 Hello everybody. Welcome to the April edition of the the Ward 5 neighborhood planning assembly, also known as the NPA. My name is Nate Lance here and I'll be moderating through the evening tonight. It's kind of a quick run down on the agenda. So we're going to start out with a public forum session from seven o'clock until you know really basically until folks. We have comments where we have a steering committee election set to take place at 720, you know, kind of dependent on that public forum. Then we will be joined by David shine of Vermont make music day, followed by a legislative update for from more fives to house representative representative tiff bluenly and representative Gabrielle sevens and then we will finish up tonight with an introduction of our new school board member member member from Massachusetts originally sorry folks. So we have a really great meeting tonight. Anybody who is in attendance tonight who is thinking about, you know, potentially running for the steering committee like during the steering committee election portion of the evening. It's a really great opportunity to get engaged in the community so thank you all for joining and I guess with that I'll open it up to the public forum section of the meeting. If anybody would like to share anything for public forum you can either use the raised hand function via zoom or you can. I think it's just the two of us in the room tonight so good raise your hand or just tell me either or that would work. But yeah so anything for public forum, I see a hand raised from Joel Baird. So Joel you can unmute yourself and and you're ready to go. Yeah hey. Greetings I bring you greetings from Ward six. Not not all that far away and South Winooski Avenue. And I'm just giving a heads up really to what caught a lot of it. The attention of a lot of people in in this neighborhood is that there is a proposed ordinance from city council that would no longer prohibit camping in city parks. And this is of interest to to a lot of folks around here partly because we've seen camping in city parks and I think lifting my opinion is lifting any ambiguity about what's what's permitted and what's not is going to lead to word of mouth word on the street. And I think it's a little bit of a carte blanche to the camp either recreationally or because you need a home or you need a low barrier or a no barrier shelter. So basically, one reason I'm concerned is here in Smalley Park the people who use the park are often those who are least able to afford to get out of town. Vacate and have a vacation recreate outside of the city. So this they serve an important function and as we've all seen in these crazy times that that they have that they've been used and and they've served as kind of emergency lodging for people. And people who really need more help than they're getting and been getting and the authors of the ordinance are are really their hearts in the right place I think and they're they're looking for ways to to help folks who have trouble finding shelter or no barrier shelters. Expose them to the options and so it's not that they they want to plague Callahan and Lakeside and Oak ledge with tents. But I think the way they're going about it is is putting a lot of these places at risk. I know when we had campers here at Smalley kids weren't there. People were not shooting baskets. The camp was right on top of the swing set and all around the slides. So anyway, if you're interested, my only other plug here is to check in with the Community Development and Neighborhood Revitalization Committee, better known as the CDNR. But it's a pain in the butt to to to articulate, but the way to get on the mailing list to find out where that ordinance is going is to send Christine Curtis an email. And Christine is spelled with a C, C-H-R-I-S-T-I-N-E, but her email is C Curtis at Burlington VT.gov. She she staffs that committee. And one of the authors of the ordinance, Joe McGee is is on that committee as well. So that that's the news from Ward 6. If you all are interested, stay tuned. I think it's important that this ordinance, if it goes through is is better thought out than it is right now. So appreciate the time you've offered me. Thank you, Joe. And seeing right now on the Andy's hand reminder to folks who would like to share anything in public comment, use the raise hand function. I see Carolyn. So Carolyn, you'll be up next after Andy. So Andy, the floor is yours. Hi, my name is Andy Simon. I am on the Ward 5 NPA Steering Committee, but I, speaking, not as a steering committee member, but as a member of a group that is loosely organized under the name of Save Open Space Burlington. And I'd like to announce an event on May 7th, Greenup Day. We are gathering volunteers at the Pine Street Barge Canal to green up the barge canal, following up on Joel's statement about the camping ordinance, much of the garbage that is left at the barge canal land, which is the land that's right across from dealer.com back on the city portion of that city owned portion of that land is mostly from old homeless encampments. And there's a lot of it. Old tents, boots, shoes, probably needles and toys and filing cabinets and all sorts of things back there. Anyway, we are gathering people on Greenup Day, Saturday, May 7th, starting at 9 o'clock. We'll be working until 4 o'clock in the afternoon. We are asking people to come with sturdy boots, heavy gloves if you have them, eye protection if you have that. Do not please bring young kids alas because it just won't be safe for them to be out in the woods roaming around with rusted metal and various other potential dangerous objects. But we do need a lot of people because there's a lot to clean up down there. So it will be fun. The People's Kitchen is going to provide lunch. For anybody who's there at lunchtime, we'll have snacks. And we hope to get at least 100 people there on Saturday, May 7th, to green up the barge canal. And the beginning of an effort to conserve, remediate, and care for that green space, that wild green space in our midst in the South End. Anybody that's curious about this wants more information or wants to volunteer in advance, you can contact me, Andy Simon, at SOS Burlington at gmail.com. That's SOS, like Save Open Space, Burlington at gmail.com. Thank you. Thank you, Andy. I was going to plug a similar green up day project. So we might be competing for volunteers, unfortunately, but we can make it work. So next up is Carolyn. And then I think after that, I see Lucia and Joe. So Carolyn, the floor is yours. And reminder, anybody, if you have a public comment, use the raised hand function. I'm here. Yeah, we can hear you now, Carolyn. Okay, no, I don't, I think I'm on. Anyway, I've got my Ukraine, save Ukraine t-shirt. So I hope everyone let's see. I've got three really fast things you want to give to Ukraine. R-A-Z, like Z-B-R-O-M, or Nova-N-O-V-A Ukraine are two excellent places. And I'm C-Bates. And then you add B, like boy, T, like truck, at gmail.com. C-Bates, B-T, at gmail.com. You can also go on my Facebook page. There's a lot of it on Ukraine. Second, I'm part of the Burlington Garden Club. And next Tuesday, we're going to have a former Five Sisters neighbor, Liz Thompson, come and talk to us. And she has just written a book with two other people all about the wild lands of Vermont, which include marshes and ponds and woodlands and upper, shoot, I forgot that word, sort of like a plateau area. And she will be, it's free, come at one o'clock, maybe a little earlier. So you can be there right there when she starts. And we go to the Methodist Church on Dorset Street, which is just north of Swift. And as you're going up Dorset Street, you'll find you'll go on this hill that goes you in straight down and halfway through that hill. You make a left-hand turn into the Methodist Church, and it's a long, skinny building of like six different ugly buildings, but we'll be in the very last one. We all sit six feet apart, wear a mask, and you would have to have your shots. And then the third thing, I'm going to join Andy, but he forgot to remind people to wear long pants. There might be ticks, and to bring some sort of wonderful stick or thicker upper of garbage with you. So I think that's all. Thank you, everyone. And I am making some Ukraine flags. I have a few left if you want for your front door. This is a book that Carolyn was plugging, and I just have to say that it's not a new book. It was first published in 22 years ago, and there is a new edition, a 2019 edition, but it is a great book. You can get it at Phoenix Local. $20. There you go. Bye, local. Thank you, Carolyn and Andy. And I believe next up was Lucia for public comment. So Lucia, the floor is yours. Thanks so much. Hi, everyone. It's Lucia Campriolo. It's really nice to see everybody. I live on the corner of Pine and Lyman, and I will also rejoin the conversation at about 825 with my school board hat on again. I'm excited to chat with you then. I did just want to mention a PSA before then in the event some folks aren't able to stay for the entirety of the meeting. I wanted to quickly promote the public participation opportunities that are happening now through next Tuesday at about 6pm. Thank you for taking public input on the conceptual designs for the BHS BTC 2025 project. And you can provide your input two different ways, one online via a survey that you can find on the Burlington School District website, which is B as in Burlington, S as in school D as in district, V as in Vermont T as in town. I think it's the first thing on the website right now and you can click a link and it'll take you right to a right to a survey so you can provide that input online. You'll also find online the conceptual designs themselves if you haven't haven't had a chance to see them. And you're also welcome to visit with school board members in person. Every day this week through next Tuesday at 6pm between 5 and 6pm each day of the week at Fletcher free library in the community room on the ground floor. Again, it's between 5 and 6pm. The conceptual designs are on display at the library and a school board member will be present as well to have conversation answer questions and receive your input in person. So I would encourage you all if you are interested and haven't already had a chance to take a look at those images and provide some input, please feel free to do so. And I look forward to chatting with you more in about an hour and change. Great. Thank you, Lucia. And we'll see you soon. Next up we have Joe and then I see Colby and and then if I'm seeing no other ones I'll add myself into that stack but again if anybody has any thoughts for for public forum please use that raise hand function. Joe it's all you. Yeah. I got to slide I'm Joe dairy on the steering committee. I made two slides for tonight we didn't go through the rest of the deck but yeah, I was going to do that. You're going to do that later. I realized after I started public forum that I hadn't done that yet so I was going to do. Yeah, no worries. We might as well. You want me to share or are you about to do that. If you have sharing privileges go ahead. Okay. If not again. I'm not going through the whole thing. I'm just doing this one thing. So Sunday, they're starting a water main rehab project. It's going to take six weeks. It'll be pretty much close that one day. Looks like there's a disruption to some surrounding neighborhood areas of water that day as well. And one way traffic during weekdays for the other areas of the area. So I'm going to do that. I'm going to do that. I'm going to do that. I'm going to do that. I'm going to do that. I'm going to do that. I'm going to do that. I'm going to do that one day as well. And one way traffic during weekdays for the other. Six weeks. So that's the first thing. I found out about that via this BTV alerts thing. So if you like getting this kind of info, they, I get some about the roundabout project as well. That's probably the other thing I'm getting the most. And, you know, water disruptions and things as well. So check that out if you're interested in getting those. So then let me see if I can switch to the other page. Yesterday, there was a meeting with, I think our entire state legislative group, which is eight people about the legislative districts. And it's interesting to hear all the tradeoffs that had to be made, but, you know, there were some changes. And so I'm just kind of pointing out where we stand as a neighborhood. It appeared to me and please correct me if I messed this up. I didn't check it with anyone else. That pretty much our whole neighborhood is intact in one of these districts from us, both a state house and Senate point of view. We'll be chitin in 13 for the house and chitin in southeast for the Senate, which as you may have heard, like include some other areas that are kind of to the east of us now. It's a little bit different than previously and we have three senators. Anyway, that's a done deal. So check it out if you want. We have a website vcgi.bermont.gov. And the other, the exception to the rule here is it looked to me like maple and king that those couple of blocks right there. I got my cursor. I don't know if you can see my cursor, but it looked to me like those were getting locked off of us here and moving to the district to the north. In both the case of the Senate and the house. And I don't know whether that will be followed suit for the city districts, which have not yet been figured out. More to come there, I suppose. And I don't know, I don't think Greg was on tonight. Kobe's on that was our, our sort of delegation to the redistricting group. But, you know, maybe there'll be an update coming up soon. I think there's something about that at the city council meeting at the 25th. I saw that in front porch forum from I think Karen Paul. That looked like a pretty interesting meeting. This is the last bit I'm almost done. But that meeting and they were going to talk about the parkway, maybe vote on the first contract. And also, there's some sidewalk contract and new personnel, a personnel related matters at the police and the dispatch. So that looked like a good meeting to me, but anyway, that's all I've got here. Me quit sharing. Yeah, really to really helpful updates to start at the meeting. And it looks like that's true. Representative sevens and bloomly will no longer be my representatives, unfortunately, but we'll find out when the maps finalized. All right, so looks like Colby is next up so Colby floor is yours for public forum. Thank you. I just wanted to remind everyone that South Meadow cht is still giving out free meals Thursday evenings at five so if you know anyone who's facing some food insecurity. They can get a free meal on Thursdays at five in South Meadow. You're also able to bring a reusable bag and pick up extra meals if you need for one bills might get tight. So if you know anyone in the community who might need that service, it is still available Thursday evenings at five. So Colby is that the same as the people's kitchen distribution in South Meadow or is that a separate event. I believe they assist with that. But I think there are separate events as well in the summer especially cool cool. Yeah, I'll plug to people's kitchen also is in South Meadow I believe on Friday afternoons or Friday evenings these days. And if you are anybody you know is observing Romana and they're also doing if time meals for breaking the fast. I believe it's twice a week on Mondays and not sure exactly the other day but check it out people's kitchen for month if you would like some more information. The last piece is my public forum piece and I'm going to introduce myself I'm Nate Lanteri Ward 5 and PA steering committee member and also a pine street residents resident down by the King and Maple area. And recently I've been kind of spinning the wheels on getting a project started in the Champlain Street pocket park down there to try and just bring some activity back and find some ways to engage the community in this space that you know it's it's really one of the only public green spaces that's not heavily programmed in all of downtown. I'm just starting to look at few different ways, you know including a green update to clear some fence lines to, you know really modify the image of the park from the average goer. I can kind of show you where I'll show you a few pictures just to see if I can screen share. All right, it's not the best picture but I couldn't get it outside of the boxes but you can kind of zoom in you've probably there we go. It's a little weird, but on the right hand side you can kind of see what it looks like from the outside. And the left hand side you can see where it's situated. So that's maple street that's the intersection of maple and Champlain, of course, Champlain Street Park with handy's lunch on the corner so just to kind of situate you where you are. There's a vacant lot right here. And the park that looks like a continuation of the vacant lot. It's not though it's it's a city owned park that has community garden beds. It has a playground, it has a picnic, a potential picnic areas. And, you know a lot of potential really with just a little bit of really sweat equity and some small amount of funding. So if you're interested in getting, you know, involved in kind of a longer term green up projects, it's not that longer term I mean really to get it's such a small park that. Let's see how do I stop sharing. There we go. Let's stop share button. A few hands can go a long way so if you are interested in that you can email me at my email which is pretty long it's it's my first name, last name BTV so Nate Lanteri BTV at gmail.com. Number two I can give that out I don't mind 802-318-3463. If you are interested in getting involved. So that's all and just as a last note for public public forum I see Carolyn as Andrews so Carolyn, for the last note public forum, it's all yours. I'm just going to add to your, your talk about the Champlain Park. Gina Carrera did a painting. Yep. And I think she's looking for people to maybe help her repaint especially a pie where some of the really. I know that had been in the works for a long time but we got COVID so it's right right. I don't know where it's going now. But on the third, I've been given a information to be part of a zoom meeting with parks on redesign of that park. May 3rd at 6pm. And I don't have any, I don't have any zoom address I was sent an email on somewhere I think we can probably find it. We have a parks department or something because they're looking for, for us more design. It's a really sweet little park. And I was there even in the winter with snow and we had a hot chocolate there Cindy. Yeah, yeah, it is a great little park and it just needs a little bit of love to really become something great. And you sit there with the flowering trees and look at that great mural. Yeah, yeah. So I'll try to look up that address and you put it in the minutes. And I just want to say that max. We have to figure out maves still but Max Madalinsky from BPRW is going to come talk about that park I think. Yes, he's the one that sent the email. Sounds like there's another meeting that's a little more intensive before that so, you know, feel free to join that as well but yeah he's coming. Our next meeting is mid, you know, May, May 19, I think it's the day. So it's after that green up day to green update keeps coming up. So meeting on design. Okay. All right. That was a great public forum. We went a little bit long, but I'm hoping that we can make up some time somewhere on the agenda. I think we will. I'll keep us moving. With that, we're going to move into our, actually, I will screen share briefly and just I didn't show the agenda previously. So let me do that. First, let me get it up so I can do that. Right. Here we are. Now sharing the screen. We are moving into the second item on our agenda, which is the steering committee elections. Once a year, the NPA steering committee does a full refresh every position is up for reelection. But anybody who is a resident of Ward five is able to run for the board. So that's a really great way to get involved. And I would, I think that all of the other folks who have served on it within the past few years would agree with that. So within our bylaws we within the last two years actually we changed our bylaws to allow for nine steering committee seats to be filled for our NPA and stop sharing. But I believe currently we have five or six incumbents so we have a few open seats and you know if there are more than nine people who are seeking a nomination or seeking to join. We can you know go to a more intensive, you know, election process which certainly open to do. So I guess with that, I will open the floor for nominations to the NPA steering committee. And to do so I would say use the raise hand function or raise your hand in real life, and that can start us out. So my first hand I see raised this is from Andy so Andy, you can unmute yourself and start it out. Hi, once again my name is Andy Simon I have served four years now on this NPA steering committee and I've really enjoyed the work and would like to continue for another year we actually in our bylaws have term limits that limit people to five years of service where they take a year off and then can re up if they want to but I would like to fill out my mandate of five years and I ask for your vote when we get around to it. Thank you. Thank you Andy. And see hand in the room so my name is Terry rivers and I'd like to nominate myself to run for the steering committee. Hey, Terry. And I see Billy. Hi, I'm Billy Clark I live on Locust Terrace I'm currently award five steering committee member. I would like to nominate myself and for formality sake I do want to make sure that all the incumbents are also nominated they can all go around and nominate themselves it's an introduction but Andy I did not hear you formally nominate yourself so I will nominate you too. And, but yes everyone else can formally nominate themselves happy to introduce myself further if it's contested but if not, it's been great serving you all I think I've been on for two years now and excited to keep serving if that's possible. Excuse me. I have just kind of a point of clarification from anybody else in the steering committee to formally nominate the folks do we need to do a second process or is this So the way I was thinking of doing it was I could nominate the slate of current incumbent of people and I'm also happy just to nominate as a slate carry in there as well. If we split it out to formalize it more I'm happy to but maybe let's run through and see how many people we have and that can kind of dictate how we actually do the official nomination because if you know if we have 10 people, we might want to do that sounds good but yeah I'm happy to just do a motion at the end and then someone can second it and then we go from there. Okay. So, Joe, why don't you go. Sure hi I'm Joe dairy, I'm in my second kind of group of years here I think this might be my second term of my second stint. And I just have a lot of fun kind of reaching out to our presenters and organizing this meeting and also meeting with the steering committee members and the community at least once a month. So, you know, appreciate the support if, if it works out. And if not I'll be back next year. So, thanks a lot. Joe. Colby, why don't you go next. My name is Colby LaMarche. I'd like to nominate myself for jump on a slate, whatever happens at the end. I've been on for a few months now. I've loved to see community engagement I'm hoping that we can grow that in our next work together. Thank you Colby and Nancy. I'm Nancy Stutzen. I'm a word five resident and I've been on the steering committee now for a couple of months and I would like to continue. So I nominate myself. Thank you Nancy, and I will take the time to now nominate myself not accidentally burn that. Could I finish the meeting as a moderator if I wasn't on the steering committee anymore. That's, that's real Robert's rules. So I'll give one last plug to anybody else so we only have seven out of our maximum nine now so anybody else who is in attendance. This will be my kind of last pitch before we get into the actual election piece. The steering committee has really been an awesome opportunity to kind of do some things that other government, you know, even pseudo government boards in the city are allowed to do in that we really have the flexibility of, we're just kind of accountable to our neighbors and to a sense. You know we play in these meetings based on what we understand from, you know is important from the city into things but also really things that are driven by community interest. So if that's something that's interesting to you, if you're really just kind of focused on, you know, trying to make this little cell think community better. This is a great first step into it. And I think that our newly represented our newly elected city council member and in school board member who recently were also on the NPA steering committee would agree with that. So, after that, what's it called when a filibustering filibustering for more more participation with it when anybody else like to nominate themselves or a neighbor or anything like that before we, you know, go to the official tabulations. Alright, seeing none. I will pass it over to Billy to make that motion. I move to nominate the seven individuals who have expressed an interest in running for a steering committee member. I could try to recite all those if we want to do it for the notes or I could just say all seven. Is there a second I already wrote it down. You already wrote it down Joe. Yeah, you're good. All right. Is there a second on my motion. Second that great. All in favor of the motion. I guess either use the raise hand function or raise hand in the room. Signify I. Yeah. Any opposed. So with none opposed. I think that that motion passes. Thank you everybody to the new 2022 2023 NPA steering committee. Any folks that may be watching now or later. We do still have two open spots so if it's something that you're interested in or you think someone that you know may be interested, we can always kind of find a way to get them involved later on in the year. And we have before we move on, we have one comment from Charlie do you know me who would run our game right here. Okay, I just wanted to say that being a member of a steering committee for one of the neighborhood planning assemblies is a wonderful opportunity to participate in your local government as, as was just said. And so in Burlington, what the way I describe it is you have one mayor, you have at the moment 12 city counselors, and you have eight neighborhood planning assemblies. And so it's an official part of the city of Burlington. And so you have, you can actually expand your activities. And because it isn't an official part of the city of Burlington. So you can make resolutions to the city council, you can have special meetings. So you can actually do as much as you want to do. I was recently in a conversation with the director of the CEDA office community economic development office and a couple of other assistants. And I said at that time, in my opinion, the two most stable and active NPAs in the city were Ward one and Ward five. So I think that you're blessed here in Ward five that you have so many active members that like my own ward like wards two and three. We don't we really don't have that many active members. And so we're not as stable or as sustainable. So I congratulate Ward five that you actually do have, in my opinion, the most stable and active neighborhood planning in the city of Burlington. Thank you. Thank you, Charlie. We'll always take those kudos. And just like that, we're back on schedule. We're actually ahead of schedule. I thought we would make it happen. And I'll share our screen one more time just to get a sense of where we are. And we are looking at our third item on the agenda, which is Vermont music day. We're going to be joined by David shine, who will be sharing this with us so I know I saw David is here so David I know we're a little bit early but I'm going to show my face. If you can stand it. Here we go. Here I am. Hi, I'm David shine. I actually, I think I live in Ward five I just moved to a lakeside Avenue and I think I'm in the ward wall. The far reaches of the new north end and kind of glad to be back on the south side I grew up on the south side on maple street when dinosaurs roamed the streets and moved up to ledge road. So, and then I left for a really long time, but I'm back. And I'm very lucky to have. I'm a theater guy and a writer and a bit of the musician but I scored this great gig with Jim Lockridge a big heavy world, an organization I just love. And so I am the coordinator of make music day Vermont, and it is part of a big organization, which is World Music Day, and I'm sharing a screen now can you see it. Yes, we can. So there's 1000 cities all over the world. There's 10s or 100 thousands of musicians who play music for their communities for free on the summer solstice has been going on for years, 40 years. It started in France. It's a really big deal in France that whole cities are involved. And Jim Lockridge and big heavy wills started being the Vermont version of it, six, six years ago. And I mean, Nashville, Boston, lots of cities in America are involved, and Vermont is the only state that's kind of involved as a whole state. So I'm promoting that. And I'm going to around to the different neighborhood associations and say hey, what space do you have in your ward. And do you want to do some music and of course, that little park on Champlain and maple would be perfect to put up a couple of musicians down there I'm a member of some. Right around the corner. I mean right across my hand is so I'm promoting that to the NPA. If anyone in the NPA wants to get involved. We don't necessarily do more than link musicians with different neighborhoods, and then we get you registered on the site of on the map of make music day Vermont. And then if you're registered if different musicians in different sites are registered, then you have links of all your information gigs events, you know, your websites. So I really encouraged the NPA, and especially I just wrote Nate, who wants to get stuff going on in that park. And I know Carolyn from some of the city hall park stuff that we did. To get involved and promote some music on June 21. It can happen from 930 in the morning to 10 at night in the neighborhood and there's a lot of parks in Ward five. And if there was one person on this NPA who wanted to work with me to try to, you know, you probably all know about five musicians. And it can be a channel player on the corner. It can be a kid playing the flute or it can be a rock band on a stage. I mean, all genres, and all people are welcome. We've got a lot of stuff going on late on a lakeside park that little park down here because I live right around the corner. I'm playing my ukulele on the back porch for my neighbors. You know, other people be playing accordions and different people in the neighborhood so we want to get a lot of stuff going. I'm if you guys are interested any of you guys are interested in coordinating with me. I will try to link you with different musicians and get stuff going in your local park or let's say some of you like play a banjo. And you know, want to play in your living room for your relatives, you can still be on the Vermont make music day map I'm going to share one another thing with you if I can figure out how to stop share here, which I don't know if I can. Where is it. It's sneaky red button when you go up to the top. Here's another share screen, and this does make music Vermont right here. Okay, we'll move that around. And this is where you can contact and register. Music Vermont. It's if you Google make music Vermont you will find this site, and you can contact me or you can contact. You know, the whole website which myself and Jim Lockridge and different people from big heavy work are monitoring. We've got stuff going on in Brattleboro, Randolph the whole town is involved, Swanton, Montpelier maple corner. And I'm reaching out and I'm reaching out to different NPAs to get involved in your neighborhood on June 21 on that day. And I'm going to give you my email, which is D a f as in Fred shine s ch. I am at big heavy world calm. If you want to get something going and I really need I'm going to I'm going to find you because I wrote down your phone number to get stuff stuff going on that little park. On that day. And that's what we're doing in every neighborhood in Burlington and hopefully there'll be 80 or 90 sites in Vermont. And this year, I'm really charged to really expand this last year because of COVID, it was like about 14 or 15 sites and and Jim Lockridge, who you probably all know of or if you don't you should because he's a force of nature and advocating music and music education for youth. I'm really intended expanding this and making Vermont a real hot spot in the USA, and in the world for community music. Do I need to say more you got any questions. Yeah, I think that's a great idea. So, yeah, why don't we open it up for any questions. And if you want to just stop sharing your screen. Okay, I got it stops here red button. Got it. And, yeah, I would say I see Carolyn with their with the raised hand so you can go first Carolyn. I think it would be great if you can write up something for us and we'll put it on all of our front porch forums. It is on all the front porch forums front porch forum is a sponsor. So it's been on front porch forum, and we'll be again, they're there statewide sponsored they're donating all this free publicity as is vpr. And I can Facebook. Yeah, I mean we're all over the place make music Vermont you can you can find us in a minute. Nobody know whether you had a post or something that we could put on Facebook. Yeah, we do. Okay, do you want to send me one. Okay. Thank you see the BT at gmail.com. All right. Thank you for your questions for David. Thank you for having me and we get a lot of music going in Ward five. Yeah. We have Charlie Charlie has questions so you know what this makes me think of it is I'm wondering if you have international contacts are especially Carolyn. I wonder if you're doing this in Ukraine, or Syria, or Afghanistan. I wonder if you can make some kind of a connection through music to those communities. It's a bigger project that I could handle, but I'm just a little bit just makes me think how you could make people in in war torn or you're in world communities that are in difficulty right now it might be just interesting to see if you could get if someone could get something moving in this from there is a national. There's a national organization for the whole USA and North America that has ties with World Music Day, which happens in 120 countries. So if you give me your email, I can connect you with that information because they have that information. They have every country. That's involved, and probably they're aware of different efforts to expand to other countries. I'm sure that Ukraine is involved has been involved before the war. So what what's your email and and I'm not really convinced I want to get drawn into this but anyway my email is very simple it's just my name and my three initials at Gmail so it's just CH, AR, L I E. C is in Charlie, P is in Peter and G is in Ginoni. At Gmail. CPG at Gmail. Thank you. Okay. I'll send you those links to the national and the international World Music Day people, which were proud to be involved in. Great. Well, seeing no other hands. Thank you Dave for joining and yeah you certainly reach out I think I think I was someone that confirmed that you were coming tonight so you have my email too. Happy to get connected I also think that Champlain Street Park is in Jim's backyard basically too is if I know where his house is correctly so yeah that. Yeah you do yeah it is in his backyard. I'll talk about that, but I'll also get in touch with you. Great. Great. All right and yeah we can, you know, pop your email address into the into the minutes and stuff so that folks can reach out and put the make music David T Lincoln there as well. Right. More information. All right. Well thank you. The meeting then have fun. Yeah have a good rest of your night. We are cruising. We were like two minutes early before now we're seven minutes early we're getting out early tonight folks. So with that, I see that we're joined by both of our great House representatives representative tiff bloom Lee and representatives Gabrielle sevens who are here to give a legislative session update and there's a lot of good and juicy stuff going on in the house and in the Senate and in state government right now so really excited to, you know, hear kind of your perspectives on everything that's going on so representatives bloom Lee and sevens. That's yours yours. Sure. Thanks. We're going to try to keep this tight because there are a million things we could talk about and I don't think that you really need to hear a laundry list and what we thought we'd do is talk about a few things of interest to Burlington specifically and then talk about some things that each of our committees are working on or that we have been involved in in other ways. And I think I'll start us off. Charter changes. The longest process. Oh my God. So, we've got two that are on the governor's desk the thermal and the just cause eviction. And there's a vote on Thursday on rank choice voting. That was, no, it was a walkthrough I think this Thursday I'm not sure I don't know what the status of that is I haven't checked yet. And then the airport resolution was chart change was signed by the governor, just, I think yesterday so that's where we are on the charter changes. It is, it's a, it's an exhausting process just to try to keep track of. I, I will just say a quick word about redistricting and then I'm going to turn it over to Gabrielle to talk about pupil waiting on redistricting. Some of you know that we sponsored a conversation last night with our six senators from Chittenden County to talk about their process for coming up with district lines and what that actually the things that they took into consideration and the things that ultimately they decided were really important I have a link am I able to put something is there a chat. It's not because of the webinar section so. Well I'm going to put I'll put it out on front porch forum. So, to we can include it in the minutes as well. CC, I mean, yeah CC TV was there and filmed it and you know it's interesting the, the, I, I think that that there has, we have received a lot of feedback that we're really disappointed that Burlington has been divided up and that we've been kind of subsumed into a Southern Chittenden County district. I think that there are. What Gabrielle and I can pledge to do is to keep Chittenden 65 which is now Chittenden 613 on everybody's radar and make sure that we get senators to come to NPA meetings or some of the forums that we sponsor. I think that's going to be very important. There is, you know, our, our own house district change just a tiny bit up in the corner near, you know, maple and spruce and I have, I can share my screen can't I. It's again. Okay, which I will do just one second here. Okay, so. So this is this yellow part is the part that was taken out of our district and added to Chittenden 14, which is the new district that has an additional house member that would share the district with the Barbara Rachelson. So, at any rate, I felt like the conversation went well. It is what it is. The house doesn't really have any say in the process. Gabrielle. I spoke up and I think that I think we're just going to have to work hard at keeping in touch with the senators who are from from Burlington and, and the others so that we're not forgotten. I think anyway, so I'm going to pass it over to Gabrielle you talk about people waiting and then you can just slide right into climate and transportation and then you can turn it back to me. And social justice and the other topics we spoke about. Good evening. And yes, so we representative Blumlee and I we've heard quite a bit from many of our constituents, school board members, parents, teachers, super well not the superintendent specifically on this but we've seen some comments. We've heard from scholars about the importance of advocating strongly on behalf of our students with regards to what the product was from a report three, four years ago. Three, four years ago, there was a study and a to look at, essentially, whether or not how we waited our students here in Vermont was correct. And if it wasn't correct, what will be new to need to do to modify update. And if you think about it, it makes sense if you're in first or second grade, you don't cost as much as someone in high school who might need a chemistry lab or AP courses or swimming pool, or buses to go to sports or a theater. It's just a different set of costs. And what we've learned over the last several decades is that there are other costs besides the difference between elementary and high school. We also see costs related to if you're an English language learner, if you live in an area that is very, very rural, or an area that's, you know, very impoverished. And so essentially this report that was a joint report came out a couple years ago, authored by professors at UVM and Rutgers the report came out and said, basically that we needed to update our weights, if we wanted to have a correctly weighted system, and made recommendations as to how to do this. This report then went to our legislature last year. And after four and a half months of testimony back and forth. It was determined that actually a deeper dive needed to occur. So there was a task force established the task force met a lot between, I don't know, June, July, August, September, October, November came out with a report in December, which said, Well, we could update the weights, we could also do an alternative approach cost cost equity is one term cost factor cost adjustment there's some different terminologies for it. Long story short, it then went to the Senate in this past January four months ago. The Senate took testimony, deliberated and said we think we should update the weights that went to the house. The House deliberated for a long time because a bigger question here is, do we need to look at how we pay for public education from a broader perspective that we need to relook at the portion that relates to income tax. How do we equitably serve all these different students. So there was a lot of discussion back and forth, ultimately just the other day, if not today might have been today or yesterday. The House Ways and Means did vote to enact or vote to pass a bill that basically said we will update the weights. There are a lot of other details to it. I'm happy to share the language but given the lateness of the hour. I don't think you want me to go into that many specifics point being here that this was really a united effort, frankly by our school boards by our, our various elected officials, our teachers to say, let's really make sure we take care of our kids at large. So a huge effort and I look forward to seeing how this is implemented and rolled out. It still does need to go back to the Senate for either, you know, approval or basically there might be a conference committee where basically some of the senators and some of the House members meet and they decide you want this I want this we want this you want that. And then essentially after that comes back to the House for a vote and then goes the governor whether or not he chooses to sign or veto or put it in a drawer and let it pass without any action on his part. Really hopeful that that will help. It's been 25 years that we have not updated the weights and it is a, it's a significant difference in terms of how we calculate what it takes to really educate our future, our future doctors our future, everything lawyers teachers you name it. So I will segue briefly and I'm happy to answer any questions on that to the degree I can we do have some other folks representing Burlington Burlington that know more about this but I'm happy to answer questions if I can. And I'll just say, we did send out a note in end of March or so about a month ago with all sort of a sampling of the environmental and climate change related bills that the House had passed through. There are so many, it's, it's really quite phenomenal. One of the challenges I see, frankly, is that the house we meet in only one committee I only serve on transportation, but in the Senate, senators serve on two committees. So that combined with the fact that we have both a House committee on natural resources and wildlife fish and wildlife so basically everything sort of natural resources wildlife etc. We have a separate committee focus focused on energy and technology. So we have two committees that meet full time all day that then send everything over to the Senate, which only meets it. There's one committee, Senate natural resources and energy, and they meet half a day. So the amazing work that we do in terms of passing bills. There's only so much that can be done by essentially like a quarter of the time and the people. But that being said, we will see which of the bills that the House House passed through, which ones of them actually do clear the Senate and come back to us. We did pass a Community Resilience and Biodiversity Protection Act, which talks about conserving 30% of our lands by 2030 and 50% by 2050 we passed a bill that was supposed to or is supposed to make Act 250 a more neighbor friendly process so it's a little bit easier to participate and weigh in but also at the same token make it more consistent for developers so that they understand what is required of them and how to be part of the zoning and planning process of whatever community they're trying to build in. We also passed H626, which is a bill to protect pollinators, basically bees, establishing best management practices, and I won't go through all of them but one that's really important is a clean heat standard, which basically kind of like what we already have had for a number of years we've had a renewable portfolio standard, which essentially requires our electric utilities to, if they don't have clean energy they have to have a certain number of credits for clean energy. And it kind of does the same thing but for the businesses that provide us fossil fuels so if you get oil delivered to your home or propane, or if you're a VGS customer. All of those businesses have to either be showing that they're providing those services with a clean energy option like weatherization or heat pumps or whatnot, or they can pay for those credits. So it's a way to really enact and work with all the businesses in a market economy and say come to the table be part of the solution. Instead of just banning something but rather how do we transition businesses to businesses that are not as carbon emitting. A lot of other bills, one of the bills that I believe just came from the Senate into the house was an environmental justice bill. This is S287 or 288, I don't remember, but really important given the number of bills that we're talking about related to the environment and climate change. And the fact that if we're not doing that with a whole picture of all of the people who make up our society then we are not doing it correctly. And I will pass it back to Tiff on housing. You are so succinct and you packed so much in. Okay. So I'll talk briefly about housing. We waited until April to get two housing bills from the Senate and they do different things, but they are trying to get at different aspects of the housing problem. And so one is a bill that actually is going to be on the House floor tomorrow and kind of its central feature is bringing noncode compliant housing back online through grants or loans of up to $50,000 that would help property owners to restore housing and that can then be used. It's it's easier to do that. Most often than to construct new housing. I mean it's cheaper. And there are somewhere between four and 6000 noncode compliant vacant rental units in the state. And, and then to kind of protect to renter safety, just as in Burlington and in Brattleboro and in maybe St. Johnsbury there are there are a handful of cities that have rental registries. This would be a statewide registry there are a lot of small towns that have, you know, health officials that are basically, you know, they drew the last straw, and all of a sudden they become the health officer and they are supposed to respond to complaints about code compliance, you know, leaky pipes, etc. And in smaller towns that obviously puts people in very awkward positions. And the League Vermont League of Cities and Towns is very supportive of a central registry that would improve code compliance and and fix housing. It is funded through a rental registry fee that people would pay. We in Burlington because we have a registry wouldn't pay anything more to register our rentals that registry would just live both in Burlington but it also be part of the state registry, and the advantage to, you know, property owners is that they would learn also about incentives that the state might have for weatherization. It makes it much easier to communicate with people in the midst of a crisis, whether it's COVID or its tropical storm Irene. So this is something that we've been trying to do as a legislature for maybe 20 years. And I think finally, maybe we might be able to pass it. The other, the other big housing bill establishes a number of different things I mean the my housing conservation board was given $50 million, largely through ARPA but also the general fund to fund new housing, and whether it's rental or its housing to own conversion of commercial properties or access to land to indigenous Vermonters for farming I mean their mission is broad but at any rate $50 million is there. And within these this housing bill. So one of the specific programs I just wanted to highlight one is a grant program for first time first generation home buyers, and the idea would be that folks applying would be first generation home buyers, and would be very, there would be a whole outreach component to this that would actually help fund some of the organizations that work with communities on where that is likely to be true of many of the people that they serve. That's a million dollars and VHF a will be administering that some manufactured home relocation and rehab grants. So there are, I think, what might be of there a lot of, I'll just say a couple of things and more things about this, this creation of a middle income housing initiative, the governor has spoken about this. It would be resisted the governor's initial plan, which would be for the housing to be available to people up to about 140% of area median income, and that basically this grant program would provide subsidies to developers to develop housing that they could never sell for the cost of labor land and materials. And the people the people who people have to be 120% of median area income. The committee insisted that a third of the homes be perpetually affordable through the kind of model that Champlain Housing Trust has put forward through the shared equity model, which I think is is the best use of public money. And I'm really glad that we were able to do that because the value of the investment that we're making in the remaining 66% of homes, it's real but it really diminishes over time. And the homes become less and less affordable as houses appreciate. I think that the only other thing that I'd mentioned about the bill because there are actually a few things that are still in flux is prohibiting a sales tax. Somebody sale, sorry, a tax sale for homeowner that is delinquent and paying their property taxes. They have an opportunity to apply for VHAP money, which is the Vermont homeownership assistance program and while that is pending their eligibility is pending there, the stay that the sale is stayed. So I think that that you know I think that there are there also some zoning changes that we didn't deal with because that went to straight to natural resources. I think that there are there are a lot of good components in the bill what's not in there is really an answer to the question I think everybody has which is, where are we with the emergency housing program, and we know we still have 1500 people. At last count who are living in motels and through the emergency general assistance program and that money will evaporate over, you know the next 12 months and there are people who are going to be ineligible because they've been in the system for long enough and and I think I have been trying it for this meeting I've been trying to get some more information about where where things stand and what their estimates are about how many people are going to are going to exit that program. And what our plan is the other thing that I just want to mention because I know that some of you have expressed concern about this is that you know there is over the last two years has been a lot of discussion in House Corrections and Institutions Committee. And I'm looking at some at former superintendent of the Dale facility sitting in at your meeting right now Terry Rivers. There are plans for a new women's prison the Chittenden prison has long, I mean it's it's it was constructed to be a jail, not to be a prison and it is. There are all kinds of problems with it. The plans for the prison are largely being driven by architects, engineers, and building services and program and vision are not informing those plans in that and and it's backwards and I'm not don't serve on that committee. And I know that there are a number of advocates who are working on this. I hope to be able to. I'd like I think Gabrielle and I'd like to sponsor a conversation with some advocates to better get a better sense of where that committee is in its thinking and how big a prison. You know how many people where might it be located, will it be near any jobs and how accessible to families will it be. And, you know, I think that given my my particular background my my fundamental question is, how many beds do we really need. We have emptied the prison of about half of its population given coven. So, um, but this is like a train that has its own momentum. And I so I just I wanted people to be aware of that and as soon as the session ends I'd like to be able to convene a conversation about where this is all going. I think that's probably all you need to hear from me, we want to make sure that we left time for questions and comments. I do certainly have time for questions. I think you both those does a lot of work. So thank you all for all the work that you've been doing these past two years, we definitely really appreciate it. And yeah, so same as always raise and function if you have any questions, and Nancy, you're the first one so feel free to unmute yourself and the floor is yours. And I apologize for not attending the redistricting meeting last night, but I was hoping to return to that. I was wondering, first of all, whether the new districts will apply for this November election. Yes, I will. Yes. And who are the incumbent senators that live in the new Senate district. Yeah. And so I reconqueredUpLions and Michael Serotkin and Thomas Chitinden. Okay, so Rom Hinsdale, but because she is running for for Congress, she's therefore right, you know, it's essentially three incumbents, three seats. Yeah, okay. Great. That's it for me. Okay, that was easy Nancy. I moved after I voted for you all and you're not my representatives anymore. I have the old North End ones. I'm right on the other side of the border in between King and April Street. So it's so funny that those lines are just slightly out of order, but that's okay. I still like you all. And I did have a question actually. Tiff, I know that you have talked kind of about some of the housing bills and I've been following S226 from my professional standpoint and it was my understanding that the last point that could kind of muck up the works was about a contractor registry number and I haven't heard as much about that recently. No, actually I can't believe I didn't even mention that. Yeah, the contractor registry, it's I think that I'm trying to block it out because this is one of those things we've been trying to get through also for a number of years. This would be a registry that is in 226 remains in there and it's been changed from the last version that we didn't get, you know, it died. I mean, it was in the Senate and it didn't get through the Senate last time. So the Senate committee incorporated it into this omnibus housing bill. And so this would require that contractors who are due business of $10,000 and more register with the Office of Professional Regulation. I mean, tattoo artists register, you know, we have, and I don't know how many different professions have to register with the Office of Professional Regulation. But basically- Nail salon. Nail salon, that's true, yes. And so at any rate, it's a highly charged issue. There are a lot of folks who don't like the idea the threshold initially was $3,000 worth of work that was raised to $10,000 in order to, so that maybe the governor would not veto this bill. There's a lot in this bill for the governor to like, especially the missing middle housing program. Did you have a particular question about that, Nate? Oh, it's just kind of the fact- Do you not like it? It was up to $10,000. Last I had seen it, it was at $5,000. So I see that the $10,000 was kind of the play to try and avoid the veto. And does it seem like that will work? I mean, I know that that's kind of a- Who knows? We're just now hoping so. I mean, I sure hope so. Yeah. It is, I mean, you know, most cities have them. We are, our whole state is the size of most, you know, small cities. And the problem is that most of the, most of the complaints that come in are for smaller jobs. So this wouldn't, you know, and so what the Senate did is they put, they created a position in the office of attorney general to handle those complaints and try to, you know, mediate consumer complaints either on the part of the contractor side or the side of the homeowner. So it's definitely a compromise. Can I add a couple of words? Sure. Because I have such a different, so there's a lot that comes through the state house. And, you know, folks have asked both Tiff and I you know, do you really run together and you know, we coordinate because there are so many committees but we do have our areas of expertise and we have our different opinions, but then we also have similar opinions. This is an interesting one because I think Tiff looks at it from sort of, well, actually I shouldn't say how you look at it. What I've heard about this bill is it's both a consumer protection bill because so many in particular elderly folks will hear about a so and so who comes by and says, sure, I can do your roof and or I can just do your kitchen and just give me 2K now and I'll come back and there's no contract, there's no nothing, right? And some of the folks that were part of a press conference about this a few months ago talked about getting out at like losing 20, 25, 30K. And meanwhile, I had never heard of that perspective. I had heard it from the perspective of someone who, my other job is as a clean energy consultant and one of the things that we have done is update Vermont's building energy code. And it's amazing because, you know, as we change code and you say, you have to do this or you have to do this, you have to do this to save energy or to make it safer or what not, really save energy for the building energy code part. I was literally combing phone books, phone books, reaching out between carpenters and electricians and trade unions saying, how can I reach folks to let them know this is now law? And it works both ways, both protecting the homeowner as well as protecting the contractor because contractors I've spoken with have also said that they've lost money from unscrupulous business transactions. But it also relates to the fact that if we're gonna do this much, if we're gonna put this many dollars into housing, we better make sure we do it as well as possible and as efficiently as possible and with the building science tools that we know. And if we don't, then that homeowner is going to be straddled with higher energy costs, maybe moisture issues, maybe air quality issues. And it's just, it's really intriguing to me. And it kind of shows to me how a bill can cut across multiple policy perspectives, housing, energy, consumer protection and be something as boring as the contractor registry bill. So I'll just say this is actually, this was one of the top bills on the climate solutions caucus priority list because there, I think like more than 30% of our carbon emissions come from our buildings. And if we're unable to communicate with folks to say, hey, do you know about this new product? Do you know about these incentives that you can offer to your customer? Then we are not connecting the dots across our different programs. So I'm really hopeful, Nate. I don't know if you like this or don't like it, but I personally am really hopeful it passes. And if people don't like it, I'm happy to chat. I know your story of reading through phone books to try and just find how to even get in contact with folks is something that I deal with all the time. And even folks in Burlington, as well as in more far flung areas of saying, hey, I have an emergency plumbing situation. Do you know anybody? And saying it's really hard to find them. It's really hard to find them. So yeah, it's strange to see how controversial that piece is, but all right. So I'm just looking at time. Carolyn has been patiently waiting for a question. And if anybody else has a question for the representatives, do raise your hand and we can make that happen. So Carolyn, the floor is yours. I hired a local contractor from whom I had worked maybe 25 years taking photographs, paid him 10 grand just for my bathroom. And we decided to change part of the contract. And as we did that, the contract suddenly went for a little six by eight bathroom to almost 100,000. And I said, forget it. I want my money back. Well, he stole it, refused to return it. And I bought about another 10 grand trying to get lawyers and everything else, pay all those little bills, you pay to City Hall in order to get your money back. And it was inexcusable. And if that, whatever that contract lies that they talked about, if that had been in place, I would have at least had a stepping stone to win some money. Carolyn, I'm sorry to hear that. And it's not in place. And the governor has been, the governor vetoed it. So maybe call the governor. Mike. I'm sorry. I think that it is precisely what this is supposed to help folks avoid. And elders are particularly vulnerable to this, to contract or fraud. So I knew he did my kitchen and then in the bathroom, he stole money. Yeah. I mean, Carolyn, one other idea, not that this will help you that much, but at the press event, a few months ago on this bill, the same day that the governor said he was gonna veto it, actually in the same hour, TJ Donovan's office was saying that they were taking a list of names and information. Yeah, that's fine. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I did all of it. Yeah, he has it more than once. But thank you. It's just, I would just want to say that it's really important to get whatever you can contract protections out there for the owner. I can't begin to tell you how many people came forward who've been in the same situation. And we weren't losing two or 3,000. This is 10 to 50,000 that they were not small business. No. It's a huge bottleneck in all of these housing spending bills is that we need to identify where the people to actually do the work is. So not having a registry to me, sounds somewhat counterintuitive to that, but that's my own opinion. Nate, that's House Bill 703. It's got a whole bunch of workforce initiatives, climate, nursing, anyway. Oh, that's great to know, 703, age 703. I'll look into that tomorrow. Thank you. Yes, that one. Cool. All right. I'm seeing no other hands. So thank you both for joining us. What would be the best way for folks to get in touch? Should they have any other questions or anything like that? We are legislative. If you just go to the house website and look up either of us by name, our email addresses are there as our phone numbers. Awesome. Well, great. Well, thank you both for joining us tonight and for all you've done over the past two years and hopefully a smooth sailing the rest of the session. I think it'll probably get a little bumpier before it gets smoother, but yeah, Carolyn, I can pass it over to you. I'm sorry, I wanted to tell you about why your division was on Maple Street. One of the main things that drove some of the redistricting was that we were to keep the King and Maple Street together because that's a huge unit and your unit that's I think the poorest and maybe all of Vermont. I'm not sure, but it's at least the poorest in Burlington and it has the highest number of people of color and the refugees and people who don't speak English. So it was really important. I was on that redistricting for Burlington, not for the state. And I know that we even had them break the block, one of the voting blocks in half so that we could keep King and Maple Street all together. And then all the rest of the Art District of Plain Street could stay in Ward 5. But that was like the 10-star thing to be sure we did because it hadn't been done before. It was you were broken in half at King Street. So that's why you are where you are. That's okay. It is its own distinct neighborhood and it is probably more similar to downtown than the rest of Ward 5 in some ways too. But all right. So thank you both, Representative Bloomly and Sebbins. And with that, we're on our last agenda item and that is to introduce our new school board member Lucia Campriello. Congratulations on your victory, unopposed victory but a victory nonetheless on town meeting day. And we're really glad to have you both from your NPA steering committee history but also just because we know that you'll serve us well. So Lucia, the floor is yours. The wrap is up for tonight. Great. Well, thank you so much. So yes, I will introduce myself again. My name is Lucia Campriello. I have lived in Burlington now for about seven years. I live with my family down on the corner of Plain and Lyman. I've got two young children, one of whom is in second grade and my younger daughter is finishing up her last year at preschool and eager to join big sister at Champlain Elementary School next year. So yeah, so it's also really nice to see everybody. I was missing you all in March. I was out of town, which was really nice for the first time in a long, long time. We actually did something as a family. And but I was missing you and I'm really happy to be here tonight and anticipate continuing to join these sessions monthly. So it's nice to see everybody. I see lots of haircuts and other different things because it's been a little while. So I'm two and a half weeks into service as Ward 5 School Board Commissioner. And so anticipate that I will be in a space of learning a lot for the foreseeable future really, I think for the duration of the service. But I'm really excited about the work underway right now specific to the BHS BTC project. And for those of you who are with us at the very top of the program, I did jump in at public forum to remind folks to check out the Burlington School District website and you'll find there the conceptual designs. If you haven't seen them already, I would encourage you to take a look if it's something that you're interested in and also a link to a survey where you can provide some input for the next handful of days before the school board makes a decision on one of five conceptual designs to move us forward toward the next phase of the project. And you're also welcome to visit with school board members this week between five and 6 p.m. at the Fletcher Free Community Room. Yeah, between five and 6 p.m. If I didn't already say that. And the conceptual designs will be there on display as well. So you can ask a person questions in person if you've had it with the remote way of life these days. But that's a big decision just upcoming on the horizon on Tuesday. And I'm feeling just as a new board member, there's obviously been a ton of work that's gone into bringing those conceptual designs to life for folks and a lot of public participation and engagement. And I am excited to be at this place and at this kind of milestone because in some ways it feels like the work will just begin all over again because these conceptual designs are just that. They're conceptual. And so the hard work of bringing those conceptual designs to life from the perspective of budgeting and more specific timelines and details of the project is the next phase of the work. And I think that's where you'll be hearing a lot more from me and from your city counselors and others with a lot more information and a lot more opportunities to join the conversation. So that is what is just on my mind mostly in this moment thanks to representative seven's fantastic update on where the equity people rating work is in this moment. And thanks to many of you who are advocating actively for that work as well. So yes, I am happy to provide my contact information. I actually have a new email address with the school district. So I can provide that now and include that in the notes but it's almost my regular email address. So I will respond to any of them because I have so many at this moment but it's L and then my last name Cambrielo which is C-A-M as in Mary, P as in Peter, R-I-E-L-L-O at bsdvt.org, Burlington School District Vermont.org. And I am happy to answer questions or whatever is on people's minds, I'm happy for it. And I will do my best to answer you or let you know that I don't have an answer and we'll circle back and look forward to that as well. All right. And as always, use that raised hand and I saw Nancy first. So Nancy, the floor is yours. Hi, Lucia. I was curious if you had a take on the conceptual designs. I'm sure you don't wanna like sway our votes but I took a look at the survey and it looked like different shapes to me from the little pictures and shapes and all the prices were like fairly close together. So I wasn't sure if you felt like there's like a big difference between some of the options or if some options would mean one thing for the high school and a different thing. Yeah. So I'm so happy to hear those observations and I will share that at the first meeting that I participated in in early April, I sort of sat down and a good portion of the meeting was about the conceptual designs and we had this presentation and I felt a little bit of panic at like, will I be equipped to participate in a decision within three weeks? This feels like a really big deal and over the course of the next sort of four days consuming more information and reflecting on my notes from the meeting and talking with folks and hearing questions from the community, I sort of realized exactly where you landed which was we're actually making a decision about a shape and a container and that the inputs that went into those conceptual designs were consistent across the boards of 300 square feet. We're gonna have an auditorium and a cafeteria and a media center and the things that you would expect within a high school to serve a population of our size. And so I was feeling like what I'm looking for as a school board representative is really the path of least resistance that moves the project forward in a way that meets the programmatic needs of our student body and of our community and one that can be one that can be budgeted for in the most responsible way and has as fast a path forward from a construction and development perspective. So I will say that there are, it was fun to hear about option D and that's the option if you've looked at the designs that require a new road and it's the one that is a little bit of a different shape. Is it the one sort of like that would be right up along North Ave? Yes, yep and it looks more like a C as opposed to a little bit longer. Yeah. And when I think about what could be involved even though there's obviously been conversation with the city about roadways and everything else and I think about just generally development projects in Burlington, I think about that as probably one that is not the path of least resistance. And so otherwise I feel a little bit reluctant to sort of give too much shape to the decision but I feel what I feel really confident in is that to your other point, I think we're looking at options that are all within about $15 million of one another on what is a fairly large conceptual design budget and those numbers are what the architects and designers call order of magnitude numbers which is, well you probably know what exactly that is Nancy but I didn't know what it was and so it's methodology that allows for in this case, five examples to be comparative to one another and so I think the question that I had asked during the last board meeting was and so what does this number actually mean and that's where it was made clear to me that these numbers are sort of the fully loaded numbers with all of the escalation prices and costs that one could imagine including COVID implications and supply chain implications and construction materials and sort of everything and really the goal here is to bring this number down. And so I think, yeah I think that's all I wanna say in this moment. Okay, I actually have another question too which is both our kids are in second grade right now and I think maybe the first year the superintendent said like we'll have a high school in five years which seemed very ambitious. Do you think our kids will go to a brand new high school? I do, yes. High freshman year? I mean the project is entitled BHS BTC 2025 for a reason and that timeline, I have not heard anything about that timeline changing and I think the team is quite committed to that timeline for a variety of reasons. Obviously it's very quick and will require a good amount of work to get us there but also because the lease does not last forever in the current location. And so there is kind of a pressure point on both ends and obviously getting students into a space that is most suitable for their learning experiences but yes, that is the goal. Okay, that's great to hear. This makes no sense at all. Which part of it? Oh, I'm sorry, I thought it was on mute. Oh, no, that's okay. Well, I'm just looking at all these weird sizes of this high school and the one that I guess that's a reduced size for option D instead of keeping it in the same milieu of an inches is 100 feet which it looks like the first four are but the fifth one, option D looks like an inches 200 feet. So how can you compare it and what does it matter what size they are? I think it matters more what's in it. Yes, that's a great point, Carolyn. Oh, here's what size this thing is. If you're gonna look from a building standpoint D looks like it's the simplest one to build. So I would think that you get more inside of it for having a less expense or at least expensive exterior all these little ins and outs and ins and outs and ins and outs of the other ones and then a little green spaces in the middle I would think would be a lot more expensive to build the building itself and you therefore wouldn't have as much inside. Well, I would encourage you to visit this website. There are several pages of documents for each of these designs that will show you sort of different views of each. But one thing I wanna point out is they are all actually the same square footage. And so some building, so option D specifically is taller than some of the other options and the topography of the land slopes in different spaces. The shape doesn't matter to me. I wanna know what's inside. And if it's the same on all of these then we just vote on the shape. In other words, do all of them have a gym and do all of them have a temple? Yes. Well, what's the difference? Is just the shape? There are some differences. Yeah, there's some differences around shape. There's some differences around parking. There's some differences around the layout specifically. So the location of BTC related to BHS, how integrated and or separate those two spaces are. Those two programs are the accessibility of the common spaces. So the locations inside the building of the common spaces and how those spaces are used. There are some differences, but the main criteria, the kind of building blocks of programming that you would find in a typical high school or technical center are all consistent at this time. Well, we also have to look at how long it takes to go from point A to point B. The kids have to move that point A to point B. And so I would take the littleest one because you don't have to travel as far to get between A and B to follow. I know that when I was teaching, I was given like three minutes to go three floors and two, you know, and I couldn't do it because the school was so spread out. And these little spots in the center, like of A, are those like interior, exterior, you know what I mean? They're like little green spaces inside the building. Yep, they're like courtyard. Like courtyards? Well, I don't know, what do people feel? You want a courtyard? What did other people think, some thoughts on that? Well, Lucia was kind of saying that earlier, like they all kind of have the same basic features. 300K feet, there's courtyard, that was one of the features. There's a auditorium, there's a dedicated cafeteria. So they have all of those same features. So the courtyard is actually one of those features that the students wanted, I guess, is what I heard. Yeah, but is it in D? Does D have courtyard? So it was a little tiny, I can't tell, it was a little tiny green. You know, that one is a wider shot because it shows the road having to be built, and that's why it's funky. They actually have to like redo the road down here around the fields, and I think that's why they're showing it. And that's what adds the cost to, but. Well, I think that these are actually courtyard-type items there, they're just like, I can't really get a better zoom on that. I think that's what they're doing. So the kids have asked for the courtyards? The kids have asked for courtyards? I'm blaming the kids. No, I don't know, I asked Tom. I think you might need courtyards just to get natural light on the interior rooms. You know, like so you don't have rooms without any windows at all. I think, I mean, Nancy, well, whomever, I mean, Lucia, I think one of the most interesting questions here is, and it was kind of the only thing that stood out to me as a difference besides the amount of parking and how the parking was done and whether or not it was impervious surface or not, and like how you deal with rainwater runoff because it is really close to the lake. Besides that, my question was, I thought it was interesting sort of how close do you put the technical school to the high school? Because, you know, we were just talking about H7-3, which is this workforce bill and how are we gonna have the people to actually do all the clean energy stuff and nursing and everything we're gonna need over the next decades. And one of the pieces that has really come through that discussion is the stigma that is associated with being in the trades. And it's a terrible stigma and it's, I mean, there are phenomenal jobs associated with being a plumber and electrician, you know, an HVAC person and those folks would go to the technical school. So if we're separating them, does that mean we're creating like a different message in our high school? I don't know. That was one of the things that I thought when I looked at this and I, Lucia, if you have any thoughts on that, I'd love to know what they are. Yeah, there was some good discussion on that and people raised a similar concern and a similar question. And one of the things that I learned in the last meeting that, again, I didn't know this and maybe some of you all did and maybe you didn't, but the technical school obviously serves more students from outside of Burlington in addition to Burlington high school students and it's programming operates on a different schedule. So there are some consistencies of course, but there are also some differences and some security measures that are required to accommodate two different spaces serving two different student bodies, some of whom share and crossover from one space to the other and some of whom don't. And so there was a very like specific and deliberate security concern to make sure that one space could be entirely locked while one space was entirely open based on whether the programming was available during that time of day or not. And so I think that that's why you're seeing sort of a couple of different options where there looks to be much more like more closely integrated versus more separated. But I know that was one of the things that people were feeling less excited about with option A specifically. Which one do you like best? I feel a little bit reluctant to say that. What I will say and there, what I will say and there is again, if you go to this website, there is a rubric that you can look through that is sort of a red, green, yellow. It's got, it's color coded. Yeah, you can scroll right to it. Do I dare click on it? I'm a little bit worried about changing to this, but okay, I'll do it. Give it a shot. Yeah, so anyway, and I can't navigate you through this in this moment, it's quite dense, but it does give you an indication of some of the attributes and some of what would make each of the designs a bit more challenging. And so what I will offer as it relates to this is that I'm really looking again for the path of least resistance that can support students and their learning needs and our community to the fullest extent, while also delivering to taxpayers a budget that is reasonable. So if you've got something that'll do that? I think we have the options in front of us to do that, yes. I mean, this is, it's a lot of work to try to study all that and figure it out, you know? And thank you, Misha, for doing that work for all of us. Yeah. It's no easy task. And it seems like, you know, even just a few weeks in, you're really all the way, you know, taking that deep dive. So thank you. And I see Nancy as a raised hand. I just want to... Can I ask one more quick question? Do you expect that the vote for the bond on this high school will be on the November ballot? Yes, it will be here. All right. We will certainly be hearing about that a little bit more probably after our summer break for the NPA. And yeah, I'm seeing no other hand. So any other last comments, you know, I just want to note that we are past our end time, but any final comments before we wrap up here tonight? All right. Seeing none, thank you, Lucia, for joining. Thank you, everybody. And we'll see you soon. And to everybody else, thanks for sticking out to 8.50. We were at, we were so close. We were so close. Five minutes. What's five minutes? Thank you all. Congrats to our new steering committee member, Terry. And thank you all for joining and past members for staying with us. So I think that's it. And I think with that, we will end to the Zoom and I will end to my rambling. And we'll see you next month, third Thursday of every month, 7 p.m. DPW virtual. It's all there. Be in touch soon. Have a good night, everybody. Night, thank you. Bye.