 we begin the meeting. I'm Mary Riley and with me this evening is Caroline Hauser and she and I will be co-moderating so we'll be splitting. We also have Joel Fitzgerald and Michelle Moraz and Matt Grady and Nelson Martel. So thank you again for coming and signing on to this gloomy snowy April Fool's Day. All right. Thank you. Beautiful. And right when you started playing the sun came out so all right now it's time for the public forum so does anyone have anything they would like to say. And the Champlain Parkway disaster I was really paint started in the city of Burlington. I don't know if any of you hear thoughts and anybody else? Okay we invited UVM to speak regarding their COVID response and nobody was able to come but we did get a written email and response to read at the meeting so I'll read it and then Michelle's going to post it on the chat function in the campus web page located at uvm.edu slash safety links to more information. Her announcement said dear neighbors as we the state of the city of Burlington sharing and responding to data following the Vermont Department. Thank you Anna. Thank you Andy. It's so lovely to hear you missing live music during COVID so this makes it extra special so thank you. Thank you for inviting us. Yeah our pleasure. Have a nice evening. Thank you Anna and Andy. So next we'll be moving on to the Champlain Parkway. We have first the Pine Street Coalition with Tony Reddington and Steve Goodkind. You are. Yes I got some problem there it goes again. Is the volume better now? Yes it's great. Okay I'm Steve Goodkind I'm former public works director and city engineer for the city of Burlington. I'm here with Tony Reddington and we're a group of folks who've challenged the current who've challenged the current design the Champlain Parkway. For many years I was actually the project manager for this for this roadway and I probably know more than anybody at least as much as anybody about how that project came to be and how it came to be in its current form. So I'd like to talk a little bit about that. Tony has some slides but I'm not sure how that's where that's showing up on the screen here. I don't see it on my screen. I'll share it. I'll share it right now. Yeah I'm not it's not that important actually the slides you could refer to later. I'm not going to have a lot of time to get into huge detail on this and I assume most people have some idea what the product's about but let me let me talk a little bit about my perspective on it. The project was originally designed or conceived as part of what's called a ring road. I think if you've been to Boston or most major cities you know there's an interstate that kind of goes through the city and then there's often a series of ring roads that go around the city and connect back into the main interstate in various pieces. Well Vermont had to have its ring roads for its interstate system and a series of projects was devised. This goes back to the 60s and 70s and 80s and the idea was to connect the interstate to ring roads to go around and sometimes partly through some communities. The remnants of that those products are the northern connector in Burlington that was built the bypass and s-exposer familiar with and then there was a project called the Cirque Highway probably the largest single piece of the roadway it's never been built. The idea has basically been abandoned and the final piece which still lives it lives at the dream is the southern connector and again these were designed to connect in a ring around Chittinac County with the interstate in the center. The the road itself did have some purposes and I think it's often confused what those purposes were. Many people think that this road was built to create a better way to downtown. Well that may have been a side gig for this road but in all the documents for the road and all the planning that was never the purpose. The purpose of the southern connector was first of all the connect to the northern connector on the west side of Burlington not in downtown not through downtown and it was designed to provide an alternative to Pine Street as a north south route and in doing so it was going to take some of the traffic which was traveling on Pine and traveling on Flynn Avenue and Home Avenue and Maple Street and Pine Street trying to get north and south through the grid streets of Burlington and get it on to a different route and relieve the traffic in those neighborhoods. So relieving traffic in neighborhoods creating an alternate north south route that was the plan not to create a great new way to downtown that often gets lost in our considerations. Back in the 2000s we did what was the time thought to be the final environmental impact statement for this project. It's a federal requirement you have to comply with 10 or so criteria to make sure your project meets environmental concerns of all types from archaeological to noise and pollution. Anyway at the time we put in our proposal which had been similar to that proposed before for this project in previous environmental impact statements and the federal government said that in addition to what we wanted to do we had to look at a route now that went up Pine Street straight up Pine Street through Maple Street through King Street to Main Street and of course we said as we said in the past the city's position was no that's not this project we don't want anything to do with that. The Fed said well we know you said that in the past but we think you've got to consider that that path and in fact not only must you consider it but it's got to be your preferred alternative or our preferred alternative meaning that's the primary choice that's what you really want to do. Of course we were aghast at that we said no way we wanted the project to bypass not only the neighborhoods of Flynn and Holman in that area but also to bypass the Maple and King Street neighborhood and to end down at Battery Street to connect to Battery Street which then would connect into the northern connected that's always been the plan. Well the Fed said no and we began to make arguments as to why their route should not be considered everything from historical to one of our most important arguments was something called environmental justice and put simply environmental justice says you don't build projects whether it's a road or a finery, football stadium you don't put them in neighborhoods of low income and minorities just because you think you can and you'll have less resistance to that. You've got to avoid those neighborhoods and show that you've done everything you can to avoid them from proposing a project. The city's proposal for the project of course did that it went around the neighborhood but not the federal version. So we fought and fought for about three years finally the Fed said look they literally said our way or no way they said if we persisted in trying to push our view and push things like environmental justice which they didn't really consider much of a criteria very important at the time they said if we do that we're taking we're going to withhold the money we're going to stop eating the money into this project and Mayor Kitts at the time said okay the best we can do is get like half the project get the southern end built down by home and Flynn and get around those neighborhoods but still have to go through the neighborhoods up at Maine and King but we'll just have to live with that. I think most of us have worked on the project we're really pretty demoralized by that but that's how the project went forward literally under threat from the federal government to take the money away the city was forced to agree to the project. I don't think the city ever was on record is saying they thought it was right they thought it was acceptable we never did and all of our comments including those about environmental justice concerns those comments were still on the record but the feds made the decision that those comments didn't count for much and we're off to the races. Now fast forward about five years back to about 2015 a group of us Tony Redington myself and some others began to look at the project again it still hadn't been built still was sort of bogged down in some kind of bureaucracy anyway looked at it legal team was hired and they looked at this thing again and realized that the rules for environmental justice had changed since 2009-2010 the Obama administration had strengthened them and because the project had not gotten built those rules had to be complied with now and basically through a following a lawsuit and having it reviewed by federal attorneys they agreed before we even had this go very far with the suit they agreed that environmental justice criteria had not been properly reviewed in this project under the current rules and make a long story short they withdrew what's called the record of decision which is the records describing what the product's going to be like that was withdrawn and I don't know that I've ever heard of that happening before that was withdrawn and a process to review the environmental justice criteria and maybe other criteria if this project is underway now and the city is trying to make light of this and saying it's not a big deal I can assure you this is a huge deal and this project will probably not go forward if an environmental justice criteria aren't met so my little little piece of this is that have you come away with just understanding without looking into much detail because there's no time for that but we are determined that the environmental justice criteria will the current criteria will be properly evaluated and if it is there is no way the route from pine to maple to king to main there's no way that root can pass muster no matter how much lipstick they put on the pig it cannot happen and it will probably not happen on the other hand there are versions of this project that can happen and in fact even the version that we thought was the better version 12 years ago can't happen we believe and that's the work pushing for so I'm gonna let Tony now talk a little about not just telling you what can't be done but it can be done there can be a southern connector or Champlain Parkway project that we all are proud of we all believe in doesn't have to do anywhere near as much environmental harm and definitely especially in this times meets environmental justice criteria and doesn't just blow itself through a neighborhood because it can't so that's that I'll turn it over to Tony he's there Tony Tony we can't hear you you're on mute he's muted let me see if I can find his picture and signal him okay I got it you got Tony okay it's all yours Tony Liam if you could show the the map at the the first first slide um that that can tell us a lot the the broken black line is what is the proposed the which is what the design is today and as you can see it goes right through the middle of the king maple neighborhood was you get up towards main street it cuts a basically a the king maple a low income 26 percent uh live people folks living below the poverty level about 24 percent are uh are people with brown and black skins uh it is the extension of the old north end so to speak below uh below the below the marketplace and the only the major change and this is what Steve was talking about that the city always supported in a sense uh we're mayor kiss we're mayor clavelle we're the department of public works until 2009 that wanted a to bypass never to go through that that uh the king maple neighborhood and you'll see the yellow line there which uh shape and spencer will explain as the the the railroad enterprise project or the battery street extension and what that does and this this there's suddenly a consensus I think across the across the city the officials that we want and the federal highway federal highway administration the state has come around saying yeah let's do this uh railroad enterprise project as part of or as a phase of a new road that can can benefit or a new project that can benefit the south end and so that yellow section up at the top uh shows the the uh change from the black lines to a a line that goes over to uh goes over to battery street which essentially bypasses the king maple neighborhood um that's the that's the fundamental change that's occurred over the last two years as a as a direct result of pine streets efforts and that of the Vermont racial justice alliance who we're allied with and innovation center which is owned by 40th 40th LLC um you're you're familiar with them they're the the big former g e plant on lakeside so the the right way we call it the champlain right way we're asking that people say no to the parkway through the king maple we're saying go and sign the petition this is a new petition that's gone up in the last few days if you go to just go to champlain um just go to champlain uh petition champlain parkway petition uh and the first item that will show up on google is our petition so i just found that out tonight and uh so i won't have to give you an address but i i think the the key thing here is that um there's and i would like to if you can show the the last couple slides they are particularly the the uh bikeway uh and the sidewalk uh liam towards the end right now there's not a single inch of sidewalk in the basic parkway route not one inch there's not an inch of separate and safe bikeway along the park basic parkway route and we uh we at the uh both at the walk bike council and ourselves have been promoting what is essentially a world-class separate sidewalk and bikeway two and a half miles that that connects you to the waterfront uh from clean city park road at the bottom and that that's the picture that you can see that um um liam can show you near the end of this document so um that's that's what we're after uh please sign the petition uh we don't want to be here another year and a half from now talking about the same thing we we want to sit down with shape and spencer and the and michelle boom Howard v trans the governor and with the federal highway administrator and work this out with the community we think we have the the right way uh the the champlain right way is the way to go and that there is way to do it without any major delay thanks thank you both so we have uh about seven minutes left um for this agenda item did did we have any questions for tony and steve nothing right we've done early i'm i'm astounded um okay i'll see it's simple i'll say a couple of i'd like to say a couple more things than um in regard to this and that is the what's the harm that's done uh the rate of design is now there would be up to a 37 increase in traffic on on pine street through king maple that's a lot of traffic if we do the what we call the railroad enterprise project and the the or the or the battery street extension we'll actually reduce the traffic in king maple in fact reduce it through all of the neighborhoods in the south end so that's the biggest reason the biggest objection to to the uh current design is it does it damages the king maple neighborhood rather than benefits it and so i i think that's something to keep in mind the second thing is again the walk by council was berlington walk by council back in 2015 and 2016 sent two detailed letters explaining they couldn't believe here we here we are touting walking and biking in the city of berlington though we have the plan b tv walk bike and yet there wasn't a we actually take away we actually take away sidewalks in front of the dpw building it it defies your imagination to think that we'd be going backwards when it comes to walk bike in the south end or anywhere in the city so we have the we think that the uh the the positive feature of the right way is provide a separate sidewalk to the whole route and to provide a more class bikeway that actually will connect to the bike path both at the south end at the at the city border with south berlington and also at the waterfront what could be better you could do a round trip down the bike path and then come back on the the south end bikeway and and stop at the south stop at the city market for a break i can't think of anything a better days outing than that and i think it would get tremendous use we're disappointed in that the vermont agency of transportation and the city and the city itself in this design does not use the best practices walk bike being the best example but there's also no attention to what could reduce and minimize climate climate change emissions and also the by by not having decent walking bike facilities we got 30 percent of the folks believe it or not in the king maple neighborhood and in the old north end where i live 40 percent of the households they don't have access to a car they're all dependent upon walking and transit given that the that's the reason why a walkable bikeable environment is so critical and that the the current design of the parkway goes in the exact opposite direction it does disproportionately impact the low income and those and persons of of color and there seems to be no dispute on that we did have a hearing last july there were seven seven people i think attended it was a high it was a terrible time to have it in the middle of pandemic steve goodkind was the only person who showed up in person at the down at the DPW where they had in people in person could show up not a single person spoke in favor of the parkway design going through king maple in fact all five people condemned it and i think that's one reason why the city and the state and the federal government suddenly came back and said well we didn't like the the connection over to battery street but now well with the community attitude and so forth maybe we should bring this back into play and so in a strange way what steve and governors and mayors mayors kiss and mary clevelle fought for 10 or 12 years ago is is coming around so we think we're making progress we just need to make that last step to make a quality project one that's safe one that's feared environmentally and also provides environmental justice to all all parties and allow and gets us moving forward rather than and right now we're at a stone at we're at a dead end in this project with without some people sitting down and or should we say standing up and and making this happen thanks for that tony so we have two minutes left joel i i know you have a question i do can we do this in two minutes absolutely um so last time steve and tony when we when we had you guys live down at the church i i think there was there was mention of some legal action that was going on and and can you refresh our memory on that and how what that was all about do you recall that yes and we had filed just now my volume has been turned down i can't make it go up i can barely hear you is that something it's happening at your end i heard the question um um yes uh and on d-day the 6th of june uh in 2019 three four months in the time that we we met in other words we met three four months after that that we had filed suit at u.s district court the federal highway administration admitted that the environmental justice rules are not being followed they basically said stop we've got to have an environmental justice outreach that process is still ongoing two almost two years later and we still don't know when that's going to end so the answer to the question is yes uh there is a court action the u.s district court we are at the courthouse door not one piece of paper has been exchanged and i mean that literally not one piece of paper has been exchanged in that court suit because the federal highway said stop we need to pause and do the environmental justice outreach process that's what we're so what we're saying is that we need we think we've come the state and the feds city have come come a ways towards what the right way approach we still have some steps to go we don't we do not want and we've never wanted to go to court because it's a five-year process um so the answer the answer to the question is the others that that's pending but we're hopeful that we can we can reach a consensus and move forward without having to resort to a legal act for the legal action so that that's what you understand steve yeah but i thought before you tony something's gone with the volume here i can barely hear anybody but we can't hear me either okay all right yeah we can hear you steve so thank you so much to both of you um next up we have the burlington department of public works with chape and spencer norm baldwin and susan molzen great thanks caroline can you hear me okay i can't but don't worry about sorry steve um it's not your fault i wish i wish every meeting started out with some music from ana and andy what a great way to get things underway tonight thanks npa for having us look i'll be short on the introduction for susan and norm to do a brief presentation this administration's been focused on getting legacy projects done and getting a renewed level of infrastructure to better serve and be more resilient for for us as residents we saw this year five corners at st paul and wanouski and howard get new pedestrian signals just turned on last week we've got the shelbert street roundabout you'll hear about after this and bike path reconstruction it's been exciting to really be tackling legacy challenges and certainly the champlain parkway uh is is part of that so i'm personally proud of what multiple administrations have done including the time when director good kind was at dpw we have transitioned a project that was four lanes high speed divided highway and turned it into a 25 mile an hour multimodal project and you'll see a little bit about that today so with no further ado i'll ask susan molzen to kick off a short power plane thank you and thank you for having us as chape and mentioned the champlain parkway will be a two lane 24 mile 25 mile per hour road built with pedestrian cycling and traffic safety improvements and environmental equity in mind the project as you've seen starts in the south near the 189 interchange continues along a new roadway to lakeside af where it then joins the existing street network along lakeside af and continues north along the existing road on pine street all the way up to main street the goals of the project to improve access to the downtown area and downtown waterfront area improve circulation mobility and safety on the local streets provide traffic relief in the southwestern quadrant of the city reduce disrupt disruption to the local neighborhoods and separate local and through traffic as well as reduce truck traffic on the surrounding local street networks this project has a long history beginning back in the 60s and as you'll see from some of these historic photos let's say at the time a much different project that has transformed over the years the last decade or so has certainly been marked by a transformation of the project as well as extensive public outreach including different neighborhood meetings focused on the mobility and environment in 2015 we have put in place a number of the pine street safety enhancements which included the rectangular rapid flashing beacons or the yellow flashing beacons along pine street and in 2019 we held a neighborhood meeting in the maple king neighborhood um and in 2020 we have been working on the limited scope supplemental impact statement which is focused on environmental justice concerns in the maple and king street neighborhood in the maple and king street neighborhood as i said the project continues on pine street includes new traffic signals at maple street and king street as well as upgrades to the existing signal on main street at the intersections there are bumpouts and pedestrian signals for all of the crossings the city has undertaken a recent historic efforts in the maple king neighborhood in advance of this Champlain Parkway project includes adding crosswalks storm water infrastructure traffic calming on king street repaving as well as sewer and water main improvements um and more recently the completion of the st paul street great streets projects all totaling over five million dollars in capital reinvestment in the last five years in the maple king neighborhood and here's highlighting some of the pictures of this recent work and i will turn it over to norm hello everyone can you hear me now good perfect so um there has been significant work to improve the safety of the Champlain Parkway and uh susan had alluded to some of those things uh particularly uh uh i guess a detailed point of this is uh pedestrian signalization for all the signals having exclusive pet crossings we're filling in the gaps alongside work network between maple and the Champlain elementary school i think a key point here is that uh it's been mentioned that there is you know removal of sidewalk yes there's a removal of sidewalk in place of a shared use path there is significant rebuilding of sidewalks to meet ADA there are crosswalks that didn't exist before and there are also raised intersections to slow traffic one of the key intersections was the mall text building where we had the uh arts riot and obviously there was a lot of activity there and a lot of pedestrian activity on a daily basis so those raised intersections to highlight that activity area there is also a proposed in this plan to reduce the amount of truck traffic on maple street anyone familiar with the area would know that the uh rail yard itself services a lot of commercial traffic coming out of the rail yard and making use of maple street where this project will reduce significantly the amount of traffic in front of the Champlain elementary school by making those connections further north on lakeside avenue so you'll see uh reduced traffic on maple street you'll see synchronized traffic signals and we'll be maintaining on street parking accordance and city ordinances one of the details of the signals is also accommodating better accommodating emergency service vehicles and also transit service transit service is an important part of supporting all different modes within the corridor next slide Champlain Parkway also has significant environmental benefits one of them is to the removal of 12 acres in pervious surface from our combined sewer system this will reduce the amount of cso events that occur within that area the uh new storm or system also reduced amount of sediment being discharged to the lake which will reduce the impacts of various locations throughout the city we're uh swimming in other activities occur such as blanchard beach and oak litch park and we'll reduce congestion and idling on pine street and maple street intersections so if you see today you'll see that the traffic that enters that intersection as against today is stat cues during peak hours those intersections are at this point controlled by stop control uh anyone who's familiar with it would know that uh stop control at that volume is in point of failure can you so the absence of parkway that still remains a an issue for that neighborhood and we're concerned about that norm what i don't know this jargon does that mean a stop sign you're saying stop control is that just stop sign is that what you're saying correct okay thank you so as mentioned there's significant amount of public engagement to talk about this project so that people understand what this project is about and uh from 2010 to 2016 there was a significant amount of effort within the king street neighborhood for traffic calming one element that was completed in that area neighborhood was king street having a full rebuild and doing traffic calming itself there was also some engagement about the ideas and concepts that could occur on maple street to keep traffic within that primary corridor so in september of 2019 there was public meetings targeting that the issue of this design to cause the last last opportunity to check in with neighborhood about where they are where this project is and how people feel about the project and we gathered significant amount of comments and concerns and heard and understood what people were saying and we're bringing those comments forward through our process as an extension to that because there was an interest in really having targeted outreach we went to the king street neighborhood and attempted to meet directly with people who potentially on a daily basis travel to the king street neighborhood king street center itself subsequent to that we had a need for public hearing that was referenced obviously within the period of the pandemic but there was extensive outreach and there was also a means of having interpreters available for people who have english is not as a primary language it was important that all people know and aware of what the project is and its scope and what it means next slide so as it was noted the federal process has changed the environmental justice process became much more extensive than it had in 2009 obviously as time goes on we have we as a as a country and as a state evolve and believe that there was a need you know the federal process really every five year cycle watch you to take a back take another look at what you're proposing and does it still fit with today's contemporary understanding so that's what this limit is scope draft supplemental eis was assembled to do is to take another look before we take the next step and that's part of that process it was determined that there was no disproportionately higher adverse effects can you I'm sorry can you like norm yeah no I lost I lost I'm for some reason I've lost this meaning so there's several I don't know numerous abbreviation so maybe others okay this as well unless it's just me I don't know what nipa is and I don't know what the abbreviations on the last couple national environmental policy act okay yes that's correct and then there are several others other abbreviations can you just explain analysis is environmental justice analysis I'm sorry what ej analysis is environmental justice analysis so part of that process is environmental justice analysis to look at two two categories of the population one is people lower modern income and also people of BIPOC communities all right and identify those communities through the census obviously over the years the demographics of neighborhoods change and so there was this next look at what does the latest census tell us about where people where people of either lower income or BIPOC communities live within this project corridor and is it concerning and is there a disproportionate impact or adverse impact to those neighborhoods so this is what this analysis was about thank you thanks mary for asking those questions to bring it home there is a separate project called the rail yard enterprise project that's advancing and you heard a little bit from tony and steve earlier tonight about it you'll see a map on the left showing one of the alternatives explored that would basically connect battery street with pine street pine street being on the bottom right and basically edging around the rail yard to create that connection it is its own separate project but that first bullet is very exciting by creating that connection anywhere from a third to two-thirds of the traffic heading up pine street is projected to divert on to the rail yard enterprise project and connect directly to battery street so with the construction of this separate project and the champlain parkway there would be less traffic in the king and maple street neighborhood than there is today so uh we are excited to advance uh this project the rail yard enterprise project is a separate and distinct project but we're moving it as quickly as possible and you'll hear a lot more in the coming months this was an effort launched in 2012 by the wine burger administration and uh is really succeeded because of the partnership with v trans and federal highway next one question so the rail yard project so is that under the scope of the department of public works as well that is a project that is being led by dpw as well in partnership with v trans my agency of transportation and federal highway okay thank you so sorry can you folks give us some timelines for commencement of the champlain parkway and the rail yard project absolutely and i will do that quickly uh to cut to the chase the champlain parkway uh we expect the record of decision sometime out this summer and there is a path to getting the project out to bid this fall for 2022 construction the rail yard enterprise project is a separate project it's got its own development it is not as far long as the parkway but it has tremendous support and uh a narrower focus as a result uh the permitting and the engineering phase will probably last about two years and we could see that project underway in three to five years so uh while it's not on the same timeline it's it's it's in the same same realm so is it assumed that that will be able to go forward in other words when you're planning the champlain parkway the choices made will assume the rail yard project cut through is going through or is it or is the city not at that point yet right each project stands on its own each project has its own purpose and need uh i will say that the city administration is what we've heard from residents is that the rail yard enterprise project is a great project and needs to happen to provide better north south access through town that doesn't go uh predominantly through residential neighborhoods cheapen are there challenges with the railroad about access right of way any issues there right i would say susan do you want to take the presentation off just so we can all see each other thank you um the railroad has has been a good partner uh they're not always the easiest to work with the railroads have our preemption uh nationally which means that they don't always need to abide by local laws or ordinances like zoning but that said you've seen a remarkable win win success on the waterfront with the relocation of the waterfront bike path and the rail to accommodate amtrak that kind of partnership didn't happen by chance it's happened overnight it's happened over years of coordination and the bike path has been realigned all up and down the southern waterfront in in many places the railroad right of way we have a very solid relationship with them is it can be easy no but part of the success is looking at how we can better help their operations give them better access to pine street to relay out problematic areas in the yard to improve their operations uh so there's ways to get win wins and i'm confident we can do it here as well cool thanks so thank you so much to all three of you um as as they put up there's contact information at the end of that slide which will include in the minutes as well if anyone has any follow-up questions um but thank you so much for joining us thank you thank you thanks to all parties um uh certainly interesting to know all of this information and keeping with the roads now we've got um shelburn street roundabout coming up so we have from vermont trans uh michael lecroy is that how i pronounced your last name i'm sorry if it's not a good evening uh hi mary uh michael lecroy from my theater yep thank you for coming sure thank you for having me um just share my screen here real quick okay um sorry technical difficulties i guess no problem mike this is just another partnership project between the agency in the city and uh glad to have you here tonight mike okay please tell me you can see a powerpoint presentation yes all right um thank you again for having me i was last year probably two years ago uh speaking to you folks about the shelburn street roundabout project and um i'm happy to be here tonight to share some exciting news in regards of the project's development and um just kind of get the ball rolling on the next steps it's really i'm here to talk about um how this project is going to affect your neighborhood especially in board six as your neighborhood is ground zero for this project and this project is going to be in your front yards for the next couple years so um this is uh the first of several public presentations that we're going to be having on this project um so again thanks for having me um tonight we're going to talk about um uh just we're establishing uh communication with you folks like i said this is in your neighborhood construction for this project is going to begin this summer and um we're trying to get boots on the ground and trying to get voices in people's ears um about this project tonight i probably won't focus on uh why we're doing uh what we're doing because i spoke a lot about that over the last uh couple visits here and a lot of you folks are already well aware of the issues that this particular intersection at the rotary has um and so i kind of want to in the uh in the interest of time tonight i guess i just wanted to talk about the next steps um and to give you guys some contact information as well because that's going to be important moving forward um so here's the rotary folks are already well aware of what it looks like and how it operates um and for those who haven't seen this yet this is what we are proposing to replace the rotary with it is a modern roundabout is single lane uh the state of roma has 12 of these 13 of these and we should have another two or three more built in the next year so roma is very familiar with single lane roundabouts they function very well where we've installed them um and they've been fairly successful and we think that this is going to be a great fit for this as well just to kind of give you a sense as to what it looks like in real uh real time uh this is uh some snapshots of our waterberry what we're single lane roundabout um it's going to be approximately the same size um in shape the landscaping in the middle will be a little bit different but this kind of gives you a sense as to what drawing this is going to look like um real quickly uh some of the benefits as to why we chose a roundabout and why we think it's a good fit at this location uh single lane roundabout can easily handle the traffic that's out there today um and um we expect that we can get significant crash reductions to shore up some of the safety issues that this intersection has experienced over the last quarter century or so um so we're expecting we can probably get 75 75 75 percent crash reductions which is significant for this location um the roundabout also will focus uh drivers uh sight lines so folks coming up children's street who have a tendency to be a little heavy on the foot um this will definitely help them out visually um and then we'll also force them to slow down um improving sight lines also helps improve the visibility of bicyclists and pedestrians that utilize this intersection as well left turns so left turns off of uh Shelburne street onto Locust Street and onto Ledger Road for instance um will now become right turns and they're going to be more predictable for all users so um bicyclists uh pedestrians are now going to have a better sense as to uh how vehicles uh turn left this intersection is big it's wide there's a lot of pavement out there crosswalks are not very friendly out there right now having the roundabout installed will improve those crossings by making them shorter and more visible as well um and then the Central Island like I said earlier is going to be landscape to a degree uh we're working with Burlington um uh arts to um provide some sort of sculpture they they would like to they're interested in doing some sort of art sculpture for the Central Islands so um details on that have not been finalized but that is something that we're working with schedule and budget um we're kind of some of the big pieces that I'm just hoping to talk about tonight um tomorrow is April 2nd and that is the day that we expect to be opening bids from our contractors it has been out for advertisement for the last five weeks um tomorrow will be a big day for us because we'll get to see who the low low bidder will be um and then we'll take the next couple weeks to analyze those bids to make sure there was no improper bidding um and whatnot before we actually award the contract which we think will be sometime in early May um just uh real quick about uh budgets um the round of the project itself is 100% federally funded because it's a safety improvement project um we're thinking it's going to be in the high sevens low eight billion dollar range there's some other costs associated that are not federally eligible um but those um costs are being worked on um at the local level and also um in collaboration with our um department of um environmental conservation um so the the city would have uh some uh costs up front but most of that would be reimbursable by other funds so um and last piece about the schedule um that I wanted to talk about is we're going to be having once we have the contractor on board um we will be presenting the contractor to the public and um giving the public an opportunity to ask questions that are probably a little more specific to the actual construction of the round about that he or she would be able to answer that us in the engineering um section would not necessarily be able to answer at this time so what we're going to do is we're going to have um a very targeted invite list um so keep your eyes open on your mail there'll be some mailers there are postcard size that will be hitting everybody's mailbox uh in the next month or two we're also going to be email blasting um all sorts of uh invites and and also uh our website which we'll talk about in a moment so um so keep your eyes open we're going to have uh many more of these public uh presentations um in preparation for the trial just why we think public outreach is so important on this project is because the project itself is going to be very impactful on not just you folks that live and and play and work in that vicinity but also the commuters that travel through it um and so I'm listing some of the big pieces here and um this is really just to be upfront with you folks um that this is going to be a significant project for the next probably two years um and so I've highlighted some of the bigger ones we will probably have to be uh blasting out some uh ledge where we encounter it under the roadway um we are going to have some archaeological uh excavation um of a of a site nearby so that's going to be going uh ongoing concurrently with construction we're going to be excavating out hazardous materials because at one point there were four gas stations on different corners this location and there has been uh some evidence of some contamination from petroleum and other sources so while we're in there digging uh replacing utilities and creating new stormwater infrastructure we're going to be doing some cleaning of some contaminated areas as well utilities is a big component to this project there's seven miles of buried utilities under this intersection and we're going to be replacing it all the trick is really going to be building new infrastructure while keeping the current infrastructure so either telecom your gas your water your sewer all those need to be active uh while we create that new infrastructure and then we need to uh switch everybody over to that new infrastructure when it's completed um so the the folks that live in the um you know adjacent to the streets in this project area would have some minor utility um uh disconnections and there'll be advanced warning and well we have various methods of notifying folks of when those shutoffs are going to be happening and um so we wanted to make sure we got ahead of that make sure you guys are aware that and then the last big piece really is how do we manage transportation through the work zone we need to make sure that all users can be uh mobile and safe while our workers are in the streets doing what they need to do so there's going to be a system of um phase you know uh phase changes in terms of how lanes um operate and how traffic flows through the work zone there may be some lane restrictions there may be some turning restrictions on a temporary basis to help accommodate traffic so just to give our our workers enough space to work and we'll be maintaining all driveways for trying to make sure that they're all going to be open at all given times um and provide those bicyclists and pedestrians access that they require as well so it's not just about the vehicles um so these are all big um impacts and um that we're trying to make folks aware of and really because there's so many of them and they're so big um we really needed to have a really robust public outreach plan and we've hired uh wsp and um they are in charge of or coordinating the public outreach for this project they are going to be the go-to folks when people have questions or concerns um they're sort of the middleman if you will um they're going to be in charge of um you know setting up weekly meetings um they're going to be involved with the construction contractor one-on-one um our state construction staff as well they're also going to be in charge of drafting all sort of email blasts um they're currently operating our project website they maintain a telephone hotline and these are all different um pieces that we use these these are all different tools that we use to keep in touch with you folks um and so what we're doing is we're trying to just let people know that WSP is on board they are the fastest way for people to get the any sort of information about this project um so it'd be it's very important that folks um know how to contact them and um to do that um I will leave this slide up while I take any sort of questions that you may have on this slide is our project website you can also email us directly and we have the 24-hour hotline telephone number on this slide if you want to get the email blasts the constant updates that that we do I believe during construction they're going to be probably weekly or more frequently if it's a more severe activity go to the website the website's a great location if you will for all sorts of project related information we're going to have a couple videos um those are just about finished those should be going up here shortly we have pamphlets and FAQs the whole nine yards all on the website but the website is also a great place to sign up for those email blasts so um I said a lot and um hopefully that was uh enough to get across and I'll take any sort of questions that you may have great thank you Michael I from does anyone have any questions I can't see from my control Michelle or uh Nelson can you see and if nobody does I have several okay I don't see any questions Mary okay I'm I guess I'm a traffic rogui because these presentations are so interesting to me so I have several questions first of all I guess Chapin um well Chapin and Michael um so let's see the roundabout will start this summer and then will there be any overlap is it known at the time with the uh the pine street project so and if so I'm just curious to see if there's any anticipation of people cutting through all the neighborhoods and probably a lot of reward six what do you think that would it would you anticipate that occurring or or how would you handle that I guess well I'll say that Mike and I and uh many members of my team and the state's team have been meeting about coordinating these two projects this roundabout projects going first and so we are actively looking at how can these two projects best fit together and it likely will involve some parkway schedule adjustments based on the progress of this roundabout project Mike anything you want to add no I think that you summed it up great great okay thank you uh and then I have two other questions if I if there's nobody else who has question oh zale very has raised a hand so um two participants go ahead zale I could you tell us something about the archaeological site what's there and what cvm going to be doing uh yes um so they're going to be doing what's called a phase three excavation um and they during the first two phases uvm had discovered that there was evidence of some uh tool making uh historic tool making I don't know at which time period that was um the report that I read didn't go into that specifics but um they identified some evidence that indicated that there were tools that were made on on the uh the sheltering street frontage of uh at christa king school okay and so during this summer the first phases of construction uvm will be going in they'll be excavating out that and retrieving some artifacts thank you sure and uh Karen Paul go ahead thanks so much um thanks uh thanks Mike and uh to the dpw group for being here um just wanted to say a couple of things the first is um even though Mike has heard this before I just wanted certainly others to know that um uh we had a meeting probably about six years ago at dpw uh the project appeared to be fairly stalled at that point there didn't seem to be a lot of information getting out and uh there were quite a few of us that attended that meeting and um I asked Mike at that time if on a quarterly basis he would send an email and let us know what was going on never did I expect that like clockwork he would be in touch with us on a quarterly basis and there was ongoing work that was done over the past couple of years it you know just behind the scenes the number of not just simply the work of working um on the plans for this but also the number of properties that are affected by the roundabout each one of those parties had to be contacted um there were a lot of legal issues there were a lot of right away issues um and all of those had to be taken care of in addition to all of the conduit cord that is underneath the roundabout of which there is um many many lines under the roundabout as you can imagine it's a pretty central area and that's why there's so much stuff under there um but I just wanted to thank Mike once again and to thank the dpw team for working so collaboratively on this um you know uh we finally are getting to the point where there actually is going to be a roundabout and um for all those in ward six who get the uh blue newsletter that I put out on that I've been giving updates on the roundabout I don't know what I'm going to do with all the blank space that I have once this roundabout gets actually done I guess we'll have to find something else to talk about but um uh it's been really wonderful to work with this group of very dedicated people who have not given up on a project that has taken a long time but one that it is going to be a great benefit to not only ward six because all of us who drive a car are affected by it but also for the entire city and region so again Mike thank you thank you so much for all that you've done I appreciate it thank you okay thanks Karen anybody else have any other questions oh Gabrielle Stubbins is here and has raised her hand go ahead Gabrielle hi I'm uh not sure if you're seeing me or if you're seeing my basement oh that's great that's much better I just wanted to say um to all the fellow ward six and Karen Paul thank you so much counselor for um you know uh giving your history and background on this project I am new to many of these discussions um the Champlain Parkway the rail yard enterprise project uh as well as um not so much the roundabout that's that's not new to me I've heard that for many years but um I do know how much effort goes into all of these I do understand that um that none of these projects uh will bring everyone happiness at the upfront um but I just want to say that uh to the extent as I get caught up to speed to the extent that I can be helpful um you know part of this rests within the city realm but but but to the extent that I can be helpful as a state representative I'm I'm happy to be a resource and just know um representative Blumlee and myself are sort of tag teaming the different mpa meetings so I am here tonight I tend to listen um you know incognito with not my screen on because I have a three-year-old and 11-year-old but um to the extent that I can be helpful and representative Blumlee can be helpful um please do reach out to us although really uh your counselor is doing a phenomenal job and I do appreciate dpw I've had many great conversations with them as well as the aot staff working on all of these projects so thanks very much thank you Gabrielle all right I guess um I think all questions have been asked and answered mine were answered I was curious about the uvm artifacts as well that sounds so interesting so uh great thank you so much again michael and shape in and everybody I'm presenting I I'm a fellow row geek so I'm looking forward to hearing more thank you very okay thank you and thank you all so next up we have diana woods uh to give an update on parks recreation and waterfront projects hey everyone thanks for having us I'm here with um I'm dana with the marketing outreach manager for the city of berlington parks recreation and waterfront department I'm here with the entire planning team I believe we're all logged in so I can give them a quick introduction so our comprehensive planner is so if you survey and I think she'll be leading the the presentation we have some slides to go over um john Adams culettes is also with us and max meadowlands gave two of our our planners and so we're going to give you like a quick overview of all the stuff that's going to happen in the parks um in the upcoming construction season and a little bit beyond so you get an idea of all the things that are going to happen and the improvements in particular the uh the greenway preference pier and some other ones so hopefully so if he's there and she can share some screen excellent great can everybody see that yes awesome thank you diana for the introduction and we are actually going to all present the different parts of our upcoming projects ongoing projects completed projects very recent completed projects just to give you a sense of what we've been up to what we are up to and also a heads up of the upcoming construction season and some active projects where we love some public input so just to give you an idea of we've been using um project what we call project status process icons to identify different parts of a project steps where uh public outreach is a huge component um so when you see the um light bulb icon it's where we're still collecting ideas or we'll be collecting ideas depending on what year the project is slated for the pencils for the design process that's ongoing and the check mark is for completed projects so hi everyone i'm max meadowlandski i'm gonna jump in on this one so at 311 north avenue our most recently acquired park within the city we have a number of projects going on with the building there we have an architect on board to do a redesign of the interior of the building as well as recommending some historical fit and finish options for the exterior and some minor landscape improvements to improve accessibility that's kind of ongoing and in design and we also have a management plan being led by our conservation team and our city land steward for just overall management of the landscape and ecology at 311 north avenue so upcoming projects there is we want to formalize a long-standing informal trail that heads through the park and turn part of it into a stone dust pathway that will connect to a paved multi-use pathway that kind of goes behind the camberry wise development and connects to the bike path good evening everyone i'm john adams collitz at the adog skate park we're doing some repair this season on the coping which is the top of the bowl that the skateboarders grind on our maintenance crews will be taking care of that shortly at apple tree park we recently replaced for just walkway lights there our team sort of is experimenting with a solar powered street light walkway light system that we're still waiting to see how they sort of pan out over the next several years but the promising option is it doesn't require any wiring and all of the battery and solar power are integrated into the lighting fixture and then an upcoming trail construction project at arms forest following our recently completed trails master plan for arms we have a contractor on board who's going to begin constructing sort of the main trail way starting from the spots at the bottom of the hill from berlington high school and going all the way out to a trail that follows on great out to connect to the bike path that should be starting up this spring and kind of ongoing through the summer at baird park we had a quick penny for parks request that came in this past year to get a number of picnic tables and soccer goals out there and we turned that around pretty quickly within a week and down the line in fy 25 we plan to tackle baird park with a broader master plan and some public outreach to think about where things are placed there and some comprehensive updates for the playground battery park will have an upcoming master plan in fiscal year 25 um we believe this is a really crucial civic space located strategically between downtown and the waterfront uh following the master plan we will be doing uh implementing a redo of the plaza at the center in the playground and on the greenway it will be a busy year of construction on the greenway it's nice to be here tonight with uh some fellow collaborators and supporters at department of public works and agency of transportation who helped us uh get through the design phase of the realignment of the bike path west of the tracks in the central waterfront or southern waterfront area um so that construction will start shortly it actually started last fall with some initial underground work and uh we will achieve our long standing goal of getting the bike path all the way on the west side of the tracks and not crossing back and forth like it did previously um so expect detours and construction through the fall and early part of the winter on that section and then um we'll also be wrapping up the phases from last season in the northern part of oak ledge and along the hula property in the south end and then fiscal year 22 which starts in july we'll see construction through the remainder of oak ledge park and a couple of highlights there will include um new accessible access to the beach at blanchard and then an expanded intersection at that confluence of flint avenue and the bike path and uh in fiscal year 22 we're aiming for a scoping study for the boat house to determine what is the best way forward with repairs etc for for this facility and based on that scoping study um in the next year not previous year sorry um we hope to uh have a project identified to move forward at that time callahan park is currently has currently just started a master plan and uh we'll be inviting um public feedback on how things work at callahan what's missing what needs changing etc for our first public meeting um thursday may 13th which is coming uh up a little bit over a month um so we're generating ideas and then our consultant which is offshoots um we'll go into a design phase once public input has been collected and then we'll come back to the public for another uh meeting um to hear ideas and feedback on the concepts they bring forward and then they'll go back to the drawing board and put together what is often called a frankenstein of different ideas um into something that they feel best represents all the input from city members and and then bring back that final plan to to the public once again so we'll have three public meetings um in total for that process and then based on the master plan we'll move into um design and of the playground which is which needs an update as well as um basketball court design and then uh implementing those um designs into the next fiscal years and in a few years we're looking at tennis court reconstruction although this past season we did have um some repairs to the tennis court in terms in terms of cemeteries uh lakeview cemetery in the fall we completed a um design of section eight which is expanding um the cemetery which is reaching capacity and the next project uh to follow suit will be um to engineer that section so that it can be developed uh champ blaine street park we started a redesign of park it was i think in f-line 19 actually but due to covid we had to reshuffle reshuffle quite a bit of our budget and we're finally open to get back to wrapping this project up in f-line 22 and to get that initiative back under way in the fall city hall park as hopefully everybody knows has been reopened since the fall and uh we're looking forward to the water and the lights coming back on and really opening the the park up for its first full season and and seeing how everybody enjoys it but so far even in the frigid weather it seems like it's very well used which is awesome hopefully everybody's had a chance to go there ethan allen park um though we're looking forward to uh in 22 uh trail scoping and design study to establish what trails need to be um repaired or brought brought up to a different um level and then um looking at uh playground design for the playground that is reaching its its age there as well and then its replacement and then eventually a master plan so the berlington community boat house marina so differentiating the slightly from the boat house itself these are just marina based projects that'll be going on around there we are going to be posting an rfp shortly to hopefully get somebody on board for next fall to install a lift system for our docks at the boat house marina right now our staff has to get a crane down there every single year to pull those in and out of the water which really isn't a great system given how high traffic that area is and then in future years we've got some dredging to do of uh areas that have been silted in over the years from various stormwater outfalls that are making it difficult for boats to get in and out of there so that's kind of down the line oh and then harbor safety signage would be several sort of floating buoy signs indicating various water depths and things like that that our waterfront team will be looking to get posted throughout that area lakeside park one of our great neighborhood parks in late 2022 or 2023 will be undergoing a playground replacement and for that we will be taking a lot of community input as is our standard for neighborhood playground projects at letty park we have a replacement project for the wooden staircase that goes down to the beach behind the arena that project is going into fabrication now a bestial support structure and we're hoping they will be installing things probably by end of april early may getting that all wrapped up we are getting back to the letty park pause place and exercise equipment station so where the bike path intersects with the pathway going to the ice arena we putting in this concrete pad there and some connecting paths to get the exercise equipment it's one that's been going on for a little while we have some more recent permits that we're tackling and getting filed to get that project hopefully wrapped up this year and then moving into upcoming projects we've got a whole slew of different things at letty a lot of it will be led by a master plan but then we have a community request and project for a bike park which a local group has raised quite a bit of donation money to fund the design of that upgrading the restrooms building a new shelter down behind the arena or at least designing it playground design and then hopefully the next year construction of the playground and that shelter and then way further on parking lot improvements to the numerous plots with a muddy park in early well I guess early summer last year the fit lot at miller was installed and completed and I think a lot of people have benefited from learning how to use the different equipment out there and especially it's been especially great in a COVID year where a lot of the gyms at that time were closed so at least people could get outside and and use it for exercise and later in fiscal year 26 we're looking to examining the parking and traffic and circulation around miller north beach we have some upcoming projects there including improving the deck I know there's some work that has been done this year to make immediate repairs to the structure which has been giving our staff a hard time but we're going to look at the bigger picture in 23 looking at fencing and parking lot improvements as well as the roadway and stormwater and lighting so a lot of circulation projects as well as the playground design further down the line in 24 and then replacing the playground in 25 and just general improvements have been slated for 26 and up at the campground at north beach we have a couple projects that are kind of in either design or design can build we have recently demolished the old maintenance building that was right along the entry road right where Diana's hand is laid putting her hand sign there and that site will be turned well hopefully eventually turned into several pulls through RV campsites and we are going through the design phase of that now and we also have the relocation of the campground dump station and a turnaround road that is going to be constructed this coming spring included in the design right now we are also having them design the main roadway that comes from institute have all the way down to the beach so that it's widened to allow better traffic flow and also to put in a formal sidewalk all the way down to the beach so that people don't have to walk in the road as they're going down there and then few further down we'll be looking to improve more install more of the improvements called for in our 2017 campground master plan which is looking at here oak ledge park hopefully everyone knows that this year is the 50th anniversary of the creation of oak ledge it was 1971 when the city obtained the land from the cliffside country club a lot of projects will be happening in the next year to year and a half there including oak ledge for all universally accessible playground which is wrapping up design phase now and soon to go out to bid um addition uh support projects includes a remodeling of the lower pavilion restrooms using the same accessibility standards that we developed for the upper we're going to add eight accessible parking spaces near the playground in pavilion and then eventually we will be keep following the master plan and reconfigure the entrance to consolidate to a single road and do some court work etc in that park Perkins pier is also a project that's very active right now and is going through a what we call a siting study agency landscape and planning or consultants are leading a public process we just had our first public meeting I guess two weeks ago and we're looking forward to the second public meeting on May 18th and if you're interested please sign up that public meeting will be to evaluate concepts and ideas that the consultants and the city team are working together to identify a way forward for Perkins pier and from there we're hoping to identify um playground change also at Perkins pier and eventually uh what what will happen with the liman building and the parking and circulation in that area and this fall we'll be doing replacement or repairs to the mooring in the mooring field in the old north end Roosevelt park we will reconstruct the baseball infield in fiscal year 23 following that we'll be looking to design and replace the playground and what they refer to as little rosy and again like these playground projects in parks a lot of community input will be appreciated at shifoli park in the new north end we have a v-trans funded project that will be starting up this coming spring and sort of ongoing over the next several years to formalize a informal pathway that connects from the james ad neighborhood over to eventually the hunt middle school just in front of the Miller recreation center and then we also in the next year will be transitioning one of the baseball fields in shifoli park into a softball field and looking to upgrade the restrooms at the concession stand there in a future year so just to check in quickly on time here we are at 20 minutes are you could you wrap up in the next couple of minutes here sure great thank you um schmezka park i'll i'll try run through the last ones quickly we're almost there right the s's schmezka park has just had renovations done to the barn so that it's now open back open to the public and we'll be addressing improvements to the walkways to make accessing the barn a lot more easy smally park which is in your ward six we have upcoming projects another playground redesign and playground replacement max you want to start barn park we recently replaced the dog park fence and we have an installation of another pause place fitness station area that's coming up for an ex fiscal year and then future project would be a park master plan and more general renovations and finally in addition to all our capital projects we have several pots of money that we use to maintain investment in furnishing our parks maintaining existing facilities replacing signage and keeping all of our system-wide planning documents up to date and other system-wide announcements are i believe that uh cindy white is with us and she is our fearless leader there she is um and uh we're open for questions i believe joel yes i have a really quick question um i'm a director of facilities for school departments and you know looking at all this playground replacement equipment i just wonder what your thoughts are on your maintenance crew for playground equipment i know this has plagued a lot of large cities that have tried to you know upgrade playground equipment but also to finance a facilities crew for this equipment and the certification i mean do you have any plans or do you have any certified playground inspectors that are going to be um just tracking this equipment it just it seems like we're investing a lot in new equipment and then down the road was the maintenance budget looked like to maintain all this equipment because as we all know playground equipment is very very expensive to maintain because of the risk involved max and i are both um certified and max can probably talk a little bit more about um investment and another staff member who's also i believe certified are becoming yeah so our grounds maintenance uh manager paul morris recently got his cpsi certification and he and i have been working pretty closely in the past year you'll see actually it's convenient that we're on this slide there's that line for playground compliance um within the past two years we've allocated a lot of capital funds towards like i think around fifty thousand dollars towards just looking at all of our playgrounds across the entire city and making sure that we have addressed all of the outstanding you know safety issues any repairs needed replacing pieces of equipment and ensuring you know getting kick mats things like that um he's been investing a lot more time than i think in previously the capacity of put into maintaining and keeping up with playgrounds um on top of that typically each year we do invest some money towards just at a minimum our annual wood fiber purchase which is you know not in substantial it's like around four thousand dollars of wood chips every spring and every fall just to make sure that that's being stocked up at all of the playgrounds across the city um and then a little bit more for any repairs that sort of come up on a more you know general basis or unpredictable basis but yeah you're right it's a huge commitment and uh it does take a lot of work and we're really trying to step up to the challenge and make sure that everything is tipped off shade one thing i might add to that joel is that uh paul is um implementing what we hope to have uh be a system wide system uh that's gis based and he does all his playground inspections digitally on an ipad um and has all the information about equipment um located on our gis asset inventory system so he's become very efficient at inspections and keeping track of how he can get replacement parts yeah because the big problem in the state of ramon is who fixes them i mean we're all certified but the next question is is who do we find to fix them i mean we only have playground bob over in williston i don't who you guys use if you do it in house or not if you plan on training somebody in house you know to repair this stuff because it's gonna happen yeah it's a bit of a mixture we do use playground bob for some of our miracle playgrounds uh it goes by right and um and then for some of our other distributors who we have equipment from you know we'll get the parts in and our staff are able typically to put in replacement parts okay thank you all so much for that presentation and we're going to move on to our next agenda item thank you thank you have a great night yeah thank you too thank you to all i can't wait till the first day that covid is officially over i will be going to all of the parks and using all the equipment every single piece every part the first day along with everyone else i'm sure so thank you for keeping us posted all right so next up we have um skylar nash from the burlington racial equity inclusion and belonging office speaking on the burlington joint committee initiative engagement process and uh we were also going to have karima edwards from talitha consultants joining us but unfortunately karima is not able to join us tonight so it'll just be skyla so go ahead skylar and thank you for coming no thank you for having me i'm sorry that kareem kareem is the real star of the show here so i'm sorry that you guys are just stuck with me um i will try to just explain a little bit about the talitha process and then answer as many questions as i can so the talitha consultant team uh as an outside consultant group that the joint committee made up of city counselors and public uh or police commissioners uh is contracting with to gather input on community visioning of public safety going forward and so this is part of three ongoing contracts that we have the first one being the grayscale consultant contract that is working to develop a strategic plan for racial equity in the city of burlington uh we have this talitha contract around public safety visioning and then the third one will be an operational and a functional assessment of the police department all three of these they're separate contracts but they all are sort of smaller pieces to this larger puzzle about where we want the city to go as a whole but then also where we want the city to go in terms of providing public safety for us all so as far the talitha team is hosted i think two workshops with community stakeholders and groups that were identified to them by the joint committee and then most recently held a town hall which i have to apologize to anybody that's on this call that had any trouble gaining access to the town hall there was a mix-up and the last digit of the zoom id was left off on the flyers that were created by our consultant team and so i recognize how frustrating that was for a lot of people certainly as the project manager that was incredibly frustrating and stressful for me to recognize that problem but going forward now we're going to take a little bit more of an active hand in terms of outreach for the remaining town halls we were originally scheduled to have four town halls in the first place obviously now there's an extra importance on making sure that we continue to provide opportunities for community engagement there's also going to be a public safety uh public survey that's going to be disseminated by the talitha team as an additional opportunity for us to get as much out as much as much engagement on this process as possible um and i can share actually i'm gonna share my screen i do have with me um and you'll have to bear with me on this i'm not familiar with this technology this is something that's been introduced to me by the talitha team but i think it's pretty cool of this mural that they've been using for their meetings and so you can see here uh an agenda that's put together um sliding over to questions where they're able to actually input uh different squares and bubbles with feedback that they're getting from the community as they're collecting all of this qualitative data um from really i think across all different spectrums of burlington residents what you know about what healthy and safe communities mean to them kind of getting outside of just this very linear conversation around policing and so this is the type of thing that that goes on in a talitha workshop or town hall where you're getting into breakout rooms and getting asked these questions and then facilitators are then compiling all these answers together onto this mural and then on the back end they're also doing a lot more um qualitative data analysis that will be a part of their final report to the city um yeah so like i said i can answer you know as many questions as i can but also you know feel bad that uh that i am not actually on the talitha team but i can say that uh there are going to be at least three more widely uh disseminated town halls where people are going to be able to engage with the talitha team in addition to that public survey okay do we have any questions yeah i have a question skyler who's the ultimate consumer of the information that gets compiled does it go to the mayor's office or what or to the police chief or where what's the ultimate outcome yeah great question um so the regular updates of this uh data as we go along through this process are being received by the joint committee that i mentioned uh that's made up of city counselors and police commissioners uh ultimately the talitha team will provide their final report to the city council and the mayor how do we find out about the next town halls then yeah great question um so uh in response to kind of the communication breakdowns that we had with this last town hall uh we were able to create a official government front porch form account for the reib which gives us access to posting on all the different sites and so we'll still kind of go through this process of taking flyers from the talitha team but internally we're going to have a much more active hand in terms of working with mpa's front porch forum social media and then also the official city calendar to make sure we get that information for the zoom link out to as many people as possible um as early as possible as well i don't know exact date yet uh but there will definitely be at least two weeks advanced notice across all those different platforms for the next town hall great any other questions i do have one more i said you kind of made me think so this is probably could end up taking several months or what what's your kind of timeline generally speaking yeah so the talitha team is supposed to wrap up their process in june um that the talitha team is supposed to end up sorry i've got all the operational assessment of my head to the talitha team wraps up earlier in june and then the operational and functional assessment will wrap up at the end of june um and so that's when i think you'll really start to see some more tangible movement around these things that's when i pass it off to councillor paul i say thank you we know how to get a hold of her um i don't know if they're who's calling on people okay um um um just what just wanted to say you know i think they're i think it's important to keep in mind that there's there are two things like skyler said there's two things that are going on right now in terms of consultant work with um with the police staffing one is this what is caught what skyler referred to and we referred by racial justice resolution to a full and functional assessment basically we want a consultant to give us some uh preferably some very precise insight into what a full um what we need as a community in terms of police staffing in the meantime we also want to get community input and so that's what talitha is doing is they're they're gauging community input as to what um you know what residents feel in their opinion what makes how they feel safe in our community you know what they feel is safe policing what are their priorities if you have a noise complaint do they feel that there could be a better way of dealing with that than calling the police um how do they feel about mental health issues all of those things are you know things that we're trying to get input from from the community about um so there's these two things that are going on ideally they're going to both get done about the same time which will give us um a very interesting summer discussion on about uh about policing but we'd like to you know we got uh despite the fact that there was a bit of a snafu last night with the town hall we did get about 50 people who did show up um it was a little bit harder to get into it because of the fact that you know the zoom link wasn't working you had to go to someone to get the zoom link um but uh you know fortunately thanks to skyler's advocacy we're having another opportunity and you know i'll certainly get the word out when the time comes but it's very very important that as many people as possible come to this town hall um uh complete the survey just make your your voice known as to how you feel about community policing and i do i do just want to give some forewarning that uh it might get a little bit confusing because the talitha process and the upcoming cna process which is the name of the consultant team that's going to be managing the operational and functional assessment they're going to be very different in terms of how they appear the talitha process is much more public facing in terms of having town halls and engaging with the public and being outwards the cna project its scope is much more uh defined to just the police department and will mainly be quantitative data analysis there's going to be a few stakeholder interviews but you'll you'll hear a lot less and see a lot less engagement with the cna process and i just don't want anybody to be confused about that and just be ready for that that is by design just because it really is strictly about police data in terms of staffing levels alternative responses to public safety this and that all right thank you any other questions can i just jump in again sure um is is it an idea beyond front porch forum i don't know if there's an overlap of publics um to have something in seven days uh that would let people know as well um and the other question i have is there is also i think a contract that has been funded for nicole the citizen oversight um nonprofit that i think is working is that just going to be with the police commission or is that going to have any aspect of public process and or is there going to be a cross pollination between the is it talitha is that right yeah talitha yeah and i think institutionally there's just going to be some natural cross pollination because you have a lot of the same people involved in these processes that last contract that you're referring to though i think they are just um with the police commission um but to the question about outreach uh yeah we're going to try to get as wide as we can um i'm currently rack ever since tuesday night i've been racking my brain furiously to make sure you know what are the other ways that we can get out to people um you know we're throwing around the idea of working with uh bd to include you know the zoom information in people's electrical electrical bills uh that they're receiving certainly you know seven days and different outlets publicizing it there uh you know even though this isn't an official city meeting so you know it wouldn't traditionally be warned like an mpa or a reparations task force just because i do want as many people to be involved in this process we're going to go ahead and find a way to warn it and get it on to the city calendar um you know contracts through the mpa's just try to as much as we can make this as available to as many people as possible okay well thank you i look forward to hearing more in the future in a very near future right all right i guess that uh does that wrap it up i don't i mean in case anyone has any more questions we've got another minute or two all right well thank you scholar for presenting and we look forward to hearing more and seeing more and reading more and participating thank you very much thank you and thank you to everybody coming uh this wraps it up tonight and uh we'll uh post the minutes as usual on the city website and uh feel free to contact anyone on the npa if you have any other questions so thank you to everybody and have a nice night and one more cold day and then we're on spring but karen would like to speak one more time so go ahead karen no i'm waiting oh it's waving okay and good night bye everybody thank you for coming thank you mary thank you mary thank you all thank you presenters go ward six