 Good evening. I'd like to call to order this regular city council meeting on Monday December 18th at 6.15 p.m. And we'll start with a Pledge of Allegiance. And the first order of business is the agenda and we have a very long motion on the agenda. He's ready. I'll move to amend and adopt the agenda as follows note additional documents for consent agenda item 4.08 resolution authorization to execute the first amendment execute the first amendment to extend the license agreement with Snyder construction LLC to obstruct a portion of the city's right-of-way on Flynn Avenue and Pine Street Pine Street deli license committee per city attorney's office add to the consent agenda item 4.09 communication Solveig over be regarding missing the March 23rd 2015 communication to the city to city councillors regarding the BT sale communication with city councillors regarding extracts from 1 1 1 7 1 4 BT 8 BT sale documents with the motion to waive the reading except the communication in place and on file add to the consent agenda item 4.10 communication Solveig over be Burlington City Council meeting December 11th 2017 public forum with the motion to waive the reading communication and place it on file add to the consent agenda item 4.11 communication Solveig over be regarding last last mile fiber anti-monopoly anti- monopoly access with the motion to waive the reading except the communication and place it on file add to the consent agenda item 4.12 communication from Mayor Murrow Weinberger regarding Memorial Auditorium update with the action to waive the reading except the communication place it on file and refer to the CDNR committee per City Council President Nodell note PowerPoint presentation slides for agenda item 5.01 per Megan Tuttle note revised version of agenda item 5.03 resolution March 6 2018 annual city ballot question regarding formation of a Union Municipal District Public Safety Committee per city attorney's office add councillor Mason as a co-sponsor to agenda item 5.04 resolution March 6 March 6 2018 annual meeting ballot question regarding climate action councillors Shannon Paul Dean per councillor Mason add councillor Roof as a co-sponsor to the agenda item 5.04 per Dem staff person Judith Stephanie add councillor Paul Roof and Shannon as co-sponsors to the agenda item 5.05 resolution March 6 2018 annual city ballot question regarding increasing the age of to legally purchase tobacco products from 18 to 21 councillor Mason per councillor Mason add councillor Dean as a co-sponsor to the agenda item 5.05 per Dem staff person Stephanie add councillor Wright as a co-sponsor to agenda item 5.05 note revised version of agenda item 5.05 per the city attorney's office thank you councillor Roof is there a second councillor Moore seconds it any discussion seeing none in all in favor of adopting our agenda as amended please say aye any opposed we have our agenda our first piece of business is a is a an expected executive session about the Burlington telecom purchase agreement and we will look for a motion on the finding first councillor Mason thank you president Odell I would move to find that premature public knowledge of the asset purchase agreement which hers would place the city at substantial disadvantage because the council risks disclosing its negotiating strategy discussed in public thank you second councillor busher discussion seeing none all in favor of that motion on the finding please say aye any opposed that's unanimous councillor Mason thank you president Odell based on that finding I would like to make a motion to go into executive session noting that outside council Ralph you know Rourke city attorney's office CAO Anderson Katie vane from the mayor's office and as Brian Lowe joining in Brian Lowe will be in the session as well very good thank you is there a second councillor busher on the motion to go into executive session all in favor of that motion please say aye any opposed then will that's unanimous we'll be going into executive session is it possible there's no vote on the purchase agreement tonight but we may have an announcement about our timing later on in the meeting thank you very much but it's underlined share a red line they're all red line but some yeah so the changes are underlined you're not recess please like to bring us back from recess and we will we will get started on our public forum and we have a lot of interest so let's set the clock for two minutes please a lot of business if you're interested in signing up for public forum there is a form in the back on the table in the back corner you fill out and then I'll call you from up here so our first speaker is James Lockridge to be followed by Charlotte Dennett I think we all hope to accomplish dignity to feel it in ourselves and to never take it away from other people Stephen Marshall has made the point that we are humans and we function in a certain unavoidable way the point has also been made that we are criminalizing people for circumstances that we force them into but not providing bathrooms in the first place I make two additional points and this is about public restrooms when we interact with people who break our ordinance about urinating in public our agent for that is a police officer we respect our police officers and our police force is necessary but we should all perceive that our officers are also authority figures with guns on their hips when the city sends an agent with a gun to tell a person that for the act of being human without the option of a civilized toilet that they are a branded criminal and will now pay the city money for it we are all committing a quiet violence against human dignity the other point I'll make is that Burlington is investing tens of millions of dollars in public infrastructure from the new city place Burlington to Great Streets BTV to City Hall Park we're making choices about what to build please consider that at this moment the city under your leadership is building pretty benches on Main Street and patios in City Hall Park not public restrooms that would make our city kind at a better place for both citizens and visitors you're in a position to take dignity away you're also in a position to give us all more dignity than we currently have please build public restrooms in Burlington and proudly make the statement that our city has both compassion and acumen for the job of governing fairly I've shared an example a printout of free public facilities found in Paris as an option so thank you very much for being an audience to this appreciate it thank you Charlotte Dennett followed by Solvay Overby here I am again as a as a journalist I am still raising my deepest concerns about what will happen if this Burlington telecom is bought up by shirts TV in the last session Councillor Paul asked Mr. shirts about whether shirts had contributed to right-wing candidates and made any personal campaign donations and his answer I believe was disingenuous first of all let's ask about what who shirts hires as its lobbyists I looked into opensecrets.org which you can all find on the internet and which uses information from the Senate Office of Public Records and it indicates that the lobbyists that shirts communication uses is the same lobbyists that is used by Rupert Murdoch Fox TV and News Corps this is Trump TV I keep raising this because journalists are on to the fact that right-wing Trump is getting media companies that agree with him to go out and buy local radio stations and newspapers to influence public opinion and I would regularly watch reliable sources on Sunday CNN and in that program just Sunday I really encourage you to look at it because journalists are very alarmed that there is a closing up of information that gets to the American public and that this poses a serious threat to democracy as for campaign donations what I see on the public record is family contributions to very ultra-conservative people including mr. shirts his own contribution to a representative from Michigan who votes 98 percent of the time along what Trump wants to happen so is this what we want for Burlington please I would I would ask you to ask him more about this thank you just leave it up to me to raise it thank you thank you so they over be followed by Stephen Marshall hello everyone can you hear me in 2000 Burlington City voters approved bonding and to construct the city's municipal fiber optic network which ultimately became Burlington telecom it was intended to be a fiber to the home utility that could be contracted for use by anyone somehow this original vision fell by the wayside over time now that BT's fiber infrastructure is being sold to private investors we should ensure that the original intent of this municipal utility infrastructure is preserved contract language should be included in the purchase and sales documents that ensures that the last mile of the fiber to the home called the local loop remains accessible to other telecommunications service providers to prevent monopoly operation of this fiber resource the purchase and sale contract should include the following contractual commitment fiber to the home networks are costly to build municipal investment in Burlington telecom has created a fiber optic network asset that is economically prohibitive to duplicate to ensure competitive opportunity for an innovation and to prevent opportunity from monopolistic practices regarding access to the fiber to the home network the purchasers of Burlington telecom commit to provide to any requesting telecommunication service non-discriminatory access to network elements in an unbundled basis at a technically feasible point on rates terms and conditions that are just reasonable and non-discriminatory in accordance with the terms and conditions of titles 47 USC section 251 252 if Burlington telecom is to be privately owned this contract language will ensure that competitive internet service providers or other innovative internet based services delivered over fiber to the home will have the opportunity to compete in Burlington the various competitive telecommunications and internet services will be able to address issues of net neutrality data profiling surveillance and data privacy on their own ways and provide competitive products accordingly Burlington residents will be able to choose the services that they want thank you thank you Steven Marshall and then Kelly divine thank you for the opportunity to speak on August 28th this council passed resolutions asking the ordinance committee and the public safety committee to address issues with what were called public quality of life issues the work they've done has been good the ordinance committee has proposed an amendment I'm sorry an ordinance that will actually relax some of the restrictions a little bit to make our response to some of the behavior in the in the community more humane however there's a there's a flaw in the in the ordinance which I proposed to correct I've recruited some counselors to propose these amendments to you for the when the ordinance comes up for your consideration in essence my proposal is to create a feedback loop in the if the city is going to make it a crime to urinator or eliminate waste in public then because there are no bathrooms for people to use their city is offering no consequences for its neglect and failure to provide bathrooms so what my proposal does is very simply is to say if you get a ticket and the city cannot show that there was a bathroom nearby your ticket is dismissed it's not harsh but it's a reminder so that when in the future after our what seems to be some enthusiasm at this time for bathrooms to be to be constructed when this enthusiasm wanes with this bit of ordinance that I I would like to propose there will be a continuing reminder that every time somebody gets a ticket and there was no bathroom and they challenge that ticket the city will be reminded that there's a problem thank you Kelly Devine and then Prospero go go good evening Kelly Devine representing the Burlington Business Association I've read through the recommendations that came out of the Public Safety Committee wanted to thank that group for some I think important work I wanted to speak to two of the individual recommendations one is related to the need to increase public bathrooms I do think that that's something that is well timed for the city to take a look at and I'm just coming forward to say I've talked to several business and property owners in town about this issue and they've indicated a real willingness and interest to help with this effort I know that the recommendation talks about having folks from the city get involved in trying to address this issue and I think it may be useful and helpful to have representatives from property owners of the business community be a part of that solution gathering effort because let's face it both public and private property downtown and we need to find some solutions that worked I asked a member of my team today to start to establish a list of what public bathrooms are available downtown I know with the closing of the mall we recently lost a set of public bathrooms and also on the waterfront that's often an issue down there when if it's an unseasonably warm day before the public works I mean before Parks and Rec opens up their bathroom so willing to help the city address and solve that problem and bringing that forward tonight the other recommendation that I can't say enough about is the one to increase the resources the street outreach team as people may or may not know our organization was played a key role in establishing that group in 2000 it's a really important asset for the city of Burlington and it's my go-to all the time an earlier speaker said if you what would you do if you saw somebody breaking one of these ordinances that are under discussion right now my first go-to and I tell every business community members to go to the street outreach team because the speaker was accurate in saying that bringing police in can be a confrontational experience for the person involved so the street outreach team in a lot of cases is our our first line of trying to help folks out who either are experiencing issues downtown or need to be reminded about you know what's appropriate behavior when you're in in the public space so I would advocate strongly for that as well they're a great organization that do amazing work for Burlington thank you thank you Prospero go go I think and then Zoe Paxton and Ella Mason good evening council thank you again for allowing me to speak tonight and I thank you for considering the proposal to place tobacco 21 on the state on the ballot for the city for the advisory for the state I'm an interventional cardiologist at the University of Vermont Medical Center and as everyone knows tobacco is the number one publicly number one preventable cause of illness in the United States and mortality the stats you see in front of you are the stats from the hospital for large heart attack 271 last year fiscal year 2017 over 500 smaller heart attacks majority of patients who have heart attacks who come to the University Medical Center are smokers so as we know I would like to use the word science base and evidence base as appears that the current administration is trying to get the CDC not to use those words the incident medicine predicts that tobacco 21 will lower smoking rates for 15 to 17 year olds by 25 percent 25 percent of pregnant women in this state less than 20 years old smoke tobacco 21 is thought to decrease death in this country within the next 15 years by 10 percent if we can pass it nationwide so a lot of the arguments against tobacco 21 is the age of consent the age of reason 18 is considered the age of reason or agent consent for smoking right now it's the same thing for voting and for going to the military but we have already legislated other ages of consent or reasons for other things 21 is the proposal for marijuana is the current age for drinking alcohol 25 is when you can actually pay less insurance rates for your driving for your car insurance or become a representative at the federal level for the state of rest for the House of Representatives 30 to 35 you cannot be president or a senator under these ages these are legislated and have been there for a long time there is a reasonable age limit to raise when you think that someone cannot tolerate a decision that's a very important maybe to their personal health or the public health already over 270 plus cities and counties in the United States have passed tobacco 21 and I'll add that over five states now have passed it statewide thank you very much thank you very much Zoe Paxton and Ella Mason followed by Shamura a wiggly can you speak right into the mic please yeah hello start over my name is Zoe Paxton I'm a 7th grader at Edmunds Middle School we are members of Burlington partnership for healthy communities be above substance abuse prevention group and we are here tonight to support the resolution to include the question shall the voters of Burlington advise their representatives to the Vermont general assembly to support increasing the age of purchase of tobacco products in Vermont 21 years on the city of Burlington ballot I am here tonight because I want my voice heard on this issue and I think everyone in Burlington needs the opportunity to express what they think about raising the tobacco sales age 21 we should be doing everything we can to help support my peers in making healthy decisions the people of Burlington need to have the opportunity to make this clear to our representatives hello my name is Ella Mason I'm an 8th grader at Edmunds Middle School I am here tonight because I care about my future and the future of my peers I have many goals and influence of tobacco makes these goals much harder to achieve we need to prevent teens from having access to tobacco the tobacco industry spent about 17 million dollars in marketing in Vermont every year the tobacco companies continue to relentlessly market their products so it is critical that Vermont continues its effort to protect kids from tobacco addiction by raising the legal age of tobacco purchase to 21 very good thank you and our next speaker is Shamara are you Shamara yeah okay you're on speak right into the mic please hi my name is Shamara I'm an 8th grader at Hunt Middle School and today I would like to share a poem that I wrote about my uncle he started smoking when he was a teenager just a month ago from a tobacco related illness he died so I'm here determined to make it so that other families don't have to go through the same thing the fear of loss an imitation poem of it'll be scary sometimes from brown girl dreaming my greatly loved uncle on my mother's side born free in Kenya 1948 found his home farm his land hunted for food when the farming wasn't enough fought for his family his body buried buried with the others now within the earth's soil but he doesn't belong there yet November 20th 2017 months before he died we knew it was coming thank you very much is Tatiana here hi my name is Tatiana by him I'm a seventh grader at Edmunds Middle School I'm here tonight because I want to grow up and be healthy I want to see all the people that I've grown up with be healthy too I don't want to see anybody die from tobacco raising the minimum tobacco sales age to 21 we'll save the lives of people I've known for years and years in school and our community according to the Surgeon General reports if we don't raise this 10,000 kids now who are now under 18 and alive in Vermont who are most likely like in middle school and in high school and who you might even know will ultimately die prematurely from smoking because they most people start before thank you very much next speaker is Mariah Sanderson and she'll be followed by Catherine Clark hi I'm Mariah Sanderson I'm the director of Burlington Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition the Burlington partnership for a healthy community and I just wanted to come and share our support for any initiatives that people work on in this city that help us create a culture where youth and young adults reject tobacco products we know that most tobacco users start before the age of 18 and almost all of them only 1% of people start after the age of 26 so anything we can do to reduce the age that people start using and reduce use really impacts a lot of different areas our health and our kids future and tobacco is one of the crazy products that when used as directed kills people so it's it's really important that we think about ways to keep people from using that product as I think we kind of think as a society that we fix that problem we vilified tobacco use and the rates really came down but as the doctor was saying that it's still the number one cause of preventable death in the United States it still costs our it's tobacco use is one of three behaviors that results in four diseases that cause 50% of all the deaths in our state and we know that minimum age laws for any substance really impact the age that people start using and so the higher you can increase that rates the the the more that impacts the number of people that will start and here in our state one of the initiatives that we work on in our coalition is supporting college students and colleges to create tobacco free policies because we know that here in our state that tobacco use rates for college students are higher than they are for the national average we're at about 15% of college students that use in the national average is about 9% so anything that you can do to really support people not picking up the habit while they're young adults really helps them to not become future users so one of the things I wanted to mention is that there's a lot of data to support policy change and a lot of work that the Department of Health has done to collect information from people about what types of policies they would support related to tobacco use so if you feel so inclined you can connect with our coalition I'll let you know where that information is and help with providing support thank you very much the next speaker is Catherine Clark and she'll be followed by Christie Lorraine please speak right into the mic I've been a Burlington police and fire dispatcher for the past six years and we are here today to speak about the many concerns we have regarding the regional dispatch initiative that's been put forward by the city the main issue that I would like to address is a statistic that's been touted in the media for the past few months which is the 60 to 71 seconds that will be saved on every saved on every can't hear you unless you keep yeah the issue with the statistic is that the time of the phone call this is taken from is from the time someone calls the 911 operator to the time is transferred transferred to the city that time will still be used even in a regional center because we would then assume those responsibilities that does not just go away what would be saved is the time from when we take that phone call to the time we take full ownership of it based on my experience that will be a significantly shorter amount of time than what has been put forward Burlington has also been a city that's very proud of community policing it's an ideal that they support and the center would be taking a step back from that ideal when we lose intimate knowledge of the city there will be people who do not know the landmarks they do not know the people and that could result in a delay in service when it translates to the officers or firefighters is when stated that the loss of knowledge will be recuperated after people have been in the center for a certain amount of time but for one person to have to learn the protocols and policies for eight different cities and towns is unreasonable another issue that has been brought up multiple times is whether or not people who are currently employed as dispatchers in Chittenden County would have to reapply for their own jobs we have no idea what salary benefits retirement would look like in a regional center and there has been no information related to us regarding this I would also like to mention that both the letters of support from the fire and police chiefs mentioned that their department support this but none of their 12 dispatchers were employed by them have come forward in support of this initiative thank you thank you Christy Lorraine and then Pam C Mays hi i'm Christy Lorraine i've been employed with the city and lived in the city for the past 16 years i'm an emergency communication specialist for burlington police and fire one thing about being a dispatcher in burlington is you learn your officers you learn your firefighters you live in the community you serve the community while dispatching regional has its place in smaller towns and cities i don't believe it has a place in burlington we are unique in our resources and protocols we cannot operate the same as the small towns can what happens to community-based policing if we're taking our dispatchers out of the community that's one of the things that we strive on and we do know our local area our landmarks our people when speaking to staffing issue it has been said that there's more dispatchers that are going to be on in one location that's true however there's not going to be more dispatchers on in chitin county it's still going to be the same number of dispatchers just in one place it's been offered that the center will save 60 seconds per call how has this number been reached when a committee has not figured out the operational side of how things are going to be done there are so many factors like is the call the dispatcher going to be also a p-sap who's going to have to give emergency medical instructions while sending out the medical units burlington is the largest department in this group the group consists of different needs for each community does the city really want to relinquish control to a separate entity that's going to have to be concerned with more as a group and not just burlington services also i have spent the last 16 years working for the city's citizens of burlington it is a great feeling when you can make a positive impact it's not a great feeling to have spent nights weekends and holidays sacrificing your time with your family and friends to keep the citizens safe only to be told there's no guarantee we will still have a job and if we do it'll incur a pay cut or change of benefits i'd like to think that retention of experienced skilled dispatchers should be the highest importance in this process thank you pam c maze and then alex verano thank you for your time i'm speaking to in regards to the proposed regional communications center yes please speak right into the mic sorry since 2004 i have been employed as a emergency communication specialist with the city dispatching both fire and police and fire but prior to that i was a dispatcher for a regional communications center in lamoille county we dispatch for three police departments six fire departments and four rescue squads and in addition to that i was an enhanced 911 call-taker for the public safety answering point one of six throughout the state so i speak to you in from the perspective of both someone who's worked for a single department urban center here in burlington and someone who's worked for it with for a regional center and a peace app your burlington dispatchers are so much more than simple call-takers as you might find in a peace app we're a lifeline to both police officers and firefighters and because of the resources we have available to us our process is much more streamlined therefore we don't have the need to utilize mutually like some of these smaller departments in the county would therefore benefiting from the regional center city residents have the benefit of help arriving to them within two minutes and we're able to dispatch most priority incidents within seconds of receiving the call we're a lifeline to both police officers and firefighters as well as city residents and visitors once an incident is dispatched the dispatcher doesn't simply end their involvement move on to the next we remain with it until the end conducting research on the people or address involved to better ensure the officers have a safe response checking their welfare and if needed deploying additional resources completing other tasks at the request of them it's not unusual to be handing handling several incidents at once that are the same priority as what i just described comparing my role as a burlington dispatcher in incidents to my role as a dispatcher for a regional center in peace app can easily say that i play a much higher role in the successful outcome of a situation and have a direct impact to the safety of the officers and the public a call taker is faced with calming the caller dispatching the appropriate resources providing emergency medical care instructions to the caller collecting follow-up information and researching the parties involved they have a lot of on their plate at one time whereas someone who is able to dispatch as we are are able to ensure the safety of our officers while remaining with that one call at the time because we're able to leave it in the hands of the peace app call taker and i'm out of time so yes if you have something in writing you'd like to submit we would please to accept it okay great we appreciate thank you thank you very much alex verano's next i've been employed at the city of burlington for almost four years as an emergency communication specialist i applied to this job with the intention of joining the team of dispatchers police officers and firefighters who serve to protect the citizens of the city on a daily basis i think our city has made great strides in transparency and community community policing however i think the regional dispatch center will be a step back from this direction public safety officer safety and my livelihood are all at risk with this planned center i could go on at length about the many issues and concerns that have been raised about this center and ignored by the planning committee these issues include operational concerns officer safety concerns and the dispatchers concerns about our loss of union protection lack of information about pay benefits job duties seniorities and having to reapply for our jobs the lack of transparency coupled with the fact that the committee has been engaged in the planning of the center for around 18 months now but has failed to include the dispatchers officers and firefighters who actually do this job on a daily basis has created an atmosphere of mistrust in addition to these concerns i believe the planning committee has been disingenuous with the data and statistics they have shared with the public in support of regional dispatching they repeatedly quoted the study that we would save 70 seconds of transfer time between the p-sap and the municipal dispatch center study looks at the time elapsed between the p-sap between when the p-sap receives the call to the time the municipal dispatch center receives the transfer of the 911 call realistically the time saved will be much shorter because the p-saps now gather all of the initial call information but switching to a regional center will not cut that part out of the call it'll just go it'll just redistribute it to the new center berlington and vermont as a whole are opposed to outsourcing and subcontracting of resources in this case there is certainly something special about being able to contact your local municipality without having to navigate a convoluted phone tree or speak with someone who is not familiar with you or the city in which you live i urge the city council to uphold the values of its citizens and residents and pay homage to the long-standing tradition of keeping it local in conclusion i hope you will keep these concerns in mind when voting to put this to the public i hope you'll see through the facade of this original dispatching plan that has been put forth and trust in the opinions of the dispatchers officers and firefighters that serve this city of berlington on a daily basis thank you thank you that is our last speaker so we'll close a public forum at 8 0 5 p.m and we'll get back to our agenda uh the next item is the consent agenda council roof i will move to amend and adopt the consent agenda taking the following actions that as indicated thank you is there a second from councillor dean thank you any discussion on the consent agenda see none all in favor of adopting that consent agenda and taking the actions as indicated please say i any opposed that carries unanimously 5.01 is a presentation from megan tuttle uh from our planning and zoning department about great streets design and construction standards thank you for having us on your agenda this evening uh we'll try to be brief as we introduce the great streets design and construction standards to you this evening yes and we also have laura wheeler from laura sorry from public works excuse me thank you and i think kirsten merriman chapiro who is another project manager is here as well okay great uh we have come before you to talk about several elements of the great streets initiative at various times over the last 18 months and during that time our team has also been working on the development of a comprehensive set of standards for the design and construction of all of our downtown streets which are the standards which we'll present to you this evening um we have been utilizing these standards as we've been developing the concept plans for individual street projects that we've brought to you before and in the most recent months we've started discussing these standards with the boards and commissions that have various uh authority over different parts of the right of way and look forward to coming back to you in january after you have had a chance to review these standards to talk to you about them in greater detail so tonight's presentation is really intended to be an introduction for you so just to clarify there's no action from the council tonight there's no action this evening uh is that okay all right um as we look into the great street standards uh we have been baking into this document the elements of what makes a great street we've talked about these elements in the past that great streets are walkable and bikeable that they're accessible for users of all levels of mobility uh that they are sustainable not only in terms of their environmental performance but also in terms of their longevity and durability that they're vibrant their streets that both support and are supported by the adjacent public and private uses along them and they're also functional they're places that accommodate all of the different users and uses that are expected of our public rights of way uh these elements of what a great street is have been derived from a number of plans and studies that have been adopted both by the city of burlington in the past uh 10 years or so as well as from applicable state and even federal guidance in some cases how will these standards actually transform our downtown streets um as we've been developing this document and as we look at those plans and studies that we as a community have adopted there are three major principles that this these standards are based on uh the first is that we will restore a balance among the users and the uses of the right of way on the screen you can see a very conceptual cross section of main street today and you can see that while we are accommodating uh many of the users that are are expected in our public rights of way um much of the space is dedicated to the movement of vehicles and while we may be providing adequate access for other users some areas are actually providing substandard access or no access at all for certain types of uses so these standards seek to find a way to continue to accommodate the users and the uses that we are currently incorporating in our public rights of way but to reallocate some of that space to ensure that the full range of users that our community has identified as being important can be in accommodated within our downtown streets the second principle is that these standards will help us to uh implement a unified visual language or a unified streetscape um this obviously the foreign base code is no longer a draft as of last month um but we really see the great street standard as a complement the public realm complement to the foreign base code uh that will help us to identify a palette of elements that we can utilize as we rebuild our streets over time so that whether a street is built this year or ten years from now we're ensuring that it has the same level of function and quality um as any other street within our downtown so that our individual streetscapes don't become a project a product of individual project level decision making uh this is also important because the unified language that's established in the great street standards really seeks to complement our private realm uh these standards recognize that the the character of Burlington's built environment really comes from those beautiful historic facades and public art and unique signs and we seek through these standards to create streetscapes that allow those individual expressions of our character to really shine rather than competing with them and the third principle is that through the application of these standards we will create a level of investment in our downtown that reframes the center of our downtown along among the streets that uh frame city hall park and along the streets that connect our downtown to the waterfront both visually and functionally and up the hill to the institutions uh through our gateways so what do the standards do um I've talked about these a little bit already so I won't read all of this in the interest of time um but essentially as I said it creates a palette of elements that will guide how our streets are reconstructed over time and one thing that I do want to touch on here is that uh these standards do provide guidance for how we'll build streets that complement church streets character rather than replicating it wholesale and this these standards also do provide one single comprehensive resource that designers can look to as they start a project and actually throughout an entire project's development to ensure that all of the necessary and preferred elements of a right away are incorporated in the appropriate way these standards do not however uh create a plan for every street within our downtown they do provide guidance on uh the dimensions and and some of the basic performance criteria of our streets but they are not intended to replace the project development process uh that we all know to um to be part of the reconstruction or redesign of a street this guide is meant to be a critical resource not only for the city staff that have um any involvement in the redesign and reconstruction of streets uh professional engineers and designers that are often brought on to assist us in the development of plans for the reconstruction of streets uh but also for our community so that they have a consistent expectation much like we've discussed with the form base code that that we have a consistent expectation of what our public realm can and should be achieving as it's redeveloped in the future. So how will we use this document a little bit about what's in it as you start looking at it um there are uh seven chapters in this document one of the first major chapters starts by looking at some of the existing conditions and the future design considerations uh that need to be consulted as we begin thinking about the redesign of streets um this includes basic information about the type and location condition of different uh utilities and infrastructure and this is a really important point part of the document that brings in relevant recommendations from adopted city plans it acknowledges recommendations for uh public or private uh changes that might happen along a streets corridor that we should take into consideration as we're developing a plan for a street and ultimately provides a recommendation for a street typology which forms the foundation of the rest of this document there are six street typologies each of them are identified by the amount of space that's dedicated to either the roadway or the pedestrian zone uh you can see on the screen that we call the the roadway zone everything between the curves and the pedestrian zone everything outside of the curves and as we dig into this document further we see that we not only are focused on what is the ratio of space within the right of way dedicated to each of those zones but how do each of those zones function and and what specific elements are incorporated in each one of them each street typology begins with a basic cross section and a number of streets to which that typology uh could apply or should apply and then identifies a number of options that allow us to recognize the unique role of each of our streets within our downtown transportation system and recommendations from adopted city plans we've also identified both the minimum required standards for these elements and any preferred elements uh that we see as needing additional enhancement or additional performance and ultimately what this all means is that we have options for how a street is designed uh you may remember our presentation to you regarding St. Paul Street several months ago um this these standards really helped us to evaluate a couple of options that we had for how St. Paul Street could be designed to meet our great street standards um while also looking at opportunities to better adhere to those principles of being walkable vibrant and more functional um there are a number of details that you'll find in this document I know it'll be really exciting reading that we're delivering to you right or on the holidays um but you'll see a lot of details that we've incorporated in this document um for you know the dimensions of a sidewalk the minimum dimensions of a sidewalk uh the minimum lane width for a travel lane um where how we choose what elements belong on a street based on how it's used where we place them how they interact with other elements and with the users of the road um where we place things at intersections to make sure that they're they're visible and functional and ultimately what options we have if we are dealing with incredibly constrained or abnormal situations in our rights of way that uh that will create conflicts for being able to achieve those in a sort of uh typical way and then finally the last element of this document is actually the palette of streetscape elements um you can see here on the screen that this this section of the document looks at all of the things that we typically think of when we engage with a streetscape uh there are chapters on bikeways uh street trees and green stormwater infrastructure that provide incredible detail about the appropriate species how to plant them how to maintain them so that our streets are functional and um beautiful streetlight design is another important part of this document and then finally all of the individual streetscape elements all of the materials and furnishings that we will utilize to make sure that our streets are uh functional and comfortable for the users we've also been very conscious throughout this document to make sure to incorporate a number of options uh so that each project while our goal is to create a unified streetscape we have the flexibility for individual streetscapes to be able to adapt to their unique considerations so whether that is a choice about aesthetics or if that is a choice about performance um having a material or an element that is more durable or more sustainable uh we've built in a lot of options in this document for making choices so again we're here tonight just to introduce this document to you we've been developing this document over the last 18 months through the Great Streets Initiative process um one thing that I do want to note is that this project to develop the standards has been an incredibly collaborative effort among city departments uh we've been engaging with nearly a dozen departments of the city to ensure that all of the elements that we individually are responsible for are accounted for in a collective way in this document going forward um and we have begun discussing these with many of the boards and commissions and ultimately will be seeking their approval and their recommendation to you for approval uh when we come back to you in January so the last slide here is just a link to the document uh it's also been provided to you in the memo that was on board docs for tonight's presentation this is where you'll find all of the individual chapters that contain the details that we've just briefly touched on here and with that uh we'll gladly take any questions that you might have at this time questions from the council council pusher council jeng are you is your hand up yes let's go to council jeng first and then council pusher yeah it's it's always great to hear you present about the great work that you do every day um but now you know things change and most of the time you know things come up and we have a picture in front of you and was just wondering how that will fit within the new great street design in Burlington and what type of material would you recommend etc true so the photo that uh council jeng gave me is of a public restroom um this is an element that we have actually had a lot of conversation about throughout the great streets initiative um one element that we have included in the standards is for a freestanding public restroom like this um not exactly like this but similar uh which is a model that is being used in the city of Portland Oregon um but the idea is that within the standards we've identified elements like a public restroom uh as we decide uh as a city where these elements can or should be located we've provided the information for how to actually install that element within the right of way um so we have identified a public restroom in the document thank you welcome thank you councilor i have councilor busher then tracy so um i think is this going to the public works commission on Wednesday for a vote yes so ultimately um the standards that will come back to the council as you stated are standards but i'm always leery of the fact that if we vote on this then this will be a booklet that people will use to develop their streets and what i found is rigidity in the city with um if indeed people don't want something that is put forward in these standards there is resistance and pointing to the document saying you supported this and this is the way it goes and i found that with plan btv um you know it was supposed to be for the waterfront and pretty soon it's for the whole city and everything's linked to plan btv when a group of citizens got together to look at a specific part of the city and yes it got expanded to the the south end but not the whole city and so i'm very concerned about where we're going with this and um i'm not totally on board i mean some of the streets that have been um shown during the public forums or public meetings um i have some reservations or concerns about those streets even though some may see them as improvements i feel like i'm concerned about being locked into that design if i vote for these standards so can you tell me if indeed these standards get adopted how they will be utilized i really need to understand that so um i'll look to laura as well to help answer this question um as i mentioned we do not see the adoption of these standards replacing a project development process so um it would not take the place of public engagement um or individual work with stakeholders that dpw and the dpw commission would normally hold as part of a project you know creating a plan and and moving forward a plan for an individual streetscape what we have done is identify critical elements of a streetscape such as uh what is the minimum dimension that a driving lane on a street must be or what have we said is the preferred minimum width that we think is acceptable for a sidewalk um we've kind of outlined those basic elements and then we've provided a number of options for things that we can do that go above and beyond those minimum requirements um i think that when you look into the document you'll see that for example we haven't identified just one bench we've identified a whole series of benches um that we think you know work well together and we are open to them being incorporated in projects based on you know individual decisions and preferences and project budgets things like that um the only other thing that i'll say is that we also recognize that as we start to actually implement these standards utilize them put them on streets and see how they perform that we might need to make changes that we might not actually like something that's in them or it might not perform as well as we anticipated and there is a section in there that talks about making changes to this document can i just ask one follow-up you may thank you um so the point of all this is you know i'm i'm very cautious about adopting now um policies and and um standards like this because of what's happened to me in the past so i want to be very clear but i also want to make sure that you know we we had a public engagement presentation regarding how dpw engages the public so i don't want to curtail or limit creativity regarding a this is a design and somebody comes up with an idea that really is good but it's not in this formula and so that's really where i'm going with this i i think that sometimes we lock ourselves in and then we are limited with what choices we have before us and so i don't know if that can be referenced in these standards so that we don't find ourselves just limited i understand the need and all the work that's gone in but i am a little concerned about what i just referenced um go ahead oh you have more to add other than what you've already said oh i was just going to say so you know the standards don't identify a plan for any individual street uh so there is absolutely the discussion that will happen the community engagement that will happen at the individual project level and the only other thing that i wanted to say about creativity is that uh we do acknowledge in this document and recognize that many elements of the public realm themselves um a bench or or a i don't want to say crosswalk a bike rack other elements um could become something artful or something unique and creative and we recognize that uh we want to encourage those things to happen when it's appropriate and so many of the elements might identify kind of a standard element optional elements and then a custom element and in that case what we say is you know it needs to meet these minimum performance criteria and allows for that creativity to happen thank you council tracy and i'm then i'll go thank you president odell so and thank you for these standards very much appreciate your work and thank you for bringing them to the the took earlier uh last month really appreciate that um one of the concerns that i've heard from constituents as it relates to city projects is the the use of um tropical hardwoods really seeing that as being in conflict with our stated commitment to reduce our our carbon footprint as a city and so wondering if you could sort of speak to how these standards do or do not allow for the use of tropical hardwoods in some of these projects the standards specifically speak to the issue of not using tropical hardwoods within the downtown great street standards area where we most commonly see this as benches and we have um our design team can attest to the amount of work that we've put them through to try to help us find a more sustainable wood alternative for benches and we're actually working with them to pilot a couple new products in burlington that have been identified so we are looking at a number of alternatives to tropical hardwoods excellent thank you so much yes i'd like to address the distinction that you make in the presentation between a unified visual language and a uniform visual language because i think a uniform visual language to me sounds boring right and things that have our city has grown organically in in ways that give it a really rich rich texture because we haven't over designed it so i'm just worried about this combined with form-based code kind of over designing our city and making it less interesting right so one of the things that we've kept in mind as we've been identifying materials and elements that could be utilized in the streetscape is to really focus on how these elements can perform or where they'll be placed within the right of way so that they're accessible and functional we've thought a lot about you know we can see that we have used different materials different styles of light poles different planting specifications throughout our downtown some with success and some that haven't worked as well which has provided in some cases a burden on maintaining those elements replacing them as they fail so what we've really focused on is creating a set of elements that will help us to be able to address issues of maintenance installation performance but also recognizing that our streetscapes themselves should really be the place that recognize should be a part of our public realm first of all and should recognize the really interesting activities that are happening along the streets rather than as you look at the standards for example you'll see that they're not you know really ornate or elaborate elements that are trying to detract from the individual facades or signage or things that truly are unique about our built environment within the downtown just one more thing and then I'll go to council hearten it I think we also want to because it is really creating the public realm or kind of investing in the public realm that let's be very aware to stay away from little ways that we send out signals that this is space is for some kinds of people not for other kinds of people but that everyone feels welcome in all of our public spaces I think that's what you intend here but I just wanted to bring that out council hearten it thanks so I was at the PAC meeting a couple months ago and you guys presented this so this is something that I won't be getting behind not now and not in january and I'm just it I have big concerns about where we've gone with this with the walkable bikeable city and now this plan and especially in the downtown area where we're what we are saying here is just no to cars and we have no mass transportation in this city we live in a climate that gives us maybe three four months of maybe biking and good walking and if you look at this plan it says if you own an automobile really don't bother coming downtown because this is just going to cripple traffic in downtown and I know we've had this conversation before at this council and I know there's counselors around the table here my good friend counselor dean and ward one who believes the automobiles will be obsolete in the near future and I say to myself when I read the consumer report back in september of this year the automobile industry set a record selling 20 million cars in the month of september where do you think those cars are going to go are they just magically going to disappear I don't get this like we have gone way too far there has to be a balance and when you look at some of those street designs downtown it says no to automobiles it says yes to long lines of traffic and we're building a brand new downtown that we want people to come to and most of the people today and in the future will be coming downtown in their cars in this city we have no trains no subways limited bus service really and I see these plans I just say to myself how does this make sense in this city now I want people to walk and bike and I bike a lot and I want it to be safe but there's got to be a better balance than what we got going now and what we're looking at down the road it just doesn't make sense in this city and so I would ask that we step back take a look at this realize that the automobile is not a bad word and they're going to be around for a long long time for those who think the automobile is going to be obsolete in the near future I don't know I don't know what to tell you I just don't get that 20 million cars were sold in the United States in the month of September a record but yet we believe we believe there will be no cars here in brovington in 10 15 20 years and I just don't get that there's got to be a better balance so I won't be supporting this now and I won't be supporting in January and my hopes is that we'll take a look at the walkable bikeable plan and make some changes there as well because if we don't I just think that we're going to cripple our traffic in downtown brovington thank you councillor I didn't hear a question there was more of a statement council roof just a just a point of kind of curiosity and just a statement just to the point that councillor hartnett made about September being a very high record-breaking sale automobile month that was actually in response to the hurricanes that happened in the south and everyone essentially got a new car and those hurricanes were caused interestingly enough probably by global warming so just just a comment okay councillor dean I first uh this is the second time that I've seen this presentation it first came to us in two can and I want to repeat a comment that I made then which is that you know as a design professional I certainly appreciate the the rigor and the inventiveness as I've gone into creating this document it really is for me it shows the commitment to quality and to your design sense and I think that I don't think it again as a design professional I see opportunity for creativity within the the overall vision that this creates and so I really want to compulent you on that and in particular the kind of the way it's straightforward organized as a design professional I see fantastic opportunity within this just to respond a little bit to the issue of you know the automobile being a central part of our future I think that the automobile has been a dominant part of our streetscape for too long that this represents not a neglect of automobiles it's actually putting automobiles in the correct relationship to the rest of the the use of our public realm by pedestrians bicycles and it just it offers a much richer and more gracious way for people to enjoy the commonwealth that is is ours so I really think that this is headed in the right direction and those people who who see this as a an attack on automobile it's not that at all it really is just moving it the the the bar a little closer to the rest of us who don't necessarily want to have automobiles at the center of our lives councilor councilor right and then I think we're in the mayor thank you president O'Dell like that first of all I want to thank you for the presentation and thank you for all the work on this plan unfortunately when it comes here I also probably will not be supporting this for many of the same concerns that Carter Hart and I talked about I don't have a question but just a very brief statement because I'll say most of it for when you actually come back to for this to be acted on but my fear is that councillor Hartnett is wrong but that we we we may make the automobile obsolete in Burlington if we continue with all the plans that we are talking about here not in just the gray street ones but with all the different initiatives that are going to be going on around the city I think that the all of the different initiatives may in fact make the car obsolete in Burlington to our detriment mayor mayor Weinberger and then we will talk about next steps and close up thanks president O'Dell I just want to kind of step back for a second that I think the frame for this discussion is important which is that we are in a period of major investment in our public infrastructure and in our public spaces and that's being driven by some a number of large forces we have a stormwater regulation lake protection regulation that is going to force us require us to do things differently to protect Lake Champlain whether we want to or not and we have just made a major commitment to a sustainable infrastructure plan that we have just finished the first year implementation and have four funded years ahead where we'll be making major investments in our public realm and our streets and our sidewalks and we have you know a conceptual plan for the out years beyond that when we continue to make a heightened level of investment and I think what this document is about is getting those investments right to the greatest degree possible and I think I would just I understand the concerns that have been raised and I think there's some legitimate concerns and certainly we don't want to there's there's a danger perhaps of you know over prescription over design there's a danger of not getting the balance right but I do think there's some really early examples of where this thinking has been implemented so far that I would hope we give the council and the public some some optimism that this thinking is headed in the right direction though those two examples are our concrete examples that come directly out of this thinking from the same set of consultants and team that's been working on one is the the waterfront north section of the waterfront which has I think is our most recent new street and which has a lot of the features in terms of enhanced landscaping and enhanced materials that we are talking about in in these designs and I would submit that that has been extremely well received by the public that people think that is a beautiful new part of the city that has totally changed the way we think of the northern waterfront and is one good step in this direction a second I think positive promising aspect about using this kind of thinking is to look at what's happened so far with the redesign of st paul street we had these draft standards in place for those conversations with the stakeholders and that those conversations went extremely well and there's a great deal of excitement and enthusiasm from the people impacted most alongside the street about where that is headed and I think this gave us a the building blocks the tools to have those conversations and and I think we're coming out of it likely with a good design although of course the proof will be in the pudding so I'm optimistic about this I think this complements you know we are in an era of major public investment and this is going to help us get those public investments right thank you mayor so this will come back to us for approval at one of our january meetings that is our hope yes we will be revisiting as I think councillor busher asked the dpw commission later this week we will also be going back to the toke and the burlington electric commission before we come back to you and our hope is that we will be back here before you in late january okay great when when you do come back I think it would be good to have a report on each of those boards and commissions had to say that would be helpful for us very good all right thank you very much for the present is there more councillor shannon make a brief statement thank you I I just wanted to talk about there's a comment about kind of over designing things and and I share that concern in a lot of ways particularly when when we're talking about development but when we're talking about great streets I do think that that design continuity is a great enhancement in the city they that's the the public way and it's continuous it's not something where we need to see something different on you know dramatically different from street to street and I I am very appreciative of this work for for one thing because of the issue that I've had with protecting our sidewalks so that there is space you know we keep wanting to put all of these cafe tables on sidewalks and you end up with these sandwich boards and cafe tables and plants and there's barely any place to walk and I think that we have to keep the the public's interests and different uses in mind in a in a more comprehensive way and a way that flows from block to block and kind of makes some sense and is fair to everybody and so that's one of the things I'm looking to get out of this and and in this case I I think design will have a great benefit but I also share what I know a counselor one of counselor Hartnett's concerns which is the the parking on that block between Church Street and and South Winooski Avenue where we have the diagonal parking I'm not comfortable giving that up and I'm not sure that how this works with that I'd like to talk to you further about that as this process continues thank you thank you any other counselors counselor jeng thank you let's remember we do have a lot of businesses in front of us counselor jeng it will be quick president and thank you so I remember the first time you provided this presentation and I ask you one simple question that was what is the street in Burlington that currently has all the elements that you talked about and you specifically said Cherry Street we gave examples lower church Pearl Street and there's some elements on South Winooski between Maine and King but there's no street that really truly has everything right yeah I mean to me I mean you talked about between yeah like not Cherry Street it's where the bar stops is you know the other street and exactly and you know you you don't pay attention I never paid attention but when you talked about that's when I went there and then looked around and paid attention and actually this is not about the cars but this is exactly about the trees the streets the sidewalks you know the benches you know you look at them you like wow this is perfect and I think I asked you also one question that was about street lighting you know and because now it is becoming a topic in the national level because the cities are getting more and more bright and we are losing the aspect of looking at the sky and seeing the stars and the the moon and all of that but how do we just ensure that we make sure that we still can look up and see the beautiful sky of Burlington sure one of the things that we have been very mindful of as we've been developing the street lighting recommendations is finding the balance between street lights that will provide safety and security and illumination for all of the users the pedestrians and the vehicles but also recognizing that we want to use physical street light types and light levels that will allow us to not overlight our our downtown environment and to further contribute to light pollution in the community please please tell me use your mic I just wanted to add you want to put the light where it needs to be which is on the streets and the sidewalks and not necessarily in people's windows or you know on the second and third floors or up in the air I'll say council jane any other council okay so I guess we're all set thank you 5.02 is a resolution requesting a report on options to reduce municipal taxes and fees for seniors and low and moderate income Burlington residents council right thank you president Odell I would like to move adoption of the resolution wait for a second and after the second ask for the floor right very good second from councilor tracy you have the floor council right thank you president Odell this resolution sponsored by seven city counselors thank you and this is basically this is acknowledging in the resolution that we've done a good job here the administration and the council in solving our credit rating issue that we had a few years ago that we have we have met all of our goals financially in regard to the unassigned fund balance and have have surpassed those goals and believe me I'm not complaining that's a good thing but I think that it's also a good time now that we've achieved those goals and surpassed them and we have we think some other revenue sources coming in as well that we take a look at how we can help residents share in the success of the city as much as as the city itself is doing as individuals and so this resolution would have us look have the administration come back to the city council to the finance board and to the city council with information regarding how we might implement and what the costs associated with be it doesn't lock us into doing any of these things but has us take a look at this over the next three months reporting back to the second meeting in march on how we might implement a program where we could reduce taxes for low and moderate seniors in Burlington at what level we might do that what the costs would be I mean there's different ways it could be done though also we would look at all the fee the fees for programs in the city this could be helpful for low and moderate income families in Burlington and to also take a look at whether whether we might instead actually reduce the overall municipal tax rate which we did do by one cent last year so I think this is is timely I think that this probably is not going to get the attention of some other items tonight our agenda but I think it's something that the citizens are are going to be eager to hear us talk about and debate and get information on I know that when I go door to door the thing that I continue to hear more about and it really makes me sad is longtime Burlington residents and sometimes short-time Burlington residents saying that I love the city but I it's it's just very expensive to live in Burlington and I think that we need to take those and believe me that's not just Burlington for months expensive and I think we need to do our part and see what we can do to help alleviate those concerns so I hope that we pass this resolution tonight and begin to get some information on how we could address the affordability concerns so that we can have our residents seniors families others share in the success financial success of the city thank you thank you I have councillor paul and then and then busher thank you president Odell I have a a small very minor amendment which I believe will be friendly online too the words undesignated reserve fund to just simply replace those with unassigned fund balance I think there's a there's a wish not to have friendly amendments I've been told that's no longer in our rules okay so I'll take that as a motion to amend okay is there a second right seconds it is there a discussion all in favor of that amendment that is striking undesignated reserve fund and substituting unassigned fund balance please say aye aye any opposed carries unanimously thank you you all said councillor paul thank you councillor busher thank you I'll be supporting this and I just wanted to say that having grown up in Massachusetts and coming from a family that had no money my mom actually would not have been able to stay in her town in her house in her town if her town didn't have a program where although she the state could give some reduction in property taxes what she was allowed to do was to defer her property taxes until the time she sold her home and then you would pay those taxes and accrued interest and so that allowed her to keep her home and that made a big difference so certainly you have to set the threshold you have to figure out what threshold to set that it but I think that these are the kinds of ideas that I'm hoping will be explored and what makes sense for us in this state I know we already have opportunities where people we have income sensitivity as far as reduction in property taxes from the state but I I think that sometimes you need more relief than that in order to stay in Burlington and I would really like to find ways to allow people to stay in their homes not only is it morally the right thing to do it costs society less to have someone stay in their home than to have them move into assisted living or a nursing home we all know that and so really what we're doing is we're protecting them and we're protecting ourselves so no matter whether you want to be a humanitarian or selfish I think it works either way thank you thank you councillor any other councillor see them we'll go to vote all in favor of adopting this resolution as amended please say aye any opposed that carries unanimously thank you very much 5.03 is a resolution placing a ballot question on the March 6th annual city meeting on the formation of a union municipal district councillor roof I'd like to move 5.03 and after a second request the four black please 5.03 is moved in the amended version that's correct in the as as a the amended version that was adopted so it says revised dot pdf second from councillor hartnett councillor roof you have before thank you last Tuesday the public safety committee met to discuss regional dispatch which has been a topic contemplated by communities throughout shitton and county for decades chief lock presented information related to the work done over the last 18 months by a regional committee of public safety professionals and municipal leaders on the concept of regional dispatch for emergency services this regional committee has determined that a regional dispatch center with a 911 call center included can improve the response time for many 911 calls the regional committee has estimated that the call transfer times could be excuse me that the call transfer times could be eliminated which would improve response times additional benefits of this model as presented include enhancement of mutual aid among municipalities more dispatchers on duty and dedicated oversight of services the regional committee also foresees benefits to the dispatchers which include increased training opportunities career advancement and management opportunities for those familiar with the operations of a dispatch center we also heard in committee concerns related to moving forward moving towards a regional dispatch model in our committee we heard concerns from a group of dispatchers and i believe the full council received some email correspondence from dispatchers as well the concerns much like we heard tonight are primarily due to employment uncertainty and insufficient involvement in the process thus far it was discussed that the city in committee it was discussed that the city cannot make guarantees to this point on behalf of an entity that does not exist yet and that those communities who join the municipal union will have or would have the will have members on its board to establish those commitments due to labor concerns primarily the the city council is receiving this recommendation from public safety committee without the support of all members in reaction to this and in effort to be responsive to these concerns while also respecting the dispatchers union protections around negotiations myself and president no dell worked with the city attorney's office bob rustin and chief lock to bring forth an amendment to the resolution that was moved by public safety this amendment now found online 50 to 54 is a clear directive stating that if the voters do approve the creation of the municipal union in march that the city council guarantees involvement of the city's dispatchers in the discussions going forward this seat at the table is not only i think the right thing to do but also valuable for the future entity itself because when you look at other communities that have made this shift those have those that have had dispatchers at the table have found more success i'll close with an important point that much like the council much like the votes the council have taken on this issue in march in october tonight's vote is not about deciding to support or to not support the concept of regional dispatch tonight's vote is about moving the question to the ballot and giving the voting public an opportunity to fully participate in the discussion if the voters vote yes in addition to guaranteeing the inclusion of our dispatchers in the process the city council will still need to vote as to whether or not to actually join the municipal union prior to that vote the all parties will have full details related to the new entity a full understanding of how the dispatchers were included in the process and have full knowledge of the employment packages being offered so i think you know just to close one of the core functions in my opinion of city government is to ensure the public safety in our community as an employer of close to 700 we as a city have a responsibility also to do right by our employees i think that if done right and managed well this process can result in an outcome that accomplishes both thank you thank you councillor and we have with us to answer questions chief del pozo chief lock and erin frank i was going to guess erin frank your your deputy manager in the town of colchester and i'm the chair of the joint survey committee that's been great thank you very much for being here tonight and i see charlie baker from the regional planning commission as well okay the floor is open they're here to answer questions or we can debate the motion well i have councillor more than busher thank you um so i did not support this um last week of course um first i just want to acknowledge that um we all voted to ask you to do this work chief lock so and i and i supported that at that time and it's my understanding now that that when you um approached the city attorney and bob rustin um that you were told that you couldn't speak to the dispatchers um and i'm curious so we talked a bit in in committee about um where this has worked well and where this hasn't and the importance of involvement with of the dispatchers um where it has worked well and so i was unclear i guess i'm still unclear um at what point that involvement started in those um more successful examples um i'm not sure if if anyone knows that i you know i don't know i'm still wondering um it seems like you know we we spoke today briefly it seems like there could have been some conversation earlier on maybe not about the details you know no one even knows the details yet um and and i take at least partial responsibility we saw this in committee when i was chair of that committee um and i didn't ask that question either so you know i need to own that um there has been some question about the data around the time savings i'm hoping that someone can speak to that where that data comes from there's some disagreement about how accurate that is there's some question around um how dispatchers will be able to follow eight different policies from eight different communities will there be one policy for all the eight communities i i'm curious about that um we've heard from dispatchers about the importance of knowing they they all know our local police and firefighters and how they have this working relationship and how they see that is really key to um public safety and um the success of their occupations um and that that would be much more difficult with regional dispatch um and of course there's the there's a challenge with the union contract obviously you know that no doubt they understand that there's there's no details known or that can be guaranteed and so i'm curious also to hear um from any of those dispatchers if if there's someone that would be appropriate to speak on behalf of of the group um how they would see some sort of plan like involvement in a plan because um we we heard that they would like to have involvement um but it was unclear what that might look like since it we're not quite there yet from what i understand okay so there's up until the very end that was more i think a question for a a dispatcher to answer correct but all the other questions are for the gentleman at the table and i'll ask counselor more to keep track and if there's they don't answer all your questions if you just come back i will do exactly that thank you so i'll hand it over to i'll i'll take a stab i try to keep notes and do my best to to hit as many of them as i can so first the data so the data came on the 70 seconds so we randomly pulled 16 thousand 911 calls out of the state system so there's about 200 thousand 911 calls generated annually those calls go to six different public safety answering points throughout the state so when you dial 911 it's going to be answered to one of six places barring your knot on one of the borders where you hit new hampshire or new york let's just put that off to a side from the time that call is answered in the center one of these six places until they take your information and they transfer you to a local dispatch center at the 90th percentile which is what the the statistic that the NFPA uses that takes that took 70 seconds that is exactly where that transfer time of 70 seconds arrives from if you're a if you are a p sap if you're a consolidated p sap dispatch center which at least for the four local p saps all are so my former agency you're taking that call the mapping information all the all the information where that caller is calling from already it doesn't it doesn't have to be regurgitated restated it it allows for a quicker processing of the call in the dispatch center that's where so that's the 70 seconds is exactly out of the state 901 system 16,000 calls over a 30 day period and at the 90th percentile 70 seconds legal advice it started way before way early on one of our first meetings with the managers we hired independent legal labor attorney Karen stack poll for for the authority or for the joint survey committee who gave us very clear direction that they almost all these 44 employees are unionized and it's a very fine line of what we can and cannot speak to with them and that was validated continually by our own city attorney erin do you want to is anything else you want to add to that i mean please use the mic mr fray no it's the relationship with union employees is they're represented did not very much different than when a person gains an attorney you have to work with with the larger group and so it does provide some constraints i think most of the communities have managed to have some meetings there are just some constraints about the level of conversations that can be had so we kind of push the envelope in other communities to do that too but there is this fundamental issue of representation and having to engage properly so as not to step on the rights of these employees within their collective bargaining agreements and then just as a quick follow-up so that was it that was the direction we were given and stuck to that really until about october where we said okay we're going to start having some conversations with our employees so that they are aware of what we're doing but at the same time trying to take a high level avoiding anything that had to do with collective bargaining so just on that point from what i think we heard through email and i'm i may be getting this wrong i thought we had heard that um that that the employees had been reached out just a few weeks ago you're absolutely correct in october we as the commission as a as the joint survey committee made the decision we were going to start having these meetings it just took another six weeks because it was it was until not until very recently i may have been i don't even want to maybe in the week before thanksgiving okay so week after thanksgiving it took that time to have the conversations because again before i met with our attorney before our employees i needed to have that validation with our own city attorney so before we could get our approval from our own city attorney to have those meetings it took until and to give them the notice it was late november so the decision was initially made by the survey committee in october and then late november we held our first meeting so common operating policies absolutely i think that came as one of the recommendations from the delta works report uh the police chiefs are aware of that the fire chiefs are aware of that there's no way there's two things there's no way that dispatchers can be asked to dispatch this many agencies without using computer aided technology and there's no way that they can expect to be expected to know that eight communities are going to operate eight different ways so without a doubt we understand that there will have to be common operational policies and every police chief that um i know is aware is aware of that and willing to to make that concession and certainly there is a personal touch and a personal relationship when a police officer can walk you know every day into that dispatch center and have those have those relationships i think you still will build those over time you'll still hear the voice on the radio you're still going to know uh the inflection of the voice when someone's uh someone's upset or someone's on a hot call will it but there are some i think there are some sacrifices made but i believe overwhelmingly they the value of this far exceeds those those certainly nuances thank you um i i do want to add that in committee um it was it was my impression that the employees weren't entirely against this idea that they were really frustrated with the process um and i i just want to acknowledge again that um that you're in a very challenging place chief lock um and i want to thank you for that i am curious to hear from um if there is anyone able or willing to speak i don't want to put anyone on the spot but um i also want to recognize that we we have all the managers at the table right now and i'd like to give an opportunity to to someone else to speak would anyone from the dispatchers like to come forward i think please come forward yes i think that councillor moores interested in can hearing how they would ideally be involved in decision making and recognizing it so i want to thank um the work that was done to put together the amendment um around um involving employees i would just like to touch on two things that were brought up one i completely understand the legal reasons that we were not communicated with but burlington dispatchers as well as many other communities in chitlin county also read multiple articles over the summer about information that was released and to us it was frustrating that we can't know this information but it's been deemed acceptable for public release and we did talk about this on the meeting on november 30th and it was agreed that can you it's hard to hear you or it was here i keep repeating speak into the mic yeah it was agreed that moving forward they would agree if something could be released to the media to a public entity that would be shared with this batch as well so we're not finding out in the free press or wcx or seven days about what's happening with our own employment and something that came up during the public safety committee meeting was that chief lock fully supports the idea of dispatchers on subcommittees and in the planning process but it was also mentioned that such subcommittees would need to be approved by the regional directory board so there sounds as if and i don't know if this is true so if someone knows please correct me but it sounds as if although chief lock supports it there is no guarantee because that has to be passed by the board of an entity that hasn't even been created yet yes when you when you come back to the table yeah yeah when you come back i think you can expand on that so there is a there is an amendment maybe um another counselor who is involved more involved in writing that um around involving dispatchers if um this is approved by voters but thank you thank you very much and could you state your name for the record Catherine Clark thank you Catherine um chief lock can you can expand on the so we carefully worded the amendment to the resolution to avoid that so based so the resolution the amendment to the resolution states is that whoever is the burlington director will meet with the burlington dispatch staff and then the burlington director reports those findings back to the entire board of directors for the union municipal district so we took away the the decision making of a higher of the higher board and said the burlington director is going to consult with that with their with our staff and then bring that input back to the entire board of directors so it will happen okay counselor more you're still on i'm good okay can maybe you you ask the question it's a little bit hard to do questions like this but did you hear her question i did and in the spelled out she's asking who would be the director the agreement that's before you indicates the mayor or his designee is the director or in a community that has a manager form a government it's the city manager okay thank you i'll set counselor more yes okay so i think i had busher thank you um this it was a question that um when you were responding to counselor more i don't know if i got this right or not but um you someone was referencing that um you know the the issue regarding the union employees not being able to be engaged initially but but you were some i think you said sir that um that they could designate you you were relating it to you know having someone an attorney represent a group of individuals um so was an option to have a union rep involved then could the employees have selected a union rep that could have come to the table to represent them because that's what i sort of understood you saying and if i misunderstood i'd like you to clarify that early on in the in these deliberations so it's a very complex matter in that this entity doesn't exist and we can't negotiate on behalf of it yet the municipalities have a relationship with their own employees and can certainly engage them so we've tried to turn this as a direct that's that's really not my question i don't want you to go too far with that my question is when you were deliberating as a group of individuals from various communities i thought i understood that there would have been an opportunity to have representation from dispatchers if they were represented legally or by somebody at and they could have been at the table did i misunderstand that i guess that's really my question perhaps i i didn't convey it i was talking about more about the individual municipality relationship to the dispatchers versus the group as a whole the group as a whole came to the the conclusion it would be best for municipalities to engage directly okay so thank you respecting that issue of representation as appropriate okay so then my question then to the city is and then i have another unrelated question but my question to the city is then could the dispatchers earlier have selected if if we had reached out to them could they have selected someone like a union rep to become engaged or or be involved in in this discussion earlier i don't think so here's the issue you're running into labor relations issues and and right now the employees are unionized and when we get to bargaining with them around their upcoming contract i fully expect that we will be dealing with whatever employment issues they would want to deal with that have to do with their employees of the city and at some point if this goes through they would transition to being employees of somebody else that transition what happens what happens to their jobs as they lead up to it as to the city's termination of those positions and they're moving on i fully expect that will be information that we would bargain with them but they they cannot be at the table to to talk about formatting because then all of a sudden it becomes bargaining but there's no entity yet there's no recognition of a union to deal with that entity yet so it's all premature for them to be involved that doesn't mean it isn't going to happen it's just the way that the vermont system is set up the union municipal district has to get formed first and then there's an entity for them to talk with and in we will also have discussions at the city level about how that how how they transition assuming the that union municipal district gets formed yeah so thank you i i just guess i know over from my own experience so as i shared with the fire chief no i'm the manager here but at my job i'm a regular person and when people that actually deliver services get don't become involved early on when they have that insight um there's frustration that builds up and misunderstanding and it doesn't really necessarily make the process go as well as it could and i understand the union complication but i i'm i'm understanding the frustration from the group of individuals who will be delivering those services and would have liked to have shared have liked to been involved in giving some feedback not i understand there's the issue regarding employment i get that but i think there are other issues that could have been there's there's a conversation to be had and so um i i feel like i appreciate that and i'm just trying to understand if there was any other way having said that i'm going to leave that because that's the past and i support the amended resolution um and i was wondering um some of these um employees have have been in their positions for a long time and if indeed the voters in march um approve this and ultimately we go in this direction um i think a hurdle that i recognize is that having people have to reapply for jobs and have to fill out applications and do resumes etc and i was hoping that in those discussions maybe hr in the city could help some long-term employees doing that this is premature but i just wanted to let people know that i think that there are ways that we can work with the employees to make them feel valued and help them through a transition that may occur thank you thank you council busher council dean thank you president odell i um wanted to you know uh give an opportunity a question to chief del pozo um you haven't had an opportunity to speak tonight and i wonder in your perspective um what do you see as the advantages uh for regional dispatch system versus our current locally based dispatch system yeah thank you very much council dean um i think the first thing to say by way of a preamble is that this is as far as i'm concerned this is definitely not about the quality of the dispatchers who work in burlington they're absolutely top-notch they're they're excellent and professional they uh have officer and firefighter concerns foremost in their mind they work really long hours um oftentimes they get held over without without notice and uh just to make sure that those seats are always filled and there's always a voice on the radio and i'm i'm glad that they're they're here tonight because the prospect of of a change like this is is we'll be unsettling for anybody so i'm glad that they're they're speaking up um for me i tell my loved ones not to call 911 when they are in trouble if that ever happens i tell them to call direct into burlington dispatch it's going to save them a minute it's going to put them directly in the room with the people who are dispatching the officers and it's going to get them help more quickly now if the only three numbers you can get in a panic of 911 by all means that's why it's such a simple number but uh i i advise people in who i talk to to call directly into dispatch because our p-sap system is good for a rural state where the response time is typically 15 to 20 minutes and adding another minute makes it 16 or 21 minutes here in our city we have a response time of two to four minutes we're proud to say and maybe three to five and we can reduce that to two or three minutes if we cut out the time that it takes to go from the 911 call to the dispatch the reason why we can't do that is because there's no computer interface whatsoever between the p-sap and the dispatch it is a telephone interface so they take all the information then they put the caller on hold then after taking all this information they open up a line with the dispatcher they're trying to talk to and send it through in police departments and fire departments have had the time to build a properly professional system that's based on a city model not a rural model the second the connection is opened with a 911 caller that 911 call taker starts populating an incident immediately on the dispatcher's queue that they can send out so someone says oh my god a man was just shot or someone just robbed a bank what's your location they're typing that in as it's and it's coming up on the screen right on the other side of the room and getting dispatched that cuts out 30 40 50 60 seconds and they're talking right there in situ another problem i have with the way we do things now is it we're a region but we're a fairly small region and right now in colchester or in burlington or in wanouski a cop could be screaming for help by him or herself under attack and my burlington officers have no way to figure out that that's going on until somebody fumbles with the radio frequency or jumps down or one dispatcher calls another but if a cop is under attack and the dispatchers for this region are in the same room hearing that it will take seconds to get that cop help and i'm emotional about this because i've heard it happen here and i've heard it happen elsewhere and it's time that we build a professional system that does two things get citizens that help that they need immediately without relying on a rural system to do it because we're not a rural system we're a city and the rest of the state constantly reminds us of that and number two when my cops need help or any cop in this region needs help i want them to get it right away and right now that's not going to happen when we're fidgeting with channels and hoping dispatchers talk to other dispatchers it's got to go out in seconds because a fight is won or lost in seconds so i wonder you you've described the the central role that the computer aided dispatch plate you know takes in this you know minimizing the response time can you give us a little more idea of what that looks like you know how to how to when i'm thinking about this regional center what what is it going to be so it will be and chief law can talk about you know the seating arrangements we're saying things that the committee's been giving a lot of of look to but you have co-located call takers and dispatchers in the same room and as the calls come in from 911 there's two types of communication there's i'm a call taker i hear a call i'm populating the information in my computer aided dispatch it interfaces with the incident management system right on the other side of the room so as i'm typing it's coming up over here i'm typing bank robbery and then bank robberies appearing on the screen it's not somebody in in the other end of the state asking a bunch of questions for 30 40 50 seconds and then opening a new line it's not it's not voice but then there's also voice right when that dispatcher says i'm getting a bank robbery in wanouski the person on the other side of the room hears it and cues it and can send out the the information right away right i mean i think that's so there's there's just the voice interface and think about active shooter situations think about uh situations where we have several cops needing to shut off exit to a city if the domino's pizza on uh colchester avenue gets robbed and the guy flees into wanouski right across the bridge it'll take seconds right now i don't know how long it takes that's your question i won't be as dynamic as chief del pozo but kind of a real-life example just a few months ago the tori hall fire from the time the incident commander transmitted a third alarm till the last phone call was made to the s6 dispatch center saying hey we need help in burlington was over six minutes you are in a consolidated center you would literally just queue up two different radio frequencies and punch it out counselor tracy so chief del pozo if all those things are true then why were so many police officers here tonight you know if this is an issue of their own safety why would they be choosing to put themselves at greater risk and come out in support of the dispatchers because each and every one of those police officers as brave and gallant as they are as only work for the burlington police and this is the way we've always done things and their friends are scared about change and scared about reapplying for their jobs and scared about all the things that are very valid things to be worried about that counselor busher brought up and counselor more brought up and and there are men and women who care about each other and if their instinct is is to help and as the chief of police my instinct is to get them all home safe okay may please ask the dispatcher a question are you is the dispatcher um a dispatcher one of them Catherine Clark sure come on up so i'm just wondering you know that that characterization about not being able to help other officers in communities has that been borne out by your own your experiences here because that that seems pretty pretty significant you know i'm just wondering like is that a situation that you've experienced during your time as a dispatcher so i actually was hoping to get a chance to respond to a few things first there are very few situations where i'm ever putting a call on hold especially in an emergency situation because things can change so rapidly the dangers of putting someone on hold where you now close that line of communication is not something that we like to do i also would like to talk about how 911 calls come in we we in burlington have higher staffing levels than most people so we're fortunate in a sense that multiple people can listen to a single 911 call so it's not necessarily myself taking the call dispatching the call filling information we are able to work together as a team where as i'm gathering information that call is immediately being put out over the radio so it's not as single focus as it was presented as necessarily unfortunately there are times where we have a high call volume and we all have a lot of things going on gets really busy in there but we do try to work together as much as possible so that we can be the most efficient and helpful as we can to this city i also would like to point out we have a radio frequency that the entire county has access to and i have been working in scenarios where instead of making multiple phone calls instead of trying to switch radio frequencies pretty much as far as i'm aware every dispatch center has that radio frequency and i have heard agencies call for assistance using that so instead of picking up the phone calling five cities they're clicking a button and just saying this town needs assistance this is where this is what's going on anyone available if you can help let us know we can all hop on that same radio frequency and immediately say yeah we have people available or we would just stay off it if we don't and one side note i'd like to meet regarding staffing both the letters of support and tonight they've stated that we will have fewer order in staffing will be better but without an operational plan in place i think it's not necessarily fair to promote that idea when we have no guarantee what staffing is going to be like what the call volume is going to be going into that center because we just don't know there's nothing in place to guarantee that is that thank you that's very complete answers and i really appreciate it i understand certainly how difficult it is and i really admire your courage and being willing to speak out given that you have the bosses here in that power differential so thank you for doing that thank you uh councilor jane i think councilor jane also has a question for you yep i mean i would be supporting this for to go to the ballot but i just wanted to know what are your plans in you know organizing the community as well in letting them know actually what is really happening do you have something in place as far as that goes i think we're hoping to wait and see what happens here tonight and see what the city council has to say what their vote decides to be and from there depending on the outcome we would make attempts to reach out to the community just so people have a complete picture of what's being presented i'll say councillor jane i have councillor hartnett just a question we're at public safety meeting and i think it was you but it might have been somebody else that was there that said that you're not against the concept really but you know you're more concerned about the but tonight you seem to be against the concept so i mean everyone that spoke actually seems to be against the concept so i'd like to know where we're really at here are you against the concept and just you know don't are resisting that and don't think it's the right thing to do or are you more concerned about job security reapplying for your job i'd like to kind of get a feel where where the dispatches really are because i'd like to know as a councillor you know sometimes we kind of you know play a little you know game and we say well we're really not against it but then we come to find out that you really are against it so where are we with this i'm going to get some advice from city attorney blackwood i'm a little concerned here i mean you're you're putting the dispatchers a little bit on the spot about things that what we can't do is we can't get into trying to put them on the spot about the terms and conditions of their employment or trying to negotiate that with them and so from a labor relations standpoint and then from another standpoint i just think it's a little bit unfair to take employees and and ask them for you know are you for or against this particular thing that's that's that i mean i think if you want to answer if you feel like you want to answer your personal thing but i just want to be very clear that we're a little bit uncomfortable here because the city council are your bosses they do have input they are management of the city and this is not really the forum in which management should be putting employees on the spot and saying what is your position on this so that's what i'm concerned about here you are not obliged to answer the question okay but if you that i don't think i think she can if she wants to just the regional just are you what do you think about regional display this dispatch as a concept as councillor hartnan said this was discussed briefly at last week's meeting and i still stand by what i said last week where we are not against regional dispatch as a whole it's just we are very uncomfortable with the current plan or rather lack thereof because this we are very focused on the operational side because that's our day-to-day life that's what we're focused on we need to know and that's the part that we unfortunately don't know at this stage and won't know from what it sounds like for a while so we're not just saying no to say no because we want to be in opposition we're just concerned thanks the floor's open for debate councillor paul i i have a question of uh i guess of chief lock thank you kathryn thank you so so the question i have is probably over my head technically but i'll ask it anyway and hopefully you can explain it in a way that i can understand um you had mentioned that um you know as far as you had sent me an email and it said that dispatchers you're you know are feeling that there'd be a some level of disconnect between you know these are people bless you these are people that a lot of the dispatchers have been there a long time they know burlington well they know landmarks well and uh and there's a certain level of familiarity when they take a call that they can sort of under they can understand the uh you know where somebody is and be able to potentially respond better in in certain ways and one of the things that you had said was um that although that does have some merit you pointed to a technology called phase two cell phones that would give the location of the caller and advance mapping products that would limit that level of concern and um what my my understanding of that of that technology is that it's really not a new technology and that there are ways of blocking that technology so it might not necessarily be that effective depending on what kind of a phone you have and not everybody not everyone has a smartphone a lot of people you still use track phones flip phones um and so I was just wondering if you're if one of the one of the compelling arguments is that a lot of this would be handled by technology how that sort of jives with what I'm what I've pointed out sure I would just I think there's a couple of different ways to look at this certainly if you look at the New Hampshire model all calls in New Hampshire go to one public safety answering point so they're figuring out where you are from one location in the entire state we do that really in Vermont over six different places so the technology we really do rely on technology it's uh about 68 percent now of 911 calls come in via cell phone so they'll the landlines those are easy um and most cell phones I from my experience sitting in PSAPs the the latin long show up pretty clearly about where that caller is calling from so again technically we do rely heavily on technology and so is there value to local dispatchers absolutely um I think we we also know that those almost every one of those dispatchers learn their area as they worked it and you're going to see that as well if you work we're not talking a major metropolitan area here you know I I know often we look we look at shitting county as being as the chief the big city but ultimately the district here is not that significantly bigger and this happens all over all over the country dispatching agencies much bigger and much busier than what the what happens in shitting county out of consolidated centers thank you council jane um I don't know what president said this but he said that um fighting against terrorism is having the right information at the right time right and it sounds like you currently have you can triangulate my phone if I call 911 is that correct typically you're we know your lat your lat latitude and longitude of where you are yes okay um and now this is a question for del paso who give the um seven digit phone numbers to the loved one and I was just wondering if it's possible for maybe the you know the the seven numbers to be minimized maybe by three maybe three one one instead of because having the right information at the right time and also in when when when you are in in shock you're much more likely to forget a ten digit number we have a um a hybrid number that the last four digits would be zero nine one one that would put you directly into dispatch we just load to use it because we want to know what direction this whole thing is uh is going in but it would be possible to have a direct line into into burlington dispatch that would allow burlingtonians to uh talk direct in fact most of the store owners and security people around church street who call the police all the time they call direct into dispatch because they know it's uh it's faster one of the things when I hear our dispatchers talk is they um you know they they they illustrate what what number one the workarounds they use to try to minimize response time they use statewide channel two hoping that other dispatchers are listening to statewide channel two so that they can hear something's going on then try to get more information um that's that's that's showing the earnest and and and like hardworking attempts at dispatchers make to minimize uh wasted time and maximize communication but I'll say two things we cannot control when this phone starts ringing from the state peace app it rings when it rings and however long it takes the state on their landline to process their 911 call and then dial our dispatch is how long it takes and that's the amount of time that we're trying to minimize by having a co-located 911 call taker and dispatch function um and the second thing is it's a it's a it's a hypothetical it's a thought experiment but if I were to ask a group of cops and a group of dispatchers and a group of firefighters uh to go in a room and say this is chitenden county design a system that gets police resources and fire resources number one that gets information to the dispatch and out to the field as quickly as possible and then gets the right resources to the right places at the right time and that's as responsive to police officers calling for help in the field as possible I strongly feel that in out of the box if we're doing this from scratch they'd come back and what they described to us would be a regional dispatch system I'm tremendously sympathetic to their their quality of life and work concerns because there are people who've loyally served the city I don't want them to get a short drift but I'm hoping that there is a way forward that honors their service and everything they've done and and their commitment and that also uh allows us to design the system that I think we'd have if we were starting from scratch thank you chief I think we might be I'm gonna just I'm gonna be supporting this go to the mayor and hopefully we can vote well maybe soon can I have a point of information though regarding what we're voting on president rundell would it be okay if I may set up something very briefly before we did that sure okay so I'm going to be supporting this because to vote no would be to say that we we can't figure it out and that we are convinced that it won't work and we won't be able to create a system that is good for the employees and also better in terms of response time point of information council busher yes um the mo you that's attached here is that something that we are actually voting to support will we have a chance to look at this again that was my question the which mo you there's an mo you that was part of the packet and I just wanted to understand whether I was supposed to be doing my dude looking really carefully at that or is it the mo you with with uh donovan yes uh chair nodel and yes councilor busher the mo you is two things right now it is legally part of the agreement but additionally before the city of burlington should the voters vote to approve the creation of this chitin and county public safety authority the city council must ratify the mo you so should you vote tonight to support this going to the voters the voters vote to create it and then before the city of burlington would receive service or pay into this organization for operational services you'd have to ratify that is the council would again vote on the mo you so you have another um kind of cut at it and that's really the important cut it gives us the opportunity to develop the organization as has been discussed thank you mayor weimerger thank you president adel um i had uh really three points i want to make um want to i want to thank chief lock um and erin frank and charlie baker and really the dozens of people have been involved from around the county and trying to grapple with this over the last uh more than 18 months you know this is a conversation that has um been attempted many times over decades and uh my sense is that it has gotten uh by getting here tonight getting to the floor being on the cusp of going on the ballot in some sense it's gotten farther than prior attempts and um i think it's uh you know it's a science this is not an easy conversation to have um i think there's been acknowledgement of the challenges here and i just uh i want to thank chief lock for moving uh quickly to try to uh as best as he could under these constraints um with the help of bob rustin to to to engage the the people are in their own dispatchers and try to address this concern i want to thank the people that have been involved and trying to get this process this difficult process right from the start um i i've engaged this effort a couple times you know number of times over over the 18 months and every time i've gone to one of the meetings that has been held uh talking about this substance here there has been the focus always to a degree that frankly surprised me at times has been entirely on the operational potential operational public safety benefits the potential savings in response time and the improvement of response times and they're really all the municipalities who are involved have been advised not to expect or bank in any way on this being some kind of efficiency there being some kind of substantial uh financial savings and um i say that uh both um so it's clear what is motivating this uh for my perspective but also in that it gives me real optimism that to go back to one of the first statements council roof made at the beginning i do have real optimism that we can do right by our constituents and improving our public safety uh system and reducing response times and improving response times and we can do right as we have a responsibility to uh for the team that works for us the people that work for us and certainly if the voters the council and the voters uh give us the authority to take the next step and get to the detail level questions and really work out um what is it going to be involved in transitioning employees from being municipal brolington employees into this new uh uh municipal union it will be a very high priority of mine to make sure that we do that it do do right by people who have served uh and sacrificed for us for long periods of time i've been a few times you know uh in the in the dispatch center uh at night uh seeing the kind of hours and the conditions that uh you know what's the demands that are put on people and and as is stated we um uh we uh we owe a debt to um our dispatchers and we owe them the responsibility of making this transition uh as successful as possible if we if we get to that and i'll be personally committed to that if we if we get to that point ready to vote councillor more i just wanted to quickly say um due to the amendment that um was um put forward and um listening to the discussion tonight recognizing that that this will the sort of final product will come back to the council i will be supporting this tonight thank you councillor councillor tracy thank you president nodel i will not be supporting this tonight i hear i certainly understand the the work that's gone into this and appreciate it but i feel like the process has been flawed and not fully in more fully engaging the dispatchers and i'm hearing different things from dispatchers and i'm hearing up here and it's very difficult to reconcile those two things especially when there's not a proposal a clearly a clear cut proposal on the table for us and while i do think that we can certainly figure out a a proposal i don't think that voting no be for for lack of having a clear cut proposal on the table with an understanding of what's going to happen under that proposal uh is really saying that we can't figure it out i think it's saying that we would like to have some greater assurance some greater understanding of what those key and crucial operational questions will be as we move forward towards this system so i think that that's a really important thing to have um as as we move forward and as we take this quite frankly to the voters and i feel like i'm hearing different things in terms of for instance you know the voter asks me is this gonna gonna save response time well i have someone who's doing this several people who are doing this every day and then other folks who have lifelong careers in law enforcement and fire telling me something different i i feel like it's very difficult to explain especially when i don't have a plan to that voter what exactly the benefit is going to be to them so i would have hoped that we could have had a more fully baked concept or at least a more fully big plan to bring to voters and really answer their questions with a greater degree of certainty because this is crucial and crucial information and crucial a crucial consideration for our community so i will not be supporting it thank you thank you any other councillor need to speak before we vote care to speak before we vote okay so we'll go to vote all in favor of adopting this resolution relating to the ballot question on formation of a union municipal district this is the revised version please raise your hands any opposed so there's one opposed councillor tracy votes against you voted for it so it's it passes on a vote of 11 to 1 thank you for being here tonight thanks thank you to all for being here tonight 5.04 is a resolution to put on the ballot a question about climate action councillor shannon thank you i would move to adopt this resolution to put a question on our ballot with a slight change from what's been presented on line 20 it should read additional support for low-income people or rural communities it's not appropriate to have the words people of color in there so i will omit that and after a second ask for the floor back councillor paul seconds it does everyone understand the amendment okay councillor shannon you have the floor thank you recently vermont digger had an article citing that burlington was the number one city with increased temperature of seven degrees of all major u.s. cities which was astounding that that point is i found the the source of their information and quoted that in this resolution but i i think that all we're really trying to do in this resolution is emphasized to the governor how important this work is to reduce our carbon input and try and reverse the effects of of climate change and there has been some work done at the state level to do that but we'd like to see more teeth and more progress towards reaching the goals because just establishing goals is not really enough we need to make sure that we are making progress and the city of burlington has been a leader in that effort i think those of us on this council are proud of that as well as the citizens of burlington and we'd like to to see the state taking many of the similar actions that we've taken and making sure that they are making good on their pledge to achieve 90 percent of their energy from renewable renewable sources by 2050 and other initiatives that will minimize climate change thank you thank you councillor the floor is open i believe councillor right has an amendment thank you president odell yes they do have an amendment it's actually bringing into line with what the previous resolution that goes on the ballot on the previous one on smoking smoking increasing the age of 21 this would that's coming up councillor right excuse me that's that's right the one that's coming up after this losing it here so this on line 16 add after the word governor and members of the general assembly so we're inserting after the word governor and members of the general assembly yes and that would bring it into line with what the language of the next resolution is going to say and and i think which is appropriate more traditional that the that the message goes to the governor and the general assembly yes is there a second of that motion to amend sure mason seconds it any discussion all in favor please say aye any opposed okay so we're that passes unanimously and um we're back on discussion on the the resolution as amended any other councillors councillor mason thank you president odell i will be supporting this i want to thank councillor shannon for sort of taking the lead and also um to mike canorak chris burns and others at bed for working so quickly and efficiently with councillor shannon to get this into a much better form thank you thank you any others councillor right sorry wait wait i'm going to councillor jane because you already had your already had a turn councillor jane you're on please use your mic sir mr jane yes thank you president so this is a question for councillor shannon and was just wondering if after line 16 i mean 17 can you give for example specific example um you know in terms of um you know actively pushing more policies and programs you know in what can you be maybe more specific something very tangible like it can be not purchase any vehicle that are not electric or etc so anything no sorry no i can't be more specific i mean i think that that's up to the state to determine you know what what actions can be taken to achieve those goals what's important is not so much the specifics um as that they are studied and identified and and move forward and um meeting benchmarks and deadlines or examples such as a reminder we usually do is we have debate like through the chair but and then i'll ask councillor shannon if she'd like to answer the question so councillor jane can you're just leaking some examples yes i wanted to hear if this resolution can bring some example that are specific and also tangible because to me it's very vague thank you councillor councillor shannon anything to offer or this is a this is a ballot question so it i don't think it would be appropriate to offer examples and it's already a fairly lengthy ballot question so i'll leave it at that councillor jane you still have the floor no i don't have any specific questions okay but you'd like to see some more specific language yes yes and you know and one thing that is very specific and that we even and i think this could have be what can we do more knowing that here in burlington we're already leading the way in terms of climate change in terms of solar energy and all of that but also what else can we add in holding that leadership for the for the rest of the nation and also the city and one example is very specific such as as a city we do we need to also make sure based on the finding and also the great work from the burlington electric department we need to go move forward and moving forward can mean that any vehicle that the city will be purchasing in the future should be green vehicle solar vehicles instead of just buying big trucks that still use gas to run that's something very specific very tangible that we can put on and then see it fall down thank you councillor jane i have a i've cancelled councillor dean up um mayor you're seeking okay i have councillor dean i will go back to mr right after everyone has their first round councillor dean president o'dell i wonder if i might um offer some specific examples that i'm aware of as a design professional that the state can take in forwarding this initiative uh the state administers the the cbs which is the commercial building energy standards that has a three-year review cycle it's something that we all that that professionals look at and it's something that that absolutely affects what how our buildings are built and what energy we use there also is the act two fifty process which plugs into the commercial building energy standard and forwards that and asked to actually go beyond that so i think there are those are two examples just very very quickly where the state can have a strong effect on how quickly we get to efficient buildings and can approach doing zero net energy standards thank you councillor any other councillor on the first round remarks seeing none i'll go back to councillor right thank you president o'dell and i will be brief my point is and i'm going to vote for this point is a little bit like councillor janks in the sense that the next resolution that i confused was the previous one um that's coming up which will which i think is a pretty clear vote for people do you want to raise the smoking age to 21 i think voters are clearly going to know what that means i think here again i'm going to vote for but i i'm not sure that this is clear what people are voting for i i know they'll what it says but i think the point is there's no specifics i get why you can't maybe have specifics but some voters may not know whether that means am i voting for a carbon tax here what is it i'm voting for against i'm voting for anything to get to those goals so i'm not sure what the message will be coming out of this i will vote for it but not sure what the message will mean thank you thank you councillor seeing no other councillor we'll go to a vote all in favor of adopting this resolution about a ballot question on climate action please say aye aye any opposed that carries unanimously thank you we move on to 5.05 um proposal for another ballot question this one about increasing the age of legally for to legally purchase tobacco councillor mason thank you president odell i'd like to make a motion to waive the reading adopt the resolution and ask for the floor back after a second thank you the second comes from councillor shannon councillor mason thank you president odell the proposed ballot item seeks the input of the voters on whether to encourage the governor or legislature to increase the age to legally purchase tobacco products in the state of vermont from 18 to 21 this is known as it's a move national movement it's known as tobacco 21 this was introduced actually back in 2016 house of representatives did adopt it in 2017 it was it died in the senate on a 16 to 13 vote which did include two no votes from two chitin county senators so this will have a real hopefully potential impact on how they view this in 2018 following the defeat of that prispero gogo came before us for those of us who were here on a few meetings and encouraged us to adopt that locally that intrigued me and some others we followed up with a city attorney only to found out that under our home rule we were not allowed to do that so hence sort of began the the genesis of this i'm not going to go through i think the presenters in public forum very effectively articulated the public health reasons why we should do this i know for me this is sort of an easy just hearing the statistics and the numbers you know trying anything we can do it's also my understanding that you know a significant amount of effort that has and success that has been achieved as a result of the tobacco settlement those funds are about to dry up so now you know we need to look harder and deeper about how we can continue to bring those numbers down so i'm hoping we can get a majority or unanimous support put this on the ballot and let the voters have their say thank you thank you thank you sir who else councillor busher floors so you know i work at the university of vermont medical center and i know the risks of smoking um i heard tonight that the presentation the presenters um one person said that most people start smoking before they reach the age of 18 um so i can't support this resolution um because i wish there were this whole auditorium was filled with people saying that if we say that a person at 18 is an adolescent and can't make a determination like this then we should not say they can be inducted into the service and they can die for each one of us i have strong issues with that i have strong issues with the fact that we say that people at 18 can't drink because i feel that we talk out of both sides of our mouth everybody around this table is more than happy to say goodbye to this person or that one person as they go off to war to fight for us at the age of 18 but now we're saying that they can't make that determination of whether or not they should have access to tobacco products it really it breaks my heart i don't want to put people at risk but i feel like i put people at risk every single day by telling them one thing that they're old enough to die for me but they're not old enough to make these determinations they're old enough to legally um they can make a determination to marry they can make all sorts of other determinations at the age of 18 so for me i can't say both things to an individual that's in front of me at 18 telling them yes die no i'm sorry you can't access this or that you're not old enough to make that determination for yourself thank you others seeing none we'll go to a vote all in favor of adopting this resolution for the ballot question on legally increasing the legal age of purchasing tobacco products to 21 please raise your hands opposed we have counselors tracy busher and heartnet are opposed the rest in favor and it passes on a vote of nine to three um 5.06 is a report from the public safety committee about combating homelessness council roof thank you i would like to make the motion to accept the report place it on file and then after a second ask for the floor back for some brief comments very good is there a second to that councilor heartnet seconds it councilor roof you have the floor thank you um last tuesday the public safety committee met to also discuss a set of recommendations that resulted from an outreach an outreach initiative to the community two community partners on how the city council can do more to support those experiencing homelessness in our community the committee move forward with this initial set of recommendations knowing that we will reconvene to amend and or add to this list and so i'll go through the recommendations in short there are eight and they are as follows recommendation number one is to increase the capacity of the low barrier shelter and conduct a one-year pilot period to investigate the benefits of 12-month operations recommendation number two is to support and facilitate the standardization of the processes between service agencies as modeled after the success of the chitlin county homeless alliances coordinated entry efforts this recommendation calls for a pilot project whose members would include but not be limited to willing agencies that receive city directed support number three is to review and possibly adopt the city's internal encampment removal procedure number four is to increase opportunities for those experiencing homelessness to be positively engaged with the community through investigation of the viability of how low hurdle employment opportunities uh of low hurdle employment opportunities and community activities number five topic we heard today short but important increase public restroom access in the downtown core item number six provide antibacterial and sun protection dispensaries in public spaces recommendation number seven increase community communications between the chitlin county homeless alliance and the city council through our representatives from cedo and from bpd the city council is to receive quarterly updates by way of this recommendation related to the work of the cca finally recommendation number eight a recommendation that that asks the administration to put forward a budget with increased funding for street outreach and for housing retention and that the administration explore and support state legislation changes for expanded Medicaid coverage for social work positions relating to homelessness and low income housing i'd just like to thank all those that have participated in the work so far especially thank my my my committee members councillor hartnett and more for all the work that you two have put on put into this thus far and i'd also just want to say that well i certainly did my best to reach out to as many organizations and individuals as possible i'm certain that some were left out but fear not because the process is not over we will be discussing these recommendations tonight not voting and the public safety committee will be reconvening early in the new year to make changes in response to what we hear between now and then that meeting will be scheduled soon so please do come and participate i look forward to the discussion thank you thank you council roof so the intent is that we have a tonight that we discuss these recommendations that we also just have a discussion of the proposed ordinance change that that the action be deferred to a meeting in january and that they both be taken up at the same meeting correct and that and these recommendations and potentially more will come in the form of resolution to be acted upon at that time okay and so what you're looking for is is is reaction to the report correct okay councillor more thank you um so um one thing that that did come up um and was accidentally left off of this list um that we all um discussed um was um increased access to a low barrier space during the daytime um but that has um been been used in different areas and could potentially offer people who have no other place to go that you can't be under the influence at the cot stay station um that um then you certainly serves a lot of people very well in our community um but it doesn't serve everyone and so there was that recognition um and and so looking into what that would take um and i just want to say there was an interesting conversation with the state's attorney at one of our meetings talking about um one individual in particular just as an example that she saw every week in her office until that person um got into housing through the housing first model um and then she didn't see them again it was it was really speaking to the importance of that model speaking to um once that person had more stability in their lives as i think we've all heard um that that they needed services much less um and and then when that person left that housing she started seeing them back again so i think one i'm really hardened that this community is kind of taken up that model and really pushed that forward and second the recognition that that doesn't necessarily answer the whole question that when people have been homeless for years chronically homeless um that simply getting into a place isn't isn't isn't the final the final step i guess um that that there are barriers that i don't think i can understand to maintaining that housing and that staying with that person after they leave is a key part of the process um so i really appreciated these meetings that we had um there was a lot of good conversations and um i also very much um would love to see some of the um financial success that the administration has helped us achieve going towards um more support for street outreach as well as housing retention which councillor hartnett found from his subcommittee to be really key thank you thank you councillor Moore other councillors councillor busher so um i did get to attend at the end of this meeting when this committee was talking about these recommendations and um and i've talked to councillor roof about the low barrier access during the day we talked about the day station and we talked about whether or not there was um would it be appropriate to have other opportunities for people places for them to go um during the day because that seems to be one of the real issues that we've heard as i was listening to councillor Moore um you know when i walk downtown and you know i don't see that cluster of people because of what we the barriers we put up on on main street but when you you saw the cluster of people who were there panhandling and and um they're a circle that's a circle of friends so i think that social interaction at some level um so housing might be isolation but social interaction is really important with peer groups no matter who your peer groups are um and other people too to expand your peer groups so i think that you know i don't want to minimize the importance of having places for people to go um where they can find like-minded people and other people so they can potentially maybe make improvements in their lives so i want to speak strongly to that um recommendation i think that you know each one of these as as councillor roof said has will needs an action plan in the next step um and um so also the um outreach program on the street we know that the city stepped up to pay some of a salary but i think we need to look at how many people do we need on the street today um how many you know and what and how do we meet those needs and the city isn't going to solve that problem alone but i think we could potentially play a larger role so for me the low barrier access during the day and the community outreach are two key things that i would like to see advance sooner than later um we've already heard a lot about the fact that there needs to be public restroom access and i think certainly i'm going to speak in support of that too um so i think those three things are my priorities although all of them are are important anyways thank you very much thank you councillor busher councillor hartnett thanks i'll be brief just a couple quick points uh i was disappointed to hear today and i'm not sure when the decision was made but that uh there is no kiosk at city hall park and the new park plan that they've taken that other plan which means they've taken bathrooms out of that plan so is that not true mayor there is a standalone portland lou plan for in the city all park plan that's going into zoning there's a standalone bathroom uh it's part of the city all park plan and uh there is also going to be permitted um a footprint for the kiosk to be just that the design is not uh completed yet for that so that's going to happen in two phases so they're uh very similar plan very similar facility to what was in um raised in public form will be is part of the city hall park plan currently thanks and the other point i want to make i'll just bring up to housing retention specialist i find it to be uh intriguing that we could you know create a position that one with work conjunction with the public housing but also more housing retention i mean to have somebody actually go out there and and and interact with these people to find out why they're not in housing do they want to get in housing and how can we get them in the housing and i'm not so sure that we're doing a good enough job doing that and we might engage with them once in a while or you know once a month but we we need to be able to have people on the ground and so i think it could be in conjunction with the housing authorities you know the public housing authorities that we could maybe split this position we could help them out as well there's only three housing retention specialists in the entire chitin county which to me is amazing i can't believe that we don't have more and and the fact that we could kind of co-partner with them and put more people at out in these neighborhoods to find out exactly why these people are homeless and to find them housing i think the city's done a good job overall and in this issue but we can you know we can always improve and i just gotta believe i mean i just gotta believe i hear times people want to be homeless and i'm not saying that's not the case maybe it is but you know deep down side do they really want to be homeless i mean i i don't know if we're doing a good enough job reaching these people to find out why they are and if we can find housing for them so i hope that we can create this position with the housing authorities thanks thank you cancer so i had a question not to bring it down but um so i didn't see here anything around actually creating more housing more studio units more small you know housing that people could live in that come up not really frankly the charge from from the council to the committee was to look at how we can support folks services with services and this was not necessarily well that's an important conversation it was not really the intent of the committee to go down that path of how we can create now those conversations are happening in cdnr which is the housing actually yeah which is which has also been having some interplay with this with this work so other counselors suggestions feedback it's good councilor jeng so as uh councilor shenon um bushe i mean the priority basically for me is to have these street bathrooms you know we we we need to have those as soon as possible because there will be another resolution that will be coming up to me it won't make sense until we make the appropriate steps so and i'm talking about tomorrow what can we put provisionary outside in order for the homeless people to be able to use that's like that's like that should happen today but i think that's that's a wonderful thing what you call on but also i wanted to have a suggestion in which that on october 10th every october 10th the city of burlington in partnership with many of our community organization we celebrate homelessness because so many people in this it's not about because they choose to be homeless or no but i know parents i know parents that i work with that had they had it all but in one day they can lose everything but we also need to make sure that we celebrate homelessness because these people it's not their choice it's just the circumstances of life that bring them to where they are you can at that i think that would be wonderful and will hundred percent will be supporting this thank you thank you kelsey jen okay so i guess it's back to public safety committee with some action steps that you'll develop i assume working with the administration and the sense of resource availability that might be there for this correct okay thank you very much we'll move on now to 5.07 again just a discussion and this was work that the council asked the ordinance committee to do and now they they had done their work and councillor mason will report thank you president odell to give a little explanation of process and how we got here as president nodell alluded to the ordinance committee was directed to draft an ordinance that created a criminal penalty for repeat offenses of these types of violations of aggressive and disruptive behavior such as but not limited to public urination public drunkenness littering sexually aggressive cat calling and we were tasked with bringing back in ordinance the ordinance committee then met her testimony from the city attorney's office as well as chief del pozo late november at that meeting some of this information was news to us we were advised that a you could in fact impose a criminal penalty that was sort of the first turtle for repeat offenses but unbeknownst to us we were informed that the city actually already had an ordinance on the books that imposed a criminal penalty for two offenses in six months as it related to urinating and defecating in the streets and alcohol consumption we were also advised by memo to consider a number of changes to other ordinances that were either at risk from a constitutional challenge or unnecessary or redundant in light of other city and state ordinances or were outdated the ordinance committee elected not to take those up as part of this process because it was sort of outside of our charge and i think it's going to take a longer we had a pretty aggressive time report back i will say though that the committee is is aware of those and i fully intend to take those up after the new year as noted in a in a memo we got back from the city attorney that's in your packet though included in that list of things that we could not take up for one of those reasons included the public public drunkenness and the catcalling so i think it was important to for the council to know why the committee isn't coming back with a proposed criminal penalty for violations as to those two specific that were called out want to make clear you know the chief again without weighing in we heard from the chief of police that you know what was important here was to go after behavior not specifically individuals the stated goal was to foster an ordinance enforcement mechanism that preserves order maximizes personal freedoms wherever possible employees principle of escalating consequences were appropriate appropriate uh and inspires confidence in the law and institutions that enforce them by making sure that they're both fair and taken seriously we then had a discussion at our last meeting we received some revised language there was a discussion at the earlier meeting councilor busher did bring to the council's attention that in the noise ordinance that does have a criminal penalty there was an opportunity for an alternative you know resolution which didn't require a fine the committee felt that was important to bake into uh what's before you so you will see in it there's a restorative or a reparative uh justice provision an alternative for those who either can't afford a fine or choose to pursue that instead we also dialed back it was the recommendation of the committee to go so we stayed forward you know what you see before you does carry forward the criminal violation for repeat offenses as it relates to the two that were already on the books urination defecation as well as alcohol possession it is often however the committee went from two violations in six months to three violations in six months that was supported and actually put forth by the chief at the first meeting um it also as i mentioned breaks in that restorative justice there was much discussion about that so what that means there was concern councilor busher and councillor jing about you know what would be the impact on an offender um and it was brought to our attention through the restorative justice program that you know if you completed that in essence you're you would be wiped so it was if it was a non you know it was not an offense um and your record would then be clean um i am cognizant so we've received some comments you know certainly that those who came and spoke um were predominantly opposed at least my recollection as to the urination defecation and i think it ties directly into the lack of access to public restrooms which why i think it was important that these two move together in concert and not you know one be taken up independently um so with that i will sort of turn it over for discussion i was not intending to take this back you know we we had did have two hearings we we heard comment you know on the specific language was before the public before our last hearing we did take comments made revisions um so that was why we didn't you know we had two options either a place in all stages of passage or send it back to the ordinance committee it was my sort of feeling that it wouldn't be prudent at this point in time um so that's why this was open for discussion now thank you very good thank you councillor mason i have councillor tracy and then busher thank you president odell i might i'm wondering if i might ask uh chair mason a question you may thank you very much uh chair mason mr marshall came to us this evening with a proposal regarding the uh that the um urination provision um and basically asking that the city create some sort of um process whereby if someone could prove that they didn't have access to a public bathroom they would then be able to have that take away was this something that was considered at the committee level and and if so what what was sort of the nature of that discussion it was not until i heard that this evening that was the first i'd heard of that proposed amendment okay any initial i'll never mind thank you i'm not sure i would be in a position okay restaurant thank you very much councillor busher yes um as a member of the committee it was um really important for me and this does deviate a little bit from the noise ordinance because um i i wanted to i had known that if you have a criminal offense that can follow you through life it can impact your ability to get a mortgage to buy a house to be employed and so to me i didn't want someone to be burdened by this for these offenses even if they they did three and six months if indeed they were willing to do restorative justice and so what i asked was could indeed if indeed they did that and that's a choice that could that that criminal offense be waived from their record could that be erased and so i was told yes and so that was really key for me in this um the other piece that i wanted to say that everyone that came to the committee um talked about people downtown the homeless um but i do want to tell you that these activities these this public urination not i'm not sure about defecation but um the other um the open container um law really goes to another population of people that happen to live in our city and those are unfortunately students uh frequently or young people who are intoxicated and relieve themselves in neighbors bushes and no there is no public restroom on every street in every corner um so um i'm less sympathetic i mean people were really focused on the downtown and the homeless issue but there are behaviors out there that are inappropriate and i'm i am concerned a little bit about you know what what was just um what counselor tracy just asked for because i think that people are focusing on one segment of the population in one place in this community and and i'm saying well that's true and i don't want them to be at risk for something that that they have no access to so i certainly said i supported you know making more public restrooms but this ordinance speaks to the whole city and to anybody who demonstrates this type of behavior not just homeless people and some of these people can control themselves and do have options i just want to just state that thank you thank you councillor councillor jing so yeah i i just wanted to say to um consular mason and consular busher i mean they stood their ground because it was not easy to be in front of the community and have to say why we are here but if you look at the resolution that came here and i think introduced by councillor kirk and also the findings to me they two different totally separate things because if i recall correctly that resolution from kirk was specifically around how do we criminalize certain behaviors but this findings is talking specifically around what are some steps that we need to take forward to not get too into criminalizing i think the biggest offense here would be a $100 if i yep so you will go to a neighborhood uh how do you call it again rep reparative just said you know yep and then if you don't do it then you will have a ticket of $100 which i think is is smart which i think makes more sense right so and i am so glad also in response to max traces consular traces question that this resolution is not coming on its own it is coming in conjunction to the safety committee's resolution this won't be implemented in my own sense until the safety resolution got put forward already and then this will come next because if the safety resolution comes first then it won't make any sense let's find the responses and if people don't respect them if people don't follow those directions then we can move forward into implementing the resolution as it was bringing forward by the committee thank you so much thank you councillor jen i think i have councillor right next thank you president odell um so i think to be clear in the resolution what that's going to be proposed next time we meet and vote on this hopefully is there will be two items that will be uh have a criminal penalty after three offenses and i think that is the that is the general direction that i proposed not all the things that were mentioned in the resolution but that's what we want to take it up and i want to just reiterate what we're talking about here is people who are on the street and who are engaging in extremely bad conduct we are not going after just people that are homeless or people that have mental health issues we are going after the bad conduct of people that has resulted in escalated into actual stabbings among other homeless people that has frightened women that are going to work downtown this is a serious issue i went to a forum that mayor weinberger had with legislators and i was frankly dismayed to hear some of the comments i heard from legislators um so we can talk and talk around this about all the things we want to do and that's and that's fine but there needs to be consequences and i think this resolution does do some good things i think it's a step forward and making sure people understand you're going to be in burlington and you're going to hang out on the street and you're going to drink and potentially do drugs and engage in bad conduct and scare people and escalating into some serious violence then there's going to be consequences and i would like to ask chief tell pozo if he would come forward and answer a question on this you were just waiting for that right chief um thank you for being here do you um we're not voting on this tonight but i just would like to get you on record now um do you support this um as a good step forward and elaborate on that a little bit yeah thank you i do i was hoping when all those cops were here tonight that they were here to lend their support to this um you know but it turns out the crowd has thinned out i i i think you know i i mean i'll sum it up this way i heard congressman peter welch give a talk at uh christina nolan swearing in as the u.s attorney and what the congressman said is the biggest problems facing america are number one failure to respect our institutions and number two failure to respect the rule of law he's talking in the big scheme but i think here in in our city just feet from here we're dealing with those two failures as uh um with the consequences of it eroding our quality of life so you know it would be fruitless to impose criminal penalties on people who are clearly unable to comply with the law people who are mentally ill or acting on a complete desperation but we do want to assume that there are people here who can't obey the law who are agents who do respond to uh incentives and to sanctions and as far as we make those judgments we want to be able to say if they choose to scoff at the law we want them to account with escalating seriousness for why they've chosen to to scoff and i think that would return some of the dignity to the work that our police officers do because they're feeling right now is that that that the the citizens the people of burlington care about this and the police care about this and and and very few other people do um and and it's a partial a partial remedy and if we abuse it or use it to criminalize people needlessly shame on us i mean i hope we have a public accounting for for that thank you chief thank you may i have a motion to spend the rules continue our work and complete our agenda so moved councillor right moves it councillor roof seconds it all in favor please say aye aye any opposed okay so we can continue our work i have councillor hartnett and then more thank you um you know we talk about this this issue in this problem we want to make sure that people are safe in the downtown area and you know young females and families but the other population that wants to be safe are the homeless right and so uh over the last couple weeks i've had dinner at the salvation army uh down here downtown and i've had the opportunity to talk with a lot of these people who actually were in sears lane and to my surprise they were glad that sears lane was cleaned out and of course we never got that story right we got the story that you know there was some people that were upset that we were doing this and the aclu was down there fighting this but in all actuality the people that actually lived there had had enough they were scared that there was five six seven individuals that were coming down there that were terrorizing them drinking they had guns they had knives they were stealing their stuff it got to be uh uh you know really unsafe place to live even for the homeless so you know yes we're compassionate and yes we need to take care of these people but we also need to keep everybody safe and so we can't continue to be lenient on those individuals like so i'm glad this resolution i think it's a little water down i'm a little disappointed in that i think it could have been a little stronger i did go to the hearings and listen to the counselors i thought they worked hard um and i think it's a difficult issue but the reality is that even the people that are living on the streets that are homeless want to be safe and so we need to make sure that happens so i hope this is a good first step and uh i look forward to working uh with the rest of you on this thanks thank you counselor counselor counselor more so this this whole this um this topic and the topic that we've been talking about in public safety to me is so broad it there's so much overlap and and clearly there's a lot of understandable overlap and yet i see us talking here about a lot of different things so we really focused in in public safety on homelessness and services in the downtown which um in and of itself i saw is different um the the resolution that we voted on regarding this ordinance was about behavior it wasn't about homelessness and i've said that a number of times um and yet it's it always you know whether it's us talking or whether it's the public talking it always comes back to homelessness it's not about homelessness it's about behavior it's not about public urination necessarily even um i don't feel threatened by someone publicly urinating it's kind of gross but you know that aside if they don't have a bathroom i kind of have a problem with penalizing them for it um i also i and so i supported this to go to ordinance committee because i reluctantly supported it um because i recognize that some people are afraid um and have experienced experiencing things including people who are homeless and living in poverty um have had some pretty bad experiences in our downtown i'm also concerned that um criminal penalties aren't necessarily going to fix that i mean that's that's our system i see the chief over there taking a sigh um sorry um what can i say i'm in social work school um so so i'm trying to think of how a change changes that we can make that really really address or really kind of impact behavior um i'm making an assumption here that people who are um committing violent acts stabbing other people that they may already have some involvement in the court system totally an assumption on my part i'm not convinced that more involvement in the court system is going to change that and i don't know what to do with that um i mean i i think of my work and we do team meetings sometimes for with families who um are really struggling with all of the various systems and institutions that they work with and sometimes that works i don't know if that's something that works here but you know i'm trying to think out of the box because i just i'm really reluctant with our current system and and it being effective so i don't really have any question or any grand idea to fix the problem but i just want to share those thoughts thank you thank you councillor any other councillor on the ordinance quality of life ordinances councillor mason just thank you president oh my only response and sort of to respond to some of the comments that have been made in terms of the watering down concern you know we were relying on the advice of the city attorney you know i i think it was clear from the ordinance committee we were not trying to inject our own personal reviews because we were tasked with a job of coming back with an ordinance and i i would say what we came back with is what we were advised we could come back with without our own you know in fact it was discussed at the committee that we even though we may you know unanimously brought it back here it may not get unanimous support from the members on the ordinance committee in terms of i want to be careful about thinking that this is going to solve it i i don't think anyone has that aspiration i think this has to be viewed in the context not only of the work that's being done in public safety but as a result of continuing efforts we all acknowledge we're falling short in multiple ways and this is one of the tools but what i'm hearing is it's you know from the chief and others that it is a necessary tool it's not going to solve it but it is yet another and i think you know the ordinance committee and the council should be tasked with coming up with other tools but this is i wouldn't say don't support this because this is not going to solve the problem thank you yes counsel busher um one thing that i neglected to say and i think this goes to councillor moore's um comments about behavior was that at the committee um we had more time to think about this and you know and speak to it but the restorative justice piece brings if people do this brings people face to face with potentially the people that they have wronged and brings them into the community and does for a few maybe offer an opportunity to change behavior and if that's really what we are trying to do and that is what we're trying to do um that is another potential outcome from this i'm not naive i um my ex-husband tried to integrate people from prison back into the workplace to keep them employed to keep them out of prison but most well not most but a lot of people re-entered prison so um but i do think that for some it may make a difference um and so that's another piece of this um trying to think of how we can engage people and change their behavior thank you thank you councillor okay i think yes councillor moore sorry i got on my bandwagon and i forgot to uh say that i was really heartened by the um the restorative the repetitive justice pieces i used to serve on a board for a few years and have definitely experienced some transformative conversations there i don't think that that piece waters this down at all it is very intense to come up before a board of of community members and discuss how your behavior has impacted the community that that's hard um so it might sound nice and you know liberal liberal and flowery or something to some ears not i'm not saying that's what you're saying but i i could see i could see some people thinking community justice you know it sounds it sounds very i don't know it sounds easy somehow i don't think it's easy i've seen some very hard conversations so um so i just wanted to say that thank you councillor i want to thank the public safety committee and the ordinance committee for doing a lot of hard work um councillor roof of public safety committee and i think you have like 20 different i mean you had lots of different agencies come in and participate seemed like a lot so there's a lot of work to that committee so thank you very much for that work okay so five point oh oh sorry one more thing so the ordinance that will come back is what we're seeing tonight okay so just so everyone understands okay five point oh eight is a communication about the burlington telecom purchase agreement um and i can just give a status update and that can be amplified by the city attorney and by the mayor so tonight we the the council had another executive session discussion of the purchase agreement with shores communications and um the target that the city attorneys feel that they are very close to getting to a final or near final version of the agreement the our goal the target is to release to complete this another set of negotiations over the next day and a half and to release the agreement to the general public this wednesday which is december 20th um that will be again available for the general public to to read uh then the council will have a a special meeting which the mayor will need to call on wednesday september 27th which is a week later and wednesday december 27th at 6 p.m and there will be a public hearing for the public to weigh in that the only piece of business will be to hear from the public and to deliberate discuss and to vote on the purchase agreement that night which will mean that we have met our deadlines barely but we met we'll have met them okay so um city attorney anything to add anything i missed or mayor weinberger want to thank the work good the work of the attorneys have been doing on our behalf and and the mayor as well i do want to thank the attorneys um rafina rourke uh who was here earlier and eileen blackwood who have really been pushing very hard so that we can make this year-end deadline and and uh you know through this holiday season i want to note that todd shers is here again uh tonight and that um uh the shers company has been very responsive and there's been numerous iterations of this work to uh with that with all parties working hard and i'm i'm optimistic we are uh on the cusp of uh getting there great thank you very much mayor so we'll move on to committee reports any committee chair okay uh any city councillor on general city affairs yes yes councillor jane yeah so i wanted to say a special thank you to councillor joey and shannon for coming to the uh i want to say hummingberg but not dumplings yes it's to the dumpling uh gathering at ward four ward seven and i think your presence was tremendous thank you so much for taking the time driving all the way from the south to the north and bringing your inside thank you i have councillor shannon um it was tough to navigate but i it was a pleasure and the dumplings out in the new north end are awesome thank you councillor jane i have no updates mayor on general city affairs a couple quick items um just one i want to note the cots candlelight vigil an annual event is happening um on december 21st at 5 30 right here outside city hall on church street and uh looking ahead um i guess beyond our special meeting uh to first night once again we will be uh hosting here in burlington first night celebrations the buttons are available now and i do want to note that burlington city arts is involved in the first night celebration the whole stepped up way this year so the city is even more so than in the past involved and we hope everyone will come out and enjoy this unique celebration of of the new year and this year it will include of course uh the flag raising at 4 p.m of the of the new burlington flag and that will be happening right outside city hall i hope that people will join us for that ceremony and with that i just want to wish the council and the public uh happy holidays as we uh get into the heart of the holiday season here thank you mayor is there a motion to adjourn dean moves it roof seconds it any discussion all in favor of adjourning please say aye any opposed we stand adjourned at 10 45 p.m