 So it's time to start our, our meeting here on November 9th, 2022. It's 7pm. This is the ward one neighborhood planning assembly meeting. And I'm your facilitator. My name is Tom Darenthal. And I think we're going to start by going through introductions and then announcements. So could we start here with Carol? Sure. I don't know if people can hear me from this angle. Hi, I'm Carol Livingston. I live on Calarco Court. I'm a member of the steering committee. And I just want to introduce a couple of folks who we never introduced, are sort of the bulwark of what gets us going here every meeting. Charlie Giannone is actually, he works for CCTV, but I think does a lot also by volunteers to do our meetings. He is a member of the NPA in long, long, long term of NPA two and three, boards two and three. And then Sam Heinrich is our CEDO liaison. He is a full-time student at UVM. He is a junior. He is carrying a full load, as well as 20 hours for us. So these two folks work with us pretty regularly to help be sure these meetings happen. So I just want to recognize them. Carter. Yeah. My name is Carter Nubizer. I'm over on Colchester F. And I'm a steering committee member now officially. Here. Hello. Thank you. I'm so delighted to be here. My name is Maya Brant. And I will be running to be the East District City Councilor. So it's so nice to meet you. Hello, Zariah. I'm Jonathan Chappell Sokol. I live on North Crosswood Street. And I'm on the steering committee. And I just want to point out also, Carol, that was really nice what you said about these folks. Sam helps out all the NPAs, which is an enormous amount of work. It's not just us. And we're really grateful that he does that. I'm Angie Chappell Sokol. I live on North Crosspeck Street. And I, too, thank the gentlemen who run this. And I'm not talking about the political part. I'm talking about the technical part. Hello, I'm Robert Bristow-Johnson. And I'm visiting you. I'm, I live in Ward 7. So I'm here just for a specific issue. And it'll happen eventually tonight. Richard Hilliard live on High Grove Court in Ward 1, perhaps temporarily in Ward 1. Hi, everybody. My name is Erhard Manca. I live down in the old East End at 60 Grove Street. I've been a member of this NPA since the very beginning in 1983. Hi, I'm Troy Hedrick. I live on Bility Court and will be representing Chinat 15 at the Vermont House starting January 4th. So, hi. And I believe we have some announcements. Jonathan, you want to talk about Crosspeck Street? Oh, oh, shoot. We have people online. Sophie, you want to introduce yourself? Sophie Quest from Living Chase Street in the Old East End. Congratulations, Sophie. And Zariah. Hi, Zariah Hector. Is she here? I think all of you know me. Sorry, I'm joining remotely again, but I'm not sorry that I'm in New Orleans right now because the weather's lovely. All right. Announcements. Jonathan. We do. Hello. Hi, it's Sharon Busher. I'm remote also. Okay. Hi, Sharon. And I live on East Avenue. And there's someone else? Sarah. Hi. Excuse me. Sarah Flash. Oh, I don't have any light on. Oh, well. So, yeah, I also live off of East Avenue. Word 1. Thank you. All right. Did I miss anyone online? No. All right. Thank you all for coming. And I think we have some announcements. Jonathan. Hi. In case you're curious, what's going on on North Prospect Street, I got an update from Rob Goulding. This is yesterday. He says, in speaking with the contractor this morning, the last few sections of sidewalk will be poured today at North and Loomis, and they were. Backing up curb should be completed by tomorrow when this is done. All paving in the roadway will be done. They hope to have all drive aprons done by the end of the week or early next week, if all goes well. And I know they did all the drive aprons between North Street and at least Henry, maybe to Loomis, then last day or so, right? When I asked him a little further, Rob said he thought that there was a very good chance that North Prospect Street would be shovel ready, plow ready by the end of next week. So we may see a two way street again by Thanksgiving at least. Thank you. Do we have other announcements from people online? Seeing none. There is, I do have one announcement and that's it. We'll be having a candidate forum for the position of East District City Councilor. That's going to be next week. It's on the 16th. And for those who wanted to see that in person, it's going to be right here on North Prospect Street and there'll be a Zoom option as well. Any other announcements? Shifting anything for speak out. Thanks, Tom. Again, Erhardt Monca, longtime Ward 1 resident. So I just, I know Zariah is going to be talking about redistricting a little bit later, but I just wanted to maybe remember or kick off that discussion with some concerns that I have around some of the most recent maps that were under consideration by the City Council at its work session this past Monday. In particular, if you go to Bird Docks, there is a version of there are many, many maps there. And the one, I mean, a high right is the one that appears to be the one that is being favored by a number of City Councilors, potentially a majority in possibly somewhat modified form, but it's labeled, they all have complicated labels. I believe this one is called North, Ward 8 to North Hill, and there's a version one and a version two. Thanks, Trice, holding it up. Thank you so much. Okay, sure. Thanks. Thanks, Charlie. That map, in my opinion, eviscerates what we all have come to know, and I expect love as Ward 1. It eviscerates the district that I used to serve back when Bernie Sanders was mayor in the 80s. I mean, there have been obviously some changes over the years through redistricting because of population differences, but basically what this map does is it takes out some of the more, you know, as I think we all know, Ward 1 is a balancing act. We have the institutions, we have a lot of students, we have a lot of short-term renters, and then we have a significant number of homeowners as well. It's been a, as long as I've been involved, which has been 40 years at this point, it's been quite the balancing act. What this map does is it weds what I would call the more stable sections of Ward 1, the more that have higher concentrations of home ownership with a portion of Ward 2 and parts of Ward 8, and essentially leaves the rest of, and calls it Ward 8, so carves it out of Ward 1 and leads, and so the geography is, this new district would go from approximately Mansfield Avenue on the east side to South Union on the west side, almost all the way up to Riverside on the north and down to Main Street on the south, and basically what it leaves for Ward 1 is mostly a student district with many short-term renters and smatterings of homeowners here and there, some down in the east end, the old east end, some along East Avenue and other little pockets. This in my mind completely destroys the sense of community that I have felt, and I think that many Ward 1 residents have felt for many, many years. It creates what I would consider kind of a sacrifice zone in order to fix the problems that were created with the creation of Ward 8 10 years ago. So I just want to highlight this for folks. I believe the city council may be voting on this fairly soon, possibly as soon as it's November 22nd meeting, and I would urge folks who might share these concerns and considerations to email the city council by next Wednesday, expressing your opinion, hopefully one that does, that expresses concern about, about this, about this map. What I would like to see, and granted that Ward 1 has increased in population and will need some boundary changes, another thing this does is it actually increases the number of students in Ward 1 by dipping back across Main Street and picking up part of living learning, Marsh House and Tupper, Harris-Millis, those student dormitories and adding them into the Ward 1 mix, so increasing the student population in Ward 1. I think one of the principles of fairness that redistricting really should look at is a more or less equitable distribution of student population in several different wards, that being Ward 6, Ward 1 and whatever might become of Ward 8. So I would just urge folks to send in emails by next Wednesday, I believe would be the deadline for that city council meeting, and just as a quick heads up later on when we discuss this more, I will be prepared to offer a motion for the NPA to consider to reject that particular map. Thank you. Richard. Thanks. Thanks. It's particularly good that Sandy's just popped up online. I'd just like to say that Sandy was talking about real estate over the past about six months ago, and just like to report that within about 200 yards of my property, and it's all in one direction, all south, east and west, not north, four properties have changed hands over the last, I think, three months, all gone to relatively young owner occupiers, at least two of them were a rental, and another property that's just over the state line, as it were, on North Willard Street, has also gone to a young owner occupier. So I think that's very, very positive news for our community. Just want to put that thank you. Sharon, you're up. Thank you. So at the last NPA meeting, I spoke and Zariah was present, she was talking about redistricting, and I've been following this pretty carefully, and I'm not going to repeat what Earhart said, although Earhart and I both spoke at the City Council meeting on Monday at their work session on redistricting, voicing concerns, there were other maps, and some of them were more favorable in maintaining a more cohesive ward, one that had a better distribution of the various populations that Earhart referenced, but those were rejected mainly because of what was perceived as the continued gerrymandering or bizarre shape of the of Ward 8. So the criteria, just so that you all know, that the Council has, is that they have to respect the integrity of the new north end and the old north end, and they have to keep them separate. They have a criteria that they should more fairly distribute the on-campus, note on-campus student population. They are not considering off-campus students, and they are also looking at, oh, what's the other thing? Earhart helped me. There's one last piece there, and so in doing this, oh, Ward 1 ended up gaining, as he said, some student population from across Main Street, meaning that we had to lose population someplace else, and although Earhart defined it, I think to make people that are listening to this understand, this means all of Brooks Avenue, all of Loomis Street, that is in current Land Ward 1, all of Henry Street, all of North Street, Colonial Square, I mean, this is where most of our board and commission members come from. This is mainly where most of our elected election officials come from, so it really guts the ward, and it really changes the diversity that once was present and makes it now the remaining pieces. If that portion goes to the new Ward 8, the remaining pieces of Ward 1 are now having the same problems of the criticism that the council currently has about the current Ward 8, and the fact that it has not adequate representation of long-term residents, and it's not a good spread or diverse population, and so they're leaving us with really very little to work with, and I think that that's problematic. No one, I want to note that I know that Zariah, I'm going to call you, I was going to call you Zariah, but Councillor Hightower was not present at the meeting because of some misunderstanding, so there was no representation for Ward 1 or Ward 8 during this conversation, and all the other councillors live in sections that are protected and really aren't going to change very much. It felt incredibly uncomfortable and really was troubling to me to have decisions made for two wards that lacked representation at a meeting. So as Earhart said, I wrote a communication, which is wordy like I always am, but it did say if you share concerns about this current map, please write to Laurie Oldberg at the City Clerk's office and make sure that it can go to President Paul and the City Council, and I'm hoping that on the 21st, if they take this up, that there will be some input from people if you share those concerns that Earhart and I have referenced. Thank you. Thanks, Sharon. Other people first speak out, and your name is? Peter. Peter, you've got the floor. I just wanted to say that when Sharon was listing those streets, in my mind was flashing people I know who have been political figures, activists, community figures from those very streets, active in many cases representing the Ward. I think it really is true that that particular neighborhood has a kind of core property, a historic property almost, of the kind of people who get involved in things and represent the Ward well. So I really agree that it would be a hard thing to lose that section of the Ward. I just want to amplify what they both said. Thank you. Carter? I'm just joining the course and I was going to agree with Earhart and also just know, stand up for students a little bit. I'm a younger guy here. I once was a student, that's why I came here. It's totally reasonable for folks who own homes, I don't know, it's totally reasonable for us to want to build a community and have stable neighborhoods. And our city makes a lot of money off of students. The university makes up a lot of money off of students, businesses downtown do, it drives the economy and certainly landlords make a lot of money off students in this city. And so I think that this downtown district, however it's configured, and Ward 6 and us sort of have a responsibility to evenly split on campus students in an equitable manner. And there was an eight word map that basically kept Ward 1 intact after the last NPA meeting that I saw. It was a new map after the last NPA meeting that did that. So I don't know, so that's my preference personally. But yeah, I just wanted to voice that. Any other issues for speaker? Oh, do you mind if I just jump in here and relinquish the redistricting part of my thing just to have it be a little bit more of a conversation? Is that okay? Yes, go ahead. Great. Yeah, so I think folks are generally, so I missed the meeting but I went back and watched it because I had some flight changes and then some more flight changes. So Karen originally moved the work session earlier so I could be there after they made the flight changes but then that didn't work out either. But I just, so I mean, I guess I want, one, I think what Earhart had said and to have like a formal statement from the NPA would be really helpful. I think I'm going to talk about the politics of what's going on a little bit just so folks understand and I think that it is unfortunate that right now we have a little less representation. So after the last NPA meeting, we, I pushed really hard to have the seven word map back on the table and it was put back on the table. But then there was a city council vote. There's very little support for it beyond me. There was a city council vote to move forward but it's just the eight word maps, which I would have been the only person to vote no on. So now we're back to the eight word. As we know there's there's the two maps early that kind of keep board one intact. There's a portion that's closer to downtown that gets cut out, which is reasonable because we have to downsize in an eight word map. The south end counselors really don't like that because it adds a lot of student population to their ward, which they're fighting really hard against. And because the south end counselors are part of the Democratic Coalition, I just don't have the votes right now to push back on that. So I think the biggest, it's like, I don't know if I can only be indignant about so many maps. And so I tried to find the ones that were the least that I think would be the least popular. And I think that might be one way to phrase it is like what we absolutely can't live with. There's, and so if we look at the six maps that are there, I wonder if we can kind of agree on which ones we can't do. And maybe, and I do want to say like, I know that folks ended up settling on, I don't know what I think they're called the North Hill or something like that, neighborhoods. And I think there's some different things we can ask for. But I just, I think I want folks to know that everything that I'm going to ask for, I'm going to ask for as a compromise. Like, that's really the only way that I can move forward is to be like, what about this, because ultimately, the two maps that I really like the top two, I think it's not just about keeping Ward 8 the way it is. It's also about the student population going so heavily to Ward 6, which isn't something that folks want to see. And then the one, and I do think I've mentioned, Karen knows this, Ben knows this, Mark knows this, they've heard me say this so many times is Ward 1 does have a really high off-campus student population, has the highest off-campus student population. And I think that continues to not really be considered in this debate. I don't think that that means, I am wary, I think Christopher's talked about this, he was in the working session, has talked about this, that it's also doesn't sound good to be like, oh, we want to split up the student population into as many words as possible, that doesn't feel good. Again, to Christopher's point, if we substituted any other population into that, instead of student population, that would sound terrible if we said, oh, we want to make sure that the black population is divided evenly into all the words. So I don't want that to be too big of a focus, but I think keeping some of the historic boundaries, I think some of the maps, honestly, it's like, yes, they get rid of the weird Ward 8, but they also look very gerrymandered. There's little pieces that are being cut off in very strange places. But I think Earhart's suggestion of saying, this is what we can't live with, and this is the minimum of what we ask for would be really good and have some ideas on what that could be. But I don't want to speak for too long during Speakout. Thanks. And I think that's Kathy's hand, I saw. Kathy? I just wanted to know why we can't go back to seven wards and 14 representatives to from every ward. I find that we're cutting, we're making these wards huge. And we're also not having enough representation. And I can tell you alone on the school board, because I'm sure we're going to go down the same path you guys are going down, is that we have an awful lot of work to do. And, you know, I'm between one and eight, running back and forth. So I have three MP, two MPAs and a school board every month. And that's not all the other stuff that we have to do. And I just feel like in these days, we should be adding to democracy and not cutting it back. And I feel like that's what they're doing here. Yeah, I was really frustrated. I, but like last city council meeting, I was the only counselor who wanted the seven ward maps. It was the progressives don't like it, because it mixes the old north end and the new north end, then independence don't like it there, because they're often the new north end, it mixes the old north end and the new north end. And the seven board has the same issue with board six or the south end of that it puts all of the current ward eight students into the south end. So the Democrats don't like it. So for political reasons, nobody likes it, even though I think it makes the most sense for our city. So I think, but I think as if there were a few counselors, and I just had to convince them it would be possible. But as me being the only counselor who supports the seven ward by two map right now, I think, unfortunately, it truly is off the table. Would you like some information from somebody outside of Ward 1? I'm sorry. I forgot your name. My name is Robert Bristow-Johnson. Robert, you've got the floor. Okay. So my only portfolio is that I served on the redistricting committee along with Richard Hilliard here. And then I have worked a lot on a bunch of maps that would get some exposure to counsel about that. I have, I can show you briefly what a plausible seven ward map would look like. I don't know how you'd get it on camera unless I got hooked into the zoom thing. We can kind of see that. I could mail it, but let me just talk about this. Any seven ward map will require wards four and seven to expand downward because there's no other place for us to go in the New North End. And so one of those two wards, probably Ward four, would have to expand into the old North End, at least as far as North Street and as far west as east as La Fountain, or all the way down to Battery to the Battery Park and as far west as Park, as far east as Park Street. And that's probably the least objectionable. And that was seemed to be objectionable to folks from the old North End. And there's no way to avoid that with a seven ward map. Now the other consequence, if we go to eight wards, because Ward one is one seven, by the way, if we did a seven ward map, Ward one is golden because you're one seventh of the city right now. But if we go to an eight ward map, then Ward one is big, is too big. And so then things have to change a little bit. Now there is one way that you could keep most of the character of Ward one and with an eight ward map. And this is different than the on this. Oh, go ahead. You know, we're gonna, we have a separate time slot. Okay, then maybe I should let this go until then. And I think, you know, if you can email this, I will, we could, we could show that I'm happy to do that discussion. And and that's only going to be in a few minutes. So, but before we leave, speak out just one quick error. Yeah, very, very quickly. Oh, I just wanted to correct them, perhaps a misimpression. When I talked about a more equitable distribution students, I did not mean to have that sound like we don't want any students. I came here as a student of UVM myself and honored the contribution that they make. So just want to correct that, that potential misimpression. Okay, are there speak out issues on something other than redistricting? Because we're going to come back to redistricting in about 10 minutes. So it's, it's going to be there. Um, Maya, did you want to say anything at this point? Zersh and I'm just happy to join you tonight. And for those that don't know, my is one of the candidates for City Council to for the East District. And you'll, I think you're gonna be here next week. Yes, I'll be here next week. Yep. The forum. Yes. Okay. Yeah. But I hear loud and clear that East District needs representation. And I would like to step up and help out with that and represent these opinions. So thank you. Thank you, Tom, for the opportunity. We're going to move on, at least temporarily, to the school commission update, which, Cathy, you got to be smiling after that discussion. Come on. You got to come up and come over here to get in the camera. What? I'm making you come over here to be in the camera. Oh, to be. You leave that there. We have a microphone for that. Oh, the camera scrolls to her. Wait, she can, she could have stayed. She just thinks the microphone. Right here. And there's the camera. You're in camera here, you know. No, I just want to warmly thank all of you here and not here for everything everybody did because it was a heavy lift and you all chipped in, wrote letters, stood out and honked and waved and went door to door. Some people, it was, it was really wonderful and well, you see the 75.6% we couldn't have gotten a better answer to what we needed. So thank you all very much. And that's really all I have to say because that's all we've been working on. So now the hard work of continuing to fundraise. I mean, we have so far gotten $66,000 and without asking that's people just stepping forward giving to this that live in Burlington and really want to see a high school and they knew they had the funds to be able to donate. But we will start asking in earlier on later on within the next couple of weeks. That's our next big thing. Besides writing large grants and some of them have already been written and more will be written federal grants and state grants. We are going to organize and I'll probably be back asking you all to help because the Department of Ed has kind of pretty well answered the letter we have written asking for some of the 32 million that they have for the PCB remediation. And they told us that it wasn't to be used for us with all the school in the state that has been closed down. There's one school, the I think their gym out and I don't even remember the town. It's a small rural town. And they're not getting it either. So I don't I don't know what they're going to do with the 32 million. But we also need to go back to them about starting to give us everyone in the whole state because this is just the tip of the iceberg. This is going to continue as they start testing schools. So there are I think, you know, the possibility of millions and millions that are going to be needed to build new schools around the state and and the state needs to start putting back to 30% for building costs for schools across the state. Otherwise, I mean, all these schools, many of them. The reason is that they were built in the 60s and 70s and that's across the whole state. So now they're all built with PCBs and they are going to get tested. So yes, we still have a lot of work to be done. I don't want to say that, but I'm very, very happy about what happened here. And I thank you all for helping with that. So thanks before you go. Any questions? Oh, yeah, which is just one just to thank you to Kathy for so many years working so hard to advocate for students and especially on this issue. I know it's been a lie. And then just a question around the I don't know how much you can talk about it. And if it's been more discussed in executive session or something like that, but the lawsuit and if I like how likely that feels and what the timeline for that is. You know what? It I think it was being next this week or next week, it is going to be surfed or whatever you say when you can you tell us what the lawsuit is. Oh, it's a gap. It's it's against Monsanto. Oh, that's it. Yes. To help with the remediation costs of this. So. All right. Yes. But I don't know because I haven't seen the writing out there because they were writing it to the lawyers and stuff. So I mean, there's also a lawsuit from teachers that worked for years at BHS. And I think there's three of them right now that are together doing Monsanto as well. So any other questions? No, I have to. I do have one other question. Okay. The fundraising effort. What's the goal? How much how much money are you trying to raise? As much as we can. Do you have a friend in LA that just won a lottery? No, but we have very generous people. Okay. And within Burlington and also we're going to look at it. We also have a lot of people that graduated from BHS and left Burlington and live up to where we're hoping they will to be willing. So we're talking about tens of millions that you want to raise? Well, that would be very nice. But we really haven't sat down and set a amount. We just coordinated with the Burlington Students Foundation that we had a 501c3 to go with. And now and we needed to really pass the bond to even start that because we couldn't we couldn't write a lot of the grants unless we had a bond because they're asking is the community committed? And the bond shows that it is. Yes. Okay. So that's kind of and we're hoping that we don't use all 165 million of that. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Go ahead, Angie. Yes. I just want to thank Kathy, my neighbor, personally, but also also as a representative of our neighborhood for how much time and effort she has put into not just this bond issue, but for years and years and years, she's represented our neighborhood in the interest of families and children all over the city working for education. And she has been a great contributor to what has happened and what happens and how it is our children get educated in the city. So I just want to commend Kathy for all of her years and thank her for what she does because it's really, really important what you do. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you. So we are returning to redistricting. Do we have a map that you can show? So before we do that, Zaria, did you want to say something to initiate this conversation or should we just continue with? Yeah. So maybe just to let Robert know that we have had this conversation and PA. So I think most folks are kind of oriented onto... No, you haven't. You haven't seen any of these maps. So sorry. Sorry. We had the conversation about like seven warden, what that does and things like that. And then I'm happy to have Robert go first a few months and then I can show folks if they haven't seen the six maps that the council considered yesterday. So kind of like what the council is looking at right now. Because again, I feel like that there's a... And then I think the goal should be for Earhart's suggestion to have some kind of like, please don't do this map version. Okay. We're going to start with your maps, Zaria. Great. Do you want me to share or are you all able to share over there? There's the North Hill version one, version two, and then they have a longer title. It says main campus and some Champlain. Great. So if you can link down on that first eyeball, that little left thing, just so I can talk through. Yeah. So folks can see that at the same time. Great. So at the beginning of the the last two, sorry, the last two, the last two maps were added kind of late. And we're going to start with the first two. So the first two are the maps that I said. So Karen, everybody knew going into the meetings that I supported the central hill version one and two. So we can look at those first. Yeah, and you'll have to unclick the North Hill version one so that we can see that. Okay. So that kind of accommodates the growth of ward one by removing that section that's closer to downtown. This is the one that stays somewhat close to what we, what we have right now, which is an ideal either. So I can understand folks' critiques of that. So it mostly cuts out that university section right there that we see that has 807 folks. And then that downtown section that has 27 and 137. Then do you want to go to central hill version two? I think this keeps a little bit more of the map is as you can see, I think this one was a little bit politically infeasible for folks because especially the south district counselors really want ward one to take some part of campus. So this ward eight to central hill version two, I think folks didn't like so much because ward one doesn't take anything across from main street, but has a similar, I think as you can see feel. So those were the two that keep ward one the most in place. And then if you go to North Hill, so this is what ward eight has been pushing our current folks in ward eight have been pushing a lot. So there's been a lot of emails that we've been getting especially from people in current ward eight who don't like the central hill sections. So they've been very vocal about removing the central sections and having some version of the North Hill. This was based on a map that was created by one of the mapping groups, I think mostly Barbara Hedrick, I think. And if you, so what this does is to some extent, the compromise maybe here is that it does create an old, it keeps old east end somewhat together and that if we go back to ward one and ward eight the whole the district becomes the old east end with a little bit added both across from main street and on the west side. But like folks have been saying, it fairly strongly removes most of the single family home block from ward one, which would make it very strongly student. And so Karen keeps saying, oh, but the student population of this is actually still lower than board six, because they're only looking at on campus students because those are the ones that they can most easily count. But because of previous studies that we've done, which Sharon has pointed to, we know that ward one has a lot of on campus students. So there is some concern with ward one becoming having looked like even lower voter turnout kind of as we lose some of our more stable voting block and losing some to Peter's point, some of that like state like folks who really have been stepping up and doing a lot of the school board running for office, things like that. And that's very similar if we go to ward eight, North Hill version two, which I think the difference in that is like what block they add to what block of athletic campus we get so across from main street. But other than that, it's very similar. And then I didn't. So this is maybe where I looked to Earhart and Sharon because I didn't finish watching the recording. So I don't know how folks felt about ward eight to downtown and ward eight with UVM main campus and some Champlain. Karen again, Karen and Ben heard from me before the meeting that this configuration of the map didn't work for me. I didn't touch base with them yet because I wanted to talk to the NBA first before I loop back with them. But if we go to ward eight to downtown, this was discussed, but it's not one of the ones that they moved forward. I said that I couldn't accept this. I think it really doesn't preserve the old East End. I'll leave it there. I just said that I but this was another version. And then I think I know that the South End counselor's favorite map is that last one. So ward eight with UVM main campus and some Champlain. And that's what that looks like. And I feel like this looks like the most gerrymandered map and that it has the least continuous, the least continuous words. I think it does a lot of appendages. And I think I'll leave it at that because I don't think that these maps were supported by the council during that conversation either. Zariah, can I respond or? As I recall, you know, these these maps were awful when I looked at them. And so there was some shock value here. But the comments that I recall, not only were the the communications that were sent from current members of ward eight considered, but there is as Robert Bristow Johnson knows, I can't remember Chris's last name, but there's a strong desire to have a downtown district. And I believe that some of these scenarios that you are showing cuts that, you know, carves that up a bit. And so the North Hill makes it more contiguous and keeps that downtown district more intact. And so I think that was a factor that was being considered also. Earhart, I'll look to Earhart to see what he recalls. Sorry, can you repeat that question? I'm sorry, I was trying to write up the motion that I was going to propose in a bit. Sharon? Oh, you want me to? Oh, so Zariah raised the question, you know, she said she wasn't she wanted to know what we had heard from the council as they discussed these other options that she just presented. And my point was that I thought that besides the communications from the current ward eight long term residents, there was a desire by some Robert Bristow Johnson and Chris, whatever his last name is sorry, I don't remember, to have a more contiguous and intact downtown district. And I don't think these really achieve that as well as some of the some of the earlier versions. Certainly not. I mean, I would say that the ones that do, you know, the ones the one that folks are looking at right now and the ones entitled ward eight to North Hill, version one and two are the ones that do absolutely the most, you know, the most damage to the traditional integrity of ward one. And if, you know, we're going to express our displeasure with specific maps, I would I would include those. Well, the other thing is Zariah, the other thing is that as you pointed out, some the map that we're looking at right now, I mean, it's it's one might ask what made somebody just there seem to be very this is more gerrymandered than others, I would say, you know, I'm just I'm just pointing that out that I wonder what the rationale is for this it seems like there is a political rationale not a redistricting one voice one vote kind of rationale. Yeah, and the last thing that I'll add as we go into the discussion is I don't think I guess in terms of what we can ask for I don't think there's not saying that there's not ward seven maps that I think make a lot of sense because I think there is I don't think that it's going to be politically feasible to bring back a seven word map and ask the council to reconsider it. So my suggestion would be that as we talk that unless we think there is the reason that other folks think that there's something we can convince counselors of. But based on the last city council vote, I really don't think there is I my suggestion would be to suggest eight word maps, even understanding that we may think a seven word by seven by two system is the best. I think the seven word map is dead in the water. I think that you know there was real agreement that it's going to be eight wards and four districts. And that was that's what I heard from both redistricting work sessions. Sandy you've got you want to join. You're a little we can't hear you very well. Yes. Um, Zariah, could you just refresh my memory? Is it the entire city council must vote to agree or is it like just a majority vote? That was question number one question number two. Is there any consideration of the students that are going to be the buildings that are going to be put on Trinity, which will clearly increase the number of students on that campus. And three, just a point of comment. I really find it outrageous that they're not considering the off campus student population. I'll take my answers offline here. Great. So it's a majority, which at this point is six counselors. Um, I have brought up Trinity and the off campus student population. And that so it's like it's been part of the discussions, but I just don't. I think I think just me saying something at this point, I think we should include that in the resolution that Air Hearts drafting up. And the one other thing on that is most of the map deviations, a few of these are nine, just under 9% and a few of these are budding up right against the 10% deviation. That's kind of allowable. So it does make it hard. Even if we want to consider the Trinity campus is how much we can have this map, even just because the census blocks are so big and the only place we can really break up census blocks during the student dorms because we know how many students are in each building. So we've talked about some things like, oh, do we survey each block to try to have things be smaller? But it can be a little hard to increase the deviation more than we have for any of the maps just because of how small like 68 people, you know, is like 0.7% of the deviation already. Sorry if that was a little technical. I hope that tracked. Soraya, I think that I learned that because Trinity hasn't been built yet, you have to deal with the current noses on the ground. You can't put in anticipated development, even though I totally agree with everything, but you can't do that because it may not happen. So you have to deal with current population. And I think it's really unfortunate that we can't do the Trinity piece. Exactly. So we can anticipate it by saying, oh, we should, in terms of arguments for on-campus versus off-campus population, but in terms of drawing the actual maps and having the exact numbers, we can't have that deviation because it would be so large. If that makes sense. Soraya, if you could just, what are your thoughts on Central Hall version one? Because that gets us living and learning, which has got to be close to the other athletic campus options, but it also preserves Brooks, Loomis, Henry, that whole what have you heard? People, what have you heard in response to that Central Hall version one? Yeah. So I think that, so I think what was said in the council meeting, I'm going to say what was said and then I'm going to say what I think is happening, which I think is two different things is one, so I think folks are saying this looks too close to the current, to the status quo. So I think some folks like it for that reason, which is like, if we're not shaking it up and going to seven wards, or we're not shaking it up and going to something drastically different, then isn't it just fair to stay like somewhat close? I think folks are concerned this doesn't do enough of a downtown because folks are like, oh, it's too far north. And then, you know, the eight is still a little bit gerrymandered, not nearly as much as it was. But no, I think that I think both I think the Central Hill map options are just, I think they're better options. And I think they I don't think they actually I mean, if you look at the last map, I think this looks much more continuous. All of the patches of wards look much more continuous to me than some of the other ones. I like I said I was okay with both of the Central Hill versions. You want to hear from me? Oh, sorry, one more thing. And then I think what is actually happening why folks don't like it is Ward six is still taking on such a significant portion of the of the student population. So they're still taking on at least that 1374 block that you see kind of at the, like two numbers above Ward six. I think is one of the issues. I'm not sure what the others are. Would they consider adding more athletic campus onto that version one Central Hill. So Harris mellis Marsh House and Tupper. I'm not familiar enough with UVM to understand the question. So I'm looking at Central Hill version one and it's got that little little jut that crosses Main Street and includes living and learning, but it doesn't include the other residence halls right there. So none of the University Heights, no Marsh House and Tupper, no Harris mellis. And right those are all like if they if their worry is that we're not taking on enough students why not just take all of athletic campus into Ward one. Yeah, because then we have to cut. So then I'm looking at like the St. Joseph's Seminary Cemetery Corner cut something out of there and give it to Ward two. I don't I don't know I you know this is really yeah I know yeah yeah that's 14 people is that St. Joseph's Cemetery Corner. So yeah no I think that was some of the early that's that was some of the early maps is where Ward one dug much more into it but that's when we lose the Hill section because you can't cut from us from the east we can't cut from the north right it's like we're because we're bounded by the limits of the city the really only place we can cut is from the west. All right Jonathan. Really quick question for you Zariah if you were to pick one of these to advocate for right now and this is before you talk which one would it be. Thank you. Oh I'm I mean I don't I think it doesn't any of this I would say Central Hill version one just because I think it gives us a little bit more of athletic campus so it's a little bit more politically feasible so Central Hill version one. All right you've got some maps. All right yeah there's some maps and he might have I'm just going to the board docs maps and we should probably if you'd go to the ones that are v 14 v and v 18 these were yeah one of those one of those so I was just the mathematical reality of it is that Ward one does have to downsize something in an eight ward map because you're one seventh of the city and not one eighth of the city now it turns out that's the Hill Gardens block that's between Willard and Williams would be enough to do that but the way that you'd have to strip that off and also to take some of the student population away from Ward six the maps that you looked at the Central Hill maps that had the ward eight that looks like Massachusetts with Cape Cod coming down that was one way to do it but the reason that was rejected is it's too much like the current Salamander Ward for which is the badge of shame I get to wear because I'm the person who drew that nonetheless a way to do that is to strip off instead the Redstone campus into a ward that would include all of Champlain College there's another one the v 18 map and they both look like Texas and it would be a way to preserve the shape of Ward one almost exactly as it is now but here's the problem even though that's not a Salamander that looks like Texas it is still exists for only one purpose and that's to dump the our redistricting trig our redistricting problems into and if you're a permanent resident in that in that ward how are you going to feel about that it'd be about the same as how people in Buell Bradley are feeling now about Ward eight and that was the big mistake we made it was nine years ago Ward eight is leftovers Ward eight exists because the rest of the city got to be 82% of the city got to stay in the same ward and vote in the same place and then we just swept everything under the rug in the present Ward eight and so we can't repeat that mistake even if it's not a Salamander shaped Ward now what I'm trying to tell council and what I did get to tell council after this work session which was not as effective is that if you don't want to repeat the same mistake you're going to want want to give Ward eight an identity you don't want to create a neighborhood out of nothing and call that Ward eight you want to give it an identity and there is a part of the city that does want to be a Ward and that has identity and that's downtown and I did supply to city council and I did get on the board dock so if you want to go to the V 20 map this is before on Nancy Stanton V 20 yes if you want to blow that up a little bit so that is after talking with Sharon Bush or and getting an earful from her which was good for me that we did some changes so that part more of Ward one kits to be preserved in Ward one all of the part between North Street and Pearl and West of Willard remains in Ward one this is Henry and Loomis and Brooks gets to remain in Ward one but you still have to lose something then downtown Ward gets all of Champlain College none of that goes into Ward six or any other Ward that and it gets some of the Buell Bradley and it gets some other student but it's not doesn't get a lot of the students Ward six still gets all of the athletic campus except for living learning and the Redstone campus and that would be a burden that is will take some persuasion to convince Ward six to to accept that because they want Ward one to take the entire athletic campus and and if you take the entire athletic campus it's like a water balloon then Ward one will have to deflate on the other side on the on the Willard street side and you're gonna lose all of tech all lose all of the Loomis and and Henry and and Brooks and so I just want to let you know got folks know who your friends are that is a plausible mount that will preserve as much of Ward one as you're gonna get it gives us a downtown Ward and they want to have identity it puts the Buell Bradley folks back into Ward two where they were 10 years ago it puts the Hill Gardens back into Ward two where they were 10 years ago and so I am suggesting to you folks if you were to preserve Ward one you might want to get behind that and Robert do you know the breakdown of the on campus pardon me do you by any chance know the breakdown of the on campus at least oh Ward one would have approximately 50 55 percent unfortunately Ward six will get 67 percent on campus students that's where that's where the trouble is but they don't have any of Champlain College in Ward six and that was if you're going to have a downtown Ward eight it can reach that far east but it can't reach far enough east to take a piece of the UVM student housing so you in order to know that Karen's goal is to keep all of the wards below 50 percent or at 50 percent on campus students so I'm I'm happy to inter like talk to any map about her but I feel like she's gonna have a hard time and therefore the democratic caucus is gonna have a hard time supporting a map that keeps Ward six at 67 percent on much of the athletic campus here only living learning so can you split the difference can you speak louder I can't hear you actually can we split the difference between marsh austin Tupper and listen well you could ask ask marsh austin austin Tupper but it will still then deflate part of the other side of war and we just don't know where they are so Robert had shared this map with me earlier and I think this map holds promise I think it with some adjustments that can't really be made here because when you if you've ever worked with the software that Robert's working with which I have as well and you start pushing streets around and pushing blocks around it's you you can't sitting here right now you can't see what the repercussions of that are going to be so I think the most that we can do tonight is express a general favorability for certain maps that we find more more acceptable with a caveat that they're they may need they may require additional adjustment unless you know folks are willing to accept this as is right now I don't know folks are ready to hear a potential motion before you do the the motion sure I wanted to entertain other questions Richard or comments I don't have any go back to your air hunt yeah I don't have any questions but as Robert mentioned I was the representative or delegate voted or appointed by the npa to represent ward one on the redistricting committee and just a couple of points almost half of the total comments made from the public listening that we were chartered to do were from ward one ward one was more engaged than any other ward so that speaks to what Sharon said what what Peter said what our heart has said ward one is engaged the work of the committee which incidentally didn't include the notion of a downtown ward was completely subverted by the city one of the the lowlights of it is that one of the the most biggest areas of concern was representation of the people and of the neighborhoods within the wards even even city councillors said that the ward the district configurations are too big and are unmanageable and we have seen that exemplified by Jane Stromberg, Ali House, Jack Hansen and almost thank goodness not but almost the riot abandoning ship I don't have a great solution but I just want to tell you that the ward one's input was very very strong was represented strongly but then subverted by map drawer as Robert is one but he's not I'm not blaming Robert but the Barbara Hedricks Chris Hazley's of this world and some gymnasts in the north new north end completely subverted all the public comment that have been presented and I will leave that all right thanks one more thing that I want to add just because I think there were maps early and then I think people remove them in case because they thought I might get offended but there is also a version like there's a version that cuts away from ward one on Riverside Ave and I think maybe that was one of the first things that you saw that the that the mapping group saw but I just want I feel like none of the things that we've seen here but I just want to say that as we're doing trade-offs if we want to keep all of the hill section one way to do that is to move Riverside into the old north end all right Ehrhardt you wanted to make a motion so I have a draft motion here and happy to read it I'm hoping that it represents what I'm hearing as the potential consensus of of the ward so the motion is as reads as follows the ward one NPA supports redistricting maps that maintain ward one's historic boundaries and neighborhood integrity to the maximum extent possible we specifically reject the following maps being considered by the city council ward eight to downtown ward eight to north hill v one and v two ward eight with uvm main campus and some Champlain though they require additional work to meet its goal of maintaining historic boundaries the ward one NPA favors the maps entitled ward eight to central hill v one and v two as well as robert bristow johnson's map entitled burlington eight wards v 20 we got a motion on the floor uh we have a second uh discussion anybody online well and I know with the with the two central hill right maps people were people mentioned that it looked too much like the current configuration but it looks like um and others can remind me if I'm wrong but I feel like one of the big complaints about ward eight was that there wasn't enough uh homeowners or like longer term residents and it feels like it cuts into past pearl past colchester into um towards the old north end to sort of grow that population in addition to renters um but maybe I'm not looking at that right but I feel like I don't know I just want to express my support for those two because it feels like it sort of gets at least some of the challenge that has been brought up around ward eight yeah yeah yeah I mean that's why I put in a motion to kind of caveat you know though they require additional work because I don't think we can design the perfect thing here somebody with enough software needs to do that and the business isn't expecting that excuse me Carter you're saying that this resolves some of the concern that today's ward eight people have I think so okay I just want to make sure I heard right sorry no I I think we're saying the same thing um other comments all right I think you lose Sharon yes I'm sorry I just wanted to say that I think that um the proposal reflects the diversity that I think Carter and everybody is really looking for I think it really is important that that that's a raya uh share with the rest of the council that ward one isn't student phobic by any means but we need a healthy mix of people and we need long-term owner occupied properties and we need professionals and we need students and we are diverse and that diversity works for us and I think we've been able to be successful in tackling problems because of that diversity and to lose that has great significance so anyways I support the motion on the floor thank you all right I'm gonna bring the motion to a vote oh sorry did you want to make a comment oh I've talked enough you've heard from me enough all right um so we have a motion it's been seconded and for people who are residents of ward one I'm not a member of ward one so I don't vote um all in favor say aye fine opposed abstained the motion carries and uh Earhart you're gonna make sure that carol gets a copy of what you've written okay Carter well and can I just make one suggestion that maybe we send someone from the mpa officially to public comment and that we all show up as active mpa members to at the next city council meeting at the next city council meeting to reiterate Monday I believe so right sarah I think it's board of finance I want to say is next week so it's the 22nd 21st or that month yeah I feel like it's two weeks yeah because I think it'll hold more weight if if 20 folks are showing up to reader at the point so this is a board of finance meeting on November 21st all right I'm getting confused what city council sorry I think the 14th the city council and I'll look it up right now to make sure but I think 14th is board of finance 20 something is city council 21st is city council thank you go ahead I'm sorry we got thanks I'm so thank you everyone for this this is I know a difficult discussion and it's not it's it's wonky and detailed but I really appreciate everybody's support it would truly be great if folks show up at that meeting the public forum is time certain 7 30 you can zoom in but you know in person is probably better but you can also zoom in and testify over over zoom the best for folks who haven't done it before the best is to actually register online the there's a form online to to fill out to register that you want to be part of public comment you get two minutes and you get cut off summarily if you go more than a couple seconds beyond that so just and then the only other thing I'll say is this does not take away from you know the action that we took tonight and people showing up at at the meeting on the 21st doesn't take away from the notion of sending some emails also sending some emails in support of and making whatever points you want you know that have been made I think quite articulately by a lot of folks this evening in support of either this motion or you know your own your own solution you know asking for the the respect of the integrity of word one and if I can add to that from air heart I think it's very important for folks to send the emails as well as public forum because public forum honestly can sometimes be too late in terms of folks changing their mind and so folks can send the emails in the next couple of days I think that'll give me a little bit more leverage when I go talk to Ben and Karen um to to try to get to some okay go ahead yeah I have a quick question and that is how should we in our letters the counselors how should we reference this motion um I assume that we'll put it on the npa website and then folks can just rub on the npa agenda website as a supporting material is that true okay and we can do probably do that soon like tomorrow and counselors will know us there too if you're sending an email just say it as proposed or as stated in this and put a link to it if anybody wants a copy Cheryl I'll send you copies I just want to quickly thank you Zariah for being in the room I have every bit of faith and trust in you so thank you for being in there and doing that work thank you Troy and and because I'm a little bit confused the we're talking about a city council meeting on what date Monday 21st Monday the 21st okay that's seven seven thirty is the public call of time okay all right thank you and how do we have that uh the glistening note yes yes we have that and for those who uh came late or did not register we do have a clipboard out in the lobby and if you could add your name and email that would help we're going to uh move on to um a public safety overview and Milo Grant is here again uh I think you have some slides you're going to show I think we have some slides okay um is that the slide that is the slide okay thank you so I was I was asked to uh speak about a couple of things um to review in more detail a little bit more detail about the uh priority response plan and also to give a little bit more information about what the police commission does and admittedly that's really been evolving the last two years um the revised uh priority response plan which we had previously talked about was a way to take a look at incidents so when you look at this document as a reminder it is included with each of the monthly chief's reports and it takes a look at the various types of incidents and it assigns them a priority from one to three priority one incidents are the incidents that are considered the most dangerous um where there's what is referred to as a life safety component so the priority one incidents are always going to have a sworn officer respond first we have these two other positions that um we've heard a lot about and have had budgetary increases to support more of those positions and that is the CSOs the community service officers and the CSLs the community support liaisons now the community service officers they are able to report to um certain types of incidents that are not priority one incident so they will never be sent on their own or first to a priority one incident it is possible because some of the work that they do is a little bit more proactive some of you might have seen some of the CSOs walking around downtown that they might come upon something that they then report is a priority one incident and request um the public service a police officer a sworn officer um so there are simply just things that they can't do because they're not sworn officers the community support liaisons these are the work done by um social workers and then um there's the Howard Center support team which I actually want to detour to for a little bit uh between the Howard Center support team and the community support liaison they deal with issues that once it's deemed safe involve a component of assisting people who might not have the stability in life that they need uh they might be homeless they might be uh have mental health issues they might have drug addition issues which as we talked about last time can create that instability um so they're there to do a certain type of response meant to um get people to services if at all possible um and a big part of their job is to get to know people get to know people um on the street get to interact with them and uh whenever possible try to be proactive in terms of preventing some of the crises that occur um or at least be there to to de-escalate them so uh going back to the first slide please so when we look at these um you'll see highlighted the CSOs so when you look at this page at your leisure you can see exactly what type of incidents CSOs will be sent to and then um there'll be some indications for CS cells as well as and also things that people should really be reporting online um this type of plan is meant to be what they uh referred to as a deployment plan how resources are deployed during the um the various shifts so uh sometimes people have questions about is something really an incident a priority one for example if there's a 911 hang up well you don't know why there was a 911 hang up with someone calling for help and then suddenly was stopped from calling for help you have to send an officer to find out exactly what's going on in order to determine so something could start as a priority one be changed to something later once they get there and determine what it is something could start as a priority two or three and be raised to a priority one so uh definitely situations evolve uh for sure um going down to the next two slides that had the different officers uh no you can actually we're not going to do the whole report today but as a reminder the monthly report has the uh your today incidents and then on the next page uh continues to track selected val core incidents um and these incidents in particular are selected because they're priority one um and going down going down down down down there tears of response so um these tears of response was a slide that the chief added just to give a little bit more um of a view in terms of patrol proactive patrol is the key to public safety uh we'd like to see more proactive patrols see a so's perform some of those uh functions but um we're not going to have the level of of productivity until we are able to get our numbers back up um detectives taking cases that are referred to patrol because those type of cases require a lot more time investigation and resources the emergency response unit has special equipment training to tackle crisis incidents like barricaded persons active shooters and high-risk warrants the street outreach team um the Howard Center street outreach team answers calls for service but tries to do as much work as they can proactively and if you um are walking in the downtown area in addition to seeing CSOs you will see members of the outreach team and they're they're starting early in the morning throughout the day interacting people checking in with people um we had at our last meeting in our October meeting a presentation from Tammy Buddha from the uh Howard Center it is really mandatory viewing I really appreciated her frankness and her feedback we originally wanted a presentation about de-escalation because that was something that we were concerned about um de-escalation uh tactics that could be used and she gave that and was excellent she then we kind of asked some other questions that really led to a deep diving of what their job is out there and it is very interesting in terms of having a view of exactly what they're dealing with and how the environment for them is changing so I know there's been a lot of um emphasis on gunshots the gunfire incidents because of course those are scary but there's other types of violence there's other types of threats that occur and our street outreach team is they're seeing threats with knives screwdrivers other shop objects to the point where they're now asking for a vest um an additional having additional officers would be helpful to them because they are now finding a new element coming into our downtown an element of people coming into the community to prey on individuals that are dealing especially with addiction because although uh some of these individuals may be homeless they may be receiving certain benefits or have access to certain monies that that make them a target and so uh Tammy talked about how that was affecting I believe she referred to it as social currency because part of their job is really to get to know everyone and if you're going into a situation everybody knows that you're there to help them then they're gonna have love for you right they're gonna watch out for you but with this new element causing a threat that's causing some other people to leave so you're losing that social currency I found her to be very interesting very engaging um and I think when people listen to her they have an understanding of the type of excuse me the type of work that they're doing and the importance of it because one of the things that really just stresses me is when people say oh you can't send a social worker to be a police officer's job we don't need social workers we need a comprehensive holistic public safety system that includes these positions and yes we are now seeing more incidents where before officers could just be released yes there's going to be a safe situation social worker can handle it our officers can go work on other things and now we're seeing this increased level of danger so I highly recommend it Tammy Buddha the last meeting for the police commission town meeting tv as always records it happy to send the link and I'm also going to be asking that on our board docs page that we start to put the links to our meetings I think that would be really helpful so please look out for those now we have a staff member yes in our budget so it's been great to say hey can we do this can you do this because we are between our full-time jobs and regular meetings and executive sessions we're kind of tapped out um what does the police commission do well actually does anyone have any questions about those two slides more in depth than that's a very good question currently um as of our last meeting there were seven CSOs and three CSL's the budget for both positions has been increased so they're hoping by summer of 2023 we can get up to 12 CSOs and six CSL's I personally would like more CSL's because want to see more coverage through the day we really need people to be more available in the evenings um and as you all know sometimes the weekends is it can be a really big time where um a lot of different types of incidents where they could be helpful could occur I have a question also about CSOs and CSL's yes I myself worked as a street worker but in Europe in Germany for I don't know four or five years back in my younger days with kids that were you know in trouble or or known to the police but we were a separate you know agency that worked on them and I really worry when I see this that both the outreach well I guess they're working for Howard Center right they're working for Howard Center but they can sometimes be called by the department for assistance okay and the CSL's are working for the police right they are part of the police's personnel right they're in that budget they're in the department and I have to tell you I used to be really strongly against that that used to bug the heck out of me um we had a presentation from Lacey Smith who talked about what her day today was the type of work that she did um yes they have like an office space but when they're out there doing their job they're out there doing in their job they're not in the department they also need resources in the department to assist them with um um when you get certain types of calls you have to evaluate what what the safety situation is and they have access to that information in the department and in some cases they do have to go out with an officer in order to determine if something's safe they certain situations they would not be able to go out on their own okay but I had a comfort that they were independent in terms of making um decisions related to what they do best does that make sense I guess it does but in the end they are under the police chief they are not under um another entity and I see that as problematic also from how they're working with the population I mean the homeless population isn't dumb they understand that they're part of the police force and I personally just from a social work standpoint find that they're not sworn officers no um so so they can't do some of the same things that sworn officers can do in terms of like arrest people and things like that I know and I did when um Lacey Smith gave her presentation and uh was very open to responding to questions it gave me the comfort level that they are independent they are able to make judgment calls and that this was indeed a situation that acting chief Murad respects he respects that position he respects the work that they do um and I do see that and anyone who watches our meetings knows I don't always agree with him but he he respects that work that they're doing and so I don't I I do understand why people get concerned about them being in the station but it's not like they see people in the station they go to where their clients are they go to where the calls are no I I don't I mean I it really bothers me that they are part of the police they could be city and they could sit in you know downtown in an office or in city hall but to be part of the police just from the work I've done I I understand what you're saying um it's part of the you know it's part of dispatch too um dispatch taking calls and making determinations of what the best option is based on the information that they're given and that's what keeps them part of that but I I respect your concern I understand it you are certainly not alone in that concern and um that was a it was one of the reasons we asked to have Lacey come to the police commission when she did because we we had those questions and wanted that that comfort level of of who's directing their work and what they're doing and how much independence do they have and and the fact that they're like okay there's an office we come in we check in but if we need the resources there but then once our caseloads you know they all have very full caseloads and so trying to be proactive with those people as well as responding to calls for service um I I talked with um Milo in preparation for this meeting um and uh for an hour and she has so much information um and one of the things that the reasons that we wanted Milo to come back was that a lot of us in our neighborhoods are really struggling with the impact of um crimes that are happening um and I think one of the things I just wanted to be sure that Milo touched on was just how how can we take care of ourselves in terms of just making um more wise decisions about um our cars our houses etc before you move on to the police commission I just wanted sure because you see all of these incidents and you're seeing patterns that if if the if the neighbors knew more about what to do more effectively a lot of that crime would not be happening I can definitely address that did you have a question Carter about what was well yeah no I just just going off Kathy's point so if I'm tell me if this is if I'm hearing you right I guess is that although the CSLs and like the street out in the CSO's perhaps are like housed under the department um it's sort of the police commission view the police commission's view or you're comfortable with the fact that's sort of that um I guess one of the concerns I would have was sort of that like insular culture yes consuming that side of the work and like so you so what I hear you're saying is that like there's enough separation day to day that um that culture stays healthy and focused on the sort of preventative like outreach piece right um so the CSO's um I is so their jobs a little bit different it's it could be a potential recruiting ground for a um a sworn officer it gives someone an opportunity to get a taste of what it's what it's like what what types of things you deal with what you see sworn officers deal with what you have to call sworn officers into um CSLs they have a very different mentality already based on the work that they are already doing and decided that was their calling to do so when they come in they're not part of that culture that some people worry about and they are not feeling that that is interfering with their work and I do know that officers appreciate them because if it's a situation that is safe or can be made safe then they can assist someone while officers are then released to go work on something else so um they're coming in already from a different spot they're already coming in with the work that they do um as he as healers for for lack of a better word it's a they're coming from a different different place um and with regards to to the budgeting I mean the police commission we can't we can't control the budgeting um but we did voice concerns those concerns were addressed um and I can say fully that I had the same concerns and I feel feel comfortable with the work that they're doing because they're they're out there they're out in the field in the field for most of the time sure yeah can you all hear me okay with okay um which is I was just gonna say to to Milo's point or to other I had this good like I think before very early on when I talked to um Lacey and Smith and even ongoing I think that there was a little bit of a concern of the Burlington Police Department culture which I will agree is not a healthy place right now um impacting the CSL's but I also would encourage folks to maybe look at it from the other way and that the CSL's who have more of a healing mentality so we don't have just history education um can also impact the culture of the Burlington Police Department and that that's something that we maybe want and so um that it doesn't just go one way and in addition to all the things that Milo said which I agree with I'm complete thank you uh that's a a very good point if you'd like to talk about it some more let me know after the meeting free to do another our phone call um how do we protect ourselves so I don't want to sound the worst possible thing someone can say to me is to say oh you're victim shaming or you're victim blaming I'm not doing that I'm just saying that we need to we're living in a certain reality right now um I think the drug issues that have increased dramatically and now we are adding meth to the picture are going to get worse before they get better I think that's just a hard reality it's a hard truth I don't like I don't want a lot of people mislead people but I don't want people to panic because I do believe that Burlington overall is still a safe place to live I am out in these streets I am in the park my international film festival was last week I saw two films I walked from my home in the old north end down to main street landing I walked back at night by myself fine I'm not worried about it I go through city hall park sometimes people offer me a little something something I'm like no thank you I go on my way I you know but do things happen sometimes yes they do but I think what we need to understand is I mean I've always thought people are crazy for leaving the doors open I came from New York City and we just didn't do that right um we have to lock our doors we have to lock if you have a house that has a back and a front door you have to lock both you have to lock your windows even if you're going for a moment a moment because a moment is all it takes to take something more officers doing proactive patrols would help it would not solve completely these crimes of opportunity where we have all these thefts and I want to remind everyone we're getting ready to go into a holiday season we do more online shopping I'm sure a lot of you have noticed these carriers UPS FedEx DHL they use you couldn't they wouldn't leave a package with someone signed for it now they'll just leave it they'll just leave it and that if you're not right there or if they don't knock the door if you don't hear the door those packages could be gone so people really have to make arrangements for um if you're not going to be there when a package is going to be delivered you need to have that package delivered to some place where someone can sign for it and look out for it because people are going to be looking for things that they can sell eat or wear so if you do have something taken look for it people have found things they found things that they order just the boxes ripped open and just a couple blocks away so look for it but put let your carriers know that you want to sign for packages um if you have a package that's stolen report it report it through the online portal because it's important for the department to track where these type of crimes are occurring and to have them tracked in the system as incidents let the carriers know let the carriers know I didn't get did not get a knock on my door I was not giving the opportunity to sign for the package and it was stolen they need to know that who you ordered from needs to know that so as we get into this holiday season I don't think these crimes which normally go down in the winter are necessarily going to go down to the levels that we've seen before I think we need to be and will we have a winter look how warm it was this you know usually it's the cold that discourages people but um we're not seeing that so that's very different so those are really basic uh things you know the america's amount of me because anyone can tell someone to lock the door well that's what we need to do because that's where we're seeing a lot of this stuff happening um people have to have better locks for not only the bikes but everything anything that has a serial number you need to have a current picture of it and you need to have it uh like your computer you should have a picture of your computer but the picture of the computer shouldn't just be on the computer it should be someplace else in case the computer goes anything with a serial number if you think about all the things of value that you have that are easily you know can be picked up and moved and they have a serial number do you have that log somewhere because sometimes things are found sometimes things are found in other states but if they're not reported then they can't be returned so that's going to be very important the city has a bike reporting now um definitely log your bike there but also use bike index so so many people in the community were using bike index um be aware be aware uh know your neighbors um share with your neighbors uh and people that you trust your your if you're traveling leave lights on leave radios playing loud you know have your your homes have a sense of someone being present um motion lights all these things are are deterrence until we get our force back to higher numbers but even if we had the higher numbers we can't have an officer next to every unlocked door we can't have an officer next to every bicycle that doesn't have a good locked door is unlocked we we can't have them present next to every package that's just left in the the open that's just not realistic and that is never going to happen so we we just have to be um aware of that yes we're running over okay um I will send a document about detailing what the commission does uh that could possibly be posted but I just briefly will say primarily we work on complaints we work on reviewing directives and policies whenever we can we've been trying to work in particular on oversight and developing oversight within the city for things that are going on so maybe I can come back next time and do more detail on that but thank you all again for listening and I do have a couple of emails I have to respond to and have to apologize for that because I've been making the rounds in addition to working and in addition to doing my radio shows so it's been uh sucking up the time a little bit but I've been enjoying it and I thank you all for the time and the feedback thank you very much all right last item on our agenda is a brilliant election department and you guys are going to talk about electrification yeah yeah it's going to be driven in it's going to be all right a really great way to wrap it up do you want to is it okay to stand or do you think okay stay in the next where do you like I think you right here is fine yeah you can bring it on the chair okay thank you so much for um for the time tonight carol and tom for putting us on the agenda and enabling us to come and share some time with you so I'm jennifer green and I work um at the brilliant election department and director of sustainability for the city and I'm so pleased to be here with general manager daren springer so I know we have 20 minutes and this is how we sort of see it shaking out I will give you put things in context for you and then turn it over to daren who will describe some of the electrification policies that we're considering for the request of the city council and then we would like to use the last bit of time of our 20 minutes to hear from you and to answer any questions you may have I'm wondering how that sounds is an agenda okay great um so I said I was going to frame it up so I'm sure you're all aware that uh we have a next zero energy strategy in burlington so it's a very ambitious strategy and it's on the coattails of our 2014 success story which of course is becoming the first city in the country to source 100 of our electricity for renewables so when we sort of achieve that success we decided to take it to the next level which was to essentially transition away from fossil fuels in the ground transportation and built environment unfortunately at bed um we have an energy efficiency utility which enable enables us to invest in energy efficiency and we have resources from the state which we refer to as sort of tier three to help with strategic electrification and this comes in the form of you know rebates and incentives and that's all very helpful and good but the city council understands that if we are going to really achieve next zero it's going to be it's going to require some policy as well so they have asked us to do some research and to start crafting some potential policy recommendations so before we go to the city council they've asked us to come to you to make the rounds and I I do want to say this is my word so I'm especially happy that we're so I'm kicking it off here um to make the rounds and to garner feedback from the community so so if anybody has questions with that otherwise I'll turn it over to Darren who can outline our thinking and where we are in in our thought formation okay Darren sit down here good evening everybody um great to be with you I'm word seven not word one eight but lovely to be here and uh don't hold against me um so really what we're kind of to drill down what we're doing is related to the vote that we had back in March of 2021 where the community gave about 65 approval for a charter change so we went to Montpelier got approval from the legislature and the governor earlier this year and we got a charter change approved that gives Burlington the ability to regulate emissions in buildings which is something that really no other community has in Vermont so we have a unique opportunity to do policy work around reducing emissions in buildings there was also an advisory ballot question it was question seven same ballot that also was approved that said as part of this work we want to dedicate resources to those in the community who might be lower income might be marginalized and so our work stems from those two ballot items passing and a resolution from the city council in May that asked us to look at new construction existing buildings city buildings major renovations and come back with some recommendations we put together an interim report in July that's available I think it'll be available maybe on our website if it's not already but it's on board docs and in about a little less than a month we're going to hopefully put together some final recommendations for the council to consider and in the new construction area we already require renewable heating as a kind of primary heating source has to be renewable we passed that last year with the mayor and the city council so one of the things we're thinking about under this new charter change would be to go bigger with new construction and say if you're going to build new in the city of Burlington everything has to be renewable within the building not just the heating system but the the cooking the appliances the all the different the water heating and when we say renewable the definition that's in law right now in Burlington that's in ordinance is very inclusive it includes things that are powered by electricity because we're 100% renewable so heat pumps heat pump water heaters ground source geothermal heat pumps those all count but also if you use a conventional system and you're purchasing a renewable fuel like renewable gas or biodiesel that counts if you're using advanced wood heating that counts there's a lot of different ways to get to renewable it's not just electric so that's one idea that we have is to say that if you're building new everything should be renewable and one of the tools that we have under the charter change would be to say if you're not able to achieve that there could be some sort of a carbon impact fee a carbon pollution impact fee essentially that the city could charge and the use of the proceeds of those fee could be consistent with that advisory ballot question that I mentioned so the city might be able to dedicate some resources to helping perhaps with renewable energy projects or weatherization or energy efficiency for low-income households for example there could also be resources for the city to fund its own efforts to move its own fleet or its own buildings towards you know efficiency and renewables as well so that's one thing we're thinking about and we love your feedback on and the other piece is really related to existing buildings we're trying to focus in on buildings that are 50 000 square feet or larger really start with the largest buildings in the city we're not looking at residential we're not looking at multi-family we're not looking at rental at this point we're really focused on larger buildings that are commercial or industrial there's maybe about 200 buildings that kind of fit this profile a lot of them are going to be managed by a very small number of entities if you think about it we're talking about potentially the university, the hospital, the city, the school district, Champlain College there'll be some others as well and one of the things we're thinking about there is the idea that starting perhaps in 2024 if this was ultimately adopted by the city and approved by voters again town meeting day 2023 when one of those buildings would go to pull a permit for a new heating system or new water heating system same deal it has to be renewable or there would be some sort of a carbon impact fee and the idea would be to try to really alter the capital planning process and say hey if you're going to be planning for your new boiler or your new heating system down the road could be five years could be 10 years the city's asking you to go renewable or to plan that there's going to be a fee associated with that and so that's the other big piece of what we're thinking about I think that the great thing about what's going on in Burlington is is what we're doing here is having impact outside of Burlington as well I don't know if folks are aware but in South Burlington they're actually in the process of adopting a renewable heating requirement for new construction based on what happened here in Burlington back in 2021 so we've been hearing from folks there who are interested in asking questions so certainly what we do here hopefully can benefit our community and our climate goals but maybe also contribute to what's going on in other communities around the state as well so let me stop there that's just just a short summary we definitely will go into more detail in the report that we give to the council but really we just want to hear from you at the mpa is this something that sounds you know something that you sound you look at you think okay this is something I could be supportive of do you have questions do you have feedback do you have a critique we're just here to listen at this point so thanks for thanks for having us and I know we're the last item on the agenda so sorry to sorry to stand in the way of being dragged yeah no this is really exciting and I appreciate it I mean I had a few I guess you answered the question around natural gas and biofuels being included in Canada's renewable and I'm assuming hydro makes up a significant portion of our like quote renewable electricity and I guess I would just throw out there that you know if we look if we really truly count emissions and look outside of Vermont as well impact on indigenous communities in Canada and just methane releases from hydro I think we're the only New England state that counts hydro is renewable as part of emission reduction goals so I'm throwing that out there I don't know what the I'm assume I think there's going to be some movement in Montpelier in the coming legislative session to increase tier two versus tier one making up our energy but and I'm still learning the res because it's wrecks and the renewable energy standard are very convoluted and hard to wrap your head around but I guess I'm wondering if there's levers that the city itself without Montpelier can use to really focus on things like geothermal things like solar and actually like producing solar energy that we actually use here there's a lot of our solar energy and renewables are going out of state so I I guess that's a critique and part of a question and then the only other thing yeah you talked about like impact fees and fees in general as we're like transitioning buildings and I wonder how you all are thinking about right like obviously you have a certain amount of wealth if you're owning any property in the city but there's clearly folks on a fixed income retired young families that you know they're they're month to month and they're upfront money I know there's like probably rebates and stuff but it's just a little tighter and so how do we make those fees progressive in nature and and not sort of you know working class people folks in Canada indigenous communities who are suffering from the expansion of hydro up there sort of are the least responsible arguably for the situation we're in so how do we make sure that or what are the levers potentially that we have locally um to you know as as imperfectly as we can reduce that impact on working people so couple couple pieces there I'll try to respond to so Burlington's 100% renewable we get as as pretty much every utility in the state gets some power from hydro kebec ours is usually between 10 and 15 percent it's not the majority of our portfolio most the biggest source of our electricity comes from the McNeil plant which is right here just down the road and we do have solar we do have wind we do have hydro and we're 100% renewable when it comes to our generation but we're also 100% renewable when it comes to renewable credits so we're 100% renewable in both cases I think every resource has some carbon impact solar has a carbon impact wind has a carbon impact hydro biomass nuclear fossil fuels have the worst carbon impact so I think we really there is no perfect energy source and I think solar has value but when we think about what's coming up this winter other states are seeing double and triple digit rate increases because the fossil fuel prices on the grid are spiking to historic highs and the fact that we have the McNeil resource and other resources that are renewable and able to run during the winter time is really what's going to insulate us we have a 3.95% rate increase in this current fiscal year and we definitely are seeing like 60 70% rate increases in some of the other states in New England so solar is good but it's not going to address that issue you really need a diverse portfolio to really be able to manage when it comes to renewables and then in terms of the fee there would be no fee and I want to be really clear because this is an important point there's no fee proposed no regulation proposed on on homes on small businesses on on any institutions that are below 50 000 square feet what we're talking about with existing buildings is just having this policy applied to a couple hundred buildings in the city that are 50 000 square feet or above so for new construction it would apply more broadly to pretty much anything you would build but for existing buildings you know this would not affect residential would not affect small businesses because we really think that you know to really model this we want to work with the buildings that have the resources to potentially invest and help make a transition so it's an important point because that'll come up a lot I think we've got Sharon you've got a question and then you air her um yes I do um it's really good too I can see you guys I don't have my camera on but it's good to see both Jen and Darren um my question has to do with impact fees um I understand I mean and I'm glad because I early on before I got off the council I worked on new building construction as as Darren recalls and trying to get this in place but there was a lot of work that had to be done and and Darren is very thorough as we all appreciate and making sure that the proposal the policy is well thought out and we and we know what the impact will be but as far as impact fees for now existing buildings of 50 000 square feet or or greater um is there impact fees give you a pool of money and yes you can use that to help people potentially some people low income people um but I'd rather not have the building get a pass is there a way have you thought I'm sure you've thought through this but is there a way that there is some lower interest if if it's a financial hurdle or barrier is there a way that there can be a prolonged payment payback but still have them comply because I I really feel that we can't push this off much further and I just wondered if you thought of any of that and is that at all a viable idea thank you. Thanks Sharon it's good to hear from you um it's a good point it gives me an opportunity to be uh clearer maybe about the fee so the the way we're considering structuring the fee is if you're going to pull a permit whether for a new building or an existing building for a fossil fuel heating system we're going to look at the life of that heating system 25 years for you know a typical heating system we're going to look at the fossil fuel use and the carbon associated with that heating system and we're going to have a net present value fee right up front when you go to put it in and the idea would be if this was adopted would be that you would look at your renewable option and you would look at your fossil fuel option and we're going to hopefully level the playing field significantly for the renewable option by having that impact fee really represent the lifetime value of the carbon that's going to be put out and hopefully make the capital decision easier in favor of a renewable solution and we mentioned there are several of them so the idea here isn't necessarily to just collect revenue although there will probably be instances perhaps where somebody chooses to pay the fee instead of uh going renewable the idea would really be that the fee would help make that decision to go renewable more economically attractive at the end of the day thanks tom uh thanks jen thanks uh darin um i uh i do have a question but before i i set uh put out my question i just wanted to um remind folks um going back a little bit in history we actually set the city on this net zero path about 30 years ago uh and it was you know folks like um peter olkowski when he was uh city counselor and sharon and her early years and i'll take some credit for this myself um we uh uh basically bought into uh arranged for the future uh uh hydropower from wanouski one to be uh part of the mix that burlington has we also defeated a uh what would have been a horrendously polluting trash burning plant in the intervail and um came up with the idea of mcneal mcneal is not great because it does also also pollute and put out some you know put put out gases that we don't necessarily want to put out into the environment and then the other things that we did was we said no to hydropower back back then we refused to um contract um with uh with hydropower back for now we are getting it in the mix and i'm i'm going to get to my question in two seconds um the other thing that we did was um we uh uh bonded for uh for demand side uh management for for energy efficiency improvements that uh set ultimately set bd on the path to becoming an energy efficiency utility um and you know a lot of that's thanks to uh uh one uh fellow who's not with us uh any more blare ham hamilton and uh best sacks who started the vermont energy investment corporation many years ago so just a little bit of history i just want to make sure folks uh understood that this all started 30 uh 30 years ago and uh thanks to to you guys for you know continuing in that in that path my question is uh to to carter's point and uh darin you're saying that i think uh what was the 10 or 20 percent of our mix is uh is coming from from hydro is that coming from hydro kebec um and is that because iso new england uh basically gives us uh certain uh a certain mix which will include um natural gas uh we also have coal fired plants in new england um so we're are we getting some of the things that we wouldn't really want in the mix um because we're part of iso new england and that's dictating uh part of part of what we get um uh how we how we um generate electricity for the city of berlington it's good question and airheart it's good good history too and blare and beth did fantastic work and appreciate all the things that have been done uh we inherited a great situation at berlington electric um so when when we think of our portfolio 10 to 15 percent is from hydro kebec under contract that the state has essentially uh encouraged a number of years ago the utilities to sign a long-term agreement with hydro kebec that i think runs through 2038 so as much as some folks may like or dislike that that contract exists uh and is running at various percentages for different utilities through 2038 in terms of hydro overall it's more like a third of our portfolio when you count when you ski one and some other vermont hydro that we get um combined with the hydro kebec and some hydro power from nypa in new york um and then a little more than a third coming from mcneill um a small slice from solar that's growing but relatively small when you look at overall production and then we have three wind projects two here in vermont one in main that kind of constitutes our portfolio and we're actually more than a hundred percent renewable we actually have more renewable resources than what we need to serve our customers uh so when we're able to we can sell that into the regional grid and help to even further decarbonize the region um and and hopefully bring in revenue for our customers that helps make our rates uh you know more stable more competitive uh being renewable is it's been a positive for us financially uh generally speaking and as it's seen by our credit rating agency as a positive uh they cite it as a good um you know a good thing from a risk perspective in a world that's going to be focused more and more on carbon reduction so i'm very proud of the portfolio including mcneill including including all the resources that we have because i think mcneill provides a really important uh insulation against those regional rate impacts in the winter time but yeah appreciate that that's good context and good history um on one i have seen the numbers of people with COPD and asthma yes the numbers have gone down but it's younger people that it's affecting now and most of those are children and young people in the old north end that are the least people that can afford to have that that's one and you can maybe tell me something different or why aren't we putting more filters on those the gases that are being let off but also i also heard that mcneill is going to do heating of stuff up on the hill and when you do that you are going to start using more natural gas okay let me address both of those okay those are good questions okay um so in terms of mcneill and a lot of folks and you know i can see mcneill from my neighborhood everybody sees mcneill a lot of times when you see stuff coming up in the air it's actually water vapor uh most of the time what you see coming up is is water vapor it's not pollution although it can look that way you know when you're seeing it particularly on a cold day um we did invest in a selective catalytic reduction unit back in 2008 it was about a 12 million dollar investment that lowered nitrogen oxides to about one third of the permitted level so we're well below kind of the permitted level there and in terms of particulate matter which is one of the other pollution sources that you look at i think we've been typically around one tenth of the permitted level um so the state public health department put out a memo just recently in response to kind of a similar question and said that they didn't see a correlation of health impacts around mcneill and that actually things like wood stoves that are being used with far less kind of pollution control technology around the state might be a bigger source of local air pollution than something like the mcneill plant or the rigate plant over in the northeast kingdom so i think when we think about the health impacts and i want to be very transparent uh you know there is some emissions coming from mcneill i just mentioned we're lower than our permitted level but there are some emissions as a combustion resource there's also a bunch of vehicles driving around that are combusting fossil fuel lots of lawn equipment lots of heating systems combusting fossil fuel and that's having an impact on air quality as well so i'm not aware of any health study that's kind of linked any of the outcomes you mentioned specifically to mcneill um if we learn something like that we'd want to be responsive to it but we've made investments in the plant predating my tenure at bd that are helping to reduce the emissions um in terms of what you were mentioning is district heating uh which is another thing goes back kind of really to the the time period erhard was mentioning when the plant was built it was supposed to have a capacity to not only produce electricity but produce steam that could be used for heating to this place more fossil fuel uh never happened there have been a lot of studies and when i became general manager in 2018 i committed we're going to do everything possible to make this happen and we've been working at it we've gone through three different rounds of feasibility work with a company called evergreen energy out of minnesota that has a similar plant in st paul minnesota and we actually had a letter agreement this summer with the hospital and uvm and evergreen and vermont gas to do some additional work around this and we're making quite a lot of progress if we're successful it would carry steam from the mcneill plant that's produced from woodchips we would not be using additional natural gas at mcneill at all and if you think about it it wouldn't make sense to do that because it's a 40 million dollar project to build the infrastructure the steam pipe infrastructure to the hospital and uvm which are the main buildings we would serve and they already have natural gas so it doesn't there's no economic reason that we would try to build pipes to carry natural gas to customers that already have natural gas and we're not interested in that we're 100 renewable we're not interested in doing that so the only way that project makes sense for us is if we can use steam from the mcneill plant to displace natural gas use at the hospital and at uvm lower the city's emissions uh in the commercial sector by around 15 on the higher end 11 on the lower end really the single biggest step we could take i think to reduce emissions from natural gas in the city so if you hear that please know that is not what we're interested in doing and i'll never sign an agreement that does that promise you that all right i think we have time for one other question i share and you had your hand up but you put it back down i'm sorry are you talking to me yeah you had your hand up and then you put it down did you have another question uh no i don't i i'm sorry to confuse you didn't mean to i don't have your question if there's another one go ahead i just wanted to ask if there was there had been some talk about hot water um and using the condenser essentially heat right is that off the table now there's only generating steam for the district heating project yeah it was you're correct it was a hot water project the last time they looked at it 2016 2017 and when we looked at it uh it really makes sense to do steam because mcneil produces steam and the hospital uses steam and so the idea of converting to hot water and converting back to steam was not as efficient um so what we want to do is take the steam from mcneil get it to the hospital where they can use it and get it to uvm buildings that can use it as well so it would be a steam-based system now would be more burning more wood essentially it's about uh if you think of it in terms of fuel supply we would use perhaps around four percent more fuel at the mcneil plant in terms of wood or about maybe like a week or week and a half's worth of additional supply to be able to do the district heating project yeah yeah so a quick question can you define we are a city that is completely renewable and does that include the buildings of the city almost like all the schools and city hall for example the beauty building and public works what does it actually mean that we're a renewable city right we're a hundred percent renewable with our electricity that's what we've accomplished uh in 2014 we were recognized as as meeting that we've done it every year since um the net zero goal that we talk about is is what you're talking about is how can we be renewable not just with electricity but in our buildings in our vehicles um and really use that supply that we have now the hundred percent renewable supply to help us um in those efforts uh because we we still use fossil fuel in buildings all around the city we use it for vehicles uh so we're not renewable in those sectors at this point we're gonna have to go well i think that is our final question and thank you very much for thank you thank you all thank you oh um well we're gonna hopefully bring a report to the city council on the fifth and um December of December on this particular topic and then uh we'd be happy to come back and talk more about it if you're okay yep great thanks