 We call the order of the city council meeting at 6pm. The first item on the agenda is the agenda. Is there a motion on the agenda? If counselors can please turn on their video. They're able just so I can see folks if they're wanting to be recognized. Okay. Is there a motion on the agenda? Someone please make a motion on the agenda. I moved to amend. Sorry. Sorry. Thank you. No written materials for agenda items. 3.01 UVM code enforcement update to spring move that per Gail. No. No. No written material for consent agenda item. Six 10 communication Catherine. CIO. Regarding calendar. 21. Add to the consent agenda item. Six point one three communication. Sarah Denny regarding requiring masks and stores with the motion. To waive the reading except the communication place it on file. Add. To the consent agenda item. Six point one four communication Mary Campbell regarding masks. With the motion to waive the reading except the communication place on file. Add to the consent agenda six point one five communication. Martha Day regarding. Masks. Add to the agenda item. Six point one six communication Mary Campbell regarding. to waive the reading except the communication to place it on a file. Add to the Consent Agenda Item 6.17. Communication regarding vote on mask mandate. Add to the Consent Agenda Item 6.18. Communication, Carl and Ellie Potter regarding retail consumer masks. Add Councillor Polino as a cosponsor for Agenda Item 7.06. Resolution COVID-19 emergency order wearing face coverings for crime and retail stores. Note revised version of this Agenda Item per City Attorney's Office. Add Councillor Polis cosponsor for Agenda Item 7.07. Resolution remove everybody loves a pure eight mural sponsored by Pine Dang, Carpenter, Stormbreak, Hanson, Perry and Pine note proposed amendments to this Agenda Item per Councillor Carpenter. Second. Councillor Hightower we have a second from Councillor Paul all those in any discussion on that seeing none all those in favor please say aye. That anyone opposed that passes unanimously which brings us to item number two city place update from CEDO. We'll start with a public update and then I believe there is a request to go into executive session following that. Councillor Paul. I just a point of order. Did you prefer to just wait until we were out of executive session and going into the public forum before the Pledge of Allegiance or how did you? Oh thank you for that. I was going to plan to just go out of executive session once we actually started the normal meeting at seven to go into that. So but thank you for that clarification. No problem. Sorry about that. Thanks. No problem. No. It's okay. I was looking at this more as a work session. So anyways, Mr. Mayor would you like to kick us off or Mr. Glasberg are you going to be starting us off? Thank you President Tracey. Jeff Glasberg, the city's lead on the project will kick off the update. Okay. Go ahead Mr. Glasberg. Thank you very much for joining us. Thank you President Tracey. First I just wanted to start on a personal note with a thank you to the city councillors and the mayor for the extraordinary efforts that have been made over the last two months by the city that really benefit the entire state. So thank you for all that hard work. Secondly I wanted to acknowledge a number of new councillors who have joined us. I would look forward to the opportunity at some point to meet with you to be able to provide a more in-depth background to a complicated project. So we'll just dive in this evening but I do look forward to that opportunity to set the frame for those councillors and all of us just as a reminder of the expected outcomes for the city from this project. The first was the restoration of the St. Paul and Pine Street right-of-ways re-establishing the city street grid. The second was incremental tax revenue often referred to as TIF, tax increment financing, incremental tax revenue generated by redevelopment sufficient to pay for those improvements on St. Paul and Pine Streets as well as improvements to Bank and Cherry Streets. Thirdly, a substantial number of housing units are to be developed including additional affordable units in the downtown. Fourth, a mix of uses including retail and office space that would create substantial new jobs within downtown. And fifth, a range of ancillary benefits including public access and environmental goals. So again that was the broad range of outcomes expected by the city. In terms of an update for the council on where this stands, when I was last before the council on February 10th, I reported progress on some fronts and a lack of progress on others. At that point the developer had conducted two well-attended public engagement sessions to review what I'll call City Place 2.0, a revised program and plan for the development of the site. A third session which was associated with permit application requirements was held subsequently on February 27th and that was specifically for neighboring property owners but also included the broad public. The developer continued to refine its design and program and preparation for submission of their permit applications. And to preserve TIF capacity, the city had presented a request to the state board, VEPSI, Vermont Economic Progress Council back in December, requesting a project change. VEPSI deferred action at that time pending submission of an amended development agreement among the city and BTC mall associates documenting the revised project program and related business terms. Based on the input from the council on February 10th, an amended development agreement was delivered to the developer on February 18th. Since March, there has not been significant progress on the project. The permit applications for the main redevelopment site as well as 67 Cherry Street, the former Macy's property, those permit applications were not submitted prior to the stay home work. Had they been submitted, there still would have been delayed but they were not. Certainly COVID has had some significant impact on project progress just in terms of the team and their working effort and the response due on the proposed revision to the development agreement is unresolved. It has not been forthcoming. The developer continues to voice confidence in Burlington and in the project over the long term. However, I'm a realist and I believe that some new challenges may lie ahead. Certainly recovery of downtown retail businesses as well as a picture of what the retail environment in general looks like going forward may be some cause for concern. The availability of commercial financing for some program elements could be difficult to obtain over the next 12 months. And finally, the long-term health of UVMMC and their need for office and administrative space is something that may be questioned in the near term. As a result, the purpose in coming before the council tonight was to try to provide this background and specifically to try to reset the city's expectations of the developer regarding the timeline and terms for that development agreement amendment to move that process forward and specifically would like to discuss with the council in executive session some of those points of negotiation. And with that, I'm happy to try to address comments or questions you may have at this point. Thank you, Mr. Glassberg. Are there questions from the council? Councillor Pine, go ahead. Sure. Thanks, Mr. President. Jeffrey, if you could for the council and for the public, I guess give us at a high level, if you were in our seats and your constituents asked you, what's the likelihood that this project is going to come to fruition at this point? Help us answer that question. So I want to clarify that you're asking about fruition, not a specific schedule question, correct? Yes. Oh, this is still a very highly desirable site in the center of a vibrant downtown. I think the prospects for redevelopment of this site remain very high. Has this been a saga? Absolutely. Are people frustrated? Absolutely. But the basics that make that location valuable don't change. Thank you. All set, Councillor Pine? Yeah. Okay. Other councillors? Councillor Hanson, go ahead. Thanks. And so to kind of follow up on that, the other half of that question in terms of timeline, do you have any sense of what scale of timeline we might be looking at for this? That question will ultimately have to be answered by the developer, but Councillor Hanson, while it's possible that construction could commence this calendar year, I'm skeptical that that will be the case, and I would anticipate delay. That hasn't been told to us, but I think realistically, we may expect that. Thank you. Yeah, and I understand and I want to make sure the public understands this is your estimation based on the discussions that you've had, and rather, I don't want people to take that as fact, which you've made clear. I just want to reiterate for the public. Thank you. And it's directly responsive to those concerns that I outlined for you that are my opinion in terms of what those new challenges may be. Right. That's great. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Hanson. I see Councillor Freeman and then Mason. Go ahead, Councillor Freeman. Thank you, Councillor Tracy. Thank you, Jeff, for bringing this update. As I was just listening to your response to Councillor Pine and Councillor Hanson, I was just, because I've been, I was thinking about this, and when the media reached out, of course, questioning about a timeline and et cetera and so forth. What I basically said is that if, I guess, my question is around, I understand we have very specific frustrations around the way that this project has not come to fruition under what we had anticipated going along from now, but I have to under, like I have to think that maybe during this time there are just general, a lot of general uncertainties in sort of construction and in that trade sort of broadly. And what I said was just that, you know, I just want to make sure that as we reopen and return back to business, that we're doing it safely. And so I guess I'm wondering, in that, so now I feel like I'm having a hard time parsing out what are sort of the underlying issues that were maybe already present where Brookfield was struggling to be at capacity just under normal circumstances to bring this project to fruition versus like the COVID sort of impact and how some of that might, even though it feels frustrating to have a further delay because we've had so many delays, how some of that might just because we are in the middle of this pandemic. So I don't, does that make sense? Yes, Councillor Freeman, I'll try to respond. So the presentation of what I described as City Place 2.0 was an effort to try to address market conditions and construction costs and have a plan that was more responsive on both points. I think the question you're asking is whether despite that the impact of COVID may require another look at that plan perhaps or if it may impact the implementation of that plan. And again, this is the developer story to tell but I think realistically, certainly if you're a banker looking at this, the situation has changed even if the plan has not. So I think it will take a little time for market conditions to settle out or financial markets to settle out. Those are likely impact. Am I answering your question? Yeah, sort of. I just sort of, I guess, so I hear what I heard you say is that it's, if I heard correctly, that we're not anticipated to, that the project is not anticipated to break the ground with rents within this calendar year. Is that correct? But I heard you say that. I'm sorry, I had a moment with my internet connection. So I think it is still, it's conceivable that construction could start this calendar year, but I'm skeptical that that will be the case. Right. So I'm just anticipating, I know we've heard a lot of people say like there's potential issues with seeing like an upsurgence in just the health issues and everything coming back in the fall and that being, I understand it's going to impact market conditions, but it's also just going to impact people's capacity to be at work. So I guess I'm just, I just wanted to keep that in mind as much as I want to see sort of a project being actualized or at least some sort of movement on this thing that feels like just basically a hole in the ground for a really long time and just trying to sort of think critically about all the moving parts that we've found ourselves in with this sort of sudden public health emergency. But I'll, I'll stay tuned and listen and for the executive session as well. Thank you, Councillor Freeman. I had Councillor Mason followed by Councillor Hanson. If other Councillors want to get in, please let me know. Go ahead, Councillor Maple. Thank you, President Tracy. Mr. Glasberg, thank you for the presentation. I want to talk for a second about timing. When we last left off, the developer had articulated, you know, the delay would be, any delay would be associated with permits and litigation in light of, or at least what I heard you say, which is no, neither municipal permit or the municipal permits for either project were not applied for. And my assumption is they didn't apply for the Act 250 permit. My assumption is that that's going to blow us well beyond this year. And similarly on the litigation, at least currently, you know, courts are shut down other than for, you know, any essential work. So my assumption is that also pushes us back. And after that question, and I'm sensitive to we're going into executive session, I'm just curious from a process perspective, where we're going, you know, as a council before COVID hit, we were sort of providing input on the amendment to the development agreement. I'm guessing we're not on that track anymore, because it sounds like you haven't had a meaningful conversation with them to better understand how this pandemic is impacting their plans. And I can't see you, Jeff, so it's odd to forgive me now again. Do you want me to respond at this point? Please, if you would. Okay. So the first distinction I would make is there were two discrete permit processes. One was for reuse of an existing building. And if there's a demand and a customer, that's a project that could potentially proceed in the nearer term than the redevelopment of the mid block. So I just wanted to make that initial distinction in terms of timing. And in fact, the reason for executive session this evening would be to get your further input on pursuing that development agreement amendment track. Also that comes from Mason. Yes, that's that is helpful. Thank you. Okay. So I have Councillor Hanson next. Councillor Hanson, you have already spoken once though. So are there any other councillors who are on first round who haven't spoken yet, who'd like to get in? Okay. Seeing none, go ahead, Councillor Hanson. Great. Thanks. So Jeff, you mentioned a couple of times it's the developer's story to tell, which is true. So do you have any sense of their willingness to come before the council soon and give an update directly? Yes. We're going to propose a timeframe for that. And that's part of the series of actions that we want to review with you in executive session. But there is the expectation that they should be back before the public. There was some momentum. There wasn't some good will being rebuilt. And all of that has come to a stop. The effort should be to restart that process. Okay. I appreciate that. And I appreciate you sharing that with the public as well. I think that is beneficial for the public. And I don't think that it undermines our negotiation at all. So that's helpful. And thank you. Thank you very much, Councillor Hanson. Are there other councillors with questions? Councillor Paulino, go ahead. You're on mute. Sorry about that. I don't know if you recall, but Brookfield had publicly said, I think at their last appearance, that Macy's was, I think according to them, an unknown at that time. It was clear, at least to me, based on their comment, their public comments that they hadn't, they certainly weren't publicly committing to starting Macy's first. And then, which always made sense. And then doing the big one, it seemed that they wanted to include it as a package. One has that changed. And my other question is, what kind of contact or do you feel you've been having the last 60 days since February with them or meetings? How has that changed when you were meeting more regularly and you were having the, you know, you were doing the lead up to the permitting process? Sure. I want to answer your first question. Could you remind me, I've got the second question written down. So the first one was about how they said basically that the relationship between the two projects. They said, I think I asked them in the public hearing, when are you going to start or do you have a start date for the Macy's project? Which I think we were all concerned with losing the, you know, this great tenant that could not just create downtown jobs, but downtown revenue. And their answer was basically, I don't know. And it was kind of cryptic and it was clear to me that it was a package deal. You know, we'll start Macy's if our amendments get approved, or at least that's the sense I seem to get out of it. To some extent, that may be the case. I think the line is actually somewhat simpler. And that is an assurance of an agreement with UVMMC to secure moving ahead with that project. And this becomes of a piece, because just as the residents of Burlington want to know what's going to happen with the overall project, so does UVMMC. So to some extent, Councillor Polino, they, they remain a package, although there was the capacity because it's an existing building that doesn't require as extensive a permit process. There was the potential to be able to move ahead, in fact, with that renovation piece first on 67 Cherry Street. Have I answered that question? What, so have they indicated to you that they're willing to put shovel on the ground for that building? First, without having a final agreement on the design of the bigger block? I'm thinking about your question. I'm not sure if we framed it exactly that way. The plan has always been to move these along simultaneously with the ability to start Macy's, the former Macy's sooner, because it exists and it's a simplified permit process. Okay. Also, Councillor Polino? Yes. Okay. It is 6.30. So are there any other Councillors want to get in just wanting to start to move us towards the executive session? Anything else? The Council. Jeff, just wanted to ask you on my, for my part about the hotel use, you know, I think that this crisis has really revealed how becoming, how being too dependent on tourist dollars, carries with it certain risks. And I think that that's been really made obvious through this. And that's something that I've really had as a concern just in general with hotels, given that there are so many hotels already planned or being built in the area. What is the conversation around that particular element of the project look like? There has not been in depth further discussion about that element, President Tracy. Your concern is shared by a range of investors and lenders. And I think, you know, realistically to obtain financing for hotel properties, it will take some time to see occupancy rates come back before there's going to be a willingness to invest new dollars to create new inventory. You reference a deep pipeline of a number of potential projects within the market area. Some of those may fall by the wayside or be delayed perhaps. There are certain unique characteristics to this site as compared to a number of the other projects that were in the radar that may speak to a continued market demand for this site. And certainly just taking it up a level, if you will, the ability of this site to support, I'm going to say, other public gathering opportunities, meeting convention development within Dantan Burlington would speak to a unique type of market for that hotel use as compared to some others that are in non-metro, non-Dantan locations. So you're correct. I think it's going to take a while for a market to come back for financing those properties. And lenders and investors will want to be assured that there's demand for that. Okay. Thank you very much, Mr. Glasberg. So anyone else? Okay. Seeing none, Mr. Mayor, will you please just clarify what the request for executive session is based upon? The request for executive session is to have discussion with the council about ongoing negotiations with the developer and to get the councils input into those negotiations. Thank you very much. Is there a finding based off of that explanation? Someone prepared to make a motion with regards to make a finding? Councillor Hansing. I might need help, but I would find that due to the need to enter into a discussion about ongoing negotiations with the developer premature disclosure, disclosure of which would put the city would undermine the city's ability to negotiate that we go into executive session that sufficient. Attorney Blackwood, is that a sufficient motion or sufficient finding in your mind? I think that's probably good enough. Yes. Okay. All right. So we have a finding. There's a second from Councillor Mason. Any discussion on that finding? Okay. We'll go to a vote. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Seeing none, that was unanimous. Now we need that second motion, which is based on that finding motion to go into executive session. Is there anyone prepared to opt for that motion? Councillor Stromberg. Based on that finding, I move that we enter into executive session. Do a motion. Is there a second? Seconded from Councillor Paul. Any discussion on that? Okay. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Hearing none, that passes unanimously. We will go into executive session. Would you please clarify who's to be included in that executive session and how councillors are to get on to that executive session? Do we have another link in our inboxes? Yes, you should all have just received an email from Jordan, which has a link. And if the executive session could include City Attorney's Office, Mr. Glasper, Mayor's Office. Okay. Wonderful. All right. So we'll be back on this at seven for the members of the public to start the regular City Council meeting. We'll go into executive session right now. So switch over to that, and then we'll come back to this. Once we get all the councillors right back online, we'll go ahead and get started with an important update from Code Enforcement and the University of Vermont regarding the move out. I just want to make sure that we have all the councillors on. Seen only a couple so far. Give everyone a chance to get back on, and then we'll turn it over to our two presenters. We have Gail Shamp Noise and Bill Ward with us tonight. So thank you to both of you for being here. And before we do that, once we get everyone on, I also want to just take a moment and do the Pledge of Allegiance. So nine councillors. We're still missing councillor Shannon, councillor Mason. Oh, I see you, councillor Mason. Okay. Um, see, don't see councillor Jang. Here's Carpenter, and still missing councillor Jang. Oh, you're here? Okay. I believe we're just missing councillor Shannon. Okay, now we have councillor Shannon. All right. So would everybody please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you councillors, and thank you to our presenters also for being patient. I apologize again for being a few minutes late to this session. We will go ahead and turn it over to Bill Ward and Gail Shamp Noise from the University of Vermont. Bill is our the head of Code Enforcement and Permitting for the City, and we have a presentation from them and after which councillors will be able to ask questions. So, Bill, are you are you going to get us started? Yes, I am. Are you able to hear me okay? Yep. Okay, so I'm just going to give a few updates on the move out on communications, plan for trash removal that we see this time of year, and then some logistical updates about move out, and then I'll turn it over to Gail for much more detailed presentation from UVM with the PowerPoint, and then I'll come back to be discussing some of the move in strategies. So, as far as the specific communications, our team at the permitting inspections department, specifically it's the housing division, we're working with UVM in Champlain College regularly on making sure that our communications are consistent with theirs. In fact, that's part of why UVM is here tonight because Gail and I work really well together, and I think it's been about 20 years she's been doing the move out. The last 10 have been with me. The Resource Recovery Center this year is a new tool for us, and we're using it to both provide information for renters and for property owners, but also help with move out questions or problems specifically that renters have special needs during the COVID-19 emergency, or for property owners if they have issues, they can contact us through the Resource and Recovery Center. On the same website, there's renter frequently asked questions. UVM has a very similar one with student specific move out questions, a frequently asked questions page, and the housing division manager Patty Wayman in our department has set up a group email list so that we can communicate directly with a group of all the property owners so that we have communications on move out issues and guidance about things like cleaning, just normally cleaning between tenants, but there's a very different kind of cleaning that we'll be looking for this time of year. Many of what's happened, many of the things that have happened so far are pretty evident by just talking with renters and with property owners. I've seen them out, I've witnessed it myself, give an update about what's happened in just a minute about what I've seen on the streets, but we're a regular communication of Vermont apartment owners association to make sure they're staying consistent with our message as well. Gail's going to be giving details on the trash events that we have, but we have a couple coming up. It's not going to be the standard move out, but we will have something available for renters and we also will be patrolling regularly. Our code inspector is part of the code division, we'll be out patrolling and we know that people are watching. We have an overflow dumpster so that city staff can handle some rogue issues if they end up on city property and I know people are watching because one resident reported my license plate this weekend on Sunday when I was out removing trash they thought I was actually dumping, so it's encouraging that people are watching and seeing what's going on out there, so we asked them to stay vigilant and let us know either through resource and recovery, but particularly see quick fix for illegal dumping related issues. I can tell you we've handled 151 issues of trash closed since April 1st and the average time to close is 1.6 days, so we're on it. We'll try to do our best to stay at that rate, get things cleaned up quickly. This weekend when I was out I saw both Saturday and Sunday had an opportunity to speak with 18 different groups that were moving out to get some real data and those folks that had U-Hauls or were moving vans, 70% of those folks were in-town moves and 30% told me that they were same-day travelers, so they had traveled from out of state here getting belongings and they were returning to their state once they got things packed up. The primary reason they told me they were doing the same-day travel was because there's no hotels for them to stay at. What I saw though firsthand on both days this weekend was a high level of cooperation between renters and property owners. A lot of folks who are moving are moving in early to their new place and for those that aren't, they seem to be moving into storage facilities. I checked in today with the U-Haul manager on Riverside Avenue, he told me there were 50 of their trucks that were out in Burlington this weekend that had been rented, 40 of them were taking items specifically to storage facilities and the trucks were being returned, so he had some real-time information that helps me know that a lot of folks are already moving out, which is encouraging, sort of flattening the curve on the move out. We've also been working with the move out companies like Busca and Local Muscle, I called them to see what their availability would be if renters needed them to help with move out. I've also asked to see if they have estimates if we need to help out or if UVM can be prepared to help us. If renters can't do it themselves, if we get their call through the Resource and Recovery Center, we will work with tenants to find a way to help them out. I don't want to go too much further into details that Gail will be speaking about, but I will turn it over and then talk about move in when Gail is done. Thank you very much, Bill, and I just want to thank the Mayor's Office, the City Council, and all the staff for the Resource and Recovery Center for the phenomenal work that they're doing to help with impacts of COVID-19 on our entire community. I really appreciate it. For those of you who are not as familiar with our office or may need a little updating, what I'd like to show is just a few of the things that our office does do. Our students have to live on campus for two years, and then in their second year, we do off-campus living workshops, and we're also going online with our off-campus living workshop program, so they have the tools that they need to be successful off-campus. And then once they're off-campus to provide them with all the support and resources that we can and identify issues that face both the students and also the non-student neighbors, we work a lot with student-neighbor relations, and then we have a restorative approach. We want to do things with people in the neighborhoods, not two or four of them, and we do a lot around dialogue when things happen, because we've created relationships with individuals in the neighborhood. We have a better chance of things being timely, getting things conflict early is really important, as well as coming to some good resolution. And then we also provide some neighborhood grants, so if students and non-students in a neighborhood want to do a project, we'll help them not only with funding, we ask them what they need and what would help, and then we also provide staffing, and we have our students come, we have the upper bound program come, just a couple of examples, and we work a lot with, for example, the Burlington Health and Rehab Center as well, so we have a lot of neighborhood partners. And so that's a little bit about what our office does. I just want to stress that I work with the off-campus population, so I know questions may come up about the on-campus population or the full opening of campus, but in my prior conversations with counselor Max Tracy, I talked about that that's that I'm the right resource for the off-campus, and that if other things come up, I'm going to refer to Joe Spidel, who's our government relations liaison with the city. And then on that second slide, just a few of the things that we are doing, and Bill mentioned spring movement with 19 style, so we have come up with a plan for alternatives this year, and then the other is we have an off-campus life newsletter, and it goes out monthly. We've actually been sending it out weekly and sometimes twice a week, because the COVID orders from the governor are coming out on a regular basis. We want to make sure everybody has families and students have the best information, and also we wanted to make sure that we started in April with some of our moveout information so students were prepared. And then one of the ways we did that, if you want to go to the next slide, is we did a survey of students, and we wanted to find out a number of different things, and the survey went out in a off-campus like newsletter. These were preliminary results, because our survey results, the survey finalized after I got the information into Lori Olberg, so I'll just let you go, I'll just go through some of the things that I think that would be most relevant to this conversation. So 856 students filled out the survey. For those who are currently living in their off-campus rental, 529 of them, 187 of the students were not living in their rental, and you may be familiar with when spring, when we had our spring break, most of our students were away, and the university made that decision to do online learning, and some of the students never came back to the community, or they came back, and then they left after that virtual learning went on for the entire semester. So that's why we wanted to break it down between those that were still living here and those that had left, and then we asked how many students were planning on living in the Burlington area for the least period starting on June 1st, and that question was asked of the students who were living there now, and so 68% or 352 individuals who answered the survey, they're actually in Burlington now and staying in Burlington and moving in on June 1st, and then there were 136 of them who said no, they're leaving the city. So just wanted to let you know that there's a lot of movement going from one rental to another in Burlington, and then we asked of those students who have left, we asked if they're returning to their rental to move out their belongings, and 101 said yes, so that's 101 that will be coming back into the community to get their belongings and leave again, and then 49 said no, they already had their belongings out, 49 people, so I just wanted to give you an idea of the movement that might occur there, and then of those people that are coming back to get their belongings, 40% of those people are going to stay in a June rental, so they're only making one trip into Vermont, so those are some of the information that we were able to gather about what the movement might look like, and then we also wanted to know what's the week when most people are moving, and it was the week of May 18th and May 25th, so that gave us some really good guidelines for when we should have these alternative events for Spring Move Out project, and then if you go to the next slide, and so here's what we've done so far for Move Out actions, so we work with Bill and Code and his whole team, which are remarkable, we've been really good partners for a lot of years, and this is our 20th celebration of SMOP, and it's kind of the most unusual we never could have predicted, but because we have such a good working relationship, we were able to move pretty quickly into what that alternative might look like. We do that off-campus-like newsletter, which I've mentioned, we did a special Move Out edition, and we've done Move Out tips since April, and then we're doing door-to-door flyering the neighborhoods this week, and that will include both information about the alternative Move Out events, as well as a lot of the safe distancing, wear a mask, and some of the other order information that we thought was appropriate to hand out. We do social media posts. I did an update to the Mayor's Office and the City Council in a May 1st communication to the City Council and the Mayor's Office. Bill had referenced already that we're trying to keep the FAQ sheets on both UVM's official COVID-19 site, as well as the City's up-to-date with Move Out and Move In information, and we did this off-campus survey that I just talked about, and then we did a live Teams event with President Garamella and our Vice Provost, Annie Stevens, and also with Vermont Tenants in our office, and it was all about Move Out tips how to have a successful Move Out in the City. And then the last slide is about Move In actions. So going out this week is a communication from our Vice Provost, Annie Stevens, and it's to rising juniors and seniors. So they're the current sophomores who are going to be moving off campus in their junior year, and then the current juniors who will be seniors, and then also graduate students and medical students, and it's what they need to do and what they should expect coming back to Vermont, and we are constantly updating the governor's orders, but that is primary piece of the communications. And then we also know that the parents and the families, it's really good for them to have that kind of information in hand. So we're also sending it to parents of the undergraduates who will be living off campus. And then we also hope to do another survey with our current sophomores moving into their junior year to get an idea of when they're thinking of moving into the city. So that would be if that gets the go ahead, we'll do that this week. And with a short turnaround time, we're finding out that most of our students answered the survey within the first two days it's out. And so it's enabled us to do some of these quicker turnaround surveys when needed. And again, social media post and then updates to the mayor's office and the city council. Jordan, Jordan, if you have the move out or the move in slide that I had sent to you, I just want to have a couple of quick bullet points. I know Gail touched on a couple of them, but I think it one it says we didn't get a chance to go over the specific notes that each of us was going to say, but it does say there's a lot of partnership because the some of the things I'm going to say will overlap. But first, I want to remind everyone and anyone that's watching particularly that the move in that will happen after June 1 or through the fall right now the governor's quarantine order remains in effect. So quarantining is for anyone entering Vermont from out of state. The University of Vermont is going to be communicating as Gail said in the coming days about direction for students. And the city has been and will continue to put to have input into the communications. We're lucky to have good partners. We're working with UVM to understand the need for the storage for renter belongings and we're hoping that items that need to be stored until fall. UVM has the capacity for helping students, but there's also capacity for folks that can look to local movers information I shared earlier for moving out. And for those that do still need help and can't get the resources themselves, the city can help through their resource and recovery center. The city and UVM are going to be working on comparable support for off campus students. That's again June 1 through the fall move in. We are working on a protocol with UVM in the state of Vermont for a supportive isolation or quarantine program for renters who are returning to Vermont from out of state on June 1. And we are also asking that UVM the state work with us on a testing protocol to have in place by June 1 if we can for move in. And we expect ongoing work on this right up until the end of this month. So some of these are still being finalized, but there's a lot of information we have just shared want to hit a lot of that at a high level and answer questions if you have them. Excellent. Thank you very much, Bill. If you could just go off of the screen share mode just so I can see all the, okay, great. All right, I see Councilor Hightower, Councilor Shannon and Councilor Carpenter. Go head, Councilor Hightower. Thank you, President Tracy. I guess I had thanks for the update. First of all, appreciate all of you being here to present. My question is kind of beyond the move in actions. I know that we still have the governor's order in place and you talked about one communication in terms of what students can expect coming from Vermont. I think I'm a little worried about like renorming for students and what that looks like in terms of like just Vermont having higher precautions than most than many of the other states that they'll be coming from. And I know that there's always the governor's orders, but I find what is most effective is just what peers are doing. And so if the, if UVM has thought it all about what that renorming looks like and what it entails. And thank you for your question. So for the renorming in every communication we put out, we talk about wearing masks, the six feet of distance. We've also used like the catamount as an example, the six feet, trying to get some visual pictures about what that might look like. I will explore that a little bit more because maybe some personal stories. We had shared a few of the personal stories that came out of our early survey about what students were experiencing here, how many of them had roommates who came in and they were not doing the self distancing and they were feeling very vulnerable. So I appreciate you bringing that up. I think those personal stories as part of our off-campus life newsletters have a huge impact. So those are some of the ideas. But thank you for that question. Councillor Shannon. All right. I'm sorry. Councillor Hightower, are you all set? Yes. Thank you. Okay. Councillor Shannon. Thank you, President Tracy. And thank you both Gail and Dale for the presentation, but also for your work too because we're reinventing a new wheel here and I appreciate all the effort that has gone into that. I have a question about, you know, I understand you have surveyed students. I don't understand how you're tracking students. It seems like we are going into a mode of contact tracing and we have a quarantine order. So I'm wondering if UVM knows where their off-campus students are and if you know on an individual basis who is coming from where, where they're residing and have the ability to make that, you know, individual intervention to talk about the things that you've presented, that it's our expectation and it's the law that they comply with. Thank you, Councillor Shannon. One of the things that we've done in our survey, we asked students where they're living and we get the, what we kind of know historically as the areas where they're, it's most prominent. So that's around the Loomis Street area and then the others around Buell and Bradley. So we have those addresses. Also, Lisa Kingsbury from Campus Planning Services, she also does a survey every year to see where students are living and we share that information. So we have a pretty good idea. That's why when we did the spring move out alternate project, we knew which neighborhoods to go into. So that's one thing. Most of our students are coming from out of state and most of them are from Massachusetts and New York. So I think we do need to move into notice that look for contact tracing approach. And so I will bring that information back from this conversation to people that are looking at both the testing and the contact tracing. Can I continue? Yes. That sounds to me like the answer is no. We don't know where they are on an individual basis. We do know probably all of us and particularly people who live in the neighborhoods know which houses are student houses, which neighborhoods are student neighborhoods, but we do not know which students are living where and where they have come from. Is that correct? It is. In Katzak, when I have a call or a case and somebody doesn't have a name, I usually have to go knock on the door. We are trying, we've done a much better job in our registration when students have to sign up for registration of getting their local address, though we can look into the local address database and see what the addresses are there. We can't provide where individuals are living because of the FERPA protection, but we can call you the numbers of students that might be in different neighborhoods, for example. And Lisa Kingsbury again has that information. Well, I'm not necessarily looking for you to provide it to us. I mean, it would only need to be provided to us if you wanted our help in working with those students. But I think that it's important for the university to know where they are and for the university to be doing the work to make sure that they are compliant. So I hope that that is going to happen. It's getting kind of late in the game for that to happen. Well, we already do that through, as I mentioned, changes in the way that we do registration. So when students register for classes, we will have their local address. Before we had trouble with students not providing the correct local address. Sometimes it was their home state or their on-campus address. And now that's significantly improved. When did they register for classes? I'm trying to think of when that comes up. I know it's in June, but I don't have the exact date. But haven't students registered for classes already for a classman? No, no, a orientation I know is coming up for registration. I'll check that, Joan. I'm not sure. Okay. Thank you. Well, thank you, Councilor Shannon. It is 732. So I'm going to ask that we go into our public forum. Gail and Bill, are you able to stay on for after the public forum? Is that okay? Yes. It is a time certain. So we do really need to get to that. I have Councillor Carpenter and Freeman still in the queue. Are there others that want to get in the queue? I can email my question to Gail. That's perfectly fine. I want to welcome all questions. We'll come back into this item. I want to make sure that everyone gets their questions because I know this is an issue of great interest to the community right now. So with that, we'll recess this item with the idea to come back after public forum. If I could please ask City Clerk Bovee to help with the public forum on just a second here. But if you are interested in joining the public forum, I would just ask that you submit an email to publicforumatburlingtonvt.gov. That's publicforumatburlingtonvt.gov and we'll get you in the queue to speak on the public forum. Looks like we have quite a few folks already signed up. So City Clerk Bovee, can you please call the first speaker for this evening? Yes, our first speaker tonight will be Robert Kiernan. Robert, you should be able to go ahead. We can please get the timer up. Well, let's wait till we get the timer up just so that folks can see that. And we're going to have that on the shared screen. Chief of Staffordell, are you able to get that timer up on the screen for us? Sorry, President Tracy, this is Olivia. Oh, Amy's got it. Great. Yep, I can do that. I was actually thinking, from what I've heard, we have quite a few folks in public forum this evening and a very packed agenda. So I was going to set the time at two minutes this evening. Sure. Thank you very much. Okay, can you reset that and then make sure that we have Mr. Kiernan online? On here. Have you got me? Yep. Okay. Go ahead. Thanks for the public forum tonight. For your consideration tonight, the proposed resolution to issue a city council COVID-19 emergency order to require wearing face covering in retail stores is appropriate and will hopefully receive strong affirmative support. Thank you, Councillor Shannon, for developing this resolution. Many Berlingtonians are hoping to see city council action as well towards the recent efforts by the Berlington and actually statewide restaurant industry, asking for community support and development towards their workers and for the economic contribution this industry provides to our city. Their petition to save Vermont restaurants has received well over 5,700 signatures as of today. I'm also reminded of last year's council's deliberations about the downtown business district improvement plan that was comprehensive but was not approved in 2019. This is a timely concept to reemerge now to support the needed regrowth of Berlington economic health. My statement would be that a spirit of innovative planning should prevail during a time that sees the COVID-19 pandemic creating numerous economic and cultural challenges. In contrast, Agenda Item 7.07 brings forward a council resolution directing city departments to provide resources and significant spending to tear down store and hide a mural that seems to be disliked by some in our community. And to do this over two years ahead of schedule that was agreed upon in October 2018, this new resolution is not in the public interest in my opinion, especially during a time when city finances are severely challenged and there are current health and economic concerns of a much higher priority in our city and state. As an example, sorry, say again. Please wrap up. Okay, I'm wrapped up. Thanks a lot for listening. Thank you very much. Is there a next speaker? Our next speaker is Sarah Scortino. Give me one moment and I will enable your microphone. Okay, Sarah, you should be good to go. Sarah, are you with us? Hi, can you hear me now? Yes, thank you. Great. Well, thank you for having me. I'm just here to speak in support of Councillor Hanson's resolution to move buildings in Burlington off of natural gas and towards renewable energy. I'm an environmental study student at UVM and a leader in the movement to divest UVMs endowment from fossil fuels. I really chose to come here because of what seemed like a commitment to environmentalism and I was upset to be let down by the reality of our irresponsible and hypocritical investments. As a student who's really passionate about the environment, I feel similar reservations about living in a city still partially relying on fossil fuels, including natural gas, while I try to work towards a better future. I'll be a tenant in Burlington in two short weeks and will be begrudgingly making monthly payments to Vermont gas and this does not make me feel very proud to be a Burlington resident. I know the same goes for my peers and yeah, I just feel ashamed to be going to a green school that's finding the fossil fuel industry and to soon be relying on natural gas in my apartment, which is an unsustainable and carbon-intensive and inequitable energy source. I wonder when do the lies stop? When will the institutions that I support and the cities in which I live actually live up to the narrative that they promote? This resolution is an essential step towards making Burlington truly green. Strides have been made, but renewable energy is essential in order to address the climate crisis and as a city largely led by progressives, we have the potential to lead the way in efforts towards greening urban areas. Therefore, we really do have the responsibility to do so and this includes the essential task of switching to renewable energy in all sectors. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker. Our next speaker will be Evan Litwin. Evan, you should be able to go ahead. Evan, are you with us? Are you able to hear me now? Yes, if you could please set the clock one second. Evan, can we just get that clock reset? Okay, perfect. Go ahead Evan. Hi, good evening. Tonight you have a proposal before you to change the number of units at the Cambrian Rise Development Project by over 23% from 770 to 950. After all is said and done, roughly four to five percent of Burlington's entire population will be living on this single 21 acre parcel of land. Additionally, its only entrance and exit point will be via North Avenue. My concerns tonight are more about process, system, and transparency than about anything specific to the proposal, although concerns certainly exist, including the one about increasing the height of the buildings. Assumptions that the height increases will be, as the memo states, little noticed by the general public, assumes consultation that hasn't happened. 75 feet above grade means that the existing four-story buildings that people now live in could potentially be in the shadow of six or seven story buildings, perhaps eight when slope is taken into account. My concern lays with the rushed and discrete nature of the new proposal. The public through our elected body is being asked to consider the memo while referencing working closely with Mayor Weinberger for several months was only dated April 23rd during the height of the coronavirus situation. The residents have had little or no notice or opportunity and I am just to address this, I'm just going to jump ahead for time. Therefore, I see this as a critical moment for the identity of the new progressive led council to set the standard for community input, transparency, and dialogue with the city's developer community. What might have been acceptable under the former council may not be today. Therefore, I ask that the committee either reject this proposal or allow Mr. Farrell to withdraw it until such a time that community input, feedback, and reasonable participation can be garnered by the council and any other appropriate entities. And I will leave it there for now. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker. Our next speaker will be Miko Ozeki. Just one second. And you should be able to speak now. You'll just need to unmute yourself. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes. Hi. My name is Miko Ozeki. I'm the market director for the Burlington farmers market. I just wanted to provide a quick update about running the farmers market. This year is our 40th season and we are operating on starting on June 6th and going until October 17th. We have shortened our season dramatically due to COVID-19 and have dramatically changed our setup in light of the farmers market guidelines from the Vermont agency of agriculture to provide a safe food hub as well as a shopping experience for Burlington residents and those who are visiting the Burlington farmers market in general. And so one of the quick things we want, I wanted to kind of give an up, our biggest concern is for us and under the agency of agriculture's guidelines, we as staff as well as vendors are all required to wear facial coverings and gloves and knowing that there is a measure that is out there in regards to retail shops having facial coverings and gloves. We would and in particularly to sorry for customers, we would like to see the same extended to events like ours since we are a recurring event that is going to be happening over a period of 20 weeks for the safety of our own vendors as well as staff. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker. So I just wanted to say I have someone named Norman Fisher who signed up. I don't see you on the Zoom call, so if you could just email public forum and let me know how to identify you, we'll get you in queue. But next while we're waiting, I will move to Trav Friar. Trav, you should be able to speak. Okay, you hear me? Yes, Trav, go ahead. Hi everybody. Trav, I'm a resident of the Old North End. I just wanted to voice my support for Jack Hansen's resolution to help move Burlington off of fossil fuels. It's a really small but necessary step, and I thank everyone for supporting it. That's really all I have to say. Thanks. Thank you very much. Okay, our next speaker will be Jeff Nick. Jeff, you should be able to go ahead. Jeff, do we have you on the line? Can you hear me? Yep, go right ahead. Okay, hi everybody. Jeff Nick here. I'm the chair of the Church Street Marketplace Commission, and I'd just like to comment on a couple of the agenda items tonight. First of all, it is our hope, the commissions that the positive business climate we all enjoyed a few months ago bounces back quickly, but we certainly have our work cut out for us with we're now up to eight vacancies on the street, which is very concerning, and we know more will come. Our focus, the Marketplace Commission, is ensuring that shoppers and visitors alike are comfortable venturing back downtown in this new era of social distancing. It's very important. We know there's going to be some apprehension, and we must do everything we can to really eliminate that and make sure we really feel safe venturing back downtown. So to that, the Marketplace Commission voted unanimously to support Councillor Sharon's efforts to require masks to be worn while shopping, and the retailers I've talked to also appreciate that and support it. So I think on balance, the folks visiting Church Street will appreciate the effort. And a quick trip downtown today or walking on Church Street, I would say 90% of the people already had masks either on or in their hands, so I think the shoppers are ready for this, so I'd appreciate it. The other item I'd like to comment on is the idea to remove the mural, and there's many reasons that mural was put in place and it's enjoyed by many, but there are the unintended consequences of what will happen without a plan to replace that mural. And I think it's pretty evident to all of us now that that wall would just become an alleyway of graffiti if that is removed and not replaced with anything. So we really hope that you would reconsider the implications of removing that mural. Thank you very much, everybody. Okay. Thank you very much. Next speaker. Again, folks, if you're interested in speaking, you can email publicforum at burlingtonvt.gov. It looks like we've tracked down Norman Fisher. I will go ahead and allow you to speak. My daughter is the text expert, and she was the one who set me up on this. So anyway, I'm on now. I believe that the, I'm opposed to moving the mural, but particularly with COVID-19, I regard it as a reckless and dangerous action, particularly in the light of two things. First of all, the deceptive and weak intellectual basis of the report, and second, the failure to ever bring in the issue of free speech. On the first, I was involved. I tried to get on the panel, but I didn't. Okay. So they didn't get me on, but I came to a number of the meetings, and I was struck by the fact that two of us who knew a lot about art history, I'm a retired professor of philosophy, were not on. Okay. That's one thing. Maybe that's nothing, but most of the people, five out of the seven people on the panel seemed to be just gun whole and getting rid of the mural. But even more serious than that is that at the July 31st meeting, Gary, the Carolus who didn't want to get rid of it, wanted to have a motion, and the chair of the meeting didn't allow him to have a motion. And when the thing finally went into the report, it was not signed. There's no way of knowing how many of the people on the panel, the seven people actually supported the motion to get rid of it. Carolus didn't. I suspect that at least five did, but this is a conceptual problem. Okay. It's deceptive and also the weak intellectual background to this suggests that people on the council should look at all the, all this is on the record. Second point, which I've spoken on extensively in 18, fall of 18, late summer of 18 is the total lack of discussion of free speech. And this is a glaring contrast to what happened in those. You can wrap up your comments, sir. Yeah. Well, this is a glaring contrast to what happened in LA and San Francisco. There was a rich discussion of free speech. Many left this, which I am, supported free speech and didn't want those reals taken down. So I hope that the council, before they vote on this reckless and dangerous action, look into this. Thank you. Next speaker. So it also make an announcement. I had a Brian Druer signed up to speak to who I don't see on the call. But in the meantime, let's move to Lori Fisher. Lori, are you with us? Give me just one second. Not seeing Lori. So in the meantime, we'll move to Dale Tillett. Dale, are you with us? This is a test of the emergency broadcast system. Can you all hear me? Yes, I can hear you, Dale. Thank you. Thank you. Go ahead. Thank you, Mr. President, for taking my comments tonight. I will be addressing the issue of the mandatory masking up of customers in retail establishments. And I also hope the surrounding communities of Burlington take a look at this and also join into this. I would also like to thank in particular the mayor's office, Councillor Shannon, Paul, Jang, and Polino for responding to my messages on the issue. Well, every cough is not a COVID-19 cough. Well, every sneeze is not a COVID-19 sneeze. Every cough or sneeze should be treated as one. And with the 20% of the people that I see that are not masked up, that puts our lives in danger. As I said, my unofficial but personal observations are that roughly 20% of customers are not masking up while visiting retail businesses. Simply said, those unmasked that cough, wheeze, or sneeze must be declared a hazard to my life and anyone else around. Enforcement will be a challenge for all. And I hope the city emphasizes that with our health officers for them to get out and observe what is happening and report back issues that need addressing. In closing, if a volunteer is needed to ask customers to mask up, I am your person. I will do the best of my ability to educate those that are ignorant or arrogant of the situation with subtle comments such as no mask, no service. Again, I thank you for your time. You have a busy agenda tonight. Good luck. Stay safe. Stay healthy. Thank you. Okay. Our next speaker will be Charles Messing. Charles, you should be able to speak. Hi, Charlie. We can hear you. Hi, Zoomers. That's Charlie, by the way. Okay. I got all kinds of things to say in only two minutes. Joan, that's great that you've been working on the masks and the safety. I really think we have to make it known to the new kids that it's not just something they can, you know, brush off, you know, toss a beer can or a red bull can over their shoulder, forget a mask. I mean, what's the difference? You know, they're trying to be jolly and I'm not being watched. I'm away from home now. We really do have to make sure people know what six feet is. I see every day people are too close. So I hope we can do something about that. Pine Street, I am for the new street. I think it will be better, much better. City Place, I'm sure wondering what's going to happen with that. The mural, I don't like the mural, but as you know, I don't like parades. Outside, outside, it's going to get hot. And people are going to want to be in air conditioned places. Recirculated air, recirculated water is exactly what the virus would like. And we have to remember that. We have to be very careful of anything like that. Opening things up means cleaning up a lot. This must be really something. You've got a new council and all of a sudden you're sailing the ship and here comes the storm. So good luck. I couldn't do what you do. Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak. Have a good evening. Thank you. You as well. Okay. Our next speaker will be Tony Reddington. Tony, you should be good to go. Tony, are you with us? Tony, are you with us? Tony, it looks like you do need to hit your unmute button. Tony, are you able to hit that unmute button, Tony? Okay. Well, why don't we go to the next speaker? And if someone from the clerk's office could please continue to work with Tony Reddington to get him on the line so that we can hear Tony speak. That would be wonderful. And let's get that next speaker going and then again, we'll come back to Tony. Sounds good. Our next speaker will be Tom Proctor. Tom, you should be good to go. Tom, are you with us? Yes. Good evening. Thank you for letting me speak this evening. My name is Tom Proctor. I live in Ward 1 and I work at Wrightson Democracy. I just wanted to say this evening that I support Councilor Hanson's resolution to help move buildings in Burlington off of natural gas and towards renewable energy. I think it's a critical way we can move forward on addressing climate change. I believe that everyone on the city council believes in climate change. I know that it's critical we address climate change in any way and every way that we can. One crucial way to address climate change is to end our reliance on fossil fuels. And I believe this resolution is the first of many steps in which we can take to make this reality in Burlington. So thank you, Councilor Hanson, for bringing this resolution forward. Thank you. Were you able to get Tony back on the line? I can give it another try. I haven't heard from him, but Tony, you are unable to speak if you can unmute your microphone. Tony, are you with us? Okay, well, let's keep trying and let's move on to the next speaker. Okay, our next speaker will be Charles Simpson. Charles, you should be able to speak. Okay, got it. That sounds like Tony. Yes. Okay, let's go with Tony first and then we'll go to Charles. Tony, thank you for bearing with us. I appreciate it. You have two minutes. Go ahead. The button showed up when I hit it. Okay, thank you, President Tracy. My name is Tony Ruddington. I reside at 125 St. Paul Street, Ward 3. I speak on behalf of Pine Street Coalition. With an year will have passed before our Pine Street lawsuit filed last June 6, will get passed the U.S. District Court door. One of many unaddressed laws, policies, and plans as well as changes on the ground detailed by Pine Street in 2018, environmental justice impacts on King Maple gets addressed only because of Pine Street actions. Burlington's standard for street design is really the North Avenue Corridor Plan adopted in 2014. It features two pieces. One, cycle track or protected bike lanes from top to bottom and roundabouts that cut injuries and fatalities 90% at key intersections. There's no need to restate the current parkway design contains not a single inch of sidewalk, not an inch as safe as separate and safe bikeway is required by Vermont's Complete Streets Law and contained in our own planned PTB walk bike. No need to restate that six traffic signals compared to the basic roundabout spews out a yearly average of more than 3,500 gallons of gas and global heating emissions. No need to restate our largest waterway. Engelsby Brook jammed into a football field length of fight. No reason to restate. Mayor Clavel fought through and against the design that brings 29% to 37% more traffic to the part of low income minority King Maple neighborhood where 30% have no access to a car. In sum, we believe that New Street, which we distributed for the first time this weekend to the council is a way in which the city, the city, those who are opposed to the current design, the federal highway administration and Vermont, VTrans can come together with minimal changes in the environmental documents committing to get a street that our city and our south end can enjoy and the wrap up is off the wall. Thanks, council. Thank you. Do we have Charles Simpson? Charles, you should be able to speak now. Very good. Thank you. My name is Charles Simpson, the resident of ward six with some academic background in urban planning. The Champlain Parkway is presently envisioned by DPW is a legacy project rooted in traffic and mobility assumptions decade old and now thoroughly outmoded. Rather than being truly multimodal, it adds not a single foot of separate bike walk pass and actually remove some existing sidewalks. At time when we must stimulate local manufacturing and jobs, this roadway designed squander six acres of industrial potential of the enterprise district by slicing it open with a limited access highway. As we worry about climate change, it impedes preparation for floods by submerging Anglesby's book in a 200-foot culvert that restricts its ability to absorb strong water. And it barricades Pine Street on the border with South Burlington, frustrating connectivity standards. When a consensus is growing to reduce off-street parking requirements in the city core to make our city more pedestrian friendly, why build a new limited access parkway whose purpose is to funnel yet more traffic downtown? We're lucky that Burlington is a city in which citizens are deeply involved in public processes. The city, the Pine Street Coalition, a group of 200 residents as Tony just indicated, has developed an alternative plan and we recommend that to you watching the clock here as well here. Okay, so I request that the Parkway project be referred to the Transportation, Energy and Utilities Committee for further analysis and public comment, including a discussion of the Coalition's New Street proposal. This is the best forum for a full discussion of the question. And if I, I guess I, okay, that's it. Thank you very much. Thank you. Me, you're on mute. Our next speaker will be Joanna Rankin. Joanna, you should be good to go. Can you hear me? Yes, Joanna. Thank you very much for taking my comments this evening. And we've talked over the years, over many years, almost two decades about noise measurement and tracking equipment for the Burlington airport. It's the only way we'll have an objective measure of the, of the loudness of the aircraft that are using the, the airport. And I just want to report tonight that, that some of us have talked to Robert Duquette, who's the FAA Northeast New England representative. He's looked at the, at the noise studies from the last two decades. And he says that there's absolutely no reason why Burlington cannot apply for an FAA grant to fund noise measurement and tracking at the airport, which would give us an objective measure of the, of the levels of noise and their health and other kinds of, of effects on the community. So I asked the council to, to encourage or, or instruct the airport management to, to submit a grant. It has to be done quite quickly because the, the deadline has been extended this year due, due to COVID, but the deadline is within two weeks. So I mean, it's, it's in mid June. So kindly start the process to submit this FAA grant. Thank you very kindly. Good evening. Thank you. Our next speaker is Graham Turk. Graham, you should be all set. Yep. Can you hear me? Okay. Yep. Go ahead, Graham. Perfect. Thank you. So I'm going to speak in favor of councilor Hanson's resolution to help move buildings in Burlington off natural gas. I think first we, we know that ducted heat pumps can meet the need for Vermont winters using Burlington's 100% renewable electricity supply. Efficient electric heat will drastically cut emissions. This will also keep money in the city and apply downward rate pressure by spreading Burlington electrics fixed cost over higher sales. And this has an awesome flywheel effect because more electrification means lower rates, which in turn means more favorable economics against fossil fuel alternatives. So the proposal, I really see the saving Burlingtonians money in the long run, moving the city closer to net zero and improving air quality by reducing point source emissions, which is truly a win, win, win. It's an opportunity for the council to demonstrate its commitment to Burlington's net zero energy plan because heating represents such a huge share of Burlington's emissions and also may be an impetus for, for district energy from the McNeil plant, as that would be a clean alternative to the existing fossil fuel infrastructure. Just a quick comment on the Cambrian rise proposal. I hope that if we're allowing more units, we are also being vigilant on how that impacts transportation and not getting stuck in the old paradigm of subsidized parking. And lastly, just wanted to thank all counselors and the mayor for your dedication and continued progress through the pandemic and jumping through hoops to allow public participation through zoom. So thank you all. Thank you. Okay, our next speaker will be Lisa Lax. Lisa, you should be all set. Okay. So my name is Lisa Lax. I'm a 37 year resident of ward one. And I want to thank the council for making it possible for us to speak tonight. I want to speak in favor of counselor Hanson's resolution to help move buildings in Burlington off of natural gas and towards renewable energy. The city government has begun some really exciting initiatives and plans towards reducing the effects of climate change with its net zero plan. And Jack's resolution is a logical and necessary step towards meeting these goals. So that's all I have to say. Thank you very much. Thank you. And if members of the public want to get into the queue for public forum again emailing public forum at Burlington VT.gov is how you do that. So we only have one more person signed up that I'm able to find. I have sent out messages to Brian Drewer and Lori Smith. If you can contact me, we'll try and get you to a chance to speak. But the last person I do have signed up is Mark Hughes. Mark, you should be good to go. Mr. President, good evening. Good evening, council. And thank you for all your hard work that you've been doing this unprecedented time. I just wanted to just speak out on behalf of the Racial Justice Alliance. We're fearful that there are some of us that are still left behind. Pre-COVID-19 Black folks had an unemployment rate of about two times that of and also a median wealth of one-thirteenth out of whites. And also many were pre-unemployed with no benefits underemployed struggling to start businesses previously incarcerated or under the control of the Department of Corrections unbanked. And many had no sufficient tax filing history. Recently, the center of responsible lending estimated that upwards of about 90 percent of businesses owned by people of color have not been or will not likely be eligible for the Paycheck Protection Program. So there's a lot of things that are happening. COVID-19 is definitely exacerbating all of those known racial disparities in housing and education, also obviously in employment health services access, the justice system, everything that was clearly outlined in the Attorney General's and Human Rights Commission's Act 54, racial disparities and state systems report and recommendations that stated December of 2017. That wasn't enough. We've got all kinds of challenges right on the health front, right here as well. And I think that was documented just very recently by the health department. So all that to say this is there's still work to do. And I stand at the ready to work with you. I'm looking forward to working with the DEI folks as well as continuing working with the mayor, as well as Taisha to bring the bearer all to the power that we can to make sure that these challenges are resolved and closing. I would just say that definitely thumbs up Counselor Hanson on the buildings, taking the buildings off of natural gas. I think that's a great move and it's time to do it now. Thank you, Counselor Shannon, for the massive business. Those of us who are people of color in a precarious place with our health and this virus, but also many of us, 80% of us are on the front line. And finally, I'll just say the mural, yes, take it down. It's racist and gentle in Parkway. I think you should kick that over to the diversity, equity and inclusion committee since it's an environmental justice issue. Please wrap up. Thank you for your time, Mr. President. Thank you, Counsel, for your work. Thank you. City Clerk Bovier, or do we have any additional speakers that are waiting to get on or that we're still trying to identify? I did hear from Laurie Smith that you'd like to speak, but Laurie, I can't identify you on the call if you could reply to my email and let me know. I'm right here on the call. My name is on the screen. Oh, there you go. Okay. And I prepared for a three minute comment. I will do it as fast as I can, but I hope I can get through it, please. Thank you very much. And we'll get that right up. Okay, go ahead, go ahead, Laurie. Good evening. My name is Laurie Smith and I live in Queen City Park in South Burlington. I first want to thank all of you for your efforts towards managing our Queen City and your efforts to improve the quality of life for all who live, work and recreate in the region. Lately, I've been following the efforts of the city to get the Champlain Parkway completed and the efforts of the Pine Street Coalition to improve the design of the project and ensure that what gets built is a model for transportation infrastructure in the 21st century and is in line with the climate emergency resolution adopted by the City Council on 9-23-19 with reduced pavement, promotion of bike and pedestrian transportation and minimized environmental impact. I have been paying attention to this project for decades and have witnessed the struggles that have plagued its completion. After listening to the DPW Parkway presentation at last week's council meeting, and listening to the legal conversations at the Pine Street Coalition meetings, it has become clear to me that there are major differences of opinion about what modifications can be made to the project design while maintaining the ability to construct the project in the near future. The Federal Highway Administration rescinded the record of decision for this project last October. That action has significant implications for the project and potentially creates an opportunity for the city to make alterations to the project design. Rescinding the rod also potentially opens the project to new levels of appeal when a new record of decision is filed, leaving the project exposed to the possibility of further extensive delays if the city and the Pine Street Coalition do not work together towards a settlement that can be accepted by all stakeholders which would enable the project to move forward uncontested. I encourage the council to consider briefly continuing any decision to allocate further funds towards this project to provide the time needed to ensure clarity about what options are realistically available to improve and complete this project. If there's a viable alternative, let's go for it. At the very least, taking a short pause referring to the Duke would provide an opportunity to clearly assess the options. Please do this and please take care of traffic coming to get the problems relieved for the people that live in the south end. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. City Clerk Boby, do we have anyone else in the queue or trying to get on? I did just get a couple more emails. Next up we have Alex Binzen. Alex, you should be all set. Okay. Hello. My name is Alex. I live in the old north end. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I'm here to voice my support of Councillor Hanson's resolution to move Burlington buildings towards renewable heating. According to the Netsier Energy Roadmap, heating accounts for almost half of total emissions in the city. Sustainable heating technology is available at affordable prices and now is the time to move ahead. Thank you. That's all I have to say. Thank you for that. Last up I had Michael Mullen contact me, but Michael, I don't see your name on my list. If you can tell me what you're logged in under, I can let you speak. That's the last person I have signed up. Give a moment to try and get that. Anything, City Clerk Boby? I haven't heard back from him and I'm still not seeing anyone listed under the name Michael Mullen. Okay. I'm going to go ahead and close that item and we will go back into the presentation from UVM and Gail Champt-Noise. In the queue, I had Councillors Carpenter, Freeman, and then Jeng. Councillor Carpenter, the floor is yours. This is a quick question. For some reason I've had two families contact me today about their children who are moving from one to another apartment in the city of Burlington. The problem is they're going to be without housing for three to five days while the landlords are sanitizing 60 apartments. Typically, they go home or bunk up with a friend, but they can't do that in the stay-at-home thing. So I'm just asking, Gail, what options are you? Do you have any supports for those kind of residents? And I also just noted that in your flyer, it says the hotels are not open until the 15th, but I thought they were open in the 22nd. Your question. And was that the UBOUT special edition? Because that was a main element. Yeah, I can't. It was the one that was sent to us. I don't know what tradition it was. Okay. So after that went out, then the governor's orders. There was a letter that went out to the hospitality community. And so one of the things that changed is if you are a Vermonter, which these students are that are in between housing, that you would be able to go stay in lodging after May 27th. I think that that was made in a second. Yep. Okay, thank you. So we've gotten information to our students, so that could be one resource for them. We also said, I know that a lot of our students don't have jobs anymore and our stuff is in many of us economically. So the student financial services will try to work out if there's any care money that could cover their situation. As long as they reach the criteria for financial aid, as much money is available. So that's the information that we give them. And what you just said, we'll also share up in our survey when we ask students what else they want to say about their off-campus situation. So some of them are using storage and, as you said, finding other places to live in the meantime. But it has been very difficult. Is that all, Councillor Carpenter? Okay, Councillor Freeman. Thank you, President Tracey. And I, my internet did cut out in the beginning of your presentation. So if any of these questions are, I just have two questions are repeat. I can just let me know and I can take it offline and we can follow up afterwards. But yeah, I appreciate the presentation you were coming and speaking tonight. I was curious if there's, is there any regulation around the sanitization of the units that folks are moving in and out of? And again, if I missed this, because it was already part of the presentation. No, it's not. Well, the regulation is basically from the Vermont statutes for essential maintenance practices. That's not specific to COVID related, but it has to do with lead paint. So buildings that are pre-1978 require a specific cleaning between tenants. That's part of why a lot of the leases end several days before the first of the month to give time for property owners to do that. But there are the current CDC and health department guidelines for cleaning residential properties that would be in effect, but not specific Burlington regulations. Okay. Yeah, so I guess that kind of gets up to my follow, like a follow up question to that, which is just, you know, if so it sounds like some, based on some regulations, some will be sanitized, but not necessary. So you're saying all of them will be because of the CDC, or I mean, I understand. Well, they should be. And that's part of the reason why we have a code enforcement office, the division of permitting inspections handles complaints from renters who get to an apartment that's not clean. We get those on a typical year. We can get calls, you know, anywhere from June 1st up to, you know, sometime in August that someone's moved back in. There's no one there and the place wasn't clean before someone comes in. So if someone asks you that question, by all means have them call us at the permitting inspections department. That's why we have deputy health officers to go out and do inspections of those properties. If they're not properly clean, our inspectors would first we'd ask for voluntary cooperation from property owners, but we issue written orders to the property owner to have them corrected and brought back into compliance. And part of that goes from the inspection. So we would again be the point of contact. It's a city staff and there are five of us that can handle those types of complaints. I don't expect we'll have too many based on what I saw this weekend. There's quite a few cleaning crews out with property owners. But if you do have those issues, by all means definitely have your constituents contact our office because we can help. Okay. Thank you. And yeah, my, so then my this the, I understand that the city is able to regulate some of this, but also some of it is going to probably fall on the state or if we needed to have increased regulation, is there been any need to communicate with the state in any sort of increased sort of process that they're looking at in terms of regulating this period? I am, I am just sort of generally worried about the contaminants because of the amount of turnover, not just with students without, but just the, the least turnover major. Yeah. I think the state's probably going to be limited to just providing guidance. I don't believe they have the capacity to do onsite inspections or follow-ups. That's why I definitely would encourage anyone who has a question to call us because we're the resource in Burlington. Yeah. Not just specifically towards inspection, but just sort of in general, I know during some of the early initial conversations, like, you know, we realized that you couldn't outright prohibit anyone from moving, but I just, I'm, I've been trying to reach out to the state to understand because I think Burlington is in a unique position being a municipality, having this level of high density and having this huge least turnover to be in a position to be more vulnerable during this time. And I don't know if, you know, I'm happy to also follow up with the administration or just sort of folks in general, but I was just sort of, I've been looking to sort of tease out this aspect of, yeah, what this means going forward generally. That's part of what we're doing with being out there because sometimes people aren't familiar with what our resources are, but part of my surveying, people who are moving out this weekend was to do exactly that, to make sure they're aware of our resources and that we are available. Those are perfect opportunities. When someone does have a problem, they would let us walk right into the rental unit and we'll be there when folks are moving back in too for those types of things, walking through the neighborhoods. And so again, whether it's a call to us or while we're out checking in with folks, we will be available to check individual apartments. If folks have a question and you can also reach out to me directly, we can follow up this conversation afterwards as well. Okay. Yeah. Thank you so much, Bill and Gail for your presentation. I super appreciate it. Thank you, Councillor Freeman. And Code Enforcement Director Ward, are you able to just share that? You said give us a call or the contact information. Can you just reiterate that contact information for the public? Sure. 8-6-3-0-4-4-2 is our office line. But I think a lot of folks have my direct contact, both my desk phone and my cell phone because it's listed because I'm Burlington's health officer through the Vermont Department of Health. We get a lot of direct referrals that way and we have our administrators check in with a staff member to make sure they're available. We assign our team of inspectors so that we try to share the wealth and don't overwhelm any one individual, particularly myself. I get those calls because my a variety of different numbers are out there but the office number is the most direct way. Okay. Thank you, Bill. So, Councillor Jang, let me know that he has passed on his thing so the queue is currently empty. Are there any other councillors wishing to ask questions? Councillor Stromberg, go ahead. Yeah, just a clarifying thing and I'm more than happy to take this offline with you, Bill. And it's also nice to meet you. So, cleaning is one thing and disinfecting is another. So, Perry's question kind of brought this up for me mentally. If you walk into a place, it might be clean but how do you know if it's been like properly disinfected and how are we enforcing that in terms of the turnover? The best way I would say first using their own senses as a renter moves into a place and often they know immediately their senses say something's not right. The next best, whether they think it's clean or if it's been sanitized, asking. Right? Asking the landlord what process was followed to make the place ready for the move in. But again, typically people can use their own judgment and when someone says, oh, we've gone top to bottom, everything's clean and you can look within a short distance of where you're at and you can see that that's not the case, then you can probably distrust the rest of the things that are being said. It's probably not clean top to bottom. That's a perfect call for us because it's also not just during COVID times, most of our homes are older. So, if the horizontal surfaces have not been clean, there's a greater hazard related from the dust particles that they're from the lead paint. So, we get those calls, we expect some of those. But again, I think people using their best common sense and judgment when they walk in, if it doesn't look clean, it's probably not sanitized. But asking the property owner or property manager who's turning the keys over, what steps did you take to sanitize? And we can make sure I'm pretty sure they're available on the website, but definitely folks can check them either through the CDC or the Vermont Department of Health, but we'll make them available through our departmental website as well. Thank you. Sure. Any other counselors wishing to ask questions on this item? Seeing none, we will go ahead and close this item. Thank you, both of you for being here and sharing this important information. I'm sure that should others have questions that come up, please feel free. I would assume to direct them to you recognizing that Gail is really here for the off campus and that as she said, if you have questions regarding to the on campus and some of the fall related questions that Joe Spidell is a good contact for you in that regard. But thanks again for being here and for waiting through public forum as well to come back on to make sure all questions were answered. Hope you have a good night. Good night. Thank you. Good night. Okay. So that will move us into our next item, which is climate emergency reports. One thing that counselors reminded me about with these reports is that there are not questions with these. If you have questions just about something that someone says on their report, please follow up with them offline. So with that said, are there any counselors wishing to offer a climate emergency report? Councilor Hanson. Great. Thanks. Yeah, just a couple things to flag. So two of the resolutions that we passed in January, I just wanted to flag and follow up on there was a resolution around a study of free transit that was due back for this meeting. And obviously timetables are affected by COVID. And city staff have been doing amazing work, you know, responding to the COVID crisis. So obviously it's understandable that these timelines haven't been met, but I do want to flag them so that as city staff are kind of returning back to some of the non COVID work that that this is flagged and for the public as well. There was a, so the Fair Free Transit study was one and then there was a resolution about use of parking revenue to support alternative transportation. That was actually due back in in March as well. And then one other, one other thing to flag is the issue of rent weatherization that got rolling all the way back. Oh, I'm sorry, the issue of rental weatherization that began all the way last summer, the idea of mandating landlords to weatherize rental units, that issue is going to be coming back after a bit of a hiatus. And that will be coming back in ordinance committee when we meet on June 3rd. So looking forward to that and just wanted to flag that. Thank you, Councillor Hanson. Other Councillors looking to offer a climate emergency report. Okay, seeing none, we will go into our next item, which is the consent agenda. Is there an a motion on the consent agenda? Councillor Stromberg. All right, so I move. All right, I move to amend adopt consent agenda taking the actions as indicated note written material for agenda item 6.10 communication Catherine Shad CAO regarding calendar for fiscal year 21 budget process per CAO Shad. Add to the agenda item 6.13 communication Sarah Denny regarding requiring masks and stores. Add to the agenda item 6.14 communication Mary Campbell regarding require masks on customers shopping in 05401. Add to the agenda item 6.15 communication Martha Day regarding community customers wearing masks in retail stores. Add to the agenda item 6.16 communication Maya Campbell regarding COVID retail response. Add to the agenda item 6.17 communication Kathy Rulo regarding vote on mask mandate in stores. Add to the agenda item 6.18 communication Carl and Ellie Potter regarding retail customer masks. Thank you. We have a motion. Is there a second? Seconded by Councillor Paul. Any discussion? Seeing none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favour, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That passes unanimously. We'll now move into our deliberative agenda and item 7.01, which is a communication but also there is action requested. So if we could please have a motion on the item 7.01. Councillor Mason. Thank you President Tracy. Excuse me. I'd like to make a motion to authorize the Director of Public Works to execute contract amendment number 16 to the contract with Clow, Haber and Associates for Engineering Nine Services for the Champlain Parkway Project increasing the total contract amount by 824,940.96 cents and the local match obligation by $16,498.82. Subject to review and approval by the city attorney's office. And I don't need the floor back if there's a second. Okay. We have a motion seconded by Councillor Paulino. We'll go ahead and open up the floor to discussion. Well actually let's go to actually let's go to Chief and Spencer and Director Spencer and City Engineer Baldwin for just a brief recap of what we're doing tonight. I turn it over to City Engineer, and our Baldwin is prepared to give remarks. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you members of council for this opportunity to speak. At the May 11th City Council meeting the staff presented the project update. Obviously there was new councillors to not familiar with the project so it was important that we share that information and frame the project in its right context. The department has requested the Board of Finance and City Council to authorize execution of the contract amendment 16 that was referenced in the amounts that Councillor Mason had suggested. There are additional tasks that are required to complete the National Environmental Policy Act for permitting to finalize the contract plans and bid documents and advertise the project for construction bidding. DPW anticipates the previously authorized contract funds will be fully expended by mid-May without an executed contract to consult their sub-consultants will stop work on this project. Failure to execute a timely contract amendment to continue to advance this project will jeopardize the current funding sources. This project has a favorable cost-sharing ratio of 95% federal, 3% state, 2% city local match compared to other recent grants which are typically 80% federal and state, 20% city local match. Other than that, I believe that members of council had an interest in having this issue brought to the TUC and staff and the department supports that concept but we really firmly believe that in order to avoid challenges in the future with our partners in this process that we need to move ahead with this contract amendment in a timely manner. So with that I'll be available to answer any questions. Thank you City Engineer Baldwin. I see Councillor Hightower and then Councillor Mason, Councillor Hightower go ahead. I actually have a point of order first which is I, sorry for not knowing Robert's rules quite as well. In order to refer this to TUC, do we need to amend the motion or is that a separate motion if we wanted to do both? Sorry to clarify. So can you can you say a little bit more about what you're hoping to do? Yes. So I'm hoping to both authorize this as moved by Councillor Mason but then also to move some discussion of this to TUC for a report back. I believe that that would be an amendment to the action. So are you prepared to, is that correct? Attorney Blackwood? Yes. So Councillor Hightower are you prepared to offer an amendment? We can always come back to you if you'd like to take a moment to think about it. Oh that would be fantastic. Thank you. Okay all right. I'll go to Councillor Mason for now and then we can come back to you after that. Go ahead Councillor Mason. Okay I would have questions about the amendment if that were made but since that's not made my question back to Mr. Baldwin relates to norm or you referred to these additional expenses in order to compliance with NEPA. How much of this is being driven by the Environmental Justice review that or study and work that's scheduled to commence or is commenced but it will be continuing over the next four months? It's been a mute. So obviously there's a significant amount of effort that goes into continuing to complete the public process that's still outstanding and to complete the NEPA process but it's an unpredictable thing in terms of how long this would take and what it would require. So we're giving our best guess but certainly there are other items that we are working through but this is the most critical path item in itself. Thank you. Okay Councillor Hightower are you prepared to offer your amendment now or would you want me to move on to other councillors? Sure um I would move to amend by saying that I would also like to oh goodness actually I don't know how to say this. Give me another minute. Okay are there other councillors who are interested in speaking? Councillor Pine and then Councillor Shannon. Councillor Pine? Sure um I think that um what Councillor Hightower was was alluding to was essentially approving the contract extension or or essentially the amendment to the contract and allowing for the new concept or the concept of changes to the to the project being discussed at the Transportation Energy and Utilities Committee and if that were so is is there anything in that process in that sequence of events that creates concerns for for the department in terms of just keeping this moving along in a somewhat orderly and predictable fashion? City Engineer Baldwin are you prepared to answer that? Yeah so we we have no issue or problem with continuing to have a conversation at the Duke level about the project but we really need to get get these contract amendments executed otherwise we we stand to being kind of jeopardy of two things one is obviously we made commitments to council before we proceed with any work that we would have contracts in hand and completed and executed the other is if we don't execute the contract and don't advance the work then our partners at the federal and state level may consider this a not advancing the project in a timely manner and decide to pull our funding and and that could be a risk. Councilor Pine do you have further questions? Only to know that I just want to make sure that if we do like there has been a proposal yet to refer but I have a feeling we're about to hear one so we will get into the detail of that a little bit more but I just want to make sure that staff you know the Duke is busy if it doesn't happen until sometime in in June it doesn't like that's a problem it sounds like what really would happen is the committee would discuss the alternatives being advanced by folks like the Pine Street Coalition I think that's the gist of what I believe would would occur at the committee level right just yeah. So to give you a little kind of deeper understanding I think many of the proposals that Pine Street Coalition are bringing up can be provided a response in terms of what's the consequence of some of those decisions are then the council can weigh those but those are significant and would likely base the project at risk of I guess being closed and then you would have to restart a project that would be under a different funding recent funding schedule. Thank you that's helpful that's it. Okay thank you councillor Pine I have councillor Shannon Hansen and Freeman in the queue and then I'll come back to the amendment councillor Hightower councillor Shannon go ahead. I was just going to offer an amendment but I think if councillor Hightower is ready I assist if you would like. Okay fair enough councillor Hightower are you ready? Um yeah I would amend the motion to adopt the action and refer the issue of the parkway to Tuke for further review and information and would take it back after a second if possible. Okay when you have a motion to amend is there a second? Seconded by councillor Shannon councillor Hightower you have the floor. Okay and I apologize for that and thank you for hoping on that language um yes I think it's just I I know that this has been through council many times I don't want to delay the action which is why I would really like to authorize the execution of the contract amendment at the same time I think there is several new councillors on the issue of the parkway and it's a pretty complicated issue I would like to have that larger conversation and I know that Chapin's made himself available which I very much appreciate but I'd like to have that larger conversation with some of the other councillors as part of a public process that's not necessarily taking up hours of of time here so I'd really appreciate the opportunity to go back and discuss some of the things as a new councillor with a more in-depth conversation than we can have here. Thank you councillor Hightower we I have councillor Shannon Hansen and Freeman in the queue but we do have an amendment discussion I can come back to you or come to you councillor Shannon if you would like to discuss the amendment um your your pleasure. No I don't need to thank you. Okay councillor Hansen go ahead yeah. Can you just repeat it it's really hard for me to hear it I'm not see it I'm so sorry. Absolutely councillor Hightower can you please. I'm so sorry. No not at all I'd like to amend the motion to adopt the action and refer the issue of the parkway to Tuke for further review and information. Okay did everybody hear that okay awesome okay so we are on the discussion on the amendment um I have councillors Hansen and Freeman and the queue councillor Hansen do you want to speak to the amendment? Sure yeah I think I think Mike at least one of my questions is mine. Sorry your mic. Yeah I think at least one of my questions I believe is relevant to the amendment. Okay go ahead. Um so if we if we approve this contract how far does that take us like how long does this extension go? Your your mic again councillor Hansen. If we extend this contract how far would that take us how far would that extension go of the contractor is it's or how far do we expect that it would go? So our intent with that is to arrive at a construction phase of construction. So so this sixteen dollars this sixteen thousand dollars is enough to get us all the way to the construction phase that's what that's presumed we don't know all the challenges that we'll face but that's what we believe will arrive at. Okay that's got it and what what is the next step whereby which you all would be looking to the council for approval of something? I would assume it would be going to a stage of getting the work and going to award the work for construction. Okay I'll just be check-ins along the way. It's not our intent to get to the end without periodic check-ins. Point of order. Yes. So we're we have an amendment on the floor we're talking about the underlying motion so I want to just raise that. Okay these questions are all about the underlying not the amendment we have an amendment on the floor that we should be anticipating. That is an in order motion councillor Hansen please just keep your comments specific to the amendment I can come back to you once we get the amendment done. I'll hold off until after the amendment then. Okay councillor Freeman I had you in the queue you can speak to this or I can come back to you in the regular motion your pleasure. My comment was to the underlying resolution so I will keep my comments to do that. Okay does anyone else like would anyone else like to speak to the amendment? Okay councillor Paulino then councillor Mason councillor Paulino. I just have a question for I think the city attorney mostly about procedure and I have no problem with the amendment's intent I just think that this issue is at Duke it always is at Duke we can ask any city councillor to member can ask director Spencer and and just engineer Baldwin to do a presentation on the parkway. We usually only get those when there's been significant changes and with some input from the administration usually as to sort of clarification direct and direction of the project so that we're not just having a meeting without sort of a goal in mind but I guess is this kind of I see this as a request monetary request for engaging in services much like a border finance request so is such an amendment moved doesn't the issue always lie with Duke? Attorney Blackwood. No the city council works by your committees your rules have said your committees take matters only when they're referred from the city council so it's not out of order to refer add something to referring a matter to the committee. Does that answer your question councillor Paulino? Yes thank you. Okay councillor Mason. Thank you President Tracy my comment somewhat relates to the same the language used in the amendment is to refer the parkway issue prior to the amendment being made there were however with specific reference to the proposed plan from Pine Street Coalition so from my perspective if I'm voting on Duke taking up the parkway the coalition's plan my vote is no because we heard last week from my perspective that plan is dead on arrival and having to expend valuable time I vote no I don't know what the parkway issue means so I'm not sure if it's possible from the maker to maybe clarify or if if the intention is to keep it vague then I'll have to make up my mind how to vote. Okay councillor Shannon. Thank you President Tracy my the amendment did not specifically refer a new plan but I know in my discussions with councillors there's there's been a lot of discussions about different things and you know where where we might be able to make some tweaks to it and and where we can't and I think it's important for the council to understand those parameters and I would welcome the two kind of pushing on that and um understanding where those parameters are because I I don't think that that is really obvious to people and I know councillor Mason and I have had the benefit of um a really long history of being able to look at some some different options and I think that we have been reasonably persuaded that we've pushed as far as we can on some important issues but not all the councillors at the table have had the opportunity to do that and I think it's better to do that in committee than on the council floor so for that reason I will support sending this issue to the to the two committee and I hope that councillors that have questions will attend those meetings when when the committee takes it up thank you councillor Shannon councillor Freeman was that out did you want to get in the queue okay councillor carpenter um I just like to agree with councillor Shannon I think a review of potential tweaks or why or why not we cannot do them in a public setting like a two hearing or a two meeting would just be helpful and informative um so we can move on and I think there's many reasons why some of the suggestions can't be done practically talk about it and move on and maybe there's a few others that we could look at I heard um Spencer say there's going to be the allowance for a few changes along the lines but we don't want to hold the project up we just want to understand it better thank you councillor carpenter does anyone else would anyone else like to speak to the the amendment councillor mason go ahead thank you president president tracy I mean I will be voting no I thought we covered this last week the letter from the state that was made a public record was crystal clear that the only changes would be allowed with those that came out of the mitigation efforts relating to the ej so I respect um we may have a difference of opinion but from my perspective this is an easy vote for me thank you thank you anyone else on the amendment seeing none we'll go to a vote with the city clerk please call the roll councillor carpenter all right councillor jane yes councillor freeman yes councillor hansen yes councillor hightower yes councillor mason no councillor paul yes councillor paulino yes councillor pine yes councillor shannon yes councillor stromberg yes city councillor president tracy yes 11 eyes one day that passes so we are back to the original motion as amended in the queue I had councillor hansen and freeman councillor shannon the floor is yours if you want to get in the queue to speak to the main motion please just let me know I do not thank you okay councillor hansen I'll go back to you great thank you um so yeah this is I mean this is a scenario that I feel like is difficult on council where we're faced with sometimes decisions that feel like non-decisions or feel like we don't really have a choice because what we're being presented here is that if we if we vote no the city could be at risk of losing 14 million dollars and also if we vote to spend more time on it we could lose money due to you know outstanding payments that need to be made on on work already done or contract so I guess just a comment or a request is that and this isn't to put fault on anyone but I think just going forward as much as we can try to have these decisions made at a point in time where there's actually more of a decision to be made and that we actually have the opportunity to make that decision without putting the city in financial risk I think that would be very beneficial to to try to get ahead of these decisions so it's not we're not so late in the game where by delaying at all or by saying no we put the city at financial risk because that's a really tough place to be in as a city councilor and especially for me I'm in general I'm very skeptical of this project and skeptical at moving forward but of course I don't want to cast a vote that's going to make the city lose money so it just it just puts it in a tough position so I just want to highlight that but I do appreciate the fact that DPW has made themselves available to explain this complicated issue for those of us who don't have all the history and who are trying to keep up with a lot of very differing and strong opinions that we're hearing about the issue so my other my other question this was sort of already asked but I want to clarify um from DPW can you quantify at all how much of this particular extension is going towards the um environmental justice efforts because I don't know if you can respond to that I don't have that detail here with me yes councilor I don't have the dollar amount in front of me um but it is most of this work um which is most of the work that will be happening between now and when we bid for construction um our consultants will help us with the outreach as well as completing the environmental justice review and the other portion of the work is just completing the bid documents and the final design okay great well that's that's helpful to understand and that that makes me a little bit more comfortable with this particular well and do is there was a point raised in public comment by marcus about potentially involving the diversity equity inclusion midi or perhaps involving the the dei director um taisha green um is there any plans for that not at this point we are working with our federal partners about following their process of and we can certainly ask that question but I think it's it's really in their court to decide how they want to proceed with this process we're having to follow that process okay that makes sense yeah I think to the extent that we can keep those folks in the loop or involve them um I think that would be a good use of those that committee in that position um as long as it doesn't obviously violate the federal process I think it'd be good to um include them um so I guess yeah I guess I'll I'll leave it there I'm glad we're going to tuc and I think given how stacked the you know backed up and stacked the tuc agenda is this might need to be a separate meeting so I'll just throw that out there it might need to be its own its own tuc meeting I'll just throw that out there for the chair and others to think about okay thank you Councillor Hanson Councillor Freeman thank you President Tracey um my question was also followed about the environmental justice portion and I just um was wondering if you could remind me about the process and I think you basically just spoke towards it a little bit but it is really just the process um the federal um sort of side is going through and do we I understand that we are basically providing information on you know locally but I guess my question is like are we do we have any local process around that and and what kind of engagement does that entail with people who are then directly impacted um and is that all just driven by the federal um requirement well certainly our intent is to not just do the minimum what federal federal rules require we are trying to meet or exceed those requirements and we've done extensive amount of public engagement and we'll continue to do that and maybe more than what even the federal government requires so we uh are very trying to be very thoughtful about that we're also um we are in a situation where the federal government rules change over the years with the life of this project along with the census data is updated until we're we're trying to track and follow both obligations while still trying to do what we think is appropriate to our community okay yeah that was helpful and I didn't mean to imply that that we that there was not a process I just you know it's being initiated initiated by you know the the federal government then um I was just curious to hear sort of what we were um what we are planning on the local side so I have a lot of land-grade concerns about this project and um I have a feeling I might be the only person so so plan so vote against it so would it be helpful for Susan maybe you explain maybe what we're proposing in terms of upcoming public conversations that would be helpful to yeah making uh Councillor Freeman a little more comfortable about that yep sure um we have for previous outreach and the outreach going forward have been working with CEDO as well and relying on some of their resources to help us engage with the community we've also been in contact with some of our community partners including the King Street Youth Center Burlington Housing Champlain Housing as another way of reaching out to the public upcoming we do plan due to the current situation to be hosting more virtual and online resources that will help to educate about the project and also welcome more feedback right because I would understand that some of this outreach has probably been pretty limited like based on the timeline of when we were given the new stipulations in terms of the environmental sort of justice component so to speak so I mean when I'm sure I'm just trying can you job when did that like when would your outreach have started and when did when would you when one would have been the period of direct communication I promise this will be at the end of my pretty much the end of my questions I know we have a packed agenda tonight so we've previously uh back in September we did host a public neighborhood meeting for the Maple and King Street neighborhood as well as open house as part of those efforts in September and October those efforts included translated meeting flyers and interpreters available our upcoming outreach we anticipate to be in likely July when we'll be doing another round putting more materials out for the public okay thank you okay okay so we have so next I have counselor Shannon just want to note for folks that we are just at a little past nine we still have six items on deliberative so let's try and move ourselves towards a vote on this counselor Shannon thank you I just wanted to um note uh counselor Hanson had asked to get this information sooner but um in in this case I know that director Spencer had told us not not last week at his update but in the one prior to that many months ago that this was coming forward and I don't know how much more of a heads up than that our staff can can give us I think that they have kept us surprised of that and I would note that the previous administration and the previous director in 2010 came to to the council and asked us to approve an amendment that covered all of the spending from 2006 to 2012 and that was retroactive and put us in a position where we could not vote no because we're voting on reimbursing ourselves for years and um I very much appreciate that this administration has been proactive in bringing these amendments forward in a timely and a regular way so thank you very much for that thank you counselor Shannon I don't have anyone else in the queue again we do need to kind of move towards a decision on this are there any final points that counselors would like to make counselor Hanson please have already spoken to please kind of get us moving towards yeah no I'll be quick I just want to clarify your mic thanks yeah I just wanted to quickly clarify I wasn't trying to clear I wasn't trying to criticize staff I just think there's a timing issue where we're making it where we're making decisions sometimes on things where if we if we go one way the city's losing money and I think that as much as we can avoid that timing issue and be able to make decisions that are yes no decisions where whether we vote yes or no we're not causing the city to lose money as a result of that vote I don't know how difficult that is with the timing of contracts but I think that's that's what I was getting at thank you counselor Hanson all right so any final remarks mr. mayors are you trying to get in yeah I just want to speak to the last point quickly and just make it clear that the reason that the city now needs to make a decision about whether to go forward with the project or to pay back millions of dollars is because time again for decades your predecessors made that decision and committed the city to go forward with the project knowing that there would be consequence if there was a later change in mind this is this is the way that this agreement with the other partners has always worked we are spending their money there's always been an assurance that if we were to change our mind in the future about the need for the project that that that change would come with the consequence of having to repay the money so I just want to make sure it's clear to everyone involved in this it's not like these decisions haven't been made it's that they've been made in the past and there are consequences to making those decisions in the past this was already the case and the CEO owed millions of dollars repayment by the time this administration started in 2012 we're already many millions of dollars down this road which is why so much effort has been made in recent years to improving the project within the within the limited boundaries of what was possible with the issue with the with the permits already having been issued by 2012 we have always since 2012 been working within the boundaries of a project that was already permitted and that you couldn't go back to square one and that still remains the the limitations of our decision making today thank you mr mayor um anyone else okay seeing none we'll go to a vote with the city clerk please call the roll counselor carpenter you're muted sir counselor carpenter i'm sorry counselor jang yes counselor freeman no counselor hanson yes counselor can you just speak in your mic please yes yes counselor high tower yes counselor mason yes counselor paul yes counselor paulino yes counselor pine yes counselor shannon yes yes counselor strongberg yes city council president tracy yes 11 eyes one day that passes um which brings us thank you to our the to director spencer and city engineer baldwin for joining us for and and uh and uh engineer mulzon i appreciate that as well really appreciate all of you uh coming us two weeks in a row to present to us that brings us to item number 7.02 um a ordinance on streets and sidewalks excavation and obstruction permits um is there a motion on that count counselor strongberg go ahead uh oh i lost it sorry someone else have it up and ready to offer a motion motion counselor paulino go ahead so it's uh a motion on item 7.02 um to um i thought i had it up counselor paul go ahead counselor paul do you have it yes i'm fine with that um so i'd like to make a motion to waive the second reading and adopt the resolution adopt the ordinance okay i do not need the floor back after a second thank you second from counselor mason um any discussion on the on this side well actually can we have a uh a quick um explanation of what it is this ordinance is before we go into to the um any discussion on it um counselor mason go ahead thank you president tracy i'm sorry i was waiting before to get recognized to make the motion realizing my video was off so my apologies um for the benefit of uh the the council this is um some minor amendments these are updates that were brought forth by department of public works um kelan mona and the public works commission um they were intended to bring the insurance amounts up to it had been who knows the last time this had been updated bring uh insurance amounts for um anyone doing work in our right of ways up to current standards also bring the fees in line with uh 2020 there were also some language updates some of this language dated back 50 70 years um it came before the ordinance committee multiple times we kept asking kelan with additional um uh things to update not because there was anything wrong this did come before the ordinance committee at our last ordinance our meeting and was unanimously adopted so with that open the floor for questions thank you counselor mason are there any questions with regards to this ordinance okay seeing none we will go to a vote all those in favor of the ordinance please say i hi anyone opposed hearing none that passes unanimously which brings us to our thank you again to the team at dpw for again staying with us on that item and being there to answer questions next item is a public hearing uh regarding community development block grants and home proposed allocations for 2019 2020 action plans for housing and community development before i open the public hearing i just want to go to um i believe that we're going to have some representatives from cito speak to that item um then we will open that public hearing um if anyone is interested in speaking to that particular item again you can email uh public forum at burlington vt.gov that's public forum at burlington vt.gov so um i'll turn it over to uh director mcgowan um from cito to just explain um what this is regarding thank you counselor tracy can you hear me yes good uh so i'm luke mcgowan for those of you haven't met i'm the director of cito i'm here to present our uh plan for the deployment of cdbg dollars here in our community and so just before i jump into the presentation you know i'm going to be brief and clear which doesn't always go together with hud compliance issues but i will do my best uh to do this quickly so just to step back for one minute for the new counselors who haven't had a chance to work with this program so cdbg is a community development block grant it comes through hud a federal agency and it is meant for local communities it's a funding source for local communities to address the roots and consequences of poverty um the city receives these block grants and then awards them in two ways one to local organizations that are addressing those roots and consequences of poverty and also the city operates its own cdbg funded programs here in burlington we have a very extensive and nationally recognized process for bringing community feedback together with the city team and the council to make recommendations namely we have a public advisory board that reviews all of the projects and makes recommendations uh to us so what we're presenting to you is largely a set of recommendations that have been extensively vetted by the community so now if i can do this quickly i'm going to share my screen and just run through a presentation just confirm folks can see my screen yep we can i can see it yep great um so what is happening this year is slightly different than in normal years so we have uh what is normal is we have a entitlement from 2020 and that's $765,000 that's effectively sort of last year's allocation of dollars and that process has gone through this public advisory board and they have made recommendations to us on how to allocate those dollars we also have in response to the crisis an additional $450,000 through the cares act which was the federal response to the coronavirus and it's to be used for response and recovery efforts in our community we are now running through the timeline in a pretty accelerated way to get these dollars as quickly as possible into our community so we've run through our process with the advisory board we've solicited input from cvnr on what we're proposing we have now published our plan and we're in the middle of a public hearing to take input and commentary on our plan we are targeting city council and board of finance approval on june 1st and that would bring us to a submission to HUD by the 5th which really puts us in range of having these dollars arrive in burlington by the end of june at the earliest so that's kind of tending HUD's process of seeing what comes from us and then approving that and letting us start to fund these projects HUD has made some important changes they've recognized kind of the urgency of getting these dollars into the community so they've allowed us to hold virtual public hearings which we're doing now they've also allowed us to reduce the public comment period which is normally 30 days we've reduced it to 15 days they've also given us some additional flexibility we have essentially evaluated two buckets of needs one is those identified by the 2020 entitlement process and that cost is there that's that $765,000 amount we've also identified new needs as a result of the pandemic and that those are namely rental assistance small business relief a low barrier shelter that is available year-round and additional food access funds what we're proposing to all of you uh to the council and to the community is to follow the advisory board recommendations for the 2020 entitlement funds and we are also proposing to use the additional covid funds essentially in two ways we're splitting that amount by 50 percent towards the rental assistance program 50 percent towards a small business support program that supports low and moderate income business owners and employees what you're seeing here is essentially the recommendations for the 2020 entitlement year and these are divided into sort of two groups one is for public service awards and the other is for development awards and that you can see those development awards here we also run city programs with these cdbg funds and you see those listed here and most of these are long-running city city programs and this is just a little bit more detail about how we're breaking down the rental assistance and small business assistance funds and you know i kind of want to make a point that we're sort of using different funding sources to meet the many community needs that we have we made the decision that the cdbg funds were best suited for the rental assistance and small business assistance programs and we'll be leaning on other sources of funds to sort of meet the other needs that we identified i also want to say the kind of details of the programs are being crafted as we speak we're continuing to get new guidance from HUD we're continuing to see changes in the state level program and we are incorporating those design changes into what we what we kind of will finally present you know at the end of this process what we're asking for now is input on our plan to essentially use these funds in a high level way towards rental assistance and small business assistance so I will end there I'm sure there are questions and I'm happy to take any I'm joined by colleagues from CEDO Katie Kinstead and Todd Rawlings and Christine Curtis who have been working on this who have been doing great work on this so far but yeah I will stop there and take any questions that there are and thank you okay so if we could go out of share mode please thank you okay I just want to recognize that we still have four pretty uh substance substantial items on the agenda so if we can keep any questions brief also recognizing that we do also have this on coming to us on at our next meeting so again and we do also have to open a public hearing as part of the requirements so are there any questions from counselors counselor pine yeah thanks to the presentation Luke I'm really pleased with where CEDO has decided to focus these resources I really I think you've identified the some of the most pressing needs and there's never enough of course so we we have to be really careful and strategic about how we use these funds to really lift up people who are most impacted by this crisis I want to just know the administration or the sort of management of a rental assistance program is is a pretty daunting undertaking and the idea that it might be done by CEDO I think was a bit of a red flag for me I I worried that a city department that's never done this and I see counselor carpenter raise shaking her head she and I know this system very well I know way more about that I'd like to admit and I can tell you right now it is a full time undertaking a large group of people to just run a rental assistance programs I just want to put a caution out there that it's not something you want to do take on lightly thank you counselor pine counselor carpenter I mean I would reiterate that I also know that we're pretty close on the state level to a statewide rental assistance program so it'd be very important to be sort of coordinated with that you know so a tenant is not having to go two places and sign up for two programs I don't know a lot about all the detail on the statewide program but I'm pretty sure it's pretty close to being signed so it'll be key to coordinate that the other thing and I just want to mention it and I've been in communication with loop that somewhere in this part of activity I think it will also be important to have good foreclosure counseling and mortgage counseling we're going to see that a little bit later in the year I think not as quickly as evictions but it's a resource we're going to have to think about thank you are there any other counselors with questions counselor jane go ahead thank you president tracy and thank you look for the presentation which I appreciate it um but my first question is maybe if you know if surrounding communities such as winewski south burlington conchester sx if they are receiving similar grant from the federal government if you know yeah it's a good question so the wave vermont is structured essentially we have two communities that receive cdbg funds burlington and the rest of the state and so they receive uh cdbg funding on a statewide level and those are allocated sort of around the state everywhere except for burlington and because we're an entitlement community ourselves we receive our own sort of specific cdbg funding a lot okay thank you and I think there is this addition or before that I think it will be imperative also to highlight that of the presentation and also even last year the cdbg grant that we receive were primarily allocated to organizations that help low income people and most of those organizations do not serve burlington people alone now I was wondering if you receive data from those organizations around how many burlington people are they um they have um serviced do you do you have any idea don't have sort of specific data in front of me I know there are a number of rules and restrictions that require sort of the bulk of the activity to be directed into burlington when they are when funds are awarded to organizations that sort of do services both inside and outside of burlington um but if you want more specificity to that you know I can ask my colleague Todd to chime in on how we monitor that type of uh compliance okay um thank you and I think you know I was a member of cdnr last year and it was the same question that I'm asking here again in making sure that these dollars are specific to people who live and work here in burlington and also we need to ensure that every penny will go to burlington residents so it seems we don't have the data but maybe we could work on putting those provisions while working with those organizations now we also receive a 450 thousand dollars extra for our response to COVID-19 now I was wondering why couldn't we use that funds that specific fund back to CEDO the whole amount back to CEDO in reimbursing the the the fees or the the amount we already allocated as part of our general budget why couldn't we use a 450 and just payback CEDO or any department that helped with COVID-19 um so you know one thing I'd say is we do you know I didn't get into it in the presentation but you know CEDO does fund itself in part through cdbg grants through a administrative fee that's taken uh and which we are anticipating taking from this 450 allotment so we've sort of built in the cost of administering the program uh into kind of the the proposal that we've presented but we are being flexible in the sense that you know as councillor pine and councillor carpenter we're getting at it is complicated to run a rental any new program especially a rental assistance program if we decide that the way to meet the needs we've identified is best met by uh awarding it out to an organization to do so then those administrative fees would pass through uh you know to that organization so that you know partly we're still being flexible because we don't know what the state and federal response what it will finally look like so we are giving ourselves some flexibility right now okay um yep I think you know lastly I think it would be also imperative to try to include the NPAs or at least give them a certain amount of this money because they know best the block that where they live in and was just wondering if we can put a mechanism in allowing them to disseminate these funds to the real people that live and work here. I'm sorry the question is the question is I haven't seen any amount being given to the NPAs and was wondering what mechanism we can bring in place in making sure they access it and also disseminate it in in in their communities. So it's a good point so we do you know some of the work that you know CDO does through CDBG funded efforts is in direct support of the NPAs my understanding is at least some of our HUD funded work directly supports the NPAs but in terms of taking community feedback we do rely on this citizen public advisory board to bring that feedback into the process but yeah I was just wondering maybe if Todd you know this we have this conversation last year and was just wondering what what changed we we we you have worked on for this year. Yeah a couple things first Councilor Dain I wanted to address the your question about how many Burlingtonians are served by CDBG and every September we're required to submit something called the Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report or CAPER that describes exactly how many folks are served by the by the Burlington CDBG allocation. So I'd be happy to forward that document to you it's certainly a public document but I'll I'll forward that on to you. The the NPA question is a good one and I guess I would also call on Councilor Pine to to render some background as well but just I just wanted to point out that the CDBG advisory board that made the decisions on the vast majority of the CDBG funds that we receive have at least one representative from each NPA so the NPAs have a clear voice in this decision-making and that has been the practice since the advisory board process began. Councilor Dain are you all set? Thank you yes. Okay are there any additional comments from Councilors? Okay Mr. Mayor did you were you looking to get on? Okay all right with that I will then open the public hearing did the City Clerk have anyone who wishing from the public wishing to speak to these this particular item in this item alone? No I have not gotten any requests for this item. Okay all right given that there are no requests for this item I will then go ahead and close the public forum again just for next steps for Councilors this is going to be coming to us on our at our June 1st meeting so again if you have additional questions feel free to connect with the team at CEDO with regards to this but we will see this on our next agenda. We'll go ahead and move on to our next item thank you for being here we'll go ahead and move on to our next item which is a item 7.04 a resolution with regards to the development agreement for Cambrian rise is there a motion on the resolution? Councilor Pine. Thank you Mr. President I would move to approve the resolution as proposed and request the floor back after a second. You have a motion is there a second? Seconded by Councillor Jang. Councillor Pine you have the floor. Thank you the the process for the Cambrian rise development agreement amendment to be considered by the council started with the council anyway after or through our committee our community development neighborhood revitalization committee. I just want to be clear for for I think the council gets this but I think the public is under the impression that the council is vested with the authority to approve the changes to the project around issues of parking and traffic and stormwater and all a host of issues that are really important in terms of development review that's not what the council is actually vested with in this process I want to be clear that the council is is responsible for the development agreement which is unusual and the reason why we have a development agreement we don't usually do this in in development because development usually occurs on private property and the city goes through regulatory process what was unique here was that the city and the developer and the nonprofit partners if you will came together and came up with this plan for roughly a third of the property being reserved for public access through trail through a beach you know through essentially preserving in perpetuity a portion of the property again about a third of the acreage so the development agreement includes things around amenities for public transit it includes how much senior housing there will be how much family housing how much rental housing how much home ownership housing what type of mix of home ownership mixes of uses all of that and so I just want to be really clear with the public that that review process will still be followed to the T it's going to go through all local and state review processes required this is not a circumvention of any of those processes this is really the council essentially being asked to allow for a reconfiguration of the project which is really a response to real significant changes in the market not due to covid but due to the notion of micro units and people choosing to live in really much smaller housing units than we've ever seen in burlington before you know 350 square foot units are even a less than half the size of your typical mobile home or manufactured home so it's a it's a really different project today in terms of what was envisioned when it originally got permitted and so it's a reconfiguration of both the residential portion of the project but also some of the commercial uses are now being moved over towards residential so there's a lot more residential being proposed so someone mentioned a height increase and in the material that we received from the developer there is a a reconfiguration that does involve going to the maximum height allowable and I don't actually have that in the material what that height limit is but all of this needs to be reviewed within the context of the zoning ordinance and the developer review process so I just wanted to reiterate that as part of this process thanks thank you councillor pine councillor Paulino and then I see you councillor hightower go ahead councillor Paulino I don't have much to add I think Brian did an excellent job introducing that hitting all the high points a few of the low points I think that for me you know I did a lot of legwork last year on this and I would encourage councillors to support it I think my main concern is traffic but we are not you know these units are not going to get built tomorrow when they will be built exactly it'll be a rollout and it'll be a gradual increase so I don't think that it'll be a concentrated immediate problem and we will be able to mitigate it with the revenues to the city coming out of this project so I would encourage councillor support I think this is the kind of building that we want to have in our neighbourhood we want people to live in a small area in a condensed area in order for because we don't have many spaces to build on and because it's more energy efficient so I really think this is a good project thank you councillor Paulino councillor hightower oh sorry I probably when I just spoke um thank you President Tracy um I am I was one of the I was on the committee that proposed or that put forward this resolution I will say I'm a little bit disappointed um by how this was explained and introduced to me and also disappointed myself for failing to catch that there was also a height increase faked into this I felt like every time we talked about it we talked about that this wouldn't change the envelope of the buildings which I guess I understood an envelope to be three-dimensional which is not necessarily true and so I really wasn't factoring that into some of the like discussions we had after that regarding you know like how this would affect traffic how this would affect the neighbourhood um so I am disappointed and that that didn't come up during the conversations I'm disappointed myself that I didn't read the memo well enough to flag that for myself um but I definitely think that that should be a consideration going forward um and I would highly encourage um councillor carpenter councillor dang and councillor Paulino to start um to encourage um the developer to come before NPAs as soon as possible to notify them that this is not just a increase in the number of units that will be shuffling around square footage but that it's also potentially an increase in square footage which um is not I think how it was originally presented so I wanted to flag that thank you councillor high tower councillor Hanson great I'll try to speak loudly I changed the setup of my computer so hopefully you can hear me a little bit better um so yeah I've done a lot of a lot of engaging with folks on this issue the last few days and can you still not hear me well yeah thank you all right I'll keep I'll keep yelling um so yeah I've been talking to a lot of folks about this issue and it's been a little bit of a tight time frame to consider this but um I've made the time to try to really dive in on it uh I don't have any issue and I think there's a lot of benefits of of adding more units um what I have been concerned about is um the transportation impacts and particularly um as it relates to how we're changing our culture and we're changing our regulations and policies as a city around parking and around transportation um we're in the process of changing um our ordinance around minimum parking requirements and and really shifting that mindset I think in a very positive direction to instead of forcing developers to build um high amounts of parking we are instead having developers support alternative forms of transportation which I think is is a great step in the right direction um the timing of this project is interesting it's it's an obviously a huge project and um it might be getting um it might be getting permits slightly before we finish um enacting that new policy that I reference um so I was able to engage with the developer and engage in a lot of other folks on how we could in this huge development how could we potentially incorporate this new model that the city is shifting towards um and I think we were able to we were able to make some progress on that um and I'm going to send around language for an amendment that I would like to propose along those lines um so I'll send that around I sent it earlier in the day to to city staff um I'll send it around to the council just for people who want the visual um but so what the amendment would be um and it should be in your inboxes now um is that for all rental units the development sorry um for all rental units um the developer shall decouple the costs of of a parking space from the cost of housing such that a tenant utilizing one or two parking spaces pay no less than $50 a month for each parking space they use while tenants who do not own a car and do not utilize a parking space will not pay for parking this requirement applies to all residential lease agreements that commence July 1 2020 or later it does not impact current lease agreements while this requirement does not apply retroactively to Cathedral Square Corporation's Juniper House or Champlain Housing Trust's Laurentide we strongly encourage these entities to similarly decouple parking costs from housing costs the developer shall at least once per year for the next five years fare with the city council the parking lot utilization data including but not limited to the number of parking spaces occupied and the number of spaces empty at various times of the week um example being one p.m. on a weekend 10 a.m. on a weekday and 10 p.m. on a weekday um so that language should be in everyone's inbox and the city staff has that and I would like to move that we amend the development agreement to include that language we have a motion is there a second to council a seconded by councillor Stromberg um before I open discussion has everyone had a chance to review that language so everyone see that language in their inbox and if I could have the floor back councillor Jason okay all right you have the floor okay I'll try to wrap up I know it's a long amendment but there's been a lot of legwork over the past few days that has gone into this a lot of thinking that has gone into it and discussion and the idea is that we don't want to force people who don't have a car or maybe who have one car instead of two we don't want to force them to subsidize people who have one or two cars that we you know that that is a backwards approach because that's pushing us in the direction of more cars rather than less and when we're trying to move towards a more sustainable transportation system for a number of reasons so I think this is kind of undoing that perverse incentive and it's also allowing housing costs to come down because we're not forcing the cost of parking to get shifted into the cost of housing so this is the same mentality again that is informing our policy changes that we're making as a city that I think also can be incorporated into this development and I'm happy to say that after talking a lot with aircoaster the developer this language is is acceptable and if we do include it if we do add this to the development agreement the developer is willing to accept that in the agreement I'll set counselor answer yes okay I had counselor mason and freeman in the queue for on the underlying counselor mason did you want to speak to the amendment or do you still want to speak to the underlying I want to speak to the amendment okay go ahead I'm slightly concerned that it's at 940 for the first time there seems to be a relatively material amendment being thrown out it seems a little inconsistent with our protocol I mean I respect that jack has been working on this for a couple days but unbeknownst to anyone my other concern is I appreciate this is based on something that's come out of the planning commission but it has not been presented or adopted by the council so it presupposes that whatever you know that policy or removal of parking minimums will be adopted by the council I respect what he's trying to do but I'm very concerned about what this establishes in terms of a precedent going forward thank you counselor mason I have counselor freeman and carpenter and I see both of you Paulina and Hanson so counselor freeman you have the floor thank you I will be supporting um this amendment I think that it's a good stuff in terms of really thinking critically about what the climate-centric design could look like going forward I don't want it to presuppose that an ordinance would take like that that change is going to take place but I see it as being in alignment with my values and the kind of ordinances that I see as being necessary and vital moving forward I would like to say that the piece on the utilization of parking I really appreciate I was a bit I'm dismayed by considering how much parking might actually be built on this project given not just the traffic concerns but obviously the sort of climate and pollution concerns of car based travel and car based design I know Mr. Farrell are you on the call and potentially available to just answer a question or two about that component I am hi Eric thank you for being on the call hi hi yeah I did want to I know we got a chance to talk sort of initially and you answered quite a number of my questions then I was curious and I just looked through the memo again but I didn't see how many parking spaces are anticipated for this project I think there's I think there's around a thousand spaces okay um and from where you're sort of configuring the designs and perceiving the design going forward do you anticipate any reduction in that or do you to me a thousand parking spaces sounds like a lot and would and really concerns me that we're so that we would be building a project that would be so um car centric basically and not um yeah do you do you do you anticipate it staying at that or do well I I don't think it's a lot of spaces given the number of units but let me say a couple of things so we've done we think we've taken extraordinary measures to get people out of their cars we share the jack's desire to accomplish that because we don't you know we just soon maintain less and build fewer parking spaces but that requires a change in people's habits in their culture and so we we built the second nicest and probably the second most expensive bus stop in the city of Burlington and we have car share we're soon to have bike share we're connected to the bike path we're members of catma so we're doing everything we can to provide alternative modes of transportation but that doesn't necessarily get people out of their cars interestingly enough we had already undertaken discussions in our own company about decoupling the cost of parking and I have talked to jack about it recently and so we're I don't have I don't take any issue with the amendment regardless of whether the ordinance ultimately passes that might apply elsewhere in the in the city so the other thing that the other initiative that we are undertaking is that we want to build less structured parking and more surface parking and the reason for that is once you build structured parking somebody's got to pay for it and there's no going back after you have made that huge commitment whereas for example at Liberty House we built surface parking but it's a gravel lot we're going to continue that strategy going forward so that if we are successful in getting people out of their cars and reducing the total number of cars per unit or cars per occupant then we can reclaim some of that surface parking we might not even pave it at the outset but that's not an opportunity available to us if we build structured parking so structured parking is nice in terms of reducing coverage but it's a huge long-term car centric commitment which we would rather not make we're still going to have a lot of structured parking but not as much as we originally planned okay thank you for providing some more information on that and I would love to I you know I've heard other people's concerns around traffic I think that was an initial concern I think we are unfortunately have a really packed agenda for tonight's meeting so I think I'll follow up with that offline and it doesn't directly pertain to this amendment as well but that is something that I'm curious about following up with and I appreciate whether there's part of it as well and thank you for jumping onto this or being on the call but jumping on and being willing to answer some questions I really appreciate that I'd like to make one other comment if you don't mind to address Zariah's comment about height of course we're not before you asking for any Mr. Ferrell if you could please just save that we're on the amendment so that it's not germane to our discussion right now that's fine I think we I'll recognize you again when we get back to the original motion um counselor carpenter you're in the queue go ahead thanks um the amendment I told I support it but I'm really concerned about this the process of this just popping up we didn't just talk about it cdnr um you know we haven't we're really moving in to questions that seem to me more zoning and development review board related as opposed to development which is really a higher level um concept about you know who occupies this piece of property is it small apartments big apartments and a hotel office space and so I'm just concerned about the process of kind of on the fly adding adding an amendment like this with sort of out of the blue and I guess I had a question for um Eric if if we defer this is is this going to be a problem I mean um I don't know what the timing of the development agreement is is for you um I and I want to say how supportive I am this is a fabulous project that meets all of our goals so I don't want to do anything to delay it but I just want to make sure that we're mindful of all the nuance of what's being proposed and it's a fact and there are some nuances even on noting the exceptions for cathedral square and cht when you combine parking fees with some of the federal subsidy programs you just get into the problems and sometimes you get into problems with that with mortgage financing on condominiums and I just want to be sure we thought it all out even though it's it's the right thing to do um can I respond to that yeah go ahead um some of you will remember you that have been on the board for a while I started this process uh nearly a year ago so this is not a this has not been a speedy process it's not a snap decision it's uh I've talked to every counselor uh new and old and most tours of the property some recently some last summer and so um I need to move on with planning this is holding up our our long-range planning process and so if you're so disposed to approve this I'd like to I'd like to get it done and so that I can get on to the work that we need to do to plan this project I don't really want to I'll set counts of carpenter okay counts are Paul you know uh I would encourage uh counselors to vote against this amendment um I appreciate the intent behind it I appreciate the goal uh I think this amendment is its own resolution and it very much is it hasn't been finalized yet I don't think it's appropriate for us a public forum when a Burlington resident has come before us asking for um essentially uh an agreement that's been reached and now is being amended and we're substantially and meaningfully altering that agreement on the floor um I don't think it's fair it's I appreciate I I'm very thankful that Mr. Ferrell is okay with it but I think we also owe it to those future tenants to vet this the right way for example in reading one of the sentences it says while this requirement is not retroactively applied to Cathedral Square um we encourage them to decouple parking costs so I understand that Cathedral Square Juniper House CHT it as written it applies proactively um so and as I understand their federal subsidies do not allow them to decouple parking at this time so I just think this is problematic in from procedural standpoint even though the goal I appreciate I appreciate that we're trying to encourage people to not own cars to drive less to use alternative forms of transportation but we are also um you know there are tenants now they're going to have to pay for parking um starting July 1 of this year that didn't expect to do that and they should have a right to be heard and just because I agree with the intent of something doesn't mean I will rob the public process and follow the procedure that we've previously had and not to add such a substantial meaningful amendment that it alters the essentially the resolution in my opinion thank you thank you councilor Paulino councilor Hanson great thanks sorry Eric I called you Eric Hofstra I meant Eric Farrell I wonder that's probably I don't know there's a compliment um so yeah I mean I'll be honest I mean we're talking about process I'll be honest I'm I'm not too happy with the process I mean we got this is this is a pretty substantial discussion that we only had a few days to snap into action on two and believe me I used a ton of the time that we had I dropped almost everything else to work very hard to work with many folks including the developer to come up with this language and I'm happy to take more time to work through this but I was the reason I put so much time into it is because there was a concern about trying to get this done for Monday and so again I did I use the most of the time that I was given to review this to try to push for something and you know in my opinion our role as city councilors in these development agreements in any situation anything we're considering is try to make it better on behalf of the public and I think there's pretty widespread agreement among councilors that this would make the project better and we have the developer sitting here saying that he's amenable to these changes and we put a lot of work back and forth the two of us to achieve them and now they're sitting here for us to improve this project all we have to do is say yes to it so I really would encourage folks if you think this is going to improve the project here's your opportunity if you feel like we need more time then you can propose that we take more time to look at this and I'm fine with that I would support that but again many people want to move on this and if that's the case here's our chance right now to to make it better and I just want to be clear the reason we arrived at this language and the reason that Eric supports the language is because we did carve out CHT and we carved out Cathedral Square and we carved out the condominiums so that's why he supports this and that's why it ended up the way it is if you know if the word retroactively somehow nullifies that we can fix that word because that's not the intention the intention is to carve out those entities for which this doesn't apply and that's why we came to an agreement on it that's not a difficult fix whatsoever especially when there's widespread agreement around it so if you believe that this will make the project better and we have the developers sitting here ready to go please please support this thank you Councillor Hanson Councillor Shannon thank you President Tracy um I do appreciate the goals of this amendment but uh a counselor working out a special deal with the developer is not appropriate public process and especially something that has gone on as long as this our timeline to affect this didn't start on Thursday when our agenda appeared Mr. Ferrell has been meeting with all of us for months um has let us know about this probably back in the fall at least and if we wanted to work in some deal there there was a a very lengthy process where that could have been done to spring spring this on us at this moment almost at 10 o'clock at night as we're ready to approve an agreement um and you know that that's not okay uh when you write things like these write things like this there's a possibility for unintended consequences and it should go through a committee process um it should not be decided at this hour on the floor and for that reason not because of the merits of it I will not be supporting this and I hope that other counselors even who think this is a good idea won't support a process like this thank you Councillor Hightower um yeah so hearing a lot of the concerns I want to flag that I do think that development agreements at least are the right time to do this I think that the proposed changes have a very credible impact on parking and not doing anything to limit parking at the same time would greatly hurt some of the um residents of the new north end as well as this project specifically um Eric I just want to ask a clarifying question if that's okay the $50 shift to um Councillor Perlina's point that's supposed to be a reduction of the rent right not an additional $50 that they weren't so if you don't have a car you reduce the rent by 50 if you um do have a car the rent stays the same that's that is correct and if you have an extra car then you then you pay extra we had already instituted our own policy of charging for a second car to discourage people and so I appreciate all this conversation about process I don't want to be I don't want to be the baby that goes out with the bathwater this is a very important um project for us I think it's uh I think that the amendment notwithstanding the process has uh has a lot of merit we enthusiastically support doing that and so even I would rather you guys fight among yourselves about process going forward and don't make me pay the price for the process I don't want to I don't want to go out with the bathwater please thank you Eric and then I guess my closing point on that is I having been on the DRB I know how pro parking they are I feel like this is one of our few kind of instances to signal for the process going forward that we don't want just right next to the lake to be a huge like surface parking lot not and I understand the reasons that Mr. Farell wants to move towards surface parking but I feel like that is so unideal and increasing the amount of units by 180 units without doing something to address the parking issue I definitely would vote no on that I think that is very concerning especially considering the height increase so we could even be talking about you know increased bedrooms um just more units and just as much surface space and of the original unit so I feel like there's a serious car issue that we should that we need to talk about without just passing it sorry that was long confusing thank you councilor hightower councilor jane thank you president tracy and I think before I start I wanted to thank mr. Eric for his courage for his vision about housing and also development and I think the merit about this is specific to the experience we have with all the developers now in front of us we have a developer who delivers who makes agreement respect them and move us forward that I want to thank you for that but I wanted to respond to just a comment that I heard here about process about a counselor making deals with a developer I think that counselor jack henson has done what we call due diligence and he has done it beautifully by reaching out to the developer and trying to come up with some agreements that move us forward jack did not start it here right now but he been working with him outside of here and he has done a great job jack thank you for that and I am very much going to support this amendment thank you thank you councillor jane councillor paul thank you thanks president tracy um you know I will agree with those people who have said that this on what we're doing this evening is highly irregular we we don't do this and that this approach is a bit unorthodox we're the ones that are pat we're the ones that are voting on the development agreement we don't negotiate the development agreement on you know that being said I would I certainly would not be inclined to even consider supporting this were it not for the fact that uh eric is amenable to it on and I do believe that uh councilor henson and the developer have worked together uh to come up with something that is amenable to um to both of them I have a feeling that probably was other language that councillor henson wanted put it in put in and there was probably some that count that the developer did not and they somehow rather figured out something that does make the project better um uh I would like to also say that um to eric that you know you did I I went out for a tour of cambrian rise last year I can attest as I'm sure all of us can that this is a developer who has done everything that we um in the city want um he's worked very hard to provide on an ease for alternative modes of transportation that's all we can really ask and he's done more than what we can ask for um and uh uh so while it is highly irregular and very unorthodox um I will vote to support uh the amendment thank you thank you and I also and I'm sorry I apologize and I and I and I would and I do hope that um we can approve this this evening um you know I think I think eric has been extremely patient with us he needs to get going and I hope we can just move on this evening thank you thank you councillor paul councillor strongberg thank you I'll be very quick I know we have a lot to get to um I just want to say a huge thank you to eric for reaching out to me and having really good conversation and answering all my questions I felt very comfortable having a dialogue and supporting this project because it does promote accessibility and inclusivity um I to the points of of you know the question of procedure I understand the hesitation there but I you know climate change is very time-sensitive and I know that yes councillor paul said it perfectly it is unorthodox but I I don't I I'm just going to say it blatantly I didn't like the fact that it was mentioned that councillor Hanson was making deals with anyone that's I think this was a very transparent process um it might have been more communication on one side of the fence than the other but I you know I feel like we could be more proactive moving forward this is very imperfect how we're doing this but I'm you know I'm excited about this project and I think this amendment is extremely meaningful and does make the difference for a lot of people in burlington um so I'm excited to support it and everyone else said everyone everyone else said everything else I was thinking so thank you okay councillor freeman to be followed by councillor paulino and then councillor pine um again folks it's after 10 um so please keep comments you know let's try and move ourselves to a vote on the amendment and then to the the final vote because we do saw three items on deliberative go ahead councillor freeman I have a point of information go ahead councillor paulino so my question is uh I guess for the either the person who drafted the amendment because it says I understood it can hear you so the way I read it it says if you own a car you will pay no less than $50 so you'll pay at least $50 if not more so there will be no reduction if you do not own a car but there will be essentially a tax a car tax if you own a car um so my question is there was some misunderstanding I heard a couple times that that it will be that it was the opposite that if you don't own a car you pay less and if you and if you do you pay nothing my second question is that uh when I was talking about cht there's going to be some new iz housing as a result of this increase and according to the way it's written any new iz housing um will be subject to this requirement which I understand they can't comply with so those are the two issues that I was uh concerned about point of order go ahead councillor hanson I mean I'm happy to answer that but how is that a point of order that just seems like discussion of of the item I'm going to agree with that and go to councillor freeman councillor freeman go ahead I'll come to you next councillor councillor paulino and we'll get to those questions but councillor freeman was in the queue ahead of you so go ahead councillor freeman wasn't at a point of information also I think I'm on a lag I'm sorry can you hear me yeah I can hear you okay do you want me to go yes please okay um I just had a quick um I was confused about all the comments about bad process um my understanding is that this was introduced to sort of the council as an idea from the administration and mr ferrell several weeks ago it was meant to come directly to council um and to not go to cdnr I understand that there were some conversations that occurred last summer about this potential change to the cap from 770 to 950 units but my understanding is that it wasn't even intended to go to cdnr before coming to council um that the administration was given sort of um I I guess I don't understand why the administration is given a unilateral um place and sort of negotiating these and I think also um from my perspective um the developer has individually reached out to councillors um to ask for their feedback so I around process um I don't see how this is um like uncouth or um unorthodox I guess it it seems just like having a conversation this is the development agreement we're asking to reopen it um what is if you know then it's on the table if we want to make changes to it so I I really don't understand that um perspective around process um I you know I hope there was good communication around it I'm you know I apologize if folks did not get language until um you know feeling like it's last minute but um in terms of the process sort of leading up to um tonight's meeting I don't see it's I don't if you have a point of contention with the uh with the substance of the amendment I think that makes sense but to me the process doesn't seem from my perspective out of the ordinary I think the other thing I would say is that um I understand that people were concerned about um retro not not having retro retro active changes but having changes to the new lease um I did consider that myself but again because I don't think it's really um a fee it's more of a reduction um or like a benefit when you decouple um I think that that's an improvement but I um counsel Hanson can clarify that point um because I think there's maybe some confusion around that and then beyond that I think that um tenants broadly have been talking about wanting protections when their lease turns over um a big one has been just um not raising the rent um and there's really big issues to talk about when the lease turns over and so decoupling parking and so that um people without cars don't um have just don't um or rather the you're you just see the you see what you're paying rather you're not actually getting charged more you just um see it basically you're aware of what um it seems really minimal and it's not actually a conditional cost at least from my understanding and we've been talking I think tenants have been talking about really serious things about when um leases um when you were near your release and um the really unfortunate changes that can occur there um and so this doesn't really flag for me um as a as a serious issue but I did I did think about it check on what's it thank you thank you counselor Freeman um I had uh counselor uh Paulino and Pine in the queue uh again folks we really need to move towards a vote because we have a number of substantive items uh counselor Paulino so I I stand by my point that I it was a point of information because I don't understand what's being proposed in other words there's conflicts the question in in what is written says you will pay at least $50 or more likely more and and the second part says retroactively doesn't apply to the agencies that can't comply with it but it could prospectively in the future for any future units and frankly as written you could argue it's it's uh it could apply July 1st um to new leases as well um I appreciate Mr. Farrell saying uh that uh he doesn't want our his whole resolution not to pass or you know I understand it's a very big process but my point is that we're voting on just the amendment first so I'm asking that we consider the effect of this and I don't believe it is inclusive of people who own a car is my point they're all and and it's not appropriate for us to negotiate last minute in the ninth inning um for something that's going on for months um it's it's it's just not the right process by by its very definition the maker said that there's an ordinance in place address this and the public process for that hasn't been completed yet we're going to circumvent that now at the last minute and I'm just not okay with doing that there should be people I know I have I know people that live there and they all own cars and most of them don't drive but according to this resolution on the fly they will not pay more for it Mr. Farrell Eric are you able to answer uh to clarify yes uh Franklin that's not correct all we simply agreed to do is we're going to reallocate the rent that we currently charge and allocate part of it to parking and part of it to base rent for the unit so if you if you have a car you don't pay if you have a car it's included then then then your rent it doesn't change if you have two cars you pay extra if you don't have a car you save money I'm not gonna I'm not I'm not gonna charge extra for a car I'm just allocating the rent that we collect part for the apartment and part for parking that's the essence of decoupling I just want to identify for folks who live there that there is a cost associated with owning a car I'm not going to penalize you for owning a car thank you Mr. Farrell is that are you all set count yeah it's probably not counselor pine I just wanted to um to take a little bit of this spotlight off of counselor Hanson because I um I played a role in this uh sort of conspiracy of goodwill he he he expressed concern about parking I knew Eric was amenable to some changes I helped bring them together to come up with this so please don't attack counselor Hanson for some sort of nefarious circumvention of the process this was just an attempt for all of us to get to yes that's all this was thank you counselor pine counselor paul well thank thank you uh president tracy um I'd like to uh call the question please we have a motion to call the question uh that takes two thirds um so um then that is a non non-debatable motion um so um we will go to a vote will this city clerk please call the roll counselor carpenter counselor jang is that a yes counselor jang counselor jang please that's a yes thank you counselor freeman yes counselor Hanson yes counselor hi tower yes counselor mason counselor mason calling the question this is a motion on calling the question I can't hear you I'm sorry yes yes okay affirming yes okay counselor paul yes counselor paulino this is just on the amendment right this is on calling the question I have a vote to on the amendment after this if this passes yes counselor pine yes yes counselor shannon yes counselor stromburg yes city council president tracy yes fell buys so that passes unanimously we will now move to a vote on the amendment itself um will the city clerk please call the roll on the amendment counselor carpenter yes counselor jang is that a yes that's a yes sir counselor freeman yes counselor Hanson yes counselor hi tower yes counselor mason no counselor paul yes counselor paulino no counselor pine yes yes counselor shannon no counselor stromburg yes city council president tracy yes nine eyes three days okay that passes and so we are back to debate on the original motion are there for is there further discussion on this item again recognizing that we still have three items in our deliberative agenda counselor freeman go ahead i just had a is there is eric still on the line i did have a quick question about the square footage and i know that he had wanted to actually speak to that oh you're still there sorry i you moved in the in the tiles um actually i think you wanted to address counselor hi towers um point about the square footage and that was actually my question um because i understand that the sort of footage horizontally of the project isn't really changing but um there were questions about the height and i'm wondering if we are seeing an increase in potentially of um yeah height or square footage in terms of height i don't i don't i'm not sure i'm using the right term it's getting late but perhaps you know what i'm getting at or someone else can fill in if i didn't ask the question correctly eric are you prepared to answer that question sure um so you may recall that this is a brand new ordinance that was written for this district when we did the development agreement it's an nac district uh and they wrote a new height ordinance for it which is not dissimilar than other districts uh we have several buildings that are already at the maximum height um but some of them are not uh some buildings are six stories some buildings are four stories so um on a case by case basis we go back to the d rb and and sometimes we max out the height and sometimes we don't um are you also does that answer your question perry um so we're not asking i'm not asking for a change in the height you know we still have to adhere to all of the underlying zoning and planning regulations that are in place they've been in place for for quite a few years now i think the the question is so if the units are increasing i know that there's you know it's a lot of there's these micro units that are part of the picture and all this sort of stuff but i think based on someone who called in from public comment i think the concern was because you do we do only have so much um you know sort of we're put it in the foundation that's a lot of that that would imply maybe um or you could suppose that then that would mean that you would have to sort of max out the height limit on more of the um of the buildings is that fair to well i think i i think it's fair that some of the buildings will max out the height and i think it's also fair that uh many of the buildings that are already done do not max out the height and won't max out the height the height is not going to change just as a result or and only as a result of of the increase in density the increase of density is is largely driven by the reduction of the size of units um buildings grow and shrink and change size and shape based on market conditions that are that uh you know and we'll build this project out over several years and it'll go through iterations over those years all within what's allowed under the zoning for that particular district okay i was just curious because people do end up asking a lot of questions about the character of the design and what that means and so i appreciate you um elaborate on that thank you i think it yeah and i think it's fair to say the character of this neighborhood isn't going to change and when it's all done it's going to be spectacular counselor carpenter to be followed by counselor jane go ahead counselor carpenter if you could just re-explain what you what you have agreed to to date and what you haven't agreed to you've agreed to 14 buildings you've agreed to um what i'm going to call a certain amount of footprint right i mean no not necessarily when i first approached the mayor's office uh last summer what i did agree to was that it was that we would stick with the number of buildings that we have um but every building that we got originally approved we've tweaked the footprint based on you know tweaking of the designs and so so the only thing i've agreed to is not to increase the number of buildings in terms of their height and their their precise their their footprints aren't going to change much but they they you know we do massage them around as the process goes forward what what is the buildable area what explain that then well the buildable area so this is a this is in a district where you can build it's a floor area ratio you can build two times the land area in total building square footage for us that means we could build about close to two million square feet we are currently approved for about a million one um the district doesn't regulate density per se um so we might build a little bit more than we might build a million two or a million three we'll never get you could never get close to the maximum amount of building area that's allowed theoretically in the district and because you'd have to build a 10-story building to do that it was just not possible but when you say you've agreed to a million one or whatever the number is that's what i'm trying to get at is how much more than that no we are permitted currently for about a million one okay the only the only thing that i agreed to in the development agreement is the cap on the density and the only thing i agreed with with the mayor is that i wouldn't ask for more buildings other than that whatever the zoning allows is is fair game okay and and i'm just um theoretically if you don't get the smaller units you could build all three bedroom units and still have a bigger project i mean or you could build your hotel and have luxury suites or some such thing i mean those are all still presumably allowed so well they are allowed and the interesting thing is if i've or if if if if you weren't uh disposed to increase the number of units it would probably force me to build a lot more commercial area which which is not what i want to do um i don't think that's the best fit for that neighborhood but in theory i could build several hundred more thousand square feet of commercial area which would just which would just exacerbate traffic exacerbate parking and it's just not the right thing i i think building more more residential units and smaller units is very appropriate for our location and for what the city needs what's that counselor and i i'm just gonna confirm it if you don't get the units you can't build and most likely would build more commercial space i would likely build more commercial i'd have to build more commercial space don't say councillor carpenter okay councillor jane to be followed by councillor high tower and paul again folks let's please try and move towards a vote because we do have those three additional items councillor jane go ahead yep um thank you president and i think it would have been imperative from the get-go after the resolution was introduced to have eddie give a summary of a overview i think we all received the the memo but i think there are many people here that might not understand what we're talking about i think for next time it would be imperative but eddie i wanted to circle back around the traffic impact so from 707 units there were a traffic study i i believe so right and now don't you think it would be better to wait until those 770 units to be occupied and fully operational to then think about adding more units to this um to the development no it's not it's not practical ali to do that because you have to do a serious amount of forward planning what i do today is is real very much dependent on what i'm able to do you know tomorrow you have to be strategic about the way you built out a build out a project that's going to take several years and so you can't do something today and then wonder well am i going to be able to do this or that next year i can't make today's commitments if i don't have some assurance as to where we're headed and what the end game is but traffic that you know traffic analysis is pretty pretty sophisticated and scientific today so they're they're they're pretty good at at predicting and and our original traffic study was vetted not only by dpw but v trans not sure why v trans looked at it it's not a state highway but they did and signed off on it we had that traffic study updated it was vetted by dpw they signed up on it so i think that uh there should not be any real concerns about traffic impacts the conclusion of the updated study was that the impacts would be pretty minimal very similar to the to the study that was approved uh four five years ago three four years ago yeah so i mean i think um 180 apartments are being added which mean 180 people and potentially 180 more cars and they're all going to use north avenue to go north or to go south you know and i really doubt that there won't be any significant impact on that 180 you know and 900 also parking blocks that we're talking about so now that put aside what's the plan in the community engagement about this project what do you have and jen moving forward including the the communities well and you know we have to go through the the the entirety of the of the local review process with the planning office and the drb and act 250 every time we do an amendment we've gotten three or four amendments since we were first approved and one thing i should i would like to correct though we were originally approved for about 125 000 square feet of non-residential space and that's down i think right now our current plan is for about 25 or 30 000 square feet of commercial space that's making up a lot of the difference in residential in the right you were growing in the residential residential doesn't have nearly the traffic impacts is commercial or non-residential uses so by building more residential we we don't have to build more commercial space and and it balances out yeah and i think what i meant is not maybe drb and all of that but it means the npa's and also the people who live uh in the area we we've probably we've probably made more trips to the npa than any project in the city of brolington we went through 45 public meetings when we originally got our approvals many of those were npa meetings we went to uh two and three and four and seven we went several times and we never hesitated we i'm i'm happy to to talk about our project yeah i mean i think we talking about the 950 the amended agreement right how do we include the the the communities that's what i'm asking well we would go back to the npa's okay thank you for the planning process that's what i needed to know thank you so much yeah i'm sorry hi tower to be followed by councillor paul go ahead councillor hi tower i see you councillor carpenter councillor hi tower go ahead um thank you president tracy i think right now i'm a little bit debating between tabling this to time certain to give councillors a little bit more time to look at this with the proposed changes eric i know that's the opposite of what you want to see um but i guess i'd like david's quick input on what he thinks about the proposed amendment um and where we're at um sure thank you i'm happy to comment um this is something that uh the planning office has been working on um with eric really from the very beginning and um as he said there's no there's nothing in this proposal that suggests to change the underlying zoning um if he wanted to build to the maximum height limit of the 75 feet um for senior housing or 65 feet he could do that right now what what's important about this proposal is that allows him to build more housing units which is really a critical need as i think we all understand in the community so um he's proposing to do it within within the 14 building um structure or format that he um is already permitted for i i see this as a as a very positive thing for the city thank you thank you councillor hi tower it is 10 30 so we need a motion on the agenda councillor paul go ahead um okay i i thank you president tracy i actually wasn't gonna make a motion to um didn't realize it was already 10 30 um i'll make a motion i'll make a motion that we extend our meeting to um um to move um item 7.05 7.06 and 7.07 okay so there is a motion to suspend the rules and complete the deliberative agenda is there a there's a second to that um and i believe that that's non debatable is that correct attorney blackwood um um i i think it's debatable if you want to debate it you have to have a vote okay any discussion on the the motion to suspend the rules one of information point of order so go ahead councillor freeman freeman uh yeah i just called a quick point of information you did say councillor paul 705 706 and 707 the entire deliberative i did i'm sorry okay sorry i wanted yeah the entire deliberative agenda okay that was all my point of information i just wanted to make sure i knew what i was voting on okay any further discussion on the motion to suspend the rules councillor paul thank you um as i say you sort of caught me off guard a little bit um if there was any of the sponsors of the these items who was willing to put them to the first of june if they are not completely time sensitive that's why i was just simply going to ask ask that but if hearing none i'm i'm happy i will make that motion which i've already made okay so we have a motion um any further discussion seeing none we'll go to a vote all those in favor of suspending the rules and completing our deliberative agenda please say aye aye anyone opposed no okay so will the city clerk please call the roll councillor carpenter hi councillor jen yes councillor freeman yes councillor hanson yes councillor hightower yes councillor mason no councillor paul yes councillor paulino yes councillor pine yes councillor shannon yes councillor stromberg yes city councillor president tracy yes eleven eyes one day okay the motion passes meaning that we will complete our deliberative agenda we are still on item 7.04 councillor paul you are on the floor councillor paul go ahead thank you very much thank you president tracy um we have been discussing this item for some time um there is uh i believe there's only one thing and only one thing that that that the developer is asked of us and that is that we not delay any further so with that in mind i would like to call the question okay the on the amendment on the on the on the resolution there is a motion and a second uh this is not debatable we will go to a vote on this item um will the city clerk please call the roll councillor carpenter councillor jen yes councillor freeman yes councillor hanson uh no no councillor hightower yes councillor mason yes councillor paul yes councillor paulino yes councillor pine yes councillor shannon yes councillor stromberg yes city councillor president tracy yes eleven eyes one day so that passes and we will now move to a vote on the uh original resolution as amended um will the city clerk please call the roll councillor carpenter yes councillor jen yes councillor freeman yes councillor hanson yes councillor hightower yes councillor mason yes councillor paul yes councillor paulino yes councillor pine yes councillor shannon yes councillor stromberg yes city councillor president tracy yes bell buys thank you for calling the roll and that item passes which brings us to item 7.05 uh a resolution thank you all thank you all yes thank you for being here eric appreciate it and um that brings us to item 7.05 the resolution decarbonization and electrification of buildings councillor hanson or i'm sorry yeah councillor hanson go ahead great thank you uh i will move to waive the reading and adopt the resolution and just quickly take the floor back after a second please seconded by councillor pine go ahead councillor hanson great so the good thing about this given how stacked this agenda is is that we're not we're not making policy right now with this we are what we're doing with this item is we are initiating a policy process that is laid out in the resolution that puts us on a path to explore options and ultimately draft an ordinance to debate around electrification and and decarbonization of buildings in burlington the idea and the intention is that we would um try to first address new development and and then also begin to address existing which is going to be a much more complicated process legally and otherwise so yeah this is just to really say we want to explore this we want to develop policy to decarbonize buildings um it doesn't predetermine how you'll note that there are some particulars in terms of what we want to consider as we look at different options but again it doesn't predetermine the outcome or the specifics of the policy it just begins to define what options are laid out um through this process as we debate it thank you councillor hanson are there other councillors wishing to speak to this item sorry if i could just one more thing councillor chaser okay go ahead finish up i just quickly want to just thank um and acknowledge councillor busher who had initiated this process the way back in october and just make sure to give her credit for initiating this all the way back then thank you councillor hanson are there other councillors wishing to speak to this item okay councillor stromberg go ahead um yeah i'll just keep it brief because this isn't like super controversial or anything but um yeah i really appreciate this and i think that this is incredibly important especially as we now have that standing agenda item um for us to just kind of circle back to and this is going to open up a lot of doors for for the policy discussions and climate addressing the climate crisis is not only a personal issue for me um but it's it's something that i ran on it's the reason why i got involved in politics so it's incredibly meaningful to me to know that we're really starting to take a stance and this could potentially affect any new building moving forward if we're serious about it um oh yeah i just i'm really excited to support this and and move on thank you councillor stromberg anyone else wishing to speak to this item seeing none we will go to a vote all those in favor please say aye hi hi any opposed sharing none this passes unanimously i don't think councillor freeman sorry it was an a i'm an i sorry i didn't it didn't unmute okay thank you councillor palino and councillor freeman for clarifying uh that still passes unanimously so we will and we will now move on to item uh 7.06 which is a resolution uh regarding the COVID-19 emergency order wearing face coverings required in retail stores councillor shannon you're muted councillor shannon sorry about that uh looks like somebody decided to print in here so sorry about that noise um it wasn't me i'd like to make a motion to waive the reading and adopt the resolution that is labeled revised and ask for the floor back after a second your motion is there a second councillor stromberg you have the floor councillor shannon uh thank you i think that everybody um is aware of uh of this issue i i really see this as kind of a workers rights issue um the governor has required workers to wear masks um when they're at work in retail stores as we open up the stores to the public but uh the workers themselves would not be protected unless members of the public coming into the store we're also wearing masks nor would the customers be protected unless you know other customers were also wearing masks so to make sure that everybody is protected from each other uh we have i am offering this resolution and i appreciate the many cosponsors that have signed on to this i think that um it's been well received by the retail community it and for the most part there there are people that disagree but for the most part i think the public really wants this to feel like they're they're safe in the shopping environment um and they want to support our downtown businesses but they feel like they can't do that unless they feel protected uh and there are a couple of um changes that have come into this over the course of um the time that i've circulated it to council counselors including to allow um to allow face shields not just masks and um there was a request to also include city buildings that are our public buildings should be included in this as well so i would like to add an amendment there and i would note that city employees are already required they have certain masking requirements that are specific in the hr um in the hr policy so uh they would still have those requirements um but this would be for the public and i asked uh attorney blackwood to draft some language this is uh let me get it one second online 46 add additionally members of the public are required to wear cloth face coverings or face shields over their nose and mouth while inside city buildings city staff are required to wear face coverings as provided in the city's face covering policy um i apologize i thought that this had been amended into our resolution but it had not the language i just read came from the city attorney and attorney blackwood if you could share that um with the clerk's office i would appreciate it and i'm looking for a second to that amendment see a second from um counselor uh high tower counselor shannon you still have the floor um and i'm all set thank you okay thank you um is there um any um well i guess we were still introducing the resolution but is there discussion on the amendment that counselor shannon introduced counselor jane yeah i mean i think i will support it and i wondered why it was not initially um added in there but i think i will be supporting it now i would want to also on the same line i would want to add another amendment to the same amendment after line 49 i believe to add another store another specific location where covet 19 could be easily transmitted and as we all know we all received uh during public forum the executive director for farmers market stated that they would like also to be included in this it is a request for all the vendors that work with her specifically they request to be added in this resolution and would want to add burlington farmers market after line 49 okay our folks clear on counselor jane's amendment to the amendment does everyone understand counselor hanson um counselor jane could would you if you are in the counselor jane would be willing to clarify just to remind us where the farmers market is taking place this summer it so i believe they are still working on it in terms of the specific location but it will still be will be outdoor so they have different um options including the parking lot for champlain um champlain school and i know that they will be opening on june 6 and they're still working on a specific location but it would be definitely an outdoor location we got it got it okay no that makes sense i just wanted to verify i wanted to understand how it seems like we're getting into discussion but was there a second i'm sorry i'm sorry good point uh is there a second to counselor jane's amendment to the amendment seconded by counselor carpenter please proceed okay great um so yeah no though i just want to say the only reason i raise that is because there are certain locations for example the farmers market used to be at city hall park that are highly public gathering outdoor spaces where i think we would be entering into new territory to require a mask in sort of a highly public outdoor shared space um but i think a parking lot is me is different because it's not a place where folks are gathering and they would really be going there specifically to go to the farmers market so for me that that does make a difference but because this because of that i'll support that for sure okay any further discussion on the amendment to the amendment uh counselor shannon followed me by counselor mason i'm sorry this is the first i've heard of that and um there are a lot of outdoor markets that are going to be happening this summer including most of of church street really becoming an outdoor market and um we've gotten a lot of support for this but it's it is partly because we're just talking about indoors and not beyond that i don't really know how the public feels about um taking the step of requiring masks in the outdoor environment um and i'm also not sure if that's consistent with the the parameters that we were given by the governor's orders so i would like the um because we were given we were given authority to do this in in retail stores but um i'd have to review that to even know if this is possible but i'm not really comfortable because i'm not sure whether or not the public is with us and whether or not the science is with us on this particular decision thank you counselor shannon i see you counselor jane um i have mason high tower and then uh counselor jane so uh counselor mason go ahead on the amendment to the amendment but my comment was all on the same lines it was unclear to me whether counselor jane he referred to it as the farmer's market if he was referring specifically to the one on pine street or his amendment was intended as the language is written to apply to all farmers market or all farmers you know all outdoor um sales on the assumption it's the latter and not the former i share the concerns that counselor shannon has put forth uh as well as concerned about public reaction thank you counselor jane are you prepared to clarify yes thank you um and i think it is very clear also online three of this resolution it's it was highlighted especially in areas of significant community based transmission that's very clear and it does not exclude stores it does not exclude many things i think also in addition the director we are talking about farmers market not all the markets in burlington but specifically burlington farmers market the executive director mario zenko did speak in public forum in front of all of us she made that very simple and clear request that has already been approved and vetted by the vendors that she worked with so reason why i think it will be imperative for the council to allow addition of burlington farmers market into this resolution thank you thank you counselor jane uh council high tower um won't add to keep it quick i think i have the same thoughts as shannon and uh council shannon and mason um especially wondering what that looks like for the posting requirements for like the entrances and so on to a public parking lot um so i think i would defer to counselor shannon and which if she thinks this is appropriate given the new limitation that counselor jane just made thank you counselor carpenter go ahead um i supported it because i i wanted to support the woman who came from the farmers market but in second thinking it it doesn't seem well thought out i think we should just pass what's on the table we can always add classes to this if we need to and and things are going differently i jone did a great job in getting a lot of support for the resolution as it is think we should just pass it as it is and if we need to broaden it we should do so thank you counselor freeman i just i support encouraging people to wear them at the farmers markets as well people will be in close contact you can just put up a sign at the beginning of the parking lot it would be very very easy it's a place where people i imagine will be congregating if people are sneezing or coughing which hopefully they're not doing at the farmers market or they're not sick if they're coming and going the farmers here not in favor and it is eget spearhead this resolution that makes it a not a not so friend can you hear me now yes i understand that makes and it's not as such council freeman you're breaking up again it's internet i'm not getting anything council freeman i'm i'm sorry i'm not gonna i i'm not getting anything i'm gonna have to can you hear me now i can't you keep freezing up um okay i'm gonna go to i looks like okay i'm gonna go to counselor carpenter just to say everyone should be wearing a math and i support it but this was very specific to a set of groups we still just need to keep on doing our education and like i said i think we can add classes if certain classes of businesses aren't complying next meeting okay counselor freeman i'm gonna come back to you go ahead can you hear me now yes okay my my thought is just i don't understand why we wouldn't want to add the farmers market i mean it is more open air but people come into close proximity you also have customers who are coming in close proximity to the people who they are receiving the goods from so i guess just because i'm in close proximity to people all the time and i think the science backs that it can that the particles can linger in the air that any area where there's any just sort of um broadly like people being in proximity to each other i just i guess i don't see as a hindrance and i was trying to say when it cut out that i apologize to councillor shannon because i know that you spearheaded this resolution and i don't want to um create an unfriendly amendment on the floor um but i just i guess just working in health care and just thinking about the proximity that we had to people it just doesn't seem like a problem to also loop in um loop in farmers markets which are another place of commerce and also i think sign in terms of signage you could just post one of those i don't know what they're called billboard things that you just prop up and say please i adhere to um to wearing face covering so that's that's my preference um just wanted to put in a minute two cents okay so we are still on the amendment to the amendment is there further discussion on the amendment to the amendment okay looks like we're ready to vote will the city go to a vote will the city clerk please call the roll councillor carpenter nay councillor jang yes councillor freeman yes sorry councillor carpenter again what was your vote no thank you councillor hanson yes councillor hi tower you're on mute uh i didn't actually hear back from councillor shannon so i'm going to say no councillor mason no councillor paul no councillor paulino no councillor pine yes councillor shannon no councillor strongberg yes yes city council president tracy yes six eyes six nays the amendment to the amendment fails we are back to the original amendment as put forth by councillor shannon is there further discussion on the amendment okay seeing none we will go to a vote on the amendment um all those in favour please say aye hi hi any opposed hearing none the amendment to the resolution passes we are back to the original motion is there further discussion on that councillor hi tower um yes and i apologize to do this again so late i did post an amendment which is on board docks and they also sent to councillors um adding the language where some members of the community such as people with health concerns and people of color especially young men of color may be made unsafe by wearing a face covering business initiative and understanding of cultural competency and consider how to accommodate customers who may feel safe wearing masks i'd like to amend the resolution we have a moment we have an amendment is there a second seconded by councillor strongberg uh is there further discussion on this amendment did you want the floor back i'm sorry yeah sorry about um i'd just like to thank councillor um freeman for bringing this up and councillor shannon for being open to adding this so very late in the game so thank you for that awesome is there any further conversation i just don't understand i'm sorry councillor jane go ahead yeah um maybe they can clarify a little bit what that amendment is trying to do councillor hi tower yeah sorry go ahead yeah i think we've just seen enough um acts of uh violence against especially um men of color and we also have some concerns that some of the health concerns maybe not listed by the cdc would also make it harder um for people to wear masks so just generally want to flag for community members business owners to approach anyone not wearing a mask with a sense of compassion and some cultural competency to understand that there could be very valid reasons that they're not wearing a mask around further safety and making sure that i don't think this resolution is um race neutral so kind of calling that forward saying that this is a potentially race-based issue councillor jane are you all set or do you have further comments um yeah maybe if i understand so basically if people don't wear mask because they people of color we asking these store owners or the managers to understand that these might not understand what's going on is that the language is that consistent okay councillor jane you are you all set um i'm all set yeah any further discussion on the amendment councillor hanson yeah i just i mean for me just to explain why i would support it i mean i think to me what what i see this as being about is basically racial profiling and racial profiling is already obviously pretty pervasive but if someone you know if someone feels like they're more at risk of being racially profiled because of the face covering and and how that could um lead to additional risk of racial profiling i think this is a good way to ask businesses to to listen to that and be sensitive to that and be willing to to to hear that and take that seriously so that's for me how i how i view it and i support that um i don't know if i'm misinterpreting it based on the maker but that's kind of my takeaway and and why i support it councillor mason thank you uh president tracy i i had the same interpretation as as councillor hanson but i also want to be clear in supporting this this to me does not say that if you're not wearing a mask and you're a person of color you have to be allowed into a store if a store owner you know as a matter of policy or a matter of city regulation wants to exclude someone for health safety and welfare that's permissible there's also a scam going on where people who oppose these are concerning you know under the ADA sorry and they have a right not to wear one that is not true if someone is not wearing a mask in your retail establishment you do not have to let them in whether it's because of an ADA or because of cultural sensitivity i appreciate um councillor hightower bringing this up um and i hopefully you know i i believe it will be a dear to thank you thank you councillor mason i have councillor freeman councillor jane since you've already spoken on this i'm going to go to councillor freeman first councillor freeman go ahead thank you and i just want to pull up the language i had a question about because i was um speaking back and forth with city attorney blackwood about um sort of some of the things that councillor mason brought up sorry this is not the this is just a clarification i just jumped right into the the technical aspect of it but i am really curious about this because um to councillor mason sort of clarification um i do see in the resolve clauses that we have online 73 exceptions um and so um that does basically my understanding is that the only people who would legally be accepted and and i this is why i'm asking the city attorney for clarification because i think it is a little confusing at least for me um that like they couldn't refuse um a child under the age of two um or someone who's having trouble breathing or unconscious etc um but then um the way that the policy is written um that this they're sort of like if you're a person of color or if you um are maybe not covered under the as um calzahay tarah said under the health issues considered to be under the cdc guidelines that you're not um considered in that sort of accepted class i don't know if that's the right term but um i just want to final clarification from the city attorney on that before i um understand what we're voting on uh attorney blackwood are you able to to clarify um i'm not sure that i fully caught the exactly what the question was but but yes we have there are exceptions in in what you are adopting for the cd what the the cdc recommendations and and in addition there there may be like you have to try to accommodate someone who has a disability that may prevent them from being able to to wear a mask for example if they have a breathing issue or something like that so because there're going to be other laws that kick in so there there are ways that people who can't wear masks can um ask for accommodation and be able to to not wear a mask and so and because so the cdc so this is so basically to your point the the other laws are kicking in so that would mean that it's not because of the way that the policy is written based on line 73 of the resolve clause but it has to do with as we um exchanged in some of our emails sort of the underlying um like if you're in a protected class you're not like you're not able to just get kicked out of sword just on the face of like um sort of like equal opportunity like if you're a person color woman whatever it is like if you're you can't be discriminated against just on face like that's already an underlying and those would kick in um and that has nothing to do with the policy but is there anything within this policy that um is uh giving additional protection I guess other than like the underlying would or is it possible to do that within this policy or is that not within our purview as the city giving additional protection to whom for what um I mean based on the conversation that we've been having so far I mean I think the question and what councillor mason brought up was around um the question of like if you're a person of color you can and and or if you're someone who feels that you I didn't I'm sorry councillor mason because your um wi-fi I think might have cut out or minded but the um I think you said something about people misutilizing AVA to suggest that they can't wear a mask but actually need to or something I couldn't I couldn't hear it and I apologize fully but you know there were sort of um examples beyond what is written um or what is sort of underlying I guess does that make sense all right so so so somebody a store owner can't say to someone you can't come in because of your race because of you know the and and they can't use discriminatory things that are proxies for those um um those characteristics so that's and that's law and that's the law of regardless of anything we do here what what this does the exceptions that are special in this regulation are those that are online 73 through 77 though and and those are based on advice from the public health authority which is kind of what this overarching uh mask wearing is about it's relying upon the public health authorities who are saying it's not safe for some people to wear masks and there and and that's who we're accepting there's also a sense of discrimination laws but now if a person I think if I if we go back to like the issue though that has that started some of these emails back and forth if a person of color um came into a store without a mask and said I'm not wearing a mask because I feel unsafe wearing a mask because of the the just the way that people have treated um people of my race who are wearing a mask that that is probably that's a difficult one because I'm not sure that that's going to be a basis for not justifiably not wearing a mask in a location where you're required to wear a mask okay I think that um that gives me a little bit more clarification um and I don't want to prolong the conversation anymore because it is getting late I do think that I'm I'm really glad that um counselor high tower is um bringing forward the amendment for the resolve I'm sorry for the wearers clause um I think perhaps I could have seen a resolved it being involved in the resolve clauses as well but I think we're past that point now and I will be supporting um the amendment that um counselor high tower and I worked on and I appreciate your clarification city attorney blackwood thank you councillor freeman anyone else on the amendment councillor jane yep um I I definitely understand the intent of the amendment but I don't think that I will be supporting it because it is sending a clear message that people of color or people from different technical background this policy does not apply to you because you're different or we are sending you to go contract the covid night in the virus a policy is a policy and it should apply to everyone regardless of their race their ethnicity or their background any store it is required it is required but now the question is if they don't have it how fast can they go get it and come back I will not be voting for this amendment because it send a message of discrimination to people who are different in this community thank you thank you councillor jane is there further debate on the amendment seeing none we will go to a vote will the city clerk please call a roll call the roll for the amendment councillor carpenter I couldn't hear you Sarah I mean councillor carpenter yes councillor jane nope councillor freeman yes councillor hanson yes councillor hanson can you just yes thank you councillor hightower yes councillor mason yes councillor paul yes councillor paulino yes councillor pine yes councillor shannon yes councillor stromburg yes city council president tracy yes 11 eyes one day the amendment passes and we are back to discussion on the original resolution as amended as there further discussion on the resolution as amended councillor jane thank you council president and I think I did ask these questions and they were specific to enforcement of this resolution what are the procedures in place in enforcing the resolution so that all members of these communities are required to wear mask that's the question mr tracy does the maker of the resolution have an answer looks like it like you do councillor shannon go ahead yes there's no enforcement mescanism included in this there's no civil ticketing the truth of the matter is even where there is civil ticketing I don't think that they're really issued much enforcement is primarily just by request and a business owner could deny somebody's service but I would say that that's it if uh attorney blackwood wants to correct me or expand upon that I welcome that attorney blackwood do you have further further information offer I don't really have anything to add that was what I would have said thank you councillor jane the floor is yours yep um so then I think then this resolution is almost meaningless because you know you vote on a resolution and you're making things required and there is no way of enforcing them it is just reminding me of a policy on chair street asking people to not smoke on chair street but people smoke all the time and when I asked that question it was I was told that oh basically it should be a community um self enforcement basically you have to remind people and for some people it's not a good idea if we bring policies we should have ways of making sure that it is uh required and it's also it is enforced um that's that's that's one so then I I am also wanting to add that some business owners um did make it very clear to many of us that city should not get involved in such a policy requiring people to wear masks this should be at their discretion between the business owner and also the customer for their safety now we don't have procedures in enforcing and also some business owners did not don't want this resolution to move forward I just wanted to put that out there and also another point that I wanted to add is why the city is not going the extra mile in producing more mask and making sure that all stores right have access to them that they can be displayed and people if they don't come in if they come in without much they can take one wear one and start to do the shopping and was just wondering if the city has that capacity I was told no but maybe the city can work on adding more and at least giving each of the stores that apply for this resolution to have them in that sort for display Councillor Shannon would you like to provide an answer to that question yes thank you um there there is a couple there's a few points there so the point of the resolution is really that without this resolution um individual store owners were left to their own discretion to decide whether or not they were going to require masks and a lot of the store owners wanted to require masks but they didn't want to be kind of the bad guy and they they wanted a level playing field and so that's what this accomplishes and I think it's an interesting comparison with the smoking ordinance which actually does have teeth in that ordinance and there is an ability to give tickets with that ordinance it's not generally how that type of of ordinance is um is enforced because usually you just ask somebody to stop smoking and they will stop smoking but that's kind of my point that we could put teeth in this ordinance but effectively it's going to be the same thing because people don't get tickets for this type of behavior and with regard to the masks the city has made 20 000 distributed 20 000 masks of as of I think last Friday and purchased fabric to make those masks and had a very successful campaign we provided masks to all of the essential workers first and um then expanded that to other workers and we've expanded that we we have provided masks to all of the senior housing facilities to all of the nonprofits and and the last phase was providing to the residents of Burlington I do think that we want to continue our mask making efforts but we can as the city transitions to new efforts which include really feeding people there are lots of community efforts and volunteer efforts and I am part of it to continue to produce masks and make sure that everybody has access to them thank you for that answer Councillor Shannon Councillor Hightower did I were you looking to be recognized okay I'm sorry I must have misread a wave or something are there other councillors who wanted to to get in on discussion on the okay councillor Collino go ahead I was going to move to call the question the question has been called is there a second seconded by Councillor Hightower I'm not debatable I will go to a vote would the city clerk please call the roll Councillor carpenter Councillor Jang no Councillor Freeman yes yes Councillor Hanson no Councillor Hightower yes Councillor Mason yes Councillor Paul yes Councillor Paulino yes Councillor Pine yes Councillor Shannon yes Councillor Stromberg yes City Council President Tracy yes ten eyes two nays that passes and the question is called we will now move to a vote on the underlying resolution as amended I will the city clerk please call the roll on that resolution Councillor carpenter hi Councillor Jang no Councillor Freeman yes Councillor Hanson yes Councillor Hightower yes Councillor Mason yes Councillor Paul yes Councillor Paulino yes Councillor Pine yes Councillor Shannon yes Councillor Stromberg yes City Council President Tracy yes eleven eyes one day that resolution passes which brings us to our final item of the night which is which is a item 7.07 a resolution removal of everyone loves a parade mural Councillor Pine thank you Mr Tracy Council President Tracy this should be a quick one that was a joke but I got that way too late yeah sorry about that I know it's it's a kind of late for humor but you know and I had planned to make some pretty extensive remarks I'll shrink them to the shortest I could possibly make on this topic oh I would move the move the resolution and request to floor back after this is there a second seconded by Councillor Hanson you have the floor Councillor Pine um in light of the hour I'll try to be succinct as possible on this topic um but I had to write this down because this is it's been something that um you know it it's a it's an issue that I think is it's really complicated even though people on the outside look at it and think it's quite simple um I was asked last fall when we were debating this as a council they're getting ready to debate in October actually 2018 so a year and a half ago what's the big deal with this mural um I've had constituents say um it doesn't really bother me that much couldn't we just make some changes to it or couldn't we just put another mural beside this mural or across the the the lane from this mural um I just want to say that I have um art art is not just an insignificant thing it's not just something that you you know look at occasionally or go to a museum or flip through a magazine while you're um you know having a cup of coffee and that that's what art is art really fundamentally shapes our stereotypes our our images our ideas our conceptions of ourselves and of our society and of each other and the roles that that race plays in our history um I I personally feel um that removing this mural is is ultimately a symbolic gesture but that that that undoing racism actually requires us to take both substantive and symbolic steps to repair the damage that's been done um I believe this mural is deeply problematic since it's ultimately a city commission of art that has divided us and caused pain in our community and does not accurately reflect a rich history as a people as a place um I I think it's ultimately an exclusionary piece of work that essentially erases entire um entire groups and races of people it erases them I'm sorry about that and it essentially implies that we are here in a great state in a great community almost entirely due to the work of of people of European descent and I think that that causes real pain and real harm so I I think it's again while it's a small step compared with structural and systemic forms of racism um I think this action does it says a great deal but our shared values of creating a community of inclusion and genuine belonging and so even though we are a busy council and even though it's really late at night I would assert that it's always the right time to do the right thing and I hope we'll join together tonight to pass this resolution thank you very much thank you councillor pine is there further discussion on the motion or the resolution councillor high tower to be followed by the councillor carpenter um thank you councillor tracy I am having a tough right time right now because this was kind of going to be the one time that I took a long time and just gave a real speech about how I felt on this um I've been really frustrated about this mural um but like in terms of who has contacted me about it in terms of like the difference in debate that I've seen about it the rhetoric that I've seen about about it um I mean when I don't know how much of this I should say now because I know that it's so late but when I moved to Burlington I saw the mural and I also thought that it was the whitest mural I've ever seen like Vermont is white but not that white um and one of the few unnamed people in it is indigenous I mean I think it's misguided but I also feel like the response to it has been a little bit misguided um I feel like communities of color are like in particularly are really struggling right now for reasons that we all know and um not right now they're always struggling and struggling particularly right now and as I'm racking my brain to try to figure out what to do about this I'm filtering hate mail the tell that's telling me that for Monter's own shotguns and hate niggers I'm reading problematic language about the slum that Burlington has become on front porch forum and I'm also fielding pairing emails from supposed allies that I'd be racist not to take this up as the racist issue in our city and that really only newcomers see this as a non priority which just isn't true or that if you like me if that if you're like me you're a newcomer um your voice doesn't count which I find extremely problematic and so I understand that the vote that the council had on this previously it didn't feel like a win because in a lot of ways it really wasn't um there was so much work that was left to do but I just feel so strongly that the work is not the home that the mural is not the only work that is left to do and it bothers me that this is the win that we're fighting for and who seems to be fighting for it people of color are losing in Burlington in all kinds of ways but instead of looking at that it feels and looking at the hard issues the systemic issues that people of color are finding um we're finding ways to make Burlington look less problematic and to me it feels like we've doubled down with what I think honestly is some white privilege on um removing this symbol of white guilt and so if I were getting a flood of emails from white folks also talking about de-aggregated data and pay gaps and police training really the hard systemic issues I wouldn't be as worried about this as I am but the fact that this is the only race issue that's been brought up to me by white folks um and that's only been brought up to me by white folks until yesterday I find problematic um and so I don't really see this vote as a vote to bring forward the voices of marginalized folks it does not feel to me like a stepping back of predominant culture to a lot of other cultures um and I know I haven't been here very long and I'm just one person and not representative of people from Burlington um but I did almost decide to vote no on this in protest um knowing that I may be the lone councilor to do so um and if any of my council and if any of my other counselors you vote no I hope that all of the activists in that that lone vote could have been me before they decided to vote as racists there are a lot of people sorry councilor hi Tara councilor Mason will you please mute yourself thank you go ahead councilor Tara thank you there are a lot of people there's a lot of reasons people vote yes or no and I encourage you to not boil it down to one word and I'm going to close by saying that I will vote yes because while I do not agree with the spirit of the resolution I do agree with the heart of it but I hope that all of the activists who have been working on this um really step back and we'll work with Taisha work with the indigenous communities which I again have to represent like flag that I'm not representing and I have not heard from an indigenous person in this debate um but I hope that they step back and work with these communities on issues that are close to them across the economic spectrum in Burlington not for them not lifting them up even but really just supporting them on the issues that they bring forward um and I apologize in advance for those of you who are disappointed by my voice um I'm really not saying this to be divisive but rather I'd like to start a conversation around how we have raised conversations in Burlington and the way that this was brought to me and how much I've heard about this from exclusively white folks until yesterday um I just has been bothersome to me thank you thank you counselor hi tower I had counselor carpenter to be followed by counselor Paulino I see you counselor Stromberg counselor carpenter thank you it's hard for me to speak after listening to Zariah um just from white girls always been in Burlington um you know my interest in being a sponsor is to help us just move on I think counselor pie is right art should not be hurtful and we've got to move on get the systemic issues work done so I feel like this action that's being proposed just helps us do this and we just need to get it done now it's been too painful to keep waiting um I had hope that we could sort of whole heartedly support moving on I had suggested a few language changes that I'm going to propose dropping and just adding for expedition that an option be to cover the mural as opposed to to um um remove it entirely the the resolution asks for a plan to be brought back and there would be more to that so I'm just going to propose an amendment um that two words be inserted on line 15 okay go ahead um I propose that haven't very in front of me I gave it to you on line 15 that um the city council and public works department work together by august 31st to cover or remove the mural to a suitable place so that's the proposal so the the language that you'd be adding would be cover or yes remove okay all right so is everybody clear on what the amendment is okay is there a second to the amendment seconded by councillor Stromberg is there any any discussion on the amendment I think this is an important I'm sorry councillor Paulina go ahead I think that the intent of this amendment is very important right now I think that uh as you heard in public forum constituents say that um you know some people to first of all I I'd like to start saying that there's nothing I can say that tops what Zariah says I totally echo what she says and I also echo I come from this at a very weird angle so I come from what Zariah has to say and then from councillor uh Carvach's perspective as well which is like you know a lot of my constituents just want to move forward and turn the page and and like Zariah said we need to start by looking at elsewhere and I think we you know this piece of art became something that wasn't it was in my opinion it was never intended to be that by anybody involved with the city but perhaps maybe by the artist you know to be this controversial piece where people would talk about it um and and that I do believe that that was the intent to to arise you know emotion from it um and so I I'm glad we're have we're having this debate I'm glad we're voting on this I think that the removal piece is really important for me because I have a fair amount of constituents that are very concerned about their tax bills and if we can possibly mitigate the cost of removal even by a few thousand by by covering it's very important so thank you uh council president Tracy thank you uh councilor Paulino on the amendment I saw councilor Freeman would you like to was that a hand councilor Freeman it was but I'm retracting it it's okay we can okay anyone else on councilor carpenter's amendment councilor Hanson yeah I just for for me personally and I'll speak more to the underlying when we get back to the underlying but for the amendment I I I just want to remove it I don't really want to take kind of the half measure of covering it um so I'm gonna I I'm gonna vote no on the amendment and I do want to talk about the resolution but I'll wait till we get back to it okay anyone else councilor pine go ahead uh mr president if I could I was going to ask on behalf of councillor jane just because he lost contact with us for a while I don't think he didn't get to hear the amendment because he was struggling with technology so he's there speaking for himself I'm sorry I'm sorry about that councillor jane uh councilor carpenter can you please clarify your amendment for councillor jane it's to add in line 15 add um cover or remove so it's adding the words cover or remove the intent is that that could be a temporary option until such time the the um the resolution calls that full plan be brought back by september 30 so the point is that covering could be an option councillor jane are you clear on what the amendment is now yeah okay good all right councillor pine did you have anything else okay councillor jane yep um I think I received the amendment before and um just made it clear back then that I will not be supporting it because covering the middle as it is right now you're putting the middle subjected to more vandalism again there are people who are in favor of removing it and some that are not in favor of removing now if you cover it both of those groups can continue to vandalize it I think it's when we're taking action we should not add water to it let's just remove it if that's what we want to do or leave it as it is but no middle ground here I won't be supporting it thank you thank you councillor jane anyone else on the amendment seeing none we will go to a vote will the city clerk please call the roll councillor carpenter hi councillor jane no councillor freeman no councillor hanson no councillor hightower yes councillor mason yes councillor paul yes councillor paulino yes councillor pine councillor shannon yes councillor stromberg yes yes city council president tracy no eight eyes for nice the amendment passes we are back to the original resolution as amended is there further discussion on actually we had a queue going councillor paulino was in the queue to be followed by councillor stromberg councillor paulino do you want to be recognized on the original resolution okay councillor stromberg I had you in the queue next yeah um well I just want to thank Zariah for being so open and and it's not you know I just I you said it beautifully I can't possibly measure up to that I just I want to bring up the fact that a lot of people reached out to me within my district and also just in general about the mural about this like not being the ideal time during covid and I just want to say that you know we can't play into the narrative that there's a right time and a wrong time to address racial issues so I really I feel like it's also a good stance to say that no matter what is going on that this is something we're always going to address and I just I want to take pride in that as a council and as a group of people that you know cares for one another and cares about how marginalized folks in society are feeling right now and you know people are disproportionately affected by covid 19 that's happening all over the news we're seeing that everywhere we're seeing so many different acts and I just I just I you know I stand with you Zariah and support you and and I think that what you said was absolutely on the mark and thank you okay further discussion on the resolution councilor shannon to be followed by councilor hanson go ahead council shannon thank you um I want to say I really like everybody else I very much appreciate um counselor high towers insight and analysis and um willingness to say what she said because those were not easy things to say um I have only been contacted by uh white constituents about this issue and I think that it's important to reach out to people who don't look like me um in making a decision like this and when I have done that I have heard from many people exactly what counselor high tower was saying that this is um that they had issues with the mural and they didn't like it and maybe a little bit different than counselor high tower many many said that um it wasn't really a priority but that they did not find it inclusive and I don't think that that's what we want to present in the entry to burlington and I don't in any way dismiss the importance of removing it and replacing it with something that is more welcoming and we went through a process to figure out how and what to do about this mural and that process um convened a group of people who were um as uh as somebody said from in um public forum they were strongly in favor of removal and despite that they went through a process of getting informed and understanding the whole realm of issues and they laid out a path for dealing with this which we agreed to um and we took action based on their recommendations I don't think that this is something we should dismiss but at the same time I don't think that this has become a higher priority during COVID and I was very much um concerned this weekend we did a food distribution counselor uh Paul counselor Mason and I and with all of your help we did a food distribution in the south end and that was attended predominantly by by people of color and I think that counselor pine acknowledged that this is a symbolic effort and it's a very costly symbolic effort and to the extent that we have funds to address racial issues and inequities I think we should spend those funds at this point in time in ways that that meet a very real need in our community that go beyond symbolic gestures that maybe make us feel good um so in in saying all that I'm not I'm not defending the mural but I am not willing to uh change to move this up on the priority list at this point in time and I will be voting no thank you counselor Shannon counselor Hanson thanks um so I guess I would start off by saying that I'm glad that I'm glad that this mural has gotten us talking about um issues of racial justice in the city and I and I'm glad that the focus of the conversation and thanks largely to counselor high tower for opening it up in this way but the focus the conversation going beyond just the mural itself um and the fact that counselor high tower within the mural discussion has faced racism is just highlights the need for us to do work much more deeply beyond beyond this particular mural the mural itself I find very problematic I I think the representation of of Abenaki people and the lack of representation of people of color are both just completely inaccurate and damaging narratives that just reinforce harmful um a harmful narrative around white supremacy and this is this is a public display right in the heart of our downtown so I think we need to get the mural down I don't believe this mural should be up um at the same time to the points that have been raised I really hope that we don't pat ourselves on the back for this I think this is let's we you know hopefully this will spur us to continue to have deeper conversations and address more systemic issues and there's a benefit there um but removing a racist mural um should be done and also shouldn't be considered again something to pat ourselves on the back um so I definitely support doing it and I definitely support continuing to move forward even within this discussion of kind of public art and public display this opens up a new opportunity for how we want to move forward and what do we want to display at the heart of our downtown and who who gets to lead that process and who wants to tell their story and use this space so I think it opens that up um and I think we need to continue to have all these other discussions as well I don't like the idea of you know because we're removing the mural we are deprioritizing inherently other things I think we can get this done I don't think we have to turn it into I just don't I don't accept that I think it's on us to raise those other issues proactively and do that I don't think the mural is preventing us from taking stances and moving stronger policies around racial injustice I think we should have been and should continue to step up more than we have been on that regardless of the mural and I don't think the mural is an excuse or something to point at and say this is why we're not doing that we're not doing that because we haven't been doing that that being said though I want to acknowledge some of the work you know we are doing I think more substantial work through creating this permanent senior position in city government we have this new committee we have set up forums to get deeper into this and and that's that's a win and you know I want to thank thank all the people who contributed to that and made that happen and now let's let's use that let's utilize that structure that infrastructure that we built in our city government to try to undergo this process of addressing other racial justice issues so the hours late I'll leave it there but those are some of my thoughts and I'll be voting yes I thank you councillor Hanson councillor Freeman thank you President Tracy yeah I did also you know as others said wanted to echo just appreciation for councillor hightower's comments I think that I have also I think the conversation around race issues or just equity issues has like spotlighted this onto this mural when there are so many other and I think councillor hightower put it really well there are so many other systemic issues that are facing sort of the most vulnerable people in our community and I would really like to see people proactively take those issues on and I think the comment specifically around white guilt is a really is a really pointed one and really important and interesting and I think it's something for a lot of further reflection and I just really appreciated that as being part of the conversation I think you know personally like when I weigh out the fact that there was a young black man in our community who was given a great injury due to a violent interaction for like peace apartment versus the mural which I will be voting to take that I absolutely don't think it should be up but that the the sort of obsession with the mural versus something that caused someone to have a brain injury is it really kind of has confounded me about how we're addressing sort of broader systemic issues and how the conversation has at times felt like it has evolved into sort of like a white savior or white guilt conversation around the mural without really leaving space to dig into deeper probably much harder issues to address but are really about foundational issues that we have as a community so I absolutely I see that but just the mural is incredibly frustrating to me it depicts a version of history that is completely and absolutely false it doesn't exist it's I understand that there was some feedback at some point that it's not supposed to be historical but I think it is used as a public education tool I feel frustrated when people will say that the mural should say up because it shows our history and now our history is changing because we're becoming more diverse I think that that creates a lot of miseducation and confusion that Vermont was brown it was it became white through colonialism through like incredible amounts of violence and also through forced migration of enslaved black people that history is so incredibly violent and putting up this this depiction of Vermont that it is white and predominant there's also a lot of men in that mural it doesn't really it creates this sort of illusion about the history and how we got to where we are and I think that really is bad for us I don't think that's unhealthy and I think it needs to confusion about really understanding broader systemic issues because people don't even have a context or a foundation to talk about those things and the inequity that has brought us to where we are so I will be supporting taking down the mural and I'm looking forward to voting on this tonight thank you thank you Councillor Freeman are there any other councillors wishing to speak on this item Councillor Jang thank you President Tracy so I'm sorry that I missed what Councillor Hightower was talking about it seems many people address it in their comments I had technical difficulties but I think it would be important also to highlight the hard work of Councillor Bushel who before her departure from the council have provided courage so much courage of someone who has been here more than all of us who also has changed her mind over time about this mural I think she was getting ready to introduce the similar resolution of taking the middle down and has started the background work with the administration and we all know many of us have known what she has the level of pushback she received during that process I think it's important to say to her thank you and also to highlight that also many people former councillors who voted in favour of keeping the mural up are no longer here they no longer here the middle could have been taken down way back when when we recognise that as a city we made an error commissioning a mural in 2009 in 2012 that is only highlighting businesses that participated financially in the for the creation of the middle a mural that did not get so much of community input the mural that did not recognise the changing demographic of our city as the city calling itself as a progressive and welcoming city it lacked definitely the representation of what Burlington is about we recognised it back then and the middle is still up then we have a problem we have a deep problem as leaders of the city justice delayed is justice denied there are continuity of people saying no this middle should stay up create a different middle so many different arguments and lately the argument that I hear is about the cost so now I have a question councilor Tracy I don't know who maybe Eileen maybe Mr Mayor maybe Doreen can tell us the cost associated in putting the middle down I have no idea I'm just hearing it's expensive we don't have the money we're going to put it in 2020 2021 budget but I just wanted to understand how much it's going to take to unscrew the panels and store them away whoever can answer that question Mr Tracy thank you councillor jane director craft are you prepared to answer that question I'm can you hear me yes I can director craft go ahead I believe okay we have you back director craft can we yes so this is not something that was put out to bid it is something that we just gathered from one company that was the company that worked with us when we repaired after the vandalism this mural and the cost that were represented for taking down the fuel full mural which is 60 panels was somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 to 20,000 and what Paul at that time suggested to us is that would just be to take the panels down what that does not deal with is the amount of damage that is behind taking the panels down because each panel has dozens of holes that are about one inch wide put into the masonry holding up the structure as well as the wood panels that go substrate excuse me that go horizontal and vertically and were glued to the wall to the old mural that exists behind so that estimate is something that has not been done professionally there was a round number given by the team at the marketplace and of around 10,000 so that's where that number between 20 and 30,000 has come from but I think it is something that as we move forward now we're just going to have to have formal bids placed yeah I'm sorry you still have the floor thank you director craft thank you Doreen yes but I think it is always important also to highlight that when we talk about 15 to even 100,000 dollars is it even better than the feeling the hurt of people who live and work here in this community is it better they should not be moral the moral we should always go with what's right and do it right now also we know that the the the the bca has commissioned is working into commission a new mural and dpw has pledged over 40,000 dollars to much a grant that bca was applying to commission a new mural why can't we use those 40,000 dollars to take the middle down today tonight right I think it is important for the sake of inclusivity for the sake of working against racism against discrimination to take the middle today and then that will allow us to move forward I am very concerned about the aspect of covering the middle it will even it's even harder especially for those who support to keep it to keep it there I will keep my comments to that at this point thank you so much thank you councillor jing is there additional comments regarding the resolution seeing none we will go to a vote will the city clerk please call the roll councillor carpenter yay councillor jing councillor jing couldn't hear you yes councillor freeman councillor hanson yes councillor hightower councillor mason yes councillor paul yes councillor pollino yes councillor pine yes councillor shannon no councillor stromberg yes city council president tracy yes 11 eyes one day the resolution passes a motion to adjourn is in order councillor pine seconded by councillor freeman any discussion all those no seeing none all those in favor none okay we are adjourned at 11 56 thank you everyone have a great night good night everyone good night