 Good evening. Welcome to organization day. Very exciting day for our city council. If you don't know me, I'm Catherine Shodd, the chief administrative officer and aside from the budget process, it's maybe the only time that I get to be public facing for these five minutes when I am city council acting president. So without further ado, we are going to call the meeting to order and the first thing on the agenda is the pledge of allegiance. So please rise with me and let's say the pledge. And the first item on the agenda is a motion to adopt the agenda. Do I have a motion? Thank you, Councillor Paul. Is there a second? Second. Thank you. All in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? And that motion passes. And the second item is the oath of office swearing in of our newly elected and re-elected city council members. And for this, I will pass it over to the mayor. Great. Thank you very much. So the way we're going to do this is we have five counselors being sworn in tonight. And if I could ask, one of them is Mark Barlow who is joining us remotely. And if the other four could meet me inside the semi-circle here, we will swear you all in together. Many of you are here tonight and it is the state of the city address from Mayor Weinberger. Good evening. Welcome everyone to City Hall. It is so great to have you all here. And I would also like to say happy Ramadan to Muslims across Burlington and Vermont. I just had a chance to do it here, but I want to say again congratulations to our re-elected city counselors Mark Barlow and Joan Shannon and to our newly elected city counselors, Hannah King, Tim Doherty and Milo Grant. We're excited you're here and looking forward to serving with all of you. I'm also happy to welcome tonight Marcel Lehi representing the Lehi family. Senator Lehi is going to be watching live as well. And we're also really honored and excited to welcome tonight Congresswoman Becca Ballant. It is great to have you here with us and we're all enjoying your first months in office. You're doing a great job. Thank you. And my old friend and now Senator Peter Welch is here as well. Welcome Senator. You know it's really because of you, your leadership, your energy in DC that Burlington and Vermont punched so far above our weight class and we appreciate your service. I am always happy to welcome back to City Hall Mayor Peter Clavel and his wife Betsy Ferries. Thank you for being here with us tonight Peter and Betsy. For many new years now you've offered us wonderful support and advice and we're so grateful for it. I know Stacey is as well. Thank you. I also want to we have another special guest here tonight and that's Kyle Clark the founder and CEO of Beta Technologies and his wife Katie have joined us tonight. Welcome. Kyle we are all so excited and impressed by your vision and the progress you're making towards bringing electric airplanes into reality and we are so proud that you're doing it out at our airport and we can't wait until they're coming off the line out there soon. So it is awesome to have so many others here as well tonight. I can't thank you each and every one of you personally but I am so grateful for your presence here tonight but moreover for all that you do to make Burlington such a special place. I do want to ask the people that are standing behind me who are the great department directors that I get to go to work with every day. It's really been a great privilege of this job to work with them and to work with the whole city employee team that they lead and it would be great if we could recognize them for their incredible service. Thank you. I feel really fortunate tonight to have three generations of Weinbergers here my parents incredibly supportive parents Ethel and Michael have come up from Heartland again both of my daughters my wondrous daughters are here this year hopefully they'll be able to make it through the whole speech we'll see and thank you Leland and Ada for being here and all your support and thank you Stacey what you have done to support me in this role for a long time now has been incredible while also serving in this incredibly important role for the community heading up the King Street Center Head Start program so thank you so you know it really has been a long time now this is the 12th time somewhat surprisingly to me that I have given the state of the city address and while in some ways these 11 years have passed incredibly quickly they will surely go down as one of the most momentous and tumultuous periods in American history here in Burlington we have faced crises since the day I took office first we had to address an urgent liquidity crisis that threatened the city's ability to sustain basic services followed by the challenge of actually completing the sale of Burlington telecom that was necessary to stabilize our municipal finances as I'm sure you'll remember we had the largest construction project in the city's history go silent go dark in 2018 and then it stayed that way for four years when I gave this speech upstairs remotely three years ago two weeks after shutting down the city's bars and restaurants I declared that the state of the city was a state of emergency that summer of 2020 the city held its breath through 34 days of street protests and encampments and battery park and that fall on the second day of the new academic year we had to permanently close our only high school and throughout the last 11 years we've been buffeted by seismic national and international events three days before being sworn in as mayor I stood in a receiving line out at the airport to welcome President Barack Obama as he disembarked Air Force One and then four years later we greeted candidate Donald Trump very differently by erecting barriers on main street to interdict the violent clashes that often marked Trump rallies at the end of my first year in office 26 elementary school students and educators were massacred in Newtown Connecticut I think we all thought that would be a moment that galvanized the country to action but since then annual gun deaths in the US have risen 39 percent and our country's shameful list of mass tragedies has gotten far longer you know as I was writing this speech the latest school shooting took place in Nashville taking another six innocent lives and became already the 13th school shooting of 2023 a very different day Burlington's celebrated on the back steps of City Hall when the Supreme Court declared marriage equality to be the law of the land then rallied in the park after that same court struck down Roe v Wade eliminating a fundamental right for the first time in the country's history from our living rooms and workplaces we watched the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan an insurrection in our own nation's capital and two presidential impeachments tomorrow apparently we will witness the arraignment of a former president for the first time we experienced the worst pandemic in 100 years and a racial justice reckoning 400 years in the making and right now the country is enduring the highest inflation in 40 years and the first major war in Europe in over 70 yet through this all we have forged steady enduring progress here in Burlington our city in 2023 is in many ways a better place than it was in 2012 back then in 2012 we were teetering on a financial cliff millions of dollars in the red today we are once again a double a city with millions of dollars in reserve and that financial strength gave us the ability to deploy resources decisively to fight the pandemic and now lead the economic recovery in 2012 our housing market was badly broken having only produced about 500 homes over the prior decade now after many ordinance reforms and major focus we are starting to make good on the promise that housing is a human right by building many more homes we built almost 1300 in my first 10 years in office and we are now on track to meet our goal of doing that again in just five more years with nearly 800 homes in construction in the city right now in 2012 Burlington had fewer than 25 total solar installations today we have 385 solar arrays generating well over nine megawatts of deployed pv the most per capita of any city east of the Mississippi since introducing our green stimulus incentives in 2020 residential installations of cold climate heat pumps have increased by more than 20 fold and we are continuing and expanding these incentives while investing millions into grid upgrades and other infrastructure projects that will help us electrify everything all while keeping rates low even as utilities across new england saw double digit digit rate hikes in 2012 major elements of our public infrastructure were in disrepair since then we have used our renewed financial strength to complete over 100 million dollars of investments in our essential public infrastructure our streets our sidewalks parks water sewer and stormwater infrastructure and just three weeks ago excitingly the community broke ground on our one of our most important pieces of public infrastructure and that's our nearly 200 million dollar 21st century high school and i want to congratulate and thank board chair claire wall and superintendent tom flanigan for their incredible leadership getting us to this place we know there's a long way to go still claire and we're going to keep fighting with you to get the resources burlington deserves and my appeal here and to see this project successfully built we have funding commitments and engineered in plans in place for this investment and renewal to continue to for years to come within the next year we'll break ground on a 30 million dollar effort to turn main street into a great street with all the upgrades and enhancements that you've seen on st on the lower part of st paul street and turn into a great public space without increasing property taxes through the use of our downtown tiff district and over the next few years we will invest even more tiff dollars and federal dollars rebuilding olive bank street olive cherry street and finally reconnecting st paul street and pine street which have been severed since urban renewal in the 1960s no facet of our public infrastructure has seen greater transformation than our parks when i took office in april of 2012 parts of the bike path were still closed from the spring 2011 flooding and the general state of our parks had prompted voters to lead an effort to create a new dedicated tax for maintaining the parks we got the path repaired in time to host the ron city marathon on its traditional route that memorial day and then we kept working on it for years until just last summer we finished the eight mile 16 million dollar rebuilding and enhancement of the entire path the largest parks project in the city's history we've made major investments in waterfront park and the urban reserve we created two new waterside parks and we have opened the wonders of rock point to the public forever through a contrary evasion easement with the episcopal church all right so i will spare you the details of all of the playground renovations despite how much i have loved picking out playground equipment with the expert advice of adan lee lin at times uh i won't go into that other than to happily report that we were are well into construction of the state's only fully universal and accessible playground i want to recognize our community member annie borden and her son otis who can't be with us tonight but they have been championing this project for years along with dozens of their neighbors who organize under the title oak ledge for all and that oak ledge for all playground will be open this summer and you know annie and otis when you see this i can't wait to enjoy the park with you in 2012 the city was pockmarked with stuck installed projects the former coal fired moran plant sat crumbling amidst the weeds and industrial debris of the northern waterfront bus riders were still using a makeshift transit center from the 1980s and the champlain parkway right away was laying fallow today the revived and remediated moran frame is a monument to the city's innovative spirit on the now vibrant northern waterfront 750 000 riders a year enjoy our 21st century transit center and the champlain parkway is under construction again after a 34 year hiatus so you know of all the city's stories of recovery and investment over the past 11 years none has been more dramatic than that of the burlington international airport in 2012 the airport was actually one of just two airports in the country that were junk bond rated after the troubles that we had had with the building of the new garage there and it was courting disaster with less than one month's cash on hand we now have nearly two years cash on hand and a solid stable rating from moody's and moreover btv as we like to call it is now one of the busiest airports in new england second only i was actually surprised by the stat it is second only to boston's logan airport and it's clearly a economic engine for our region none of this success or the prior decades of growth would have been possible and i'm going to speak now to the senator who's watching at home none of this senator would have been possible without the critical support of you you have always understood what a critical link the airport is between vermont and the world and for 48 years you work to strengthen that link you supported the air national guard a key partner to the airport success and you played a leadership role in securing an astonishing nearly 145 million dollars in federal money that we planned to invest at the airport over the next five years including 34 million dollars of congressionally directed spending that you got into the f y 23 appropriations bill in december just before you and marcel came home to vermont your support of beta our world leading electric airplane manufacturer set the stage for the company to sign last year a lease that could go for as much as 80 years with the city which promises significant future economic growth and technical innovation for years to come senator to recognize your commitment to the airport your lifetime of service to vermont and your special relationship with the city of burlington which we are proud to say is your home and marcel's home once again i am thrilled to announce that the city of burlington will rename the airport the patrick lehi burlington international airport margaret and i are so delighted to join you marcel in all of burlington in all of vermont this wonderful city council to honor patrick j lehi 48 years of honest integrity brilliant service and he has a lot of friends in washington they couldn't all be here but there's a couple who sent videos one from the senate and let's play that now patrick keep your eye on everyone and senator chuck schumer today is a great great day honoring a great vermontor great american and a dear friend i'm sure some of you may have heard of him my good friend patlain pat we already miss you here in washington i hope you miss us too i know you miss my many many falls team but i'm sure you're enjoying the good life up on your beloved tree i also hope you'll come and visit soon when you do it'll be so fitting that you'll be flying out of patrick lehi burlington international airport how about that what an amazing tribute i can't think of anyone more deserving of this recognition than patlain no one's done more for this airport or the state of vermont that lie into burlington the first thing they'll see is pat's name and when they step out into the wonderful state they'll see many fruits of course pat will be the first to shun his accomplishments as his along after all he's just half the equation and he'd be the first to admit it the other half of course is marcell that's a remarkable wife and partner of six techniques we can't recognize pat without recognizing marcell as well so pat and marcell we love you miss you congratulations on this trip and we margaret we have one more video right and beca one more video uh somebody a few of you will recognize we've known each other a long time i remember the first time i went up in camp if you i was a city senator i think i was 32 or 34 years old and they were going after you for running for the senate because you were too young and i was younger you've been a dear friend since then pal you've been a lion of the senate and champion for vermont and a great american or 48 years 17 000 senate votes you've shaped the destiny of our nation and i know from experience that requires some community a lot of community and hardly anyone has spent more time in this airport than you pal countless early morning and late night flights doing the people's business it's fitting it's fitting that the brookly international airport will be named after you everyone who flies through and remember your tenacity and your service your honesty and dignity and the best of what you've provided for the country it's real it's all about you there's no higher honor than being recognized at home by the people who know you best who have given you the privilege of serving for so long from jill and me the entire biden family congratulations pat you and marcel and all the kids and grandkids have done a hell of a job buddy god love you we heard we heard from the mayor we heard from senator schumer we heard from president biden and now we are going to hear from the very best of all marcel lehi goodness gracious i as my children would attest if they were here that i sometimes have trouble with my allergies and i'm really close tonight but um thank you mayor weinberger president paul members of the city council citizens of burlington and citizens of vermont and then the remarks from senator schumer and the president um patrick i just wish you were here and i know that he would love to be here with all of you tonight but due to a back injury he is unable to be here with us in person but he's watching right now seeing my allergies and i can tell you that he is very humbled and deeply moved to have his name associated with the burlington international airport that name's going to change throughout his career patrick always strived to bring vermont values to washington on issues of importance to burlington to vermont to our nation and to the rest of the world his journey to share those values were always begun with his flight out of burlington his love for vermont runs deep and while he worked long and hard in washington he always looked forward to returning home many of you have heard him say and i have too when greeting us at the airport on a return flight that familiar phrase it's good to be home and it is good to be home it's an incredible honor to have you rename the burlington international airport the patrick lehi burlington international airport thank you all so very very much you know as we just heard from marcelle one of the reasons that senator lehi was such a great senator and we're so proud of him is because for 48 years he took vermont's values not only to our nation's capital but but to the to the world stage and he did so much to encourage vermont to stay engaged with the world as well for over a year now ukraine has repulsed russia's full-scale invasion of their country and i really believe that all free people and i know marcelle you believe this too from our conversation on at battery park on veterans day all free people oh ukrainians a solemn debt for their courageous and inspiring stand against 21st century authoritarianism the world is so much safer today and we are so much safer here in burlington with president putin's ambitions blocked and on the defensive than we would would be if we were living in a world where he had succeeded at claiming ukraine by force quickly and easily so this country and the city is standing with ukrainians and aid and in spirit and must continue to do so resolutely we have two young men in our community adam roof and collin hillyard who have understood this and have responded to the war by traveling twice once to poland to the border with ukraine and once the ukraine itself to deliver aid in country and to outfit shelters for fleeing refugees their continued efforts which have involved a lot of fundraising locally have brought over 130 000 of humanitarian aid deep into the country and toward the eastern front lines the people of ukraine deserve and are going to need our sustained attention and help through the remainder of this terrible war and clearly through a long rebuilding uh in the wake of russia's systematic bombing of civilian infrastructure which continues almost every day or every week to that end of providing that support i am commissioning adam and collin to leverage their experiences of the past year and to create a new sister city relationship with a ukrainian city by this time next year in addition to the typical goal of cultural exchange a goal of this new effort will be for brunington to be a partner with our ukrainian counterpart in the rebuilding effort by providing both municipal technical expertise and we have some great experts um as well as continued humanitarian aid so collin and adam go get this done so you know i knew of course when i stood up here for the first time in 2012 that we faced big challenges and a lot of hard work that's that's what drew me to the job i saw the financial crisis and the lack of progress on major public projects and was certain that we needed to and and could do much better what i didn't fully realize was that the tests of this job the tests that we would face together would include having to grapple with fundamental principles and questions about how we live and thrive together in community at this table we have had to answer big questions including how do we come keep our community safe and what is the role of the police in achieving that safety how do we define racial justice and racial equity and how do we pursue it in our time and on our place what is our local role in confronting the global existential threat of climate change and even what role do we have in protecting strengthening and evolving our democracy itself after 11 years of intense passionate debate in this room 11 town meeting days plus at least four more special elections where the community made decisions on dozens of charter changes and tens of millions of dollars of infrastructure investments i now deeply understand the old sentiment the old truism really that in a free society these defining questions are never fully settled and that each generation must answer them for themselves this has been particularly true over the last three years as we've experienced unrest on our streets and at times gridlock at this table with the decisive 2023 town meeting day behind us the state of the city is reunited and stronger for having weathered so much the priorities of this community are clear and we are moving forward so i want to look a little bit at those march election results voters somewhat narrowly a little narrower than i would like voted down an effort to remove significant authority from us the city's local elected officials together we here at this table need to make good on that vote of confidence and deliver progress promptly in its wake on ballot question number seven nearly two-thirds of the city made it clear that they greatly value public safety and they are expecting city government to restore it now when we meet again in two weeks i'll be asking for the council's approval on outstanding elements of the most recent public safety plan that i announced in january creating a what we call a drop plan at the fur retirement plan to retain senior officers through the police departments two and a half year rebuilding period that we still have to go creating an assistant director at the bpd to oversee and coordinate all the new resources alternative public safety and crisis response resources that we've created in recent years together and making a clear council statement of support for partner law enforcement agencies that help us that help us out they help us increase our downtown public safety presence until the bpd is fully staffed once again it's also time to resolve the unfinished debate over police oversight since 2016 we have steadily expanded the burlington police commission's role reviewing all public complaints and offering input to the chief's disciplinary decisions and i think i saw some burlington police commissioners joining us tonight and thank you for your service we should bring this process to resolution by formalizing the police commission's role in a manner that promotes public trust and carefully protects procedural justice for our officers in 2020 city attorney eileen blackwood and i submitted to the council a charter change that would from my perspective do exactly that and that should provide a good foundation for the council and the administration to find common ground to complete this effort quickly as i know the council wants to do as well based on the february resolution that you passed finally we need to recommit as a community to the time honored values and rules that make our downtown safe and welcoming to all as the police enforce our laws and ordinances that ensure both a welcoming downtown and our broader public safety they must meet the high professional standards that this community has laid out for them and when they do that when the police act lawfully and consistently with their training and their policy as they almost always do here in burlington we must have their backs with the same ballot that burlingtonians voted by a large margin for renewed public safety they also voted to expand inclusion and equity by giving all residents all legal residents local voting rights together these two votes are consistent with uh one of my long held and often articulated beliefs that public safety and racial justice should not be pitted against each other burlingtonians know that we must have both to ensure that we do i'm really very grateful to have our new reib director kim karson as a partner in ensuring that we make good on our racial justice commitments and our goals unfortunately kim has a personal issue and she's not able to to be here with us tonight but uh i know she um is very excited about her role in her work she has spent much of her initial months with us assessing the department's structure and capacity and as part of the budget process she will be bringing forward a reorganization that maintains the city's current major investment in the department which is by far the most expansive government agency focused on racial equity in vermont while also restructuring re by reib's resources to have a focused impact on our top priorities those priorities include equity in home ownership and health outcomes expanded economic opportunity and equitable deployment of recovery funds continuing to host a major juneteenth annual event as we have for the past two years and eliminating racial bias across city government continue our city's proud 40-year legacy of climate leadership burlington burlington voters also took a very strong stand on climate action on town meeting day with over two-thirds voting for a second time to create the first carbon pollution impact v in the state of vermont proving that this important and efficient policy tool is in fact politically possible as many despite the doubts of many the latest un climate report paints a stark reality we have no time to lose in this existential fight against the climate emergency i want to thank city councilor ben travers for already taking steps to turn this new charter authority into binding lawful ordinance the administration will work very closely with you in the weeks ahead to get this done as soon as possible we believe that our net zero by 2030 plan as a lot of times may be the most ambitious local climate goal in the country it's also possible that our plan to recapture the waste heat and renewable stream from the mcneill plant is the oldest climate goal in the country and we've never been able to quite get there but we are closer than ever to creating such a system and i am determined to make a final go no go decision with the council in 2023 i do see former bd director uh neil lunderville chuckling a little bit in that this has been our goal since 2014 um but we're still neil is still working hard on it in his role at vermont gas darin springer is vgs sorry darin springer is working hard on it as the as our general manager at bd we have a few remaining hurdles to go get over if the project is a go we will be moving to start construction immediately so there weren't any housing issues on the on the ballot this year there have been in past years but we we know that housing is on just about everyone's mind uh most of the nearly 800 homes that we now have in construction they mentioned before are being built as part of two projects over 400 new homes at city place which i am happy to say is now moving forward at full speed and approximately 250 currently at cambrian rise the city's been a very active partner in both these projects making critical policy changes and public investments to support both however it is really the non-profit and for-profit developers who take the financial risk and do the hard work of bringing these new homes into reality and i want to thank those partners i see some of them are here with us tonight and i everyone who cares about housing i think i hope you will give them a round of applause as well i want to thank cht cathedral square eric farrell and the city place partners for their progress and commitment to burlington you know we have another opportunity there aren't that many of these but we have another opportunity to build homes at a scale like this on what is currently nearly 13 and a half acres of surface parking lots in the heart of the south end end i would like it to be in the heart of what we have proposed to be the south end innovation district so i propose this in late 2021 and the planning commission approved the zoning that would create this new mixed use district that would end the prohibition of of housing in this section of the south end and i do urge the ordinance committee which is about to be created and which is clearly going to be very busy in the year ahead to make review and approval of this new district a top priority in the months ahead our other major major land use policy effort for 2023 is one that would impact the entire city the idea is we are calling the neighborhood code and this too we've been working on for more than a year and so far this effort has documented that uh well we all kind of knew but it's stunning to see it in laid out in a graphic report that is about to be public and that there will be a presentation to the council on this spring and what you see in that is that burlington like many cities made a series of zoning changes going back about 50 years that effectively prohibited older forms of housing that had once housed a lot of people very well duplexes triplexes other small residential structures those time honored really important ways of housing affordably many people are now illegal in about 70 percent of the city's neighborhoods the neighborhood code seeks to reverse this trend and legalize once again these small-scale residential buildings in every neighborhood over time by doing it that way by every neighborhood contributing and chipping in this has the potential to create thousands of new places to live and i think thousands of new home ownership opportunities in the city which we very much need of another area of not many more of housing progress is strengthening our local housing trust fund in 2012 this dedicated tax which the city had been i believe in mayor clavella's time had been a real pioneer in creating it um when it was created though it had been capped and was not rising with inflation and it was only generating about 215 thousand dollars a year with the support of the voters in 2020 to increase that rate along with recent policy changes that we've made together to our short-term rental ordinance and inclusionary zoning policies the annual revenue to the housing trust fund this critical tool for creating permanently affordable homes has increased fourfold to approximately 800 thousand dollars a year this and this funding has created new opportunities for action and i have asked cito to review the housing trust fund policies and initiatives and propose changes that would allow these new local dollars to be invested in efforts to end homelessness to expand opportunities for first generation homebuyers and those who have been historically disenfranchised from home ownership and to support the building of more permanently affordable inclusionary units to ultimately solve the housing crisis though i think we all know that we also need action from state government we need a clear plan for transitioning away from the emergency motel program we need more housing navigators to help people find housing and stay in housing and we need the state to do what the cities of burlington south burlington winooski and other municipalities have been doing for years and that is to acknowledge that we have a massive housing supply shortage and that we have to address that we need to get serious about reforming the decades of wasteful exclusionary or just plain bad state policies right just talked about some local policies that we needed to change but we also need to do that on the state level and the two of these things together make it harder to build homes in vermont than just about anywhere else vermont mayors the lct housing advocates design professionals and builders have been clear for years about changes to act 250 that would have an immediate positive impact and that would have that positive impact without eroding our environmental goals and standards for years these pleas have been ignored and that seems to be on the verge of happening again just last friday the vermont senate voted to study act 250 yet again as has been done many times before you know i i just can't miss this opportunity to say very clearly that from my perspective in the midst of a housing crisis so acute that we have 70 people sleeping outside every night in burlington i was working late last night working on this and i walked past five people sleeping on main street and maple street on the way home in the midst of a housing crisis that acute when renters are subjected to a vacancy rate of less than one percent when so many of our young families are unable to buy a home in this community prices shot up another 35 percent since 2019 we are long past the time for more study to end the housing crisis we need the state to be all in on building many more homes but it's not just with housing that we need urgent structural reform from the state there are many other areas where burlington is straining mightily to address our most serious challenges and we need far greater state government partnership burlington voted overwhelmingly in 2014 for safe storage of firearms and the prohibition of guns and bars such laws would have made a difference during the spike in gun violence that we experienced over the last three years six of the last 17 crime guns recovered by the bpd were stolen guns some have been stolen off the front seats of cars 25 of the shootings were late night bar related incidents yet for nine years our charter changes have sat at the state house pinned to the committee walls you know no other country tolerates this level of gun violence and we should not either if the state legislature and the governor will not allow burlington to make our own common sense gun laws then it's incumbent on them to act for all of vermont now to keep our kids our women and even our police officers safe we need the state to be all in on ending gun violence i think we have some of our partners from let's grow kids here as well could you raise your hand if you're here thank you sam you know since 2018 burlington has been working closely with let's grow kids and has invested more than two million dollars of local funds in our early learning initiative that we launched that year the program is working we have helped to open three new child care centers with those three centers have up to 120 new high quality spots for young children and this year in addition to that or taking some of those spots approximately 75 burlington infants and toddlers will receive city scholarships to put layer on top of the assistance they get from the state and federal governments to attend high quality child care centers however this is not a comprehensive solution and the child care sector is regulated and funded in large part by the state and the state needs to drive structural reforms if we're going to truly make sure that all vermont kids get a fair start in life let's grow kids has been working for seven years in the state house on that comprehensive structural reform and they had a big victory on friday in that same vermont senate when the senate voted for a new 150 million dollar plan but you know these these this effort still has a long way to go and sam i hope you'll share with uh ali richards who want to be here tonight but couldn't who's been leading this effort for the whole seven years that the city of burlington will continue to do everything we can to support this critical bill until it gets over that finish line to do right by our kids families and talented workers caring for our youngest vermonters the state needs to be all in on ending the child care crisis i'm gonna speak to the drug crisis as well burlington continues to drive innovation to end this heartbreaking crisis which has continued to get worse every year since the the end of the pandemic um burlington you know some examples of what burlington is trying to do burlington is the lead funder for the new innovative vermonters for criminal justice reform program that is just a couple blocks away from here and that is doing this pioneering work uh using medically assisted treatment in combination with contingency management and is helping in just a few months over a hundred get a hundred about hundred new people into treatment and i want to recognize and thank tom dalton and jess kerby for their visionary work and leadership on this you guys raise your hands with the with the support of the council we have also added five new social work positions at the police department to you know do an innovative thing for the police to to follow up in part um the social workers are doing other things but they are also following up with the people that they come into contact with that are suffering from opioid use disorder to try to give them an opportunity to go into lifesaving treatment and with the elmwood emergency shelter which has been open since the beginning of the year we have created vermont's first facility structured to bring a public health approach to ending homelessness but you know again bronyton cannot end the drug crisis alone by any means we need help interdicting the huge volume of a legal fentanyl that is pouring into this country from labs in china and mexico and the state needs to confront the reality that with fentanyl fully here the hub and spoke system that there's rightly a lot of vermont pride about creating but you know that system is no longer working as it was designed with the arrival of fentanyl we must expand access to methadone eliminate pre authorization requirements to buprenorphine and legalize safe injection sites to save lives and create an important new path to lifesaving treatment in short to stop the overdose deaths that are taking so many vermonters in the prime of their lives it's just stunning if people haven't confronted this year we have a monthly meeting every week we call it sorry every month call it community staff we've had this meeting since 2016 and one of the things we do at these meetings often is to look at the documented overdose deaths in the last month and every month the stories involve people who are in their 20s and their 30s and their 40s and their 50s we see portraits sometimes of people that we know a little bit more about these are people who are working and critical jobs they have families they have many loved ones and yet we haven't been able to turn this around and it just keeps getting worse every year if we're going to stop the overdose deaths that are taking so many vermonters in that prime of life the state needs to be all in on harm reduction burlington has been leading the nation on energy and climate policy for decades with our burlington electric department net zero incentives and new historic initiatives in president biden's inflation reduction act there has never been a better time and a better place to go electric than burlington in 2023 but again there is so much more to be done to create new sources of renewable energy and decarbonize the regional grid and economy there are billions of federal dollars available for states that are focused on getting to net zero on creating green industries and on cutting costs to their residents to do our part in ending the climate emergency the state needs to lead and be all in on reducing fossil fuel use and electrifying everything with renewable power when the state goes all in on these critical challenges burlington will benefit greatly but you know what so will bellows falls so will heartland so will canan because for all the focus on the rural urban divide in montelier and in washington the reality is that our futures are tightly linked there is not a corner valley or a village in these green mountains that would not benefit from decisive state action to create more high quality child care opportunities expand access to drug treatment build more homes and support for the unhoused stop gun violence and boldly confront confront climate emergency thank you again for joining us on this annual night of democratic renewal to my colleagues on the council i'm looking forward to our work together ahead our agenda is public comment please note that tonight public comment will be limited to our city council action items for the meeting election of our city council president and election of board of finance members are there any members of the public wishing to speak to either of those items is there anyone online wishing to speak to those items not seeing anyone in line or in con toys we will go ahead and close public comment moving on to item number five election of the city council president are there any nominations yes councillor travers it is a great privilege to nominate councillor caron paul to remain our council president for the next year and at the appropriate time would like to make a couple remarks in support of that nomination excellent are there any other nominations oh awkwardly i have to ask again are there any other nominations hearing none councillor travers you can have the floor back thank you here in this room we have a number of past council presidents i'm thrilled to see former council president bill keo here among others councillor paul you have continued and built upon their legacies leading with honesty and integrity you came into this role a year ago with the unanimous support of our colleagues and i firmly believe you have followed through on the trust that was placed in you a year ago i think because of how seamlessly you came into this role it's lost on folks how much work goes into the role of council president i think i can speak on behalf of everyone in this council when i say we're glad you're the one who's doing it you have preserved con toys as a place where all voices can be heard in an open and respectful manner you have built agendas that for the most part have not had us burning the midnight midnight oil too often over the past year you have recognized that we as this council are going to have our disagreements but you've also worked very hard for us to hash out our differences before so before we come to this table in our meetings and in so doing i know you've treated everyone at this table with fairness and transparency because of that work the public has seen and i have personally experienced a more collaborative city council over the past year through that work i believe i can speak on behalf of the administration and the amazing team that works for our great city when i say you have earned their respect i believe i can speak on behalf of our community when i say you have earned their respect i know i can speak on behalf of this council when i say you have earned our respect and i'm excited for the year to come under your leadership thank you are we ready for a vote all those in favor please say i hi hi any opposed and the motion carries unanimously congratulations this would have taken even longer thank you so so much thank you councillor travers for your kind words and nominating me i beyond what i can say i am deeply grateful uh a warm congratulations on their re-election to this body to councillors barlow and shannon and while it's wonderful to be re-elected there is nothing more special than the first time and a warm welcome to councillors king grant and dora d congratulations to each of you on your election to the burlington city council i know you have all worked very hard to be here we're excited to work with you we're excited to support you and we're excited to assist you in your new role as city councillors last year many of you at this at this table took a leap of faith in unanimously supporting me for this role and tonight i am deeply appreciative and equally humbled perhaps more than i can fully express for this council support and continued vote of trust and confidence in me our love of this city that we all call home and our commitment to the noble cause of public service are the reason the reasons why we all sit at this table we show that commitment when we are each at our very best working together showing mutual respect for one another the community expects us to rise above the rhetoric and the heat of any debate and not allow the moment to blur what we all know to be true in each other our differences should never come first what we have in common all of us all 12 of us and finding a path forward must always be our guidepost the wisdom within each of us that offers us guidance light and vision when faced with a complicated issue we will have debates over the most pressing issues of our day and contentious issues test us there is no doubt in my mind that we can and will remember that disagreement can be direct and respectful at the same time it can be complete and it can still be fair minded and together all of us we will set an example for our constituents and greater community of civility of collaborative governance engaging more with those we disagree than agree understanding more than projecting always remembering that this office that we are so incredibly honored to have is so much greater than ourselves and this body will live on long after we leave this table together over the next year we will write chapters that will become our city's history and I am so excited for the level of debate that I know will be enriched by each one of you and each of your unique voices we may sit at this table in a semi-circle but in many ways we are linked in a solemn bond of service one with no beginning and no ending and our greatest strength is one of bringing our community effective democracy oversight that honors this council's unique role in our city government and actions that are reflective of our broad and beloved community it is in it is within each of us to recognize the gravity of our office and share our impact to inspire others with an open heart to help those in our community who are looking to us for stability and to infuse our hope for our community to aid those for whom hope is in short supply the shift that we have seen in the past year has been one that has brought greater inclusion and welcome to all perspectives I hope that you will each join me in continuing that journey no one of us not even some of us can share this mission if we are to be successful we must all share it we must all nurture it and we must all support it to the voices to the right and left of me at this table my commitment to each of you remains as it was last year it is unchanged and unwavering I will do my very best every day to value each of you and to honor the perspective that you bring to this work I will do my best to exhibit fairness transparency and to always be responsive to each one of you I am looking forward to a productive year as I know you all are one where we honor and learn from our past embrace and affect just and responsive change and continue to improve our city for the present this I know and you all know we can do together thank you so much for listening more than words can really say I am so grateful that we are sharing this celebratory moment and this entire evening together thank you so much so we do have a couple of other things that we need to do this evening the next order of business on our agenda is item six which is the election of three city councillors to the board of finance and for a motion on this item I will go to councillor hightower thank you president paul um as has somewhat become our tradition I would like to nominate a slate for the three seats that are for city councillors to the board of finance in addition to your own seat president paul which is um councillor ali ding um councillor joe megey and then joining us online councillor mark barlow thank thank you so much councillor hightower are there any other nominations to the board of finance are there any other nominations to the board of finance as ceo shad said that's that uncomfortable moment where we all sit and wait a motion has been made by councillor hightower to elect councillors megey jang and barlow to the board of finance for the next council year seeing no other nominations I will close them is there any councillor who wishes to speak to the motion before us seeing none we'll go to a vote all those in favor of the motion please say I all right any opposed please say no that motion passes unanimously congratulations to our colleagues councillors barlow jang and megey on your election to the board of finance seeing no further business on our agenda I would welcome welcome a motion to adjourn so moved thank you councillor megey seconded by councillor travers um all those in favor of the motion to adjourn please say aye all right any opposed please say no that motion passes unanimously and we are adjourned at 7 24 wishing you all a good evening thank you so much for joining us