 Okay, you made it. Yes. I hope you were up here for this one. Here. Yeah. We're going to. You have hand on. That's the very. But that way. We need to. Wait. I did bring my. Maybe I should take one. Yeah. Okay. I'd like to welcome everyone to the art. Thank you so much. The addition of our community meeting powered by the word one NPA. And as usual, we're going to start our. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And. So we're ready. So again, you're all welcome. I'll be your host. My name is Tom Darenthal. I am a member of the steering committee. I live on Nash place. And as usual, we're going to go around the room. Everyone can introduce themselves. And tonight we're going to try something that's a little bit different than what we've done past meetings. If you have a speak out subject. Let me know when you introduce yourself and I'll call on you. When we get to the speak up part, you'll have opportunity to raise your hand. You'll have opportunity to raise your hand and add to this. We got a conversation, but it'll make it easier organizationally. If you just tell me up front, what your speaker topic would be. So we're going to start right here. Yeah. Hi, my name is Andrew Kewano. I'm with. With the mission to. Sharon. I'm Sharon busher. I live on East Avenue. Richard Hill yard. High Grove court. Mary Munger on North street. Noah on a lease and Brian Riley. Waterbury, Vermont. And we're here. In support of. The high efficiency building. Okay. Presentation that Enrique is going to present. Carter newbies are. Cold Chester. Although I got some news. We're officially under contract for a place on Riverside. So I might be on Riverside. Rob Guttman. North William street. Catherine block. North prospect. I'm Angie chapel circle from North prospect street. Kathy all well North prospect. Jonathan chapel circle North prospect. And a member of the steering committee. And I do have an announcement. I'm Emily Garcia and I'm here from UVM student government. Me, the grant city counselor for the central district and I'm. Visiting today to talk about some public safety issues. Hi, it's Sarah Hernandez Tim. I'm the public information and community engagement officer with the BPD. And I believe I'm in ward four. Julia Curry. I live on Chase Lane. I'm the public information officer. I'm the public information officer. I'm the public information officer. Gary golden. Collarco court. Thank you. Microphones everywhere. Hi everyone. Martin LaRoccula. I am. I live in ward four on Nottingham Lane. And I am here just to say hello. I am in the Vermont Senate. Also on the Burlington school board. And I, if I get a few minutes during speak out, that would be great. Thanks. So on the steering committee. Samantha Ayotte. 20 chase street part of the old East end and. And Joel is still outside cooking burgers, but Joel Colada also lives with me as well. I'm Greg Hancock. I live on Henry street. Kathleen Donahue and I also live on Henry street. Cheryl Erickson and I live upstairs. And this is the first meeting I've come to. I am Dave Collie. I live on Nash place. Which is also part of the old East end. I already did. People online. Lisa. I'm Lisa. And I live at 41 to both. Or one. Gene. Hi, I'm changing. I live on East. Sophie. Oh, Sophie. Did we get everyone online? I don't see them. Yeah, I'm here. Excuse me. Off of East Avenue. All right. Well, again, welcome. And I think we have a few announcements. Jonathan. Hi, thank you. I'm, I want to announce this. This is really from Scott, which is a community development block grant, the CDBG. And we will be appointing in the next couple of months, we'll be appointing a member to the community development block grant advisory board. That's, I'm going to say CDBG from now on. The CDBG meets four times between January and April. And that will be next year. And what it, the reason for its existence is to, to decide how the city should allocate funds. They come from a HUD block grant. There are two HUD block grants that come to the state of Vermont. One for everywhere else and one for Burlington. And Burlington has created this really wonderful. Community popular structure to allocate funds for the block grants. And, and, and what that is, it's an advisory board on the advisory board. It's an advisory board. It's an advisory board. It's an advisory board. You deliberate over the applications that people have submitted for money from this HUD money. And, and make recommendations in those recommendations. Go to city council and to the mayor. But I think in 20 odd years. The recommendations have all been accepted. Perfectly. So this is a real advisory board that really does advise. And, and creates. A voice to be heard in the way federal monies get spent in the city. So Cindy cook, I think is our most recent member of the CDBG advisory board. And I don't see her, but she's around. We can talk to her about what it means to be on the board. If you think you want to do it, think about it. And in the next month or two, we'll probably look for names. We have to make a decision by January 15. And then we'll look for names. But the time passes quickly in the winter. So that's all I really have to say. Thank you. Any questions you can talk to me too. Do we have, I have an announcement, but do we have other announcements first? Yes. It's not really an announcement. It's more just taking a couple of minutes to again introduce myself and say, hi, I am your representative in the Senate. I'm one of your three representatives in the Senate. My name is Martine. I'm also on the school board. As I said, I am chair or vice chair, excuse me, of education. And I'm the clerk of the health and welfare committee. I would love to have a chunk of time if you ever have, you know, a chunk that is open to come and speak to you a little bit more about what's happening in the legislature. There are a lot of exciting things going on. So I would love to have a chunk of time if you ever have a chunk of time to tell you what's happening, but also hear from you about what your priorities and concerns are. This summer, I worked on a joint judicial committee that looked at healthcare in prisons. And as among other things, but that was the main focus of that meeting. And I was also on a joint healthcare committee that looked at the construction task force, which is really digging into some work right now. Very exciting work. And also I'm on a task force that's looking at adult education in the state. As well as the nominating committee for the green mountain care board. So those are all things that I could talk to you about and would love to unpack some of that. And feel free to ask me questions, grab me before I leave, send me an email, but I'd love to hear from you. Thank you. I have one quick announcement and that's, we have a new support person from CEDA was this. Oscar. Yeah. We're helping us keep our meetings online and communications over. So are there any other announcements? If not, I'm going to move forward to the next order of business, which is a steering committee nomination. And I think we have a nominee and who are you going to make that nomination, Carol? I could. You can. We have a great volunteer, Sam Ayat, who would like to serve on the steering committee with Carter and Tom and Jonathan and me. So I move that our NPA meeting tonight. Support Sam's addition to our steering committee. Thank you. Can I get by a show of hands? I'm going to say something. I'm Samantha and yes. Samantha Ayat and I live at 20 chase street and. I a little bit of background. I, my partner Joel and I moved from Cleveland almost two years ago. And we came here knowing that community was a very important thing in Burlington and Vermont in general. And we have really enjoyed integrating ourselves into the community and into the ward one. And we've been. We've had a really great mentor and Dave Kali and working in with doing a PPN projects and working with the city. And DPW on some things already. And. It's just been really great getting to know everybody and working with everybody. And I hope that my volunteering will continue to. Help board one. Thank you. Sophie. Oh, oh, yes. She's fantastic everybody. Thanks, Sophie. All right. Well, we have a nomination. It's been seconded. Are there any other comments before we have a vote? All right. Then. Could we buy. Show of hands. All those in favor. Raise your hand. And I think by, I'm not going to count all the hands, but I think most of the hands are up. And so. Sam, congratulations. Sam's already been helping us a lot if you, if you don't know, and she's been orchestrating all the food that we serve at the monthly meetings. So. She's more than welcome here on the starting committee. All right. The next piece on the agenda is speak out. And the first guy who's in the queue here isn't Rico. He's going to talk to us a little bit about. The house. A passive house. So did anyone not get a passive house handout that would like one. And you can start. Thank you very much for having us tonight, again, my name, thank you. Thank you. Hello. Okay. Do you hear me? Okay. Thank you very much for having us tonight. Again, my name is Enrique Bueno. I'm on the board of Vermont Pasifals. Our mission is a non-profit organization with our mission of informing the government as well as the public about the benefits of the Vermont Pasifals Building Standard, which is basically summarized. Let me go into presentation mode here, which is basically summarized by these five principles, air tightness, thermal bridge free construction, or design, climate-specific insulation, high-performance windows and doors, and ventilation with high recovery. These are basic concepts to every builder. The only difference is in the targets, in the metrics, and in the observation of details. But if properly executed, this can turn into very good results, like the ones that showed this graphic is an infrared thermal image of a Pasifal retrofitted building compared to the existing adjacent buildings. The reds and the yellows are radiating heats from the buildings, and the blues and the greens are cold surfaces. So this is the result of the Pasifal Building Standard that can be used for new construction as well as retrofit. And there is no other standard in the world that can achieve this high energy efficiency. Sorry. Okay, the Pasifals Building Standard got beyond energy efficiency though. Pasifals drive economic and workforce development, Pasifal sponsors diversity, supports diversity, equity, and inclusion by lowest cost of ownership for low-income folks. Pasifal buildings are islands of peculiarity for living, working, teaching, and healing by improved indoor air quality and protection from external noise pollution, which is very vital in an urban area. Pasifal is a vital component for building electrification from renewable sources. It serves as an innovation hub, and it's also climate action. In terms of innovation hubs and workforce development, these are three examples of new business that didn't exist six years ago. On the left bottom corner, you see prefabricated wall panels of our company in New York State to retrofit buildings. On the upper corner, you see the wood fiber insulation factory started in 22 in Madison Maine that produces wood fiber insulation out of scrap wood and also compress panels for insulation. And also another prefabricated building components for new construction in Seesmore, Maine. So, during the first 15 years since the implementation of Pasifals in Germany 40 years ago, 15 new windows manufacturers were established to build Pasifal certified windows. So, that's a great economic drivers as well as workforce drivers. In terms of diversity, equity, and inclusion, it provides the lowest energy bills, smallest size mechanical systems, lowest maintenance costs, lowest mechanical replacement costs. These two pictures that you see in there are two very similar buildings designed by the same architectural firm in Burlington Vermont. One is the Wright House that was inaugurated in 2014. And the other one is the Elm Place that was built according to the Pasifals start in Milton Vermont. And according to the Cathedral Square building's owner for the performance data, this Pasifals uses 40% less energy demand compared to that. And the additional cost to go from this to that was only 2%. Compared to the energy building code, the stretch code that we have in Vermont, this would be 68% less energy for heating and cooling. So, this is dramatic difference in terms of energy demand, which it's providing a good way to improve the building code because at this point, we are building new construction that is 70% short from where it should be. And that is a big burden in terms of the electrification process that we want. The challenge to electrify thermal energy requirements is depicted in these statements that over the past five years, residents and businesses in Burlington consume the equivalent to 712, 782 megawatts per year just for thermal, space heating, domestic hot water, and cooking. From gas supplied by Vermont Gas Service was supplied 95% of the customers in the city of Burlington. Vermont Electric Department Total Gross Generation Purchases and Capacity in 22 was 353, 461 megawatts per hour and Burlington Electric Energy Use in 22 was 329, 609 megawatts per hour. This means that Burlington Electric will have to triple the generation capacity just to replace the gas for electricity on top of the additional requirements for EVs and city growth, which makes vital the reduction of thermal loads for a sustainable electrification out of renewables. What do we ask from you? An active participation in raising the bar of energy performance and building code in demanding increased builders knowledge in creating a social inventory with resilient and low maintenance buildings and creating mechanisms for the adoption and enforcement of an enhanced building code. And for the NPAs to bring the matter to the city council for them to review buildings energy standard within zoning ordinances. Six cities in Massachusetts included Boston led the way through zoning ordinances and now is a mandatory dose six cities to require passive house certification for buildings 12,000 square feet and up. The Massachusetts Department of Energy came to the conclusion that only by reducing thermal loads of buildings is achieved by following the passive house building standard would Massachusetts be able to develop and maintain a sustainable electric grid based on renewables. And what is the incremental cost? As I mentioned before in place in Milton was only 2% increase in incremental cost and this is consistent with many other projects in Massachusetts that go from 1% to 2.8% for an average of just 2%. And this includes affordable housing for own income people. This Cambridge Finch is affordable housing for low income people. In terms of incentives, the Vermont gas systems as well as efficiency for a 30 apartments building can grant $100,000 of incentives compared to $115,000 in Massachusetts from Vermont from MassSafe. So from the standpoint of incentives, there shouldn't be any restriction on that. The difference is that five years ago, both Vermont as well as Massachusetts had only one multifamily passive house building. Today, five years later, there are 150 in Massachusetts but we're still stuck with just one. And that's due to the building code that we have. And the passive house building standard creates buildings that will maintain livable conditions in the event of an extended loss of power or heating capacity by means of reducing energy loads and improving resilience, passive heating and cooling strategies, which is passive serverability, which is becoming more and more critical with our climate change events. Creates durable buildings using such features as rain screens, details based on building signs, windows that are climate-specific for energy and comfort, that for Vermont must be triple pain and components that are hydrothermal sound along the structure to dry, therefore preventing mold formation and rot. It optimizes the use on site and renewable energy, and it allows the implementation of vernacular design that is specific to a region and a period allowing the use of local materials and knowledge to construct buildings without any limitation on architectural design and can be implemented in any type of building, single-family, multifamily, high-rise, commercial hospitals, etc. In terms of the electrification challenge on the left, you see this is the typical curve of a typical building. The area under the curve is the energy through the year for heating and cooling, and on the right you see the passive building that lowers the loads and flattens that curve, which is very critical when you are talking about renewable energy, because no matter the building, there will still be resource availability mismatch between supply and demand. However, if we flatten or lower buildings, load profiles can still, that can still dampen the effect. And the ripple effect of efficiency. Efficiency means less generation, less storage, and less transmission capacity, which means that we're going to have to invest less in the transition process. And passive house is climate action, because passive house combined with low-embodied carbon materials with electrifying everything and with clean energy gives us zero carbon buildings, enabling a sustainable electric grid performance based on renewables. Thank you very much, and I'll entertain any questions that you may have. We have questions? We have Lisa with our handbrakes. Who has our handbrakes? Lisa. Lisa, you're on. Lisa, we can't hear you, you're on mute. All right, we'll get back to Lisa. Are there questions in the room? Yes. So, I haven't, it's the first time I've heard of Vermont passive house. Are you advertising group? Are you? We are a non-profit organization, yes, that we exist already for 10 years in Vermont. We have been advocating at the state house as well as with professionals in the field. And we are approaching now the assemblies in order to inform you about the benefits of the passive house. How can you become involved? You can become a member, you can become part of our board meeting. We normally run webinars through the year, technical webinars as well as one-on-one type of webinars. Vermont passive house is part of the national or international organization. It started in Germany with the passive house institute and now in the United States it's FUS, which is the passive house institute FUS to inform what the passive house standard is. Any other questions? Are you in contact with the other organizations that still support the house because, you know, they're slated to build, well, they're building more units? So that's question number one. And then the other people, the players in Vermont that are Redstone and etc. that are people that are actually going forward in the project and not only in Maryland but throughout the county and maybe beyond, because I think that those are the people that really need to know what I'm talking about. And of course, this was too much information to understand it and get feedback from people. And I'm not questioning what you're saying, but I think what you shared with us, and I believe there's a lot of truth to it, but I'd like to know more. The city council has many and a lot of them dealing with energy, etc. And so that's, and then there are a couple of city councilors here tonight in the room that potentially you just find an avenue to get more directly to the council, but I applaud you are going all the FDA. But do you have any reach out to the developer and to the county? We have, we have reached out to them. The problem is that Vermont has a very, very lax building code. And that is preventing really the implementation of a high performance building code. And that has on top of that is not enforced. The building code is not enforced. We're the legislature just trying with the first step to do an enforcement, but it's not yet enforced. And there is a great push from the builders because they think that the passive house is more expensive. We work together with the designers, the architect firms that design M place in Milton. And now one of the executives of Cathedral Square is now with the Champlain Housing Trust. So everybody's aware of the standard that we have been trying to promote it with all of them. But again, I mean, the problem is that there is a push from the building community that this is not affordable. And as you can see from these all different projects, the difference is minimal and the benefits are tremendously great. What we can do, I mean, for this NPA or the other works is to give you a webinar with very basic information so you can digest. I understand this, there's a lot of information, but I only had 10 minutes to present so I can. But we are there to respond to any technical questions that you may have. If you have a webinar, is that a recording that we could send a link to? We can record a webinar and yes, we can design a webinar specific for you. Or we can give you many links of different webinars where you can understand the there is a ton of information out there in webinars. We have presented webinars to Burlington Electric here. Yes. Okay. Thank you. My name is Karen I think this is very timely. When we are at a point where they're talking about this making McNeil plant that is already 40 years old, generate steam and move it two miles up to the campus. I love that there's this thing about wood fiber because I know that's been brought up at least one time when we were talking to BED about other uses because they keep saying they're not cutting down trees, they're using the scrap wood. But there's a lot of pollution coming from the McNeil plant and it is just, I think if we have to generate more steam or more, you know, to push the steam up two miles, I think it will just create more pollution. So and I've never heard BED talk about conserving energy. And I've asked different people, why don't you talk about that conserving electricity instead of building more electricity for us. And my understanding is McNeil, it's just doing our electricity for the lights. It's 30% of the, 30% of the cities. I think we're going to, we're going to talk about McNeil in just a couple minutes. But his presentation I think is very timely. Thank you for it. The big challenge of electrifying everything is that we, if we don't load the loads, we're going to end generating electricity from burning something because the that's going to be the the transition. So it's very important to address that. And unfortunately, the building code in Vermont is not helping in doing that. That's why, and in many other states like Massachusetts before, the ordinances that the different cities made were ahead of the building code. So that's why we're approaching you to see if we can generate some interest from below to above because we have tried for 10 years now to go from above to below and it doesn't work. We have done ton of presentations as a state house and to work with the senators and everybody. So and it's we're running out of time, but how about if we like Lisa's raise your hand. Do you have a quick question? I was wondering about retrofitting since a lot of the housing stock in our area is old. Retrofitting is the biggest challenge that we have. We need to according to the energy action network, we need to retrofit 90,000 units by 2030. And at this point, we're doing 1,500 a year. So that means that we have to do 9000 by a year to make it. And this is the best way because at this point, the proposal of the of the building code is to reduce the or to improve by 20 percent. But if we're short by 70 percent and we we we improve by 20 percent, we're going to be still 50 percent short. And 50 percent short means that we're going to be retrofitting our new buildings the very day that we occupied it or will need to in order to make them fossil fuel independent. So that is why this is this is critical to to to be addressed. Enrico, thank you very much. I'm going to do two things. One is work with you to get a perhaps a webinar started. People will put a notice out on front porch forum. People who are interested can dive deep into this subject. And if if there's not sufficient interest there, maybe just get a recording of a webinar you've already got. And that way people can sort of listen to it at their leisure. That sounds perfect. All right. Thank you very much to collaborate with you in any any way you need. Okay. Are there other speakout issues? Very very quickly. Non non-citizen voting. I've been against that ever since its inception and spoken out against it and city council a couple of times. But because I'm hypocrite, I went and registered for non-citizen voting having been in the country for 35 years with a green card. And so that was interesting. But my mole in the city courts office city clerk's office for your interest says says that there's been quite a lot of people signing up for that and registering. So whatever side of the discussion you're on. I thought you might find that interesting that that it does seem to have attracted quite a bit of interest. All right. Thanks. I'm going to close speak out and move forward into our next item. And that is district heat resolution. All right. And it's not as so much a resolution as it is a letter. And I've handed out copies of this to most of the people in the room. And the there was a discussion at our last meeting sort of a casual discussion about district heat and how that worked. There was a few questions raised. And I don't believe that that a lot of questions that exist for district heat were answered last time. And so that's what you see in front of you is just a bunch of questions. It doesn't really say that that district heat or district energy is good, better, ugly. It just says that this is information that we'd like to have or like city council to have before any decision is made as to whether to proceed with this type of project. And that's so there's a few questions here about the life of the McNeil plant and how much energy we're going to use and what the cost will be and who will pay for it and stuff like that. So what I'm asking first is to get some feedback on this. Do people like these questions or not like the questions? Should they be modified? And if we can agree that these are okay set, I'm asking for your approval to formally send this to city council from our NPA and asking them to gather more information. Yes. Thanks. I'm just standing here so I can see people. I appreciate the NPA raising this topic. I like these questions. I mean, I think they're useful questions, but I think that the questions here and the discourse that I've seen on Front Porch Forum is missing a major topic. And that topic is just transition, which in another way of saying that is the effects on economic inequality of decisions that we make around climate change. So the big question that I have in that regard and that I would like to propose adding to this list is basically if there were a decision to decommission the McNeil plant, what would the effect be on the electric rates in the city? And for some folks that might not seem like a big issue, but given that we are in the middle of a historic housing crisis, we're already losing lower income folks from living in Burlington. And in addition to being an ethical issue, that is a climate issue of the highest order because when people can't afford to live here, what do they do? They move further out and they drive to their jobs, right? So it's actually counterproductive to lose low income people from the city. The more that we can protect the affordability of housing here and the affordability of living here, the better our chances of actually increasing use of public transportation. And my understanding is that transportation costs are actually the single biggest driver in Vermont. And maybe I have that wrong, but they're one of the biggest drivers in Vermont of our energy use. So while we're looking at McNeil and there are a lot of people who say that the burning of wood is not perfect, right? That's not the perfect answer. I also really want our community to understand the interdependence of all of these decisions, not only with regard to what gets emitted, but with regard to how it affects other people and then the choices that they have or don't have, right? So I just feel like there's a whole piece of the conversation that I haven't been hearing yet that is really critical for everyone who cares about this to process together. And I think a great step to that would be to add a question to this list around what the effect would be on electric rates either way. Also, the question of the health of children in the old North End and the rates of COPD among teenagers and asthma among young children. So BED at some point put filters into those stacks and it did away with a lot of the high numbers of people, but the ages of the people that it is now affecting went way down, meaning we're affecting the children of the old North End, which again are your low income kids. And I just, I think that we need to say that loud and clear and we need to get the city council and who is ever making these decisions to look at those numbers and they're from the health department, the state health department. Okay. Yeah, I agree with with Kathy and Julia and I appreciate both raising it. I think it's probably good information for this resolution to see how this decision would impact energy rates either way. I mean, I think the flip side of that, that I would also want to include in that piece is right now McNeil, well one, we're just talking about expanding it versus keeping it where it is. So I think that's one thing that in some of the conversations, not saying that you're saying this Julia, but in general, I feel like we're falling into a debate of McNeil good or bad, but it's really like are we expanding this thing and what are the benefits or drawbacks of expanding it versus keeping it as is. And then the other piece though, to your point, if we're the next logical conversation is really like is this part of our long-term energy future? And right now McNeil is only operational because it's heavily subsidized and BED is making money off of trading renewable energy credits in the New England market. And many states are moving to eliminate subsidies for what. So Vermont hasn't to this point, but that's the trend. And so if that gets eliminated, the McNeil plant is completely economically not viable and to a drastic extent. And so that if that's the case, not saying that that means we should subsidize a high carbon fuel, but we need to be prepared as a community to make up that difference regardless in my view, because that's where energy policy is heading. But yeah, I appreciate you raising the I think having the economic piece and the health piece up front is really crucial because we can't save the planet on the back of driving out everybody who doesn't have a lot of money. In my view. Any other comments? Turn the mic on. One of the advantages of the passive house building standard is the ventilation system that you have its requirement is balance ventilation. So you have fresh filtered air coming from the outside and and and stale air going to the outside permanently 24 seven. So that's one of the biggest improvements for people that have asthma or respiratory problems because you have clean air to to breathe. At this point, our buildings have no ventilation because the concept is that we're having ventilations through the cracks and cracks don't provide good ventilation. So that is one of the biggest to me benefits of the passive house standards. Thanks. Hi. I'm Cheryl Green. And my question is that I have read that the mayor has said we're at a point of either vote this up or vote it down. And so I'm wondering about more and more questions. And maybe city councillors Tim Zariah of Malo could talk to that point. Are we is he is the city really willing to entertain more questions? Or are we going to vote it up or vote it down? And when do we think it's going to be in front of the city council for that vote? I would like to add a piece. I think that's a good question. But in addition, what is the city council's role with regard to BED as BAD is an enterprise organization that comes under the city's umbrella? Does that mean that city council has has to authorize all its actions like this? Yes. Not all, but yes. So it is a true yes or no vote. Okay. But now your question. So yes. So so hi. So is there time for more questions? I think there's a time for more questions. I know that I still have questions. And my understanding is that it's been delayed because of questions. So it was supposed to come to the city council like in 1st and September and then at our meeting yesterday and it hasn't. My understanding is from Karen's emails that it was because there were more questions. So I think the time for questions is now. And yeah. And I'm not sure when it's coming. We only heard that it wasn't coming to the meeting yesterday. We didn't hear when it would come. So I don't think that we know when it's coming back, but I would assume they're trying to do it sooner rather than later. And the sooner we get the questions, the better probably. Catherine Block. I would like to thank you for the excellent questions. And there's one thing that should be added that was already mentioned about the health effects, but they can say that the air is filtered and scrubbed, but the smallest particles cannot be filtered out. And those are the ones that are most dangerous in causing lung disease. So there should be a question about that. Okay. We got a question here. Okay. Peter Likowski. And I want to address the issue number three about the trees being cut down and so forth. And it's the Dara Springer, the other last time we were here, told us that what's being burned is not the logs, but the branches and so forth in the debris. There are a couple of aspects of that. For one thing, if the loggers are able to sell all of those branches and so forth, it makes the whole operation cheaper for them. And basically, is it encouraging cutting more trees down overall? Just the balance is going to be that more of the more trees will be cut. And the effect of that, of course, is would have to be calculated out. But there's another more physical and simple question. All of those branches and twigs and whatever are still holding carbon. And they take a long time to rot. Sure enough, it doesn't, you know, they're not generating, they're not doing like a live tree, but they're still not in the atmosphere. And they can be there for a long time. And that could even be extended by piling them up and putting dirt on top of them or something like that, so that they would actually be sequestering carbon right there on spot on the spot in the woods, instead of being hauled off here and being burned. I think that is just another example of the backwardness of this of burning. Because if they get hauled over here and put in the wood chip plant, they don't have a decade or two decades or three, depending on what you do with them to rot and go into the atmosphere. Ultimately, they're just poof, up they go, up the smokestack instantly. So it's all a matter of rates of flow and the rates of change and the rate of regeneration and so forth. And that isn't being addressed at all, that that aspect of it, what would happen to that quote, waste wood. The other issue, another issue, and there's no particular issue on here that addresses this. And that is the fact that one of the factors in making this economically possible is the sale of carbon credits. And what that amounts to is burning down trees and to make electricity, which to my mind is really not green energy, but calling it green energy, calling it something that that is doing good for the planet. And then selling that, enabling somebody else to do something which is outright polluting. I'd like to know a lot more about that. It doesn't really help us and accept over 100 years spans when the trees finally grow back. And it's too late already. And then letting somebody else do something that's putting a lot of carbon somewhere there and said it was all in New England and so forth, and he talked real fast and I didn't catch it. I'd like to have another whole question here about the carbon credit aspect of it and have it broken down into real, what else will happen if we do this? What will we be enabling that's even worse? Yeah, this is really a point of clarification. And to Cheryl, to your your answer. The point, if I understand this correctly, the point of this letter or this resolution is to recommend the city council oppose this unless they have satisfactory answers to these questions. Is that right? So we're saying unless you can answer all these questions, unless all these questions were answered to your satisfaction, we oppose this. So there is an opinion here. And without the answers, were it no? Is that correct? Mostly correct. Okay, sort of a wishy-washy here maybe, but the idea was to get the information out and communicate to our city council whether this is something that we think is on a good idea or a bad idea and have information to back it up to say, well, I like it because it does X or I don't like it because it's going to do Y or have you. And maybe what we need to do is invite somebody from BED, give them these questions, plus the ones that were mentioned earlier that are that are not here. And can you answer these? Okay, I'm not sure we have a timeline for that. Part of it depends on when city council is going to do this. Longest delay. But maybe to move this forward, seems like there were two questions. I mean, there was a health question. There was one of the costs in the credits question. And there was a real, what's the real changing cost associated with this, which I think may be partially already in there. Do we want to just say that we'll add those as an amendment to this? We can frame the words right now or we can say we'll add them and then try to pass something. Just to move this forward. I mean, there's time for more conversation. But as a question that we can add, we can do it now. But we're already behind schedule. Do we want to do this right now? The two questions that were phrased that one, I've got somebody tangled. Anyways, I move that we move this forward because the intent was to have the Burlington City Council have answers to these questions before they acted. I don't think there's time for this to come back to us and then go back to the city council. But I would like the addition of the health question and the other question regarding the rate cost added. I believe that we can entrust the two proposers to bring that language to Tom tonight or in a timely fashion so that this can move forward. If the rest of the people are satisfied with that and don't want to actually see the actual verbiage and just generically accept that, I think we could move on this. So that's what I'm proposing. I'm proposing to move on this with the addition of those two topics added as presented tonight to this list of questions and that I propose that we support this. So you have that's your motion. Yes, that's my motion. Okay. Do I hear any second? What is this enabling? If you send me the question, I will add it. Good. Okay, so you will add more questions. I will add more questions. For discussions, I would like to know when we'll see the details of this project because they haven't been discussed. Most of the discussions can't be answered yet, whether by city council or in public. Because they've been hiding a lot of the, I mean, not hiding, but they're saying it's proprietary information. So there's no details of this project that's really publicly available to answer. I don't know what the timeline is and it sounds like city council has pushed the date back, but it may only be pushed back a week or a couple of weeks. I don't know. Well, not for the vote, but when we, the public, we can see the details of the proposed project. There's those details. There's several of those details, and we haven't seen them. They're saying it's proprietary. They can't disclose it because there's only one customer. I mean, because they're in negotiations with the customer. However, there's only one customer. There's a buyer going on medical time. And so I don't understand why this information can't be dissolved. We've asked a lot of questions with technical details. I think what we can do tonight is what Sharon recommended. And that's to take the questions that came out in addition to the ones that are already on the page and send a letter to city council and copy BED on it and say, these are things that we want, but we're really addressing it to city council to say, we want you to make sure you are armed with answers so you can make a good decision. Their national meeting is the 23rd. It's not national money, but it's the ball on the deck. Okay. So I've got a couple of days to do it. You do, but you do too, yeah. I know. I'm sure we can go to them. Okay. Is it, and so, this... I don't know if it goes. Yes. This is your sense that BED has this capacity that itself, and to be correct, BED is very earnestly trying to get this passed. This is a big deal for them. They really want it. My only concern is trying to get some more information so that I can inform my city councilors how I feel about it. You have a strong vote based on what we know and what we believe now. Any other discussion? Then can I show hands? Who says yes and who says no, you're not authorized? It looks like the authorized haven't, and so I will make those changes and I will also post it on Front Forge Forum. Hopefully, some of you saw it there, and so you'll see how those additions have been made and make sure it's out there for a day or two before I actually send it. We do have another question. If we were all city councilors today, which way would we lean? Are we leaning towards this product, putting this today? Last two meetings talking about this. It seems to me there's two issues on the table that I've heard. The one is should we have a wood-fired burning plant that's generating electricity? That's what a lot of criticism has come out that I hear in this room is about McNeil. The second thing is whether there should be a district energy project. So if you're talking about taking a straw poll, then let's be clear what we're trying to take a straw poll about, because what the city council is considering is just the district energy project, not whether to shut down McNeil plant. The district energy project is going to reduce carbon emissions by 60%. It's one of the biggest things that Burling can do to reduce carbon emissions. That's what BED says, and to the point about answering questions, as I said earlier, go to the BED website. They have a lot of Q&A about this project, and I don't feel many people have gone to this to actually look at the detail that's expressed there. Yeah, I totally appreciate that. People should definitely do their homework on this, because it's very complicated. I think the debate from or the thing that I'm wrestling with, and I think a lot of folks are wrestling with, is does this actually reduce carbon by the amount that BED is claiming? There's a 4BED, both on the having McNeil exist and also on the district energy project. Darren's argument, as I've heard it in different forums that we've talked about this, is we're not going to increase the amount of wood, because we're going to offset what we're burning in other areas, and we're going to come out even. It's not really a question of burning more wood. At least, I'm paraphrasing, and that's how I've heard it. I might be wrong. I don't want to speak for anybody as I do it. My understanding is it's written, other folks know more than me here, that this change would allow them, give them the legal authority to burn more wood. I think it's up to 7% or 8%. Then the question, it is a district energy project, but the heat coming from McNeil, in theory, the increased amount of wood burning, is what's going to fuel this efficiency. Then it's a question of, is burning gas or burning wood, you're picking your poison a little bit, or does this fit in? Does this actually get us 20 years down the line to our energy goals? I just think it's important to note that while I'm not questioning anybody's intentions, there are financial incentives for utilities to take positions on different things. Proponent utilities are some of the best in the country when it comes to green energy and our flot, like every other institution and every other utility in the country. I just think that, yes, BED, you should go hear what they have to say, and not to plug my work, but 350 Vermont, a number of other advocacy organizations, folks who, I mean, folks should definitely check out the symposium that the two committee of the city council did on this. There was an IPCC, or IPCC climate scientist, among other academics from New England, speaking to specifically to this project and the true impacts versus, and they were going back and forth with Darren directly, and other folks from BED. So I just want to throw that out there. Yeah. Somebody that served on the city council, and when I even came to the city council early on, district energy was a topic, and it was something that we all wanted, and we couldn't, we could never afford it, we could never wrap our arms around it. We finally got a partner, and we were, and I was, overjoyed. Now, sometimes there is a moment in time where something makes sense, and then there's time evolves, time passes, and then you learn more, and you realize that maybe what you thought made total sense isn't as well founded. That's a very sad moment in my life. And so I don't want, I'll do a straw vote tonight, but I couldn't be held to that because I am wavering so much because I feel like every time I think I know enough, I don't know enough about this topic. And so I just wanted to put that out there that for me, this is a gut wrenching vote because I thought this was the right thing to do. And now I'm not sure at all. Thank you. Well, I think to conclude this discussion, we're going to have a simple straw vote on whether people think that district energy is a good idea or not. We're not going to talk about whether burning wood is a good idea or whether McNeil should be extended or not. So we're just going to have a simple just the idea of district energy. Can we make it clear that this is not the district energy we're talking about. What used to be was considered district energy, what we all wanted was to use the least heat that goes into the or even used to generate electricity with the turbine. That was going to go as hot water to the old Northland and the buildings. It was a whole completely different thing. Now, this is using just planes, which would otherwise be used to generate electricity, the waste heat, the hot water is off the table again. It's a totally different thing. So any emotional attachment we have to district energy is not the same project. It's not the same energy in the old sense. It's a new meaning more of the same term. So let's keep that clear that if you want to blow the old energy, we're going to have a straw vote. Maybe we don't need a straw vote. Yeah, a bit too nuanced on this, Sharon said that the fact that we have this almost two page list of questions that we don't have answered yet, that I personally don't feel comfortable to say yes or no. It's in that kind of middle thing where I don't have enough information to have a clear vote. And I also don't know if this vote isn't really going to mean anything except for just showing what everybody is currently feeling. You should all around this account. I was just going to say that that energy is a good idea, but to you, and that we should be if we're going to do the straw vote to just say that it's the proposal for the McNeil district energy. I don't think we're going to do a straw vote. Okay. But the other thing is, we don't know for sure that the hospital is even going to agree to buy this energy. So that gives you Well, we're going to end this discussion right now. That is a great point. And as a city counselor with frequent delays, that makes me wonder, is the hospital really committed? Right? Thank you. I appreciate all the comments we've gotten that seems like this is a fairly interesting subject. But in the spirit of time, we're moving on and we're running way behind. But it is city counselor time. So, Zariah. Tim, do you want to go first? Yeah, I'm happy to go. Apologize in advance. Last night's last night's city council meeting went from 5 30 until what was it? Councilor Graham 12 30. So I'm feeling fairly ragged. And, you know, I'll just give you a quick review of what we covered last and take some questions on it. The sort of theme, if there was one, if there is one on city council meetings last night was the public safety question. We entertained several presentations. That is, you know, symbolic of how I feel several presentations and I took a couple of important votes. We received a really interesting presentation from Deputy Chief Brian Labarge and two other senior members of the Berlin Police Department. One of them runs the narcotics unit on the narcotics unit units work in the city. Deputy Chief Labarge, when I first met him was a newly minted narcotics detective, which made me feel very, very old that now he's deputy chief. They provided a lot of interesting information, including explaining on a high level the way narcotics introduction works in the city. I think one of the one of the important takeaways for me that they emphasized was that the Burlington Police Department, because of its current size, no longer has a street crimes unit, which is a really critical part of the police department's infrastructure and has a relationship to both how the narcotics unit works, but also how sort of more mundane auto theft burglaries are investigated or are not investigated. So that was interesting. They are trying to build that unit. They're trying to build capacity and hopefully get that unit stood up and back online. Like I said, I really recommend it. It was really interesting. You know, they emphasized how many officers are necessary to do safe, effective drug introduction investigations in a way that a responsible prosecutor would take and that would stand up in court. Really labor intensive process and really interesting to hear. I felt hopeful and encouraged after that presentation, although obviously the challenge is associated with the size of the police department and the drug problem are significant. Also, both hopeful and worrisome, we had an equally interesting presentation by the chief of the fire department and another member of the fire department on a pilot initiative that the fire department is putting forward and devoted on that. It was an initiative that interestingly arose from ideas that members of the fire department themselves had on how to better triage in response to certain categories of overdose emergencies. As I'm sure you all know, and if you don't, you should. Once again, we are on record pace with respect to overdose emergencies in the city. Looks like we are going to considerably outstrip last year and as the fire department explained to us and has explained to us repeatedly, that is putting a strain on their resources beyond anything that they've ever experienced. It is really remarkable the work and the pressure that they're under. In a nutshell, their idea was that they would staff a triage truck that has what they believe is the right amount of equipment to respond to these types of emergencies, but is not as intensive as what they do now, which is sending the ambulance out and then usually one of the engines out. They think that that will conserve resources, make them more effective and notably is going to be the idea, is that it's going to be staffed by fire department personnel who are working overtime shifts. People in the fire department have already done their full capacity for the week and are taking voluntarily on extra hours to do this. I found it inspiring and hopeful on multiple levels. One that our fire department and the folks that are in it are so engaged and coming up with creative ideas driven by necessity and driven by the crisis. I found it incredibly moving, frankly, that men and women who are obviously working so incredibly hard right now would be willing to take on an extra task because they think it would be good for the city and help the responses. A lot of positivity tempered by the fact that the need for this is driven by this incredible crisis. Similarly, we voted on approving a 30-bed, temporary 30-bed warming shelter. This is something that the city has stood up many years running now. It's going to go from December through March. It passed almost unanimously. There was concern raised, which I share, about the capacity of the downtown business district to absorb more services of this kind, given the state of chaos and disorder that they're presently experiencing downtown already. I share those concerns. I worry about those concerns, but on balance, I think that this was necessary and the best option. We have an ability to do something that prevents people from dying of exposure deaths. We have to do that. It seems like the administration is thinking through the public safety ramifications of it, and I hope that it proves effective in a way that I think our other low barrier shelters are proving on balance, not without difficulties. Finally, which I think took a good deal of the evening, we approved a public safety resolution. Councillor Grant and I and President Paul are on the Public Safety Committee. Councillor Grant, President Paul did a tremendous amount of work on this resolution that does a number of things. I'm happy to take questions about it. I view it as an important first step in addressing our public health and public safety crisis. There will be more to come, including a number of public forums on the issue of public safety. We're seeking data from stakeholders. We have made requests vocally. Councillor Grant, in particular, has been a tremendous advocate of this, and I agree with her that we need to be pressuring Montpelier for resources that the city needs and deserves, frankly. I think it's an important step forward. We heard a tremendous outpouring. It was an incredibly lengthy public forum. We heard a tremendous outpouring of concern, worry, fear, anger from folks in the community in light of the public safety situation. That is something that I and I know the other Councillors hear about on at least a 10-to-1 basis over every other issue. We're really facing a critical election point on public safety. I know you invited Councillor Grant here today to talk more about that, so I won't go on and on about that. Those were our high points. I feel compelled to just mention. I've told a number of folks here this, but for those of you who don't know, during our last NPA meeting, as Ryan and I both expressed, that we were undecided on the district energy proposal. I still am, but since that time have also concluded that I need to recuse myself based on a professional conflict of interest. This is an important issue. It's an important vote. You should know that the decision to recuse myself was not one that I took lightly and not one that I made by myself. I consulted the appropriate professional resources, but I don't have a choice. I have to recuse myself. I don't think recusing myself doesn't mean that I can't listen to the discussion and help you get more information, but I won't be voting on the question. So that's it that I can think of, and I apologize for not being more organized, like I said, I am. I don't know how you're feeling, Councillor Grant, but I'm for that and many other reasons you are a better City Councillor than I am. I am not on my set to win. I am exhausted. Sorry, you want to add to this? Yeah, I don't have too many additional things. I think to the district, I don't need to debate, I'll just add, since everybody else was waiting, I do think Sharon's point was good, like what we thought was a good idea doesn't always matter, like the parkway, I'm sure at some point it was a really good idea and in 2020 maybe it wasn't, and I think district energy, it's hard to, and I do think like the distinction of like MacNeil, like I don't, as much as, I don't know, I just, the permission I don't need to give away, but I guess look at the way I don't necessarily advocate for shutting down the MacNeil plant right now. I think my questions are still, which weren't, it's like how much where, which I think we can't answer, I think we won't get the answer essentially until we do this vote, like how much we're committing to and how long MacNeil will be operating was like, in order to get a return on investment of tearing up all of the streets and doing all of the things, because we don't, we don't know all of the price points, we don't know all of the things. And for me, if it's a like five-year investment until that makes sense, that's a very different question than if it's a 40-year investment until that makes sense. And I just don't know that we'll have the answers to that by the time we're asked to vote. The other thing that I haven't been able to get an answer to that I do think is really important, even the city does not decide how those $42 million are spent, right? Like those are not money that the city has that we get to spend on something else instead. But it still matters to me what $42 million could do in terms of decarbonizing Burlington, just because some of it is public money, some of it is money that's coming from Lachey's office. What used to be Lachey's office in terms of it, so like when we're, so and some of it's private or some of it is still like conceptual in terms of where it's coming from. And so I think it does matter, is this actually a good like for carbon like reduction investment in terms of, okay, we're trying to mostly use waste things, but one, how long are we doing that? And then two, could we be doing like a much, much better energy transition with $42 million in a different way? Not that we have the authority to spend, to say how we would spend those $42 million, but I still think it, I think that's an important part of it. Thermal energy is in front of another, for those who care about district energy. Thermal energy is all in front of the city council, which is being heard again on the 16th. I think the meeting was up to five o'clock. And the question, so there were two questions that were quite forced to voters. One was the charter change because it was passed in the legislature with a caveat. And then the second question was, I don't remember. I did not say up until 1230, but I'm also tired. So there was another question, but right now we've basically got two questions in front of the ordinance committee, which is, do we pass the tax on fossil fuels, a carbon tax on fossil fuels in new buildings? And then the second question, which came out of that is, do we regulate forms of renewable energy? Who might, that might be a sentinized, but also have a large carbon footprint with very similar debates that might be a plan based on the fact that with those regulating fossil fuels, we might push more folks to using high carbon renewable energy. Okay. The other thing that I don't, I assume that you have on the agenda. So we don't need to talk about milling. Okay. So we didn't know about that. There's a bunch of stuff on the city website about south injuries, and what is going, what is passing through the city council, which is part of this middle, that Megan will assume talk to later. I'm just, I'm mostly just looking through my calendar, see what meetings are coming up. Oh, and then obviously the public safety question, which I think Milo will speak to. So I don't think that I need to say a lot of other things because you've got experts in the room who are going to talk about it as soon as Tim and I stop talking. So with any short questions for our counselors, Karen? Oh, one more. Just because Karen's coming up and that reminded me of two things. One, which I wasn't in the executive session yesterday. So I feel like I know that I'm not breaking executive session, but because I got a voicemail from the National Guard on the lease agreement extension. So that's public knowledge enough that somebody called me about it in a non-confidential thing to talk about that the National Guard is asking for a lease extension on the airport. So I don't know if that's common knowledge, but I'm, it is now. And then the other thing is I'm going to. We're just with some of the problematic, continuously problematic units that we have in Ward one, also not a part of the city, but obviously primarily Ward one. So I'm trying to have that big bill board and DPW and if folks are interested in that, feel free to shoot me. Some of the houses or some of the properties that we're talking about are currently in legislation or are currently in court cases. So that makes it more difficult, can't necessarily address all of those, but a lot of them are not. And so I think just having a systemic approach for that. And then also, I think planning ahead for now for how we're going to ticket waste for move out day next spring, and that we've got a plan for that so that we don't have weeks and weeks of waste on the curbs after students move out and making sure that we're getting the property owners for that. If they're not making plans with their tenants to on how to handle that will be will be good. That is all. The FW building, my understanding. And I guess my question is when zone that I don't even know. Well, I remember that Brian Pine was one of the people and the mayor really selling the Tiff funding for the downtown and that they told us that to pay back the money we were borrowing for this Tiff, we were going to get increased taxes because the FW building and the old YMCA were going to be redeveloped and bring in a ton of money, just like city place was going to bring a ton of money into the city. But I mean, along with me being appalled at some of our residential units in Burlington that we continue to let them be in business. Why have we left the YMCA become like it is. I mean broken windows, the graffiti, the bar, I mean the old YMCA right in our center of downtown. I just don't understand after I've lived here, you know, 40 years, why our city has let that happen to a major building like that in our downtown. And again, that promise of why we should all vote for Tiff, which I was totally against, because it takes money from our school systems. The whole education of the state is, you know, funded, you know, takes money from everybody. But we're not going to be getting more taxes from VFW if we're turning that into a homeless shelter. And we're not going to get any money from, I mean. Well, I can address a couple of those. The VFW building is being redeveloped. And this shelter is temporary. It's temporary shelter going from December 15th to March 15th. And when I actually called the mayor about the plan for the shelter, he told me, reminded me, or told me, I didn't know that there is a plan to, I don't know if they're going to tear the building down entirely, but redevelop that building. That redevelopment is apparently not happening until the spring, at which point, this temporary, inclement weather, no barrier shelter, low barrier shelter, will no longer be operational. With respect to the Y, this has been a hot topic in the Ward 8 NPA meetings, which I also attend. And the old YMCA building, just as a reminder, is not owned by the city. And as I understand it, there are plans in the works for development. They're still pretty early, but I think that there is reason to be hopeful that that there is movement on that. But that is in the hands of private folks. I agree with you that it is really problematic. We did talk, right, well, I'll leave it at that. I always think I can project, but I do think that the development plans for the former YMCA were recently approved, actually. So I think to your good question, there were a lot of reasons some had to do with just the owner's ability to kind of get a project together for that site. But that project has now been approved by the city. That's great news. Thank you. I just wanted to add with regards to that project. So the old building was sold. There were plans to do a boutique hotel. We had a pandemic. As we all know, a whole bunch of development construction was canceled, put on hold. People who brought the building after coming out of the pandemic said, we are not going to do this anymore. This isn't financially feasible. So the building got sold again. And to what was just announced, they have been in town. In fact, one of the representatives of this small, they're a smaller hotel chain was actually in Burlington at one of the mayor's coffees. And I looked at him, I said, do you have the financing? And he said, yes. So a big smile, right? Because that's been an issue for a lot of the projects. We're coming out of pandemic. We've had a lot of blight. And with the situation with the unhoused, they're going where they don't think they'll be bothered. And unfortunately, because the construction hasn't started and you don't have that activity, it draws people who use it for shelter. Thank you. Wait, sorry. One more, if I can just add one more thing on that point in terms of the Tift district and the land valley, because I do think that we've had this in a few, I'll try to keep it short. Okay. So for properties where there's no, whether it's the pit or whether it's there's not. So I know that Karen worked really hard. I feel like a year ago, Karen Paul on a resolution to have some kind of like minimum, like you at least have to put like firefighter notices. It wasn't very ambitious because I think there wasn't a whole lot we could do in terms of accountability. The only, I think the best proposal that I've heard in terms of like not letting buildings just fall into disrepair and do nothing with them, which is different than the like housing issue when people are living in it is just changing our tax system, which we can't do as a city. We have to do as a state, right? So that it's about the land that you're occupying and what the potential uses as opposed to our current system, which is about what the current uses, which is an abandoned building, doesn't have a whole lot of tax liability on it, right? So you're like, Oh, I can just sit on this for a while, pay those low taxes until it's more economical for me to do something as opposed to trying to get something out of that building. I know there's movement to try to do something about that. I have no idea how successful that is or isn't going to be. But I think that's, that's the only discussion I've heard to fix that at like a systemic level. Quick question, are we taxed land based on the value that could be generating strategy, watching the DC to eliminate the life of gas stations, you know, abandoned, that'd be valuable land and taxed quite nicely, all going to sit unused, that tax has to be collected and can speed things up. But there are some tax schemes that are covered. I would just advise falling into the trap of maybe a single, one single tax to rule them all, which is what some maybe some classic Georgians would argue for. It's an interesting thing to look into. And I also don't know, because I think in a Vermont, this is way where I'm an economist, I'm so sorry, like, I don't know that it makes sense on like a Vermont state level. Because to some extent, like there's a, we like to act 250, we use a lot of like, use value to like keep conservation, keep things the way they are. I don't think that makes sense on a city level where you don't necessarily want those same outcomes. But yeah, sure. Thank you very much. And Gary, you're up for a brief school update. Very brief. Hi, Gary Golden. I'm the East District School Commissioner. Just want to speak quickly about the deconstruction of the high school is continuing. We have hit some rough spot. We were delayed in getting the deconstruction started because of the law, two law students, Bonsanto, ours from the district, and then the group of teachers who came forward, Bonsanto needed to be involved in reviewing and doing the property. That has pushed us. The last part of the construction is the winter. So construction costs are higher because wages are higher, seriously workers. And so we were hit with a $20 million adjustment. We lack probably summer because of those costs. We've been operating under guarantee maximum pricing. And the third of those, as I said, came in 20 minutes higher than the experts had gone. So we are still within our budget. The state money has sort of saved up. We're not playing on using any of that to be a contingency. We had to draw on that to cover that change in the cost. I think moving along, we're still in good shape as far as letting us spare. The other part I want to speak about are the initiatives at the school district. We're just paying in our literacy program. We saw the seven days article a week or so ago. We didn't get fair shakes in that. We felt like we were pioneering some research-based reading instruction changes that other school districts, including the other extensive anti-racism training has stepped up. Last year was mostly for the middle school and high school staff. Now that the initial training for the reading instructions, it's completely in the high school district going through those trainings. Rather than taking questions, because we are behind, if you want to do a quick search on front porch form for my past articles, Gary Golden, you'll find all my contact information there. It's on the front of the car for a while last night. I think I really enjoy that. So please give me a call or email me. I'll call you back at that time. That's convenient. I can answer any questions. Thank you very much. We're moving ahead with neighborhood code. Michael Snuff this. All right. Hi, everyone. I'm Sarah. I'm with the Office of City Planning here with Megan. Just giving you a very quick brief overview of the Burlington neighborhood code, which I am sure several of you have heard about, but here to give a little bit more in-depth information. So the Burlington neighborhood code is all about how we build on the strength in the city's neighborhood. Neighborhoods, clear all evaluate the city's zoning tools to regulate new homes in these areas today and identify opportunities for new neighborhood scale housing citywide. This focuses on housing types such as duplexes, townhouses, fourplexes, all along this spectrum that you can see up here. And this will help us implement the city's plan for how we use the city's limited land area in the future as part of the city's comprehensive plan. So most of the city's zoning changes recently have focused on areas in this gold areas that are planned for the most intensive future growth. However, not all areas in this gold can or will accommodate new housing. These are also areas that are planned for future jobs or business growth. And while we have seen successful, we've been successful in adding 1,300 new homes across the city over the last decade, the vast majority have been in new apartments and developments. And we know that these locations don't necessarily meet all housing needs. So the neighborhood code is essentially about the areas of the city that are in blue on the right, the 40% of the cities in our residential area and how they can also be a place that will allow for new and different types of houses. All right, can I ask one question before you go to the next slide? Of the planning to conserve 40% of the city land area, is that what is currently preserved or is there any change from what is now? And I've heard the consecration, but we're going to focus on the blue sustain. 40% is primarily in parks and the inner nail other open spaces that are second. So in in our neighborhoods, they we all agree that these neighborhoods can and should be places that support the current and future needs of households across Burlington, make tangible efforts to address the climate emergency and help us respond to our chronic and emerging housing challenges. So the neighborhood code is about how neighborhoods can evolve in an incremental way in order to meet these. So this increase in housing scale solutions will allows for a ton of different opportunities that require less land per home, better utilizing the existing city infrastructure, expand the tax base, share that tax burden, and also allow for opportunity opportunities for multi-generational housing and aging in place. We have a very strong partnership with AARP in support of this project which we'll talk a little bit about at the end. And this will also help us act 2023, which introduces new statewide requirements for duplex, triplex and four unit buildings. So these are a couple of the housing types that we're talking about. They range from single-family homes with back lot buildings, duplexes, four-plexes, cottage courts, as well as townhouses. And though you might see some of these examples across the city in different neighborhoods, the majority of these are not legal to build today in most of the city's residential districts, as you can see up here. So there are several reasons why this is, but we'll quickly run through a couple. So some of the current residential low density neighborhoods are in some ways mish-zoned with many properties not conforming to today's terms of densely maximum or plot sizes. And some of the neighborhood characteristics in low density neighborhoods actually align with certain high density neighborhoods. Some standards prohibit actually, they effectively prohibit what the code might seem to allow. Duplexes are a good example, wherein low density residential zones, they're required to have 10, they're required to be built on 10,000 square foot lots. But the average size of most residential lots in Burlington is just below 8,000 square feet. Some standards don't relate to the perceived scale of the neighborhood. So density standards can lead to a lot of this non-conformity. And an example of these four houses on that from the street level feel very comparable in size. However, these range drastically in density with the two on the right actually not conforming to the 20-unit requirement. We have limits to future housing opportunities. So these are an example with more details on the back of the fire that was passed out to you. These are some different test fits for what different missing middle housing types could look like. So for example, this cottage port would not be allowed to be built in most neighborhoods in Burlington for one reason being the lot is most lots are too small to utilize the PUD standards that would allow it to develop into a condo or rental community. And this foreflex that would be along North Avenue would be prohibited because freestanding units are not allowed in most RL zones. So this code would enable these previously prohibited housing types and enable up to four units city-wide providing greater flexibility in older walkable neighborhoods and also the long major corridors. With these current recommendations kind of achieving this by allowing for smaller minimum lot sizes rear setbacks and higher higher lot coverage limits placing density limits with standards that instead guide building mass and offering creative solutions for home ownership by creating new lots for infill and other such forms of ownership and standards that guide the creation of smaller smaller structures such as cottage courts and townhomes. And one of the big reasons I want to come here today and talk to you is to invite you to not only attend the joint committee process that we're going through and also invite you to other different coffee chats that are coming up and we will be at all other NPA meetings throughout October. We have a likely virtual community meeting happening in November as well with a very comprehensive website with more information, a pretty in-depth report I'd say with the rationale behind this and also opportunities for online public engagement. And just for a quick note, Sarah mentioned the joint committee of our city planning commission and Andy Montrell who is the chair of planning commission is here as well. I don't know Andy if you wanted to say anything. Okay Andy's I think trying to respect all of your time so yeah yeah great right. So really just want to make sure that this work is on everyone's radar and invite you to learn more about it, share your feedback with the joint committee and with our department and hopefully we'll get to see you at one of these upcoming events to talk with you more about this project. Will you allow it? Okay so my quick question is not to answer tonight but as you enlarge the footprint on lots, how are we dealing with runoff and how how that so that you know we always worried about the amount of parking and how that would create more runoff and how that would impact the lake and I hadn't thought about that but I've been trying to think about this and ask questions ahead of the of the and give you an opportunity to think about it plus as you expand the preservation of trees we don't have anything that really talks about that and trees are our lungs and I really worry about that and I'm a constant annoyance to the DRB and to you also to the planning commission because I I really do care about this and and I want to do it right. I think a lot of what you're presenting makes sense but there are some questions that I feel haven't even surfaced yet and I'm hoping more people will think about those questions and forward them to you in advance of all these meetings so that the joint committee can consider them and the department can also thank you. Yeah great and I I second that please send us your questions. One of the other things that we will be doing is presenting or putting together responses to a lot of these questions that we're hearing and definitely how we're what our plans are for helping manage stormwater and trees is part of that so yep. By that time that there could be a recommendation that's forwarded to the city council early in the year but it's our aspiration that we work through a lot. The city council will see it perhaps in January. Assuming everything goes to plan that's our plan right now. I only have one quick comment which is that this is the most exciting thing that's happened to Burlington in a decade so everyone should come to at least one of the meetings. I just I also agree with that I think this is fantastic I'm really looking forward to seeing how this evolves the one thing that I um I'm just slightly hung up on is like I know it's just graphically but looking at this north have four plex I can I look at the amount of parking that there is and I just like oh that could be another four plex and I think and it's those cars have to be and creating space for them and I think that if there is ways to do this look like transit oriented I think that would be something that which is about parking and they'll make sure that that's okay I'd be about parking but I'll talk um thank you very much Milo not please you have slides uh yes we're gonna pull some things up um I'm gonna piggyback off of some things that Tim said and then I'm gonna do a little show and tell so I think it's a minute since I've seen you I was here last year and we talked about what was happening in the city we talked in particular about data the big question in the city is why do people say crime is down when crime is up remember we had that discussion and we talked about the drug crisis that two things were true at the same time one being that overall incidents were down while certain types of incidents related to the drug crisis were up and here we are today where um the drug crisis in the city as we all know had gotten exponentially worse and therefore the crime associated with that crisis has continued with those particular incidents more cars being stolen more larcenies the overdose overdose deaths all that associated with it has continued to increase and now we're at the point where we have roughly the same incidents that we had um I think it uh starting to surpass 2020 and 2021 so um on august 17th uh the public safety committee we had a discussion it was kind of my point during that discussion was as a city we are still not doing enough to inform our residents about what is going on we are still not doing enough to coordinate our efforts in addressing this crisis we are not getting monies that are owed to us we don't know why and we currently have a governor that is not focused on this crisis that's not to attack him personally in any way but if we all recall a former governor shumlin he did a state of the state address where he focused on the opioid crisis as it was back then said this has to be a high priority we have to think out the box because things that we were doing in the past that were considered to be accepted solutions are no longer working so he was very engaged in the crisis he encouraged thinking out of the box he allowed new things to be tried that were effective back then this is something that our mayors talked about frequently we now have a different type of crisis in terms of the drugs that we are seeing um I assume everyone in the room knows about fentanyl we now have xylazine I'm watching the effects of xylazine and other communities um it affects the flow of oxygen to the skin that's why we see people it's called the zombie drug we see people with with just exposed exposed skin they're not getting the medical attention other cities that have had xylazine longer are starting to see people having to come into the ER and get amputations and then they're back on the streets again so it's getting bad what's happening in other places is is catching up here um so so the big conversation was getting people information knowing what's going on and advocating for ourselves we do not have anybody lobbying for burlington in an effective way we need to lobby for ourselves and part of the resolution that was discussed and voted on and approved last night was to have um at least two public forums I'm going to talk about my vision for the public forums and is that is for the residents of burlington the employees who work for the city of burlington who are on the front lines of this crisis employees who work for businesses in burlington business owners even visitors to burlington you know if someone used to come in and shop and eat in burlington and they no longer do so we want them to say why we want our legislatures and our governors to hear why they don't understand what's happening here we need to put pressure on some of our own legislatures and we need to put pressure on the people who are on committees that are in charge of releasing money they have money allocated they're not releasing it if we don't know when we're going to get funds we literally cannot make decisions about deploying those funds in a useful manner funds that we have received have been deployed to assist and I forgive me I'm forgetting the organization but they deal with people who are just as involved a lot of issues we see around crime in our community have to do with people they get back out they get back into doing the same thing there are a lot of there's a high percentage of incidents that are caused by a small percentage of people repeat offenders is a term that you hear frequently if you can support them when they get out of jail to keep them in recovery and they don't relapse they're less likely to go back to crime this was an organization that has data behind it they've worked with 168 unique individuals so whatever new things were trying we want to make sure it's data driven so data data data extremely important so let's if we could go to the city's website so I am going to go a little bit farther than Tim did when I talk about the meeting we had last night and if you could click on the calendar please and the government meetings calendar so when you want to look around for information this is where you start the city's website the calendar the governor's meeting calendar and you see the list of dates and you can scroll backwards to past meetings and if we go to the meeting that we had last night yep so these you'll see upcoming meetings that are scheduled and that slowly gets filled in as committees schedule things but going to the Burlington city council meeting that was last night there we are regular city council meeting beautiful and then it says agenda and Burlington is now using something called civic clerk if anyone ever used board docs it was a little bit cumbersome I do believe that city clerk is much better but like learning anything new it takes a few tries to use it you can just click in city council or just yeah just you don't have to up there you go wonderful and then meeting overview the box in the upper left hand corner that's the best place to go then you have the agenda and anything that is attached to the agenda items you get to see so if you scroll down a little bit this is your consent agenda lots of juicy stuff in the consent agenda you want to know how your money is being spent this is what you look at also approval on prior city minutes you don't have time to watch a whole city council meeting you don't have to you can look at the minutes you can say what interests me what do I want to know about more detail so you can read the minutes and then go to take a look at the meeting lots of stuff from BOF that's the board of finance since I become a city councilor and I've learned about the consent agenda I am convinced that there was probably a lot of stuff about Burlington telecom in the consent agenda I'll never know so once you research that that would be pretty interesting so as we continue to go down the if you can click on the drug unit presentation so this is a power point that was used by the three members in our drug unit so when I say I want to go a step further than Tim where he recommends watching this meeting I'm going to make very very clear to you that this meeting is mandatory viewing for every Burlington resident this meeting a lot of you've been listening to me for a while no I complain constantly about the lack of public engagement the lack of getting information out to the residents of Burlington because I hear the same questions over and over and over again being loud about that the the drive to do this resolution the response that the council got and the public safety committee got about the resolution is starting to cause a little bit more activity so what was interesting and and when you watch the meeting you hear them review this information you want to know what the latest statistics are you want to know the trends that we are seeing you want to know what they're doing what they've been able to accomplish what they've not been able to accomplish the street crimes unit not being available and how that's affecting us when you file an online incident report or an online drug tip you never hear anything back does anything happen with that information is it worth it should we continue to do that are we wasting our time so I was very happy well not happy but the admission that they have a backlog the admission that yes we get this information we eventually look at it but because of staffing issues they don't have the backlog to always reply to people so that's for drug tip but that information is valuable to them because it helps in in terms of the drug tips it helps them establish hot spots in the city where are they going to focus their larger investigations on so they are focusing on going after dealers who are bringing in large quantities so they're the don't know if you ever watch the power series on stars highly recommended distro would be the slang for it who's distributing to the lower end dealers the street units the street crime unit would be the ones who are going after what we would see day to day in city hall park and that's not happening so I don't want to go into that full discussion I can tell you that they do in this meeting so you can watch it at your convenience maybe not watch the whole thing at once you know it the fact that these are recorded it really gives you a lot of flexibility in terms of getting the information the larceny the retail thefts enforcement the next level this was an excellent excellent long overdue participation long overdue presentation probably because this is very difficult to get these three gentlemen in one room you know and they're probably doing this they probably did this on their time off and and not being on the clock and I really appreciate that different initiatives so this is really important and if we could go back to the main agenda page oh I'm sorry for the city council meeting agenda page great um so then there's the information on the resolution that we voted on then there is also in the meeting the presentation from the fire department and chief Lachance he is an amazing leader he has already done so much I love the fact that he gets information from his staff he is getting a new program up in in three weeks in three weeks that's how they think out of the box that's a very nimble department and um they have a goal to get this started I think within the next um weekend a half and it literally would be from within three weeks of having thought about of his staff saying we have to handle this in a different way um the fire department is out there the fire department's every day all day dealing with these overdoses or quote unquote man down of calls where someone sees someone just like passed out uh in the street in their cars don't know if they're okay don't know if it's is it drugs is it not drugs sometimes it's just someone who's unhoused who's not and doesn't have substance use disorder but it's just sleeping because they have no place else to sleep and other times they have to administer Narcan etc um he has uh done if you could click on Burlington fire department response data please chief Lachance is great about data um and he has provided data so as you can see these are responses um that the fire department has dealt with and and look where we are a significant increase due to um the overdose crisis that we're seeing so 2023 has already surpassed 2021 and the on track for one year total responses increase of is double digits of 12 percent um it could be worse it could i think it's potential to get worse because we've had a couple of weeks where we've had really just something was really bad mixed in and we had a huge number of overdoses and in one particular 24 hour period but this document is a great document to go through average overdose responses per month um and then his notes about the increase were on track for 526 overdose responses for 2023 now the fire department and the police department don't have the exact numbers a lot of times they respond together and sometime and that may be necessary when you bring someone out of Narcan depending on what they have in their system like if they have meth in their system when the Narcan hits and they come out it's like the meth kicks in so you may need police there because of that because of the way someone doesn't come out of Narcan and they're like oh thank you so much I really appreciate that's that's that's not what's happening and then um he has some other data about transporting people some people don't want to be transporting even if they recommend that you should be transported to the hospital you should be checked out they if they appear to be in sound mind which once they've had that they may be angry they make fidget but they can make a decision for themselves you're not going to force them to um go up to the hospital and you can kind of just keep uh just so everyone can see what's on there just for time I'm not going to go through every slide just saying here's the information that you can look at at your convenience in order to see what's what's happening very actually if you go back to that that blue slide he looking in the system uh the old expression you refer to data in data out um having to when going looking at um the different ways that people get entered into the system I'm sorry if you go back to the top of it and so he was looking at his numbers for the interactions uh and the number of people that they help who are houseless well that could be entered as homeless it could be entered houseless transient and then you really say this is too low this is too low we know that we're dealing with more individuals um we don't have a place to live and then talking to his staff they're like well well sometimes we just leave it blank so then when he put in no address the system pulled out significantly more so it's it's very there's a lot of interesting information here um feel free to look through it if you need any clarification you have me to email me is a riot him um if we can't answer it we'll send it directly to chief Lachance he is very into community engagement talking to the people of burlington about what's going on so the last thing I want to do is I want to show you where the police chief reports is and take you to the town meeting day uh town meeting day town meeting tv youtube page so you know where to find meetings uh so if we actually if we can just go to the town meeting um youtube page please so when you just go to youtube you type in town meeting tv and it brings you here and then you have the tab so starting at home and moving to the right you'll see playlist and when you click on playlist and scroll down just a little bit they have specific creative playlist and if you go down uh under to where it says municipal meetings and click on the city of burlington and if we give it a minute it populates on the right side now these aren't exactly in uh date order but the most recent meetings are at the top you may find this one the city council retreat we talked about the um august 14th uh city council meeting and how we would address future meetings but as you scroll down you'll see on the third on the list is the burlington city council meeting for um october 10th that's how you find the meeting the first hour and a half or so we're just executive sessions so you kind of have to jump in to the start of the meeting so so that october 10th meeting is going to have the uh the public forum that as tim said was very engaging it's going to have the presentation from the um the drug unit of vpd it's going to have the fire department's presentation it's going to have the presentation about the um the warming shelter i i do respectfully disagree with some of my counselors about the warning shelter i think it is is crucial um i am from the central district district we are used to having all the services located in our area i have worked and talked to and tried to advocate and support a lot of um homeowners and businesses that have kind of alcoves or recess entrances that people have been using for shelter uh the fact that some of them are against this boggles my mind because it's like you literally have people sleeping in front of your business you literally have to walk over people every day and so it'd be great to have that yes running low okay so if we could uh just go back to the meeting list real quick so the last thing as you scroll down i want to recommend that um you find the police commission meeting uh which happened near the end of september and the chief will be reviewing his report and that has a list of the latest um incidents in particular the ones related to drug crime and he also talks about the online incident report which is mostly property theft and acknowledges that there's a backlog there but people should continue to file those awesome so really over time i have business cards or if you want to remember me grant i'm not in grant there's another m grant but m e grant at burlington vt.gov happy to answer questions related to public safety and the stuff and it's great to see everybody again thank you so much for your time if we have any short questions about where to find information because milan showed us a lot of places we'd entertain that but other than that i think we don't have time for a deep dive into um the status of safety interesting that was really helpful just pointing out how you find that thank you thank you carter well really i'm wondering around numbers of uh on the recovery side like not preventing deaths and actually like not having our data over and over when you're talking about that uh fire department being exactly anecdotally i've heard that act one is actually the newsbed in terms of same-day intoxicants and so i'm wondering where are your information where we can actually look at what recovery beds are available what same-day intoxicants are available looks like overall i've got temporary shelters two two things came up one where are we seeing that data we're really focused on um our responses to the more critical things that are happening but that came up as to where can we get that data um and chief lachance is going to be looking into that the other thing that came up with someone mentioned that we didn't really address prevention we're in such a reactive mode of someone's like what is being done with regards to prevention so that would be part of the conversation as well more to come on that the question thank you all right thank you have a great night