 on your screen. As a recap the city was awarded 27 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds. After that award we launched a citywide survey where we garnered almost 4,000 responses. That is the largest amount of responses that we've ever had for a city-run survey. There was a specific section in the survey asking if the public was interested in investments in community infrastructure. Infrastructure that could be shared by all. That did get a great response. I will also note that it was more specifically spaces to accommodate music, art, food and more was identified as a top priority by our BIPOC respondents of the survey. As you can imagine there were a lot of internal competing demands. As I mentioned before, 2 million in the municipality is full of having the broadest amount of impact that we could have. Sort of upgrading and creating new gathering spaces in all the neighborhoods of our city to have to reach the most residents as possible. These were identified through what we did work with DPW, CEDO, parks, Burlington City Arts to try and assess the community infrastructure that we have in the city, how we could upgrade it, how we could improve it or how we could expand it. These were the projects that we noted we felt would have the most impact. As you know, we were in the process of renovating the redstone cottage and adding an annex as a specific community gathering space was identified as a need. The New North End branch of the library has been very well received and is in need of some modest upgrades that I think could have a great impact in that area. In Roosevelt staff in the parks department that a shade structure of a pavilion of sorts would be welcome there both on sunny days and rainy days. It's also would be necessary for food distribution to make that an easier process. I will skip waterworks and let Samantha address that in one moment. We have City Hall Park kiosk. The City Hall Park is what we consider one of our great public spaces right in the middle of the downtown. As all of you know that park was originally designed. Some sort of concession in it to make it a more comfortable gathering space for people and to encourage more gathering in the park. Then we have BCA's 405 Pine Street project which they are interested in building a community room including a large industrial kitchen which I can also say from the small business support side is needed as lots of food vendors who don't have a restaurant but are still selling their goods are very interested in spaces for food preparation and could be a place for pop-ups to support those as well. I will turn over to assistant director Dunn to discuss water work parks and Moran frame amenities. Sure thanks Kara and I because we have another work session on Moran coming up right after this I won't go into a lot of details. I just wanted to point out on the map that across departments I think we left out maybe planning was with us as well. We really wanted to ensure that we were able to make community infrastructure investments throughout the city so want to make sure that's obvious here before moving on to some visuals and you'll see ideas about the Moran frame next steps are really about integrating it within the northern waterfront and expanded waterworks park so that there's accessible connectivity, wayfinding, shade all of the things that we know contribute to improve community gathering in our you know in this in the climate that we have. I think with this slide up here it's just repeating the projects with a couple of visuals. We do have staff here from BPRW and BCA so want to make sure to open it up to questions folks might have about the proposed projects. You are you've completed you've completed your comments my apologies. Let's uh uh Councillor Bergman. Roosevelt Park always peaks my interest being about 100 meters from my house and being a place that I've done Little League for a really long time as Mr. Pine, Director Pine knows well and continue to so I'm curious about that lovely pavilion that which I could see being a great addition to the park but where is it going to be located how is it going to fit in to be able to keep all the things that uh are going on there. Now what is its relationship I'm giving you multiple questions but they're single but that's okay. And Direct and White is also here as well. The relationship with the Boys and Girls Club which is using the the building right now the bathrooms which are essential for the Little League to be able to continue to operate. Yes. There's there are other activities there the tennis and so what have you so I'm just it would be great if it can all be integrated because then life will be good it will not be as good if it can't. So fierce Cindy however. I can go ahead so a great question Councillor Bergman we are in the process of hiring a consultant for Roosevelt Park to do a comprehensive plan for the park as we want to make sure that when we put that in the right spot it's right sized for the neighborhood and again the final design and where it ends up will be determined as part of that comprehensive plan and we also have donors that were interested in investments to the park that will help us round out more work and improvements to the park as part of this project. And Sophia I don't know if there's anything else you want to add to that. So that obviously begs the follow-up question related to timing and its relationship with expenditure of these funds. By the end of calendar year 24 and spent by the end of calendar year 26 and we do believe we can achieve that if Director White has her assessment now and if this gets approved by council that would be that would be considered encumbered. Okay well I look forward to a planning process that protects the Little League and does all these other things that I think are really essential with the park. Thanks. Thank you Councillor Bergman. There are three councillors that are joining us it's I'm not going to be able to see them so just just a word to councillors Dority, Hightower and Grant we can't we can't well now we can see you so if you have any questions please raise your hand. Councillor Travers. Thank you President Paul and thanks for the presentation as councillor representing Ward 5. I'm particularly excited about the plans for Burlington City Arts I with Director Kraft was there seeing the design and blueprint for the building and we really in Ward 5 have not had a community space like this over the years as folks have indicated so the opportunity to have a space like this in the south and for the community to regularly gather is is is really exciting and I know when I spent time on the parks commission you know as we were talking about comprehensive plans for places like Callahan Park and so on we were talking about having a community space like this the idea to have it right along Pine Street is fantastic. I have two specific questions one is with respect to the City Health Park kiosk and maybe this is a question for Director White I'm wondering whether or not at the moment there's any concerns within the department in finding a vendor to operate the kiosk and and if so don't feel like you have to answer the question right now curious whether or not there's any other actions the council of the city can take to to make the kiosk a more attractive opportunity for a vendor I believe I may be mistaken but I believe there perhaps have been vendor opportunities in City Hall Park in the past where there's been hurdles to to finding an appropriate vendor and just curious about that and then my second question is a broader question which is if anyone is available to provide us an update on after in come bring these two million dollars where do we stand with respect to the rest of the ARPA dollars here in the city and from your perspective are there any intentions in coming back regarding other community projects particularly given the timeline that you just mentioned where do the rest of the funds sort of stand with respect to other ideas sure I'm happy to answer both of those questions I was the my department did run the vending that has occurred so far in City Hall Park and initially we did have some trouble with the College Street terrace location there are some structural issues with that location in terms of vending but we did last summer have set up an RFP and have someone who vended not too long briefly but that was because of their schedule right by the fountain and that worked out quite well so much so that they were able to produce revenue for the city as part of that contract and gave us a lot of great feedback on that my goal I have loaded this idea with some restaurateurs and others in the city about a fixed structure appeals to a lot of people as well and I there would also be at that location water and sewer hookup which has been a barrier for so some of the pipes are there we do need to bring them to the surface and do a hookup and that's been a barrier to getting people to who would be willing to set up there having to haul in your own water is a little bit tricky and in terms of city did receive 27 million the the lion's share of that has been used for revenue replacement which as most of you know is the main intent of that legislation um the the legislation as written in its original form is quite restrictive and the US Treasury has since broadened its parameters around that as we move out of pandemic stance and so we I can I'm happy to provide you with more details we have committed five million dollars approximately three of which have already been used towards housing and director pine can address how that was managed and director shod has managed the revenue replacement pieces we also replaced some water infrastructure which was an important part of the legislation on university place and we have just given out as grants a million dollars to our local nonprofits to support the work that they do and this phase for the two million now is for community infrastructure and we still have some reserves set aside for revenue replacement as well as emergency response if needed we've spent a portion of it as well on our wastewater testing which if you may remember it was a very helpful for us um and there there are there is some left but but a limited amount and I will I will just reiterate that the city's use of those funds for revenue replacement allowed us to continue to deliver services to our citizens throughout the pandemic and beyond which was the original intent of the legislation great thank you very much my pleasure thank you councilor travers um just looking online and also there's anyone I'm sorry councilor barlow and then we'll go to the mayor thank you president paul excuse me um I'm interested in hearing a little bit more about the library upgrades in the new north end it's uh become a beloved space out in the ethno and shopping center I'm curious if you could give us a little bit more info on that sure I'd be happy to yeah it's been fun for us um to feel that love from the new north end and that space so when we got that space it had a lot of interior walls and offices that we inherited from burlington telecom so uh it prevented us from doing the kind of programming and the expansion of library services that we want to do there so the hope is that we can expand the shelving uh expand um the programs that we do because now with that bigger space we can open it up a little bit more so really just it's really just a improved fit up of the interior but we will make a huge difference on what we can offer okay thanks thank you councilor barlow we'll go to the mayor mayor winder thank you president paul I just wanted to expand uh a little bit on what car we're saying about the remaining arpa dollars and just give we had an initial discussion about this at the board of finance last week definitely part of the budget process this year we'll be talking again about the remaining uncommitted arpa funds we we are going to we are not going to need to expend we don't believe the entire revenue replacement reserve two million dollar reserve that we set aside for the current year's budget we got we will there are a couple lines that are short we will not have all of that unspent but we we're starting to think strategically about what we do with those funds and the uncommitted housing funds and you definitely can expect presentations on both of those as part of the as part of the marvelous nights of may and I wouldn't rule out the possibility that there could be some as the car said some modest additional community infrastructure investments but I it will not change dramatically I don't think is the way I'm thinking about it now thank you mayor um just looking again on on zoom and uh seeing no one else in the in the queue to speak no not that I can see so why don't we close out that item and we'll since you're already here we will go on to the next work session which is the moran frame update and next steps and that Samantha you're going to be leading that effort as well as Zach Campbell is um yes yep here and just as we as we close this out I think what we didn't mention the idea was to get this information to city councilor members tonight have an opportunity to answer questions if there's more questions um on the community infrastructure um investments that are proposed please reach out to car or myself or the mayor's office the intent is to bring these to action to board of finance next week and then back to city council for action on May 1st so left that out thank you wonderful thank you uh so we'll move on to one of one of the items um and obviously interrelated the moran frame project and I and I trust that after this evening you'll you'll post both of these power points to uh board docs yes they should be there or they're on their way okay wonderful Samantha and and just be just before you get to we do have another city councilor that's joined us on zoom uh councilor shannon in addition to councilor's grants sorority and high tower great so I am here with um Zach Campbell who's going to talk to you a little bit um in the in the middle part of this presentation presentation but Zach is um the leader um of friends of the frame so we'll be hearing from him a very important part of where we've gotten um to with the frame today and I'm really excited to be able to come and bring this update to city council I am um lucky to be the person um at the end of a very long journey that the city has taken with this property so again very excited to to be here and provide some updates um and I think I want to start by saying finishing up the first phase of the frame project was um really got us to the completion of the transformation of the northern waterfront that was imagined just about 10 years ago and has um been playing out with I think landmarks that everyone will recognize here but just wanted to make sure we could see them all together with the frame there in the center so an abbreviated history and this has um slide has two parts the the the bold blue is is of the Moran frame um property it came online in the 1950s to provide electricity as a coal burning plant in the 70s it was converted to wood chips and then in the 80s it was decommissioned as that production moved to McNeill once the plant was decommissioned ownership um of the property you know was came um to the city and spent about the city spent about three decades um exploring what should and could be done um with this property as you can see below this is talking about sort of back to this uh transformation the process started in 2014 where voters approved the waterfront access north project that that um envisioned all of these pieces the adog skate park was the first piece to be um completed it's incredibly popular every time I go to the frame no matter what the weather is um there are always people at the skate park so it's really cool um in 2016 the community sailing center started construction on their new facility which used to operate sort of in front of the frame um then there was the completion of the lake street extension that went along with that um Burlington Harbor Marina came in 2019 along with Waterworks Park um and then the full um new uh Burlington Greenway opened so again just taking you back to to looking at all those pieces together um and when you saw in the um previous presentation about investments at um expanded Waterworks Park and Moran frame it's really starting to think about all of these public assets the fishing pier what we know now is Waterworks Park the frame and the skate park as all one park and how do they work best together um for the community um this is just a quick timeline I think the images are probably too small in this presentation to see the actual process of dismantling the frame um what was required for remediation and this um these pages are part of a really great resource that's come out of this project which is a historical booklet that was a requirement from the state's um division for historic preservation it's almost done I was hoping it was going to be done for tonight and I would be able to send it to everyone it's it's almost done but um we've been working closely with consultants at BHB on getting this completed with with feedback from the state and you can see um there's some pages to the right but this is a um almost 100 page document that that documents the history of the waterfront and the frame um including um lots of components of um what was imagined in those three decades so it's a really neat document that will be available soon um another component of the project was creating these two interpretive panels there's two large panels currently on the site those are the images um you see on your left and then um working with CEDOS language access program um those panels have been translated into the top 10 languages at the city um so you can access those through a qr code on the sign so that's been a really exciting project as well so again you're just seeing a snippet of that in those 10 languages there are people who still might say like I don't get it what is the frame so this is just a little bit of a reminder um that the the point of the project or the main goal was to stabilize um and then activate a derelict site a site that was really problematic for the city and was not serving anybody in the public it included abating and remediating the hazardous building materials which includes um encapsulating the PCBs um in the structure um it completed the remediation of soils at the waterfront access north so now there's an entirely clean site at least six inches of clean site um it has created an amazing iconic Burlington landmark that you can see from all over the city and if you go down there you always will find someone that's saying oh my gosh I didn't know this was here it really draws that attention um and and you'll see later in the presentation it really also um sparks people's interest in creating um performance and and visual art on the site uh to the north of the actual structure there's a large um grassy area that's available for rest or play right up at the lake um and I think as was the intention in in naming um the frame project it does lay the framework for additional uses and improvements um as the city better understands how it can serve the community um so we cut the ribbon um on the first phase of the frame in November um with in collaboration with support um from Zach Campbell and Friends of Frame and we had um some performances what were folks using hanging um ribbons and hammocks that'll be back on site this summer um for the public um and so I would that sort of wraps up the the history um of what brought us to where we are today and I'm going to um pass it to Zach um for our present day. Hi everybody uh so I I did include a little about me slide which is um I'll go through quite quickly uh but my name is Zach Campbell I am from Vermont uh I grew up kind of part-time living in the south end splitting time between Shelburne and Southend uh most of the work I've done in my professional life is in the architecture and construction fields although I did start off uh pursuing music out of high school so I actually I moved to New York City and then and then Boston I was gone for about 10 years and uh wanted to move back to Vermont for a long time uh finally did in 2018 and I was fortunate enough to be a part of the team that collaborated with CEDO uh to propose the frame concept uh to City Council in 2019 um and then kind of between then and uh last year uh was not super involved uh day to day with the project but um I've always deeply felt and believed in the frame's potential to be our truly world-class um accessible destination for our local community as well as visitors to Burlington to come together connect gather uh enjoy and express creativity and a positive way and of course um revel in the natural beauty of Vermont uh which led me to found Friends of Frame last year Friends of the Frame uh really to uh facilitate the sustained use of the frame as this inclusive and ever-evolving public space and um really looking to accomplish that through uh presenting high quality public programming supporting ongoing stewardship efforts maintenance and improvements uh to the frame and most importantly empowering local creativity in all of its forms and so I I'd approached uh the mayor and CEDO in late 2021 with kind of this idea this concept of of forming a partnership to um as the frame was completed and open to the public for the first time ever uh bring some activation and programming to the site uh so that you know people could go there but really have something to do and and have an experience there be able to uh stay on the site and enjoy it rather than pass through or pass by which still happens but um as Samantha mentioned you know the there it's not uncommon to go down there and have people kind of saying you know what what is this what's it gonna be it's cool but I don't get it um so here's just a kind of the the purpose of of um this pilot project that we uh started out on last summer uh we did do a few things in 2022 I'll touch on and then move into uh what's being planned for 2023 one of the first things that Friends of the Frame did was uh create a web presence for the frame so there is actually a website for the frame the frame btv.org and uh I felt it was important to do this really you know want to have an online uh place to land and and learn about this space as we hopefully build uh engagement with um people who live here and people who are visiting you may want to kind of follow along there will be updates on uh events and installations that happen there's a great history page with with photos and uh most importantly this is a this is a way that people can reach out directly um and ask a question or propose an idea which is already starting to happen and it's great um but that was one thing that went live last year uh another thing we did was we worked with the awesome team at Generator to design and fabricate uh the first two and I say the first two because we're we're working on getting more done uh frame swings which are uh custom designed bench swing that actually hangs off the structure we have two out there on the on the lake side uh right now uh that went up in November and uh I'm super excited this year we're gonna be adding uh at least one more of these bench swings and we're adding um a fully customized uh wheelchair accessible version of this swing as well which is gonna be super cool uh another thing that happened right at the end of 2022 was uh the first art installation of the frame uh this was a um a bca-led effort as part of highlight uh I worked in collaboration uh a little bit with uh procuring this this really cool stretchable screen that fits in one of the steel openings on the structure um and then other kinds of logistical things like power hookups and projection angles and everything and uh the last thing that happened last year which is not insignificant um was Friends of the Frame led a uh a crowdfunding campaign in uh paired with a uh grant program through the state of Vermont called Better Places um and the the deal was you have a crowdfunding campaign and if you hit the goal um you can unlock a two to one matching grant from the state if you don't hit your goal you you don't get the the matching grant and um I'm thrilled to report that uh we actually exceeded the crowdfunding goal we raised over $22,000 and unlocked a $40,000 grant uh all to to reinvest back into the frame this year and support programming um so you'll be seeing uh a number of things pop up in 2023 and I'll give you a quick rundown of those now really focusing on uh four main areas but all through the lens of um you know low cost but high impact to the greatest extent possible so free public amenities is huge things like um more of the swings working on bringing a free wifi hotspot uh to the frame as well as outdoor seating and tables uh art and activation is another one events and performances and kind of the backbone that um that makes a lot of these things possible is support infrastructure I'm actually kind of the most excited or or just as excited about the support infrastructure um we have some really cool things in the works and I won't go down the full list but there's some images here to um that kind of speak to some of the things that are um well underway and and we'll be showing up on site in the next couple months great thanks Zach having um Zach and and an organization like Friends of the Frame um be able to focus on a piece of one piece of infrastructure is really amazing um in our jobs at the city we have a lot of different things and priorities we're trying to manage so having someone that I can always call to say you know I need help thinking about this someone who's only thinking um about this one space has really I think helped it um move move forward um in an exciting way um our last slide here is just about um what's next um as you can see from Zach's slide we are planning continued collaboration with Friends of the Frame um that's going to help us do some proof of concept of how people are using the site what's needed there what's missing um and um something that Zach didn't go into a lot of detail on one piece of the infrastructure that's going to be there the summer is going to be kind of an ideas board um where the commute will be asking questions of the community and and getting responses about the kinds of things that would like to happen there or see there um and that will all help feed into um the second phase of design that's always been anticipated on this site um the middle bullet in there I that I mentioned a little bit earlier was the Water Works Park wayfinding where we want to make sure people um know about all of the you know all of the amenities at the northern waterfront and and how to get to it um this is the end of the presentation tonight um there and there's no action item here again um next week there will be a couple of budget amendment memos coming to board of finance that um will make clear that there's some additional money available from phase one from contingency and some other sources that came out of the audit um and so we are really excited to be able to be um able to move forward with phase two and I for folks um I'm not sure how many folks were on the council when the first project got approved but the um remediation was quite a bit more expensive than anticipated and so all of the things that had been anticipated in the first phase um were were not able to be constructed and and those were called phase one b I'm getting rid of the one b and just going um straight to two but um it's exciting that we have some existing city capital along um with the urban infrastructure investment not city capital but existing um Moran frame capital with the urban infrastructure money to kick start um an exciting design process for phase two and with support from parks foundation I think the opportunity to raise additional private capital to invest in the site so I think that's the end of our presentation again hope um happy to answer any questions people might have great thank you and thanks for thanks for both to both of you for being here um are there questions or our comments from the council and I'm looking on looking on zoom as well if I don't catch you just wave wave harder um doesn't appear that way please do not take that as a sign of not of our lack of excitement over this it's actually we are it was a wonderful presentation um are there any other are there any questions or comments from the council seeing none all right oh I'm sorry uh Mayor Weinberger great thanks President Paul um thank you Samantha and Zach for the presentations tonight it's exciting to be moving to this next stage I I did just want to amplify for counselors that um uh maybe haven't we've had some discussion of the Friends of Frame in the past but it's been quite limited I'm quite excited that Zach has stepped up and been able to generate this level of interest from from the community and secure additional funds if you look around the country at facilities that are sort of there's not anything out that it's quite like the Moran frame it is a unique installation but there are parks and municipal uh amenities like this in various places and very often the places that have become successful operating public spaces have some kind of nonprofit partner like uh Zach is is pursuing here with Friends of Frame so I think this is really uh exciting addition to the city's own efforts that we're going to have this kind of partnership and that the public is going to be able to start seeing more examples of that in as the weather warms up here in 2023 and with the summer ahead so thanks for laying out all out Zach great thank you Mayor Weinberger we'll go to Councillor Bergman so I'm just looking for a little more more connection between $600,000 that was in the previous presentation that related to the this project and this project which I don't see any indication of the $600,000 on there so maybe you can connect the dots for me sure so what we presented tonight was really um about what's happened to date and then the the work that Zach proposes unrelated to the $600,000 that's happening in parallel the $600,000 is for future investment in community infrastructure in the expanded waterworks park which includes Moran frame waterworks park the fishing pier and adog again that connectivity and some of the vision that was originally at the Moran frame that wasn't able to be realized because of the cost the initial cost of the remediation things like bathrooms shade structures skating being able to get up into the frame potentially like putting a roof so all of those um items that are were important ideas of the concept that weren't able to be built that that the how we're going to move forward is to do a new conceptual design phase that makes sure the frame is centered within waterworks park and that connectivity and hear from the public and through this proof of concept what's still needed there um to make this a true um you know truly successful community gathering space and public art okay well we'll look and see how this all progresses and this has to be spent uh by the end of 26 that's what I heard and has to be like committed by the end of 24 so that's that's a a serious engagement process you all have a number of serious engagement processes that's why we spread it out across departments yeah I probably should direct this question to to director pine to ask about the the capacity to engage in all this we've got we've got memorial we've got this we've got a host of other things so we have the capacity out if there's a a nod of a head I'll just reflect that I often hear how stressed and stretched our departments are and I'm always asking for more so I'm not even asking for more on this but I you know so I need to know that you all can do what is online to do thanks thanks for bringing that up I think that's another example of how the partnership with Zach and friends of the frame um can help the city accomplish some of its goals to have some capacity to help again with community engagement and Zach is designing opportunities for community input in his work over the summer that'll be connected to our phase two design work again to have some partnership and collaboration outside the outside the walls of our city staff I look forward to seeing it great thank you Councillor Berkman are there any other Councillors with questions or comments for either Samantha or Zach do not see any so I guess we'll close that off and thank you both for taking the time to be here and we'll look forward to share you being able to share the PowerPoints I think they were extremely well done thank you thank you um we're not quite at 6 30 and as per our new council rules we do still have the public forum at a time certain but that time certain does change or could change so tonight it's at 6 30 since we do have a little bit of time um we do have another meeting that we need to attend to that's the local control commission meeting um so we'll recess the council meeting at 6 20 and call to order the local control commission meeting at the same hour the first item on our agenda is item 1.01 uh is there a motion to adopt the agenda so moved thank you Councillor Traver seconded by um Councillor McGee is there any discussion on the motion to adopt the agenda seeing none all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye aye any opposed please say no uh that motion passes um brings us to our second item which is the consent agenda uh Councillor Travers is there a motion to adopt the consent agenda and take the actions indicated so moved thank thank you Councillor Traver seconded by Councillor McGee any discussion on that motion uh thank uh yes Councillor Travers uh I did just want to without getting into debate on the items um clarify one item which is that uh the the single item on the consent agenda is listed as one item but there's quite a few uh renewals included underneath that which is all for second and third class liquor license and outside consumption permit renewals for 2023 2024 before the license committee over two meetings there was some discussion specifically to second class liquor licenses which are the liquor licenses that uh stores that sell beer and wine have here locally and there was some discussion around whether or not um the opening time for those second class establishments should be delayed until up until 9 a.m for the sake of clarity here I wanted to clarify that um the item that's on the agenda this evening does not extend the start time for those second class establishments until 9 a.m that the agenda item will allow those establishments to open at the time that they wish to open within state parameters which allows beer and wine sales to begin as early as 6 a.m and to go until midnight thank you Councillor Travers for that clarification are there any other Councillors to wish to speak to this motion seeing none we'll go to a vote uh all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye any opposed please say no uh that motion passes and with no other business and seeing no objection we'll adjourn the local control commission meeting at 6 23 and return to the to our council meeting at 6 23 um so we left off at items um and uh at the public forum um it is not quite 6 30 so we'll go on to item number four which is climate emergency reports are there any Councillors who have a climate emergency report to share uh count uh mayor Weinberger thank you President Paul um just wanted to give a couple brief updates I participated in the kickoff earlier today of UVM research week which is highlighting opportunities for UVM and Vermont clean and resilient energy consortium efforts this is a statewide effort that involves Vermont utilities and related industries working with UVM um committed to advancing the state's clean energy goals through use inspired research and and this conference going on at UVM is really focusing on the kind of nexus between that consortium and alumni opportunities for students how basically more clean energy jobs are created here in the state both to advance Vermont's work and to have some impact on the broader national national debate national models it was an exciting event to be at and there was a lot of there was high attendance a lot of energy there um I also want to just look ahead to Earth Day which is coming right up and share that BED is going to once again have a table on the marketplace that will include various electric vehicles the BED Chevy Bolt and various e-bikes there for people to have a chance to touch and feel those those electric vehicles and ask questions about them and and the opportunities that BED is currently presenting to help Burlingtonians electrify everything from their bikes and cars and lawn mowers to their their heating plant within within their businesses and homes so that's again coming right up before we meet again I thank you Mayor Weinberger we'll go to Councillor Bergman so you all have heard me talk about uh sustainable transportation funding and I wanted to just tell you that I think through the efforts of lots of folks not the least of which this council uh participated in uh the legislature has within the the T bill the transportation bill a provision to not only extend fair free for another six months so that they can develop a system by which greater equity can take place on the the mass transit system that we've got but that um there be um a study um the the Planning Commission Regional Planning Commission in consultation with the Vermont Public Transportation Association and the League of Cities and Towns will be providing the House and Senate committees on transportation with a written recommendation on dedicated funding source a dedicated funding source for a local match required of public transit providers no later than December 1st of 2023 and that will consider the recommendations developed in the Regional Planning Commission's 2021 transit study that we talked about before so the game is still on and it requires us to participate um you know continually because it isn't right that our people can't get from Essex to Burlington on the bus after you know what five or six o'clock is it Milo something like that something six six six thirty and so um and to get a host of other places and we don't have um sufficient head times in the North Winooski Avenue corridor you'll hear a little bit of commentary I'm sure later today so this council and this administration need to continue to be pressing for sustainable and adequate funding for mass transit if we are going to crack the nut that is the greenhouse gas contributions for transportation because we will not electric vehicle ourselves out of this climate crisis and this transportation crisis we need mass transit so this is good news and it's an invitation for us to continue to to be working on it so I want to thank you all for the participation thus far and hope that we can continue to do that thanks thank you Councillor Bergman any other climate emergency reports seeing none we will close out that item before we return to public forum I was reminded by our clerk that the motion that was made this was my mistake the motion that was made to adopt our agenda should have been a motion to adopt our agenda with the amendments so if Councillor McGee I don't know that it's necessary well we can ask our city attorney I don't know that it's necessary that they be read but we should have the motion to be to adopt the the adopt the agenda as amended do we need to read the amendments no okay so Councillor McGee um are you comfortable with your motion being to amend to adopt the agenda as amended I am thank you um as well to Councillor Barlow thank you very much so we'll we will note that um going and I don't know that we I don't know acting city attorney sturd event do we need to um take a vote on that to amend the amend yes okay so the motion is to adopt our agenda as amended um are all those in are is there any discussion on that motion um seeing none all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye any opposed please say no uh so we are operating with the agenda as amended thank you very much um we will go on to the public forum as it is now 6 30 and uh before we get to that there are a number of people that uh wish to speak during public forum uh please keep in mind if you're here in con toys um there is a system in front in the table in front of in the in front of us that has three lights the a green light will shine when you begin speaking second yellow light light when you have 30 seconds left and the last light will shine when your time is up we ask that you please complete your comments when the sound and light indicate your time is up so that everyone is given the same amount of time to speak uh we do have a hybrid system for public forum so if you wish to speak in person there are forms um to my right in the back of the in the back corner of the room uh please bring them to the clerk to my right in the front of the room and she will or he will give them to me um then also if you wish to speak remotely via zoom you can do so by going to burlingtonvt.gov city council slash public forum and there's a form that will come up when you complete the form your answers will come into a spreadsheet which i can see um so that way i know to be able to call on you um and it has been our practice that burlington residents will have first priority will go to burlington residents in con toys who have submitted a form in person and then to burlington residents online then back to non burlington residents in person and then uh to non burlington residents that are joining us online and the only request that we do have is that when you are speaking during public forum to please use respectful language we do want to remind everyone this evening um and online that there are families who watch our council meetings and that is their connection to civic engagement teaching their children about city government so to please keep that in mind and use respectful um discourse please direct your comments to me as the chair and not to anyone else at this table and please refrain from personalizing your comments again we do want to hear what you have to say and it is a lot easier for us to listen if you speak respectfully uh the first person in con toys is romeo von herman to be followed by um james charard welcome romeo good evening thank you just make sure you're that yeah it's on yes thank you very much and good evening my uh president today president's brother today is to uh first of all uh madam president mr mayor the council uh the administrative team uh my presence in two folds one of course is to congratulate our incoming uh counselors uh shannon counselor shannon as well as uh counselor burlowe and uh the new counselors i'm super excited about the ward aid we have a brand new counselor council king is here so we can't wait uh to help her out and make sure that you know that she has all the help that she can get at our ward um as well as elect also welcome counselor tim for the eastern district and um counselor milo grant and all other counselors as well on the second point that i wanted to make is the public transit um uh awareness as well as a way to find the city to help the mass transit uh for for disclosure i do work in the public transit system myself and um i'm generally concerned the level of um relationship that the city has with uh mass transit in general and how much the city really wants to pursue uh climate resiliency through public transit system um one of the things i would like to see is the city investing more resources when it comes to public transit and again i'm saying this as a private citizen not as an employee of green mount transit just for disclosure purposes because um that would be needed by the management to be here in person but to uh long story short i'm hoping that based on what uh council bergman and grant stated early briefly um it takes a lot for folks to get around and uh that could very well play as part of lack of resources available thank you for the time thank you so much our next speaker is james charard to be followed by uh holly bushnell good evening evening i've timed these out a couple times i'm out about two and a half minutes but i'll try to keep it to two uh thank you um madame president mayor and counselors uh thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening regarding brillington's housing prices the full version of my written comments are on the consent agenda and i'll do my best to hit the core points with my time here before you now the city of brillington well before i do so i'd like to start out with a land acknowledgement since the city of brillington and the entirety of its housing stock is located upon unceded territory stolen from indigenous abinacchi people and settle that consent as we reckon with the existing housing crisis i would ask that brillington communicate with the state recognize tribes to best understand what actions those communities believe brillington should be taking at this juncture i applaud the mayor's recognition of the housing crisis in his recent commentary vermont's housing crisis demands structural however the supply side approach which state legislators and governor are also focused on fails to address a crucial component of this issue that of housing demand from wealthy investors as context it's worth noting that since 1960 medium household incomes have gone up only 19 percent while medium home prices have gone up 250 percent effectively pricing out average americans from the housing market according to the publicly available brillington tax book roughly 21 percent of single family through trot through triplex homes the focus on my comments tonight are non-owner occupied without proper regulation new housing stock is likely to be purchased by investors at a similar rate if we continue to allow investors to purchase and retain brillington's limited housing stock we through an action perpetuated system that commodifies a human necessity when investors buy homes they alone profit off shelter and when homes are owner occupied entire communities benefit so for brillington to benefit as a whole we need to reduce the investor demand of housing how we could accomplish this is simple brillington could choose to tax non non-owner occupied investment properties at a rate which would incentivize the investor to sell to an owner occupied individual individual in contrast to building more homes by freeing up the currently lost housing stock owned by investors brillington would gain perhaps 1600 residential properties which could transition to owner occupied housing in my way may i have 15 more seconds thank you of course in my written comments i provide a list of recommended actions including items such as rent control a non-owner occupied property designation and a significant strategic tax rate increase to these non-owner occupied homes i do hope the council considers these suggestions as a holistic approach to the housing crisis in closing i'd like to share a joke which through a comedic lens succinctly gets to the absurdity of the housing crisis in my mind and john olifers recent last week tonight episode he started the segment by saying our main story tonight considers home ownership so if you're under 35 honestly the story isn't for you it'll never be for you you will never own a home sorry that is the deal you made when you were when you decided to be born after 1988 i do hope brillington and the council considers this holistic approach to our housing crisis as you move forward thank you thank you very much uh we'll go on to holly bush now to be followed by liz curry good evening good evening president paul mr mayor counselors thank you for this opportunity to speak i am here before you again in regards to orlandos bar and lounge tonight on your deliberative agenda you get to decide if orlandos will have their permanent hours extended to midnight on fridays and saturdays for the coming season i would like to strongly urge you to reject this change the last time mr mossman and myself came and excuse me and i became before you you decided that given the repeated number of times orlandos outdoor entertainment exceeded their permitted hours they would have their entertainment permits suspended from april 15th to april 30th 2023 on the night of april 15th the band mosey beats performed at orlandos this performance did take place inside but was still audible from my home the night prior april 14th the band's lazy bird and sneaky miles performed on the front patio at the usual overwhelming volume no sound dampening has been attempted ultimately however i'm not here to ask you to revoke or further suspend orlandos entertainment permit though i do feel mr mossman's blatant disregard for the rules and disrespect for the council's ruling warrant some further action i do not want to shut them down that said here's what my neighbor the neighbors that i have spoken to and i really want keep the hours as they are require the installation of sound dampening before performances begin the season and actually require the entertainment to stop off the correct time not five minutes late not 20 minutes late on time every time that's it that's all it would take to make things infinitely better for me and my neighbors i would like to note that my neighbors did email counselors mickey and grant on the 14th in regards to their issues with the volume of orlandos front patio stage that letter was attached along with this statement and an email to the full council and lori olberg like me they also requested sound dampening be required in the future i sincerely hope you take my and my neighbors recommendations to heart thank you so much for your time and consideration thank you thanks very much our next speaker is liz curry to be followed by beth sightler uh good evening thank you president paul i'm liz curry resident of ward three and um here speak in public form about the north windows ski avenue bike lane and that quarter i have lived in the old north end for 40 years i have worked in that neighborhood on and off during the same time period so that is the reason behind my passion for this issue i first want to express the thanks to the dpw and economic development staff they really dug in after we had kind of another round of public process after 2021 and um i think they made a huge effort to come to a meeting of the minds and try and move forward on the negative impacts the bike lane causes on low income people and businesses and the agencies that serve them in the end i think we agree that this corridor required and still requires more focus than other areas of the cities that have had bike lanes because of its multiracial multi-income and multi-purpose makeup this is one of the city's two lowest income census tracks and um i mainly want to address the impacts of the new parking proposal it creates a confusing and complex set of parking rules that don't exist in other neighborhood commercial districts and i think that's inequitable if you look at ethan alan north street seba whether it's publicly or privately on land there is far and away more parking without limits on incomes that do not have such a low income population and agencies trying to serve them and the only way to achieve the outcomes that are desired by this parking plan are to police the poor there will need to be ticketing there will need to be enforcement in order to achieve the outcomes represented in the memo you received and i think that's unfair not only reducing the parking spaces impacts that people are trying to act meet their essential needs at social service agencies but it also polices them thank you thank you very much our next speaker is best sightler to be followed by bruce wilson good evening thank you for having me i'm beth i live on north news ski avenue i live between pearl and north street where i've lived for 20 years something like that i'm also a patient of the community health center and um i've been on the board of board of directors at community health center for the last seven years something like that i'm also going to speak about the bike lanes um first of all i also want to um follow up with what liz was saying and gratitude for all the work that's gone into trying to figure this out i sincerely appreciate the effort that's gone into it by the city council by the department of public works i genuinely believe that people are trying to figure out how to make this work it's been hard to see the conflict between businesses and residents and social services and bike lane enthusiasts i don't think that in many other cases we would be on opposite sides of this discussion my frustration has been around communication it's been around engagement but especially uh about the the city's um not not continuing to honor its commitment to this area of the city there's been a significant investment in the old north end especially in this corridor and i would um i'm concerned about what's happening in terms of access to health care social services i'm concerned about what happens when somebody's working the third shift and they can't come home to park as liz was saying um you know these the parking regulations are confusing and difficult for people to follow so my request to you tonight is to establish some kind of a baseline to measure how this is going to work for the businesses and for the social service organizations who are there i i wonder what the impact is going to be on the revitalization zone i'm asking you to please revisit this and to hold yourselves accountable for this process to see how it is going to affect people thank you thank you very much our next speaker is bruce wilson to be followed by pike porter good evening bruce starting my time because i might not have might not have to present nothing um the vote that you guys made a vote just a minute ago about the alcohol um about um liquor store serving alcohol um opening the alcohol who's at 6 a.m right you did you made a vote on that what was it was it let's stay the same or yes stay the same yes thank you we most enjoy it when people walk away happy our next speaker is pike porter to be followed by robin loyde good evening pike welcome and congratulations to noon returning city counselors during the state of the city address the mayor stated that the un climate report paints a stark reality and we have no time to lose in this existential fight against the climate emergency in the same speech the mayor boasted that the airport is now the second busiest in new england discussed the housing crisis and encouraged a district heating proposal that will increase the city's greenhouse gas emissions by a hundred million tons excuse me a hundred a million tons but over 30 years since 1974 the city has leased over 280 acres of land for a dollar about two cents a year to the remont air national guard in return v tang has polluted nearby farms in the wanuski river with forever chemicals and v tang's f-35s produce around 236 000 tons of co2 annually based on the eis report these 280 acres could generate millions of dollars of income at least at market rate these acres could support a 35 megawatt community solar field and could house tens of thousands of residents and thousands of residential units by comparison city places creating 400 homes on a quarter acre the mayor stated we have a massive housing supply shortage because of v tang jet noise around 200 homes have been demolished and 44 acres of residential land sit empty and unusable finding a better use of these 200 acres would also allow hundreds of homes to return to the chamberland neighborhood in south burlington the mcneill generator is the single largest polluter of greenhouse gases in the state producing over 453 000 tons of co2 and 221 a 35 megawatt community solar owned field on these 280 acres could lower our dependence on this polluting source of energy and provide a means for renters and homeowners to buy into solar projects the mayor claimed that burlington is the and the world is safer today due to ukraine's repulsion of russian forces yet just last week v tang trained for an attack at the airport a target because of the nuclear capable f-35s the v tang lace expires in 2048 it's not too soon to begin now to look at other opportunities for this land if the serious uh the city is serious about the climate crisis and the housing crisis it needs to look for new tenants thank you thank you very much our next speaker is robin loy to be followed by uh chris gish the whistle in honor of this whistle blower who is daniel elsberg who um you've seen the email i sent to all of you he has been given a death sentence by his doctor he has cancer and who we in the peace movement want to honor by inviting the city council to declare april 24th to 30th daniel elsberg week before he dies elsberg has spoken out against nuclear weapons since he was a nuclear planner in the pentadon and first blew the whistle in 1971 most recently he has advocated the removal of icbms from the u.s. nuclear arsenal what are icbms they're called their intercontinental ballistic missiles uh it's important to know that there are three ways to destroy the russian people and the chinese people it's called the triad it can be done by missiles launched by submarines bombs dropped by bombers like the f-35 and these icbms which are tucked away in 450 hardened silos silos in states out west that can be launched in a few minutes upon hearing of an attack and provide so-called deterrence i.e. there's no way for either side to win elsberg raged against this madness all his life please go to his website daniel elsberg.com or to diffuse nuclear to read more about him and be sure to see the black blockbuster film oppenheimer this summer about the scientists who split the atom and their misgivings of the demon that they created thank you robin our next our last speaker in con choice is chris gish chris welcome thank councillor shannon for replying to my email earlier this afternoon thanks for doing that i'm glad to live in a city that takes climate change seriously and i see the 2021 ordinance which or the change to the code of ordinances which says that new buildings have to have a primary heating system that's renewable as a step in the right direction but right now that ordinance does defines renewable to include polluting fuels like liquid biofuels biomass and renewable gas and it's hard to get deep into the science on all those in two minutes but it's abundant and clear that all those cause at least as much harm to the climate and to our other ecological systems as the fossil fuels they would replace just recently in testimony at the state house we heard that the main source of rng renewable gas in the state which is the senica meadows landfill in new york has a higher carbon intensity than the fossil gas it would replace we also heard testimony that wood heat is more polluting per energy than coal per unit energy than coal and also is the primary cause of air pollution related health impacts in vermont not the kind of thing you want in a city um so i just would urge the council to make common sense changes to this code of ordinance i think it'll be likely coming up in the next year anyway because i know burlington electric and other people have intentions to make changes to that section of the code of ordinance so i would urge you to make these common sense changes to exclude these polluting biofuels and to also just take a minute and you can separate that issue from mcneil which there's also been a lot of discussion on but to just kind of keep it simpler and make these really straightforward changes i think we could all get behind for the climate thank you all right thank you very much uh there were no other uh no others that signed up to speak during public forum uh in con choice so and we do have one person who wishes to speak via zoom and that is uh sharon busher uh sharon i have found you and enabled your microphone you should be able to unmute and speak um president paul can you hear me yes we can okay i had problems the last time um i come before you to share some news from ward one that is sad for president paul and counselors bergman and shannon you will know this individual for the others maybe not but i want to report to you that jared wood passed away in march and jared was a long time resident ward one he was passionate about the city cared deeply if you served as a counselor he was your eyes and ears um on many issues but the other passion that he had was pedestrian safety and really felt that more focus with the bike pedestrian committee needed to be on the pedestrian component and not just on the bicycle component he saw lots of flaws in how we roll things out in burlington and felt that pedestrians were not getting their share he served on the dpw commission and prided himself as being one person who researched and brought forward the 25 mile an hour speed limit some may think oh boy do i dislike him but others may say well you know speed kills so he's made our community safer so i come tonight just to let you know about his passing the family is very private and they ask that you respect their privacy during this time um the and so i'm going to end with that but i did want to say that um i concur with what liz curry said and the woman from champlain from community health center i go along north winewski avenue i feel the city helped start those small businesses and now the city is almost putting a nail in the coffin by not providing the parking that they need to survive so i hope the council will think rethink what they're doing there thank you thank you very much Sharon and uh thank you for letting us know about uh about jared it would be hard to be a city councilor for any length of time over the past 10 years and not know not know jared um thank you again uh that is the last person who has asked to speak during public forum if there's anyone else in con toys or online who wishes to speak um you can just raise your hand and step forward uh seeing none we will close out that item and thank you to all who came to speak during public forum we will go on to um onto our consent agenda uh is there a motion to adopt the consent agenda as amended and take the actions indicated so moved thank you councillor McGee seconded by councillor shannon although is there any discussion on that motion uh seeing none all those in favor of the motion on the consent agenda please say aye aye any opposed please say no uh that passes um and thank you uh we'll move on to item number six this is our deliberative agenda and we have eight items on our deliberative agenda there are time limits on uh the last three um seeing that the others are license items um and we'll do our best to keep to the times on the agenda the first five items on our deliberative agenda are permit and license applications and the first is item 6.01 which is an outdoor entertainment permit renewal for a lando's bar and lounge for this item i'll go to the and for all of these five items we'll go to the chair of the licensed committee councillor shannon for a motion thank you president paul for the sake of debate i will move that we approve the 2023 2024 outdoor entertainment permit renewal for or lando's bar and lounge with all standard conditions and ask for the floor back after a second okay thank you so much councillor shannon is there a second to that seconded by councillor travers uh councillor shannon the you have the floor back um thank you president paul so we had our meeting i think last thursday um at the meeting um or lando's had uh requested to just renewal of their entertainment permit with the with the same hours um there was some discussion uh the licensee has come before us in the past and and argued that the reason that he they have been in violation of their permit is because it's difficult for them to comply with their permitted hours and they have asked us for extended hours which this council has denied them but the um license subcommittee was um sympathetic to that argument that that concept though that argument was not made to us at that time um the uh license committee decided to extend noted we had some discussion about the fact that this um licensee or permittee was um had their license suspended from april 15th which would be this saturday to april 30th we had that discussion on thursday um but the licensee committee um chose to extend their hours friday and saturday nights from 11 p.m to midnight and um i was not supportive of that amendment to their request the light the permittee was um uh i think enthusiastically supportive of that amendment understandably um i voted no on the amendment and i voted no on granting the permit with that amendment since that time um some things have changed which is that the suspension for the permit went into effect on saturday on saturday um i got a call complaining about noise um i called the burlington police department and they were able to send somebody down there and verified that there was a live band playing despite the fact that their entertainment permit had been revoked um in addition to that their doors um were open and the sound was emanating loudly from the establishment um into the patio and onto the street in the surrounding area which is why the neighbors were well aware of the violation of the suspension and the um and irritated by the noise so um i think that tonight we actually have a little bit different situation than we had on thursday when this was um referred to referred to um the full uh full council i would also so i want to bring attention to a couple specific things one is um this the language of the suspension is simple the city council hereby imposes a two-week suspension of the permit effective from april 15th through april 30th 2023 the reference to the permit is throughout this document the reference to the entertainment permit um the other thing that i want to bring to your attention is that every permit application um a permit every permit that we grant is subject to standards conditions standard conditions in the standard conditions uh the permit he understands and agrees that under the program it will not be exempt from the noise ordinance and may receive a noise ordinance violation ticket under the following circumstances a noise complaint by a resident is received by the burlington police department after 10 p.m. on sunday through thursday or after 11 p.m. on friday or saturday and two audible noises heard from inside the residence with its doors and windows closed and three permatee has its doors or windows open so this is the case for that there's not a difference between indoor and outdoor entertainment permits this is the conditions for all permits all entertainment permits um and the other thing um i would like to note is that the permittee advertise you know honestly i i didn't think we were going to have to babysit this i wasn't checking their facebook to see what they were advertising for events during the time that we suspended their entertainment permit but now that i know after saturday i went and looked and there's another event that's now scheduled for this thursday the 20th and at this event it says join us thursday at our land doors for a special edition of moon ppl expect to hear a variety of music as the night goes on as we ascend from low-key groovy jazz fusion in the early part of the night to wailing stank face explosions so i will leave it to all of you as to whether or not you want to continue to use city resources to babysit a permatee that cannot seem to follow any of the rules that we put in place time after time after time taking our time on the license committee taking this council's time and taking the time of our very limited police resources which we all know have they have better things to do than this and in fact most of time they're not going to be able to do this so then it's left to the to the rest of us to the community every permatee is expected to work with their neighbors to make sure that they can get along with their neighbors i live next door to an establishment that has live music dj music karaoke and they're in the neighborhood and they're well aware of that and they're well aware that even when it's really hot inside they tell the patrons sorry we gotta keep the doors and windows closed and sometimes i'm one of those patrons it's not my favorite rule as a patron but we all get it because we have to get along as a community and part of that is following our rules so my vote on this will be no thank you thank you councillor shannon uh are there other councillors that wish to speak to this permit just a grant my apologies and i i i see you councillor hightower councillor grant and then we'll go to councillor hightower thank you i may have opened up a can of worms but i was the one that suggested that they go to midnight i did not know the the full history um a couple of things i i want to make it clear why i suggested they go to midnight and one of the reasons is that i think live music is important and having a variety of styles represented um in burlington in particular downtown burlington is important um to support the vitality of our downtown community and to give people reasons to come into downtown because we have other live venues in south burlington and winewski and other places so that was part one of my thinking you know we're still still coming out of covet we still don't have businesses operating at the hours that they used to um so i saw it as a positive thing and the other um issue that i thought about was from a community safety standpoint um as we all know we're in the midst of a drug crisis and we have a lot of a misuse of drugs and a lot of dealing of drugs downtown there have been a lot of complaints from visitors from residents from property owners about the drug activity and and including in some of the alleys that we have including loss in lane so my thinking is um in general throughout burlington the more positive activities that we have and the more people that we have coming in it it will help to alleviate some of that other activity so that was really what i was also thinking um for the activity of loss in flame so to make a long story short i've gotten more information um i appreciate some of the emails that i received from concerned residents that were affected by the noise level i did read the decision um which mentioned sound mitigation being discussed previously and i've actually talked to the manager today and say okay this was discussed what happened within we had a conversation about how to move forward um to to really take a look at what their options were um considering the setup of the stage which has to be set up and then broken down for outdoor performances um so i'm getting involved in that and um we'll also keep in touch with some of the residents um around this so i would also mention having read the decision and i have to go back through those uh terms and conditions which we had requested after our um license committee meeting last week the the decision i guess i would say i didn't i didn't take it as clear cut because there's two permits there's an indoor permit and there's an outdoor permit and the decision refers to the permit singular not permits um and it doesn't specify indoor or outdoor and so i can understand i can understand the thinking that since the complaints were largely around the outdoor performances that it referred to the outdoor permit so i do think we need to give some leeway and just say now that we've discussed this we know this this going forward but um i don't think there was an i understand why there is no implication that it affected the indoor permit because they have two permits um that may affect in the future if we do future decisions where um the permittees have the two licenses that the decisions definitely specify one the other or both and um finally i given the weather it's not a surprise that the doors are open there were the i was downtown there were doors open everywhere including other places that were playing music that spilled out so i'm just not i i definitely understand it is an issue and i definitely feel yeah the police department doesn't normally doesn't have the resources to um respond to these noise complaints um so i i do agree with that and i will leave it at that thank you very much thanks councillor grant we'll go to councillor hightower and then to councillor travers yeah and i'm sorry i missed the larger conversation that we had on this um a couple months ago but i'm curious um yeah i guess i can't tell from the materials that we have how much of a nice you two of myself um i can't tell from the materials that we had have what the i guess i don't know if it's on applicant but what orlando's stance is on um on this so it sounds like was there a stance that they are confused or was that just like assumption of commissioner grant have they not followed the conversation i'm just curious as to what happened from their side so councillor i know that or if the applicant is in the room so councillor hightower the applicant is in the room and as well we do have a assistant city attorney mclanahan joining us via zoom as well um did you want to respond to that please if you could come to the table and identify yourself thank you thank you sir here again over this but um if you could just use the microphone and just press the button in front of you thank you first time um so can you repeat the question one more time please and your and your name sir i'm my name is shambove i'm one of the owners of orlando's barn lounge great thank you everyone all right uh councillor hightower can you repeat the question yes sorry because i'm not on the license committee i haven't heard the testimony and that's not part or your testimony and it's not part of the thing what was so these restrictions were put in place pretty publicly we had there was a big meeting on the council as to what the restrictions were so um i guess i'm confused as to how you could have not met the that two week period um and we're just like an explanation as to what happened a complaint that uh existed from an outdoor uh live entertainment show we do have two permits we do we pay for both of those permits separately um if you look at the language it's uh of the the summary of all that and then the hearing of the decision itself it clearly refers to going past the 10 30 and 11 p.m. time uh nominally uh which was kind of the source of the complaint so clearly that's what we were talking about was the outdoor entertainment permit and i uh just i interpreted that as just just in regards to the outdoor uh outdoor entertainment permit uh that being said we weren't like trying to pull any workarounds or anything like that we just were continuing to do business we have an indoor permit the language really didn't specify i think with the variables uh in the situation itself it was clearly interpreted easily interpreted as uh as such so um and then it was 88 degrees on saturday there's multiple businesses in that building it's a commercial building the doors became a drawer i saw the officer approach i had a feeling what was coming and i immediately shut the doors and made sure they stayed shut and uh so that was that was an accident in an oversight um and so that's where we're at great and then if i could just ask one following question which is um counselor shannon's made a very good point that this has taken an inordinate amount of time in terms of the neighbors it's taken an inordinate amount of times from the commission and from this council um and i guess what are you planning on doing differently to make sure we don't see as much of you in the future and or that we don't remove these permits all together well that was nice to walk into the subcommittee meeting the other day and again i went in just to request renewal um i didn't want to ruffle any feathers any further uh and we were just gonna work on you know maintaining those hours and in compliance for the summer and then we had some um unexpected support and with the idea that if we did have another hour added just on friday and saturday nights not any other parts of the week um that it would help us mitigate that kind of risk and um kind of shorten the potential for error so that we could you know continue to just provide music to our lovely city and that was kind of the idea behind that because it really the the the hours that the things really work is between about eight and eleven or nine to twelve and that's when we really pull in all of our all of our customers and that's when our crowd is and we were just hoping for a little little support there and uh so here we are and then moving forward uh speaking with uh mellow grant today um we were gonna formulate a plan to mitigate more sound everything and and i know in the past that was on the agenda and um you know that became more of a diff difficult kind of idea and uh build but i think we have some ideas moving forward which uh i was brainstorming today about moving the stage kind of under the under an area of the building where it might not project as much towards some of the neighbors that have complained and also um there's a i was researching and you could build some isolation boxes for some of the the loud guitarists i suppose that where i assume most of that is coming from um you know sometimes they're they get a little excited up there so if i if i create um these boxes that are isolation boxes i can mitigate that sound a little more thank great thank you did you have any other questions councillor hightower i do not okay thank you so we'll go to councillor travers and then to councillor bergman uh thanks president paul um so thinking back well first of all let me say that i agree with the points made by councillor hightower and councillor shannon with respect to uh city resources we i think we've spent i think we can all agree we've spent too much time on our land i was including the applicant um and hopefully uh we can move beyond it here this evening um looking back to the hearing that we had with respect to the neighbor complaint um personally i i do believe our intent was that the entertainment permit was in reference to both the indoor and outdoor entertainment and that all entertainment would be shut down during that two-week period and the reason why i say that is because there was quite a bit of discussion between us and the applicant with respect to how a potential suspension or revocation of the license could impact the business and perhaps even um shutting the business down and so i think in in large part the reason why we decided to to limit it to a two-week period where there wouldn't be any entertainment was to um put something into place that would not uh have resulted in in those sorts of uh consequences um all that said i i agree in in looking back at the decision that it's not 100 clear in looking at the decision that we're referring to both indoor and outdoor entertainment permits um i honestly think our ordinances don't even draw a distinction between outdoor and indoor entertainment permits i think after spending a year on the license committee i would like us as a council to look back at the entertainment permitting process to bring some greater clarity to that for um all applicants um and so i whereas the applicant in appearing before this council in the past has given us some reason to not offer them the benefit of the doubt i'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt here that you were acting uh in in um in good faith to comply with the order here and that's in part because the applicant uh mr levay did come to the license committee i'd say uh significantly more cordially than the applicant has come in the past expressing sincere eagerness to avoid our running into uh future issues here and so i do give the applicant the the benefit of the doubt here um that said i well let me just say one other thing council grant you weren't alone obviously it took two votes on the license committee to extend the applicants hours until midnight and i joined you in extending the hours until midnight and that's in part because um whereas i took some exception to the way in which the applicant presented to the council some of the arguments they were making with respect to how their closing time compared to other businesses with outdoor entertainment in the area um uh compared and in looking at other outdoor entertainment permits in the downtown area admittedly not every business that has an outdoor entertainment permit uses it but i believe orlando's outdoor entertainment permit ends earlier than any other business downtown um and the arguments that were made by the applicant with respect to they're having to close up shop and end at 11 while other applicants downtown within a block or two away still have outdoor entertainment permit going still making noise outdoors as late as as 12 30 i think even one applicant is allowed to go until 2am downtown with respect to outdoor entertainment that that argument resonated with me and so i mentioned that at the license committee um that if going until midnight could truly avoid our running into this situation again that i was open to uh extending the hours and when councilor grant made the motion to extend until midnight um i joined uh my sense though is that the votes are not here on this council right now uh to agree with councilor grant and i in in going until midnight and i'm i'm giving the applicant the benefit of the doubt uh i will admit though i don't get out all that often but i did happen to be out on saturday night um and it was pretty loud coming out of orlando's and i don't know if the doors came a jar as you say or uh if it was for the weather um but uh you know they were they were both wide open and the door going downstairs was open and the music was was pouring out of there and we've received additional neighbor complaints since then and so um you know i i want to vote in favor of this permit my sense is that the votes are not there to go until midnight i'm about to make a motion to put the closing time on friday and saturday back until 11 p.m but i suppose what i would want to say before making that motion is that uh i still recognize the arguments with respect to your permit ending time as compared to other businesses and what i want to say personally here is that i still remain open to down the road a permit time later than 11 p.m i'm going to make the motion to 11 p.m i hope it has the support such that we can get your permit approved tonight um and what i would encourage the applicant to do would be to certainly stick to the 11 p.m ending time um but also to work with neighbors um to see if perhaps there's a more collaborative cooperative approach to coming back with a later ending time to work with other folks about maybe installing some sound mitigation and dampening equipment and you know you don't to the evening and and i'm willing to bet you that if you somehow were able to secure the support of those neighbors that have had concerns in the past um that there may be an opportunity for you to move forward there uh so with those comments in mind i would i would make a motion um to amend the permit to move the uh end time on friday and saturday back to 11 p.m uh thank you councillor traver so we have a an amendment to the motion to change the permit to end on friday and saturday evenings at 11 p.m uh is there a second to that motion i'll second that thank you councillor grant uh is there any discussion and actually also wanted to acknowledge um uh assistant city attorney mclanahan um i was hoping that you might be able to speak uh to the application of the suspension of the suspension to indoor permits would you be able to speak to that just because there i think there is a certain amount of confusion about what the um and that's not necessarily completely germane to the to the amendment but if you could speak to that i'd appreciate it sure thank you president paul so what i will say is that it was what i heard from this council sitting in its capacity as a quasi judicial body in deciding this matter is that it was the intention for there to be no entertainment at orlandos during the two week suspension period um in drafting the decision i thought that was clear it appears that reasonable minds are differing as to the clarity of of the the decision that was issued by the council what i will say also is that as councillor traver said there is no distinction currently under our ordinance as it relates to indoor versus outdoor entertainment permits for some historical reason i have not yet gotten to the bottom of um we do have two separate forms for indoor and outdoor entertainment um however again i would note under the ordinance that it it really does appear that there should be just one permit for entertainment with conditions as necessary to include conditions on indoor outdoor if the council feels necessary so in sum i would say it was my understanding the intention of the council was to put a total ban on an entertainment for a two week period um and that the ordinance currently does not make a distinction as to indoor outdoor entertainment great thank you so much uh assistant attorney mclanahan point of information yes i'm just curious whether the um the permits that are in place right now for this current year indoor and outdoor however they're configured whether there is any difference in the hours on either of the permits that actually are in place presently presently okay well our indoor permit goes till 2 a.m. and our outdoor permit is 10 30 on weekdays in 11 p.m. on weekends and then if you look at the language of the decision in summary okay i just i yeah i i i got i got the the information on the decision i didn't have that that other information isn't here so there are in fact two permits and they have different times okay thank you very much uh sure councillor bergman um so we have a um we have a an amendment to the motion to change the time for the permit to end on friday and saturday evenings at 11 p.m. so we should be talking about that amendment are there any other councillors who wish to speak to that amendment um my apologies councillor carpenter oh well this point of clarification since i'm confused about whether it's one permit or two but i'm hearing there's two distinctions they have a current indoor indoor permit standing at 2 a.m. and so is the discussion just on how far or how long they can be outdoors or is it on both permits we are only talking about the outdoor entertainment so there are even though the ordinance is not clear there are in fact in reality two permits yes any other councillors the wish to speak to the amendment to go back to the 11 p.m. uh councillor McGee thank you president paul and thank you for being here today sean um i am supportive of this amendment uh i was uh not supportive of extending the hours i've heard from a number of constituents who uh were supportive of uh orlanders being continued to operate until 11 p.m. but um absent any efforts to dampen the sound uh that it would substantially impact their ability to sleep and um and so you know i like councillor travers would be open to uh exploring that extension in the future and would certainly like to see some progress made to dampen the sound in the patio there thank you thank you councillor McGee uh well we'll we'll go to a vote on the amendment so uh we do have people joining us via zoom and it does not appear as though this will be unanimous so we will go to a roll call vote councillor barlow yes councillor bergman yes councillor carpenter councillor doherty doherty councillor doherty yes councillor grant yes councillor hightower yes councillor king councillor McGee yes councillor shannon yes councillor travers yes city council president paul yes eleven eyes one absent well i guess i was wrong about the unanimous thing we but we went through the exercise nonetheless so we're on to the uh we've changed the we've changed the motion to um amend from midnight to 11 p.m on friday and saturday evenings uh doesn't appear as others anyone else who wishes to uh councillor bergman so my recollection of our decision was that it was for no um no entertainment at all so i can now see based on the evidence regarding the two permits where there could be confusion um and that dampens my amazement that anybody could just thumb their nose at uh an order um that says you can't have any entertainment and then just go ahead and do that so i'm very pleased that there's at least a reasonable basis by which you could have you know acted the way that you did so um that said there still continue to be serious problems related to the entertainment noise coming out of your establishment in a relationship to neighbors not the least of whom uh live um in the bha housing not that far away um i don't think that i can support this as currently constituted without there being greater protections this noise dampening has been talked about for a really long time dare i use her hyperbole to say time immemorial it's been talked about for so long um and there needs to be action on that so i i think there may be some movement to get to action i would um move therefore i can wait to let other people weigh in before but my in my inclination is to move to table to allow there to be some continued conversations so that some actual work can be done to solve this problem upfront instead of hoping that you all will make business decisions that are good for the neighbors and not necessarily good for your business i i i think that you know that's part of what regulation is supposed to do is sort of make these things work for the the large comprehensive um interest of the people so um i will if there's nobody else who would like to speak then i would i would move to table but if there is i'm willing to stop and you know and do that afterwards i appreciate that because emotion to table is not debatable as you know um we'll we'll we'll wait on that and go to councillor shannon and then come back to you if you wish thank you president paul i just had a quick question and i apologize for not um alerting you to this in advance but i didn't know in advance because i don't usually i don't follow you on facebook i did not know that um that there was a plan to ascend to willing stank face explosions on thursday night so i'm wondering what is the um plan now that the council has clarified the intention we've heard from the city attorney now what is the plan for being compliant with the um suspension did we confirm that the that the interpretation of the hearing decision was unanimously the entirety of the entertainment both entertainment um permits there has been nobody at this table that has expressed anything but clarity that this meant that there would there was to be no um entertainment i just find i just find that hard to interpret because the if you read the description of the initial problem it was completely based on the 10 30 11 o'clock hours outside it had nothing to do with inside and insides never caused any issue before so it sounds like that's going forward is that well no i just wanted i wanted some clarification because i didn't quite understand um what was the unanimous decision because if you read through it it's really ambiguous i don't know if um if there is a way um at this this is not exactly what's on the floor for a decision this decision was previously made by many of us but not all of us at the table um so i don't know what the process is for clarifying that i don't know if that's something that we should know before voting on the permit which is why i wanted to raise it and i thank you for council bergman um giving us that opportunity um if a city attorney wants to weigh in on that i'm i'm interested in in the ideas of others thanks yeah so if uh assistant uh city attorney mclanahan if you can um perhaps weigh in on that question that would be great and then we'll go after we'll go to council grant sure president paul i'll give some initial thoughts and then i'll look to acting city attorneys sorry can you hear me now yes i was muted um i'll weigh in initially and then i will look to acting city attorney sort of it who's in the room as well to see if she has any other thoughts um i would say generally i would equate what the applicant is asking for is essentially uh clarification um requesting a clarification from um the council on its order typically the way that that would work is that the council would then um provide that clarification if it feels that its current order is not necessary so i think it would have the ability to do that verbally um this evening by vote and then follow up um in writing after um after the meeting tonight that's the process i would suggest and again i would i would look to acting city attorney sort of in to see if she has any other thoughts on that if you could clarify and just spell out what you feel is the process for us um i i would consistent with uh assistant city attorney mclanahan i believe that the the council could clarify that this evening if they wish to okay before we go to council grant counselor shannon you still have the floor thank you so um just kind of the mechanics of how that would work do we work would we vote on the outdoor entertainment permit and then make a second motion um on the clarification of the existing suspension is that practice kind of a practical way to get through it yes i think that's probably the cleanest okay thank you you're welcome thank you thank you councillor shannon um we'll go to councillor grant and then councillor hightower hi so um decision was before my time so to speak but as someone who looked at the decision because i wanted to understand all the issues at play i didn't find it clear um i made the same assumption uh there are land those said that it only referred to the outdoor permit because they have two permits they were issued two permits and the decision refers to permit singular i think that's an issue and i think that um it is something that we need to to look at do we start to uh renew everyone under one permit with conditions for indoor and outdoor um yes we can certainly do that to avoid something like this in the past but they in fact have two permits and the decision refers to permit singular i think that's that's a problem thank you thank you councillor grant we'll go to councillor hightower yeah and i apologize i'm not trying to um look up things but can somebody explain to me the um timelines that we're talking about so if we table this what first of all it is my so i was not i did not vote um on the last issue because i was not present i think i'm not i wasn't present for the debate um but i did have from the summary of the debate i did understand that it was the council's intent to um have both of the permits um on hold for two weeks i'm not sure with what this means with um tabling this item one what that does to the two-week hold if we're going to revote on having that at a different timeline since we've now missed some of the days um and what that means when the current permits expire so before i would feel good about a vote to table i would need to understand what the implications of that vote would be great um thanks councillor hightower so i believe the the illusion the discussion about a motion to table was on the motion that is in front of us that has nothing to do with the order and the two-week suspension is that correct councillor bergman that's why that's why he was giving other people the opportunity to speak because once we make a motion to table on the motion that is already out there it's the there is no further debate um and a motion to table as we all know is not for a time certain um it is until we decide to take it and put it back on the table um are there so maybe to clarify my question is when does the current when does the current um permit end yeah license ends uh yes councillor shannon april 30th april 30th okay and then we have not talked at all about the two-week suspension because it was reasonable minds i think to use haley's language we're unclear about what that meant um does that mean that we're just going with the period that we originally had we have just had any discussion about that so i guess i want to throw that out and then i'm not sure what it means to not have the permit especially i assume our next meeting is on the first of may yes okay thank you okay so we're going to go to we're going to go to councillor barlow and then councillor carpenter and if we want to come back we come back to councillor bergman thank you for your patience councillor barlow thank you president paul um i had a question about the sound mitigation efforts that you said were possible and being considered right now i think you had mentioned one was to move a stage and the other one was to create isolation boxes how long would it take you to affect those changes immediately and so that's something you could do it's something that i would probably experience it would uh have a learning curve and then it would improve with time so like every band's different every band has different size amp like amplifiers would have to maybe build one and that could take them all take take them be have multiple uses you know it's um it'd be it'd be a learning process but i would spearhead it right away are these isolation boxes something you would construct and have on premise uh yeah basically they're just there are boxes with sound padding in them i just learned about them recently kind of a self-taught sound guy since i started this business so it's not something that a trade that i was in two prior so it's the whole the whole the pivot as a whole as a result of covid was we never actually had an outdoor uh entertainment area but we pivoted during covid and then realized that it was like a very beautiful um and revenue driving situation so we were trying to keep it and so we've been slowly trying to improve it and tiptoe around any kind of further situation like this um and then also to say like depending on this the the decision on that on the two weeks whether it's indoor and outdoor or both we'll definitely outdoor i'll just let you know that we didn't have any we don't have anything scheduled for the next two weeks like that's something that we obviously were had a hundred percent uh intent to comply with um obviously we you know we still need to produce revenue so we're just hoping to instill i hope that we can have indoor uh entertainment the next two weeks and then if we table this that potentially could add another two weeks on to any entertainment purpose so some of these things some of these decisions could be kill shots as far as it's basic it's how my business runs it's my revenue model if you don't have music we don't really have as many patrons so uh i just wanted to put that out there thank you um and that's one of my concerns about tabling right now is that this is a business in in our downtown that is um predicated on having live music so i would be um concerned about us tabling it um when our would we couldn't make a decision prior to um the the current i guess the current um suspension it goes through April 30th and then we would meet again on the first and potentially could take it up there take it up then but a motion to table is for no time certain um so that that concerns me some that we're putting this business at risk um and i would be um more inclined to want to see if we couldn't work something out with the sound dampening as a condition of approval for the outdoor entertainment permit great thank you councillor barlow um i believe that we did have um councillor carpenter you were in the queue and then um councillor shannon did you want to speak before going to councillor bergman councillor shannon yes pat okay so we'll first we'll go to councillor carpenter um i have a couple questions and a couple of thoughts i actually did think there were two permits so i thought the one we suspended was the outdoor one so and i was at that meeting and i thought we were just talking outward and i'm still confused setting aside the two week suspension duh is orlano's asking for a renewal of both indoor and outdoor or just one or i'm just not clear my indoor permit's already been renewed can i do believe we're we did that tonight right okay we're only here to talk about one thing okay so it we're only talking about the renewal of um the outdoor permit and and just a comment out of historical sense there was never outdoor activity there years ago but there was a lot of activity in that alleyway over the years between stuff downstairs there were two major nightclubs upstairs which people seem to forget about um so it it's never been a quiet end of town i just want to like get that on the record and that doesn't mean we can't change things but it is part of the downtown and it over the years has had lots of live music more indoor but that drifts to the alleyway and i think as um council grant pointed out i think activity is a good thing thank you councillor carpenter we'll go to councillor shannon and then back to councillor bergman um thank you president paul i will say i actually am a big supporter of of having music downtown and very much enjoy it personally and um enjoy it in my own neighborhood even when i'm hearing it from my house sometimes late at night and and the patrons but there's just kind of limits to that and those limits are actually one of our permit requirements um and we can do that but you still have to be compliant with the noise ordinance you still have to work with your neighbors and that's where we've been running into trouble here um all i really wanted to say was you know as the chair of the licensed committee i can try and get a meeting together on the week of april 24th i think i have a meeting every night this week so i don't think i can do one this week but i can try um uh to find a date that uh all committee members and staff are available the week of april 24th which would enable us to bring it back as soon as may 1st i think so i'll just offer that thanks okay thank you councillor shannon so we'll go to councillor bergman thank you um so we approve the indoor um entertainment permit for this year so he will have you will have the opportunity to have live music indoors under a permit that was just granted um starting on may 1st i um believe that um the uh the decision that we made um was not clear enough because of the distinction between the the ending times on two different aspects of it so um i believe that um we were um thinking of there not being entertainment um for this period of time but i i'm willing to accept that the distinctions there made it a um it made it reasonable that it is was not willful in deciding to um uh not comply with uh with the suspension that being said we have had enough issues and do have particularly in light of what chair shannon has said uh in terms of scheduling we do have the opportunity to deal with the noise problem in a proactive way if we table to the may 1st meeting thereby giving the license committee the applicant and the neighbors a chance to work stuff out and get us back on the very day a monday night that um a new permit would be issued what that would mean is they effectively would not be able if we were to act would do haste and it all works out um they could have entertainment uh on tuesday the second as long as we acted in favor the mayor signs the uh the resolution and uh or doesn't veto the action and we all proceed to uh to go about our business in a happy way and i don't know do you have uh entertainment tonight no we're not open tonight so monday nights apparently you're not open so no loss there given all of that i i i i too love music um but i also believe that uh people need the the ability to sleep and it's essential for the public health and there's got to be a way for us to work it out and so with all of that in mind i would in the spirit of not letting leave in the barn doors open for the horses just to run free for another year i would move to table to the time certain of may first all right so that's not a that's not a motion to table that actually is a motion to postpone um to a definite time i'm not trying to kill this if if that's what tabling would be uh so perhaps the the terms uh it's tabling to a time servant if you want to call it postponing to uh to a time certain that's okay with me yeah that's fine the only difference is that it's debatable there you go so it doesn't matter so a motion to postpone to a definite time of may first uh requires a second so if there's a second seconded by councillor shannon and that is debatable so if there are counselors who wish to speak to the motion councillor barlow um and councillor and then we'll go to councillor grant councillor barlow since it's a postponement and not a table that i am i am now supportive of this we have a time certain to take this up again so thank you for that great thank you councillor barlow councillor uh grant and then we'll go to councillor travers i just want to make sure we set the business up for success because um as reference there's going to be a learning curve so i think you know part of our discussion that we had today was um having a better relationship with the neighbours we talked at length and i'm glad to hear that you have come with some specific ideas about that because i was like this is not an option we have to move forward price it out see what the options are for uh sound mitigation but they're not going to have any live bans till the end of the month um so they are not really going to have the opportunity to fine tune the mitigation so i think that's a fair concern i think if they're keeping in touch and i um offer myself up to help communicate with the owners as well and i'd like to go down and see what you're coming up with and how it sounds i would assume there's going to be some you know sound testing some sound checking on what the effects are checking with the neighbours what are you hearing but in order to do that they'd have to be ready to have the bans which i can't do during this final two weeks so i just want to make sure we're setting them up for success thank you thank you councillor grant we'll go to councillor travers and then if maybe we can go to a vote on the motion to take uh the motion to postpone to may 1st councillor travers uh so i'll be voting no on the motion and it's because i don't want to meet on orlandos again uh certainly if i have to we can have another license committee meeting but i don't want to i don't i don't we've we've we spent too much time on this tonight um we have a busy council calendar coming up i don't want this debate to continue on may 1st i think that um we've made our point i think the applicant has heard us that they need to be done by 11 p.m if we approve the permit i don't think they're going to want to face this council again if we have another hearing on them violating the permit at 11 p.m it sounds like the wheels are in motion to perhaps address sound mitigation and dampening and and if that is accomplished then we've expressed some openness or at least some of us have to them coming back before the council to extend their closing time on a later date and i i my hope is to never meet on orlandos ever again and so i'll be voting no on this and if it is voted down voting yes on the permit as amended thank you thank you councillor travers uh can we go to a vote councillor bergman just briefly um sound checks and testing out is not would not in my mind be a violation of the uh the decision because it's not going to be about patrons what you're doing is having entertainment so that patrons can come so i think that that work can be done in this period of time and uh there is a uh a maxim a political leader who i really didn't like but i um quote him all the time uh said trust but verify you will hear the uh of them you can't avoid it it bound to happen again the history proves that we should solve this and just deciding that we don't want to deal with it um now does not get us closer to a solution i think that we are actually for maybe the first time much closer to a solution that will work for everybody if we just give it a little bit of time and that's the verification that we need and i hope that y'all will vote yes on the motion to postpone so we can have the time to do it right thank you councillor bergman motion uh to put a motion has been made and seconded and we have debated um the motion to postpone to a date certain of may first uh with the assurance not that this is part of the motion but the assurance that the license committee would be available to be able to meet before the first of may did i say may first i think i did um uh so we're going to go to a vote on that motion um point of clarification yeah did i say not say may first i i committed to trying to get everybody the needed parties together that wasn't part of the motion anyway so i just that was my editorial comment um the uh let's go to vote on the motion before i say too much um all those in favor of the most we'll try this all those in favor of the motion to postpone to may first please say aye aye any opposed please say no okay all right so we have two no votes and i believe if i just simply identify them that's okay um so we would be that would be councillors grant and councillor travers um and i but councillor doryte you you voted yes i'm yes okay so uh so the motion is uh there's 12 10 uh 11 that would be uh nine to two and one i'm sorry if you could put me down as a no vote i'm sorry oh you are a no vote president president paul i do yeah yes okay we're gonna do a little poll vote councillor barlow uh yes councillor bergman yes councillor carpenter if you could just make sure that you're up near the microphone because i have had been people saying that they can't hear us thank you councillor doryte yes that's a yes yes yes councillor grist no councillor high tower no councillor king yes councillor mcgee yes councillor shannon yes councillor travers no city councillor president paul yes eight ayes three nays one absent thank you so that motion passes so there is a motion to postpone this item until may first uh thank you for being here um we're going to move uh councillor shannon um i would like to move to clarify the current license suspension um to be clear that this includes both the indoor and outdoor entertainment and that both are suspended um by the which was the intention of the prior um action of this council uh thank you councillor shannon so a motion is made to uh in uh to clarify that the uh past decision of this council was to uh apply to all music from april 15th until april 30th is there a second to that motion there is not a second to that motion so uh that fails for lack of a second um so we'll move on to we'll move on to the next item which is uh item 6.02 an indoor entertainment permit application for halvorsons up street cafe uh we'll go to councillor shannon for that motion thank you president paul the good news is your licensing subcommittee was um unanimous in all of our other decisions that are before this council tonight so i will move to approve the 2023 indoor entertainment permit application for halvorsons up street cafe with all standard conditions thank you councillor shannon is there a second to that motion uh seconded by councillor travers uh any discussion on that motion uh seeing none um all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye any opposed please say no uh that motion passes unanimously which will bring us to the last permit which on our agenda which is item 6.03 an outdoor entertainment permit for the elks club councillor shannon move to approve the 2023 2024 outdoor entertainment permit application for the elks club with all standard conditions thank you councillor shannon seconded by councillor travers uh is there any discussion on that motion seeing oh i'm my apologies councillor carpenter well number one i'm looking forward to it but number two um i'm just looking at their application and it's clear there's outdoor and indoor and different types so we definitely gotta tidy this up a little bit because um to me if you look at that application it distinguishes two types of licenses thank you councillor carpenter any others that wish to speak to the motion before us for the outdoor entertainment permit for the elks club seeing none we'll go to a vote all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye aye any opposed please say no uh that passes unanimously which brings us to item 6.04 a tobacco license application for true 802 cannabis uh councillor shannon move to approve the 2023 2024 tobacco license application for true 802 cannabis and i believe this is also one that we can't vote no on right this is something we cannot vote no on so uh we do have a second from councillor travers given that uh unless there's anyone who wishes to speak to this well uh did you wish to speak to this councillor travers yes go ahead just very briefly for the sake of our our new councillors just a brief explanation here that the council over the last few months or so has seen a number of these tobacco license applications they have all come from retail cannabis establishments because in order to sell certain paraphernalia that these retail cannabis establishments are selling along with cannabis the state has required tobacco licenses our understanding is that these businesses are not necessarily selling tobacco based products they are selling certain paraphernalia in relation to the retail cannabis business and so that's why these tobacco license applications are here thank you councillor travers uh seeing no other discussion we'll go to a vote on the tobacco license application for true 802 cannabis all those in favor please say I any opposed um that motion passes unanimously um which brings us to the last application we have on our agenda item 6.05 which is a tobacco license application and tobacco substitute endorsement application for the herb closet uh councillor shannon move to approve the 2023 2024 tobacco license application and tobacco substitute endorsement license application for the herb closet thank you councillor shannon seconded by councillor travers uh I believe this is also something that we cannot vote no on um is there any any councillors that wishes to speak to the motion in front of us seeing none we'll go to a vote all those in favor of the motion please say I I any opposed please say no that motion passes unanimously and that brings us to the final three items on our deliberative agenda the first is item 6.06 which is the wanouski avenue corridor study implementation update um we have with us um shape and spencer uh public works director philip peterson public works engineer as well as from the department of workforce business and workforce development uh car al naswari and uh will clavell welcome to all of you um and we got your memo thank you so much for posting that information to us last week uh we've allotted we're trying to allot 20 minutes or so for this topic if you could give us a brief overview and then we'll go to questions to the council and again thanks for being here perfect thank you president paul there are many signs of spring these days and just to share with the council one of the signs of spring that most excites me is the opening of the asphalt plants and I'm pleased to report this week is that week so for everybody uh potholes are more durably patched when we have hot asphalt so thank you uh yes thank you president paul and the full council for having us tonight uh this really is an opportunity to give the the council requested update on the wanouski avenue corridor study implementation it's been a five-year effort that many of us here at this table have been undertaking and I do want to thank uh members of the parking advisory committee for the parking management plan and also the corridor study advisory committee some were here tonight some counselors around the table who have helped us along the way three top line messages one is implementing the city's 2011 transportation plan and the 2017 walk bike plan is not easy we have narrowed new england streets and the competing interests are challenging number two we understand the importance of getting this right on this current plan to implement two blocks of the corridor study along north wanouski to improve multimodal transportation and improve the safety for all modes and number three will continue to be engaged in this process the paving project is not the end of our engagement here and the partnership with business and workforce development canvassing along the streets and really working with each business along the corridor will continue so just hitting each of these in a little more detail we have undertaken a very thorough corridor study and a parking management plan recommended by the council here and that engagement has helped the process and project we have engaged dozens of businesses along the corridor many stakeholders residents businesses alike and it has made a difference one of the key pieces that I brought forward as a result of the parking management plan was a recommendation that thanks to the council for supporting is to phase this project the original goal was to look at implementing the corridor studies recommendation for pearl street to riverside and that was not a responsible recommendation based on the multitude of issues that we had to work through so we have recommended implementing the smallest section of this corridor that we can and achieve some of our multimodal goals in particular continuous bike facilities from downtown burlington to downtown wanouski with the construction of the new bridge across the wanouski river which we are working on as you know we understand the importance of getting this right and as you saw in the memo we outlined a number of steps that we have all taken thanks to the folks at this table and others to really take a more in-depth and intentional process here with your direction in 2022 we asked v-trans to slow the project down a year which we did were successful that gave us all time to do a number of things we have managed a grant program to provide $15,000 to many of the businesses and organizations on the street to help in the transition we have engaged cap much the campus area excuse me chitin in area transportation management association to work with businesses along the corridor at your direction last year we are working to make the city loop fare free which has two important stops on this corridor and thanks to our technical team we have brought to the dpw commission a proposal to to expand the number of time limited spaces along this corridor and adjacent to the corridor to ensure turnover one of the new pieces i was able to bring forward into the memo was conversations with vermont legal aid and champlain housing trust we have been in constant communication with a number of the large lot owners as you had asked us to explore off-street parking along the corridor and i'm pleased to say that in conversations with vermont legal aid and champlain housing trust that they are willing at 274 north woosky avenue which is just north of vermont legal aid's office to provide nights and weekends free public parking for approximately 20 to 25 spaces they have made it clear to us that this isn't an in perpetuity commitment they may redevelop in the future and uses may change but this is a significant commitment and i appreciate and honor their offer we had offered two businesses a program where dpw would manage nights and weekends parking for a fee and share 80 percent of the revenue with them but vermont legal aid preferred a more informal low-key approach and that is fine with us we had partnered with burlington housing authority and and they have committed to provide five or six spaces to the champlain housing trust excuse me to the community health centers for their off-street employee parking we are continuing to work with the bus barn condo owners it's also a cht project to see what we can do but they have requested a wait-and-see approach after the paving and new lane alignment is installed i think it's important as we talk about the time-limited parking that we got the dpw commission to approve that there are no meters as part of this proposal i had understood that there were some thinking that we were looking to install meters to encourage turnover turnover but this is only a proposal to add time limited parking signs that do not have accompanying meters next steps thanks to to philip peterson's management of the paving program this is important to note that the north manuski paving is a state paving program but we are coordinated closely with them milling is expected to start that's grinding up the top course in late april structures to be fixed in may and paving in june and i've heard tonight some thought and questions about ongoing metrics if there's interest in having the council request that we do monitoring and develop further metrics we're happy to have that as part of a future two committee if that seems friendly to the council and are there any additional comments from the team with that we'll answer any questions great thank you so we'll move to the council for any questions or comments on the mayor on the communication or the this project council bergman thank you president paul as you all know and i think this council knows how important this is and it's to my ward to my neighborhood and i think to the transportation future that you hear me rant about uh every meeting um and i totally appreciate the engagement that has been done i've walked the street with you um i will continue to do that the collaboration between your two departments is essential this is you know that that business piece is outside of the general purview of dpw and it is a stretch for them and i really appreciate the the work that the business development folks have done and done a great job um i also want to thank the council for putting in $15,000 that allowed us to have different businesses make application and proceed to get some transportation demand management work done the cat must study for the health center um was is being funded by that i want to say to us that i see that as a down payment i would like in the um the upcoming year if and perhaps if there is monies still in this year to allocate more to what is effectively the need for a just transition because as was stated in the public forum this is a neighborhood of poor and working folks black and brown folks um you know may be close to a majority in in my neighborhood and so it is really important for us to get this right um and so money is a big deal and uh i think we need to have more of it available to do the type of transportation demand management that will encourage folks to be able to reduce the need on parking but also get greater um access uh for transportation and equity needs that they've got this is all leading up to i really do believe that the requests that the council has gotten around continued review is absolutely essential i don't know since we haven't asked for any action on here i'm not sure if it is appropriate to make a motion at some point but i would love to make a motion to in response to director chapin's request for some direction to say yes we need to survey we need to and i'll just run through a list that former council president no dell sent me i think everybody got that to survey managers and clients of social service agencies uh she says particularly but i i think you know feeding chitenden and the community health center uh surveying owners and customers of daytime businesses this is something this next one is something which i would hope that maybe cedo or maybe reib would be involved in because it too is sort of out of the general jurisdictions and that is surveying residents in the neighborhood they are a a population that we need to reach i mean those are the people right who are um are going to be most impacted who have the less institutional less organizational clout they're they're just folks right and we need to be able to reach them but that's sort of outside of what business development does it's definitely farther along than what dpw is interested in but we do have a community um aspect a new community engagement aspect with cedo and i or and reib so i would hope mayor that we could enlist them in the process so that again nobody's left behind we do it all right and we do it right from from in a way the get go so the surveying of residents and i what's requested by councillor no dell is surveying residents who work second and third shift hours but we just i think it would be really helpful for us to survey residents about their transportation needs as i said earlier you know you can't get there from here on the bus you can't get there regularly on the bus that needs to change so that kind of information the number of tickets issued and fines paid and cars towed that's that's a metric we need to know because those are real impacts on folks who actually can't afford it right now and information on the use of the bike lane um miss curry mentioned many of the same things but um the whole question of the city loop and its connection to servicing the health center is something that she raises that i think that we should just continue to look at it's you know we we're touting ourselves for you know supporting that city loop and yet that's a major um place that people need to get to the health center so we want to make sure that it's doing that and then uh actually uh liz has put forth a number of other data points that i think that we should follow up on and i don't know leave it to the chair i would be happy to make a motion that we request that staff and do that community engagement so that nobody's left behind by this this change in the right i think the right direction uh in multimodal transportation uh thanks councillor bergman i think uh that's a lot in emotion um if you can sort of winnow it down to something and we can go to uh we do have two other councillors that are in the queue councillors high tower and barlow i'll let them do that yeah once you come back i can probably wing it right now but let them talk i've talked enough okay thank you councillor bergman we'll go to councillors high tower barlow and then councillor grant councillor high tower um thank you president paul um a question to chape and or anybody else on the team and i'm sorry i haven't been as involved in this process i've forgotten but um is there uh is there a reason or maybe this is part of the proposal um i do agree sorry first let me say i do agree that the proposal on having so many different spaces with different timing allotments can be confusing um definitely know that you know going to other cities sometimes where it's like this is monday wednesday and friday and this is saturday's and this is it can just be a lot um and i guess i'm also curious if somebody can remind me is this section of the road staying two-way and if so why sorry i know that's a very basic question thank you councillor high tower yes so the road itself will definitely stay two-way um the parking on the east side of the street will be reallocated for the bike lane um the time limited spaces the purpose of that and the timing of those spaces is to support the local businesses specifically you know the restaurants uh the time limited spaces are more restaurant hours they end at nine p.m. and so once those time limited spaces the two hour spaces are you know that nine p.m. hour goes by then local residents will be able to utilize those spaces to park overnight during overnight hours there have been other proposals from the local community about well is it possible that we could put three or two hour spaces in on other streets side streets during daytime hours like a nine to five thing we we can adjust these time limited spaces depending on the community needs does that help answer your question um so i think the part that i think it's confusing is having so many different times in a pretty small section of um parking so i think if you're just like oh right i can park on the street or like in these spots for two hours and then it's like oh no this is only 30 minutes and it's also just a lot of street signs which i think is just confusing for drivers in general because then you just stop paying attention anything because you're looking at all the things i obviously agree with this change and i really hate to like bring it back to the beginning but i also am just because the vast majority of that whole street is a one way i also just don't know okay i sorry that was my second question that i think maybe you didn't get to which is like why we haven't just looked at making the whole street one way since that's what it turns into pretty quickly if i'm on the right street yeah i think thanks council high tower as part of the corridor study process where we evaluated different circulation patterns we did look at uh significant changes such as actually making north wanouski two-way all the way down to pearl street uh that was a conversation that the council had a couple decades ago about increasing access between the downtown and north street um there wasn't as much uh interest in that uh proposal this time around and i think generally what we heard from the public and stakeholders was a an appreciation for what exists and the comfort with with the current circulation pattern right sorry and i wasn't saying proposing changing some of it to two-way i was proposing since so since so much of it is already a one-way right it seems like that would get rid of some of the pushback on the parking specifically as if we could just turn that small section that is a two-way into a one-way yes i sorry for not being completely clear but when we looked through the scoping study the corridor study there there was an interest for dramatic changes and while i talked about the lower section we did not hear a groundswell of support for uh changing that north section either so uh business access two-way traffic can be very helpful for people accessing you know the services and the businesses so in terms of accommodating bus and emergency vehicles it certainly would be a larger conversation to discuss one-way circulation on that stretch okay um great i just maybe just want to throw that out there again for folks who are more active in this conversation especially for planning on doing any additional um any additional public surveying or anything else on that perjian's proposal i think just having that be a question in terms of what folks prefer um would be good and especially given i mean i love biking that last stretch of before it becomes parallel to all the other streets because it's so wide it's like such a wide road it's such a wide bike path um which i assume also accommodate some of our larger vehicles um although it doesn't maybe have quite the circulatory but i don't think a bus goes the other way on that road either um just so just throwing that out there that that might be something that we can more explicitly ask about what folks preferences are between losing some of that parking and losing the town or traffic that's all okay thanks so much uh councilor hi chair we'll go to councilor barlow and then grant uh thank you president paul um and i want to thank everybody at the table for all the work that i know you've done on the corridor i've been also along on some of the walking tours um and spent a spent a bunch of time talking to folks over there um and i appreciate also um director spencer's uh willingness to continue an ongoing monitoring effort and i'd like to see that included in in action tonight on this item some a commitment on the part of the council to um to continue to monitor and evaluate and you know make adjustments um as we need to it as this thing goes in because the impacts to some of the service providers and businesses could be um you know really significant um so i also so i'm interested in that motion as well as councillor bergman's uh is also and and i didn't know if councillor bergman had something or he's working okay so um i guess i guess i'll say that and i'll i'll i'll look for a further comment on that but i also have ideas around that great thank you councillor barlow uh we'll go to councillor grant thank you um so thanks for listening to me because i've had a lot to say okay and uh i don't want to cover everything that i've talked to your department about but what i will say publicly is that um for the remainder of this and any future projects to really take the character of each neighbourhood into consideration because i did hear things at times that were were very dismissive of the neighbourhood such as oh people always complain about these projects and we just do them and then they shut up you know that was that was kind of what was being said and it was a little bit hurtful to people and um you know we we are very different um and that area was very different and i think one of the comparisons i used was when we look at um the biggest concentration of businesses um in the new north end where is it's the euthan island shopping centre well where do people park in a big parking lot um and there was purposeful development there whereas in the old north end you know historically we're a scrappy bunch you know the city hasn't been there in the same way so people just did it right they they just did it and and the fact that oh well they didn't follow any pattern or plan well no one was offering one at the time that people um got these business so definitely following up with the businesses seeing how they're um affected um i'm i'm happy to see more availability on a weekend um parking but i still think that day parking might be well people do feel that it'll continue to be an issue you have a lot of people with non-traditional schedules and they're the ones who do tend to have cars especially if they work these second and third shifts manufacturing so they're going to park in these two hour slots and they're going to be sleeping during the day so i'm curious to know um i i want to say i agree strongly to councilor hightower that all these different variations like the 215 men at the 430 so even though we're not going to have meters which i'm happy to hear that that has been taken out of the equation how are we monitoring this and are people going to be subject to to tickets like what it what exactly is the plan for that thank you councilor grant it's good to see you here um so the beauty of moving parking enforcement to parking services management down to dbw is we have a direct line direct access to jackie tim jeff pageant the folks that work in parking services management i meet with them constantly sometimes daily to look at data on resident parking narrow streets um and we're all about education not being punitive and so i think in a situation like this i know that we will sit down as a team and meet and discuss what's the data looking like what's the numbers looking like so that we can educate inform make the best decisions possible for the neighborhood not punish or ensure the we're handing out as many tickets to gain compliance we work directly and look at data a lot of data okay i am i am worried about tickets for that area as it was previously um brought up that's that's an area where um taking someone can really make the expense the difference between spending money on well first of all we all know how high rents gotten all over the city but it is a real struggle uh for people but then you start to talk about other things that people may need um so i'm just yeah i i'm not so sure i like all these i think it could be confused and i i'll just say that i agree with councilor high tower and i would encourage being really super engaged really super engaged to um there's just some people really bitter about this and i've been conflicted because i can see oh well you have this other street and there's only already one side that doesn't have parking so why can't it go over there and then these other options and then maybe do we could we have when we repaved earlier made the street wider so it could have still accommodated the parking and the lanes and the traffic and you know but i'm late to the game right because i'm just starting um even though i had some of the previous concerns voiced before uh doing the initial process but thank you that's that's all i have thank you councillor grant so we will go back to councillor bergman for a motion um and then we'll go to councillor carpenter go ahead so i move to accept the communication to request that the administration continue to engage with the community including but not limited to the request made of the made by the public at our at this our uh april 17th meeting and to refer the matter to our toke committee in order for the committee to work with the administration on the plan to monitor and evaluate the changes to the north manuski avenue corridor and any proposals to address the transportation and and neighborhood needs that result from that thank you councillor bergman so obviously you have that in writing and can then give that to the clerk does uh we need a second to that motion seconded by councillor borough um is there any discussion on that motion um and uh is there any discussion on the motion okay councillor carpenter and then we'll go to councillor shannon i can just probably squeeze my comments in with the motion i just i just want to i appreciate your work but i still think there's a lot of work to be done and i hadn't heard anything about the properties north to it like the shallow bar property or even um all that interval property for ch v staff so i guess i'm just encouraging i also think the brillington housing authority um garage is a terribly underutilized property you know they are an affiliate that's not going to change tomorrow but the city has garages and other locations um so i think in the long run redeveloping that property to something other than a storage barn in a garage is something cito and everybody ought to take collectively thank you councillor carpenter we'll go to councillor shannon thank you president paul um i want to thank you director spencer and and the whole team for all that the of the work that you have done to problem solve and honestly i think there's a lot of problems with this so it's been a lot of problem solving and i think you've done um really a great job of in terms of the of the effort that you've made that doesn't really change that um this is going to be pretty painful to a lot of the businesses residents and patrons in that area and it remains a concern i haven't been supportive of this in the past um we are where we are and we need to move forward um but as as we know and see in our own neighborhood the parking stresses of life impact low income people more than they do higher income people um they impact those that are renting apartments at lower rates because it has no parking and they take that and the struggle of where to put the car which they need in order to get the kids where they need to go in order to get to their jobs that are less stable and um i think it's really important as this moves forward for us to continue to evaluate exactly what are the the the impacts because our intentions are one thing and whether or not we're successful in meeting those goals is another so that needs we need to be measuring how well we're meeting our goals in terms of carbon in terms of utilization of the of the bike lanes um i personally ride my bike out that way all the time um i just take a little bit different route because i don't really want to go you know when you come from south winooski you know i would turn right and kind of weave weave around there so are the benefits really you know are you getting more ridership than than you have are more people getting on bikes and that information is not only going to be helpful to the application here but to other applications as we proceed with with these goals so i think that that um you know there were also a number of questions that were raised by liz curry emailed to all of us and i think all of those questions i hope will be answered as this is being referred to the the two committee or process created to answer those questions but thank you very much for all of your hard work on this thank you councillor shannon um let's see if we can't go to a vote on the motion as made by councillor bergman um and seconded by councillor barlow um all those in favor of the motion which included also placing the communication or accepting the communication please say aye aye any opposed please say no that motion passes unanimously and will be referred to the two committee um which was made motion was made and seconded by two members of the two committee so we'll look forward to further updates on that thank you all four of you for your hard work on this issue and we'll look forward to next steps to come um that will bring us to um item 6.07 which is the proposed chinton county solid waste fy 24 budget we do have with us uh sarah reeves sarah thank you so much for joining us sorry to keep you waiting a little bit um who's the executive director of the chinton county solid waste district joining us via zoom um we've allotted 20 minutes for this presentation and sarah if you could uh possibly limit yourself to about 10 minutes of discussion and then we'll go to the council for comments and questions um absolutely thank you there we go we have you there you can also you thank you again and i apologize for the um for the darkness we lost power and um have not gotten it back yet so i'm i'm working by candlelight uh i do have a power point presentation if i could be allowed to show my screen i will if so i can move very quickly through the slides wonderful and thank you again um i very much appreciate the time on the on the agenda and as you mentioned my name is sarah reeves i am the executive director for cswd and i'm going to switch over to slide show here we can see the perfect thank you and let me get you going here okay so for folks who may be tuning in uh who are new to chinton county i know we've had a bunch of folks move in over the past couple of years um cswd is a municipality formed by um the communities within chinton county to oversee and manage the waste generated by residents businesses schools and institutions um but this is our fiscal 24 budget presentation so i want to focus on where we receive our revenue and then what we're going to do with it over the course of the year so we have three main buckets of revenue user fees or tip fees which is what is paid directly to us by our customers say at a drop-off center or at the compost facility the material and product sales so the sale of compost the sale of recycling that's been sorted and a solid waste management fee oh the lights just came back on uh solid waste management fee which um is paid by haulers at coventry when they bring chinton county waste to be disposed there we do not assess our member towns any per capita fees we do not receive any local tax dollars so nothing from local income sales or property tax and this is a quick slide to show how we're doing and these numbers are as of 2020 so i think we're probably a little better on the organics piece but we do a good job in chinton county of diverting our materials from landfill but there is that section that is still being put in the trash that could be further diverted so there's about maybe 60 000 tons that can be either recycled and blue bin or as organics which that's the real big opportunities and food scraps as special materials or as construction and demolition debris for our bottom line we are budgeting revenue in the amount we seem to have lost sarah don't see her on actually don't see her on zoom either yeah so you know what will um i'm sure she will get her get back i don't know if i believe it is jared on this is the gen holiday i just tech just got a text she did lose her connection um i can potentially pick up from where she left off if you would like or if you're in a position where you could we've received we received the communication both of them last week um we could just go to questions from questions from the council unless there's something you would you know you'd like to add um yeah we can move to two questions i'd be happy to answer what i can for her and just try to get my camera on here too sorry are there are there counselors that have questions on the information that we did receive uh councilor barlow and then we'll go to councilor travers um thank you president paul um yeah i read i read through and i was trying to understand what the um impacts to users of the system would be and it seems like um if i've distilled it to its essence it's like the mirf tipping fees are going up five dollars the organic diversion facility tipping fees are going up five dollars a ton each and the drop off center bag fees are increasing by a dollar so is it fair to assume that besides the drop off center bag fees that we may or may not see increases to um to residents uh and users of the system for the mirf or organic portions based on their haulers ability to absorb those costs does that make sense that is correct um our drop off center bag fees are um depending on which size bag it is increasing um um more than one dollar in some cases the large bag fees of sarah is back sarah we forgo we we uh decided not to finish the power point and just go to questions and for whatever reason i can't get my video going so the question was um what impact will um the individual see from any of our price increases from the mirf in the organics facility um those are very small when you look at the impact for an individual household that they probably won't notice those price increases in what is left is the bag fee that we are raising at our drop off centers that's correct thank you councillor barlow we'll go to councillor travers thank you president paul and thank you very much for the presentation um i don't necessarily anticipate that um you would have an answer available to this right now and it's quite possible that even if you did have the answer um that it's not something that could be shared at this moment so happy to follow up with you offline and to bring in representatives from the department of public works as well um but i know as the councillor representing ward five but really all of burlington that burlingtonians are very interested in a drop off center returning to burlington um and i know that in december the council acted to extend um the the timeline within which an mou or to extend the mou uh within which um a property transferred flin avenue can be considered i'm excited to see in the budget some monies that are dedicated to the construction of a new drop off center in burlington so that's great um but to the extent you're able to share or if not right now if if we could follow up with some other time it would be great to get an update with respect to what the timeline is on constructing a new drop off center in burlington and then i suppose a follow-up question of that is whether or not there's any opportunity to reopen some services if even in a limited capacity between now and whenever the new burlington drop off center is constructed thank you CSWD is very very excited and anxious to bring more service back to burlington so yes and we have been having regular conversations with director spencer and um and his team and you know we are we are working very expeditiously and we do have um both revenue and expenses associated with the burlington drop off center in our fiscal 24 budget so we are aiming um pushing hard to have something happen for this fiscal year it's really important to us so so yeah we'd be happy to provide an update um and i'm sure as chaplain would as well but we are working very hard um and it's it's a bit of a an all hands on deck because we we know how important this is as far as interim services to increase the services at pine street that is a there could be some possibilities there it's a little trickier um but we're definitely open to saying if there's something we can do in the interim um but we really wanted to make something happen this year and like i said we're so hopeful that we put in the budget great great thank you councillor uh councillor traverson thanks for that answer um um if there are no other councillors with questions and i can't see councillor high tower um i do have my hand okay all right just wanted to check go ahead thanks thanks for asking um this isn't really completely related to your presentation um but i'm just curious because i know that there was a moratorium on accepting containers compostable containers and i'm just wondering where that's at and if you expect that to continue what we're working because i still know a lot of folks around burlington businesses still offering compostable containers um which seems like a waste to me if so just wanted to check in with that and if there's anything that you're doing or that we can support you doing um but if that is expected to continue on um finding advising on alternatives um for some of those businesses thank you councillor that that is a great question and yes that uh we have stopped accepting compostable products at our green mountain compost facility at the organics diversion facility simply for the reason that many of the compostable products look so similar to non-compostable products that it is very hard for both the consumer and for our employees to distinguish between them and then they end up um intimidating the compost and we we have such a high expectation for the quality of our products that we simply can't uh ensure that that we will not be able to get all of them out we have been working for the past couple of years with businesses on alternatives to using those products because you're right um they it's an additional expense and if it's not going to be composted then it seems silly for the business to go to that additional expense um if it does if the materials do get into the landfill they will degrade it over time it's better than plastic being in the landfill so it does have that modest um beneficial effect but it's not the same as going to a um a compost facility that could accept them and there are not that many compost facilities in the country that do so we were one of the last to try to make it work and in order to ensure quality the high quality of the finished product we just couldn't find a way to do it um and one more question and this is just me getting wonky it's because i'm curious and um compostables in the landfill breaking down is that actually a good thing or does that just have methane implications if that starts if that's too large of a percentage of that waste yeah well right now so organics in the landfill all all organics anything that um can break down so if you're looking at food scraps and food related products it's about 26 or 27 of what's going into the landfill from residential sources so there's already quite a lot and that's where that opportunity is for us as consumers and as waste generators to pull out as much as possible of those um the food scraps which generate when they start to break down the highest amount of methane right off the bat but landfills are designed to capture that methane like that's that's part of their gig so the landfill and country does a great job at capturing the methane and then turning it into electricity so it's not ideal we want to keep as much of that material out but overall if you're keeping the the food out and sending that to compost that will have a bigger effect and will kind of mitigate that the effect of the products until we can either find a different solution or um or figure out a better way great thank you thank you thanks very much counselor hi tower um uh we do need to uh we are a member or municipality of cswd and we do need to act on their budget um so if there are no others in the queue i would entertain a motion to approve the chitlin county solid waste district f y 24 budget if someone could make that motion so moved uh thank you counselor barlow and seconded by counselor shannon uh is there any discussion on that motion seeing none uh we'll go to a vote all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye any opposed please say no that motion passes unanimously uh thank you sarah thanks so much for being here and to gen for standing standing in for for her while your internet was playing games with you um and have a good evening thanks again for joining us thank you very much bye bye with that we'll go to our final deliberative item which is 6.08 the annual report on the livable wage ordinance uh we have assistant city attorney jared pelerin uh with us to speak um mostly on any questions that the council might have this is an annual report so it's updated once a year uh with uh updated data and um attorney pelerin is there any is there anything in this year's report that you'd like to highlight for us before we go to questions well the good news is that our office had not received any complaints in the past year or had to deal with any large enforcements um so just quickly to highlight for everyone um you know as of 2001 the city council passed this ordinance as a way to provide a minimum level of compensation for employees um through entities that we work with in city contracting and we have two great livable wage monitors who have really been proactive this past year and visited a lot of sites throughout burlington um meeting with that meeting with contractors subcontractors and gathering information so chris and marty hit the ground running and they were happy to come back to us and report that most everyone was in compliance and those that weren't in full compliance a lot of it had to do with just educating them and getting out there and letting them know about the livable wage organs and the requirements under it so our office is going to hopefully utilize chris and marty a little bit more in this you know spring into summer when the city really starts doing a lot of contracting um as we set off in the new budget after july 1st and making sure that all of our departments if there's been any turnover in them with individuals who are working on contracts that they're also aware of the livable wage um but the good thing is again that we are pretty solid footing right now and um yeah i think that's captured in the report as well thank you attorney pelerin is there are there any counselors who have any uh questions um on this annual report counselor grant i was just curious for um there seemed to be an issue with some of the employers um who were in construction having issues with their subcontractors so are they i mean obviously those issues that were caught were being resolved but going forward what type of documentation are they getting to ensure that they do a better job with their subcontractors so it's that is a challenging thing commissioner grant for us to make sure that we're holding their their feet to the fire so to speak completely but we put language in all of our rfps and then there is language in all of our contracts as well and we require the certificate of compliance so departments should be receiving that and that's what we're trying to track so it's really just making sure that departments as they go out and contract with anyone whether it's construction or service contracts etc um are really educating these people that we're not just paying lip service to the language in the contract and and making sure that we're looking for the um compliance on on the contractor's end to then hopefully they will know that we are very serious about this and we want that information passed to any subs um that they're working with and we do require that you know if they're signing this contract with the city that they're ensuring that their subs are also complying by the liberal wage organs do they like if they get the instance where one of the subcontractors had people they were paying people under the table um is there any future consequence if something like that happens again where subcontractor is not properly vetted in that way yes i mean i think that we would have that communication with departments first and foremost we try to resolve it without having to take it to some type of enforcement where they could receive fines but we do communicate with them try to see okay and then if they are a second time after being audited again because we'll come back and chris and marty are they'll like leave the audit open if they need to and go back to them and then in the case where someone may be continuing to be a quote-unquote bad actor or not in compliance then at that point our office would have the conversation with the department about okay are we going to move to potentially terminate this contract or just in the future are we going to know that this is not an entity that we want to continue to work with um that would all just be on a case-by-case basis and of course the seriousness of the violations etc uh commissioner uh councilor grant um are there any uh councilor councilor carpenter um thanks and i think um council brings up some good points and just like this is more of a way in its suggestion of i know how desperate contractors are uh they move fast they get confused they got and i would just suggest that we might as a city want to do more education maybe a youtube video on how you do these things because i think um it's just an employment market where small contractors are going to stumble a lot on this and i think there's a lot of work to be done and everybody thinks they're an independent contractor and doesn't understand the rules so i think there's just more work we should be doing on that great thanks so much thanks councilor carpenter um are there any other seeing no one else in the queue um will i would just entertain a motion to waive the reading accept the communication and place it on file so moved uh thank you councilor McGee seconded by um councilor shannon all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye any opposed please say no um that motion passes unanimously thank you so much attorney palloran for your time this evening you're most welcome uh that completes our deliberative agenda we have just a few items left the first is uh item seven committee reports i know there are a number of committees that are meeting soon so if there are committee chairs who wish to let us know about committee meetings that would be now is the time i knew there were a few uh councilor travers thanks president paul um so the the ordinance committee will be relatively busy uh over the coming month um this week on the 19th uh we will be taking up the uh zoning amendment that was approved by the planning commission with respect to the south end innovation district um that meeting again will be on april 19th we have also scheduled a meeting uh to be held on may 8th regarding that same topic if needed and i'm assuming it will be needed given the breadth and public interest in this amendment so april 19th and may 8th will be the meetings on the south end innovation district and i turned to council bergman as to whether or not i can provide an update or if you would like to provide an update on okay so uh as uh the council will recall in the last council year we approved a resolution that uh requires the ordinance and charter change committees to meet jointly on the question of police oversight and accountability um our first meeting uh as a joint committee will be held on may 4th uh i know council bergman and i will be co-chairing that committee have been talking about um different uh members of our community who no doubt should be specifically invited to that meeting but of course the whole public uh will be invited and encouraged to attend to begin the discussion on this important topic uh we have uh also tentatively scheduled uh meetings to uh continue that work as a joint committee on may 23rd as well as may 30th with the hope being that we can have made a good amount of headway prior to our first meeting as a council in june although at that first meeting on may 4th we'll be discussing scheduling matters for the remainder of may and the potential for some june meeting dates as well great thank you so much councillor travers uh any other committee chairs who wish to offer an update uh councillor hightower great thank you councillor paul um just an update that um cdnr will be meeting on i just headed up april 27th um i am hoping that even before that i will have submitted a um resolution to the full council for may 1st um that maybe we will get a chance to review and refine um specifically regarding camping and designating some staff time to propose a policy around that but we will be meeting on april 27th great thank you so much uh if there are no other committee chairs will close out that item and go to item eight which is uh city council general city affairs this is an opportunity for councillors to comment on things that are happening in the city um are there any councillors who wish to offer an update councillor shannon um thank you president paul in the in the process of um dealing with these issues around orlandos i was talking to police officers more than i than i normally do and it raised some really serious concerns for me i talked to a police officer that was working his third 18 hour shift a third day in a row of 18 hour shifts and um i think that the working conditions in the police department right now are really concerning and i don't know that there is a lot that we can do about it because i think that we have to we have to cover the shifts and they feel an obligation to cover the shifts um to keep our community safe but i do think that it's important for our community to recognize the sacrifices of the men and women in this department as well as the sacrifices of their families and give i know that we're looking at retention bonuses for people um but the quality we can't overlook the importance of the quality of life and um they need more support from our council they need more support from our community and um you know we need to hire the ultimately the only real solution here is to hire more officers and while i'm really impressed with the number of officers we've been able to attract to get into the the academy it's really a two-year process before they're fully trained and um and ready to go and uh i i hope that we can continue to think about ways that we can support the department um and uh and improve their quality of life because we're at great risk at this moment quite honestly thank you thank you councillor shannon uh councillor hightower i see you have your hand up is that for this or just not a hand that was put down that is that is old my apologies okay no worries um councillor grant was that a hand up yes go ahead please thank you um so i've certainly uh been thinking still a lot about the police department you can put the girl in the council but you can't get the commission out of her you know i um i hear what councillor shannon is saying but i will say again that there needs to be a certain amount of accountability within the department to help improve the element of trust in certain parts of our community where it's missing and some of the recent things that have happened um haven't really been doing that so i think part of what has not been understood um and i will say i understand how difficult their job is as a police commissioner one of the things that we did um was that we had speakers and we had speakers who talked about officer wellness we had speakers who talked about trauma informed policing and that was not only trauma that police officers sometimes might unfortunately inflict upon the community but literally the trauma that police officers have to deal with with their job because the average burlingtonian really doesn't understand everything that officers have to deal with on a day-to-day basis but there is this lack of understanding um and i believe it continues to be a leadership issue that there has to be an examination inward for types of behavior that can be changed that would improve communication and trust there's a lot of talk about um president obama as a council in 21st century policing it's a buzzword people feel that oh we say this this sounds nice you know we liked obama we liked what he did with those with the meetings and how he came up with these pillars but the average person doesn't really know what the pillars are and the average person doesn't have an understanding with exactly with regards to these pillars what is our department doing and therein is the big lack of um engagement um you know first pillar is the most important one and that is that is trust and we are not always working on that and we have to be real about that we have not been real about that so we can say all these things um trust is earned and and that's important to to remember so um i personally hope to to talk to the new public um information um an engagement officer uh to see what's being set forth um for her in terms of how she's going to do uh her job and what ideas that she has and and things that have been going on in the community to make sure since she's new the community uh to make sure that uh there's an understanding of the concerns that have been raised thank you great thank you so much councillor grant uh seeing no other councillor wanting to comment on general city affairs we'll move on to item number nine which is president council updates um the only update that i do have is that um in the past it's been a tradition that uh we received annual commission reports and then a number of them years ago they used to all present their report i remember that because i was on a commission and it was a very very long council meeting um we've since amended and abbreviated that um and uh and i'm hoping to revive uh a pre-covid tradition of receiving annual reports and having some of them come and present to us so with that um we i did ask the parks and rec commission and the board of health to come in may and present their reports um if there are other commissions that councillors would specifically like to hear from please let me know all commissions are are requested to submit an annual report and we also have it so that no longer does just the chair um sign the report all members of the of the commission are asked to sign the report so that we know that it's coming from the commission so if there are other if there are other commissions that you'd like to hear from please let me know um that will bring us to the final item of the evening item number 10 which is updates from the mayor mayor Weinberger the floor is yours thank you president paul just two quick items for me tonight want to just want to make sure counselors and the public um we're aware that we did have an announcement of this last week but and it got a little bit of tension but it is something i think counselors may be interested in following up with their constituents on we have launched a new revolving loan fund using 500 000 of arpa funds this was part of the fy 23 budget and these the intent with this program is for zero interest revolving loans to stabilize and support the growth of berlington small businesses the funds are specifically available for underserved business populations who have traditionally faced barriers to act to accessing to accessing capital um on the business and workforce development website you can find out more information in a number of languages about these loans and it is intended that these loans be available to support again small businesses local women owned and by paco and small businesses are a special focus of this program and the other um i just want to mention it was exciting to be in montelier last week and be with uh about 500 other romaners calling for meaningful state investment in affordable high quality child care this is uh uh was an event that was sponsored by let's grow kids who has been the city's partner in the berlington early learning initiative for years now there as you may have heard significant reform has passed one chamber of the legislature and there is real hope and excitement that we could see action on this this year this could have implications for berlington's early learning initiative it's possible that depending on how this is implemented it could um you know it could change what the needed here is in berlington and how we continue to try to make progress in this area so um i know that something the council has taken interest and action on in the past i wanted to report back on that that's what i got for you tonight president paul great thanks so much mayor wandberger that brings us to the end of our agenda i'll ask for a motion to adjourn uh so moved made by sec made by councillor mcgee seconded by councillor carpenter all those in favor of the motion to adjourn please say aye aye any opposed please say no we are adjourned at 9 14 thank you for joining us this evening our next meeting is may first and we'll look forward to seeing you then have a good evening