 I'm going to call to order the City Council Transportation Energy and Utilities Committee at 5.10. And the first item on our agenda is the agenda. I would move to adopt the agenda. I would second it. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor of our agenda. All right. Second item on our agenda is adoption of the minutes from our 12-19 meeting. I would move that we adopt the agenda. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor? Aye. And that brings us to the third item on our agenda and why many people are here tonight is public forums. So I guess I will go through the in-person first and then move on to virtual second. So the first person who signed up to speak is Kim Horning-Marcy. Go ahead. Happy New Year. And thank you to the two members and staff for your service. My name is Kim Horning-Marcy and I'm active with the 350 Vermont Burlington Node, the 350 Clean Heat Study Group, and the Creation Care Task Force of the United Methodist Church of New England. I hope you will pass both proposals. I think they deal with different things. And I think they support each other and deal with different aspects of our challenges. I can see, because I've been at many meetings now, that the members of the City Council and TUC are all hardworking and I do respect that. And I hope you will also seek to be known as council members who are respectful of your constituents and keen to empower them to have voice and vote when it is appropriate. And this is exactly that time. Please allow these folks to move forward. Thank you. Thank you, Kim. Next is Luce Hillman. Hi, yes. Luce Hillman. I'm with the University of Vermont. I'm the Executive Director of Facilities Management. And thank you for this meeting. So we have been working diligently with the ED and also the previous ordinance committee to work out a type of carbon impact fee. And we feel that it was approved in a very good manner. And there was a lot of public input and we were very pleased with the results, which allowed buildings of 50,000 square feet also allowed us to maintain and keep 50% of the impact fee in order to reduce our own greenhouse gas emissions on campus which we had diligently working for. And this was a bit of a surprise very last minute these two proposals and we would like the opportunity to take the time to really evaluate these two proposals. We also feel that this is a huge administrative burden for both public works, Chris Burns and the ED and that having a small appropriate will allow it to be developed, understand the administrative roles of the parties involved and that way be successful. If we bite off more than we can chew, it's going to be a big struggle for us to implement this and we are firmly committed to implementing a program but we feel that program approved is the way that the university would like to proceed. Thank you. Thank you, Luce. Next we have Peter. I thought that was an attendant. Now I have nothing to say. Okay, thank you. Next is Dave Kielty. Hi, thank you. My name is Dave Kielty. I'm with the University of Vermont Health Network. I'm a service and interim vice president for the facility planning and development. I'm here tonight to speak on the information we're seeking and the coordinates proposed and the balance of the issue. We're concerned about the process. We thought this was, I don't want to use the word resolved. First I would say we support every effort that would come up in society to stop our dependence on fossil fuels is killing us. And you can see that everywhere. What our interest is is trying to assure that there's a path forward bridge to be able to do that is constructive collaboration and so on. So we're concerned about this particular balance measure largely because of the changing nature of the proposal and how it's going to appear. We participated. The great deal of enthusiasm. The last version of the ordinance and carbon fees working with our partners in front of us. We did look at how this would impact our. Our thoughts were that that was a great opportunity to create a bridging resource for us hospital is different than residential commercial and even industrial. We're very intensive in terms of needing high quality thermal energy. This is really related to the amount of air conditioning and ventilation. We have to try to make sure we have a safe patient care environment. In terms of number of air changes. Do you think of your house where you have a dual system or heating system and you're eating for environmental issues. Imagine if you were bringing in 20 different year changes of 20 year teams an hour and you had to feed and treat that air to maintain comfort within your residents. That would basically indicate that you have a need for fairly substantial thermal energy requirements well beyond what your house would provide. So we have to maintain that level of thermal capacity. Now we think in the future there will be technologies that will be able to harvest sustainable thermal energy. You can think of ground source pumps for example and other modalities that may not exist at this time. We have a need for high temperature thermal energy the proposals for carbon neutrality. I think they're very noble in the cause. I mean obviously we're going to end up at some point with electrification and removal of fossil fuels of reliance. But in terms of our ability to shift from current reliance on thermal energy whether it's fossil fuels or biomass or biofuels. Right now the path toward the technologies to support that convergence just don't exist. The concept of electrification which we think is good but in working with reliance on electric I think they would also fit. They don't have the capacity to support our thermal heating needs through electrification. It's just not doable at this juncture what may be in the future. A couple of thoughts about that. We buy all of our electricity from reliance on electric which is essentially a monopoly in the city of Birmingham. We have no opportunity to go out and look at other energy sources for electricity except the degree of reliance on reliance on electric. Which provides great service and excellent energy tools. But this ordinance with taking off the table some of the means that we would use to thermally provide thermal energy on a campus. Through electrification for example means that we have a sole source provider and we're going to need a lot more and greater flexibility to look at all types of electrical generation capacity. Perhaps even creating our own utility to be able to do that. So there's a lot of complex issues here and we recognize that. We felt that where we left off with the carbon city ordinance the way it stood at least we had a path forward with some predictability that we could rely on to support our planning for the campus over the next 50 years. With the current state of the proposal that predictability is gone and we don't really understand how we're going to be approaching our future development needs on the campus given the current regulatory circumstances. So I just wanted to make sure we were clear to get to this. The blue step you know the proposal kind of just modifications to that were just authored and provided today. Yesterday which makes it very difficult to understand how we can respond to that. Our current infrastructure in the medical center we're trying to deal with in Burlington is how do you recover from a century or more bad decisions around energy. I mean the investments in the last 100 years have been the traditional thermal fossil fuel model which we all agree is not where we need to be. But to reverse that is going to require collaboration innovation and working with our partners to figure out how do we get beyond where we are currently into a more sustainable future. We supported the last version of the ordinance proposal and still do. But the way that this current proposal ordinance has been modified with two different valid initiatives we can lend our support to this. So I just wanted to be clear about that and thank you for your consideration. Thank you. I spoke to the committee last time they mainly talked about having a better understanding of what section of our Burlington community this impact and what that looks like so I hope you think we've filled the request of the committee to come up with the spreadsheet might be interested can I just read up a couple of the facts we found very quickly for the rest of the folks here that. This is in the memo that you guys from the memo. Yeah. Yeah. So this material is also attached to the meeting. So there were for properties that were going to be greater than 25,000 but less than 50,000 square feet covered in the next phase of this. There were 112 parcels that were identified. The funny thing about Burlington property is that sometimes buildings are broken up. Sometimes they're merged together. You can get sort of some stuff that you wouldn't expect. We found it interesting that of those 112 72 of them are properties that are listed exempt from property tax. So that means they're either owned by a nonprofit. Some of them are up at the university. Nine of them are going to school district buildings and then it includes things like the Flynn Theater and you know some community health center of Burlington several of the churches. So that left us with some questions about how a carbon impact fee might impact organizations like that that are listed nonprofit. That doesn't mean we don't think that we should move towards more efficiency. It's just how does that work with such a big subset of cohort is, you know, small nonprofits, tax exempt organizations school district. Of the remaining ones, 33 of them have some kind of small retail parcel in them. I just want to like mention we had testified that this could have unintended consequences on some of our smaller retail because business owners can pass these kinds of fees onward. So, you know, some places we know all know like to be during Earl's is a place that would be impacted both of the city market buildings. The new cafe dims some on St. Paul Street. These are all outlined in the spreadsheet that we provided citizen cider, capsule coffee, a couple of them are nursing homes, one of them is an health sludge. So I think it's important to if you're going to really be able to understand the potential impacts of something like this is to understand the data set. So we got ourselves wrapped around that pretty effectively, I think I have to agree with some of what I heard from the university in the medical center is that this did feel like sort of just came after we all did some important work of a piece that was passed and put into effect last fall. I just want to say that I think Burlington, especially the physical space in Burlington is likely to go through a transition. People may not be aware, but a lot of our office space is vacant. And I know you talked about potential for it to become residential property that opens up opportunities for, you know, change of use which requires making those improvements. A lot of the residential spaces are using electric heat right now. So, you know, as we take a look at the Burlington inventory and try to figure out ways where we can achieve for the goals that are important to the citizen and to the community. You know, I had offered up to Darren to, you know, be a partner in that try to figure something out. I'm a big fan of, you know, envelope and weatherization and we have a historic code in place that sometimes makes that really challenging. So anyway, you know, I'm not changing my position from last time necessarily in favor of this. But I do think that it's important to consider that we have some more work to do and maybe that this kind of proposal could be more impactful in both the short and long term with some more collaborative work on it. Thanks. Thanks Kelly. Next up we have Chris Gish. Yeah. Yeah, I'm Chris Gish. I live in Ward 8 now. It's been a while since I was able to make it in person to one of the two meetings, but I wanted to just urge the two to pass the resolution today that would allow voters to vote on other polluting fuels to our existing thermal ordinance. Right now we have this kind of perverse situation where our carbon impact fee incentivizes switching from one polluting fuel to another, like mainly switching off fossil fuels and switching on to biographically with biofuels or quote, renewable gas and that's just not necessary. Doesn't make a lot of sense from an environmental perspective. Like we know all those fuels have greenhouse gas emissions roughly equivalent to the fossil fuels that were placed on a life cycle basis and they also have a lot of secondary environmental effects that are specific for each one. So that's a really easy near term change that can be made. It'd be easy for the voters to understand. It's easy to make progress on. I support the spirit of both resolutions that were drafted and you have today. I think my sense is that the one that would only change, only add these other polluting fuels to the ordinance would be the most straightforward one. We've heard from some of our big institutions in town that someone feels confusing and I think that is not very confusing or unpredictable thing to wrap our head around. It's just kind of like even the playing field and do environmentally sensible thing that all the science is behind and there are other ways that Burlington can make further progress on our decarbonization goals. But I think this is a really sensible straightforward near term step. And then I'd also just remind I'm sure the two bills but like this isn't the end of the public process. This is if there's ballot and it's the very beginning like this you pass the resolution would go to the full council. There's room for a lot more input that would go to every voter would have been put on it. Then it would go probably back to a committee then back to the council, you know, it's a long process. So I don't think especially a simple or it's like the one that would go on March 1 civil resolution excuse me. I don't think it's too much to ask. Thanks. Thanks, Chris. Next up, Natalie Rob. Yes, that's me. I knew you were struggling to read the handwriting. My name is Natalie Rob and I am a psychologist in the Burlington school business. So I'm here on behalf of my students who are numerous and also the highest risk students in the district. Do you speak up a little bit? Sure. Yeah, I'm here on behalf of my my students who are numerous but also on behalf of all of the students in the district. And I believe that two things are gained from allowing again thinking through my students arms and we talked about this by students. So I have two things are gained by allowing the public at large to vote on these two proposals at a minimum, the first one, but ideally vote. And one is it's a model for the very best the democracy has to offer. And we really need to see every example of that at this time in our nation. And again, the students are aware if not a risk issue of what we're what we are facing as a nation. So the model for allowing the public to speak, to continue to take input is a wonderful thing. The second thing that's gained though, and that's really what's being spoken to primarily I would say by the folks in 350 Vermont, of the climate organizations is that it is also a major step towards securing the healthiest possible future for the students, for us, and for students. So thank you. Thank you Natalie. I'm going to start going. Yeah, good evening. Hope everyone's doing well drive safe tonight. I'm dealing jammy piece of the director of public affairs with BGS is Vermont gas. And as we presented information in past meetings, we're focused on trying to figure out ways to reduce emissions in line with state requirements. The global warming Solutions Act, which requires going out a little bit to 2030 and 40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions on the 1990 baseline and 80% reduction by 2050. That is our focus. It is our North Star, and it's the mandate the state now has to do that. We don't get a free pass. No one gets a free pass. Throughout this particular process, though, going to Burlington, we tried to share feedback as to what is in the interest of our customers. You heard from some of them tonight, the larger customers. This would impact the way that they make energy choices. And of course, back in December, our president CEO, Neil Lunderville, paid a virtual visit to the committee and provided some feedback on the proposal. And at that time, he said, we were surprised that we were back in this committee talking about a proposal that the council had just advanced in November. That process came after months of committee work, both in to get in the ordinance committee and we welcome the opportunity to weigh in. But of course, before that, there was also months of deliberation, stakeholders with the interest of parties that would be impacted with KED and others. Consideration given to the full facts of what this is, what's happening statewide, and how the city might be a partner in this work. We did not like all aspects of the first carbon fee proposal. In fact, two years ago, I gave testimony in the General Assembly when a charter change proposal was moving to the process in which I noted my concern that this could create more costs over and above those that are already going to happen as thermal sector transformation takes hold. Whether that be for gas customers or other thermal users, we're just very sensitive to cost, and we know for a fact our customers are as well. They want to take part in this transformation, but they want it to be affordable, cost effective, and achieve real greenhouse gas reductions, because that's what we need to do under the state mandates. With regard to where we are now, I mean, it's a kind of heavy language here, but it's a little frustrating. It feels like a baby switch. There was a process that council acted, and now there's talk about changing the parameters once more. Now, instead of chasing one policy, we've got two proposals on the table. We've got two potential votes. And so as we assess that, it's challenging, because at the statewide level, we have the Affordable Heal Act. Others have mentioned it, Act 18, that regulatory process is underway. I've responded to two comment finalings for that this week. I've got another on Friday. I've got another next Tuesday, and another following that Friday. We have a lot of work going on at the state level where all of this is organized. As we think about that North Star, the process to get there, and the life cycle analysis scoring process for all these fuels, the state law included those fuels, which are now being considered to be removed from an exemption for the March ballot question, because they're under review, because they are shown both through national models such as to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And the only fuels that would be permitted under this policy, or at the state level, would be those that result in actual greenhouse gas emissions reduction, something that we need to achieve the statewide mandates under the Global Warming Solutions Act. So my question would just be, as we look at these proposals, are these being brought to the committee in an effort to figure out is there a performance standard structure, or a structure with flexibility that can serve customer needs? Or is what we're looking at here something that's about banning thermal choices for customers? Those are two very different discussions. And I think that the voters, if they're going to weigh in on this through a ballot item, should be presented with something that's crystal clear about the intent of the proposal. Finally, I'll just say that additional steps to make a carbon fee more rigorous is really inadvisable at this time. It eliminates customer options. But the notion that this somehow having very limited narrowed exemptions for very specific purposes with large customers is somehow incentivizing use of those fuels. I mean, it simply is not the case. You already have a primary renewable energy ordinance. We have a carbon fee proposal now. There's an additional permitting step that was put into the carbon fee proposal adopted in November such that you need to attest as to why you are not using an electrification, geothermal option, things of that nature. So this is not an incentive. It's a very narrow carve out for the reality that large commercial and industrial customers have very unique needs. So I would encourage you not to support moving forward with these proposals. You've taken a meaningful step. We want to continue to be partners in it. And as we look to the future, the Affordable Heat Act is happening statewide. We're all mandated under the Global Warming Solutions Act. That's going to be the North Star that drives climate action. Right now, I think Burlington is done enough. In my request review, you put your pencils down and let's talk about what we can do at the statewide level. So I'll leave my comments there. Thank you, Governor. And last in person, we have mid-percent here. Thank you. I support the resolution calling for a ballot question on Town Meeting Day, which would ask the voters whether to authorize extension of the carbon pollution impact fee to non-fossil fuel thermal energy systems and fuels that emit greenhouse gases. Those include advanced wood heating, renewable gas, and liquid biofuels. The rationale for extending the fee in this way is laid out in the resolution. Doing so would eliminate or reduce incentive for these systems and fuels, which threaten to impede the city's ability to achieve greater greenhouse gas emissions through use of electrification, geothermal, and solar measures. This absolutely is creating incentives for use of these polluting fuels. When you impose a fee on use of natural gas, but not on advanced wood heating or renewable gas, that is an incentive. In addition, eliminating these incentives, in addition to eliminating these incentives, extending the fee to these measures would allow the city's program to be more consistent with the state's program under the clean heat standard. That program is going to result in a sliding scale of credits based on the relative greenhouse gas emissions of various measures. What the city has now is an all-or-nothing approach, which is completely incompatible with what the state is designing. So the city, we would like the voters to give the city authority to tweak the existing fee for these reasons. I believe we're ready to move forward with the resolution on this limited issue without additional process because these issues have been dealt with at length in the hearings that have been held to date. Prior to the adoption of the ordinance, two held three meetings and the ordinance committee held three meetings. And at those meetings, the public presented extensive detailed scientific information about the greenhouse gas emissions from these fuels. And that's all you need to know about them. They emit greenhouse gases, so they should be subject to the fee. If you disagree and think that more process is needed, then, and you want to consider the approach of the second resolution, which calls for additional study with the ballot measure this fall, if you want to go that approach, then I suggest that you limit that resolution to consideration of adding these fuels to the fee and not add on the additional issues of whether to extend the fee to additional buildings or whether to increase the magnitude of the fee. We've heard from the business community that they're strongly opposed to those measures. I think that we need to fix the fees structure and eliminate the incentives that I discussed before we talk about extending the fee. Finally, we heard from the hospital about its concern with uncertainty and with technologies not being available. Technologies exist today, including thermal energy networks, which could tap waste heat and geothermal energy. We presented the hospital with a conceptual report by an expert, Jared Rodriguez offered to talk to them about it. They wouldn't even talk to us about it. Thank you very much. I think we're turning to the online participants now. Anyone online can use the raise hand function to speak for public comment. The first up is Jason Van Dreish. Go ahead, Jason. Thank you. Thank you members of the two. This is Jason Van Dreish. I live Caroline Street in the south end of Burlington. And I am here to speak on the question of the two ballot measures that you're being asked to vote on today. I appreciate, although I certainly don't understand the complexities of the issues that the hospital and the university and Vermont gas are dealing with. But I think the key issue here is that they are bringing those concerns to you at the wrong time. The question right now is not whether anything listed in these ballot measures actually becomes official city policy. The question before you and the question that you're voting on is does the city want to hear what voters think? Neither of these ballot questions are binding. They're both advisory. They're both advisory. They're both advisory. They're both advisory. They're both advisory. We hear from citizens on these two, one in March and one in August. That's the time when the hospital and other interests really need to weigh in on an equal footing with the citizens of this city. What I see right now is an attempt to short circuit that process of people actually getting to weigh in on a critical question. And I strongly encourage you to vote in favor of both of these resolutions. We have a level playing field for the citizens of Burlington to get to have an equal say in this critical issue, along with the experts on the special interests who have a perspective that's a very valid perspective, but it should not cut off the opportunity for the citizens of Burlington to also get to weigh in. So please vote for both of these resolutions now. And then let's debate the merits. Once we've heard from the people of Burlington, how we all think about these questions. Thank you. Hi, hi there. Thank you for taking my comment. I'm a Burlington resident. I'm a mom and I hold a masters in public administration. I've been running a manufacturing business for over 25 years. And I'm deeply concerned about salvaging a habitable climate for humans and all species. In my small business and other properties, I've made meaningful investments in reducing carbon pollution, including a 20,000 square foot solar array, which generates enough power to sell the excess and lots of other projects as well. We're exceeding planetary boundaries. And yet many of our leaders are really content to declare a climate emergency and then continue to legislate like it's 1984. And I know we can do better here in Burlington. We must do better. Today, I'm here to ask you to simply take the first step in cleaning up the mess that was made when the thermal energy ordinance passed in November. That flawed ordinance imposed a fee on fossil fuels and it gave other polluting carbon emitting sources of energy a pass. While counselors were considering the ordinance, they were provided with research briefs with the latest science demonstrating the perils of incentivizing the combustion of so-called advanced wood heat, so-called renewable natural gas or methane, biodiesel, and so forth. Not imposing a fee on these polluting fuel sources incentivizes their use. And that's outrageous. I urge you to allow a ballot question simply asking voters to decide whether to authorize the city council to impose a fee on non-fossil fuel heating systems in fuels that emit greenhouse gases. Residents who passed ballot question two, which led to the new thermal energy ordinance, deserve a chance to allow the city to shut down the incentives that undermine the stated goal of the ordinance, which was to reduce greenhouse gas pollution. Thank you for taking my comment, and I appreciate you considering this. Thanks, Ashlyn. Jack Hanson. Go ahead, Jack. You can't hear you, Jack. You might be muted. You are muted, it looks like. Should we come back? Yeah, we'll come back to you, Jack. Greg Hancock? Who is it? Greg Hancock. Go ahead, Greg. Yes, I thank you for taking my call. I'm calling because I want to first thank the Duke for all the work they've done on considering and drafting these proposals. And to strongly ask that they please permit the ballot question that allows voters to authorize city council to impose carbon pollution impact on non-fossil fuels to advance. This is really a matter of greenhouse gases, not just the source of fuel, but the greenhouse gases that are put into our atmosphere. And are causing global warming. And an increased pollution in the city. And we don't want these fuels exempt. Or have any kind of loophole that allows them to be incentivized as others have pointed out. So I really want to encourage at least the first resolution, the simpler one, which just advances the proposal to go out to the voters of Burlington on the March ballot to include the non-fossil fuel and heating systems and fuel sources that are right now given a free pass. So thank you for taking my call. And appreciate the opportunity to speak. Thank you, Brad. We'll go back to Jack and see if we can hear him now. Go ahead, Jack. Can I meet yourself? Still muted. He did send me a message. Let me know. He zoomed lagged, but he was here. What's that? Jack typed in the chat to say he zoomed lagged, but he is here. Is it working now? Yeah, there you are. Okay. It always lags right when I get unmuted, which is very unfortunate. Thanks for the opportunity to speak. I'm Jack Hansen. I'm a member of the run-on organization called run on climate that works nationally on municipal level climate policy. And we've worked on building decarbonization policies in a number of cities across the country. I think Burlington has an opportunity to be a leader in this space and join a cohort of communities that have started to address emissions from existing buildings. I think took a very small step in that direction. It addresses a pretty narrow set of circumstances when, you know, a very large building, the 80 largest buildings in the city, when a very large building is installing a new system, it encourages them to install a less polluting system. Although, as folks have mentioned, there are flaws even in that goal. But, you know, even if the ordinance functions perfectly, it's going to address a few buildings a year that are getting a new system. When what we need is and what we committed to in 2019 as a city is actually decarbonizing all buildings and actually eliminating fossil fuel use and emissions from the entire building sector. We declared that in 2019 as the net zero energy roadmap because of the climate emergency and the need to do this quickly. Here we are in 2024, you know, over four years later, and we've made very little progress. If you look at the latest data, we have not made very much progress at all in reducing emissions from buildings. So I don't understand why people are surprised that we are trying to craft further policy. I think it's very clear that it's necessary to do so, and it's completely in line with the city's goals that we passed, I believe, 11 to 1 in 2019 that have broad support from this community. So, of course, we're going to continue to craft climate policy. And I hope that folks will join in that conversation and really engage from a perspective of how do we go about it rather than a perspective of let's just pause and not do anything for the time being because we've already done enough, which is what we've heard from some folks. So this proposal that Jean has introduced is really to continue that conversation and spend the next few months working together, talking to stakeholders and ultimately trying to get something in front of all of the voters and get something in front of the community around moving forward and continuing to try to deal with this existential threat and crisis that we really have to deal with. So please continue this process and this conversation. The community is really relying on you as leaders to continue this really critical work. We can't turn our back on it. If you have other paths forward that you want to take, please introduce those as amendments or as ideas, but to simply kill this and try to walk away from the issue of the climate crisis is, in my mind, not an option at this point. Thank you. Thanks, Jeff. Sandy Hennberger? Sandy, go ahead. Go ahead, Sandy. You look to be on mute, but we can't hear. I guess we'll come back to you, Sandy. Liz Curry? Go ahead, Liz. We can. Okay, great. I'm here to just talk about the ordinance. I didn't have a lot of time to read it. I'm sorry. I just learned about the meeting tonight, but I just want to share that like making good climate policy is really important to understand. There's policy and then there's implementation. And this policy has great goals. We all want to be there personally. My personal feeling is I'm also suspicious of biofuels in many cases. But for example, advanced wood heat means different things. There's advanced wood heat for heating buildings. There's wood biomass for electricity. Those are two different things. Advanced wood heat is 30% of the buildings in Vermont use advanced wood heat. And there are very good reasons based on science and technology to continue using advanced wood heat in our transition to electrification. I just want to share that making good climate policy means that there has to be implementation. And you know, maybe we haven't seen a lot of progress on emissions reduction in Burlington because implementation has not been where it should be. And I, as much as I love my municipal utility, which is owned by the ratepayers, it's not a monopoly. It's our municipal service. And as much as I love the municipal utility we have, I can also find fault with our utility for not advancing implementation more aggressively. And, you know, I worked with some really brilliant people. I think one of them is in the room. If Elizabeth Pelchak is there, I see you. Hi. I worked with a lot of brilliant people at the EIC who are some of Vermont's most strident climate activists and advocates. And they will tell you that, and I learned that policy is great, but it's really the engineers and the maintenance workers and the technicians and the trades people that have to implement policy. And those systems are not where they should be to achieve the goals of this ordinance. And because of that, you're going to see a serious misalignment between implementation and policy that's going to hurt a lot of people. I mean, even nonprofits that are planning to build like the food shelf are going to be hurt by this ordinance. So I think it's great to ask the public to weigh in, but you're asking a generally uninformed public to weigh in on something that's very complex and relies on the science of engineering and a lot of data that got misconstrued, misrepresented and conflated during the McNeil District Energy conversation. And if we're going to have a just transition, which we need, you can put a lot of words on paper and we can advocate for a lot of things, but that doesn't mean you can actually implement them. So I would encourage the public policymakers in the room to not approach this in a piecemeal fashion, but to actually be more aggressive about having our municipality, our municipal utility lead more public forms, more conversations with trusted advisors who are neutral parties with science and engineering backgrounds to explain that the implementation of these goals is not feasible based on the technology we have right now. We are going to need back up heat for the next couple of decades, because we don't have battery storage available at scale at the institutional level. It's not really debatable, not because I'm saying it, but because all of the like brilliant energy engineers and scientists in Vermont will tell you that so without that back up heat. We can't achieve these goals. Personally, I act, I have a lot of suspicion of liquid biofuels that's very worth a conversation. So, but there are people like Matt Neapolitan who's your constituent counselor Bergman who will tell you that there are new sources of biofuels like switchgrass, which can be burned at a plant like McNeil. Once the technology is developed once they're at scale that do not emit. And so, you know, this ordinance I believe is premature because of that because there's just not enough good science and data and engineering information on your table in front of you with trusted advisors who can actually help you understand the consequences of this and by the way if you're going to get the public opinion I think that's great but this ordinance is so specific. This is not what should be going to the public. This is like, you've got fee structures in there. So, if you're just looking for public opinion and craft a broad public policy statement that allows the voters to actually understand the issue that they're voting on and not, you know, based on not bank their decision based on fear mongering with inaccurate information. Thank you. Thank you, Liz. Go ahead, Catherine. Catherine Bach, I'm calling in from California where I'm visiting my brother, who lives out in the forest and burns wood and we've been having a lot of discussions about wood and whether or not he should use his gas heat, and they want to and so I haven't even won that little conversation in my own family, but I think that we all in this room and probably in the world agree that we need to achieve real greenhouse gas reduction. I've heard many people say it today. I've also heard a lot of things I was going to say being said, so I just like to say that. One of all the question I really have is how is a fee on only fossil fuels, not incentivizing other carbon emitting fuels. So I don't, I don't understand that and I do think it's a really good idea to have a ballot question that allows voters to weigh in, even if it's difficult to understand but the question of whether or not to put a fee on non fossil fuels that emit greenhouse gases is not that difficult to understand so I support permitting that ballot question. Thank you. Thank you, Catherine. I phone Laura. I phone Laura. Guy can you state your name for the record. Can you hear me. I can. I'm Laura Simon. I do not live in Burlington. I worked for the city of Burlington for 14 years. These past 10 or 20 years I've been working on climate issues and to shorten my piece I will say that I support what Nick and Ashley and Greg have said and others. Part of how I got involved in this is I, I live close to Dartmouth College and they were considering a biomass plant and we gathered scientific letters from hundreds of scientists and it led Dartmouth to say they were not going to turn over into biomass energy and heating and I suggest that you pass tonight the simple proposal for the ballot to impose impact fee on non fossil fuel energy and possibly after that continue to work together on what more further steps the city can take. Thank you. Thanks Laura. Anybody left, Matthew. No. And we lost that earlier commenter. Okay. Is there anybody else in the room who's not spoken or signed up for public comment that wants to speak at public forum. Nobody seeing none. We will go and close public forum. Thank you for, thank you to our commenters. We're going to move on to our deliberate agenda and we just have one item on that agenda and that's the discussion of the carbon pollution impact fee that everybody's been commenting on. So, I guess I will kick it off by turning it over to other committee members for discussion. I know that we have some material that has been provided. So, I'll turn the gene restart. I know, first of all, I've been pretty good when I'm not talking, which I've had a six week serious coughing, which is really stinks. May you not get it. So, with that, as a preface, I'm going to appreciate both of my colleagues as well as Maddie as staff person and everybody else. Kelly Darren and everybody who decided that this was important enough that we could meet soon enough to have a discussion of the decision in time to get something if it is chosen to be on the ballot or not. First, I just want to thank you all for participating and for this scheduling. I think that from my perspective, I have heard the process questions. I have heard the uncertainty positions that have happened. I've even heard, believe it or not, how could you do this to us? We just settled business. That's something, all of those things I've taken very seriously. As seriously as I've taken the emergency, we will see an example of it tonight. The windstorm tonight is going to show us another example of why we need to get a handle on it. Both of the points, both of the resolutions that I have submitted to the agenda that I'm going to try to move to figure out how we can actually move them are based on hearing a lot of that, but also hearing the need to continue this essential work that we're doing to the greatest extent possible in the soonest amount of time to eliminate or greatly reduce emissions. As a result, although I have heard the argument, the complaint that said, well, what we did was settled. So we should just let the state process work out to respect the GVS. I, as a person who didn't support that in this committee, didn't support it at the council, let the Origins Committee do its thing, but it was clear where I was. I don't see that as being settled. And I don't think that anybody should think that the conditions in the world are going to allow anything to be quote unquote truly settled. I mean, so gross overstatement, but I think unless you're going to twist my words that you know what I mean, we're going to have to continue this process over and over again until we get to the emissions reductions that are going to allow this planet from heating, I don't know, over the two degrees Celsius that we're looking at right now. So with all that soap boxing behind me, I have, we've crafted and I've not done it by myself, so I thank the people that helped greatly. Two different resolutions. One for a March ballot item. This is the one that was labeled town meeting day. It's 1924 revised town meeting day resolution. It's the one that many people have focused on here in the comment. And then another one on the really the resolution that brought us here, which was looking at a different number of or subset of buildings, sizes of buildings, looking at a different fee structure, as well as looking at all the fuels, not just fossil fuels. And let me, I don't know how you want to approach it. So I have tried to break these things apart and you will see different time frames with them and processes for them. My memo gives a very general reasoning behind it and would be interested that I don't want to monopolize the time to go into why I think that it addresses the substantive concerns that are out there that I find to be valid and and compelling. So how would you like me to proceed? Would you like me to try to introduce as a motion, both of them for a serial consideration? I'd like to hear from. Okay. So anyway, I will see how she would like. Totally. So that's so, you know, I'm open to try to do that. We have two that are in the public record. And I would like personally for us to consider both of them. Is a single entity here? No, I'd like to take them up individually. Let's do that. I mean, if you're amenable. I think that's great. Yeah. So both of these are, I mean, do you want me to, do you want, well, so I moved to introduce the 1921 revised TMD 24 carbon fee ballot item resolution. These act as a package as a substitute of the original one that was referred to the committee. That's the way they are. So I would do the introduction of this for consideration. So that's been second. So do we want to go to discussion next? Yeah, yeah, let me let me be brief so that y'all can talk. There was a, there is a concern. I think I heard this tonight that district energy at McNeil may be subject to a fee if we move in this direction and this resolution on lines 95 and 96 make. I think it make it clear that it's not intended to authorize the city to oppose a carbon pollution impact beyond the McNeil district energy project. I would say that while I believe that it is implicit in this because voters are going to vote on the language itself. If they there was a sentiment that that be turned into a provision of the ballot matter, say on line 116 where we would go this ballot item, we would say is is not we would just add like from line 95. This ballot item is not intended to authorize the city to impose a carbon pollution impact beyond the McNeil district energy project. So I would be open to making that if there was thought that that was necessary. I gotta correct what a couple of people have said. What would go on the on the ballot is not an ordinance. We are not talking about an ordinance as other people have said that but let me just be because it obviously didn't sink in. This is just an authorization and it's an authorization for ceilings up to starting at up to 150 per ton. So there is a there are ways that we can deal with a fee. I think that it is what Nick said regarding the the state Affordable He act. We're going to be able to the structure this in a way that matches the the actual emissions impacts of a variety of fuels. And that includes if there is none not not imposing a fee at all the. The other thing that this does and that somebody mentioned their support of the prior one is providing existing building payers. The opportunity to use funds that are generated to do emissions reductions projects at their buildings and facilities. So that is included in this. It was not included in the resolution that I had put forward. As far as I can recall and I think that I might have at any rate it is included in in this one. I think it's important that we use available money to help people make the transition that that we're that we need to make. And I think that I'll end there with just saying I think it closes a loophole and that loophole in the original ballot authorization then impacted the debate that we had at our committee. You know you're going to allow it to impose a fee on that then you've got to go through this other more complicated thing. We'll wait for the state to deal with it that I hear was more complicated was was raised particularly with the ordinance committee. I felt that it was an overlay to our deliberations and this would close that. Thank you for listening for all this time. I didn't call this could be that the end of my sickness which would mean that I'm not affecting you all. I don't think which would be good. I didn't have a temperature. I think that I'll end up speaking longer later but I will be supporting. So I guess that brings us to me should be no surprise I have concerns. I did not support the referral of this the original resolution to committee. And my concerns then were that we had just passed on November 20 I think and ordinance that we haven't even really had an effect yet and I would really like to see for new construction. And buildings over 50,000 square feet to see that ordinance work for some period of time and then have a review of that ordinance and how it's work before we iterate and then make changes to it. Decarbonization of buildings but I do think we need to give some some predictability and some stability to those that are bearing the burden of our policy decision. So in the case of UVM and UVMMC who spent a lot of time as stakeholders in the conversations leading up to the ordinance creation process as Nick pointed out. We had three two meetings and three ordinance meetings after the stakeholder engagement and we came out with an ordinance that was that was a significant step forward in my view. Some talk about loopholes but I mean those were to sit conscious decisions they weren't like they were they weren't loopholes. And that those were intended to be in the ordinance because there was reasons to have those other fuels mostly around our alignment with state policy. So, I will I can't support this, and I should be no surprise in my colleagues, but I would like, and we haven't heard from Jennifer Springer and I'd like, and he doesn't know I'm going to ask him this but I'd like you to sort of offer some comments if you're willing to do so on whether if you have concerns or if you support this resolution, we have not spoken about that so. I appreciate it. We have the same concerns that I think we expressed at council during the referral discussion. I don't think there's really a particular substantive change. I think this has just been broken into two pieces. I would go back for anybody who's who's looking at it and go all the way back to the 2019 next year roadmap, which we develop along with Synapse Energy Economics speaks very specifically to the idea that we want to electrify, but we also need this repeat we also need renewable natural gas right there in print and that's the document that the city adopted by that 11 to one vote back in 2019. When we developed the current ordinance, VED and the Department of Permitting came to the council to seek permission to put an item on the town meeting day ballot. And we were very clear that we wanted a broad suite of renewable compliance options and the council voted to approve putting that on the ballot wasn't a loophole was an intentional choice. The ballot was placed the voters approved it and the ordinance was passed. The idea is we support electrification. We are the electric company. We count on that as our future business model for the ability to grow our sales and be a sustainable enterprise for the city. But we know from real world experience that electrification doesn't work in every instance that there are particularly for existing buildings a lot of distribution networks that are not compatible with electrification or geothermal at this point in time. And so having these different options was really critical to making the policy practical and affordable. You know the charter change refers to the carbon fee is an alternative compliance mechanism. It's not intended to be a tax. It's not intended to raise revenue. It's intended to be an alternative if somebody cannot comply and the more compliance options we can give the more likely they are to comply. And I would also argue that it is not you know it is not accurate to say that because something has emissions at some point in the process that we can put this type of definition on it. The state and every other entity that looks at these questions uses life cycle emissions analysis that means we have to look at all the inputs and everything involved to come up with a number. And so you can pick a point in time with a number of resources and say it's not carbon beneficial but we have to look at the life cycle. This is going to put us at odds with state policy in that regard potentially. So we have really significant concerns about this not to mention the process. I'm trying to speak to the substance process concerns aside. I don't believe this will help in our efforts to provide compliance options. I don't think it aligns us well with the state. And then as we go towards the conversation on going to the 25,000 square foot not buildings and I appreciated working with Kelly to try to figure out who those buildings are. I have really deep concerns about applying carbon to those buildings. If we think that this is a good tool in the toolbox for new construction I agree with that. We think it's a good tool in the toolbox for large existing buildings where we have entities that are doing capital planning, you know 15 years out 20 years out. I agree with that as well. I think that that was the idea here was when we look at the large existing buildings 50,000 square feet and up. We're talking primarily about Champlain College, the city, the school district, UVM, UVM medical, a few other large entities as well. These are institutions that can make planning decisions. If we put a carbon fee in place, they can plan around it if it's predictable. If there's stability around it, they can plan around it. And I think that that is a good way to go. If we're talking about a coffee shop downtown or a restaurant in the old North End, they have nowhere near the level of capital planning capacity that a UVM or a UVM medical has. And that's the difference between 25,000 and 50,000 square feet. So I'm not convinced that's the right policy tool. We haven't been given the opportunity to even study it and do the type of process with the stakeholders to engage them and learn what we don't know, which we had the first time. And I think it's possible that maybe that it's not a carbon fee that's the right tool, but it may be something else. It may not even be policy. It may be different incentive programs, for example, maybe we're not reaching them the way we need to. So I think presupposing that we need to apply the fee and draft the ballot question for those buildings is the wrong approach in my view. So I appreciate the opportunity to make those comments. Always respect the desire to make progress on climate, but we see this approach as not being the right approach. A couple of responses. This ballot item on the agenda and the resolution that we're talking about now doesn't change the ordinance. And in fact, it invites us to really be looking at how it's working and reviewing that. So what it does do is if we, in the course of this review, say we find some things pretty quick, around non-fossil fuel systems that are emitting greenhouse gases, we know the film list, that we would have already gotten the voter authorization to be able to deal with it. So this allows that deliberative process to occur the way that people want to do it and the way that can reflect the review and the analysis of how the existing ordinance work. So again, we cannot conflate an ordinance with a ballot authorization. All this does is allow us to move in a direction if the voters say so. And I just want to say with regard to the council voting, I wouldn't hear on the council in 2019. So I can't speak to that, but I was here when we put it on the ballot last time. I heard all of the problems that people were raising and why and them telling me to vote no. And I did not vote no. I didn't vote no because I said that I thought that we could come back. That let us do that and then we come back if we need to come back. And I was convinced in the adoption process and I am convinced now that we need to go back. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater was not a good idea then, but not tending to the baby when we have tending to do is not acceptable. So I don't buy that from a process standpoint being used against bringing this to the voters now. And again, in looking at all of the substantive arguments that I heard just raised. But I think he's my I consider him a friend there. He's not happy with me now hasn't been for a little bit. He was more happy with me the last time we had a big issue. I don't think that this takes anything away and is not in contradiction. In fact, he caught himself in saying potentially in conflict with state law. All right, this is what this allows us to do is to bring that state law into these deliberation. I argue that we shouldn't be doing by exceptions because the state law, which we're saying we have to rely on isn't in place and won't be in place until it's voted on in January of 2025. So I sort of feel that the state laws being used as a shield and a sword and I always object to to the use of that. And we can deal with this with the substantive arguments on the second resolution. But I think voters, Jason, I think was really eloquent. We should let the voters take a look at this. It's very clear that this is for non fossil fuels and we should have that. And again, I would be open if there was a feeling that this was not protective enough of the district heat, which I voted in favor of and I'm not trying to backdoor. You know, change that vote. You all know me. I'll do something straightforward. I will not do it in the backdoor kind of way. So I am open to that. If that is a substantive question that folks think makes this objection. Otherwise, if I don't hear that we should be adding that to it, then I got to say that if it comes up at the council or it's raised, otherwise it's just a red herring because we had a chance to fix it. We didn't decide that it shouldn't be. We decided that it should be fixed. So that's enough. I guess I would say that we shouldn't. I think if we ask the voters for authority, we should be doing it when we expect to using that. So even though it isn't an ordinance, I think that the the signal we were giving to those who might be affected by policy that we would create is that we have. And I think that even us raising this now so soon after we just passed an ordinance and had all the process leading up to the passage of that ordinance has created uncertainty and doubt on the part of we know you BMMC. And they've weighed in on this. So, I mean, I'm not saying it's settled, but I am saying it's, it's settled for some period of time that's, you know, that during which we would evaluate how the policy is working and review it. I don't think it's a finished product. I support car decarbonizations. I look forward to our discussions on that on the next resolution because I have some thoughts there as well. But we have, we have to be mindful of the effects of the policies we're making on on those they affect and I think several commenters spoke about that earlier. So I'll just, I'll just leave my comments there. Anybody else want to talk more. Go ahead. I mean, I will just say, like, we don't have time to just say that it's settled for right now, like, we can recognize the amount of work that went into passing the policy that we just passed, but the argument that just because we just passed something that we somehow like fulfilled our climate policy quota for the year. You can settle down and move on. I just don't think that's an appropriate argument to make in a discussion like this. I just don't really buy that. Okay. Well, we have a motion in a second. And I think our discussions over and I think so we can go about all those in favor. The motion is to move the town meeting day 2024 carbon pollution impact the ballot question. So I think that the one that I know this is this is the one it's the one that's that was on the it's on our agenda titled 1924 revised TMD 24 carbon fee ballot item resolution. So that's that's that's the one. All those in favor of moving that to the console. Which to against one. So that passes. Thank you. I'm often on the other. The one. It's a risk of the process right. You know, it's when there's three people. That's the idea. So with that vote, we'll move on to the next. Yes. And this one is entitled 1924 amended resolution implementation of a carbon pollution impact fee for new construction and large existing buildings and industrial buildings 25,000 square feet. I think it probably was the 50,000. It was too long a title. And so this recognizes the feeling that what I heard our process complaints and attempts to deal with it, although it does not do it for an endless period of time. But seeks simply to refer back to the council, the resolution that would then have them refer back to this committee. The task of drafting ballot language in terms of the authority to authorize the implementation of a fee for a larger set of Burlington building. So it does not specify a number to the authority to increase the fee above what is currently authorized. It does not set a number and the authority to apply the fee to any source of emissions that causes global warming with the same uses that we've got right now. The one that the one use that is different from the ballot item of 2023. It's taken out electrification of the city's fleet. And that is based on the conversations that we had to be adopted as part of the part of the ordinance. It calls for a public process that includes a whole list of people, everybody who is in this room who's speaking among others is, you know, is in one of the groups. So the idea is to include y'all and maybe I over spoke in terms of EGS, but you're invited to do so. And of course, and the big issue is to try to get it back for May 20, 2024. I would just say that if we're going to do this in time to be able to get on the August 30 on August 13 ballot, which was an item, which was a possibility that was posed when the arguments were made against the prior ordinance, not the one that we've just passed out, but the one that was going to be much more comprehensive when they say, well, we have these other elections in and we have one for the primary, we have one for the general, so August and November. So this targets that I would say that the end with in terms of these days will be something that necessarily is going to be practical has to, you know, match the work that was done. And no, no lesser item than the Joint Committees work on police oversight where we had a June deadline, and we ended up giving back a product in December. And we informed people that sometimes that happens. And but the fact that we had to meet a June deadline was important for us to understand and to try to meet. So I say that not to give away that that period of time, but this to say that I personally am realistic in terms of the work that can be done and also the work that we are asking our committee, and all of the, the people who have to interact with it to do. It's the fitting of a of an emergency and I thank the chair for really taking that to heart that this is very, very important. I think less. Yeah, I think that doesn't make a motion and I would move the introduction. The title should be changed. Oh, yeah. Oh, let us do that. Let's make it. Let's make the motion that just cuts this off after impact fee would just make it really short. So we have a motion in a second. We can do some additional discussion. Yeah, so thanks to everyone who spoke tonight and reached out about the topic prior. I look forward to all the dialogue that I know we'll have over the next couple of weeks and hopefully next couple of months. I will just largely share my support for the last amendment and current amendment and what that support is rooted in a few folks spoke about it, but I just want to reiterate that this is a first step. I think this opens up the ability for us to have more conversation at council level, which I feel is critical and is important to most issues and most policy. I represent a large number of young people, the largest community of young people in the city and specifically spoke and activists reach out to me daily to share their concerns and anxieties about the climate crisis. I'm the youngest serving serving person on the city council and ultimately they are the ones that elected me to represent them. And so I have really tried to center myself in that in the last couple of months. And I feel so I owe it to them to do whatever I can whenever I can to push climate action forward. And so that's why I go to the way that I did tonight. And I'm looking forward to continue to work with the full council. Thanks. So on this resolution. I share some concern around presupposing that the way to best decarbonize this net this other subset of buildings. 25,000 50,000 square feet. I share some concern that a carbon impact is a great way to do that. I'm not, I'm not saying it might not be, but I am saying that I think we need a lot more process we with the list that was provided by by Jim Springer and the way to buy the BBA. You know, there are, there are questions about the ability of those building owners to to absorb an impact the and whether, you know, and there may be other ways, whether it's a efficiency sense to to allow us to be So as I was when I offered amendments to the resolution that came to this committee that were rejected at the council level. I'm open to continuing a process to talk about decarbonizing those that subset of buildings 25 50,000 square feet, but I'm not supportive of us immediately assuming it's going to be a carbon pollution impact. So I'm not, I'm not sure if there's a way to square this. I was looking at the language that I had offered as a as an amendment to the resolution that came to the council. I don't know if you have that. I have it here. But that language, which would request being the permitting inspections economic policy review, how to best improve the climate climate policies already adopted by the council, including our pollution impact the ordinance that we passed on the 20th of November. And it also outlined a process that said that we would the review show include but not be limited to a review of Burlington's carbon fee and to the extent which is an alignment with the current social costs of carbon in the state of Vermont climate council and regulatory agencies. An assessment of the extent to which Burlington's carbon fee policy should be extended to existing buildings between 25,000 and 49999 and an update on the level that we're taking place under the state of Vermont's affordable heat at any similar sub climate policies established by Burlington surrounding communities. And so that's the that's the process that I could still be committed to supporting. I'm not sure if it goes far enough for the maker. It does not, although if we do not prevail at the council, if I do not prevail at the council, I will not ignore any opportunity to do that work that needs to be done. Right. And that's consistent. And I will pledge that that this offer sort of remains on the table. This is good for our children's children's children. Yeah. Personally, I think that this review, although it does speak to a fee. The uses allow for it with the uses of the homes of the fee. Many of the things that you were talking to, which is weatherization, which is included in that. I think that the process. Will be in, you know, could be an interesting thing that one of the differences between this and yours is this sets this with the tooth and sets it with the tooth to try to get city council action. And everything that you are suggesting on actually be could do right now. I mean, we can't without the council required them to do that. And even then that often isn't something that happens. But so, you know, these reviews I think should and can be conducted administratively. But this public process, I think will give us a give us a real opportunity to delve into the bigger subset of buildings and to do it in. I will admit a more measured way than the than the first proposal. So I see when Kelly talked and I thought that was great, you know, about the number of exempt buildings that are there, they have unique challenges. To be interested, I bet the type is really small. It's great that, you know, to blow it all up to go to all five pages like that. It was good. A lot of information there, but I know that the you is doing amazing job in a historic building. I think that it is decarbonized or perhaps or mostly decarbonized with that solar array and is is heating three other buildings as well as the meeting house. But there was a real commitment of which I was a part of their to make that happen. And not every other place has that capacity. So I think that this allows us to engage with them. And I look forward to that because that's what it's going to be all about. If I may, I'm going to also ask a gentleman or springer another question. But the date that is in the last result clause of this resolution is to come back to the city council. I think it's better than it's May 20 and 2020. Is that is that date seem like a reasonable amount of time to why I guess I'll let me rephrase it. What sort of public process could be run in that amount of time. We had a process. We have an example because in May of 2022, then Councillor Hansen did a resolution that task BED with doing number of the things that you just laid out relative to the current policy. We reported to the council in turn basis in July of that year and in December had a final report. So we had seven months of process roughly. We were required by the council to hold a public forum to engage with stakeholders to go and visit with every NPA and share our ideas. We engaged in multiple rounds of discussions with the building electrification institute. We met with the district 2030 members, which represent buildings within the city that are seeking to decarbonize on an aggressive time frame and are committed to doing that voluntarily and have a lot of expertise. We learned a lot of things about our assumption myself, Jen and Chris about what we thought might work and what might not work. That was a seven month process that we led with the Department of Permanent Inspection. This is obviously proposed to be led by the two. So it really is up to the committee, you know what level of process you would want to have we wouldn't be in charge of this one and it wouldn't be the same process that I think was outlined initially. It would certainly be dependent on the expertise and the Department of Permanent Inspection, so thank you. It looks like an aggressive timeline to me and that's sort of what I was sort of getting at. I raise that off, you know, right at the outset. I understand. And I will be open to if good work is being done to extending that because the idea is to get a product that is as good and fair so that we can get as much buy-in as possible. Because that is actually a big piece of what we have to do. So I recognize that until the times get close and I think it quits our nose to the grindstone. So if I could just raise one other item, just from BD, our capacity in this specific timeframe is going to be challenged in a couple different ways. This overlaps almost identically with the legislative session and there is a significant bill updating the state's renewable energy standard that we were engaged with as a legislative working group member. And the testimony is starting on Thursday and a number of the same people who would be involved in this type of work are going to be involved in that work. So we're going to be a little challenged in that regard. And we also have quite a bit of work that's been laid on us through the district energy resolution. So in addition to whatever differences there may be between the processes, I just want to be upfront and realistic about BD's capacity to engage in doing the things that we did last time over this type of timeframe. But I also understand and respect that we're not actually being asked to do that, but this is the two piece of the process. So I just want to be clear that we may not be able to offer the same level of resource that we've offered in the past. Thanks. Is any of the work that you're doing out of the state have a bearing on what we're looking at here? No. Okay. Different policy. Yeah. So I guess we can go to vote. I'll leave the motion inside Dan. All those in favor? Aye. I'll type O's. But open to further conversations depending on how this trigger is off. Thank you. And I guess that what I would like is for, and I think it's implicit that it go on the 16th, which would mean us sending this to, and I'm sending this to the city attorney and Lori, these resolutions. It would be best if it came from staff as with the two. Did you ask? I have not asked. Council President Paul. I did not. I did not presuppose any action tonight, but we can do that tonight. I said, that would be great. So that means that we've completed our work. Councilor Adams. Councilor Adams. Councilor Adams. Councilor Adams. Councilor Adams. I think that starts at six. Okay. So if we can have that night. Do we want to move it a little bit to make sure we can? Time wise? Yeah. This is what I got. Yes. Okay, so we would change this to one time. I'm suggesting we can change. We want to move it up. I could move it as early as four. Okay, let's move our meeting on the 23rd to four to staff and support us. I will have to confirm that we can have the meeting space at that time, but it shouldn't be a problem. It's been kind of fun moving around. Okay, well thank you everybody without any further business, I would adjourn us at 651.