 So this is the wards one and eight neighborhood planning assembly or NPA meeting Welcome everyone. Good great to see you at any point if you're hungry feel free to take advantage of the food up here I believe it's all vegetarian Karen. Is that right? No? Okay Yeah, so please enjoy and we're going to jump right into this because We're lucky to have the the new president of the University of Vermont I'll speak up. So Suresh Garamella, is that how you pronounce? Perfect I'm going to just jump in and have you speak because I know you have a limited amount of time this evening So you'll be he'll be making some remarks and then there'll be time for Q&A. I asked that the Q&A be Fairly succinct questions if they're longer questions then we can set up time for more in-depth conversation at another point, but Just want to be able to get answer any informational questions you have for Suresh this evening and Then after that we'll go into introductions We'll have a little bit of business We'll have speak out of the opportunity to make announcements and raise concerns somebody from from a Burlington Electric Department will be here we'll talk about water resources issues and The city councillors will speak so it's a packed evening, but we'll jump in now to Comments from the new president. So welcome. Thank you Okay, well, thank you so much Cindy and thanks for all to all of you for giving me this opportunity I'm the new guy So I'll defer to my wonderful team here Who have much more experience in all this than I do? Thank you for welcoming us to the community. We've really We really feel like a part of the community already we came here around June and Sometime later June We have two children. They came with us, but they went back to college. They come back for holidays and such They'll be here for Thanksgiving and so on so Enjoyed what Burlington has to offer so far and and Vermont has to offer We hope to do more of that just a few comments, I've Tried to do my best to learn about UVM and its place in the state its place in the county its place in the city its place in the ward so What I've gleaned I guess is that Hello, Annie Annie's here. So I feel now protected So, you know, I think that I said this during my installation that you know, what's good for UVM or what's good for the states good for UVM Etc, and I feel obviously the same about our community We have to find a way to coexist and benefit from each other and and I'm I'm sure you're all proud of having UVM here and Recognize the the great value it brings for the intellectual capital the social capital the economic capital of the of the region But of course, you know with with with students and with the university and such come come challenges as well and so You know, I think that you know these numbers and and the facts a lot better than I do but my My understanding is that UVM has been a very strong economic engine for the region for the state and and you know I'm quite proud that a good number of students that come to UVM stay in the state So it's certainly a source of brain gain the numbers if if you've not heard them recently are that about 68% of UV of Vermont state students that come to UVM stay in the state and about 31% of those that come from outside the state Stay in the state. So clearly we add to the workforce. We add to the vitality of the state I You know, there's the whole entrepreneurship thing Adam Roof is here. We were at this BTV ignite thing. We talked about the great Sort of commercialization And the startups and such that we've together worked on with V set and BTV ignite, etc There's you know, we're the second largest employer. So even just in terms of people faculty staff Students some of whom are back there You know, obviously, we have a big presence here. I I understand I I would be I would be completely blind and deaf to not know that housing and transportation and and sort of quality of life issues in the neighborhoods are All issues that you've all been grappling with, you know, I've lived in University Towns a lot of the last about 35 40 years maybe 40 years and Some of the challenges are somewhat similar in other places, too Seems like we do a fairly reasonable job of communicating and such So I thought you should know here from me directly that my priorities for UVM for my presidency are the students their success their experience while they're here That we we help them be successful after they graduate hopefully in the state but other places as well I think the affordability of a UVM education is also very important to me I don't think we can price ourselves out of the market. We'll do all we can to keep the the cost of education Modest, you know, I'm quite proud that 44% of Vermonters attend the University tuition free without paying tuition We should do more we can do more we put a good amount of money into Like a hundred and sixty million or so into student support scholarships and things like that So, you know student success if we're not focused on that we wouldn't be a university And then the other piece of it is that one of the reasons I came to UVM is that it's a land grant It's a public land grant University I'm very proud that senator moral Justin moral is from is a Vermonter He wrote that legislation that President Lincoln signed and what it means what a land grant institution means to me is that An institution like UVM is here to bring our assets to bear on the community. There's a lot of richness To to what UVM does and brings and we will do all we can to have it be Supporting the community in the state the region etc. So those are really the the fundamental priorities many things derived from there And so, you know, we've had some good successes just recently even since I came We had a large grant that we announced To for opioid treatment, of course, you know, the whole state suffering from that the whole region is the whole country is But Burlington's treatment efforts are certainly assisted by that and so You know, again, I think that this quality of life issue is an ongoing Conversation that we must continue to have I think there's been a fair amount of collaboration Joe and Gus and others Lisa Certainly have continued that conversation. I In terms of housing which of course has come up many times in my conversations already You know, we house 63% of our students on campus Which is a lot higher than most of our peers to which is which which is a good thing We house we require the first two years of students the first and second year students to stay on campus Which is fairly atypical typically. It's only the first year students that are That are required to stay. So I think I think we're doing some things We've added 875 beds on campus in the last ten years, which actually exceeds the number of the increase in students so I think that You all you probably know that we've been engaged in a study of housing. We have a consultant helping us and Together we're looking at so that the the needs of our undergrad students our graduate students our medical students, etc And so we should have that report fairly soon and as soon as we do I'd like to have the consultant come in but perhaps make a presentation to this group So that you see what he has come up with and from what he's learned from the students and So Again, I think this whether to house them on campus off campus again If you were able to provide desirable housing on campus I think some more of our students could stay but it's basically up to our you know we hear that our juniors and seniors want to stay in the city and Certainly our graduate students often do so, you know, we can only we can't force students to Stay somewhere so so I think it's a it's a nice It's a gentle balance between what we can offer how we can nudge that problem Or the the issue and how we work with all of you to address it, too So, you know, basically, I think you have my commitment that My team and I and others will work with the city and and the words as closely as we can and I'm certainly trying my best to learn more and That's this is one of those opportunities for me. So today happy to answer questions Most of them I may have to defer to Joe and Gus and Lisa and others just for the details But you will also hear from me. So Joe anything else I should be saying. Okay, great. Thank you Cindy. That was Is that okay? Thank you. So yes Yes, so what I want to do is first get the mic turned on. Is it on now? Yeah Can hear you okay and secondly I want to get a sense of how many people have questions Could you just raise your hand if you have a question? Okay, so we have about 15 minutes. So we'd like to try to keep each question to one or two minutes that would be ideal and If we have more time, that's great. And if we need to ask this gentleman back, we can do that as well So who you calling a gentleman? Sorry, I didn't mean to offend you Hi, my name is Lisa lax. I'm actually a graduate of the Edd program at UVM and I'm along and I'm a former employee So I have a lot of support for UVM. I think it does add a lot of vitality to our community however housing is a big concern and We heard something I think different at a former NPA meeting just to let you know I think we heard that the Percentage of students housed on campus is closer to 50 percent so that's a little bit of conflicting information and then the other thing that we heard is that the housing I can the occupancy rate is like you're pretty booked all of your housing which Suggests that students do want to live on campus and that there may not be enough housing for them on campus So just that's a comment and I it is something it's a huge driver in terms of cost and You know quantity of housing that's available. So it is a big concern You're right to address it in your first visit with us. So thank you. Thank you Lisa You know I I've I've insisted on very careful Checking of all the numbers that I've been using and I'm pretty confident about the number But I don't know where this 50 would have come unless something's changed Joe I don't know where the 50 would have come from either. We do have 63 percent of our undergraduates on campus and we're looking at What other kinds of housing might be explored for undergraduates and graduate students on campus? You know with the idea that if we build the right kind of housing people will choose to live there And it could be housing for You know 20 something year-old people who are going to you know want to live on campus So we hear that loud and clear. We do want to explore that and then just in terms of impact We know we have an impact on rentals in in neighborhoods We have about 3,000 undergraduate students living off campus if there are 60 percent of people that are renters in Burlington that's I think the math that I did was something like 13 or 14 percent of renters Our students so while we do have an impact It's at about that level And it's my understanding that you're just completing a housing study and that that will be ready for for unveiling to here at the npa in december or january is that that's that fair and Yeah, and we're also A little bit later in the agenda. We'll be talking about having a special meeting separate from usual npa meetings To talk just about this very issue. So We'll we'll be revisiting this. So keith, I think you have something this does this work. Yes I'm keith pillsberry. I live on university terrace. I've been there for 45 years and we when we first bought our street was for employees of the university It was actually the only house we could afford in burlington Now my son is trying to find a house in burlington. He can't afford to But I really want to talk about what will impact the housing costs is if you are plans for Increasing your enrollment. We've seen some increases in enrollment because of the popularity of the university Do you foresee increases in enrollment of our of new of students coming to uvm? If I understand correctly, you're asking if the number of students at uvm will go up, right? I I don't foresee that as a as a plan. We're not we're not moving forward with with that understanding at all so The students we do get we want to get the best students and graduate them quickly and and Do the right thing by them so that their costs are lower and we'll try to do all we can on affordability for our students But the plan's not to increase the number of students Richard Thanks for coming I'm really glad you talked about um I'm graduating students staying in the state because that's either an invisible import or invisible export whichever way you look at it And I'm just wondering if you can expand a little bit on um, any initiatives that you do have to work with People in the city and the county and in the at the state level to keep students here because I think it's so important We're losing our young people and What Whether or not you've picked it up or not housing is Cost of living in this area is very high and the Average wage is very low and that's very difficult dynamic To sell young people too and I just wonder if you can Expand a little bit on what you your first initiative. Thanks. Right. I'm very happy to do And I think that's a very good question I do think that the stiff problem that you posed of Low wages and high expenses is is not something that's in my control to do anything with I think the citizens of vermont seem to choose to Choose a certain way of living and a certain way of taxation and so on that, you know, I It's it's beyond my You know beyond my ability to comment on but the first part of your question is one of great interest to me I have in my first what three months or so here visited the entire state. I've been in every part of the state Um, I've met with legislators and other sort of community leaders throughout the state So as of I think last week I was in St. Albans and I've covered it all In fact, the one thing I've not done is to meet with the local legislators in burlington. So that's coming up Which will happen. That's also scheduled. So In these visits I've also or besides the visits. I've also met with a good number of business leaders I think almost all business leaders I had a list of non-profit leaders Chambers of commerce folks, etc. Just to get a better understanding of the challenges in the state and such I'm very much aware that The workforce is dropping in almost every county is dropping in every county including in chitenden And so We need to do a lot. So I think one of the things I I sort of briefly said up front is the student experience that I care so much about Means that we need to ensure that they are successful when they leave as well So I think from their very first semester that they're here. I would like for us to have a better Arrangement where the students are thinking about Successful career. So we'd like to connect them to internships and community service and service learning and so on The flip side of that is that employers in vermont also need to be I think we need to socialize with them how they can better engage with our students if our students Are in their senior year and haven't thought about a career in vermont. They're going to leave I think we need to have our employers dairy farmers maple farmer whatever maple what are they called producers Etc. But but business folks all sort of connect to our Students all along and show them that there's a life. There's life after uvm in the state So I am having those conversations. We will strengthen our sort of Internship placement type operation I do think by the way that 68 percent of our students that come our in-state students that come to Uvm staying in the state is actually 69 percent or something is a very good number It's actually higher than I'm used to in other states But I think the the the fact that we add 30 31 percent of out-of-staters To the state's economy is is a big deal. So I think the most direct answer to your question is trying to better connect our Our businesses our You know needs that are there in the state for people With our students and we'll do that in a very deliberate way We have about five more minutes Sir, can you grab the sure the If vermont still is not there it was the It was the 50th of all the states for state aid to the to the State colleges if I remember right 49th, I think we moved up one Well, maybe we teetered Sorry, but it's a serious it's a serious problem because you know when you have states When you have North Carolina, so if the taxpayer and who's paying the Paying the dues lives there for two years the kids and go to school So they make it much more affordable and takes less of its chunk out of it Out of the the family wages and so on. I mean there's no reason why some of my You know, I have friends kids who's who are graduating with $200,000 in student loans People go back to school in the 30s and they come out six years later owing $150,000 in student loan And the numbers don't it never works out The gain is like when they hit 56 years old is when they finally have a gain from going back to college Because of the lost wages while they go plus compounded by the debt service What can we do in Vermont to try to take care of The kids that are here that are coming out of high school to make it much more affordable for them To stay because I can remember a few years back There was a study when I lived in Essex Junction probably 10 or 11 years ago Only 40 of the senior graduating class of Essex high school stayed The other 60 left the state and they were gone for three years after that So they hadn't that this is far about they studied how do we keep them here? But we don't we don't just keep them here when they graduate from college We keep them here because we make college affordable we make You know and we have not only do we have the jobs here But how do we keep them here and how do we make it college more affordable for our students? Thank you for the question and it's it strikes at the heart of what I said at the beginning about our student experience and and their success and I think their success is also Very strongly tied to are not Loading them with a lot of debt, right? You will be very proud to hear that those 200,000 ish numbers that you're citing which are very real Are not The numbers for uvm our Average student debt is like 28,000 or so and average, which means there's a fair number of students who are graduating without any debt I can look up the numbers. It's 34 percent something like that that graduate without that Anyone remember We can get back to you on that. Anyway, right so And uh, I do think that The cost of education right uvm is an expensive public institution You know a very clear reason why it's expensive is that we get very very little support from the state, right? So On the other hand, I mean we could beat up on the state, but the state doesn't have a lot of Access money to hand out. So I think we need to get better at how we run our business and try to raise more money from our Alumni and donors and such all of which we'll do. I think we'll try to continue to look at how we do our Business, I mean again to to all those numbers. You mentioned the fact that almost half of Vermonters Attend uvm tuition free is I think a very big deal And that a good number of them stay in the state is a very big deal So this will continue to be the most important focus for me. So you'll hear a lot I'm just wondering how you believe students can be effective community members and on top of that how we can all work to Better foster positive relationships between students and long-term community members and residents It's actually an amazingly important question a very good question and I'll Come back and talk to you in offline and and ask you how you can you know, I think that I'm hoping that in our conversations We get to a place between the you know between the students between us and the community of Recognizing how important each is to the other right uvm is a I'm assuming you all agree in our college of medicine that we're in We're actually having the legislators over here Next week To talk to them about what the college of medicine does. So I think we need to be better at telling our story And we need to be better neighbors. I think that we invest a fair amount of money in neighborhood Policing at submit patrol or whatever right kind of stuff But you know, I live right in the heart of campus and there's fraternities around and You know, I've heard some noises around 4 a.m. But Um, I so look it's a college town in some ways parts of it And I think we just have to figure out how best we can Um, perhaps change the narrative a little bit. I mean if this if you as students End up feeling like the city doesn't want you here or want you in their Uh neighborhoods and such that would be really sad on the other hand, you know, if you could shovel your neighbor's Driver or something while you're staying there Maybe that will do some good But um, I just you know, I don't have a specific answer But um, I just hope that the tone of the conversation the The the way we interact with each other is respectful Um, we listen to each other, etc. So um, but we should talk about that I let us talk about how us students can Play a bigger role by the way the the fact that so many of uvm students are are so Interested in the community and are in the service learning opportunity sort of Kind of things you volunteer, etc. Etc. I'm sure there's a fair amount of the community that is very appreciative of your contributions to the city So maybe we should celebrate those and Yeah, and one of the things I want to celebrate is that the number of students coming each each meeting here Is growing and this this is a perfect forum for that kind of conversation of yeah, so Thank you So we want to continue this conversation and this is a great place to have part of that conversation So thanks for coming and thank you cindy for saying that that's that's great Um, yes, could you Keith could you pass the uh, maybe I'm good without it Yeah, no, it's for the for channel 17 as much as anything president carmel. Thank you so much for coming I'm wearing two hats tonight. I am i'm a ward one resident. I live on mansfield avenue I also work for the city and later tonight. I'll uh with my Colleague and the general manager of the berlington electric department do a presentation on the net zero energy plan for the city Yes, which is essentially our plan to transition off of fossil fuels in the heating Um and ground transportation sectors and Before I sort of launch into my transportation piece. I do want to say that de has been A repository we we work with many many uvm students many service learning classes And it's it's always a good experience and we're one of these businesses that you can count on To help incubate and students and thank you for that. I I do know this I've heard that you're great partners and uh, and I appreciate all that you do for our students Anytime we're looking forward to the spring semester and we'll have another cadre But I did want to mention since you won't be here later for the presentation that part of our plan Will entail moving off of fossil fuels and ground transportation And more specifically reducing vehicle miles traveled by 15 per cent per household So the things change in berlington In august late august when the students come on campus and traffic increases sort of pretty precipitously So I say that as an opportunity and an invitation. I hope we can work together to figure out how we can incentivize students not bringing cars to campus and how we can celebrate this idea of a city that Stands on the platform of multimodal transportation I know students really appreciate that and that's one of the key reasons I think that berlington is so attractive is because We celebrate our environmental sustainability and I think reducing vehicle miles traveled is one key component of that I think you've captured the students uh ethos wonderfully. Well, I mean certainly I've been hearing from the student government association everybody else about their commitment to The environment to climate change, you know, we've had the the parades and so on wonderful I'm all for it. I'm my research is in renewable energy and in you know, thermal energy storage from solar, etc, etc so I'm a big fan and You know, we are investing more of our university resources in renewable energy for instance. So very happy to To hear of this that we pay for Transportation buses, right? So say a little about that just sure and jim bars here as well And does a tremendous amount of work on you know, tdm and yeah, let's hear it for jim. Come on He does a lot of work. He really does. We you know There's a lot that's been There's a lot that happens and not to get into all the details, but I'll I've never seen anybody clap for the director of parking So you must be doing something And he's blushing. It's really cute. I know it's very cute. It's unprecedented. I think But you know, if you want to learn more, you know, go to jim's website But to be honest, I just got involved in katba and just learned a little bit more about what goes on with tdm We're offering so many different ways to get around now You know, we have a shuttle that moves people around efficiently went to cng shuttles, you know, some years ago before many other people did We're looking at other micro Transportation as well micro mobility with, you know, bike share with hopefully electric bikes coming And you know, we're doing the best we can to Coordinate with other partners in the city, including gmt on the best way to move people around So hear what you're saying totally get that and I think the city is going to be working some with the neighborhood project as well on You know, how to move people around in a different way and how to manage parking and and a mobility in the city as well And I want to end on a serious note and say I walk to work every day Some of you know why that's a joke So thank you for being here. Um, I know you have a limited time. So um, and uh, obviously there's a lot to talk about so, uh, hopefully we can continue the conversation over time and Um, if you have additional questions, perhaps what should they do? How should they be in touch? I think joey and others are staying here. So of course by all means and we talk all the time But I just want to thank you for the opportunity. Thank all of you for the good discussion I think some of the questions that came up and thanks to the students. I love you guys Thank you for coming So we're going to keep moving because we've got a lot to cover. Um, so we're on the business side of things, uh, if you're looking at the agenda first thing up is, uh, we've been trying to get more ward eight steering committee members and Um, um, I believe at the last meeting hannah spoke a bit. Where's that? Yeah, uh, about being interested in serving I'm wondering if there are other folks from ward eight Uh, that are interested in being on the steering committee Okay, so so this is a ward eight thing and not a ward one thing I don't know if you are familiar with which ward you are in Uh, but uh, the vote for the ward eight steering committee is just for ward eight folks So, um, are there do you want to close the nominations or are there any? Okay, great That sounds like a second to me Um, are there are there any other nominations? Do you want to close the nominations and vote? Well, I've moved to close the nominations great Um, so Yes I can't hear Uh, what's your last name king Um, okay, so Yes, hi everyone. My name is hannah king and I'm running for ward eight steering committee I moved to burlington last year with the intention of making this my permanent community Throughout my time here. I've had the opportunity to engage with other wards through attending their Through attending their mpa's along with staying informed and engaged with other city meetings The reality is the relationship between permanent residents and students has been fragmented in the past But just over the past year. I've seen that through productive conversation We can not only strengthen that relationship, but create meaningful partnerships Through my involvement with the community coalition a monthly meeting which looks at neighborhood projects I've had the opportunity to engage further with community stakeholders and look critically at issues affecting students and permanent residents alike Along with that this year I've been working closely with the btv low barrier homeless shelter To organize a drive to provide the members in our community without a place to stay winter warming kits If elected I look forward to working not only with the committee members, but with all of you. Thank you Thanks hannah. So I'm going to move this along. Um, I think nominations are closed. There's one nominee Up hannah king All those of you that live in uh ward eight Um, if you're in favor say I I opposed Congratulations and condolences Glad to have you for a bunch of reasons. It's really really especially nice to have a uvm Uh representative here and so thank you. Thank you. Um, so um, next up is a resolution regarding the safety of uh, pedestrians on east avenue and karen's passing that around um The community has been circulating a petition asking that the city Take seriously the concerns regarding pedestrian safety on on The particularly on the crosswalk at the top ability court that comes right up here to the medical center Which is very heavily used and a month or so ago. Uh, a woman was fairly significantly hurt When she was hit by a vehicle And taken away by ambulance A few days later somebody's vehicle stopped to for a pedestrian in the walkway and was rear-ended It's an ongoing issue. Um, where The steering committee is is asking if this this group wants to Endorse the resolution that is being passed around now and uh, I guess I'll just read it for Whereas hydrogen prides itself and being a walkable city and whereas safety is a paramount importance And whereas a pedestrian was struck within the crosswalk on east avenue at the top of billwood court at 639 on october 23rd And was injured significantly enough that she was taken to the medical center on a stretcher And a car was rear-ended while stopping at this crosswalk just a few days later And whereas a significant percentage of vehicles on east avenue in this area have been documented to travel at a speed Of 10 miles per hour or more above the speed limit And whereas visibility is challenged at the east avenue bill to court crosswalk due to vegetation and Lighting limitations and whereas over 100 people have signed a petition calling for action to improve safety safety on east avenue And whereas a request for traffic calming for east avenue was submitted two and a half years ago therefore We we being the this group the neighborhood planning assembly if it's your pleasure to endorse this Request that the city of berlington take immediate action to Make crossings on east avenue safe for pedestrians By implementing measures such as removing vegetation on the west side of the bill to court intersection Improving lighting in the area Installing safety features at the crossings and improve visibility and slow traffic such as rapid flashing pedestrian lights stop signs speed bumps speed radar signs and other measures And accelerate action on the request for traffic calming Move east up avenue up on the complete streets queue Identify other crossings in the city that pose similar risks to pedestrians and take action And direct the city department of public works to prioritize improving crosswalk safety So that's a lot So We don't have a lot of time for discussion about this I think it's something that's come up a number of times in the past. I'm just Looking to see if this group is ready to consider endorse Siding whether or not you you choose to endorse this resolution Um, are you ready to have that? Yes, Sharon? I would like to move the resolution great Several seconds. Okay. So yes, and I just wanted to state that I know jason williams is here tonight from The medical center, but at a meeting that was here at the medical center. Dave kelte mentioned The crossing at university road Where he referenced a near miss between a car and a pedestrian That was news to me. I didn't realize that so i'm hoping that That the medical center will look at that and see if they want to send a communication and support of this resolution that could be included when it goes to the city council packet and Based on your recommendation. I forwarded this resolution to jason just Earlier today, so they haven't had an opportunity to run it through channels But I think that's that's in process. Is that right? Yeah, okay. Okay, so let's come back to the npa Take on this resolution. Do you want further discussion or are you ready to call the question? Yeah Because you could lose parking on east avenue I know you're a big advocate for it because you have some houses don't even amp parking Well, that that's a whole different piece That's mentioned in here. It is mentioned in here, but but that's something that that isn't really being asked to be endorsed It's something that I well. Yeah, but let me just finish that There was a petition of a number of residents who asked that DPW considered east avenue was a complete street two and a half years ago and that's that's in the queue It's nothing that we do here will affect that that I know of Your call. I know you're concerned about that So I'm I'm happy to let this go as is. I think that each street gets evaluated for what the needs are and as far as bike lanes and and sidewalks And vehicular traffic. So I think that that evaluation can happen. I'm I'm not going to Speak in it in opposition to that Do you have something? Yeah, I was just wondering if someone could just give like a really brief I guess explanation as to what the complete streets queue is for those of us that aren't aware of it I'd be happy to do that But let's do that after the meeting if you're going to be here for the whole meeting because I don't want to Take up group time on that if If it's in regards to this legislation, I think that it's probably important to discuss Let me give you the the very short version, which is My understanding of the complete streets initiative is it's looking at streets as a corridor for all kinds of different Transportation not just cars and other motorized vehicles, but also bicycles pedestrians So looking at it as a a thoroughfare for transportation of all kinds And so When when something is analyzed as a complete street it often involves changes to make things Friendlier for Those that are not motorized vehicles Okay, so are we ready to call the question? Okay, so All in favor of the npa endorsing this resolution Opposed Great, so the steering committee will take this to city council and other commissions that are that With within which this is their purview and we'll get back to you So the last piece of business is about housing. We mentioned this briefly earlier housing Vis-a-vis uvm comes up over and over again The steering committee is looking at having a standalone meeting just about uvm and housing And we're interested in seeing If you all are interested in the sense that we've gotten in the past is that you are and more importantly if you are If you would sign up and I'll put a Sign-up sheet here would love help with how to structure a conversation that's as useful as possible so just a sense of Would you think that a A couple of our meeting some evening or weekend would be useful to just really shine a bright light on How uvm and housing in the and neighborhoods Interrelate is that something that would would be a useful conversation? I'm seeing nods. Okay, so We'll put up a sign-up sheet here and The more energy we get the better of You know across the sector of people that are affected by this. We appreciate it. All right. So great. Thank you so We've moved on to speak out And this is a chance to make announcements raise concerns stuff that you want to speak to that You have concerns about and yeah, could Adam could you pass the microphone back there to live? Up she can Cool And let me get a sense of how many other people are interested in speaking out. Okay Okay, great Were you? Hi everyone. A lot of you know me. Um, and I've seen me before although there's lots of faces I don't know so I'm zariah. Hi tower. Um, I am running for city counselor in ward one so I just wanted to uh, take the time to Introduce myself a little bit and also hand out some literature that I have um I moved to burlington around four years ago. I originally rented on culture stir av a few months ago. I bought Um, I did buy a unit in the river watch apartments. Um, kind of to escape the rental market Um, and I'm excited to be a much more permanent resident now I started going to the np is about a year and a half ago I'm on the development review board and excited to be running for city counselor now Um, mostly going to be running on an affordable housing and transit platform. Um, I brought flyer. So there's a little bit more information about that. I'm happy to talk about any of these. Um, afterwards The flyer also has the progressive caucus on it. Um, I'm still making decisions on how exactly I'm going to be labeled during my race, but I definitely um, I'm excited to be very aligned with a lot of the progressive values and, um, Um Jack and others who are on the council now and would absolutely love to be endorsed by the progressive nomination. So Show it for that as well. Um, yeah Excited to be running excited to be like knocking on a lot of your doors in the next few months and Please feel free to ask me any questions if you have them Um, I'm also announcing that I'm running for city council, but I don't have a speech prepared I just didn't want to use up my my city council update time people have been asking wondering whether or not I'm going to run. I have Been doing this for almost five years and I have a lot of energy left and so I will be coming back and seeking a reelection Just to put that to bed. Um, I'm not focused much on it now Which before Thanksgiving but since the conversations are starting. I figured I'd just let folks know We'll be talking a lot more over the coming months. So I look forward to it. Do you want to see? Hi, I'm Sharon busher And I had stated in October that I was going to seek reelection For my seat in ward one. So I guess I will just restate that Now that I am retired. I've found a lot more time and energy to put into issues For the ward and I look forward to being able to do that And just like um saraya, I will be knocking on doors and interacting with you In a number of different ways. So thank you. And as usual, please feel free to reach out to me With any issues that you have on your mind. Thank you. Thanks, Keith. Um, I'm Keith Pillsbury. I'm the ward 8 school commissioner I just wanted to announce that we're having a school budget forum Tomorrow night at 7 p starting at 7 p.m. At the hunt middle school Anybody has some comments or concerns about the brillington school budget or the development of the Fiscal 21 budget that would be a place to bring your comments and concerns Hunt middle school 7 p.m. Tomorrow night Great. Thanks good Hi everyone So I've been working alongside sally and skylar nash to organize a month of giving to benefit the btv low barrier shelter downtown In just over in 13 days. We've raised over 750 dollars We are collecting money donations along with a list of like various items to make winter warming kits to hand out to our homeless neighbors So i'm going to post on front porch forum the list and also like send it out to whoever is interested If you would be willing to donate. Thank you Anybody else for speak out? Yes I just want to thank our representatives from the police and fire department who come here I think it's important that we get to know them and they get to know us And I think it's important that we thank them for all that they do for us. Thank you Great anybody else All right, so we're going to just keep moving here So next up is a burlington electric department and uh We understand you're going to do a presentation and then have 10 minutes or so for q&a. Is that does that work? Or maybe a little bit less Yeah, okay Yeah, I'm clueless. I'm totally clueless about this So if you could introduce yourselves as as he jason's working his magic that'd be great Hi, everyone. I feel like i'm home. It's nice to be around the corner from Mansfield avenue and thank you very much for for having us My name is jennifer green and I work for the burlington electric department I am the city's sustainability officer and i'm really pleased to be here with darin springer Who's the general manager of bed? We're here tonight to tell you a little bit about our net r as in The city of burlington's net zero energy strategy and you know in other words our transition Off of fossil fuels in the thermal and ground transportation sectors So let's see We're going to spend just a few minutes With darin kicking it off telling you a little bit reminding many of you about bed's history in the community and our Renewable energy portfolio Then we'll tell you a little bit about some of the data that was uncovered during our road map Process our road map on how to get to net zero energy And then we'll wrap it up with A summation of some of the programs and initiatives that we have through bed Which are helping us as a community reach this this major milestone Hi, everybody. It's great to be with you. I'm not award one eight. I'm award seven resident but good to be here and For those who may not be familiar and for some who are we're burlington electric where your public power municipal Utility electric utility we have about 118 employees between our pine street offices and the mcneal plant down at the intervail We are In the process of going our 11th year now without having raised rates So we're we're doing a lot on the fiscal side try to keep rates steady Just some statistics here, you know, we're unique in vermont that we have About three quarters of our customers are residential 60 percent of our customers are renters But if you think about our energy use about three quarters of our electric use is coming from our commercial customers So we have a lot of renters, which is unique for vermont. We also have a significant amount of electric use In the commercial sector You can see here mcneal power plant is the largest energy producer now in the state of vermont after vermont yankee was closed in 2013 and You know, we are and i'll mention on the a couple slides from now But we were recognized as a community in 2014 being the first community in the nation to source 100 of our power from renewable generation We're real proud of the work we've done on energy efficiency This is a photo from last year's energy efficiency calendar contest All the fourth grade public schools have the opportunity for kids to participate and compete in the calendar contest This year it's going to be the net zero energy calendar contest reflecting our work on net zero energy that we're here to talk about today We have as a community since the 80s been investing in energy efficiency and uh, you know in 1990 we had an 11.3 million dollar bond for energy efficiency We are using approximately 6 less electricity today as a community than we were in 1989 The rest of the state is up around 8.4 percent during that time period The country is up almost 30 percent during that time period So if the rest of the country was on the burlington trajectory, uh, you'd be talking about more than 200 coal plants worth of energy that wouldn't be needed Nationally, so we start all of our work from a foundation of energy efficiency Having made progress there and we're saving roughly 12 million annually on electric bills Through our efficiency work for our customers And have invested between our customers and bed about 70 million over the last few decades in energy efficiency We also as I mentioned we are uh, 100 renewable This um graph uh pie chart really on the on the far side here Shows our different resources roughly a third of our electricity is from the mcneal plant. Uh, so biomass About a third of our electricity is coming from hydropower Some of which is local from the wanouski one hydrophysicity As well as other vermont-based hydropower facilities and we get a little less than a third of our electricity from wind We have two projects in vermont that we get power from and one in main And we have a small but growing slice of our energy. You can see it in orange here Coming from solar. It's 1.4 percent. Uh, the year prior it was 0.3 percent So it's actually growing pretty rapidly and we were recognized as a community by environment america for being the top community per capita in solar in new england and number four in the united states And I think we have an opportunity to move to number two in the us in the next survey So if folks are thinking about solar, please, uh, please move forward with it. Help us move up the rankings Um, we're here tonight. Talk about net zero energy. I'm going to turn it over to jen and then i'll uh, take it back In a few minutes talk about some of our incentive programs Great. Thank you darin So sort of building on this portfolio of 100 percent renewable electricity It was time to take it to the next level And this is when um, the mayor announced that we were going to take on the next big audacious task Which was to build on that platform and transition essentially as I mentioned off of fossil fuels in the heating and ground transportation sectors So really ambitious. I think honestly I haven't heard of another city that has a goal. Um, quite this audacious There are lots of cities that are focused on net zero energy in buildings But to add the transportation component is is really significant and I think something we should all be proud of Um, we knew that we couldn't do it alone. We couldn't do this roadmap in house So, um, make a long story short after a fairly elaborate request for proposal process We selected synapse energy economics To conduct the roadmap for us and it was released In september and I appreciate many of you were were there and uh student support of the of the roadmap um part of um Synapse's efforts were to first assess sort of business as usual and where we are vis-a-vis our energy use in the city And then it was to come up with sort of concrete pathways that we could follow that would help us sort of see the The light at the end of the tunnel vis-a-vis uh net zero So sort of quick and dirty 20 000 foot analysis As you can see um our energy in burlington overall sort of divided up into four sections However, um this sort of grid line Look specifically at transportation that's originating outside of burlington So not something that we in the city have a whole lot of control over If you look at the two gray sections, you'll see building both commercial and residential With with internal transportation i.e. travel in in and around burlington represented by the by the black slice of the of the pie So if you take this grid section out, you'll see that we really need to focus on Buildings primarily and then um transportation as well And you know by the way it was great to have the president here and to be able to um To hear what he had to say about um our work together on the transportation sector vis-a-vis uvm So as I mentioned the first order of business was to look at where we are Regarding energy use the business's usual case, which is the black line across the top shows a small sort of decline in energy use It's not going to be quick or fast enough if we're really going to to transition to net zero and indeed um reduce carbon emissions Getting to net zero by 2030 is going to be a pretty significant lift as you can see it's a it's a fairly steady decline in in um As as demonstrated on the chart here Just for kicks we wanted to see what it would look like to get to 2040 and you can see again It's precipitous, but not nearly as um sort of again audacious is our 2030 goal audacious and exciting i would add One of the exciting pieces to me of this roadmap is the degree to which Um transitioning to net zero off of fossil fuels is going to have a huge carbon impact for our city as well Indeed we're going to have to move off of petroleum As well as as natural gas and when we do we will have decreased our emissions Over sort of 50 percent In in both cases The last slide I want to show you um Is a summation of what we're going to need to tackle So if you think of um our whole roadmap as a pie with different slices that we're going to have to take on The first and biggest slice of the pie is going to be the building sector Indeed we're going to need to electrify about 60 percent Of our buildings this will mean particularly from a heating standpoint moving away from from gas in order to do that The second piece is electrifying vehicles The uh when I see a new car sort of uh, you know on mansfield avenue I think what a lost opportunity so as we're purchasing new cars. We really we need to make them electric Um third and of particular relevance since we're here Up at the medical center and near uvm is this component of district heating 15 percent of our challenge will be The district heating component of which you know darin can speak more of if they're specific questions Last but not least is this emphasis on Um multimodal transportation as I mentioned to the president We're going to need to transition ourselves away from driving to the extent when we had to the extent that we can Indeed um 50 percent vehicle miles traveled reduced per household I'm going to give the mic back to darin and let him talk about what we've got going on Great. Thank you gen. Um, I want to say thank you to our city counselors The city council passed a resolution supporting the net zero energy efforts as part of also declaring a climate emergency And at bd. We are we had already been doing a number of programs to help customers transition to clean energy technologies We launched some new ones as well You can go to our website burlington electric dot com To read the roadmap report and to check out all of the different incentives In particular, I want to mention we have an incentive program essentially across all modes of transportation. So Our e-bike program has been very popular. There are six local Bike shops where you can get an instant 200 dollars off of an electric bike electric assist bike Which can be used to commute around the community. I know we've got a few e-bikers here. I think uh as well And gen's one and I know jack as well E v's plug-in hybrids, uh, we have incentives for new and pre-owned electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids If you haven't driven an electric vehicle, uh, we are working on opportunities to make those as affordable as possible There are a lot of fun to drive. Uh, they're very efficient and uh, there are a lot of different models out there A lot of all-wheel drive models coming on. So there's there's good models for vermont's climate We also are working with green mountain transit to bring the first two electric transit buses to their fleet this year We've provided incentives for those. So we're trying to electrify across all modes of transportation We also have incentives for cold climate heat pumps For heat pump hot water heaters, which are efficient electric heating opportunities If anybody is in the market for a forklift, uh, we have electric forklift incentives for you And as well as we've had a very popular electric lawnmower incentive If it uses energy, we want to make it electric as much as possible and we're trying to help make that happen Um, I want to mention too that, you know, we we talk about a number of these things and sometimes people ask about the economic Impact the economic benefit. Uh, one of the things we looked at with the roadmap is, you know, where are our dollars going? If you spend a dollar at the gas station In vermont, uh, roughly 80 cents of that dollar leaves the state's economy We don't produce petroleum here in vermont So we don't have a lot of economic benefit from using petroleum If you spend a dollar charging a vehicle with burlington electric 100 renewable electricity More than half the dollar stays in the state's economy and more than three quarters of the dollar stays in the regional economy So we always think about buying local. Uh, we want to buy local energy The local electric utility is the local energy. Uh, in this case, um, it's also cheaper to drive electric I don't know if this is, you know, it's widely appreciated But, um, when you're driving electric, you can pay the equivalent of about a buck 50 to a buck 40 a gallon at our public charging stations And if you happen to be on our residential charging rate, you can pay as low as 60 cents a gallon equivalent So it's cheaper to drive electric than to drive on gasoline Um, so that's part of the message that we want to share is these solutions not only benefit the environment But they can be economically beneficial for our community as well And, um, maybe I'll just stop there and see if folks have questions or comments, uh, for us Thank you very much for for your attention. Appreciate it Hi Yikes, oh, I hope that was just water Sorry, um, I wondered about and I've heard about this but I live You know a couple blocks away and a hundred and some year old house with we have gas heat and uh steam radiators and stuff With this program, I mean, how would many of us have houses like this? How would we ever hook over to this heat pump? system Yeah, no, it's a it's a good question and in a lot of cases with heat pumps We're not talking at at the moment with current technology about replacing your entire heating system with the heat pump Although there are buildings that are very weatherized very efficient and are able to do that But really we're talking about is a kind of a hybrid home type of solution Oh, sure So, you know when you have a heat pump you can space heat and space cool a section of a home You can do an entire home depends what you're looking to try to accomplish Personally, I have heat pumps in all of the upstairs bedrooms in my home And so we basically can turn off the natural gas for that entire zone and just use the heat pumps Now there can be issues if it's a historic building or if there's Different challenges around that that you can work through but um the heat pumps are pretty modular They're pretty easy to install. There's no duct work associated with them. So they can be a solution in a lot of cases It's basically uh technology wise. It's like a refrigerator in reverse Um, so it's the same type of technology So if you if you put your foot under your refrigerator you feel hot air coming out and if you're if you're using a heat pump It's basically taking uh the warm air pumping it into your home very efficiently during the winter And if you stood outside, there's a unit outside that's basically pumping cold air back out It's it's highly efficient. Um, and it also is very very efficient air conditioning as well in the summertime Um, so it's uh, it's a technology It hadn't been used in vermont as much because until recently you couldn't use it when it was, you know Zero or negative five outside. Um, but the new technology can be used down to you know negative 15 negative 18 Uh, reasonably efficiently. So it's it's only in the last, you know, five to six years become a very common technology in vermont So we have three or four more questions. Go ahead Have you guys looked at uh, possibly like offset technology like carbon capture as a way to kind of You know reduce the impact on like residents and kind of make that transition smoother and kind of A smoother transition. I guess that's the question. Yeah, we we haven't had any opportunities to look at carbon capture But we do have um, you know, we we work with vermont gas frequently They, you know, 95 of the buildings in burlington heat with gas They have a program for renewable natural gas, which is essentially a way to offset your natural gas use by buying Renewable methane. Um, I think they have some uh farm digester projects in vermont that are supposed to come online in the next year So in the roadmap, um, you'll see that even though we want to electrify We want to weatherize we want to make homes and buildings more efficient We understand there's going to be some component of fossil fuel use that would remain Even under the most aggressive scenario by 2030 and we contemplate renewable fuels like renewable natural gas or other Renewable fuels helping to fill that gap essentially Thank you. Hi, uh, darren. Nice to meet you. Uh, jennifer. Good to see you. Um Hi So as a former public power employee, I just want to give a shout out to um, you know, the wonderful model that public power presents to Not just for monitors, but americans in general. I wish more people understood public power in the benefits My question is so definitely want to push, um, you know going carbon free and Home heating things like that. Uh, but we don't want to be putting Heat pumps and mini splits and homes that aren't sealed up and aren't weatherized appropriately So I'm I just want to make sure that as part of your plan There's there's also efforts to make sure that we're getting the maximum efficiency out of those units and out of the installs And out of the money that's being spent as as The woman over there mentioned old homes, um, going to be leaky and it's you're not going to see the results You want and the last thing we want are people calling and saying I installed and it didn't work It didn't do what you said it would so I'm wondering if you can speak to that a little bit. Yeah, no I mean, we don't want any homes to be leaky and and losing energy and the roadmap basically contemplates that We either have to have weatherized relatively recently or will weatherize over the next 10 years Practically every building in the city. So some number of buildings You know have already been weatherized have reasonable air sealing reasonable insulation. They're not leaking You know air out into the cold and heating the outdoors. That's great We want to make sure that every building has the opportunity every every rental unit every home every every building So one of the things that's important in this space because we can't do everything with incentives We understand that is policy So we understand that you know through work that's going on via the housing summit There's going to be standards. I believe put forward around rental energy efficiency We we've been looking at standards for new construction. We have city counselors here who have proposed Measures in those areas. So really policy as well as incentives is going to help us get over that You know barrier vermont gas and burlington electric. We both offer incentives We haven't had a huge amount of uptake on weatherization So we know that having policy in place is going to make a difference in that area and and couldn't agree more with With your comment. We certainly don't want to put in technology and have it not work correctly So two more quick questions Uh First I live in an 1890s house on man's field and anybody is welcome to come visit my house We have a heat pump our whole first floor um And we love it. You can't even hear it and it's both heat and ac My other half and I work from home. So we're home a lot And we have to say it is absolutely fantastic. We use it through the Uh right up until this kind of weather But for the most part cooling and heating it is and we're very curious to see what our electric bills would do And I have to tell you they hardly budged in inch. So I highly recommend I do have a quick question What do you think of the tesla storage batteries? It's good. Well first appreciate that you're using heat short answer. Please great great example We haven't seen a lot of tesla batteries in burlington because a lot of places around vermont where they're doing that It's because they're having outages storm outages. We're fortunate. Some of our grid is underground We have a relatively compact service territory our average customer doesn't necessarily even see an outage in a given year And those who do the duration is usually under an hour So we haven't had a business case for the batteries just yet But we're always exploring it and it's good technology and it's working well in the rest of the state So far Keith I just want to have a question. How are the incentives funded? Yeah, so we have a couple different programs through the state. We're state regulated Some of it comes through efficiency There's an efficiency charge on the bill that funds energy efficiency work And some of it's funded through something called tier three, which is essentially a state Regulation requiring utilities to do work on electrification and other measures So we have a budget for that and we have a budget for energy efficiency work And those are the primary sources of funding that we use Great. Thank you, darin and jen. Thank you Yeah, if folks had extra questions, please feel free to reach out of our emails are available online. Thank you And their slides are available on the npa website. So thanks very much So, um, we're going to keep moving It's a clamping crowd tonight. They're you're into it. So thanks. Thank you. So next up is megan moir Moir, um, so I'll let you introduce yourself because you can speak to it better than I and welcome Hi folks, we're doing electricity and then water back to back The things that maybe shouldn't mix but actually we we work a lot with our bed partner since we're big electricity users So i'm megan moir. I'm the division director of the water resources division So I run the water wastewater and stormwater utilities. I've been with the city since 2009 First as a stormwater program manager and then in the last three years Get to be in charge of all of the waters I'm joined tonight by our esteemed colleagues, uh, jessica lava let who she's the one that sends out all of your 10,000 Water bills water sewer stormwater bills. So If you have any questions about bills, you can talk to her She's also our finance manager and then jenna calvi who was our stormwater program coordinator Or program manager and now as our water resources policy and programs manager So really happy to join you guys today to talk a little bit Um about the direction we're going with our rates Let me just come over here So before we get into rates, I want to make sure everybody knows what it is that the water resources utilities do There a lot of things are out of sight out of mind until there isn't water And so we want to make sure you know all of the services that we provide Uh, and then we'll talk a little bit about how we got to this point of needing to look at our rates And looking at our finances and making sure that we're collecting sufficient money Uh go over our existing rates and then talk to you guys about the The suite of options that we are examining as part of this study with our consultant ref tell us Before we go there. We need to come back to Our our mission statement our core set of values Which is we believe that access to clean water is a human right we share that with the united nations They also have said that And that that comes down to two things First to make sure everybody has access to clean water. We need to make sure we are stewarding our infrastructure We need to make sure that we are resilient against climate change. We are resilient against water main breaks We're taking care of things in a way that yes, we're going to have outages from time to time But generally speaking everybody's going to have access The other piece though is this affordability of services And sometimes these are a little bit counter opposites, right? If we need enough money to take care of our systems That means we have to get the money from somewhere and we are solely funded by rate payers And so we're kind of looking at this little bit of a conflict and trying to figure out how we're going to manage that Because we don't want people having to decide to buy medicine or buy food for their family Because they are afraid of being late on their water bill. They need to be able to do both So stepping back a little um water resources is not funded by any of your taxpayer dollars It is what we call enterprise funds. They're operated as little businesses and in fact each of the three utilities And those are the budgets. It's over about 17.4 million dollars in total Each utility has to collect its own money. So when we charge you for your water bill We're not taking the water money and spending it in wastewater or wastewater money and into storm water there They have to be self-contained units Um, as I said, there is no reliance on on property services in total. We serve um 10 000 connections. So there's 10 000 wastewater or Water lines that go into people's homes and that serves over, you know 42 hunt 42 000 people in burlington and a small part of colchester We do sell some water to colchester and that's sort of a leftover from the old days where we actually Provided water to a lot of the surrounding communities We currently have 43 full-time staff of which we have those two amazing ladies back there And then stepping into the specific functions what we worry about day in day out The water enterprise fund its main purpose is to make sure we withdraw Very good clean source water from lake champlain remove the particulate matter Make sure it's disinfected and then pump it up the hill to the rest of the community Secondarily, it also has the benefit of providing fire protection So the the levels at which we pump at the amount of water that we can provide to our hydrants Into fire sprinkler services is what enables the city of burlington to have good insurance rates because The insurance companies know if there's a fire there's going to be sufficient flow to put on that fire and put it out And I was hoping our fire guys would still be here so they could share us on You know I've listed and we actually have copies of the presentation in the back if you want to take one home I'm not going to go through all of our different infrastructure But you know, we have a lot of it a lot of its underground a lot of it is extremely old We're still looking at 42 of our pipes being older than 75 years In almost 25 percent being older than 100 years old and pipes generally are only supposed to last around 75 Moving on to wastewater Waste water we're trying to really call more water recovery. That's what it is You're you're taking clean drinking water. You're sometimes adding not so clean things to it It has to get to the wastewater treatment plant where we then strip out the sewer parts the black water parts of the Of the sewage and also and also treat the combined sewer flow Which is the storm water mixed with the wastewater before we discharge it back to the lake? Which as you remember is our drinking water source We have three wastewater treatment plants 25 pump stations. It's also an extensive collection system, which is also very old Oh And I just want to show this my my wastewater guys they often talk to themselves talk Of themselves as bug farmers because this aeration system That's where all the bacteria live is the bacteria that come from soil It comes from your gut those bacteria are really what do the work of treating the wastewater and Since I was a stormwater geek when I became my current role steve roy My mentor was like you're gonna love wastewater and it is it is so fascinating what happens and how the water actually gets cleaned It baffles my mind every day Moving on to storm water Which is sort of the the baby of the siblings of the water siblings, right? Because people didn't used to think about storm water until we started realizing that storm water actually has a great deal of pollutants So in 2009 burlington had the foresight of creating a storm water utility Was the second in vermont and the storm water program functions or Focuses on two major things which is reducing the amount of pollutants that's in the storm water Even though storm water looks cleaner than wastewater Over time and the extensive volume. Let's think about the halloween Storm 2019 that was an extensive volume of water that was all carrying different pollutants phosphorus Other nutrients bacteria oils and grease it doesn't you know Gallon for gallon. It's not as concentrated as wastewater But over time the excessive load also has impacts on the lake The other thing that our storm water program works tirelessly to do is reduce the amount of storm water volume That's going into our combined sewer system. We do still have combined sewer overflows Which is when the storm water gets into the pipe where the wastewater is And sometimes it can't fit through the pipe and there are these relief points We have five remaining ones and one in particular is continues to go off More frequently than the others pine street barge canal. That's the one that went off in the halloween storm But those relief points are there so that it doesn't back up onto the roads It doesn't back up into as many people's basements as it would otherwise So it is an unfortunate part of our system, but it is there for a reason I don't like to say it's intentional But it is as the system has been designed in the past and it's some it's a Historical legacy that we're dealing with now Kind of getting back to that stewardship piece for a long time in my estimation We weren't doing such a great job job of stewarding our infrastructure We weren't investing in replacing and repairing our infrastructure except when it broke And you can see as of f y 17 into 18 into 19 with the support of the mayor and the city council We've really started to start spending the amounts or close to the amounts that we may need to spend Um and f y 20 you can see some additional bars. That is the the um clean water resiliency plan The bond the storm storm water and wastewater bond that 92 of voters, which was an awesome number It was great to get that that support Um so that we could start fixing our older plant and start fixing some of our existing infrastructure So, you know, we started off with our water mains and f y 17 We're working on our elevated tanks. So the elevated tank that is here on the uvm campus Which I know a couple of you had mentioned that project caused more noise than either we or you anticipated And we can talk about that later And then we'll be doing the redstone tank, which is on the redstone campus But we're also underway with designs for replacements of our disinfection system That was one of the things that failed in 2018 at our wastewater plants The skater plc, which is the computerized controls. It's the brain The the motherboard if you will of the of the plant which failed And we're also looking at our pump station and collection systems We're also doing that on the storm water side looking at our existing infrastructure I want to stress that this effort is primarily about keeping our house our current house together And there is a separate effort going on to figure out all of the new stuff We're going to have to do to meet new regulations to make sure that we're cleaning up the lake This is really about keeping ourselves from backsliding Briefly, even though we think of those those utilities as three separate utilities. We are a one water utility organization Water itself is one water. It doesn't matter. You know, you can't think about wastewater without thinking about storm water Or or drinking water and so a large number of our functions Planning oversight engineering Billing administration are all under one one roof and under one, you know, set of leadership You know this results in overall cost savings as well as some more holistic thinking So why do we need to look at our rates? Mostly because as I start to look at our budgets in recent years and in future years I am concerned that a we need to be taking a hard look at making sure we are Collecting enough money so that we can continue this level of Reinvestment our infrastructure and we have some big budget lines. We have a large personnel line We have debt service that's left over from the 1990s and we'll be on our books for another I think 10 or 15 years We have electricity costs Getting rid of our biosolids, which is the sludge component the the solid component of our wastewater Those costs are going up every year. And so when I start to look at that I think okay, we need to buckle down do some really amazing Detailed financial planning and then really look at what those rates are going to have to do in order to collect that money So fortunately this lined up with where the council was at when we had come to them requesting Some rate increases for some additional staffing And they specifically directed us to Not just do this financial planning but to look at alternative revenue sources Make sure there aren't things out there that we're not charging for that We could be charging for and also to look at alternative rate structures to make sure we Were protecting that access to that essential quantity of water I'm not going to protect somebody who's wasting water But everybody deserves that sort of initial block that you need for cooking cleaning proper sanitation Right. I mean does everybody agree? I think I heard some claps back there when we were talking about, you know Access to clean water We also want to make sure that even if we change The rate structure there may still be folks who are already so burdened by other cost pressures That maybe we need to give them even additional help Maybe we need to actually be discounting the rate in some way and so we were directed to look at that And then of course the city council wanted to make sure since this is going to impact The entire city all of the rate payers that we did a lot of Outreach and engagement. We've had a public meeting a sort of general public meeting and now we're visiting all of the CAs So with that we hired Raft tell us which is a consulting firm that their bread and butter is water resources Utilities and specifically this type of rate work and we endeavor we're endeavoring to make sure a that we're fully recovering all of our costs So what are all the things we need to be collecting money for and are we getting all of the money that we need to get Making sure that we're recovering those costs in an equitable equitable way Right now and when we look at the rates, you'll see everybody pays the same rate Doesn't matter whether you're a business or whatever everybody's paying the same rate And there are certain folks who are getting different benefits And so we want to make sure that there may not be a better way to To charge people for that initial block of water and make sure we have that essential access But then to look at some other rate classes in a different way just because Well, we'll get into that and then lastly Maintaining that affordable service so changing the rate structure and also looking at affordability programs Who who here knows how much they pay for their water bill? a month Sharon How much do you pay? Do you know? About 50 dollars anybody else know what they pay 80 oh, okay We have some leak detection kits back there just to make sure that you're not using more water than you need to So so Sharon is in the range of a very typical single family residential customer Using about 400 cubic feet a month When we meter we charge your wastewater based on how much water you use It's relatively difficult to meter the wastewater going out And so we assume and this is very typical of all utilities That the water you use is what's going out generally speaking now Of course, you're drinking some water and maybe you're using the bathroom elsewhere But on balance it generally is the right right amount And then for storm water storm a storm water fee came about in 2009 If you are a single family duplex or triplex you play a flat a flat fee Which is based on the average amount of impervious surface hardened surface That is associated with those classes and everybody else Gets assessed we actually use satellite imagery to measure the amount of impervious and then charge per thousand square feet of impervious so As I said right now everybody pays four dollars and forty four cents for 100 cubic feet of water So 10 by 10 room one foot deep. That's 100 cubic feet of water. It's also 748 gallons Some of the things we're looking at include looking at the Right now our rate structure doesn't include what they call a standalone fixed charge A large majority of our costs are fixed It doesn't matter if if everybody here in the entire city Decided to not use our water system on a given day My costs would be Very much the same because I still have to have my people. I still have to have the pipes I still have to have access to that water. There's like a readiness to serve Charge and so we're looking at whether or not there may be utility In moving some of those fixed costs that are on our expense line into a fixed cost on the On the revenue side And then there's a number of other charges that we are looking at the majority of these do not or would not affect Any existing customers or residential customers. They're largely For folks that are more in the commercial setting Or people who are building new buildings The things that will affect and hopefully in a positive way Residential folks would be looking at a lifeline volumetric rate. So instead of charging everybody the same No matter what amount of water you're using Potentially we would look at setting an initial block of water Potentially 400 cubic feet, which is that sort of typical usage at a much lower rate So that if you use the typical amount of water that a residential customer uses You're actually going to get a a smaller You're going to get the same amount of water for a smaller amount of money Um the flip side of that it would be that then if you use more than that You would be getting charged more for that block of water. It's very similar to what the electricity and I think gas companies do The other piece would be potentially having different rates depending if you're residential or your commercial That's one thing that we're looking at and then lastly This low-income customer assistance program We've developed some models and tools so that as we look at the different rates and how they change over time We can look at that lowest quartile income level the people who are really below the federal poverty limit Who are having trouble making ends meet? And even though we've made those other changes to the rate if they're still Paying a large percentage of their income just for a water bill How can we discount that now? We're not planning on reviewing people's income We're looking to leverage other programs so that if somebody for instance qualifies for three squares They could show us proof of that and then they would maybe get some sort of discount on their bill It might look like a waiver of that fixed charge that we were talking about in in the previous slide So those are the some of the things that we're playing with Um We're trying really hard to make sure that we are able to work with the city council to pass something This uh for this next fiscal year What I think that means is that there's probably a lot of options on here that we want to see happen in the near term But may not happen immediately and so some of the things that are on here might get tabled for a future phase Um, you know, whether it's figuring out if we need to have more leak detection and repair services More technical assistance. I've talked a lot with um Sharon about How we might be able to provide assistance for people When they're repairing their water service lines or particularly their sewer lateral lines That can be a huge cost to a residential property owner that Can really set them back and we don't currently have a way to help with that except when the Water line we can do a little bit of a payment plan, but on the sewer we can't so there's lots of things We can do and we don't we don't want people to think that we're going to stop With whatever we propose for fy 21 So just project schedule. I'm not going to go over and I'm just going to leave it up here as we get into questions Just to know we're on a pretty tight timeline. We're crunching numbers now We're host we're supposed to come back to the council in february for a work session Where we present to them a couple of the alternatives that we're we're considering Hopefully get some input from them come back to you guys right with some more details about really where we're going And then in april try to get some actual decision by the city council as to what rate structure they want to see for fy 21 Okay Thanks. Megan. So you're ready for some questions Any questions comments opinions, yeah Two questions one I You know live in this area and walk a lot and many many of our storm grates, especially right now are covered and clogged So and I know that there was one person who wrote to the mp, you know to chappen and in the mp You know, what did they call front porch forum about in seattle? They clean their streets twice a week not excuse me not twice a week every two weeks They have those street sweepers to clean the grates to keep their water clean So i've said this before dpw and i'm just wondering one since you know, you showed that picture Why don't we do a better job at keeping our grates clear so they can do the job? And then my other thing which you know me well about is that with zoning we do not enforce lock coverage and we do not Keep grass so we have permeable space. We've got you know, even our green belt We own that city green belt so much of our green belt is not permeable So to me that is a huge loss of soil. I mean I see the difference in living here for 40 years of the water running down henry street. So to me that is a loss Just a lost thing that we should be doing with our and that's the zoning office. I know that So your first question on the The cleaning that kind of falls into the stewardship category category and right now We don't have the staff or the resources to clean in the way that other communities do It's something that i and jenna will certainly be working with dpw on because Street sweeping has many benefits not just providing a cleaner more aesthetically pleasing better for bicycles, but Leaves are phosphorus and so there are communities in which they've shown A more frequent leaf sweeping or street sweeping program Could really have great benefits on the phosphorus side It gets into the sacred parking because in order to do that in some of the lanes that have the most leaves We would have to post parking. We would we wouldn't end up being like other urban cities Where on the you know certain, you know first and third monday of every month You just don't park on that side. So it's going to be a huge undertaking and trying to wrangle the parking Beast is going to be painful, but I think it's important and you know I agree with you on the need to maintain pervious surfaces as pervious. It is a zoning issue I I think it's something we still we're we're interested in trying to figure out We just don't know really the best way to go about it from the water resources perspective even though we wholeheartedly agree so Keep up keep up the pictures because you know they do tell a thousand words A couple more questions go ahead Is this on um sounds like it so proposed in burlington Do we have limited capability or unlimited capability to take on new development? I i'm very familiar with Development where you don't have town water and town sewer and I know a number of bedrooms. I mean there's a We have to go and ask first is there capability, you know in the soils So do we have capability in our town our city to I mean, what is the limitation of what we currently have or Do you not get asked that question when there is development? So it's a great question. Um anytime new development comes They do have to come to our office and get a capacity letter to verify that we in fact have Capacity to serve on the water side and capacity to serve on the sewer side While our plant gets stressed during storm events main plant the one that's down on the waterfront From a dry weather from an actual sewage processing capacity It still has a million of its 5.2 million gallons available So we aren't having trouble with The willing or the ability to serve the sewer component what we've been doing though is leveraging those new developments like camebrain rise as city or city place whatever it looks like When those come through We are making them take off even more storm water than our regulations would other require So any developments even if it wasn't increasing its wastewater if it was increasing its impervious surface or redeveloping impervious surface It actually has to make things better at the end of the day almost like a regenerative development concept But those ones that are really adding a lot of wastewater Actually have to go above and beyond and either take off more storm water from their site Or they work with us to find a project or pay us so that we can take off more water So that we're constantly trying to regain some of the available capacity in the pipe Does that answer your question? It's something we have to keep our eye on on the wastewater side But we're not to the point of getting to like Oh, no, we can't have any more and we need to build our bigger plants Right, okay, so we have at least three more questions And uh, but we have a limited amount of time. I'll answer in haiku only Excellent and also I've been asked to to to point out that there's some poster boards back here that have A lot of information so please take advantage of that We will stay here until the last question So we'll stay here until 11 if you guys want to talk water all night. We're you're gals. So wow, that's a commitment Okay, go ahead jack. All right. Thank you all Really continue to be really just impressed by the amazing work that you all do over there um and I'm just curious a little bit more about the rate structure in terms of so Making it cheaper for the initial kind of Essential services or the normal amount that folks would need And then can you talk a little bit more about where we would then make up that revenue? So I think One thing that comes to mind is like kind of the more luxury uses can we go much higher on that and also new development Is that an opportunity to bring in additional revenue? Does that help us on the revenue side and also just Maybe really quickly if you can speaking to the issue of like Especially for a new multifamily like the metering issue in terms of breaking it out by unit and things like that. Okay That's a lot, but I will try so Yes, if we make it cheaper for that initial block We have to regain the money somewhere else Our first turn of the wheel is going to make is going to see a can we get more efficient with any of our costs? We are doing an efficiency of sort of analysis and or can we provide more services for the same cost But then one of the other things is looking at all these other fees Because that could create that could create the initial nugget that would offset the decrease in revenue from that initial blocker residential To the extent that it doesn't it does it does mean that somebody else is going to have to pay more So between the folks who use a lot of water In that next tier or a commercial Property the thought being that a commercial property If they're if their water increases it's not affecting their ability to live They will have to account for that in their cost of their goods It's going to be a fine line and that's come of what we're going to have to work on with the council is How much do we do the teeter totter? As far as new development there are a couple of things on here that would help so connection charge right now We do a lot of review Of new developments and we don't necessarily charge For all of my staff time all of the engineering time The other one which we could we used to have a sort of capital recovery charge not really an impact fee But a a system buy-in fee So you all have been paying for the infrastructure and the debt service And there's a way of sort of when a new person comes along having them buy in To all of the other investments the equity that has been built up The last part I think the meter one will probably need to talk about with Jess It it is complicated I think he's talking about the fact that multi-unit buildings often have only one water meter Whereas they have multiple electrical meters And so it is a little hard if you live in that type of building to be in control Of your own water usage because your neighbor could be guzzling water and causing your entire building to use a A lot of water. I think that's what you're getting at and there isn't really a good answer yet. So Okay, I thought it was I thought there was a switch. Um, hi megan, uh, kai forliam founder of water wise vermont And I just have a couple comments or questions. I should say Um, first is you kind of zipped right over the slide that referred to the city's biosolids. Uh Not programmed but but what we produce Um 10 000 tons. Yep, and in in your analysis Of future revenues expenses, whatnot. Um, how much have you looked at potential exposure? On the part of the city and I guess on the part of your department um to Potential land contamination by land applying that sludge currently it's sent to a small community in new york state and spread on farmland And obviously there's a big issue Nearby in main with uh, absolutely fast and sewage sludge and land that's permanently contaminated now and farms and whatnot So that's my first question. Um Because that's obviously a huge potential expense that you'd want to budget for if you could And then I was on a part of a webinar this morning that took place With the rich earth institute down in brodo bro. Um, there were lots of commissioners and and uh folks from agency of natural resources and deces from other states And local officials and whatnot that program or that that webinar was all about Diverting urine and using it as a fertilizer and unfortunately, I was the only person from vermont That took part in that webinar. There were no state officials. No city officials, etc. So what is the since I see a lot of this Expenditure, I view it as putting good money towards a bad use Our legacy systems. I view a lot of the is ineffective and not resilient Waste-water treatment plants are the largest typically the largest electricity use use or user in a city municipal portfolio and Given what's coming down the path with fossil You know fossil fuel exhaustion and climate change whatnot these are potentially systems that will not be resilient in the future and What is the city doing to examine alternatives and specifically things like urine recovery dry toilets? Rainwater harvesting storage and on-site gray water So that all great questions. Um, the PFAS issue I believe is what you're referring to with sludge. PFAS has been around for ages. We now are Have lower detection limits and so we're finding it and more and more things. It's found in people's blood It's in so many different things waste water is in the unfortunate position of being a receiving station It's not that we are creating the PFAS, but the PFAS has come down the pipe to us. And so the sludge that The the sludge that wastewater produces does have some amount of this industrial Um contaminant and it is very concerning. We already pay nine hundred and sixty thousand dollars a year to dispose of Whether it's in the landfill or shadow gate new york And so it is it is chief on my mind Some of the other questions you're talking about it's it's really hard because you are talking about some major Systemic systematic change that needs to happen. It's almost like when we get into conversations about low-income people Or mental health. It's such a bigger issue Um And I'm not I haven't figured out how some of those conversations could happen and and whether or not We're the only ones at the table I don't I don't know if I see the wastewater utility being able to systematically figure out how to make people go To urine diversion or dry toilets Um, I know that there may be need there may need to be there needs to be a change in the future And right now literally i'm trying to make sure that my existing system Works and works for the best of its ability so that it's not you know dealing with some of the other pollutants So I would be happy to talk to you more after this. Um, it there a huge problem and I don't have the answer to it It's not something that we're ignoring It's more that I don't even have the bandwidth to figure out some of those things. Um, and I think there are bigger conversations about our entire systems um, so So, um one more one more question I own some apartment buildings and I have a large property at 18 units that is a single water meter. So nobody owns the The responsibility for the water but but me. Yep, right? When I had the electrical read done on that property, burlington electric would not let me put in a single electric meter Their reason was that it takes away the buy-in from the tenant and they'll misuse it So the ac stays on all the time and so on I have other townhomes down on hide street that are all individually water metered and those people are calling me asking me for water restrictive for the The aerators for the faucets and the showers and how else can I help them save money and everything else? Do you do you see the future being where you start making people responsible for their own? water to where You know 60 percent of the tenants in burlin. I'm sorry 60 percent of the residents in burlington rent Right and I would imagine many of them do not see a water bill Right it so and just can answer that question, but the the property owner can put the Bill in the tenant's name that doesn't get to your question of correct So there is a tenant agreement form in which you can actually Certain properties Right, it doesn't it doesn't work. We'd have to look at your specific building a lot of the buildings are not built In a way where you'd be able to like Right the internal plumbing even if we gave you all the meters in the world unless you have separate pipes going to all the separate Apartments, it wouldn't work that way. I I'd have to look back in history as to why it was like that I think I mean so I'm gonna Cut us off here because you could I'd encourage you use you're gonna be here to 11 o'clock tonight So, um, you can have a more extended conversation with folks as and we really appreciate that commitment It's like talk about public service few snacks left, right, so so You guys brought the cots right the sleeping Okay, and and again encourage you to take a look at the posters out here We have a few minutes left for the city councilor's updates So want to switch to that and jack you want to Lead off because you've got the microphone Uh, yeah, sure. I can lead off. Um There's a lot going on right now definitely, uh, I would say one of the big issues that's on the front of my mind is around the amtrak stop coming returning to burlington, um and associated potential impacts of that around the need for potentially a second uh track at the bottom of main street so between basically between college and King or maple around there having a second track to be used for storage and overnighting of the trains and servicing um, and or potentially be used, um By Vermont rail systems for some of their freight operations. That's where it gets a little muddy is You know who who really wants the second track and what exactly would it be used for but um We're gonna have a meeting where v-trans who ultimately is the decision maker on this V-trans is coming to the transportation energy and utilities committee on tuesday night Um at 6 30. So if you want to learn more about that and get to ask questions of v-trans I I have a lot of questions. So Um, I gotta pull up the location. I'll pull it up while while they're talking. Um So, yeah, that's that's tuesday night at 6 30. I'll get you the location Um bpd Burlington police department. Thanks. Um, so that'll be yeah, that'll be tuesday night And this is really our first chance to get v-trans in the room and actually ask them what's going on It's very confusing honestly and complicated. So this this will hopefully give us a lot more clarity Um, just before this I came from a meeting about the winewski avenue corridor It's not really in Wards one and eight, but I think it affects all of us I think we all use that corridor for some time or another and There's a proposal to potentially add bike lanes along the entirety of it in both directions So I've been getting pretty involved and engaged in that and trying to push that forward Trying to think of other issues I've been getting engaged in these folks's committee in terms of the joint committee with ordinance And planning and zoning around changes to minimum parking requirements. Are you all going to speak to that all or should I speak to it? All right, so that's that's something I've been getting involved with as well around and this came out of the housing summit It was one of the initiatives, but essentially for new developments in downtown and along bus routes We're looking at eliminating the minimum parking requirements. So that's not saying no one's going to build parking But it's saying we're not going to mandate a certain level of parking And the additional component of it that we're now looking at and that I've been really advocating for is getting developers to Also implement transportation demand management Mechanisms so kind of like what uvm does with the free bus passes for affiliates You know charging for parking Offering discounts and things like car share or bike share programs So really doing a lot of things to help shift Folks behavior in terms of how they get to and from that development or that space So yeah, those I think three things that are really critical to the future of Transportation in burlington and for me, that's really a top priority given that transportation is the biggest Source of emissions in vermont and continues to increase So I think we really need to crack that not if we're going to get serious about the climate crisis and vermont's emissions continue to go up and I just saw Couple articles about how all of our neighbors have reduced their emissions since 1990 so new york new hampshire Massachusetts and cobalt have all reduced emissions were up 16 percent and it's largely due to transportation So this is really serious. We need to go all in in terms of Changing that system and I think all of three of these issues that I just mentioned are big opportunities to to drive that forward Um, I'll just leave it at that for now. Thanks the You hear me the other items related to The ordinance work that council busher and I sit on that committee and many others have been participating which has been great Beyond parking minnows. We're also looking at ad use accessory dwelling units As well as how to regulate short-term rentals mostly air b&b, but there are some others as well Um, and so that that process is moving along We are we are getting a lot of that work done. So if you have you are interested in these sorts of topics Let any of us know or come to the meetings and engage now or else in a couple of weeks, you know, how it goes It'll be a lot of the work will be done and you'll be working from behind so We're we're well on our way making progress on those so reach out if you're interested in those topics I'll use the rest of my time Not going to go on too much here, but I do want to point out that it's cold not like anyone hasn't noticed but The the warming shelter, which is which is downtown The low barrier homeless warming shelter It has a new Operator for those that don't know chcb community health centers of burlington operated it for three years Really successfully, but what was not able to operate it for this year And I was involved with with a few others and Bringing a new a new agency on to to run it a new place and they've been they're up and running and they're doing great but there there are some growing pains and I talked with them today and One of the issues that that they have is The nightly meals That they serve there. They have gaps throughout the next couple of months And in thinking through solutions with them a thing that would really benefit their cause And help a lot of people on a night to night basis Is doing a soup drive so soup that is frozen that can be stored and pulled out to to feed folks In the in the dead of winter as they're staying there Is a big need that they have You heard from students earlier that they're working on getting toiletries and other needs Together and that's another need that that's being worked on. So I'd like to ask Folks here and folks who will be watching is To go to the the warming shelter website I think it's btv warming shelter.org if you google it, it'll find it for you And they have a page there where you're able to to contribute to this Either for the kind of the sundries side the the toiletries or for this meal Operation so even just a couple of gallons of soup that can be brought down You can go through that website or reach out to me and I'd love to get their stockpiles filled so that they don't need to be worried about Providing meals for folks on a nightly basis I'll also be working. I might bring something to the council on monday To promote this a little bit more to get restaurants locally involved who can make soup At a greater scale than you councilor busher I'll also be working with churches now with Upon advice from council busher, but no to just get more people involved So go to the website if you can do a little bit or if you know a restaurateur or church that can help with this This would be a really great thing to do during the giving season. So I just want to promote that. Thanks Thank you adam for that So, um I'm going to talk about other things So tonight the cdnr committee, which is the community development neighborhood revitalization committee had a meeting um, and it was Supposed to be from 5 30 to 7 30, but because of the new ski avenue corridor, they changed the time But the topic for tonight was the brookfield was coming the developer was coming and um the Topic was how was the developer going to engage with the community? with the amended development of city place and so What I had wanted to say I did in via email Was that there was a plan that was referenced at the city council meeting that they would come to all the npa's Which is fine, but I think it I think it's good for our community to also hear each other I'd like to know what the people in ward 4 and 7 think as far as wards 5 and 6 and 1 and 8 and 2 and 3 so I had said Um, and I had talked to the mayor that we should have at least two Public meetings that would be in con toys where people the businesses downtown people from any section of the city could come See the proposed amended plan and give some input and get questions answered So that was the only topic for tonight. I know they are going to also talk about The neighborhood project which obviously is near and dear to our hearts, but that's not going to happen That was not going to be on the agenda for tonight The second thing that the city has the city council has been immersed in Is the sale of burlington telecom and the monies that we have Um received as a result of that it's going to be between six and seven million dollars Now some of that money has to go to certain things with retirement There are certain requirements that we there really is no debate about giving about Maybe one point one one and a half million dollars or so to um infrastructure and retirement Responsibilities or obligations But that leaves the remainder of the money available There is what I understand is agreement that we would like to have a seat on the board And to do that we have to buy a certain share 7.5 percent, which is about 2.4 million dollars So then that leaves the residual money For other things that we either could invest in bt And hope that there would be a return and pay ourselves back for some of the 16.9 million dollars that we Lent and didn't get back or there are other ideas out there What um the city council had one meeting on november 4th and now on this coming monday, there'll be another Meeting and discussion about how we're going to use those funds I just want to make sure that everybody in the ward knows about this I would very much appreciate having some guidance from all of you And I can't give you any more feedback right here, but i'm more than willing to have a conversation with you in more depth Because I really need your guidance. This is an important decision And I want to really reflect what you think the last thing I wanted to say Was that the bed presentation tonight one thing I did put forward I worked with darin And jennifer green regarding New development and to require that new development if at all possible would have electric heat And do those heat pumps that was being referenced and so I wanted to do significant rehab also But the bottom line is that that is very complicated as I learned and we couldn't bite that off at this time And then the obviously as karin and and sandi referenced What are all of us going to do who have gas heat and need to try to make that conversion? That's another topic, but I am thinking about what we can do to address some of the needs that we have And I just wanted you all to know that that's the first step And I'll end now because I see cindy looking at me Thank you It's that if you it's possible for you to stick around to to answer questions informally If you for a few minutes that would be great, but I know it's it's a little bit after nine And I've been encouraged strongly encouraged a number of times to try to wrap up at nine So that people that need to get home can get home a couple quick things Okay, so you so you're safe You won't have to spend the night and it looks like unless you stick around with the The storm water folks who are going to be here till god only knows when so a couple quick things If you didn't sign in if you would sign in as you go out that would be great So we have a sense of who was here and if you're interested in the housing conversation I would love to have a few people to To help with shaping that so please sign up. There's a sign-up sheet there and anything else before we up So great. Thank you everyone for a great meeting and I appreciate it and we'll see you in december And it's likely that we'll have Kind of more like a full meal in december. Is that is that what we're thinking possibly so stay tuned on front porch forum Because we're thinking about having you know putting on the dog a little bit in december. Yeah, okay