 Yeah, she keeps trying. He's not going well. Oh no. I got time. I got no lunch to get it right. I got a year of probation. I got too much. I'm trying to get enough. I'm trying to get enough. Is he really at the same time? Is he? Is he? Is he really at the same time? Is he really at the same time? Is he really at the same time? In the car? Yeah, okay. I think we'll get ourselves started. Yes, please. I'm sorry what? So good evening. Today is Monday. October 23rd 2023. Thank you for joining us both in Person and Controyes Auditorium and online for the Burlington City Council meeting. The time is 5.06. We'll begin our evening with item 1.1, which is a motion to adopt the agenda. As you'll all note, there's several amendments to the agenda. And as there is some concern that's been expressed to me, that if the motion is made as one, that there are concerns about that. Several of the items are deemed relatively non-controversial. There are communications, and another is an action to be taken. So to make this as simple as possible, I would entertain a motion to divide the question with the first motion to adopt ending with 7.30, a communication from John Patterson regarding the extension of the airport lease to V-Tang. So first, and then the second motion would be to adopt the amendment to 8.8. So if I could have that motion to divide the question, please. Someone could make that motion. Yes. Thank you, Councillor Carpenter. Is there a second to that? Seconded by Councillor King. Is there any discussion on the motion to divide the question? Councillor Burtman. I just really believe that the items that I will move are germane and important and should be kept in the way that they are in the spirit of, you know, cooperation and unity that I hope that we would have. I don't think that we'll get that here, but I can hope and believe that it would be a good show of collegiality and unity if we were to keep them together. So I will be voting no on the motion to divide. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much, Councillor Burtman. Is there any other discussion on the motion to divide the question? And I'll note that we have councillors Grant, Shannon, Traverse and Zhang joining us by Zoom. If any of you are able to turn your cameras on so that it's a little bit easier to follow you, that would be great. We are going to have to go to a roll call vote. So I'm just going to need to make sure that everyone can hear us and is in a position where they can vote on this. Seeing no other discussion, the motion is to divide the question. We'll go to a roll call vote. Laurie. Councillor Barlow. Yes. Councillor Bergman. No. Councillor Carpenter. Yes. Councillor Zhang. Yes. Councillor Doherty. Yes. Councillor Grant. No. Councillor Hightower. Yes. Councillor King. Yes. Councillor McGee. No. Councillor Shannon. Yes. Councillor Traverse. Yes. City Council President Paul. Yes. Nine ayes, three nays. The motion to divide the question is successful, which means we will go forward with a divided amendment. So the first amendment, if I could have a motion to amend, adopt our agenda to include the amendments up to an including 7.30. City Attorney Pellerin, do you wish to have us read them or is that sufficient? I think as long as all Councillors are clear in understanding what they're voting on, then that should be sufficient. Okay. So is there, I'll look for any heads to nod if there isn't, in which case we can then go to a motion. Is there, okay. So what we're doing, okay. So what we are doing is this is a motion to amend and adopt our agenda to include all the amendments up to an including 7.30, which is a communication from John Patterson regarding extension of the airport lease to V-Tang. All right. Are you clear on that? Yes. Okay. Great. So a motion, I would need a motion on that. Councillor Barlow. So moved. Thank you so much. Seconded by Councillor Carpenter. Is there any discussion on that motion? Seeing none, we'll try, we'll try a, we'll just try a voice vote here. All those in favor of the motion to adopt, amend our agenda to include all the items up to 7.3, the communicate, that communication from John Patterson, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed, please say no. That motion passes, which moves us on to the second amendment. That would be a motion to amend, adopt our agenda to include the amendments to 8.8. Is there a motion on that? Second, a motion made by Councillor Bergman and seconded by Councillor Hightower. Is there any discussion on that motion? Yes. Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead, Councillor Bergman. This is essential to the deliberations that we have, because as the hundreds of communications that we've gotten show, this is a matter not only of public interest and import, but something where our own transparency and openness has been called into question. And the inability for us to fully debate this question, these questions here and to do it in a way which hopefully can get us a little bit more unity than we might otherwise have, with a little less acrimony, seems like a prudent thing for us to do in a time in our country where such buy or try partisanship is sorely lacking. I hope we can all debate the merits and I expect that we will, but to not vote to add these to the agenda and to take them up in a way which I think makes the most sense for the discussions that we're having and where people are lying would be, I think, a very sad commentary about the votes of this council. And I urge you to vote yes. Thank you, Councillor Bergman. Are there any other Councillors who wish to comment on the motion before us? I think somebody has their hand up. Is that Councillor Travers or no? Councillor Jang? No, Councillor Grant. I'm my apologies. No, my apologies, Councillor Jang. It's Councillor Grant, please go ahead. I just wanna say that I strongly agree with what Councillor Bergman just said. Thank you. Thanks very much. Is there anyone else? If we can, thank you. Thank you for putting the camera back there. Seeing no others will go to a vote, although this will also not be a unanimous vote, so I would suggest that we go to a roll call, please. Councillor Barlow? No. Councillor Bergman? Yes. Councillor Carpenter? No. Councillor Jang? No. Councillor Doherty? No. Councillor Grant? Yes. Councillor Hightower? Yes. Councillor King? No. Councillor McGee? Yes. Councillor Shannon? No. Councillor Travers? No. City Council President Paul? No. Our ayes, eight, nays. Thank you very much. That motion fails, so our agenda is amended to include the first items on the motion to amend, adopt, ending with 7.30. Point of information. Yes. I need to understand what in the action, deliberative item 8.8, the connection between the two motions. Are they being contemplated to be taken as one, and is the vote that we would be taking to adopt the agenda be to accept them as one, or are they too as they are stated in the agenda to take them as separate items? So my understanding, thank you for the question. My understanding, and you can correct me please, Attorney Pellerin, is that these were items that needed to be added to the agenda. They were not posted. So if that motion did not pass, then those items will not be taken up in 8.8. No point of information there. The existing, I understand that I've lost that. I'm sorry. That's okay. It's gonna be a long night. The existing 8.8 has two motions, two actions, and I just wanna know whether we will be dividing, whether they're gonna be taking up individually or they're to be taken up as one. They are listed as two. Okay. Well, it says recommended action. There's two of them. Attorney Pellerin, what would be, I believe you wrote these actions. Yes, I did, and as you correctly pointed out, President Paul, they're recommended actions. And so, Councillor Bergman, at the moment that the council brings up this agenda item, it is for them to decide how they're going to move on that action item. So these are recommended action items. So the council, just the, The council has a body. We'll have to decide at that time, whether to take them up as one or to take them up individually. Is that correct? Yes, I believe that it's a recommended action. I can wait, thank you. Okay, thank you very much. Thanks so much. The second item on our agenda is 2.1, which is a work session regarding Burlington District Energy Project, the participants, we got a full crowd for participants. President Paul, just point of information, you did vote to amend, but we haven't had a motion to adopt the agenda. Okay. It's a full. Thank you for pointing that out. We will go back to item 1.1, and this would be a motion to adopt the agenda as amended. Is there a motion to adopt the agenda as amended? Councilor. Thank you, Councilor Jang, seconded by Councilor Travers. Is there any discussion on that motion? Yes, there is. Councilor Grant. Thank you. Regarding the consent agenda, and I'm sorry, I have to find the item related to the solar eclipse. 7.25, if it could be bundled with the presentation under the deliberative, which is, I'm sorry, I'm not finding it, setbacks, public hearing, temporary housing. So, Councilor Grant, what we did in order to, this item, it's item number three, and this item passed unanimously through the Board of Finance last week. It was placed as item number three so that we were able to take it full advantage of the time that we have available to us before the public forum. The item would not be voted on until the consent agenda, which is item 7.25, and we did that because we knew that we were going to have a significant meeting coming up and wanted to do as much as we could before. We, of course, have to vote on the item, and that's why it's under item 7.25. If we take that item off 7.25 and put it onto the deliberative agenda, as I had said in an email last week, any items that are taken off will be on the deliberative agenda last. That would be fine, and I'm sorry, didn't we have a presentation under the deliberative? No, we have an item, we have that as item number three. It is a presentation before we get, which is something that we have done a number of times before. Oh, there, my apologies. So I would, I was looking for it under deliberative. We've had so much added in the last few days. It's been hard to keep up with. So I believe that item in 7.25 should be bundled with three. I appreciate that. It can't be bundled with three as number three because we have not had public forum yet. We can't vote on an item until we have had public forum. That's why item 7.25 is on consent because we will vote on the consent agenda after public forum. The presentation itself is an information presentation and can be listed on our agenda before public forum. Okay, I appreciate it. I understand what you're saying. Now I do want to just state that I find it highly unusual that we would separate those two items. I think it's pretty crucial to talk about the amount of funds since the presentation doesn't match what was sent to Board of Finance. I think the public would have interest in this and that's why I wanted to make that suggestion. Thank you. Attorney Pellerin, please. Point of information. If I may, Councilor Grant, during the presentation, the council can ask questions of the presenters. So if there are points of information that you're seeking to understand or have the public understand, that would be an appropriate time to do it as well. Thank you. So did you want to make a motion or is that clarify to your satisfaction? That clarifies, I can bring points up during the presentation. Thank you. Great, thank you so much. So we are still on the motion to adopt the agenda as amended and I believe we've had a first and a second. That was discussion. Is there any further discussion on that motion? Seeing none, all those in favor of the motion to adopt the agenda as amended, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed, please say no. So that is unanimous, which now moves us to item 2.1, a work session regarding Burlington District Energy Project and the participants who are gathered here this evening include Darren Springer, the general manager of Burlington Electric Department, Neil Lunderville, the CEO of Vermont Gas, Steven Leffler, president of the University of Vermont Medical Center and I believe we have also a number of others that are joining us. Michael Herndt, vice president of Evergreen Energy and I also see Dave Keltius here and perhaps there are others as well. So welcome to all of you. Please come and join us. And thank you so much for your time this evening. Before we get to the work session, wanted to acknowledge counselor Traverse and then counselor Dority. Thanks very much, President Paul. Just as the room's rearranging, I do need to note for the record, my recusal from this item due to a professional conflict. Thank you. Thank you, your recusal is noted. Counselor Dority. I also need to note my recusal due to a professional conflict of interest. Thank you, Counselor Dority. Yours is noted as well. Good evening. This is noted as a work session, which means there's an opportunity for some back and forth and there's no vote that will be taken on this item. We will go first to Mayor Weinberger to kick this off and then hand the floor to you. Mayor Weinberger. Great, thank you, President Paul. We appreciate the opportunity to have this work session to begin this important discussion. BD, Darren Springer, our general manager is here to lead the discussion, but we welcome our partners from my guest assistant BGS and Dr. Leffler from the EVM Medical Center as well. It was about a decade ago that had a conversation with Neil Lunderville when he was serving in a different role that we needed to get, that we committed to get to some kind of resolution with this long standing question of whether there was a possibility of capturing the waste heat, the heat that was inefficiently being lost to the environment and use it in some way to secure broader environmental benefits. And it has been a long journey since then. I think it's much longer one than any of us anticipated, although there had been many years of work before that. We are nearing a go-no-go decision on this critical matter, which is what we set out to achieve a decade ago. As President Paul just noted, there will be no action taken tonight, but we do anticipate it being likely that we will reconvene sometime soon to finally make this decision. After much deliberation and debate internally and listening to many comments from the public, my administration is coming down on the side. At this point, barring something unexpected happening in the deliberations up until now, and these are deliberations where I will continue to have an open mind and of course things could change. But at this point, we are presenting tonight because we believe the benefits of moving forward with this district energy system plan are substantial. There are really three main benefits. One, the impact of this additional system of the district energy system would be to reduce commercial sector emissions in Burlington by 16%. This is an area that the city has long struggled to control and reduce, and this is, we believe, continue to believe, this is the single largest intervention that we can make in the near term to reduce those commercial sector emissions. Secondly and importantly, the creation of this system will support a key partner in the UEM Medical Center being able to move forward and grow in Burlington. This is a major goal of the cities to see the hospital remain here, continue to offer the full range of services provided by our world-class medical, academic medical center and the creation of this system creates a path, supports them continuing to grow and thrive here in Burlington proper. And finally, we have long known that the McNeil plan itself is not an efficient plan with the way the technology currently works. This is a major step towards efficiency of the McNeil plan. You're gonna hear a lot more about each of these points in the presentation ahead. I do just wanna close by saying I have, of course, I'm of course aware of the substantial debate within the community and many constituents' concerns and questions about the wisdom of creating this district energy system and questions about the environmental benefits of it. And I want the public to know that we have listened carefully to these debates and concerns. We have evaluated them carefully. You will, we will be presenting on parts of that tonight and certainly if there are questions from the council about these elements, the team is very prepared to speak to these. I continue to believe after having heard the many months in some ways, years of debates on this that while that the option that we are presenting is represents environmental benefits that exceed any of our current alternatives. And for that reason, I remain a strong supporter and hope we'll be able to work with the council to see this move forward. So with that, I'll hand it over to you, Darren. Good evening. I'm gonna share my screen. We have some slides to present. And while I do that, I just wanna say that we're really pleased to be here presenting on this project. It's very much an historic event. As the mayor noted, this has been a discussion that's been going on for many, many years. I particularly wanna thank our partners, Neil and the team at VGS, Dr. Leffler, the UVM Medical Center, Michael Ahern, who is online with Evergreen Energy, the many folks from Burlington Electric and McNeil who are here this evening. It's been a significant undertaking to find a version of this project that is viable, actionable, and ready to move forward. So we're really excited to be here to present it. I'll go ahead and kick us off. And I'll just note here, this is a slide you all have seen. I'm not gonna linger on it. We do have a website, BurlingtonElectric.com slash McNeil, where we are cataloging resources about this discussion. If folks want to visit it, we have reports, webinars, other resources relative to this discussion. We really start every conversation from the Net Zero Energy Roadmap, which was issued in 2019 and adopted by the council and is the guiding document for Burlington Electric's work on climate change, on tackling the emissions in the two biggest sectors in the state of Vermont and in the city, which are ground transportation and thermal energy. And the roadmap, as you'll note, it really had four pillars and one of which was to complete a district energy system and to tackle some of the tougher to decarbonize pieces of our city's economy, particularly in the commercial sector. What you see on the left here is our actual tracking of the thermal and ground transportation emissions between 2019 and 2022 relative to our 2018 roadmap baseline. And we've made some good progress. We are lower by over 11% in terms of emissions than we were in 2018. We had a significant drop during the pandemic and we've held it relatively flat while much of the country has seen a much steeper rebound in emissions. However, we do have one area that is more significantly rebounding than others. And this is represented here in the commercial sector, thermal, natural gas use. And you can see that there is a more pronounced rebound as we come out of the pandemic here. This is the sector that is the toughest to tackle in Burlington. This is the sector that we're addressing in part with the district energy proposal. And so we'll come back to this piece in a little bit. I do wanna note, and as the mayor alluded to, we do have slides related to the wood energy and climate benefits. I'm not gonna linger on those this evening. They're in the packet. We're happy to answer questions about them, but we've had a lot of discussion about those. And we really do wanna focus on the district energy proposal itself. So I'm gonna go ahead and skip ahead of those and go ahead and start with the piece here about district energy. And really just again, reiterating, what is district energy in the Burlington context? We're talking about underground distribution system that's highly efficient that can connect multiple renewable thermal sources. And this is an important point. We're not just talking about McNeil steam. We are talking about McNeil steam. We're also talking about McNeil waste heat. Those are two different sources. And then in addition, an electric boiler that would be supplementary to the system and could operate even as a backup to the system. So this district energy proposal has three different energy sources that are connecting to customers. And we have a quote here from the UN Environmental Program where they called district energy a secret weapon for climate action and human health. They have a program that works with cities around the world who are working on district energy as one of their climate solutions. We did host a webinar recently, which is on our website that includes some of these communities that are working on or have district energy, wood chip based systems, including St. Paul, Minnesota, Lund, Sweden and Dalhousie University in Canada. I've referenced here just a few other systems that are operating or have come online, including some that are relatively recent. We've seen countries like Finland use reliance on wood energy and district energy along with other resources to help reduce their fossil fuel use to 36% of their total energy use, which is a really substantial figure relative to what we see in a lot of other countries. France just recently announced plans to convert their coal plants over to wood chips and they're using district energy, including in Paris. So a lot of resources here that folks can check out. We have links on the website. In addition, and just to kind of put it in further context, we look at the International Energy Agency. They are citing the use of district energy, the use of modern bioenergy as a key element of their own 2050 net zero roadmap. They project that modern bioenergy would produce about 20% of the energy needed in their low emission scenario, which is on the right hand side here. And just to kind of contextualize that this is not something that Burlington's looking at in isolation. We're seeing at the international level, at the national level, and even here in Vermont and Montpelier relatively recently, folks looking at district energy as a solution. I think I'm gonna turn it to Neil for this next one. Well, good evening, everyone. It's David Jornstead, I'm Neil Underville, the President and CEO of VGS for Montgas. Pleasure to be with you again. I've been looking at district energy since 2014 when I started as then interim General Manager of Burlington Electric and studied it for a number of years and sought to move the project forward. It's a pleasure to come to you today with a project that we've got further along than any other time as we've been studying this for the many, many years we've been studying it. And I wanna tell you a little bit first about why district energy in Burlington, going back to the history of why district energy. This has always been a discussion about improving the efficiency of the McNeil plant, so plants like this, they tend to be less efficient than we'd like them to be, so by able to capture part of the waste heat and then combine that with steam from turbine and other supplementary resources, be able to serve renewable energy, in this case, steam energy to customers and displace fossil fuel. And in this case, it's displacing a lot of fossil fuel, fossil gas, in fact. So we estimate, based on all the analysis and engineering that's been done by our teams, that this project would reduce 220,000 MMBTU of fossil gas every year. It would do that by creating 190,000 MMBTU of renewable steam, that's from the three sources Darren just mentioned, waste heat, steam extraction and supplementary, electric boiler, plus another 34,000 MMBTU from efficiency savings by switching to this centralized steam plant. This is a massive project and a massive step to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across our system at VGS and indeed across Vermont. We know in Burlington it's the single largest step Burlington could take on its net zero roadmap. I will also tell you that as VGS looks across our system and looks to how we will reduce our greenhouse gas emissions in line with the Global Warming Solutions Act and also with the Affordable Heat Act, also known as the Clean Heat Standard Act 18, there are very few if any single projects that reduce fossil gas as much or reduce greenhouse gas emissions as much as this project. So that is why from our perspective, our partners perspective, one of the reasons why district energy is important in Burlington. We're having a presentation. Thank you. Please go ahead, Dr. So just kind of bringing that to the current project where we are today. This iteration is a partnership with Burlington Electric, the city of Burlington, the Medical Center, VGS and Evergreen. And as council may recall, we've been through three stages of feasibility work. This all dates really to late 2018, so several years of feasibility work. This is the first time we've ever had a project for district energy that is designed and engineered and actually actionable. Able to, if we do reach that go decision collectively, able to advance to the next stages, including the permitting stage. I wanted to note that we do have over five million secured from Senator Leahy before he left the Senate that will support capital cost reduction for the project. And we do have a 501C3 entity created with the support of the council in the resolution last year, 7.06, that would construct, finance and operate the project, which helps to take that burden away from that being a city finance project or a rate payer finance project, but instead would be a nonprofit finance project. Back to you, Neil. So I think I'll just kick this off and then turn it over to the UVM MC team. But as we look at projects to support decarbonization, we also start by looking at what is in our customer's best interest. So Darren and I have a shared customer and UVM MC that is delivering a world-class healthcare for us here in Burlington and across the region. And we're proud to be able to support them with safe, reliable, affordable and increasingly renewable energy. And so it's important as we start to think about this project in particular, that we could come up with a system that met their needs. And their core needs include having a steam-based system that prioritizes this 100% uptime. We know reliability is important for 24-7, 365 operation. So finding that system that worked for them would really matter. We looked at a lot of scenarios and what we found and what we heard from them is that this district energy is the most cost-effective solution to decarbonize that also works with steam. Before I turn it to Dr. Leffler and Mr. Kelty, we'll say that there are a lot of other technologies like geothermal that both Burlington Electric and VGS support as well. We wanna continue to work with the hospital on going forward and one of the things that we've committed to is continuing to work with the hospital in the future to bring their costs down and keep them as low as possible. And whether that's geothermal, energy efficiency or other technologies, that's part of our commitment to the hospital going forward. Thank you, Neil. UVM Medical Center has a significant energy portfolio. We use a lot of different sources of energy and doing the work on this project, what we've determined is that this steam could be useful to our ongoing energy use and could help us grow and expand. It helps decrease the number of boilers potentially have to have on campus, that's important. And it also very important to the Medical Center. What we've heard from the leaders is that McNeil is necessary for energy needs for Burlington for the foreseeable future. 20 years or so, McNeil is gonna be here. For us to be a good city neighbor and partner and help make McNeil more efficient by taking steam that can also help the Medical Center seems like a good thing to do in that sense. It helps us grow our facilities. It adds diversity to our energy portfolio and it helps us decarbonize as well. We support this project, the term sheet. So if the city council approves this project, the term sheet is the next step that'll be critically important. There are a number of significant issues that all of us have to work through to make that work. I'll stop, I'm sure we'll get questions about those. But the Medical Center supports this project moving forward and wants to work on the term sheet to make sure the rest of the piece has fallen to place as they need to. We have Dave Kelty who is on with us on Zoom. And Dave, if you're on and you can walk through the energy use slide for the Medical Center, we would greatly appreciate it. Yeah, I'd be happy to, thank you. What you see depicted in front of you is a kind of a roadmap to our energy systems at the Medical Center campus. And you can see it's very complex and it because of the size of the campus and its general topography and the needs for many different types of energy sources. And this slide endeavors to show how those interrelationships work. So currently now we're dependent upon fossil natural gas. We do have some portions of our total natural gas mix as a biomass, I'm not biomass, a bio natural gas and those feed into the campus through a central metering point and into our central plant, you can see depicted kind of in a big shade to the right. At that point, we combust fossil natural gas to generate steam and distributed throughout the hospital for a multitude of purposes including heating obviously, but also hot water, sterilization and our kitchen services. The steam is a very useful modality for energy in a hospital because it has a high density heating content that can be distributed fairly easily to the campus in terms of almost any location that we need it. And the amount of energy that we consume is considerably and extraordinarily higher that we find in a residential or commercial setting by maybe a factor of 10. So we need the high temperature steam to be able to extract the energy we need at the temperatures we need to keep the campus running both from a heating standpoint, but also process loads such as sterilizers and kitchen. You'll see on the slide, we've got a few little cartoon bubbles here. Obviously, if and when we get to the point where we can move towards decarbonization using electric boilers, you can see kind of how that would fit into the picture. But in looking at this and working with our VED and Vermont gas partners, we determined that the energy use, electric energy use for electric boilers outstrip the available capacity of the Burlington Electric System as is delivered to our main campus. We would have to increase the size of our electrical service, maybe up to three times the size to be able to accommodate installing electric boilers. Then there's the matter of space. Where does it go? So in factoring all this in in the complexity of our needs and the fact that we want to grow in Burlington, our hometown, we feel that districating probably most likely is the most economical source for energy for us going forward into the short to medium term while the new technologies are being developed around energy storage, solar, geothermal and electrification regarding the use of steam boilers. So we kind of look at this as being a economically viable transitional gene source for us which will get us through the near term, enable us to provide energy for the campus as we expand and grow and adjust to meet the needs of our patients in the city. And while those other more technological, sophisticated sources develop at the scale we would need to make a conversion to full net zero campus. I would also point out that our strategy has always been for sustainable design and construction. We have a really good track record of delivering lead certified projects, emphasize sustainability, the lowest possible consumption of fossil fuels and we'll continue that. And that's our guiding principle in our planning is to ensure that every building we built will be sustainable and meet the needs of the community while at the same time taking care of our patients. So hopefully a little busy diagram will be happy to answer any questions if you need to. Thank you. Dave, thanks. I'm sorry about my hoarseness, I'm beginning to lose my voice. Dave, thank you so much. I'm so happy David that slide. Okay. We'll, we just have a few more slides and then we'll be glad to answer questions. So this is a critical one as well because this is really about the terms and these are, I should mention, of course we have documents that are posted on Civic Clerk that include reference to these items that we're talking about here but this would be a capital investment that would not be made or financed by the city, that would not be financed by the rate payer. What our role is at Burlington Electric and BGS has a role in a different state program is we're looking at providing an incentive under our state tier three incentive program. There is a memo that was uploaded today to Civic Clerk that lays out the assumptions that we've made in terms of how that tier three incentive fits within our current structure, how it equates with our other incentive programs. This is a really significant fossil fuel reduction, as Neil mentioned, and so we have an incentive that is scaled appropriately and so please let us know as you're reviewing the memo and reviewing those terms if you have questions for us about that. I also wanna note that in addition to BED, BGS would be putting in incentives under the clean heat program. The clean heat program or clean heat standard was part of legislation that recently passed in the state, was the top priority of the climate council and is a relatively new program that really enables thermal sector providers like BGS to participate in these types of efforts. So Neil, if you have anything else? Okay, so let me jump ahead to the operational terms and I'll invite Michael Ahern from Evergreen to chime in in a moment. I wanna be crystal clear about these pieces though. These are really important. There is no expansion of McNeil's energy generation capacity as a part of this project. There is no change proposed in how McNeil is dispatched. We will continue to run just as we do today based on the electric markets. We'll run when prices are high to benefit our customers in Burlington and we'll be offline when prices are low and when we need to restock with wood chips. We are not going to change the way we procure wood and in fact, we're not gonna run any differently. We're gonna be more efficient. There's no need for any additional incremental wood under that scenario. I wanna turn it to Michael to talk through a little bit the waste heat recovery and how that works. Michael, if you're on and could jump in. Yeah, thank you, Darren and good evening everybody. So when the fuel is combusted and the waste heat is going out of the stack into the atmosphere, we will be installing equipment as basically heat exchangers so that as steam is used by the hospital and condensed into condensate which is then returned back to McNeil, we will run that condensate through the heat exchangers that are in the stack at McNeil to capture energy from that waste heat to heat up the condensate before it goes back into the boiler at which point it'll be created into steam once more. So it's a way for us to capture more heat from McNeil, capture that wasted energy that is currently going into the atmosphere to be able to deliver that steam to the hospital and other customers. Business model. Yeah, this is a pretty straightforward diagram of how this might work. Then if you hit the first slide, as Michael, Darren and I have just walked through the steam that comes from the McNeil plant, both steam extraction and waste heat plus the supplemental electric boiler, that steam is then delivered up the hill to the hospital inside of where the steam pipes are is the non-profit entity that runs this, Brointen District Energy Inc. And then the final part is what Brointen Electric and VGS do which is provide incentives to make this ultimately cost effective for the hospital to be able to afford it and run it for the next 20 years. Yeah, so the distribution pipe as shown in the purple lines here, essentially we're leaving McNeil, we will be building a small annex building off the southeast corner of McNeil within McNeil's template footprint heading due east over to the Interveil Road. We've worked very closely with the University of Vermont Archaeological Department with local regulatory authorities to assure that we are installing pipe in a path that has previously been cleared up and cleared of archeological concerns. Once on Interveil Road, we've worked very closely with Department of Public Works to identify a corridor that our pipe can run through while not disrupting other private and public utilities in the right of way. Heading up Prospect Street to North Street, east over to Mansfield and then north once more up to Colchester. We will be running along the north side of Colchester underground, of course, underground for all the way within any public right of way, all of that pipe will be underground just like any other private utility. And then we get to the eastern edge of the UVMMC campus crossing Colchester and heading up the hill to come into the boiler room. UVMMC is existing boiler room. We've worked very closely with both the BED operations folks and the UVMMC operations folks to establish an operating protocol for these systems to interface with sophisticated controls to assure that there is no disruption to service of either operation of McNeil or service at the hospital. Karen, I'm sorry if you're speaking to me that your microphone is off. I can't hear you. I can't hear you. Sorry, we're gonna move to the next slide. Thank you. Over to Neil. I was jumping the gun a bit. I wanted to mention the thing that's very important to VGS, I think to all of you is how do we know that this is better than fossil gas? One of the things that's very important for the clean heat standard that just passed the legislature is that all types of fossil gas or fossil fuel alternatives be subjected to what's called a life cycle analysis where we are looking at those alternatives, whether they're renewable natural gas, electric heat pumps, geothermal or district energy and we're understanding how they compare against what's being used today. We do this through measuring their carbon intensity and you derive something called a CI score or carbon intensity score. With the idea that as this score goes down, it improves, the carbon intensity improves, it gets better for the environment and better in the fight against climate change. So drawing your eyes right to the bottom of the slide, fossil gas is generally seen to have a CI score of 79. There are, if you look at oil or propane or other types of energy, there may have CI scores above this. We asked a third party to investigate what they thought McNeil steam energy would be able to be on a CI score to understand what its carbon value is because this really matters to VGS. We need low carbon values in order to be able to retire that against our obligations under the clean heat standard. What we found is that McNeil steam scores very well, 3.76 is what this study came back. And the electric steam that would be produced with the supplemental electric boilers scored even better at a 0.039. There are some types of renewable alternatives that actually have negative scores. So you see those scores dipped to be negative 50 or negative 100, but just below four or just about zero are excellent CI scores and it gives us confidence that this project will indeed reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Thank you, Neil. And just our last couple of slides here and this one really summarizes what's before you and what would be before you as we move ahead with the liberations on this project. So there's a term sheet, draft term sheet that's included in the packet that looks at what BED and McNeil would provide to the district energy system. And again, we're talking about providing steam when McNeil runs, adding the flue gas economizer, capturing the waste heat, no changes to the plants dispatch, no expansion of its boiler or energy generating capacity, no change to its lifetime. There's nothing in here that guarantees any specific timeframe for McNeil. However, as Dr. Leffler mentioned, as you all know real well from our presentations, we see a need for this plant for reliability, affordability, renewable energy over that 20 year period. But nothing in here changes our decision making authority around that. There is an infrastructure connection for the district energy system. There's the use of the property to add the electric boiler. So that's one term sheet. There's a second term sheet for the incentives, as mentioned. We derived a value of 665,000 a year flat, no inflation, that would be annual, that would be based on the production verified each year, and that is actually equivalent or maybe even moderately cost effective against our general portfolio of incentives. So you think about our electric vehicles, our heat pump, our other incentives. The memo that we provided demonstrates how this incentive compares with those other programs. Important to note, we're not looking to change any of those programs. We know we have to do this and electrification, not this or electrification to meet our goals. And then the other two items, we're working with the city attorney, CEDO and DPW on, are the easement for the system to go through 99 inner bell and a franchise agreement that would operate on behalf of the city with the district energy nonprofit to be able to cover things like franchise fees and use it right away. Closing here, I said we come back to this graph. This represents the green, what district energy under this system proposal would look like in 2022 if it was online relative to the natural gas use we actually saw in the commercial sector. You can see it's a 16% reduction in commercial sector natural gas use. To put that in context, that would accomplish 7% of our overall net zero energy roadmap goal in this one project. There is no other project that we're working on that could take that significant chunk out of our roadmap goals and reduce fossil fuel use at that scale. That's why we're here. That's why we're excited to be talking about this project, recognizing as the mayor pointed out that there are different opinions, different viewpoints. This is what is driving us towards this goal of having district energy in Burlington. And with that, I will stop sharing my slides, turn it to any of Neil or Dr. Lechler, any other comments or we're glad to answer questions as well. Thank you so much. And again, thanks so much for being here. We'll go to the council for any questions. Councilor Hightower. Thank you all for being here. And I apologize, Darren already has spent a lot of time with me answering a lot of questions. But as you know, my ward is particularly interested in this is this will go through our ward and also wear a very carbon conscious ward. My first question is if we could actually pull up the presentation again, because there was something that I didn't understand that I think is getting at one of my questions, which was the key operational terms. And it said that there's no expansion of energy generation capacity. And I just want to make sure that I understand that that is not the same thing as saying that doesn't mean that there won't be increased energy generation at McNeil. We're just saying we're not changing the capacity. But my understanding is we are playing on increasing how much wood McNeil is burning in order to meet the medical center's needs. Is that? Great and important question. And the answer is we are not, and I want to be crystal clear about this, we are not looking to use more wood to meet the needs of this project. And let me explain how that works. We generate energy at McNeil, it's a 50 megawatt plant, right? When we use thermal, we're actually more efficient. So for the portion of our output, it's roughly three to three and a half megawatts that's generating the steam that's extracted. That portion's actually gonna be more efficient. So it may produce more energy in that sense, but we're not actually gonna use more wood. Our wood use varies year to year, sometimes tens of thousands of tons based on the energy markets. And that will continue. We'll go up and down based on how the plants dispatch because of the energy markets. But overall, we're probably gonna see on a kind of level basis, we'll see a little less electricity production out of McNeil and more thermal energy production that's more efficient. We are not looking to burn more wood at all, period. Great, that's helpful, because that's not what I understood from there. I just was like, oh, capacity, got it. And then I guess another set of questions around, which is in line with some of the questions that came out of Ward 1, around timeline. I actually don't find it very comforting to say there's no timeline attached to this because that doesn't make, there's a big capital investment that is associated with putting this in. And so saying it could operate at any time, does it, even if it's not operated by us, and there's a part where we sell it off, there's some return on investment that needs to happen in order to make that front capital investment worth it. And so I still don't have a good understanding of what that timeline is, regardless of who's operating it. There was just something in that memo back to the Ward 1 NPA that it was like, oh, you know, there's 42 months or whatever it is that we'd have to offload if we were gonna sell it. But I just, I think I would like to know what kind of UVM needs is a commitment, like what the timeline is to actually get a return on investment for the large capital investment that has to happen to make this happen. I'll come back to the 42 months. UVM, and this is part of the term sheet that really needs to be worked out. So we need a 20 year commitment that we would be able to take steam from this project. We need to make sure that the infrastructure costs are, we're working through how that would be paid such that if the McNeil does change in some way that can produce steam, what would happen to the $40 million investment? So that's to be worked out in the term sheet. And third and really important to us, this project works because of the carbon impact fee. And we need assurances that over the time we would take the steam, the carbon impact cost offsets our capital investments. There's a lot of other stuff, but those are probably the big three, I would say. 20 years, carbon fees and infrastructure costs in case something changes. If I can just add, the 42 months is actually, if you decided today we were not gonna move forward with McNeil, we would have to give at least 42 months notice to ISO New England in order to be able to kind of meet our commitments there. So we had just modeled that in the term sheet as a termination period, but we see McNeil being here for that 20 year period and providing the steam as part of this project. Great, thanks. And it is helpful to get a number because I didn't know if we were talking about five years, 50 years. I'll ask one more question. Trying to choose which one. I guess my last question is to both Vermont Gas and Burlington Electric. And I have not asked this question. I don't know if you've gotten this question in advance. So if we need to get this question afterwards, that's totally fine. But my understanding is that this project includes and obviously this isn't for us to decide how the funding is spent. So I want to be clear that I understand that. But my understanding is that this project includes grant funding from federal taxpayer funds through Senator Leahy, former Senator Leahy. And so I just want to understand why we're choosing to use you, why we're choosing as a community, not as a city, to use that to subsidize this project as opposed to projects to residential homes and other things that might need some of that subsidization. So what was, what's kind of the math that's going into using taxpayer funds in this way? Sure, I'm happy to answer for BED and turn it to Neil. With Senator Leahy, we specifically saw whether there were federal funds under an appropriate program or an appropriation to really support some of the capital needs for this project, knowing it was going to be a significant capital investment. Speaking more for kind of BED's incentives, if you think about our energy use, we're about 75% commercial sector and 25% residential. But if you think about our incentive programs, a lot of them are residential. They're going to be heat pumps and energy efficiency and EVs and electric mowers. And so we probably disproportionately provide incentives to the residential sector. We're always looking for opportunities as well to help commercial customers reduce their energy use, reduce their emissions. So we've supported geothermal at Hula. For example, we're supporting projects with Green Mountain Transit to electrify the transit fleet. This is an opportunity for us to support one of our commercial customers. That's a significant energy user in the city. So it's not instead of residential. It's definitely for us in addition to residential. I think I would say that my answer is largely the same. We need to be able to do both. Ultimately, when we're looking to make a substantial, significant greenhouse gas emissions reductions, which is the law and we have to do, we're looking for the most cost-effective way to reduce as much carbon as possible. And so larger projects like this do present an opportunity to reduce a lot of carbon for a less cost. It still is a lot of money, but we're trying to find the lower cost options. But we also find lower cost options with residential. And we're going to be investing in those as well. We've been doing that for a number of years with energy efficiency program, which we've been running since 1992. We've been doing it. We'll be doing it in the coming year with a switch and save program around heat pump water heaters. We see a good uptake among our Burlington customers to do that. We've been doing our essentially ducted heat pump program with electric heat pumps backed up by our gas service and putting those in residential homes and providing incentives, working with Burlington Electric and others to be able to do that. So we have to find an array of all of those things to be able to most cost-effectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the future. Great. I don't have another question. One, I don't, from my understanding, this isn't the most cost-effective project that we could do in terms of carbon reduction. I think it is a cost-effective project that we could do for a commercial sector. So I'd love we could talk about that. I'd love to do other analysis. We'd love to hear it for sure. I will also say that by picking the least cost options, it drives you to decisions that you often don't want to make. We've worked for years to put a regulatory framework in place that allows us to not only invest in natural gas. Natural gas, fossil gas is the least cost option for a lot of places. But it's not always, it's maybe the least cost, but it's not the most environmentally friendly and doesn't obviously do the best for climate change. And so I think when we think about least cost, we need to balance out a portfolio of options that balance the least cost with other things as well. So I'd love to have a conversation about that and if there are other ideas, we'll be happy to hear them. Thanks. I'll leave it there. Thank you so much. Thank you very much, Councilor Hightower. We'll go to Councilor Bergman. Thank you all. Thank you, President Paul, for this work session. It's seriously important that we have a work session out in public. We get answers to the questions so that the public, the people can hear them. I have had good conversations with General Manager Springer. We will continue to have those. I've gotten lots of information. I have gotten good communication from the Medical Center. And I have relied on Darren for the communications through to VGS. But let me just start by saying that it should be no secret that I have not supported this plan. I'm on record as opposing it. It also is not a secret or should not be that that is a major and difficult decision for me because I was here and I'm a neighbor to the plant. I look at it every day, many times, and was on the city council and ran during the height of all of the siting and the opening of it. And I have been a supporter of district heat since the beginning. So that is a new. And this continues to be a very difficult question for me. I appreciate the mayor's comments related to it being nuanced. And there are being nuances in it. And I continue to be trying to work hard. I've got a lot of questions. And it may be that they are not going to. We're not going to have enough time to do that. But I truly think that we can't be railroaded into a decision and we can't just get these in private. That this is a public conversation that we should be having and it's really serious. So let me just start and start at a point where the last counselor went. So the plan has changed in terms of reducing the amount of burned biomass that's needed for electricity generation. I think it's actually a great move. And I think it's a reflection of the concern that this community has shown. I would hope that it is. But I am very concerned about our ability to lock in this non-expansion aspect. Right now it is sort of a verbal commitment. Maybe it's in there. So I want to know how we can ensure through legally binding means that the amount of biomass burned at McNeil will not be increased in the future and that if efficiencies like the chip dryer are incorporated into the plant systems, then it will not be offset by an increase in biomass burning and that might be as well for your attorneys, including our city attorney. Thank you, Councillor Bergman. I think, as I mentioned, the amount of wood that we use varies every year. So we can't necessarily lock in a specific amount and say it'll be this amount because every year it changes. What I do think we can potentially lock in a resolution that would be related to this project would be some of the commitments that we talked about and we'd be happy to put them in writing in that resolution, which is the plant continues to be dispatched based on the electric markets. We're not looking to run more based on the district energy system being a part of it. We are striving for more efficiency. So if the wood chip drying is of interest, which it's of interest to us as well, having some commitments around the exploration of that and creating more efficiency around that is something we'd be happy to look at with you and with the council. I think a lot of the genesis of this concern came from studies that were done as far back as 2018, where we looked at the engineering of McNeil and said, could you operate it at a higher level to keep the electric output the same while providing district energy? That wasn't necessarily the plan. That was just something we explored doing our due diligence. We've come around to the idea, as you mentioned, that we can operate this without needing more wood incrementally than we would need to run as an electric plant. So the relationship between the commitments to New England ISO and this project, there's a little bit of a complicated nature in that since you've got commitments there. And I think that the public needs to sort of understand that relationship so that we're clear if ISO says, well, we need X amount, or if that's the regulatory framework that you're talking about, that that is not undercutting our commitment to what is fundamentally not change the carbon footprint of the plant. And so parts of this might be the creation of a maximum input feedstock limit and whether there are regulatory restrictions from FERC or from ISO in New England or something that I would love for us to have. These are questions that I do not need you to answer now, although if you have quick answers, that's fine. But these are answers that the people need to have us as their tribunes, so to speak, act on their behalf. Well, I would never wanna put us in a position where for a reliability event or something like that, we couldn't operate the plant. We always wanna be able to operate the plant if we're called on to help with a reliability event. Those are fairly rare. Most of the time we're dispatched at a discretionary basis based on economics. And that's how we intend to continue to dispatch the plant. So I'll be concerned if there are any limitations that are put on that take away the really talented Burlington Electric team's ability to use the economics to the benefit of our customers and run the plant when it's optimal. But I'm happy to work with you to figure out if there are ways to capture in a resolution some of the things that we're talking about here that formalize those commitments that I've referenced. I mean, I did read in one of the, I think in the term sheet, the ability to say, well, guess what, we're not giving you steam now. And that might be a circumstance if ISO says, like we have a region wide need because we're crashing. So sorry, Dr. Leffler, but it's gonna run up against that. So that is a concern and a consideration to make real this, what I think is an important commitment. Will BED commit to the purchase of the chip dryer that was referenced in the public, in the Vermont in the seven days article, regardless of the outcome of this decision by the council in order to increase the efficiency of the plant. Couple important things with that. We've worked with the birdies, a citizen group that's been active on district energy for a number of years, had a lot of good meetings with them. I think I saw some folks here from birdies this evening. The wood chip drying was something that our forestry team who's also here this evening looked at back in 2018 and 2019, pre-pandemic. And we never got any bids on it. We don't have a company yet that's looked at it with us. And I always should say, we're part of a joint ownership of McNeil. So investment decisions are made not specific by BED but by the joint owners. I would absolutely commit to look at it in a very serious way, including issuing an RFI or an RFP with the support of the joint owners to bring in one or more proposals that are actionable to look at those in the context of our capital budgeting with the council. And if there is a reasonable payback and there's a reasonable understanding that the plant's gonna be operating during the period that that payback would be required, then absolutely that's something we should look at. And we should look at it in context with this because district energy improves efficiency 10%. What if we can get another 10 or 15% through wood chip drying? Let's lay these things on top of each other and make this plant the most useful asset it can be because we know we need it for the foreseeable future. That's kind of our perspective. So it's been clear in my public statements that my need is to do everything that I can to burn less stuff because so in making the emissions, making things more effective, the need, you know, this is good and that means that perhaps we are, then we will burn less stuff. We need power, you know, and I recognize that. So then the question becomes, how do we do that in a way which does not emit? And I won't go on my soapbox again, right this second on that. But actually I'm interested, the next question relates to another concern I've got, which is that this makes it harder for BED to transition away from burning biomass at McNeil. And there are relationships and contracts that bind parties together and every contract has a covenant of good faith when President Lefler says, doctor says that he's gonna be looking at these three points and one of the points is the infrastructure cost. This is where that rub really comes in because you are spending $45 to $50 million. And you know, right now we're at 42, you know, I'm skeptical about that staying there being lower in any reasonable time. But so I am very curious as to what your thoughts are on how this will impact a decision to fully or drastically reduce the production of electricity and steam through the burning of carbon emitting fuels at McNeil at the end of the 20 year period. Assuming you've got a 20 year period of time, then how does the covenant of good faith, you know, relate to that? I mean, in a crass way, aren't you concerned that it isn't good faith to encourage an investment of $45 plus million for a long term project that the city would then like walk away from or drastically reduce the output to in 20 years, which is long before the life of those pipes and the connections and all that those assets are ended? I'd offer a couple thoughts, I appreciate the question. The first is the great thing about the term sheet as you look at it is nothing prevents us from moving to new technologies if they exist. And in fact, none of the three of us or our organizations would wanna be prevented from moving to new technologies if we're able to. So if there is a better technology to produce energy that comes to us at McNeil, we can take full advantage of that with this being a part of that effort. The pipes are a conduit, they're not a source of energy, so as we find other ways to utilize whether it's different sources of energy or different technologies, those can fit into this project. The infrastructure has to be separated from the source of energy when we look at it. So after 20 years, if we've operated and we've reduced the fossil fuel use at the medical center for that period of time, that's a near term win, that's a good thing as you mentioned. If there is something better that comes along whether it's 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, we can take advantage of that and then we can continue to serve the medical center with that infrastructure. If it's in our collective interests, although there's always a good faith bargaining after the conclusion of a project term, if for some reason the hospital has a better option or there's a better option at McNeil that doesn't involve serving the medical center in that way, we'll all work on that together as organizations, but we don't want to prevent ourselves from having that opportunity to upgrade. We hear a lot of talk about just transition. The need to move from the burning of carbon emitting fuels to produce the power, to produce the electricity that we need. Do you two joint owners, I'll add Neil to this, to this as a joint owner, right? They're not a joint owner. They're not joint owners, I thought that, oh no, Velco and... It's Vepsa, which is public power and Green Mountain Power. Green Mountain Power, wrong, sorry. Do you see, so Darren, do you see the need for a just transition away from biomass burning to non-emitting sources to produce electricity at McNeil? So what I would say and what I would share with the council is when we look at this question, we look at what's available on the ISO grid when we run McNeil and the marginal fuel when we run McNeil, the times of the year that we run it, the winter peaks, the summer peaks, is natural gas or fossil fuels, between 92 and 98% of the time, sometimes more than that. If 92 to 98% of the time we had the marginal fuel being solar and wind, I would be really interested in immediately moving away from any other type of resource and moving right to those. Unfortunately, those are both single digit and in some cases low single digit energy producers in our New England grid today. So I think our imperative along the lines that you're talking about and the reason why I see McNeil being necessary for 20 years is, we don't wanna turn off McNeil and turn on more reliance on volatile fossil fuels on the grid that we already don't have enough of and which are the main driver of climate change. We don't wanna do that. If we're gonna switch away from McNeil, we need resources on the wind, solar or other and right now it's very challenging to build those in Vermont and challenging even in the region. So I think we have a lot of work to do to get to that point, but would I agree with you that the ultimate endpoint would be to have a grid that's running more largely on solar, wind, maybe some hydro battery storage, that'd be great. And we wanna play a role and intend to play a role in facilitating that transition. We don't think we're there in that 20 year period, but I can't predict kind of beyond that what types of evolution of technology we could see. I think, yes. I just wanna add that one of the, as we were talking about this last week and making this decision to come before you, one of the key things for the medical center is we wanna be as energy efficient as possible and be as green as possible. We need steam and I believe that over the next 20 to 50 years, healthcare, medical center will always need steam, but we said as we start to use district energy, we wanna be able to work with our partners to have other ways to be greener and drive down energy costs and increase reusable energy sources. So that is part of what we're gonna build in this. This is one, I keep saying one piece of our portfolio, but we're not gonna be only using this product. And do you see the campus changing? You have a lot of old facilities there. You've got a lot of old buildings. You're talking about new buildings and expansion. How does that factor in? Dave Kilty showed you that we're not gonna be able to put enough boilers on campus. We just can't have that many and there's issues with putting boilers on campus. And so being able to take district steam helps us grow efficiently, helps keep our costs down with the carbon fee offsets and is a piece to the solution as we build new, very green efficient buildings. Does it help create thermal energy networks and are you committed to doing that? I'm the wrong person to ask that. Okay. The just transition planning is something that in my mind can't wait until the 20 year project is over. That's a suicide pact. With the planet and with all of the workers that are down at the plant and all the people that are affected by things. So I would hope that we can have a robust conversation that begins very quickly to bring together players, including folks that we might not see as being on the same side. Thank you. So that we, but all have an interest in making sure that we'd stop burning up our planet. I had a bunch of questions for UVMMC, but I'm going to stop because I'm monopolizing quite a bit. But thank you, Dr. Leffler, for the answers. I probably will ask some, I'll send to Karen Vastine questions, which I appreciate the responses to the original sets of questions that were sent several weeks ago and we got, but a little bit more specificity than the general pronouncements would be more greatly appreciated. So thank you. Thanks so much, Councillor Bergman. So Councillor Barlow, you had some questions and then we'll go to Councillor Carpenter and we'll try to wrap this up at 645. Okay, thank you, President Powell. And thank you for the presentation. I've seen different versions of some of the material, but some of it was new tonight as well, so I appreciate that. My question is around, it sort of picks up on a question that Councillor Bergman asked. I'd like to see UVM and UVMMC continue to grow their campuses in Burlington rather than undertake projects that expanded in neighboring communities. And I'm wondering about, would the inability to have the district energy system influence UVMMC's growth plans on the Burlington campus? We want to stay in Burlington. I'll be clear on that. We'd like to keep everything on that campus. We have plans to use district steam and we have plans if we can't use district steam. As the term sheet, we're hoping will be structured, district steam makes sense for us and helps us expand efficiently. But if for some reason we can't use this steam, we would still, everything in our power to stay in Burlington. Okay, great. And my other question, I had talked to GM Spring of this afternoon a little bit about this and I was wondering if you could again summarize for others on the council, how the 665,000 in tier three credits factor into the economics of the project. I know there was a memo that was added to the packet this afternoon, but I was hoping you could do something sort of more concise than that just so people appreciate how that plays into this. Thank you, Councillor Barlow. So to really summarize it with the tier three incentive, what we did was we looked at the amount of fossil fuel reduction that's gonna occur with this project and we came up with a level that is commensurate really or in some cases maybe even more cost effective than what we do for other customers with electric vehicles, with heat pumps and tried to create the opportunity for us to not only meet the state's climate program goals through tier three, but to exceed them. And to be clear, our intent is to do more than what the state requires us to do. With the net zero energy revenue bond, we consciously as a community made a commitment to do more than what's required of us at the state level to accelerate progress here. And this represents kind of another furthering of that commitment is to say, not only will we meet the state's goals and avoid ever paying the alternative compliance fee which would send Burlington dollars to Montpelier which is something probably all of us can agree we wanna keep those dollars here, our customer dollars. So we'll avoid ever having to pay that compliance fee because we'll have credits from this project but also would represent a significant bolstering of our commitment financially towards climate mitigation in Burlington. And doing so with the commercial customer whereas I referenced we've done a lot with residential we wanna continue to do that but we need to have commercial customer programs as well. Thank you. Thanks very much. So now we'll go to Councilor Carpenter and then Councilor Zhang and then we'll try and Councilor Grant and we'll just try to wrap up in about 15 minutes. Thanks. Couple, I've got a lot of questions too and I appreciate my fellow Councillors. I just wanna confirm again for the third time that you're saying you will not as a result of the district energy be using more wood. And I had asked you a question offline that I believe from a 1918 study that said you might use 5% to 10% more. Can you just... It seems like this project's been going on since 1918. No, so confirmed. We are not going to use more wood. The study from 2018 looked at a scenario. It's not a scenario we're looking to make the operating scenario. That's right. And you don't have to answer tonight. Some of your projections of which there's disagreement on the carbon intensity and how this is categorized or accounted for relate to or not relate to how you count emissions from the stack. And I can't pretend to understand that. You used a reference where McNeil steam was 3.7 carbon intensity and fossil gas was 70. If you unbundle a McNeil steam and that equation around greenhouse gas or stack emissions, what does that do to that equation? Where does that sort of put you? Yeah, thanks for the question. I'll touch on this because we didn't really cover it in the presentation. So our governing bodies, the EPA, the State Agency of Natural Resources, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change all account for carbon from wood in the land use sector. They're saying when you cut a tree, that's emissions. When you grow a tree, that's sequestration. And they look at what's the net change in the woods relative to before. And with our data we've demonstrated there's actually a positive correlation in the woods where we harvest. There's actually more carbon being stored and not more carbon being lost. And that accounts for all the harvest activities. That's one way to look at it. That's not at the stack. Another way to look at it is life cycle accounting. And one of the studies that I looked at and cited to in the PowerPoint is actually a study that's not very favorable to biomass. It's the Manomet study from Massachusetts from 2010 that was used by opponents and cited by opponents. But what it says is if you're using the type of wood we use at McNeil, the residues, the tops and limbs, disease, damaged trees, you have a favorable carbon payback relative to natural gas, coal, and oil. So there's different ways to kind of cut this and slice it. But the bottom line is we believe based on all that analysis, and it's not BED analysis, it's external to us. It's the way we account for it that using wood chips with the types of wood we have has a favorable carbon profile. Even if you didn't agree with any of that, the point that you just asked me about makes this a beneficial project because we're not gonna increase the amount of wood we're using. We're gonna keep things the way they are. But we're gonna decrease over 220,000 MMDTU of natural gas, 16% at the hospital. So I try to frame it a couple different ways because people look at it in different ways. You don't have it tonight, but will you be providing or be able to provide us with sort of a top level performance? I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around how the economics of this work, particularly with a $45 million investment. And I'm particularly interested in how much of that infrastructure is paid for with thermal heat credits or other kind of incentives. I'm sure there's a chunk of it. And I just would really appreciate kind of understanding that. And then having asked that question, how much of, I am presuming, you are getting incentives and offsets with various programs. If the categorization, if you would have McNeil changed, if burning biomass is no longer actively defined as a good alternative, how would that sort of affect those subsidies and those programs you might be wanting to use? And I don't know if you- We could offer a couple comments. I might turn to Neil too. I wanna be really clear. There's no offsets being utilized in this project. The only dollar contributions that BED or VGS would make are direct incentives under state programs that ask us to help customers reduce fossil fuel use. So there's no offsets where something's happening outside of the state or none of that kind of thing. In terms of our program, in our tier three memo that we've provided today, you can see some of our assumptions, obviously that the program continues and that this project reduces fossil fuel use. Our state program is a fossil fuel use reduction program. So it's not really about whether we look at biomass as renewable or not, although it is renewable, but it's really about are we reducing fossil fuel use? And in our case, the answer be here. Yes, if we can verify that each year, we should be able to participate, but we had a list of assumptions relative to that for tier three. I'm gonna turn it to Neil. In our calculations, we need to be verified by the public utility commission. We're fully regulated as Vermont Gas and the Clean Heat Standard Affordable Heat Act would require that all of these types of clean heat measures would have to go through a technical advisory group be scored using a model like, it's called GREET, which is done by Argonne Labs. Those scores would need to be then approved by the public utility commission. They would then calculate through this project into credits that they would have to be verified in order for us to be able to use them against our annual obligation. So we have a vested interest in making sure that this project is actually reducing greenhouse gas emissions. If it's not, and if the public utility commission and the technical advisory group says they're not, then really not interested in buying them. We also have confidence that in this case, they would be given the science that is out there today and the work we've done to investigate it. Just one other question. All of this is premise and I've learned a lot about the hospital needing steam. But there are hospital systems that have converted from steam and again, I don't know that I need an answer tonight, but I would be really helpful. I mean, we've been told you've looked at it, but a little more specificity on, you said geothermal won't work with the steam system and I've learned to understand that. But I guess just, because it really is fundamental to the district energy that you need steam. And as I said, there certainly are some examples of hospital systems that have converted. And I asked this for the public, tell me what you looked at and you discount it. You said no, that would be unpractical, unrealistic, too expensive. So I could use more specificity on that. So we can follow up. Dave Kilty can help with that. What I can tell you from the medical center's perspective is with the assurance that meal is going to be running, it's going to be burning the same amount of wood. I would make meal more efficient and helping drive down our energy use from natural gas is a win we believe for the medical center and for Burlington and Vermont. I have more questions. Thank you very much, Councilor Carpenter. So we'll go to Councilor Jang to be followed by Councilor Grant. Thank you, President Paul, and thank you all for being here and for your presentation. And I think I have sent my questions ahead of time and was just wondering if you can answer them, maybe read them and then answer the question, three basic questions. But before I've been hearing you all speak that, MacNeil will not be here, will be here until 20 years, like for 20 more years. And I was just wondering where do you base that assumption that the MacNeil will be operational for 20 years? That's my question. And yes, let me allow you to respond to that question first. Thank you, Councilor Jang. So when we look at it, we really kind of go back to that idea of what resources do we have available in New England, in Vermont that can replace MacNeil. Knowing that we're 100% renewable, we want to stay 100% renewable, and we actually want to grow our electric use. We want more people using electric vehicles and heat pumps and other technologies. And given that, MacNeil is pretty unique because we get to run MacNeil when we actually need power. Solar, wind, hydro run when they want to run. MacNeil is the one resource we have in our renewable portfolio that lets us run it when we need it. So we see a future where we will have more wind, more solar, more battery storage at a big level where you might be able to mimic some of those characteristics of MacNeil. We don't see that over the kind of 10 to 20 year timeframe, but certainly beyond that timeframe, that's something that could materialize. And so we want to make sure if we do have a transition ultimately that it's done in a way that's fair for customers that's affordable, that keeps us renewable and keeps us consistent with all of the reliability needs that we have. Okay, wonderful. Thank you. And yes, maybe could you please answer the first question and specific to UVMMC? What commitment, funding, personal leadership statement can the hospital make to ensure that this work will continue in a rigorous way so that we are ready for what's next? District Energy will actually serve a relatively small piece of our overall needs. And we are fully committed. We work with our partners all the time to be energy efficient. We've made a net zero goal at the hospital. We've won many green awards already. The Miller building is goal-bead certified. Any new building projects that we do, our goal would be to have them be goal-bead certified. And keeping energy costs down for our healthcare consumers is critically important for healthcare premiums. So we are fully invested in being as green as possible. And we understand that climate change is a huge issue for the citizens of the world. Okay, and I mean, I completely agree with all of you that we should maximize the good work that McNeil does while it remain operational. But now, since McNeil is a great source of steam and in some ways, better than power when compared to the other source of the grid. If this system, the BDES stakeholders decide to make more steam is economical. Do you know if the pipeline is large enough that you're going to build to support UBMMC if they want to sign on in the future? Thank you, Councilor. I know in your question, you referenced the University of Vermont as well. And we're continuing to have conversations with the University of Vermont about what their level of interest might be with one or more of their buildings. There's actually a couple of different ways you could serve them with district energy. It's not just through the underground steam distribution, but there's also, as Michael referenced earlier, there's going to be a condensate return, essentially hot water return line that comes from the medical center back to the McNeil plant. And one or more customers can connect to that line and use that hot water as energy. And it actually increases the overall efficiency of the project. So that's something that we also might explore with the University of Vermont or other customers who are in that vicinity that might want to sign up. So before we move forward, we're going to make sure that we have the needs of those potential customers understood very well and covered if they're interested in participating. Yeah, and I think before the City Council will vote about this, I think it will be also imperative or be especially to bring us a plan or a study around shutting down McNeil, let's say, and what type of energy alternative we'll be replacing it so that we also have an idea of if McNeil is no longer operational, how do we keep on providing this similar asset for our partners as well? I think we talked about this and I think it will be imperative as part of this decision-making to do that study and present it to the City Council. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Cenk. I agree that we could provide that type of analysis. It's probably not something we'll have ready over the next few weeks. It will take some time to develop, but we would commit to work with you to develop that analysis so that we understand what options will be out there and what time frames are out there for these new technologies to come online. So we'd be glad to work with you in a resolution or any other language to craft something that would be responsive to that. Okay, it's just that I'm asking the question right now, but I think we talked about this before and from my perspective that work already started, but I respect and will continue to have this conversation. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much, Councilor Jang. We'll go to Councilor Grant and then close out this item. Councilor Grant. Thank you. So just a few questions I hope that be quick. Regarding the terms, these are absolutely what needs to be in place in order for UVMMC to come on and be a customer essentially for district energy. Is that correct? We're still working on the term sheet. This is the start from the city, but there's much work to done if the city council approves this moving forward, there's many steps that would have to take place to get to where we'd be comfortable with the term sheet. So you're asking us to approve it before we know what the final terms are, just to be clear. Just to clarify, so there's a few different term sheets that would be a part of the project. The two that we've brought to you and presented as drafts are pieces where we would be connecting with the district energy system, we would be providing the incentives. There would be a separate term sheet as Dr. Leffler referenced between the district energy nonprofit and the medical center that wouldn't be part of our packet with the city council, but would need the work to make that happen as well. And all of us, I think, have subsequent regulatory processes that we would go through before we would be at a point where we could say, okay, we're ready to contract for it. So we're bringing it forward to seek the council's review questions and then perhaps approval of the term sheets that govern what BED would be committing to, knowing we'll need those in order to advance the other pieces of the conversation. So with regards to, we're essentially building a new system from steam, from scratch with steam. Do you have any examples of any other cities that have done something similar? Yeah, so I think there are a lot of cities that are using district heating. Now everybody's in a different kind of context. For us, we're in a bit of a unique context. We have a 40 year old or almost 40 year old facility that we're trying to improve. If you were designing it from scratch, you might design it differently. You might design it to be, and if it worked for a customer, you might design it to be a hot water system or you might design it to be more thermal and less electricity. If we were starting from scratch, those would all be considerations we would definitely wanna look at. The unique thing for us is we're kind of coming in at a point where we have an operating asset that isn't necessarily going away, but isn't as efficient as it could be. So we've looked at other examples like St. Paul, Minnesota has a district energy system using wood chips, for example, and Evergreen, Michael's organization helped to develop and run that system. And we actually had city counselors a number of years ago go and look at that system, come back here and talk to us about what that could look like here. So there are other cities that are doing these types of things, but they're all contextually distinct. And for us, we did look at a hot water system. In fact, Neil was general manager when I was working as a manager at Burlington Electric. We had a hot water system scoped with a company called Corex. And unfortunately, we didn't have customer interest in that system. And that's where we went and said, okay, maybe if we design a steam system, it would actually be more compatible for our customers. Okay, I've had some people ask questions about like, what is a diversity factor and a concern of the diversity factor for this type of steam pipe? I'm not sure I'm familiar with what that would be referring to. Is it a efficiency or a capacity factor, potentially, or? So typically within the industry, the district energy industry, diversity factor relates to a line serving different types of use. So it could be serving some residential, could be serving some commercial properties, could be serving retail. And as you have to take into consideration the diversity factor when you're sizing your line, we have taken into consideration the diversity within the hospital's use and the different types of use that they have for steam. So that is all baked within the design of the system. Okay, thank you for that explanation. I appreciate it. So we're still looking at, even though there's some diversity within UVMMC, it is still, would still be the only customer and would be reliant on the credits. Like the credits could potentially break the deal if they were not there, is that correct? Relying on the carbon fee credits to make this deal work. So they are a critical piece of it. Okay, thank you. I think that closes out the questions, not to say that there won't be many more, but this is a good first start on a work session. Just wanted to thank all of you for being here and to your teams at Vermont Gas, BED, UVMMC, Evergreen Energy, and there's again, no vote at this time. So seeing that there's no action, we can close that out this evening and thank you again for being here. Thank you. Before we get to our next agenda item, just wanted everyone to appreciate there may be some people that will give up their chairs at this point, but if there aren't, there is seating available on the balcony. And if you are here to speak during public forum and you are sitting in the balcony, there will be plenty of time given to be able to make your way downstairs. So this moves us to item 3.1, which is a presentation regarding the solar eclipse budget and program. And for this item, I will go to Mayor Weinberger for a brief introduction. Thank you, President Powell. And again, thank you for the opportunity to lay out this presentation. Unlike the work session we just completed, it is, this is an item that has been recommended unanimously by the Board of Finance already and that we are seeking council approval on later tonight after the public forum. I'm gonna hand over the presentation on this item to Zach Williamson of the Burlington City Arts in a moment. BCA and Zach have been leading the planning for next August, sorry, next April 8th's total eclipse that will be happening here in Burlington. This is, Zach's gonna say this line better than me since it's his line, but this is unusual and that we are planning for an event. Usually the planning determines whether an event is gonna happen or not. In this case, the event's happening regardless of what we do. The question before us and really that I'm hoping the council grapples with tonight is, are we going to be prepared for this event to happen? Are we going to do what's necessary to ensure that basic public health and public safety measures are taken to prepare for the large crowds that are expected? And beyond that, do we have a plan to make this really to capitalize on what could be a great opportunity for the city and building off this event to host a really wonderful weekend-long festival and secure enduring benefits for the city both at the event itself and then in the months and years that follow. And we think we've got a plan that does, it handles all that that ensures that the public will be safe during this event, even if there are very large crowds. And we also have a plan for securing the support to ensure that it is a great festive event as well. All of that is built off the city and the council leading the way in taking action. When we get to kind of the money breakdown, the money projections at the end of the presentation will come back, but I'll let Zach take it from here and I really tee this up. Great, thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Pleased to be here. Thank you guys for having me and thinking about the eclipse coming up on April 8th. It got a lot of attention just two weekends ago, October 14th, because we experienced a very, very partial eclipse here in Burlington, but many of us have been thinking about this for quite some time. So we're thrilled to be here today. I'm gonna take you through just some of the basics. There's a little presentation on the screen and give you a little groundwork of what this event is and then talk about some of the possible things we would like to do with it. So this is happening, as we said, on April 8th of this spring, 2024. It is really remarkable, right? It last one here was way back in 1932 and the next one is in 2106. You might say, well, we just had an eclipse and we've had other eclipses like in 2017. The distinction here, of course, is that this is a totality eclipse here for the city of Burlington. That depends completely on your geography. So for some people, this last October 14th was a total eclipse for them. If you were in Southwest and Northwest America, it was not for us because of our location. I'm not an astronomer, but I think that makes sense that we are fortunate to be in this path of totality and it is really truly a once in a lifetime opportunity. What that means is, as you can see in this drawing, that for a short amount of time, we have a total eclipse where the moon is completely blocking the sun. It will be completely dark at 326, approaching 327 p.m. for about three and a half minutes. That doesn't seem like a long time, but as far as how that goes in the rest of the experience in this country, it's actually on the long side. Some places will be shorter than others. So being in our position here in the Northeast, it's a slightly longer experiencing for us. The partial eclipse will start at 2.14 in the afternoon and the whole event when we go back to full sun will be 4.37 p.m. So from that end, it's a longer time and definitely will be noticeable. We just hit that totality in the middle there. This is on a Monday, which is odd. Again, if we were planning this event, A, it wouldn't be on April 8th and B, it wouldn't be on a Monday. So we'll talk a little about that, but that poses some challenges and we'll really kind of make a holiday out of this even if we don't really know it yet. We looked back to 2017 when there was a great solar eclipse in this country. I got this quote from the Hopkinsville, Kentucky mayor in back in 2017 who called it the Cosmic Super Bowl. I thought that was pretty right on. It's many cities wish the Super Bowl would come to them. It's a money generator and a tax base generator. It's a great exposure for a city and invites a lot of tourism and that can be true of a total solar eclipse as well. So cities across the globe, more and more actually as social media has spread, experience a larger and larger influx of people who travel to a city to experience this total solar eclipse. Estimates from Burlington range anywhere from 50,000 additional people to 150,000 or more visitors between April 6th and April 9th. Again, it is on a Monday, so many hotels in the area are requiring at least a two night stay. So it really could be a long weekend event where people get here on a Friday, stay Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and leave on Tuesday after this event. Looking back again, we looked at some communities that are about our size or smaller just to look at the reality of what happens during these things. So again, Hoppings in Kentucky has a population of 30,000, almost 31,000. They welcomed over 100,000 visitors in Tennessee. They have a small population of 6,000 and they welcomed 50,000 visitors and made another $90,000 on merchandise and parking. The Idaho Falls area, which is a larger geographic area, saw over 300,000 visitors over those days and recorded traffic from all over the country, all over the world really, which was really pretty amazing. I don't want to go through all these, but you can see that there is a quite a balloon effect on a given community when they are fortunate to have this happen in their area. Here locally, this very body, the city council back in May of the spring adopted a resolution stating that we would, as a city, celebrate this unprecedented and unique event. That really helped launch us in our planning. The free press back in May, shortly right after that resolution, claimed that we were gonna see about 250,000 tourists to Vermont. The state has opened an Eclipse website, a group called the Green Mountains of Vermont, which leads tours in the state, has had a tour that's been sold out now for a long time dedicated to the Solar Eclipse. Hello, Burlington, our Chamber of Commerce website has a page dedicated to it, and this data is actually a little bit old now, but back in June, we were told that we learned that there was an increase in searches related to traveling to Burlington between April 5th and 8th had gone up 4,500%. So that is a real factor that they've seen on their websites and certainly indicates a strong interest in coming to our town, which is awesome. As the Mayor said, we are dedicated to making sure this is a safe, a number one basic plan is to create a safe and enjoyable experience for both the people that live here and those that are coming to visit. So what we're calling kind of the public safety angle includes bathrooms outside and around the community, trash and recycling facilities and parks, some type of parking and shuttle system to try to deal with all these people coming to town. We would invest and we are gonna purchase about 50,000 Eclipse safety glasses to get out to the community, which would be, you need those to watch the eclipse safely. We are working with emergency services to have adequate planning and services on hand. We're looking at options to create more RV parking in town. That's all that is to be a little bit determined, but there are some options there and it could be a revenue generator and also give people the places to stay when the hotels are full. We're obviously dealing with traffic control and trying to come up with engine plans. The school district is anticipating making a change of their schedule because it does happen at two in the afternoon and that could be a problem for after school and road construction in Burlington and the Vermont area is looking at not doing construction on this weekend or these days to try to make sure we can get as many people in and out of the state safely and easily. If you put all that in one category, the other side is how can we make this even a better event and really showcase Burlington? We know and we recognize that we just said that thousands of people are gonna be coming to this area. It is April 8th, it's not always a beautiful time to be here, right? The snow's melted. It's not the rosiest time that we might wanna invite everyone to our city, but we think we can with additional funding and additional planning, we can really showcase the city and what we do well from the restaurants that we can eat into the shows we can see and the musical performances we can put on really show people why this city is so amazing. So we would encourage visitors to return, have a great time here, hopefully return to Burlington. We would create opportunities for all of our businesses here in town to make more money, sell more meals and also, of course, sell more hotel rooms and that comes back to the city through taxes as well. So it's a great opportunity for showcasing what we have here and also seeing some revenue from that exposure. We would also, we have some images here from the UU church. We're looking at doing an event up there possibly and we are talking to NASA State Program Administrator who's housed at the UVM. They're also planning a bunch of events. We've talked about sharing some of those resources. If they have a keynote speaker coming to the campus, we could also have that keynote speaker later in the day do an event with us. We are working closely with ECHO and the Verma Astronomical Society looking at an educational aspect of this, providing educational tents at different sites using a live tracking telescope and working with them to really produce this so that it's more than just a cool show and actually an educational experience. We also would do some ticketed performances and events on that Friday, Saturday and Sunday leading up to the eclipse. Again, if there are a lot of people here, it would be awesome to give them a place to go. Also, our own community would really like to see some of this great programming, I believe. We are looking at directing attendees, visiting and that already are here to a couple of key viewing locations in the city. Those naturally would be parks and naturally be close to the water. It's a really great place to look. This will be happening in the generally southwest angle from where, you know, in the sky. So we're looking at Battery Park and Battery Street as a great location, Waterfront Park and Perkins Pier, Oak Ridge Park in the south end, City Hall Park right here in downtown and Roosevelt Park in the north end. We would encourage people to go to those places and we would have entertainment and resources there. You could get classes, that's where the educational tents would be set up, additional bathrooms and such that we've already talked about. We also would work closely with the after-school programs, neighborhood centers and the NPAs to embrace their own neighborhoods and do events with their own organization. We would help them either with logistics or facilities or anything that they might need to really carry out a great event in their own neighborhood. Again, it is gonna be a busy time in Burlington and most likely not having people here. Everyone coming downtown would be great for everybody. We also really, I've keyed into this since day one, would love to have a live narration of this event from an astronomer who could really walk us through what's happening, what we're seeing. We would then broadcast that across all of our different sites so everyone could hear that. We also would look at working with restaurants and food trucks to open earlier if you're not usually open on a Monday or you're not usually a food truck that's open on April 8th. Open them earlier, provide places for them to be and help them meet that goal of really serving all the visitors to town. And lastly, we can't do this alone. We would actually use this time to really work with our partners in the community and beyond. All these different organizations on the screen have interest in doing something with the eclipse. We would tie all these together onto a Love Burlington page through the Burlington Workforce and Development Office. This would help really collate all this information for a visitor so they don't have to know that they have to go check a certain vendor's schedule to see what they're doing for the eclipse. They would be able to go to one-stop shopping if you would. You would visit the city, you would go to the site and scan QR code or learn about it at the airport and go to the site and see what's happening here. Regardless of whether we're producing it or a private, great Burlington business is doing it, we can help each other by spreading the message and sharing that information. All this comes at quite a cost and Moro's gonna step in here, Mr. Mayor. And we did illustrate these two different budgets that tie back to the idea that there's the public health and safety side and there's the event and tourism side. Thank you, Zach. So basically what this slide shows is the total investment goal for the event is currently projected at approximately $440,000. What we are asking the council to commit to tonight is for the sub-total up above the sub-total at the bottom of the public health safety and basic amenities budget, which is, my eyes are failing me a little bit, but I think it's 200 and Zach, can you detail that? Yeah, that's $235,195. The motion before you tonight, the resolution before you tonight would commit the city to that public health and safety basic amenities budget. It is likely that the city will not ultimately need to be responsible for all of that spending as we will seek opportunities to recoup either directly or indirectly as much revenue as possible and Zach detailed some of the ways in which cities have been successful at that. But it is important for the planning of this event that we commit to that level of funding now so that the team working on this can go forward and reserve the equipment, reserve the vendors that are necessary to ensure that we deliver on that basic safety. With that, we have already started the process of going to local partners, businesses and seeking sponsorships that would be allow us to cover the event and tourism investment budget. And we have started that process and have a number of commitments so far and we will keep the council posted on our progress towards those commitments in the months ahead. Having the city commitment as a foundation will is critical for us to be able to secure those private commitments as well. And the council taking action tonight will be a dramatic step in the right direction for us to be able to put this whole project together, this whole event together. Thank you, Mayor Weinberger. And for those who don't know, Zach Williamson is the BCA Festival and Events Director. Thanks so much for being here. Are there counselors who have any questions on this item? Counselor Grant and then Counselor Shannon. And if you could possibly change the screen so that I can see just so that I can see the other if we can stop the share screen. Counselor Grant, please go ahead. Is it possible to put up the Board of Finance budget memo and the Consented Dengels 7.25? Do you have that with you, Zach or no? I might be able to get that quickly in a second. If you had any other questions that didn't pertain to that, maybe we could get on those and then we'll find the memo. Certainly. So there was a reference to the first part, but we have this additional monies and then the grand total is $439,335. And that's what we're being asked to approve in the consent agenda, correct? Yeah, so the understanding is that we are looking to approve the spending of the $235,000 public safety budget. And then we are actively fundraising and looking for local business support to get the event and tourism aspect taken, which is about another $204,000. So we need authority to spend up to that 439 where we will only actually spend the 235 plus anything we can actually raise. And that's what we're looking for tonight, I believe. Okay, so thank you for that clarification because I think it's an important one given recent controversies. So we're being asked to approve up to 439,000 knowing that the sources that are listed on the Board of Finance memo are not actually all in hand. Is that correct? Moe, actually, do you have that memo or someone from Board of Finance? I have the language in front of me. I'm happy to speak to it. The language says it's an amount not to exceed the 435 and to authorize the Chief Administrative Officer to make any necessary budgetary amendments and transfers funds to carry out this initiative. So the intent is to, you know, again that the city would be responsible for the 235, 195 and transfers and these funds, we're trying to seek these private funds and that would cover the balance of the budget. So just to confirm once again, we have a significant amount of funds that would be part of this project that we don't actually have in hand at this time and we're being asked to approve spending up to that amount. I just want that to be very clear. Yes, I think it's, as stated in the presentation, the total budgetary goal is 439,335. The city fund share of that is not to exceed the 235, 195 without further action by the Board of Finance and Council. I guess I'm a little confused. I'm not sure if my question can really be answered. It's like we're saying without further action but we're being asked to approve up to $439,000. We're saying that that could be spent. We need the authority to spend the money as well as even, if we didn't do it this way, I assume, I didn't draft the language here and the city attorney stepped out for a moment. We need the authority to spend the money up to this amount even if it's not city sources. So that's why it's been drafted this way, I believe. But I'm telling you, it is, we're not gonna spend more than the 235 that was laid out in this presentation of taxpayer funds. I guess my confusion is, is because that's not in, what's in the consent agenda. The consent agenda is asking us to approve up to $439,335 saying that that's the amount that could be spent. We know we have $120,000 that will be from unused 2023 opera funds that we're gonna allocate. We're gonna allocate, we are making a projection. Making a projection, we don't yet have $200,000 in corporate donations. We're making a projection for parking and camping fees of 30,000 and we're making a projection of a little over 59,000 for merchandise sales. I just want to be very clear as to what we're doing. Because what's in the consent agenda isn't the 235,000, it says 439,335 to total. So that's just what my concern is. I want to make sure we're clear with what we're doing here. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Grant. I think the intent is pretty clear. I'm happy to work with Jared and see if there's, we can propose any refinement language before this actually comes up for the vote. So I'm happy to discuss this further. If you want to be clear, I think it's critical to Council take action tonight. We're just, we've got and it is challenging to work out word smithing on the floor if items are not raised sooner, but we will try to, I see the point you're raising and I will talk to the assistant city attorney about whether we can offer any further language. The urgency of taking action on this is April 8th is coming and we need to release the team working on this to start locking in the resources that are going to be necessary for this. And I think the memo is quite clear what the intent is in terms of the limit, but if there's a way to clarify that further, I'll talk to the assistant city attorney on it now. With all due respect, I don't believe it's clear. It's saying we're expecting. So we are committing to funds that we don't actually have. And I just think that it's important giving recent controversies that we are clear about that with the people of Burlington. Thank you, that's all I have. Thank you so much, Councillor Grant. We'll go to Councillor Shannon and then to Councillor Carpenter. Thank you, President Paul. I actually had the privilege of experiencing this event in 2017. In about 2015, a friend who lives in Driggs, Idaho contacted my husband to invite us out to Driggs, Idaho for this event two years in advance. And we thought he was nuts. We couldn't quite figure out why we would plan this far ahead for an eclipse. But having now experienced it, I can tell you that, and I also recently had a friend who said he really isn't interested in the constellations and things that happen in the sky aren't really his gig. But this is something that's pretty astounding to experience. I experienced it in the countryside. So I don't really know what it will be like in the city. But it went from day to night in just a matter of a few minutes. So this evolution from day to night and dark night happens so rapidly and all the sounds of nature that you would hear at night and that quiet kind of fell upon us. And it was absolutely astounding to experience it. And that's why we have, as you mentioned 4,000 times, the number of whatever your data point was there. But this is something very special. And I think that one thing I would suggest is that, I know I'm kinda known as the anti-Arabian B person here, but this is a really good opportunity for anybody in Burlington to rent out a room. Put your extra bedroom on Airbnb right now. And you can do that for at least 14 days before the city will bother you about anything. If they ever bother you about anything anyway. But also I hope that our, we'll be able to make up, this is a very significant expense that we're approving at the $200 and whatever $1,000 of taxpayer funds. And I am hopeful that the city actually gets rooms and meals tax, sales tax that would be equivalent to that. And I don't know if any analysis on that or estimates are possible, but I think it might be helpful in the budgeting process to maybe allow for that. And hopefully some of those Airbnb's will also be kicking in to the kitty, but making rooms available to people is gonna be really important to accommodating all the people that are going to want to come here because this is the only city on the track in the Northeast. And after 2017, actually, I don't know if you remember mayor, but my husband went to you and said, in 2024, this is going to be here and what are you going to do about it? And you said, well, I don't think I'll be mayor. So here we are. It will be a day to celebrate. And thank you for all the work that you're doing on this, planning for the influx of people is really important. Thank you to BCA and USAC for stepping up. Thank you so much, Councillor Shannon. We'll go to Councillor Carpenter. I just quick, I mean, I understood the memo. I thought it was pretty clear. We have no choice but to spend the money. People are gonna come whether we want them to or not. So at least the 235, we gotta do it. We have no choice. And I have full confidence that the remainder of the programming will be covered. Thank you, Councillor Carpenter. Are there any other Councillors before we go to a second round? Councillor Bergman. So I just wanna say that I'm extremely troubled by the technical problem with the resolution. And we have got a consent agenda that has got lots of actions that need to be taken. I don't really feel comfortable taking action and voting them all down because the resolution that we have or the motion that we have on this is inadequate. I don't feel that the errors by the administration should be my emergency and I should be forced to choose to give a blank check, especially when I hear that there's not one that's being offered. So I need some corrective action that is within the Robert's rules that will allow us to do that because you put me in an untenable situation of voting for something that is not right and it jeopardizes all these important things. And it's not my doing. So how are we gonna correct that? Did you wanna speak to that, Mayor Weinberger? I'm happy to, President Powell. This item, like as the councilor well knows is on the consent agenda through the unanimous decisions of everyone on here. And we have a protocol of if there are concerns about what's on the consent agenda that the practice is to advise the city council president as early as possible so that we don't find ourselves in a challenging situation like we are now. So the idea that we have put you in this position is a little challenging to hear, Councilor Bergman. But what I was going to propose is that to further clarify what is, I think, pretty clear in the documentation that's been given, but to ensure that there is no confusion, the assistant city attorney is preparing language that will be ready by the time public forum is over and a vote is being taken on the consent agenda that would make crystal clear the limits of the taxpayer resource liabilities here and give the ability to the team to spend up to the total amount from the other non-city resources. And that language will be detailed when we come out of what is expected to be a lengthy public forum. And I would think, hopefully, that this will remain on the consent agenda at that time, but if there's a desire to have debate over that language, it could be pulled from the consent agenda at that time, I would think. All right, thank you so much. As a point of information, it would be helpful with that language for the city attorney to opine upon the basis under Robert's rules that we can do that, having already adopted an agenda that has an item that has the things in there and that we're not, it's on the consent agenda. So that would be, I think, essential for us to have as part of that. Thank you, Councilor Bergman. If there's no one else that has any questions on this item, we're going to a second round and if we could just keep it short, Councilor Grant. Thank you. So when it was requested for it to be separated out and I do agree, you know, if we could do earlier, but to be fair, we've been inundated with a lot in the last week, including all day to day. Like during my work breaks, I was like in the email, we were inundated. We also had a number of things that were attached. So I think you have to be, please, a little more considerate of that and those of us who have full-time jobs trying to keep up. And I, you know, I'm for this event. I mean, of course it makes sense to take advantage of this phenomenon and we should be planning for it. I just have a serious concern that what is in the consent agenda is not what is being said that is being asked of us and that's a problem for me. It's like double. So I think we have to be open and honest about that and we have to acknowledge the fact that we're asking, we're being asked to approve the spending of funds that we don't actually have at this time. I think that's important given recent controversies. Thank you so much. Thank you. That question has been asked and answered by the mayor. So we're going to continue on. We're going to close out this item. Zach, thanks so much for being here with us. We have about seven minutes before public forum and so it's not to have a moment to waste. We do have a very short, very brief local cannabis control commission meeting that we need to attend to. So we'll recess the council meeting at 723 and we'll call to order the local cannabis control commission at that same time and give people a chance to get to that agenda Thank you so much, commissioner Shannon. The first item on our agenda is 1.1 a motion to adopt the agenda. Move to adopt the agenda. Thank you, commissioner Shannon who is chair of the license committee seconded by councilor travers. Is there any discussion on the agenda? Seeing none, all those in favor of the motion please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, please say no. We have our agenda, which moves us to item number two 2023 cannabis application and it is our cut this is a that we have one application for Garcia's cannabis collective. It has been our practice to ask if the owners of the of this business is present this evening either in person or online. And if you are you are welcome to come forward introduce yourself in your business. If you're online, you can simply use the raise hand function and I will find you. And we do this because the application is does not give a lot of information and so we give an opportunity for the owner to come forward and speak about their business briefly. So if that person is here in Contoy's or and I'm looking online, I don't see anyone raising their hand going once, going twice. Doesn't appear the owner is here. So we will move on to item 2.1 which is the application for Garcia's cannabis collective. Councilor commissioner Shannon. I move to approve and recommend that the local cannabis control commission authorized transmission of local approval for Garcia's cannabis collective at 97 church street to the state cannabis control board. Thank you commissioner Shannon seconded by commissioner Traverse. Is there any discussion on the motion seeing none? All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, please say no. That motion passes unanimously and seeing no other items on this agenda and hearing no objection will adjourn the local cannabis control commission meeting at 726 and return to the recess council meeting at the same hour. So we are close enough to 730 and that means we will move on to item number four which is public forum. Before we begin public forum, I would like to note that we have a process for public forum and I speak for the full city council as we all share a very strong commitment to an orderly process during public forum and one that honors all voices but is respectful of all perspectives. For those that are in con choice, we have a timer system that's on the table in front of me. It has three lights. A green light will shine when you begin speaking, a second yellow light when you have 30 seconds left and the last light is red, it will shine when your time is up. Please complete your sentence when the sound and light indicate that your time is up so that we may give everyone the same amount of time and we keep the public forum moving along. If you're joining us online, there is a timer system that will be set up on Zoom. We don't have a light system but when your two minutes are up and the clock winds down to zero, please complete your sentence so that we can move on to the next community member. We have a hybrid system for public forum so if you wish to speak in person, there are forms but I believe are to the right, yes. In the back corner of the room, you can complete them, bring them to the clerk, to my right in the front of the room. If you wish to speak on Zoom, you can go to the following page and that is burlingtonvt.gov forward slash city council, one word, and then forward slash public forum. When you do that, a forum will come up, please complete the forum and your answers will come into a spreadsheet that I have in front of me so I can call on you in the order in which you submitted a form. It is our practice that Burlington residents will have first priority to speak. We will go to Burlington residents who are joining us in contois who have submitted a form in person, then we will go to Burlington residents online who have submitted an online form, we will come back to contois for non-Burlington residents and then we will go and finish our public forum with online non-Burlington residents. We have a large number of people who wish to speak during public forum this evening. Please if you wish to speak, please try not to repeat what others have said. If when your name is called, you wish to yield your time as others have spoken and expressed your thoughts before you, you will be recognized and you can just simply say that your thoughts have been expressed. We will see you and we will note your support for the sentiments that others have expressed. During public forum, we ask that you please speak respectfully. We would like to remind everyone here this evening and everyone that is joining us online that there are families who watch our city council meetings as their connection to civic engagement. Parents use our forum to teach our city's children about city government and we expect everyone who is present who speaks this evening to refrain from using profanity. Please when you are here to speak, please face me and direct your comments to me as the chair and not to anyone else at this table, not to the audience, please do not personalize your comments. This rule will be strictly enforced. Again, we want to hear what you have to say and we will listen more intently if you speak respectfully. With that, we will start the public forum and what I will try to do is call a few names in advance so that if you are joining us in the balcony, you'll have a little bit of extra time to join us downstairs. The first speaker is David Maher to be followed by Colin Hilliard and then Dean DeWall Fowler. And we don't need your clapping. If you want to express your support for anyone who speaks, you can simply show us with your hands, just like this. To anyone who wishes to express their support for anyone who speaks, thank you. David, please go ahead. Good evening. No, you just have to press the green, the button that says push. Where it says push, you push the push. Okay, thank you. My name is Dave Maher. I'm here to speak in support of the F-35 and to talk about a local connection that some of you may not be aware of. The F-35 gun system was designed right here in Billington, Vermont. The gun system features a four barrel, 25 millimeter rotary cannon, firing at 3,000 shots a minute. It has a 181 round emission handling system, a custom hydraulic drive and power transmission, as well as a gun system control unit to handle sequencing, clearing and fault detection. I know these details because I led the engineering team that designed, assembled and tested the first F-35 gun systems. Now I'm not a war monger, but I believe in having a strong military to keep one step ahead of our adversaries. And in light of this local connection, I think we should all be proud to have the F-35 in our neighborhood. Now I will admit that the noise can sometimes be a bit of a nuisance, but I think that it's better than learning to speak Russian. So thank you, or should I say, spasiba. Thank you so much. Our next speaker is Colin Hilliard to be followed by Dean Doudal, I'm sorry, Doudal Fowler. Thank you, Council President Paul. My name is Colin Hilliard. I'm speaking to you tonight as Deputy Director of the Burlington Business Association and also Ward 3 resident. The BBA's mission is to advocate for Burlington's economic vitality. There can be no doubt that the lease extension before you tonight for Vermont's Air National Guard, airport operations is essential to Burlington's economic vitality. VTENG is a critical economic driver, providing 1,100 jobs, accounting for $62 million a year in paying benefits. It's also vital to our workforce pipeline for revolutionary companies like Beta and more. The Guard's presence at the airport is critical to essential airport services like fire and rescue as well. In a recent report, economist Art Wolf said that a loss of these federally funded services at the airport would make the airport less desirable, one with higher costs and fees, with fewer and more expensive flights. And these emergency services aren't just critical to the airport, 69% of calls to VTENG fire and rescue responses are off base through mutual aid agreements at least eight surrounding communities, including in Burlington. Further, the publicly available documents attached to this agenda make it clear that a motion to delay or negotiate shorter terms will put VTENG's green initiatives and fire and rescue services at the airport at great risk. Please vote yes on this lease extension tonight. Thank you. Thank you very much. So our next speaker is Dean Dodal Fowler to be followed by Ben Fowler should be followed by David Akali. Good evening. How are you doing? Good. Good. By the way, my name is Dean Dodal Fowler. Okay, thank you for correcting me. And I just pressed down the green button, or. I'm sorry, what do you mean? You're all good. You don't have to press anything, are you okay? So I just wanted to say that I'm in support of the BDES project because I think that definitely we have to go to renewable, like energy, but I think that also we need to take some other steps before we can do that. And we need to, and this is a great step to do that and to make McNeil more efficient. Thank you. Thanks so much. Our next speaker has been Fowler to be followed by David Akali to be followed by Romeo von Herrmann. Good evening. Hi, my name is Ben Fowler. I'm a licensed mechanical engineer in the state of Vermont and I work extensively with hospitals and other commercial clients on efficiency and if this is my career, working to try to reduce energy use in commercial buildings. I've worked extensively at UVM Health Network facilities over the past 13 years, including a number of projects at UVM Medical Center, helping achieve greater efficiency in those buildings and in projects they conduct. And I just, based on that experience, both at UVMMC and elsewhere, I need to express how fundamental steam heating systems are to modern hospitals. And while there are outlier examples of hospitals that don't use steam, UVMMC, the implications around changing UVMMC from a steam-based system would be hard to overstate, both in their cost, complexity, and disruption to potential operations. While I think it's a great thing to investigate, when we look at opportunities to decarbonize the hospital, looking at the Burlington District Energy System is one of the only practical, achievable, short-term solutions. And I think going that route is really sensible if we want to make a big impact towards efficiency in Burlington. Related, the McNeil plant is really okay at electric efficiency, but it's equal to UVMMC's natural gas boiler plants in its thermal efficiency. And so, frankly, the more we shift generation to thermal loads, the better, because the grid, in general, can make electricity more efficiently than McNeil. So it's a good pairing of a source and a need in the hospital. Thank you so much. Our next speaker is David Colley, to be followed by Romeo von Herman, Nick Filchin, and Laura Caputo. Good evening. Looking for the button. You should be fine. All you need is just the green light to be on, which it probably is. That's all you need to do. Go ahead. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. My name is Dave Colley. I'm a Burlington resident, and Ward One resident have been in the city for 32 years, and I'm here in support of the District Energy Project. I've spent several hours reading the reports and analysis from the BED website. There was quite a bit there of information, and I really appreciate it. I think BED has been very transparent and very forthcoming with the public information on this project. So just about the project and about biomass in general. As you know, the city council approved the net zero plan in 2019, and the plan calls for the elimination of fossil fuel use by 2030. We saw in the slide presentation tonight that we're actually not on track to meet this target. Fossil fuel use has been on the increase since the end of the pandemic. So I applaud this initiative in addressing Burlington's net zero goals. And one of the things I like about it, and I haven't heard anybody say, is it's actually innovative. When you think about it, what they've done is put together a partnership that's leveraging private investment to help reduce our carbon footprint and to reduce fossil fuels. It's not, by and large, it's not Burlington taxpayer dollars. We also heard that this is gonna have a significant impact for the commercial, in the commercial sector, by reducing fossil fuel use by 16%. And in order for this project to work, it has to make good economic sense for the thermal customers that are going to be using it. So, and I think the project can also help to stabilize our electric rates. So if we recognize that if the project's going to go ahead, it will disrupt some Burlington streets, but we may also find that there's some opportunities to do other forms of needed infrastructure at the same time. So I believe that in essence, this is essential, and I hope that the city council can support it. Great, thank you so much. Our next speaker is Romeo von Herman to be followed by Nick Filchin and Laura Caputo and Sandy Nguyen. Good evening. Good evening, Madam President. Madam President, Mr. Mayor, good to see you again, city councilors, city administrative team. I'm here to express my support for the delivery of item agenda 8.8 regarding the city council approval of Vermont National Guard's continued lease of the Burlington International Airport. In addition to this, I also stand in solidarity with our city recognizing Israel's right to self-defense under consent item agenda 7.20. These issues, Madam President, hold significant importance for our city and resonate with my values in our community's well-being and global peace. For the proposal of for V-Tanks continued lease at the airport is a crucial, well-conserved decision by the city. The Vermont National Guard has a long-standing history of service to our nation and the state. From responding to natural disasters to supporting international missions, allowing them continued access to our airport not only strengthen our national defense capabilities, but also provides us an opportunity, or rather the Guard provides an opportunity to better serve our community. Thank you. Thank you so much. Our next speaker is Nick Filchin. You'll correct me if I've completely mispronounced this, your name, and to be followed by Laura Caputo, Sandy Nguyen, and Rich Price. Good evening. Good evening. My name's Nick Filchin. You got it right. I'm a licensed professional mechanical engineer in Vermont. And my focus is on decarbonizing building heating systems. So my colleagues and I have designed many of the new buildings in the city and around the state that have decarbonized building heating systems. And on a personal level, my family has reduced our fossil fuel energies by over 80% at our house in Burlington. And both in those commercial new designs and for my house, we follow a formula of insulating the building, air sealing it, and adding electric heat pumps. That formula is a great formula for many buildings to decarbonize. Unfortunately, there are challenges in certain applications for commercial buildings. Kitchens, cooking, kitchen, cleaning, domestic hot water, and laundry. And in some commercial buildings, existing ones, it is hard to insulate and air seal them. Unfortunately, all of those challenges apply to the UVM Medical Center. And so the building currently uses natural gas and this alternative that has been proposed is the district heating system. I can clearly say that from my perspective and in my experience, the only reasonable alternative to heating the medical center with non-fossil fuels is this district energy system. And it's a very clear choice between either a fossil fuel or a non-fossil fuel, which many of the experts have clearly described is provides positive environmental benefits for the future. So I would recommend that the council support this project and thank you for your time. Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Laura Caputo to be followed by Sandy Nguyen, Rich Price, and Scott Baldwin. Good evening. Good evening. Thanks for giving me the chance to speak tonight. My name is Laura Caputo. I live in the New North End. And like a lot of us, I wear many hats in my life for the whole bunch of them centered around tonight's vote of the VTANG lease extension. First, I'm a colonel in the Vermonter National Guard. I've served in the Air Force for 31 years and in the VTANG for 15 of those. With the Vermonter National Guard, I've served in domestic operations roles as an intelligence analyst and most currently as the maintenance group commander. I'm so proud of my service to the country and to Vermont. It's been rewarding work that I think has made a real difference in our state. I activated for a tropical storm Irene in 2011 and the COVID-19 response is more recently. Both events rank as my most memorable career moments. There's no better satisfaction than helping Vermonters in need. It's left a lasting impact on myself and my family. I'm a pilot by training. I flew multiple aircraft in the military for 15 years and now I also work at Beta Technologies teaching ground school for new pilots. The work at Beta has in particular been mind-blowing. If you haven't heard, you will hear about the incredible development and innovation happening right here at this airport. Technology that will change the world of transportation and it will fight climate change in a major way. Beta relies on the VTANG in a host of ways so that partnership is really important and it's particularly awesome to be a part of both organizations. I'm also a parent of two kids. I love Vermon and I'm so glad to be raising my kids here. As a Burlington resident, it's super important to me to know that our elected leaders support the guard and our operations, even if you don't like every aspect of our work. It's easy for me to see all the ways the guard gives back beyond our missions but many of you might not be as familiar. There are a lot of us who sometimes wonder if the community supports or even respects us and that can be very demoralizing. Your vote in supporting the guard would be an action towards a more secure and safe Vermont and would be a boost to those who serve. A concrete show of support that would mean a lot to us. Thank you. Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Sandy Nguyen to be followed by Rich Price, Scott Baldwin and Dr. Peter Bingham. Good evening. Good evening. First I wanna thank everybody who has served or is serving in the military, the police, and our National Guard but I do oppose the F-35 being based here. Vermont Law Delegate- No, if you need to, if you wanna show your appreciation for what anyone is saying, that is exactly right. Thank you. Vermont Law Delegates power to local governments to protect quote the public health, safety, and welfare of its citizens. I hope you will do that. In 2018, when you scheme South Burlington passed resolutions to not have the F-35 based here, Burlington City Council voted nine to three not to bring them here after a successful voter referendum. Unfortunately, the mayor did not honor that. The Department of Defense directed in the Air Force Policy Director quote, require military operations to be separate and apart from populated areas. Sanders, Leah and Walsh all said they supported the basing of F-35s here quote because there will be no mission for the Vermont Air Guard if it's not the F-35s. The U.S. Air Force and the U.S. District Court unfortunately said opposite quote, if Burlington is not selected, the base's current mission would continue. Federal Government Authority has the ability to remove or add F-35s but Vermont has the ability to control the training. The negative impacts of these planes target working class and minority civilians. I am a real estate agent and as a real estate agent, we had to check daily if not weekly what we call the impact maps and we had to put in every offer quote, if it's in that area, that home is quote not fit for residential use. Solutions seem to be to add sound producing for those homes that will take over 30 years. Please vote not to extend this, thank you. Our next speaker is Richard Price to be followed by Scott Baldwin, Dr. Peter Bingham and Richard Price. Oh, there's two people with the same name. I thought I was seeing double. Good evening. Well, I hope I'm the right one. My name is Richard Price and I'm a resident of Ward One. My wife and I have lived in Burlington for nearly 16 years and we're raising our five sons here. Last year I started my own business and I've joined the ranks of entrepreneurs who are watching closely how this council acts or doesn't to do practical and symbolic things to create conditions that are favorable for small businesses like mine. I'm here to proudly support a yes vote on approving the lease with a V-ting. Again, I believe there are practical and symbolic reasons that make the supplemental lease agreement so important, practical. The economic impact on our community and the Vermont International Guard is significant. Its soldiers, airmen, and families are rock solid members of our communities and they contribute to our economic, social, and civic well-being. The Guard's presence at the airport makes it possible to sustain an airport that is uncommon for a region like ours. That is a lifeline for businesses like mine. Practical, to lose the guard and the current strength of the guard, sorry, would fundamentally limit how our state recovers from crises like the ones our state suffered in July with the devastating floods. The V-Tang played an important role in our state's recovery. Symbolic, we need a strong military-civilian connection. Any community does, but we've had a long and proud connection that enriches our community and I'm proud to say that a gentleman sitting in this room tonight piloted the F-16 on the morning of 9-11 that was the first to secure the airspace around ground zero. To lose that or to jeopardize that connection in any way would be wrong. I'm grateful to each of you for your service and I hope that you'll vote yes. Thank you. Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Scott Baldwin to be followed by Dr. Peter Bingham to be followed by another Richard Price and then Todd LaCroix. Good evening. What are you gonna do if he comes back again? Another Richard Price. Good evening. My name's Scott Baldwin. I've lived in North Prospect Street for 36 years in Burlington since 1972. Most of what I would have said has been said or addressed by previous speakers. That's not true because they haven't had a lot of previous speakers. As a taxpayer and a supporter of all that is good about Burlington and where we live in Vermont, I've come to express my strong support for the extending the lease to the Vermont Air National Guard at Burlington Airport. The council has passed resolutions aimed at addressing the greening of Burlington and reducing the carbon footprint of its air breathing inhabitants. And now, when we have an opportunity to access 51 million dollars in part earmarked to carbon reduction and the accomplishment of your stated goals, the choice to vote yes is clear. I'm sorry to say, due to my advanced age, I will probably be dead before the current lease runs out and our outstanding air guard housed at the airport. So will many of you. But ensuring the guard's future for Vermont is absolutely critical. The millions of capital improvements and economic benefits from the guard will accrue to future generations. Your vote tonight to extend the lease ensures that our kids, grandkids, great grandkids are able to call the guard when Vermont needs the most. Based on the facts and what you have heard and will hear tonight, this vote should be straightforward. The lease extension is not connected to the F-35s. No matter how much those against it say it is, a yes vote on this extension will demonstrate your seriousness about the city's environmental commitments and whether we want to ensure the air guards presence in Vermont for decades to come. Earlier tonight I heard a counselor say, burn less stuff to provide energy. Well, I say if we get all the many monies that will be coming to Burlington for solar panels and whatnot at the air guard, we will burn less stuff. Thank you for your time and for being willing to serve Burlington on this council. Thank you so much. Our next speaker is Dr. Peter Bingham to be followed by Richard Price, Todd LaCroy and Representative Troy Hedrick. Good evening. Good evening, thanks for your work, Peter Bingham. I'm a professor of neurology and pediatrics at the University Medical Center and I am not speaking on behalf of the Medical Center, but on behalf of the children that I serve. And my concern is really about the F-35. You could tell me the legal aspects of the entanglement of that with the lease or whether I'm right in asking to delay a vote on the lease so that the F-35 part of that lease can be considered. The word nuisance is a problem for me because and I'm afraid that the discussion about the flights have been entangled with something like, oh, that goes away pretty quick and on we go. It is really a public health hazard and the World Health Organization has identified life years lost, cardiovascular health, hypertension, children's reading. So that I'm concerned that if the F-35 stays for the next few decades that we will have greater difficulty learning to speak Russian both because of our hearing and because of our learning. And this is really an issue for looking out for the greatest investment that we can have in our communities, which is in our future generations. And this has been known for 50 years and like many other medical facts like lead poisoning for 60 years was dumped and many IQ points were lost. This is an entirely analogous concern in terms of effects on children's learning and family function, depression, links to suicide have been shown in careful epidemiological studies over a long period of time. So I would ask you to consider that and put aside the word nuisance and think of something akin to a neurotoxic effect which is real and shown in animal models. Thank you. Thank you so much. Our next speaker is Richard Price. There were two Richard prices that completed a form to be followed by Todd LeCroy, Representative Troy Hedrick and Nick Percentieri. Is there another person here with the name of Richard Price? One was listed on North Prospect Street which I believe was the gentleman that already spoke and the other was on Prospect Parkway in Burlington. We'll move on to the next speaker and we'll just, I will call that name again. The next speaker is Todd LeCroy to be followed by Representative Troy Hedrick and Nick Percentieri. Good evening. What we seem to have here is an American dilemma that's striking every town it seems and every party and all people. We have a phenomenon where we just seem to be a people who think we can fake it until we make it but like Bernie Madoff and all of Jabush's Wars and all the disasters of all the last decades it's proven that all you people know how to do is fake it until you break it and yet you're still doubling down on dumb and it seems like we live in an era where we don't have elections but we have selections and it seems like you guys have already cut a deal. You wanna be governor and you wanna be mayor and here we are, we're having our town further sold for your deals. Yet I'm looking around and everybody I know is looking around and I don't know too many people are very proud of what you guys have done for the last 20 years on both left and right. Our world is being led by people in both your parties that are insane and everybody knows it but yet you still walk forward with a smile on your face like you're doing right while your children are being destroyed. You literally are doubling down and wanting to spend more money on wars elsewhere. Well all of the problems at home get ignored and you know what? I remember somebody here saying why don't people respect the National Guard anymore? I can tell you why because when George Bush signed the law to make them an invading army they changed because they used to be the National Guard defending us from tyranny of a military and politicians out of touch. Thank you very much. Thank you. Our next speaker is representative Troy Hedrick to be followed by Nick Prasampieri and Jim Carrier. Good evening. Good evening, thank you President Ball. My name is Troy Hedrick. I represent the Chittenden 15 District in the Vermont House which includes some of the neighborhoods in Burlington that are probably most impacted by the noise of the F-35s. Personally I'm also a pacifist and I knew I was a pacifist as early as the fourth grade when my best friend at the time punched me in the face and broke my tooth and I knew then that I didn't like the feelings associated with how violent such a good friend had become. When you commit to pacifism so early and are surrounded by people who don't necessarily understand or subscribe to that commitment, you become forced to find your mentors and your heroes from a broader sphere. I chose, I found and chose the nonviolent messages of John Lennon and the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and I'm gonna quote the latter here. Somewhere, somebody must have some sense. Men must see that force begets force, hate begets hate, toughness begets toughness and it is all a descending spiral ultimately ending in destruction for all and everybody. Somebody must have sense enough and morality enough to cut the chain of hate and the chain of evil in the universe. We have since been reminded by so many people that peace is not a destination. It is not something you accomplish. Peace is the journey itself. Peace is a choice. When we commit to peace, our world and our journeys become peaceful. Making the decision to house war machines is also a choice and it will never lead to peace. I will be 81 years old when the current VTANG lease expires. I'll likely be dead when the extended lease expires. My daughters will be 78 and 80 when the proposed extension to that lease would expire in 2073. How dare we act with such hubris right now that would lock this community into a lease until 2073. How dare we? I have, we've been told and we'll be told again of the importance of the federal dollars that accompany this lease extension. I don't care. Thank you so much. I timed it. Thank you so much. Our next speaker is Nick Prasampieri to be followed by Jim Carrier, Steve Goodkind and Laurie Larson. Nick Prasampieri and I live in Ward three. We are having the wrong community discussion about McNeil rather than talking about going forward or not with district energy. We should be talking about when we are going to close down the McNeil plant. The greenhouse gas emission reductions from district energy pale in comparison to the reductions that would be achieved through closing down McNeil, which is the single largest stationery source of greenhouse gas emissions in the state of Vermont. The Biden administration has set a goal of achieving zero carbon emitting electricity sources nationwide by 2035. That's less than 12 years from now. The hospital has indicated to you that it supports district energy due to its view that the city supports continued operation of McNeil, but we have not had a community discussion about whether McNeil should continue to operate. There was a slug. Right now, the New England grid is a far better source of electricity from a greenhouse gas standpoint than McNeil. There was mention of achieving 95% reduction in greenhouse gases relative to natural gas. That is reached by not counting the emissions from the stack and they also don't count the change in the inventory in the forests on the sites that are actually logged and they admit they don't do that because this BED doesn't own, manage or control those lands. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Our next speaker is Jim Carrier to be followed by Stephen Goodkind, Laurie Larson and Ashley Adams. Good evening. Hi. My name is Jim Carrier. I'm a writer. I want to tell you two quick stories. Last year, a year ago this month, my wife and I installed a solar array on our house and replaced our old gas furnace with a ducted heat pump. In that year, which the weather service says is about average, we produced 11 megabot hours of electricity. We consumed for heat, cooling and lights just over eight. Thanks to Burlington Electric's net metering policy as of today, we have a credit of $692. With rebates and federal credits, this system cost us $33,000. That's a lot of money. But that's a cheap SUV. I want to thank Mr. Mayor and Mike Canorack for helping cut red tape and Burlington Electric for its policies. The second story is the extension of the National Guard. Last month, Vermont's National Guard won the top-wing prize in F-35 dog fighting at the William Tell competition in Savannah, Georgia. It's a big deal. The sound that people complain about is the sound of pilots training for war. That same month, the Progressive Magazine carried my report that the US has begun a 30-year, $1.7 trillion modernization of its nuclear enterprise. New missiles, new bombers, new submarines, and new nuclear weapons of warheads. As you prepare to vote, 30 years is a generation. As you prepare to vote, which of these Burlington's do you want to pass on to your children, one known for saving the planet or one that is home to a war machine? Thank you. Thank you so much. Our next speaker is Stephen Goodkind to be followed by Laurie Larson, Ashley Adams, and Jeannie Keller. Good evening. I think it should probably is still on. But you can see if the green light is lit in front of you. Nothing's lit. On this right here? This is too. Nothing's lit. Good evening. Am I pushing something? No. All you just do is it should be on, Steve, right in front of you, this right here. It's not. I think it's less than two minutes anyway. Steve Goodkind, I'm the happily retired Public Works Director and City Engineer for Burlington. As the city advances its climate action plan, we're being told that the vehicles we drive, the home appliances we use, the food we eat, and how we heat our homes and businesses, including the hospital, all contribute to climate change. We're also told that the McNeil wood burning plant does not. The city's take on this, even as McNeil produces over 400,000 tons, 400,000 tons of CO2 per year, is that the plant has actually been engaged in a often unheralded fight and battle against climate change over all these years because wood burning has been designated, not proven, but legislatively designated, to have a net zero impact on the environment. Just think about it. My key assault, my automobile, that only that automobile is considered to have a larger carbon footprint than the McNeil plant. Yet every minute McNeil runs, it puts out more pounds of CO2 than the weight of my car. In fact, with its meager 26% efficiency, McNeil by designation is credited with producing net zero CO2 compared to the other activities I mentioned above. Hard as it may be to accept this, we must, good people, for only through a leap of faith regarding McNeil come we hope to find salvation from the coming ravages of climate change. Verily I say to you, BEDS spoken, we must listen. The next time you hear someone question the continued operation of McNeil, shut them the awesome power of faith in the face of science. Proudly hold your head up, close your eyes, click your heels together three times and repeat. There's no plant like McNeil. There's no plant like McNeil. There's no plant like McNeil. Thank you. Thank you so much. Our next speaker is Laurie Larson to be followed by Ashley Adams, Jeannie Keller and Aspen Overy. Good evening. My name's Laurie Larson. I'm a resident of the Old North End and I'm here to ask you to vote no on extending the VTANG lease. First I was surprised to hear about this. I felt like it was sort of an anti-democratic process. It seemed like it was almost a done deal with no community input, no voting, that kind of thing. Other than of course the previous votes we've had by both Burlington residents and Winooski residents to stop or at least move the F-35 mission. I saw this spun and it was spun earlier this evening as a green, it would help green VTANG. So that to me just doesn't make any sense. I think that's the worst kind of greenwashing. And the amount of energy it takes to manufacture and then operate the F-35s is greater than all of us putting our savings together communally and trying to stop to lower carbon emissions. Also the noise, birds can't put their fingers in their ears. They don't have fingers to put in their ears. I've heard the birds be very upset in my yard when the F-35s go over and of course they need to be able to hear to survive. So and finally 25 more years is more than a generation. I always heard a generation was 20 years. So that's another generation of kids who will have no surviving family members who are a member pre-F-35 days. And I think normalizing militarization of life is a horrible legacy to leave our grandchildren. So not in my name. Thank you for your time. Thank you so much. Our next speaker is Ashley Adams to be followed by Jeanne Keller, Aspen Overy and Sarah Sciorantino. Good evening. Hi, thank you. I'm here to speak about the 25 year VTANG lease extension that this council is considering after hearing for years how intolerable life is under the F-35. Why extend the lease nine months in advance of an updated noise exposure map? Why extend the lease to 2073 for a tenant that is causing its neighbors demonstrable harm? Why is a 25 year extension necessary on a lease that doesn't end until 2048? Airport noise and pollution are environmental justice issues. Almost nowhere is this more true than BTV where FAA rules from the 70s that led to a 90% reduction in noise for millions do not apply because Burlington makes an exception for the military. It is morally reprehensible that children must run for cover, hands over their ears or not play outside for fear of the F-35s that tear through the sky. To characterize the extreme ear piercing, heart racing noise that reverberates throughout the body as a nuisance is to negate the lived experience of thousands of people. The F-35 based where they are is what environmental racism and classism looks like. Those in power who have said there is nothing we can do are complicit in this. Noise remediation as one resident put it in tombs people in their homes and does nothing to make the outdoors habitable. If you have a baby or a grand baby, would you take them for a walk knowing that the F-35s will be screaming overhead causing profound distress and permanent hearing loss? Would you send your child or grandchild outside to play? If you would not subject your own family to such conditions, please stand up tonight for the over 6,000 human beings, 1300 of whom are children among them who live under the scourge of the F-35s. The only remediation that will make homes near the airport habitable is ejecting the F-35s from their midst. This lease negotiation is your opportunity to do just that. Please do not sacrifice the health and wellbeing of thousands for the entirely unfounded promise of economic benefit, which has never undergone the rigor of credible analysis. Thank you. Thank you very much. This is the opportunity for this council to demonstrate it. Our next speaker is Jeanne Keller to be followed by Aspen Overy. Jeanne Keller, I live on Biladu Parkway in Burlington and I want to incorporate by reference all of the things that have been said before me about the hubris of imposing our current understanding and our current experience on two more generations of people living in this city. I think it's all been said very well, but I would like to add a couple of other things. What is the next generation after the F-35s? What does the Department of Defense have in store? We have no way of knowing. We have no way of knowing. Does a lease extension commit us to whatever that is and how many of them? And I think all of you must know by now what a hot mess the F-35s are in terms of their reliability. The mechanical problems with the F-35s are so bad that there's a tremendous backup trying to get them repaired. If the Department of Defense finally decides that some squadrons just can't support their full number, are we going to get the leftover F-35s when Jacksonville doesn't have them anymore or Nevada doesn't have, are we gonna get the leftover F-35s? Is the number at our base going to go up and does this lease do anything about that? I would also like to ask for a raise of hands. Has anybody read the emergency response plan that V-Tang has in case there's a crash of F-35s? Has anybody read it? Raise your hand please. We don't engage in a back and forth during this time. You don't, okay, well, I'll bet none of you have and I'll bet this would be a really good time when you have leverage over V-Tang to have a very robust discussion about what the emergency response plan is because if an F-35 crashes anywhere close to I-89, we're cut off. So I ask you please pause, please pause this, thank you. Thank you so much. Our next speaker is Aspen Overy to be followed by Sarah Schiorntino. Scortino. Scortino, thank you. Trav Friar and Paul Odie. Good evening. All right, hello, good evening. So my name is Aspen and I'm here and I'm here to speak on issue 8.8 on the V-Tang lease extension and much energy and many words have been spent already talking about the impact of the F-35s on Burlington. This is true, there is a significant impact, it's rough. However, the ultimate victims and the ultimate people who are hurt by the F-35s are not us. They are not the 60,000 people, sorry, 40,000 people in Burlington proper and the 100,000 people in Trinity County. It is the millions of people across the world who are hurt by how they are deployed. And I sincerely encourage this council to consider the impact that you have. We, the impact, the same F-35s that are being, the same blueprints, the same designs are being sold to Israel, maybe sold to Saudi Arabia and they are going to hurt and kill children in Gaza. They are going to hurt and kill, sorry, my apologies, kill children in Yemen. And when they are deployed, the fossil fuel emissions are going to hurt all of us. We talk about the McNeil plant and the emissions of one power plant. However, again, there is the fun, however, it's incomparable compared to the amount emitted by the United States military. And we must, as a community, say as people, as citizens of a global community beyond just our tiny little state here, say we will not welcome the war machine. We will not welcome that deaths aren't in our name. We will not welcome deaths simply because it is good for our airport. We must not, because it is good for our small businesses, as good as beta may be, we must speak up and use our position responsibly. And I sincerely hope you do that. However, I also sincerely doubt it. Thank you so much. Our next speaker is Sarah Scortino to be followed by Trav Friar, Paul Odie, and Jennifer Eli. Eli, good evening. Good evening. To me, community safety means safe and secure housing for all and adequate social services and healthcare. We spend so much time discussing policing, homelessness, substance use disorder, and how to ensure that a sense of security is felt by all of us. How we contribute to the climate crisis, whether we have targets on our backs amid rising threats of nuclear war, and how we contribute to war and human and ecological destruction is such an essential, they're essential components of community safety. Amid climate catastrophe, we feel a collective sense of denial. It's beyond time to pull back the curtain and do everything in our power. We encourage people to ride their bikes and ride the bus, and we should all be making these changes. But in light of the emphasis put on these individual lifestyle shifts, I find it indefensible that it's up for debate whether to emit five to 10 billions of carbon dioxide over the 50 year span that we're considering right now. That's equivalent to 500,000 to one million additional cars on the road for a year. How should we be expected to have faith in leadership when this is up for debate? I encourage everyone to think beyond what is politically convenient right now, and think beyond voting along party lines. I ask, will you be on the right side of history or will you contribute to the destruction of a future that your children and grandchildren will be subjected to? Will you vote for a future that we can breathe in or will you vote along party lines? How do you want to be remembered? I know that there's a reason that you're all here, and I really hope that you'll do what's best for your constituents and the people that voted UN. This really doesn't have to be political. I think we all want the best for the city, so I have faith that you'll do the right thing. Thank you. Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Trab Friar to be followed by Paul Odie, Jennifer Ely, Eli, and Catherine Gerson. Good evening. Hi. Thanks for having me. Hi everybody. I'm Trab Friar, ward two homeowner. I just think the F-35 is too loud. We had a number of years to try it out to see how it would be, and I think it's just proven over those years to be too loud. I think now is our chance to say it's too loud. You can have the International Guard, but maybe without the F-35, because it's just too loud. You know, if it wasn't so loud, maybe it'd be okay, but I think it's so loud, it's really disruptive to all kinds of things going on in the city. I super agree with, I appreciated the statement from the doctor about the effects on children. I think this is a issue that's worth taking a longer time to look at than just one quick debate tonight. So I hope we'll be able to take the time to really assess this. There's a very, very long lease, and it's a very, very loud jet. I just think it's way too loud. So I hope we'll take the time to properly discuss this. Thanks. Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Paul Odie to be followed by Jennifer Eli, Catherine Gerson, and Annie Lawson. Good evening. Good evening, my name is Paul Odie. I have been a resident of Burlington since 1982. My wife Carol and I have four children, all products of the Burlington school system. We have six grandchildren now living in the area. And for most of my adult life, I've lived within 10 miles of the Lehi Burlington International Airport, but until recently I really didn't have a good understanding of what the guard offers to our community. And I'm sure the same is true for many people in this room this evening. For the past three years I've had the privilege of serving as an honorary commander with the Vermont Air National Guard. This has allowed me to spend time at the base and to get to know many of the extraordinary men and women who serve in the guard. I've also developed a far deeper appreciation for the many contributions that the guard makes to our community. In addition to the role that the guard plays in our national defense, the guard is a major regional employer. It employs over 1,100 full-on part-time people with a payroll of an excess of $60 million. These people are your workers, coworkers, and your neighbors. Plus it's a jobs creator for the many businesses that currently provide services out at the base. And many of them will stand to gain from the millions of dollars of additional improvements that can be made if the lease is extended. Of course we know the guard provides disaster services and fire services that save local governments millions of dollars. So I'm here to ask you to vote tonight in favor of the extension of this lease. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Jennifer Ealy to be followed by Catherine Gerson, Annie Lawson, and Antonio Govan. I can't quite read the handwriting, but hopefully you know who you are. Good evening. Hello, everybody. Thank you for allowing me to speak. Is this working okay? You know, just in the last week or 10 days, I became confused about a last minute message that seemed to kind of drop out of the air. And it was the lease extension has nothing to do with the F-35s. And to me that was clear as mud, which is why I implore you to vote for, say a one to two year extension so that we can clear this up enough so that the public can feel informed and involved in that democracy is working. And then it also would allow the city of Winooski and of South Burlington to weigh in with us as a group. And most of all, I just, what rubs me wrong is the idea that we're gonna drop a new 25 year lease in the lap of our next mayor, and that in the people that are elected as well, the council members, that to me is a way, that to me is a way, a best way of moving forward at a reasonable pace, one to two years or six months or something less than it is now. And that's moving forward in a democratic way. So please don't extend the lease for that full amount. Thank you. Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Catherine Gerson to be followed by Annie Lawson and then Antonia Govan. Catherine Gerson, we'll come back. The next speaker is Annie Lawson to be followed by Antonia Govan to be followed by Dan Castragano. Good evening. Hi, good evening. My name is Annie Lawson. I use she, her pronouns. I live in the New North End. I'm a social worker and also a parent. And I wanna thank all of you for the work that you do on behalf of our city and our community. I've lived in Burlington for 11 years and I've lived in the New North End for six of those. I was lucky enough and privileged enough to buy my home there when it was still semi-affordable. And I only mentioned this to draw attention to the fact that someone's longevity here does not give them any more legitimacy in our community than anyone else. And I hope we all hear the voices here tonight with the same levels of dignity and respect regardless of how long we've lived here. We all have a stake in our community. I'm here tonight to encourage city council to understand the F-35 lease as an issue of racial justice and racial injustice. Winooski children and families bear the greatest impact of the jets. Winooski neighborhoods also include the greatest proportion of black and brown families and children in the entire state. A vote to extend the lease is a vote to shoulder those for monsters of color with this burden for an entire additional generation. Hearing the doctor from UVM speak earlier to the problems that the F-35s present to reading, learning, mental health, it's clear that a vote for the F-35 is a vote that continues to disproportionately place these impacts on black and brown children and families. Mayor Weinberger has publicly said that the Democratic Party is the party that will end racism. And this is a chance for Democrats and all council members to make a vote that upholds this aspect of systemic racism or dismantles it. There's no urgency to this question. We've already committed to 25 years with this lease. Let's just pause and slow this process before we commit one more generation in addition to the one we've already shouldered with this burden. Thank you. Thank you so much. Our next speaker are no clapping please. Our next speaker is Antonio Govan. To be followed by Dan Castragano. To be followed by Matt Somerville. Good evening and you'll correct me if I mispronounce your name. Yes, it's Govan. My handwriting is terrible. So unlike many of the people that spoke before me, I'm actually very new in Burlington. I've been here since August. So I can't reasonably speak with the local knowledge that previous people spoke, but I did wanna quickly say that if the city of Burlington did not renew this lease, it would send a powerful message for peace and against war as someone that's still somewhat of an outsider. I think people outside of Burlington would see it that same way. Thank you. Thank you so much. Our next speaker is Dan Castragano to be followed by Matt Somerville, David Shine and Andrew Cronichfeld. Dan Castragano, yes. Please take your time. Hi city council. My name is Dan Castragano. I live in Ward 4. I use he, him pronouns. First I wanna say I stand in solidarity with my trans neighbors and I stand in solidarity with all my trans neighbors. I'm here regarding the Vermont Air National Guard. I urge you to vote no on this lease extension. I have a two-year-old son. Two Fridays ago, I was riding my bike on the bike path to Echo Center and they ripped overhead. And we know, we know that they cause physical harm to our bodies. And anybody who is complicit in that, I guess it just makes me very angry because you are causing harm to my son. It's pretty messed up. You wanna extend this lease by 25 years. It's unconscionable. The way this was done was in executive session on October 10th and two days later, Murrow, you did a press release. 11 days notice ramming this down our throats. No public input. Okay, you need to be facing me and addressing me and no one at this table. This is not that opportunity. Great. No public input. Calling the teachers of Winooski, the people of Williston, nothing. And we're on our heels. Anybody who says they care about climate and votes for this, it's honestly, it's just embarrassing. Please do not say you care about climate because we know it's from the jet fuel from flying the planes. Please do not say that. That is embarrassing for you if you say that. These are death machines that kill human beings. That's what they're designed to do. They should not be here. They should not be anywhere. I urge all of you to vote no, to resist imperialism and militarism and war and death. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Matt Somerville to be followed by David Shine, Andrew Chronichfeld and Lena Greenberg. Good evening. Good evening. Thank you all so much. Really appreciate it. My name is Matt Somerville. I am here to talk about the opioid crisis briefly. I appreciate last session's declaration, but I'm asking the city to be more public and demonstrating that as much empathy as we have, it is not permissible in our most public spaces and that our lack of enforcement and public disengagement is making us copable. Homelessness and drug addiction are different but overlapping crises. And today my main interest is how it's affecting our downtown. There's quiet decisions being made that are affecting our lives to the future. The company I work for in International Humanitarian Assistance has been in Burlington for 46 years and has 160 desks downtown and is in the process of considering whether to renew those leases. And in the same words of considering that, our executives had noted, you know, encountering people in the parking lot and it's eating them who are non-responsive. It reminds me of my son's two friends who entered the lottery to leave Burlington because of the state of downtown and are now busing out to other friends who sold their house and left for the mountains. It reminds me of my kids at the school who were walking by tents and drugs to get to class. My son knows that most people are not dangerous but he and his friends have nicknames for people around town to identify who is safe and who is not. They know to avoid Battery Park less than 50 meters from the police station. My younger son when I told him I was coming here today said there's a man who walks by his school with a hunting knife but it's probably like that everywhere. I'm seeing my kids become normalized. I'm not willing to be normalized. I want to fight. I want you to ask the city to fight. We're a big town in a small state and we are not going to fix the homeless or drug addiction problem as a city but we need to maintain our center which is our downtown. If I permit my kids to drink in my house and they go and cause a road accident or a dangerous society, I am held liable. When we as a city allow people to turn the other way while people are using drugs, we are liable as much as the opioid companies selling the pills. Thank you. Thank you very much. Our next speaker is David Schein to be followed by Andrew Chronigfeld, Lena Greenberg, Christopher Aaron Felker and Lee Morrigan. I don't press anything. Nope. Okay, the issue really is about pollution. I mean, okay, the National Guard has jobs, yeah, and the people around the airport, you know, they have nice businesses but you're visiting such awful, hideous pollution upon us with this noise. I mean, if one was coming over right now in my house and I went down, for two minutes, you couldn't hear something because of the horrible noise that wipes out my recording business, it wipes out my conversations and it makes my heart palpitate and I have a cardiac condition. My blood pressure goes up. It also makes me, and I thank everyone who does service, hate the National Guard. Just hate them. When those things fly over, I don't wanna tell you what I wanna do because I wanna support the people who work here, you know, and who serve the country. We voted against it. When Nusky voted against it, y'all rammed it down our throat. There's horrible, hideous noise twice a day. I mean, how can you even think of sustaining this for like 25 more years? You should like cut the lease now. This is really an attack and you're supporting pollution. Yeah, there's jobs. Yeah, but if you had a coal plant spewing smoke and making people sick, yeah, they got jobs, but you shut it down. I mean, I wrote Bernie the same thing and he said, well, we have these jobs here. And I said, yeah, but what about the pollution? You're supporting pollution when you support this noise. This horrible, horrid noise. So please don't renew the lease. And if you can do away with the lease, I mean, I love the National Guard. Keep them here. Get rid of those horrible, awful planes. They just, they're just killing us and they're killing kids and they're ruining schools and they're ruining businesses and they're ruining people in their houses. So please don't renew the lease and do away with the one you got. Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Andrew Chronigfeld to be followed by Lena Greenberg, Christopher Aaron Felker and Lee Morrigan. Good evening. Hello, I'm Andrew Chronigfeld from Ward 7. I'm here in support of my spouse, Lee Morrigan. And I also wanted to support the resolution to reform the NPAs here. Thanks for listening to me. I guess the big thing I wanna say is any kind of governmental organization or assembly needs to have oversight or it can be dangerous for various reasons. I also just wanted to say that to any of the people who identify themselves as TERFs, I just, all I wanna say is if you come have a drink with Lee and I or a meal with Lee and I, probably by the time the meal's over, you'll be friends with Lee. So, and last thing I wanted to say is that trans people and non-binary people are welcome here in Burlington and we love you and thanks for listening. Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Lena Greenberg to be followed by Christopher Aaron Felker, Lee Morrigan and Chris Haseley. Good evening. Hey everyone, good evening. My name is Lena Greenberg and I'm here as a proud Burlingtonian and a member of the Ward 5 NPA Steering Committee and also as a proud trans person. Trans people are everywhere. We have existed since the beginning of humanity and when we cannot serve our communities because it is unsafe or because it costs us too much, then our communities miss out on all that we have to offer. So, I wanna thank you for this resolution in support of open NPAs and say that it means the world to know that there will be a structure in place so that we can safely participate. Without that structure, we cannot safely participate and so often we don't. So, thank you for voting in favor of this resolution. I also, while I'm up here, wanna just share the fire that is burning inside of me when I think about how urgently we must act on the climate crisis and how just like we have to make new structures, just like the world keeps changing, we have to keep changing our minds and updating our policies to match the scale of the crisis that we are facing. So, I urge you to not extend the lease on the F-35s to really think critically about the expansion of the McNeil plant. We can do better than this and just like this body has decided that it is worth protecting trans people, which is not a decision that was present in the NPA structure before. We can make new choices about the F-35s and about McNeil. Thank you for being brave. Thank you so much. Our next speaker is Christopher Aaron Felker to be followed by Lee Morrigan and Christopher Haseley. Christopher Aaron Felker, we will then move on to Lee Morrigan to be followed by Christopher Haseley. My name is Lee Morrigan, my pronouns are they, them, and I'm a resident of Ward 7. I'm also an incredibly proud queer and trans person. I'm here to speak in support of the resolution to make NPAs safe and accessible for all. I'm also here to thank each and every one of you so much for really being there for me. As you all know, I went through something very challenging a couple of weeks ago and I've just never been more proud to be a Berlin Tonian because I reached out for help and I think my first reply from you folks was five hours later. And within six hours, I had three replies. Within eight hours, I had eight replies and in a few days I'd heard from pretty much everybody. And the resounding message I got is that I belong here, my community belongs here and you all are willing to do the work to make sure that we all know that. I think we found there some gaps in some policies and they're being closed. And while this has been an incredibly, incredibly challenging period for me, I feel very privileged to have been part of the process that will hopefully ensure that oneness will never happen to someone else again. But if it does, there's recourse and will be a better community for it. So I just thank you so much and also to the administration for your support. I'm just so incredibly grateful. I think this would have been a very different story for me if it hadn't been for all of your support. So thank you. Thank you very much. We will go back. I see that Christopher Aaron Felker, you're here and then followed by Christopher Haseley. Good evening. Good evening. I'm here to talk about the resolution titled, Maintaining Open and Accessible NPAs. Like many things that government passes, bills, resolutions and laws, the title of it is often misleading and the actual in application, the result tends to be the opposite. Let us be clear. This is a resolution on maintaining open and accessible NPAs and inclusivity, but it failed to actually include the NPAs in the discussion of this. Furthermore, let's discuss the First Amendment. The First Amendment guarantees the freedom of speech, religion, press, petition and assembly. The freedom of speech includes one's ability to speak their mind, but most importantly, it includes their right to refuse to say things they don't believe to be true or things they know to be lies. The state cannot compel speech. This has been upheld multiple times by the Supreme Court, including in recent decisions. Compelled speech is a fundamental violation of free speech and any governmental clause or restrictions that require an individual to relinquish their rights in order to access governmental programs or privileges is a violation of the unconstitutional conditions doctrine. The First Amendment is not just meant to protect a citizen's right concerning free speech, but also that citizen should never be forced to say things that they disagree with. The Supreme Court has never upheld any law which compels an individual to speak something that they don't believe to be true. Can I reclaim 15 seconds of that? No. No, I'm sorry. And we're all given two minutes. Our next speaker is Christopher Haseley, and then we will go to those Berlin Tonians that are joining us online. Good evening. Hey, good evening, councilor members and everyone here in attendance tonight. I'm here tonight wearing the awards two and three steering committee member hat. And I'm here to speak on behalf of the steering committee regarding the resolution that was before and I believe item 8.9 of the agenda. I am pleased to report that our bylaws, awards two and three substantially contain most of the things that the council is asking for in that regard. So I'm quite happy about that. But we were a bit troubled about the process and namely that a resolution regarding inclusivity did not actually include any input from the NPAs themselves. And there was a fair amount of email traffic today. I think word one, word two, word three, I think word six that I know of had some concerns about this. As luck would have it, the words two and three, NPA steering committee actually was meeting tonight. So we had an opportunity to discuss this and I was designated to come share our perspective. And our perspective is that we largely agree with the content, but we have issues with the way the process. So it was unanimous that we would like the council to table this matter to the next, until such time as the NPAs can have an opportunity to discuss that as the full NPA. So that was the unanimous decision that awards two and three had made. Thank you. Thank you very much. So that completes the Burlington residents that are joining us in Contois. And I just want to give the council an idea of where we are. We have about 15 minutes left in the 90 minutes that we allot for public forum. There are five people from Burlington who are joining us online and wish to speak. I haven't located all of them, but I believe they are all online as there aren't that many that are there. We'll go to the timer on Zoom. And the first person that's joining us on Zoom from Burlington is Stephen Garder. And Steve, I have found you and enabled your microphone. You should be able to speak. Okay, thank you. I appreciate and agree with the many concerns raised about the F-35 noise as a medical hazard. I want to point out that this lease is basically the only lever we have on these things. And the memorandum of understanding that goes with the lease extension does talk about how the National Guard will do these, try to reduce the noise and work with the city to reduce the noise, but there's nothing concrete in that. There are no specific goals. There's no specific measurements. I would very much like to see any lease that be signed have some real teeth in it that says, yes, they will do this and there will be a procedure for resolving complaints and for hearing concerns and for making measurements and actually tracking this. I think that's very important for us to keep if we're going to keep doing this. One of the previous speakers talked about maintaining a good strong relationship between the military and the civilian population. That's really hard to do when most of us are really pissed off about those warring jets. So I would say that from that level too, we should have more cooperation and it should be in the lease. Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Liz Curry and Liz I found you and you should be able to speak just unmute yourself. Great. Liz, you seem to be unmuted. You can start speaking anytime. Can you hear me now? Yes, I can. Go ahead, please. Thank you for late night and entertaining all these comments tonight. I know you're not voting on the district energy project tonight, but I wanted to encourage the council to build a consensus around a comment that was made by a few of the former speakers, first stated by Dave Kielty during the work session, who indicated that harnessing the steam waste from McNeil is a transitional solution to a net zero emissions future state. This point was also made by Dean Fowler, the young person who spoke just before his dad Ben Fowler. As you learn tonight, the useful life of McNeil is about 20 to 25 years and the district energy project will not only require, will not require an increase in wood chip consumption, but will enable McNeil to operate more efficiently and cost effectively. One of the major reasons why the perspective that district energy is a transitional solution is important and is a matter of environmental and climate justice is because solar panel and battery manufacturing is extremely destructive to the environment and to fragile habitats and indigenous communities around the world. The UN environmental program and the Yale School of the Environment have documented that supply chains for solar panels and battery storage is fairly dirty. The majority of solar panels still come from China manufactured in coal-fired plants. Solar panels are mostly made of silicon which is derived from sand and many prominent environmental institutions have reported that sand mining is the most corrupt and environmentally destructive form of large-scale mining right now in the world. It is destroying fragile habitats, riparian, biomes, oceanic habitats throughout China, Southeast Asia and numerous African countries. Even if solar production transitions to the US, the demand for sand will continue threatening the livelihoods of indigenous people and subsistence fishing cooperatives and workers throughout the global south. Heating and cooling needs at an institutional level like EVM in the hospital require massive battery storage. Both solar panels, am I done? Yes. Both require minerals that are mined and processed by corporations that are rife with human rights violations. So thank you for considering these comments as you consider the DE proposal. Great, thank you so much. Our next speaker is Jonathan Stott and Jonathan, I found you and enabled your microphone. Hi, thank you, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Hi, everyone, I'm a resident of Burlington and Ward 4. I'm a parent and a nonprofit director. I'm here to speak against the VTANG lease extension. I've heard several comments tonight regarding the climate impact associated with planned facility improvements. This is a massive misunderstanding or manipulation of climate science as the carbon emissions of these daily flights significantly outweighs the proposed carbon savings from facility improvements. Here's a few facts. The F-35 uses 1,300 gallons of fuel per hour, 415 gallons per hour, more than the F-16. F-35 flights in Burlington burn between five and 10 million gallons of jet fuel per year. They emit 100 to 200 million pounds of CO2 yearly. To put that in perspective, that would be the equivalent of adding 10 to 20,000 more passenger cars in our roadways in South Burlington. In a year where we couldn't see across the lake because of smoke, where our towns and cities across the state are flooded, it's important when we wake up. A vote no is a symbolic and important rejection of an unsustainable status quo. An earlier comment to open the public comments referred to the noise as a mere nuisance. This does not accurately reflect the noise that is caused by these fighter jets. The noise levels significantly higher than the F-16 and recent monitoring has demonstrated that flights exceed 115 decibels for 145 seconds at times, significantly over anti-age recommendations which are not to exceed 30 seconds per day. My son is two years old. He wakes up from his naps, often because of when the planes fly too low and says no more planes as he's crying. It's even worse in other neighborhoods where the burden disproportionately impacts people of color in the region. A vote in favor says the status quo is as good as we can do. A vote against does not end the Vermont Air National Guard. Instead it says we won't rubber stamp a continuation of an unsustainable status quo in F-35s that hurt our planet and its children. Thank you. Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Pike Porter. And Pike, I have found you and enabled your microphone. You should be able to speak now. Good evening and thanks for taking my comment. Earlier today I received and sent on to all of you the air guard lease from the Portland, Oregon airport that shows that there are other options besides rehashing a lease that hasn't been updated since 1974. The Portland lease provides protections for that city. The Portland lease provides environmental protections. It provides termination clauses. It provides the police to allow to use the firing range at the Portland ANG. When we today's seven days suggested or an article in seven days today suggested that the housing issue, the housing crisis is also now a business crisis and an economy crisis. Trying to simply extend this lease without any kind of thought about what other options you could pursue is really a failure of leadership. I'll leave it at that. Thank you. Thank you very much. And our next speaker is Dale Tillitson. And Dale, you may be signed in under another name. If you want to just use the raise hand function, I will enable your microphone. Not seeing anyone raising their hand. That is the last Burlington resident who had requested to speak. There is someone who has raised their hand. I'm not sure if this is you, Dale, but enabling your microphone, you could speak now. It's not Dale, but I did just find up for a public forum and I'm from Burlington. Would you like me to speak? Oh, my apologies, Amy. I do see you at the bottom, at the, yes. Please go ahead. Okay, great. So my name is Amy Melnowski. I'm from Ward One. I'm a cis white woman. I wanted to share support for the resolution to reform the NPAs to make them safe and accessible to all. Trans folks belong here. And then regarding the lease, I mean, the way that this has come about with just 11 days of notice to extend this lease for another whole generation is really truly wild, especially when we know this is something that Burlington and Melnowski have consistently expressed concern about, even pulling together enough signatures to get a ballot item concerning F-35s. This is undeniably an issue of importance and this process really needs to be slowed down. These deaf machines that are including our community should not be here or anywhere. It's a climate issue. It's a racial justice issue. It's also contributing to our housing issues. A vote no on this, as many folks have talked about previously, we can do better. Thank you. Thank you so much. So now we would go back to Contois and it's now just a little bit before the 90 minutes. So there would need to be an extension of that time, which means a motion would have to be made. For the benefit of counselors, there are 26 people who have asked to speak that are here in Contois who are not Burlington residents. There are also another seven that are joining us online. We add all of those together. We're talking about an hour and 20 minutes or so of additional speakers. Councillor Bergman. So I would move to extend the time given that the affected people in Winooski in South Burlington, in Colchester, in Williston and throughout the state are not able to be sitting at the table and yet they suffer and have to deal with the consequences of our actions in immediate and direct ways. And I think it's only fair and reasonable that we exercise our fiduciary duty to those folks. Is there a second to that motion? Seconded by Councillor McGee. Is there any discussion the counselors wish to make on that motion? I'm not sure if that's debatable. A motion to suspend our rules that requires a two-thirds vote, Greg. Yes, that is correct. Attorney Pellerin, is that correct? There is no debate on that. I apologize, I miss the question. That's okay, that's all right. So we've made a motion. There's been a motion and a second to extend our rule to suspend our rules to complete public forum. And the question is, is that debatable? I don't believe the question is debatable. Okay, and it requires two-thirds. Is that correct? That's correct. Okay, so. Point of information. Yes, Councillor Barlow. May I ask the city attorney or can we ask the city attorney if we can set a time certain for our extension? Or is it just to complete? Well, the motion that's been made is to complete the rest of public forum. If that fails, then certainly another motion can be made. Is that correct? Yes. Okay, great. So the motion is to extend public forum to complete all of the speakers who have requested to speak. And that is approximately 33 more speakers. We'll go to a vote. Actually, we do have a Councillor joining us online. So I think we're gonna need to go and do a roll call. Councillor Barlow. No. Councillor Bergman. Yes. Councillor Carpenter. No. Councillor Jang. Yes. Councillor Doherty. Yes. Councillor Grant. Yes. Councillor Hightower. Yes. Councillor King. Yes. Councillor McGee. Yes. Councillor Shannon. No. Councillor Travers. Yes. City Council President Paul. Yes. Nine ayes, three days. Councillor Paul. Yes. Sorry, could I? And so that, just for a moment, that motion passes. We will continue with our public forum. Councillor Hightower. I assume that this is up to the Council President, but I don't know if we're amenable to maybe doing giving each speaker one minute instead of two minutes so that we can get to our deliberative agenda a little faster. I also say this is the one who's got a head injury and is having a hard time imagining staying up that late. But of course that's not necessary, but just a suggestion. Councillor Shannon. I would second that word, a motion. All right, we'll try to keep to a minute if we possibly can. We do want to hear from all of you and we know that this issue is important to a great many of you. If you can try your best not to repeat what has already been said, that would be helpful as well. So to our non-Berlington residents, our first is Austin Hart. To be followed by Austin Davis, my apologies. To be followed by Brian Ferrett and Lisa Ventress. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening, my name is Austin Davis and while my roots in Burlington spend multiple generations, I personally spent eight years in Burlington in the last five in downtown Manuski. And I'm here tonight on behalf of the Lake Champlain Chamber which represents employers in our region. And I'm here to encourage you to extend the Vermont Air National Guard lease. Thank you for allowing me to comment and I promise I'll be brief. I want to thank the mayor and others for their continued vision and foresight in providing long-term stability and sustainability with two items discussed here tonight. The long overdue fulfillment of the full potential of McNeil plant as well as the extension of the Vermont Air National Guard's lease. The Vermont Chambers committed to creating economic prosperity for all because a good job in the private, public or nonprofit sector is the best path to economic well-being and resiliency. We've heard tonight from many that the Vermont Air National Guard is an essential part of our community. A urgency response and an important contributor to our community and economy. I also want to point out that V-Tank's members are often our children's coaches, our volunteers, our neighbors. Beyond the many jobs V-Tank directly creates, they support the employment of many, many more of our monitors. This investment in V-Tank in the airport provides critical infrastructure as a result for our broader community benefit. Whether it's the use of traveling for work, family or pleasure, or to lead the world in an innovative green technology, we support the lease extension and respectfully request the council do so as well. Thank you. Thank you so much. Our next speaker is Brian Forrest to be followed by Lisa Ventress. I believe I have that name right, Brian Forrest. Okay, we'll move on to Lisa Ventress to be followed by Frank Coffey. Good evening. My name is Lisa Ventress, resident of South Burlington, retired president of the Vermont Business Roundtable and a proud member of the honorary commanders attached to the 158th Fighter Wing of the Vermont Air National Guard. Tonight's vote is highly consequential and I urge you to vote in support of the 25-year lease extension for the Guard at the Leahy Burlington International Airport. A yes vote will release $51 million in federal funding, thereby enabling critical infrastructure investments that support both military and civilian purposes. Such investments will yield environmental benefits through the air guards efforts to combat climate change, including green initiatives such as net zero building and geothermal and solar power projects. They will also yield economic benefits by securing the employment of a highly skilled, well-paying and diverse workforce at the base. Most importantly, a yes vote will ensure mission readiness for the 1,100 men and women of the air guard, a 24, seven, 365 community of highly skilled professionals who are deeply integrated into and selflessly serve our nation, our state, and our communities in a diversity of ways. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker is Frank Coffey to be followed by Kyle Clark. Good evening. Thank you very much. Good evening. I'll be really brief. I'm Frank Coffey, president of GBIC, we're the Economic Development Corporation serving Chittenden County and we work with the state of Vermont. We strongly support the lease renewal and in the interest of time I will just urge you to please vote for that and thanks so much for your time. Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Kyle Clark to be followed by Lisa Groenfeld. Good evening. Thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. My name is Kyle Clark. I'm the founder of Beta Technologies where we employ about 600 people and a large number of those folks are veterans and part of the international guard. One of our major values at Beta is diversity and inclusion and we intentionally try to keep a very diverse workforce. I think to intentionally push away an entire group of people from our community by not extending the lease would be detrimental to the strategy of our business and to the community that benefits from it. So I'd encourage you guys to think about the fact that the Betaing offers diversity to this community in skills and talents and I have found that particular group has exceptional work ethic, a commitment to service, integrity and it's an important part of our business so please consider that when you consider your vote. Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Lisa Groenfeld to be followed by Elizabeth Neskowski. My apologies, I'm sure that's not correct. Welcome. Thank you. My name is Lisa Groenfeld. I'm a South Burlington resident business owner and Burlington Airport neighbor. My husband Roland and I own OnLogic which is a global computer hardware manufacturer located in South Burlington. Our ability to successfully compete against Fortune 500 companies like Dell and HP is linked to the safe and effective operations at the international airport. Burlington Airport is our gateway to our customers across the globe and the Vermont Air National Guard plays a truly pivotal role and undeniable role in those safe operations. As a business owner I'd like to express my appreciation for the Vermont Air National Guard and I hope I'll always have them as neighbors. I urge this city council to support the 25 year lease extension that Burlington Airport relies on and businesses like OnLogic rely on as well. Thank you and thank you for your service. Thank you very much. And Elizabeth I'm not gonna embarrass myself by trying to pronounce your name again. I'm the chief forester at Burlington Electric, licensed professional forester in Vermont, New Hampshire and Society of American Foresters certified. I have been in the profession for 45 years, 40 of those at Burlington Electric. And I just wanted to say how proud I am of the McNeil Forestry Office. Their standards are harvesting. What we have been able to do over the last 40 years to improve forest management, provide local low grade markets, keeping the products regionally and supporting the economy in the region. And I would not have been working at McNeil and Burlington Electric for the last 40 years if I didn't think we had made a positive impact. Thank you. Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Don Toby to be followed by Seth Clifford and Matt Coda. Good evening. My name is Don Toby and I am a wood procurement forester for Burlington Electric, where I have worked for 30 years. I'm also a retired from the University of Vermont Forestry Department as a researcher worked there for 29 years. I'm here to speak with regards to the district energy project. The critics are using this issue to question whether we should be managing our forests at all and are trying to frame the debate solely through the lens of carbon. Forests are incredibly complex systems which cannot be viewed from any single point of view. Old forests store large amounts of carbon while young forests sequester more carbon. And animal species require the full suit of age classes in order to survive. All this is being said to help illustrate the importance of not picking one perspective in which to view our forests when making policy decisions. A healthy mix of approaches is the best way forward in order to accommodate the greatest benefits from an ecological perspective, climate perspective, societal perspective. Proposed district energy project will initially utilize heat created from an existing facility, the McNeill Station directly improving the efficiency of the plant. Once created, the district energy infrastructure would be available to be powered by newer technologies as they are developed in the future. Thank you. Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Seth Clifford to be followed by Matt Coda to be followed by Stephen Whitaker. Good evening. Good evening. My name is Seth Clifford. I'm another one of the foresters at the McNeill Station. The current debate regarding district energy has caused some of the critics to question how seriously the harvest guidelines that we are asked to follow are followed. I can personally attest to the department and the department and its staff make adherence to these guidelines paramount procuring wood for the facility. Prior to my career, I've been there for 11 years. Prior to that, I was a consulting forester working throughout New England for 20 years. Had a lot of opportunity to work with the staff in that capacity on the other side of things and was really impressed by their integrity and their adherence to the guidelines, which is one of the reasons, one of the primary reasons why I wanted to work here. So the staff has a lot of integrity and I wouldn't be working here if they didn't. Thank you. Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Matt Coda to be followed by Stephen Whitaker to be followed by Sam Lincoln. Good evening. Hi there, good evening. Matt Coda, resident of South Burlington, former city councilor in South Burlington, former chair of the Development Review Board in South Burlington, but I'm here on behalf of the South Burlington Business Association which supports extending the National Guard lease. The airport in South Burlington serves as a crucial economic asset for our region and the entire state. The presence of the air guard helps pay for capital cost maintenance and operations of fire and safety equipment. The air guard plays a critical role in keeping the airport operational and provides essential mutual aid services to us here in South Burlington and surrounding communities. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Stephen Whitaker to be followed by Sam Lincoln to be followed by Roseanne Greco. Good evening. I mentioned at the last time I was here that the need for reconsidering closing all of the, every one of the restrooms along the waterfront is closed for the season. The boathouse, the pea slot, the marina. I think you should think twice about your arts director calling Port-a-Potty's bathrooms but those have been removed too. So you've got a thousand people a day using the waterfront even all winter and 24 hours a day. People are out there biking, hiking, walking, wandering, whatever. It's, you're creating a mess and you're demoralizing the folks who really need them who don't have other alternatives. And I made a records request related to the marina violating its lease and I haven't seen you put that on the agenda. I asked you to do that and the appeal to the head of the agency for the redactions trying to cover up some back secret deal was filed on September 13th. That's over a month ago and the city attorney and the mayor, I believe, are protecting this. Thank you. Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Sam Lincoln to be followed by Roseanne Greco to be followed by Mahat Abdullahi. Sam Lincoln, Sam, he did, thank you so much. We'll go on to Roseanne Greco to be followed by Mahat Abdullahi and then Rodney Dollar. Good evening. Good evening, counselors. My name is Roseanne Greco. I'm a retired Air Force Colonel and a former South Burlington City Council chair. I'm requesting you delay voting on the air guard lease until you talk about the air guard mission. Not only is it possible for Vermont to get a new mission and a peaceful mission, other states have done this very thing. I can send you some examples of where and how this was accomplished at other places. Wise decision makers do not make decisions with consequences even for the next generation without extensive research and public engagement. Some of you are probably unaware of relevant information and better options. Our air guard has been assigned to fighter bomber the F-35 which has an attack and destruction mission. However, the Air Force has military transport aircraft that have peaceful and humanitarian missions. They carry life-giving supplies like food, water, clothing, building materials and medical assistance to people in need across the United States and the world. This mission is far more compatible with Vermont's values than a killing mission. Moreover, the noise for military transport aircraft are like commercial planes and would not result in any dangerous noise levels. With the transport mission, people who are suffering from the F-35 noise would get relief. Housing which was lost because of the F-16 noise could be rebuilt. The airport fire services were being intact and the economy would benefit because of more guard jobs that would come with a new transport mission. Thank you so much. We're gonna go to the next speaker. The next speaker is Mahat Abdullahi to be followed by Rodney Dollar and Paul Pinkner. That was a very good pronunciation, thank you. Oh, thank you so much. My name is Mahat Abdullahi and I'm a pride member of the Vermont Air National Guard. I was born in Mogadishu, Somalia. My family and I came to the United States in 2008 and moved to Vermont in 2009. I went to Burlington High School, of which I'm currently the Assistant Varsity Boys Soccer Coach. I'm proud of that as welcome support your team. I'm putting a plug in for that. I'm here as a citizen in favor of asking you all to vote yes for the renewal of the lease. Citizen airmen, citizen soldiers are everywhere in your communities. I serve in the community as a substance misuse prevention specialist in Burlington, in Chittenden County, in Franklin County, in Grand Isle County, in Washington County. And we're very much invested in the community. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Rodney Dollar to be followed by Paul Pinkner and the first name of Grace, it's the last name that I can't read. Good evening. Good evening. My name is Rodney Dollar. I'm the Director of Generation Operations at McNeil. So I have the privilege of working with the professionals that work at McNeil. I've been in this industry for about 12 years and I've had the opportunity to work with a variety of generating assets as well as few companies with differing strategic directions as well as goals and aspirations. Per my experience most fall short compared to Burlington Electric Department's commitment to net zero and district energy is one facet of meeting that overall goal. Help improve the efficiency of an asset that's already reliable and dependable and within our portfolio. Thank you. Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Paul Pinkner to be followed by Grace. Looks like the first letter of P for the last name. Good evening. Good evening everyone. Just wanted to extend my support for the district energy system initiative and support for McNeil Station and unapologetic by a supporter of McNeil. And in no small part that's because of the people I work with. We do a lot of really hard work to support the electric needs of Burlington and I want to thank all of you for that opportunity. And we've talked a lot about efficiency and improvements of McNeil. A great way to maintain efficiency which we don't talk about a lot is maintenance and capital improvements. We do a tremendous amount of work. We reinvest in the facility. We operate efficiently and effectively with the trained staff and we do a lot of maintenance that helps keep McNeil operating safe, efficient and effective. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much. So our next speaker is Grace with the first letter of the last name is P. To be followed by Katie Bassett and Steph Tucker. Katie Bassett or Steph Tucker. Kias Satino, Leonardo Barber. So I'll just call those names again. That would be Katie Bassett, Steph Tucker, Kias Satino and Leonardo Barber. Good evening. Kias Satine, she, they. It's impossible for us to understand from these gilded halls the cost, the pain, the scars of war. But we can get a tiny glimpse of that terror in the moments when the F-35s fly overhead. A noise descends from everywhere, a sound that for some people in this world equals death. As adults we can understand in context the overwhelming sounds made by these jets, but for children these sounds will undoubtedly lead to lifelong fear and trauma and to what end? Haven't we already taken enough from them? So many in this community are suffering because of the noise pollution caused by these jets. And despite extensive promises heard to the contrary by an extremely privileged few, it is not a problem that can be solved with home retrofits, grants or economic incentives. All the money in the world won't protect children when they are playing outside. I, like so many others here tonight, urge you to make the only ethical decision available. Vote against the F-35s. Thank you. Thank you very much. So again, we'll just go back to Katie Bassett, Steph Tucker, Leonardo Barber. Then the next last names are Colin Wesley Palmer to be followed by Crystal, Daniel Batten, James Mark Lees and Aurora Hurd. Any of those, you just come forward, are there? Yes. So we have Colin Wesley Palmer, Crystal, Daniel Batten. Daniel Batten. Hi everyone, I'm Crystal. I work with the Howard Center as well as several other local organizations that work with mentally ill people, homeless people here in Vermont, or in Burlington rather. And not a single one of them has said that they want F-35 expansion. Not a single one of them has said that they want warplanes here. They want housing. They want solutions to the issues they're facing. So I guess the question is then, who does want this? And I noticed that Frank Coffey was someone who spoke. He's a member of, as he said, the GBIC, the Greater Burlington Industrial Corporation. That is a corporation that includes people like Frank Palmerlow, Tim Shea, Peter Sylvester. Those people are millionaire. We're not here to call out community members. I'm here to share my position. So what I'm saying is these people are known people in the community. They're very wealthy. They're people who own huge businesses. They're not the people that actually live here. They're not the people that actually represent Burlington. Thank you very much. These decisions are being made for them, for their profits, not for the people of Burlington. Thank you very much. Our next speaker is James Mark Lees to be followed by Aurora Heard. Separation of dangerous military operations from populated areas is Military Discipline 101. But it's not separated. The F-35 is not separated from populated areas. So the F-35 training in our cities is illegal training. It should not count as training. To be legitimate, it would not be in a city where it causes unnecessary suffering. I urge you to table the motion for the lease extension. Approving it will give the council stamp of approval to more years of suffering for thousands of civilians and to ignoring, degrading, and wrecking military discipline. This is your job as the civilian authority to protect the health and safety of the public. So please table the extension. Thank you very much. Thank you. Our last speaker joining us in Contois is Aurora Heard. Welcome. Thank you so much for having me. My name is Aurora Heard. I'm a member of the Winooski City Council, though I'm not here to speak tonight as a counselor, but as a resident of Winooski and on behalf of Winooski residents. Having the F-35s based in the airport and assigned as the mission for V-Tang in his example of environmental racism, Winooski is the most diverse city in the state of Vermont and one of the most diverse states in New England. The F-35 flight pattern, the noise, as well as the danger of a crash harms Winooski residents on an almost daily basis. I lived across from the Winooski School District for years. I watched as time and again, the F-35 flights took off as the children were being released from school. So not when they were in the building, at least slightly protected, but when most of them were outside. The body of the Winooski School District is over 50% BIPOC. I want to highlight this here because you are not just speaking and making this decision on behalf of Burlington. You are making it on behalf of the local residents around you. You have the chance and I would ask you to either table this so you can get more input from the local communities or to not move forward with the lease at all. Thank you so much. Yes. Okay. If you can just state your name. Daniel Batten from Bristol. Sure. Tonight you're contributing to the story of the machine that threatens everything. This is the machine that aims to profit regardless of the misery it causes. The machine that proposes with a straight face the expansion of a McNeil power plant that burns for us while the entire planet is already burning. The machine that permits V-Tang and to even remain in the room while instruments of war rain fire upon innocence. The machine that demands choices be made to perpetuate its existence beyond the lifespans of most people alive today. The machine that has been supported and encouraged by decision makers like you that have resulted in the untimely end of millions of regular people and uncountable numbers of other living things that call this planet their home. A sane society would look at the proposals before you and just laugh saying of course we're not going to allow this to move forward. I hope the weight of responsibility is heavy upon you and that you will decide that the machine will not continue business as usual in the city of Burlington. Thank you. Thank you very much. So we will now go on to people at earth. There's a couple of people left that are joining us online. And the first is Rob Thornton and Rob I do not see you online. If you want to just use the raise hand function that would be helpful. The next person is Chris Weinberg and Chris I have found you and enabled your microphone. If you'd like to speak just need to unmute yourself. Good evening. Thank you for considering the lengthy comments regarding the V-Tang lease extension. For anyone that suggests that we can simply change the mission of V-Tang yet retain all of the benefits and services that it contributes to our area. I highly encourage a trip across the lake to see what has happened to Platford Airport. While the relationship with V-Tang may have challenges it is important to consider the future of our economy and the area without it. I encourage the council to support the extension and thank you for your time this evening. Thank you so much and thank you for your patience. The next speaker is Paul Potter and I don't see you online. If you just use the raise hand function I'm happy to recognize you. The next speaker is Peter Duvall and Peter I have found you and enabled your microphone. Thank you and the council for creating an effective public forum. I am Peter Duvall, I live in Underhill and like most of the rest of Vermont, land connaERTRAPAPERS through the McNeill JOIN owners and dragged along with Connecticut&Berlington Rapetatpertdef Georgetown, subsidiesing the operation of McNeill. There are lot of details and complications in developing a system and it would take a long time to go over all the issues so I'm just going to give you three essential indicators of a contemporary system. One is low temperature, less than 60 degrees C for sure but less than 40 c is closer to state of the art. zero combustion period, and three strong diversity. And by that I mean low value away from one and towards 0.5. Diversity is the essential advantage of a district system. Every district energy developer and operator knows the desert diversity factor of their system. The council did not hear a good answer about diversity factor. You should consider that as a clue about how well thought out by proposal is. Thank you. Thank you very much. And our last speaker who's joining us online is Bob Atkinson, and Bob I have found you and believe have enabled your microphone. You should be able to speak now. Can you hear me okay? Yes we can. Okay. I'm gonna paraphrase a song written by Bob Dylan. This was 63, 1963, which is 63 years ago. You supporters of war who think you're the big guns. You that house the death planes with their nuclear bombs. You that hide behind sprawls. You that hide behind desks. I just want you to know, I can see through your masks. You've allowed all the permits, allowing V-Tang to fly. Then you sit back and watch as the earth slowly dies and you let them fly more while our young children's lungs are fouled and clogged by the poison's use run. And I hope F-35s die and their death will come soon as I sit on the tarmac on a pale afternoon and I'll watch as their truck off to the scrap bed and I'll watch them get crushed to make sure they're dead. Vote no on this lease. Council, wake up. Thank you very much. And that completes our public forum. Thank you to all of you who offered your comments during our public forum. So we will continue on with our agenda. The next item on our agenda is item number five, which is climate emergency reports. Is there any counselor or the administration who wishes to offer a climate emergency report? Point of order. Yes, what is your point of order? Just members of the public speaking up, John. Yeah, the public has had two hours and we have done the best that we can to listen intently and now it's our turn. If there is no one who wishes to offer a climate emergency report, we will move on to our next item, which is our newest item, item number six, which is public health and safety emergency reports. Is there any counselor or the administration who wishes to offer a public health and safety emergency report? Counselor Grant. Thank you. I wanted to just offer some information in the spirit of the resolution that we voted for in terms of providing a variety of different types of information. So during my interactions with the public, again, it's become increasingly clear to me that people don't know where to find information, they don't know where to find data, they don't know where to find our meetings, et cetera. So similar to when I was a police commissioner and would travel to different parts of the city, meeting with people, including going to the NPAs, I started to do that again in order to do some basic, just basic education around our, we used to have board documents, now we have city clerk and sometimes within the meeting, it's just been interesting. It takes a lot, not a lot, it's something new. It's something new and it requires that people spend a little time exploring. And in these meetings I've attended, I've gotten really great feedback in terms of conversations after the meeting and then also emails. So look forward to more of that and we do encourage people to explore civic clerk, adopt a meeting. So everyone I feel should be watching some parts of the city council meeting. Everyone should really watch the last meeting for the presentation from the Burlington Police Department because I believe it was a very important one. And I think it'd be good for people to watch the Public Safety Committee meeting and maybe some other committee or commission that helps address things that you care about. Regarding additional data, we're trying to get more data about cases that are sent from Burlington to the Chinning County State's attorney. And I have a couple of emails out about what we might be able to get. We can't necessarily get anything specific to Burlington because the court system software doesn't track things in that way. But just to give us some interesting numbers, we had received some information from Sarah George back at the beginning of the month that roughly, or at that time, 3,000 cases pending and around 900 of those cases are considered to be a backlog. So we don't know how many of these cases are from Burlington, but this gives you an idea of the number of cases that our Chinning County State's attorney is working on. And the last thing I'd like to say is just I want to be, I want people to be really mindful about spreading inaccurate information. There's a lot of buzz, if you have it, about blaming the State's attorney's office for not prosecuting cases that were never sent to their office. So if there's no case, there's no prosecution. So the case can be made or it can't. But people keep saying it's the State's attorney's fault that nothing will be prosecuted. And I don't think that is, I know that's not fully true. And I just think we need to, people are frustrated. And I think we have to be careful about how we express our frustrations to make sure that we're giving people accurate information. Thank you. Thank you very much. Are there any other counselors or the, Mayor Weinberger? Thank you, President Paul. I do appreciate the opportunity to update the council and the public on several initiatives that we talked about recently that have advanced since the last time we met. One, the fire department's community response team that was approved by the council two weeks ago did begin operations last Monday and has completed its first week of operations. 80 of the total, the maximum 84 possible overtime hours were filled and the, you know, this is moving quickly. The chief is working hard to start to assemble data metrics on how this team is working, I would say, disqualitatively. The response has been very positive from a variety of stakeholders, including our special assistant to homelessness, local business owners, members of residents in the downtown of all expressed very positive reactions to the first week of operations of this new team. I also just wanted to share that we did have another meeting of the opioid, the statewide opioid advisory settlement committee last at the end of the last week, something that the council expressed interest in in the resolution past a couple of weeks ago. The Department of Public Health did report out some positive progress on a number of the initiatives that were passed by the legislature in May and some of the initiatives are starting to have an impact. In particular, I think the nalaxone distribution is the new money dedicated towards that is starting to have a positive impact. In other areas, there was disappointing news that from the Department of Public Health's perspective, we are still 13 to 19 months away from expanded methadone access. I expressed to Dr. Levine in the meeting and in direct meetings with Commissioner Levine that we need to find a way to accelerate state processes to shorten that timeline dramatically. This remains even in a situation where the medicine of buprenorphine has, according to most practitioners, lost a lot of the efficacy that Mark previous era's methadone remains effective or people who are using fentanyl can go directly from fentanyl use, which is the dominant problematic drug to methadone treatment, but there is very limited access to methadone treatment in Chinning County. There's one location in all of the county where people can get access. I've begun conversations with the Howard Center and now the Department of Health about how we expand that access into the downtown. And this is the main source for paying for that expanded access, however. So that's the update from the settlement committee. I and others urge the state to find a way to dramatically accelerate that timeline in the face of what we're seeing on our streets right now. Thank you, President Paul. Thank you very much, Mayor. Are there any other counselors who wish to offer a public health and safety emergency report? Oh, my apologies, I knew that. Councilor Hightower. Thank you, President Paul. I just want to note as we're hitting our fall season and temperatures are dropping, that we still have a tremendous houseless population in Chinning County. I also, to join Councilor Grant in myth busting, these are not folks from outside of the state. These are Vermonters in a county that has such a low vacancy rate where it's increased, like it's far too easy to become homeless. It's just a real travesty that folks are still roughing it as the temperatures turn. And I just want to say that in light of the eclipse event budget that I assume we're about to approve both because we recognize that we have to for health and safety reasons, but also because of the economic return that being prepared follows. I just would encourage us to apply the same thinking to the situation and saying, oh, wouldn't it be far cheaper for us to house folks who don't have homes and also that we just have to for health and safety? Thank you. Thank you very much. I'll round out the public health and safety emergency reports with just to note that at our last meeting, we passed the resolution on the drug crisis. That did include having two community forums. We haven't completely confirmed the dates, but it appears as though they're going to be in the second week in December and that information will be widely available in advance of those community forums. The other thing I did want to mention is that a group of residents has gotten together and has done a Burlington Public Safety letter that they did in mid-October. I won't read it all. It's I think three or four pages long, but it's a very well written document and I would encourage anyone in the public to reach out to the authors of that public safety letter if and they are looking for community members to sign on to it. So if you're interested, the email address, I hope this person who wrote it doesn't mind be putting out there. The email address is andy at andyvota.com or you can simply email one of us and I'm sure we can get it to you. Before we get to our consent and deliberative agendas, we do have one other meeting that we need to attend to and that is the City Council with Mayor presiding. So I will recess the City Council meeting at 942 and we'll pass the floor to Mayor Weinberger for the City Council with Mayor presiding. Thank you, President Paul. I will call the City Council of Mayor presiding meeting into order at 9.43 p.m. And first item on the agenda is the agenda and I would welcome a motion to adopt or amend it. So moved. Thank you, President Paul. Second. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Travers. Any discussion of the agenda? Seeing none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. That brings us to item 2.1, which is a appointment to the Design Advisory Board, one of the alternate positions. This is for a term expiring June 30th, 2026 and floor is now open to nominations. President Paul. Thank you, I would nominate Joel Banner-Baird. Thank you, President Paul. Are there any other nominations? Councillor Shannon. I nominate Lisa Reiman. Thank you, Councillor Shannon. Are there any additional nominations? Are there any additional nominations? Seeing none, I will close the floor to nominations and would ask are either of the nominees in attendance and interested in addressing the Council, I believe I saw at least one of them earlier. I don't believe either of them are online. They're not online, okay. Not seeing the nominees, turn back to my colleagues. Is there any further discussion before we go to a vote? Go ahead, Councillor Shannon. I just wanna say these are two well-qualified candidates. We'll be lucky to have either one of them. The reason why I nominated Lisa Reiman was because she's got extensive historic preservation training and experience that I think would be valuable to the Board. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Shannon. Any further discussion? Okay, we will start, we'll vote on the nominees in the order they were nominated and I think we have a full 13 voting tonight. Including Councilor Chang online. And so if we could have a show of hands for Joel Banner-Baird and Councillor Chang, if you could use your raise hand function. Keep your hand raised while the clerk counts, please. Laura, I'm seeing eight from here, it's consistent. Can you just put them up for me? Yeah. Okay, thank you. Please keep your hand raised. Yeah, sorry. Believe there, the clerk is counted eight, that is a majority and so Joel Banner-Baird has been confirmed by the Board. Congratulations Joel, thank you for your interest in serving on this important Board. I wanna say thank you to Lisa Reiman as well for your interest and encourage you to consider applying again. Many, we were fortunate to have many applicants for these Boards and often people are not accepted on their first time. We do have several more appointments now. I go to Electric Lighting Commission for a term expiring June 30th, 2025. Do we have any nominees for this position? Councillor Travers. Nominate Beth Anderson. Thank you. Are there any additional nominations? Are there any additional nominations? Seeing none, I will close the floor. I'm not seeing Beth in attendance, is she online? No. No, we all have had the pleasure of seeing, well not all of us, but former CAO Beth Anderson is the only nominee. Any discussion of the appointment? Seeing none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of appointing Beth Anderson, please say aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? The motion carries, the appointment carries unanimously. Congratulations, Beth, thank you for your interest. We have six of these to do just so everyone knows. So number, the third one is a Parks and Recreation Commission for a term expiring June 30th, 2025. President Paul, go ahead. Thank you, I would nominate Ryan Berkman. Thank you. Are there any additional nominations? Would any Councillors like to nominate anyone else? Seeing none, no other nominations, we'll close. The floor to nominations is Ryan Berkman in attendance. We're online, no. Any further discussion on this appointment? Seeing none, we'll go to a voice vote on the only nominee, Ryan Berkman. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? And that appointment is made unanimously. Congratulations and thank you, Ryan. This brings us to the police commission for a term expiring June 30th, 2025. Are there any nominations? President Paul. Thank you. I'll nominate Carolyn Hansen. Thank you. Are there any additional nominations? Are there any additional nominations? Okay, seeing no others, would anyone like to, what we'll go first is, I do not see Carolyn in attendance. Is she online? Any further discussion about this appointment? Seeing none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? The motion carries unanimously. Congratulations, Carolyn. Thank you for your interest in serving on this critical commission. Two more, Board of Tax Appeals for a term expiring June 30th, 2026. The floor is open for nominations. Councillor Travers. I nominate Dorothy Como. Thank you. Are there any additional nominations? Are there any more nominations? Seeing none, close the floor. Is Dorothy in attendance or online? Does not appear so. Any discussion of this appointment? Seeing none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? Dorothy is unanimously appointed. Thank you, Dorothy. And finally, the Board of Registration of Voters for a term expiring June 30th, 2025. The floor is open to nominations. Councillor King. Point Alexandre, Stefan Demoli. Thank you. Are there any additional nominations? Are there any further nominations? Seeing none, we will close the floor. Board of nominations is Alexandre here. I don't believe so, not online. Any discussion? Seeing none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of the appointment, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion carries unanimously. And that concludes the business of the city council with mayor presiding. And without objection, we are adjourned at 9.51 p.m. Thank you very much, Mayor Weinberger. We'll resume the recessed city council meeting at 9.51. And returning to our council agenda, we'll continue with item number seven, which is our consent agenda. For a motion on that, I will go to Councillor Shannon. Thank you, President Powell. I move to adopt the consent agenda and take the actions indicated with the exception that the action of item 7.05 is to be amended as follows. Move to create and approve the solar eclipse public health safety amenities and events plan budget as detailed in the chart herein. With city financial contributions not to exceed an amount of 235,195 dollars and to also approve a budgetary amount from private contributions not to exceed 204,140 dollars. Contingent on such funds being secured by the city and between all sources creating a total project budget not to exceed 439,335 dollars while providing the chief administrative officer with the authority to make any necessary budget amendments and transfers of funds to carry out this initiative. Thank you so much, Councillor Shannon. Is there a second to that motion? Seconded by Councillor Bergman. Is there any discussion on that motion? Seeing none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion as read by Councillor Shannon and seconded by Councillor Bergman, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, please say no. That motion passes. Thank you so much and thank you as well to city attorney Pellerin for putting that together for us. Greatly appreciated. That moves us to our deliberative agenda. There are nine items on our deliberative agenda and we're appropriate. There are time limits on each item. That's part of our rules and we have agreed to those time limits by approving our agenda. We'll do our best to keep to those time limits and I just wanna remind Councillors of our five minute rule. Please self monitor and be mindful of your time. I will kindly interrupt you when the time is drawing near and we'll ask you to wrap up so that we can be fair and respectful to all our colleagues. The first item on our deliberative agenda is 8.1 which is the appointment of a city assessor and for this item I will go to the mayor for and then we'll go to a motion and here we are. It is 9.54. Thank you President Paul. I'd like to invite Joe Turner up to the table as well and I am very pleased to be submitting for your consideration and confirmation. Joe, as Burlington's next city assessor in looking for the next leader of the city assessor's office it was my priority to find someone who not only had the requisite skills but also the experience in the discipline of tax assessment and Joe has outstanding experience. He has worked in the appraisal field for more than 20 years including having owned his own appraisal business and then working in various government roles in North Carolina and then here in Vermont where he served first as the director of assessment in Hartford and then has been in the Burlington office for approximately a year. Over the course of his career he's assisted in the appraisal of approximately 130,000 parcels for taxation. He has also served as an appraisal instructor and holds several certifications and recognitions including a certification of excellence and assessment administration from the International Association of Assessors. I can tell you he is already being looked to around the state as an expert in tax issues including by the state's tax office and legislators and I think we're very fortunate to have him. He has been serving as the acting assessor since my appointment last week and will immediately upon your confirmation take over the permanent role and I hope you will have your strong support tonight. Thank you President Paul and if we could give Joe a moment to share some quick remarks as well, that'd be great. Of course. Oh, great, I'm good here, right? Thank you for the opportunity. Mayor Weinberger, I really appreciate it. I just wanna say that I do appreciate the time that I've been here so far and I wanna push transparency and just an open door policy for assessment moving forward. I know it. We had a recent assessment in 21 and that's still on people's minds and I just really want to let everyone know that I'm here with the transparent policy and I look forward to moving forward in that fashion. Thank you so much. We will go to Councillor Carpenter for a motion on this item. Thank you and welcome. I would move to confirm the appointment of Joe Turner as city assessor and grant the personal hardship extension of the department head residency requirement for city council rules. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Carpenter. Is there a second to that motion seconded by Councillor Shannon? Is there any discussion on that motion? Oh, yes. Councillor Hightower. Thank you. Just wanna say thank you for being willing to step into the position, especially knowing how hard the assessment was and how content as it was. So glad that we didn't scare everyone off the roll in that year. Excited to be here and especially with the goal of transparency and completely separate from that. I do wanna say it was not the most transparent move that we learned about this appointment before knowing that the previous assessor had left for some of us. I knew about it just because I had gotten and bounced back email. So in the spirit of transparency, maybe we can make sure that when other department heads leave that the council is notified. Thank you so much for doing this, Joe. Thank you, Councillor Hightower. Is there any other discussion prior to going to a vote? Councillor Grant. Thank you. I appreciate the time you took to meet with me. I know I can never fully see anyone. I appreciate the time that you took to meet with me. I appreciated your frankness about, you know, talking about the assessment that as was just stated is still very much on the minds of residents and your honesty with some of the things that went on and how you would handle things differently. And I also appreciated the discussion about how businesses were assessed versus the way residents were assessed. And there was a real feeling that that was unfair. And so hopefully to look at that, to explain that better in the community, to, you know, what are our options for reassessing sooner rather than later, given the bounce back post-pandemic, would be greatly appreciated by a lot of people. And then just also maybe the assessor's office communicating more frequently with the public and the idea that we maybe not wait for the state but establish in Burlington how often we'll do these reassessments so that it's not such a dramatic shock to people. We all, a lot of people found out that revenue neutral really doesn't mean anything and we're hurt by that. Thank you so much. Thank you very much, Councilor Grant. If there are no others, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of the appointment of Joe Turner as city assessor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, please say no. That motion passes unanimously with our congratulations and thanks. Welcome to the city of Burlington. Thank you so much. I'm looking forward to it. The next item on our agenda is 8.2, which is the appointment to the housing board of review. Are there any nominations for this appointment? Councilor McGee. Thank you, President Paul. I would like to nominate Lisa Gerlach for this position. Thank you. Thank you. The name of Lisa Gerlach has been put forward. Are there any other nominations? Are there any other nominations? Going once, going twice. We will close nominations. We always recognize applicants and I believe actually that Lisa Gerlach is here joining us by Zoom. Lisa, I found you, if you would like to speak before we vote on this appointment, the floor is yours. Thank you so much, President Paul, and to the entire city council, I am looking forward to being able to serve my community in this position if I am approved. Thank you. Great. Thank you again and thanks so much for joining us. Are there any discussion on that nomination? Seeing none, we'll go to a vote. Those in favor of the appointment of Lisa Gerlach to the housing board of review, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, please say no. That motion passes unanimously. And Lisa, thanks so much. And thank you very much for your willingness to serve the city. We will go on to item number three, item 8.3, which is a public hearing regarding ZA 2303 on setbacks, ZA 2304 on temporary structures, ZA 2305 on 168 Archibald Street, and ZA 2401 on technical amendments. And before we get to the public hearing, we do have Charles Dillard from the Office of Planning, who I believe is going to be speaking briefly to the four zoning amendments before us. Oh, and you are not joining us by Zoom, you are here. Good evening. So these are four pretty basic amendments, as the ones that you see. Setbacks, these are four items that were primarily brought from the Planning Commission's Ordinance Committee. The second amendment regarding temporary setbacks is essentially to facilitate the winter markets, the existing standards do not allow enough time for those temporary structures to stay in place. The third 168 Archibald is regarding the rezoning of one property in the Old North End to allow greater mix of uses. And the final package is really a list of technical amendments that the Office of City Planning and permitting inspections have compiled over the last couple of years. So those are mainly issues like typos and section numbering issues. So I'm happy to take any questions if you have them. Great, thank you very much. So with that, we will open the public hearing. If there is anyone who is here joining us in Contois or online who wishes to comment on any of these zoning amendments, now would be that time. And you can just simply stand up and walk forward or use the raise hand function online. Could I get a point of information, please? Yes, of course. Could you just describe the Archibald property, what exactly that is? Yes. So this is the former Ahabizadec synagogue at the corner of Archibald in, I think, North Winewski. I believe it's been vacant for some time. The current owner would like to just, yes, like I said, use the property for some uses that are not permitted today. Thank you. Thank you very much. I don't see anyone coming forward to speak during public forum, and no one has used the raised hand function. So going once, going twice, we will close the public forum and move on to the amendments. The next items are 8.04, 8.05, 8.06, and 8.07. Those are the ordinances which are going to a second reading on setbacks, temporary structures, the rezoning of 168 Archibald Street and technical amendments. With that, I will go to Councillor Traver's chair of the Ordinance Committee for a motion. Thank you, President Paul. First parliamentary inquiry from the city attorney's office, which is that from your perspective, would it be in order to move multiple agenda items here at the same time? That is advisable, yes. Okay. So then I would move to wave the reading and adopt the ordinance set forth on agenda items 8.4, 8.5, and 8.6, and would ask for the floor back upon a second. Is there a second? Seconded by Councillor Shannon. Please go ahead. Thank you, President Paul. I believe that Charles has provided a good explanation with respect to these three items. The reason why I ask for the floor back is actually with respect to the fact that 8.7 is omitted from this. Prior to this meeting, I had heard from Director Tuttle in the planning office that they would appreciate actually postponing 8.7 until our next meeting for some additional follow-up on that particular item. And so that is why the motion here is limited to 8.4, 8.5, 8.6, which again come to us with the unanimous approval of the Planning Commission and have my support as well. Thank you, Councillor Travers. Is there any further discussion on the motion? Councillor Bergman. So it would be helpful for you to describe exactly what new activities will be allowed by the rezoning of the old synagogue. It is next to an old transmission place, but it is also next to, directly next to residents on a now dead-ended street and crosses hide in a way which will, depending on the uses, will impact parking in particular depending on the intensity of that use in an area which we are already committed to eliminating lots of parking in the area. So the understanding of what new things would be used, the understanding of how staff has looked at what is likely to be increased economic activity as it relates to the neighborhood and its impact would be greatly appreciated. Sure. So there's two parts to this answer. The first regarding the uses that would be permitted if this was approved. So today the property has its own residential medium density which allows some neighborhood commercial uses, things like I'm just going to read a list, banks, places of worship, daycares, cafes, schools, those sorts of things, low intensity uses. To move to the neighborhood mixed use zoning would permit some additional uses, adult daycare, animal grooming, art gallery, studio, bakery, bicycle sales repair, so on and so forth, so small grocery stores, that sort of thing. So just a little bit more intense, probably a little bit more activity. Regarding the sort of policy understanding here, the comprehensive plan does identify this property as being on the edge of a sort of transition zone from a neighborhood activity center. And so the comprehensive plan does provide some guidance that those properties that are in that buffer zone should be considered for this kind of rezoning to allow additional commercial uses while still respecting, I would say, the sort of density and intensity of uses surrounding it. So that's really the policy understanding that our office undertook. I have a longer list of the uses if you'd like to hear them, but that's sort of the answer in a nutshell. I guess what I would like to hear is your assessment of what the impacts will be if this is successful and it's redeveloped and used more on that broader neighborhood, a neighborhood which crosses Willard Street as well. So at least what the anticipation is by the planners. What do you foresee? Yeah, so I think this is an area of town that is constantly in transition. I know that there's a growing sort of arts sort of ecosystem in the area. I believe the owner of the property would like to develop a couple of residences in the former synagogue and commercial uses that he's considered. I can't speak to his current plans, but things he has mentioned in the past include things like a cafe, office space. He is a businessman himself, potentially a bar, that sort of thing. But again, I can't speak to his current plans. I do know that he does have an agreement with the congregation. There's a sort of accessory structure there that will be maintained for its current use of, I think, cleaning bodies. So that will remain. I understand that he's undertaken a pretty rigorous historic preservation approach here and sought to the best of his ability to retain the structure that he can and to transfer any religious materials, objects out in a respectful way that the congregation has agreed to. It is an area where parking has been a challenge, and I think the Department of Public Works is ongoing continuing to study parking in the area. I can tell you that our own city-wide transportation option study, which is looking into transportation demand management, really parking in the North Winooski corridor is going to provide a specific focus in looking at the Old North Inn and even more specifically the North Winooski corridor to find ways to not just answer the parking question in the North Winooski corridor, but also to make it easier for folks in that direct area to move around the city and to access services and commercial uses in a sustainable way that doesn't always require cars. I know there's also ongoing conversations with the Community Health Center regarding their own parking needs. So I think this zoning is happening amidst a whole other sort of host of challenges and questions, and I think that our office did consider those in the Planning Commission, I think, did as well. You know, I can offer that the Planning Commission did talk about the sort of fabric around here and unanimously supported the proposal. Thank you. Thanks very much, Councillor Bergman. Are there any other, is there any other Councillors who wish to speak to this before we go to a vote? Seeing none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion is made by Councillor Travers. Please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed, please say no. That motion passes unanimously. Charles, thanks so much for being here with us this evening. That will move us. Did you have anything? Did you have a point of order? You're jumping ahead. Okay. Oh, that's right. 8.7, yes. This is a courtesy to our Planning Office. I would move to postpone item 8.7 to our meeting on November 6th. Okay. Seconded by Councillor Hightower. Seeing no discussion, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion is made by Councillor Travers. Please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed, please say no. That motion passes. So that will be postponed to our next meeting, which brings us to item 8.8, which is the approval of supplemental agreement with Lees for Vermont Air National Guard. For that, I will go to, for a brief introduction to Mayor Weinberger. Thank you, President Paul. I do have some brief opening remarks. And then we have prepared presentations from several other people. And I'd like to invite General Knight and Chief Lechance to come up and join us here. And we'll hear from them after me. And then we'll also hear from Nick Longo, the aviation director, and Colonel Finnegan, the Wing Commander. Burlington has been the committed steward of the Patrick Leahy Burlington International Airport, one of the great economic engines of Vermont for over 100 years. And since 1946, the airport has also been the proud home of the Vermont Air National Guard. This Lees extension, the one before you for action tonight, is the next important step in ensuring the mutual success of Burlington, our airport, V-Tang, and the region. Here are just a few of the benefits that will flow from this action. The extension of the lease to 50 years from now to go from 2048 to 2073 provides stability for the many partners who rely on V-Tang in various ways, which include the city of Burlington, the airport, the state, the federal government and military, numerous neighboring municipalities and countless Chittenden County employers. I want to note that several of the airport's most significant leases have terms of 50 to 100 years, including beta technologies and the new hotel that is under development. Through our current agreements, V-Tang provides fire rescue and aircraft protection. This has a direct financial benefit of $3 million, more than $3 million per year to the airport and where we have to replace the capital assets that V-Tang brings to the airport that would cost the airport an additional more than $20 million. I think many people do not know that V-Tang is often the first responder to medical emergencies in the terminal and has mutual aid agreements with several neighboring municipalities. 70% of the calls that the V-Tang fire rescue crew responds to happen outside of the airport. And as you heard in public comment from Kyle Clark himself, V-Tang is a key partner to another major stakeholder at the airport, Beta, in pilot training and workforce development to support the future growth of their company. Extending the lease is needed now because there's currently $51 million in plan, federally funded projects, many of which are aligned with the city council's July resolution and these projects cannot move forward without an extension. V-Tang has been a committed indispensable partner to the airport and their continued legacy of service and selflessness to the people of Vermont is vital to our common well-being and security. Through their state mission, V-Tang has been essential in recent state emergencies including COVID, the cyber attack on UVMC, the July floods and the July floods. The skills, expertise and resources V-Tang has provided in these situations is invaluable. V-Tang members are our neighbors, they're teachers, police and firefighters, coaches as we heard tonight, volunteers, doctors and nurses. They are Vermonters who serve our communities in many meaningful ways. The MOU you're being asked to approve tonight in addition to simultaneously with the lease extension provides memorializes and builds on this long history of partnership between the city and V-Tang. I do want to acknowledge the many thoughtful concerns about the impacts of V-Tang operations on our community and to also acknowledge that these impacts are significant and experienced unevenly by residents of this region. The city, the airport and V-Tang have long worked to mitigate these impacts as best we can and we have secured many millions of federal dollars for these mitigation efforts and have been implementing them for many years with a considerable focus for expanded mitigation efforts in the years since the F-35 basing decision was made. The MOU before you includes new commitments to these efforts including the V-Tang's commitments to share emissions data with the council to seek funding for the future forward solutions to reduce flights such as advanced simulator training to work with the city and to work with the city to access significant new funding for noise mitigation efforts including by pursuing competitive grants that are only available to military installations. So with that, thank you again President Paul for the chance to kick this off and I would like to invite Agent General Gregory Knight to share his opening remarks and we'll go from there. Thank you, General. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Madam President, City Council, my fellow Vermonters, I appreciate the opportunity to be here this evening. I'm Major General Greg Knight, Agent and General for the Vermont National Guard which encompasses both our Army and Air National Guard. I've lived in Vermont most of my life. As of this past July, I've served in uniform for 40 years. 34 years of my time in the military has been with our National Guard. It's been my distinct honor and privilege to work alongside some of the most skilled, professional, and giving service women and men in our country. So I get to the point, say that my ask this evening with all due respect is that you vote yes from the least extension of the Vermont Air National Guard. Regrettably, we've come to expect natural and man-made disasters, medical crises, and global instability. The need for our readiness and response capabilities here at home and abroad is growing. We are incredibly fortunate to have immediate, well-equipped responses to flooding, as the Mayor noted, cyber attacks, a steadfast commitment to pandemic relief, and unwavering support for our global allies for the members of our Vermont National Guard. These Guard members deliver here at home and across the globe at a moment's notice. They do so with compassion, with integrity, and Vermont ingenuity, which is certainly no surprise. Your neighbors who serve in the Guard safeguarded countless families during that flooding across the state this past July. Your friends who serve in the Guard built an alternate care facility, an alternate health care facility, worked with the Vermont Food Bank to distribute 3.2 million meals to Vermont families in need, and distributed COVID-19 vaccines and essential supplies to the farthest corners of rural Vermont and right here in Burlington. Your family members who serve in the Guard are the reason our allies trust us to help them secure peace and stability. But for me, the theme here is obvious. Service before self. As Burlington City Councilors, you also know what it means to serve, so I would like to take a moment to express the appreciation I have for you and what you do, and certainly for the decisions you have to make. But this lease extension is important. It'll benefit us in ways that are obvious, like our recent state missions, in ways that may be less obvious. We've heard a little bit about the example of our fire department at the airport. Currently, the Vermont Air National Guard Fire Department is the only fire and emergency response service for the Patrick Leahy Burlington International Airport. Our firefighters are specially trained for aircraft emergencies and their physical presence at the airport 24-7-365 ensures uninterrupted commercial, private, and military air traffic at no cost to the city or state. The $22 million fire station with $2.8 million in equipment plus $3 million in annual operating costs was paid for by the federal government. Vermont Air National Guard is one of 22 Air National Guard units to provide these services to the civil airport partners at no cost. The mayor noted we are also part of the regional mutual aid partnership with neighboring towns and cities, and I'm sure the chief will be able to explain in more detail about that. With so many challenges in recruiting and retaining full-time and volunteer firefighters and first responders, this partnership is critical to the entire region's ability to respond quickly to fires, motor vehicle accidents, and other emergencies. You've also heard this evening that the lease extension will also unfreeze $51 million in capital investments marked by the U.S. Air Force and Patrick Leahy Burlington International Airport. Much of this will be fulfilled by locally awarded contracts. I would note this funding is in addition to the over $100 million investment made by the U.S. Air Force in our Vermont Air National Guard base in the preceding nine years. We've been a vital contributing partner with Burlington for 77 years. The Vermont Air National Guard takes environmental stewardship seriously. We've also been a part of the Burlington Marine Environmental Improvement and Sustainment Projects, many of which align with Burlington's net zero energy goals. Those include a $3 million expansion to our existing solar farm, $2.7 million to add battery storage backups to retain solar energy and build resilience, $2 million in geothermal solar heating to increase efficiency during the winter. These projects will not be possible without the support of the lease extension. The support of the lease extension will allow us to continue to help our communities flourish and I'm proud to stand beside you in that mission. I certainly look forward to our continued partnership for years to come. Thank you again, President, for the opportunity to be here this evening. Good evening. The Vermont Air National Guard Fire Department is a very important partner to the Burlington Fire Department. The Burlington Fire Department is the sole provider of aircraft rescue firefighting capabilities at the Patrick Leahy Burlington International Airport and, as such, meets the requirements necessary for the airport to operate. The Burlington Fire Department does not have the specialized staff or vehicles to provide this service nor have we taken steps in that direction. To provide this level of service here are the scale of operation already in place to include new employees, new apparatus and the appropriate training to meet aircraft rescue and firefighting operational requirements. Staffing, equipping, training and providing the appropriate apparatus to allow BFD to meet the federally mandated level of protection at the airport would cost the city millions of dollars in immediate cost. And this would be needed to allow the airport to continue to operate. In addition to the professional services V-Tang provides on the airfield its members are often the first EMS providers to customers in and around the airport terminal. Additionally, they provide very important mutual aid support to the Burlington Fire Department on a third alarm or greater incident. These highly trained members can increase our firefighting capabilities on large scale events by providing additional personnel or through existing agreements providing specialized tools and equipment to aid in suppression efforts. To say the Vermont Air National Guard Fire Department is an asset to the city of Burlington would be a gross understatement. The members of V-Tang provide unparalleled emergency services at and around the airport. They are an important partner in our ability to provide the high level of emergency services that our community has come to expect. I encourage a yes vote on the lease extension for the Vermont Air National Guard. Thank you. Mayor Weinberger, did you want the floor back? I believe now we're prepared to hear from Colonel Finnegan and Jim Nick Longo with some additional opening remarks. Good evening. Good evening. My name is Colonel Dan Finnegan. I'm the 158th photo wing commander. I'd like to thank Mayor Weinberger, President Paul and the members of the City Council for taking up the issue of our lease extension tonight. We are at the beginning of our fiscal year and this time is important. Before I dive into specifics many of the details we've already discussed over the last couple weeks or you already have known I'd like to share with you a bit about my perspective personally as a Vermonter and as the wing commander of the Air Guard. A number of years ago more than I would like to admit I was born in Burlington. I was born in the North Gate Apartments at the north end of North Avenue. I've lived in wards four and seven and I have family that lives across wards three five and six. I joined the V-Tang when I was 17 years old and since then I've had opportunities ones that I never thought would but would be possible for me. I've benefited from the educational opportunities the V-Tang provides and I've worked with some of the most amazing people from all different backgrounds all across the world. To say the Guard changed the trajectory of my life and that of my children is an understatement. As its commander and member for 33 years I know that that's the rule and I am not the exception. Those less close to the Guard often don't fully understand how much service can transform and change lives but the folks behind me here tonight and the thousand that couldn't be here surely do. The lease vote tonight helps us secure those same opportunities for others and as a leader in the V-Tang I feel it's my responsibility to insure as much. I'm also a part-time and beta employee and I work there partly because I believe strongly in the mission but mostly because as I walk the halls of beta I see the same thing that I see when I walk the halls of the V-Tang. I see the future of Vermont and the faces of the young professionals that work there. It's powerful it's exciting and it's inspiring. I see tonight's decision as one that speaks to their future and it speaks to the economic vitality between now and then. The V-Tang has changed aircraft 12 times in 77 years on average about 6 to 7 years. When we say this vote is not about an airplane it's about our people and it's about our ability to serve Vermont. We mean it. If history is any indication the F-35 will not be here in the years we're talking about tonight. But we hope the talent will be we hope the jobs will be and we hope our airmen will be. Importantly we hope the investments we're making to reduce our environmental impact and carbon missions will pay forward into those out years for generations to come. As you may know all of our capital projects including those green initiatives are on hold pending this lease renewal. 25% of our square footage on the base is geothermal but we need more. We have the largest solar farm but we need more. We need newer, more efficient and more resilient energy technology. We need to make improvements to our fuel storage and distribution to mitigate environmental risk. These are all the kinds of projects that the Air Force, the V-Tang and the city have in common and they are the ones we require a lease extension to move forward with. If there's anything I've learned from the conversations I've had with many of you and with civic and business leaders we do have a lot in common. On its face this decision tonight is really quite simple. Will you extend our lease so that we can continue to serve Vermont, contribute to the airport, enhance our economy and make important progress on climate. I thank you on behalf of the women and men of the Vermont Air National Guard for your service to Burlington and I respectfully and humbly ask that you vote yes to extend our lease tonight. With that I'll happily pass the mic to Mr. Longo. Thank you Council President Paul and members of the City Council. As you've heard from the Mayor Chief LaChance Major General Knight and Wing Commander Colonel Finnegan this lease extension is not only critical for the economy within our state but the vital but it's also vital to the continuity of our airport operations at Lehi BTV. Our relationship and our commitment to VTANG is stronger than ever and our united and aligned missions are critical to the overall success of the airport ecosystem. The extent of our partnership is beyond what you see on paper. It is respected by our mutual understandings of the safety the security and the understanding of all of our operations at Lehi BTV. We have an enormous diversity of aeronautical activity from student pilots and programs within the Vermont Flight Academy and the Vermont Technical College as well as the Burlington Technical Programs to world-class aviation businesses like Aerodyme, Aviatron, Heritage Aviation Pratt & Whitney to the of course next generation of electric aircraft development and manufacturing with our partnership with Beta Technologies. This is what creates that ecosystem and one of the busiest airports in New England. As we continue to grow the airport the relationship with the Air National Guard and the needs providing fire and rescue service also grows. As you've read and heard tonight and throughout these last few weeks and beyond, VTANG provides the sole firefighting services at Lehi BTV. This includes medical responses to all of these buildings that we own as a city and all of the businesses that I just spoke about as well as the terminal building inclusive of the 1.4 million passengers every year. Without VTANG rescue and firefighting service our annual budget at the airport would increase by that approximately three million dollars a year which is a requirement to fulfill the FAA mandated requirements of the number of trucks and personnel necessary and needed to respond within three minutes of any aircraft emergency. This increase in our annual budget would detrimentally alter our rates and charges not just to many of our tenants our airline partners and burned in our financial position significantly. These financial savings do go beyond even the fire department with savings in permitting fees snow removal savings and even wildlife management services that the Air National Guard pays for. The competitive advantage we see today not requiring any of these expenses provides an opportunity to negotiate lower rates with airlines and tenants alike specifically allowing us to increase our service options for our community and offer larger commercial aircraft and additional routes along with attracting new business partners to operate right out of Lahey BTV. Without this extension and the investments needed to fulfill all fire and rescue requirements to support all aircraft operations our airport would require substantial financial support that would be detrimental detrimentally impairing our financial position. Your support on this matter is critically important to the continued viability of Lahey BTV. Thank you. Thank you. Before we continue we have a little bit of business to do on this matter. I would like to ask the magic hour of 10.30 and as per our council rules we need to make motion to suspend our rules and if there is a councilor who wishes to make that motion and whether or not we would do it to complete our agenda or to complete our deliberative would somebody like to make that councilor Shannon? I would move to suspend our rules to complete our deliberative agenda as they're second to that motion seconded by councilor Hightower. Any discussion on that? Actually a suspend our rules is not a debatable item. I don't believe that is correct. So we will not debate it. We will go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion to suspend our rules to complete our deliberative agenda please say aye. Any opposed please say no. So we will complete items of the motion to suspend our rules to complete our deliberative agenda. Thank you for letting us attend to that small amount of business. Before we go to the council for questions of our guests I will go to councilor Barlow for a motion. Thank you President Paul. I move that the honorable mayor Murrow Weinberger be and hereby is authorized and directed to execute on behalf of the City of Burlington and the United States of America also known as the government pursuant to which the government will continue to lease lands situated at the Burlington international airport for use by the government and or the state of Vermont international guard as per the terms and conditions of such supplemental lease agreement as attached here too. Additionally I'll move to approve and authorize Mayor Murrow Weinberger to execute on behalf of the City of Burlington a certain memorandum of understanding by and between the City of Burlington and the Vermont international guard related to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and aircraft noise as per the terms and conditions of such memorandum of understanding as attached here too. I'll ask for the floor back after a second. Thank you councilor Barlow. Second. Thank you councilor Jang. Councilor Barlow the floor is yours. Sure. Our speakers and I have said much of the things that I had prepared but so I'll just be brief and say that VTANG is going to continue their mission with or without this lease extension but will not be able to make investments and may not enter into the MOU without it. Renewing or not renewing the lease will not have any determinative effect on the use of F-35s by VTANG in my view. As we heard from Colonel Finnegan there's a good chance that the F-35s would be phased out for some newer aircraft even before the current lease runs out in 2048. An extension is necessary to get the Air Force to make a $51 million capital investment to the base. $43 million of which are to support initiatives consistent with the council's climate objectives including $7.7 million in renewable energy and clean heating projects and $32 million for the construction of new net zero buildings. As part of this new lease agreement we would also have an MOU with VTANG to advance augmented reality training with simulators, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and further reduce noise issues. All things we've asked VTANG for these investments and the new MOU should be welcomed by the council and I'm hoping my fellow council will support this. Thank you. Thank you Councillor Barlow for a discussion on this moat. Councillor Shannon. Thank you President Paul. Probably most everything has been said but not everybody has said it. I'll just add one brief thing which is that we heard tonight that we were advised that the council should ask for a new mission and I want to remind those who were here at the time and maybe some who were not here at the time that back prior to the arrival of the F-35s I authored the resolution that asked the secretary of the Air Force to give Burlington a different mission and we received a reply to that and the answer was no. While there are other missions that exist that other airports have received it is not at the purview of the airport I don't think how those missions are assigned and I'm sure that they are strategic I'm sure all of you could explain it all at great length but I'm not going to explain it. So while I'm not particularly a fan of the F-35 or really any planes flying over my head I think that the benefits that we have heard here tonight are important to remember and most important to remember is that this is not what Colonel Finnegan mentioned are not likely to even be here in 25 years as the life of an aircraft is not generally that long. We need V-Tang here we need the benefits that they're offering and we need the 50 million dollar investments in green and net zero technology at our airport I appreciate the work that you've done on noise mitigation I will say that a lot of our residents it's not enough and we need to continue to work on that and I know you know that you're a member of our community too so I thank you for that and I will leave it at that. Thank you Thank you very much Councillor Shannon there is an opportunity I just wanted to acknowledge also I'll come to you Councillor Bergman just wanted to acknowledge that Colonel Finnegan to answer any questions that we might have and thank you for doing so Councillor Bergman and we'll go to Councillor Hightower Well first thank you all Major General for speaking with me or communicating with me this weekend that was very good and helpful Colonel Finnegan I have appreciated the exchanges that we have had and I believe there is some some unity that we can that we can get out of that and I again appreciate Chief Lachance and Director Longo and in your work on this and I want to thank the public everybody who spoke and the people who came here who took the time and also the hundreds of people who I know were not here who weighed in on this if this were an easy decision then we'd probably have it on consent right and there are clear economic and other benefits of the Air National Guard but like the mission itself neither the firefighting nor the mutual aid are implicated directly in the lease extension so let's just be fair and clear about that if we did not extend the lease you still have a joint use agreement that will continue until 28 when we negotiate the lease is not where the firefighting arrangement comes into my understanding so it's all wrapped up and I totally appreciate it appreciate the complexities but clearly with all the benefits that we have heard about and I do not dispute them and I value folks this is not an easy question because the impact of the Guard's mission is to understate the obvious not uniformly beneficial real harm is being done it's being done to health it's being done to housing and I believe it's being done to economic activity as well and indeed when the mayor gives an odd to the difficulties that people are are facing as a result of that I think that there is a fairly broad agreement about that and it's why we here have a fiduciary duty to the folks in Winooski and south Burlington who don't get to sit here as members of our community so all the messages that we've gotten the conflict has made it clear this is not an easy a clear message that I have gotten is that the opposition to the lease the opposition to the lease due to the F-35 mission and the incompatibility there okay I'm sorry I gotta read my own writing one of the the messages that I've got is that opposition to the lease is due to the mission that's pretty apparent right it's not a rocket science to hear that and the incompatibility of the basing of those F-35s at the Alehi airport which is by the way to my understanding in regard in the nation that has the F-35s maybe there's one that's coming but okay I see you shaking your head there may be one more in Alabama that is on the way but okay pretty close but the other clear message that I've gotten from the hours that I have spent on this the many hours that I have spent with this including with guard command is that this lease extension does not and will not directly affect the mission or even the MOU which would be between the city and the guard and not the Air Force itself which I think is very important but the lease has brought us here and this debate about compatibility of the F-35s and the need and the process for a mission change is clearly as relevant to this discussion as the discussion about the economic benefits that go beyond those contracts that as relevant as the firefighting as the mutual aid and all the other good things that we mentioned I also very clear from the FAQs that Colonel Finnegan has given us that the mission is a federal political issue to be directed at the secretary of the Air Force and involving our congressional delegation you have on the agenda so everybody had a chance to see it a motion on the mission asking us to make a change in the mission I am actually not going to bring that tonight maybe to the relief of some people I suspect to everybody at least around this table I will be bringing it shortly because it is absolutely relevant that we take it up but it is clear that the fog of this war needs to clear so that we can look clearly at that particular piece so that gets me to a particularly difficult place since I would like us to be acting on the mission I am not happy with the fact that we got this really brought to us 10 days ago there are a lot of questions and I would run well out of my 5 minutes which I am probably getting close to right now on why it is not time for us and I don't feel that it is fair and just for me to be acting 10 days after when I have a whole list of questions about this least extension and the MOU so but I am not going to go through all of that I do want to actually move to divide the motion because I have as is on the on the agenda with specificity changes to the MOU and I have been told by some people at this table in regards to this that if I can make things better even if I don't get my way that's a good thing and so I would like for us to be able to divide the question so that then we can consider the amendments to the MOU which do not have a time limit do not need to be voted on tonight there is no deadlines with them at all and we can do it right and I believe that my amendments which you all have seen will make this better many things I have talked about and again I'm actually asking for us in the MOU conversation to go back and negotiate because I can't impose anything it's a negotiation which means we need to sit down and I'm only one councillor so I don't have any right to negotiate with a guard but I do think that the things in my motion on the MOU are worthy of us taking the time and so with all of that I would move to divide the question the two motions that we've got that have been joined in one so a motion has been made to divide the question is there a second to that motion seconded by Councillor Hightower Councillor Bergman did you want the floor back to note that motion a motion to divide point of information is not debatable thank you very much a motion to divide the question is not debatable there it is and it would seem as if the division would then leave the lease first and the MOU second but we're not I know that clarification so we're not going to debate that we're going to go to a vote just point of information which is to the maker of the original motion and just to understand there are a couple versions of the MOU that are posted on Civic Clerk my understanding is that Councillor Barlow that your motion with respect to the MOU was with regards to version 5 as it's posted online and just seeking clarification as to that I'm looking right now it was the one that was updated this afternoon is that version 5 I believe so yes yes thank you for that clarification I also have a point of order question which I'm sure is going to reflect for everyone in the community my total ignorance is there not some requirement that the original mover be consulted as to whether or not this is a friendly amendment or not or is this not an amendment because we have a motion on the table Councillor Barlow's motion is on the table Attorney Pellerin this is not considered an amendment to the main motion no this is a motion to divide the amendment into two questions okay so it is not it would not be taken as friendly or unfriendly it's not debatable and we would just go to a vote thank you very much Councillor Doherty no such thing as a question there's plenty of questions that people can ask that even those of us who have been here a while don't know the answer to given all of that we will go to a vote considering that it appears as though that this will not be unanimous we'll go to a roll call vote Councillor Barlow Councillor Bergman Councillor Carpenter what we are doing now is we are voting on a motion to divide the question there are two parts to the question one was to do with the lease one was to do with the MOU so the motion is whether or not you wish to divide the question will we still have an opportunity to discuss both of those? yes okay so no yes no the vote is no Councillor Zheng no Councillor Doherty no Councillor Grant yes Councillor Hightower yes Councillor King no Councillor Travers yes City Council President Paul no okay that motion fails so we are back to the we are back to the original motion and again we have we have Colonel Finnegan the VTANG Wing Commander as well as Director of Aviation Longo who are here with us thank you again for being here if there are questions that councillors have of our two guests now would be the time to ask them before we would go to a vote and that is Councillor Hightower great I do not have a question I just have a lot of comments I'll start since you went personal I will also start personal which is to say I owe a lot to the military my whole family was part of the military my dad worked for the Army for 43 years my first American school was Department of Defense schools I just can't imagine the impact that it had on my family in terms of being maybe not the right crowd to say this too like a pretty socialist equitable organization as it goes so I do have and I think the National Guard is one of the most community like one of the best franchises that we have of the military in terms of being having a mission to guard to defend and I think so in lockstep with the community and I feel like I strongly have to say this is much more about a vote about the F-35s than it is about whether or not we support the people of the National Guard which I think probably everybody at this table does and so I think this vote is about that we as a council have asked to be tanked to consider the impact they have in various ways during my time as a council my constituents have asked us to have had far more specific and far more long standing asks and those asks have not been fulfilled in a lot of ways and so every time our constituents have come to this council with an ask we've told them there's nothing we can do we say the lease isn't up our powers are limited ask the state I've said this I've done this as an excuse for inaction and so I really don't understand how I'm now in a position to without debate without really consulting the other communities without conversation we're now talking about yes let's extend it for even more decades and render other councils council after council for generations as us. That doesn't sit right with me. I think we need to sit down to really talk about what is best for all the residents of the city and our neighboring cities present and future. I don't think we should sign a decade of lease without really renegotiating what's in that lease in a way that makes sense. I don't think we should be signing an MOU that we're still changing the version of day of. I think that there's a lot here that we could and should be doing better. Today is not the day. I'm not saying that there is no day, but I think today is not the day. I don't think the ask is that we do anything with the F-35s today, and I certainly am not asking us to in any way say goodbye to the Vermont Air National Guard. But I think we should have a conversation around, as Councillor Bergman said, what long-term it does look like to move the F-35, knowing that it'll be a different plane in six years does not make most people feel better probably. I think as you heard in a public forum that makes us just be like, what are we signing up for now that we don't even know what it is? And then two, in the medium term, updating the lease and the MOU and everything else to actually be something that works for vetting and works for our community. And I don't think we've done that yet, so I don't know why we're trying to vote on this today. So I guess I have no idea how this is going to go because I haven't talked to other people, but I'm going to go ahead and say that I'm going to move to table this to our next City Council meeting. So there is a motion to table, and I believe that a motion to table, in other words, you don't want a motion to postpone, you want a motion to table. Well, I'm not from that. A set of time is certain, so I believe that's a move, that's a motion to postpone. Our motion to postpone is an item as to a definite time. A motion to table is to lay on the table. Move to postpone to our next City Council meeting. Okay, so a motion to postpone does require a second. Is there a second to that? Seconded by Councillor Berkman. Debate is allowed. Did you want the floor back, Councillor Hightower? No. Is there anyone who wishes to speak to the motion to postpone to our next meeting? Councillor Grant, and then we'll go to Councillor McGee. Thank you. I'm disappointed that we couldn't separate out the MOU because I think that would have been a really important step, as it was just mentioned. This was an MOU being worked on as recently as today. It is well-intentioned, but very vague in terms of deliverables and how things will be tracked and how the public would be kept informed on these items that are in the MOU, so I just think that there can be significant improvement there, and it's regardably we couldn't separate that. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Grant. We'll go to Councillor McGee. Thank you, President Paul. I just wanted to say briefly, given the hour, that I agree with the remarks that Councillor Hightower made to the underlying, and I will be supporting the motion to postpone, it is not because I don't want the National Guard here. I have great respect for you, Colonel, and for you, General, for being here tonight, and for the work that you do, and for the service members out at the base. When I got elected to the City Council, when I was running for City Council, I would say the top issue I heard about was the F-35s. And that wasn't just from my own constituents, it was from people who live in Winooski, people who live in South Burlington, people who live in Williston. This is the one opportunity I have to make good on a promise that I made to my constituents and to people across Chittenden County to try and make that change. I would like us to be able to find a way to accomplish some of our shared goals and, in the future, have a mission for VTANG that pays care and attention to the needs of our communities. And so I'm hoping with this motion to postpone that we can have that conversation, get a little bit closer given that there is quite a lot of time left on this lease to just get a little bit closer to an agreement that we can all feel good about. So that is why I will be supporting this motion to postpone. If this motion fails, I will vote no on the underlying. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor McGee. So at this point, debate on this motion to postpone to a time certain should be confined only to the reasons for and the time of the postponement. If there are no other Councillors to wish to speak to the motion to postpone to our next meeting, we'll go to a vote and I would ask for a roll call, please. Councillor Barlow. No. Councillor Bergman. Yes. Councillor Carpenter. No. Councillor Jang. No. Councillor Doherty. No. Councillor Grant. Yes. Councillor Hightower. Yes. Councillor King. No. Councillor McGee. Yes. Councillor Shannon. No. Councillor Travers. No. City Council President Paul. No. Four ayes, eight nays. So that motion to postpone fails so we are back to the resolution or actually the motion. Are there any Councillors who wish to ask any questions of our guests or comment on this before we go to a vote? Councillor Bergman. Just to be sure and clear, I wish we had delayed. I wish we could have improved the MOU. I think there probably will still be time for us to do such things, but I really believe that now is the time to have done that for this MOU right here. I wish we had the opportunity to pass a basing resolution or motion. We don't, given all of that, and I don't believe that, given all of that, I cannot vote in favour of the lease extension that's presented to me tonight. I will continue and commit to continue to work with people. I know how to count votes here, so we have work to go ahead of us and I'm committed to doing that and part of democracy when it functions is people who disagree being able to continue to work together. Let me just end by saying that I appreciate the time and effort that you, Colonel, have given me and I hope to continue that so that we both at the end of the day can look at each other and look at our families and constituents and know that we have done the best job possibly for not only them, but each other's where we can. So thank you. Thank you, Councillor Bergman. We'll go to Councillor Grant and then Councillor Doherty and then Councillor Hightower. Evening, gentlemen. Good evening again. Yes, thank you. Thank you for your time in the past week. Shout out to Colonel Finnegan for answering text messages at all hours. Appreciate that. And I too want to echo some things that Councillor Hightower said because I have people who served in my family too. I understand the importance of it and nothing about how I feel about the F-35s reflects how I feel about the people who serve our city, our state, our country. So I want to be very clear about that. When the F-35s first came here, there were promises that were made by our congressional delegation that have now been proven not to be true. And the fears around the effects of the noise and how it affects individuals have really come to pass. And there have been many, many, many, many emails. They've still been pouring in during our meeting. And some people like vote yes, vote no, and that's really all they say. But a lot of people have very specific details about how they've been affected by the noise. And we've heard earlier from a medical professional, we've heard earlier about the equity in the path of these planes, the people who are in the paths of these planes. So all of that is very important. And we know that the F-35 has had a number of issues. I think everyone has seen the report of the plane recently that a pilot had to eject. The plane continued to fly for like another 60 miles. That's really concerning. Some people have asked what is the like backup plan or the emergency plan where reported the F-35 fighter jets caused the Pentagon this past summer to stop accepting some of those jets. So we just know that there's a lot of issues with the F-35. Now, I guess we could kind of take some solace in that they might not be here in the next five or six years, based on previous patterns of when aircraft was allowed, when aircraft changes. But there's no guarantee about that. So there is a concern. I think unity to get a different mission, I think just in the changes we've seen in the last few years that you just mentioned, concerning climate change and different things going on across the world, I think there will be some type of other mission for the guard here. I think when many years ago, when we were looked at and Plattsburgh was looked at, a decision was made to close the Plattsburgh base. And I think, I have to think that strategically, looking at Burlington long term, I'm not sure what the closest space is to us, but I don't, I think it's a little fear-mongering to think that our base would be closed at the bare minimum here to 2048 and a lot can happen then, right? So my concern about saying, okay, now we're going to go over 50 years out and have a whole another generation and other things can happen. We don't know what changes are coming down the line and we're being locked in. We're also rubber stamping a document like, I think this document was typewritten back in the 70s. We just, the amendments and like some of the amendments included just updating like, because of the original document reference agencies that weren't even in existence. So I do think that there needs to be a new lease just to update it and then also to include other protections that are listed in current leases that we're doing now, such as non-discrimination, things about the union. There were some things I was looking at in the beta technologies lease, for example, that was recently signed. Councillor Moran, if you could just wrap up your comments. Sure. So I would just like to push those and to say that there's a dramatic there's a lot of concern within the community. So a couple of questions that I got from the community. A couple of people mentioned the EPA district monitoring report that has not been filed since 2022. And so this link that I was sent amongst our environmental managers about whether or not that test actually applied. I'm not fluent in the exact chemical that they were looking for, but they have moved forward with that and we have taken the test whether or not it applies. We're moving forward to do it anyway. What you're seeing on the website for significant non-compliance is purely a function of time. So I'm assured that the chemicals that they are looking for are not ones that are a factor for us, but we'd certainly be willing to share that information once it becomes available. Great. I would appreciate that. And then another quick question. Do you report emissions only below 3,000 or do you include any admissions above 3,000 feet? That's a good question for our environmental manager. I can tell you whatever is required for us to report we actively do. Okay. So I appreciate the email that Mr. Longo may have Oh, certainly. Thank you. The report that you're referencing is the airport's sustainability report, which normally most airports do only study from takeoff and landing up to 3,000 feet. What we did was we, working with the Air National Garden and the remaining of our aviation program businesses, we studied from takeoff and landing to 3,000 feet and the entire crews of all of the flights out of the Burlington, out of the LAEBTV airport up to 3,000 feet at the destination airport because the 3,000 feet that's remaining is studied at that destination airport. Okay. Very good. It does include all of that. Thank you. I appreciate that clarification. Then my last question is, and this may lead to a motion. So we know, and thank you for the document that showed the compliance about requiring at least to have at least 25 years on it in order to maintain the eligibility for the funds laid out for the various projects that we've been advised about. So my question is can that lease extension be less than 25 years? So if we did a lease extension of five years, then that would maintain the 25 years protect having those funds still be given to us and allow us to do a refresh on that lease to bring it into this decade and maybe update the MOU again. I mean, I would like to see some additional conversation around the MOU even as it stands just to know what I think is important to think about what the deliverables are. We talked about public engagement with both of you in terms of things that the public doesn't know. And I think we had someone mentioned who worked for the guard and says, I'm not sure people know. And that's a very valid opinion and just something to take home outside this vote. But if we do five years, that gives you that minimum of 25 years and it gives us time to look at the lease, to bring it up to this decade, as I mentioned. And I do feel that, you know, to only have been told 10 days ago, we should have been working on this sooner, but we weren't given the opportunity. So you want me to comment on the five year extension? Yes, please. I appreciate it. Thank you. And broadly, the negotiating the lease is certainly not within my authority. The lease that you have is between the city and the federal government. So the National Guard Bureau and the VTANG, we are liaisons in that process. So negotiating what is in the lease would be extremely non-standard. There's 183 leases across the international guard. There's 90 flying wings. They are the standard is 50 years and $1 based on the economic impact that the majority of those organizations bring. I would strongly advise against any term changes on that, as I don't think it would achieve the effect that you may be expecting. And I think it would be a significant process. So if you're going to be a one off as a city moving forward in my conversations with NGB, it's going to be a long process. Additionally, the financial implications to that will be immediately felt by us. So all of our green initiatives are on hold. And while that negotiation process that may or may not be successful, our projects will be on hold. And as it works in the National Guard Bureau, as things get racked and stacked without a lease, if money isn't being put towards them, those projects move off to the side and they become exceedingly more difficult to get across the finish line. And lastly, I would say, if we think about it from the terms of the federal government, the federal government is looking where it's going to allocate its money across the 54 states and territories. If we are putting just a small extension to get over the top, it's not in their best interest to put money into that kind of business deal when they could put it somewhere else. So just because it would meet the minimum requirements for funding doesn't mean that we would get them. In fact, it'd probably be the opposite. So I would advise against it, but it's certainly at your collective body to decide. Thank you, Councillor Grant. We'll go to Councillor Hightower to be followed by Councillor Jang, Councillor Carpenter, and then Councillor McGee. Oh, my apologies. Where were you in the—where were you? After Councillor—I believe after—actually after Councillor Hightower. Okay, thank you so much. Councillor Hightower, and we'll go to Councillor Jang and then Dority. Well, I'm going to do what I was just not advised to do because I don't totally understand how this would be—how this is standard because it doesn't feel like we're asking for the lease extension because it is standard to ask for it at this amount of time. It feels like we're asking for it or the explanations we've been given is more around doing this money. I will say as—one of my very first consulting gigs was helping a company—we'll call it Wagon—helping them think of their water impact and they really wanted to focus on their stores and the water impact on their stores. We're like, you have an entire supply chain that has a far greater water impact than the toilets in your retail stores. I think that is similar to what is happening here. It's nice that the federal government would like to improve its efficiency over its building, but it doesn't seem to have a complete look at its whole supply chain in terms of environmentalism. I—again, I think that this is an amendment. We're not creating a new lease. It's already non-standard, so I'm going to make a motion to amend the first paragraph of the current motion to remove the period at the end of the paragraph so that instead that line breeds terms and conditions of such supplementary lease agreement as attached here to and amended to extend the current lease no longer—no further than 2053 or an additional five years. Thank you, and I'm sorry. I'll take the floor back after a second. All right, so a motion has been made to add after the word here to—if you could repeat that, please, Councillor Hightower. And amended to extend the currently snow further than 2053 or an additional five years. Okay, let's just make sure that we have that. And there is a second to that, seconded by Councillor Bergman. Let's just wait for just a moment until we know that we have that. You don't have that. Okay, let's just hold on just a moment. I do. So, Councillor Hightower is just emailing that to the full council as well as to you, Laurie, so that you have that. So, we have a motion and then we have a second from Councillor Bergman. After you've done that, you said, Councillor Hightower, you wish to have the floor back, so the floor is yours. And I just quickly have to do this because I feel like we were given this pretty quickly. This is impacting a lot of people. We clearly have not had a community discussion around this. And I just—we have the same constituent, so I'm a little bit surprised at the voting pattern. So, I just want to make clear to the public what our options are and what we are choosing that to do. Thank you, Councillor Hightower. Councillor Travers. Here's my concern about this vote, President Paul, which—respectfully, the Councillor Hightower, I think it was posed as a vote that would reflect what our options are. And I've spent the last week and a half, a couple of weeks, speaking to the folks here at the table, speaking to different stakeholders, to really exhaust the question of, is that a realistic option? Can we really consider a least extension term of less than 25 years? And if I felt it was a realistic option, that's something I likely would support. But the answer that everyone has provided me here is that that's not a realistic option, that it's not an option that we can consider without potentially doing significant harm to the Guard's presence here, significant harm to our opportunity to secure additional investments into our great airport. And frankly, because it's not a realistic option, I hear the legitimate concerns of many folks in the public with respect to the mission. I understand it. I also don't want to give those folks false hope. The reality here is that the City of Burlington does not have the authority to leverage the lease to secure a new mission, to leverage the lease to change federal government contracting standards. And I'm concerned that motions along these lines are giving members in our community false hope. Ultimately, the decision on federal contracting standards is a decision for the federal government, is a decision that our federal delegation needs to make. As we get back to the main motion, I'll be happy to speak to this, but I do think there's additional room for us to continue to push our federal delegation on these items. But I can't support this motion because I don't think it reflects a realistic option. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Travers. So there is a motion on the floor. Is there anyone else who wishes to speak to that motion? Councillor Doherty? Yeah, I would just echo what Councillor Travers said and just add to that, you know, everyone on this Council is aware of the impacts of unintended consequences. And, you know, we just heard from the Colonel his assessment about what would happen to this potential grant money. Were we to go down this road? And we heard very clearly his assessment. And I don't think anyone here has reason to doubt that assessment. That grant funding and those projects would be at grave risk. And so it isn't just a question of sort of pursuing a false hope. It's a pursuing a false hope with grave risks presented to what I think are really beneficial projects and investments in our community. And, you know, so that's my thinking on this in an event. Thank you very much. Thank you. Councillor Grant. Council President Paul, may I ask the mayor a question? Sure. What is the question? The question is, I believe when I first started as a councillor, there was an executive session talking about this lease coming up for renewal. And at the time, there was pretty wide consensus that we shouldn't be in such a hurry. Point of order. Point of order. Point of order. Just a moment. Yes. What is your point? Well, the point is why... Well, I think Council Grant is speaking to executive session. So I won't do that. My guess, my point is, why were we only notified 10 days ago that this was now just a very hot fire of an issue? Why were we not notified before? Mayor Weinberg, would you wish to speak to that question? I'm happy to, President Paul. There were two executive sessions, one in August, where I will say I was not clear what the timing would be. I said it was under consideration and then the second executive session was made. We had two weeks ago and I made clear the timing then and we've been following through on that timing. Thank you. Councilor Grant, if you wish to have the floor back and then I'd like to go to a vote, I just want to say that this is what really frustrates people. It's like you put us in this continuous position when we could have had the opportunity to spend a longer period of time in order to engage with the re-contracting process that is required based on what Director Longo and Colonel Finnegan have said. And I think you... I think this was a tactical maneuver. Councilor Grant, your comments are not your main to the motion that we're voting on. I think it is germane with all due respect, Councilor Paul. I think it is germane. I just think this is... The motion in front of us is whether or not to amend the motion as put forward by Councilor Hightower. What you're saying is not germane to the motion. Councilor Hightower, do you have something that you wanted to add? Yes. I just want to speak to the comments that were after my comments, which is that there are two things that we're saying that I heard say as why we shouldn't vote for this. One of them is that we don't actually have power with negotiating this lease. The other one was that we have such power that we would have real devastating consequences if we did this. One of those... Those cannot both be true. Only one of those can be true. And I am willing to test this and see which one of those is actually true because we can't both have no power and have so much power. The second thing is I think it is our job to not just look at our constituents. I think that that is what we've been doing is we've been looking at our constituents when they haven't asked and we say we can't do this because this person told us no and that person says they can't do it because the person on top of them told us at some point we just have to get together and say like hey all of us agree we're going to go up the next level and make them agree and then we're going to go up that next level and make them agree. If this doesn't work for our community then maybe we should just get together and ask for the same things instead of just saying oh we have no power here and so we just have to keep saying no regardless of what any of us want or what because we can't ever convince the person that's two levels up or then three levels up or then four levels up. So no I think it is my job to stand with my constituents and say like no let's actually figure out what's going on here and how much power we do or do not have because either we have no power or we do have the power and one of those has to be true. Thank you Councillor Hightower. So the motion before us is to amend the motion after the words here too to add terms and conditions supplemental lease agreement or my apologies after the word here too would be and amended to extend the current lease no further than 2053 for an additional five years. We're going to go to a vote on that on that on that motion and we'll do it by roll Lori. Councillor Barlow. No. Councillor Bergman. Yes. Councillor Carpenter. No. Councillor Jang. No. Councillor Doherty. No. Councillor Grant. Yes. Councillor Hightower. Yes. Councillor King. No. Councillor McGee. Yes. Councillor Shannon. No. Councillor Travers. No. City Council President Paul. No. Four ayes, eight nays. That motion fails. We are back in the queue and with that we would be going to Councillor Jang. Councillor Jang. Thank you, President Paul and thank you, Major General Knight and Col Nell then again and Nick Longo. Thank you all for being here. And just like Councillor Shannon what she stated earlier, I remember being a new City Councilor. I remember bringing a resolution. I'm seeking to request a different mission of the Bermond Air National Guard. I don't know if people remember but because of the, based on the noise of the F-35s and the impact it has on the health of our children and vulnerable communities, I still would love to see a different mission for our Bermond National Guard members or at least to consider basing the F-35 in the least dense area within the state of Bermond. I mean, I came to a conclusion, are the F-35 necessary even? Right? Because of some impact that it has. But I do believe that that debate, we did pass it. We did pass that debate. We don't have any power. We sent letters, we did everything in our power but we can't to change the mission while keeping the guards here. As you know, we are being asked here tonight is not about the F-35 but it seems that the debate is about it. But this is just to increase that same some funding to make sure that we approve this lease in order for the guards to receive some funding for the grid initiatives. We received clear communication from the colonel, from the major that the lease extension and the F-35 are not connected at all. Right? And there are possibilities for these plans to not be here in the next couple of decades. There are that possibility. But I think what I'm mostly interested about that I did not hear people talk about is the contribution of the men's and the women in the state. They have increased the population. They have increased infrastructure development of the airport and most importantly from my perspective the amount of community engagement with minority community group such as new American. This has been unprecedented in the state of Vermont. An entity really seeking to increase diversity within their ranks. The active efforts to increase diversity have led to actually a federal recognition of the major general night by the federal government. My brother Mahat, who spoke a little bit earlier, has been named one of the inspiring Vermonters under 40 just recently in 2023. Mahat, he's a former refugee and a proud member of the V-Tank. Mahat is currently a substance misuse manager at the United Way. He's also a Burlington High School soccer coach. The V-Tank has given him giving him basically a purpose when Mahat struggled in this community right here in Burlington. Right? There are several other new Americans who visited the base just recently at least twice this year. Twice to come and learn and grow and also many of them are now interested in joining the Guard to be just like Mahat in order to build a better future for themselves for their family in this new place that they all call home. One thing that I also haven't heard is the enter that their mission for the glove. I would like to highlight the state partnership that the guards, the local guard, our guard, our people have with the Republic of Senegal, with Austria and another country. A great partnership with Senegal that dated since 2015 and actually Senegal is where I grow up. I have seen firsthand experience of the health initiative that these men and women are providing where I came from. The training, the medical equipment of the Burma National Guard is providing to the people of Senegal and also to ensure a global peace, a regional peace in West Africa. Right? What I learned over the past couple of months, building relationship with the V-Tank is truly major general night. Colonel Flanagan are truly people with great integrity. I believe if they tell me that this is not possible or this you don't have the power or you need to negotiate it with the federal government, I truly believe it. One thing that we need to strive for as a body, as a city council is how do we build a relationship with the guards through our standing committees such as the transportation, utility and energy committee. And I urge director Longo to please consider facilitating that connection with the guards so that we can know more about the amount of light, the noise mitigation in order for all of us to work together. These men and women of the National Guard are truly a hidden treasure. Only if we open our arms and try to build the relationship, I am confident that great things can happen including maybe a mission change. Just wanted to say thank you and I'm very happy to be voting in support of the lease increase today. Thank you, president. Thank you so much, councillor. Thank you so much, councillor Jang. Councillor Barlow. Councillor Carpenter, did you have a point of order? No, actually I thought it was. No. Okay, so we'll go to councillor. Councillor Doherty. Thanks. Thanks, President Paul. And mindful of the hour, I will, I have a brief comment and then a question on the MOU. Colonel General, thank you for being here. You've heard a lot of opinions about the Air National Guard tonight and the mission and I just wanted to lend my voice to the many folks, including folks from both sides of the political aisle here on the City Council expressing my gratitude for your service and for the service of the Guard, both locally and nationally and globally. I thought what councillor Jang just described was incredibly moving. You know, for many of us, our experiences with the Guard are personal as well as abstract. Colonel Finnegan, as I told you, they're personal for me too. My spouse was a public school teacher teaching middle school on the morning of September 11th and I know you were down there too. So thank you for the work that you do for the community and for our country. With that context, Colonel, as I've also told you, you know, I represent the East District, which is in the north side of the city. And I agree completely with the many members of the community who spoke today and described the noise impact of the F-35s as more than a nuisance, more than an annoyance. And it really and truly is. It is a significant, it has had a significant impact on the quality of life in the city. And as you know, that impact, and others have pointed out, is not felt evenly throughout the city or throughout Chittenden County. Those costs are not distributed evenly. And you know, with that issue at the forefront of my mind and recognizing that there is this distinction between the extension of the lease and the overall mission of the F-35s, I have a couple questions about the MOU itself, specifically, and I don't know, Colonel, if you have it in front of you, paragraphs 3.13, 3.15, and perhaps 3.16, which talk about exploring simulator training to reduce, among other things, the aircraft noise and the investigation of alternative aircraft takeoff and recovery procedures to reduce emissions and specifically noise. My question, Colonel, is can you provide more detail as to what the guard is actually exploring, what those alternatives could look like, and what kind of a time frame could we reasonably expect to see some improvement on the noise quality issues in our neighborhood? A number of issues there, sir. If you're talking about 3-1.3, which talks about simulator training, we've been engaged in that since we started moving into this aircraft, and even more so in the last aircraft. We were a center of excellence for F-16 simulators. So we're very familiar with how much simulation can be brought into the training environment. That said, we are restricted. Again, we're told how much we need to fly and how much needs to be done in simulators, but based on the experience of our pilots and the people that work here, we're engaged with the Air National Guard, we're engaged with NGB, we're engaged with the Air Force to stay up front on what's happening in simulation, and we're always looking for different ways to do things. One of the things that we've done is because we can, we've moved some of our night training from flying to simulating. So that would mean less night flights, less impact to the community. These are things that people may not know. We have 5% authorization for Afterburner. We've used it 0.017, like very small amount, and we're very proud of what we have done in terms of noise mitigation. I do acknowledge the impact that you are hearing, and we hear in the community, like you have seen in the letter. We are doing things here at Vermont in terms of noise mitigation that no one else is doing. But from my perspective, what we've done is something we're proud of, but we're not done. We're always looking for different ways to create less impact. So that involves us working with the airport, that involves us working with ATC, that involves us working with the National Guard Bureau to try to fund studies. These are all things that we have our hands in and are moving forward to see what we can do better. Thanks, Colonel. Thank you, Councillor Doherty. Councillor Carpenter. I'll just try to be really brief and not repeat what my colleagues have said, but I want to point out both to the public, Colonel Finnegan's memo, and if you haven't read it, it's there. And in particular, I want to point out Director Longo's memo, and it answers questions which we've also received about if BTANG went away, how we could use the land, and we effectively can't. We can't put housing on it. It's aeronautical land. It does not create hundreds of units. And I just want to make sure that people know about those two memos and read the detail because there's a lot of explanation in it. Thank you, Councillor Carpenter. I believe we have Councillor McGee in the queue. Okay, Councillor Grant, and then we'll go to Councillor Traverse and then a vote. A question, Colonel Finnegan. Is it possible to create a space on your website that could be a go-to location where people can see? You could commit to quarterly updates to say this is what the Guard is actively doing with regards to sound mitigation because the information that you just gave is really important. And as we discussed, there's just not a sense of that in the community. And when people are affected by the flights that are occurring, they don't feel like anything's being done. So I just wanted to throw that out there. Can there be a space? And then also Director Longo, some of the links that you sent were really fascinating. Can there be, do we have a space? I've actually never been to the airport's website, so I don't know, right? So is there an airport website? What could we put on that website? In terms of deliverables, track those pages. Like how are you going to send people to those pages? How many people are looking at those pages? Because that's how you would tell the various ways you choose to engage in public engagement if it's working by sending people to these areas where they could get information on things that they do not believe are being addressed. Thank you so much, gentlemen. Thank you, Councilor Grant. We'll go to... Point of order, President Paul. I... Councilor McGee. Councilor Hightower is on Zoom and needs to be promoted. Okay. I will take care of that. Councilor Barlow, did you have a point of order? I'd like to call the question. Just a point of promoting Councilor Hightower. Okay, a motion has been made to call the question. We need to second to that motion. Seconded by Councillor Shannon. That item is not debatable, so we'll go to a vote. And let's go to a roll call vote. This is a motion to call the question. Councillor Barlow. Yes. Councillor Bergman. Sure. Councillor Carpenter. Yes. Councillor Jang. She didn't know. I'm sorry. No. The answer was no. Councillor Doherty. Yes. Councillor Grant. Yes. Councillor Hightower. Yes. Councillor King. Yes. Councillor McGee. Yes, please. Councillor Shannon. Yes. Councillor Travers. Yes. City Council President Paul. Yes. 11 ayes, one nay. Okay. Thank you. That motion passes. So we will now go to a vote. This is a vote on the motion as made by Councillor Barlow and seconded by Councillor Jang on the lease agreement and certain memorandum of understanding. We'll go to a roll call vote on that. Councillor Barlow. Yes. Councillor Bergman. No. Councillor Carpenter. Yes. Councillor Jang. Yes. Councillor Doherty. Yes. Councillor Grant. No. Councillor Hightower. No. Councillor King. Yes. Councillor McGee. No. Councillor Shannon. Yes. Councillor Travers. Yes. City Council President Paul. Yes. Eight ayes, four nays. Eight in favour. Eight in favour. Thank you for that. Eight in favour and four opposed. So the motion passes. Thank you so much. General Knight and to Colonel Finnegan. Thank you for your service and commitment to our City State. City State region and beyond just wanted to express our appreciation for your good work and also to the colleagues that you had that joined you tonight and as well as the 1100 others please express our profound appreciation and respect for all of your efforts. Thank you. We will. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you for joining us this evening and also to Chief Lachanson, Director Longo, for your comments and work with the Vermont International Guard. We will move on to the last item on our agenda. That is 8.9, a resolution maintaining open and accessible neighbourhood planning assemblies. And for this resolution I'll go to the lead sponsor, Councillor Travers, for a motion. Thank you, President Paul. I would, sorry I need to rearrange myself here, I would move to wave the reading and adopt the resolution but what I'm looking for here is to clarify there is a version of the resolution on Civic Clerk that is labelled as final amended clean 102323 resolution maintaining open and accessible NPAs and that is the resolution that's being referred to in my motion. Okay, so that is the motion. Is there a second to that motion? Councillor King, thank you for that second. Councillor Travers, did you want the floor back? Yes, please. Okay, the floor is yours. Thank you, President Paul. So I understand it's a late hour and we've had a number of important issues on the agenda but this is an important issue as well. First of all before we go any further I know that we still have Lee Morgan here and Lee I want to take an opportunity to acknowledge how brave it has been of you to come forward after this moment to continue to come forward to the City Council and thank you very much for bringing that issue forward. I know that that's no easy feat and I really view you as an inspiration on this issue for yourself as well as other trans people in our community. You know I served on the Ward 5 NPA steering committee before serving on the City Council and the NPAs were created about 40 years ago and if you go back to the original resolution that the City Council brought forward it talks right there about the NPAs needing to be open and accessible forums for all Burlingtonians. I think for a lot of good reasons our ideas as to what is open and accessible in 2023 has changed from what we consider to be open and accessible 40 plus years ago and when I served on the Ward 5 NPA steering committee we took steps to incorporate that and capture that and updates to our bylaws and governing documents. We included a non-discrimination clause for example that includes all the expanded protected classes that we recognize here in Burlington and Vermont. We stood up public meeting law requirements and a conflict of interest policy as well as a process by which membership of our NPA could elect and choose to remove NPA officers and I think that what we've seen over the last two weeks is that there would be some benefit and really all of our neighborhood planning assemblies considering similar changes. I'm thrilled to hear that a number of the NPAs have similarly taken action to update their bylaws and governing documents but I think it's important that we bring this question forward for our NPAs to be collectively individually discussing this really vital important issue which is if we're going to maintain open and accessible NPAs as they were meant to be what steps do we need to take in order to make sure that happens. I do want to take an opportunity to address some of the feedback that we've received with respect to the resolution. One I just want to deal with briefly out of hand which is that unfortunately there have been anti-trans publications and individuals out there attempting to mischaracterize this resolution and what it's attempting to accomplish taking statements of folks on this council out of context and creating a situation where I can hardly begin to imagine if I was a more vocal trans non-binary advocate in this community how unsafe I would potentially feel, how uncomfortable I would potentially feel with some of these advocates engaging in that kind of behavior. The most recent critique with respect to the resolution before us is cloaked in arguments under the First Amendment with respect to freedom of speech but I do want to just clarify for the public there's nothing in this resolution that calls out First Amendment considerations. There's nothing in this resolution that is compelling any individuals to engage in any type of speech. It is asking our NPAs to consider very simple standard clauses that you see in multiple public entities, multiple public employers, multiple private employers across the board which are standard clauses like a non-discrimination statement and so I think it's really sort of a false argument to try to attack what we're trying to do here under First Amendment principles. The other feedback that we received is one that I really appreciated receiving which is directly from a couple of our NPAs here and having served on an NPA steering committee. I understand the feedback we've received with respect to our NPAs wanting to be more involved in this process to ensure that they have more of a voice in these types of decisions. You know we don't like the city council telling us what to do or what not to do on our NPAs so I hear that and so the version that we have brought forward for consideration by the council includes a couple tweaks which is to the extent it's asking the NPAs to consider amendments to their bylaws. It's asking us to consider standing up a dispute resolution process for if those bylaws are violated. For example if there's an individual that feels they have been discriminated against at their NPA a process by which to bring that forward and try to have the matter resolved and the third piece of this to the extent it's asking that we consider trainings for NPA steering committee members as well as members of the city's other boards and commissions. The version now before the council makes very clear that all of these efforts will be spearheaded by city staff but also in consultation with each of the individual NPAs either individually or collectively as in all wards. This resolution is not expressly calling on any specific action or any specific outcome it's teeing up these three issues. It's the beginning of a really important discussion I think on these three issues that no doubt will continue to involve the NPAs and I'm looking forward over the weeks and months to come are ending up with a really positive outcome on these issues. Thank you. Thank you Councillor Traverse. We'll go to Councillor Shannon. Thank you President Paul and thank you Councillor Traverse. That was very thorough. I would like to call the question. A motion has been made to call the question. We need to second to that motion. Seconded by Councillor Bergman as we know this is not debatable so we'll go to a vote and let's try it by roll. All those in favour or let's try it by voice. All those in favour of the motion to call the questions please say aye. Any opposed please say no. There is a no vote so we're going to have to go to a roll call. Is there was there a roll a no? If no means that I can't comment then I am voting no. Okay so we're going to because we do have people participating by Zoom we will have to go to a roll call vote. Councillor Barlow. Yes. Councillor Bergman. Based on what Councillor Grant said no. Councillor Carpenter. Yes. Councillor Jang. Based on what Councillor Grant said no. No. Councillor Doherty. No. Councillor Grant. No. Councillor Hightower. No. Councillor King. No. Councillor McGee. No. Councillor Shannon. Yes. Councillor Traverse. No. City Council President No. So we will the motion to call the question fails. We will go to Councillor Grant and and if we can just keep keep our keep our comments to a to a minimum so that we can then go to a vote if at all possible. Yes. Councillor Grant. Thank you Councillor Traverse for your comments I do appreciate them and I think it's important to call out that some of the comments we previously heard was that we're not allowing people to live their life to the fullest but we're going to allow them not to allow other people to live their life to the fullest and I think the point is well taken when you talk about what employers require these days in order to support a diverse workforce and it's a point well taken that I think some individuals in our community need to think about. I am of course not at all happy for what happened to Lee but it really brought home the particular NPA that's been having these issues and as a black person I experienced issues there and try to go through what I thought were the appropriate channels and I think when what this is just showing us is that at certain levels in the city when we fail to fully address these type of things it empowers some people and then it gets us to this point where we had something truly abhorrent occur so I think this is going to protect a lot of people in our community and individuals at that NPA hopefully more people will step up to be on the steering committee so that they can make sure that their NPA is inclusive and is welcoming and that is all I have to say thank you and thank you Councillor Grant. Seeing no others in the queue we will go to a vote on the resolution all those in favor of the resolution please say aye. Aye. Any opposed please say no. That motion passes unanimously and with that the conclusion of our deliberative agenda and with that as per the motion to suspend our rules that concludes our meeting I would just ask for a motion to adjourn. So moved. So moved. Don't sound so happy. Thank you Councillor Zhang seconded by Councillor McGee all those in favor of the motion to adjourn please say aye. Aye. Any opposed please say no. We are adjourned at 12.05 a.m.