 Hello everybody. Welcome to the December meeting of the Ward 5 NPA. It's just about seven o'clock right now. So welcome everyone to whether you're at the Pine Street DPW office or you're joining virtually. We're really glad that you can be here with us tonight and we're going to start it right about now. So I share my screen which is just kind of a little bit of an introduction on what's going on with the NPA. This is our pretty slick graphic that we had a local Ward 5 graphic designer put together. If you see it around, that's us. It's got our we have signs. We have a website, NPA5.org. Check out any of them. The website is kind of in an earlier stage, so we're hoping to expand out what's offered in it. And you can find that on any of the signs that are throughout our ward. It actually does a pretty good job of kind of demarcating what the boundaries are. So we're going to start out with just introducing some guiding principles on what the NPA is and how we're hoping to conduct this meeting. The NPA is really a pretty diverse thing in terms of its role in city government. It stands for the Neighborhood Planning Assembly and really the goal is to be a community space, a community meeting that is accessible, respectful. It's a safe space for all members of the community. It's vital in that it is fun, creative that we do different things, but that we're also bringing in perspectives of local officials and neighbors that have interesting perspectives to bring as well. And then at the end of the day, we are also a nonpartisan organization, so no endorsements of political candidates as well. It's just a little bit of an introduction to us as my name is Nate. I'm on the steering committee. We're joined by several of the steering committee members tonight, both in the room and virtually, and we'll actually be having some steering committee elections later in the day. So depending on the results of those, if you watch this meeting and you say, man, I really want to get involved, you can join us. It's been a really great group the past few years that I've been on it and I'm excited to kind of keep going through it. So if that is something that's interested to you and whether you want to join tonight or in the future, keep it in mind because we're all just neighbors. We're all members of the community. There's no real career because it's in joining. And it's a great way to get involved at a really local level. And I would be remiss to say that we are thankfully supported by the folks at CEDO. We're joined not by Ethan tonight, but by Sam, who is the new CEDO NPA representative and we're joined by Charlie, who is filming for CCTV. And he has always been excellent at doing so. So thanks to both of you for being here with us tonight. This is kind of just the logistics of how to participate in this virtual format. Folks that are in the room, if you'd like to comment at any time, both during this public forum period or during any of the presentations at the requested questioning time. If you're in the room, just raise your hand, say who you are. First and last name, ideally. If you're on Zoom, use the raise hand feature. And I will kind of look through the audience and try and create a stack based on that. So we've been in Zoom world for a while. So I'm sure you all know that etiquette at this point. And I believe we have the chat function today. Chat function is on. All right. No, I think it's not on. Chat function is not on. So we're going to skip this slide. Yeah. Well, you had said, I don't know if we have the email address on here, but you would have to give us some time, but you could preload a question by emailing our group. And I think our email address is actually in the agenda, just since we don't have it written down here, you could look at that. Yeah. For the sake of note, it is ward five NPA underscore BTV at Google groups.com. It's a little bit of a mouthful, but that's what we've got. So with that, we're going to get moving into our public forum. This is the opportunity for folks to just kind of bring any sort of business that they would like to during this time. As you are going, please just be conscientious of time. We have this block set for 20 minutes. So thankfully we can get to a lot of folks, but please have maximum five minutes, but even shorter would be great. So I will open up public forum period now and stop sharing my screen so that I can see names and hands. Recording in progress. There it is. Sound problem dealt with. So anybody that would like to participate in the public forum now is your chance, whether you're joining in person or remotely, please just raise your hand or use the raise hand function of reality is raising your hand. And now is the opportunity to do so. Start off with Andy. I would yeah, please introduce yourself. My name is Andy Simon. I live on Locust Street. I'm here at this moment, not as a steering committee member, but just as a south end resident and as a member of a group called Save Open Space Burlington. And we are right now engaged in a campaign to advocate for a public space in the what's known as the Pine Street Bards Canal, which is a super fun site and adjacent properties, some of which is now public, some of which is private. We would like, we are we started a petition which now has 410, 413 signers at this point. And we are urging the city to work toward conserving the land at the Pine Street Bards Canal for a public space, for recreation, for education, for laboratory of research on remediation and regeneration of that damaged land. For those of you that don't know the Pine Street Bards Canal, which is just down the street here, actually we're part we're in a building that is part of the federal superfund site right now where we are sitting. And that this superfund site extends north from here and has a history of toxic waste. It's the site of a manufactured gas plant that didn't close until 1966. And most of the waste from that plant was dumped sort of outback. And outback was the wetland that was right behind the manufactured gas plant, right adjacent to Lake Champlain. And so there are in the soil and in the water what the EPA considers identifies as 56 contaminants of concern, including such non innocuous contaminants as coal tar, benzene, arsenic, cyanide and other heavy metals. That land has essentially been left alone, since the EPA was stopped was prevented by citizen action in 1992 from creating a giant toxic above ground toxic waste dump that was proposed to be 13 acres 25 feet high and sit right next to Lake Champlain. Your fellow citizens in 1992 said no way. And the EPA for the first time ever was forced to back down on their superfund remedy and create a council also for the first time ever of citizens of interested parties of stakeholders who spent five years coming up with a better remedy. That remedy was essentially to cap the soil under the water in the barge canal and leave the rest of it alone and monitor the various toxins that are in the soil. That's been going on since 1998. There's quite a bit of pressure now especially on the private land to develop it and there has been all along. There's even more pressure now because there will be funds coming in from the federal end of things to help promote brownfield revitalization. So we're saying that development of this land, we should be thinking about development of this land differently. We should be thinking about it in terms of regenerating the soil, regenerating the water and remediating in a natural way. And that that can be done when the land is in the public domain and we can start getting partners for that. So please sign the petition. It will be in the minute of this meeting thanks to Lucia Campriolo. And we appreciate your signature and your support. Thank you. Thank you, Andy. Still in the public forums period, I am seeing a hand raised by Representative Gabrielle Sevens. So Representative Sevens, the floor is yours. Thank you. So to tail off of Andy's overview, Representative Blumlee and I have had the good luck of having a UVM intern who is going to be able to assist on this project. And so, you know, please don't be fearful to get involved because we do have someone who is able to spend time and energy on this no matter what it may look like moving forward. And I just want to say also really happy to be here. You'll notice it's just me, not Representative Blumlee is also. We're entering the phase where there's a meeting or two every night. So we're going to start to tag team again. But I will likely go off camera so I can have dinner with my kids. But I'm here and listening. And as always, please reach out. And especially if you're interested in what Andy was just talking about, we do have a great UVM student who's going to be with us January through May or actually it's really January through end of April to help sort of take whatever ideas that have a lot of energy behind them from folks who are interested in this and to put some time and effort into making those ideas move forward to the next step. So thank you. Yeah. Thank you, Representative Stevens. And would you be willing to send to the NPA group just to contact information for, oh, can you hear me? Can you hear me now? Yeah. Let me check with the intern first. I think we have our first meeting with her on Saturday at 1.30. But I want to make sure that that's okay first. Sure thing. That works for us, certainly. Thanks. All right. Well, thank you for joining again. And we are still in our public forum period. I know that we also had set aside some of this time to be joined by our current CDBG committee Representative Nancy Stetson. I guess my only question on that, is there any chance that there are thoughts that it could be a combination of open land and development? My biggest concern as a taxpayer in ward five is our property taxes and how unaffordable it has become for some of us to live here. There's people coming into my neighborhood and buying a house for $550,000 without a drop of a hat. They're paying cash. They're not worried about property taxes. I work in childcare and my spouse is on disability. So for my taxes to go from $8,000 to $11,500 in one year is really unaffordable. The only way I can do it is to continue to take out home equity loans every year to pay my taxes. I want to see what are we going to do to get more, like, take the burden off the homeowners. And like I said, I'm surrounded by people who don't... I'm not saying my house isn't worth what they're saying it's worth. It probably is. But the house that I bought for $159,000 that I could afford to live in as a childcare provider is very good here. I can post value now and the only way I'm going to be able to sustain living in my house is to continue to take out home. So, I mean, I think development and I'm not crazy about... I don't even know how the heck they would develop that with all the problems. Maybe they can't. But I'm just trying to figure out, where else can we get some money in the city besides property tax owners? Thank you for your comment. And I guess just a point of information. March Canal site is only one of the parcels on that strip stretch of Pine Street that is relatively open. And just as a kind of interesting coincidence, the mayor actually released... I don't know exactly what it's called, but a housing action plan for the South End, if not today, within the last 48 hours or so, that kind of touches on some of this information. So, I would definitely recommend anybody look at that piece. It kind of touches on a lot of the things that we've talked about so far, both in terms of the March Canal and the larger open space that's on Pine Street, open space, parking lots, same deal. But so thank you for your comment. And with that, are there any other? And I see one from Ben. So Ben, the floor is yours. Thanks, Nate. And my name is Ben Travers. And yes, I think the housing plan was released today. And so I think we should all be digging into that. So quite a bit to go through and a lot that touches on the South End as well. I live on South Crest Drive with my family of five. We've lived here for most of the past decade. And I've been coming to NPA meetings for a good chunk of that. This is my fifth year on the steering committee. And I joined the steering committee and the NPA because I love our community. There's a lot that's great about the South End, the businesses down Pine Street, the activity, the artists, the makerspaces. But I think really what makes the South End special is our community and all the folks that come to these meetings and otherwise. That's why I'm here. It's why I also serve as the Chair of the Parks Commission. Andy, I was glad that you came to our meeting the other night to speak about Save Open Space. It's why when I was a tenant in the South End first, I was on the housing board of review. And I'll keep this brief because I know there's going to be a lot of time to talk about issues beyond this. But upon hearing our Ward 5 City Councilor, Chip Mason would be retiring from his position. I've decided to give it a go and run for the city council seat from Ward 5. I'll be seeking the Democratic nomination at the caucus this Sunday. I'm hoping this campaign can focus on issues like housing and affordability, child care. And I'm particularly passionate about the parks where I think we're going to hear from Sophie tonight. And I was down at Oakledge today for the reopening of the Greenway in Oakledge and the universally accessible ramp down to the beach there, which I recommend that folks go and check out. But I'm sure there will be time to talk about the issues. I just, this has been a relatively fast-moving development in my life and that of my family. And I've seen a lot of candidates come to the Ward 5 NPA and announce their candidacy here. And I guess now it's me who's saying that to you folks. And so I really am excited to talk about the issues. But more than that, I'm excited to hear from, listen to and engage in conversation with neighbors. And so whether after this meeting or moving forward, I would welcome anyone to reach out to me at BenTravers at gmail.com. I have a Facebook page getting up and running or BenTravers.com is my website. And would love to hear from you. I'm looking forward to talking to folks. Thanks. Thank you, Nate. We're getting kind of close to the end of our public forum period. Would anybody else like to bring anything up as part of the public forum? If not, I will pass it over to Nancy. Nancy, floor is yours. Billy is actually raising his hand, but it's off camera. Oh, so Billy has his arm upon something. Okay. No, my arm's just propped. Nancy can go right in. Never mind. The floor is on you. No worries. Okay. So hi, everyone. I am Nancy Stetson. I live up on Locust Street. And I was asked to come here to talk a bit about my work on the CDBG board. If you don't know, CDBG is the Community Development Block Grant, which is funding from the federal government given to local municipalities primarily to fight poverty. And so I was on the board for two years and I had a whole list of all the places we gave our money to. But generally, the board meets, I think, three times total each year and decides where this money should be spent. It's split up generally into public service grants and development grants, and it's given to all sorts of organizations in the city. So in 2020, we gave out about $70,000 to public services and I think $300,000 to development and development grants. In 2021, it was sort of a strange year because there was enough money for all of the grants that wanted to be funded. And so we actually didn't have much of an advisory role because we just said, yes, you should give them the money. But I think in a normal year it involves, and in 2020 what it involved was working as a group to decide which grants were worth funding and at what level. So my two-year term is up and it sounds like the city needs someone from this ward rather soon, like by January 18th. So I don't know how that would work if we need to nominate someone to go like right now. But yeah, I think the steering committee have been talking about it and we received interest from multiple people. So we're thinking about actually just holding a special meeting specifically for going on that. So to do the proper warning for it, I think we're going to do one on around January 13th. I think it was kind of the approximate day to meet that January 18th deadline. The regular meeting is two days after that. We would have done it at our meeting on the 20th, which is a plug for our next month, everyone, but that didn't meet that deadline. So we're looking at holding a special meeting specifically just for the appointment of that position on Thursday, January 13th in pencil. Figure out the specifics of that shortly. But if anybody is still interested in that, do reach out to us just so that we can kind of get a sense of how many people are interested. Like I said before, we have multiple so far. And I am seeing that Lucia is raising her hand. So Lucia, it's all you. Thanks. Hi, everybody. And thanks for your patience as I jump back into public forum following Nancy. I am note-taking. My name is Lucia Capriela. I'm on the steering committee of the Ward 5 NPA and often I'm on Zoom and I'm taking notes and multitasking to access links and email addresses and all kinds of great content that everyone is sharing. And so apologies for missing the cue to jump in and share similar news to Ben Travers, which is that I am planning to, I am running, I've launched a campaign to run for Ward 5 School Board Commissioner. The seat that Mike Fisher, who's here with us tonight, and going to share an update about Burlington High School is vacating. And I'm really excited about the opportunity to throw my hat in the ring. Burlington schools are essential to our community. And I am really looking forward to opportunity to contribute my passion and my experience in this space, hopefully. And so specifically, I'm interested in educational equity as well as the future of Burlington High School. So I'm especially interested in Mike's update today. And there's been some really helpful and great coverage just in the past 24 or 48 hours, but to help navigate decisions that really will impact all of our students and our entire community for generations to come. And so just a word about myself. I'm a parent of two young children. I live in the South End. I live on Lyman Avenue. I have lived in the South End for about six and a half years now. I have been part of the steering committee of the Ward 5 MPA for the past several years and have had great fun, as Nate mentioned. As Ben mentioned, Andy, Billy, Scott, I think is here with us as well. Joe, having a good time with this crew in this role and have also served on the board of directors of Generator, which is a makerspace right around the corner on Sears Lane, and also on the Vermont Association for the Education of Young Children, which is a statewide membership organization that supports early childhood educators. Professionally, I work at Let's Grow Kids, where I advocate for equity, affordability, and quality in Vermont's child care system. And more broadly, over the past couple of decades, my career has spanned philanthropy, advocacy, and policy with a through line in supporting children and vulnerable populations. So I am committed to this community and to my neighbors. And I would really be honored to serve in the capacity of Ward 5 School Board Commissioner. And I look forward to connecting with each of you individually along the next several weeks, as Ben and I campaign together for these two important roles. Thank you, Lucia. And thanks, as always, for taking notes tonight. And I'm sure that you'll put your contact information in there for folks that are interested in following up. This is also a plug for anybody else that's interested, the NPA, great opportunity to get involved in civic life before running for office. So it's just a plug if you're interested in joining the steering committee either tonight. Yeah, did I say that backwards? No, but in your case, I think it's absolutely true. So with that, we're looking at closing up our public forum period, kind of circling back on the CDBG piece. We'll have some information in the agenda about what that process looks like, and we'll be sure to publicize when that special meeting is. Like I said, looking at January 13th, that's in pencil right now, but we will be sure to get that information out to folks. And with that, I'll pop over to the agenda briefly just to kind of show where we are at. We are just about on schedule because the next piece is very short. And take a look at our snazzy website, everybody, npa5.org. That's where you can find this. I feel like I'm a used car salesman right now for the NPA. So just with that, we're going to move over to what we've called just an invitation to help shape the Word 5 programming for the next year. Really, what we're always trying to do is just kind of innovate the way that this body meets and that it's continuing to meet the needs and interests of our neighbors throughout Word 5 and the south end and the city at large. So we really want to make sure that this content is, the content of these meetings meets what you actually want to see and that you come out for either virtually or in person on the third Thursday of every month. So we're going to be actually putting out this Google forum. It's very simple. It's just an opportunity. We've chosen some potential topics that just came off the cuff in our minds as potential things we'd like to see. But there's also, here's just some opportunities talking about some of these come from previous meetings that we had in the past two years. Public health, food insecurity, housing and homelessness, south end arts and business. And there's also an opportunity for folks to share anything that's not on this list. And maybe that very well could be the gap that we missed and that would be a great meeting. As well as just providing people the opportunity to just tell us, if you did this, the NPA would make a meaningful difference in our lives and providing a chance for folks to get connected to us for future events, whether they be these monthly meetings or anything else. So that's it. It's a really quick forum. We're largely going to be putting it out on front porch forum. But you will see it in the near term. And we hope that anybody that is interested in these things and would like to see something at a meeting that whether it's been done before or you'd like to see it for the first time, we're really open to feedback and we'd like to see how we can best meet whatever your needs or desires are. So that's the end of that topic. I told you to be quick. We're moving right over to the next topic, which is a steering committee election. A lot of internal stuff today at the NPA. As I was mentioning before, we're doing an election tonight. Our bylaws, which we amended in August of 2020, allows for up to nine members on the steering committee. We currently have seven. We've had some folks move out of town and we sorely miss them. And we're looking to get some more folks who are interested in joining the steering committee. My pitch to anybody, it's a relatively low commitment. It's these monthly meetings as well as just a once monthly steering committee meeting as well. So if you are interested in joining the steering committee, now is your chance. We have two open seats. So this is an opportunity whether you've planned on this or not, we can take some nominations from the floor and you can even nominate yourself. So this is a great chance to practice that raise hand function if you are interested in it. So with that, I'll just open it to the room. And I see one hand behind me. So why don't you come on up to a microphone? You can take my seat. Awesome picture. Hello, everyone. My name is Chloe Lamarche. I'm a lifelong resident of Ward 5. I went to Champlain just down the road. And I am looking to join the steering committee because I think it's important to serve a community just giving me so much. The last NPA meeting I attended, I was selected to serve with Greg Scheppler on the redistricting committee. And through that, I've really enjoyed the process in working with Greg and wanting to learn more about our community and how to serve it best as a resident here. So I would appreciate any support that would be given to me. And I look forward to working on the steering committee and serving our community. So thank you all. And I'm nominating myself unless there's a nomination on the floor. Thank you, Colby. So like I said before, we have two open seats available. If anybody else would like to join the steering committee, now is a chance to do so. And now is the chance to nominate yourself, nominate a friend, nominate a loved one, maybe don't nominate someone that doesn't know you're nominating them. But I'll nominate myself. Oh, fantastic. Would you like to say anything about it, Nancy? Sure. Well, is it Colby? Colby actually reminded me that I also was on the last redistricting committee and was at my first foray into civic life in Burlington. And I now work for the city of Burlington as a policy and data analyst. And I'm just interested in seeing this community thrive. And so I'd love to be part of the planning process. Well, thank you, Nancy. So that's two. But we can take more nominations. We would put it to a vote if that was something that more folks are interested in doing. We have the staff on hands, staff as volunteers. We have staff too, but the volunteers would be doing it to do an election. So is anybody else interested in nomination for a vacancy on the steering committee of the Ward 5 NPA? I don't know if you mentioned this, but the regular all seats are up in either the March or April meeting, depending on how we can pull that together, probably in April. So that's our regular schedule is just we're just filling in because we've had departures. And other steering committee members, I'm just curious, are excellent. Other committee members who are running for elected positions, is that something they'll have to step down from the steering committee or can they concurrently serve as school board and city councillors if their elections go successfully? So I think, Ben, you told me earlier today, you didn't think the city councillors would be able to be an NPA member? No, okay. But he is at five years anyway. So that's what I was actually going to say, Billy, is that if folks are thinking about it and they're interested, but they don't want to make the commitment tonight, regardless of what happens with my Lucius races, I'm in my fifth year on the steering committee and our bylaws capped me out. I cannot run again. So there will be at least one current steering committee member who does not run again. And if I were lucky enough to gain the support of the community for city council, I don't think I would do both. And I don't know if I could speak for Lucius, but I certainly will keep coming to these meetings though, as I suspect Lucius would as well, not to call and tell her, but I think Charlie corrected me too. So in case we're writing these things out, you can do both if you want to. Thank you all for the clarification. I'm seeing no other hands. So I think that we can skirt by without an election tonight. Thankfully, so much logistics saved. And welcome Nancy and Colby to the work five NPA steering committee. It's very exciting. I'm very excited to work with. I may be wrong, but I have a feeling that we need to confirm that by a vote anyway. You can say you had to accept this later. Doesn't have to be a paper ballot, but we could. I would like to, I would like to move that we accept the the candidacies of Nancy and Colby and approve them by acclimation. Second that motion. I think it's just an eye and maybe I don't know if it's raised hands on the on the Yeah. Yeah. So I think that that works. So I'll all in favor on zoom. Please raise your hands to say I and I guess folks in the room can do it too. And we can just do a quick show of hands. Hi, I over the eyes. Thanks for, thanks, Scott, for the All right. Well, as I was saying before, congratulations to you both. And I'm excited to work with you over the next year and anybody else that's in the audience right now. As we said before, March, April, there will be some more vacancies. So if you're thinking about it, we'd love to have you. And with that, we are spot on for our first non NPA business tonight, which is to be joined by the parks planner Sophie Swab, who is going to be giving us an update on some of the projects that are going on in word five, specifically Callahan Park, Perkins Pier and the Greenway reopening at Oakledge. So, Sophie, the floor is yours. And do you have anything that would need to be shared or do you have? Yes. Yes, I'd love to share screen. I think I'm allowed to. So I'll do that and see what happens. Which is a good sign. And there it is. The floor is yours. All right. Can you still see it? I just want to move it over so I can see it better. Okay, awesome. Well, thanks for having me here tonight to give you an update on these three major projects that have been ongoing within my team for the last, well, long time for some of them. And then the last year for Perkins and Callahan. As many of you may know, we just recently, this month had our last public meetings for Perkins and Callahan's planning studies. And I'll give a quick summary of those two projects. But I would encourage for additional details or deep dives to go to our project webpage, which I'll provide on the last slide. And then I'll give you an update on the Greenway. We did reopen Oakledge Park today. But there's still some work ongoing at the realignment, just so everybody knows the status of that. And I'll hopefully have some time for questions. But there's a lot of information and slides, but hopefully I can get through them. And you can always send me an email or give me a call if you want additional information. So for Perkins Peer, the project started in January of this calendar year. And we hired a team of consultants to address the project goals, which was to unify the water and land side of the park and to look at the amenities that are there, that needed improvements and could potentially add to economic development in terms of, as you know, many of our marina and or water parks that are adjacent to the water, they bring in some revenue to the city. So how can we enhance that, not make it unaffordable, but just make it a better experience for everybody, especially if you're paying for something there. So in terms of the schedule, just to zip through it, the team did site inventory and analysis January, February, we had a public meeting in March to collect ideas of what's working at Perkins, what's not working, what would people like to see improved there. Then we developed the plan for, it seems like a long time, but while we were developing the plan and options of what the vision for Perkins could look like into the future, we realized that because it's so water side, not dependent, but there's a huge portion of the project is in the water. We also did a marina capacity study at the same time for all of Burlington's waterfront to understand what are the needs, et cetera, boaters, both small craft and larger craft, and then integrating that into the work. And then we had our third public meeting to show the vision for the future of Perkins. So just to give an overview, the constraints of the site, basically the red-ish color are the areas that are fixed that we, we, and the, oh sorry. We can't see what you are referring to on the screen. Oh, it's not, so it's not switching? No, we're just seeing the entry slide. Oh, that's weird. Okay, let me see if I can do something about that. Sorry about that. No, that's okay. I thought it was an intro. I don't know how to pop out of that. Let me see how I'll share. I'll just fill a quick minute of space as the notepaker of the steering committee that there, all of these resources are linked on the city's website and will be included in the minutes, but it's a ton of rich information that's pretty easily accessible. So we'll make sure that we include that detail. I'm not sure why it's not showing. Can you bump me from sharing screen to see if I can reshare it? I'm not able to get out of it for some reason. Sorry about that. There we go. Let's see if we'll try again. All right. Is that now on a different slide? Yes, it is. There we go. Thank you for letting me know. No worries. All right. So the areas of Perkins that both the public and staff, both from pup parks and the rest of the city, larger city team that felt some areas were fixed are in the red and the blue were flexible in terms of we could look at them as maybe they're not in the right position on the site or maybe they need to be addressed in terms of how they work with other parts of the site. But there are definitely pieces that we couldn't think about moving, i.e. the slips of the marina. The views out from Perkins was a strong sentiment that was put forward by many members of the public in terms of that just the grandeur of arriving at Perkins and seeing the sunset. And then of course to the south we have the wastewater treatment plant and the wastewater treatment plant is also potentially needing to expand and the only place they can expand is onto Perkins, which is they have the first right of refusal that's per the deed that we were given. And then we were looking at building uses. As you may know, the Lyman building was flooded during Irene. So it's in need of basically of a new, we need a new building essentially to serve the public there. And then there are a lot of uses that aren't in the current building and that was definitely expressed by both staff and the public in terms of shop space to work on on water side crafts, offices there for staff that work on the waterfront and then restrooms and showers for boaters and the public just generally using the site and then the potential for a partnership on the site, which would mean there would be more of a presence there at all times and then small cross George was also heard. And then in terms of marina capacity study, the image to the left is what's existing. The image to the right is what's the potential in terms of growth for because every year there's at least 100 or more boaters that are on just Perkins wait list for different kinds of slips. And so the demand is definitely there. It's not to say we should build out to this extent, but just to say this is what where the potential is of the waterfront. And so the consulting team and our teams work together to develop two concepts that were presented to the public. We turned one the outlook, the other the promenade. The red line is the greenway going through. As you know, the greenway has shifted west because of the tracks coming in for Amtrak. And so currently it comes through the site as a long-term temporary solution and then connects to the path that's in the front of the benches along the waterfront. But this outlook would propose kind of jetting it a little bit back, but still connecting it to the water and then coming back to the north. The building on the north side would be a staff building or BPRW building. And to the south would have been a partners building with the red space being placecape area. And then just looking at not a beachfront, but more of a how do we launch small crafts, personal crafts like kayaks, canoes from Perkins, as well as accommodating the boaters that are there. And then the promenade had more of a connection east-west along the main spine, or it's also the Maple Street right away down the middle, bringing you to the green space on the west side, excuse me, or the pier. Similar ideas about the buildings up to the north and to the south, additional slips in this area, a placecape, same idea in terms of not a beach, but more of a small craft access. And this was where they were proposing to relocate the boat launch area. So one thing to keep in mind with the previous slide is showing that the wastewater treatment could expand into this area. So this would eventually potentially be lost. So in terms of the two options, we presented that to the public in May. This is just a slide to show kind of the summary of what happened. There were over 50 people that attended. We answered several questions and 85% of the attendees were from Burlington. We presented the process and the outreach to date, the scale and the concepts that I just quickly went through. And then pursuant to that, we also launched a survey so that more people could be reached about their opinions about the future of Perkins Pier with eight questions and 81 individuals answered the survey. So in terms of the preferred scheme, what came to be was more of what we call a Frankenstein or the two options that were presented. There was definitely a strong feeling for the promenade, the kind of connection down Maple Street. So when you're coming down, you could see out in that direction, especially walking or cycling, flexible uses of these areas at the pier tip, an extension of into the water for both the public and also for securing the dinghies of voters that are in the moorings. And then protected area for small crafts to be launched down an accessible path or connection here. And then the greenway was coming through like one of the concepts that was presented. So that we're still kind of connecting with the water, not just jutting along the wastewater treatment plant area where it was previous to this year's construction. And then a parking lot that is paved so that the striping, et cetera, could be more efficient in terms of revenue, but also delineating space for everyone. And then there's shade structures and a public facility here and the operations team building up here so they could work on from the water, essentially. And just keeping in mind this is a footprint that the wastewater treatment plant could grow into the site. So when we were working on the final scheme, just keeping in mind what we were putting in here wasn't the hugest investment into Perkins Pier into the future. In terms of cost, we were looking at just the, this is just a breakdown of what the anticipated cost is to implement each, all the pieces of this puzzle from 29% for marine improvements, 20% buildings, et cetera, just to kind of get a sense of where things would lie. And then keeping in mind that to enable any of this work to happen, there's a few things that are the back of our minds. Here we have removed the boat launch. So it would require for us to upgrade the Coast Guard ramp at the north of Waterfront Park. There is dredging that's severely needed in the area. We currently have problems as early as July. I was told by waterfront staff this year where they have to move, start moving boats to areas where the dredging hasn't been a prop or the lack of dredging hasn't been a problem. As we all probably know, the soil at Perkins Pier is questionable because it was more of an industrial area. And we know from prior investigations that there is definitely not clean soil. We need to do survey and citing studies. And then, of course, there's permitting and then considering disruption to the greenway, et cetera, during the implementation phases. There are several scenarios we're thinking of in terms of implementation. And this is not in any particular order. One would be the realignment of the greenway. It's currently already realigned, as I mentioned, for long-term temporary use. But this could be something we could implement sooner than later. The promenade is another piece we could take on in the shorter term, as it's more of a green scape, which we already have in most of this area, but not in this on the eastern side. The waterfront pieces, as much as it would take a few pieces to be moved around within Perkins, it's still something that could be done independently and not as disruptive because there's nothing in terms of structures in the water yet there. And then the parking and partner buildings would be another way to start looking at implementation. That's a quick summary of that, of Perkins Pier. And then I don't know if it's easier to pause after that or to go and continue talking about Callahan and then answering questions at the end, maybe. Yeah, is there one that you would prefer? I mean, it would be, if you'd like, we can take a moment to take some questions on. Yeah, let's do that. Yeah, with Perkins for the moment. So let's see, let me get up my screen. Does anybody have any questions about the piece on Perkins Pier? Again, just raise your hands. Yeah, I see one from Nancy in the room. Hi, Sophie. I know from following the Callahan Park work that there's not actually money in the budget to fix Callahan Park in its entirety right now. So I'm wondering if that same thing applies to Perkins Pier. Will you actually be able to start work on this soon? No, you're correct. It's the same scenario for Perkins Pier. It's a planning study so that we know when we're implementing parts of our capital plan, say like for Callahan, the next part we have funding for is the playground. We know we're putting it in the right location. Same thing for Perkins Pier. If someone were to come and say, I have $100,000, where do I put it in Perkins Pier? We know where to direct them. So the planning has to come before all these little other pieces that we're trying to implement. And from a budgeting perspective, so that when we're planning out the capital plan, we also have an idea of what that cost might be as well. That makes sense. So no, we don't have funding to implement. It's more of a visioning so that we're doing these pieces at the right time and with the right amount of money really. The next hand I saw was from Tree Spalding. Tree, you are welcome to unmute yourself. My question is, I hadn't heard about the possibility that the water treatment plant would be moving northward. What are the chances of that happening? They're pretty good. I'm not as versed in the reasons for the wastewater treatment plant moving north, but the increased businesses, the increased in population in Burlington have all put pressure on the wastewater treatment plant. And they're looking at at least the first, I forget right now the term of the round structures. The one is envisioned within the next few years. And then the other is it's more of a 30 year plan. But the possibility is very much there for the expansion. That sounds terrible. Even now where they're located, you go down there on a lot of days and it just smells so terrible. Couldn't they move the other direction or something? No, in the other direction, there is no land. Essentially, you have roundhouse and then from that point forward, south is the barge canal. So there is no room for expansion and to the east is owned by the rail. So this is city owned property and it's actually owned by the wastewater. Hmm. It's not going to be a very pleasant place if they're moving north, but I guess whatever. Thank you. Do you have any other any other questions about Perkins? I had a question. Yeah, I was thinking about the whole building that's next to the playground there. And I was wondering relative to the size of that building, what was this new building going to be much larger than that or about the same footprint? It would probably be a bit larger. We're hoping to accommodate partner organizations in there, if possible. So that, for example, a partner that could help facilitate the use of both water, you know, crafts, small crafts or the bike path in that sense. So it would be a bit bigger and also to accommodate storage for small crafts, as well as showers and a bit of storage on that end. So it would be a bit bigger. Does that answer your question? Yeah, I mean, I had, I wanted to ask about the boat launch a little bit too, even though I'm not a boat owner. It sounded like, would you say that we're not going to have any launch there for trailer boats at all or was it just not going to be able to accommodate the largest boats? No, there wouldn't be a boat launch there at all. Because there's already the Coast Guard launch to the north, the study really looked at do we need the two for one, but also that the current boat launch would require a lot of repairs because it's already problematic for boats to launch from there. It's not deep enough and the way that the property lines end up, it's hard for boats to navigate out of there and into the into the lake. So it was seen as a better option to improve the facility to the north, remove that from Perkins Pier and focus on other aspects of supporting the boating community from Perkins Pier rather than just the launch. Yeah, sure. Thanks. Yeah, I'll take another look at the plan because I'm wondering what that would do with the trailer parking and whatnot too, but taking up too much time now. I'm looking forward to seeing that Parks and Rec logo on the aerial photo soon. Oh yeah, it does look like that. Oh wow. The more you know. Thanks Joe for that part. That happened quite organically I'll have to say, but yeah. Yeah, you can't even tell unless you look too close. All right, seeing no other hands on Perkins. Okay. And do you see the CalHan Park? Okay, yes. Thank you. Just want to make sure. So CalHan Park followed pretty much a similar rhythm as the Perkins Pier sighting study. February we started working with the team, the larger team, did site assessment, first public meeting in May, conceptual plans through May and June, second meeting in August. And as you can imagine, it was of course a beautiful night. And there were more people I think in the park than at our meeting, but it meant we engaged with people in the park. We spent some time tabling and interacting with people, which felt like the first time since COVID hit, you know, which was great. And then we also had a survey go out about the different options and then we had our third public meeting, I think last week or the week before it's becoming a blur. So there was a lot of community outreach, the questionnaires, focus groups, workshops, as I mentioned, and then the surveys and small group outreach as well. These are just photos from the first public meeting, the kind of input that was provided and documented about all the different parts that work or don't work or there's opportunities within Callahan. And then the survey itself, this was after, sorry, I guess I skipped a part. We had four different plans that were presented for Callahan in terms of the vision for the future of the park. Acknowledging that Callahan works very well the way it is, but that there are definitely some pieces that could be improved. And as I mentioned, we have funding in this fiscal year for implementing a new playground replacement. And so we wanted to make sure it was going to be built in the right location. As some of you may know, we used to have a tallot that was near the basketball courts. It was removed last year because of safety concerns. And so when we're moving forward on implementing the playground, we want to see should the tallot go back where it was or should it be combined with the older ages playground, for example. So the survey was both on site and during the public meeting. And then we also had it posted online to garner as much feedback as we could on what options people preferred. And so in terms of the plan itself, this is the final plan. And I'll go through the components of it bit by bit based on the goals for the plan. But this is the visual of the overall plan. One of the goals was to improve the circulation. I'll just go back to here. As you know, right now there's an opening in the fence that's not purposeful from Pine Street, but it would what we heard from the public and from also our staff and crews was having an opening at the corner of Pine Street would be helpful and also connecting better at Locust up here. There isn't currently a formal path, but or there is a bit of a formal path, but to really make it an entry point into Calhoun would be beneficial. Sorry. And also looking and acknowledging that when once the Champlain Parkway comes in, there will be a multi-use path along here. So to connect it seems very natural. And as you probably have felt there's this shoveling round road roundabout, which is ongoing construction now. And so knowing that that's the context of Calhoun. So improving circulation is part of that goal. So as I mentioned, connection from Locust streets, the main neighboring streets to the north, providing a main kind of circulating path along the edge, which was accessible, as well as entries, potential boardwalk here through the woods, and then up towards the fields. And then also making sure that people know that there's an entrance to Calhoun from Shelburne Road right now. It's not super obvious if you're not from around here. And then secondary routes connecting the facilities and amenities within Calhoun Park. So looking at the pink routes as the accessible routes, even though the topography can be challenging at Calhoun, we were really aiming to make it universal to everybody. The blue is the routes that are not accessible. Shelburne Road is a tough one. But I'm thinking of all the other connections and how that can happen. In terms of the building there, again, it's a building that's aged out and needs a replacement in the near future. And so looking at where it could be on the site or whether its current location was ideal and resounding opinion from the public was it needed to remain in this area. And also at the same time looking at what the functions are of that building. Right now there's the snack shack that's in there, as well as restrooms. But there's potential to add an overhang or canopy. Because the climate is changing as much as we'd like it not to. There's definitely a shade that's needed on the site. And so being able to accommodate that. And also keeping in mind that it's also far to go to the restroom from any places on the site. So if we have it at least in the middle here and then adding in another structure here, pavilion, which has restrooms would help, especially in the winter when the rink is very active. Sorry. So that's just a close-up. There were a lot of concerns of having a building block the view in. And so this is what's called the dog leg building where this is open. And then there's more of a solid structure on either side. So you can still have views into the park. And then this is that building with the pavilion. And in the winter it would be a rink space. So it would have a roof over it and would hopefully make it easier for the volunteers to maintain that ice rink. In the playground area, we definitely were in favor of combining all the ages into one area so that if you have kids that are straddling the two to five or the five to 12, they're all in one space to be supervised by adults. And also the visibility from the the snack shack slash building area and then from the soccer fields with one of the goals we were looking at. The community garden was an overarching goal was to expand it and looking at it from a terrorist expansion because of the topography up in that area. That's definitely one of the goals. And then improving the athletic resources. We know that these fields work very well, but there's definitely drainage issues that'll come to different slide. But some of the things that could be beneficial for an example is their angle backstop so that fly balls would not necessarily go in this space where people might gather. And then in terms of the courts to add in fencing around the basketball courts, that was a request that was heard by those who use the courts because their balls also always go down the field now or get kind of get out of the the area that has a little bit of a bump in it, but that offense would really be beneficial and it would enable it to be more of a multi-use court. And then we have the removal of one of the tennis courts and adding in four pickleball courts in its place. And then in terms of multifunctional spaces, seasonal programming, we have the ice rink. There's the potential for a cross-country loop around the soccer fields. The sledding hill remains intact, both on the west end and east. And then the mini rink remained in place. And then in terms of gathering spaces, I was definitely heard very well from the public that the having a pavilion to overlook and see the view from up on this terrace was wanted and also shelter from the sun again. And then these are kind of the areas preserving views, improving lighting on the site and considering lighting of the courts to expand the season. And then the site ecology, looking at stormwater and how that could be beneficial on the site and capturing it and also using underground structures to capture stormwater. And our wastewater treatment group is also looking at burying a CSO tank down here to help with stormwater that's going into Lake Champlain. So that's something we would do and then look at improving the drainage on the fields. And then just looking at different ways to care for the other areas that aren't athletic fields on the site by looking at LOMO or NOMO or woodlands, other methods of treating the vegetation. And then adding in trees for the long-term viability of the canopy tree canopy. And that was so that was the plan for Callahan Park in a nutshell. Do we want to hear any questions? I know I'm running out of time. I apologize, there's just a lot. Yeah, yeah, I think we might as well do questions now. So yeah, we'll open it up for any questions regarding Callahan. I see one in the room. I just have one quick question. Sophie, was the entrance from the Birchcliff neighborhood talked about at all? It's a page path that goes from Rindon Terrace right into the park. Yeah, that's shape. And I know as a neighborhood, we've talked about like who's responsible for the upkeep of it. And what? Yes, that's come up with in every meeting on the project. And the answer is it's not city owned, it's owned by the neighborhood association. And unless there's a sale of that or transfer to the city, we are not able to change that path at all. Unfortunately, that's the that's what we know about the path from that that connection, unfortunately. Right. No, but it did at the time when it was created. And there's no way to dissolve that ownership, unless the I think the only way that something could happen is if the associate and association formed again, and then there would be an ability of the city to talk about a transfer. Can I just follow up on that? Just a quick thing, Sophie. And that was talked about it every one of those meetings. But is there anything that the city can do to help facilitate that that process? Because if it's just on the Birchcliff neighborhood to form an association, it feels like that that some some encouragement or push from the city would be really helpful or even support from the city for for forming an association that could make that happen. Because it's a really important link as you brought up. It's a really important link out of the park. And it's it's dangerous now. I'm not certain what pressure or support the city could offer on that that end. And I'm not sure what that looks like, unless you have a suggestion. It sounds like an interesting project for the MPA, honestly. Yes. So, tuck that back in our head. And I'm I've seen a few hands raised. So, Mike, you can go first. And Alana, I saw your hand was raised and then it was down, but I think it's raised again. So you're up next. And then the next hand I saw was in the room. And then Bill will be fourth. So, Mike, floor is yours. Thanks, Nate. I think in terms of that path from Lyndon from Birchcliff neighborhood, the the concern from I'm part of the Birchcliff, I live in Birchcliff as well. And some of the casual conversations we've had is the city has said, legally, they said form the reform the association and then we'll talk. And so there's a lot of risk in forming an association, taking ownership of a strip of land, when we don't really know what's going to happen. And potentially, the the neighborhood could take on risk that we're not ready to take on. So I think where the city can help is to come to the table before we form the association. So we know kind of what's going to happen and not take on risk that's unknown. Thank you, Mike, for sharing that perspective. And next up we had Alana. So Alana, you can unmute yourself and ask your question. Hi, sorry. Thank you, Sophie. That is a beautiful, beautiful plan. And so I we always use that cut through as like our, you know, north, south, you know, I have a lot of family that's out the south side. And I know we're in the south end, but I feel like we live in the downtown because we're at the north end of this neighborhood. So if we don't want to walk on a busy street, we always go through the neighborhoods and through Callahan Park and through that cut through. And I'm, you know, I'm just wondering if there's like a way the city can use a condemnation process or other sort of like a process that where the city is able to take control in a benign fashion without requiring the neighborhood to go through that process, an organizational process in order to sort of essentially dissolve their ownership of that piece. I would have to bring that suggestion back to the legal team. That's not in an area that I'm familiar with of what the next steps would be to take that, I guess, take that step. But from what I understand, that's been the main hold up is, is that it's not owned by the city. And it's a very narrow path. And I guess the question would be, do are the neighbors that are adjacent to the path amenable to any changes that would need to happen for that path to be, you know, a width that's accessible to. Thank you. And the next hand I saw was in the room. So yeah, just introduce yourself as you're asking your question and the floor is yours. Thank you. My name is Terry Rivers and I live on Locust Terrace. And I just want to make a comment that the fields, the baseball fields are really for boys and men only. And if you notice in South Burlington on Dorset Street, the parks that were built there, the fields that were built were baseball only. And I remember years ago, when the large field on, I guess that's on the west side of Callaghan Park was a softball field and adults used to play on that, including myself. And I'm just registering a concern about girls access to athletics at Callaghan Park. Thanks for voicing that. The last hand I saw was from Bill Keough and your hand's not up now. But if you're still interested in your question, unmute yourself and ask away. Seeing. My question has been answered. Thank you. Mike Fisher dealt with that. Fantastic. All right. Any other questions regarding Callaghan? Yeah, I see one from Nancy. Yeah, Sophie, I was just going to ask about the playground. I'm very invested in the playground. I've spent a lot of time there. So I'm just curious about the funding for it. How much you have to spend on it and when you think construction will start? So we have $80,000 allocated to the playground. My colleague, Max Madalinsky, who's a project coordinator, has drafted the RFP and it's about to go out so that we, sorry, we can anticipate construction in the spring. But I would caution about saying it will be ready in the spring because there has been a lot of, what's it called, because of the pandemic? Supply chain. Thank you. Lots of supply chain issues with any construction we've been doing this year. So our goal is to break ground in this construction, this coming construction season in 22, but that's being, us being positive and hopeful. So as soon as we can get it into the ground, that's our plan. Okay, great. Thank you. No worries. Seeing no other questions, I would say let's pass it back to Sophie. All right. I'm going to make this part quick. So today we reopened the Oak Ridge Park portion of the bike path or the greenway, I should say. This is a picture from this afternoon with the Gateway at Austin. Austin drives the most southern entry into the park, which was renovated with a kind of smaller plaza, bench, stones, etc. And it's a warp view. So sorry about that. And that's the greenway going into it. And this is the event where we opened it up. So thankfully, that part is completed. And I believe someone mentioned earlier, this is the park coming south from along Blanchard Beach. So here, it's still a bit in construction a few weeks ago when we actually had snow in December. But this is the universally accessible ramp that leads down to the beach now. As you may recall, it was waste blocks that were holding up this kind of wall over here. But now it's a nice ramp down with stairs going down the middle so that everybody can, as you can, this is the ramp coming in with vegetation. So everybody can access the beach now. We'll be putting in a beach mat similar to North Beach in the spring so that anyone who's using a stroller or a wheelchair can get into the water a lot more easily than previously. So that's the view from the beach up the ramp in the stairs. And that's the lower pavilion up here to just orient everyone. I don't have a picture of the realignment, which is the portion of the greenway between college and Maple that's under construction. I've tried to look through my phone for pictures of it and it's all in construction in more details. But the portion between Maple and King is reopened. There will be some additional work in the spring that will be done on that portion of the path. But for now, it's reopened for the rest of the winter and into spring. And then the King to College portion, we are working with the contractor to try and reopen that in the coming weeks. But we need to make sure that the path is safe for everybody to use over winter, even though the work is not 100% completed. So we're anticipating that information to come through in the next week or so so that we can reopen it to everyone. But there will be some additional rework in the College Street area in the spring to put in granted detectable warning, which is the kind of bumps you see at the edge of roads for improving visibility, difference between the road and the sidewalk, and a few other touch-ups that will happen in that area and also top coating of the bike path pavement. So there will be most likely shorter detours up Battery Street again in the spring. But we anticipate it to be a few weeks instead of months in 22. Any questions on that one? Yeah, I'll open that up. Any questions on the greenway? Did I say one too bad? Yeah, just right briefly. Sophie, I just wanted to say thank you to you and your team. I was down there earlier tonight in the greenway. Looks awesome. I know you've had a very busy day, including putting on that event and Sophie even made gingerbread cookies that she was giving out to kids, including my son. So I don't know how you're still up right now, Sophie, but thank you for joining us. And the other thing I just want to say really briefly is I really applaud the planning processes that you went through for Perkins Beer and Callahan. I think the number of public meetings that you did, actually setting up in the park, seeing you tabling like that, I think it's just a perfect example of how we can do these types of things with a lot of public input. So thank you for going through that process. I think you came out with some good plans here. Thank you. We're having a lot of fun too. Just that's why I'm so vertical. All right, well, Ben beat me to it. Thank you so much for joining us here tonight and for all the hard work that's gone into these. You know, I can speak for myself, but I think for a lot of folks in the room, we're really excited to see how these plans turn out. And we hope to have you back as things are moving and as future developments keep on happening. Sounds good. And we look forward to starting a comprehensive plan just so you know, for Letty Park. I know it's out of your ward, but it's still part of the city sometime in, I'd say mid winter. So if anyone wants to be part of that process, make sure to sign up for our updates so you know when the public meetings will happen. Yeah. And secondary plug, if you want to be on the cutting edge of Parks and Rec, the Parks and Rec Commission meets the first Tuesday, second Tuesday. That was close. Second Tuesday of every month. By zoom, you can find them on the city calendar. Myself and Ben will serve on that committee. And it's been really cool to see their commission. It's cool to see how these projects kind of unfold. And also do check out what's going on with it's a much smaller park with a much smaller process, but it's still in word five, the Champlain Street Park is going through some changes as well. So with that, thank you again, Sophie for joining us and have a good rest of your night. Thanks. Thanks for having me. Take care. Of course. When we're at our final agenda item, we're just a few minutes past time, but that was a great, great session with a lot of good questions. So with that, I'll stop talking and pass it over to school commissioner, Mike Fisher. Thanks, Nate. So I don't have any fancy slides, but I do have some boring technical documents that we can look at. So I've been asked to come and talk about Burlington High School and Burlington Tech Center. So just as a quick recap of, I'll go through some information, a recap of what's happened in the past few weeks, and then open it up to questions. And what time are we closing? Time do I have until? 8.30, but, you know, I'll give the cliff notes. We emptied Burlington Exited Burlington High School and Burlington Tech Center based on some guidance from the Vermont Department of Health around the allowable levels of PCB in the air. And we started the process of moving forward with a new high school and selected the site adjacent to the current campus. In November, the, I'm sorry, let's go back in the summer, the legislature realizing that PCBs are an issue passed a law that all schools in Vermont built or renovated before 1980 had to be renovated, had to be tested for PCBs in the air. The Department of Health, which had been under pressure by a lot of parents in Burlington to do something about the super low level that they originally set for schools, they came out in November with new guidance. They didn't revise the levels of the screening level that we were held to, but instead they created a new level called an action level. And so the level that we were held to when we made our decisions about evacuating the building was 15 nanograms per cubic meter. And the level that they now say that you need to act is 100 nanograms per cubic meter. So a huge difference still way below the EPA recommended level of 400. But with that new guidance, the thought was, Oh, does that change things? Can we now go back into the high school campus? Can we maybe use some of it? Reuse some of those buildings when we're building a new campus? Like save maybe the gym and the auditorium? What does this really mean was the big question? And the board talked about this and heard information about this over the last two weeks. And unfortunately, the news is not good. It really does not change our situation. And the big reason why is that because we found PCBs above that very low level and we investigate and we found we were looking for the sources of the PCBs and we found them in materials. We found them in the concrete blocks. We found them in the casing of the windows. We found them in ceiling tiles found them in under floor concrete under the floor tiles. So PCBs are spread in many places throughout Burlington High School and Burlington Tech Center because they're now we now know that PCBs are in the building materials. We are no longer just subject to the Department of Health PCB air regulations. We're now subject to the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation and the federal EPA who control and regulate building materials that are contaminated. So we don't know a lot about how much is contaminated. We don't really haven't even figured out what's contaminated. We were talking the other night about if we find out the paint has been contaminated above a certain level we would then need to remediate all the paint and you can imagine scraping the paint off all these building materials in a safe way. What that takes. So what we did is we asked because you know I'm a volunteer. I'm not a building engineer. So we we asked a bunch of experts for their opinion and we've got three opinions. This is a company we've been working with for a while. Tom Peterson's company. We talked to Fuss and O'Neill. We've been working with them. They've been helping us on the PCB contamination and remediation and we got an opinion from a company called ATC and all of them have said and I'm going to skip all of this information that bore you know lots of science in here but they're basically saying don't spend the time and money because it's at a minimum 12 million dollars to remediate just what we know and what we don't know is huge and we don't know how much contamination there is. We don't know what the agencies are going to instruct us and we don't know how much it's going to cost to remediate but it's going to be years and millions and millions of dollars all the way down to the soils. So building materials and the soils this is the tricky part about we just don't know. So the same thing this is from Fuss and O'Neill. Still also says 12 million and that's just what we know and they do not it does not include the cost of all the reconstruction. So if we pull out the windows it doesn't include the cost to replace the windows and it doesn't consider what we don't know. We did actually then also ask well let me bring it up we asked the agencies hey can you give us some guidance so you since you're the ones who's like you got to really get out because you're above 15 nanograms on a lot of places and unfortunately their guidance was pretty poor. They did not they they used phrasings like you should keep the levels low. Okay great you and so we tried to say what can we do to get back in the building and they basically said well we don't really know what can we can we get back in well you can submit it to us to evaluate. Can we can we get back in so that we didn't get anybody saying there's a real possibility to get back in the building in a short term and and absolutely we got the advice that there's so much we don't know about the contamination now that it's in the building materials. The risks are super high on how long it's going to take to to remediate and the cost is is you know the sky's the limit for the cost. So on Tuesday night after discussion and reviewing all of this opinion the board declined to make any change to our our strategy and we are moving forward with designing a new campus a new set of buildings for both Burlington High School and Burlington Tech Center. Okay so I'm going to open the floor for questions and I can't date if you could do in the room I can see on Zoom. I can do that Terri I see your hand first so. Hi thank you for letting me ask a question my name is Terri Rivers and I live on the south end Ward 5. I actually am very concerned that the health department set this level of this 15 nanogram level and that apparently that that's the ambient level of PCBs in the environment that you would see in you know standard buildings. What I am very concerned about also is that there's not been an analysis it sounds like it costs too much money to find out I'm not sure. I don't know what that actually means when you say it will cost too much money to find out. We're talking about a 250 million dollar at least that's what I remember hearing about a 250 million dollar replacement of the high school that's an awful lot of money that's a quarter of a billion dollars and I think that the prudent way to go from my point of view very limited I don't have a lot of information would actually to be fun to find out exactly the PCB levels in all of the different buildings at Burlington High School what could be saved what could be mitigated what can't be used. Thank you. Yeah thank you so 250 million dollars is a lot more than the estimates that I've heard. My personal opinion is it's going to be less than 200 but I don't really know and and I've heard estimates down to 120 120 million but it's not going to be 250 I would never well it may not be up to me to vote for it but so I understand what you're saying about let's know what's going on and and I will share with you that that we have done extensive testing just give me a sec so here's here's the testing that we did of Airborne and so we spent tens of thousands of dollars to to do these this testing across the campus what you'll see is you'll see a number of rooms that are above that 100 nanograms per cubic meter so those rooms would absolutely have to be remediated but we also didn't test every room so not only would we have to do more thorough testing but we would have to do a different kind of testing that could easily be up to a million dollars to find out where all these PCBs are in the building materials and the cost to remediate that and the cost to also continue to use the building once you know that you have PCB contamination in your building materials then you have to monitor I think the estimates were 400 000 a year to monitor for PCBs so the the costs you're right we don't know what the cost would be but every step that we are learning about that we would have to do would cost significant amount of money and then we'd be back in a building that we know didn't suit the educational needs of our students we know that is not Americans with disability act compliant we know that there's water coming into classrooms so we know that it's a bad building so that the board just has decided to not spend the money not spend the effort to try and get back in to a building that we know is already set Mike any other questions in the room or on zoom again raise use that raise hand function if you'd like to ask one be the zoom room and I and I and I'm going to post something to front porch forum in the next few days and I'll share all of these documents and you can go through them yourself and you can read read the analysis and and and read for yourself right you shouldn't just trust what I'm telling you should you should be able to go through these documents yeah I was going to ask that you know where to find those documents so thanks for letting us know and thanks for all school board members for becoming the like ad hoc hazardous waste community for the city I'm sure that it's been pretty arduous to go through that process but I saw a question from Joe so Joe the floor is oh yeah I was just wondering at Institute Road I thought I had seen a little bit of excavation going on closer to the North Ave I don't know if that continues now that was like a week or two ago is that related to the you know the new sighting of the school or checking out for bedrock or you know what's going on with that it is the simple answer is it is related so one of the things that happened when we went to put the bond to renovate when we original plan was to renovate the high school and we asked the voters for seven million seventy million dollars to renovate we did a number of design steps we stopped at a certain point and we said okay we know enough now to to say hey we need seven million dollars one of the things that we didn't do I think it was called schematic design and there was a certain there's a technical all these technical terms but one of the things that they didn't do is drill something called core samples and they go really deep in a certain amount of time and really find out what's what's in the ground and what we found out after the bond was approved and we started to prepare the schematic designs we found that we had different soils than we originally thought and so the original design plan had to change this time around we were learning our lesson and we're doing more extensive research about the site and we're doing that schematic design work it's more money before we go to bond but when we go to bond we'll be more confident that we know that the amount that we're asking or the amount that we estimate to to build the new campus is what it's going to take so the work that you saw was drilling into that into that the soils to really determine what's in that location you know there's there was initial looking that there was something called ledge and we want to find out there's clay and what kind of clay is it how deep so the simple answer is yes it's it's part of the design process of the new campus. Thanks. Yep, Lucia. Yeah, there you go Mike. Thanks Mike. Super helpful presentation and I think those materials are pretty well accessible so we'll make sure they're all linked. Can you remind us just the timeline or if the board currently has a timeline that you're all looking to go to bond? Yes, thank you. So we're looking to go to bond in November of 2022 so next November and along with the work that we're doing to you know pick an architect do the design work do the schematic design we're also heavily focused on fundraising. We know that this is going to be an expensive proposition and so we're exploring private fundraising federal states we're also exploring can we use a lawsuit against Monsanto who produce the materials with the PCBs that's going to be a very long process but we're trying to find every way that we can to raise revenue besides asking the taxpayers to take on the burden of a bond. Fred? Yeah, I don't want to be naive. I am sure you all have put in hundreds if not thousands of hours on this as volunteers. On the other hand in I guess sometimes in unity there's strength. I heard this strange report about a month ago I think it was released by Leahy's staff and I've never seen it again but they claim there were 64 school buildings in Vermont that had similar PCB challenges and then there was a footnote on a discussion of that it said many of the public buildings in the state built during the late 50s and 60s they were also suffering this. I'm not being critical at all but is there any movement to work collectively on this or are we in fact competitive with the other schools when it comes to raising money to pay for our own building? I would imagine that the preparation for going to court against Monsanto would be something that could save a lot of schools money maybe we can sell our technical assistance here but thank you for a very clear presentation. Thank you Fred. In terms of Monsanto suit we're super early in that we're just talking we're just like interviewing we're just figuring out a strategy. I didn't even want to bring it up but in terms of the rest of the schools in Vermont the thought is from people who have been looking at this they know that there's PCBs in other schools that were built a lot of schools were built you know from the 50s to the through the 70s in Vermont and my personal opinion is that what that's why the Department of Health came up with this new action level right you don't have to be you know it's no surprise that now when the risk is oh we got to test all these schools now there's a different level that's much higher. I think that the rest of Vermont hasn't gotten to the remediation phase yet we unfortunately are ahead of the curve so schools haven't been tested they don't know how bad the remediate the who's contaminated how bad it is they did a pilot program a number of years ago and you can remediate there was a like a a bathroom at Champlain Elementary that had high PCBs above 15 and they did some remediation and and it's fine so not every school is is as bad as BHS and Burlington Tech Center is is awful the the numbers are in the thousands and so we're ahead of the curve in terms of knowing the the contamination we have and having to do something about it in terms of state aid and construction Vermont had a state program that could help schools with construction and they turn that off they stopped that program when they started to drive for consolidation of school districts there has been discussion about restoring that state funding for school construction we're the only state east of Indiana that doesn't have state aid for construction so a real outlier for that so I think in terms of from the states you know the across the state people know that this is coming that there's going to be testing there's going to be schools that find contamination there's going to be a need to remediate because once you find it you have to remediate and there's real worry about how much contamination they're going to find and how we're going to pay for it so there's been discussion about the surplus I'm putting some of the surplus aside for that so I don't know how it's going to play out but certainly people are watching us and to see what happens with Burlington High School but there's not a lot of districts that are at the same there's no district that is at the same point in in kind of this process as we are of having to do something about it right now interesting thanks thank you any other questions for Mike seeing none I think that we can wrap up this session and wrap up this in gaming Mike thank you so much for being with us tonight and for taking that last spot and bring us kind of across the finish line and for all your work on this award and going through this process like I said before it's definitely pretty arduous so we all appreciate the work that y'all are doing on that thank you I'm in it for the glory and the high pay yes public service known for those things and with that I think we can conclude our December meeting of the Ward 5 NPA thank you everybody for being here thank you to Sam our CEDO staff member for for staffing this meeting and to Charlie for filming Charlie from CCTV to all the members of the public who are here in there in person or virtually and to Lucia for taking notes and be on the lookout for those notes coming out they are chock full of great resources take a look at our website word fire NPA 5 I bought the domain and I can't even remember npa5.org congratulations to Nancy and Colby for joining us here in committee I think that's it have a good night everybody thank you Nate thanks nice work Nate thank you