 So I will call that to order so we can get that underway. Please join us in the Pledge of Allegiance led by Deputy Mayor Hal Colston. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. You're welcome. So we have just one item on the liquor control meeting. This is approval for a sidewalk usage permit for Catland Vintage. Any comments from staff on this? No concerns. It's eight square feet to put a bench in front of their window so they can sit outside on that thing. Any questions or concerns from council? Any questions or concerns from public attendees? All right. All those in favor of approving the sidewalk usage permit for Catland Vintage, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you. That is the end of our liquor control board meeting. May I have a motion to adjourn? I move. Second. Motion by Jim, second by Hal. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Motion carries. So it is 6.02 PM and I will call to order the Winooski City Council meeting. Please join us again in the Pledge of Allegiance led by Deputy Mayor Hal Colston. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic over which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. So first is agenda review. Any concerns about the order of agenda this evening? All right. Next up is public comment. So this is time for public comment and for anything not on tonight's agenda. So if you are here to make a comment about the Vermont Air National Guard F-35 agenda item, please hold. Are there any public comments to an item not on the agenda this evening? And if you are on Zoom, you can use the raise hand feature or chat the host or star nine on your phone. Seeing no public comment, we'll move to our consent agenda. We have our council minutes from August 2nd. And then the special council meeting minutes from August 30th, 31st, and September 1st, which were related to city manager hiring process. We have our accounts payable warrant from August 18 and September 2nd and payroll warrant for period July 25th to August 7th and August 8th to August 21 and subsequent to pay up for May and June. And finally, we have the financial policies for employee financial responsibility, information technology and internal controls and risk management, which we reviewed at previous meetings. Are there any questions or concerns from council on these consent agenda? Any questions or concerns from the public? Hearing no concerns, would someone like to move to approve the consent agenda? I'll move. I can again. Motion by Mike, second by Jim. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you. Next up is council reports. Can I start with Hal today? I have a report. Thank you. Thank you, Hal. Jim. Good, thank you, Mayor. So since we last worked together, our commission met at the end of August and finalized work plans. It's great to have that one coming year. When I get that day, I've been looking at that for three years around. Zoning, barriers, affordable, multi-bedroom instruction in the city, outside of farm-based co-areas, some particularly looked at some areas in the city that are nominous of single-family homes, but actually do have a high percentage of multiple-family construction already existing. And so this is an area that they want to put further and added to kind of expand into one of their work plan items to look at more completely. And they review information on unit instruction and how many bedrooms we take down, how they'll take down units, what is it being placed with, and the data show that there's growth in all of the bedroom categories in all of these categories, but we're seeing higher, faster-gaming videos in more bedrooms than we are in two bedrooms. So if this trend continues as we've been going for the last couple of years, we would expect to see there be a wide line of gaps in what we're bringing in the new houses in the city. So I think this underlies or underscores what we look at multiple-unit housing construction, sorry, multi-bedroom housing construction as a goal or something we need to keep in the country. So housing construction needs to be done. And we're excited to welcome two members, Mission, Steve DiMucuso and Jack Homo, and so we're very excited to have them on board and have them running. And finally, there are three more days to sign up for a free treat, the Moonee's Beauty Giveaway, we're really, really excited to be working with the city and Vermont-Hermany community for a free giveaway treat to the Moonee's Beauty Residence, so if you're still interested, there's time to find the permission on our website or email mooneeestytrees.com. You can make health signs out of that. Thanks. Thank you, Jen. Mike, council updates? Thank you, mayor. I'm going to report for the first time. Thank you, Mike. Since our last council meeting, the planning commission did not meet due to lack of forum. However, this Thursday, they will be meeting at their regularly scheduled time and members of the housing commission will be joining to share recommendations about the incentive options in forum-based code and our gateway zoning. So this is basically going to be a joint discussion with members of planning commission, housing commission, to talk about how zoning impacts housing development and what we might do in our regulations to promote the goals that have been set for housing development in Moonee's Beauty. The finance commission did have their regular meeting, continued policy review, also talked a little bit about ARPA funding and raised some questions that we're going to use to inform when we bring that discussion to the council so that we have kind of robust information for the public. And we did, since our last meeting, the state finally decided how they're going to distribute the county funds that the federal government shared. And so we are going to end up with around $2 million, which is what Representative Welch had predicted for us when it was first announced. So we'll be having a future discussion at the council meeting and doing some public outreach about how we might allocate that money within the parameters of what is allowed by federal guidelines. That is it for, oh, and one more item. So at our next meeting, September 20th, we'll have public presentations from our finalists for city manager. And we want to collect public input as well. So if you can watch that meeting, watch it after the fact at 10th, and then share your thoughts about who we might hire for our next city manager. With that, I will turn to city updates. I'll go first and then Phoebe can jump in. So just two quick updates. So piggybacking on the ARPA funds, our finance director did confirm we did get, we did receive the first tranche of the county funds. So that's roughly 712,000. And that is also, that's in addition to the municipal funds that we have already received, which is 383,000. So that's all the funds we'll receive for this year. And that's, as you mentioned, part of that 2.2 million total that we'll see for this year. And just a reminder, so we do have a long time to sort of plan out those funds. We don't need to obligate those funds until December 31st, 2024, and we don't actually have to spend those funds until 2026. So we have a lot of runway to kind of review the best approach for those. Second update, I'm happy to report that we are substantially complete with the Hickok Street Reconstruction Project. So as you may remember, this is the bond vote that was approved in 2019 for $3.6 million to reconstruct that entire street. Primarily that was for the replacement of circa 1920 water main that we observed a lot of breaks on. We were using five breaks in the last five years when we were talking about the bond vote. So very much needed work on that street. The project did also include rehabbing the sewer, rehabbing the sanitary and storm lines since we had to go down so deep in excavation for those water mains. And it included resurfacing the pavement for the street, the curving and sidewalk. So we were also able to add roughly 600 linear feet of new sidewalk in the city for a portion that had no sidewalk. And we, right now we're targeting that the project will be about 800,000 under what that bond vote threshold was. So significantly under budget for the full project. So very happy to wrap that one up. And that's all I have for updates on that. Hi everyone, just a couple updates from the draft pool season yesterday. We'll have a court out and see more stats at the council meeting in 20th. A reminder that the city's still requiring masks for all staff and members of the public inside city buildings regardless of vaccination status. And that's going to continue until further notice. And obviously we keep a close watch on case growth in Moosky and in Chittenden County. We've resumed the weekly COVID huddles with Vermont Department of Health and Food and Partners. So it has any questions on our masks, guidelines, if the city can reach out to us. We wanted to thank our partners for the assistance on September 5th for the fire at 37 Mayo. The following partner responded, St. Michael's Fire Rescue, Bolchester Fire Department, Vermont Air National Guard Fire Department, Vermont State Police, Vermont Division of Fire Safety, Green Mountain Power and Vermont Gas. Both Moosky Police Department Moosky Fire Department were able to achieve the help. And that was a really challenging and sad situation. So thank you to everybody for your time. Thank you both. So we'll move now to our regular items for the agenda. And we are gonna start with a, this is on for discussion. This is Vermont Air National Guard. We have with us today the vice wing commander, Colonel Adam Rice. He is brought with him, Colonel Dan Finnegan. Who is a command pilot and the maintenance group commander. And Mr. Shannon Kelly, the environmental manager. Welcome. Oh, we can. That works. So I've been working with your wing commander, Colonel Shepchick. We have been trying to schedule this meeting for some time, just to create an open dialogue between your organization and our community. So we can continue looking for ways to work together in a productive fashion. So, invited you here tonight to talk a little bit about your operations. We'll then have time as counsel for some Q and A and then we'll move on to public comment. And when we get there, we'll set some moderations. There are a lot of folks that are signed up this evening. So thank you for joining. Glad to be here. And thanks for the introductions. As you mentioned, Colonel Finnegan is a command pilot, native or monitor and our maintenance group commander. A lot of experience with the F16 and F35. And Mr. Shannon Kelly is our environmental manager. We can speak to a lot of our, all of our environmental functions if I get slipped up. But thanks again for having us. Good evening, Mayor Lott, city counselors in the city of Winooski. On behalf of the 158th fighter wing commander, Dave Shepchick. Colonel Dave Shepchick, I'm pleased to provide an update, share the progress. The women and men of the green mountain voice had made this last year. As we balance the demands of supporting Vermont's COVID-19 response, training with our new fleet of F35s and actively serving our communities in and out of uniform. So on the operational side, we've received our 20th and final F35 in October of 2020. Our F35 training is on track and we will exit conversion at the end of this calendar year 2021. Our training and flying schedule will remain similar to the past year and we will continue to notify the public if there are any significant changes. We normally fly Tuesday to Friday during the week with a morning and afternoon takeoff plus during one weekend per month on drill weekends. For the most current information, please visit www.vermontguard.com slash F35. We share as much information as we can while still ensuring operational security. As far as noise mitigation, we understand that our flying operations affect the community and we continue to mitigate that impact as much as possible while still fulfilling our federal flying mission responsibilities that we've been entrusted with. We've adjusted takeoffs and landings to lessen noise and even adjusted flight patterns to accommodate the local outdoor events when community partners have requested that. Later this year, we expect the FAA to implement soundproofing measures which will enhance local residents' quality of life. We're working closely with our partners at Burlington International Airport to provide as much support during this process as needed. I know you had a lot of other questions regarding the pandemic response and other statistics and I'm prepared to take any questions at this stage. Sure, I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about the work you've been doing in pandemic response. I don't know if folks are aware, but men and women from the Guard have been helping with the testing and vaccination clinics that we've had here in Winooski. Correct, so ongoing support for COVID-19 response, almost 100 airmen, which is about 10% of our force have supported this mission. Two separate times, you may recall in the news we assisted the construction of a 400 bed alternate health facility at the Champlain Valley Expo to relieve patient loads in local hospitals. And at one point treated 35% of Vermont's COVID-19 patients in that facility. As of 31 August, we've delivered nearly 3 million meals, produced 140,000 and shipped more than 210,000 COVID test kits, completed 6,500 contact tracing calls and administered more than 64,000 vaccines. And that will continue. Our mission is on until at least December 31st of this year. Thank you for that. I've heard good things from our community partners about their experience with the crew that you provided. So appreciate that. And then also we just, going back to what our HR manager and co-interim manager shared earlier, fire and emergency services also do some mutual aid support for us in just in the last week or something. And that is one of our lesser known work, those partnerships with our local communities. Our fire department is the primary crash fire and emergency response to all incidents on Burlington International. But we also routinely provide mutual aid to surrounding towns, including 214 responses for fire, medical and other emergencies in FY20. Just recently, as was mentioned, the 158th fire department responded to a residential fire in Winooski on the morning of Sunday, September 5th. Within six minutes of the request, three Vermont Air National Guard firefighters arrived on scene to assist other local responders who were working to contain a small mattress fire that was producing dense smoke. Initially, the V-Tank firefighters were assigned as rapid intervention team members, which is a dedicated team assigned to the rescue of firefighters if they get injured or trapped during the fire operation. The assignment changed when a victim was removed and the V-Tank assisted with packaging and transporting the patient to the hospital. That was very timely. We also have an explosive ordinance disposal unit who routinely partners with civil authorities in this past year safely recovered and destroyed 114 ordinance items in over 1,100 small arms around. The team support extends beyond Vermont and they swept more than 40 acres of the Adirondack range at Fort Drum, New York for explosive hazards and removed more than 15 tons of scrap and 316 pieces of ordinance. They also support the US Secret Service in very important persons visits in the region, including our senior Senator Patrick Leahy. Thank you for sharing about that. Just a couple of questions going back to F-35 operations. I know in the original environmental impact statement, there were some projections about the number of flights per year total after burner usage. I wonder if you have data on that over the past year, how many flights you have run and what percentage have used after burners? For sure. So total flights from October of 2020 to September of 2021 are approximately 2,000. About 300 of those were not local training sorties. In other words, more than 15% of our annual flying was not from BTB airport. That's takeoff and landings from other airports. Approximately 125 of those sorties were at night locally, so less than 10% of the overall flying was from BTB. This is in line with historical averages from at 16 flying hours and night missions. Minimum altitude when landing on runway 15 and approaching over Winooski is 200 feet above ground. I'm sorry, 2,000, thanks. That's why I brought the piling. Prior to starting our descent for landing, there was no average for takeoff or the final portion of the landing phases. We're either in ascending or descending profiles for those respectivities, respectively. As far as night flights, we're required to conduct night operations to meet U.S. Air Force and major command requirements and proficiencies, and we voluntarily notify the public in advance of the dates of those training events. To answer your question, mayor. Yeah, and then how many flights have run with after burners? A total of one since we've had the aircraft. Okay. And none in the last year. And the EIS indicated no more than 5%, so we're well below that number. So thank you for that general data. I want to turn to other members of council to see if there are other questions or comments. Good evening, everyone. I would just first like to thank you, folks, that the men and women that serve along with you. I also want to thank you for helping out when it's easy to help out. I think it's a great partnership, and I, for one, have lived in this for my whole life and have always enjoyed the partnerships that VTANG has shared along with Wemuski. So I'd like to be first to thank you for all the support and for your service. You're welcome. Thanks, Mike. Before turning to public comment, I do want to share, you mentioned the noise mitigation through the FAA. We just had an update. Oh, yes. So we had a noise monitor installed here at City Hall that the airport put in. Installation will be, the system will be fully installed, September 23rd, and then rolled out for public access in late October. As we receive updates from the airport, we'll continue to push that out. There's supposed to be a public portal that folks can log into online to look at actual noise data recorded here, aligned to radar information about voice. We also, the noise compatibility program that Burlington and the airport are running in partnership with the FAA. I haven't had any big, no big updates since the last one a couple of months ago, but there's a 10 house pilot this year to design that program for noise insulation for homes that qualify. And right now, the way it's designed, they'll be doing 50 homes a year. And Wemuski, they are advocating to the FAA that Wemuski received 75% of the allocated homes each year going forward. It's the FAA's decision where, so we can't say that's guaranteed, it's up to the FAA, but that is something that Burlington and us have been advocating for because we have a larger impact here. So that, just want to share that about the noise mitigation efforts. Any other, is that anything else that you all wanted to share before we turn to public comment? You had a question that you wanted me to answer about other military based noise measurement. Oh yes, I did. And so there were two other installations are in the midst of measuring acoustic data. One at Naval Air Station LaMoure in California, which is a fire base with F-35s and another at Naval Air Station would be Island. As of a year ago, the proposed study was still in draft and assuming they kicked off the actual data collection, in the fall of 2020, the data collection is not completed until they have collected across each of the four seasons. So what's important to note is we would not use their data to update our environmental impact statement or noise model. The value of the outcome is for the Navy to compare and contrast standard modeling efforts used to create noise maps. With their models. That makes sense, Pat, Shannon, or anything else I missed on that. For people that don't know the different models of the aircraft, there's an A model, a B model, and a C model. We fly the A model, so all the noise studies that they're doing would not be applicable to our type of aircraft briefly. Not only that, but our noise model was updated to the most current noise model that the Air Force has before our EIS information was released. So as of now, we're confident in the data that's in the EIS. Okay, thank you for that. Was there anything else I asked you for that I'm forgetting right now? Environmental, perhaps. Yeah, I know there's been some concerns about the firefighting foam. Yeah, so our commitment to protect the environment remains steadfast. A few recent articles have mentioned the potential environmental impact chemicals previously used in airport firefighting foam. We don't use that foam anymore. It's important to remember that no drinking water wells are currently impact. The base, the airport, and the community outside the base are connected to the Champlain Water District, public water supply. We do acknowledge that there was, in the past, there was release of that foam and we've completed three phases of the federal cleanup process. The preliminary assessment evaluated the most probable areas of concern. During the site investigation, on-base ground and surface water data was collected. Off-base ground and surface water data was collected during the third phase, the expanded site inspection. So the next step in the CERCLA process, which is Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Lineability Act, is a remedial investigation. This will entail additional sampling data, collection in complete human and ecological risk assessments. We're fully committed to this process and will remain transparent with all efforts in that. That next phase is pending budget funding through the Air Force. Thank you for that. All right. I think we're gonna start with in-person folks and then we're gonna move to those who signed up online and then folks who have just dropped in and did not do the previous sign up. We have a lot of folks attending and signed up for comments. So I am going to ask you to keep your comments to two minutes. If you start to go over, I'll try to find a nice way to let you know that that time is passing. Please come up to this microphone so we can make sure that it's audible for everyone that is viewing through Zoom and state your name and where you're from. We need that for taking minutes. And yeah, I know this is an emotional subject for a lot of folks. And so now is just a chance to express how you are feeling and being impacted here in Munezki. I'm gonna start over here with Dr. Eklund and then I think we can just kind of loop around the room. Assuming you wanted to speak. There is a sign-in sheet for collecting names but we're just gonna go in order of who wants to speak. I'm just gonna call on folks. So I'd like to start on this end and then move forward. Thank you, Mayor Lott. My name is Dr. Robert T. Eklund and I live here in Munezki. I have been here since 2014. I have a timer here so I'm gonna make sure that I'm a professor so I can use up plenty of time so I'm going to make sure that I don't go over time here. The other day I was at the coffee shop here on the Rotary if you live in this area I'm assuming that you live close by. You know the Scout coffee shop. There was a little girl there who was crying and I was on my computer, I looked up and I heard her parents saying we don't know if they're gonna come over again, it's okay. Don't worry, we don't know if they're gonna come over again and this little girl about four years old was very distraught. I said, is it because of the F-35s? Asked the parents and they said yes. I said, well, you know, in Munezki you never know when they're going to be flying over. Sometimes it's weekend, sometimes it's nights. We can look up as you said online to find out. But I have to say that what they told me was really interesting. They said, well, we're visiting and we thought we were under attack. We thought we were under attack. The adults did and the little girl was very distraught. So we know they were visiting. I said, it doesn't happen all the time but I wanna let you know that when it happens it happens really loud. When it happens, it happens really loud. It's an invasion of our space. Those flights shouldn't be over. Those flights shouldn't be over such a densely populated area. Thank you. I'm gonna take my mask off because I'm partially deaf and when people have their mask on I haven't really heard any of this meeting, unfortunately. So it makes it very hard for me to know what's being said but I felt it was really important to be here tonight and to give you my perspective on this. I pretty much walked all of Winooski at one point or another handing out flyers or getting out information some about this meeting tonight and what I've discovered is that when I talk to people their stories really tell me that the military is doing harm. The military should be protecting us and for that I appreciate them greatly but they should not be doing harm in our community and to me that is something that is so important. Just like Dr. Acklin talked about the child and the family visiting I walked and talked to a grandmother who said my daughter just had a baby and the baby wakes up screaming every time the planes fly over. I talked to someone else who talked about having PTSD and how when the planes fly over and that noise invades their space for quite a bit of time because they go in those pairs and they come one group right after another after another how that triggers off issues for her and this is the sort of thing I hear all the time from parents, from older people, from individuals being partially deaf myself I can tell you I can still lose hearing but what is more important is that I worry about the children in our schools and the children in our community and we know that this is causing damage to their hearing and to them in general and their ability to learn. I missed half of my education easily because of being partially deaf and in the 50s there were not hearing aids available for me. These children are losing too much and they can't afford to. Our community is special, it's low income it has a large minority New American population where English is hard enough for them to grasp let alone with planes flying over. So once again I would ask that the military stop doing harm to our people. Did you want to speak? My name is Drew Schatzer, I live in South Burlington I work here in Winooski a couple blocks away. I'm an educator, I work at a school down the road and every day except Mondays we have our day interrupted multiple times in the middle of instruction. Could be 10 minutes at a time then again at lunchtime, then again in the afternoon. You never know, it's really hard enough just to plan a school day without having to guess when our lesson's gonna get interrupted. On top of that a lot of my students in particular have suffered a lot in their short lives. Many of them have diagnosed PTSD. So I see how they're affected by these flights every day. It's really unfortunate that they're being harmed by the people that they're supposed to trust and believe in. So I would like to ask that you please stop doing this in a very sensitive, densely populated part of the state. Please move them far away from us here. And I'd also have a question because most people I talk to about this seem to think that you guys are there flying these F-35s like over our heads with this mission to protect us from something like maybe another 9-11 type event or some kind of invasion. How much of the training that you guys are doing is actually preparing pilots to protect us from something like that versus use those planes offensively in other parts of the world? Like on your day to day when those planes are in the air are you training the pilots to protect us or to drop bombs on other people around the earth? Thank you. Are you here to speak? Please come up. We'll answer the questions at the end of public comment. My name is Lucy and I'm a resident here. And I appreciate that I'm not an expert in the military or airplanes but I am an expert at being a parent and a therapist and I've been living in Muruski for seven years from Brooklyn, New York and the airplanes are loud there but they're really loud here. One of the things I really wanna talk about is the effect on my kid when she walks home from school just like today. I don't worry about her getting hurt or her environment walking down the street. I worry about what's happening in her brain, in her ears when she's walking home from school when those airplanes are flying overhead. And I also wanna just say that with this new virtual world that we're living in, working from home is completely impossible in Muruski because of the airplanes. And I just don't want it right here. Why can't we do it somewhere else? Why can't we know when it's gonna happen on a day-to-day basis? And I was three blocks away from 9-11 and New York City when it happened and every time an airplane comes overhead, I remember that day. So that's what I wanna say. Thank you. Thank you. Ma'am, are you here to speak or please come up? My name is Charlie Ziegman. I live on West Street in Muruski. I'm outside of the 65 decibel zone so none of your mitigation will do anything to make my life any better. I'd like to read something that maybe y'all, everybody knows, we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. But they're endowed by the creator with certain unalliable rights that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I can't have a happy life in this community anymore. I've been here for 22 years. I've been engaged in the community. I sat on the planning commission in this community for six years. I care about this place. I knew there was an airport here when I purchased my home. I endured the noise and the disruption that the F-16 has caused in my life. I paid attention when the F-35s were considered to be based here. I knew how much louder they would be. Nothing has prepared me for the stress that I now suffer. When the F-35s take off, I can hear them approaching. If I'm inside of my home with the windows closed, when they take off her land, I can't speak to anybody in my home. I can't participate in the online classes because I can't hear the instructor. I can't do a telehealth appointment because my provider can't hear me and I can't hear them. I lose my focus during telehealth appointments. If I'm trying to talk to somebody about an issue, my focus is gone. Five minutes later, maybe it comes back. Maybe, maybe I can refocus again and then more planes go overhead. And then five minutes later, more planes go overhead. And this happens every day, Tuesday through Friday. There's no way for me to escape that I go to my work. I'm a business owner in Burlington. I go to my workplace. And in the afternoon, they're disrupting me at my work. If I meet with a customer, it's noisy, we can't hear each other. Some people are surprised. Like one of these folks talked about tourists are surprised. They didn't know we lived in a place where there's military planes flying over. During the pandemic, my business was shuttered because of the pandemic. It was a very stressful situation for me and for my partner. The jets continued to roar over my house. I wasn't allowed to go to work, but I was still being disrupted by the noise. I couldn't go for walks. My only solace during that time was to go for a walk in the park. Never knew when the jets were gonna fly over. No way to protect myself. I'm also a bike commuter. I ride my bike to work every day. I have no way of knowing when the jets are gonna go over. I have no way of protecting myself when the jets go over. It physically hurts my ears. I can sometimes feel it in my body. I feel as though I'm being forced to leave the community that I love, the home that I've cared for and loved, the neighbors that I love, and the lifestyle I've worked very hard to attain so that I can live in peace and quiet. But honestly, I'm gonna have to leave this community and discontinues. I can't live like this anymore. It harms my mental and emotional health to live in the flight path of the F-35s and I'm asking you to stop training them here. Thank you, Jen. I have a bunch of questions and I hope somebody's recording the questions. I wanna know, with your complaint hotline, I wanna know how the complaints are being recorded. Is there a complaint number for each complaint when people call in? I wanna know how many complaints have been recorded since the hotline was started? I wanna know, is there a public record where any of us can look at the complaints that were recorded? I wanna know specifically how the information is being collected and what is it actually being used to do? Because I heard you say that you're doing something to mitigate the noise. I have only noticed an increase in noise, not a decrease in noise in the past year. I wanna know specifically what the guard is doing to mitigate the devastating effects that the basing is having on this community. I read somewhere when I was poking around today, I don't remember where, but Major Scott Detweiler, one of your voice? Public Affairs Officer. Says that as neighbor quote, as neighbors we care deeply about balancing our federal mission requirements with the impacts of our operations and have taken many steps to mitigate sound, less than impact and be transparent with the public. Can you please tell me specifically what has been done? Can you tell me specifically what is the guard planning to do going forward to be better neighbors? Did you guys speak? I'm sorry, I forgot my name, come on up. Hi, my name is Camille Park and I am a resident of Lusky. I have lived in Lusky now for about 15 years. Can I put this down as I haven't seen? Okay, so I have something I have prepared for you. So, first off, thank you for what Vermont Guard does for us. I have witnessed the F-35s flying over Landry Park on a beautiful sunny afternoon. It was extremely painful to watch about 25 kids putting their hands on their ears and grimacing. And it felt very criminal. It felt assaultive to me as I'm sure it did for their parents. So there lays a question, had you sound proof of playground? Yeah. The F-35s are a public health issue or perhaps a public health crisis. The phrase I believe in science has been floating around now for the past several years. The science of the health effects of noise pollution from the F-35s is proven. You've got to just check out the facts. To briefly name a few, there's a damage to hearing, there's a decrease in cognitive function and learning, and the F-35s now give a new meaning to the fight or flight response. Exposure to this level of noise pollution will release stress hormones which lead to a myriad of issues to name a few high blood pressure and heart conditions. Not to mention issues such as disrupting sleep, especially for those who work odd hours like myself. Occasionally work late shift and I come home at 7.30 in the morning only to be woken up at 9.30 in the morning from the F-35s and then try to go back to sleep and wake up at 2.30 from the F-35s going overhead. And then there's the chemical environmental toxins that I won't get into that. Our neighbors in Plathburg are still cleaning up the chemical pollution from the Plathburg Air Force Base. Talk to them about that. Vermont has been put on the map as an idyllic place to live and to visit. We have peaceful farms and pastures, maple syrup and beautiful foliage. Now Vermont has the F-35s and let's face it, the F-35s are weapons of mass destruction. Do you really want Vermont to be on the map for this? We already have one target that's endorsed at street. Do we want to have another target here? So who is profiting from the F-35s? The F-35s are destroying the peace and quiet of our community and the vitality of our community. I know at least four families that have already moved out of the area and they're the lucky ones that can move out of the area. For us, people who are homeowners, it's more than that. It's also impacts property value, but that's minor. And the noise affects people who work from home, who can't work from home because of being interrupted constantly. And I guess, I don't know who profits from this, but it sounds like it's basically the military industrial complex and politicians. What is it going to take to stop the F-35s? It could be a deadly crash over a densely populated city, a political scandal, or will you be listening to the people of Linoosky that are begging you to stop the training of the F-35s? Yes. Hi there, I'm David Brizendine, small business owner here in Winoosky on West Street. First of all, thank you all for your said and the questions they were asked. I hope that you're actually going to get to answer those. Aside from not being able to run any business meetings from about nine o'clock in the morning till noon from one in the afternoon till three without the expectation of having to stop down a phone call and reconvene a sales phone call 15 to 20 minutes later with the client that I scheduled. Aside from that, that's my own problem. It doesn't, it's no good. My real question is, specifically you talked about the phone and the environmental impact. My real question is if a plane does go down on route seven and even if it doesn't even hit a single house, please tell me what is the procedure that will happen? What happens in the city when that happens? I've been told there will be a one, I've been told because of the coding on the plane that it will take two weeks for that to burn out and that there will be an evacuation of a square mile. That's my understanding. I know that the city of Winooski is only one square mile so that pretty much means every single person in Winooski will be evacuated in that scenario. I'm hoping you can clarify that specifically for me. Thank you for setting this up. Thank you. And just to be clear, I am logging all of the questions so we can make sure that they're just at the end. Did you want to come up? I'm going to read so I don't get off track. My name is Carol Altabelli. I've owned my house on River Street for 31 years. I'm directly under the flight path. I used to love living here. I still love my house, my friends, neighbors, this whole town. I don't want to have to move but I hate living here now, it's unbearable for me. I now wear hearing aids. My blood pressure keeps going up. I'm more irritable than ever, stressed, tense, anxious. No one in my immediate or extended families have ever worn hearing aids except one person, my father, who happened to work at LaGuardia Airport in New York for 35 years outside with headphones or whatever they are protecting his ears. And he ended up wearing hearing aids. He's the only one, him and I, who have lived with F-16s and F-35s for 31 years. During the early pandemic, it was insane to work from home. It was impossible and people have already explained that and I have details of how impossible it was to have conversations with meetings during the times. It's just not possible. I don't know who is being able to actually talk to people when those planes are going over. And this is throughout the winter with doors and windows closed. No one could hear me, I can't hear them. I don't understand how sound mitigation is gonna work. It's ridiculous, not only will it do very little if anything, it's gonna take forever. I understand it's gonna take years for them to eventually get to my house and who stays indoors all day, every day, all year long. I go, please don't interrupt me, I get interrupted enough from the F-35s. I shovel snow, I take walks, I walk the dog, I garden in the spring and the summer, I sit on my front porch looking for some peace and quiet after a long day stressed at work. I don't understand how mitigation is gonna help when I spend a lot of time outside. So tell me how something that is supposed to protect us from the horrors of war is here now inflicting unbearable, excruciating sounds of war into our homes and into our lives as though we don't matter at all. As though we don't even exist. Now I'm distracted again for more noise. I want peace and quiet and I guess it's just not for us as far as you're concerned. I know at some point you're all going to figure out how bad and wrong and dangerous and unjust this is to inflict on anyone on a daily basis, especially so many in a densely populated community such as Winooski and our surrounding areas. But I'm suffering now and I can't live here anymore. And I also can't leave because I can't find an affordable place and I can't afford the prices right now. I've been looking for three years. People say if you don't like it, leave. I'm trying, but it's not that easy. And it's just intolerable. I lived here a long time. I could handle the commercial jets. I even tolerated the F-16s but the F-35s are pure insanity making. So I guess I just want to know, I don't know, whatever benefit these jets are to some, they are disastrous to many of us. And I need you to hear that. I need you to understand or I need you to spend one day, one week, one month in my home while these planes are going over. And then tell me that you feel okay about what you're doing. Please, please help us and stop this. Thank you. Thank you. I'm Jacqueline Schultz. May I move this? Sure. I'm Jacqueline Schultz and I'm here because my grandparents in the 1930s migrated from Connecticut to Winooski and they lived on East Spring Street and the Weaver Street. They worked in the mills so I feel I'm entitled to talk even though I live in the north and north of the stand of North Avenue in Burlington. And first I want to say I am very grateful and commend all the good works that members of the National Guard do for the communities. That is a great thing in heartwarming. However, it does not diminish the hardships we're having now because of the F-35. And I'll tell you my personal experience, I'm out a great deal because I'm retired and it's very nice to walk my dog often. But at certain times in the morning between 9.15 and 9.30, I forget to brace myself because something's coming and it comes and it freezes the moment I get my body cramp. I have to stop. If I happen to be bumped into someone to talk, we cannot talk this far from one another. We can't speak, we can't hear one another and it chases your father. And then I have to say usually four or something, maybe three, four, or lower. I know they're gonna be three or four more and have to stay braced. That is inhuman. That is beyond the human level to tolerate. And I also am concerned about, I'm gonna try to be better, but I'm thinking about the creatures, other creatures in nature. I worry about the aquatic animals in Lake Champlain. If I'm affected, you can be sure what you know what water does to sound. That something goes on in that lake and something goes on in all the natural critters that are in our, actually city, our city animals, not to mention your dogs and so forth. And babies on a retired teacher and unfortunate enough to live on the street where the middle school kids go back and forth to school. And I think if I were teaching, this would be one holy hell. To have to get the attention back, the feeling of security, because you feel you're being attacked. I agree with somebody who spoke earlier. I sometimes feel I have to dive for cover. And that just isn't right. And I've made two road trips crossing the country through Nebraska and Nevada. All those places with wide open spaces. Vermont is little. I mean, there are places where F-35s can be going for miles and miles and miles and nobody will hear them. It's not Burlington, Vermont and Manuski, Vermont and South Burlington and all the surroundings. And I would like to have the Washington delegation that presents us in this capital to come and stay a few nights in a hotel in Burlington, Vermont. And they might help us more to move the F-35, put hopefully out of the United States. I hear they're getting sold to Israel and Saudi Arabia. Maybe we'll get them sold, I don't know. Thank you. Did you wish to speak, sir? Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't see him. Realize there's some folks over here. You can come up after, sir. Did you want, were you here to make comment? I've been waving at you for a while. Oh, sure, come up. Come on up. My name is Jack Brot. I live in Manuski. I'm a newbie. I've been here only 12 years. I have just one question. You gentlemen can't answer it. You are not empowered to answer it. My question is for our legislators and our governor. My question is this. Why are you not here tonight? It's not a rhetorical question. I would like an answer from any and all of them. Thank you. My name is Dr. Sam Russo. I'm a primary care provider here in Manuski. I'm also a resident in Manuski. I've been here since 2004. Many people here have already corroborated some of the things that I'm going to tell you about. But what I want to impart on you is that when people are exposed to these noise levels, it's not just that you're hearing a loud sound temporarily and then you get over it. There are studies that demonstrate the neurohormonal changes to this type of noise that have long-term effects on learning and aversive behavior as well as presenteeism, which is the ability to prove present at the task at hand. And that has a negative economic impact. So in my practice, I'm regularly seeing patients who are describing the long-term effects of being exposed to the jet noise. The last jet flew over, I think, this morning. So it's been several hours and they're all still kind of worked up for it. There's actually a neurochemical basis for that. And it causes permanent neuromodulation in kids, meaning as they repeatedly are exposed to a stressor, they can have permanent changes to their nervous system that's going to affect behavior and function down the road. And over time, that's not going to change. So it's not really a question of if the F-35s are causing harm. It's to what extent are the F-35s causing harm? How many people are being harmed? And there's not research at this point coming from the government asking these questions. We're looking at possible environmental impact, what will happen if a plane goes down. But what we need to look at is what is happening to our most valuable resource, our children. Adults are pretty valuable too, so we should be studying them as well. But we need to look at the research, looking at the effects, long-term effects on our kids, as well as the community. So my question that I would like to get an answer for, and if you can't, please provide some references to where is, who is looking at the health effects and what is the current outcome if that's been done. Thank you. And thank you for your service. This is not a comment on the military or the F-35 itself. But it shouldn't be in a densely populated area. Thank you. My name is Matthew Ennis. I live at La Fountain in Hood. I've been there for eight years. Thank you for coming and listening to us. And thank you for the good things you do for our community. I really appreciate it. I went down to Middlebury yesterday and sat right in front of where Bernie was speaking. And I was the first person to ask a question and ask, completed with him, to change his mind and support us in getting this mission out of here. I think you should have a different mission. That's a non-combat mission for the most populated area of Vermont. And I think it doesn't mean you have to shut down. You should have a different mission. So Bernie's response was, he supports the mission of the air guard. That was his only response. Just a little preamble about Eisenhower warned about the military industrial complex. And now we're in it. And John McCain, who was very much for the military, said this was a horrible project, the F-35. And there were lots of problems. And they've been talked about. I believe there's been five crashes now. I have a sign on my front lawn that says, giant US military keeping us less safe. Because I'm worried, one of the aspects of that sign is I'm worried one of these could go down. And that's not going to be fun. And I feel like we're being put in danger to have this here. When I go outside personally, I have air protection, like people wear for chainsaws. But sometimes I forget it. And when I forget it, I have them on. It muffles it so I can tolerate it. If not, I have to do this when they're intense. And some claims are more intense than others. I don't know what they're doing. I don't know if it's the afterburners, but some are very, very intense. But as far as I'm concerned, if we can spend all this money in Afghanistan and then finally decide to pull out, we can spend all this money on the F-35 project and then scrap the project. And yeah, you have some built. I don't think they should build anymore. I think that this project should be stopped. And the amount of spending we do on the US military is out of control. And we can't deal with the other issues we have to deal with for people because of that spending. And that's not your issue. That's a big, that's the military industrial complex. That's not you individuals. I know there's a lot of good people in the military, so I'm not criticizing you personally. I'm here to also speak on behalf of Congolese family I know, and a Nepalese family I know. And they were in refugee camps in Burundi and in Bhutan. And they've been through a lot of trauma these people in their lives. There are many, many people in this community that their refugees have been through a lot of trauma. And I'm speaking for them because they're too busy trying to survive to come here to this meeting. They don't like this. This is not good for them. This is probably, it's probably PTSD going on for them like for some other people with this. You're a little over time, Matthew. Let's do it. You're a little over time. Oh, I didn't know there was a time. Sorry. I just think the guards should have a different mission and that the military budget in this country needs to shift and it doesn't mean we shut down the military. And I really thank you for coming to listen to me and us, all of us. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We're to the back row. Tade, did you want to come up and speak or are you going to listen? Yes, yes. Did you want to come in or are you just here to listen? Yeah. Oh, I was going to come in. Yeah, please come up. Oh, I missed you guys. Okay, I'll get you next. Sorry. Can I say one more thing I forgot. I'm also speaking on behalf of the young people in this community, a lot of them have very young babies and that's four of them have babies. Thank you, Matthew. Hi, thanks for coming here. My name's Alyssa Parrish. I live on Leclerc Avenue over here. I just, I'm hoping you all can find a different place to do your training flights. I know I'm still dealing with today's flights when it happens, my nerves hit the roof and it takes me a minute to get grounded. I do cover my ears and that does help. So, but it's rough. My neighbor can't walk her dog easily in our neighborhood because the dog is freaked out. But most importantly, my other neighbor has trouble schooling her kids this past year. One of her sons has autism and it's really hard for him to deal with. Her other son still has issues with it. His behaviors are affected by the noise. It's tough for her. I know also that schooling is tough online with the planes flying overhead at 35s. I go to CCB and going to school online this past year was difficult, I would have to ask my classmates to hold on or repeat themselves. Other types of Zoom meetings really rough. So I just wanted to let you know that's what's going on in my neighborhood. Thanks. Thank you. My name's Jean Keller and I'm actually a resident of Burlington in the area that we're now calling the Old East End. I live between the hospital and the ballpark. And we, according to the environmental impact statement, are in an area that was supposed to have been improved when the F-16s left and the F-35s came in. And I can tell you that the quality of life for those of us in the Old East End is so greatly, greatly diminished. A number of us have filed complaints on the reappraisal of our properties because, specifically mentioning this, because we know that if we tried to show a house to a potential buyer during this period of time, and I wanna note that it's not just the takeoffs, it's when you come screaming back over the city at a low altitude, getting ready to land. That's when Burlington gets hit very, very badly. And I actually watched one time from my garden. I can't even garden when they're coming over, but I'm standing there watching, coming over in pairs and then one of them peels off and it's a real Blue Angels moment and I think a lot of people get real excited. I can imagine the Flyers are pretty excited about doing this too, but one of them peeled off and I swear to God, started to turn over and shook a little bit and righted him or herself and finished the peel off and I was frozen, thinking to myself where I'm standing, trying to visualize it in a Google map and thinking where would that have landed? It would have been maybe Winooski High School, maybe Essex High School, but it would have been in the middle of where 160,000 Vermonters live. What would the aftermath of that be? So, when we did have a hearing in Burlington and I'm very sorry to say that the Burlington political leadership supported this placement, I'm very sorry, but I went to testify against it. And I said, apparently this is to defend our lives, but I think this is going to make an enormous bad impact on our lives and especially our neighbors in Winooski. The boundaries, the political boundaries need nothing to this noise. The political boundaries mean nothing to this noise. I'm measuring 90 decibels in my house, which is two miles from the airport. 90 decibels when these things take off. And the noise, it's not just the moment, when the butt end of the plane turns and blasts us, we're in hardscape because we're in a populated area with residences and buildings and we're in a hardscape and the noise ricochets, it lasts for a long time. And because it's low frequency, we hear you for a long time. We hear you until you're maybe over Buffalo, I don't know, but I'm so very sorry Winooski that the Burlington Airport allowed this to happen. I'm very sorry, but what we need to make sure everybody is that when these planes start breaking down and can't be repaired and other locations that have planes fall under some number that sustains their mission at that location that the remaining planes that work do not get brought here. I think the big fight now is we never go above 20 and every time one gets retired, it does not get replaced. Thank you. I'm sorry, but that's the only thing we can do to defend ourselves. You were up next ma'am, did you want to speak? Okay. I thought you didn't want to speak, James? Actually, I don't know. Can you wait until we come back around, please? Absolutely. Are you wanting to speak in the back corner? Did you want to make a comment? Yeah. Are you just here to listen? My name is Dave Sennigal, I live on Main Street. I've lived there 73 years, my entire life. I've lived there since the Mustangs first came to Burlington. I've lived through the Canabarras, I've lived through the F-4 Phantoms, and now I'm trying to live with the F-35s. I doubt there's very much you're gonna be able to do, to be totally honest with you. However, I have certain questions in. I never got an answer to them. Question number one, we were told when the F-35s were gonna be coming in that we, you, were gonna be flying simulators. And the F-16s, as much as they flew, oh, the F-35s were gonna fly a couple times a week because our simulators are so good, we don't have to put the jets in the air. We both know that's foolish. You have the jets in the air every day, except perhaps on Sundays, and you don't fly just one or two. You're flying eight, 10, 12 planes at a time. You fly out, you're up in the air for an hour, and you're right back down again. The noise is deafening. I counted once how long it took your jet when it was over my house to get out of my sound where I wouldn't hear it anymore, two and a half minutes. That was well over the lake, if not over Platsburg. God knows how far those jets fly. But yet, nothing was said. Oh, what's wrong with simulators? My first question to you. How come there's so many flights, and there's actually nobody that's gonna stand behind and say, oh, we never said that. The second question I have, what is with the grandstanding when you people land, you fly over the runway, and then as a previous lady said, you peel off. How come you're not doing your initial, your base, and your final over the lake like every other commercial jet? What makes it so necessary for you to first of all, fly in tandem over the entire runway, then peel off, then land, you subject us twice to that noise every single time you take off and land? I'm told it's $46,000 an hour to keep a jet in the air. What are you doing, gone for less than an hour and coming back to justify something like that? I've never heard anybody tell me anything. Nothing, yeah. Living here 73 years and seeing all these other jets and some of them were very noisy, but I see no reason for it. I've never seen a reason for it. All of the other jets come and go perfectly fine, but you people have to grandstand as far as I'm concerned. There's no reason as far as I can tell that you can't do your initial and base and final over the lake and just fly in. Why do it to us twice? Do I respect you people? Absolutely, without fail. You are great people, you're fighters. I know what you do. I know when you're set over into combat and I totally appreciate it. I myself is a combat vet, disabled, but yet I respect you. I don't respect how you're running this area. I don't respect the individual and not mention names, but he had to have in the Senate, he had to have the F-35s come to Vermont. Prestige is all I can think of. This individual lives down the state. He never hears them. Matter of fact, most of our legislatures live out of the area, so they never hear it. The poor people in Winooski, the poor people of South Burlington to have to listen to this onslaught continuously. Why? Why are you using a runway so small? It's not an Air Force base where you have an ungodly amount of time to get in the air and the people that live on the base are well aware of what they're going to tolerate. The people in Winooski, though, they never have. They put up with us every day, every day, and I think it's time to stop. Thank you, Mr. Senator. Good evening. My name's Heather. I live on Whitney Street, and I've been living there for about three years. I'm very fortunate to be a first-time homeowner. I also work in the ER at the Medical Center. Thank you for being here tonight and for listening to us. I have thought a lot about this and how I wanted to communicate to you tonight. Still wish I had more time to prepare, but what did come to mind was in my line of work and what I try and strive to do in my life is that basic idea of do no harm. And sometimes I do have to harm or cause pain to maybe a patient for something greater or something that we're doing to whether it's a test, but for example, getting an IV is started to do a test. And that then leads me to think about risk and benefit. And if it is worth the risk or the harm to that patient for the benefit of the results or the outcome for that patient. And I really think and I feel that it's not, the harm that's happening to our community is not, it's not worth the benefit. And I would like to try and figure out a way that we could come to a point where the result is not as harmful and the benefit can be something where the outcome is mutually decided or agreed upon. So both parties can get what they need, but yeah, there's too much harm coming to our community. Thank you. Thank you. I'm at the back row now. Did you have a comment? I'm having trouble recognizing. Masks. So my name is Bobby Arnell and up until about two weeks ago, I lived in Monewski, but now I live in Burlington. And so I'm a new Burlington resident, but for the last seven years I've lived in Monewski and have been subjected to the onslaught of the military aircraft noise. And I'll tell you, I left because I have a five-year-old daughter and I was so concerned about her cognitive development and her daily exposure to these loud noises that I thought the best way that I could protect her was to at least get us out of where we were living in Monewski, which was labeled unfit for residential use according to the most recent sound mapping. It makes me sad to leave a vibrant community like Monewski that has so much going for it. It has so many things to offer in a very vibrant community. It really, it hurts to leave that and just because of military aircraft noise. It makes me sad to see kids at a soccer practice that are between five and seven years old stop playing to hold their ears shut while the aircraft fly over. It makes me sad that we have to live in a community that deals with this. And so I guess I'll say, I don't have a lot of time, but the other thing that makes me sad, the other thing I have a hard time hearing is this term partnership when it comes to Vermont, with the Vermont International Guard. To me, a partnership means that both sides listen to one another. In this particular case, this seems like a relationship where the guard tells the community what to do and we have to accept it. I would like to see our elected representatives hold the guard accountable. I would like to see some of the concerns that we have taken into consideration and real change take place for what's happening in our community. And until our elected officials are held accountable, I don't see this changing. So yeah, I would like to see a lot of changes. And one of those changes I'd like to see that I've noticed too is the fact that a lot of these flights are taking place on religious holidays that are not Christian holidays. Today, for instance, is the new year on the Jewish calendar, it's Rosh Hashanah. And one of the biggest holidays in the Jewish faith and the planes are just screaming by back and forth. I really doubt that would happen on Christmas Day. The same goes for Muslim holidays as well. The same thing happens on holidays like Eve. I would like to see some sort of cultural sensitivity that's taken into account when it comes to these aircraft missions. Thank you, Bobby. Thank you, Madam Mayor. My name is James Ellers. I live on Canal Street. I'm a veteran, member of the BFW Post up around the corner here. I wasn't planning on speaking tonight, but there was one other gentleman, most notably a veteran, who did allude to one particular person who is the source of this problem. I appreciate the fact that you gentlemen are here. I've been sent on these sort of junkets myself. You're not my opposition. My opposition is Senator Leahy. And all the politicians who cover for him, we all know that he's serving nothing more than Lockheed lobbyists and ignoring the people of Vermont. As many of you have so eloquently said earlier, anyone that has to endure these flights from the ground day in and day out would never subject their loved ones to what we have to deal with here in Winooski. The Noise Mitigation Plan is a farce and it's an insult. I feel for you, I really feel for you. It has to be embarrassing to come here and tell us that over 50 years, we may get some of our homes insulated while our playgrounds and our sidewalks and our outdoor eateries just get ignored. I deeply understand how embarrassing that must be. It almost makes the Winooski dome idea for some of you that have been around seem reasonable. The Air Force didn't even want them here. Burlington was ranked last. You all know that. Jacksonville knows why they're here. We all know why they're here and it's not for military readiness. These weapons belong on a full-time military installation, if anywhere at all, not at a civilian airport in residential neighborhoods. You do outstanding work. The F-35s, sadly, are not the part of that here in Vermont. As has been said earlier, there are other things that you can expand upon that would meet the needs of Vermonters while the Air Force meets its national need elsewhere. I resigned my commission when I no longer could carry out what was being asked of me in good faith. I'm not asking you to resign, but I am challenging you to stand with the people instead of making excuses for the powerful. That same challenge goes to all the city counselors who are on the screen tonight and not here in the room. And please, if your commanders aren't watching this, please share with them how embarrassed I am for them that they sent you instead of showing up themselves. Thank you. You said, didn't you, did you? Go ahead. Gentlemen, hello. That was, last speaker said almost everything I would say. Can you say your name first, please? My name's Jeff Barron. Thank you. I live here in Manuski. Bought a house about six years ago, been in Vermont since 1988. Both of my grandfathers were in the Air Force. I support what you guys do. I don't want to say this to everybody, like if you're anti F-35, that doesn't mean you're anti military. At all. And it doesn't mean that you're a snowflake or whatever you want to call us. I'm nervous with my voice right now because I am also living through this sound. And when I am in the shower in the morning and I hear just a regular jet, I get scared. And then I'm like, oh, it's just a passenger airplane. Right over my, but I start to get really nervous. And I, the reason I said I've been here since 1988 is because the problem really is that the town and the county has gotten too big for the airport. I mean, it's not just the F-35s. It doesn't make sense that a mile from the center of the city, we have an airport. Who remembers the airport back in the 80s? It's tiny. We didn't expect the population to grow and it has grown so large. So I know it's really like moving a mountain, but they've been building the airport and expanding the airport. Gene Richards has been expanding the airport and carrying down houses, but where's the longterm vision? Like the airport needs to be moved. And you guys should be moved somewhere else where you can do exactly what you need to do because I do support your mission and I do 100% respect what you're doing. So, and I say this to the city council too, please. And thank you, Mayor, for having this forum. Something's got to give. I grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I know about industry. This is, it's absurd. It's not like verging on absurdity. The noise is absurd. It's just the only word I can describe it. So thank you very much. Thank you for doing what you do and thanks for everybody for being here and good luck because we need it. One comment per person, is there anybody that did not get a chance? I think you already spoke, sir. You did not? Okay, come on. I think I would have not done that. Hi, my name is Michael Laphyer. I live on 28 LaFount Street which is right over the airport, the flight path of the Jets. And I've lived here since 1984. The F-16s were pretty awful. I complained the first time I heard them going overhead to the National Guard. Yada, yada, yada, whatever. These F-35s are just, you gotta come and come to my house. Come sit in my house when they're going over because the other day I said, I bet you I can scream as loud as I can and not even hear myself. And guess what? I did it successfully. I screamed as loud as I could. I couldn't even hear myself. When those things go over, even if I'm mowing my lawn, I have to stop and plug my ears or I have to run inside, shut the windows and get a little bit of air protection. I can't imagine what this is doing to all the baby's infant's kids in this area because I think you're damaging their hearing and I wouldn't be surprised in five or 10 years they'll have a study come out and they'll see that they have damaged everyone's hearing because I feel like my hearing has gotten worse because those things are just so loud that they literally make you shake and my ears just rattle. My inner ears, I can just hear it rattling even with my hands over them. So, you know, I know you guys have nothing to do with this. This isn't your baby. Thank you for your service. This isn't your baby. This is, we should be talking to Leahy, Bernie and Scott about this because they're the ones that could maybe do something. And maybe some of you guys can too out there. I don't know, but I feel like they're the ones that brought it into the state and they need to help us get it the hell out of the state because it's effing ridiculous. Is there anyone in the back that I missed? Okay, you can come up. And then we're gonna move to the online folks. All right. How you doing? I wasn't gonna talk because I haven't lived here. My name's Aiden for the record. I haven't lived here very long, but the place I lived before here and the reason I do wanna talk was Colorado Springs, which I'm sure you all are familiar with. For everyone else in the room, Colorado Springs is, to my knowledge, the most military city in the US. You have NATO, you have the Air Force Base, you have Fort Carson, and you have a giant hollowed out mountain that they used to send the president to in a disaster. It's not very loud there. It's a really nice place to live. It's really beautiful, it's really quiet. So everything that you're saying about mitigation seems to me like complete bullshit. So my question is, why can one city that's way more military be so much quieter when it's not quiet here? Because to me, it seems like you just don't care. There's a lot of pain in the room, like that's obvious. It's hard for us to sit through this meeting. It doesn't seem hard for y'all to sit through this meeting, and it seems like what you're saying is that you're trying to mitigate noise and you're failing, but what you're really doing is just lying to everyone here. Thank you. Oh, can you please take us through our sign of commenters? That's in there a lot. We are gonna start with James Leafs. James, I'm gonna pull you over as a panelist and then we can begin. Doesn't look like you've brought him over yet, Paul. Oh. This time he's lagging a little bit. We're just gonna have a little bit of patience through these 14 or so commenters. Let's give everybody some time to... Hello. So I just have a few questions for the commander. First of all, are you aware that this is not just impact, as you said when you introduced yourself, but actual physical pain and injury from the F-35 training in this densely populated area, that you're actually injuring and hurting civilians? I think it's very important to get that admission out of you. And here's why. But I'll go to my second question. Is there a military regulation that authorizes you to conduct training in a location where you are routinely hurting and injuring civilians? I think you should answer that question. Is there a military regulation that requires distinction? Have you heard of distinction or separation of military operations from populated areas? Are you required to maintain separation of your military forces from populated areas or not? And is this enough in view of what you heard tonight from the people in Winooski? Is the Vermont National Guard here training? Here's a really insider question. Are you training under Title 32, which has command and control right here in Vermont, not federal, even though the federal government pays the bills, the command and control is right here in Vermont? The governor, the legislature, the attorney general, the state's attorney could put a stop to this because what you're doing is illegal and they don't want to do anything about it. They're acting political, okay. So is, now are you degrading your own training? You said you're not taking off with afterburner here in Vermont, but you also said that 15% of your takeoffs are somewhere else. So are you taking off with afterburner somewhere else? Where are you taking off with afterburner? Why aren't you doing the full training? If you're not doing it, are you degrading your own training by not using the afterburner? Isn't that part, an important part of your training and if you're doing it somewhere else, where are you doing it? And if you're doing the afterburner training somewhere else, why can't you do all the training there? And didn't you do three weeks of training at an Air Force Base this summer and a week of training in January at another Air Force Base? Didn't you prove that you don't have to do the training in a densely populated area? That being in a densely populated area is not essential for your training. That it's not a military necessity to do training in a densely populated area. And if it's not a military necessity, doesn't that ring a bell for you? That it's an illegal, it's a violation of your own regulations that you're not allowed to do military operations where you're gonna hurt civilians if it's not a military necessity. Thank you, Jim. Thank you. Okay, thank you very much. Okay, next up we have Fiona, which is the second thing. Hi, everybody. Thank you for coming up tonight. And Jimmy asked all the questions, so I don't have too many, but I just wanted to say that I came here tonight wondering what the value of my words can be. It seems like there's nothing I can say that you haven't heard before. That would be to change, but I can't stop showing up and I'm so glad that all my neighbors showed up tonight. I come with the hope that if enough of us keep voicing our dissent, we will eventually be heard. The impact of these claims will never be completely measured in numbers alone, but the cost is shameful. You've heard frustration, anger, and desperation. Every time these claims fly, it's not only deafening noise, but a painful reminder of the state and federal government's dismissal of our concerns. You've heard from many of my neighbors about the daily torments of these claims, and I hope by now you have even more clarity about the lingering impact of the daily onslaught of noise. The military claims to be defending us, but so many of us feel defenseless. And I just had some questions about, you know, this idea of sound and noise mitigation, and it's clear to all of us who live here that, you know, soundproofing our houses is not sufficient. And you talk about, you know, that you're trying to work with us, but, you know, I want to know more about why do you have to take off over when you see so often? Why do you have to circle around? Are there mandates on how many flights you have to do a day and what kinds of flights? Because some of the flights are so much more intrusive and invasive than others. And the days when you take off in other directions, it is more tolerable. And so more of that might actually show that you are trying to mitigate. And my final question is just what do we need to say? What data do you need to see? And I know you might not be able to answer this, but what would convince someone in power that this is the wrong place for these planes to be? Thank you. Thank you, Fiona. I think we heard about a dozen. Jennifer Decker. Hello, I'm calling in from Hinesburg. And what many people may not realize is that when the F-35s take off in a different direction, they end up going over Hinesburg. Today, they went over the Hinesburg Elementary School and I was outside and I didn't have enough time. There wasn't enough warming time for me to get inside. And so all I could do was put my hands over my ears and I could still feel the vibrations inside of my ears. And I could hear the children playing on the playground outside who also hadn't had enough time to get inside. And I wonder what is gonna be the extent of the sound measurements that you'll be taking to make sure that this doesn't impact communities all around the region. In addition, I have a great concern about the crash risk. I think it makes it laughable that you're talking about operational security. How secure can it be when you're running your military operations here and any accident that you have is gonna create a major civilian devastation zone. How secure is that? And how secure is it really when I was at a meeting with Hal Holstin at the airport and Jean Richards was saying to me, you guys shouldn't be, you know, don't do drones near the airport. And I kind of wanted to point out to him actually, like, we're the ones who are here to say, we are afraid of the planes crashing. We didn't come here to make the planes crash. That's our worst fear. What are you going to do to make sure that this airspace is actually secure? Is the airspace around here secure? What's not secure is to have a childhood in this area. I have started writing down a list of people who've died fighting this spacing. People in our community who've been fighting and they passed away. And what I want to know is, when will all of the harm be remediated? When will all of the victims of this ongoing harm be compensated? And when will we, as people stand up and say, no harm will be done in our name from the base of our community? This is our community. This is where we garden. This is where kids go to school. This is where I had a family member very badly impacted by some sort of neurotoxin poisoning. Will I ever know which one? Was it PFAS? Did that come from the garden? Is that why we have such a high cancer rate in this state? I have been fighting and standing up and speaking out against this spacing for a number of years in our community now. And the other prop I brought with me for this call was my copy of Catch-22, because you can't call something good and just that is wrong and evil. That is hurting people and that is a threat to civilizations around the globe. People working to survive. So I have to ask my last question. My last question is, is everyone on the call who's here to represent either the state or the Vermont Guard willing to watch the films that we've been making about the impact on our community? To hear the children's voices themselves, they were scared and this hurts us. Are you willing to watch those films that we've made? Will you reach out to the activist community and make a commitment to hearing from the children themselves that they don't wanna grow up in an unjust world? Thank you. Thank you, Jennifer. Next up, we have Joy and Yonan Reynolds. I'm Joy. I've timed my comments. So hopefully I won't be going over two minutes. I live on Pine Street and have for almost three years. So I'm a super newbie. I don't think I can possibly improve on what anyone has already said, but it is important to me to add my voice. I've commented frequently on the F-35s through Winooski's front porch forum, but was banned this May by the owner, Michael Wood-Lewis. Instead of a resident who publicly violated FPF's community guidelines against me, it fully supports the F-35s. A comparable example to one agenda being claimed for the F-35s while another is what is really inactive. I support intelligent defense, but not at the cost the U.S. prioritizes it. And for here specifically, the F-35s definitely aren't that. And there is really no political angle that can truly justify them and no numbers or data that can actually support them. We're being expected to absorb harm, which you, the National Guard, the governor, the federal government then say will be studied during and after the fact. That is entirely inverse to defending and protecting anyone. That is not honorable. That is not something to be proud of. Intelligent defense is about prevention, not remedy, and is about not expanding the capacity for war by sheer size. The F-35 program is outdated and problematic even by the military's own reports. I'd really like to know what was in it for Gene Richards, the airport director, though it's not too hard to guess. I'd like to know why Bernie Sanders is so apathetic on the topic when he's such a fighter for the people on other topics. We know that Senator Leahy's legacy clearly matters to him more than 6,000 of his constituents. Military industrialization is big business and is maintained by political and economic policy driven by expansionists and hyper militarized priorities that divert economic resources away from the people meant to be protected while not even effectively protecting anyone if you want to go by historical precedent. The Air Force responses to both Pearl Harbor and 9-11 were failures of prevention and protection both even as they were arguably preventable from prior intelligence that was ignored. What did happen though were reasons provided and marketed to the US populace to join World War II and start the Afghanistan war, which concluded in absolute failure just a few days ago, but profited private contractors. The ego and legacy of a few mattering over the health and voices of many is anti-American. Billions spent and thousands of lives lost or harmed for literally nothing is the actual legacy and partnership being perpetuated by the F-35 program. The F-35s are not the sound of freedom. They are the sound of deafening ignorance, misplaced priorities and warmongering nostalgia. Thank you. Thank you, Joy. Next, we have Richard Joseph. Richard, you are all set. Hey, Richard, we can circle back to you later if you want to use the raise hand function. You can do that. Next on our list is Lucy Gluck. Lucy, can you hear me? Yeah, we can hear you. My name's Lucy Gluck. I live in the Old North End of Burlington and have been working for quite a long time against the F-35 because the main message I want to put across tonight is that, along with all of my neighbors and friends and neighbors in the U.S.K., there are so many reasons why this plane, this jet, this military assignment doesn't belong here and needs to be canceled and needs to be moved. I don't really want to inflict it on anybody else, but I do feel there are other places that might be more appropriate. And as others have said, initially the air guard said, this wasn't the best place for it and Lady and others pushed it through and I'm incredibly disappointed and disgusted by his actions and Bernie and others who haven't protected us. And they're like others have said, I've been at work trying to work and having people say, even today, this afternoon on the other end of the line, hang on. I can't hear you. The jets are going over, pause, pause, pause. And then I start to hear them, so then I have to pause and can't do my work. You know, more than all the adults who I think have said all these great things, I know the kids out there are screaming that this has to stop. It's unacceptable and this is not the right place for a jet like this to be based. I wish I didn't feel so powerless. I know people who've worked years longer than I have to try to stop this basing, but here we are saying again, this is unacceptable and I'm glad you're listening to us and I hope that this is the next step in looking at a major change, which is to relocate these jets and get them out of this area. Thank you. Thank you, Lucy. Okay, next up we have Anthony, Anthony Apadokha. Go ahead when you're ready, Anthony. Hello, can you hear me? Yes, hello. Great, hi, my name is Anthony Apadokha. I live in 69 West Spring Street in Winooski. Thanks so much, Mayor Lott, for organizing this. I think it's really important that we have more public forums on this so that people can actually have a public space to have their voice heard. I was thinking as we're going through this meeting that the only thing more harmful than the jets might be the fact that when asked, the city council had no additional questions for the guard. I don't know what you guys are on about, but it's pretty embarrassing to me actually that they couldn't actually come up with a question for the guard. When you know full well the harm it's caused the community that the council actually or the city passed a resolution overwhelming majority that your constituents are against this program and you're just sitting there and Mike even just thanking them for their service, which is great, we do. But this is not what this meeting is about. I just have a quick question for the guard because there seems to be some confusion in Vermont regarding the F-35 training flights, a recent Burlington Free Press headline read does anyone in Vermont have the authority to halt the air guards F-35 flights? Which seemed like a weird thing that the article didn't actually give an answer. I assume that in the military you have a chain of command and you do know the answer. The US Constitution clearly states that the role of Congress is to provide for organizing, arming and discipline the militia but reserving the states respectively the appointment of officers, authority of training, the militia according to discipline prescribed by Congress. So the question I have for the guard is simply this, if Governor Scott ordered you to halt the F-35 training flights, would you follow those orders? Thank you. Thank you, Anthony. Okay, so next up we have Cheryl Green. Cheryl, go ahead when you're ready. Cheryl, if you wanna use the unmute function, you are ready to make a comment. Thank you. So sorry. Okay, and here I am. My name is Cheryl Green. I'm a voter in Ward 1 in Burlington where I live in Burlington co-housing situated between East Avenue and Centennial Woods. I appreciate this opportunity to listen deeply and to speak publicly. I try to make sure that I am never outside here between 9.30 and 10.30 a.m. Tuesday through Friday and the first weekend of the month. Afternoon times are less predictable. The sound of the F-35s is terrifying, maddening and painful. It registers deep in my body. I learned to stay inside after the attempts to cover my ears failed to shield the pain. I wear hearing aids and the sound ricochets around in my head. The worst impact I've experienced is hiking in Centennial Woods one morning with a friend last spring. The F-35s flew over and the sound bounced among the trees, intensifying its effect on us. There was no place to get away from it. I felt like I was in a war zone. Also, if we are between buildings on our property, it is extremely disorienting because it is impossible to tell which direction the F-35s are coming from. Maybe they have a new flight path, we wondered. There is no one experience when you are outdoors in this proximity to the F-35 takeoffs and landings. Move 100 feet and you will experience the intensity differently. I was an elementary school teacher for more than three decades. Most of those years here in Vermont all before the F-35 basings. I think often about the well-being of the children and the teachers and other school personnel who must plan student orientations and schedules to take into account the timing of the F-35 training schedule. Simply absurd. Mid-morning is just the time to have a recess break, to time to run and climb and breathe in the fresh air feel sunshine on your face, but not here. And all the families with kids of all ages at home trying to create their own plans and patterns around this frightening beast that's free to fly our skies enough already. It is time to move the F-35s out of this population center. Thank you. Thank you, Cheryl. And next up we have Christopher Ramos. Can you guys hear me? Yeah, welcome. Hi, thank you. First off, you wanna say yes. I'm Chris Ramos, I'm calling from the old north end of Burlington. Do you wanna say thanks to V-Tang for taking the time to be here and thank you for your contributions to fighting the pandemic. And also a big thank you to all my neighbors who've come to speak. And yes, the following comments that just strictly pertain to the F-35 training flights. Um, so in my estimation, the Vermont Air National Guard with support of the federal delegation and state and local officials have reduced the quality of life for me and my family. Clearly that has been the case for many of my neighbors too. The near daily assault instills a sickening anxiety in us as we wait for the flyovers to end and for the next ones to come. It's clear that the decision to install the F-35 jets at BTV was made without regard for the well-being of people of the New Scheme, Burlington and other cities. In short, you are actively causing harm to Monteress as others have said, the people you swore to serve and protect. I ask that you halt the F-35 training exercises out of BTV as soon as possible. And I do have one question. What are the legal pathways and the F-35 mission at BTV? That's everything. Thank you. Thank you, Chris. Okay, next we have Erica Victoria. Hello, can you hear me? Yes, welcome. Hi, I'm Erica Victoria. I'm living in Heinsberg. I also have some questions. These aren't rhetorical. You talked about noise mitigation of the damages caused by the F-35s, but I want to know how you're going to mitigate the trauma you've caused. How are you going to mitigate the environmental racism you've perpetuated? How are you going to mitigate the deaths of my friends that you caused by dropping bombs on them using the F-35s abroad as a weapon of war? The hearing loss and insomnia and other effects of the F-35s on the children here who I've worked with who can't sleep when you fly your planes at night and who can't focus at school is terrible enough as it is. But I also want to know how are you going to address the way F-35s force children into bomb shelters all over the world? How they are used to bomb and kill and terrorize children and families? I have a friend who when she was a child watched her four best friends be blown up in front of her by bombs that were dropped by U.S. war planes. They were dropped on civilians, on children. And the only reason she was spared was because she wandered off to collect buttercups. Now she can't look at buttercups the same anymore without seeing her friends dismembered bodies. And I can't look at buttercups either without seeing the same thing. And I hope after telling you all this you don't look at buttercups the same either. I have more questions for you. How are you going to mitigate the suicidality you've triggered in people in your community when they hear those plane engines? For example, the veterans with PTSD who have high suicide rates and who are activated by hearing those planes. After all, this is a question for you. Wasn't it you who sent them off in the first place to get PTSD in your wars, to pick up guns against women and children and innocence for your oil and blood money, now only to be re-traumatized daily by your planes here? And how are you going to mitigate the PTSD reactions you're triggering in immigrants and refugees who were forced to come here to escape your bombs, now only to hear your planes reminding them daily of that displacement? How are you going to mitigate the deaths and illnesses and environmental destruction of the U.S. military here in abroad? Every time I hear those planes, I see my dead friends' faces and you can't mitigate that. We aren't safer with these planes. They make our community and our world more unsafe in every way. And I want the people in the National Guard in this room to look into their hearts and assess their personal intentions for doing what they're doing and how they can do that. I also want to speak to the people in this room who said we should move these planes somewhere else. It's not enough to say we should move these planes somewhere else because there's nowhere to move them that wouldn't cause harm and destruction to people and to the folks here that have said they're okay with these planes here, but just not here, I'm speaking to you too. And I'm also urging you to remember the buttercups and that there's nowhere in the world where this violence should be justified or acceptable. The F-35s are poisoning our skies and our water and our bodies and are destroying our lives here and abroad, our children here and abroad. And the only way to mitigate that is to take these planes out of the sky everywhere in the world. Thank you. Thank you, Erica. I do want to mention that we have a few other people signed up as a Ginseng, Cakes, Pittsburgh, Annaly Pratt, Daniel Albert and Jenny Norris, but I am not currently seeing those folks in the attendees list. So we can move to some of the hands raised for now. If somebody is in the attendees list and I did mention your name and you have a different name as shown on the screen here, just use the raise hand function and we will come to you. I am going to switch to Britta Taughman. Britta, you're still on mute. We can see you. Hi, you think I have learned this by now after so many zoom? I just have a really basic question I want to ask and this hasn't really been addressed yet. I know that in the years leading up to the decision to base the F-35s here, there was a lot of words coming out of the business community of Chittenden County that this would be a huge economic boom to Chittenden County and that we were ridiculous not to see this opportunity to really boost our economy around here. And I just am wondering, have there actually been any studies done to show that this has had an, you know, that F-35s have had an economic impact that is positive to Chittenden County and are there any studies planned for the future? Cause I think that would be really important considering how big and how important that discussion was in the lead up to the facing, that's all it got. Thank you, Britta. Okay, Eliza, whenever you are ready. My name's Eliza Willis and I'm an eighth grader at the University of Ohio High School and I'm a student perspective on the F-35s that they're very disrupting when they go over. Our teachers complain about them cause they have to stop their learning and we just sit while they go over. And they are very, very loud. When sometimes when they go over, the ground shakes and I can feel like just like shaking. It's just so loud and just, it's awful. And so they normally go by in the middle of the day and it's very hard for us to learn. And so as I've heard the F-35s are just expecting like everyone in Vermont. And if there's not a major benefit to having them then I don't see why we have to have them at all. If there's such a disruption, thank you. Thank you, Eliza. And we have one final hand raise. Kara Mock with you and everybody are ready. Hi everyone. Certainly not just gonna wrap this up as the last person potentially to speak, I'm not sure. Whenever I hear the F-35s go over, I am reminded of this sort of corrupt process that brought them to our town. I know Leahy does not take personal responsibility for it. So part of my question, even though research has been done, citizens protecting themselves have made the efforts to get his emails and get emails going back and forth between the guard and the Air Force to sort of research how this decision was made to bring the F-35s to Vermont, even though they were ranked fourth by the Environmental Impact Statement, that the Air Force conducted and they were deciding what base should have these planes. And so my question is, who brought them to Burlington if nobody wanted them here? If the Air Force didn't want them, the Vermont Guard is not gonna take responsibility. They're just doing their mission. Leahy is following the mission. And yet they're here and they're doing harm to us. I think, unlike the PFAS that is polluting the rivers, that even though you're not using the same phone that you used 10 years ago, you're using a new phone that's still going into our drinking water, that PFAS is gonna be around indefinitely. These planes could fly away tomorrow and the noise would be gone. So my question is, who brought the plane? Like, who do we talk to? Who's gonna take responsibility for this? I'm so proud that Winooski continues to stand up against them. Thank you Mayor Lott for letting us have this airing of grievances. Thank you to the council for listening. Thank you to the members of BTANG for being here. But I would love for someone to take responsibility for this. Thank you. Thank you Mayor. So I think we've gone through all of the public comments. I've been taking some notes here. I thought maybe we could start with addressing the questions about decision-making and authority. You know, there's been several questions about, can we end the training flights here? Does the state have the ability to do that? I wonder if you're able to speak to where that decision-making authority lies. I think we can try to answer some of the training questions, some of the lower hanging fruit, but there's a lot of legal implications on some of those questions that I'd like to take back. Okay. But Winooski, if you've got a list. Let's, okay, let's start with some of the lower level. And yes, I have these notes. I would love to share them with you. And if you're able to share back something that we can share with the community, that would be wonderful. How about the safety question for crashing the middle of town? Can we please not have shout-outs? Thank you. We will get to that. That is on my list. I do wanna start with the operations issues first. And so a lot of references are made to, it sounds different. Sometimes it's not as bad as others. You know, you're coming in low while you're landing and taking off. Even this afternoon, I saw the jets kind of bank around the city and come back in, causing like two disruptions instead of one. Can you speak to those issues? Why you fly the way you do? Why it is different sometimes and why it can't always be the least? Yeah, I think there's a number of questions in there. Some of which have to do with the number of operations which we could clearly talk to. And some of them I think are about what people are seeing. What you're seeing by a number of aircraft coming at the airfield differently on different days is a function of the noise mitigation measures that we've put in place and try to execute regularly. So what we've done since we've gone from F-16 to F-35, and I think it's worth highlighting to put it in context that when we look at the sortie rates, for the last four years, we look at 17, 18, 19, and 20, there's been a significantly less military flying in the Burlington area. So we knew that this was gonna be a multi-year process with reduced flying. And now we're building back up to what was the norm with the F-16 for the multitude of years that were before in terms of sortie. But I could talk further about operations and I know there were questions about simulators and operations, we could talk more about that after if you'd like to go further into it. But the patterns themselves, what we've done is raise the recovery patterns. So when someone said, hey, why can't we come in at the same way that the airlines do, when we start getting lower and slower, that actually increases the noise volume. And the slower you are, the longer you're gonna put noise volume over that community. And it also puts us in an unsafe envelope as far as speed. So the way aircraft typically come back, we'll take the highest approach that we can. And when the weather allows, that'll allow us to have the power back to idle and kind of toast in to do that break term. And then the next time you should hear the power is only that that's required to bring the aircraft to a safe landing on the runway. So our pattern ops are designed to be as high as possible. Why you're gonna hear that differently if the weather doesn't allow that to happen, then we're gonna be lower. And when there's cloud decks overhead, sometimes the weather conditions make the sound different for both takeoff and landing. That's just a byproduct of the way sound propagates. And then as far as the takeoffs, the takeoff, I'm sorry, as far as you said, random maneuvers that you'll see, that's kind of our standard flow. But we may have to change our patterns based on air traffic control, because we share this runway from the civilian counterparts. So we're under the control of air traffic when we come in and we need to abide by their directions. The takeoffs, I think is probably the thing that it believes in my experience is what's causing the most angst. And that's relatively standardized. We have in the past, what normally happens with a flight that takes off is it needs to reform its formation. So before we started looking at noise, we would turn out to go to our airspace and people would come off the runway and start affecting this rejoin. We now don't do that and we continue to climb straight ahead until we get to a specific altitude so that we can get up and away and then start our reform further away from the city of Burlington. So the number of other noise mitigation meetings that we put in place, but that's just the example of why we're doing what we're doing and why we're coming back to the field the way we are. And the last I would add, when it comes back to operations, I've been flying out of Burlington since 1997. And there's a significant, there's a period of time all the way up until I would be throwing mid 2015-ish where the standard was to come back for training purposes and do one low approach to get training. We have a certain number of low approaches and landings that we have to get in a period of time. And then that would be an entire extra operation. I've been flying to F-35 now for a year and a half. And I think I've done that once. And that was just based on the training needs. So what we do now is we do those approaches at other bases and they do utilize the simulator. And that would represent itself in a number of operations that the airfield is seeing, which is significantly less than, two things, significantly less than it was in the F-16 and significantly less than what the EIS allows us to cooperate. So those things are happening. I do appreciate all the comments and I do think that either the takeoff event is the thing that's creating some angst. I could talk further about the EIS process that we've done over the last 10 years, but I'll save that for, I'll rise for following questions. You know what might be helpful for a follow up is to share some of those numbers for comparison and also how often you are using simulator or not training here. Yeah. So the EIS, if we look at the sortie operations that we had for the F-16, it was 8,099. And then what we have for the F-35 is 5,486. So that's what the EIS allows. And operation is a takeoff and a landing. Each one of those is a separate event. So when we're talking about 2,000 sorties, that's a takeoff and a landing and because we don't do those additional patterns, we can roughly double that and see that we're operating around 4,000 operations per year when the EIS authorized 5,486. And when we had the F-16, it was 8,099. So we've substantially reduced the amount of pattern work that we do. And I do recognize that the predictability of the schedule is something I've heard as kind of a common theme for people. As we've gone through the EIS, that's been a common trend. It's one I've kind of taken notice of over the years, having gone through a number of these meetings with the EIS and in my own study, as I would say, we hear what the people are saying absolutely, but at the same time, we hear people that hear it differently and they say, I like that sound, I enjoy that noise. So what makes me ask the question is, what is the difference between noise and sound? And some of the studies that were out there at the time were three things, the volume, the predictability, and then whether you agree with the source of the noise. So all the measures we're doing for noise avoidance is to try to reduce the amount of noise to the extent that we can by controlling our operations. We try to release when we're flying in general terms. I think most people know when our pickups are, they're relatively standard, but we do that within the constructs of what we can do. And then the third one is really also a theme that I've heard today is whether you agree with the source of the noise or the political factors that are behind it or the cost of the F35 or all of those factors are out of our control and not something we can comment on nor control. So we kind of focus on the other two. And that's been the focus of kind of our noise mitigation program over the years. Well, I do have a question about that predictability because this is something I hear often from residents. And so just last week, I think it was Thursday. In the morning, you sent out eight jets in a 10 minute span. And then in the afternoon, you sent out four pairs over the course of half an hour. And I've experienced this a number of times and heard of this from folks. You know, we're not talking about, you take off and land, you take off and land, there's four disruptions a day. There's sometimes six, 10 disruptions throughout the day. And it's very unpredictable and hard to work around. And is that something that you can reign in to become more predictable so that it's easier for folks to deal with? I don't believe, I think there's a number of factors that drive when we take off. Sometimes it's a mission. The general formation that we take off in is a force ship. So there's an attempt to keep force ships together. But it's very much driven by the different types of missions that we execute. Is it gonna drive with the takeoff timings? The airspace is large. So sometimes someone needs to go further than another force ship. But even that window is still kind of 10 to 15-ish minutes generally speaking. But then you add on top of that that weather can delay the takeoffs. We can have maintenance delays on the ground to make sure that we have safe aircraft applied. We have to integrate with all the civilian airlines that take off. So if we're holding to take off and jet blue needs to take off, then sometimes we're gonna sit and wait until jet blue gets off the ground. There's a number of other ATC factors that kind of drive into that. So there is generally one scheduled takeoff time. And that takeoff time is normally plus or minus 15 minutes for all of the flights we're going to have in that day. And that's a nominal answer. I mean, this is just something that I really want you to take away because I've been hearing this and personally experience it. It is not a 15-minute window on a regular basis. True, I'd say plus or minus to absolutely. And if there's anything you can do to reduce the number of disruptions you're causing in the community through your operations, I think that's something that is worth spending time thinking about how you can do that. Sure, we can certainly take that back for the outskirts and take a closer look. Like I said, there's a number of variables in there, but anything we can do, we'll take it closer and see if it's something we can affect. Another thing, you know, you reference the mission, the different missions you fly. This comes up often. Part of the basing. We had a question from someone earlier about how much of your training is defense versus offense. This is also something I think would be important to come back to us with. I feel like I hear all the time from people. I don't understand what the mission is. The mission is the justification and I don't know what that means. Yeah, I guess there's two questions in there. One is what is the mission? There's a number of missions. There's at least five of them that the F-35 does. Then there's the question of whether it's offensive or defensive, and I think that was the root of what, I think the question was here. And that's a deeper question, I think. When you say, is it offensive or defensive? I would say, I was there when I was on 9-11 and I was there for the days that we flew at night and in the day, watched what happened down there in preparation in the F-16 to potentially shoot down a civilian airliner. If I had to do that, is that offensive or defensive? What would you call that? I don't know. And if you fast forward four years from there and you go, now we're in Iraq and we're in Afghanistan and we're employing and support people on the ground and defending American lives in terms of the army and the Marine Corps, would you call that an offensive operation or defensive operation? So you see how they could both be the same. And it's similar with all the missions that we train to. The simplest way to think of the F-35, at least when we talked about this in BIS, is that the global capability on the ground to be able to shoot down aircraft has elevated to such a level that the F-16 or people who are operating in 16s would be in a position to be shot down very easily without the advanced technology and stealth to be able to defeat that. That would allow us to operate safely in the environments that the United States might ask us to operate. So for that reason, the F-35 is a substantial increase in the F-16 and creates different mission sets that we can do. So the short answer is, is it offensive or defensive? Yes, it's both. It's a tool that our political leaders can employ and at the end of the day can be used to achieve America's national interests. I want to move to the safety questions and the one that the gentleman brought up about if there was a crash here. I think that's something that the public would also like more details on. What kind of planning is in place in there and if you could speak specifically to, is this a risk of a two week burn period and a two square mile evacuation? I'd like to take that back so we don't have our fire chief here but there is a plan in place for a crash recovery and we have the resources on base to do that and we do train with our mutual aid partners so that they can assist us and not be put in arms wide but I would like to get back to you with more detail. And I know we have that answer because that came out on the DIS and our mutual aid agreements and what everyone's capable of responding to. I have a 80% answer but I think Kamoros is correct. We can get you a very factual answer upon what that entails. Okay and then just for everyone in the public like I'm gonna share these question notes with you. You can, whatever you bring back to us we will be publicly distributing to make sure everyone who has had to leave is able to see it. And the stuff that you weren't able to respond to you today. Could you tell us about? Wait, he's not gonna answer that question right now? Not right now, no. He has 80% of the answer in his head right now and we're not even gonna say any of it right now. If you are my recollection from the DIS, that is not. I would love it if you would. That is not. How this town will be affected if a plane goes down in the middle of it what's gonna happen to the people in this town? I would like to hear that. That's very broad. I would like to see under four a month from now I'd like to hear you say it so the people watching can hear you say it. That's a very broad question of what's going to happen to the people but at the end of the day. A plane goes down into the big town in Knewski and it's on fire. Yep. Do you notice it in our houses? What I tell you is an airliner that goes down in the city of Knewski is gonna carry about eight times more fuel than an F-35 and could potentially be far more hazardous than the F-35 that hits the ground and I do know that the fire departments in each community are well trained and have the necessary equipment to attack the fire. So is it true or not true that the program on the F-35 when it goes to fire does not be put out by planes or it does by chemicals or it does, it can take more than a few hours to do that. We will get you an answer from a fire person because now you're gonna dive into details that I'm not gonna sit here and tell you I know. So we will get you that answer. Thank you. You could also ask the fire department and walk in and ask them that thing. Generally, they would have an answer for you. Fairly ready. Are you able to address the question about how complaints are recorded? Is there a public record, how they're being used? Yes, we do have a record in Major Smith, our public affairs officers here. I don't know if you can answer that totally or give a shot. Nice, I can hear you. By all means. Could you do it if the microphone please? Yes, I will. So there are a number of ways that people can make a comment to us about noise or any other matter. We will respond to them. They can call someone else specifically for the number. It's 802-660-5379 and I can send that to you. We also have a website vtguard.com slash f35. That's actually the best way for someone to reach out if they have a noise comment because we can get all the data that they're asking for. Sometimes when people call and they leave incomplete data, we can't hear them, we can't hear the number, but we do track every call. We track individual callers when they choose to leave us that information. And if they request a callback or any additional information, we always provide that. Can't think of, did that answer all the questions? Oh, they asked if the public had access to that information and they do, they can request it through Freedom of Information Act and we can provide those numbers to anyone who's interested. If we record it for our own attribution, but we also record it if the public is interested as well. Can you speak to how you use that information? It's, we report that up to our chain of command. It's actually held at a higher headquarters than us at the joint force headquarters level. They actually track it and we report it through our chain of command and we use it, we do receive feedback from it from the public and pass that information on. Oftentimes it's not noise, it's not always noise. So we call it a comment line because people are able to comment and ask questions on anything. So it's just, it's an easy way for us to interact with the community in a way that they're comfortable. An example of how that changes our noise mitigation is like we've done with the Brinuski High School. Those inputs came to us. I was actually the one who went to the high school. We had heard that the pattern that flies over the, over the high school is different from different jets. So I went there and listened to it and it was correct. The aircraft that flew around the high school were quieter than the ones that flew directly over it. So we created a noise and no fly area over the high school and now the aircraft will fly around the high school as opposed to over it because we know that that's quieter. So that's an example of how those kind of comments can change the way we do business. We'll make it happen. Is there any active study existing or plan study on the health impacts of noise that is being carried out through the military that you're working on? Yeah, can you speak to that at all? Not that I'm aware of, no. I can say though that in the EIS because we've gone back and forth on this through a number of years and I know that Dr. was here and we're clearly not gonna be able to talk at the level that he has, but in the EIS all of the studies that were available to feed the information both on two sides of the story. So because someone's saying it's causing harm there are also studies out there that will say differently. So all of that information is compiled in which was meant to feed the decision maker which was also one of your other questions which the record of decision was signed by the secretary of the Air Force at that time. So that was where the decision authority for the Basement of the 35 Resides and all of those studies are available if people wanna read the, it's a multi-thousand page document but all of those things are available publicly for people to get, right? They are and to be more specific, appendix C of the EIS volume one would be the best place to reference that information where it consolidates all of the prior research that fed into the EIS. Is the military doing anything for guard members and noise exposure? We have an occupational health section that's part of our medical group that monitors any airmen that work in a high noise environment and they're actually obviously provided very protection on the flight line, other areas where there's machinery, their hearing is monitored and it's an occupational, it's an OSHA and requirement. They're in a position that puts them in that environment that there's regular monitoring to make sure that they're wearing the proper PPE and it's not having any long-term effects. Is that information available to the public? I don't know, could ask, they probably dances and we could get back on that. One of the more recent questions was if there are studies showing positive economic impact at F-35s, are you aware of any of those that have occurred or are planned? I do have some economic impact numbers just in general for the base. I do know that one of the local business communities does a semi-annual or a biannual economic impact but we're actually assisting them with providing some data so we could get back to you when that is being published. Okay, thank you. And there was, during the EIS, a study that was provided, I think, GBI-C probably brought home for to talk about the economic impact deeply and some of the other concerns that were brought out to the process was housing values in Manuski near the airport and I think subjectively, I mean at least what we see is, it seems to me that Manuski seems to be there with the housing values and the development that's happening right underneath the runway. So I think, is there an official study that can capture that? I don't know who would provide it but it's not something the military would do. I'm sorry, for folks on the online meeting, we really can't hear when that mic was moved. It was hard for all three but the most recent movement has actually made it impossible to hear the most recent comments. I don't know if there's a way to speak more into the mic for those four or so of us who are attending online. Thank you, Jim. And guys, feel free to jump in if you have questions or if there's something I haven't captured from the public comments. I mean, Madam Mayor, since I just unmuted and I'll do it again, if I may jump on the question around health effects, I understand that there are studies embedded in the EIS that were done in other places at other times with different data and that you also likewise pointed out that there aren't really comparable noise data being used for this type, this jet type in this context and this is like now a jet that's established in our community. So I think it is, I think it, I don't think that the EIS can stand as the final word on those health effects. Is there, what can we expect in terms of looking at health effects, especially on children in this community, in this place, with this facing? Is there anything that can be done to start examining that or will we just call this a black hole until some researcher writes a grant to study it? I believe that the data on the F-35 and the amount of noise it produces and for how long is all factual and complete in the model that is in the EIS. If you're talking about what long-term effects are out there and what studies exist, are they comparable and who would fund other ones? That we couldn't answer, that would be outside of the military scope on that one. I wouldn't know where to point you on that. I wanna go back to an operational question. The gentleman who raised concern about what holidays you choose to respect and not fly on and if there is the possibility that you could expand that to... We follow the federal holiday schedule. So if it's not a recognized federal holiday, the military, the federal government did just recently add a federal holiday this past year, the Juneteenth. So we respect that, but we don't, we follow the federal holiday schedule. Okay. Jim. Is there any flexibility in that given that our population doesn't mirror the larger population mix of the entire United States? Is there a more appropriate state or local holiday designation that we could work out with regard? It's possible, but I'm not prepared to answer that. I'd have to check with our Joint Force headquarters leadership and get back to you on that. But I can look into that. I know you already spoke about having changed your pattern over the school, but we did hear from a student speaking about continuing to experience disruption in the classroom. I just want to highlight that. It might be worth another visiting again during some different operations and seeing how those impact and see if there's anything else you can do. The school is outside of the 65 plus day night DNL zone and so won't be, will not qualify for the FAA funded noise mitigation. And so that, as we've heard, there are a lot of concerns about impacts on children and development. So if there's more effort that you can make to adjust operations to support learning in our school, that's certainly important. Mike, I see your hand is raised. Thank you, Mayor. I will add to that. Winnowsky School District isn't the only school in the city of Winnowsky. There is another school in Paris that is affected by this as well. And if that study, if they go back to look at that Winnowsky School District, I'd like to ask if they could look into the St. Francis Xavier School in Paris as well, because that's directly on the flight path. Yeah, they might actually be in the noise mitigation zone, but absolutely fair point. I'm sorry for forgetting that and thank you for bringing that up too. Thank you, Mayor. Familiar with where St. Francis is, because we see, but the problem with where St. Francis is, it's very close to the end of the runway. So at that point, there's not an ability to kind of maneuver around it. I do think it's on the inside of the turn, not directly underneath it, but at the point where near St. Francis we're very close to being on the ground. And I think the question was asked earlier about taking off and which runway. And I recognize, like I said, the takeoff event is the laver of the events and the takeoff direction that we go is not a choice that we make. It's driven by the winds and it's driven by the tower. So when the winds favor taking off to the south, we take off to the south and they favor taking off to the north, we take off to the north. So it's not a conscious decision that we can make to adjust those one way or the other. But I do recognize that one affects Winooski and one affects Williston based on what the weather brings to us. And there is data available to tell you how often statistically over the history each runway has been used. So, and we do have that available that we can get to you. And I think the runway that has us taken off over Williston is used more often than the one that is used to take off over Winooski. Thank you. But I know that that doesn't, to someone who lives right underneath it, turn the takeoff. How? Thank you, Mayor. Gentlemen, I think what we experienced tonight is a long time coming. And I'm just wondering if it's possible to consider how we might form some kind of advisory relationship with communities who are impacted by this. So we don't have to wait for months and months and months and then release all of these feelings and concerns and thoughts and questions, but have an ongoing relationship so we can work together. Just as you were able to adjust hearing back from the school on your flight patterns. But how do we become a little more proactive in working together and engaged and finding the best way to live with this jet? I think it's continued engagement with Colonel Shevchuk and yourself, Mayor Lott. And if we need to periodically come to these and address and hear concerns, I think Colonel Shevchuk is willing to do that. I'm certainly willing to do that. And we've shown a willingness to adjust our operations if it affects part of our community. And we can make the adjustments without hurting our operational training requirements. I mean, we have to balance our federal mission requirements which are driven down by the Air Force with the impacts of the community. And we're gonna try to do that every chance we get. Thank you. Yeah, thank you for that. Offering to continue to engage this way and for sharing your time this evening. Is there anything that you had taken notes on that you wanted to respond to from comment that we haven't touched on yet? I took some notes. I'm interested in getting your notes as well. And I think it probably, I think we handled most of the lower hanging fruit. A lot of these other ones are, there's some legal, there's some regulations that we have to look into but we're certainly willing to answer those in writing after the fact. Okay. Are there more questions from Council? Jim? I think I touched on simulators. I just wanted to honor that question. To come back to that, there's a statement that the original state pictures that there would be more simulator flights if you were actual flights. Is that the case? What is the status of that? Yeah, we talked about that with respect to the number of operations at the field and that's where I think terminology, I heard a lot of words used tonight where people would say, well, this was said where that was said, this was said at the time. And I can't valid some of those a single word matters. So when you're talking about flights or operations are two different things. So the operations at the airfield with the EIS would be less. Right now we're basically half of what the F-16 is and part of that is due to what we do in the simulator but part of that is also due to where we choose to get our additional pattern work and try not to do it here at Burlington. There are times when it's required that someone does it and might be a check ride or there's something very specific that we need to do but it's in our procedures. We can't even on our own decide to do an extra pattern at Burlington. We have to call back to the supervisor or flying and ask and say, hey, I need to do it for this reason. Is it okay? So we've put layers of control in there to make sure that we're containing the operation at the airfield as much as we can both by how we design our training and how we use the simulators. Thank you. And kind of building off that, one of the questions was, is there a mandate to fly as often as you do when you've referenced the, yeah, some what's allowable and the operational needs that dictate the number of flights and the types of things that you'll do in those flights. Is there a mandate for a minimum and are we at that minimum or are, sorry, is there a mandate and are we at that mandate? Are we above it? Are we beating that in terms of the number of flights that you have to do? Yeah, the entire flying schedule is driven off of, well, it's a deep question that the military, when they give you a certain number of aircraft which expects a certain amount of sortie production or combat capability, as we would say, in order to generate that combat capability requires a certain number of pilots. Every time you have an additional pilot, that pilot is broken down into all the currencies that they're required to maintain in the amount of training that they're supposed to have. So a multiplication of the number of pilots, which is also tied to the number of jets, drives the number of sorties in the type of training that we need to get in a given year. So each year, there's opportunities for us to go on the road. So sometimes we attend exercises in other parts of the country to gain that, excuse me, to gain that training and then we come back. But there's a bill to be paid every time we go out the door. So that costs the government money. So there's a balance there. So the short answer to your question is yes, there's a very defined number of sorties that we need to fly. That's what our plan is developed on and not all of them occur here at Burlington. I don't know if that answers your question. And I think that helps explain why the levels might be the way that they are. And I guess, and if that's what it takes to maintain the readiness that's required of the guard, then that is what it is. If there's, again, if there is room to adjust to lower the harm and impact on this community of a new perspective, a quest that we look for those. Understand, thank you. Mike. I'd like to just say one last thing to the gentleman up here tonight and also to the everyone that had comments. I think it's acknowledged that we all are hearing from the citizens and the people in this surrounding area. And I'm just hoping that there's some middle ground that we all can come to. Because after hearing what I heard tonight, it's hard on my heart or it's on my conscience as well. But on the same note, I wanna say that there are still people out there that have the complete confidence in the air guard. And that are, trying to search for the word that I wanna say, they are behind the guard, they're behind the mission. And I think there's as many people for the guard as there are against the guard. I hear it on a daily basis. And I just wanna make sure we don't lose retrospect for all the people involved in our community. There's just not, everyone's just not after the F-35. Thanks, Mike. And we did hear from a number of our commenters too. They're not opposed to the guard or you or your work, right? For a lot of folks, it is very specifically about the impacts of these jets. I think we've covered the bulk of the questions, the ones that you are able to respond to, as you said, those that require some legal review, we'll have to be dealt with in writing. I will, I have to clean these notes up before they'll make sense to you. I will get these back to you this week and look forward to seeing a written response to a number of these questions that our community has raised. Is there anything else that you would like to share while you're here or questions you have? No, just a kind of a closing comment. This weekend we'll remember the events that occurred on September 11th, 20 years ago and the sacrifice our members have made serving during the ensuing war on terror and subsequent combat operations. Earlier today I viewed a documentary on the V-Tanks involvement in 9-11 and that we will be releasing to the public this Friday. I was as moved today as I was 20 years ago at the appreciation Vermonters had for the work that the Green Mountain Boys did. After that tragic day, flying combat air patrols over New York City in the Northeast for 122 continuous days. And as one of the counselors mentioned, we also appreciate the positive comments we heard tonight about the contribution our airmen have made to Vermon. So thank you for allowing us the opportunity to provide the brief update and for all you do in service for your communities as well. Thank you for that. And thank you to those who came to attend who are here attending online. We have a section on our websites that says how do I learn about airport sound? Paul, correct me if I'm wrong. Whatever you share back with us, these written responses will be posted on the website. It will also push it out through our social media and our email updates. The same way we do city council meetings so we can make sure that everyone who is here is able to see those responses. With that, I would like to thank you for your time this evening and for coming to listen to our residents. Absolutely welcome. I also would like to call a five minute recess before we move on to the next item in our agenda. So we will reconvene at 8.58 p.m. I can't believe this. Just a little air. All right, it is 8.58. Our five minute recess is over. We are on to item B. This is on for approval errors and omissions. Is this something Angela is gonna speak to? I see Ted Nelson is listed. Yeah, so this is from our assessment department. So this is errors in our 2021 grand list where, for example, a property that had a gas station that was demolished, that wasn't caught during our initial grand list assessment. So these are all items that our assessor has identified as needing to be adjusted. Typically it pre-wrote sort of list of items. Yeah, I know we do this every year. Do you have any concerns about revenue, tax rate impact, grand list revenue impact on the whole? I don't. I don't know, Angela, if you have any information on that. Sorry, I don't have raised hand. Sorry, Angela, go ahead. I mean, a number of these are decreases, but some are increases. So I think that in terms of the impact of the taxes, it's gonna be pretty neutral. Hi, Ted, welcome. Thank you. I actually signed in on the previous discussion, but thank you for the welcome. I agree with Angela, it's generally cost-neutral. We had a large personal property item that was reported to be in Winooski and it's actually in Colchester. It's part of the Wiccom Pit. Offsetting that is the change of appraisal notice never went anywhere for the church on State Stevens, State Stevens Church. And so the rectory and the church itself are now taxable. The biggest value on that 3.1 acres is the land because it's a large lot on the corner. Even though it's not in the form-based zoning, it's still is, I think, 7,500 square feet per lot. So it's, the others are a lot less significant. So I did, sorry, go ahead, Angela. I did do the calculation for the local agreement rate for veterans exemptions had Mr. Trombly's been included and the rate would not have changed. So that has no impact on the tax rate. Okay, the mention of St. Stephens property, I saw in the memo, you've advised the owner of the change. They have, you know, they haven't agreed or can test. Have they responded at all to that? They have not, they were before, typically before we bring an ENO to the city council, select board, whatever. If the value is gonna go up, we give the property owner an opportunity to agree. And we did in this case, their notice was not deliverable because it was transferred a while ago directly to the Bishop and the mail just didn't go through. So we resented to the church council the change notice about three weeks to go and they had the standard 14 days to grieve and they did not. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Are there questions from council? Any other items in here that raise flags? All right, any questions from members of the public? And as before you can use the raise hand feature. Do I, so I didn't really hear any concerns from council. Does someone wanna make a motion to approve these errors and omissions as is? Second. Motion by Jim, second by Hal. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you folks. Thank you, thanks for coming late. We'll move to item C. This is on for discussion. These are, this is another set of financial policy updates that came through the finance commission already for capital improvement, debt investment and tip district policies. Angela, anything you wanna add to that? These are pretty standard policies developed from the model policies with the Ron League of Cities and Towns and the government finance officers association. This is the first time that the city will have a debt policy. We have not had one previously and our investment policy before was a little more bare bones and gave no guidance as to the values in which the city will invest money with feedback from the commission was that these were the ways that they wanted to see these policies go into place. Thank you, Angela. And I don't recall any, again, any particularly controversial debates or anything as these were being run by the commission. Are there questions from council about any of these policies, Jim? Yes, thank you. Just a kind of curiosity that especially in the debt policy the percentages chosen for different, for the enterprise funds versus the general fund are those based entirely on the model policy? Are they considered middle of the road, conservative or more not risky, but you know what I mean the opposite of conservative. I'm just curious if there's been any, how those levels were decided if there was any discussion of that at the commission level if there's anything we should be thinking about in terms of what is the correct percentage for different funds. So this was absolutely something that I specifically asked the finance commission to weigh in on the amounts that are set in here are my recommendation based on the debt levels that the city has previously carried and had authorized by voters historically. There is not really a good model policy recommendation given the variety of town size and complexities that are around. The only other community that I could find that had debt percentages limits was Burlington and there's far exceeded what I would be comfortable having on the books for Winooski. We did leave a little bit of wiggle room within those percentages to allow the city to take advantage of things like the USDA program where we may take on debt in excess of the percentage outlined here in order to take advantage of a grant program that would otherwise cost the taxpayers' money in the future out of pocket instead of having federal subsidization. But that would be at the discretion of council to bring to voters of course. And so if we were to adopt these policies and say that there isn't I guess does this extend to extremely low interest loans as well? So maybe it's not a grant or a partnership funding opportunity but it's zero interest loan but if there's a half percent interest loan can we, what would it take for council to approve that or for the staff to take advantage of that? I think it's gonna be at the council's discretion when we bring programs that are gonna require debt financing in the future we can bring the percentage that it would bring each of the funds to and have that be a point of discussion at the council level before they make the decision to bring those questions to the voters. That's not the type of discussion we've had in the past when we've discussed debt projects with regard to what is the proportion of our budget that that's going to be. We've looked at proportion of capital spending but not overall. And so do you envision kind of switching to that reporting as part of our debt decision making in the future? I do but I don't envision us taking out too many new debts in the near future compared to the things that have already been authorized by voters. Main Street's gonna take up a lot of our debt capacity for a significant portion of time. Okay, thanks Angela. That's good. Jim, are there other questions from folks? Questions on other policies? I think to your point, Angela, what you said about the debt policy kind of reflecting numbers that were already at. You know, this I felt like through the commission review like the capital improvement policy these like kind of codify what we already and how we're already approaching things. Are there any questions from members of the public? All right, seeing no further questions. This was on for discussion. You might find this for approval in our next meeting or consent agenda. Thank you. We are on to item D. This is on for discussion or approval. These are some updates to community services job descriptions. I see Ray has joined. I'm here, yeah. So these are some updates to two existing positions that we have with the city moving to part-time positions to full-time positions. And as I said in the cover sheet, it gives us the opportunity to address some capacity issues that have come up as a result of some recent departures of staff. And also what we saw this summer is a really big increase in participation, which is a great problem to have. So again, these are two existing positions with the departure of our children and family programs manager. At the moment, we do not intend to refill that position. And so the full-time expansion of the site director for Thrive would be able to be covered essentially in a cost-neutral way out of the general fund. And then the RAC assistant is a grant funded, largely ESR, but grant funded position for us. So ideally we would love to get those approved, but I didn't want to put them on for discussion in case there were bigger questions that these brought up. Thank you, Ray. Are there questions from council? I have, I'm sorry, Hal, go ahead. Thank you, mayor. So Ray, as I understand it, the purpose for each of these positions would be modified and would the actual responsibilities and duties increase in any way because they're going from part-time to full-time? Yep, yep. So the recreation assistant has not functionally changed in terms of duties. It's sort of more of the same essentially. And again, that's in response largely to what we saw as a big increase in interest in programming with the site director position that does incorporate some of the pieces that the children and family programs manager was carrying in the past, in particular management of the financial pieces and the budget for the Thrive program and increased supervision level around staff. So those have both been incorporated and would be reflected in any pay grades that come along with that. Okay, thank you. Yep. Jim. Thank you. And I guess my question maybe asks a little bit more like in terms of keeping these positions competitive and thus keeping them filled, you and I think that I'm sure the part-time to full-time piece helps. Is there, is that increasing responsibility in this pay step gonna be more competitive with other actual programs in the state so we can end recreation program management and just making these more competitive and attractive for folks to stay in? Yeah, 100%. I think the, in particular, the Thrive position compared to a lot of other childcare positions is a really well compensated position. And I think that's great and helps us. I mean, as a Thrive parent, you know we've had really good retention. And I think that's because we are taking good care of our people. And I think with the REC position, same thing. I think we've seen some challenges in filling part-time roles. And I think by moving in full-time, it does really make us a more competitive employer in that sense, especially at a time when, you know, I think sectors everywhere are really struggling to find people. So I think this will, in both cases, help us a great deal. Great, thanks very much. Yeah. And I just have a small question about the finances. So this is like a cost-neutral change right now. But are there going to be the case when the Essar grant funding runs out, like was this Parks and Community Gardens Manager previously funded by General Fund? So the Recreation Assistant had been a position we had funded out of the General Fund in the past as a part-time role. When we shifted to having a Rec Manager and a Parks and Gardens Manager, that Rec Assistant position essentially got swallowed up. We are looking at some adjustments to the way we're managing Rec and Parks now that we've got some vacancies and some new staff on board, that the goal is to try to keep those costs neutral over time. So right now the Rec Assistant is an Essar-funded position, like a lot of those Essar-funded positions, we are trying to figure out how do we use Essar as an on-ramp to look at a future time when we can get these positions stabilized in a different way. So at the moment, if Essar goes away tomorrow, then that Recreation Assistant position is fully funded from that contract. That is a three-year anticipated contract, so we've got some time. But I guess, does that answer your question? I feel like it's- It does answer my question. And I do want to appreciate that we are saying shifting and programming and I do think it's smart to use Essar-funding as a ramp to try to sort that out in the future, so. Yeah, that's absolutely your goal. I see that you're pursued. Yeah, definitely. Good question. Are there any other questions on these changes? Any questions from the public? So these, this is on for discussion or approval. If somebody wanted to make a motion to approve this evening, they could. Or we could hold until next meeting. I'll move that we approve the position and description updates if you requested. Second. Motion to approve by Jim, second by Hal, those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries. Your job descriptions have been approved. Awesome, thanks so much. Thank you. We're on item E. This is also on for discussion approval. This is to a point of voting delegate at the Vermont League of Cities and Towns annual business meeting. Who would like to introduce? I can introduce this one. So this is something that we've had, I believe every year in the past. So this can be either a council member or either John or I as co-interim city managers. And this meeting takes place on Wednesday, September 29th at 1 PM. It will be in person. There's an in-person option at the double tree in South Burlington, but it can also, many members will also be attending virtually. So we just need to know to, you know, designate that when we register our delegate for the meeting. Does anybody have any questions about what this meeting entails for the LCT? Did they send, I feel like they usually have a list of positions that get voted on, that like the league is in support of. Is that for this meeting or am I remembering this wrong? I haven't seen that come out. I believe in the past we were having Jesse do it as city manager. I will also share I'm participating in that meeting this year in a panel. So I could do it as well, since I'll be there anyway. And as Phoebe shared, any interested council could also represent us. Does anyone have a preference? Phoebe or John are either of you, were either of you already planning to attend? For any reason? I will be attending sort of virtual sessions for the town fair. I was not planning on attending the LCT annual meeting. Oh yeah, I mean, that is accurate statement for me as well. So is the voting, the meeting with the actual voting, do we, is that at one PM? Or is that like the town fair schedule? The meeting, the September 29th, the LCT meeting will sort of kick off the town fair process and the town fair is, I think it goes until October 2nd or 4th. Yeah. And that's mostly virtual. So this is just sort of a kickoff to that. And I believe that it starts right at one PM on the day. Okay, I have a one PM as part of town fair. So maybe I would not be available to do this. So if a counselor is interested, they're your name out there or we can just have Phoebe or John do it. May I, looking at the schedule, I believe that the portion you're attending is the same thing. They noticed their annual meeting for one to four on September 29th, which includes its annual business meeting, I believe. So my guess is that you'll already be there as part of the panel. Yeah, I'm unclear like when the actual voting piece happens. Yeah. And I personally would support you. I would appreciate your leadership in that meeting if that's something that you can and will do. But if you're not sure when we need to designate an alternate, I'm fine with that as well. Oh, could we do that? Could we say it'll be me and then designate one of you as an alternate? It's through the registration process. So if there's an option to do that, I think that's feasible. Okay. So I would be happy to be that person and then submit, if there's a room for an alternate, submit Phoebe, I guess your name since you're already planning to attend. Does that sound good for everyone in concerns? Well, can I get a motion to approve then to appoint myself as, to appoint Merrillat as the voting delicate for a VLCT annual business meeting? So moved. Second. Motion by Hal, second by Jim. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. I will abstain. Motion carries. Thank you. Item F, this is also for discussion and approval. This is a planning commission appointment. Eric, do you want to introduce for us? I would love to. And here I thought everybody was showing up for the planning commission appointment. I guess I was wrong. Thank you very much. Tonight, this item is on the agenda for appointment of an alternate position to the planning commission for a term ending on June 30th of 2023. We, the mayor, myself and the chair of the planning commission, we interviewed three candidates. They were all very qualified, very good candidates. Ultimately, we decided on Brendan Sage as the person to fill this position. His application is included in your agenda packet, which gives a little information on him. He's a fairly new resident to Winooski, but we felt he would be a really good addition to the planning commission. So this item is on tonight for appointment, which would fill out the seven positions that are available for the planning commission. Thank you, Erin. I will add that as liaison, I did participate in the three candidate interviews we had for this alternate spot. It was a tough choice. We liked all three, but thought that this candidate had kind of a new and different perspective to bring to the group that wasn't already well represented. Do y'all have any questions or concerns about this recommendation? Any questions or concerns from the public? Would anyone care to move to approve this planning commission appointment of Brendan Sage for the alternate seat? Second. Motion by Hal, second by Jim. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. This will be great. We'll have a full body for our meeting on Thursday. So that brings us to the end of our regular items. We have worn an executive session this evening. Pursuant to Vermont State statute, section 313 about the appointment or employment of a public officer or employee. I'm gonna ask for a motion to move us into executive session. This is the only topic we're gonna discuss. No other business will take place there. We will actually move to a different zoom line to have this discussion. We'll come back to this general meeting solely to adjourn. So there won't be any other business discussed this evening. Can I have a motion from a member of council to find that we should move into executive session pursuant to the ASA section 313? It's almost. Second. Motion by Mike, second by Jim. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries. And it will just be, we aren't inviting any staff. It'll just be the council going into that session. Excuse me, mayor, is there a link that's been sent out for that? Yeah, let me send it via email. So it's like at the top of your. Okay, great. The top of your inboxes. And you can also chat me if you're having trouble. So I just need a second motion to go ahead and enter into executive session. Second. Okay, I think motion by Mike, second by Hal. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you. And I will see you in the other zoom line.