 My name is Matt Robert, I'll be your moderator and host this evening for this special meeting for the Words for N7NPA. Basic ground rules that we typically always cover before we get started is to listen to others when speaking, respect the agenda and the process. We want you to share your opinions politely, treat each other with respect, have your questions prepared. Keep in mind this is a digital format. Always mute your volume, which is typically in the lower left-hand corner of your screen unless you're called on to speak. I don't know if I have the ability to mute everybody at once, but I believe Kirsten does. When we get to a place of voting, we're asking that everyone voting turn their cameras on at least for their vote. There's no chat room tonight. Sorry Jeff, we can hear you. Jeff just demonstrated the mute. Raise your hands if you have questions, if you want to speak. I have helpers that are going to nudge me or text me if I'm not seeing or just open your mouth so that you're heard. The meeting as a reminder is being recorded by CCTV and is currently being live streamed by YouTube. The recording will be later available on the NPA website and the CCTV website. As far as the agenda goes, you have it. I think maybe as a beginning to open, there have been questions that people have raised about how the process is going to work. I will first tell you this is not my profession, so I'm going to do my darndest to keep on task and keep us in the right field here. Nominations will be taken on the floor. People can self-nominate. People can nominate someone else. Speakers will have time to discuss or nominators will be able to discuss why they're nominating somebody. The person being nominated will have a chance to speak about their qualifications and why they're interested. There will be an opportunity for the members of the public that are on this meeting to question candidates. When it gets to voting, it's going to be a round robin. In a moment, we're going to go through our traditional roll call that we do at the beginning of every NPA meeting. I and my fellow steering committee members are going to, as each person announces themselves, ask you to state the word that you're from. There are probably some folks that are sharing a couch and a screen tonight, so if there's more than one person that will be voting on the same screen, when we get to your call, you'll have to express yourselves as two people. My fellow steering committee members will be keeping tout me during roll call of the people and their wards, and then when it comes time to vote, we'll have them separated by word four and word seven. I will go through and make a ward call for each individual person, and once I've completed the list from roll call, I will then ask if anyone else has joined us since that wishes to vote. Once the vote is tallied, like they do on Survivor, it's tallied and it's final. I think that covers everything. The only weird thing is if there is a tie vote, and I think we discussed just before the meeting, in the event of a tie, we'll take a recount live. If the live recount is still a tie, then Evan is going to go on a website called random.org. It will produce a, I'll let him describe it, basically a random number. I don't know that you even need to describe it, but it's basically up to chance, heads or tails, and that's the best process that we can come up with in a live event, and Evan would be able to screen share that so that everybody can see that. So any questions on any of the process procedures? I'm not seeing hands on my screen, so I'm going to move on. Hi, I see one hand. Who's hand? I see that problem moving. Yeah. I'm jumping the gun, but I was just hoping you would kind of give an overview of what we're doing and level set it for, I mean, are we adding, do we know what we're doing? Are we adding more representation to the wards or less or what? The overview is coming up on the agenda. Okay. All right. Shut up. Thank you. No, you're fine. It's a good question. It's coming. I'm not qualified. Our counselors, both Sarah and Mark, are present in the room, and they're going to do that for us when we get to that point. Great. Thank you. Absolutely. Any other questions before we move on? Doesn't look like Ollie is here. He can join if he's busy. I think it was Mark and Sarah that asked to speak regarding this, but typically Ollie joins these meetings, so I would expect he will pop in. So I'm just going to go straight to my agenda and just keep this show rolling. I think the best thing to do at this point is to do our roll call. So I'm going to just go around the screen that's in front of me, and we'll just take it as best we can. The first box in the top left is the Miller Center. So who do we have for residents at the Miller Center? Hi there. I'm first in the seat, though. I have a question for you. I got it, Matt. I have it. Lynn Bundy. Okay, I'm sorry. Kristen, are you in Ward 47 to be a voting participant? No, I'm in Ward 6. Okay, awesome. That's everybody in the room. My name comes up next, Matt Rober. I am Ward 7. I see Jeff Comstock. Yep, NPA Steering Committee member Ward 7. Jeff Clark. Jeff Clark, Steering Committee Ward 4. Jim Holloway. Jim Holloway, Ward 4. Leeter Hewn. Leeter Hewn, Ward 4. Robert Bristow. Robert Bristow-Johnson, I'm in Ward 7. Birgit. Birgit Bozek, Ward 4. Jeffrey Cooper. Well, it's Cliff and Ellen Cooper. Ah, Cliff. Ellen Cooper. I can't see you, Mark. Any little one. Kids don't know everything. My eyes are weak. Sarah Carpenter. Carpenter, City Councilor, Ward 4. Ben Litwin, Steering Committee member, Ward 4. Bob Hooper. Ward 4, State Rep on the Committee of Jurisdiction and House Government Operations. Olivia. Hi, Olivia Taylor, Ward 7 resident. I see there's another Olivia in case there was any confusion. Oh, I'm sorry. Olivia Taylor is who I just saw in my photo, so I've got, I'm sorry, I didn't see there were two. Mark Barlow. Mark Barlow, North District City Councilor, and I'll apologize in advance. There's a party going on at my house right now, so it's a little loud here. Coming over. Yeah, thanks for the invite. Mark, just for everybody, can you share what Ward you live in? Oh, I'm in Ward 4. Thanks. Thank you for the reminder. Martine. Is the, is the other Olivia? Is her last name Muffy? Yes. No, my last name is Mylens, but I'm known as Muffy Mylens. Ward 7. But lately I've been using my first name as well. Ward 7. Hi, Martine Gulick, Ward 4 school commissioner. Thanks, Martine. Marcella. Hi, Marcella Constantino, Ward 7. I didn't say that right, but I don't know how to say that, Marcella. Thank you. Tom Flurry. I think I'm unmuted now. Tom Flurry, Ward 7. Thank you, Tom. Marcella, did I record you correctly, your Ward 7? Yes. Okay, thank you, sorry. We have Olivia Deb Booton. Yeah, Deb Booton, resident Ward 7. I have a screen that says CEDO NPA. Is that me? That is you. That's what I thought. I have a town meeting. I'm sure that is explainable. And last but not least on my screen because he's not on video is Steve Hamlin. Steve Hamlin, resident Ward 7. And Kirsten, if you could please let the attendee that's waiting in so that we can get them on the list. Yeah, I have to murder them to panelist, but they haven't accepted. So I'm just going to allow them to talk and keep an eye. Carly, can you hear us? Yeah. Is that Charlie Gianni from Ward 3 who also works for Channel 17? Yes, I'm here if you can hear me. All right, very good. Okay, Mr. Esau. Thank you, Carly. Have I missed anybody? You're just doing attendance right now. We'll just give a second. Technology. I'm hearing no other names. I am going to move on to the resolution overview and ad hoc committee explanations from counselors Carpenter and Barlow. Take a close. So tonight on the hope a lot of you had a chance to look at our orientation, but in June, the city council passed a resolution to form what we're referring to as an ad hoc redistricting committee. And the goal of the committee is to provide advice to the city council via getting input from our residents about what we should look at at redistricting. Stepping back, if you've had a chance to read the orientation. Every 10 years, census comes out with new population figures. And we've just gotten those. They've not been analyzed. We do not know how they'll affect the neighborhoods. We don't know if we're going to be mandated to redistrict or not. And that will depend on shift of population whether there's more than a 10% movement between wards. That has not been analyzed, but the city council wanted to get out sort of early ahead of that and really wants to get citizen input on kind of the shape and look in organization of the elected districts. As you all know, right now we have eight wards and then four districts that allow us to have 12 city councils and 12 school board members. So what we're asking input for is look at that, look at any other configuration you think is appropriate to start some guidance discussions around how should the elected official districts look. And we may choose to do nothing and keep it entirely the same. We can go anywhere from three to 30 counselors. I think we're asking to get citizen input on what might provide the best governance for the city. And to provide us with governance as we look at whether or not there's population shifts. So the goal is this committee there'll be eight representatives, one from each ward, that will begin meeting in middle September through the end of August. And the role is primarily to get out there and help us get input. But we'll organize two community meetings. The presumption is that the various ward representatives will come back to the NPA and you'll have some meetings yourselves to really try to mull over and discuss what are the big parameters that the council ought to look at as it revisits redistricting. And there may be more discussions related to population, but we really want to start the conversation about kind of what's the ideal configuration, what would serve us best. We're not drawing lines or anything tonight. In response to Debs question, this kind of vote tonight is really only to elect a representative from each of the wards four and seven who will sit on this committee and help sort of absorb, elicit, put together public input on what the best we can see as the configuration for elected officials. And then that will help provide guidance as we look at specific populations. And we're going to want guidance on things like, you know, how we know neighborhoods are important. So that's probably, we don't want to presume that, but we presume that. I mean, how much is incumbency a problem, how open are we to really moving lines, not necessarily to disrupt neighborhoods, but because it might make sense. So those are all the kind of things the ad hoc committee is going to spend some time sort of mulling over. And tonight is to get somebody who's willing to volunteer and do that work. It'll take a chunk of time and from September through end of October could be extended. The goal is to try to get enough guidance and clarity to try to put something together for the March election. That's fairly ambitious, but that was the goal of the resolution. So Councillor Marlowe, I don't know if I'm going to add to that. That was a great overview. I just fill in a couple of other details. So we know what we do know from the census data is that population growth has been, this was according to a press release that the mayor did a little over a week and a half ago. 2326. So we want from 42,417 as a city on April 1, 2010 to 44,743. So we know that, but we don't know as Councillor Carpenter said, where the changes are. We don't, it may not require redistricting. And one of the possible recommendations that would come from this committee is that we do nothing and keep the existing configuration. One of the things that I'd also like to point out is that the intention is to have city attorney resources available to the committee as well as, and this came up during the informational meeting last week, we want to make sure that you have support staff from the city to help schedule meetings and get rooms and any other sort of administrative support that you need will also be provided. And as Councillor Carpenter said, it could be, we're not going, that council specifically not saying what needs to be considered, but as she suggested, it may be the current configuration, it may be polling places, it may be the number of councillors, whether or not we have districts, current ward boundaries, in consideration as Sarah mentioned around neighborhood identities and issues. And the other thing I would say is the product of this committee is a recommendation, a written recommendation that will be delivered to the council. And the council will then use that to guide a subsequent resolution that will be used to either do nothing or to instruct a mapping specialist to use the input to draw one or more candidate maps for consideration. And so that's the only thing I would add. Thank you, Mark. Sarah, did you have anything else to say? Well, no, I just, there's people who have questions. I mean, straightforward and it's not, tonight's activity is to get a willing, interested volunteer to help us dig in and do the best they can to solicit community input. We understand it's hard to engage people and there's no ideal way to get those kind of inputs, but this is a step in that process. I'll just add that Ali joined the meeting after roll call. So Ali, do you have anything that you'd like to add? Just talking about the process. Looks like Virgit has her hand up, Matt. I'm sorry. Go ahead, Virgit. Apologies, sir. I don't know who has an answer to this, but has the council given any thought to qualifications for the candidate? I would I mean, I just don't know. I'm assuming you would want a candidate who knows the city well, knows their neighborhood well, has some background in public policy perhaps, but or have you decided to not enunciate any qualifications for other reasons? I don't think we had that discussion. I think that the role, I mean, the NPA has been been sort of authorized by the city to be the best local vehicle to get citizen input. So we're looking for citizen input. I think the persons that choose to volunteer or are nominated need to be open to accepting input, synthesizing input, trying to help, just help that process, do some outreach, encourage people to get to the meetings, certainly need support, but it's in my opinion, somebody who can sort of synthesize all that. It probably helps to understand backgrounds, but it's got to be just an open-minded person who's really wants to hear what the citizens have to say. I guess I would add that, yes, the hope is that the NPA would have a process that would bring forward candidates, and we're going to hear from hopefully those candidates tonight, and then the body of the NPA could decide whether or not those candidates were qualified or which candidate was most qualified. Thank you. Bob Hooper, did you have a question? Yeah, I guess it is a question. It would seem that hierarchical-wise, we're going to select somebody to go forward to the city council committee, but it might behoove us to also give consideration, since we're talking about neighborhood-based decision-making, to form an NPA, Ward 4 and 7-based little mini-commission to make sure that everybody has a foot in their own neighborhood, and maybe we can come together for a coalition of opinions and direction from that. It might be worth considering. Marysella? Just to make sure that I understand the scope of the request, because I thought I heard some things about recommendations, and then folks are raising questions about public policy background, but it sounds like the charge is really just gathering information from the community. My assumption is that the synthesis is not recommending what the ad hoc committee thinks should be done, but the synthesis is really sort of consolidating what the public is asking for, and then the councilors, city councilors, will make a decision based on that. So it's not that anybody in that group would synthesize and say, this is what we think you should do. It's really, this is the scope of the opinions of the community, and then the councilors are going to have to decide what to do. Is that a clear understanding of what the task is? Yes, I think so, and Councilor Barlow can pop in. And it can be over the map. I mean, the obvious questions on the table, is the district systems there go? Do we look at what we did in the past? Do we increase it? Do we decrease it? And what did you hear people say about the importance or lack of importance? What things are the most important if we have to draw lines, redraw lines, what's most important to folks? Is it keeping the same polling place? Is it keeping the same, close to the same ward lines over? Are citizens open to redrawing if neighborhoods stay essentially the same? It's trying to rearticulate what is important to people. I guess I now would add that I think your notion of synthesis is a good one, and I think it is, but it's probably asking the synthesizing collective sort of strategy around what questions need to be asked, and then synthesizing the input that you gather at the public meetings. There may be certain themes that arise. There may be where there's disagreement, I guess, is trying to tease out what the important aspects of that are. So it is sort of open-ended and organic in a way, but I have faith in a committee like this to probably get those right recommendations for us. Better than the city council just assuming that they know what's best for folks. Thanks, Mark. I see a question from our team. Thank you. Yeah, we may all be asking the same question over and over again at this point, but I would ask Mark and Sarah that at some point if you could make it clear to the populace of Burlington what exactly redistricting would mean to us, I would love to learn. If we redistrict, does it mean another school commissioner? Does it mean another city counselor? I'm hearing bits of what you're talking about in terms of polling places and stuff like that, but I would be really nice to have a clarity on what redistricting would mean for us. And I'm also wondering what the expectation of this person is going to be on the ad hoc committee. Will they be coming to NPA meetings, gathering our opinions, and then going back to the committee? Like what's the communication system going to be? Well, I think it's going to be up to the committee as a whole to figure that out. It's a fairly intense time. The presumption is and it's up to this body that you'd want to nominate or elect somebody who says to you or you feel confident will come back to you, meaning the NPA, and get input. It's a six week period, at least at this point in time. So it's not tons of meetings, but it's a goal. I do believe honestly that in September or October, this NPA should devote a meeting to the discussion so the representative can hear that. In terms of your questions, Martine, again, it's quite open-ended. They could recommend more counselors or less counselors or the same. So it's really to try to get an affirmation of what a folks think might work the best. Is the current system the best? We had a system that we had for many years. Some people prefer that. And then there's kind of everything in between. There's a bunch of different iterations. So where are people leaning? And that's what we're trying to get the pulse of. And what does that mean? Practically, if we add or subtract counselors is almost like a second layer. I think it says what do people think would work the best? And just to follow on again. I think that there will have to be education around redistricting. There was a really good sort of overview that Eileen Blackwood did for the council before we voted on the resolution. It was informational. I've shared that PowerPoint with a number of people. I'll definitely give it to the EMP steering committee as well so they can put it up somewhere. But that talks about the process of redistricting. This committee process will be just, like I said, to gather input, provide recommendations, and then the council will use those recommendations to actually move forward from there. And like I say, that work might be doing nothing to changing the current district configuration or proposing. Ultimately, the voters have to decide. It's not the council. The council can put forward a plan, which is essentially a charter change that would be on the ballot. If we get it done by, if there is a change to be had and we get it on the town meeting day ballot, the voters can decide if they want that or don't. And if they do, then we would have whatever the result of that ends up being more counselors, fewer counselors, the same number of counselors in a different configuration or whatever. But I think that the other question you had, Martín, was around the school commissioners. And I know that the school commission and the city council have sort of been mirror images of each other. And although we haven't talked about that either, I would defer to the city attorney, I guess, on that because I don't know if they have to be or they just are by tradition or whatever. But I suppose that that's also something that could be discussed if people like, that the residents currently like that, that, with that configuration. Thanks, Martín. Yeah, that'd be nice to know for sure. Thank you. Actually, I think no one has brought that up, but we, that can be clarified. And I kind of want to say, I mean, one of the things that motivated at least me is people have expressed, I don't even know what the right term is, a little bit of disconsent. And so I just think it's important every 10 years to reaffirm where you are. And communities our size do it differently. I mean, some communities don't have words, they do it all large. So it's really to try to take a pulse about what might work for Burlington. We don't want to miss the opportunity to do it. A charter change in a redistricting is a huge commitment. So you don't want to do it lightly, but we have to sort of look at it anyway because of the population shift. So if we're looking at it anyway, we certainly should get these bigger concepts out there. And again, you don't want to do it lightly, but it sort of seemed like the right time to look at it all. We may or may not have to redraw lines, although there's 2,300 new people, we just aren't quite sure where they are. So we should be looking at it all. Thanks, Sarah. I'm going to move on one more question, actually a few more questions. Jeff Clark has been waiting patiently. Thanks, Matt. Mark and Sarah, you mentioned the population going up, and I don't have those numbers. I didn't write them down, but I think that's an important number. 2,326, according to the mayor. Great. Thanks. And I think you've answered, I think, part of my question, but maybe I'll be second part, that this ad hoc committee will give you a recommendation based on input and meetings, and so the input goes to city council. City council is going to, how will you deliberate and determine that you will or will not change the districts and, you know, the makeup of the city council. And then from there, based on your deliberations, you put it out to vote in March, ideally. Is that what I'm understanding? Yes. And I don't believe we've decided ultimately how we will decide. I mean, they'll mark reference that we will essentially create a resolution with guiding principles that we will give to the city's mapling specialist to present or represent to us options. And the guiding principles will, should be based a lot on what we, the feedback we get. It won't be ultimately or entirely. It doesn't even have to be. I mean, I'm committed to try to listen to that, but you know, we don't have to. So the goal is you'll provide the input to us. We will reorganize and try to synthesize that and say to the city mapping specialist, give us some options that look like this. Thanks, Sarah. I have nothing more to add to that. I will go to CEDA. Is that you, Kirsten? Yeah, so I'm here with Dave and Lynn, and I think we both have questions. Hi, I'm Matt, Dave Hartnett. Can you hear me? Yes. Go ahead. Thank you. The first question is when will we get the actual information from the census about if there is a need of change for you get something like. My understanding, though, later than September 30th. I think, in fact, they have some of it now, but we were told officially September 30th. And in the resolution that was formed by this council and the expansion by you, you excluded former city councillors from participating. So like I was interested in serving in March 4th, but I cannot. And I was curious why you excluded former city councillors depending on this. Well, I mean, I can say only from when Councilor Bartlett can answer his. We really want citizen input. We don't. The city council itself will have plenty of time to weigh in. I think everybody's opinion should be weighted equally. We're trying to sort of have a cleaner slate. Let's look at all the different options and have it perhaps be a little bit less political. Let's be open to whatever we want to consider. And so we just felt that former elected officials did it one way. Current officials do it another way. And so we're asking the public, you know, what do you think? There have been plenty of time, as you will know, to give your opinion to us. So I don't know that we won't get the opinions. We just felt that at least for the purpose of the ad hoc committee, it was to try to get sort of the average point of view, for lack of a better way to say it. Well, I consider myself to be pretty average. That's for sure. But again, you might have had some former city councillors being involved in this process, but given that it was only every 10 years, not every city councillor was involved in this type of process before. And seeing how it's going back to the city councillors, we ultimately, you guys will make it soon. When you're setting itself there, you might listen to this ad hoc committee and you might not. And so at the end of the day, it is very critical, which is unfortunate. And quite frankly, we don't think the city councillors should have the plan of staying drawn in their own lines if we have to draw that. And so it's important to have an individual who is open minded, accessible to the public, knows the neighbourhoods because often this isn't about Democrats evolving into dependent progressives, this is about fair representation for the entire city, but particularly for us in the New North End. And so I was disappointed that I thought the resolution really was bringing it away or excluded ex-city councillors and school board members. And I think some of those individuals could be, that's that. I guess I would add, Dave, that yeah, I agree that some of the former city councillor and school board members are some of the people with a lot of requisite knowledge around city politics, around previous redistricting attempts. This resolution took a while to craft, and there were a lot of opinions on how a redistricting process should work. Some of those opinions were to not include, they weren't, they didn't necessarily include the NPA. So, you know, I know that Sarah and I both wanted the NPAs involved. Other people wanted some other things. This is, this was, you know, a consensus resolution from a number of interests, let's say. So, this is what, this is the one that we have and this is the one that we're working with and those are the rules. Do you want to ask a question? Well, I have one question answered already. However, there's, other than redistricting the lines, and it would decide how many, just how many councillors in this district, what else would be good about this? Because would one district have more city councillors chosen or? But I think ultimately it's looking at recommendations on the number of councillors in the number of districts. So, that's probably fairly fundamental. And then the subtext is where the line, if the consensus is to keep wards in districts, then where the lines go is going to be sort of a secondary. But that's what we're trying to, trying to affirm. I mean, really, we in the city of Burlington, and I grew up here, assume that we have to have wards as just one example. There are tons of cities where councils run at large. I'm not picking that as a position. I'm just saying, you know, is that something we would want to consider? You know, we've had six and we've had seven and now we've got eight wards, you know, six, seven or eight, which, you know, let's think about that. We have the wards in the district. So, it's just looking, you know, one of the configurations that kind of make the sense for us in 2022, you know, there's no magic probably to any one of those. It's, you know, what are you thinking? You got some better thoughts. I mean, the city's grown a lot, particularly in the last 20 years. And so how does that influence, you know, lines and decisions on numbers of councils and numbers of wards and numbers of districts? You give me an example of a fence other than, you know, what could change? I mean, what could really change that would benefit the community or the people that are living in that? Well, one thing I would say would be that we have very different areas of the city with different neighborhood interests. The new north end is a different place than the old north end with different issues and interests. You know, the populations are different. And so we want, you know, are those keeping those neighborhood interests intact important? So that's something. Polling places is another. The last time we did redistricting, we're able to keep polling places intact for the most part. So that's also something. It could be, like Sarah said, the number of councilors. Is our council too small? Is it too big? What do people have feelings about that? Maybe they don't care. And that would be good to know as well. So I do, you know, once we have the committee constituted, there will be an orientation and there will be, like I say, the guidance, a little bit of guidance there. So to help sort of define the, define the work, but it's going to be more of what we talked about tonight. But the committee may also have members of the committee may also have ideas about how they'd like the process to go. So we do want this to be, we want there to be a certain amount of independence to this process and have it be community-driven. Well, that's one of the reasons we didn't want current or former councilors and elected officials on it, because we want you to think broadly. And, you know, I don't perceive dramatic changes, but even little things like, do we really need eight polling places? For instance, is there any reason four and seven can't vote together in the same facility? That's not a, but that actually is a charter change, believe it or not. So, I mean, so there'll be some smaller things that could come out of this that I think are trying to make it easier for, you know, easier for the voters. I'm going to keep this rolling if those questions are answered. We're about a half an hour behind. I've got three more lined up that have been patient, so I'm going to keep rolling. The Coopers, Cliff and Ellen, you're next. Yeah, am I on there? Okay, two questions. One is that the numbers that were given out, the increase in population is approximately 5%, which is semi-significant. And I don't think you can do anything in the powers to be to move anything until after September 30th, where you find out, is it word four that got 1200 of those new people because of Cambrian rise? Or is it the south end because new businesses and buildings were built there? You have to wait until you get your numbers in before you can make any explanations on anything. So, September 30th, when the census trickles down to the numbers that you need, that's when you have to really focus in on what you have to figure out. The other thing is word eight got put in somewhere along the line without me knowing about it, without most people knowing about it, and kind of how did that happen without any people thinking about it? And the last thing is I don't think you discriminate about any voting public in the city of Burlington to be on any committee at any time or any NPA, just because now Martine's on there. She was with the school board, so she can't go on there, but she has nothing to do with the voting. I mean, Dave Hartnett's on here. He has a wealth of knowledge of, I don't even know how many years he's been on the council, but that's valuable information that you would need in a committee. You don't want to get people that are five year olds in kindergarten lined up to be part of this committee and then sit there and have no really background knowledge about what goes on and how it goes on. And I would also suggest that you would look back 10 years ago when they redistrict or why didn't they redistrict and find out what the population change was there and how that demographic goes into the part of the whole package, but nothing can be done till 930 on any of this as far as I can see it. If I'm going to disagree and say, we can look at things like the number of wards and the number of counselors today. Nine minutes, you have numbers. Well, we can. If there was not one more person in the city of Burlington, we can change that. So we're asking, what's your thinking? And redistricting is not just about population change. If anyone ward has a population shift of, I believe it's 10%, then we need to look at the lines. But whether we want nine counselors, 12 counselors, 14 counselors, 16 counselors is really kind of irrelevant of the number of people. That's a more philosophical perspective. And we're just asking for people to confirm, what do you think about any or all of those options? And whether then if you say, okay, we only want 11 counselors, then you'd have to draw the lines to make sure each 11 neighborhood had the same amount of people. But if you want 16 counselors, you'd draw the neighborhoods a little bit different. But you really need a bigger picture before you then draw the lines. I would say, Cliff, that I do think we'll have the numbers. The committee is not, he's getting constituted. At the end of September anyways, it's very likely that we'll have that data at the time the committee sits. And if we don't, it's coming sort of right on the tail of that. The second thing was around redistricting. There was a big redistricting effort back in, I think ultimately we voted in 2014 on the 2010 census change. And we were required to redistrict then because of the growth in population in the university area. And that is the the thing that necessitated or at least was the the reason Ward 8 came into being. And that's also been one of these areas where people like districts, people are saying, what about Ward 8? They scratch their head about it and look at the way it's shaved or whatever. But these are things that are obviously it was what was done was done out of necessity. It was a process that took a while to sort of sort out. I think it took almost two years. And so we're trying to get ahead of it now as well. That's another reason we're sort of trying to jump in early so that we can make any necessary changes. And then again, I'll go back to your point about the exclusion of counselors and school board members, current former, is a point well taken. Like I said, this is the resolution that we have in the one that we we forged out of, you know, it was it took a month or so to forge this thing, a lot of discussion. So let me keep moving. Deb Boudin. Thank you. I actually have three questions that I think can be answered with yes or no, honestly. So don't freak out. Just to clarify a few things. So we're only looking at within the city of Burlington, affecting the council and nothing to do with state representative. Right. Okay. All right. That's good. Where will there be a budget for the different areas like say, our ward wanted to send a mailing to everyone? Do you know will there be a budget that would allow something like that to happen? Or do you know we do not have to my knowledge a special budget, but we have talked to the CETA office and they're committed to providing support. It would be up for the eight person committee to express what they want. We are presuming they'll act as a committee as a whole. So for example, all eight people insist they wanted a mailing isn't getting a lot of comfort, but I think there's a commitment to try to make something work that all eight people decide they. Okay. Okay. Thanks, Sarah. And then so just to clarify in my head, if we learn that, well, I'm in Ward seven. So if we learn that we need to add or subtract people in our ward, then clearly the person representing this ward has work to do. If we learn that we don't have any addition or subtraction, does that mean we don't do anything? But no, or that we have a voice on the larger group. Okay. Okay. And again, it's important to understand because we're rather the line is the railroad track or the tunnel or the high school isn't relevant quite at this point in time. It's really like Mark has expressed, we have two counselors and one district counsel. So does that stick or not stick? Or do we want to go back to two and two or do we want smaller wards or bigger wards? And I think it's more like that. And then affirming important things, we believe neighborhoods are important. But you know, maybe as I said, some communities do a different is incumbency important. I mean, we've talked about politics and one of the reasons elected officials are not on this is we want to not have the, we want the community lens, not the elected officials lens. Right. Okay. Okay. So thank you for that. Those are my questions, but I have one comment and that is that I think the process is really good theoretically. And yet if the committee is the advisory committee, whatever it's called is going to be made up of the winners from each ward. It's very possible. And frankly, maybe very likely that the whole committee is made up of white men, no offense to the males in their audience, or white people. And to me, that's a problem. I feel like whatever comes this broader committee has to show some diversity in our makeup of our population. And so I would just suggest, and I don't know what the solution is, but maybe if the council can even look at there are two, the runner up from each war, I don't know, just to make sure that ultimately the committee itself is representative of our people who live here. And that's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you, Deb. We're really running late. I've got two more hands up. I'm going to go quickly to Robert Bristow-Johnson. So I'm just going to say very quickly that in response to Jeffrey Cooper, I know a bit about the history about how this was happening. It was, and it was eight years ago because things kind of got started late. And they took on a long time because there was a pretty big north-south dispute about what would be a good map because, but in any capacity, whether I'm on the committee or not, I'd be happy to serve as a resource person to tell you what we were arguing about back eight years ago. And how the eight-ward map came to be, there is a story behind that, and I think I know it. And it might be colored by my own opinion, but I think I know the facts, and I think I know how to separate facts from just my own opinion. So if we ever get into that, I'm off for my services. Thanks. Let me go now to Jeff and Nancy Comstock. Hi. I strongly agree with Cliff that Dave should have the opportunity to serve on this ad hoc committee. I don't know why someone who moved here just last week or last month or whatever would have more of a right or be more valuable to this ad hoc committee than someone like Dave Hartnett, who has a history of Burlington and the New North and in particular. I think that he and any past city councilor or school board member should definitely be allowed to be part of this ad hoc committee if they so choose. So I guess my question is why did someone move here last week have more of a right to be on this committee than the Dave Hartnett's? As Mark explained, the resolution was somewhat of a compromise. The resolution is passed. It was the consensus. That doesn't make it right. Well, but I'm just saying there's at this point, and there's not a choice. I think it'll be up to the committee of eight to solicit opinions. I mean, they are certainly can pull together former councillors and have a focus group with them. I mean, none of that is prohibited. But as it is stands now, it was the consensus of the council that we wanted opinions from people who were not in elected office. Please take note of my opinion then. I appreciate that. And I would agree with you. And if I was going to craft this on my own in a vacuum, I certainly wouldn't put that restriction in there because I understand and value the sort of knowledge, the learned knowledge that a lot of our former elected officials may have. Others saw it differently. And so this is this is the resolution that was passed. This is the one that has to guide the work right now. And I mean, if we were going to create a different committee at a different time, we certainly could take that up. But I don't know how to undo that right now. I appreciate that. And that's that's why we voted for you, Mark. So thank you. I would say if I could throw in, I don't know if anybody can hear me, but I would say that it would be someone who's been here for a couple weeks or a couple months would be real hard for us to win the representation on the committee. That's all I would say to that. You know, I'm sorry, Kirsten, I couldn't understand what you just said. I said we is raising her hands. Oh, I'm sorry. Then please me ago. I wanted to follow up on what Deb said. And on two points, one is when it comes to having a diverse ad hoc committee, that's really up to us who are voting tonight. If we vote on two white men, then that's, you know, that's our choice. We do have a different choice and maybe we can think about that. Thank you, Lee. Martine, do I see a hand? I was just going to say I hope we can move on to the next thing at this point, but I did want to say a quick thank you to Deb Bouton for bringing up the issue of representation. Thank you. And I'm going to move on. We're 45 minutes over. We should be at 720 and we're at 806. For such an engaged group, that's why. Well, it is. And I, that's good. That's been awesome. And I came to this meeting without much knowledge of the process. And I feel that I've just taken a sip from a fire hydrant. So thank you all for your questions. But I'm going to move on to our agenda item for 720 PM, which is nominations of the ad hoc committees and representatives. And because I have a simple little male brain, I'm going to start with the lowest number, which is word for open the floor to the residents of word for present at this meeting to bring forth your nominations. And I don't know if somebody wants to yell or raise their hand. I just saw a hand raised by Jim. Are you taking self nominations? We are taking self nominations and we're taking nominations of some. Well, I'd like to put my name in the hat for this. And then are we will we get a chance to say why we think this would be good. Yeah, I have going off my script nominations first. And then we're going to go after both words have received nominations back to each nominee and ask them to speak for a few moments about why they're interested. And then it'll be opened up to the public questions. So I have Jim hallway. The first nomination for Ward four. I see more hands. The top of my screen is leecher human. But Ward is Deb booting in in seven words seven. Well, I hope somebody nominates you bet Deb. I'd like to nominate Ellen Cooper. Perfect. Thank you. And I have a hand up Miller center, Ceto. So, Kristen. Oh, yeah, that's a, I guess, to me. Sorry, our nomination was just made here in the spirit. So, you do not have a nomination. Oh, no, okay. I see no new. I asked you a question. Are you allowed to nominate you Matt? Or is that something because you're on the NPA, you're not allowed to be part of it. Because you're kind of an elected official because you were part of it. If you go across the whole panel here, there are so many people that are involved in the community that have all these different affiliations. How do you know who you can nominate and who you can? You can nominate Matt. According to the resolution, you can now. I guess so. So, just to be clear, we're not elected officials on the steering committee. True. Technically, we're not. But technically, Cliff, you're in word four, so you can't nominate me. As I understand it, but thank you. If that were the case, I'd nominate you. I see no other hands in front of me, but I don't want to miss anybody. So, how do I see a few new ones now? I see Olivia Munn. I'm from word seven. I'd like to nominate Deb Boaton. Can we wait till word seven? We're not. I'm sorry. I should have been more clear. We're on word four. I'll come right back to you in just a moment, Olivia. Are there any other nominations for word four? I'm seeing someone waving on the Cooper screen. Did you want to say anything? You're muted, Alan. I was wondering, the man that was speaking about knowing the knowledge of the eight years ago when they redistrict, what word is he in? Seven. Then I nominate Jeff Clark. Because he doesn't have enough to do. Does Jeff Clark want to be nominated? I thought people would nominate themselves. So, I wasn't clear that we were nominating others. I didn't know the rule. Well, maybe I can go down the list. Jim Hallway nominated himself. Ellen Cooper, did you self nominate or did someone else nominate you? Oh, yeah. No, I didn't self nominate. She was nominated by Lee Terhune. Okay, that's right. So, maybe it's appropriate to ask Ellen Cooper. Do you accept the nomination? I guess, yes, but I wasn't planning on it, but I would. Oh, this is your lucky name. Yeah. If they're interested, then has award for resident, I would nominate Lee Terhune if she is actually interested in accepting that nomination. Lee Terhune, do you accept the nomination? I accept the nomination. What word is Evan in? I'm in word four. I would like to nominate Evan. I have to politely decline the nomination. I am on too many committees. Thank you, Evan. So, before we move on and close the nominations for word four, have I missed anyone? Is there anyone that can't make their hand raised that can unmute and speak? I'll give you five or 10 seconds. I'm hearing no one going once, going twice. All right. So, I will open the... Sorry, Matt, we just had someone else, a new person, going to the meeting, so I just wanted to give them the opportunity. Are they in your room physically or someone that joined? Just joined Zoom. Is it Annie Lawson? Okay. Annie, can you tell us what word you're in? Hi. Thanks. I'm sorry that I'm late. I'm in word four, and I'm just tuning in, but I really appreciate just hearing that this was so thorough that someone noticed a late comer and wanted to give them some time in. Thanks for that. Absolutely. Thanks, Kirsten. And so, Annie, just for your benefit, we just nominated four folks from word four, and since you're award four resident, were you planning on nominating anyone before we move to a vote on those folks or before they get to speak? I was not, but I really appreciate checking in. Thanks. Welcome. So, I will move on and open the floor to word seven for nominations to the ad hoc committee, and I will start with Olivia Milans. Olivia, you're muted. No, I nominate Deb Bhutan. Deb Bhutan? Thank you. Do you accept the nomination? Yeah, I think I would. Sure. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next on my screen are the Comstocks. Jeff and Nancy. I nominate Matt Holber. I have to decline your nomination as flattered as I am. I am on too many committees and too stretched with my current career. Then I nominate Jeff Comstock. Jeff Comstock? Do you accept the nomination? I'm going to say yes, just for the hell this goes. Yes, I will accept. I might be sleeping in the backyards tonight. He doesn't dare not. Thank you, Nancy, for the nomination. I am honored. Robert Bristow-Johnson. I'm self-nominating. There's nobody here to nominate me. Excellent. That's perfectly fine. I have three nominations. Is there anyone else in the meeting that would like to nominate another Ward 7 candidate? Seeing no hands. I want to rush because of technology. I don't see any hands. No, I don't. So, we're going to close nominations. This is a pretty good horse race. We have three nominations for Ward 4 and three nominations for Ward 7. Next on our agenda is a nominee introduction and a qualification interest statement. I think we have enough time for maybe two or three minutes each. I'm just going to go down my list for no reason other than organization in the order in which I receive nominations. Jim Hallway, you were first on that list. Talk to us for a couple of minutes. Thank you. Well, I feel like since I was on the committee last time, I was involved in the redistricting, studied redistricting, not only for Burlington's history, but redistricting as a whole. There are many dynamics, some great questions already raised about how it works and that sort of thing. So, I feel like I had some experience in understanding how that is. So, given that, yes, the data will be in by the 30th, and that's even though it is only 5.1% difference between the gain, that doesn't actually mean it's not 10%. So, we don't know if it's going to be true or not. So, I understand the math stuff of it. I understand the geopolitical dynamics of it. Having been an award clerk for seven years, I know the community very well. I think that good at consensus building, good at working with different people. I'm an independent, politically aligned as an independent. So, trying to stay away from, and that's word clerk there, you have to be politically neutral as best as you can in a public way. So, I'm a non-activist per se. I want to hear what people have to say and what's important to them. So, I hope that you give me a consideration. Thank you. Thank you, Jim. I appreciate it. Next on the list is Ellen Cooper. I thank Lee for nominating me, but I mean, I've lived in Burlington for tons of years, since 1976, out here in the New North Bend since 88 in the same house. But I would be more than happy to be part of the group, open-minded, trying to see what's best for everybody. I've always tried to play a fair game. And I think that that would be good, but Jim has a lot more experience than I do. Is that all, Ellen? Yep, that's it. Awesome. Thank you very much. And Lee Terhune. Well, I nominated Ellen because she's a really strong person, and nobody will push her around and she'll defend the New North End. I will too. Those of you who know me know that I will speak up, I will inform myself, I will read, I will prepare, I will ask questions, and I will ask the NPA to give us a half an hour at their meetings, where people will tell me how they feel about the various options that are being discussed at the committee. I will represent you strongly and I will represent you honestly. I will go to every meeting, I will prepare for every meeting, and I'm fascinated by the options. We've really got some good options out there. Oh, and I've lived here for 18 years, but I also lived here in the 60s on North Avenue. I'm really bonded to the New North End. Thank you, Lee. I'm going to move to the nominees for word seven. Matt, is Jeff Clark still on the list? No. Oh, okay. Oh, I'm sorry, Jeff. I did hear you. Did you? No, I said that I thought you nominated yourself, so I didn't know you were another person, so I'm not nominated. We're trying to get you another hat. I'll move to word seven, and the first on my list for word seven is Deb Boudin. Well, thank you, Muffy, for the nomination I was thinking about. I've lived in Vermont. We moved to Winooski from D.C. in 1985, moved to the New North End on word seven in 1990. While I was in Winooski, I served as the representative in Winooski for a recycling for what was to become the Chittenden Solid Waste District. I served on the Burlington Board for voter registration for 10 years. I worked at the polls. I served on the advisory committee for what is now the Miller Center, and I've been very involved in community events and parks and rent programs while my kids were in school. About 10 years ago, I took the job at Johnson State College and lived out of town, so my involvement really went, you know, and so I have been slowly getting back into involvement here. I would very much bring an independent open-minded point of view. Politically, I'm an independent. I vote for people in every party. I want, I think it's crucial to make sure it's fair, but I do want to come back to the issue. I mean, if we had someone here who was on this platform who was more diverse, I would withdraw because I just think that's really important. But anyway, that's what I would bring to the group, and thank you again. Thank you, Deb. Next on the list is Jeff Comstock. Yes, as I currently serve on the NPA Steering Committee, so there is a hat there. I have been involved with this resolution and the NPA, as part of the NPA planning process, bringing this resolution forward and establishing the ad hoc, so I've been working with the other wards throughout the city to get this resolution in place and working at the NPA level. I also, I am interested in this short-term project because I feel that it really does overlap in a very interesting way with my role as an Inspector of Election in Ward 4, so I feel like there's Ward 7. I'm sorry, yeah. So I feel like there's sort of an interesting bridge of subject matter here that I would be very interested to pursue. And as a side note, part of my major motivation for being involved in the NPA is the issue of trying to create an engaged and informed electorate has been at the theme of pretty much everything I've tried to do as far as engagement in the community. And I'm particularly, I want to say, irritated with some of the calls for diversity here and the veiled criticism of the lack of diversity in this process, even for example, when, how can you have engagement when people don't show up? And so I have, so I have, I have a very short fuse for criticisms of lack of diversity when other folks simply choose not to engage. And so that's a sore spot for me, but that's, yeah, I will leave it at that. Thank you. Thank you, Jeff. And we'll go on to Robert Bristol Johnson. Okay, so I guess the only qualification that I bring to this is that I was pretty active in it eight years ago. I was a person who drew the map that we now have. I also drew another map. If it's okay, I'd like to show you just a little bit. This was the first map that I drew and it became downtown. It became this map. This is the version one map. And you'll see that ward eight doesn't look quite like it does now, because there was a problem with it that that admin school, which was an ward six ended up in ward eight. And so this map was drawn by me later. And there was a vote in city council between these two maps. And this version three map is what ended up on the ballot. This is how the previous ward seven lines were compared to what we got with the eight ward map. And I basically my intent was to preserve the wards as much as possible. And I think I succeeded at that because 82% of the city got to stay in the same ward and voted the same place. And of the 18% that didn't 13% was this ward eight. So they're not going to only 5% of the city ended up in one set, one of the seven wards and ended up in another one of the seven wards. Some of that was this part here, Lakeview Terrace that went back into ward three. That used to be ward seven, along with now it's Cambrian rise. There's only 12 people there that used to also be in ward seven. There was this little spruce cork corner that went back into ward six along with everything else that is east of St. Paul. And there's this little block right here that went back into ward one along with everything else that was east of Willard. Some lines got straightened out here a little bit, but for the most part the ward stayed the same and that was after redistricting, which I think is what got people satisfied with it because the other maps did have a kind of a radical change. And there's a story behind what happened with the other maps. So I got to figure out how to stop sharing the screen. And I'll do that now. I don't know how to do that. Is there some way that I can? Yeah. All right, that's it. Thank you, Robert. So we've heard from all six candidates, which means we move on to the question and answer dialogue session. And I have to remind everybody it's 827. So in the interest of time, there's not a lot of time for discussion. I don't think it'll be a terribly tedious process to cast and count votes. But I do want to move along. So let's go back to ward four because their number is the first number. Are there any questions from the members of ward four on this meeting that have questions for any of the three candidates? Jim Hallway, Ellen Cooper or Lee Tyrion? I'm not seeing any hands. Am I missing anybody? No. I see no waiting. So I will move on to ward seven. Are there any residents of ward sevens on this meeting that have questions for other Deb Bhutan, Jeff Comstock or Robert Burstow? Jeff Comstock. I see Jeff Comstock's hand. Yes, I have a question for Robert. And I want to start by acknowledging that I respect your vast knowledge with the subject matter and expertise here. What I would most like to consider for you is are you prepared to be a good thoughtful listener in this process and then save your expertise for later in the process when the actual, you know, if any revisions need to be made. So I'm sort of curious for you to share your perspective on how you would approach this on the front end, Robert. Well, I understand sometimes that I don't seem to be a very good listener because sometimes when something is suggested that it can't work, we're going to have constraints. We're going to have to fit the 10% rule. We're going to have other things that just can't budge, you know, and often I'll understand that like when a suggestion is made that might just be unfeasible and, you know, completely unfeasible that I might point that out right away so that we don't spend too much time on it. I do think that I can listen. I do try to listen. But sometimes there's these hard brute facts that they don't listen. And if I'm aware of them, I think we should save time about it and not spend time on something that can't work because say it doesn't fit the 10% rule or something like that. Okay, thank you. I see a hand from Marisol. Hi. I think this question is really for, I'm from word seven. So I guess this would go to just the word seven candidates. But I guess it's not directed at any one, but I guess all three because most of what I thought I heard from the city council members was that this process was about public engagement and that everyone's opinion and input mattered equally. What I felt like I heard in actually all the candidates justification for their expertise came back to how long anyone had lived in the area. And I think, well, I can respect other people's opinions in terms of diversity. I think when you are in Vermont and in Burlington, and if that is going to be a really important criteria to someone being a qualified for the position, you're automatically limiting their scope. And I guess I would just want to, I would hope that the candidates are going to be willing to listen equally to the members of the community and not weigh the input based on how long they've been here. Because it did seem to be a really big focus of the conversation tonight. Anyone want to comment? Director Deb, Jeff or Robert? Hi. Thank you for that, Marcella. I thought that was a good comment. Reluctantly right now, I'm realizing that I need to withdraw from the nomination. I need to withdraw my nomination just from work commitments. And I have to be out of town. I apologize for wasting people's time. But yeah, I need to withdraw. Appreciate the nomination. Thank you. Quitter. Yeah, chuckle, chuckle. Thank you, Deb. So, you know, we're stuck within just a bunch of guys. Yeah. So I guess I would like to respond to Marcella and that perhaps some of my remarks were perceived as harsh. But the point I was trying to make is that the purpose of my community service is generating engagement. And as far as I'm concerned, there are no equity boundaries on what I consider engagement. So I don't know what you may have think you heard me say, but from my perspective, my boundaries on engagement are wide open and require participation as a two-way street. So did you wish to respond, Robert? I mean, I don't know what I it's hard for me to apologize for being a middle-aged white male. And I found myself forced to do that in other contexts. I know. I'm sorry, I don't think I even raised that point. I was talking about time living in the community. Okay, I'm sorry. I think people are misinterpreting what I said, or trying to make this into something that it wasn't. My apologies. I screwed up. I conflated the issues. I only I'm only a 21st century Vermonter. I am not a 20th century Vermonter. So yeah, I guess I guess my point is that if there's this desire for community engagement, that you know, you have to make it a welcoming place for the community and not just the people that have been talking to you for the last 25 years. So I think that's the point I wanted to make is that it there are people out there who want to engage. But when they show up, you can't make them feel like an outsider if you actually want them to come back. Yep. I agree. I see a hand raised by Annie Lawson. I just want to add Annie is a resident of Ward 4. And so this might not be the time for Annie to to ask that question. We'll come back, Annie, and do a go back. Next on my list for the hand up is Tom Flurry. Actually, I don't know if I'm out of order or not. I don't really have a question, but I have a comment. And that is to support Maricela's remark about asking our two candidates. We formally had three good candidates. I've worked with all three of them. And now we have two good candidates. And I think she was perfectly in order to ask whoever is elected from or selected from Ward 4 or 7 to please do look at it from an equity lens, because I think that's important regardless of whom we select tonight and who is serving across the city, that I think it's imperative because we are a changing city that we do look at it through an equity lens. I don't think she asked anybody to apologize for who they are, but just to be open about who other people are and the fact that our city is vastly changing and our work should do that. So I just offer all three of the former candidates or have great qualifications and our good listeners. I've worked with all of them and are also warmly welcoming the diverse people who come to our polls in Ward 7. So I personally don't have an issue with anybody's background or qualifications or ability to be inclusive or listen, but I do want to really support Maricela's comment about an equity lens. Not only our North End people, but all city people really, really look through when we do this important work. And I thank you very much for your time. Thank you, Tom. Does anybody want to respond? Jeff or Robert? No. No, thank you. Thanks. All good. And I saw a hand up, but it's gone. Has everyone asked their questions for Ward 7? I'm seeing your new hands. Then I'm going to go back to any Lawson and we'll do a question for Ward 4. Taking your hands. I'm sorry, were you inviting me to speak at this point? Yes. It actually was also in reference to Maricela's comment. I just wanted to make space for her to be able to clarify because what she said also to me sounded very different than what people responded to, but I'm glad that she was able to get in there and clarify that herself. I didn't want things to proceed without a chance for that clarification. Thank you. So I am going to move on to the next item, which is the election. The ad hoc representative. We will start numerically with Ward number 4. And as I said, we would do in the very beginning. I and the other steering committee members have just the list from roll call. So I'm going to go down that list and ask each individual to turn on their camera when the rain is called and cast their vote for other Jim Hallway, Ellen Cooper or Lee Turhune. And the first on the list is Dave Hartman. Thank you, Dave. Lynn Bundy. Lynn Bundy. I did not hear your vote, Lynn. Lynn just shared that she wanted to abstain from vote. Okay, that's fine. Lee Turhune. Ellen Cooper. Jeff Clark. Jim Hallway. Jim Hallway. I voted for Ellen Cooper because diversity isn't just about the skin color and also diversity is experience. And so I think that Ellen, if you would like support and you win this, then I'm happy to be supportive. That's what I shared with the NPA before we started. Thank you, Jim. Brigitte Bozik. And if I pronounce your name, I'm sorry. I am so torn. I'll all vote for Jim Hallway. One of the reasons is because Ellen Cooper suggested that Jim Hallway would be a great candidate. I admire both of them. Thank you, Brigitte. Next on my list is Cliff Cooper. I would vote for Ellen. In fear. Ellen Cooper. I would vote for Jim Hallway. Sarah Carpenter. Got to abstain. Remember, you may want to get rid of my position. So noted. Evan Litwin. I'm going to keep my vote for Lee Turhune since I nominated her. Thank you. Thank you, Evan. Bob Hooper. Jim Hallway. Mark Burlitt. I'm also going to abstain. Martine Gillick. I would like to say I'm not 100% comfortable with this process. I wish we could vote anonymously. I think I do. I think all three of these people would do a wonderful job. Two of these people are friends of mine. But I am going to vote in the name of gender diversity. And she's my friend and my neighbor. So I'm going to vote for Ellen. Thank you, Martine. Eric Corbin. I vote for Jim Hallway. Karen Corbin. Hallway. Annie Lawson. I'll vote for Lee Turhune. That concludes my list from roll call and editions that are known. So I will ask, are there any members of the community from Ward 4 on this call that did not just cast a vote that would like to cast a vote? Have I missed anyone? I've seen no hands. So steering committee, do you want to tally votes as we go for each ward? Or should we move on to seven and then come back? I just tallyed vote. So if that's helpful, let's just mark Ward 4 as being gone. So my tally, if anyone wants to correct me, was that Jim has seven votes and Ellen has five and Lee has two and the rest for abstentions. Evan, I have Jim Hallway at six. Okay. Let me double check. I have Jim Hallway at six. You're right. You're right. Thank you. Five and three. This is why we have multiple people doing this. No hanging cheds. And I don't have to use the random number generator. Thank you. So we are in consensus that Jim Hallway is elected as the nominee for Ward 4 ad hoc. And I will move on to Ward 7. And I'm going to go down the list for Ward 7 in order that they wrote them down. So the first on my list, Jeff Constock. I'm going to vote for Robert Bristol Johnson. Nancy Constock. I think Ward 7 will be best served by either of them. It would be nice to have more time with my husband not involved in these meetings. So I'm going to vote for RBJ. I am third on the list. And I don't know how to vote. We had three amazing candidates. I'm stone pressed by the turnout for volunteer. I think both candidates are great. I, like Martine, hate how this is happening. I will vote for Jeff Constock. Steve Ham. I vote for Jeff Constock. Thank you, Steve. Robert Bristol Johnson. I'm going to abstain. I almost abstained. Olivia Taylor. I will vote for Jeff Constock. Olivia Milans. Robert Bristol Johnson. Thank you, Olivia. Marysella. Robert Bristol Johnson. Thank you, Marysella. Tom Flurry. I admire and trust in both and abstain. Thank you. Deb Boone. Yeah, I have a hard time on this one as well. I think I'm going to abstain. So noted. Ellie Day. I go with Robert. Thank you, Ellie. And that concludes my list from introduction at the beginning of the meeting. So I will ask, are there any other members of the Ward 7 neighborhood that have not voted that would like to vote? Seeing no hands. Give you a minute. I'm seeing no hands. I believe that that means everybody has voted. I'm going to count. My tally shows three votes for Jeff Constock, five votes for Robert Bristol Johnson. Yes. Is that? I confirm that. Do you have Evan? Yeah. I agree. Jeff, were you counting? Yep. And is that accurate? Yes. I concur also. Yep. Yeah, I have the same also. You do? Thank you. So that concludes our vote. So we've been nominated for ad hoc committee for Ward 7. So congratulations to both. And I have to just again reiterate it was hard to vote for anybody because everybody was very highly qualified. And I really am impressed and grateful for the turnout for the meeting and the turnout for those willing to serve. And it's going to be so much for the facilitation. Good, good facilitation. Thank you. Jim has his hand up. Jim Hallway. Oh, Jim, you do. Please. Well, thank you for the votes. But after we're done with this, can I make a community announcement? Yes, you can. I have one more hand up. So we'll come back to you in just a moment. Deb, your hand is up. And I just wanted to say I thought you did a great job for drinking out of a fire hose. Thank you. But I thought you really kept it going. So thank you. Not an expert, but thank you very much. I appreciate it. Matt, actually, just before we move on to community announcements, I just want to remind that we have a new potential NPA Steering Committee member with us tonight. Thank you for that. Anyone from Ward 7 like to nominate a new member? I have to go, folks. I'll see you later. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mark. I appreciate it. Go say it. Olivia Taylor. Thank you. I'll second that. Thank you, Tom. Any abstain? Any disagree? All those in favor of favor? I was given an opportunity to say something when I was wondering if Olivia might like the opportunity or not. Greenhorn is showing through Olivia. Why don't you say something? I'll make it very short because it's been long. And I know if I'm going to appreciate that. I've been in Burlington on and off for 10 years, but in the New North End for like three years randomly back and forth. But I've really learned to love it. And I'm on the housing board with Evan and just looking to get more involved and do more things in Burlington. So I appreciate it. Thanks for joining. Matt. Yes. I'm just a side by but do we still need NPA members or are there? We do. Our NPA is a skeleton of now five with Olivia. Jenna is number six, but she is taking a little bit of time off. She's going to come back and join us when she's full steam probably next year. Do we need them on both? Four and seven? You do on four and seven. If Olivia joins us, Sarah, if that goes through, which I hope it will, we would be evenly matched now with three and three people, which is nice to have that balance. But it's obviously a very small amount of people. I'm just going to say and maybe I see some people participating this evening. I think very good NPA members. Probably enough have good notes. I didn't want to put anybody on the spot. If no one a volunteer this minute, I would encourage you to volunteer. Absolutely. Yeah, Sarah, just as the follow up. So right now, as Evan said, it looks like we are three and three for four and seven. And we actually have nine. The steering committee is allocated nine people per ward. So there's definitely an opportunity for several more people to get involved. And we would gladly welcome the help. Absolutely. I hope to be nominating Deb Bouton in the future. If she's still on, you can nominate her now. She has her hand raised. Is that yes, Deb, your hand is raised and I think that might have been a nomination. Sorry, I didn't mean to raise my hand. I just hit the wrong button. Rookie mistake, rookie mistake. It was that a nomination, Tom? Yes, I would make that a nomination. So Deb, the hot seat to you, do you accept the nomination to join Ward seven and four steering committee? I would like to say yes, but I need to know a little bit more about that commitment. And the reason I say that is as I was, you know, we were going through this process. I got a text from my daughter reminding me of some things. And anyway, and work life and you know all of that. But I would say tentative. Yes. And we can communicate back. Yeah, that'd be great. Thank you for someone knows your email or you can email us. Yeah, thanks, Tom. Appreciate the involvement tonight. Yeah, thank you. You're welcome. I hope you're still speaking to me after this. You're in trouble, Tom. We know where to find you on the weekends. We'll bring a donation. Are there any other hands now? I'm going to then turn the floor to Jim hallway with a community announcement. Is Olivia on? Did we approve? Oh, we didn't finalize. I'm sorry. I'm just like it's sleepy time. It's nine o'clock. I'm sorry. I was going to have to interact with this. Robert's giving a thumbs up. What is the final? I'm a green horn when it comes to this. Do we have a formal vote? Yes. I'm seeing two seconds thumbs from all of my in Ward seven. Ward seven. Yes. I think that's everybody. Do I want to make it? Thank you, Robert. Does anyone disagree? Crickets. Crickets. We'd be lucky to have Olivia. Thank you. I think that we are grateful for your involvement, Olivia. So welcome to the game. Great. Thank you. Do we do that for Deb as well or before she changes her mind? Sure. I think actually that would be appropriate and then we can have a discussion. Why don't we do that to move to the floor? Is Deb nominated also for the Ward seven steering committee? Is that what it is? I did nominate her. Okay, so we're adding two more people. Okay, sure. What I heard from Deborah is that she needs to consider the nomination. Yeah, so it's a tentative yes. It sounds like from Ward seven and we can invite Deb to join us for one of our steering committee meetings and talk offline about what that could look like so you could dip your toe in the pool and the nice thing is you can get out of the pool whenever you want. And just to make sure this is Ward seven, not four, right? Ward seven is correct. Yes. So we're going to hold the nomination until later. Is that the consensus? Yes. Thank you. Clarification, clarity is good. Deb, I see your hand up. Yeah. So am I, do I have to be a member of the steering committee to nominate someone for the steering committee? No. No, well then I don't know if Marcella would consider Marcella. I'm sorry, I probably pronounced your name wrong, I apologize. I've been doing it all night. Marcella, do you accept the nomination to consider joining steering committee? I think I'm with you, Deb, in trying to understand what that means. It means work, which is why I never did. Maybe we could do like a Zoom call with the steering committee and myself and Marcella and see what that means. So if it's helpful, the way that I joined last spring for both of you was just by joining one of the steering committee groups. I was invited to join and that way I got an idea of like what is this work and tail and was able to talk with folks in that way and see if it fit into my schedule and what I wanted to do. And I know I'm award four member, but Marcella and Deb, I would really value having both of your voices in the room. And so I certainly can't nominate you, but I would love to see you join us even just for the conversation. Ditto, I'll just put some numbers on it too. That it's this meeting's two hours, fourth Wednesday of the month, and our meeting to set the agenda is the first Wednesday of the month for an hour. So three hours of per month. With some homework assignments. Right. I see some more hands, Sarah. I didn't know we were going this route, but I'd like to encourage Bridget Wozak to consider being award four representative. Bridget, do you accept the nomination to consider being award four? And we don't want to put you on the spot. We can invite you to join our next steering committee meeting. I would. Thank you to Sarah and I'm honored and I'm intrigued. And yes, please consider me. And I'm happy to join that Zoom meeting because as I said, I'm quite intrigued. Thank you. Thank you. This is fantastic. I second. Thank you. This just woke me back up. This is great. This is wonderful. We were a very tired steering committee. So it's nice to have some new people. And we've been a little bit heavy on the gentlemen. So this brings us a little diversity. I see some more hands. Deb, your hand is still up. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It shouldn't be. Okay. No, that's all right. Sarah is down. So any other questions or nominations or discussions about NPA steering committee? I see no new hands. So now I will go to Jim hallway with a community announcement. So I want to announce that a number of folks have been putting together a business association to really to be thoughtful about what it means in the new north end to be a thriving business. So please get in touch with me if you're interested in learning more about it. If you are a business and have some particular needs that you think an association might help with or if you'd like to be part of the committee that kind of plans out what we do. We're just getting underway. We spent a number of months trying to put together an activity here in the shopping center, a family fund kind of activity to also support the businesses in the shopping center due to the rising fear of or awareness of the Delta virus we last night decided to cancel that. So but what I also wanted to say is that the businesses in the new north end as are around the the community of Burlington. They're hurting for employees almost as much as and perhaps even more than customers. So if you know people who may be looking for some hours please visit your local business and check in and see if it's something that can work for you or for whoever you might know. The economic vitality of a community where as of the current census we just barely over 11,000 people north of the high school and so the business is an important part of contributing to social events, community events that sort of thing and supporting one another in our home-based businesses and so on. So I just wanted to put out a sort of an encouragement to help our businesses. So thank you. Thank you Jim and if there are no more questions or announcements it is 9.03. We ran 45 or 50 minutes late in the beginning and we're three minutes over now so I will return the meeting and thank you all for your contribution. Thank you Matt. Well done. Thanks Matt. Well done Matt. Thank you everybody. Thanks folks. Good night. Good night.