 I'm going to call the board of finance to order at 513 on Tuesday February 19th and Unusually meeting here and Contra is out of time to make the evening flow. Well, welcome Councillor Hartnett. Thank you And we're gonna get started the first item on the agenda is the agenda welcome or motion I'll make a motion to approve Thank you any discussion all those in favor of motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed motion carries unanimously Excuse me, and that brings us to the public forum which is item 2.01 and I would welcome Any member of the public would like to speak to the board Welcome Chris. Yeah, come on up You know, we won't put a strict time on it on but if you could try to keep your comments under Under five minutes, I would be great Thank you, my name is Chris Flynn I live in Ward 6 And as you're getting started Chris not to interrupt you I just want to make say that I did we have received your communications and Do you have answers to the questions that you've posed through? email that that's that snooze to me because I haven't seen them or Been a big aware of them, but that aside my I've reached out to the council and it's dealing primarily with the resolutions to forward the Moran Frame concept. There's two resolutions in front of you I am of the opinion that they should be postponed because there's a large number of questions that deal with the financial component of the project that are unanswered and I'm not sure how The finance committee can forward Financial considerations onto the city council without clarity when the nature of the bond the cost of bond the life of the bond if there's a financial analysis of the Tiff district being able to support and pay for the bond We have lived through Bad financial decisions in the past from a city standpoint and I Would strongly urge the committee to To table or postpone any action until the information Requested has been provided and and an analysis has been done or at least a review of it. So that's That's kind of all I have to say if you have any questions. I'm happy to answer anything you may have Great. Thank you Chris. Thanks for your Attention to this This issue over If I have questions on what you just handed me, who do I direct these questions to? You could send them to send them to the mayor's office mayor at Burlington vt. Dot go. Thank you Um Thank you Um, if there are questions that do come from anyone any member of the public including mr. Flynn I I would I'd like to request that the council be copied on all of those emails Okay, is there any other member of the public that would like to speak to the board of finance Seeing no more takers. I'm gonna close the public forum and move to item 4.01 which is the authorization of environmental information system multi-year mr. Mayor the minutes. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry prematurely Checked off December 3rd 2018 minutes, but we're now welcome a motion regarding them especially from you counselor so I will move to adopt the minutes as presented with potentially an Amendment, but I have a question before that I'll second the floor is yours counselor busher so The question has to do with Well, I printed out the minutes, so it's under special assessment districts It's the DID and it says the consensus of the board of finance is the map as shown is acceptable and yet I know there was discussion about the map and and ultimately a Determination of a different map, so I wasn't quite sure if that was accurate That's the first question and it the second one is along the same lines It talks about The board of finance supports a nonprofit with the city controlling the annual budget And I do recall at that meeting that there was not agreement on that. I believe that counselor and no Dell Who was on the phone, but was had raised many concerns regarding the nonprofit So I wasn't sure if those two sentences. I didn't feel those two sentences were accurately reflected the Sentiment of the board of finance at that meeting So based on that I would say that I would prefer I would like to amend the first steps which deals with the map saying that Well consensus doesn't mean agreement I mean it means that the majority agreed with it consensus does not say everyone does so I guess I'll let that stand because I was one of the I'll let that stand but the second second statement Counselor Roof summarized the board of finance supports a nonprofit with the city controlling the annual budget Assessment rates on an annual basis and having majority control of the approval of the governing board I don't think that that sentence Should be there counselor Roof is our representative to the DID but if anyone was to summarize the position of the board of finance, I think it would have it should have been the mayor or a Board of Finance member, so for me I would prefer to Strike that I Don't think it Diminishes this because the conversation continued But I'll look to the mayor because it is your meeting to determine how you would like to capture that I Think that's fine if you want to I think it I Take I take the point and I Think counselor Roof was attempting to summarize what the staff would be doing from there. What was sort of? Unclear what the ultimate outcome would be Of course what happened subsequent there is a matter of public record. I think it would be fine to just strike that sentence entirely So then I'll move the minutes As amended with the elimination of that sentence So it's been moved with that amendment as Part of it essentially right any discussion of that motion All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Hi any opposed Motion passes unanimously, so we have Finalized the minutes for December 3rd 2018 Okay Now I'm gonna move us to 4.01 authorization of environmental information system multi-year software maintenance proposal. This is a BED item I see we are well represented by the black vests from BED Councillor Busher, I would just Move approval and recommend approval to the city council and Congratulate BED for saving us some money for you some money. Anyways Excellent. Is there a second for that motion? second second by Councillor Paul discussion All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. I Any opposed motion carries unanimously and this brings us to 4.2, which is the authorization of An organizational chart update from another BED item. How the board like to proceed on this word Councillor Paul. I'll make a motion that the city council adopt the resolution Councilors second by president right discussion Councillor Busher so I Think that this I'm I'm going to support this but I had many questions and you can thank BED's leadership for saving all of you going through all of the questions Because they met with me Before this meeting, but I do want to just highlight the things that I and they're just a couple of things first of all I think it's I Really like the way BED and involves Their employees in decision-making and that continues and I just want to compliment you on that Because I think it just makes a healthier department and I I think you've been a role model for that and so thank you and I also understand that Positioned tiers were were part of union negotiations, but also were were something that was contemplated before that was imposed and Continues to be a good idea one of the things that I mentioned was that Sometimes people really find their niche and do their job well and Some entry-level positions are assumed to be just that and people move in and move out and And yet I think that as far as like the customer care representatives is a key position and I mentioned that the The two grades that provide for the tier The salaries are very close and I just Wondered if we would be able to keep someone who is really very good in that job for any length of time and so I Would like to in the future explore How we could how we could do that better so that So that you'd have someone there for continuity and maybe to mentor other people who might revolve in and out of that position The other thought that I had was that they talked about Overall it seems that so many thoughtful conversations occurred and Yet the takeaway is that in some of the positions and so For people watching There was a look at how many direct reports the manager had and whether that made sense or whether fewer voices Would make a more effective management team and so there was a desire to do that And I think that works really well in doing that there was some re-evaluation of jobs and Mr. Mayor when I looked at that I I Understood that the hiring range had increased so the salary the hiring salary the low-end was higher but The ceiling remained somewhat the same and my question was how quickly would someone move from the Hiring range to the ceiling and would we have any longevity for someone in these positions And I still am not sure about that because it was shared with me that often times We hire in at above 50% of salary range and I know that you know my limited experience With my previous employer now Was that their goal was to hire at about 50% so that you would have some room for growth and some continuity and some Commitment beyond just a few years. So I Still am trying to figure out if that's something that we have accomplished in this For the better benefit of the city and the department. So those were really my comments and and I think that this is a lot of hard work and will make for a very effective Well, I'm more effective you already were effective Thank you Thank You councillor busher So you prepared I'm a little unclear based on your statement. Are you ready to move forward? Oh, absolutely But I wanted to highlight a couple of things Because you're the mayor and I wanted you to know some of the things that I had Thought about and wondered how we could address those looking forward. That's all okay excellent great Any further thank you councillor busher for that in your close read of This as always and I understand your point and mindful that Our is there any further discussion? Okay, we'll go to a vote all those in favor of the motion. Please say aye. Hi any opposed motion carries unanimously Thank you. Thank you BD And I will point out take this opportunity to welcome our newest assistant director for the For the bulletin lecture department Mary Peterson To to her first board of finance meeting welcome Mary with that We will move to 4.03 authorization to accept and approve the FY 2018 audit We have Scott and Elena here Speak to the audit and answer any questions you have and We will Open up the floor Scott. Maybe like to kick it off for some Summary remarks and we'll go from there. Absolutely. Good afternoon as Mr. Mayor just said my name is Scott McIntyre I'm the partner at Melanson Heath in charge of the audit here in Burlington Alina Corsak is the audit manager who helped oversee the execution of our engagement We're here this afternoon and we've been invited to the 7 o'clock City Council meeting to to brief you here This afternoon and the full council tonight on on the results of our audit and talk a little bit about some of the numbers in your Your financial statements because I've perhaps said in the prior year that perhaps the most important Communication we as your outside auditors can make to the board is to talk to you about how our audit went I mean the numbers are that what they are. They are your numbers Our opinion on the results of FY 18 are that our audit our audit went went very well What we mean by that in very basic terms is we found the books and records to be in good working order Key reconciliations were performed on a timely and in regular manner and as a result of that We did not need to propose any significant audit entries as a result of our test work that this past fall There's a couple of key numbers in the financial statements that would like to briefly talk about this evening As we've pointed out in the past there are really both a long-term perspective Balance sheet in here in a more short term or current current balance sheet I just like to say one one quick thing with respect to if you have the car your comprehensive annual financial report in front of you It's page 36 This page 36 shows the long-term liabilities of the city And when when readers of your financial scouts you hold on for Excuse me, could I just ask you on? the in the That the page not the pages are numbered below They're also numbered in what is a PDF Can you just tell me which is which which you're talking about? Thank you? That's I need to learn to be more attentive I'm referring to the page number of the document not the bottom of the page number. Okay. Thank you 36 Page 36 and really again, this is the long-term perspective balance sheet in this page in particular shows the long-term liabilities We'll get to the general fund in just a moment but you know as The longer and in this particular page of your financial statements has been a required presentation for a number of years the key number on this entire page Is about a about a halfway down you see your net pension liability And collectively between the four columns, so you know that the you have a total column there And then you're discreetly presented component unit you have an overall Live pension net pension liability of over 80 million dollars Again the city-wide general fund your enterprise funds and Burlington school district That was a point of reference that overall liability across all balance sheets is down about two million dollars You know it's not our intention to dig into the footnotes tonight But if you were to dive into the footnote you'd see that that drop in that net pension liability is a result of two key factors one first before I talk about those two factors It's important to Make sure I we point out that that liability Although this is your June 30 18 balance sheet that liability is measured as of June 30 17 From a timing standpoint the standards allow you allow that that one-year look back period So again the two key factors that dealt with the drop in your overall net pension liability Were that through June 30 of 17 your investment earnings exceeded expectations The second part of that which mitigates some of those positive investment returns is for FY for the period in time of June 30 17 The city decreased its discount rate the investment rate of return that is using going forward the combination of those things exceeding expectations on the investment earnings Mitigated by a drop in your future Expectations of those investment earnings have led you to that drop in your overall net pension liability of about two million dollars That's all we really wanted to talk about with respect to the long-term perspective balance sheet There's a wealth of footnote disclosures in there I and we can probably we would certainly try to answer any questions that the board may have But most of what we wanted to highlight in addition to the results of our audit and how our audit procedures went Or on page the document number page 39 not PDF page 39, but the document number page 39 And this is your general fund balance sheet The first column of numbers is your general fund balance sheet And this is generally speaking the first place that almost all readers are going to turn They're gonna look at that first column of numbers and focus on the third number up from the bottom Or your unassigned fund balance with the June 30 18 balance of approximately nine point seven million dollars To two points of reference there. That's increased over the prior year by about one point three million dollars More on that just a minute and then the nine point seven million dollars also represents about sixteen percent of expenditures It's where rating agencies, you know And that that sixteen percent is very consistent with the prior year and certainly rating agencies do like just like to see Consistency in a general fund balance sheet now back to the nine point seven I indicated that that that is approximately a one point three million dollar increase over the prior year We would break that that increase and it's all In your operating statements in the budget versus actual we would break that increase into two pieces one would be And it just so happens that approximately half of the increase it comes from fiscal year 18 Operations and the other half come from addressing some timing issues that existed in the prior year with respect to Short-term timing differences in capital projects So what does that mean? It means for your overall increase in that key account balance was one point three million about 650,000 dollars of that comes from operations now if you were to look at your budget versus actual page You see that there were significant unspent appropriations a lot of it coming from departments But a lot of it also coming from health insurance and workers comps and those types of expenditures But through the course of closing out fiscal year 18 the city elected to sort of assign or commit many of those Unspent appropriations for future uses so in summary was unspent appropriations through June 30 of 18 that were recommitted or reassigned You know, that's why you have only approximately a 650,000 dollar Increase that's added to your unassigned fund balance from fiscal year 18 operating results the other half or the other 650 if you will in prior years you had some deficits in capital project funds that dealt with timing differences in the city was very conservative in setting some money aside in the general fund because To make sure that if money didn't come in to cover those deficits within the current period And so what I mean by that is within a 12 month period There was at least a reservation in in the general fund while during FY 18 those receipts came in Sort of mitigating the need for a reserve in your general fund So that increased your unassigned fund balance by the other $650,000 that's a quick walkthrough of just your general fund balance sheet We did think it was necessary to touch base on the net pension liability More and more that that the accounting standard that exists with respect to your net pension liability It's been around for about four years, but it's only now really starting to take root And generate the conversation that we think the gas be or the the board that sets the rules by which you do your Accounting and financial reporting. There's just been so much attention not just here Not just here in Burlington, but it throughout New England and quite honestly throughout the country with respect to the reporting of net pension liabilities Alina would like to talk very quickly about a couple of it's not going to walk through the entire management letter Just a couple of comments in there that we wanted to remind the city about and then between the two of us We'll entertain and certainly try to answer any questions that the board may have Could you pull the mic up because it is being taped and I don't think people can hear you Thank you. I'd like to note that we did not find any significant deficiencies or material weaknesses weaknesses So this is just other recommendations only and I'm just gonna focus on the two prior comments that were repeated in the current year Management letter comment and one was our recommendations to improve project accounting and the city has retained a consulting form and Is currently working with the firm to start addressing the issues that were noted and the other comment I'd like to Remind is about the pension Census data reconciliations they have been a bit more regular and they have improved and we just noted some variances this year as well So it's just improving Continuing to improve the census data reconciliations for the pension plan and this was a quick walkthrough the management letter We'll take any questions that we may you may have just to put the definition if I may to the to the census data You know, that's the the underlying data of the active employees and in the retirees All the way down to their their their employee class their their age Did pardon me their date of birth all of the underlying data that the actuary uses when we've talked about census data and Continuing to firm up reconciliations with respect to that. I just wanted to give some perspective of what we meant by census data there Like Alina said, we'll that's a very very quick walkthrough of Our audit of your financial statements. We'll try to answer any questions the board may have Excellent Just a quick note to the board for what it's worth the we met with the this actually this project accounting project is I think quite an exciting one and we met recently with Consultant team that's working on this and I'm really hopeful. This is actually I see this is one of the Kind of remaining areas where we can really improve our financial methods and protocols and I think we got a good team working on this now and I Think that's something that and I think that might even be noticed here at the board of finance level You'll be able to get reports finance reports on projects at a level We haven't really been able to do in the past and I think it's gonna be a good step in the right direction So with that any questions for our orders present right? Thank you. Mr. Mayor Could you elaborate on where you say that? Due to the limitations of this there could be material weaknesses that may exist that you have not been able to identify Could you elaborate on that? Sure It's a standard. It's very standard boil a plate language If you will that comes from the AICPA or the American Institute of certified public accountants I'm sure they have lawyers that that go through that language very well, you know, we're required to We follow two sets of audit standards. The third set is PCA OB which doesn't apply to a city or a town We design our test based on our risk assessment to detect any material misstatements or material weaknesses, but nonetheless There could be something we are unaware of and that's what that statement is all about Okay, I thought it might be standard language, but I just want to make sure The $80 million net pension liability What did you say that included? That include that that liability I'm gonna call it a city-wide liability. So what does that specifically mean? It involves Regular city departments general departments Not that but that liability does not apply to the general fund But it implies it covers the city departments all of your enterprise funds. So Burlington Electric airport Telecom water wastewater If I didn't mention BED, I should have and it also includes Burlington school district Thanks, and I'm glad that it's gone down by two million, but can you assign like a level of I Know there's a number that's like considered acceptable or reasonable. What do you what do you call this? Is it Is it within the area? That's Prisoner I just and you're not to cut off any I just want to be aware outside of the work scat And the auditors are doing the burrs is grappling with You know is explicitly wrestling with a change to the the assumed rate of return and is Is There'll be a new valuation shortly and there will be a new in the new valuation will be a new assumption about a New recommendation about the rate of return going forward. So that is something actively being worked on at the burrs level Thank you Thank you So the first thing that actually when I looked at the net at the net pension liability Probably because it's just easier to read than what's on page 36. It's what's on page 29 And it's just a lot easier and it's it gives you a change which makes life really easy The So the question that I had was and I don't know if you even know the answer Or maybe perhaps others know the answer is the the general fund in the bottom of page 29 There's a chart that shows The city and also all the business type activities BED the airport telecom and what the change and that pension liability Has been for those who aren't don't have this in front of them And I was just wondering the it appears as though the the change From the city is actually not Great news. However, the enterprise funds are doing quite well And I don't know if you if there's a you know, if that there's a reason for that or you know what the reason is I think we have to we can comment on it. Okay, the actuary. I think could could also You know give some some background information But I would want to remind the board about one of the follow-up comments that Alina made with respect to census data and in the city has put a lot of effort into tying, you know firming up all of that census data as a result of going through that process of Cleansing of the data for lack of a better term There was some there were some categories or some Actives or retirees that that could move between I'll call them buckets a bucket for the city a bucket for the school a bucket for the enterprise There was a movement of some of that census data and as a result of that that cleaning of the census data You do see an overall reduction in the liability, but you do see the city liability going up in the school district going down and there's some Reduction of the enterprise fund liabilities as well, but I really think it's a product of the census data the proportions attributable to that And then the other is just simply a comment When I when I got elected to the city council and looked at the audits years ago The management letter was about 70 pages long Each year it was effectively a cut and paste from the year before We've gone from the last five years Starting with about 70 pages and not to say that pages is the only is the is the is the only measure of success But we've gone from around 70 to around 20 to now around eight and Of the six items that you have none of which are significant The first word on four of the six is either improve or enhance Which means that it's not that we're not doing it. It's just that we could do it better And I think that says a lot about Not only the the auditing that we're getting and the The response but the responsiveness that we have from the the CAO and the CAO's office That's pretty impressive. I I don't know I I you do many audits Don't mean to put you on the spot and ask you but What would your do you feel we're doing pretty well? No, yes, I do You know, I think the the engagement was was very timely and I go back to sort of what I talked about in Opening remarks if you will We found books and records to be in good working order The follow-up recommendations that still need attention, you know are continuing to cleanse that census data And the capital projects that was talked a little bit about I may offer one more thing on that your consultant has reached out to us and they're actually coming to our office this Friday to Just meet with us for a few minutes and and get our perspective on Where we think some improvements can be made there but you know in general, I think the audit was very timely again I know The results of our procedures didn't result in significant audit entries as a result of our process Any time a board hears that there should be some positives that they're taken from it. Yeah, I agree. Thank you Great counsel Bush will go to you and I Will remind that board we we are opening we have one more substantive item We're hoping to do by sub six o'clock here, but with that council Bush here, right? So my is my I don't have a question for the auditor is at all. Thank you But I do have a question for the administration I would like an opportunity not tonight, but to talk about the city's responses to the management letter and The one that was just referenced had to do with how we track the complicated funding that goes into capital plan initiatives and All those different sources of revenue and how we Monitor and track what's been spent and what remains etc So I would like I would request from the mayor to have this on an agenda Where we could talk about this and get a better understanding of the city responses and And when we could expect to see some of these Implemented because most of them have to do with How we can better access a Status of where we are with funding projects or funding initiatives or There's there are other things too, but it's it has to do predominantly with a snapshot in time And I think that it would be helpful for everybody Especially for the departments to have access have a better way of of accessing the information Across the board. So thank you Excellent council busher and yes, I think you're I think the nature your question is on to what I was trying to articulate at the beginning When that we are we have retained this consultant around the project Accounting and I think when they're a little bit farther along in their work That would be a great time to speak to you know in particular what we're going to kind of changes that we are likely to see coming out of that That project so we will we will follow up on your request Shortly, okay. Thank you. Great Okay, are we ready for action? Councillor Paul, thank you. I'll make a I'll make a motion To recommend that the city council adopt the resolution on the audit second Excellent further discussion Do we make recommendations of the full council? Yes, it's concurrent actually it's on tonight's agenda. Yes, I Think that was the nature of your that was your motion, right? Any further discussion of the motion Great all those in favor of the motion. Please say aye. Aye opposed motion carries unanimously let me add my voice to the congratulations the CAO's office for overseeing another successful year of progress on the city's finances and thank you to our Our partners are we allowed to call our orders partners to our auditors for their collaborative Intelligent work for many years now working together on this It's been I remember well our conversations were first year as mayor when you were stepping into that I was stepping in a new role. You were stepping a new role. It does feel like we've come a long way since then So, thank you. Thank you Okay, so With that I'd like to invite Kirsten and Richard up here for the two for the Moran discussion and In the interest of time Just to point out I think you all see that I know you all have received these questions From Chris Flynn Most of which relate I think all of which relate to the bonding in one way or another We have tried to address those No, we just got new this answer shortly, but I think they're all fairly straightforward happy to talk through any further questions about that Appreciate the council heart and it has joined us tonight and council hard night is there is it? Are you hoping to kind of share with this group? What happened at pack or or? Not that you just I did come from this and I would certainly in mature city hearing the questions that the board of finance gas But and certainly I could share anything that might be helpful as we go along that the pack Great conversation and it went on for well over an hour and a half actually But yeah, no, there were some really good points made and I think points that the city needs to be aware of and I think We'll probably hear them tonight. Okay Um, I do think um a quick I don't think I ever got to see Kirsten today exactly what you were prepared for tonight But I think if there is a way to quickly and it really needs to be just a few minutes sort of summarized for the board Exactly what I want to make sure the board is clear what they will be getting for this 5.649 million dollar investment I know that was matter substantial conversation at the pack and Anything else in terms of a quick summary to kick off this conversation then we'll get to the conversations that the board has sure, I will just say that that the Presentation that we did to the parks arts and culture committee or the pack is online and I am not sure how to connect it to the projector at this moment So I'm just going to do my best to give you the overview The frame concept it demolishes a portion of the building it activates a derelict site It improves public access. It will create a seasonal boardwalk along and tie into the other Waterfront activities. It will create a new Sort of gathering place it will stabilize that site and allows for things to happen there in the future And we believe it delivers significant Significantly greater value for roughly the same cost of the full demolition specifically The it really is The first phase of this or the base base or basic plan is really Demolition and stabilization of the site It allows for other things to happen in the future But those aren't guaranteed and those are mostly not in there. There are no observation decks in this first phase We're simply adding to gender neutral restrooms Again moving and demolishing most of the building structure itself leaving the steel superstructure the east-west walkway and some of the other Lawn areas, but we're really not doing extensive plantings or trees in this basic first phase It is really just basically site stabilization. There'll be some historic mitigation. That's included in that and I'm happy to answer more questions about that If you have them specifically Okay, that will open the floor Councillor Paul Thanks, so I don't have any questions about the presentation that you made Kirsten to the to the council the first night that you did that and then subsequent meetings I I didn't go to every one of the PAC meetings I went to the large one that you had in con toys and then I went to one right before that That was downstairs and I but I missed the last one I Don't have any questions about the the presentation in terms of what we are hoping to accomplish Nor do I personally have any concerns about the fact that we are You know, we're we're presented with a situation and we're doing what I think is a Finding a creative alternative as opposed to demolishing the building my concerns are more with What I what I feel are Questions that have come to light that are that we're now getting a response from I came in here at around Five after or ten after five I haven't even looked at the piece of paper that we received and I feel as though for a Decision of this magnitude we should at least have the opportunity to see some of the answers to these questions And have the opportunity to read them over more fully before we Make a decision about this in the next five minutes or so Thank You councillor Paul I think I'd be happy to Have a Short recess to look them over. I think you'll find most you know I'm sure this board having dealt with Tiff issues many times in the past will find The answers to virtually all the questions very consistent with your knowledge of Tiff statute and And conda from the past so I'd be happy we can handle in two situations There's a particular question. No councillor pine emailed with a particular question about the expiration of the Tiff district in 2025 which is a little bit different of an issue that we've had to deal with in the past Maybe I could it is written up here, but let me speak to that one directly and I think it's a fairly straight I think that I think the answer should be reassuring which is that We've of course been aware of that expiration throughout the time that we've been contemplating investments in in Moran and the bond the debt instrument here would be Would be structured to be mature Prior to the expiration of the Tiff district and be fully repaid before the expiration of the Tiff district and That assumption has been consistent with numerous past Projections that we've shown to this source. So essentially just to remind people what we're doing here. We've looked at the at the Six million and slightly less now because we spent a little bit of the money But the the six million that we would reserve for the new Moran project we always assumed would need to be paid down by 2025 and The you know and we always thought we'd be but maybe we thought we'd be bonding money a couple of more years and we now have available to us voters always assumed it would be a short-term bonding instrument and Basically the projections continue to show that first of all that that you know consistent with such an instrument we'll be able to To fully service that debt within the Tiff district and we will have About you know one half to two million dollars of additional revenue within the Tiff district even once the This five point four million dollar bond Plus interest has been has been repaid I do think that we will be coming to this board and the council likely for additional we probably we probably don't want to let this year Expire without considering investing some of that additional two million dollars So it may not in the end be as generously padded as it as the projections are today, but you can rest assured that with this action that there's lots of room for There's a substantial buffer between what you're being asked to approve today and And what and the and the revenues that will be available in Tiff district if we do ask you to Cut it kind of closer if you will for other projects that will a Require probably an additional public vote before the end of the year so it probably require a special election if we go in that way and it would be The product, you know if we do do that that would be a separate decision and we'll have a lot more analysis on You know if we are right now You can be confident that there's a lot of margin for error if you follow me and and that and that the you know This will be structured and we're confident it can be structured to be consistent with that 2025 expiration I know there were other substantive questions in here elsewhere I Know people are starting to arrive for the six o'clock would how would how the board like to proceed would be Would we like to short take a short recess to review the other questions here present right? It's here It could be you know genuinely take a five-minute recess and reconvene it six or five Council ball. Thank you. I Don't feel right about that. I I don't feel right about us taking a five-minute break to read To read to read this You know in years past when I was first elected to the city council that happened all too often and I don't I don't think that we should be sitting here taking a recess To look at the answers to these questions I feel like we should have a little bit of time and and in fact if there are questions that we have Because of the answers we received. I feel like we should have the opportunity to to it to ask those questions And I don't think we can do that in five minutes. Mr. Mayor Councillor Buscher so I you know, I just received these now and I appreciate what's being proposed both by the administration and both by the Council members of the Board of Finance My question to you is that we have a public hearing on the 27th Would could could action be deferred until that time for this item or not I'm just trying to look at options So that the full council is supposed to it's you know, it's supposed to gather at that time at five o'clock And I just didn't know whether that would be another opportunity But not too far off in the future to take action on this. I I very much support this project I think that I have one one outstanding question for myself and I can't speak for other people But then I would be ready to move on this but in fairness I want to give everyone the time they need to Digest this and make sure there aren't additional this doesn't spur other questions from the Board of Finance So, Mr. Mayor, what what's your thought on that? Well, council busher that as I understand the meeting on the 27th is not like formally a city council meeting Frequently in the past, you know, I don't know I don't know that we can rely on the full council being you know A quorum of the council being planning on being there I guess if we are unable in the next few minutes to come to a consensus here I guess we could consider that I would you know where we have few of our other colleagues here yet Maybe I'd be welcome hearing your question that you have now if and Again, I think all of these questions which have come in from member of the public I think which we've you know, I don't believe there are any questions from counselors generated by counselors in advance of the meeting and Response to the worn materials that have gone unanswered I think we've done an admirable job responding to a question that's come in from the public here It'd be quite unusual I think to delay action because one member of the public has come forward with Routine questions that we have very straightforward answers to right here. So I Would I would I? Would urge us to continue the conversation at least until more of our colleagues arrive before we did decided with that We can't take action tonight. I think it would be a blow to the project not to take action tonight We're talking about three weeks Potentially in a project that you know can't afford to lose a month unnecessarily So I would welcome your your question So my question is really a better explanation for the public as far as question number one Which talks about what has been referenced over and over again, which is the five point four million dollar limit and now seeing that Actually that Hat is actually five point six four nine million dollars And I just really feel like that needs to be really clear as to Why there is why everything references one dollar amount and yet actually it's a different dollar amount All right, Richard. Can you can you answer that question clearly? I? believe that the five point four dollar million dollar figure was Quoted based on well, I actually haven't seen what we Yeah When we were here with city council a couple months ago there had not been a detailed review of the budgets We were trying to make sure that what we were projecting or What this project could be accomplished in terms of partial demolition and site stabilization Could come in at and we were comfortable with a five point four million dollar figure after we met with we went over all of our expenditures throughout all of our bond issuances for the PA projects bike path waterfront access north we consulted with bond council and We determined that the maximum amount of Bond capacity that we still had available based on the authorizations given by the voters was three Point five five nine We also already have the two point zero nine for the section 108 loan we also have Some related costs for the disc for these projects, but all in all bond council asked us to move it to three point five five nine because the maximum capacity was there and It still all comes in With the nine point six that was authorized by the voters for all the PIA projects, so We have a CAO who's scrutinizing the books who says the capacity is there to do the project and still have the tiff revenues pay for everything We're going we're going to monitor the expenditures going through With our related costs, but that was the ask it technically it all adds up To more than five point four, but we're still looking at bringing in a project In at around five point four, but we have the capacity to bond for more than we originally Thought when we were putting out numbers You know thank you rich I think that's pretty clear I just remind like the and I think it's helpful to remember the original voter authorization was for nine point six million That nine point six has been distributed over a number of different projects over the course of the last since 2014, you know, we had put money into the waterfront access north project the Marina project the Sailing center all these have been accounted for separately when the five point four million dollar number was Created there was some conservatism in issuing that number as we've dialed this in in preparation for this final This final authorization. This is a more exact number. I think it's the way to understand so miss so mr. Mayor I just want to continue and and thank you for that explanation. I think I'm really glad you did that I'm glad we understand really what the the maximum limit is for the bond What I think is unfortunate is that the communicate and I'll be really clear and you know blunt about this the communication doesn't really Allude to That nor do do the resolutions they all reference five point four million And so I think that that's what people Looked at that's what they grabbed on to and I regret the fact that we Weren't clearer and the estimation of that With a statement to be finalized Right before we acted or whatever and mr. Mayor I appreciate the fact that you said you know the original dollar amount the nine point whatever million which I recall We started there and and this is what's left of those funds all of that makes perfect sense to me But I think for the residents who were looking at just finite numbers They're wondering what we're doing when we've said five point four and now of a sudden that that Month that dollar amount has shifted and so I appreciate that clarification for me that makes sense I think that the Resolutions should be clear in some way to add that language that the residual amount remaining Exceeds the five point four and it actually is whatever but I think that should just be in there these resolutions are so detailed and yet it it lacks that clarity and I think that would be very helpful It's very helpful point counselor busher and if if we do keep going when the final resolution will include a whereas class Explaining that that differential present right. Thank you I'm also very supportive of the Moran frame concept but I also hear counselor Paul's concerns that of The details of the questions that we've gotten answers to What I would propose is that I'm willing to move this forward to the full council, but I would like to be able to spend some time Hearing more of the detailed answers in front of the full council and and then I would reserve my right that if the answers are not Adequate or if it raises further questions, then I would consider actually delaying I'm not saying I'm going to do that, but that I would consider that if I don't feel that If there's questions still hanging out there that are substantial and unanswered or it leads to further questions So that's where and we obviously we don't have more time We have an executive session. That's another important issue that we need to get into sir Are you making that motion president right? I would I would move this forward to the full council I would make that motion to move this forward to the full council With the understanding that I would like some time spent on these answers in front of full council Excellent, I'm happy to support it with that with that caveat. Is there a second for that? I'll second that discussion council, Paul. Thank you. Um, so I think the I don't recall that there was any Any councillor when we first had the presentation who wasn't supportive of the concept That's pretty that's pretty amazing and We've come a long way with Moran and I think it was I think it said a lot about the Creativity of the project the the questions are really just simply to make sure that we have you know We we get asked questions by constituents and we need to be able to have Valid it that would have good answers and I do think that you know, even though it may very well be one constituent that came forward with questions I think they're good questions and we You know, we should get the answers and have the opportunity to have time to read them I will I will after the executive session take the time to read the responses I don't think that anyone is interested in holding up the project I think we just Legitimately want to want to know the answers to some questions and I I hope that that's not an unreasonable request Excellent. I think we found a way forward And if we need to adjust course later tonight, so be it so There's not further discussion We'll go to vote Seeing no discussion all those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye any opposed Motion carries Without objection, we are adjourned as a board of finance at 613 Mr.. Mayor, just does that mean we didn't act there were two resolutions There was one that was linked to the desert and there's another Understood the motion to be captured both of them, but did they did the motion catcher for both Is a that's fine. I'll you as a secondary you comfortable with that. Yes. Yes, okay. So with that Without objection we are adjourned at 613 p.m Council is 616 First item on the agenda. Well first would you join with me and recycle pledge of leases Then the first item on the agenda is the agenda councillor Shannon Thank You president right I moved to amend and adopt the agenda as follows Remove the consent agenda item 4.07 report Burlington employees retirement system City Council report for June 2018 per CAO Anderson note revised version of consent agenda item 4.09 Resolution appointment of acting inspectors of election for wards 3 4 and 8 Councillor Wright per Councillor busher Note final packet for consent agenda item 4.11 resolution reorganization update to staffing structure Reclassifications and creation of tiered progression program for customer care and CADC AD GIS technician Burlington Electric Department note management letter for agenda item 5.01 Resolution acceptance and approval of the FY 2018 audit note revised version of the management letter and the addition of the CAFR document Per CAO Anderson note presentation slides for agenda item 5.02 presentation regarding update on the city's first equity report per Brian Lowe note written materials for agenda item 5.03 resolution authorization to proceed Ari Moran frame project utilizing waterfront TIF district funds for payment of indebtedness direct or related costs Note title change and written materials for agenda item 5.04 resolution Moran frame project issuance of waterfront TIF funds Add to the agenda item 5.05 presentation Megan Tuttle Comprehensive planner Ari edits to draft 2019 update to plan BTV comprehensive plan and second public hearing and adoption on March 11th 2019 Additionally President Wright I Did get a call from Brian Lowe who was concerned about item 5.02 and I Would suggest putting that after the Moran frame at 5.04 0.1 my plan is that Brian Lowe will go with the trailer he will go last he's going to okay, so that would be then 5.06 Yes, but to 5.06 Okay, thank you councillor shanna and that's second seconded by councillor busher any discussion on the proposed amendments to the agenda Hearing none all those in favor of the agenda as amended. Please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? We have our agenda At number two is a proposed executive session City Attorney Blackwood Yes, the discussion we'd like to have involves you're receiving confidential attorney client communications made for the purpose of providing professional legal services and also to Consider a document that is not Public premature disclosure of which would put the city at a disadvantage Thank You city attorney councillor shanna Council you're moving the findings. I'm yes Okay seconded by Councillor pusher all those in favor of the findings. Please say aye. Aye. Any opposed and then is there a motion on the Move to go into executive session based on the findings councillor shannon has moved to go into executive session based on the findings Seconded again by councillor busher all those in favor. Please say aye. And and who will be included in the executive session There are some employees from the airport director Richards and Mr. Longo Shelby I've forgotten your last name Thank you, and Nick Longo from the city attorney's office as well as the CAO and the mayor's office staff Okay, all those in favor going into executive session based on the findings. Please say I again Hi, I opposed so we will go into executive session and clear the room and we'll try to be back as close to seven as possible We we are going to Begin channel 17. We are we are back from executive session Counselors I think counselors are all in their seats. So we are going to call up the auditor Scott McIntyre and Alina Corsic To give us a report on the audit and If there are questions from the council The plan here is to ask questions now I'm not going to make them stick around till after the public forum and We can't vote on this until after the public forum So if you would we'll give a report now and if the council has questions, we'll take those now Thank you very much. Mr. Mr. President and appreciate the invite again as Scott McIntyre Alina Corsic and could someone could someone close that door? So I'm sorry sure We've been asked to give a very brief Overview at this meeting we met with the board of finance earlier today and our objective tonight is just to give you a very quick Overview in general our audit of your June 30 18 financial statements for it went very well What that means is that we found the books and records being good working order and as a result of our audit procedures We did not need to propose any significant entries Beyond that We're going to touch base on a couple of numbers and then Alina was going to speak about a couple of recommendations Most of what I'm going to speak about tonight is on page 39 of the hard copy of the document You have it in a PDF on your on your tablets. It's going to be something different Page 39 is the general fund balance sheet before I touch base on that There's just one other account. It's called the city's net pension liability There's a bunch of disclosure or wealth of disclosures. Pardon me That the numbers are on page 36 and there's a wealth of disclosures in there I think it's important for the city council to understand that that's a fluctuating liability That again, it's the net pension liability In this balance sheet is actually down about two million dollars, but it does fluctuate from year to year And it's certainly something that will continue to gather a lot of attention the accounting standards for that are only a couple of Year the present accounting standards are only a couple of years old and many more readers of your financial statements are starting to pay attention To that net pension liability again. That's a long-term liability It's not present on your general fund balance sheet as it should not be again And your general fund balance sheet is on page 39 This is the first place that almost all readers will turn and they'll look at the third number up from the bottom The unassigned fund balance of nine point seven million dollars That is an increase that that account balance is Approximately one point three million dollars greater than it was a year ago June 30 17 And of that increase about half of it or six hundred and fifty thousand dollars comes from fiscal year 18 Results of operations in the other half the other six fifty if you will comes from clearing some timing differences with respect to reimbursements from Grants and other capital projects Now of that of that increase if you look and it's not my objective to turn to other other pages tonight But if you look at your budget versus actual page if you would go to a couple more pages You'd see that there is some significantly more and unspent appropriations of much of that comes from the health insurance accounts and Related accounts the other large piece of that comes from departmental unspent appropriations That's fiscal year 18 But as you were closing out the year the city Rededicated or reprogrammed or signed much of those unspent Sure, unspent appropriations from fiscal year 18 and reprogram them for use in fiscal year 19 That's why you would take the rather large numbers on the budget versus actual page and boil it down to about a $650,000 increase in the unassigned fund balance with that I'm going to ask Alina to speak quickly about some of the follow-up recommendations It's not our objective to go through the entire letter just some of the follow-up recommendations that Are in the process of being cleared and could you both pull the microphones in a little closer? In a management letter. We did not know the new significant deficiencies on material weaknesses We only noted other recommendations and the two that I'll just quickly focus on tonight is Prior comment repeated the share for improving project accounting And the city has retained a consulting firm and is currently working with the consulting firm to start addressing having a little bit of trouble hearing you Could you pull the microphone in closer? I'm sorry. Sorry about that and the only other comment I'm gonna mention tonight is the review of pension census data Basically continuing to improve the reconciliation will help mitigate any significant fluctuations in the changes in proportion between the cities and the enterprise funds like Burlington Electric and BT or water waste water and also the school district as well. And those are just a few brief Summaries that we have and if we'll take any questions that you may have And just the council president if they're if you were having trouble the first issue just to make sure that you and the others Heard it it dealt with the capital project fund accounting And just to reiterate make sure it's clear We understand the city has hired a consultant to help improve the financial reporting associated with those capital projects And quite honestly they they reached out to us this week You would like to ask us a few questions and that's going to actually occur on Friday of this week So I think that recommendation is on its way to being cleared great. Thank you Questions from the city council for the auditors None All right, I guess we are all set. We appreciate the presentation both here at the board of finance earlier and We will since there are no questions. We'll be prepared to vote on this after after the public forum. Thank you very much Thank you. We let's see The mayor is being interviewed right now I could see him I was gonna go to his Yeah, why don't we shoot ahead to committee reports Any committee chair who would like to report on committee activity for the council right now? I'm gonna when the mayor gets back in I'm gonna go to the other meetings But any committee chair have anything to report to the full city council committee activity No one Counselor Tracy, thank you, so I didn't have a chance to get the agenda up But I know that took his meeting on Thursday at 5 30 to because meeting Thursday at 5 30 down in Pine Street. Thank you No one else City counselors on general city affairs anyone on general city affairs council hard net I'll bring this up I thought it was gonna be at the end, but I just want to say to the people at home and really to the mayor and the administration and You know It's been frustrating, but you know today beautiful day out, right? There are giant potholes throughout this entire city and our public works department are out plowing bike lanes and In the middle of the winter I just find that just a waste of taxpayer dollars and Really not good governance. I really it's it's been really frustrating and the same Bike lanes that they're plowing on North Avenue just a little ways out. There's potholes as the size of You know a front tire could fill in and it's just amazing to me that That we have gotten to the point in this city Where the common sense approach and public works and our streets and sidewalks have just been way out of whack And it has been so frustrating to watch this And I know there's this gold standard that the city has to get to and they want to and I just And I understand that but to spend hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars to get to this standard and allow Our streets and sidewalks to get in the condition condition that they're in and putting our priorities on I'm not gonna say things that aren't important They are and we want to be able to walk and bike in this city And but we also have to realize what kind of climate that we live in right? It's not Colorado You don't get you know, 20 inches of snow and the next day It's 45 degrees out and the Sun melts most of it and you're all set to go I mean you literally have ice Throughout the entire city on our sidewalks and streets and to think that we're gonna spend time You know clearing bike lanes And the middle of these streets in the middle of February when the temperatures 10 degrees out is just really Disappointing to me that we are wasting that much money doing this when we could be effectively out there You know fixing our our streets and certainly the potholes Throughout this city. So I saw it today. I've seen it all winter. It's just really frustrating Just bring it to your attention. Thanks. Thank you, Councillor Hartnett Any other councillor on general city affairs? councillor jane, um, I Want to come from a place where it's really Respectful because we are all called to work together and we are all called to respect each other and Represent the concept our constituents very well but I mean I think This is just wanting to take the time to really say thank you to DPW for Definitely the work that they do every single day. I think I did send a tweet out because We don't We we we don't do it enough. We don't do it enough to recognize those people what they do And I think it is important for them to definitely, you know, plow those sidewalks plow those bike lanes Because when we talk about privilege, it's not Sometimes things don't affect you. You have that privilege, but I know people who live here who use their bikes every single day every single day to go to work and sometimes I'm like this is just saying how weird Vermonters are and Yeah, because sometimes it's very cold but trust me there are people who bike every single day and How would they get to work if these sidewalks or bike lanes were not plowed for them to be able to go back and forth? I mean, let's think about those people. It's not only people driving cars But there are people who who who who bike you around and I think I just want to say thank you To DPW the leadership for the incredible job that they do keeping our roads and our sidewalks safe. Thank you Thank you, councillor jane councillor pine Sure, this will be quick, but it's a challenge to all councillors and I believe the mayor is already Involved in this effort, but it's the spectrum sleepout and I think we should all Get our sleeping bags out on March 21st and do the spectrum sleepout So I'm gonna pose that challenge to other councillors and hope that you can join me if you can't actually be there you can at least raise the money for a spectrum it's their single biggest event and any community that Has homeless teenagers It's gonna it takes an entire village to really address that issue And so I think we as a community should should rally together to to support the spectrum sleepout So I will be putting out the information to the rest of you in an email, but I wanted to at least put it out there tonight Thanks. Thank you councillor pine any other councillor Hearing none We'll close that item out and go back to I am going to now actually recess the regular city council meeting in order to Convene city council with mayor presiding and turn it over to the mayor council president right documents up At 727 I will convene the city council With mayor presiding and the first item on the agenda is the agenda of welcome emotion regarding Proval of the agenda. Thank you president right seconded by councillor shannon discussion all those in favor of motion Please say aye. Aye any opposed? Motion carries unanimously and That brings us 2.01, which is the consent agenda and welcome motion from president right move passage of the consent agenda and take The actions indicated excellent is there a second Council Paul, thank you discussion of the consent agenda motion all those in favor, please say aye. Hi the opposed motion Carries unanimously. Okay, that brings us to 3.01 Which is the appointment to the cemetery commission for the term expiring this is correct So it's this term expiring June 30th 19th. So it's a short Appointment but councillor busher. Yes, I would like to place the name of Nancy curvy in nomination Excellent. Are there any additional nominations? any additional nominations for the Cemetery Commission councillor jang Yeah, and I wanted to take the to nominate Jennifer jazz resident of ward 7 to The Cemetery Board Commission Excellent Jennifer Jennifer Diaz and Nancy curvy's names are Put in nomination. Are there any further nominations? Seeing none, we will close the floor to nominations and is there any discussion Council pine No, I do there were so many people just dying to get on the cemetery Commission, but I didn't get a call from Nancy curvy saying she was unable to be here tonight and Wanted to see if the I thought there were two openings at now at this point or is there only one opening? All right, so there's one opening. I just confirmed there are two candidates, which is unusual for this particular Commission and Nancy curvy has been not well for quite a while and she was not able to to attend tonight But she just wanted me to to pass that along to say a lifelong Berlin Tony and she's not she's not Not here because she doesn't want to be she just is physically not well enough to be here Thank you cancer busher. Yes So Nancy curvy lives in Ward 1 She lives right next door to a cemetery and she has been a very good steward of that cemetery and has dedicated Really the past I don't know how many years she she's lived next door now, but She Cares about cemetery she cares about the historic nature of Cemetery she cares about the maintenance the use the respect for the dead the opportunities that cemeteries offer people for quiet places to reflect and She has made that commitment on her own and has Really kept the current cemetery Commission And the department that oversees the cemeteries informed of any Problems that she's observed She would very much like to be part of the Commission now and since there's an opening. She's been waiting for that opportunity And I think she's shown real dedication and wants to commit in in now a more formal manner So I'm hoping people will consider her. Thank you I Think you council council busher any further discussion is Are are the app? Excuse me are either of the applicants here tonight and interested in Speaking to the to the council, okay, if there's No further discussion We will go to a vote We will vote in the order nominated all those in favor of appointing Nancy Kirby to the cemetery Commission Please raise their hands all those. I think that the majority is clear and congratulations to Nancy Kirby and we Congratulations on the appointment and we wish Good luck to you in the in the role and we thank the We think Yeah, please you're sure okay all those in favor of Confirming Nancy of appointing Nancy Kirby to the cemetery Commission, please raise their hand Okay, and all those in favor of Jennifer Diaz, please raise their hand. Okay. I apologize. So Jennifer Diaz is is appointed by a vote of seven to six and And we think we think both applicants for their for their interest and we Say the Nancy Kirby we invite you to many of our Appointees have applied multiple times before they've been successful. We look forward We encourage you to consider applying again We are now brings us to 3.02 the development review board The floor is open for nominations is the alternate position for a term expiring June 30th, 2021 Councilor Nodell Thank You mayor. I'd like to nominate Ravi Venkara Venkataraman Okay, thank you counselor Nodell. Are there any further nominations? Council Shannon I'd like to nominate Rachel Dysart Excellent. Are there any further nominations? Are there any further nominations? Seeing no Further nominations. We will close the floor for nominations and I would invite the nominees if they are interested in Addressing the council We'd be interested in hearing from you if you're here interested, okay Seeing no takers on that. We will look to the council. Is there any any discussion about the nominees? Okay, we will close the floor to discussion and We will go to a vote again, we'll vote in the order of the nominations and we begin Commissary with Councilor Nodell and getting this pronunciation right mr Venk Venkataraman all those in favor of Ravi Venkataraman, please raise your hands. Okay It appears That there is a majority for mr. Venkataraman and Congratulations and again we say to Ms. Dysart We hope you will stay interested in and consider applying for future positions. These are Very frequently people are nominated and the approved on their second or third attempt Finally, we'll go to the Public Works Commission with the term expiring June 30th, 2019 Councillor Paul. Thank you. I'd like to place a nomination the name of Peggy O'Neill Ivanko Excellent. Is there are there any further? Nominees floors open for nominations are any further nominations Seeing none, we will close the floor Is Peggy O'Neill Ivanko here, I'm not seeing Peggy So we will go to vote all those in favor of Appointing Peggy to the for the term expiring on June 30th, 2019 please raise your hand and The nomination is confirmed. Thank you. We're excited to have Peggy O'Neill Ivanko joining joining the Public Works Commission and with that President Wright We will adjourn the City Council of Mayor presiding at 737 p.m Thank You, Mr. Mayor, and I will now reconvene the regular City Council meeting and open the Item number three, which is the public forum and I At this time do not have anybody signed up to speak in public forum So we'll give it one shot if if you do want to speak there are forms over here and the table Just put your name down and turn into Lori and she will We have we need a we need a record for the City clerk's office and it looks like we will have at least one speaker So we'll hold on for just a moment Mr. Finn are you Flynn? Mr. Flynn? Are you speaking? No? No, you would speak now Just did you did you give did you fill out the form? You need to hand that to if somebody just brings it over to me. We'll we'll have it Okay, we will without any further ado mr. Flynn. I don't have the sheet, but they'll be bringing it up here Come on up. You have three minutes When the middle light goes off you're down to about a minute or so and when the red light goes off You need to conclude your remarks. So with that the floor is yours Thank you. I'm here to speak tonight with regards to the resolutions that are going to be in front of you for the Moran frame concept Basically, I've emailed you there's been a you know a list of questions With information that wasn't previously provided that I think is very important to have in front as we Evaluate this project I was at the board of finance meeting The administration offered a sheet With what I would consider more statements than answers to questions. They've They raised some additional questions or clarifications and so my Concern is that this project needs to be on a very secure financial base and and With the information that's been Provided prior to this afternoon it really hasn't been evident to me and The previous information that's been provided as I said, there are more statements than they are answers to questions so what I would like the board the council to entertain basically is To not act on the resolutions that will be in front of you to delay to a time-certain date whether and I would prefer two weeks because that gives enough time to Ask the questions needed and for the administration to provide the answers In a better better format, I mean to give you an example You know a question was what's the cost of the bond? Well, the answer was 4.75 percent. Well, that's the interest rate of the bond That's not the cost of the bond You may end up being told that well We don't know what the cost of the bond is until we actually go out and bond it that may be that may be correct But they will have an idea that for every million dollars that you bond Traditionally you have a cost associated up to this amount. So it gives you an idea It's a little bit more drilling down for the information that's needed. It's really it's It's a city project. I think the city and the administration should be responsible to provide those answers. So we clearly understand What we're getting originally was 5.4 million today it now is Being proposed at five point six four nine there's The previously councillor pusher asked a question to a person from CEDO and he let off with well I believe that to me is not a ringing endorsement of of the facts It's it's it's not a clear answer and we received some amendments to the proposed Resolutions I Would like basically a financial accounting of how they get there if the money is there it should be pretty easy to find out So again, I would hope that you would delay the resolution to a time-certain date in the future How's that if you're if you're done if you you're the only speaker if you want to take another No, I guess the only I think I would sort of say is that if there's a reason for me to stay when this agenda item comes up Please let me know I will I just don't I don't know if I'm Can participate in the discussion of I'm just sitting listening and if I'm just sitting listening. I Think I've told you everything that I'd like you to entertain And so I appreciate the opportunity really this is This is not a back-and-forth, but just to explain mr. Flynn that This is your opportunity to speak and once it comes to the council Then it's really in the in the count the council will be deliberating on it. Okay. Well, I guess I just I'm in your hands to do the right thing Thank you. All right. Thank you, mr. Flynn with that We will close tonight's public forum and move to the consent agenda Agenda item number four is there a motion on the consent agenda? Councillor Nodell President right I moved to adopt the Consent agenda as amended and to take the actions as indicated Seconded by council roof all those in favor of passing the consent agenda and taking the actions indicated please say aye Any opposed we have passed the consent agenda We will now move back to The audit Resolution and I am going to we we heard from the auditors And we had an opportunity to ask questions and we're now ready for that and I'm going to recognize Councillor Paul Thank You president right. I'd like to waive the reading and adopt the resolution Seconded by Councillor Busher Councillor Paul did you want the floor back? No, I believe we Had ample time to to ask questions of the auditor as well as at the board of finance and I'm happy to just make the resolution and hope it will be unanimous All right. Thank you Councillor Paul and so the resolution is acceptance and approval of the FY 18 audit Which the board of finance approved unanimously all those in favor please say aye Any opposed that passes unanimously Item number five point two has actually been moved to five point oh six So we will move to item five point oh three and that is the first resolution Authorization to proceed on the Moran frame project Councillor Councillor Hartnett, would you like to move that as chair the Pack thank you president right. I will you know move the resolution As for a second and As for the floor back Moved by as amended as Councillor Bush. You just told me moved by my council hard and as amended and seconded by Like councillor roof Council councillor Hartnett with the floor back. Yes, just for a brief You know, I will say that so it's been a long road with Moran And I think we're at a place now where it might not be perfect right and there's still some questions out there but For me personally I'm at the point where it is time to act and it's time to move and For me at the end of the day If it's going to cost It to as much to tear it down is to do phase one and Phase one is not a lot right. It's it's a starting point and there is no Concrete financing in place for phase two three and four and I understand that but there's also Opportunities I think down the road for things to happen. I I think if we level the building We take a lot of opportunities off the table and I'm not sure I'm ready to do that given the cost is equal to get to phase one and The fact is I was speaking to somebody earlier tonight that and I know it sounds crazy But for all the good things that are going down at the waterfront and for the skate park which I sat here A few years ago said no way should we spend four million dollars on a skate park? I couldn't have been more wrong right for the activity and the use and what it's done to our waterfront to see the families down there and And so when you're wrong you stand up and say, you know, I know the shot at that I would I would do it differently and thank God there was more people that were right than I was wrong and that skate park happened, you know but to to be able to At least start a new addition down there That could possibly attract, you know families and visitors and we've talked for years about how we we need to Enhanced the waterfront and how we need to get more people down there I Hope this is the start. Do I know a hundred percent? It is no, but I hope it is and the fact that Just from the very base of plan one that will possibly have You know, maybe a couple vendors down there and in phase one some public bathrooms for sure So when you're going down there and these kids have a place that they can actually go to the bathroom and the families Which they don't know and so and a lot of them don't use the port let's so you can just imagine where they're going down there at the waterfront and I Just I know it sounds crazy, but I just think it's possibly there's a possibility of a huge beginning here, right at The same amount of dollars it would take to tear it down I just think it would be a waste to do it at that point, right? And and I hope that we do or do Dylan's it's going forward and I hope you know that we have better numbers financially because I along with other people at the pack did post quite a few questions and There is a little bit of uncertainty moving forward, right? There's no question about that, and I think that's the risk in this project But Given the fact that there's closure here with Miranda for all these years And it's something that I think that we can all embrace might not be perfect I would hope that this council would take the first step and move it forward and Do our due diligence as we go on with this process As I said, I will not be here You know starting April 1st, but this is one of the projects that I will stay close to and end with the pack and hope to see it through and I think it's it. I think it's I think it's the right thing to do tonight and I'm glad we're here. Thanks. Thank you, Councillor. I'm gonna go to councillor busher in just a moment And I would actually request councillor busher these two pages that are on our desk are amendments that that you talked about the Board of Finance, but before I go to you for one second on the amendments I just want to state that in the board of finance and and so the public knows Mr Flynn has presented a number of questions to us that we discussed at the board of finance Answers came forth from the administration as Mr. Flynn noted Councillor Paul raised Concerns about that that we had received the answers just as we started the board of finance What we settled on was that we were moving this forward to the full city council But that the administration would spend some time to go through these questions and have Because we did not have time to actually deliberate on them They came up toward the end of the board of finance meeting so At some point after city after councillor busher talks and if councillors want to speak first or or we can decide if we want to go Right to some of those questions But I do want to hear from councillor busher first Yeah, the point of information point of information Copy of the amendments, please. Yes Councillor pine. Do you the copy of the amendments? I? Have a copy at the table here. Okay. Yeah, I didn't get one. So thank you councillor busher Thank You president right. I was actually going to reference the list of questions that were presented And were referenced during public forum And I wanted to speak to the resolution that has been moved and to bring attention to The amendments that were put forward As they relate to question number one Which was the question was in throughout the information shared with us the reference has always been five point four million dollars and yet the reality is as Was identified that the dollar amount is greater than that And so it's five point six four nine million dollars So the amendment speaks to changing In two places one to add aware as clause after line 46 that references that the actual available funds are five point six four nine million and That the bond capacity is Available for an amount not to exceed three point five five nine million and then to substitute on line 52 the once again the revised Dollar amount of five point six four nine million as opposed to five point four million I thought it was important to link that to the question raised And I really think it would be if if president right agrees I think it would be important for kirsten and Richard Hessler to come forward and explain Why there is that difference? They did a very succinct Answer for the board of finance and I think it would be beneficial For the public to hear that also and they are at the table now as you say that and councillor busher I want to make clear the What councillor Hartnett proposed the motion he made as you stated he did include the amendments correct? Yes, that's correct. I just wanted to bring attention to the revision Because I think it's it's germane But I think it would be important for them to state this and I think what if I could just make one other comment I think it was unfortunate that In the communications to the council and that the public saw in advance that there wasn't a Statement saying that the five point four million was an approximation and that it would be refined as it has Okay, okay great. Let's hear from the team and I I'm going to I hope councillors I have several counselors in the queue But I think I would like to hear from the administration to go through some of these answers first I think it makes more sense to then have questions after we hear from the administration. So first hear from The team in front of us. I guess I'll Speak to this as I did with board of finance the the memo actually does reference Approximately three point four and we Excuse me five point four and we did not we did not change that It Just because it seemed like amending a memo just meant so I'm hoping you're okay with that councillor push To the extent that five point four has been has been used As I explained to board of finance the the TIF funds for the waterfront TIF district comprise a number of projects and to Do the the bookkeeping and run it down and in the and a lot of those projects are still in play so I Think it's important to come up with a finite number. We're doing that now based on the numbers that we have If But at the time we knew that we had five point four and we were using five point four it became A parent that we needed to run the final numbers and we did and And we got them into the resolution At the last minute, but I think we've been doing TIF reports. We've been trying to like Garner the entire TIF district down to a finite number and we really just got that on Friday and we and we made the change to To Adjust a final amount. It's actually more money than we said and we decided that we should avail in talking to bond counsel Make every last dollar that you can available to the project. So we changed the number It's a change for the good to the extent that it created uncertainty I apologize that's You know, I guess it could have been done earlier or it could have been characterized differently we we sort of plugged in played and it's there's more money actually available to the project than what we Were we're asked me We've made that change Thank you Questions which could you pull a microphone in closer, please and everybody pull your mouth President right if your invitation to kind of respond on behalf of the administration Let me set some overarching comments here and then there's the details they they can present the First of all one other thing that came up at the product board of finance tonight that is relevant to this Refinement here is Project accounting is a challenge the city has had as noted in our audit, which is going to be accepted later on it's one of the areas that We Are still aspiring to be even better at we actually have consultants that are on staff right now and We all look forward to the day when the city is much more able to Quickly print out and know exactly where it stands on all of its projects today It remains a cumbersome effort and one that contributed to the confusion around this exact number here, but Again This was it was a not an uncomplicated exercise to say the voters offer eyes $9.6 million of total spending exactly how much of that is left a good substantial amount of effort has gone into this and it is good news That there's a little bit more than the prior conservative approximations the Fundamental question I think kind of framed and framed in the public forum was is this project on sound financial? Footing and I think council harden it in teeing it off kind of similarly kind of eluded like you know it's with any project There's some financial questions and risks and and are we in okay place here and You know fundamentally Yes, this project is on sound financial footing there is five point six Four nine million that has been reserved for this project. It cannot be spent Essentially on just about anything else if we do not invest it in this project By the end of the year commit to investing in this project by the end of the year We will return we will be need to return about 70% of those dollars to the state The Will we be able to afford that investment always the right a key question whenever tiff investments come up The answer that we have consistently given to this council for years Is that the waterfront tiff district is healthy and has more than enough? Capability to make that five point six million dollar investment in fact we continue to project We projected for you as recently as last spring Last March that there would be approximately two million dollars of excess capacity in the waterfront test tiff district To make this investment as well as all the other commitments at the waterfront tiff district has made We will have a further discussion before the end of the year and all likelihood about That two million dollars and whether there are opportunity opportunities to invest more of it But right now you can act tonight Very confident that there is substantially more capacity approximately two million dollars of additional capacity projected to pay For this project as well as all the others a One thing that is I know on some councillors minds with this project that is you know different than when we've looked at Bonding decisions for the waterfront tiff district in the past is that the life of this tiff district is gets shorter and shorter with each passing day and the the expiration of the tiff district is now You know much closer at hand than it has been at past times the city has made commitments It is in 2025 June of 2025 when the district will expire rest assured that The assumptions around this project in the past and we are re Asserting this reaffirming this to you tonight are very aware of that expiration date and The expectation the the plan is to fully pay off whatever debt instrument is used prior to the expiration of the district the Revised and this has changed in recent years. There used to be very rigid rules about how The city could finance these tiff investments and there were requirements about you know specific requirements around bonding that has been loosened dramatically with a revision to the tiff legislation made Several years ago in the time that you know I've been working with you and that was one of the things we push for and the city has a great deal of flexibility to ensure That we will that we can find a financial instrument that that so we have the legal flexibility to find a financial instrument that So that this investment can be made with a maturity date consistent with the 20 25 expiration And there's plenty of money available To ensure that we'll be able to pay off that instrument. We are in the process of updating those Those those numbers since it has been about a year and those projections do always shift a little bit There haven't been dramatic changes in the last year. There have been modest changes. We will By the end of the fiscal year We said to the board of finance you could do it faster if people wanted it for some reason We will update those projections and of course the council on the board of finance if there's something in those projections that causes some concern Can always reopen this discussion if there's a reason to once those updates are given but hopefully that point is clear Then the last point that I was gonna make is just you know, this project is unusual This five point Six four nine cap on what can be invested here is a is a hard cap. It would be complicated and challenging to Expand that Budget which isn't the case for all projects. I this this project it is And there's always uncertainty until the very end as we know until the the the construction bids come in There's always uncertainty about you know Exactly are we gonna be on budget is there and there is always a risk of things are gonna cost more than we expect them to with this project there's actually an unusual degree of Flexibility because of the nature of this project to if if if things come in over a budget we can choose to scale back on certain walkways or on the tensile roofs that are anticipated here and You know, it is it is Unusual and that we usually when you start a project you really have to complete the building or you've got a big problem Here, you know, we're doing talking about something somewhat different So if if somehow we are unable we have made a good faith effort with you to lay out Where we expect we will go be able to get based on the available projects at this Still somewhat preliminary stage of the project if that changes over the time you and the public will be kept Well abreast of that there is not a scenario where to achieve phase one We anticipate coming back to you and asking for further funds to do that so Hopefully I've addressed the big picture financial questions here and with that instead of going through every item of the memo I mean, I know it was particularly raised It is true. We cannot tell you exactly tonight. How much the bonding or transaction costs are going to be we have Defined the upper limit of that It in the in in that the cost of issuance that is being capped by this resolution would include The total annual interest cost would include cost of issuance if there's a desire You know, really we will not be able to give specific answers to exactly Transaction costs until substantially later. I don't see why that should hold us back from moving forward with this resolution tonight But maybe there's something there. We should consider further with that Instead of going through each Specific questions is there are a number of them that aren't writing before you maybe we pause there and see what additional questions or concerns The council has thank you, mr. Mayor And so every city council now should have the sheet of paper with the administration's responses to mr. Flynn's questions and the mayor has Verbalized some of these in his statement that he just made and with that I'll turn it over to counselor pine Thank you, so the Project I think enjoys really broad support in the community. I've heard really positive things about this This council seems to be united on the project. I think that's clear The questions that mr. Flynn posed to us were questions that Independently some of us have anyway, so I think it's just really important to to air those and get those out there and what I What I struggle with figuring out is and maybe you can just explain the financial structure here in a six-year period how we retire that large amount of principal and Are we essentially using dollars that have been set aside in reserve to serve us debt? I'm just having trouble getting over the large amount of debt in such a short amount of time and how we can amortize that over that period Yes fundamentally counselor pine exactly as you surmise there. I mean we are right now in a situation where There are substantial amounts of reserves that have accrued to the To the district and so we will we will settle on a final amortization table that has You know when we know exactly the the time period we have to work with and we're working with a specific lender we will set a amortization table that has the debt fully being paid off over over that period of time and that will undoubtedly Rely on some money that has already been collected as well as Some some dollars in the future. We you know, we are at a point now where You know, there's a significant net positive on an annual basis to to to the to the TIF district And so it is possible to amortize a you know Fundamentally, we're telling you and the projections the past have said and you can look at them in the form What came from last March? There is there is the capacity there to pay off a five-point six five million dollar loan in that six-year period of time, okay? So it is a reserve or a sinking fund or something of that nature that's been set aside so we were covered there and The four point seven five on such a short term seems very Like a very high number for the city It seems like we're coming in at much better rates for longer term financing So usually when you shorten the term you get a better rate. So I'm just wondering what happened there That's correct. We we think that is a conservative figure and that we will likely be well below that And This gives the resolution as as described As as written gives us conservative leeway to ensure that we come in beneath that But we do hope and intend to do better than that considerably better we will of course, you know do as well as we can and We have a good team with that regard that you know Beats the bushes and gets the best deal we possibly can And lastly the the assumptions for issuance cost is sort of worst-case scenario. That's built into the project cost. Is that right? That's right That's in it's built into the bonding cost exactly That's yeah, and that's rolled into the financing. I assume that issuance cost. Yeah, either in the rate or in yes Which is that's the way we Has always done it in my experience. That's been our standard practice and that's what I anticipated here That's it. Thank you. Thank you councillor pine councillor Tracy to be followed by councillor Jang So Question and then a comment. So can you please speak to the the relationship between general fund money and the bonding process and How and when if any money is taken from the general fund when that gets paid back Whoever this would go to the best So the second resolution includes what we very often do with our funding is a reimbursement resolution Which basically says that until we actually do the bonding which we anticipate will be sometime in the fall We can use current fund balance to kind of do make a loan to cover the any expenses We incur before we do the bonding So that allows us I think it says now for up to a million dollars and those expenses to use general fund monies Don't know that that's what we'll need, but it just gives us the ability And we do that for two reasons one because we do ask approval for interphone. I'm sorry. I'm sorry pull that microphone in closer Yeah, we ask for this approval for two reasons both for transparency and for your approval to use those monies also because for us to use a Bond monies to reimburse already paid expenses We do need the approval ahead of time with these to kind of say to the market the our intent is to reimburse these expenses with bonding Okay, thank you very much and president right are you looking for comments on the resolution in general? Are you wanting us to hold those until their questions are addressed? You can make comments now if you like I mean worse they're going to continue with questions I think but it's up to you if you want to make comment or if you want to hold it till after I'll hold it and let others ask questions and then okay. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Tracy Councillor Jang to be followed by Councillor Shannon Thank You president, and I'm gonna start with a comment and the first one would be To really say thank you to Kristen. I think this project has been in transition Neil is no longer here and looks like it landed on your hands, and you're beautifully executing it not only here But also back committee outside. Thank you for that. Definitely And another comment is basically my only concern about this project was just the risk assessment As of today, there is no risk assessment that was made by a professional to tell us in terms of high winds in terms of natural Disasters this is the assessment and for us to be on the head of the curve. It didn't exist But I don't think That only that aspect will not hold my vote to move this forward because the community need closure This has been going on for years and in front of us is a wonderful Wonderful project, and I think it's doable But the other question that I really have is are we what confidence do we have that? The people who will do the work will give us a tap of a bill that's more than 5.6 million like more than this and I was just I think I asked you this question was How about we try now? Ask for bidders at least get the sense of how much it's gonna cost because we Over the years we had the examples of things that we're thinking about putting it on paper But actually when we get to the real work, it's way more than that Right, and I think that is the only concern that I have about this. Are we sure are we confident that we will stay on budget? Thank you Thank you. Thank you councillor Chang did Go ahead. Okay. I think I can answer that question. So for the presentations that were given by Mr. Lunderville when he was the CETO interim CETO director and the subsequent presentations we actually There were two processes sort of going on side-by-side Eric Crockenberg who was part of the new Moran group and Zach Campbell from PC construction and Lincoln Brown were looking at something similar And then the city was also looking at something and we had a team with Freeman French Freeman and Alex is here tonight if you have any detailed questions about the architecture and DEW construction and engineering ventures were on that team as well as the city and so we became aware that Both entities were sort of looking at something similar and so we hired DEW to do the construction estimate. They are a construction firm. They do construction estimating on a regular basis PC construction also similar Completed our work separately then looked at them together so that we were doing apples to apples and the budgets came in in the same area And that's the five point approximately five point four million that we've presented So we feel it's achievable And we feel we have two qualified sort of firms and teams of professionals that had looked at that So that was our starting point But you have a good point. How do we continue to make sure that we are on budget? Well, as the mayor said it's a hard Top so we can't go up So we're gonna need to manage that and we're looking at using construction management and bringing that on When to approve this we will seek some extra consultants and that's in the memo and as we move forward We'll work with them to make sure that what gets put into the demolition bid documents Is within our price point and there'll be several estimates as we proceed to the final bidding So once we complete our planning and zoning Permits will have another at round of estimating and we'll continue to monitor that as we move forward Thank you, Kirsten Rosalind Councilor jane and I mean mr. Flint also. Thank you, but I was just wondering if we delay this resolution tonight Do you think we will be able to still meet the deadline in making sure that we access the different? Um The the time frame is very short. I'm not I don't want to sugarcoat that I I have I try to have a can-do attitude in the city but it is a very short time and December will be here before we know it and we have to bond and we have to get through permitting and Getting those consultants on board so that we can begin the permitting process later this spring is really important and so every week sort of counts so From my perspective, I would hope that we could move forward tonight, but of course we'll defer to the council's desires. Thank you One technical question before I go any further city attorney Blackwood At the board of finance we made the motion on both 5.03 and 5.04 together 5.03 basically being proceeding Moving forward and 5.04 being the issuance of TIF funds Can we do both of those together as we did the board of finance? Yes, thank you Counselor Hartnett Is it okay to just move both those with Councilor Hartnett with your approval? Okay, so we'll say that we are the motion was to move forward on both 5.03 and 5.04 With the amendments as it as amended on both yes, okay And and now I have two counselors that are in the queue for comments before going through comments Is there any other counselor that has questions to ask of the administration counselor Mason? Thank you president right? Thank you for the presentation. I I haven't heard and I appreciate I wasn't at the pack Meaning so it may have been discussed there, but our last presentation. There was really a discussion of There was a I will say Neil was committing to look into given the current uses sort of the impact on our operating budget I mean, I don't I appreciate we've got TIF funds to pay for the project But what's the impact sort of going forward do we have and I appreciate the uses are in flux But I don't know if you've looked at that so we we worked with the parks department to Actually look at that in terms of the first year of option operation and it was in the pre-presentation I'm sorry. I probably should have put it in the memo. I apologize So we asked them to look at what would the basic frame again The basic frame is cut in the grass a few plantings the restrooms And they have an estimate for that work of being between 65 and 75,000 annually So that is their estimate Considering that would be year-round so about 32 of the weeks of the year They would contract out but in the main site of the summer season They have a lot of staff down on the waterfront and they really felt it was very important to Have really a high quality of care at this facility because it will be so well used given the bike path the skate park and All of those things so that that they took a really good look at that and that's what they came up with And as a follow-up, I know we were projecting that it was projecting There would be some revenue generated from the use of the event space is that no longer? I'm just trying to figure out what's this gonna cost. I Mean parks parks sees lots of opportunities in the future But is the basic frame? We're just looking at doing the basics and it will be it will be permitted as a park and then parks can Determine how they wish to use it or Modify it they will often have the people have talked about food trucks or vendors and so they often do RFPs or cues for that They may choose to do that Here they do that with splash and get a percentage of the sales So parks felt fairly comfortable, and I know Cindy spoke to this at the pack meeting That they feel like that they bring in a significant amount of revenue across the waterfront as a whole and they're not To particularly concerned at this initial Kirsten, I think you're done, but yeah pull the microphone and closer, please Hopefully that came across should I repeat myself? Thank you. Okay. Sorry. Thank you Thank you, Councilor Mason any other questions for the administration before comments Councillor Paul Thank you So I have a just a question You know, we've been through a number of iterations my time on the council on Moran And in the past what we've usually had although they were I guess you could say more complex Projects we've had a sources and uses And a very detailed document that gave that information And I'm wondering if that is something that I don't mean to say that you need to do it today But is that something that you would be able to produce a you know within the near term So that it could be posted online so that people have You know if they want to look it up they can look it up and see what the sources and uses are Yes, I can do that. I can take the same budget that was in the presentation basically that has the large categories and then it's up against the five million six hundred forty nine I can share that Okay, and then the you know the other thing I think you know in in fairness to everybody is that it was a little bit Disconcerting to be told all along what the maximum bonding was or at least that's what I mean I know I thought that I was told that it was 3.4 or 5.4 depending on if you're talking about the entire project and And to then find out that there actually is more capacity. Now. That's not bad news. It's just Disconcerting when you know when that number has been floated out for quite some time So I was hoping that you know That there would be some way of adding The explanation Richard that you gave us at the board of finance if that could be added in some way to Board Docs so that if people are if people do want to know why just in the interest of transparency Why that number is now higher So that's it's just it's not it's just a question. Can is that something that can be done? Not sure how the city will I mean, I think I've just created a public record of the fact that we Had estimated without finality because of a multiplicity of projects in play And we it is contemporaneous with Tiff reporting, which is a recall went in last week and that helped clarify for us the current state of our Tiff district in a manner that was timely and occurs annually and And we also have the mayor speaking to the fact that our project Budgeting is something we're working on so I mean that is a matter of public record already if there is a desire to put something on the website I'm sure that we can do that would that be acceptable We could add some language on the CEDA web page where the rest of the information is maybe I mean some way to put that together and we could also put the sources and uses up there that that would be great The other thing also is that the analysis that was done in March of 2018 You know, I think Most people are not going to go to looking for it If it could be close posted in a way I realized and with the caveat that it is not current figures Obviously people need to know that but I would imagine it's fairly close enough so that people do understand that there is capacity In the Tiff that's my that's that's all. Thank you very much. Thank you. Councillor Paolo anyone else with questions for the administration Councilor Nodell Thank You President right just continuing on the waterfront about the condition of the waterfront Tiff I actually have that Marsh memo right here and it it does indicate the positive balance of 2.25 million as the mayor stated and it said that assumes That the debt includes voter approved but not yet bonded. So does that refer to? Bonding for Moran Yes, great. Thank you. And within the waterfront Tiff district. What are the other projects where we have active spending that are you know within that district? Currently we have echo The echo project that was part of the 9.6 the harbor marina project, which will be coming online this spring Moran We have otherwise we also have the You want to know all the other projects or just out of the 9.6 you start the 9.6. Okay, so The community sailing center has closed out. So they're no longer active Or they're active in the paying of the debt but waterfront access north bike path Waterfront park echo burlington harbor marina and marina. Okay, so that's another you can understand the complexity of Accounting for the what's been spent to date and all these various projects. Thank you Thank You councillor nodal councillor busher Yes, I just wanted to ask since you now couple of both resolutions in the issuance of Tiff bonds from Iran if indeed It there is a decision to have bond insurance Will that be rolled into the debt or how is that how do you I don't know what that cost is? That's part of that resolution Yeah Yeah, it would be kind of wrapped into the TIC costs Ultimately, but we traditionally in recent years have not found it at all worthwhile to us to buy So I don't know that I would anticipate it being an issue But it would be wrapped into that that cost the 4.75 percent maximum. Thank you and president right just so that I can end this line 33 and both resolutions need to be amended to the 5.649 million I Notice that and it wasn't picked up. So I just want to ask that I believe that that's correct the the reason for not amending it is because that is What we represented on December 10th. Oh Very good. Never mind then. Thank you. All right. Thank you councillor busher Any other questions before we go to comments and Councillor jane and This is going to be very quick. It's for the mayor and maybe Beth Anderson And about if and also the debt policy So if we bound this will it be an addition to the debt policy or It's it won't be If you can make this approval Consistent with all the cities debt policies. Thank you. We don't need an amendment to that policy to make this rule Thank You councillor jane. So it looks like we have exhausted the questions and we're ready for comments I'll go to councillor Shannon and then councillor Tracy Thank You president right. I wanted to thank mr. Flynn for his diligence in in Asking these questions and bringing some issues to our attention that I think are very important But I also wanted to thank the many people who who turned out for the PAC meetings when this was originally presented and I have to say I can't think of a project that has garnered as as much enthusiasm as this has Right out of the gates and from a really broad spectrum of the community people are really excited about this and But also that you know, we have been we've been presented with a lot of illustrations and What we're putting forward right now is the bare bones That can be built off of and I just want to make sure that everybody understands that because I know there were I was a lot more excited about the more advanced stages, but that's not where we are now But I really appreciate all of the work That CEDO has put in and particularly Kirsten Thank you for the very very long hours and Richard And I know it's been a whirlwind to get it to this point today And we're really under the gun to get this done and it's very exciting that we're going to be able to Use those tiff dollars and not have to send them back to Montpelier. I think that's really a big benefit for Burlington So thank you Thank You councillor Shannon councillor Tracy Thank You president, right? I would also echo councillor Shannon's words of thanks for especially Kirsten Your work has been tremendous on this I remember meeting you right when I first got on the council when you What got up early on a morning and took me into Moran and your belief in the project then Was evident it's continued through several other iterations And I want to thank you for your willingness to just kind of bear with all these changes and really Continue to believe in the possibility of that site Speaking of believing in the possibility of the site I think that my belief in this particular concept was actually Further confirmed when I went when I had the opportunity to actually visit MF Park in Zurich I was visiting my sister who happens to live there now And I made the family take a trip to MF Park Which if you don't know is essentially an example that was cited in the presentation Where they took an old factory stripped it down to the studs and created a public park Very similar to what we're trying to do here I will say that it was gorgeous. It was absolutely beautiful site It was a site that even though it was winter was still getting use And some and it was also very interesting because I had the words of other councillors sort of echoing in my mind As I was going through the site meaning, you know, I remember specifically councillor Jang talking about wanting to see nature and And natural aspects being brought in the site Well, that particular site has vines growing all over and it creates this beautiful Sort of sense of a Ruin that's preserved. So I thought that was really cool aspect Something I hope is continued to be kept alive in that there were also a lot of emphasis on Placemaking and keeping you know and having all these different little areas for people to kind of go and gather in it that however also was also kind of showed a Question that councillor Dean raised which was that of you know maintenance of the site and having a good site plan specifically with regards to graffiti and tagging several areas of wood Bannisters and things were covered in permanent marker and things like that. So thinking about these things as we roll it out Oh, I think we'll also be crucial Another thing that I thought they did really well was Incorporating public art in the space and having you know, not overwhelming but having subtlety and having lots of public art And design really brought into it not just allowing the building itself to be that but really bringing in other elements So that was particularly helpful one thing that I think that we really do need to have an eye towards And maybe they do there and I just wasn't there on that particular day But it didn't really feel like there was a whole lot of programming or other things or evidence that there was programming to Take place in in winter months So I would say that if we are gonna move forward with us Which I certainly hope that we do that we really have an eye towards not just programming it in the warmer months But that we try and are continually trying to think of uses for that space in a year-round setting And that that doesn't people aren't just gonna use it year-round you have to really bring them there as well So those are some reflections just based off of visiting a similar concept, but in so doing I felt very confident in Bringing something similar to Burlington and that that could be a real asset to our waterfront moving forward So thanks for all your work on this look forward to seeing it go further Thank You councillor Tracy councillor Hartnett and then councillor Pine I just want to be really frank and very clear though to the people of Burlington the voters, right? And I I agree with councillor Shannon It's this project has been met with great enthusiasm and I think part of it is though that we're they were tired Right they're tired hearing about it and this is something they could all grass on to and I think that's great But the reality is here is that you know, we do have phase two three and four, right? And where's the money gonna come from right? I want to be candid with the taxpayers, right that there is no answer for that There's not tiff. It's right. Where where is that money coming from? And so I just want to be clear I I think this is a great project. I think it's a it's a it's a start It gives us many of opportunities that councillor Tracy just talked about Okay, and at the expense of tearing the building down. It's the same, right? And so why wouldn't we and I agree, but just to be clear We talk about bonding and tiff like, you know, we should be concerned about that and that number You know should should bash what we said but at the end of the day Well, we really should be talking about is funding going forward, right for phase two three and four And where is that going to come from and be honest with the taxpayers about that? You know and and we don't have that answer right now And that's fair to say and I think we should be upfront about that, right? And we should tell the people that that we don't know where that's coming from But we do know this to tear it down It costs as much if not more than the due phase one It would be crazy not to do phase one and go from there and I think we all need to understand the expectations Right that this is not gonna look great when phase one is completed, right? It's not they're gonna say you spent all that money. This is what we got But I think we need to see the whole picture here From that from this night forward, so I just want to be clear to everybody so we're we're on the same page Thanks. Thank you. Councilor Hartnett. Councilor Pine Thank you the the My involvement with the project goes to the time when it was called the Renaissance project and then it was the Fleming Museum Project and then it was the YMCA The ice factor and new Moran. I actually jumbled the words up and thought we called the new Renaissance factor but um, I would I would just say that the constituent response so far has been a little bit of Confusion or bewilderment about what we're gonna get in the end because it's not a year-round facility It's not really a true facility in that sense And I think it's really important that we as elected officials and this and Cito and others engage the community more on What it's going to be because it's not going through the normal Process of a ballot question, so I think we have to treat it as though it still Deserves that much discussion for the community around what what what is happening and what we're doing because in the in the time that This time of year we talked to constituents a little bit more than usual and we're hearing feedback that They're just not sure what it is. We're doing so I think it's really important that we we all do that counselors and staff Find a way to really engage the public in in what's gonna happen next and what it will be and you know That this is just the beginning of a process, so Thank You councillor pine councillor Paul Thank You So I'm sorry that Chris Flynn Left but did want to thank him as well. He's been Reached out to me several weeks ago and had a lot of questions. He has a he has a habit of writing all of his emails and about a nine font and They go on like this and He's been doing it that way for years, but there's a lot of questions. There's usually very long emails The finances do matter and I think he brought to the forefront some important important points This isn't about the success of the this isn't about the the project is the concept It's just getting clarity on what the on what the finances are behind it So for that I appreciate what he did and thank him I don't know if Kirsten remembers because it was so long ago It was a really really cold day and there was ice inside Moran and I found out something about Kirsten she has absolutely no fear of heights and Didn't realize that she was walking up all the way up to the top with someone who has a huge fear of heights And it was pretty scary up there, but she kept on saying to me. You got to keep going you got to keep going because the view is great And it is great, but God it's scared. It's scared the living daylights out of me. I was so glad to get back down Um Moran is a is an interesting building and I'm glad that we're going to at least have a part of a part of a part of it And a part of our history And I you know, I think it is important what? Both councillor Shannon said and councillor Hartnett said that you know It is very easy to get drawn into the pictures about what it can be You know in some ways it's a work in progress. This gets us to point one Think about how long we've been talking about Moran. Well, if it takes us Half that amount of time to get to two three and four then we'll probably be doing great so thanks so much and and Kirsten I've I've told you this many times, but maybe not enough publicly you are Absolutely one of the unsung heroes in City Hall you do you work tirelessly for for projects that you care about and We all appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you councillor Paul Before we go to a vote Information councillor pine staff is is it trying to respond to something that was said it looks like I just I Yes, I just wanted to share since councillor pine brought up and councillor Shannon brought up and thank you Oh, you you all have been very lovely tonight. Thank you and very kind but you ask about what what's in and what's out and There were two slides in the presentation that I gave to the pack which goes into some detail And so if you have a chance to look at that if you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out to me I'll be happy to answer questions about what's in and what's out. So Make sure you do where to find that information. Thank you So I just want to say Running the meeting I sometimes miss something and I I just wanted to be clear. Mr. Mayor you mentioned Special election, what would what would trigger a special special election prisoner right my point is if It was simply about the Additional revenues that we have not currently Committed to any voter approved project the approximately two million two and a quarter million like we said last spring if we are currently reviewing options that That involve a variety of different projects that could involve additional investments of that of that money if Projections do hold and we continue to think as the year unfolds here that there Is excess capacity there and something I really think it's a conversation largely for another night But if we wanted to commit some of that To million dollars to whether it's this or the relocation of the bike path from the east side of the train tracks to the west side of the train tracks That we may have if we wanted to try to avail ourselves of that opportunity would require a special election because The deadline is coming up by the end of the year. So that was that that was the point there. All right Can I just speak briefly to you know, I I Certainly agree with the notions that have been expressed that people should be clear That not and we've tried to be clear in the way we've talked about this frame concept of both Talking about its potential for evolution in the future while At the same time being clear. We can't afford all of that tonight. We tried to make that clear in the original Original presentations and be even clear about that in the last pack conversations. Why not I have to say From my perspective There is a real chance that we never get beyond this this first phase and if we only do that I think we'll be that combined with the other changes that Are in process right now and which have not been yet unveiled But the Burlington Harbor Marina the new park on the west side of the water plant If all we do is that which is what tonight's vote is about It will be a vast vast improvement over what we we have there today. And so While I agree with the notion that it is What the actual we are taking tonight in no way guarantees that we will achieve all of the most exciting elements of some of the images Then put out there. I Certainly with some I have considerable excitement about the action the council is taking tonight And I hope the council and the public does too. I think it sets us on a course for a major step in the right Direction, I will also say and you know, I I do think there is real potential was for non taxpayer Sources of additional funds that could allow some of those future phases to take place But that those are that's a conversation for another night. Thank you, mr. Mayor. I think we are ready for the vote so all those in favor of passage of 5.03 and 5.04 which is Advancing the Moran concept as well as issuance of the TIF funds, please say aye Any opposed that passes unanimously and I personally think that we've just taken. Thank you I think we've just taken a big step forward in the advancing the Moran plant frame concept and potentially moving this forward after Many years and decades really so thank you Thank you councillor Mason for reminding me I really should have done this earlier, so my apologies, but I I will now mr. Mayor. Where are you going? Come back here, mr. Mayor Sorry He'll talk to you in a minute. I Need to recess the regular meeting of the city council to for the mayor to convene the board of tax abatement So I will recess the regular city council meeting at 942 842 if yes, we're still on track for potentially Well, I shouldn't even say it right, but it is only 42 and I am convening the full board of abatement of taxes And the first item on the agenda is Is the agenda councillor Mason? Thank you, Mayor Wineburg I'd like to make a motion to adopt the agenda as presented Thank you. Is there second second by councillor Shannon discussion all those in favor of motion, please say aye Aye, any opposed motion carries unanimously Brings us to the consent agenda and I walk a motion there councillor Mason. Thank you, Mayor Wineburg I'd like to make a motion to adopt the agenda and take the actions as indicated Thank you. Is there second for that motion? second by councillor Shannon Discussion all those in favor, no, no, I have a okay. I wanted to note that I am recused from item 2.0 3d2 a close personal and professional relationship Okay, thank you So maybe do we have another second separate second by councillor Nodal Further discussion. Yeah Okay, so Given that recusal For 203 and 204 just 203, sorry Okay, so we will vote separately on 203 So the consent agenda involves 2.0 1 2.0 2 and 2.0 4 any Discussion everyone clear on what we're voting on any discussion all those in favor of the motion, please say aye Any opposed that motion carries unanimously with the recusal of councillor Shannon and now I'd welcome a second motion for 2.0 3 Councilor Mason May I regret move adoption of 2.0 3 Excellent to second by councillor Nodal. Thank you Discussion all those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Hi opposed and Motion carries unanimously with that with that objection at 845 the Full Board of Abatement of Taxes is adjourned. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and I am now gonna I'm sorry, I can't hear what you're saying because right now. I am I am going to Reconvene the regular city council meeting, but I'm actually reconvening it just to recess it again at 845 so that we can go to board of civil authority and I will at 845 turn that over to the mayor again Excellent president right We are convening the more board of civil civil authority and I would welcome a motion on the agenda councillor Nodal Thank you for the motion. Is there a second? Second from councillor Paul any discussion of the agenda all those in favor of the motion, please say aye. I Oppose motion carries unanimously and The only other item is the consent agenda president right move to pass the consent agenda and take the actions indicated Excellent Seconded discussion of the consent agenda all those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Hi, any opposed motion carries unanimously And at 846 president right the board of abatement board civil authority is adjourned. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and At 846 I will reconvene the regular meeting of the city council and now we are ready for Megan Tuttle comprehensive planner for the city to Give us an update on plan BTV. We know that we have a public hearing scheduled for the second public hearing scheduled for March 11th, and so this is a Reasonably short update with any questions from the council President right, and I know that you did send out a Pretty comprehensive Communication communication to us. Yes, so thank you for having us on your agenda this evening We wanted to just be here tonight to follow up I know that our discussion of this item at our last meeting was a little bit confusing in terms of the time frame We did Take an action at that last meeting or you did take an action at that last meeting to warn Second public hearing on the update to plan BTV for your meeting on March 11th We know that that could tentatively be the date of adoption But we also know that if you would like more time to discuss it we can defer that to the second meeting in March So we will actually be posting an updated draft of the plan and that notice of the second public hearing later this week So we wanted to return after you've had a little bit of time with the communication about the comments We've received on the plan and how we anticipate addressing them before that plan update is posted To just be here and be available if you have any questions or further comments before we actually Make those changes and put it online Thank you questions for Megan or David from the council Councillor Buscher, thank you I just have a clarification from the communication The plan BTV south and master plan draft well draft is The intent to incorporate that into the master plan and Have I don't feel like the count has the council given feedback to you regarding that so the plan process for plan BTV south end was Primarily primarily took place in 2014 and 2015 in late 2015 the council passed a resolution regarding the draft of that plan That asked our department to and the planning commission to revisit the draft of that plan To specifically remove references to housing in the enterprise zone So over the course of 2015 and 2016 the planning commission worked through every section of that Document and completely rewrote plan BTV south end and that draft has then been available as part of this plan BTV Comprehensive plan update process as well I don't know that we have specifically been here to have a conversation with you since that resolution But it's been part of the update process for plan BTV All right, I must admit that I kind of lost track of that process and knew we had sort of left off But I never remember it really coming back to the full council and that's why I asked the question So if others are ready, I will pay more close attention to that section And I trust I'm sure that the councillors from that section of the city have paid a lot of attention to that And I know the residents are very engaged So I'll trust that I'm hoping that they're satisfied with this and feel like it reflects what they want to see happen in the south end so I Wanted to just Just talk about a couple of things. There was a there's this is a huge amount of commentary that you have provided to us and Then Recommendations resulting from those comments one of the things that was referenced was Talking about the environment and I just wanted to make sure I'd like you your critical eyeballs to look at It talks about Preserving or plants etc. And but with the bee population being so critical now and actually not having enough hives to pollinate Fruits and vegetables and moving hives across country I just didn't know if we in our plan had really looked at that and really wanted to make sure I mean, I think that that doesn't have to be specific in here But I do think that we as a community and as a state pride ourselves and being environmentally aware and I'm not sure we have done enough to really try to protect the bee habitats and It I mean as far as the intervail I mean if we don't have bees to pollinate we can't be a sustainable community And so I think this is no light matter And I think that it should be addressed in some way in this plan And I just wanted to bring that up apparently mice do a real number on bees Habitats and so I mean on hives, so I think we've got to be very Aware and I'm hoping that we have have had good feedback regarding this I would like one other present right I'd like one other thing. I know people are smirking, but this is this is very significant anyways They're in this plan. There's a there's a Discussion about historic building renovations Have we really come to terms with that or is that left for an ordinance? Sure, so I'll take the pollinator question first Like you said I it is something that draws a smirk, but it is a really important issue and We do not talk about the decline of the bee population on the whole directly in this report But one of the comments that we did receive last week From a resident talked about the fact that we could strengthen the language in the section of the document that talks about conservation Yeah, to specifically note that in our open spaces in our along our corridors and trails that we can significantly increase the the Digitation that supports pollinators in order to help us to do just that So that is something that we anticipate incorporating in this next draft of the plan update As far as historic buildings, so I'll she took the hard question I'm glad she was able to answer that because I wasn't going to be able to but as far as the historic preservation question there are action items in this draft which Have us look at the creation of a city-wide historic preservation plan in order to really address that issue It to be very clear about what are Burlington's priorities for historic preservation Not not relying as much as we have in the past on State and national register listings and eligibility for listing But what are Burlington's priorities and then what are we going to do about that? So the need for a city a city specific preservation plan is is very high And there's specific direction to do that which then leads to the ordinance change is necessary to put that into effect Okay, and one last thing president right and then I'm done Was there anything that you wanted to call our attention to that has come in during the last meeting that you feel has resulted in a Magnificent or a substantial change to the draft That's a great question. I think that one thing that I would just note We've received a lot of great feedback. I think I shared at the last meeting that People's comments have drawn us to you know We're we're making a significant transformation in terms of how this plan is organized and presented not necessarily in how its policies are articulated But the feedback that we've received has been really helpful in helping us kind of tie up loose ends and make sure that all of the pieces are connecting to one another and particularly are connecting to those Adopted and incorporated plans and studies that we're relying on more heavily One thing that I would know is we've received some feedback about how the future land use framework is presented along our major thoroughfares in Burlington and and We've received a lot of feedback from some residents about that issue We will make that change it doesn't have a major impact on What the plan says in terms of potential areas that could accommodate growth in the future? But it is something that's really important to residents particularly in the Hill section in terms of understanding what it means for their neighborhood and making sure that the plan reads in a way that It intends to be presented and that that residents of that neighborhood have comfort with so we've been Communicating about a lot of edits that we can make to that section of the plan to change some of the language To provide that comfort and clarity One thing I can tell you is it's not over the hump day Anyway, so thank you Councillor Bursher, thank you for those Thank you for those I think it was more Megan who had difficulty thank you councillor Bursher And I'm not making light of the be issue because I can assure you that every councillor here tonight We'll go to the mattress for the bees Let me with that with that. Thank you very much and we will have the second public Maybe it is over the hump day We're really losing it here. So thank you very much and we will have the second public hearing March 11th Councillor Hartnett get control of your computer over there Moving right along 5.06 which was 5.02 Brian low come on down and this is a Presentation from our chief innovative officer and Carolyn Felix on the our first equity report and I read through it and there's some pretty interesting stuff here a Lot of interesting data some a couple of stats that are pretty concerning but Take it away Thank you. I may turn it over to the mayor first if that's okay for something absolutely mayor Do you want to yes, just a quick couple remarks present rate? We are excited to be here with CIO Brian low and BTD stat analysts Carolyn Felix who I'm not sure has presented to the city council before She's only been with us for less than a year to talk about The equity report she's joined us in October. So BTV staff began approximately two and a half years ago. This is this Effort that Carolyn is the really the only staff member of but which involves monthly department head meetings and Has given the city the ability to for really every department to develop and over time analyze and Expand upon a set of metrics And the city has benefited from that new capacity in a number of ways including you know just one one example the council may recall Is when we added a three firefighters in the FY 18 if I 19 budget if I 18 budget first time in 18 years because of a BTV stat analysis which suggested that that That those positions were largely paid for themselves So this That lot at this at the state of the city Address last April I Committed that we would turn a significant part of this BTV stat capacity towards equity issues and equity metrics within each department This year for the first time we committed to completing And the first annual equity report to be part of the town meeting day materials that are available to voters and And We have achieved that goal and we're excited that we've achieved that goal. We definitely see this as just a first step There is a series of recommendations for a follow-up work from this first annual metric first annual equity report and It is certainly our hope that This becomes part of the city's ethic and part of by kind of institutionalizing this as part of the annual reporting This becomes something that matures is expanded upon over time So with that Preface we would love to share with the council in the public the main some of the highlights of this year's report Hey, thank you, mayor and thank you council president. We are definitely excited to be here and I Think we're really grateful to have Carolyn on the city team And I thought it would be helpful to ask her to introduce herself just briefly to the council. So they have a sense of her background Hi, thank you. I Very happy for the opportunity to be here and This is as the mayor mentioned my first council meeting maybe the first of many But it would be helpful for me to give you all a little bit about myself and my background Although I've only worked for the city for about four months. I've been a resident of Burlington for almost six years The past ten plus years of my career have really been focused on international development where I worked and my area of expertise has been participatory research and performance management program monitoring and evaluation so I've spent a lot of time traveling to other countries in Latin America, Africa, South Asia And throughout my career one of the most exciting things is always coming home To Burlington to my home To my family where we're also the caretakers at the Ethan Allen homestead And the beekeeper and I'm also a beekeeper Nice nice. Let's not go back there though. Caroline. Can you pull the microphone a little closer though? Thank you Sure, or I'll lean in a little bit So yeah, I just wanted to kind of start things off by saying that I'm very excited to be working here With the city doing what I love to do, which is kind of performance management and metrics but focused on on My community my city where where I live and now where I work So it's been a pleasure to kind of engage with BTV stat as a process and working on this equity report has been a great introduction For me to to the city and it's been great working with Brian and you'll see in this presentation some of the challenges and and kind of Great insights that we've seen kind of going through this process as well So I'll speak a little bit and then turn back over to Caroline and then wrap it up I'm conscious that we're the last item on the agenda. Thank you, and we'll keep it focused So as the mayor said the equity report is going to be distributed on town meeting day as part of the annual report It's based on the mayor's commitment Last year in his state of the city speech that we would use BTV stat to focus on equity issues And lawyer you are aiming yet. Do you mind doing the next next slide even beyond this one? so How we define equity in the report is the just and fair inclusion into a society in which all people can participate Prosper and reach their full potential this definition was developed after we did a review of other cities that have done equity Reports and looked at a couple different national organizations The definition actually comes from a group called policy link Which I learned at CDNR is actually the group that helped the city with inclusionary zoning many years ago from counselor pine Which is not something we'd known until until the CDNR meeting so the The way we've structured the report with that definition is to look at different population level metrics across five domains And that kind of structure is typical of health assessment reporting And and how other cities have begun to evaluate equity within their own community So we're not making up out of whole cloth methodology that we're using for this report We then try to connect what the departments are doing at the department level With what is happening city-wide in terms of broad trends and indicators of city-wide health city-wide Safety city-wide environment Etc. We know that the city and the city's individual departments can't necessarily change the direction of those trends But there's two assumptions one we think we can influence sometimes those trends And we think we should consciously make assessments about how the city is applying its resources through this equity lens We we worked with a number of stakeholders for this kind of first report And I think their feedback was quite helpful representatives from these stakeholders who were listed here And we also did a literature review including the cities of Oakland Pittsburgh Austin Santa Fe New York City and the state of Vermont has a couple of reports that had bearings on some elements of this equity report Next slide, please So again, we're looking at these five Different domains economic stability housing education workforce development public safety and community health and community and natural resources And we are looking at city-wide indicators across those five domains and then how department work Filters up into those trends that we're seeing city-wide Next slide, please One thing that we took from the Vermont the 2018 Vermont state health assessment report is a focus on a couple different subpopulations the Vermont state report focuses on the first four of the groups listed here We added women to that methodology the reason we're doing this is that Using data to examine the kind of unique experiences of these groups is an important part in understanding some of the inequities that are being Faced and beginning to address those inequities So it's not always comfortable in the report some of the things that we're finding But we thought it was an important thing to do the one caveat that I think is critical to make sure counselors understand And here is that Burlington is small and some of the data that we have access to particularly federal data census data Doesn't allow easy disaggregation. And so we don't report when we don't have confidence in what in what we found I'm gonna turn it over now to Karen to speak to some of the specific sections of the of the report And it will only speak to two of the five sections So I think that what we wanted to do tonight since you've all Had the report and we'll have time to engage with it in more detail if you haven't is to give you a snapshot of two sections So first we'll be looking at the housing section and this First domain that we're looking at here as you know housing costs can be a substantial driver of inequity Burlington has the seventh oldest Housing stock in the nation with 47 47 percent of homes in Burlington built before 1950 That however does not translate necessarily to a low value market The median value of owner occupied homes is $267,000 that's 31 percent higher than the national median of 193 and home prices Continue to trend upward another really clear differentiator in Burlington is that as most of you know this is a renters Market essentially with the 61 percent of residents in Burlington being renters That's nearly double the national and state rates of 31 percent and So knowing that most residents are renters this next statistic on the next slide, please is actually very telling When we look at the most recent us census data from the American Community Survey five-year estimates Data released just this past December We can see that gross rent as a percentage of household income When we look at this data It's important to understand that moderately burdened households are those that spend 30 to 50 percent of their household income on rent and While severely burdened households are those that spend more than 50 percent of their household income on rent Research demonstrates that rent burden households have higher eviction rates increased Financial fragility and wider use of social safety net programs Compared with other renters and homeowners so in Burlington this We have an estimated nearly 60 percent of all renter households in the city Who are cost burdened and that's nearly 10 percent? Higher than state and national rates And so it's an important metric for us to look at especially when we Kind of think about what this means from an equity perspective And this is one of those data points that you know as Brian had mentioned We wanted to be able to look at this across a few different demographics This data is available by the from the census broken out by race However, the margins of error are extremely high and so we didn't have a caught the confidence to report That data broken down by by race for the for these kind of measures So yeah, now quickly we can take a look at the next slide and the next domain I wanted to give you a snapshot of education and workforce development So according to the latest census estimates Burlington actually fairs very well in terms of educational attainment With just over 70 percent having some college or higher But when we looked at the data There again were disparities by race and again the high margin of error on some of these populations Made it difficult for us to report this information broken out by race However, the a recent report from Burlington High School also shows disparities In educational performance among certain groups primarily students who qualify for free and reduced lunch and students of color And so if you haven't seen that report, I would encourage you all to look at that as well. It's referenced here and in our report and then kind of looking at the next slide We wanted to demonstrate Showing how Throughout the report what we're doing for each of these domains is then Accompanying that information that population level data and information that we have available to us with some of the city initiatives and Indicators that we are tracking through BTV stat to show how we are addressing some of those Larger issues throughout the the various domains and so here on the education domain We Are taking a quick look we can see that there's a 15% increase in the amount of scholarships that have been awarded this year There's a growing internship program that saw more than a hundred and fifty youth engaged with the city as either America or volunteers or my brother's keepers interns and hundred fifty thousand dollars in Kauffman grants went to support women entrepreneurs Additionally a new workforce development program initiated by CEDO in collaboration with the Vermont Department of Labor and resource Placed 20 of the city's most vulnerable residents such as women and new Americans facing economic hardship Into highly skilled trade jobs. And so these are some of the things that we want to highlight in the report as city initiatives that Can be used to kind of counter or support some of the population level data that we're seeing and a lot of this data and Information throughout the report helped inform some of the recommendations and findings that the Brian will talk about Next slide, please So it probably doesn't come as a surprise to counselors that there is a you know A real problem when it comes to housing in the city and it is a kind of source of inequity within the city So the report calls for some near-term steps the city could take to help create more housing opportunities in the city policies around zoning changes that would allow Different types of new types of units like accessory dwelling accessory dwelling units to be considered in a different way We also found that within the city programming There's real disparities in how programs are used when they're paid or unpaid and from our perspective that really puts a premium on Scholarships like if you want to talk about equity of access when we looked at parks programming by demographic measures It's a fairly balanced Program when it's free. It is not balanced when there's a cost associated with it We also looked Or up we also hope to establish an advisory board and this is another I guess next next slide Please because I lose some quick animation. Sorry guys. We wanted to look at this advisory board Because we believe that over the course the next year if we're going to institutionalize this Report we need to get more and broader input into how and what measures were evaluating So those those are some of our next steps. We'd like to get your feedback on this report this year We'd like to establish this advisory group We think we can use BTV stat to kind of continue to drive focus on this And we'd like to institutionalize it within the city architecture so that it becomes part of the city's annual reporting methodology And with that we're happy to answer any questions that counselors have All right. Thank you for that report and for anybody that likes statistics and data. There's a lot of it here I Said what you're I would like to ask a question. I thought you might. Thank you So I I read this and I found it incredibly informative and Findings and recommendations and I think that you know, I will take you up on this to give some feedback and writing about What else could be done you are challenging us to look and provide our thoughts on on each of these initiatives but one thing that I One thing I wasn't clear about is When you say better coordinate cities youth program goals and outreach strategies Am I to assume that that this already incorporates? work with outside agencies like the Y and the Boys and Girls Club or is this just city And not because you you talk about outreach strategies. So it wasn't quite clear what that meant It's a great question. I can give you two two answers to it that are related one Internally, we think there's opportunities for some of the city's programming departments like BCA parks in the library To increase their collaboration That could relate closely to what's happening with some of these outside partners as well a specific example would be I know the library Has been looking library in particular has been looking at when in the community Is there a drop-off on summer programming and and realize that kind of late August tends to be a very challenging time For a number of organizations around town like King Street shuts down for a while boys and girls club shuts down for a while What can the library be doing to supplement existing programming during that time? And then similarly internally how can the library BCA and parks complement or support each other's work? Even just within the city Okay, okay. I you know, I see a more collaborative also approach to See that not I don't think the city can address every issue And that's why I wondered about the outreach to other agencies who are trying to address similar issues But one thing I did you recommendations for strengthening future equity reports And I support your obviously, you know better really the advisory committee But the first thing I think you would want to do and you reference that somewhere is to you need a diverse group of people To review this report and give their feedback To you before you decide next steps as far as format and information and and what things to monitor or I really feel like The council is you know one level but I'm talking about a far more diverse group of citizens who would utilize this and understand this and and So I'm hoping that that would be the next step before you actually even undertake the advisory committee As as a and have them Finesse the next report because I I don't know how many people in the community have actually looked at this But I think it would have value to get that feedback Read Thank you Thank You councillor busher councillor pine this is some Amazing data and as some counts the president right said some of it's pretty sobering as well I think what comes up for me is that the city in Vermont? municipalities don't have a human service Function really and so a lot of the data in here seems to be pointing out that our social safety net is Got a lot more holes in it than it once did and that's because the federal government retreated and states tried to bring up the rear if you will but haven't done a fantastic job and so I Don't know really where I'm going except to say that there's that third sector Which is what councillor busher just mentioned is the nonprofit sector that is the key Player in a lot of these services and moving the needle on a lot of the metrics that give us pause and make us You know wonder what we could be doing more. I mean we have such limited ability as a missapality We're not looking to raise taxes and start new departments to address a lot of these needs But I guess so there's I think a lot of potential for sharing this with policy makers At the state level as well so they can see maybe how this data can help inform what they're doing Our congressional delegation should get you know some up should understand what this data is revealing about our community and And I think the coalition of the of the willing and the nonprofits that are out there is Often referred to by a friend of mine as the conspiracy of goodwill and we should tap into that conspiracy and try to Use this to get them to achieve some of the outcomes that we're looking to effect. Thanks Thank You councillor pine councillor Tracy one of the aspects of the data that I noticed was the issue of Representation on both boards and commissions and then also in city departments And I'm just wondering and there was sort of some language about next steps needing to be taken with that Is one of the next steps that either you or the administration have looked at as the implementation of a Rooney rule That it that being that in you know a hiring process that a person of color would need to be Interviewed as part of that process Is that something that that you're willing to consider that you would look at in order to deal with this because you can't Really rectify those kinds of solutions unless you really have people of color part of that process And I think it's an interesting suggestion. I think those demographic figures revealed a lot of different Challenges beyond just race too. So I think it's you know, I think that could be one One element of a response, but I know if I'm thinking of the right infographic of the one that you're thinking about There's a there's a gender imbalance across kind of the city leadership as well You know council boards and commissions department heads So there's a number of different ways. I think we would have to address a problem like that or a challenge like that Thank You councillor Tracy two of the sobering statistics that jumped out of me that councillor pine was talking about was the 24% below the poverty level which is double the double the national average and and the other one that jumped out at me was the median family household income is 47,140 which is up 5% 5 and a half percent, but 23 percent below the national average and It's like that those were sobering statistics and also I know that afterwards you said that one of the things that we can do is to help people to try to keep taxes and Cost of services under control because they're fine just I wanted to ask Brian low clarified that the poverty data is skewed because of households non-family family households student households in there so there's a lot of Data confusion I think for for us to use that as our poverty benchmark I think there's some there's some skew in that data And I think I want to be really careful because I think in one of the Footnotes and I the text is small in this report. So I just I want to make sure I acknowledge that and we have a version online that we So you can blow up the text quite easily but the In one of the infographics we're careful to try and screen out college students There's a methodology that's been approved It's been kind of worked on in a number of college towns that face the same challenge that we do And so it's possible that our poverty rate is a little bit lower and I'm not sure if you yeah, if you adjust the University student population both undergraduate and graduate it puts Burlington at an adjusted poverty rate of closer to 16 percent Which is still high Thank You councillor pine councillor no dell and then councillor Hartnett and councillor jane Thank You president right first is a question about the read kind of the report is This different so the city has a diversity and equity plan And the council was getting annual reports which it more has to do with city employment Trends and so forth. I think is this now a substitute for that or are we also going to be getting annual reports on that progress towards within those Framework of that specific plan. I see this is a kind of augmentation of those of those reports. I mean it I think they're There should be An ongoing Effort to report out and you know in a different format Progress over the course of the year, you know as we get farther and farther away from when that diversity and equity report was written I think we probably need to come up with some mechanism for Modifying that process You know, yeah, I think doing exactly the same thing as we've done in past years It's probably not quite exactly right as we have farther from when that original report was created But I do see this it is somewhat different and augmenting that type of update. Okay. Thank you I think it would be great to have a kind of larger conversation in the community about the report. I think it's a There's a lot of great data and really impressive I Also would love to kind of think of ways. How does how does the council? What is the council's role in addressing some of these trends? and Then I have I don't know if there's a committee that can spend a little more detailed time with it Maybe that's for the next council, but I would like to see the council really engage this this was report in a meaningful way and then I just have a very Specific question about the public safety data and specifically the percentage of police searches is yield yielding contraband. So There's a lot of data that's been collected about traffic stops is one measure of Kind of disparate treatment by race and this is one measure that shows doesn't show very much of a black-white gap But other measures do show a black-white gap So the my question was and why did you show this choose this metric? You talk a little bit more about why this metric? This this comes from work. The police department's done over the past. I think we're probably really three and a half years some of it with substantial community input That looks at how traffic stops in Burlington are occurring and what the outcomes of those traffic stops are and it uses as It's kind of driving methodology the outcomes of traffic stops and the reason it chooses that metric And I'm I'm saying this to someone who is a professor UVM. We're using professor Saguino's Method here and there may be more than you that you know than I do about this So I want to make sure I'm acknowledging that up front But my understanding of this methodology is that the way to understand in In a complex world where you have different rates of stopping Whether there's bias inherent in those different rates of stopping is looking at the outcomes of the searches when they occur And so we thought that this was because because this is considered kind of the gold standard metric That's why we chose to emphasize this one in the report It shows some improvement Between 2015 and 2017 and then some slippage into 2018 in terms of equity outcomes. Okay. Thank you very much I also wanted to underline the point that mr. Low made in the parks and rec data that when the Program is free. There's very high participation of people of color and When there's a charge That goes away right, so Races closely correlated with being lower income Unfortunately, and so I just think when we think about participation inclusion scholarships as you noted are very important and in just ways to To price our serve our program so that everyone who wants to participate is able to participate Final question. Well, will commissions just go to any of the commissions? I think it would be great to really circulate this and get a lot of engagement and conversation going It's a great suggestion and we'll make sure that each commission the chairs of each commission get a Get a communication directing them to this and and noting that the council encouraged them to look at it as well and Thank you for that, you know that I actually think maybe the most significant thing to come out of this exercise That this last point that you focused on counselor. No, doll You know really was not it. We did not know the answer to that When this effort started There just had not really been attention to who exactly was participating in these programs the simple act of Measuring and looking into it flushed that out and it also excitingly organically Caused the The departments of the library that you know the three departments that really do youth programming to start meeting On their own and trying to coordinate their services differently, it's it's resulted in you know small changes like and I think next week we have an annual event That's always an exciting event or Burlington City Arts fills this room up with You know forth Dozens and dozens of fourth graders and their families. It's always one of the fun events of the year Never in the past have we made it easy for all those assembled fourth graders to get into parks programs and to get into Library programs, but they're gonna be tabling and effort set up as well as information about scholarship availability As a result of this kind of change in the way we're thinking about it, so I Appreciate the response to the council and you know again We're hopeful this leads to further innovations like that and discoveries like that in the future Thank you, mr. Mayor. Thank you counselor. No doll counselor heart net and counselor Jang And I think we're probably ready to be brief I was at the city in our committee when this was presented it was I agree It's just some amazing stats, but what I took away from it more than that was just a basic sense of fairness Right that we are obligated to I think as a city, right? It's quality of life and everybody deserves to have that quality of life And how we do it is is challenging and it's difficult. There's no question, but I would like to see kind of what Concentrate all set is a commission maybe started from this council and put together as a city because I think it's a It's a broad discussion that this city should have right and that we don't see it every day, right? We just we're And you happen to see it more and more when you go door-to-door and you talk to people you you do see it there For sure because you know you're you're out of you're your daily routine and you get to be in people's living rooms And I had the opportunity yesterday to be in people's living rooms in the old north and we heard affordability issues right it was top housing was mentioned three or four different times yesterday affordability and housing right and when I think about What a life change that could be if we could improve that for so many families in Brognton I think it would be the next ordinary. I just see I just take a small clip to what we did in the new north end with the Farrington right Park there and the sense of ownership that those people have taken those families our friends our neighbors people we shop with right Inviting us into their community wanting us to come in and see the differences Having a farmer's market there having food trucks there having a playground for their children, right? Just like we want just like everybody, right? It's a it's a basic fairness right its approach and And I think we overlook it every day because we're busy and we're in our routine lives And we end it and we you know we don't really grasp it But at the end of the day if we could ever just conquer 50% of what we want to do here, right? Because it is such a bold task, right? I think this would be such such a great even a better place to live than it is now And there's so many families out there that we haven't reached and I hope we will and You know and in the coming years, so I appreciate the work Brian and and and what you guys have done and I think it's It needs to be brought to our attention more, right? It's something that's the kind of a sleeping giant and we don't really want to See it every day, and I think we do need to see it So I appreciate the work that's been done on this and I hope We move forward and and put a commission together Thank you, Councillor Hartnett Councillor Jang and then councillor Dean and then I think we should be ready to go Thank you, thank you for doing this work, I think Maybe last week, you know you sent me this and I clearly Could not get back to you because I didn't know I'm gonna get back to you about what? Exactly. I have no idea About this this specific this report there. I don't know. What is this to tell you the truth? Yeah deeply inside me. I don't know if this can be called equity report from the city of Burlington Because to me when we say equity we need to look internally our departments and look do we have people of color? That's how it starts and also bring recommendation around how we can get there and There are subgroups here that are not even mentioned Because when we think about it 97% of the population growth in this state is composed of new Americans They come with their traditions with their faith. They come with their culture. They come with so many things The city and they trying by themselves to You know try to have a life a decent life here People die here and when they die, they need to be buried. We have a cemetery board Are we equitably providing services to those? Populations and their faith what they believe in We need to look at that. Will you look at the sea? Incredible job, and I think I told the mayor about the great work. He has been doing hiring woman who are Had department head since the beginning it's something that I noticed and I told him this is this is great This is wonderful We need to go at each department the police You cannot see anybody who speaks Nepali who speak Swahili People who live here. We have none and we say we are trying to diversify. We bring in women Yes, we're bringing people also who are Sri Lankan who don't have language who don't have community group here I think when we talk about equity, that's where we need to go. That's what we need to look at And there is also this sense of belonging people appreciate we have first night We have highlights, you know, but people celebrate all the things What are those things and how the city can help them celebrate? How do we celebrate with everybody? you know To me when when when you talk about equity there are things here that any city can do I The city cannot make anybody rich No, but like the Think that are Think that are needed that are basic. We need to provide it for every single person I hate to do this to people who do so much work in Projects in you know data collection in all of this But at the same time I I I could not find anything here that is equitable Yeah, and you know just appreciate your work, and I don't know What is really what are the recommendation even here? I think general did have a wonderful point in 2014 the diversity and equity plan was created and I think the mayor ordered it and There was great wonderful recommendations to me when I heard it's this that's exactly where we would pull from What have we accomplished based on that but this seemed to me something totally different Something that is not looking what is really need to be looked at And I am pretty open and also pretty happy to to be part of this if you invite me So we can work all together in bringing what's really amazing for everyone to be able to live here with dignity and to finally I Think we did have an opportunity To show the rest of the nation to create a vibrant and very welcoming community But I think we missed it which is that everyone loved the parade middle that he's still here the sense of belonging Many people don't feel it but Thank you for your work. Thank you. Thank you councillor Jang councillor Dean Gonna pass councillor Dean Okay Anyone else? All right hearing none. Thank you very much for that Very informative report and look forward to hearing more Thank you. Thank you Okay, with that we will move ahead to the last two items here, which are city council president Just briefly just reminding everybody that there is a Public information hearing next week February 27th Five o'clock a right here in con toys. So hopefully many of you can make it here and I'm getting distracted again, but Lastly, I'm just gonna say this so two weeks from today is The election town meeting day election two weeks from today. This is Tuesday. It's two weeks from today so I encourage everybody to get out and vote and Good luck to all the city councillors here tonight that are running for reelection and we know that at least Eight of us will still be here And up to potentially 11 councillors that are here now may still be here I just want to say just indulge me for just 10 seconds here That I had said at one point that I was not going to seek another term as council president I want to I've told many councillors that I've changed on that and at a request of some councillors I I am going to seek another term as council president and I want to make get that on the record before It's regardless of how any races turn out on town meeting day I will be seeking another term as council president. So with that I am going to turn it over to mr. Mayor to bring us home Thank You president right I Just thought I would touch on two items that both represent Years of work by the city in one form or another And what you've had some positive news Substantially positive news on in recent days One we had a press conference Last Thursday the number of councillors were able to attend appreciate that where We shared the 2018 results With respect to this key metric that we have been focused on with the community stat efforts our effort to dress the opioid crisis and We are We announced with really great hopefulness while also great awareness of the fact that this news comes far too late for far too many of our our co-workers our our neighbors and our children that 2018 that appeared to be a year I mean for the first for the first time that we've been tracking this going back to 2013 where the number of opioid related overdose Overdoses decline from the prior year and it was a significant decline. It was a 50% decline and When looked at in the broader environment in which throughout the rest of the state the overdose deaths continued to rise it It does suggest that the huge effort that has been undertaken by a wide number of Literally dozens and dozens of different agencies and partners within student in county is starting to take hold if you were to boil down and And I will say it here with for the public and the council if you were to boil down the essence of what I think is Starting to make a difference. I think a lot of it really just comes down to Increasing the availability and speeding the access that people suffering from opioid use disorders have to medically assisted treatment. We We know that these Medicines are highly effective 60% or more of people who are suffering from opioid use disorder who Have access to the medicine and stay on the medicine for a sustained period of time Are able to achieve very positive results. We know in past opioid epidemics around the world These strategies have made a huge impact and really turned around these outbreaks these opioid crises And we are hopeful that that in the numbers is what we're starting to see here It reinvigorates us gives us new energy to continue forward and you will see in the weeks ahead The city of Burlington leading the way with some additional strategies that Try to essentially double down on this effort and find a way to make sure that as many of our Community members that are suffering from this terrible addiction have access to this lifesaving medicine and then Full stop on on that Would encourage if people are interested in watching home interested in hearing more we do have a Very active website the Chittenden County Opioid Alliance website where you can find Substantial additional information about these efforts online The other topic I wanted to address is just news that broke today And which maybe not even all counselors have had an opportunity to see in their emails yet the Public Utilities Commission Rule today decisively that the city's Proposed transaction with sure's communications is they've approved it and it is a really complete affirmation of Complete, you know Essentially victory in terms of what we were hoping to achieve in this effort and also preserve substantial So, you know two important things on this I just shared the council one of them a prelude to future work We will get to do in the future it Something that was very much uncertain until today is whether or not the PUC would approve the reinvestment of the sales proceeds that will be coming to the city the six million dollars and in excess of six million dollars that Will come to the city as a result of This transaction whether any of that could be reinvested in the new Burlington telecom and the answer appears to be yes, that will really be up the to the discretion of the city of the council and the administration to decide if we want to do that and how much we would like to invest and then You know secondly, what is the significance? I mean think It's we've been turning away at this for so long I am From my perspective what we set out to do seven years ago many of us were here seven years ago together Some of us have joined along the way, but most of us have been here since since the start when we had this very large challenge in front of us from my perspective we were seeking to Protect the taxpayers from further financial liability We were seeking to recover as much of the funds as we as we could that had been lost prior to 2010 We were seeking to ensure that we did not go back to the what I think of is the bad old days when Adelphia or Comcast had a monopoly in terms of telecommunication services in this community and we were Seeking to ensure that the fiber optic resources that BT has built remain available for us and future generations of Brawntonians And I think with this decision today we can have Real confidence that all of those goals are within our grasp and will be achieved to the degree they haven't been fairly shortly so Exciting news came out just before Before we gathered and we will be updating the council As this is a this evolves further and what the plans for the city are from to move forward with the transaction from here So thank you president right. Thank you to council And that's what I had for tonight Thank You mr. Mayor great news and You want to ask this is out of order, but councillor pine is that decision? Mr. Mayor we're not going to go down this road, but mr. Mayor is it is a decision appealable It's not going to open up to the rest of the town The city attorney's advising that we not get into a discussion about okay, thank you in this format So thank you, but great news. Thank you and with that motion to adjourn is in order moved by council Hartnett seconded by councilor modell all those in favor please say aye any opposed we are adjourned don't forget to vote