcgee for a motion thank you president paul i would move that the council approve and authorize the chief of the burlington fire department to execute a contract with bricks ink for the installation of a fire station alerting system with a maximum limiting amount of up to four hundred and thirty thousand dollars which is the contract cost plus a six point six percent contingency subject to the final review and approval of the city attorney's office thank you councillor mcgee is there a sec seconded by councillor shannon uh if there are questions uh we do have fire chief michael chance with us and the floor is open for those questions before we would go to a vote are there uh councillor mcgee i apologize you did you want the floor back i didn't say so but i would thank you um thank you uh chief lechance and dc petit for uh sticking with us uh for another late meeting it seems like y'all have items frequently when we're here late and into the evening so i ever appreciate that and i just wanted to say quickly that um this is a significant upgrade to our station alerting system and i don't know if one of you would like to speak quickly to um just how big of a difference this will make for for the members so uh i'm deputy chiefs dpt i'm happy to speak to that uh station alerting is critical to us um and getting our members out the door in a timely manner the system that we're looking to replace is out of date um it's no longer supported not under warranty the system that we're proposing that is purchased um it would allow for us to have a reliable system that ensures we receive timely notification whether we're in the station or out of the station out on the road in between uh responses so um what this does for our members is ensures that we're able to get a timely response out to those that are in need of health additionally built into this particular station alerting is what we call heart healthy station alerting so it allows for ramped audio levels as well as um um us to be able to control the way that the lighting responds so that when our our employees are awakened in the middle of the night it's not as harsh as our existing system which is very startling um and they wake up to full on bright lights so these would be a dimmer version um and it is easier on their bodies for that uh included within the station alerting is a mobile application that we will be able to utilize for the recall of our off duty personnel as well as ensuring that on duty personnel can receive alerts and notifications um for incidents that are occurring in the city um in addition to that it includes uh digital dashboards that will be located within the station so there's multiple methods by which we're able to receive call information uh minimize our what we call turnout time and uh get out the door and get the folks in need of help as quickly as possible um some of the big considerations for us with this were the longevity of this particular um station alerting system um and how quickly we were able to implement the system so uh what we found attractive with this particular vendor was that they're primarily software based we'll be using commercially available equipment that we could get from Lowe's if we had to all of that equipment that comes with the initial installation it is covered so that if something um breaks we have an issue they're covering it and then additionally as their software changes if that requires hardware changes that's covered by them as well and that was a big piece of it is uh we didn't want to get locked into something where we're stuck going with a single vendor and this allows for us to avoid that problem as well as have the uh flexibility for future expansion I'll speak a little piece to it um the there's something that's kind of near and dear to my heart with this station alerting system is an internal component um that we're putting in all of the uh weight rooms and exercise areas um I don't know if you guys remember in 2010 we lost a lieutenant at fire station two who was exercising in the basement and ended up suffering a heart attack um he did pass away from his from that injury um all of our weight rooms now will have emergency buttons in them um I don't know if it would have saved any um but it it is something where you're you're kind of never alone in the firehouse um you're able to hit that button and it sends an alert tone to the firehouse to let them know that you need help wherever you are um we're also going to have those those at the doors so if we do get a doorbell ring you will have a emergency button at the door so if you went to the door and this does happen where there is an emergency at the door um we're able to just hit a button rather than having to run to the phone and let guys know that there's there's an emergency at the door and you get a full response down to the door so little things like that uh seem kind of trivial but uh when you're living in the firehouse 24 hours a day seven days a week uh they make a big difference did you want did you have anything further no okay thanks thanks counselor McGee so are there any other counselors who wish to speak to this item or if you have any questions of uh the chief or deputy chief believe uh counselor grant you have your hand up yes please sure hi uh chief and I just had a question about this new system which I do support um you know we haven't really talked about the dispatch system in a while when when choosing this is do we have to work about how it's going to integrate with a potential new dispatch system not at all this this will integrate seamlessly with with the current dispatch system that we have we are actually in the process of upgrading dispatch um with the with the radio system project that we are uh funding with this same go bond so um the the connection to those two systems will be seamless thank you counselor grant I also want to add that this particular system actually will provide us with a level of redundancy redundancy should we experience any issues with CAD it's browser based and allows for us to actually initiate alerts and provide notifications to our members even if we are experiencing technical issues with our computer a to dispatch software that's great to know thank you thanks very much um if there are no other if there are no other counselors who have any questions or comments then we'll go to a vote um all those in favor of the motion is made by counselor McGee please say aye aye any opposed please say no uh that motion passes um uh I do see counselor Dorothy's hand up uh no I don't anymore okay um so that motion passes unanimously um that will move us on to item 7.3 which is a memorandum the co-chairs of the Joint Police Joint Committee on Police Oversight which are counselors Bergman and Travers um and this is a committee status update um counselor uh counselor Bergman uh do you wish to give us maybe a brief overview and then we'll go to questions sure so uh and you know basically I'll move to accept it the memo and place it on file and note that the there was a previous memo on the 13th meeting that we did not get to and this is an update from that and then uh let me let me take the floor back let me ask for a second and get the floor back and I'll just go through this let's get ourselves a second here uh counselor Jang uh the uh the floor is yours thank you and I see that counselor Travers is there and he updated my memo so thank you Ben for uh for the work to do that and I have to also say that uh I was out at the uh last meeting of the committee so he chaired that and the update is a result of that but for for the public uh as well as the rest of the council uh you should know that the Joint Committee on Police Oversight is made up of the Charter Change Committee and the Ordinance Committee we have met a dozen times in order to accomplish the goals of a council resolution that was adopted on February 6th of this year and there were three um overarching goals in that the first was to allow the public to have additional input and engagement on police oversight and accountability the second is to have the committee review a number of prior proposals on this issue and the third is to review and make legislative meaning charter and or ordinance proposals on the chief's authority over discipline the police commission's oversight role and the creation of a community oversight body independent from the police department and clearly this is a result of the major uh work and uh discussion that this community has had uh for now over three years the committee has tried to accomplish these goals we have a web page with a listing of and links to our meetings our minutes and key documents the memo itself which you can get through the agenda link so i won't read the whole url is on the document that is in this agenda that we will adopt in place on file and right now um given the statutory deadlines for charter changes to come and be voted on by this council in our first meeting in December we are finalizing a draft charter change it's actually a number of different um provisions uh to vote on at that meeting in December um so we can warn it for a public hearing later in january which is required by state statute um and we will do our best to post um minutes and uh the change as soon as possible um at the end of this little update i will provide you with the dates of the next meeting but just to um to summarize we are proposing or have agreed to propose the increase of the science of the police commission to nine members from seven um and to add language that the appointments should be should be for members who represent the diverse nature of the city's constituents including those from historically marginalized communities that would be in section 183 of the charter in section 184 a of the charter we're looking to expand the authority of the city council to obtain any information about the department not just financial information which is for some reason what the current charter um limits us to to the extent allowable by law um that section 184 in subsection we have agreed to um to specify that the police commission has the power to audit and monitor the functioning of the department as well as the existing um authority that is granted in that um and it's all subject to the orders and ordinances of this council and we've made that explicit um there is a new section in 184 see that outlines the chiefs and commission's powers to promulgate regulations and the process when there is not a joint agreement between them uh in 184 d the commission's authority to receive and review all civilian and internal allegations of misconduct by members of the police was made explicit this was an agreement the consensus by the committee we are and so was its authority to independently investigate any allegations of misconduct by members of the department after the chief has had the opportunity to review the allegations we are still considering and have to address the threshold that the commission would need to activate its investigative authority whether it's a majority or supermajority so that is still a live question for us in 184 e the police commission's authority to recommend a different measure of discipline than recommended by the chief and the establishment of a new independent body to resolve differences between the commission and the chief's recommendations was agreed upon we currently the most recent draft contemplates a three person body we are looking at how the body would be appointed whether by the city council or the mayor and if there should be requirements that the members should have relevant professional experience like that required for other regulatory bodies of professions i'm almost done so not to worry and i mean this is a this is this is a new statute point of information i was just wondering if we need to go all the way all and talk about all the details of the letter or should we i'm just trying to summarize briefly but if you would like me to just get to the end i'm happy to to do that i'll leave it to the president to decide we just whatever we can do to wrap things up and you know we are i will i will be glad to to wrap my part up by saying that we are meeting again on the 27th at 5 30 so that is next week and a date to be determined the first week of december and we have got a number of other issues of which are listed in the in the memo i think it's important that i went over the details for the people who are sitting in the public here who are watching and who might not have had the opportunity to read the memo so thank you everybody for your indulgence no thank you and yeah thank you very much that is that was the point of this to give a brief overview and the you know just keep in mind for the count for the council to keep in mind that this is simply a communication it's simply an update we're just waving the reading accepting the communication and waving and placing it on file unless you have specific questions at this point obviously we will have the opportunity to discuss this in much greater detail in the coming weeks if there are any if there are councillors or if the administration has comments we would go to that now councillor jang yep i just wanted to say thank you so much for the joint committee for this work i have my staff attending your meetings and the report that he's giving me is just very positive that you all working together for the right direction i appreciate that thank you thank you councillor jang are there any other councillors that have comments or or questions for the chair that would be mayor weinberger please go ahead thanks councillor paul i appreciate this update on this really important council effort going on right now since 2015 i've supported and helped implement many efforts to expand the police commission's oversight role these expansions have happened in significant part through the initiative and voluntary collaboration of our police chiefs as well as through council resolutions when the current process began i was clear that i supported it because i think it is important to codify in the charter and define further in our charter what this expanded role of the police commission should be as i also noted when this started one of the reasons i supported that is that in in addition to seeing and agreeing with the need to strengthen our disciplinary system and to build trust in the in our policing efforts through the creation of a strong citizen commission i also think we've learned in recent years that the that safeguards that guardrails are needed to ensure that our officers receive procedural justice to ensure that the work of the commission does not does not does not distract and take up too many resources within the police department to engage and i welcome this process as an opportunity to put in place those procedural justice safeguards which from my reading all citizen disciplinary bodies around the country that have real disciplinary authority as we are contemplating here they also have real safeguards to ensure that those new protocols procedures work properly as we've just heard from counsel bergman this effort it does appear is gathering real momentum a lot of work has happened in just recent weeks and i would like to get to the place where i can be fully supportive of a charter change going on the ballot this upcoming town meeting day and the administration will continue to work hard and be a good partner with the committee if the committee will accept that partnership in these critical weeks as we attempt to get to new charter language that both the council can support and that i can support and that i can encourage the public to support since this will have to go to the the voters if it gets that far i want to be clear that i don't think we're there yet though from the draft that i've just had a chance to see and review closely the details of this language really matter done wrong this charter change could actually have negative impacts on our police department and our public safety in numerous ways and that would be the opposite of what the public is demanding that we do right now as we've heard numerous times tonight already so i got right now i do not see any of the safeguards that i laid out at the beginning of the process that i thought were important to add to a charter here and i'll be watching that very closely in these closing weeks and again i will we will be you know now that there is a draft that we can publicly comment on we will be detailing these concerns a little weeks ahead but i want to just be clear now from everyone i think we've got a lot of work to do to get to this point where it is one that should go to the voters thank you mayor wineburger i don't know if there's anyone else online that has raised their hand uh counselor counselor grant and then we'll try to wrap this up and go to our next item go please go ahead okay um i need to focus because i'm pretty outraged by some of the statements that was just said uh there continues to be a denial of our situation here in burlington and our situation here in burlington is in fact that we have had and have some of the same problems in our beloved city that we have seen nationally we just resolved after years of the city fighting it uh did a 750 thousand dollar settlement we have another case where we're waiting for the result of the city's appeal you know for years fighting so we keep pretending like we don't have some of these issues and then we don't take an honest look at how we work to repair some of the issues around community distrust and criticism for our department now it has been said over and over again by our officers who have left by the officers who have stayed is that there is a lack of feeling of appreciation but on the part of the department we need to be seeing more work toward helping to fix that it did not happen in effect now i've been watching this committee and they've been very patient with some of my comments because some of the members of committee have quite frankly struggled because they've not been part of these many conversations that have in fact been going on the last few years and because they haven't been part of those conversations is harder than to it's been hard for some of them to grasp the the concepts of oversight and accountability we have a contract that the council passed that ignored some issues of oversight accountability and gave our officers a great deal of protections that's a fact when you look at what the cna recommendations were the consultants that reviewed the police department and there were numerous things that needed to be taken into consideration during the contract there were decisions made because we felt we would lose more officers right it's like we surrendered to the problems that have caused officers to leave by not really fully addressing some of these problems and allowing things to be put in the contract that don't protect the community so we get back to balance we can't be over here and we can't be over here we have to have balance balance for protecting our officers and balance for protecting our community and that keeps getting lost and i'm i'm i'm i'm outraged by that i mean what what type of officers are we trying to recruit uh we have to be honest about what happened in this city and the fact that we have had acts that have hurt people in the community and this is different from you know it's all part of the bigger picture but to say that we can't do accountability and an oversight because that's going to make our public safety issues worse i would argue would make it better because we need to be able to build back faster and these things will actually help to make it better because it'll improve the relationship between our citizens and our officers you know we cannot be blind to the fact that there are in fact issues that some of our residents have with our department and they are in fact legitimate and we keep trying to ignore that to our power thank you thank you uh are there any uh councilor shannon thank you president paul um i do agree with councilor grant that um we do need to improve the relationship between the community and the officers and to the extent that this oversight um proposal can do that i think that that is an important part of our goal um we have not up to this point engaged the officers in the details of this and it's a it's kind of a chicken and egg question it's always hard to know what point to engage because it evolves it changes um you can ask people to come to meetings but then they come to meeting after meeting after meeting and then it's the meeting at the end that they miss the whole thing changes and so the committee i believe is now trying to get feedback from the police chief the police union and i think that that is really important to determine if this is something that is going to be perceived as harmful to uh current officers and to our recruiting efforts or if it's considered to be helpful i think that most people in most professions want fair and reasonable oversight and that's the way we should be approaching this whatever the officers um and chief's feedback is i think it deserves careful consideration um and i look forward to continuing to do that work at the at the committee thank you thank you councillor shannon uh uh councillor travers thank you president paul just um very briefly here i want to thank co-chair bergman for the comprehensive update there and do direct people towards memo that both co-chair bergman and i have draft him that is up online um it's been great to be able to work with uh co-chair bergman as well as with the members of the ordinance and charter change committees i do want to take this opportunity to thank those members of the ordinance and charter change committees because these joint committee meetings have been in addition to uh our normal ordinance committee meetings the ordinance committee has also been meeting as a joint committee with the planning commission to review the neighborhood code and it's been a lot of work but i do think uh it's been good work uh over a dozen meetings here i think that uh members of the ordinance committee and the joint committee are uh fully understanding and grasping of the uh concepts that are before us i agree with the comments that were made earlier that uh what we are looking to do here is to find a balance uh a balance that uh desires to to meet the goal that many in our community have uh for greater community oversight and balancing that as well with certainly the uh comments that were made by by the mayor as well to ensure that uh we don't stand up a proposal here that in any way um takes us a step back in terms of our recruitment and retention efforts the police department i believe that if we find that right balance it will support uh both of those goals and i do believe that we are heading in that direction what i will mention here is that unlike any committee that i've ever served on we've had a broader warned meeting group uh every time we've had one of these dozen meetings here the notice has gone out to a very broad group of individuals including not just city counselors and members of the media but also every single one of our neighborhood planning assembly steering committees it's gone out to every single one of our municipal unions including the police union it has gone out to police leadership and we have had uh and i should mention as well that it's also gone out to those individuals that uh organized and we're the strongest supporters of uh question seven and our last town meeting day in terms of standing up a community control board of our police department so all of these individuals have been invited to every single one of our meetings i think as we reach the end of our discussions here necessitated by the timeline here and our need to wrap things up here in order for us to get a question on the ballot for town meeting day 2024 that i do want to take this opportunity to stress to all stakeholders that to the extent you have further input that now is the time to be heard we have two additional meetings scheduled as our joint committee and then we'll be hearing this before the full council we've done good work and if folks want an opportunity to be heard now is the opportunity thank you thanks very much counsel travers um don't believe there's anyone else um in the queue to speak um so given that um we'll go to uh this was there was a motion president ball i believe council grant uh okay um council grant you you've spoken for four minutes and 20 seconds to this item so if you could please wrap it up when we get to five 35 seconds okay i'm cracking um look i know i say things whoops let me hit my little star button i know i say things that are not always welcome but they're real and they're the truth we negotiated that contract we purposely pushed aside some oversight and accountability um that was recommended to us that's real so we have to think about that and we have to be focusing on balance what type of officers are we trying to recruit right thank you thank you very much uh given seeing no others in the queue will um the motion is to waive the reading except the memorandum and place it on file um uh that is the motion before us um we'll go to a vote all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye any opposed please say no uh that motion passes which brings us to item 7.4 the great street main streets construction award and contract amendments um for this item i'm going to go to councilor barlow for a motion um and we'll get a second before we begin with the presentation i did check with attorney peller in prior to uh prior during the beginning of the meeting and he advised me that it's okay for me just without reading the entire motion you mean you don't want to read a page and a half right there's actually six of them total and i'll just move to uh move the recommended actions on board docs or on civic clerk thank thank you councillor barlow seconded by um councillor mcgee um thank you councillor mcgee so we'll go to dpw staff for a short presentation um please if you could possibly make this presentation brief as we've had a work session and information at the board of finance as well and then we'll go to a discuss go to any questions from the council and thank you we just wanted to acknowledge general manager director chape and spencer chief engineer norm baldwin and engineer alivia juries who are here for this presentation thank you for being here great thank you president paul in the full city council we will be brief the great streets main street project is a tiff funded generational reinvestment eight years in the making since the voters approved the first tiff funding for this project in 2015 um it will uh add robust bike and pedestrian facilities it will protect lake champlain with robust stormwater facilities it will renew century old water and wastewater facilities and unlock the redevelopment of downtown parcels limited by the ravine sewer i'm going to turn it over to city engineer norm baldwin to summarize the bid process and the value engineering efforts and then alivia will close by summarizing the public engagement efforts today we will be seeking uh council approval of various contracts at the end of after answering your questions thanks great thank you um so original project was proposed redevelopment of six blocks of main street from union to battery the project had an engineer's estimate of twenty four million nine hundred thousand dollars after opening the bid the parent little bitter estero and submitted a bid of thirty seven million three hundred sixty four thousand two hundred twenty nine dollars resulting in a funding gap of just under thirteen million dollars our bid process required the contractor to hold pricing for up to sixty days with an award date of november 19th 2023 the contractor agreed to hold bid pricing to pass this council's no verb 20th decision the staff since that time of opening the bid had worked to identify a funding solution to preserve the full scope of the project that included value engineering and reassigning funding and support of this project as a first priority with all the consequential decisions that still left with left us with a two million dollar shortfall leading to unfortunate decision to reduce the scope from six segments to a three block segment from winterski avenue onto pine street along with the redevelopment of the ravine sewer which would better position the city to redevelop key development sites city staff and administration had examined a full range of options including negotiating with a parent little better to finding a working solution only this past friday did staff arrive at aligned project scope pricing and funding solution as soon as staff arrived at a working solution then we shared the project with the project stakeholders the result of our decision making we recognize our solution to preserve the project is modified from the original project scope we recognize as staff we have the we've had the time to process the challenge circumstance we're left with we understand that stakeholders are deeply invested in the decision need to better understand the constraints we as staff are working from and how we arrived at a staff recommendation recommended solution so this this is in summary is kind of the process that we've gone through in the last 60 days and i will pass it over to livi who has more experience with a specific public outreach and what you're seeing on the screen on the preceding slide was the proposed three-block with ravine sewer phased approach yep so i just want to take a moment to highlight the robust outreach that we've done to date we acknowledge that there's still a lot more outreach to do we've worked really hard to establish relationships with local businesses we've held community meetings business community meetings as you can see up on the screen the long list of public engagements that we've run since early 2022 this includes various commissions walk-by council the aging council the burlington business association we ran focus groups specific community meetings and business community meetings since february of this year we have held one-on-one meetings with over 30 individual business owners going directly to business locations sitting down with business owners talking through the project hearing their concerns and so we really felt like we've been very thorough with establishing establishing relationships with these business owners and trying to address concerns to date we're we're very aware that these engagements need to continue we need to continue developing these these relationships and we are working with our resident engineer to who has specified a public outreach consultant for this project specifically who will help us during construction maintain that that communication with the business owners and kind of be on the ground to hear concerns and address concerns we are planning to hold a neighborhood meeting within the imminent future to again re-engage the business community it's just been the last couple months just trying to get this the scope kind of figured out not really having time to do that so so we're we're the intent has always been to keep engaging this community and and we plan to continue to do that thank you we're happy to answer questions into Olivia's point our plan is to even after the board of finance here and discussing with the mayor seek to set up a meeting with the business community as early as the week after Thanksgiving we know time is of the essence thank you thank you so much for that presentation if we could just answer share the screen so i can see counselors that would be great and if we need to we can go back to the to the presentation are there counselors who have any questions about the presentation we as i said we did just for the benefit of the public we did have a work session on this at our last meeting this was discussed at fairly great length at the board of finance earlier today it did pass the board of finance not unanimously it passed the board of finance uh four to four to one um are there any counselors who have any questions of staff um or comments to make on this item uh counselor grant hi thank you i um i'm sorry i was not able to see the board of finance meeting today so i just want to have a clear understanding we're now going from six blocks to three blocks but we're spending significantly more money is that correct yes so the three block with ravine sewer proposal is uh within the city's funding abilities it is a proposed phased project now where we would complete this initial scope as part of phase one seek federal state uh or other funding to leverage to complete phase two and how much more is that again we have not put phase two out to bid win all six blocks plus the ravine sewer were put out to bid the lowest uh bidder was 13 million dollars approximately 13 million dollars above the engineer's estimate which was the amount we had budgeted 13 million so doing three blocks instead of six would now be 13 million dollars more i think i think the point here is that uh the most significant most challenging pieces puzzle is we have a ravine sewer that is 26 feet deep and it's within the segments that we're proposing as a first priority as a result of bulk of those costs ride ride within those three blocks so it's not a straight line proportionality i think it's important for the public to understand that okay thank you thanks very much councilor grant um uh councilor jane thank you president and i think the issue about this i was a no vote border finance and i think it was very clear that the businesses in downtown here need to be supported they need to be strengthened they need to be respected as great partners to the city of purlington i also want to remind that dpw or any city department that you do not work for the mayor or for the city council but you work for the public this project yes we were all very happy and and and and excited that it was going to happen if we receive changes why don't we go back to the drawing board engaging the businesses that the project receives substantial amount of change that did not happen the community engagement that you're stating here yes reib you came to reib we we heard about this you did focus group and this focus group it was not even the amount of people that was necessary 12 or 14 people from a consultant i remember this very correctly and from my perspective we can do much much much better burlington is hurting currently those who are hurting the most are the businesses at a parent teacher conference my phone been ringing left and right i thought this okay i can ignore this but when i picked up it was a business who was very upset because they did not receive any information until friday and that's not right that's not correct i respect you i respect the work that you do but the community engagement need to be strengthened again from my perspective we need to postpone this vote until all of these businesses are engaged again into this discussion before we move forward also requested that we put the letter that they sent to the city council on civic clerk in order for people to understand why they are concerned this is not one this is not two this is not three it's almost all of them are upset about the way in which we want to proceed with this i put a motion on board of finance to postpone action it did not even receive a second and people can sit here to let us know our businesses this business is that there is one concrete example right here we postpone action we talk to the businesses we engage them before we make decision that's what i'm requesting if we can do that by next monday this will have my full vote and my full support if you need help also for me to engage them into the discussion you just have to let me know i find the time and do it and do it right in order for us to come together and do it right i'm going to put the motion again for us to postpone action until our next meeting or for the mayor to call a special meeting maybe if we don't have a second i would not be voting in support of this so consular president i made a motion on the table to postpone action until our next meeting okay so there is a motion point of information yes i would like to know from the city attorney whether the the motion to postpone is debatable it is if it's to a date certain and it is to a date certain okay i would second the uh the motion okay so there's a motion to postpone to our next council meeting which would be or well you said a couple of things so i'm not really sure did you mean to our next meeting or we our next meeting is December 11th December 11th or if the mayor can call a special meeting like by monday next week in order for us to get this done okay so there's a motion to postpone to December 11th or a special meeting as called by the mayor under the circumstances of engaging the businesses about the engaging the businesses um and that has a second and that's seconded by councillor bergman um okay um councillor bergman um i just want to hear from staff what the impact of a postponement would be so the answer to that is we are working on against the time clock of 60 days from bid opening which arrived at november 19th the contractor is willing to hold the pricing until the 20th today as a result of extending this we don't know if the consequence of whether or not the contractor is willing to continue to extend the pricing and also how it relates to a schedule a delivery of some of that work that happens potentially arriving at the spring so the key point here is that the contractor may not hold that pricing and that may end up forcing us to rebid the work and i would tell you that our belief as staff that rebidding the work would not result in better circumstance or outcome because of the complexity of the work and the likelihood of very few bidders prospective bidders are capable to bid on this so we are work we worked very hard to preserve what we had for a bid to at least bring a scope that was within reach of our finances and to position us for future opportunity to take the next stage of phase of the balance of those blocks and and just as a follow-up um we've heard the concerns about the lack of engagement i think all councillors got emails and so what is learned from that those criticisms of you not just the fact that they didn't get engaged but that there there are some substantive issues that they've raised what have you learned that has a relationship with the with the project with the the path that you are looking for us to go forward on i think just to be clear i think the reason why staff is not communicated to the public about this the number one if we are negotiating with a contractor in terms of the pricing it's available to us number two we really didn't want to create misinformation and not having a solution so as a result we we held off until we had a solution unfortunately it didn't give us enough time within that six day window to have that public engagement that everyone desires but we certainly want to reach out to the public who are affected by these decisions but also want to preserve the project as a whole and not put us at risk in other ways so it is a challenge and i think um i i wish that we probably would have had a more improved uh engineer's estimate that resulted in a financial outcome that was better than where we where we landed last question for me and that is if you hear um if if we do not postpone and then you engage with these businesses and hear things from them that are substantive how are their concerns if assuming that they're reasonable and fit within uh you know the structure of this this project going to get addressed in terms of timing in terms of money in terms of all of that stuff right thank you council bergman we have worked with uh several other city departments who aren't here with us but have secured funding to help with uh business support through the project we are fully going to understand that the issues that people are reporting and seek how can we best meet those needs we are able to preserve i know parking access has been concerned the contractor does not need to use the main and wenuski lot as part of this project that will preserve a significant amount of off-street parking along this corridor there's concern about how this project is phased and also the street closures that may need to occur at particular block segments we can have discussions about change orders with the contractor there will be a financial implication but if there's a strong direction from the community that they want to approach this project in a different way we can work with you on what those financial implications are and come back to this body and seek approval for those modified directions thank you councillor bergman is there any councillor shannon thank you president paul and um thank you councillor jane for for pursuing this um i'm not sure how i'm going to vote but i appreciate the opportunity to consider it um i share the concern about the businesses which is something that i have voiced since we first heard about this project i've been concerned about the loss of parking which i think is um i think their their concerns are twofold one is the construction itself and the impacts the construction itself has on businesses secondly is the the loss of parking um through the construction process as well as the planned reduction in parking that will service the businesses on main street and we're currently in just these are businesses that without doing anything are really struggling a lot more than they were in the beginning of of the conception of this process what they what they can afford to bear has decreased because of that and i think that it is worth giving another look at the impacts i appreciate that this has gone through a lot of vetting it's gone through the npa's but the people that it impacts most are businesses that are really valued by the whole community and that don't necessarily know as as the city brings forward this project that looks beautiful on the presentations that you're doing and it probably looks beautiful to those of us who would like to bike um in nice weather to our downtown and to these businesses but the businesses themselves know the reality in ways that other constituencies don't and they're sounding an alarm and i think that we need to heed to that alarm um it's been a long process and they haven't been accommodated their need for accommodation is greater now than it has ever been um this is a project that aside from the reconfiguration on the surface there's a lot of very important work being done underneath that is going to facilitate the redevelopment of memorial auditorium and um it's work that we need to do so my question is is there any it's hard for me to decipher from our motions here um is there any part of this that could be postponed seems acting a little funny is there is there any part of this that might be postponed that we might be able to get the um agreement from the bidder to hold the pricing on just a piece that might be helpful in in getting further resolution with the businesses or does this all have to be adopted as a package for some reason what i will say is that the uh the construction contract is the main contract here tonight and that is the one that has the 60 day window the uh related contracts are in support of the construction contract the resident engineer the design contract the public art contracts so um i think the challenge here is that it is the the construction contract that i think if i understand counselors correctly are giving pause and trying to figure out how to move forward that is the one that uh that the contractor has given us through tonight to seek approval and that's um the number one the contract value of three point one six million is number six to authorize director public works to execute contract with sd iron corporation with the council president and yeah uh sure we'll we'll we'll take um it's now 957 we will be back at 1005 there's a couple of people that have their hand raised uh we've had a chance to talk with we've had a chance to talk with dpw staff and they need a little bit more time so at this point what i'd like to do is make a motion to table this item a motion to table means that we can come back to it at any time it is our plan to come back to it later in the evening but at the advice of the city attorney this is the best course of action so if i could have a motion to table um and then and a second and that is not debatable i'll make that motion all right so uh councillor shannon you wanted to make that motion no no councillor mickey is making the motion councillor shannon is seconding it as i said it is not debatable we'll see if we can just do this by a voice vote all those in favor of the motion to table please say aye aye any opposed please say no okay that means that the motion has been tabled it can be taken off the table at any time um so that means that we will continue with our meeting and go on to item 7.5 which is an ordinance thermal energy systems in the assessment of carbon of a carbon pollution impact fee and for a review for an overview of this ordinance i'll turn to the chair of the ordinance committee councillor travers if you could begin with a motion we'll get a second and then the floor is yours yes thank you president ball just pulling up the appropriate language here i will move away the reading and adopt the ordinance as amended by the ordinance committee and ask for the floor back upon a second great thank you councillor travers is there a second to that motion um seconded by seconded by councillor carpenter uh councillor travers the uh the floor is yours and just wanted to also note that we have on bed general manager darren springer here with us um if he wishes to have any comments after uh please go ahead councillor travers thanks so much very good well i appreciate that uh director springer can speak to many of these items better than i can but certainly reviewing this ordinance has been a crash course in many items that are within his expertise uh so would appreciate his filling in the blanks um i will try to be brief here generally speaking burlington is authorized to regulate thermal energy systems within our city in two main ways first for some years now we've been able to regulate the types of thermal energy systems that may be utilized by building applicants both in existing buildings as well as in new buildings second on town meeting day 2023 burlington voters gave the city authority to implement a carbon pollution impact fee up to 150 per ton of greenhouse gas emissions generated by fossil fuel thermal energy systems in new buildings and large existing buildings in excess of 50 000 square feet the ordinance before the council this evening touches on both of those items first it does stand up a carbon pollution impact fee for new building applicants and large existing building applicants that are elected to use a fossil fuel thermal energy system second the ordinance is clarifying clarifying the types of thermal energy systems that may be utilized by new building applicants and large existing building applicants within the city this is uh i think unlike most of the ordinances or most of the resolutions that we see before the city council something that has gone through two committees at this point it first went through the two and then after it was approved by the two came before the ordinance committee a committee of four city counselors that met over the course of two meetings to review the ordinance perhaps it was three meetings sorry if i'm forgetting if it was two or three at this late hour but we spent quite a bit of time on it through the committee process that process i would say significantly strengthen the ordinance as it was initially introduced some of those improvements were more administrative in nature among other steps it clarified how carbon pollution impact fee will be calculated making sure that greenhouse gas emissions are not double counted for building applicants it prioritized how carbon pollution impact fee proceeds will be spent in particular on other projects around the city to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to the extent there are any exceptions to the carbon pollution impact fee there were steps to more carefully define what those exceptions would be there are three more substantive ways in which the ordinance has been strengthened about that i would like to summarize briefly for the council first to the extent the ordinance clarifies those fuels that can be used in new buildings and large existing buildings the ordinance before the council now very clearly aligns that standard with the state's clean heat standard those renewable fuels that will be exempt from the carbon pollution impact fee again must clearly be defined as quote unquote clean heat under the state standard that state standard applicable state statute provides that certain renewable combustible fuels including many of those that we've heard some concerns about the public comment like wood renewable gas hydrogen biodiesel under the state standard those fuels may only be classified as clean heat if the state technical advisory group confirm that that fuel source is reducing greenhouse gas emissions as compared to its fossil alternative the only way these fuels will remain eligible for building applicants in burlington again is if the state's technical advisory group a group of experts determines that they are a fuel that is in fact reducing greenhouse gas emissions at as compared to its fossil alternative second the ordinance before the council this evening very clearly and this was a step that was taken by the ordinance committee prioritizes electric geothermal and solar heat over all over fuel sources in response to public feedback feedback that we continue to hear here this evening that was particularly concerned about the use of renewable combustible fuels the ordinance committee amended the draft now before the council to provide that new building applicants again must prioritize electric geothermal solar heat and that they may only use a combustible fuel whether it be a fossil fuel or renewable fuel if they are able to certify that they are completely unable to use electric geothermal or solar heat in that instance which i believe should be a rare instance we didn't hear testimony from burlington electric department would be happy to hear from directors from here this evening um that we anticipate the vast majority of building applicants under this ordinance are going to be relying on electric but in that rare instance we have an applicant who is unable to use electric geothermal or solar heat the ordinance as drafted would allow that applicant to choose between one using a fossil fuel like natural gas and paying the carbon pollution impact fee or two using a renewable combustible fuel which as i explained previously the state must certify as clean heat meaning it is itself reducing greenhouse gas emissions third and as the last point i'll note and anticipate there will be future discussion this evening on on some other proposed amendments and changes to the ordinance but i do want to bring up one third point that the ordinance committee stood up which is uh they expanded the recordkeeping and reporting requirements of the ordinance based on testimony from the burlington electric department again we anticipate the vast majority of applicants for both new and existing buildings will be utilizing electric thermal energy systems but i think we want to be able to confirm that this is uh in fact the intended result that that intended result does come to fruition and so there are provisions now in the ordinance that would require added recordkeeping and reporting requirements to influence future policymaking in some i think the ordinance has written it is strong that it will significantly contribute towards burlington's net zero goals by prioritizing the use of electric geothermal and solar heat thermal energy systems in that rare instance that a new building applicant is unable to use one of these clean systems they will have the choice between using a fossil fuel system and paying a carbon pollution impact fee or using another renewable fuel state has certified as reducing greenhouse gas emissions uh i look forward to the discussion this evening i thank my fellow counselors on the ordinance committee i thank the two as well who will be doing this ordinance thank burlington electric department for all of their work on this matter and thank the members of the public that have provided such valuable input uh and and has strengthened this ordinance to the place that it is right now thank you thank you counselor travers um so are there counselors who wish to speak to this ordinance my apologies what okay counselor counselor bergman well i thought i'd give proponents of this an opportunity to uh to speak but i didn't see anybody jump on that so i will be moving my amendments um they are uh noted on the agenda um in the in the agenda in the item a carbon fee ordinance with counselor bergman's proposed amendments um it's a pdf and with the um fact that there is an error in that so there is a uh a written technical change to the amendments and i'm just going to read that so it's clear that this is what i'm um what i'm moving is that um we should uh change uh section uh uh 878c to uh d in line 103 to c and in line 121 with a reference to section 78d that should be changed to 878c so i am moving the amendments in the document that i have um put before us with that those two technical um changes and after a second ask for the floor back to explain great counselor bergman so there is a motion to amend um is there a second to that motion or actually what i should first do is before we do that before we need a second would be whether or not to ask counselor travers who's the make uh who move the uh the the ordinance if that is friendly to you uh it is not would it be appropriate to explain why it's not just say that for debate on there's you'll you'll have that opportunity you don't need to do it now um we don't need to go to the seconder thank you we don't need to go to the seconder we just need a second to the motion that counselor bergman has made and that has been made by counselor mcgee so counselor bergman you have the floor back thank you um very much council president paul um i will try to be um brief but i think it is important to note that the first changes are in uh lines 12 through 14 and they continue on uh in line 16 through 18 to be because the um the amendments proposed to regulate thermal energy systems other than imposing a carbon fee and the vote on march 7th 2013 only pertain to the fee there is also a number of other changes uh that um change a language of renewable energy to clean energy and that is to make the language align more closely with the state's affordable heat act which is in 30 vsa section 80 81 21 etc um the the heart of these amendments is the uh the changes uh to lines 32 through uh 48 and um it does not make sense to me and to others that i've been working um with to um add items from the affordable heat act that um for a number of reasons besides the electrification geothermal and solar energies and that will let's start with the first um there is in the affordable heat act um the establishment of a sliding scale of credits based on greenhouse gas emission reductions expected from each clean heat measure but the ordinance is really establishing what we want what we need what we're going to allow what uh in buildings where the fee has to do with the fossil heating systems so it is it's important to keep in mind that the first part of this proposed ordinance is deals with the type of energy systems that we want to have installed that we need to have installed or better yet that we need not to have installed the the the reference to the affordable heat act is inappropriate because it covers the sale of all heating fuels and due to the concern of costs it includes fuels such as renewable natural gas and biofuels which can be used in existing systems and this ordinance only applies to new systems so it really is inapplicable to be relating to that and I think that the third key distinction with the uh state affordable heat act is that the PUC isn't going to promulgate its rules and give them to the legislature before january 15th of 2025 um and we just should not and I've said this consistently since the Duke meetings we should not be getting ahead of the PUC process and that legislative process the but that really the most important thing is that we are simply proposing to strike a number of extremely problematic fuels from the list of um of systems of fueled systems that we're going to want in burlington we are we should be not encouraging incentivizing renewable so-called renewable natural gas or biodiesel whether you call it sustainably sourced or not or green hydrogen you know I've been told in this whole process which I like others have said have been been engaged in since it got the Duke that we need to have these um these options because they are um their potential we don't want to take anything off but they're very slight I mean I've been told green hydrogen is just not something that's going to be used we shouldn't be putting it in there are series there is a list of problems for each and every one of these fuels and nick per sampieri sorry nick um has given us in our consent agenda item 12 an amazingly detailed memo on what the problems are with these fuels and what these changes that we're proposing um are about and I would just refer you to that and simply say burning wood like with this advanced so-called advanced bio I mean wood burning is I mean burning wood is unhealthy and we've heard all the problems with emissions renewable gas is you know as a camel's nose in the tent it did mostly 98% fracked gas and the processing of that of that natural gas has significant problems and including with excessive emissions um and like I said there's a long list that nick has provided us for the um the biofuels and the hydrogen there are a number of other changes but fundamentally what the rest of the changes do is follow the logic of not allowing these objectionable fuels and unnecessary fuels and harmful fuels um and therefore allow us to simplify the ordinance simplify the administration of it simplify what is expected of people simplify the recertification when the state decides that certain things are just not right because we're not doing our job as a state which has been reported over the last week several times this is an opportunity if we pass these amendments to get it right at the onset to make sure that we've got the buildings getting the the fuel systems that we need avoiding the fuel systems that should not be incentivized should not be encouraged and having the framework then that the rest of the ordinance allows is very important that we do this right now that we as these signs are saying out there that we do not allow the biofuels to be part of this and i ask for your support for this amendment thank you councillor bergman uh councillor travers did you did you wish to speak to the amendment yes okay please go ahead so i i appreciate the points raised there by councillor bergman i agree that the biofuels that this amendment intends to eliminate the ordinance um that there are reasons for which they are objectionable and for those reasons i think after we pass this ordinance and implement it as a city we need to continue to take steps to review what additional steps we need to take to really wean ourselves off the burning of gas altogether whether that be a fossil gas or whether that be a biofuel i believe that's the future that we need to be heading towards but that's not the future we're at right now that's not the ordinance as it's before us right now um and in my opinion what is even more objectionable than the biofuels this amendment seeks to eliminate is a fossil fuel like pure natural gas fossil natural gas or kerosene or propane from my perspective that is a more objectionable fuel as i stated in introducing this ordinance the only circumstances under which an applicant will be able to use any combustible fuel whether it be a fossil fuel or a biofuel is if they are able to certify they are unable to use electric geothermal or sorgi those are the only circumstances under which an applicant will be able to use a fuel as the ordinance is before the council right now that applicant will have a choice between using what i consider to be a more objectionable fossil fuel and paying a carbon pollution impact fee or utilizing a less objectionable biofuel that again the state has certified as clean heat reducing greenhouse gas emissions both of them have problems but from my perspective applicants should have the choice if individuals vote in favor of the amendments before the council right now what you are saying is that that applicant who is unable to use electric geothermal or solar heat for whatever reason that they only have one choice they can't use any of those biofuels that they must only use a fossil fuel and from my perspective that's problematic i know councillor Paul or president Paul that that director springer is there i will tell you that a lot of advice and information on this question has come to me from the advice of director springer and if he is there able to weigh in on it i would certainly appreciate his insight as from his perspective uh by he thinks that applicants in what again i think they'll be that rare instance where they're having to choose between a fossil fuel or a biofuel because they can't use electric or geothermal why that choice is advisable in this case i think thank you councillor travers director general manager springer if you would comment on that please certainly good evening so i agree with much of what councillor travers said and we let's start we're the public power utility we love electrification we love geothermal we incentivize it we want as much of it as we can get we're conscious in this policy context that there are buildings and this does apply to large existing buildings not just new buildings so there are buildings that may have distribution systems that were based on a certain type of infrastructure it may be very difficult to change and so we're aware of instances where electrification may not be an option with today's technology geothermal you have to hit a certain type of water resource to be able to access geothermal a lot of times that happens sometimes it doesn't so we're aware that there are going to be other instances where other fuels are going to be necessary and we're conscious that our authority under the charter change is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to regulate for that reason and that the town meeting day vote was focused on on a fee on fossil fuels so it's unclear to me from an administration standpoint if we did say you can't use this or that renewable fuel in what authority we would be able to say that because we can't put a fee on those fuels and it's arguable and i'm certainly there there's good discussion tonight but it is arguable and there is analysis from the state level and elsewhere that these fuels do reduce emissions and they were included in the clean heat standard for that reason so those are concerns that we would have and those are positions that we made clear during the toke and the ordinance process thank you thank you director general manager springer before we go back to you counselor travers we've reached 10 30 is there a motion to suspend our rules to allow us to complete item 7.5 7.6 and allowing us should we be able to to return to 7.4 which was which was tabled so move thank thank you councillor shannon seconded by councillor jang is there any discussion on that motion seeing none all those in favor of the motion to suspend our rules please say aye aye any opposed please say no we've suspended our rules councillor thank you so much councillor travers did you have more that you wanted to add at this time i just want to think i just want to thank general manager springer and just again bring this amendment into context which is that what this really is is it's a vote on whether in that rare instance someone has no choice other than to use gas should they have the option between using a fossil gas or a biofuel or should they only have the option of using a fossil gas from my perspective i think they should have the choice and that's why i'll be voting on him thank you okay thank you very much the person who's next in the queue is uh councillor high tower and then we can come back to you councillor bergman councillor high tower um hello and apologies that i have my camera off i'm dealing with somewhat weak internet and morocco it is 4 30 a.m so um this is this is what i'm working with um i guess i also have a question maybe to the maker of the resolution and apologize for not touching base with him individually sooner but um i am curious we did have a lot of discussion at the ordinance committee about the primary and non-primary and specifically i think we were trying to have a set aside for those times when someone needed to use some some combustible fuel because the technology wasn't there yet to just use um solar heat pumps all of the non-combustible fuels um and that was specifically stricken which i do think then has the implication that um councillor traverse was just talking about so i guess to the maker of the resolution why the primary versus not primary was that distinction was removed is this a question that you have for councillor bergman yes sorry the maker the amendment not the resolution thank you so the the answer is that we are looking to focus on the um the main systems and i think that this goes with uh to to backup systems as well if i'm not mistaken on that so that is uh that is the reason um for that okay um i do have to confess i think if it were this were focused on trying to focus on only primary thermal energy systems and keeping the rest i i am worried that this is gonna in actuality have the effect that councillor traverse is speaking to um i don't think we got quite as far in ordinance as i wanted this to get in terms of um moving us more towards non-combustible and what the hoops that you have to jump through to get to a combustible fuel be it fossil fuel or not fossil fuel um but i am worried that this is that having a ban on um combustible renewables but not having a ban on fossil fuels actually pushes us in a lot in the instances where um pure non-combustible isn't possible which in vermont with our temperatures is a normal um occurrence um actually pushes us in the wrong direction thank you thanks very much councilor uh high tower um so just in the interest of time if you have other things to add this is just to the amendment now would be that time and then let's try to let's try to go to a vote um councilor bergman so uh just briefly on the question when it comes down to the question of choice i i i think actually the choice is between these bad sources of fuel um for you know that will avoid the fee and the paying of a of a fee for the uh equally bad but having a fee um for the the fossil use i don't think it actually is that um a bad choice enforces us into a into a worse situation i think what it does is it says that okay if we're going to be doing bad stuff then we're going to be um getting some money so that we can do some good stuff and my amendments don't touch at all the the fee and what it's used for and there are a lot of really good things that can be done with this fee so if somebody is going to be making a choice between a bio solid fuel or biofuel that is part and parcel of the deforestation around the world or you know the frat gas which is you know under the rubric of a renewable gas 98% renewable uh i mean frat then you know that makes no sense to me we should be getting the money here to do the type of weatherization people were talking about that earlier really supporting a whole systemic change so i do think it is a choice and it's a choice of not letting i use the camel's nose as as a metaphor letting that nose in in the tent this is time we have the opportunity to say no if you can't do these things and you need to go with a carbon bay of fossil fuel then there's this fee that we're going to get so we can do some other good work and otherwise we just avoid the opportunity that is right before us this is actually much simpler than the the next issue that we have in front of us i i hope that we can support this amendment thank you councillor bergman uh so let's try to uh doesn't appear so there's anyone else who wants to weigh in on this so why don't we go to a vote um lori we do have a lot of people participating remotely so we'll do a roll call vote now remember this is the roll call vote on on the motion as made by councillor bergman and seconded by councillor mcgee is there anyone who has any questions at all on what we're voting on okay so we will go to a roll call vote councillor barlow i know councillor bergman yes councillor carpenter no councillor jen yes councillor dority no councillor grant yes councillor hightower yes councillor king thank you councillor mcgee yes councillor shannon no councillor travers no city council president paul no six eyes six nays okay so six um six eyes and six nays that means the motion uh failed to get a majority and uh the motion fails so we are president paul i would can i move to postpone for one week to the next meeting of time certain to see if we can possibly work out um in our um our wisdom a compromise that is what i i'm gonna move i'm gonna move to postpone the um right so we do not we do not have a we have a our next council meeting is the 11th of december so you wish to make a motion to postpone to a date certain of november 27th no december december december 11th okay so if to our next council meeting of december 11th um okay uh and that is to a date certain so that is debatable we just need a second to that motion um seconded by councillor mcgee uh did you want the floor back uh i i think that and i'm not sure that we are maybe looking at um a situation of this thing going down tonight it might and i don't think that a a a um a recess right now is particularly wise so i i do think that perhaps we could use the the time to see if there is a compromise that we could make on this and that is why i'm attempting to uh to have a little bit more time for us to do that okay uh thanks thanks so much councillor bergman uh before i go to you councillor shannon i just want to make sure councillor hightower you have your hand up is that from the last the last round or did you want your hand raised for this sorry that was just to say that councillor bergman's comments had made sense to me and that i was changing my vote based on that so for last time thank you okay all right so we will go to councillor shannon thank you president paul i think that we have i'm really happy with the way that staff was receptive to many things that were offered by committee members and members of the public and a lot of changes have been made to this um i'm feeling like that work has been done and we've gotten as far as we can we have um uh we have a list of responses that um director springer has has given us in response to the many things that have been raised by the public as well as i mean has been incredibly responsive to all of our requests and all of the suggestions so i am just feeling like the work has been done on this and compromises have been made and now we have what we have and we need to vote so i won't be supporting postponement thank you you will be postponed you will be supporting a postponement you will not be supportive okay um uh is there any councillor who wishes to speak to the motion to postpone to a date certain of december 11th okay um mayor weinberger did uh my apologies um councillor barlow uh thank you president paul i had a question for general manager springer about um a postponement of this item would uh potentially impact our next item would it not and could you could you talk about that a little bit please i'm glad to um so as i think you all heard during the work session on district energy on the 23rd a key consideration for the medical center and moving forward with district energy is understanding the ultimate carbon fee ordinance because it figures into their thinking so there is certainly that element to it i would also just offer that um the idea is for the department of permitting and inspections begin implementing this on january 1st 2024 so i do note that the timing is already i would assume fairly tight for implementing such a big new initiative um so bill could probably speak to that more if needed thank you uh thank you councillor barlow um did you wish to speak to uh councillor jang and then we'll go to mayor weinberger yes and thank you um director general manager and i think you know what's good about this is also this is not going to affect any single homes for example you know and we do we do not have substantial amount of big buildings as well in the city so i think even though the timeline should be relatively is relatively short i think it's still doable because you guys are the experts and postponing from my perspective makes sense thank you and i'll be supporting that okay great thank you councillor jang don't know that they're uh councillor travers do you have your hand raised for a second time or is that in response to the last time well i don't think i spoke on the motion postpone so it would be the first time on the motion postpone okay i know i've said a lot that's all right it's a separate motion go ahead but i i will keep it brief but i will say that you know on most items i'm always open to where there's potential areas for compromise but i i do firmly believe that the version of the ordinance that's before the council right now uh is the result of that compromise we we spoke about it uh amongst councillors before this resolution was first introduced it did go through the two it did go through the ordinance committee it's significantly changed now from the version that was initially introduced to the council um and i'll i'll be honest i'm i'm troubled to hear that because again in that rare instance an applicant is faced with the choice of having to use a fossil fuel or a biofuel the idea that because of that unique situation we would vote down this entire ordinance um which i view as a significant step forward towards the city meeting its net zero goals um i'm i'm troubled by that idea um you know i i know that some folks have uh flagged that um it doesn't go as far as a handful of other communities in the country have gone as far um but there's you know nearly 20 000 other cities in america that this takes a significant step forward uh as compared to uh and um i the other thing i'll say is that um you know i i view this as a first step not the final step it's a first step in our ongoing effort uh to address our city's greenhouse gas emissions and i'm hopeful that uh we'll be able to get it done tonight i will be voting against the motion to postpone look forward to other areas where we'll be able to compromise thank you uh thank you councillor travers uh is there anyone else that wishes to speak to the motion to postpone to a date certain of december 11th seeing none let's go to a roll call vote please councillor barlow uh no councillor bergman yes councillor carpenter no councillor jang yes no councillor grant yes councillor hightower yes councillor king councillor miggy yes councillor shannon no councillor travers no city council president paul no five i's and seven nays okay so the motion to postpone fails so we are now back to the original ordinance um is there anyone who wishes to speak to the original ordinance um actually i believe there was um mayor weinberger did you wish to speak to the the ordinance thank you president paul i would like to just share a few thoughts i think this is a significant vote and a a vote that um is consistent with decades of climate leadership on the part of burlington and and uh that we should be moving for tonight with um uh confidence and enthusiasm really um if i've often said the burlington's climate story is really one of the the best stories that we have as a city we have long realized what so many speakers spoke to tonight which is that climate change is an existential threat to everything burlington's value most and the beginning of our climate leadership started in the 80s with a sustainability bond as a result of that bond we use less electricity in the city today than we did in 1989 if the rest of the country had had followed in that direction we would have something like 200 less coal plants polluting the world today including the country today than we do we followed that up with our move to become the first city to source a hundred percent of its electricity from renewable generation we followed that in just the last few years with this net zero energy roadmap one of the most ambitious electrification efforts of any local community in in the country and we've already taken major steps towards meeting that real roadmap both with the creation of these very substantial green stimulus incentives that predated the inflation reduction act which is now you know federal policy but started our move in that direction and through the first in the country 20 million dollar green revenue bond the effort we're contemplating tonight belongs on that list there are very few communities in the country that have taken the step of actually implementing some form of carbon pollution pricing this is a critical strategy for making the progress we need to on on climate it is a critical strategy toward moving us to the job creating future that sources energy locally and creates many new jobs as a result we have been working towards this for years going to voters twice going to legislature once even securing the support of the governor in supporting the climate change that enables this ordinance and if we take this last step after this many-year journey and approve this tonight we will it will mean that for new construction going forward and for businesses that own large buildings and institutions they will really have a very clear choice going forward they can either build buildings with renewable heating and cooling technologies that use locally generated renewable energy and if they do so they will have a clear regulatory path and the help of local and federal and financial incentives for pursuing that path or if they have to choose because of the unique elements of their project they have to use older fossil fuel burning technologies they will pay a fair price for the carbon pollution that that will generate and the city will use those funds to fund equitable energy initiatives and new electric vehicles this policy will accelerate our efforts to cut carbon and will expand electrification and you know when we electrify everything we are going to be in a future that is more awesome than what we are living in today we will have more better paying jobs like we're already seeing happening at beta our homes and apartments you know in addition to the the climate benefits of electrifying everything our homes and apartments will be warmer in the winter cooler in the summer they'll be cheaper to power our indoor air quality and outdoor air quality will be better because of these electrification efforts and that will have massive public health benefits and the list goes on and on so this is a policy that was proposed and supported again not once but twice by voters let's this is why it has the enthusiasm some of Vermont's leading renewable energy and environmental organizations including vper rev vnrc and the Vermont conservation voters it is a good policy it is progressive pragmatic and it will make things better for for our constituents will make things better for burlingtonians i urge the council to approve this ordinance as is proposed in the way that is consistent with good science state law our charter authority is what burlingtonians have made very clear they want us to implement thank you president paul thank you mayor Weinberger we just have we'll we'll go now to councillor jang and then we'll go to a vote yes i have a very short comment and also a question for for darin and my comment is about i feel like that each and every single one of us really our ultimate goal is carbon neutrality we completely be neutral on carbon any type that but this ordinance is not ensuring that and from my perspective we need to make the distinction between making progress and being bold and also the distinction between things we control and things we do not control if voters allowed us to come to this point it's because they want us to be bold and this is missing and that's why that's what's missing and that's why we still having conversations right darin springer director you talked about this has a correlation with mcneil i could not understand that at all so and i think if i remember even the amendment mentioning that that mcneil district heat would be allowed even under the amendment the idea is is that when we put a price on carbon when we put a price on fossil fuel pollution it makes the other resources more cost competitive it helps level the playing field for renewable electrification other resources and so if you are an entity that's considering making investments in those resources you want to know what the rules of the road are in terms of that so that's all i was getting at is understanding how this is going to be implemented is important for the medical center but it's important for other and it's important for uvm it's important for anyone who has one of those large existing buildings which include businesses in the community and others yep and now the answer to you to my question from you led me to ask another question to the city attorney and i remember there were two city councils that recused themselves whenever we talk about mcneil when we have to vote on mcneil and now there is a correlation between this and mcneil i wanted to understand whether or not we have a conflict of interest since this item is related to to to mcneil although city councils need to recuse themselves from this vote as well the under our our charter the conflict of interest is for counselors to recognize and call out themselves that's not a determination for the city attorney's office to make so then i mean knowing that there is a correlation don't you see that we need people need to recuse themselves from this vote again councillor jane that's not a decision for me to make that's for counselors to make of of themselves all right okay thank you thank you so much councillor jane so let's go to a vote again this is a vote on the underlying ordinance um we'll go to a roll call vote for this lorry councillor barlow yes councillor bergman no councillor carpenter yes councillor jane no councillor dority yes councillor grant no councillor hightower yeah councillor king yes councillor mcgee no councillor shannon yes councillor traverse yes city council president paul yes eyes four days eight eyes and four days so the uh or the motion passes and the ordinance ordinance passes um thank you thank you to all of your for all of your work that will bring us to uh that will bring us to item 7.6 was a resolution supporting district energy and continued efficiency improvement at the mcneil generating plant um for this resolution i'll go to the chair of the transportation energy and utilities committee councillor barlow um if you can make a motion if you have comments why don't we just get a second and then that you can have the floor back sure thank you president paul um i move to waive the reading and adopt the resolution and i will ask for the floor back after a second certainly uh councillor barlow is there a second to that motion um seconded by councillor shannon thank you uh councillor barlow you have the floor thank you um first i want to thank the staff at bd bd and gm springer who have been working a lot of hours these last few weeks as we've incorporated additional actions and commitments into this resolution that go beyond the original asks of the council for district energy um and i'd also like to thank councillors jeng carpenter and bergman uh for their collaboration and contributions that in addition to moving a district energy system forward further commit us to the following working toward additional efficiencies of mcneill assurances that no additional wood will be burned to create the steam use for district energy limits on future wood usage plans for reduction of in-stack emissions analysis and process for future transition planning and commitments to work with uvm mc on their efficiency and electric electrification efforts these are all really significant additions that strengthen the regular resolution and help us meet our climate goals during the recent community conversations about biomass mcneill and district energy i have become convinced that mcneill will continue to provide electricity for many more years regardless of whether or not we pass this resolution tonight and approve the proposed district energy project the reason is that we don't have an acceptable replacement for dispatchable baseload electricity that we need on demand any time of the day or night and that mcneill provides we just can't replace mcneill today with any of our intermittent sources like solar and wind and without mcneill our electricity rates would be significantly higher and the electricity that replaced mcneills would be largely generated but out of state using fossil fuels so i believe mcneill is going to be with us for a while but during these community conversations i've also become convinced that we need to commit to making mcneill the most efficient we can while we're using it for power generations and we need to begin to plan for the eventual transition to a less carbon intensive source for generating baseload electricity for our growing needs i think this resolution helps us chart that course and i'm hoping that other counselors will support it tonight thank you thank you councillor barlow so this brings us to i don't know if you wanted to if you wanted to add anything at this time general manager springer or if we can just simply go to the council for questions and comments i'm happy to defer for questions okay so if there are questions i see councillor travers you have your hand raised if you do it this time the floor is yours at the point of personal privilege president ball which is unlike the last ordinance that we were dealing with which is generally applicable ordinance citywide to every new building in every large existing building in the city uh the district energy defaults on now for us uh proposes a steam pipe built directly from mcneill to the uvm medical center as an employee of the uvm medical center i have a conflict of interest that i need this flows here and we'll be recusing myself uh from this matter because of that i should also note that um well i believe he had to drop off due to the early hour where he is that councillor delray similarly has refused himself due to a professional conflict of interest on this matter thank you okay thank you so just for the record councillors dority and travers have recused themselves due to a professional conflict of interest on this item so we will move on to i believe councillor grant you have your hand raised is that right great yes um so this has been very difficult for me um the voices that have chosen to express themselves or overwhelmingly against this project and i definitely hear that and i understand why um i have gone back and forth quite a few times we know from what uvm medical center has said that for various reasons they they won't move forward with anything else at this time so in terms of reducing their use of fossil fuels so that is very very concerning right so that makes it okay we have a project they say that they'll be involved in because they'll get these credits um but that's the only reason that they're doing it and they're not even signed on because there's a chicken and the egg sort of scenario with having to pass this in order for them to be on i definitely hear the concern about um the jobs for sure but there is a massive amount of distrust around the concept of trusting and verifying people feel that we haven't been really keeping track properly before is that really going to change now um and and that's a big that's a big issue um for people and i i guess i would um i guess i'd like to hear something about that the commitment to really tracking how impactful this will be at at the medical center in the city of burlington like how can we assure people in the public that it's taking more seriously thank you thank you council grant so let's see if we uh council um council bergman and then we'll go to council carpenter i take uh what people said tonight and what have they've said to me um for a while very seriously um but this is not a simple question certainly not a simple yes or no question i had opposed this because i didn't see real reductions in emissions i saw us lacking locking in the burning of wood without any commitment to plan the transformation that we need especially in ways that uh include workers thank you jeff and uh and low and moderate income uh rate payers and um i worked really hard over the last well i think it's been three months but clearly the last three weeks to get the commitments that i needed i i have said this many times that i i i'm not a fan of ronald reagan but i use i quote him all the time trust but verify and um you know you promise not to um burn more wood you know put it in the term sheet put it in the resolution and then we got something and you did and i i appreciate that um and we um we did that on the whole circle of things which i needed to get me to to vote to vote yes um i hear the calls uh to end burning of wood to create electricity but i believe i i believe that the defeat of this project will not do that it will not close mcneil it will not get the medical center to switch off a gas to create high temperature steam you know uvm made it absolutely clear made it clear here made it clear in communications to me continues to make community clear in communications to everybody that they have gotten no alternative that would come close to the emission reductions that will result from this project and energy um engineers have made it absolutely clear to me that they are going to need at least 15 years to replace the uvm mc uh current high temperature system with a low emissions alternative so i look at this and i look at defeat as not cutting emissions and i go well this is a little bit more complicated i hate to say much it might have been much easier for me to vote no to be quite honest but this resolution commits us to cap the burning of wood to use the plant as we do now and meaning using the steam to create heat that we're already using so it's a real reduction in emissions and you can't get i don't think you can get around that if they don't burn their gas because we are using steam that we're already creating to sell electricity then those emissions are not going to be happening this resolution commits us to 25 percent emission reductions at the stack so we avoid the accounting fight 50 per in five years in five years 50 in 10 a simple defeat leaves this to chance we've added additional transition analysis and planning and a review of forestry practices by third parties and that includes the impact on affordability and reliability we have no bar at all to intensifying our work on thermal energy networks on solar i have worked and will continue to work with dpw and bed to get a solar array on the top of the old dump we should be doing that that will be the biggest solar array in the city from what i understand two megawatts is a real potential there we have a direction on working with the medical center and none of this happens if we just straight out defeat the project if you're going to cut me off i'm going to go to one last point on on this because i got to get there so i i i could go on you know like for another five minutes over my five minutes so um i i gotta do say one last point which is much if not most of the opposition is based on a lack of trust it's lack it's a lack of trust in the industry it's a lack in the trust in the institutions it's a lack of trust in us it's a lack in trust in bed and if you didn't hear it i know i did loud and clear and it's a lack of trust to keep the commitments that we're making in this resolution i happen to share movement skepticism trust is really fragile and we have put deadlines and reporting requirements in this authorizing resolution so we as a community can hold leaders me bed accountable and let me just say and i say this for myself i say this for all of us that we break that trust at our peril a break is going to harm the integrity of not only the people and entities that break it but democracy itself when our democrat democratic institutions fail us let's make no mistake about it authoritarianism fills the vacuum the commitments to cap wood burning to cut emissions to invest in efficiency to improve our practices to plan for fundamental change while protecting the most vulnerable among us are sacred and we who make them must uphold them and everybody else all the people who are here tonight demanding that we do the right thing everybody here including you needs to commit to engage in the opportunities that will hold us accountable there will be time for you to enter into that conversation because that is what democracy looks like i am going to support this and i thank you for the indulgence thank you councillor bergman will go to councillor carpenter and then to councillor hightower and then perhaps then we can go to a vote thanks i don't want to repeat what my councillor bergman said and i really agree very much with it just a couple comments in one question um for me this is not a wholesale endorsement of biomass it's a fairly specific unique circumstance with a plant asset that we own that we want to maximize and a customer a huge huge industrial size customer that has a unique need for steam and we're marrying those needs and in the process will reduce our commercial gas use by 16 percent so to me that's a win it is not a wholesale change in energy policy and i'm really appreciative of people accepting my concerns and other councillors concerns and getting them into the resolution um i do want to say because we've gotten lots of feedback about we councillors haven't got enough information we have been well educated and so if anyone doubts that we've been well educated i just show you my inbox um so i want to make sure there is one question that keeps popping up you've answered it to me personally about for the public around um this is going to cost the ratepayers this is an expensive money losing proposition could you just clarify that thanks councillor carpenter let me just take the opportunity to thank councillor bergman thank you thank councillor jane councillor barlow for all the work on the resolution and thank the entire council for um considering this this evening um and i i i just want to echo that we take all of the concerns seriously too and we are for improving this plant we are for improving efficiency we are for opportunities to improve the environmental footprint and we will work with you to find those and to make them happen um so we're on board with that that's that's who we are we're public power the bd team is here uh they're hardworking professionals and they're going to help make this happen um to your specific question councillor carpenter the key aspects here on the financials are there is no taxpayer financing this is no rate payer financing this is a non-profit uh design project that would be debt financed and would be repaid through the sale of the steam energy and our only contribution and there's no contribution from the city the only contribution that's contemplated from bed is to provide incentives under our tier three state program we have a memo in that explains how this kind of equates on a dollar per megawatt hour basis to other incentives uh that we offer um so that's our one piece of the commitment and then just overall i want to assuage any concern that there might be mcneil's economics are much more favorable than maybe was discussed tonight and it's not as simple as whether it's earning or losing money in a given year because there are a lot of benefits that we get for burlington customers lower transmission expenses avoiding costly state procurement programs avoiding volatility on the regional market that helps keeps rates more steady and stable um so there's a lot of benefit there that isn't captured in some of the discussion around what we might gain or lose in a given year um last year mcneil had seven point five million in revenue above its expenses 2019 it had four million less we're only half of that of course because we only own half of the plant but there's a lot that's not captured there including pilot payment to the city of 1.6 million that supports the general fund so i just wanted to get that additional information out there thank you for the question great thank you councillor carpenter yeah were you were you were you all set okay so we have a few people who wish to speak to this um we'll go to councillor high tower then megey then grant then jang and then king no councillor high tower great thank you um yeah i find this actually a much more difficult choice whereas the last but was um getting a carbon tax or not on fossil fuels um i do want to say thank you to um director springer who spent many hours with me talking me through this and definitely tried very hard to get me to a yes um and i think gave me when gave me access to all the information i needed um i'm still going to vote no on this i'm struggling with the um longevity of the plant i think i'm struggling with the plan for and i'm i also have to say i'm a supporter of mcneil i think we're very for commit to have it right now so that even if we can't have a carbon free um grid we can at least have a fossil free grid um but i also don't know that this is the solution we're going to want 20 30 40 years from now and i'm afraid that right now we are further investing in this making it more of a long-term commitment and adding other potential partners that if at some point the city decides that this isn't an asset we do want to continue with who now have right so first refusal and who maybe will continue to operate it beyond when when the city would um and so i don't feel comfortable with i appreciate all the work that was done to add additional limitations to make the plant more efficient but i don't feel comfortable with the long-term commitment with us not knowing the long-term plan of what we actually want with mcneil and if we do want this plan to operate in four year 50 years thank you thank you count that can thank you councillor hightower we'll go to councillor McGee thank you president paul i'll be brief i will also be voting no on this uh for many of the reasons that councillor hightower stated um i also uh have big concerns about us tying the future of mcneil to as councillor carpenter put it a huge huge industrial customer a single customer um i think us making this move will greatly impact our ability to have decision making power over the future of the plant especially when we're talking about the the steam needs of the region's only level one trauma center um i think you know that that's a significant concern to me and i just i don't feel comfortable with where this is at right now to be able to support it thank you thank you councillor McGee uh we will go to councillor grant um thank you um i agree with councillors hightower and McGee thank you thank you councillor grant uh that will bring us to councillor jane yeah i'll be brief and me i mean i think darren um general manager sprinkler you're doing your job and you're doing it well right thank you for for that but i want to particularly thank um Nick Sampieri um Steve Goodkind and uh consultant named Ben Fowler he spoke earlier here those people with darren we spent a lot of time over the next the past couple of weeks to come up with some level of consensus it was not easy right we all understand that yes um McNeil may not be the best um plant that we need right now right but at the same time we already have it but how do we get most out of it and i think this stream with with uvm is just going to do that exactly five years ago who would have thought bringing McNeil issue right here nobody these activists have done their job and they're doing it also very well one of them told us here that their ultimate goal is to shut it down and the resolution actually had that language to study within a year what is a different alternative that's not McNeil so you all helped us to be conscious that biomass if there are better alternative let let's use it and i think this level of compromise of coming together understanding that this is not as efficient as we want but also how do we move in a in a plane to phase it out and then make our energy very clean and clean i think it's a win-win situation from across the board and i'm very happy to be to work with you work with the activists to come up with 50 slack in 10 years 25 in five years and from blind 100 to 162 of the resolution is so much amount of work that with that down thank you nick thank you steve and keep on doing the great work for the city of burlington i'll be supporting this tonight thank you thank you councillor jang and i think we'll and we have councillor king and then i think we might be able to go to a vote uh thank you president paul um when i joined the council and began serving on the transportation energy and utilities committee one of the first issues we looked at was the mcneil plant it was through assisting and planning the mcneil symposium and committee meetings that i had the opportunity to hear from folks in and around burlington about their concerns regarding this project in the months leading up to this vote i've had dozens of meetings with folks in support of this project activists organizing against the expansion and even spent time hiking through two of the forests which woodchiffs are harvested from defuel mcneil specifically one of the most impactful groups i met with was the climate action collective a group of passionate college students in the burlington area as a group they put together in a letter outlining their views which can be read on our consent agenda the collective outcry from our younger neighbors resonates deeply with me their pleas for climate action are not merely a call for change but a demand for responsible governance we owe it to them into our planet to prioritize cleaner renewable energy sources our duty as public servants is to consider the long-term consequences of our actions as the youngest member of this body i will be standing in solidarity with the large number of young folk i represent and will be voting no tonight as a steward of the city i believe it's paramount to address their concerns about climate change the decision to oppose the mcneil plant expansion project is not just about infrastructure it's about a responsibility to safeguard the environment for generations to come i want to extend my appreciation to the dedicated city employees and fellow counselors who have invested significant time and effort into this project your commitment to our city's growth and well-being is commendable this decision isn't made lightly acknowledging the complexities involved however our obligation to mitigate climate change and transition towards sustainable practices must supersede this project i will end my comments tonight by reading a section of the letter submitted by the climate action collective the time to take climate action is upon us our world and community are feeling the building intensity and devastation that climate change and environmental issues bring we urge you to please think about our future in the face of a changing world and understand that while local these local decisions have lasting implications thanks thank you councillor king uh with that um and seeing no others in the queue we will go to a roll call vote please lori councillor barlow yes councillor bergman yes councillor carpenter yes councillor jang yes councillor grant no councillor hightower no councillor king councillor mickey no councillor shannon yes city council president paul yes six eyes four nays two recusals six eyes four nays and two recusals the motion passes thank you as well and thank you to all who worked on this um we uh not sure where we are we have an item that's on the table is there a motion to take the item off the table there is a motion to take the item off the table from councillor shannon uh does that require a second it does it requires a second seconded by councillor mickey um hoping for no discussion let's uh let's uh it's not debatable was that it's not debatable it's not debatable so we won't have any discussion um i will go to a vote all those in favor of the motion to take the item off the table please say aye aye any opposed please say no okay we are now back to item seven point uh seven point four and the way that we left that was we had taken a recess there was a discussion that was ensuing about the potential to be able to do something reach some sort of a compromise that would allow the businesses to be heard on the issues that are important to them and uh maybe you could report back or i don't know councillor shannon did i think we were in the you were you you had the floor i believe and then we were going to go to councillor mickey did you want the floor back sure i'll just reiterate the question that was good ideas um so there's several parts of of uh contracts or separate contracts that were approving and so the question was um i know that there is a 60-day limit on part of this not all of it and can they be separated out our our is there a reason why we have to vote on it in whole and would pa holding part of it out put us in a better position to negotiate some of the things that most concern our businesses president paul may i yes of course great thank you we appreciate the extra time this evening to explore these options and agree the importance of supporting our local businesses and that is um important to all of us who live and shop and play here um we understand the concerns of the fragility of downtown with its recovery from covet and public safety concerns um we did spend significant time exploring this option regrettably i feel that splitting the construction contract is not a viable solution because all the costs for the scope items are intertwined trying to remove just and advance the ravine sewer without the other elements does not uh work because the mobilization which is six million dollars is a mobilization for the entire project as uh as it was bid similar to traffic control so there really isn't a way to pull out one element that said uh city engineer baldman does have some kind of contextual matters and i i will say that all of the options of mitigation that could be on the table can be on the table whether or not the council acts tonight and you have my commitment that i will bring my full energy to advance everyone that i can uh moving forward and if uh i may norm has a few things to say so this is not without difficulty in saying this but i really don't believe delaying decision result in a different outcome i think it's important in meeting with business to better understand how staffs arrive that recommend scope revision delaying a decision puts the city at risk of the contractor not holding their pricing and it's my belief delaying decision risk or rebidding of the work that we believe would result in a more costly bid given the complexity of the work and the limited possibility of contractors within that field that can actually complete the work successfully there is a high risk in this project a more costly big result in the product not being advanced and uh the negative consequence of that is the development project who aligned this project would not move forward or be impacting some form i will note that we will work with the contractor and business community to mitigate construction impacts and i would say further from firsthand experience that sd ireland has a track record of adjusting construction sequencing to minimize impacts to businesses and properties i've experienced that through my first hand experience with a parkway and i believe olivia had shared with me of course the same experience with s with the roundabout project so i think there's a deep commitment by sd ireland to really be a good member of the community and work with people to make it work in the best way possible there is some possibilities of mitigating some of these traffic impacts but those are things that we need to converse with the the businesses to understand what the given takes are and what we can and can't do with the limitations we have if they don't understand the limitations then they can't they're not part of the decision making and i think that's an important part of this process knowing all the things that we're struggling with as staff they are they are part of this solution and they need to understand what that is that's driving these decisions so that is my two cents that i really believe this is in the best interest of the city to move ahead but with strong concern like you about how this impacts businesses and how we can do our best to not have a severe impact that people have concerned about thank you councillor shannon councillor mcgee did you wish to speak i know you hadn't been in the queue before yes please president poll try to remember what i was going to say a long while ago i think i just want to reiterate the points that i made at the board of finance as to why support moving ahead with this reduced scope for phase one of the main street project i think you know it's important to remember that wrapped up in this is dealing with the ravine sewer and with that determining the the future of not just one but a few projects downtown projects that will bring much needed housing to the downtown and i would also note that this is a smaller project than the six blocks originally envisioned which i would hope would reduce the impact on businesses along the corridor so for those reasons i'll be supporting this tonight thank you thank you councillor mcgee are there any councillor grant did you have your hand raised for this item yes i have a question sure um so if we look at the ravine project in terms of a percentage of a hundred percent how much will this get done of that hundred percent on the ravine project this this project is complete the entire ravine sewer project altogether under the scope that we provided at three block segments okay can't hear you your microphone needs to be muted sorry thank you very much councillor grant the ravine sewer runs from approximately pearl street down where it crosses main street and then connects into the maple street sewer system so this will address from the fletcher free library downstream there still will be a portion above that that will flow in a diagonal pattern but it will be captured at the firehouse and be brought into the city's formal sewer system within the right of way at that point thank you so the projects that would directly sorry karen councillor paul so the projects that would be affected by this is the vfw redevelopment there's a potential of the hood plant redevelopment and of course the the superblock redevelopment itself the ravine sewer is basically diagonally within the the main street parking lot which as you all know has not been i guess moved forward with any sort of significant redevelopment and with this project of the ravine sewer i think we would see the greater potential of housing being developed in that site great thank you uh we'll go to councillor uh traverse and i'm sorry were you okay we'll go to councillor traverse and then councillor jang did you want thanks president paul i believe we're still on the question the postpone and i suppose the question that i have uh for the team there from dpw is my understanding from the memo is that if we vote on this tonight that construction may begin anytime between whenever a notice to proceed is issued and april of 2024 i'm wondering and perhaps you've already provided a disparity so apologies if that's the case but just to confirm i'm wondering if you can let us know if we do vote tonight when do you anticipate the notice to proceed would be issued and when do you anticipate after that point there would be actual street closures do you expect for example that there would be any street closures during the holiday season or before the end of this year or do you expect any street closures would happen after the holiday season in 2024 allowing you all opportunity to continue to connect with the businesses through the end of the year thank you that is a great question and the answer to that is that the contractor does not anticipate beginning work until somewhere around the first or second week in january and we'll be avoiding the holiday season mind you of course that that may be delayed a little further if we've got significant paperwork and administrative work that needs to be put in place to be able to fully execute a contract and release them to proceed with the work and of course as Olivia just noted their work will really begin on lower church street and work further up church street to main street and then turn right heading eastbound on main street up the hill so they are basically working from downstream to upstream on that source system before they make an active connection on the eastern most elements of this project councilor barlowed and councilor travers did you have anything else no thank you for that clarification great thank you so we'll go to councillor jang and then to councillor barlow thank you president um i believe that my my my my points have not changed yet i think we could do much better job in terms of making sure that at least the cost of a project is even even when it changes it changes a little bit this change has been substantial that's one two we did exactly experience this similar issue with sample sample street the project went for so long because you found contamination that you needed to mitigate i'm i'm confident that we will experience similar issues again and what the businesses will do knowing that they have already not they're already not happy about the process what would they do i think as we move forward it would be imperative in terms of budget to be at least very close to what we're trying to achieve because these substantive changes definitely change the perception and i'm i think from my perspective we need to we need it to go back to the drawing board completely what we were visioning for this project knowing that the costs have gone substantially too much right we needed to take this you were revenge were separately and then try to look at this i don't even know what to say my mind kind of right now is very but at the same time i am not happy businesses are not happy and you need to do everything you can in order to try to make them happy thank you thanks councillor barlow councillor jang and then we'll go to councillor barlow and remember we are on we're talking about the motion to postpone to december 11th go ahead councillor barlow um thank you president paul um you know i raised these concerns at board of finance um because we had all heard about this and um i'm i'm torn because i hear that we have businesses that are really concerned who need to need to have be part of the process um but i'm also cognizant that we have hard deadlines on this contract bid and we risk having it be even more expensive and being able to do less um so i i'm i don't think i'm inclined to postpone tonight i think we need to move this project forward so i with the assurance of course that you've made a couple different times now tonight that you will endeavor in an expeditious way to engage with the businesses who have raised concerns and try to mitigate mitigate those concerns so i appreciate that thank you councillor barlow we'll uh go back to councillor jang and then yeah i just wanted to definitely thank councillor bergman for giving me the second here and also councillor shenan for um allowing it and asking them to go back i really appreciate that thank you because same process happened in board of finance there was a lack of a second but i appreciate you too thank you okay so with that uh we'll go to i believe uh the only person that we i think we have 11 of us here um actually 10 of us here um so we'll go to a looks like we need to go to a roll call vote remember this is a point of a version i think councillor oh she took her hand down yes um so and just to keep him out you had your hand up councillor grant go ahead please thank you um i won't support postponing it um but i do feel like we're being rolled over a little bit i i even if it had been like um a special meeting of the board of finance just to get information to us sooner we all due to work schedules can't attend the board like i watch the board of finance meetings but i watch the recorded ones because i can't always watch during my work hours so um i just feel like we're being rolled over because i know this is tied the whole issue with the ravine is tied with the gate gateway block and that if we don't do the ravine then does that blow up the mou on the gateway those are all other questions um as well thank you thank you councillor grant uh with that let's go to a let's go to a roll call vote this is on the motion to postpone to a time certain of december 11th councillor barlow no councillor bergman no councillor carpenter no councillor jang no continue um councillor dority is no longer right on law uh councillor dority is no longer on councillor grant no councillor hightower uh councillor hightower left us uh councillor king no councillor mickey no councillor shannon councillor travers no city council president paul no ten eyes two absence okay so we don't have a motion to postpone that means we're going to be voting on this this evening uh anyone want to add anything before we go to a vote let's go to a vote lori let's go to a vote this is on this is on the underlying um motion are we all clear on anyone have any questions about what we're voting on okay go ahead lori councillor barlow yes councillor bergman yes councillor carpenter yes councillor jang no councillor grant yes councillor king councillor mickey yes councillor shannon yes councillor travers yes city council president paul yes nine eyes one day two absent right there would be nine nine in favor one opposed and two absent yeah um so that motion passes thank you so much for your time with that that completes our deliberative agenda and as we've already completed the remainder of our agenda that completes the meeting um thank you so much for joining us this evening um and our next meeting will be monday december 11th in the meantime we all wish uh the berlington community a happy thanks giving um enjoy the rest of your evening it is we are adjourned um by uh uh motion by councillor bergman seconded by councillor mickey we are adjourned seeing seeing uh no objection we are now adjourned at 1147