 7 o'clock. So we might as well start some of our warm up here. So from what Liam looks like we can fit 25 faces on the screen. So I don't know if that's what you're seeing. So if you hit the button, you can get to the next screen and see who else is there. I would sort of the basic reminder is that we do this in a respectful manner. We don't need to go through the list, but we will stick to a treat each other in a respectful way set of rules. I'll remind folks that we ask folks to keep yourselves muted, you know, if you're not speaking or raising raising your hand for a question. So I think for most folks the mute there's a mute button down in the lower left hand corner and across the bottom of the panel there's if you want to see the whole list you can click on the participants button and everybody will show up and of course if you use the you know you want to make a comment or ask a question there is the raise the hand feature and the steering committee folks will be trying to keep tabs on that to and Liam too are you monitoring the raised hand so we can all right good get everybody into the conversation. So I guess I would I don't see Jim Hallway here yet this evening. Can I ask a technical question before we come off of technology? I have someone trying to get on by phone. Liam can they access the Zoom meeting? Yes they should be able to I'm not sure on the agenda there might be a like a phone number they can call I think that there is something on there but I can I can send you an email or something like that with the phone number if you'd like and then they can just call in. Yeah I know that each of the front porch forum postings did have the phone number listed there as well. I'm assuming we've disabled the screen share yeah okay. If you need to screen share for a presentation or something just let me know and I'll make you a co-host and you can share. So as you may have noticed we're now using the the city's Zoom the CEDO web account and Liam is our is our host this evening so so he's in charge of those mechanics so thank you Liam for doing that for us yeah it's good to have you here. It looks like TJ has a question. Thanks so much I I've never been able to make it on time I just spent all day on Zoom and so I've never seen the there's like ground rules or agreements for the meeting and I've never seen those so I'm just wondering if anybody can post those somewhere or because I unfortunately have experienced some people not being respectful during these meetings and I for one would like to be able to call them out when that happens so okay. So yeah I we do have a sort of a formal list of rules that I don't have in front of me but I think basically it boils down to sort of conduct ourselves in a respectable manner and if it doesn't pass that test then it's probably out of bounds. If anyone I mean if anybody has those list of rules they can send it to me and I can post it on the the city's web page underneath this this meeting if anybody wants to download them so yeah I'll pull them off a previous agenda and send them to you so I guess one of the things that the steering committee wants to accomplish this evening for sure is to make sure everybody appreciates the fact that we have we the steering committee and the city of Burlington as a whole has lost one of our longest serving steering committee members Linda Della Duka she she passed away two weeks ago back on December I'm sorry March 10th so she she died very peacefully at home with her family so one of the ways we'd like to open our meeting this evening is if there are anyone who would like to offer a remembrance and appreciation of Linda this is the perfect time to do that so who would Martin thank you I was gonna start my updates tonight with a little remembrance and an acknowledgement of Linda's passing I did not realize how ill she was like probably many of you and so it was a shock when I heard about her passing I just wanted to say that Linda was as many of you know extremely supportive of our school district and she was always interested in what was going on she was more than anything she was passionate about the well-being of our children in our community and about the work that our schools were doing to meet the needs of our children and on a personal note I just wanted to say that Linda encouraged me to run for Ward Forest School Commissioner three and a half years ago and I will forever be grateful to her for that that's all I wanted to say thank you Jeff clerk yeah I wanted to remember Linda as well she was a great lady for the NPA she really had a wealth of no excuse me wealth of knowledge that she shared with everyone on the committee and I will miss that tremendously I'm not sure if everyone also knew the great work she did as a trustee on the Vermont State Teachers Retirement System as a financial advisor she would like to talk shop with me about what they were doing on the retirement system all confidential but and she had great knowledge of what she was doing for the system and for her fellow teachers which I thought was great work she did there too I'll pass it on don't forget to unmute yourself please I just live several doors away from where Linda used to live and she did die her her death was a gracious unfolding right at the end her granddaughter who lived with her had started to read bookstore something to her every night and the last book that she chose the night before Linda died was by Dr. Seuss entitled oh the places you'll go and her yeah and that her son said that towards the end when at first she closed her eyes this is when they knew she was getting close and but she could still hear and so they kept talking to her and then they saw that she'd fallen asleep and so they just stayed by the bedside in case she woke up but he said she just started to laugh in her sleep that's it thank you Sarah carpenter I saw you had your hand up I can imagine Linda just laughing in her sleep perhaps at some of us I didn't know Linda too very well even though I knew her family and her some of her brothers but when I decided to run she was just such a great support to me and giving me advice and I so appreciated her honesty and her candor and and she certainly had lots of opinions but it's so wonderful to have someone like that working in our community and that really will be missed thanks Bob thanks Linda was a friend of mine 35 years ago Linda was one of the first foster parents that I ran into as a DCF worker SRS worker and then she was the teacher that I knew and then she was this that I knew and that that I knew and we we sat around we did zoom calls after we couldn't go to breakfast in the morning we did a zoom call on a Friday and we were supposed to do one on Monday and then she basically said I can't do them anymore and then died soon thereafter but you you automatically get a sense from Martin and Sarah and my own experience that Linda had her finger in so much in the community and everything that she did she did her way and one of the things that she said you know I posted the the card that she had somebody right up other work to do so I'll be moving on and it doesn't surprise me at all that that's our perspective because there was very little that she didn't have either some influence some opinion or some smart-ass remark about we had a VP meeting on Tuesday and we had a moment of silence and everybody sort of got the idea that a moment of silence is the last thing that when the depth of Dooku wanted because there was no silence in her life so she will be missed thanks Eric yeah let me I'm mute here yeah Linda first recruited me for the NPA and you'll always be you know grateful to her for that but even more so when my wife and I first moved into Vermont a little over eight years ago and we would go down to the bagel cafes on Wednesday morning and she would in those days she was always there on Wednesday morning we learned so much from her about you know low about Vermont politics you know the neighborhood you know the city and and early on she said I'm gonna teach you about state government and she actually took us on a field trip you know to the state cap at all and then we walked around the lunchroom she buttonhole just about every player in the state I mean that day we met Dave Suckerman we met Bill Surrell we met Beth Pierce I mean it just went on and on and on so you know she was a force of nature in that way and you know always you know appreciated her you know her friendship and her support and her knowledge thanks welcome I guess a thought I'd like to add is and actually what one of the things I appreciate most about Linda is she made it very clear that she didn't care if if we disagreed on politics or content of a particular conversation but she she made it very clear that her most the most important priority to her was a commitment to the neighborhood and a commitment to the community and anybody that was willing to to serve and commit their energy to the community was most important to her whether whether you agreed with her on the merits of an issue or not so that's what I definitely learned from Linda anyone else like to offer a thought before we get going on the content of our meeting gonna offer that Linda recruited me and I didn't know her and she she called me after I lost the Democratic nomination and said I know how you can help the community if you really want to help the community so right now she would be telling us it's time to move on that's great Jeff that she had a great sense of humor and she was not apologetic she kind of wrestled me into doing this and it's been a great experience for the last couple of years she was crashed she was brass you either loved her or hated her even those that didn't like her I think they did but she made no apologies for who she was what she stood for and it was just kind of need to have someone be so just blunt and true thank you yep all right so how one of the places we're gonna go this evening is we're gonna launch into our elected officials segment so let's see I don't know anybody volunteering to lead off mr. Hooper Bob that's I've been sitting sitting in this chair since seven o'clock this morning I'm gonna lead off and then beg off unless you have a lot of questions today Jeff mentioned teacher retirement stuff today that forgive my frankness but the shit hit the fan with the proposal that leadership brought out on teacher and state employee retirement plan revisions as well as a means to hopefully resolve the unfunded liability bit and all of a sudden my email box is this much bigger because everybody is now saying what kind of a draconian mindset that the people have there I think it'll impact our ability to hire the level of educator that we attract to the state will be impeded by the fact that we're not going to have a retirement system that is as functional or accessible as the one that we have now we have a whole lot of federal money that came in some of it is going to this particular problem a lot of it is going to other particular problems most of the email I'm getting is saying you made a promise to me when I started to work here 20 years ago and now you're ripping it out from under me and that's a valid point I think so I want to hear from you all about what your thoughts are on the process it'll be probably in the paper tomorrow but tough decision because it's a huge number that has to be dealt with and it just starts to get bigger and bigger on other hands we passed the house now it's not lots just the the wisp of something sexual assault bill something that deals with corrections training for sexual assault limits interaction between workers and inmates passed a huge movement towards funding child care so that people get access to quality child care it's still not a business that I think compensates the people that work in it as well as they should but it's moving in that direction there's a lot of stuff going on fortunately you all can watch it happening live on YouTube and if you get insomnia you can sit up in your favorite chair at two o'clock in the morning and watch it there we've gone completely and totally I mean I'm I'm sitting in an old bedroom here that's that's where the state house is as far as I'm concerned and it's invigorating and boring at the same time my dog comes up I give him a treat he walks away so I I know that everybody has questions about what's going on and I certainly will entertain as many as I can we've beaten the horse to death already maybe not and since I'm representing two other legislators here apparently I see go ahead anybody last call okay yeah I just I just got a message from Carol she's trying to trying to join us but Kate you have a question yeah Bob I wonder if you can be any more specific about I mean I know what the proposal was but could you be any more specific about what happened today in the conversation about the proposal about corrections about child sorry about education retirement oh a significant increasing contribution a significant mitigation of what the average final compensation be for most system members it's an average of your last three years of salary there was a proposal to go to seven years which is almost a third of a lot of people's service and I think maybe the third highest in the country in terms of the average that they're looking at retirement age boosted up to what would be normal for social security complete restructuring of the pension investment committee which oddly enough takes us back to the first pension investment committee that we threw out because it was too complicated to run essentially it's a cookie cutter of that that somebody wants to bring back the the boards that you would go through if you were a teacher and you needed disability determination or you're having problems with a 457 or a 403 whatever that those boards run they would be combined into one most of it is I find no logic in it and as somebody that sits on the pension investment board and spent many many years on the state employees retirement board makes no sense to me seems to be driven by I hate to say this but people that may not know exactly what the unintended consequences are going to be of what they do however in both the education side and the state employees side I've been getting I have solicited and have gotten probably four pages of email from people that have the option with 25 years in to say I'm going to buy the last five years and walk out the door I got a report from the veterans home in Bennington today where I sit on that board and 26.7 percent of the employees are eligible to say I'm leaving tomorrow if they buy five years today so this this will have a chilling effect on the ability of the state to provide services if we had done this six months before COVID hit I would bet people would still be waiting to get in the door of the unemployment office as opposed to getting benefits it's it's ill-conceived and I think it's going to be a bad move and I plan to either try to modify it considerably or just object to it so I do it yeah thank you you're welcome Jake hey so in regards to the latest pile of money from the federal government the the rescue plan I think it's called this time around what's the timeline as far as the state deciding how it's going to spend its part of that allocation well that's a hard question to answer Jake because just like the last time the money comes and then they they float in the restrictions upon the use of the money afterwards so people are somewhat hesitant to use it for certain things this question ties in well with the last one because there is a prohibition on using this money for retirement fund related stuff the other thing that is in that that puzzle is called other post-employment benefits and that's like health care for teachers etc it might be able to use for that but we don't know yet because the feds have not handed down the restrictions there is money that's being appropriated in the budget that is just starting to work its way through the system just came out of the appropriations committee I think this week COVID time is who knows what day it is but it's it's got to go from there to the floor and then to the Senate and then to the governor and might get recogitated somehow so it'll it'll be in a budget it'll be technically dedicated but when it gets to the departments and the departments take the money and then they write the rules for you know if it's going to a small business concern or it's going to fund a health department initiative or it's going to fix a runway at the airport whatever it's being used for they have to wait until they get a better idea of what the regulation is going to be and how it's applied or we can run into a situation where some federal auditor comes by and says oops you made a mistake I'm taking that back and that's not where we want to be so prudence is a good thing but prudence is in this context a synonymous with delay or can be follow up thank you I think what we probably need to do Bob is have folks communicate follow up with you a little bit later because we need to move on to our other elected official segment for now please oh yeah you're welcome thanks thanks Bob Martin do you want to pick it up sure please give me a sign if my Wi-Fi is acting up it seems to come and go but hello everybody it's nice to see everyone Bob thank you for your work I know you've been working really hard on the teacher's retirement and I appreciate that yeah good work so I just wanted to give you some updates and I also wanted to say that the three school commissioners were probably going to be doing like a rotating schedule we have a lot of conflicts meeting evening meeting conflicts so tonight I am the only person here and you might find that there will be one or two of us here instead of three on a regular basis so apologies but you know it's the it's the land of zoom and we can't escape it so first off I just wanted to let you all know that the safety task force that was put together a few months back has completed their work and that was a group of students community members BSD employees who took a deep dive and a close look at the SRO program in the city so their work is done they have completed their report we're going to be looking at it closely at the April 6 school board meeting and then we will decide what they're not we will you know accept it and implement it so I wanted you all to know that and it should be made public I would say sometime in April I wanted to remind folks that we're working hard on the waiting study and I'll explain that very briefly and also say that just a shout out to Kendra who is our North District school commissioner and Mike Fisher who've been working really hard on this but as many of you know for and Mark Barlow I see you and you may want to chime in at some point as well but for the last 20 years or so you know the state's been distributing monies to districts based on pupil weights and in 2019 there was a study done a combination brought Gears University and UVM they did a they did research on our funding formula and decided that it actually was inequitable and it undervalued EL students and students in rural communities so basically you know Burlington's been underfunded I use that word we haven't been getting the appropriate amount for our student body to the tune of close to 40% so this coalition that's been put together has been working to try to eat to create a more equitable formula so that monies are distributed around the state in a more equitable fashion which would be a great thing for Burlington it really would help our frankly our you know our tax situation and it would certainly give us the appropriate money for our students the appropriate resources for our students so we've been working on that obviously at this point it's in a more peculiar it's a political decision that's being made so it is complicated and it will take time but we did have a great city council meeting with Carol Odey and Phillip Baruth and some other folks who were who spoke up in favor of of the looking at the student waiting formula probably won't see anything happening until 2023 that's what we were told at the city council meeting the other night but just so you know we are working on that the BHS folks are asking a lot of questions DTBHS which is the downtown location is going really well there are issues around noise as some of you may have heard the walls do not go all the way up to the ceiling so that air can circulate but what that means is that you know there are noise issues that and we're trying to work on that trying to mitigate the sound but all in all I would say things are going well the high school building on North Ave is still being tested and we probably will not have the results from the pilot study until August so you know this is a long process it's taking time there are we just recently found PCBs in the glue that held the floor tiles to the cement so this is obviously not good and we have to find out how how deeply those PCBs have been absorbed into the cement how far down do they go and then figure out how to deal with that we are in the process of evaluating our superintendent that process will probably be finished sometime in April and then we will make the results public probably in late April so you'll all be able to see that you've heard that there are recovery funds for school schools those are being obviously allocated at this time but it does look like the Burlington School District will be receiving a a sum that is which is positive news I read in seven days that it was something like 14.3 million so that is public that's out in the public at this point that is part of the COVID recovery package teacher and staff vaccinations are underway that's going very well and I want to end on a good note which is that our new director of the tech center Jason Gingold was named Vermont career and technical education director of the year so that's really great really good stuff so I think that's it I can try to answer questions if you all have some okay we're oh all right I'm going to try to if I have time yeah we're going to try to squeeze here because I want to get the city council but it looked like a budget you had a question for Martin Martin I have a very very quick question thank you what does the anticipated use of the 14.3 million dollars yeah so that remains to be seen but there is obviously a COVID recovery plan that will be put together and those COVID funds will go to everything from academic support for students social emotional support for students you know summer help and so forth so that just gives you a little taste of what some of that money will go toward I believe every district district is going to be required to have a recovery coordinator so that is a a new position that every district is going to have thank you the question Birgit Bob did you have something to say well doesn't doesn't need to be a new position somebody else that's already on staff can fill the role if they're qualified that's we were trying to cut cost exposure on it so just somebody to wear the hat thank you for that vision okay yeah thank you my timekeeper helpers tonight are Karen Durfee and Jeff Clark and so I'm being admonished to move on to City Council okay folks thank you thank smart team Sarah thank you I'm not sure if my other colleagues are here and I'll start by giving a big shout out to our departing colleague Franklin Paulito who's been a good teammate with me this last year and he will be missed but he promises to continue to remain involved in the neighborhood he's got a lot on his plate with his three little girls but I'm sure we will be continuing to see him in terms of updates we had an election and we have a new counselor on Mark Barlow who is will be sworn in I can't remember the date first week in April so certainly we welcome Mark and he's well known to us in terms of council activities because of the election month it actually was a little bit quieter which was a good good thing I like that every once in a while we're trying to figure a few updates we we did hear from Chief Locke that are our north end ambulance is on the way and they're beginning to recruit nine new firefighters and they hope to roll that out by the beginning of August assuming they can get the number of firefighters that they need and get them all trained up so that's very exciting news in terms of the we were talking about the recovery fronts we did learn on Monday night the Burlington will get about 19 million dollars we're just beginning the process and we're just beginning the process of our regular budget planning so this will go hand-in-hand we don't know all the rules and that's makes it complicated but we're certainly looking forward to using it and then representative Peter Welsh also joined us Monday night and said that he believes were actually eligible for another eight million dollars and again we're it's hot off the press it's very unclear there is a very preliminary budget on four docs under the city's finance committee but I know that's going to be consuming our budgeting and finance discussions in the next couple of months in terms of other issues that we've talked about at the council level there's a proposal to require rental housing to meet newer weatherization standards and we're so we're working on that you can expect to see in the next month or so some proposals around short-term rentals the CDNR committee which I sit on is working in 31st we'll be discussing a proposal to develop a council on aging for the city so we're very excited about that and we've got actually lots of participation from neighbors in this end of town the Heineberg Center our age well representatives and Ethan Allen home so I think we'll be coming up with some good stuff there tonight we're going to hear from the Talitha consultants who were hired to do a process of community engagement around police transformation and they certainly will explain their role but I just want to point out that that's one of two consulting firms we have and we signed that contract with another company called CNA and they will do a full operational assessment so they're going to more look at the nuts and the bolts of the police department and staffing levels will be kind of under their belly work and I believe Talitha is going to be looking more outward at some of the community relationships and I think that's what they're going to be talking to us later tonight around I'm just trying to think what else we've got we had come to consensus on city place but as you read in the paper there is still an encumbering lawsuit not by the city but some private citizens so that's moving but not too fast I guess that's probably and I think Martin mentioned we had a great meeting on Monday night to educate the council on some of the educational issues and the in so this waiting formula which is significant and how we set our tax rate but I'm not even sure Martin knows this but the Senate today passed s something s a bill related to move a study committee on the waiting formula forward so that's just a positive step and it's critical to Burlington it's unfortunate that it's a very hot political issue and we'll take a task force and a lot of negotiating and compromising and Burlington's been at the short end of the stick as Martin pointed out for 20 years so this is a it's a little step forward but hopefully helpful step yeah sir I think it's called s 13 is the bill yeah yeah so passed to the Senate it still has to go to house but at least that's a good step and I'm happy to answer any questions Jennifer any questions for Sarah while we try to get Carol muted Carol Odie unmuted I think I can get her unmuted I'll work okay if she's is she calling in right now yeah she's one of the telephone logins but we're trying to get to her but not doing it very elegantly so yeah I just sent you an email yeah I just I asked both of them to unmute so they should get prompt on their phone right I've been doing it too so they're probably gonna get a lot of prompts and she's the 802-238-6252 yeah yeah I've asked her center prompts to so Jennifer it looks like you had a question no I was just trying to signal Jeff that he had his microphone turned off that's you need no hand signals for this whole brave new world oh he's got about one minute left so I don't know about unmuting these phones because we're gonna stay on time we okay well then while we struggle with that I think Matt Halber would you like to do introductions on our next presenter please I would be happy to I think it goes without mention that folks know Eric Farrell he's a Ward 7 New North End resident and I would say developer that we're all familiar with I showed a unit in one of his buildings in South Burlington today and it's still standing so good guy Jessica Fowler's also on this call I'm Jessica's his executive assistant and they're gonna give us a rundown of what's going on at Cambrian Rise so Eric and Jessica I'll let you jump in all right just for the record I paid Matt to say that yeah checks in the mail right yeah not enough I think Jess is gonna show you have to share a screen with her so that she can show some pictures which is way above my pay grade so anyway we're we're chugging along I think that's the inaccurate description this is a view from just over the rooftop of Liberty House former orphanage looking towards the lake at buildings that do not presently exist but will in the hopefully near future so we're gonna show you a site plan but let me I'll give you a very quick rundown of where we're at and just are you able to highlight a particular building but anyway she can do what she can do and I'll I'll I'll just keep talking and to in July the summer of 2017 we opened up Liberty House most of you know 64 apartments one condominium in October of 19 Champlain Housing Trust opened up Laurentide which is 76 units of affordable family housing and in in June of 2020 last year the city council approved us for an increase in our overall density at Cambrian rise from 770 to 950 units residential units plus non-residential units there's there's actually no density limit in this district it's a floor area ratio the only place density cap lived was in my development agreement that I signed five years ago and so the council just simply lifted that cap from 770 to 950 same same number of buildings the site plan is not going to change significantly then in July of last year we opened up 90 units the old classroom broken calls classroom building and then in addition onto that building 90 apartments we're going to open up four more in in May on the first floor of the classroom building in part because we because of COVID reduced the amount of commercial space a little bit and added four more units Cathedral Square is going to open Juniper House I believe in April 1st of April they've been putting ads in the paper so that building I think it got its CO at the end of last week and just as a side note the Barley County High School Tech Center has been renting about 10,000 feet from us on the first floor of the building we opened last summer they moved in in December and then they're moving out at the end of June and going up uptown onto Cherry Street and so later this sometime this summer we expect to break ground on the third of three apartment buildings we're going to build called Sunset House 125 units market rate about 3,000 feet of commercial space and then later this year or the first quarter of next year we're going to break ground on a condominium building that runs from North Avenue down to the where the road turns east and north and south 202 units will build it in two phases probably take two and a half to three years kind of hoping Matt sells half of them and there'll be some inclusionary units in that building and they'll be all manner of price points starting from in the 200s and and with a couple of them tipping the scale it probably 900 or a million bucks and then beyond that CA I'm talking to CHT about building H and L shape building which they want to do in probably two or three year phases one year phases of 72 inclusionary condominiums and then we'll round out Camry and rise with what we call right now building Q because we haven't named it in the south in the northwest corner and then south of that building P both of those buildings will be for sale condominiums they might contain a restaurant we've got a placeholder for a small boutique hotel juries out as to whether we'll do that so if all goes well we'll be done Camry and rise in I don't know five or six years a little difficult to say it's all market driven the building that we're starting this summer we were supposed to start a year ago and so we got a little slowed down by COVID but the response to the units that we did open has been unbelievable building filled up in about half the time that I thought it would take so and we think we have some pretty happy campers living in at Camry and rise and when we're all done there'll be if we do build out 950 units there'll be about 500 apartments and 450 condominiums 25% of everything rental and condominiums will be will meet the inclusionary requirements of the city of Burlington which is part of the zoning and part of my development right now so that's a very short update happy to answer any questions we're pretty excited about it it's a lot of work but we do what we love oh there's what there's well it'll look like when I hopefully before I turn 80 that's what it'll look like so any questions I think I saw Brigitte and go up first just looking at this picture that you have on the screen now I'm assuming therefore that folks who are using the bike path and the those on the lake will see the disruption along the tree line you'll see your development from the bike bike path and the lake well it's actually pretty difficult to see our project from the bike path as a pedestrian because it's pretty heavily treat as you know when all those trees are on city property we sold the westerly part of our land including Texaco Beach to the city back in 2016 so and we are going to make a paved connection from our project down to the bike path that won't happen until mid to late next year sometime in 22 summer and fall of 22 but I you know I don't I don't think that it's certainly the operation of the bike path is not going to be disrupted and frankly I think that it would be pretty easy to go up and down the bike path and not realize what's going on on the project because you're sitting down several you know 30 40 feet below below the meadow and and that the same is true on the lake be you can start to see buildings if you're a mile or more out in the lake the closer you get to shore the less you can see thank you Jennifer Eric once you've completed the total build out for camp campion rise about how many people will be residing there in total I'm guessing that there will be 1200 people living there 12 to 12 1300 people will be the 20th largest city in the state except we won't be a city but it's hard to say exactly but I'm I think they'll easily be 1200 people living there where there are requirements to be able to handle more that much more traffic and just other oh well we went through the complete process through the city and the state and v-trans weighed in we had we had a comprehensive traffic analysis done which DPW reviewed and even though it's not a public road v-trans reviewed our traffic analysis because of off-site impacts you know and we have to make contributions for example to the improvements that are being made at the Rotary on Shelburne Road and Shelburne Street in the south end of town so but all the professionals who analyzed our traffic analysis deemed it to be acceptable apparently thank you Amy thank you Eric you mentioned commercial space and a restaurant and can you speak to what some of the ideas are around commercial space as well as any community gathering spaces that kind of thing well we have a commitment I can't disclose who it is but we do have a commitment for about a 3000 square foot cafe deli grab-and-go food operation that's going to go in the building that we can finish last summer be right on the corner right across from Cathedral Square actually right on the corner is the second nicest bus stop in the state of Vermont the first nicest being the one that the city owns downtown but we built a we built a climate control bus stop and immediately behind that very visibly and visible and accessible will be a cafe I don't think we'll attract a real full-scale restaurant until the tail end of the project so we've kind of earmarked one of the one or either of the last two buildings for for that if we're if we're able to attract it because I think they'd want to build the project to be pretty much built out commercial spaces it's a little bit of a course the commercial markets pretty quiet right now but we're we're gonna try and strike a balance between you know needing to obviously fill whatever commercial space we have with uses that serve the residents that live at Cambrian rise and and in the greater you know neighborhood so you know as odd as it might sound we're not looking just for who could pay the most rent we really want uses that will enrich the lives of the people who are there so we're gonna be pretty picky about that thank you thank you okay I think Kate you're up next thank you I was wondering and maybe this is difficult for you to answer because it's sort of a micro question you did a lot of very nice clearing along the boundary fence with the Lake View cemetery and I was wondering what the maintenance plan was for that because it's sort of been a wildlife corridor and also I just wanted to make a plug I'm a native plant fanatic and I think we just need to plant more of them and I look at your like original plans that you put in I just want to urge you as you do plant landscape plantings to use as many native plants as possible in that but do you know what the plan is for the ongoing maintenance of that sort of hedgerow with the cemetery well that is that there's a there's a 30 foot strip along the cemetery boundary line that between the cemetery and what will be a public right away because it is a horseshoe shaped road public street that we're gonna build and that strip of land is we committed to keeping it open other than just vegetation and trees and it's owned it will be owned by the Camry and rise lot owners association and it will be maintained and by that association all the buildings and lots in the development are our constituent members and so the primary responsibilities of that association are to maintain the open spaces and there's another open space lot that the association owns plus the maintain the stormwater system so in that we are very aware that that has been for a long time a wildlife corridor for those little critters that want to challenge crossing North Avenue so in our landscape architect TJ Boyan Associates are very aware of doing any replantings with native species thank you all right we're gonna squeeze in one more question and Jean that's you hi my question had to do more with the rooftops on the right on the condominiums that are bordering the road in yep some one looks as though it has solar panels on the roof yeah and I'm wondering what your rationale about the solar panels were as I don't see any on any other roofs and then the other was in the building closer to North Ave that's adjacent to that solar roof building what's on that rooftop it's got some kind of shade thing on the top and is the parking underneath that building there's yes there's about 300 parking spaces and three levels underneath the building that you're looking at and on the roof closest to North Avenue we call that our sunrise veranda because you have pretty significant views of Mount Mansfield and points east from that location the middle section of the roof are actually community gardens because we wanted to utilize that rooftop space in a positive way with that frag agriculture and then the westerly portion of that roof you are correct is going to be dedicated to solar panels and all the buildings we build are we're we're making them available for so solar panels Cathedral Square has solar panels on their roof as does Champlain Housing Trust and I expect the building that we build this summer which is the middle building that Jess is pointing out will likely do solar panels on that roof as well thank you thank you well thank you very much good job Eric and Jess and any idea when when or if you might want to come back at some point in time here I think it probably would make sense for us to maybe come back sometime this summer mid to late summer as things evolve even more we'd like to keep you you know fully informed but don't want to waste your time either meantime if anybody wants to buy a condo call Matt all right well on the market this summer all right so the steering committee will be we'll keep in touch okay yep keep in touch with Jess she tells me what to do one of the daily basis thank you very much thank you all right we all right I'm getting the signal from Karen it's time to move on we had our next presentation is director of property assessment and if you're already aware the new appraisal is in full progress so I'd like to switch to John Vickery welcome thank you everyone thank you for having me here I really appreciate being able to speak to the Ward 4 and Ward 7 group your last presentation I'm gonna make before we send out valuation notices and so I really appreciate this I have a presentation that's gonna take about eight minutes and then I can leave the rest for questions and answers and so forth so if you don't mind I'll pull up my presentation does everybody see that yes yes thank you so I'm John Vickery the Burlington City Assessor and we are have been in on a two-year process of conducting the citywide revaluation project for 2021 which is near the completion point or near the point where it is about to become public for taxpayers to weigh in on their valuation and to review their property and so I want to give you a couple couple facts and some information that I hope will be helpful here's a here's a graph on the market since 2006 of your typical single-family home in Burlington we have seen the market change from in a positive direction from bet for a value point of view from 295,000 in 2016 to projected to be 392,200 and 2021 most people are quite aware that values have increased our reappraisal will be based on April 1st 2021 we were mandated by the state of Vermont tax department to conduct this revaluation because we were not meeting statistical standards of measurement or equity and so they told us that we need to do this or they would withhold education funding from us and they do this to a lot of towns every year once if a town does not meet measures of equity so we went ahead and we started the project we hired companies we put out bids and this reappraisal has cost us about 1.1 million which most of it has been paid for through the state they out they they give an appropriation a little over a hundred thousand dollars to us each year and we put that into a reserve which is by and large paid for the entire project here the last reappraisal was done in 2005 so too long ago and it's wise idea for us to make these changes we also changed our our valuation software and updated all the tables and have run a lot of statistical tests to measure the market and have applied those measurements to to the greater market mostly single family homes condos all types of property commercial as well the timeline is on April 1st change of value notices will be in the mail or ready to be in the mail we will have our information to the printer on the 31st in April the board of the assessor property appeal hearings will be held and the process will be mostly virtual for health and safety concerns around COVID and the letter will provide information on how to have a hearing if you choose to have one May and June there'll be a lot of reviewing going on and and final valuation decisions by the board and then by July just like every July tax bills will have the new valuations bear in mind though but the new valuations the tax rate will will be lowered so that there is so that the there is a similar amount of money raised you know values will increase tax rates will lower and it should mean that the city will raise about the same amount of money they have this per year with a few increases for increases in budgets and so forth that type of thing also for your information we know that the values will be based on current the current real estate market and the legal data value is April 1st 2021 for this year Tyler technologies is the general and residential property appraisal company so if you have an appeal and you call the phone number you may end up talking to someone from Tyler technologies I just want you to be aware of that if you own a commercial property safeguard organic analytics they focused on commercial property valuations and they do valuations all over New England Tyler technologies by the way is is they are all over the country but they have a division that is more New England based and when we send out the letters please please read the whole letter I I have a lot of information on it that is going to be useful to our citizens of Burlington our website will be updated of course we have for years have had a property database where you can look at your your property and other properties that will be updated by April 1st additionally there will be project information and other information on how to file an appeal if you choose to and if you are appealing your property value there's a few steps to take we hope that most everyone will will file an electronic appeal through the assessor's website if they choose to and a Tyler technologies administrator will call or email to schedule the meetings so those meetings will be held in April and they will be through the zoom meeting platform that we are on right now there's other options as well but we're hoping that 98% of the folks will do do this appeal through the electronic means but there's other options that is my presentation and I appreciate it and I'm here to answer questions all right well very well done looks like we've got plenty of time about 10 minutes for questions I think I saw Jennifer's hand first thank you um John will the letter that you send out on April 1st or shortly thereafter give us both the figures before their reappraisal and then the the ones that come out of the appraisal so we can make it a comparison yes it will it'll give you the value currently and the new valuation and also we're hoping that well we will have the the online database set up so you can review the data that derived the value as well as uh the ability to notice other folks properties that are similar to yours to get an understanding of where what has happened with valuations anyone else okay yeah uh Matt hi hi John how are you I'm good um I have a quick question we have a timeline of when the new valuations are coming out but without the updated tax rate it's difficult to determine the incremental tax burden increase or decrease so I'm wondering when those two pieces of information are going to be brought together so we can know what does this mean for our bill yeah that's a that's a really good question because we don't have a tax rate currently and uh it's a give and take the the treasurer's office derives the tax rate through the through methods of this is what's needed to be raised and they're still working on that as well as we are finalizing this whole process and they need to know where the total values are going to be um let me give you an example the last reappraisal I was part of I've been here um for a long time now um in 2005 when we conducted that reappraisal the the municipal tax rate was a hundred was a a dollar three and then it was lower to 63 cents excuse my voice 63 cents so it dropped quite a bit meanwhile the total values of all properties increased um it was like 1.7 billion and then now it's at 3.8 billion and when we do this reappraisal that 3.8 billion in total real estate value will be around five billion so expect this big increase of the whole all the values put together for the city of Burlington and a tax rate dropping quite a bit um so by and large the tax rate is revenue neutral this the city is not allowed to collect more taxes just because of a reappraisal the they just have to cover the budget and so that's why there's this this change the good thing about a reappraisal is it's it's done for equitable purposes in other words um over time different properties appreciated different rates and so some folks are going to benefit and others are not they're going to be paying more but maybe they've been benefiting the last several years with this with market appreciation so we're hoping this reset fixes those problems the other thing is um the citizens involvement or the property owners involvement is critical as well because they know their property better than the appraiser and uh so we're going to look forward to at least making sure that the data on the property is correct um and hopefully that'll result in a fair valuation that's what that's the goal there's more questions i'm happy to yeah john can i ask a follow-up to make sure clarify what i heard that i know that the process was initiated in response to the common level of appraisal with the education funding mechanism but did i just hear you say that the municipal tax rate will also be adjusted downward to reflect uh a total increase in the grand list yes the municipal rate adjusts as well as the education rate and so we'll have a vastly different tax rate lower um if it stayed the same then there'd be a windfall of money for the city council they they're not allowed to have that there's provisions that they they can't have a windfall of money so it has to drop so that it's still raising what is approved by the the current budget and that's what that's that's how this works thank you i appreciate it i had a question for you okay hello john this is uh peter clavell good to see you and uh i was with you during the last reappraisal yeah it wasn't fun and i'm sure this one won't be fun well but my question is it seems that there's been a dramatic increase in the value of residential property but particularly with covid there's but will be a dramatic diminishment in the value of commercial and industrial property so are you envisioning a significant shift from uh commercial industrial property to residential properties resulting in a significant tax increase for residential property owners yeah there's going to be some shift um before covid was here our the equity among different types of properties like commercial retail office industrial multifamily condos was more even and what we've seen because of covid is a larger increase because rates dropped and so there's this this push on the market uh as rates were dropped for probably for market stimulation of nervousness of of of of covid's effect on the market so people started refinancing negatively uh hotels have been hit really hard and office is not so has not performed as well as in retail so there's a disruption in the cash flow of those types of properties and so we are going to have a they're not going to increase as much so that should shift the tax burden more onto residential unfortunately um the thing that i would say about that is that in a few years if we watch the market we could petition to have some adjustment if statistically it shows that there's some inequity to correct uh let's say hotels and offices or other properties that have been affected by covid begin to stabilize a few years out and we start saying that they're improving that there could be an adjustment down the road but we're mandated by state law to appraise as of April 1st of every year and this is the year of a reappraisal so we're we're trying to abide by the state law by by applying what is here so john it sounds to me like peter knew the answer to that question before he asked it um but i'm a little a little confused be if commercial properties are uh being valued if cash flow is a factor in commercial assessment that that doesn't really apply to residential properties so uh where's that sort of difference in approach come from well the investors purchase properties because of their they're they're looking for to make money and uh it's a different than living at a residence uh and having you're not looking at a cash flow for single family home apartments have performed very well so they're going to follow along with um single family homes and industrial properties are in hot demand as well so they're they have no effect on they've had covid has very very little effect on them its hotels have been greatly affected um they're with their occupancy rates substantially down um we're not going to lower those values because that would the the market's not suggesting that but they're not going to increase to the same degree that single family homes apartments industrial types of properties or other properties have um it's just the the appropriate approach to value for the type of property okay thank you oh and it looks like i'm getting the time out from my timekeepers you did an excellent job of fitting that all in so thank you very much we'll be watching for our letter first okay thank you thank you everyone um karen i'm going to ask karen durfey to introduce our next set of presenters so i see um tulitha consultants tulitha consultants um as sarah carpenter so graciously mentioned um they are the consultancy uh working to gather um community feedback on public safety um and so i don't want to waste time introducing them um there is somewhere on the call there is oh i am here so i'm just you you you can take it away whenever you're ready yes i see that skyler is raising his hand skyler do you want to skyler oh go ahead okay great hi skyler i realize you were on the call hello welcome all good all good i'm happy to be here for the first time in the war is four and seven mpa thanks for having me thank you wow this ward four and seven um have more people than ward one and eight where we first went so yay if there is if there's a competition you all won so we are tulitha consult from um all the way from washington state and um it's five seventeen over here so kudos to all of you for hanging in there and i have to say that um burlington vermont has been very welcoming uh since we've been coming into this conversation and i'm just going to put it out there public safety public health these are two very contentious topics and yet you all have been very gracious and accepting us and welcoming us just as we are i like to light a candle because it is a very hard time right now as you can probably tell i am an asian american woman and let me tell you if you just expect me to show up all chirpy and happy i probably am showing up that way because that's who i am but it has been difficult time for many of us so i like this candle in solidarity with all humanity who is crying out for a safer healthier world and we all share the same sky but that let's just take just 30 seconds of silence will you if you can just shut off your camera i encourage you to do so as you come back into the meeting do not worry i did not abandon you i'm back here um you uh if karima would be so kind to tell me what you see on your screen that would be great you have the agenda with the welcome and introductions and the overview so karima why don't you introduce yourself and uh go ahead and read our roles if you can hi so i'm karima edwards and i'm really excited to be with you all and um humbled that you let us into this space um i am the project manager on the side of on the tolita side uh skylar of course is the project manager on burlington side and um i will be responsible for maintaining the scope and the schedule and the budget for this project um so our roles as facilitators we will guide the group through the conversation we'll stay focused on the agenda and achieving outcomes and use the ground rules to assist the group so we're going to be here to usher you all through this we're really here to listen um as far as for you all as meeting participants what we need from you is to feel open about sharing your input and listening to the input that's also shared by others and provide your reactions and um your thoughts as well blend and are you able to hear me yep if i could have um please forgive me if i'm just like randomly calling on you because i just call whoever i see on my screen so if mr comstock would be so kind to reach some of the agreement so maybe the first two bullet points mr comstock seek first to understand then be understood and pay attention to your words may impact others and how you oh make meaning of what others say to you and basically what it is is we hear a lot in our um society oh that's not what what i intend but we know so well that a lot of intention has a lot of impact and oftentimes hurtful impact and so the third i could if i could have um uh commissioner derpy read the rest of the agreements i would appreciate that okay um recognize that we all carry wisdom value the process value shared humor allow yourself to listen deeply i'm going to stop sharing the screen for a bit and see if is everyone okay with that if you are can you just like do this this is clapping in the asl language if you're not okay you just need to unmute yourself and say boo then i know okay i'm i'm not hearing any boo right now so let me share the screen back all right so we will be um moving things through because we need to stop talking and start taking documentation the very first questions that we like for each person to just unmute themselves and talk is um what does the healthy community mean to you and i'm gonna be typing so if you don't hear from me silent karima will be that person for you okay so i'm gonna quiet myself and who will be this brave soul who's gonna do the first talk no question is wrong question i'm sorry no answer is wrong answer you are speaking for yourself from your heart mind and soul what does a healthy community mean to you thank you um i would say that um that a majority of voices are heard on important decisions and uh that big decisions are not made based on one loud person because that's what it feels like unfortunately sometimes thank you i'll piggyback on that and say uh a lively discussion uh and a respectful discussion okay can you talk a little bit more about lively yeah um to me a healthy community includes engagement and um and discussing um to me that's part of health is that we can talk about things and that we're interested in one another and in our perspectives rather than just pushing our own personal perspective um and learning from one another um and uh doing so again in a respectful way rather than in uh you know it's my way or the highway kind of way thank you kate you're welcome thank you it's okay to just jump in sure um accessible resources that people know where to find the things that they need that they're easy to find and they know where to where to go to get the things they need open government and transparency thank you no no one is afraid to walk um in the community and is afraid to walk in the community thank you a healthy community to me is one that accepts all of its citizens no matter race abilities age and uh there's no stigma there's no uh no prejudice it's a free and open community that is all about recognizing and appreciating each other yes um i'm going to ask that someone uh crema if you can track or mr. comstock could help track the hands that are going up i love the hands are going up and that's why i do not want to miss anybody okay so the last person i'm going to type in your uh saying i and keres it might be a little bit easier to see if i can see everyone's screens instead of the view of the mural okay so while while you're doing that i'm going to call on jenna odonal thank you hi um so one of the things or a few of the things that make a healthy community everyone is well nourished well housed and has access to the health care that they need both physical and mental and jenna are you talking about nutrition or are you talking about emotional what what type of nourishment can you expand on that a little bit um folks have access to the food that they feel is appropriate for them in their culture and they can afford that food thank you abie uh people know their neighbors and uh feel willing to offer help and ask for help thank you abie gary did you have your hand up actually i spoke already thank you right well just just checking back to make sure well this this is uh a pleasant surprise that this process went live for us this evening we were expecting an introduction but we might as well make a good opportunity of being live so jennifer i love it it's the free outdoor events the fact you can get community garden space you don't really have to own a car to live here if you also work in burlington some of the features i like that i think are make a healthy community thank you who's next leah hi i already said this but it didn't get written down open transparent government thank you tj back to you thank you um i think that really embracing diversity and uh trying to leverage diversity to make our community stronger there's lots of great research that shows that when we learn from other cultures that um everyone benefits tj oh yeah i am this is shanta i'm using my husband's site anyway uh for me i guess healthy would have to also include um environmental issues like um clean air clean lake um yeah i mean i was going to include also maybe transit that you know i'm a we're we're a family of cyclists so i think safe travel but that's i guess you're talking about safe safety in the next section so okay i'll do environmental um health you did say the lake as well oh that's what i was going to ask you say clean lake yeah clean lake yeah and not and and you know reduced chemicals reduced carbon footprint um um those factors so it's okay if sometimes things overlap because we do find that health and safety are are something that does um and you'll see as we start answering the question about what a safe community means that there are some things that point directly to health so one without the other there there is there there is every now and then i have to just jump in and talk and i'm sorry because once i share my screen something happened to my mute button i want to call back on the person who talks about embracing diversity i want to um more of what i call probing question for you what is the difference between embracing and accepting because earlier someone said about accepting everyone what's the difference um i was really focused more on leveraging and and highlighting and you know restaurants shops parts of our community i think the more we can include everyone in diversity the better our community is the healthier it is does that help yes sir okay um betsey can you hear me now yes uh i do believe that there's a transformative process going on about a mostly or majority white community progressive community that is trying earnestly to figure out terms like white supremacy and you know how we bridge the divide between those people that are so knowledgeable about what they've lost and those of us that have been ignorant so far i think i'm echoing someone else i think there's a division being created a this is what you have to do this is who you should be this is and i think we need to take time i think we need to bring people together in groups in some manner and share really listen to each other um to learn and to not have this what i think is an increasing divide in our community between different factions and i i think it can be done i think it's a process i think it's not quick and that's part of what has come out of some of our city you know elected officials because we need to do this immediately and if we don't bring everyone together and we don't listen not that we all have to agree about everything but to take some time to take some opportunity i think we are not going to make the same progress we could make otherwise thank you elizabeth i see pan i think a healthy community involves presence of tension and disagreement and um and embracing of a loss of a neutral ground i guess space for space for disagreement and space for the discomfort that comes with um not prioritizing neutrality uh can people hear me yep please unpack that that is a lot to unpack what do you mean by not prioritizing neutrality because one of the things that facilitators are trying to do is not to assume that we know what you're meaning right so tell us what you mean thank you i realized when i said that it was a lot of kind of vague words sometimes we i think i think i think that sometimes there is an emphasis on um not rocking the boat and trying to stay neutral in order to um not upset or offend and for there to be real dialogue and progress that's going to be upset and boat rocking and so there has to be space for that to happen excellent thank you and i'm gonna ask someone else to call on another hand i can't see him so keres i think we can move to the second part which is the question about a safe community excellent all right so again a similar exercise and i want to remind each other you know if you have already spoken for the first time so maybe you might want to encourage other people who haven't spoken to speak this time but if nobody's speaking i don't want crickets okay so here we go and i'm gonna rely on crima and mr comstock to call on people okay friends i'm gonna say rock the boat here let's go let's go i've got a suggestion um i'm gonna go down the road of whether this is under healthy or safety i don't think it really matters i'm gonna go down the road that nobody's brought up that may or may not be relevant but i think it is and i'm just gonna say economics if you think of a depressed community picture movies with depressed neighborhoods crime and then think of you know mayville where there's prosperity neighbors work together neighbors support each other um i'm not really speaking to race or color or sex just an overall kind of mayville approach and that may be sort of silly but i think that it equates both to healthy minds safe minds healthy neighborhoods safe neighborhoods i can't see anybody but this is karen i don't have my hand raised but i will offer um a safe community means to me as a domestic violence survivor and someone who has relied on the police um a competent culturally competent police force trained to be sensitive to the diverse needs of the community and also trained to use any sort of physical violence as the last resort whenever possible can someone help me out here the last resort is r e s o r t right yep okay we have a hand raised amy branch thank you karen i'm just kind of building on what what karen said would be um minimal crime and um when crime does occur i i agree with her response about the police response but then also a community response that looks at restorative justice and repair um and not just punishment martin are you ready you're muted still sorry i hadn't done that in a long time i was on a good streak um amy just brought up what i was going to say um i think a safe community has a school district that really cares about its students is really invested in their showing up to school engages in restorative practice and does not look at simply punitive measures in terms of educating students jeff claire i think a safe community is one in which people are able to express their opinions okay before we go to jenna i want to make sure i was trying to read that note did we capture everything you said martin i don't know if you can yeah okay does that look good to you martin sure i think yeah um a safe community has a school district that just the words need to be yeah um all of this will be uh pre-fruit and pre-proofed and revised by a researcher right now this is more like jotting down the notes so thank you garris you're welcome um right yeah and we'll we'll get to this in the q and a session at the end but i'm also sort of curious what is the review opportunity you know for our npa group to take a look at what we created when we get done um we can talk about that um but let's let's see here i have um this little spot where i give you a quick overview of the process where we will go so we'll get there but let's let's um and of course you guys also have the benefit of having the commissioner in your award so she can she's also in the joint committee so okay let's go back to let's go back to jenna then this note might sound trivial but just thinking of what silvia was saying and as a woman who runs at night or in the mornings um streetlights basic utilities that make you feel visible and safe let's see jaffa have you got all the hands well i'm uh i i'll keep going so go to silvia unless um karima wants to do the the calling but silvia peter is uh trying to raise his hand yeah i think we're looking at a microcosm of of safety the real uns safeties our global war and destruction of the environment we're we're in our little microcosm not worried about any of those but those are the things that could end it all tomorrow or this afternoon so i um um i was going to put either under uh healthy or safe communities uh feeding from toxins including pesticides to protect our ourselves our water wildlife life freedom from from toxins christy yeah i um want to focus on um as a safe community would be a community that incorporates different approaches to hearing from different communities and to procedures about how we engage with one another in like regular language what i mean is like you know there's a way that things have been done that work for a certain sector of our population and we know the rules and um and we function well in it and therefore we have power in it but i would want to be very thoughtful about well what are the rules or what are the norms that we want when addressing um any issue of safety so that more voices are not only allowed to participate but are happy to participate okay so i uh i'm gonna ask for um approval from christy so what i heard you said christy is that you wanted to see in the discourses in the this here i am using the word discourse in the discussions of safety related topics you want people to have an engagement method that's relatable to normal people and then thoughtful about communicating about rules and norms not just people who does the job talking amongst themselves right drinking your own kool-aid so to speak but actually uh normalizing our conversation like normal people talking right not really so so that's what i was hearing so maybe you you need to tell me more yeah my apologies i was rambling a bit it's late and i'm tired um can i try to uh paraphrase for christy that i think what's missing from what you captured was i'm gonna have christy speak for herself okay sure after she does you can chime in with your own opinion okay go ahead christy um thank you at what um that in community discussions we utilize a breadth of norms so that all people are happy to participate they expand our understanding of of norms and include new ways mr constock do you want to add to something else additionally yeah i i still think you're missing the concept of cultural competency in uh address you know how how you communicate uh to different constituencies and christy can either you know concur with that idea or not it's still a good idea it's still a great idea jeff let's leave it yeah i think if i would not to change jeff's idea but like i would even say cultural competency regarding how we communicate among ourselves so it's not like oh we're trying to reach them so we got to do it this way but we're just already doing it in a way that people want to participate may i ask who is them who is them and and to follow up on jeff jeff mr constock's comment cultural competency is it is it just for people who don't look like us or even among people who look like us what are we talking who is us and who is them well that was them in quotes you know so let me just rephrase it so it's clear in uh anything written out of this um you know trying to reach across difference in our community love the clarity that christy is bringing up right trying to reach across differences anybody else eris it looks like we have a few more people but i know that we want to really hear from the community what their ideas are um so let's see who else has been waiting jeff can you help out a little bit with his okay uh sure let's see i think annie was up a while ago yeah so it'll be adam this time but you know we're sharing a screen here okay um so so yeah i think um i was trying to think through my head uh a way to make it concise and then i figured you know maybe we want more um more context so what i think safety um you know without the basics of um everyone having a home to live in food to eat in a job that pays a fair wage then i don't think we can ever get to safety because those core things generate hope and a loss of hope is a really scary place to be for anyone so gary uh uh safe community to me is where every everyone is treated with uh dignity and respect and cultural competencies for every one of 42 000 people that live in our city it's not us and them it's uh we do you need help no well she's still typing so i'm waiting oh jeff you don't have to wait i can type faster than you think just kidding um keep going and okay this is not this is not be all and all okay we don't just hear all right we're gonna leave you my email and stuff but keep talking all right kate you're up okay uh this is piggybacking on what a couple of other people said but expanding it maybe um i think safe community uh is it a community in which everyone can walk around um without worry about being harmed verbally or physically by another person um at whatever time of day or evening they want uh and everyone is everyone old young white non-white weird not weird um without fear of reprisal uh karima i see we have a a set of group two questions is that something we need to try to get to or do you want to keep working on what you're doing okay jeff you are hired you are right karima is he hired i can't jeff is hired jeff is hired for to leave us insulting he is moving us along um so karima and i were just texting here on this i see jeff i'm an octopus i was typing and i was also uh communicating we need to move along however this time uh is my friend um gosh uh leon are you there yes i am okay leon let's let's break people in so that you can put in your comments okay q and a so i'm gonna draw the question and you all are gonna be keyboard captains no need to raise your hands you just type in you can be caris now and the question is i'm gonna type in the question for you and just so you know i'm putting you all into attendees because as an attendee you have access to the q and a you'll see it when you pop in there so give me one second it'll be about a minute before everybody goes in okay so leon when can i when can i put the question in the q and a i'll i'll make you into a um attendee right now and so you should be able to do that and caris i've unmuted you um or i've alleged to talk in the attendees list so you should be able to go thank you leon and uh carima if you can also unmute carima um okay neighbors um we have put in a question what needs are you filling in your community you know uh carin the only person i know is carin in your ward and uh perhaps leon leon and uh styler from burlington you all have different positions right some people some people spoke about school some people spoke about uh mental health uh emotional support or housing so in your different positionality what you do personally or professionally what needs are you filling in your community and yet you are seeing that certain parts are still bleeding right and so just type away and if you have it if you don't have anything to type just read what other people other neighbors are saying okay there's no right or wrong answer type away and some of you are still going into the attendees list so just give it a second you should have access and there's also a little box where you can send anonymously if you don't feel comfortable you can hit the sent anonymous and then answer we have one person answering i know that people are just coming in i know that people are still typing there's no rush we have time some people talk about access to culturally um cultural foods and if people want to talk more about what does it mean to be culturally competent and some person talks about the need for all of us to listen from each other in what way are you filling those needs and all attendees should be able to see all the questions you can upvote and comment on other questions as well you can also feel free to send anonymous uh answers or questions if you want tj i allowed you to talk i i lost all capability i was in the middle of typing and then you made me an attendee and i don't have see anything now okay tj do you want to tell me i will type it in for you sure oh there it is sorry it just came back thank you okay okay thank you for comments coming in great janna just took it took the question to and flip it what are the unmet needs right that's another way to ask why don't we just ask that what are the unmet needs another way to ask a question another way to ask this question people are problem solver like my husband um so if you just want to name the unmet need and if you want to like go ahead and say hey you know what this this entity needs to be doing it feel free to do that right hunger we need to investing more one person talks about the school district really caring and meeting students where they're at and not be punitive and if you just want to say name it perfect so you're also talking about not just what the unmet need is you're also saying how to meet the unmet need amy do you have a question you have your hand up i'm i'm not in the right place i'm trying to respond to this but i'm in some other zone on zoom i was amy yes you know i am happy to type in if you are comfortable to talk amy sure um organized a block party in my neighborhood created a newsletter um an e newsletter um during covid so neighbors could uh support each other or help each other out lovely and uh how so it's it's just the neighbors organizing neighbors yes okay perfect and amy are you are you are you wanting to see more of that too yes anyone else who wants me to type i'm happy to do so i understand uh digital access and connectivity it's not always that smooth so just holler you can raise your hand and i'll allow you to talk and also let's keep thinking about what does it mean to feel holistically safe right people are thinking i'm also going to drop in another question another question is well we have what needs again i kind of asked myself ahead of time here and there are no right or wrong answers so someone who talked about freedom from toxin who are you thinking should be primarily responsible right that is about safety environmental safety right what about public safety who else should be responsible and how do we feel the unmet needs neighbors great businesses someone talk about economics yes economic opportunities is part of safety so can we oh yeah i i we are we need to go back to the um other screen we're at time it's commissioner oh okay no problem so i'm gonna ask um liam to bring us back to the other screen sorry about that thank you for coming back uh caron and jeff comstock will have our contact info this is not be all and all and i'm sending jeff and caron a flyer to public town hall which will take place on march 30th next next tuesday at four p.m we're gonna do this exercise again so if you feel like you haven't spoken you have more to say please come that's tuesday at at seven p.m eastern standard time i think i don't know what's going on should we leave caron thank you everyone where where is that i missed it tuesday where i will be sending a flyer it's on zoom unfortunately it's not it's not in person it's on zoom and then jeff and caron will send out can i can i try something the info okay i i think the steering committee will all right we're making it making an attempt to uh to get that information and and repost front porch forum and the north that north end forums so you know the way we communicate about um mpa meetings so we'll we'll forward that participation information to you that is correct thank you everyone and you posted on the city's website too okay i cannot but city employees can and skyler will work on that our project manager great thank you so much i just want to say thank you so much um we will get the information out to everybody who's participating i'm on the joint committee sarah um and mark will be involved in those committees very shortly so if anybody missed anything or didn't really get the breakout room thing we'll we'll uh make sure that you get an opportunity to share your thoughts with solicit consultants so i appreciate it everyone skyler wherever you are there's four screens um thank you so much for coming and um yeah we'll see you soon we'll see you soon and we'll get information out to each and everybody every person that's on this um zoom meeting i know it was a lot to absorb breaking out rooms and uh but the feedback was really beautiful it's really great to learn more about the community and it was uh you know it was a surprise surprise but uh definitely a great great meeting thank you so much to tulissa consultants jeff i'm turning it back to you i think we can leave yeah good night good night everybody thank you thank you