 So good evening, tonight is, today is July 18th, 2022. It is about 10 after six. And thank all who are joining us in Contois and those who are online for the Burlington City Council meeting. We're gonna meet, we're gonna begin our agenda this evening with a motion to adopt the agenda. Councilor Travers. Thank you, President Paul. I move to amend and adopt the agenda as follows. Add to the consent agenda item 5.24, communication from Brad Welfong regarding encourage alternative transport with better infrastructure with the action to waive the reading, accept the communication and place it on file. Also add to the deliberative agenda item 6.045, resolution ratification of tentative agreement and authorization to execute collective bargaining agreement between the city of Burlington and BPOA, July 1st, 2022 through June 30th of 2025 with material to be posted per Council President Paul. Also note proposed amendment, oh, I'm not noting that proposed amendment. We will also amend for agenda item 6.05, ordinance CDO parking minimum and maximum parking requirements and transportation demand management, CA number 2207, Councilor Hanson, ordinance committee per city attorney's office per Councilor Travers. Thanks, Councilor Travers. Is there a second to that motion? Seconded by Councilor Hightower. Is there any discussion on the motion? Councilor Bergman. I just wanna say I am uncomfortable amending the agenda to add the police contract prior to our executive session. I don't know exactly what to do about that, but I am exceedingly not happy with that sequence. Thank you, Councilor Bergman. I can certainly let others speak to that, but for myself, it was my intention that we would have an executive session that is gonna follow shortly. And at that time, we collectively and collaboratively would agree as a body to add that to the agenda. I was told late Friday afternoon by Assistant Attorney Pellerin because I had asked him for motion language to be able to do that, that according to Vermont statute, we cannot do that. The only way that we can amend our agenda on an item like that, or I think really any item that is not a last minute item that we are unaware of for unforeseen circumstances is to amend our agenda at the beginning of the meeting. Certainly, there are other things that can be done after we've amended the agenda and after we come back out of executive session, but if there is to be any potential to vote on that item this evening, we have to amend the agenda to include it at this time. Is there anything that either one of the city attorneys or parliamentarian would like to add to that? I know Assistant Attorney Pellerin is here. He's shaking his head that that is correct. Is there any other discussion on the agenda to amend the agenda? Councillor, my apologies, Councillor Freeman. Thanks for joining us. I see your hand is up. No worries. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I don't feel that this should be added to the agenda. I, if the amendment to the agenda is a slate, then I, sorry, the BPOA contract, then I would be voting against, I guess, the entire agenda since we're not, since we're amending them as a slate and or the amendments are slate. I don't think that it's appropriate given the process around this, the sort of timeline, the fact that this was only sent out on Thursday an extremely short turnaround for such an important issue that holds immense gravity has been part of national conversations for years now with such a brief timeline here to discuss it on the local level, I think is not appropriate. And I don't think it should be on our agenda tonight. And so I will not support an agenda with this item on it. So just to clarify, if it's being a proposed as a slate, then I'm voting no on the agenda because I don't think we should be, regardless of the nature of the executive session. Claire, thank you, Councillor Freeman. Councillor Hightower. Just noting, I think I'll be happy to support this with the understanding that we may have to move to postpone after we amend it onto the agenda. That is, thank you, Councillor Hightower. Of course, the rules do allow for other actions to be taken if this is on the agenda. You are correct that that action could be taken at a later time. It can't be taken if it's not on the agenda. Seeing no other comments, we'll go to a vote on the agenda as amended. All those in favor of the agenda as amended, please say aye. Point of order. Yes, what's your point of order? Should push my button there. Okay, so what you wanna know is whether or not you can vote on the amendment and then vote on the agenda. I believe that the agenda is being proposed to be amended and that it is most appropriate that we vote on the amendment and then vote on the agenda as amended if it is amended. Okay, we don't usually do that, and I'm looking at Attorney Ellison, that is okay to do that. If you can use just, I'm sorry. I don't know if you have your microphone on or not. Go ahead. Yes, you should have a vote on the motion to amend the agenda. If that motion passes, then there would be another vote to adopt the agenda as amended. Okay, all right. Okay, thank you so much for clarifying. Sorry, point of clarification. Yes. Because we moved the, I thought that Councillor Travers moved it as one item to both amend and adopt the agenda. So are we striking all of the amendments that have been made if we do that or? Attorney Ellis, if you could just clarify for us, so what the motion should have been, because normally we do make a motion to amend, adopt. If we make a motion at this time, that motion should simply be on the amendment, on the amendments first only. Well, since the motion was made to amend and adopt, I think you probably could. Okay, so we're gonna, so we'll make a, we'll make a motion, or actually, if someone could make a motion to divide the question between amending the agenda and adopting the agenda. I would so move. Okay, motion made by Councillor Bergman, we need a second on that motion. Second. Okay, that would be seconded by Councillor House. A motion to divide a question is not debatable. So we will go to a vote and that requires a majority vote. All those in favor of the motion to divide the question, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? Okay, so we are now onto the amendment. Would someone like to make a motion to amend the agenda as per, as per Councillor Travers recommended, as per the recommended action on board docs. And that would be, are you comfortable doing that, Councillor Travers? Sure, well parliamentary inquiry, I believe the motion is currently pending now to amend, and so. So it's been made? Yes. It's been made, Councillor Travers. That motion was made, the motion was seconded. Okay, so we're now gonna take a vote on the amendment to the agenda. All those in favor of the motion to amend the agenda, please say aye. Aye. Aye. All those opposed, please say no. No. No. Okay, so there are three, Councillor House, Councillor Bergman and Councillor Freeman, am I correct? Yeah. Okay. So on Councillor Jang is not here, so we're talking about 12, 11, eight, right? That have said yes and three that have said no. So that motion passes. Now we go to the motion to approve, to adopt the agenda. And you have made that, yes, and that has been seconded. So now we go to the motion to adopt the agenda. All those in favor of the motion to adopt the agenda, as amended, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? I'll vote no, it's important. So we have one no vote from Councillor Freeman and Councillor Jang is absent and the others are all in favor. Thank you. Thank you so much for your patience with that. We're going to move to, now we have an agenda. So we're gonna move to item number two. And there are three executive sessions before us, item 2.01, 2.02 and 2.03. The first is an update on the city's lease with lease with beta technologies. The second is on collective bargaining with the BPOA, our police union and the third is on tax increment financing on our audit for tax increment financing. And just for the public, we anticipate that these executive sessions will last until approximately, probably around quarter of eight. Originally we had thought around 730 but we haven't quite started them yet. So it's customary that we do ask before we would make the motions to go into executive session. If there's anything in public session to be either that the administration or council feels you can give the public by way of information. Usually I look to the mayor for that. We have several different bodies that are here to address each item. Is there anything that anyone would like to say or can say in public about any of the three executive sessions? Thank you, President Paul. I will say we address the beta lease at the board of finance. And so any member of the public who's interested in hearing about that could review the board of finance recording. We will also have a public session after the executive session so people can stay tuned about that. And I don't think there's anything from an administration perspective that we are ready to say about the BPOA contract. On the TIF audit, I'll just say for the past year the city has been undergoing a routine audit from the state auditor's office on our waterfront TIF district. And we are nearing conclusion on that. We'll be briefing the council about that because it's not wrapped up. There's not much we can say publicly, but we should be receiving a draft report soon and look forward to working with the state auditor's office on releasing those reports to the public in the next few weeks, hopefully. Great, thank you. Thank you, CAO Schaad. So I'll ask for three separate sets of motions to go into executive session. Councilor Shannon, if I could have the first motion regarding the executive session on the beta lease agreement, please. I move that the Burlington City Council find that premature general public knowledge of legal advice and information concerning the details of pending lease negotiations with beta technologies ink to which the city is a party or has a stated interest would clearly place the city at a substantial disadvantage. Thank you, Councilor Shannon. That seconded by Councilor Barlow. All those in favor of the motion and seconded, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, please say no. So that motion passes and with that, we have a second motion based on the first, Councilor Shannon. President Powell, since if I make that motion will be an executive session, I think should I go through each of the first motions first and then make a motion to go into executive session? That's a good question. Yes. Okay, well, thank you. So I will make a motion on 2.02. I move that the council find that premature general public knowledge of information concerning labor relations agreements with employees would clearly place the city at a substantial disadvantage with negotiations. And would you like me to, okay. And additionally, I move that the city council find that premature general public knowledge of legal advice and information concerning the details of tax increment financing audit would clearly place the city at a substantial disadvantage. Thank you, Councilor Shannon. Motions have been made on the first wave of motions to go into executive sessions, seconded by Councillor Barlow. So we will vote on that motion and then go to the second motion. I'll need some suggestion on how to do that given the fact that there are different findings. But we'll go to a vote first. All those in favor of the motion as presented by Councilor Shannon and seconded by Councillor Barlow. Please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? So that motion passes. So do you have a suggestion about, okay. President Paul, I could just kind of given a minute I can kind of condense them and go through them. Okay, okay. Sure. Based upon the findings, I move that the Burlington City Council go into executive session to receive confidential communications VSA 313A1F in appending contract and lease agreement matter. VSA 313A1A. And to receive confidential updates on labor relations agreements with employees, 1VSA 313A1B and receive confidential attorney client communications made for the purpose of providing professional legal services to the body, 1VSA 313A1F. Thank you. So there's a, thank you for that motion seconded by Councilor Barlow. And before we go, I think it, well, usually when we make that motion to go into executive session before we vote on the motion, we would then say who was included in the executive session. In this case, the executive session on the first item, which is the beta lease would include the Mayor's Chief of Staff, the CAO, Attorney Jeremy Farkas, our consultant, Jeff Glasberg, Interim Director of Aviation, Nick Longo, members of the BTV team, Shelby Lozier, Director of Ground Transportation and CFO Marie Friedman. To the second item on collective bargaining would be the Mayor's Chief of Staff, Attorney John Maitland, HR Director Karen Durfey, the CAO, Catherine Shad, City Attorney Pellerin. And to the last item would be Attorney Stephen Ellis and the CAO and the Mayor's Chief of Staff. I, please correct me if I'm missing anyone. And then we can go to a vote. We had also asked Director Pine to be at the TIF. Yes, you're absolutely right. And I got that email and I, that was my mistake for, and also Attorney Richard Hessler for the item, the last item on the TIF audit. With that said, all those in favor of the motion to go into, yes, Director Pine? Well, he's still an attorney. All those in favor of the motion to go into executive session, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? We are in executive session. We will go downstairs for executive session. So if you're here, you can certainly stay in the room and we will hope to be back at around between quarter of eight and eight p.m. Thank you. Thank you all so much for your patience. We're back in open session and the next item on our agenda is item 3.01, which is the public forum. We have a number of people that have requested to speak in the public forum that are in Contoys. And then we have several that have requested to speak that are online. The way the public forum works is that the system that's in front of me on the table has three lights on it, one that is green, which will shine when you begin speaking. The second yellow light when you have 30 seconds left. And then we ask that you please wrap up your comments at the last red light, which will shine when your time is up. And we do this mostly because we wanna give fair and equal time to everyone. So if you are in the middle of a sentence, by all means wrap it up. But other than that, please conclude your comments when the red light comes on. So we have a hybrid system for public forum. And if you wish to speak online, there's still time to do that. You go to Burlington vtgov slash public forum and there's a form that comes up and you can fill that out. And that will populate onto a spreadsheet that's sitting in front of me. If you're in person and you would like to speak, there are forms that are to the right of me in the corner, please fill one out and bring it to the clerk that is to my right. The way that our practice is that Burlington residents have first priority. So we will go to Burlington residents in Contois who have submitted a form that I have first. Then we will go to Burlington residents that are online, back to Contois for non-Burlington residents and then we'll wrap up with non-Burlington residents that are online. I think I said that correctly, I hope so. And one last item and that is that during public forum, we ask that you please speak to me and address your comments to me as the chair. Please use respectful language and keep in mind that there are many people who watch city council meetings as their way with their families as their way of engaging in their community. We wanna hear what you have to say and we will listen more intently if you speak respectfully and with decorum. So with that, let's go on to the public forum. The first person in the public forum is Greg McKim. Go ahead, please, welcome. That's all right, take your time and just make sure that the green light on the speaker is in front of it, right in front of you is on. The microphone. Incidences of civil disobedience, right. Just take a walk through City Hall Park and you'll have consumption, smoking pot, using other drugs, the signs of which are the needles laying on the ground, drug transactions in full sight, public intoxication, nudity, hollering profanity, bathing in the water feature, debris, personal possessions scattered about, sleeping on benches, actually passed out on benches, overnight camping in the park. We cannot have a civil society where one segment decides that they do not want to follow the laws. Today, I had it. I saw a cop at the far end and started talking to him, why are you not enforcing these laws? They do not have enough backup that they feel comfortable going and confronting people who have mental conditions or drug intoxication issues and they need to have a second person or a third person behind them to keep themselves safe in an environment where we have weapons on people. That's not fair to the police. We need to take care of this. All I'm asking is you to enforce the laws that are already on the books so we can have a civil society where we all can participate in. Plus, that's a park filled with children. I would not take my child there. It's that bad. And I really urge, if you all don't live in this area, I mean, right by the park to go and see it firsthand because it's really awful. All right, thank you. Thank you. Thanks so much for your comments. Our next speaker is Pike Porter to be followed by Christopher Aaron Felker. Welcome. We're a Burlington resident, some of you know me. Back in early June, I sent you all a letter regarding the airport lease with the Air National Guard around June 6th. And thank you to the one city councilor who responded. Today I sent you another several emails with the Air National Guard lease and a joint agreement between the city and the air guard. I am here today to ask you to look at the ridiculous 1974 lease that we have with the air guard, which allocates 280 acres of land. For about two cents a year to the air guard. Given that you're now negotiating the beta technology's lease, you can see how valuable that land is. The joint agreement provides that the air guard will provide fire services and crash services. That is separate and distinct agreement than the lease. Some of you are real estate agents. Some of you are financial planners. I think you can see the value of 280 acres. I own property in Winooski since the F-35 started flying overhead plaster as falling off the walls and ceiling of one of my properties. I'm not the only one. I've spoken to other Winooski residents and similar things are happening there. The tenant on those 280 acres has polluted the Winooski River. I sent you links to data with that. As city counselors and with the ability to draft ordinances that you can't come up with something to at least hold the tenant accountable for the polluting of the Winooski River and the farm downstream from the air guard. I believe shows just a lack of non-will on your part to really look at environmental crisis, financial crisis, difficulty with space at the airport. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you, Pike. Our next speaker is Christopher Aaron Felker to be followed by Lee Morrigan. Welcome. How are you? Good evening. President, how are you? Good. Did everybody have a nice Fourth of July? This is a nice fireworks. I'm here tonight to speak in opposition to the so-called safe injection facilities that this council is debating, re-endorsing tonight. But before I get started on that, I'd like to qualify some of my comments this evening. I am very well aware of how the opioid epidemic is impacting our community. Personally, we in my family, we have lost more people in the last two years to opioid abuse than we have from COVID. So we understand that we are empathetic on this. We fully support and understand people who struggle with addiction. We encourage the state and the city and our partners to further expand needle exchange programs, to further expand access to fentanyl test strips and Narcan, to expand medically assisted treatment programs, to quadruple the number of treatment beds in the state. And for all of our legislators to, on day one, sit down and repeal all excessive regulations that stop corporate treatment centers from opening up in Vermont. And furthermore, we'd like to recommend opening up more long-term treatment centers or halfway houses to continue helping people in their progress and their path to recovery. The Vancouver study often cited in advocating for safe, so-called safe injection facilities states that only a 35% reduction in mortality is present within 500 meters of the facility that's six blocks. Data also indicates that so-called clients only utilize the facility every 14 days. That tells me that they're only really going there to exchange needles. The habits of addiction are as such that one is usually using multiple times a day and if they're only going there once every 14 days, the benefits really aren't what you're claiming they are. Furthermore, San Francisco's closed theirs down with no impact upon the safe injection facility didn't demonstrate any decrease in mortality at a cost of $19 million. I have plenty more to do. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks so much. Our next speaker is Lee Morgan and then we'll go to, we have four people that have signed up to speak online that are Burlington residents. Hi. Hi, folks. My name is Lee Morgan. My pronouns are they, them. I'm a resident of Ward 7. There's been a lot of loss in my circle of the world this week and it's made me reflect a lot on my sobriety and my recovery journey and especially the time before I got sober. And so for me, it's very poignant, the resolution. You are all discussing tonight. It's very important to me. There's a lot of more options today for recovery than there was when I got sober, which was over 14 years ago and it's really encouraging. I feel like there's more hope in that. I think the reason why overdose prevention sites are so important is did people have no chance at recovery? The hope ends at death. As long as there's time, there is hope. I just wanna tell you about my friend, Sarah. So I knew her a while ago. She had seven years in recovery, went to probably five meetings a week, had a job, had a sponsor, sponsored people. Her life was dedicated to recovery and she had to have a dental procedure that was absolutely necessary. She was really worried it was gonna make her relapse because a lot of people in recovery relapse after necessary surgeries. And despite all her work, she did, she relapsed. And she wanted to get sober, kept going to meetings. Till and overdose took her out. She died during a use. And I mean, might she be alive if she had the option of a safe use site? Maybe she would have gone on to die but she would have made it through that dose and there would have been some hope there. And we all lost out while we lost her, so thanks. Thank you, thanks so much. Actually, I mistaken there is one other person who wanted to speak from, who's a Burlington resident. That's Ed Baker. Ed, you're a Burlington resident. It looks as though it's hard to read your writing but so the last speaker who's here in Contoy's to speak is Ed Baker, the Addiction Recovering Channel and Vermont Overdose Prevention Network. Welcome. All right, and thank you. Now, what do I do, I wait for this to turn green? It will when you start talking. Hi, everyone, I'm Ed Baker. Let me begin first by saying I am a person in recovery from injection drug use. I'm also retired from a 30 plus year career counseling people with substance use disorder. This has been my life's work. I'd like to begin by commending the thousands of Vermonters doing all they possibly can today and every day to compassionately provide vital and life-saving professional and volunteer supports to people at risk of experiencing the harms associated with drug use. While many do all they can every day, the tragic fact is we as a state are not doing all we possibly can. We are not being allowed to. As a matter of policy, Governor Scott has vetoed legislation, namely H728, designed to research the feasibility of opening an overdose prevention site in Vermont. Our Health Commissioner, Dr. Levine has supported this position. The policy is preventing us, blocking us from doing all we possibly can. In bold contrast in New York State on November 30th, 2021, the first sanctioned overdose prevention site was opened in New York City on point. Seven months later, on point in New York City, with two fixed and two mobile sites, has reversed 360 overdoses, has engaged 1,400 participants who have used the facilities over 24,000 times. The savings to the healthcare and law enforcement systems is estimated to already be in the millions. Public consumption of drugs and syringe disposal has been drastically reduced. Associated demands on the police department and hospital emergency systems have also been significantly reduced. Already, hundreds of lives have been saved, and according to early research evaluation on on point New York City, more than half of individuals using the sites received additional supports during their visit. According to Karen St. Senior program director at on point, City Hall and the state and city health departments reached a point where they had a moral obligation to acknowledge the status quo was not working. Thank you. This was the beginning of sanctioning on point. It seems to me appropriate to invite Governor Scott and Health Commissioner Levine to engage in a fact-finding initiative with on point. I am, on behalf of KLNC, extending a cordial invitation to them to tour on point and interview on point leadership regarding their experience today. Thank you. Thanks so much. If you have comments and you want us to be able to read those as well, you're welcome to submit them to the clerk. I will thank you. Thank you very much Ed. We have four people who wanted to speak who are joining us online and there's gonna be a timer that'll come up on the screen. The first is Josh Katz with Katma and Josh, I've located you and I've enabled your microphone. Please go ahead and speak. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Thank you. Awesome. Yep. Hi everyone. Thanks for listening. I'm here today to provide comment on an agenda item 6.05 minimum slash maximum parking requirements, TDM and institutional parking management plans on behalf of the Chittenden Area Transportation Management Association for Katma. I'm speaking in support of the proposed policy change while also hoping to provide some constructive criticism on how to improve the ordinance based on our experience working with clients. I wanna echo many of the points made in the memo provided to the council by the planning commission specifically regarding the institutional parking management plans. Projects that have no impact on supplier demand of parking like routine maintenance should not require an approved gym to secure a zoning permit or certificate of occupancy. In addition, we agree there must be language in the ordinance to allow for an extension of up to six months on the institutional parking management plans. Regarding the expansion of TDM requirements and getting rid of minimum parking requirements, we think this is a great step forward in to reducing the overbuilding of parking and alleviating the copious negative impacts that this can have. However, based on our experience working with developers and others around this ordinance as currently written, there are some points of feedback that would make this ordinance more effective. The exacting requirements of this ordinance specifically under the TDM strategies section do not best meet the needs of all developers to create an effective TDM program. We have seen this through working with multiple developers that feel based on project size, location, target resident populations and income, some of these TDM strategies aren't effective. As we have gone through the process of working with clients to meet the requirements of this ordinance, we have found the city is interpreting that a TMA, like ourselves, only provides equivalent TDM strategies. It provides both GMT passes and car share membership free in the first year of occupancy and 50% off thereafter. Based on these experiences, we urge the city council to consider implementing a waiver process that considers a project's location, size, target resident population, income restrictions, et cetera, and determine whether all or some of the TDM might cause more harm than good if university applies. Thank you for the time. I submitted my comments if you would like to read them again. Thank you. Great, thank you so much, Josh. The next speaker who is requested time online is Mike Selleck. Mike, I have found you and enabled your microphone. You should be able to speak. Great, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Go ahead, please. Great, thank you. And good evening, Burlington City Council. Thank you for the opportunity to give testimony in support of the resolution relating to establishing an overdose prevention site in Burlington. I apologize for having to do this online. I really want to come in person, but unfortunately I dislocated my shoulder this weekend and couldn't drive downtown. My name is Mike Selleck and I'm the Associate Director of Capacity Building for National Harm Reduction Coalition. My organization has been around for 26 years and we advocate for drug laws that respect the dignity and rights of people who use drugs. We also provide trainings for anyone interested in learning more about harm reduction. Although my organization is national, I've lived in Burlington for almost three years. I'm in Benton District. I'm excited to contribute to our wonderful city. I started working at New York Harm Reduction Educators a decade ago and I worked on the campaign to get the on point overdose prevention centers pushed through New York City Council. The resolution gives the best possible rationale on the topic of opening the overdose prevention site in Burlington. The data shows a 36% increase in overdoses in our state. The data shows that 90% of safe recovery program participants would use an overdose prevention site if it were available to them. The program in New York City has saved hundreds of lives in just a few short months. And most importantly, no one has ever died in an overdose prevention site at any of the 100 plus facilities around the world in over 30 years since the first one opened. The resolution is an important next step in the fight to bring the service to Vermont and everyone in city government should vote to pass it. However, this fight will likely be harder and longer than passing this resolution. Governor Phil Scott has already veiled the bill to study the issue in our state. Many of us will be holding an event on August 31st, International Overdose Awareness Day to demand the governor move forward on our issue. And I hope that you will join us. I also hope that if and when the governor does not meet the community demands and the demands of this resolution that the city of Burlington will take the next step forward without the support of the state of need be. Overdose is an issue that requires urgency. On average, we lose four Vermonters to overdose every single week. An overdose prevention site in Burlington would not end overdose entirely. But I can promise it will save many lives, connect people to urgently needed care and services and we need every tool in the toolbox to reverse the trend and save lives here. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mike. The next speaker is Casey Carpenter. I have not been able to locate Casey if you are online and want to raise your hand, I will come back to you. The next speaker and the last speaker for the evening is Milo Grant. Milo, I enabled your microphone and you should be able to speak now. Thank you very much, Councilor Paul. I wanted to speak on the Overdose Prevention Center. I just want to do a quick correction regarding the services that are offered in San Francisco, I believe it's called the Linkage Center. That actually is being funded through the rest of the 2022 calendar year and that is going to give the mayor of San Francisco finalizing their budget, which is going to include something that they're calling sobering centers. So it's not something that is being completely shut down, it's in fact been funded throughout the year and will be replaced by something else with regards to Burlington and why I support this. We have a number of locations in Burlington, someone mentioned the park, but also in our residential areas in Wards 2 and 3, there's just open use going on and in around homes where someone living in these homes or apartment buildings is openly selling drugs and people are openly using drugs and especially in front of children as there are some of these homes located very close to the schools in the Old North End. Providing these services are going to help control where people use and that can be important. If we can get more people out of the park, out of the neighborhoods using and what they're using is being tested as well for fentanyl, that's going to make a safer situation for them, that is going to help get a not naive, might not be all of them, but get some of them out of our communities and also control the amount of needles that are just being left everywhere, including to where children could see them, potentially have access to them. So I just wanted to add that aspect, thank you. Thanks very much, Milo. There's no other speakers online. I didn't get a raise hand from Casey Carpenter and there's no others in con toys that have requested to speak. Seeing no others will close the public forum at 9.20 and go on to item number four, which is climate emergency reports. Is there any counselor who wishes to offer a climate emergency report? Seeing none, we'll close that item and move on to item number five, which is our consent agenda and would welcome a motion, Councilor Hightower to move our consent agenda. Motion to adopt the consent agenda as amended and take the actions indicated. Thank you, is there a second to that? Seconded by Councilor House. Is there any discussion on the consent agenda? Yes, Councilor Hightower. Just a correction for item 5.19, the item from CEDO and Brian Pine should be a resolution, not a communication. Okay, we will duly note that. Any other comments on the consent agenda? Seeing none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion to move the consent agenda and take the actions indicated with this amendment as well. Please say aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? We have our consent agenda approved. So we have a rather lengthy deliberative agenda. Before we get to that, we also have a Board of Civil Authority meeting and that meeting is chaired by the mayor. The acting mayor this evening is Assistant City Attorney Kim Sturdivant. So to the acting mayor, I will look to you to call the meeting to order and we will go from there. I call to order the Board of Civil Authority at 9.18 p.m. I would welcome a motion regarding the agenda. So moved by Councilor Carpenter and seconded by Councilor Zhang. Any discussion on the motion? Councilor Hanson. Just, I guess a point of process or point of order. Don't we have to read the amendments for the agenda? Or, okay. We will read those. I can do that. So I'll move to amend and adopt the agenda as follows. Add John Peter Phillips, 159 North Willard Street and Margo Whitcomb, 37 Bright Street, number 205 and add Linda Siegel, 239 Red Rock Drive to Consent Agenda Item 2.02, Resolution, Appointment of Assistant Election Officials for the August 9th, 2022 State Primary Election. Councilor Paul, per Ward 2, Ward Clerk Wendy Coe, per Ward 5, Ward Clerk Michael Healy, add Rachel Smith, 392 North Street, apartment one to this agenda item, per Ward 8, Ward Clerk Keith Pillsbury. Thank you. Any further comments on the proposed amended agenda? All those in favor? Please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion carries unanimously. That brings us to the Consent Agenda. I would welcome a motion on the Consent Agenda, Senator Appender. Thank you. Second. Councilor Trivers. And if I could, any discussion on the Consent Agenda? Seeing none, we will go to a vote. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. That concludes our agenda. Without objection, we will adjourn at 9.20 p.m. and then take it back to you, President Paul. Thank you, thanks so much. Great job. So, as I had said, we do have a number of items on our deliberative agenda and in the interest of time in being able to accomplish everything on our agenda and probably not adjourn within our rules, but adjourn at a reasonable hour. There's minutes allotted to the agenda items. As per our council rules, I'll do my best to see that we adhere to them and ask all of you to help me with that. The first item on our agenda, 6.01, which is a communication Burlington International Airport, Nick Longo, Acting Director of Aviation, a request to execute a ground lease agreement with Beta Technologies at the Burlington International Airport. Before we get to the communication, I'd like to have a motion on the ground lease agreement. Councillor Carpenter. Thank you, Councillor Carpenter. So a motion has been made by Councillor Carpenter to take the action as recommended in Board Docks and that would be seconded by Councillor Shannon. Nick, thank you so much for being here. I see that you have Jeff Glasberg with you and I know you also have someone who's here from Beta Technologies. In the interest of time, we'll try to keep your comments if you can to five to seven minutes or so, so we allow for a little bit of time for the council and we certainly welcome hearing from Beta as well on this very important, very significant agreement. So please go ahead. Absolutely, thank you, Council President Paul. I will keep my comments very brief and hand it right over to Jeff Glasberg who has helped us tremendously throughout this lease negotiations. The one thing I will say is over 100 years ago, the first aircraft landed at the Burlington International Airport. Tonight truly is a historical night by leasing to a company a manufacturer of what will be 100% electric aircraft. As I mentioned in the Board of Finance, just a little while ago, I have the privilege of looking out my office window and watching two operational 100% electric aircraft flying in and out of the Burlington International Airport and so very excited to present this lease before you under the guidance and leadership of our Mayor Merrill Weinberger as well as the help of Jeff Glasberg and Jeremy Farkas. Tonight we do have a representative Beta as well, Art Clugo, who will just quickly introduce the company to you. Very exciting tonight, Jeff. Thank you for your time this evening. In the Council's packet is a summary of the lease terms and that is available for the public to review as well. In the interest of time, I just wanna provide some context rather than going through the terms. In accordance with direction from the Mayor and the Council, we've negotiated a ground lease with Beta technologies for a 75 year term that will allow them to build initially a 355,000 square foot manufacturing and assembly facility, a 15,000 square foot childcare facility, a parking area of up to 300 vehicles and also provides the opportunity for expansion of those facilities over time. We believe that this lease is truly beneficial for Burlington, the region and the state. It provides a home for a transformational technology that will reduce greenhouse gas production. It uses an underutilized land asset at the airport to induce Beta to invest upwards of $200 million at BTV in people, infrastructure and buildings. Beta has been a tenant at the airport since 2019, having leased the former North Hanger. They've performed in accordance with that lease. They now employ over 300 people in Vermont. They invested over $15 million in that facility. They run a robust internship program and collaboration with educational institutions in the community. In addition to Beta's plans, which include hiring up to another 300 employees in Burlington, we can anticipate a number of ancillary benefits which will follow, including the co-location of vendors and subcontractors that will service Beta. All of that will generate income tax revenue, rooms and meals tax revenues, as well as helping to grow our community. We believe that the transaction is especially good for Burlington. The investment in infrastructure by Beta at the airport in excess of $11.5 million in the ground will provide further development opportunities for airport land, including the ability to house a new tech center for Burlington High School. We believe that this product of extensive negotiation is one that is in the city's interests. I'm pleased to introduce Art Clugo from Beta Technologies for a brief overview of the firm. Thanks for being here, welcome. Thank you for having us. It's a fantastic night and be remiss. And on Kyle and Katie Clark's behalf, not recognizing the tremendous work both by the council and the mayor's team, Nick, Jeff, Jeremy and their team. Tonight's the culmination of a lot of work by a lot of different people to get us here. And as we talked in the Board of Finance meeting, Nick and Jeff just did a fantastic job providing highlights of the lease in front of you. What we don't wanna lose sight of is the fantastic partnership opportunity around aligned goals, whether it's attacking climate change, whether it's sustainability, or whether it's the jobs that we're gonna create. This transaction tonight allows us to lay the foundation to continue the great work that we started out at the North Hanger. I know that time is precious tonight. We did submit some slides for the city council's review. I would ask that those just be passed around and then offer to have any of the councilors whether new or have been on the council for a while to come by and see what we're doing. It's fantastic and everybody should be very proud of what we have in front of us. Thank you. Have to answer any questions. Okay, that's wonderful. Thanks again for being here and for your patience with us this evening. The floor is open to any councilor questions or comments. Councilor McGee. I'm just, I'm not seeing the slides on Board Docs, so I'm curious if we could get those posted. Thank you. Thanks very much. Are there any other councilors? Please do not let the lack of questions be an indication of our enthusiasm for this agreement. We have had two executive sessions on this. We've had many opportunities to really learn about the agreement and I think the fact that there aren't that many comments on that is actually a very positive sign of our understanding of the agreement and our support for it. If there are no other comments, we have a motion and a second, so we can go to a vote. All those in favor of the two recommended actions regarding the authorization of lease-based debated technologies and the necessary amendment to the Burlington Industrial Corporation lease, please say aye. Aye. All those, thank you. All those opposed, any opposed? The motion passes unanimously. Thank you, thank you so much. Thank you to Nick, to your team, to Shelby and to Maria that are here as well as our legal counsel, Jeremy Farkas and our consultant, Jeff Glasberg and also to the entire team at Beta Technologies for all your efforts to get us to this incredibly historic agreement. Thank you. This is fantastic, thanks everybody. Thank you all very much. Yes, I'm sorry, what? President Paul, just for the minutes, I need to note my recusal from that vote due to professional conflict of interest. I should also note that I was recused from the executive session on 2.01 as well. Thank you. Thank you, so that'll be a vote of 11 to zero with one recusal. Thank you. So the next item on our agenda is item 6.02 which is a resolution the overdose crisis and advocating for harm reduction and establishing an overdose prevention site in Burlington. Councilor McGee, I'll look to you for a motion. Thank you, President Paul. I would move that we waive the reading and adopt the resolution, and I ask for the floor back after a second. Okay. Second. And there is a second by Councilor Bergman. Councilor McGee, the floor is yours. Thank you, President Paul. I wanna begin by thanking the members of the public who spoke here and over zoomed tonight in support of this resolution. And I wanna offer special thanks to Ed Baker and the Vermont Overdose Prevention Network for the feedback they've offered which has only made this resolution stronger. I also wanna thank you, President Paul, for your continued commitment to harm reduction and establishing an overdose prevention site here in Burlington, a journey which you and others began in earnest four years ago yesterday. Fundamentally, this resolution is about reducing harm in our community and saving lives. Vermonters are dying preventable deaths due to overdose and we owe it to them and to do everything we can to reverse this painful trend. Last year, 215 of our neighbors died as the result of an opioid related overdose. The highest number the Department of Health has ever recorded. Last year, through July 11th, there were 29 overdose fatalities in Chittenden County alone. Preliminary data through today for Chittenden County shows 30 confirmed or likely overdose fatalities. The most recent happened just one week ago today. One thing is quite clear. Our state and city are not doing enough. This resolution is another step toward realizing an overdose prevention site in Burlington. We have the chance to prove to the rest of the state that this evidence-based harm reduction tool can work here and should strongly be considered for funding through the opioid abatement special fund. Overdose prevention sites offer an opportunity for people who use drugs to build community, gain stability, access to mental health care, find housing and employment and start thinking about recovery and reconnect with their families. While we continue to wait for the federal government to issue an official memo regarding litigation related to overdose prevention sites, providers and other states have forged ahead. In New York City, On Point, as Ed mentioned, has been operating two overdose prevention centers and two mobile units since November of 2021. In a recent interview on Ed's addiction recovery channel, Kaylin C., a senior director of programs for On Point, shared some of their initial successes. With over 24,000 visits by nearly 1,400 clients, the staff at the sites has reversed nearly 400 overdoses, often using just administration of oxygen, not even having to use naloxone for that. They've only had to call ambulances five times. There has been no police involvement and no people have died as a result of an overdose. This is a very small window into the kinds of life-saving care we could provide here in Vermont and around the country when we embrace overdose prevention sites. A recent poll found that Vermonters overwhelmingly support the thinking that the overdose epidemic is a public health emergency and that harm reduction tools like overdose prevention sites should be aggressively pursued. We are called to act now. We are entering the fifth year since the council first endorsed harm reduction in overdose prevention sites. And those who are dying preventable deaths cannot wait any longer for us to nipple around the edges. On Point's success and data gathered by Safe Recovery here in Burlington shows us that overdose prevention sites will save lives here in the city. We have providers who are ready to do this work and it is time to not just voice our support but join a coalition to see an overdose prevention site realized here in Burlington. This resolution gets us closer to that action and I hope we can all find it within ourselves to support this work and prevent future overdose deaths. If I might, I'd like to invite Grace Caller and Jess Kirby to join the conversation, give brief remarks and answer any questions that counselors have. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, Councillor McGee. So I've enabled the microphones for both Grace and Jess and they have responded and have enabled, have unmuted themselves. So to Grace and to Jess, please go ahead. Hello everybody, thank you for having us. I'll make some brief comments and then Jess can make some brief comments and then we're here for questions. I have been involved since City Council started this journey and I have spoken many times on this issue so I was figuring tonight that I might start with an anecdote instead. This week I had a client come in and I hadn't seen him in over a year and he came in to talk to me about four years ago or five years ago when I reversed his overdose outside our office. We were at work and a person came running through the door, a young man screaming, my friend's overdose, my friend's overdose. And so we ran outside and I administered an arcane and had to do rescue breathing for over eight minutes for this person. It was terrifying. He was blue, he was not responding and the friend was screaming like, I love you, I love you, please live, please live. It was a really, really emotional and horrible scene. And as the ambulances arrived, he did come to after multiple doses of an arcane and like I said, eight minutes of rescue breathing and the client was coming in to tell me, to thank me again for having saved his life which is something that I had thought about quite a bit because we've had multiple overdoses at Safe Recovery and all of them look similar except one or two where someone is brought there in a car because they can't get to the hospital quick enough. And what he was also there to tell me is that his friend who brought him there that day died of an overdose recently. So this is what the front lines are up against. This is what my staff and I are up against and really the overdose epidemic is just getting so much worse. What the front lines need is time and we don't have time when we're depending on people to come in from other places and come screeching into the driveway. We wanna bring people in to providers like me who care and wanna be there for people and wanna respond but every single overdose that we've reversed has been luck and what we're looking at now, what we always worry about is that it's gonna be the one time where we don't have enough time to save someone's life. I am not a medical provider. I don't aspire to be a medical provider. And so for our staff, the hypervigilance and the fear is real. And we really wanna do best practices. I have visited the overdose prevention site in Vancouver. I can talk about that. But what I can tell you is we are losing more Vermonters than we ever have. For Jess and I, those are all people we know. We know them, we know their family members and we know their loved ones. And we really need to be able to have every tool on hand that we know is working everywhere in other places. So I just figured I'd start with an anecdote if you all have questions and then Jess probably has something she'd like to say too. Thank you very much. Great, thanks Grace. Jess? Thanks Grace. I'll just add, when I think in a few minutes what I wanna say about this, I'm thinking about what I said the last time that I was here at the city council talking about overdose prevention sites. And it was that I was saying that things are worse than ever. I'm a person with lived experience. I'm the harm reduction supervisor at Safe Recovery and Work Every Day in the certain service program there. And I've experienced overdoses myself. I know a lot of people who have had overdoses. I have a lot of clients that are having overdoses currently. And when I was here last, I talked about how things were worse than ever. And now, several months later, they have gotten even worse than that. The supply is really contaminated and dangerous as we know and people are having more wounds and serious and hard to treat infections and endocarditis and very serious overdoses, more serious overdoses that are really hard to reverse. And people are really scared. And one of the hardest parts of my job is talking to people about overdose prevention and having people say to me, I am scared. I have had overdoses. My friend, my partner, my family member recently died of an overdose. But I can't say that I'm safe and that I won't use a loan because I end up in that situation a lot where I don't have a safe place to use and I don't have anyone to use with and I need to use. And that's a really tough situation because right now I don't have an offering for people about a place that they can go and safely use. And so it's just, it's gotten really tough. It's really scary at safe recovery every day because we do witness overdoses and people are witnessing more overdoses than ever and our cans flying out the doors, but it's not enough. And so I'm really grateful that we're here tonight to talk about this and that we have such great support in Burlington and that we're taking a step to get closer. Thank you. Thanks, Jess. And thank you. Thank you, Grace. And thank you both for the work that you do. Councillor McGee, was there anyone else that is here online or that you had? No, yeah, I welcome questions from councillors. Great. So yes, that leads us to the floor being open for councillor questions and comments. If there are any councillors who wish to speak to this item or questions. Councillor Shannon. Thank you, President Paul. I think that sometimes when we talk about this, people have a vision of this cluster of people at a single site wreaking havoc on our community. And I actually think that Mr. Felker probably more accurately described how it's going to be. That is likely relatively quiet. And I think we also have to keep in mind that the alternative to an overdose prevention site or a safe injection site is not nobody injects drugs. The alternative is they continue to do what they're doing today and we all continue to find the needles all over our neighborhood. I am supportive of this. At the same time, I do just want to note that as we move this forward, I think that we need to be cognizant of the advice of our city attorney. And the differences between our community and other communities. I also think Mr. Felker is probably right that the radius around such a site is probably 500 meters or six blocks, which actually sounds pretty good. Some people will probably come from further than that, but Burlington's a pretty small city. That covers a fair distance and that may be an average with other people coming further. So this opioid crisis is getting worse in terms of the safety of the supply. And I hope we are able to move this forward. Thank you. Thanks, Councilor Shannon. Councilor Bergman. Just briefly, in my mind, there is no one solution to the opioid crisis. This is one piece and it's essential, as other people have said. The other point is that I really look at the lines 74 through 77, which talk about the community engagement that is part of what we're asking for. And I look to the mayor's seat, if not the acting mayor right now and to our wonderful CAO and to the chief of staff out there to really take that to heart. People are concerned about dealing in their streets, my neighborhood, I see deals that are happening at the City Hall Park. I was just there for a meeting the other day and was waiting and it's not very hard to see. So that all is not something that the community doesn't see and community engagement is absolutely essential for us. And I know that this council will join with the administration in making that effective. And that's what we need to make this a real success. Thank you. Thanks, Councilor Bergman. Councilor Barlow. I feel like I'm gonna be by myself on this one tonight, but I'm fairly new to this discussion. I know that the council brought it up initially in 2018 and a lot of work has gone on since then. And I rely on the advice of city staff and the city attorney's office when we're asked to make these complicated decisions, they often distill things in their memorandum that make it much more easy for us to understand what the various aspects of the decisions we're making are. And in this case, I think moving forward alone without federal and state support has potential civil and criminal liability for the city. And the city attorney's advised us not to include language that would authorize the creation of an OPS. So I feel like we have done that, especially in line 61, 62 city attorneys in their memo advised us to use different language. And we chose not to. So I just have to take their recommendations seriously. And I feel like we're opening the city up for liability if we get ahead of their office with this decision. So I'm not going to be supporting this tonight. I do, however, I am concerned about the trajectory of overdoses in the city. And I'd like to support this someday, but I would for now just like to continue to explore those things that we can do within the current restrictions of federal law. So that's all I have. Thank you. Thanks, Councillor Barlow. Are there other Councillors who wish to speak to this resolution? Councillor Travers. Thank you, President Paul. And as Councillor McGee did, would like to thank you as well as Councillor McGee for your work on this. Substance use disorder does not discriminate. I can all but guarantee nearly everyone in this room has either personally felt the pain or is near and dear to someone who has personally felt the pain of losing someone. And as Councillor McGee said, I thank those who came to public comment for your bravery and speaking to your own journey as well as to your friend. In recent years, overdose crisis has only continued to worsen and we're at a critical juncture, a juncture between our continuing to lose more folks to overdose. And a juncture with an opportunity of tens of millions of dollars coming into Vermont through legal settlement monies with opioid manufacturers. As Councillor McGee noted, we are not doing enough. We need to do more. And again, I thank everyone on this council as well as other folks online and throughout the community who have worked on this and are bringing us another step forward to a new and innovative approach, but a new and innovative approach that's also a proven approach to saving lives. I understand that with newness comes questions and concerns. Wearing my attorney hat, I respect that some of these concerns stem from the fact that other overdose prevention sites have come under legal challenge. I'm excited though about the education and engagement campaign that Councillor Bergman noted here to answer some of those questions and concerns. And I appreciate the council's openness to adding language that Councillor Barlow was just referencing about our exploring the potential costs of operating an overdose prevention site. I understand the nature of attorneys to be risk averse to that language, but I also think that a part of that exploration will no doubt be our considering the legal costs and the risks and the potential liability for our city and the insurability of a site such as an overdose prevention center. And really only with that information in hand do I think our community can make a calculated decision on whether or not we're going to step up and take this yet a step further to bring an overdose prevention site to Burlington. It would be remiss of me though to not take this opportunity to say that as Councillor Shannon noted, one of the things that's different about Burlington than other communities around the state is that a number of other cities around the state either can make their own laws or have laws within their state that allow for the communities to continue to proceed with operating an OPS site. And it would be again remiss of me to not take this opportunity to call on state leaders, to call on Governor Scott, to ask that the new advisory board on the opioid settlement monies allow Burlington to be creative, to take a shot on this and to see if it works. We hear from folks that it's unproven in a city the size of Burlington. Well, the only way we can prove it works is if they give us a chance to do it. So I hope that the Governor will see this resolution and that this brings us a step forward. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Travers. Councillor Carpenter. Thank you. I don't wanna repeat the comments of most of my colleagues, but just again to say that for me, this resolution allows us, encourages us, pushes us to do our homework, to be ready with this form of harm reduction. And that's what we need to do. Lots of impediments, but we need to do the work first and this will allow us to do it. Thanks, Councillor Carpenter and Councillor House. Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Councillor McGinn. Thank you, President Paul and everybody here, Grace, Jess, everyone who put work into this proposal. Many of you know I'm a social worker and I've worked with families who have experienced addiction and with many infants and children who have experienced opioid exposure and neonatal opioid exposure and this is a huge step forward. This is really meaningful to our community and I too would like to call on our leaders. I wanna call on our council. I'm so heartened that there's so much support behind this. It's a really wonderful thing to see and I want to call on this body as well as our city, our state, our national. Legislature and everyone really just to continue this fight. This is a wonderful first step and I'm really excited to see where this leads us. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor House. Anyone else? Thank you all for your thoughtful and heartfelt comments. Just wanted to add before we go to a vote that line 78 of the resolution, I believe I have the final version, talks about the council asking the mayor and governor to proclaim August 31st International Overdose Awareness Day and the month of September as recovery month. Just wanted to add that the mayor before he left and when he read this certainly agreed to do this and so we'll look forward to August 31st being International Overdose Awareness Day in the city of Burlington as well as the month of September being recovery month. With that, all those, we have a motion, we have a second so we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of adopting the resolution please say aye. Aye. Thank you. Thank you. All those opposed? No. Councillor Barlow voted no so we have a vote of 11 to one and the motion passes. Just want to offer my thanks to Councillor McGee for your amazing partnership and for your many efforts on this important resolution. Thank you. We will move on to item 6.03 which is a communication from Corey Mims, professional engineer, the senior public works engineer, Norm Baldwin, assistant director of public works since the city engineer which regarding the Du Bois and King amendment number five on the services for the Champlain Parkway project. Before and we also have the director of public works, Chapin Spencer. Councillor Travers, I'll look to you for a motion on this. Thank you, President Paul. I moved to authorize the director of public works of their designee to execute a fifth amendment to the contract with Du Bois and King Incorporated regarding Champlain Parkway municipal project management services to increase the maximum limiting in amount by 228,000 to 425,485 dollars for continued municipal project managing services through the completion of initial construction. Thank you. Thank you for that motion seconded by Councillor Jang. So we did have a conversation at length last week at the Board of Finance and the motion passed unanimously. I know that you're here to answer any questions. Don't know if you wanted to make any brief comments or if you wanted to be here to answer questions to your, whatever your preference is. The council will prefer to hear the summation again that was provided to the Board of Finance. I'm happy to do so, otherwise you have more. Okay, Councillor Hightower. I don't have any questions and I'm very sorry to make you all come up here because my issue with this has nothing to do with any of your work and I just want to say that while I'm tremendously proud of the work that engineer Cory Mims, director Norman Baldwin and director Tave and Spencer have done on this, I was very disheartened to hear that our unanimous vote had been used to undo a temporary stop order or had been used as a reason to undo a temporary stop order and I just don't want my vote to ever be construed as a reason to not pursue the environmental justice process that I think is happening. Ultimately, I think this project like most highway designs that came out of the 60s was based in a racist ideology and goes against all of the tenets of environmental justice that I believe in. So based on that, I just wanted the opportunity to vote no on this and many future probably votes. And again, that speaks nothing to DPW's work which I think has done a tremendous job of making this an acceptable project to the city. So both want to thank you for your work and I will be voting no on this item. Thank you, Councillor Hightower. Are there others who wish to offer a comment to this amendment to the Champlain Parkway contract? Councillor Hanson. Yeah, thanks for being here. Is this contract just to oversee phase one of the project? Yeah, it'd be to complete phase one as well as the... Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Hanson. Are there any other Councillors who wish to offer a comment or question? Councillor Carpenter. This is more an editorial comment but I see all the work you've done and understand all the constraints of as us hopefully ending up with a vastly improved Pine Street. And I'm just gonna recommend that we stop calling it a parkway because I think that envisions something that it is not. And so maybe you can think about that. Thank you. Maybe the third renaming is in order. Thank you, Councillor Carpenter. Sure, Councillor Hanson. Thanks. Yeah, just sorry, just a follow up question. Engineer Mims, you said it was for the final contract as well, meaning phase two or? So what we do is towards the end of the initial construction plan set needs to be developed for the final construction contract. The initial design was split into two. This initial construction contract bit set was all put together. The same thing would need to be done for the final. Yeah, it's not saying that we're issuing or doing it moving forward with that but it's the preparation work that needs to be done in order to then look to move forward with bidding. So in order to continue with the project and to continue the design, finalizing the design, we would use their services to assist in just kind of finalizing the bid package. Not then, this amendment you see in front of you does not involve the actual administration of the final construction contract, the actual construction work, only the provision and the development of the bid documents for that final construction contract. Okay, understood. I mean, I will say that does make, it does make me somewhat uncomfortable I guess because I had understood it to be very much that we wouldn't begin putting resources towards phase two at this stage yet and even that preliminary work is money that we would be spending towards phase two. So that does concern me. Thanks. I would say that the effort was very small. It's just one of those things that towards the end of the project, of the initial construction project that work would be commencing. Now, depending upon where the project is at that point as well, would dictate whether or not that work was proceeding. So this would allow for them to assist the city. And when we get to that juncture, does not dictate what will be moved forward. So. Got it. Are committing the money towards for them to do that work, right? It was, it's one of the things that falls within the pool that they are current contract was for. All right. And ultimately the city council still has the control of the purse for that final construction contract as to whether or not it is let and executed. Yeah, no, and I understand that and that that's helpful for clarification, but it still does make me uncomfortable to start putting money, you know, towards that at this stage. But I understand and I appreciate the clarification on that. Thank you. Thanks, Councillor Hanson. Councillor Bergman. Well, you had me until that last point, right? Because I don't want to spend a dime, not one dime on a connection of 189 to the Maple Street King Street neighborhood. Now, that's just my vote. And if I, and so I would ask you to sever that aspect. Now, you can come back if this is gonna happen over a period of time, then there's no reason to come back and ask that that work be done, you know, upon a future authorization. But I am not willing to do it, to spend money on a connection of 189 to Maple Street. I am supportive of phase one, made that very clear. And if the railroad enterprise project fails, I won't support the connection. I've made that absolutely clear and in public. So I need you to walk through how I make sure that I am not authorizing the payment of any money to design a connection with the, to Maple Street. And if you cannot do that, then you can let me know that and I can vote appropriately. Like us to answer that. I'd like, if you have a response, yes, please. Great. The design work for the Champlain Parkway project has been completed. The preparation of bid documents is really the wrapper text around the design work that has been completed. I am open to a scenario if the council deems that you do not want to initiate any sort of packaging of documents, bid documents, then the council could have the purview to pass the resolution tonight with that direction. I'd make that, I don't know if it's a motion or it's an amendment to the current motion that's there. Asking that we not expend, that we not do the work. However you said it, I don't have it, it's getting late, but you know what I'm doing. So I need some help here in wanting to get that done because that community has suffered enough. Okay, we're going to have to, I understand you want to make an amendment to the motion. We're gonna need probably a couple of minutes to be able to work the wording out on that. I'll go to Councillor Jang who is next in the queue. Perhaps you might be able to work that out. If not, we'll take a couple of minutes break after Councillor Jang. Please go ahead, Councillor Jang. I mean, thank you, President Paul. And I think what I needed to ask Director Spencer did answer the question about what did intel the preparation of phase two. He answered it, it's just like paperwork, right? Thank you. But also wanted to just comment that Mr. Corey, I am pretty aware of the great work you do on the King Street neighborhood for your children. And I know as a person of color you would not do anything to arm that population because I just wanted to say that as well because I have seen you into action doing great work for King Street and the kids who are utilizing that facility. Thank you, thank you for that. Happy to support this with or with us amendment. And I do believe that our city definitely need this project. And we've been very close. We had an agreement between phase one and phase two and from my perspective voting yes, will not change the contract for phase two. It will come back here to the city council. Happy to support it and good work guys, thank you. Thank you, Councillor Jang. So just to clarify the contract that the amendment that we are voting on right now does not impact the second or third phase of the project just so that everyone understands. If you could clarify that completely, that would be helpful. Hey, that's correct. This does not impact that. This amendment is to allow Du Bois and King to continue providing service and assistance to the city and managing the current contract and addressing other questions and responses that are coming up for the work. Okay, so any amendment that would completely clarify that would simply be just an additional clarifying amendment. Or so it would seem. That's what it would seem. Okay, all right. Councillor Bourbon, I'll go back to you. If you have that in mind. Thank you with Councillor Hightower's assistance. I believe that amending the recommended action after the last word, two words, initial construction to say amending the scope of work to not include any work on phase two. Okay, so we have a motion. We actually, we have an amendment, a motion to amend. And if you could just repeat that again, Councillor Bergman. This would be after the words initial. Construction at the very end. At the very end, completion of initial construction. Amending the scope of work to not include any work on phase two. Okay, thank you. Is there a second to that amendment? Can we hear from? Yeah, we can. She put first. We can, let's make sure we have a second. Do we have a second? The seconded by Councillor McGee. So we'll go to, we have the amendment on the floor. Before we go to Councillor Comments, certainly Director Spencer, please. Yes, I think generally this is friendly to staff. I would suggest that phase two be replaced with final construction contract, the terminology we've been using is initial construction contract and final construction contract. Okay, thank you so much. Did you want to add anything to that? Okay. And I would adjust my amendment to reflect that. Thank you. That's just a technical correction. Are there any Councillors that wish to speak to the amendment only? Councillor Chang. Yes, it's a question for this team and I was just wondering with this amendment what changed from your perspective? We would not have D&K assist with any compiling of the bid documents for the final construction contract. Okay, but phase one will move. They would still continue to provide services as a contract is. Wonderful, then I will support the amendment. Thank you. Great, thanks, Councillor Chang. Councillor Carpenter. I guess I'm a little confused about why we wouldn't want to do that. I mean, I guess I'm not understanding the value of what this amendment would do or not do. I mean, don't you need their assistance at some point or not? We are still getting their assistance on the initial construction contract and as the contract has with them has been going. What this is saying is that I'm understanding the intent is that the council does not wish for any of the additional services to go towards the final construction contract at this point. But are we not going to need that assistance at some point? Per this request, the addendum would be as such. We would be back to council then to get approval for final construction if we are to use their services again for that portion. So you're going to have to come back and ask this the same thing? Correct. At a certain, at a future point, right? Correct. So by delaying it, you're still going to come back to us. And I guess I feel like we should support. I appreciate people's concerns about the connection to I-89, but I'm not reading this into that at all. I'm here. No, we'd be coming back to council prior to awarding of that contract. Right. That's been awarded. Okay. I think, thank you, Councillor Carpenter. I think the point of the amendment and others can say if they disagree is that there are concerns about the Rail Yard Enterprise Project and wanting to do this in a way in a deliberative fashion so that we know what we are doing in advance of doing it. And that I believe is the majority of the reason for the amendment. But if the maker has any comments? I will just say I supported phase one very clearly saying that I would not support phase two that I needed to have as it like would connect to the Maple Street that we needed to have the Railroad Enterprise District. So that makes that clear. And I need this vote to be true to myself because otherwise I'm just getting, I'm just fooling myself and I'm not going to do that. Thank you, Councillor Berkman. So Councillor Hanson and then we'll try to go to vote on the amendment. Yeah, just going off of that is staffed tons of work to bifurcate, maybe that's the wrong word, but separate this project into the two phases so that the City Council would retain the ability to potentially not move forward with phase two or delay phase two depending on other construction in the South Bend and how this would impact people's livelihood in the South Bend and especially in the King Maple neighborhood. So for us, you know, after doing all that work for us to then put money towards paying a contractor to start preparing bid documents for phase two is not really consistent with the bifurcation and leaving that flexibility and not putting resources yet towards that. So I think the amendment makes sense and I'll support it. Great, thank you, Councillor Hanson for that further clarification. Let's go to a vote on the amendment. All those in favor of the amendment, please say aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? Please say no. So that amendment passes unanimously. So we're back to the recommended action and if there are no comments on the recommended action as amended, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of the recommended action as amended, please say aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? Please say no. No. No, so we have an 11 to one vote and that passes 11 to one. Thank you so much for your time. Thanks for being here. Thank you. Appreciate it. The next item on our agenda is item 6.04 which is a ratification of the tentative agreement and authorization to execute a collective bargaining agreement between the City of Burlington and AFSCME and this would cover the period July 1, 2022 to June 30th of 2026. Councillor McGee is a member of the Board of Finance. I will come to you for a motion on the resolution. Thank you, President Paul. I would move that we waive the reading and adopt the resolution and do not need the floor back after a second. Okay, and seconded by Councillor Jang. You wanted the floor back, Councillor McGee? No, I wasn't sure. So the floor is open for any comments or questions from the Council. And then after that, if there are any comments from the bargaining team or the CAO who wish to speak to this will come to you. Are there any Councillors who wish to speak to this Councillor Carpenter? I just wanna thank AFSCME and the bargaining team and getting us to yes and as Chair of the HR Committee they've been very cooperative to work with and I'm pleased that we can vote on this tonight. Thank you, Councillor Carpenter. I also, I do see the representative from AFSCME. If you would like to offer any comments we'd be happy to hear them. Thank you for being here, Damian. Seems to always go that way now. This is probably one of the best contracts I've ever seen working on three of them over the last decade. I believe that your employees, we had 98% of the vote. That came through, we had a big turnout at the airport, DPW, a lot of the employees came out. But we really worked pretty hard with Catherine and Karen and Justin. I'm sorry to see him go. He was a really big asset to the city as well. I really enjoyed working with the attorney, Mr. St. James. The biggest part of the contract that I saw on this was an idea that I had and I brought it some of the city councillors that I may not remember it or not was the FML leave. I believe that this is a big part that would be added into the CBA for Vermont. And I really feel that it will carry forward possibly nationwide at some point in time. So I think it's a really big step for the city of Burlington to have been a part of this. My first thought on the FMLA was asking the city to expand it because it had probably been around since the last 35 years that it was 12 weeks. So asking the city to expand it to 24 but let alone them adding to the point of paying it so that we didn't take away from people's vacation time or sick time especially if they had to take care of somebody that was elderly or if it was one of their children or one of their spouses. So this is a really big deal. So I really employer the city council or Catherine. So I really didn't think the idea would catch weight but I really employer the mayor's office and everybody on this because this is a really big step in my opinion history that will go through Vermont and hopefully go to Montpere through legislation and change history. So I really think it will help a lot of families on that. The increases that you guys have given for ASME and Burlington Electric and the fire department are just absolutely unbelievable. These last four years for the people that will be able to retire for their comfort of living will be able to do a little bit more on their pensions or they're gonna leave. And I think that by adding these increases in through the mayor's office and with the city council's approval that these individuals may stay the next four years and not leave which will help the workforce on attrition. So you'll be keeping a lot of the skill set of the individuals that are there to retain it to carry over from staffing that are there. So I really commend the city on their acts of negotiating and being able that I got to spend 24 hours and two days to try to get ratified and all the areas that were there. I really appreciate your work on this. And I really think that this is really gonna be a good asset in the four years of this contract especially with the FMLA. So I do thank you very, very much. Well, Damien, we know that you have a good drive ahead of you to get home in the evenings and are so glad that you stayed so that you could share the support with us. It's very valuable. Don't know if there are there counselors who wish to offer comments on the ASME contract or the resolution that's before us. Councillor Hanson. Yeah, just thank you, Damien, for all your work on this. And thanks to all the city workers and the administration for working together on this and coming to such a great, great place. I'm excited to support it. Well, you keep us working. So I mean, there are a lot of employees that really put a lot of dedication into working hard for the city, especially during snow season, as you know, and short of staff that we've had and had then to keep in those roads clear. But I really think that you guys doing really a good solid to the employees on this contract. So I'm not sure what the other unions will say, but on behalf of ASME, I really appreciate all the work that you guys have done on this. So I thank you very much. Thank you. Does anybody else has anything for me? Well, we'll find out other other counselors that have comments or questions or that they'd like to share. Does not appear to be the case. Catherine, do you have anything that you'd like to offer as well? Nope, just a last thank you to Damien and all of the ASME members. It was a very collaborative negotiation and the administration is also very excited about rolling out this contract. So thanks to everyone involved. Thank you, CAO Shad. Seeing no other comments, we have a motion and a second, so we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of the ratification of the tentative agreement and authorization to execute a collective bargaining agreement between the city of Burlington and our ASME employees for July 1, 2022 to June 30, 2026, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, please say no. Happy to say the motion passes unanimously. Thank you again to the entire team, the ASME team, the city team for their bargaining efforts resulting in this four year agreement. Well, thank you, counselors and I thank you, the administration. You guys have a good night. Thank you, thanks Damien for being here. So that will move us on to, at the end of our agenda was item 6.09. That is simply because when we amend our agenda, we can't add to it. We have to add at the end. So we will go to agenda item 6.045, which is a resolution, the ratification of the tentative agreement and authorization to execute a collective bargaining agreement between the city of Burlington and the BPOA number 021 for July 1, 2022 to June 30 of 2025. And for a motion, I will go to Councillor Berkman. I would move to postpone to the next city council meeting. Motion has been made to postpone this item to the next city council meeting. Is there a second seconded by Councillor McGee? A motion to postpone, I believe to our parliamentarian is debatable, is that correct? Yes, okay, so a motion, this motion is debatable. Are there any Councillors who wish to offer comment or question? If there are none, then we would just simply go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion to postpone this item to the next council meeting, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Please say no. So that motion passes unanimously. We'll just note Councillor Hightower, Councillor Hightower was not present for the vote nor was Councillor House. So we have 10 councillors voting on this item. Thank you, thanks very much. We will go back to item number 6.05, which is the CDO parking minimum and maximum parking requirements and transportation demand management, ZA 2207. Now my understanding is that Councillor Hanson is gonna offer a motion on this item and there are amendments that are posted that will then be offered by Councillor Traverse. If I hope I'm correct to add. Point of information or order, we are getting close to the time and I would maybe move to suspend the rules. Maybe is it too early to suspend the rules and have us finish all the items on the deliberative agenda. So that would go through 6.08 with the schools who are patiently waiting in the back row there. That's great. So a motion has been made to suspend our rules to complete the items on our deliberative agenda, which would be from 6.05 to 6.08. Is there a second to that? That would be seconded by Councillor McGee. All those in favor of the motion to suspend the rules to complete our deliberative agenda, please say aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? So that passes unanimously, again with Councillors Hightower and House that are absent, however, it is a unanimous vote. So thank you so much, Councillor Berkman. So we'll go back to 6.05. I believe that I have this correct so I'm gonna go to Councillor Hanson for a motion. Great. So I'll move to waive the third reading and warn the ordinance with technical corrections recommended by the Planning Commission in addition to, I'm just gonna incorporate the other amendments too, so I believe it's all captured in the document that says final and for public hearing. Okay. If that's not clear enough, I can clarify. Thank you so much. Can we just get a second to that motion? Seconded by, seconded by. Point of clarification. Yes. I believe the document that Councillor Hanson is seeking to move is actually the document labeled PC recommendations that has some highlighted changes from that, which is labeled final. Oh, got it. Okay, I'm glad you, yeah, I was unsure of that. So I'll move that, which does incorporate those additional changes. Ordinance, I'll just, I'm just gonna read the title. Ordinance, Councillor Hanson, ZA-2207, CDO, Article 4 and 8, remin and max parking, 7, 8, 22, PC recommendations, PDF. So I'm moving that, which is, and moving to waive the third reading, warn the ordinance as laid out in that document for public hearing. Thank you. Thank you. So is there a second to that motion? That is seconded by Councillor Travers. Before I come back to you, Councillor Hanson, we're gonna take a five minute break and we will be back in five minutes. So my apologies for that interruption. We have a motion, we have a second to move Councillor Hanson. Can you just repeat what, which one of these versions you were moving, so we all are on the same page? Yes, the first document listed on Board Docks, Ordinance, Councillor Hanson, ZA-2207, CDO, Article 4 and 8, remin and max parking, 7, 1822, PC recommendations, PDF. Great, thanks, Councillor Hanson. And my apologies, in the midst of the interruption, I couldn't remember. Did you want the floor back? Yeah, or maybe after Director Tuttle. Okay, so. Were you gonna say something? Yeah. Councillor Travers was gonna introduce this one. Oh, okay. Wonderful, we'll go to Councillor Travers then. Well, I actually think it's worth yielding back to Councillor Hanson. I would just say that it is worth noting. I know that the Ordinance Committee with the prior council spent a great deal of time on this, at least five public meetings. As well as public hearing on it. My predecessor on the Ordinance Committee, former Councillor Mason, I know did great work to steward this through the committee process and appreciate certainly all the work that Councillor Hanson has put into this. And I suspect if he's willing to take the floor back, the individual to be speaking on it. And thank Director Tuttle for being here as well. Thank you, Councillor Travers. So, Councillor Hanson, would you like the floor back? Sure, yeah, I'll try to abbreviate what I was gonna say because we're now, we're taking this up very late. But yeah, we've been discussing this issue since 2019, the housing summit, at least that long. And this is an issue that is beneficial in a number of ways. It's been a lot of work on this issue. In a number of ways, it's beneficial for housing, climate, livability, transportation, safety, urban heat effects, so many different issues, cost of living and more. And I think this is a really exciting step forward. We already took a step forward in this regard in 2020 when we eliminated parking minimums for downtown along transit corridors and replaced those with sustainable transportation requirements. And two years later, this is really an expansion of that successful policy to be city-wide with some changes. And this is, I had introduced this originally September of last year and really appreciate the support of the council throughout this process and the support of staff and collaboration of the Planning Commission throughout. And now we're at third reading. The ordinance committee spent a few months on it. During that time, Planning Commission also held multiple meetings on it. We did have at least one joint meeting. During that time, it was passed again unanimously by the council in March. Really the only changes since that unanimous reading, second reading in March is really what came from the Planning Commission. However, you'll notice we didn't take everything that they recommended. This has been a long and subsidence part of this debate is around the TDM aspect. And in their memo, they recommended some pretty big changes that, again, have been raised throughout since 2019. And that's not the direction that we've chosen to go this far. I don't feel the need to get super deep into that unless we need to. But we did take basically all their other changes, the technical changes and the more minor changes are incorporated into this. So all that being said, I think this is a huge opportunity to do something really meaningful on housing and climate and other issues. And I hope we can get this done tonight in terms of some of the other issues that we've heard sort of just in the last few hours around a waiver process. I think that's definitely worth looking at. I'm definitely not comfortable trying to come up with something at 1030 after a 10 month process with all these meetings, but open to working on in the future, but I think tonight we should get this done. This is a huge step forward. Thank you. Great. Thank you, Councilor Hanson and for all your work on this. We do have planning director Megan Tuttle here and offer us some words of wisdom on this and any other comments you'd like to make, please. Thank you. I'll just say thanks to the council and the council ordinance committee that spend time on this ordinance. As councilor Hanson said, I think that policies to help us reduce the impact of parking on housing cost, housing availability and land use in general has long been a policy objective that our department has been interested in working with you and the planning commission to help advance. So thank you to councilor Hanson for continuing to move this policy broader than the areas that we had initially adopted it and expand it city wide. I appreciate as well the council ordinance committee's engagement with the planning commission really on their behalf. Thank you for giving them the opportunity to review the ordinance and provide you with detailed feedback both early in your process as well as at the end here during the technical amendment process. Thank you. Thank you, director Tuttle. Are there counselors who wish to offer any comments or questions? Have any questions on this ordinance and the referral to a public hearing? Seeing none, then we have a motion and a second we can go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed, please say no. No. So there is one absent. The vote is 10. 10 ayes, one nay and one absent. Yes, and councilor Freeman is there as well. So yes, that is the vote. Thank you so much. The motion passes. So we'll move on to item 6.06 which is an ordinance electricity permitting fees and reporting structure as chair of the ordinance committee. I will go to you, councilor Travers for a motion. Thank you, president Paul. I moved to waive the second reading, approve the ordinance as amended and ask the floor back with a second. Great. So a motion has been made to waive the second reading and approve the ordinance. Is there a second to that motion? Councilor Shannon. Councilor Travers, the floor is yours. Thank you very much, president Paul. In the interest of time I spoke with director Ward who is here prior to this agenda item and spoke to him about my as chair of the ordinance committee providing a brief overview of the resolution. The resolution is relatively minor in nature. It makes some technical changes in updating the name of the department and of director Ward's title as well. It updates the pronouns within the resolution to gender neutral pronouns. There are a couple, again, relatively minor substantive changes. One is that it adds to the list of work for which electric permits are not required, device replacement, including but not limited to installation of replacement smoke detectors where no wiring is required, as well as direct equipment replacement, including but not limited to motors and controllers. And finally, it does include a slight increase to fees associated with electric inspections. I can say that director Ward came to the ordinance committee explaining how the current fees do not cover the administrative expenses of the electrical inspections taking place, unlike some other inspections that take place throughout the city. There is no reinspection fee associated with electric inspections, so that is added by this as well. I know director Ward is here to answer any questions, but I think that covers it all. Great, thanks, thanks, Councillor Travers. Are there any Councillors? We do have director Ward here. If there are any Councillors that have any questions, I'm sure he would be happy to answer them. Any comments, Councillor questions? It doesn't appear that way. So seeing no comments, we have a motion and a second, and we can go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion to waive the second reading and adopt the ordinance, please say aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? Please say no. The motion passes unanimously, and that will be 11-0. So wonderful, we have passed that unanimously, which leaves us with just two more items on our deliberative agenda. The first being item 6.07, which is a communication from Darren Springer, general manager, Burlington Electric, Chris Burns, director of energy services and Jen Green, director of sustainability and workforce development at Burlington Electric. Bill Ward, our director of permitting and inspections, Patty Weiman, the housing division manager, and this is an initial progress report on thermal energy, the charter change work, and then the city council resolution that we passed that we passed just a few months ago relating to decarbonizing all buildings in Burlington by 2030. Welcome, Darren and Bill. My understanding is you have some brief comments that you'd like to make. We know that we have a detailed report, but certainly would welcome your comments and then we'll go to Councillor questions. Thank you for being here and for waiting all this time for us. Thank you, good evening. We're joined by our colleagues are on the Zoom, Chris Burns, Jen Green and Patty Weiman. Yes. Just to briefly summarize the communication related to the resolution and the city's charter change, we've been working with a national organization called the Building Electrification Institute. They've been helping us review policies that may be relevant in other jurisdictions. We've looked at similar building policies in Denver, Boston and New York City. Brief summary of those are in the report. We've also begun but have not done as much public stakeholder engagement as we would like to and as outlined in the kind of the forward-looking timeframe, but we have had engagement with University of Vermont, with University of Vermont Medical Center and Champlain College and we are looking forward to additional engagement there. And we tried to summarize very briefly the different sectors, new construction, major renovation and then city buildings and large existing commercial buildings, some different thoughts there. I think with new construction we already have a primary renewable heating ordinance that's already on the books. Our work will be to explore whether things can be added to that that would further reduce fossil fuel use in new construction and that could include additional uses like water heating, cooking, et cetera. I'd note that the definition in the primary renewable heating ordinance is relatively broad, includes a variety of renewable fuels and technologies. We have some ideas for expanding that definition for additional policy and trying to make it as flexible and inclusive as possible. For major renovation, we have a recommendation to include a definition in the final report. We did not make one in this report. And then for large existing buildings and city buildings we reviewed two different approaches. One approach would be every time a building pulls a permit you require them to make a switch from fossil fuel to renewable. That is part of the policy I think in Denver but it's not something that offers as much flexibility as the other approach that's being taken in some other jurisdictions which is a performance standard where you would say to a building we want you to reduce X amount of fossil fuel by X date that gives them more flexibility to achieve that. And we also recommend that for building owners that have multiple buildings that might be included in this cohort that they would have the option to comply over the portfolio of buildings as opposed to a single building approach that will give them more flexibility to achieve reductions in some of the buildings that are easier. There are gonna be issues around historic preservation whether things like process steam which is used at places like the hospital should be included or not included in this type of definition. And there are two cross-cutting issues that we outline. One is as allowed by the Charter Change should we have some sort of alternative compliance carbon fee. I think that's something that there will be a desire to discuss because it sets a economic threshold for different measures and gives building owners the option of looking at the different measures and looking at the carbon price and deciding which is the cheapest form of compliance. We also note that given the advisory question item seven on the town meeting day ballot from 2021 the desire to have the benefits of this policy flow to disadvantaged Burlingtonians that that may be an opportunity to fee proceeds if there is an alternative compliance carbon fee to dedicate a portion of those funds to projects that might benefit the communities that were named in ballot item seven. And then lastly, making sure that as we did with the rental weatherization standards all of the BED incentives and other incentives can continue to be available for these buildings and that they're not precluded from accessing those will be critical. And given it's only been two months we did lay out a additional several months time frame including a public forum, additional policy research, engagement with the NPAs and then trying to have a final report to the council at the end of October with the idea that if there is an alternative compliance carbon fee proposed that has to go back to voters. Likely I would assume on town meeting day in 2023 per the charter change. So we hope that that timeframe gives us the opportunity to do that if that is proposed. I wanna just thank my colleagues for their work on this as well and glad to answer any questions. Great, thanks very much Darren. And thank you also for acknowledging that we have not only in addition to you and to Bill we also have Jen Green and Chris Byrne from Burlington Electric and Patty Weiman, the Housing Division Manager. Were there anything that any of the four of you would wanted to add to this in addition to what Darren has offered? Just say Darren's a hard act to follow and I'll just leave it at that. Yeah, so it's an excellent summary of where we are and the report was terrific really. It laid things out and very easy to understand format. Were there any councillors, Councillor Hanson? Yeah, thank you so much. Look forward to engaging with you further on this. As you can see, we've had a lot on our plate the last few days getting ready for this meeting so definitely we'll be engaging with you more. But one immediate question is did you all evaluate a ban on gas hookups for new buildings? And if so, can you share what you found in that evaluation? We did not specifically evaluate a ban on gas hookups. I think the primary renewable heating ordinance really took the approach of saying you can electrify obviously with heat pumps or with geothermal, you could switch to wood heating or you could have a conventional system provided that you have a long-term contract for renewable fuel. And we in the report recommend expanding that approach of inclusive of all renewable fuels. So not taking an infrastructure approach but taking a renewable fuel approach and saying it's not about what type of system you have but if you're gonna have a conventional system we want you to have a long-term contract for renewable fuel for that system. So that was the approach we outlined in new construction subject to much more additional work obviously and stakeholder feedback. But we really tried to build off of the existing city ordinance in that report. Okay. Got it, thank you. Well, look many more questions and thoughts to come but I'll save them for now. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks very much, Councillor Hanson. Are there any other comments or questions? Councillor Jang. Thank you. I think the memo is very well written with a lot of details. I think it's an amazing work. But I wanted to see if you can expand on potential maybe pushback from UVM if any because that paragraph wasn't very clear. Sure. I think we had three meetings with UVM over the course of the last two months. So we've had I think the most engagement with them deeply appreciate their engagement. They I think like the city are on a mission to take steps relative to climate. And so I think we're aligned in our mission. And one of the things that I think we'll find not just from UVM but probably from everybody who might have a building that's affected by this is they want the city to set policy that's realistic, that's pragmatic, that's achievable, that takes economics into consideration and takes the current economic situation into consideration. We have high inflation, we have volatile fuel prices. I think there are great opportunities to reduce that volatility by moving off of fossil fuel. So I think this is an opportunity as well. But I think we're gonna have alignment I believe on the idea of wanting buildings to be more efficient to reduce fossil fuel use. I think that they buildings that are affected are gonna want the maximum amount of flexibility and they're gonna want targets that are practical and achievable and cost effective. And that's something we want as well. Thank you. I think it's good. Now, and we're talking only about new building and or building that are going under major renovation, et cetera, but not residential buildings currently in the city. That's correct. It's worth repeating over and over. I know that there are misconceptions. This does not affect existing residential buildings as it's been drafted and as we've been working on it. It would affect new construction, would affect large existing commercial buildings. We're not looking to have this effect at least in this iteration, small businesses. This is about larger buildings that have a capital budget that are making plans over a period of time and making sure that city policy can move those buildings towards more efficiency and fossil fuel reduction. And this also affects city buildings. So our recommendation is that whatever we decide on as a community for large existing commercial buildings should also apply to city buildings. The city can continue to lead by example as well. Yeah, but at the same time, this is not what the voters voted on. Like this change, I don't know what has changed in between. So the charter change that was voted on that was approved technically applies to all buildings. Yes. So we're working under the council resolution from May that really said we want you to look at new construction, major renovation, large existing buildings, city buildings. So that's what we're focused on here, not residential buildings. And the city could decide in the future that it wants to take a different or more expansive approach, but that's not what we're focused on at the moment. All right, thank you. Thanks, Councillor Jang. There are other councillors with questions or comments on this report. This is an initial report. We're gonna get an opportunity to come back and discuss this at greater length soon, but not too soon. Seeing no other comments, thank you for the report, the presentation. We'll look forward to the final report in October of this year. Thanks so much for being here and for awaiting all this time. Thank you. I appreciate it. It's an informational thing. I don't think there is a motion. Sure, if you wanna do that. We'll get a motion on that as well. Great, I move to waive the reading except the report and place it on file. Okay, a motion has been made and seconded by Councillor Hanson. All those in favor of that motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? So we'll move on to our last deliberative item which is 6.08, a presentation from the school administration and board on the BHS-BTC 2025 project update. Thank you so much to all of you, to Superintendent Flanagan, Chair Claire Wool and Finance Director Nathan Lavery of the schools. My understanding is you have a PowerPoint and if you could, you know, take hopefully no more than about 10 minutes to give us that presentation and then we'll go to Councillor Question and further discussion. Thanks so much for being here. Great, thank you so much for having us this evening to the whole council. President Paul, thank you for having us on the agenda tonight and apologies for confusion around the agenda item this evening but we appreciate the opportunity to be here. I'll be concise and leave time for questions. This is really an opportunity to provide an update on where we are with the BHS-BTC 2025 building project and specifically to follow up with questions that you all brought to us the last time we met with you in June and really to prepare for, to prepare you for our presentation of the Bond Ballot Language on August 15th and to take and answer any questions that you may have. So we have a couple of slides here that we've already gone through so I won't go through those again and we'll just keep jumping after that one. There's the schematic design which you can again see laid out on, the building laid out on the property there. The next design, next slide shows similar design or the same design from a different angle. Pretty beautiful building. Do you say so myself? I didn't design it though so. And then the next slide is where we'll get into the answers and to the questions that you brought forward to us. And the first question is really is about and following up to the last presentation on the building and energy efficiency. So question came to us about the, will the building be net zero? And I just wanted to make sure that you all understand that we take this question very seriously and the importance of energy efficiency extremely seriously as a educational operation. We need to make sure that we are leading the way and that our students understand the importance of the environment, the climate and the impact that humans are having on the climate. So we are conducting energy modeling right now. We're designing right now for lead certification but the net zero potential still remains. There's a cost benefit analysis that we will need that we need to conduct. And also we need to decide if we're gonna continue to use the wood chip plant that was built in 2006, 2007. It currently heats the building. And wood chip plants are inherently not net zero. It's my understanding from our team and so that's something that we have to work through. And we are working toward having more concrete answers to that question pre-bought. So we're ready to talk more about that if you'd like but are also in deeply investigating this and we'll be making it, we'll make sure that we have more specific answers to that as we move forward. The second big question was should we delay a bond? A bond vote or the project until March or later? And I think not to sort of overstate this but we do believe it would be catastrophic to move this back. We currently do not have a lease to a building beyond 2025. We have 1,000 students going to school every day that would not have the certainty of a building. And we're currently in a temporary space that is not a long-term solution for our students. And the biggest concern that I have is that students who have been historically marginalized by our systems are at most risk for being further marginalized through the delay of a building. So I'll leave it at that. So those are the answers to those two questions there. The next slide goes through two more questions and those are all the questions those are all the questions and answers. And that is the estimated bond amount and the cost of taxpayers. So currently we are still at the same number that we were at when we were here last time which is $165 million for the overall building, for the cost of the proposed bond vote. Tax impacts will come in late July so we will have a better sense of the exact tax implications in late July. And we are aggressively and actively fundraising and we'll be able to continue to fundraise after the vote because the funds that we are seeking, many of the funds that we're seeking are coming through from federal programs that we can apply to and we've already applied to a couple I mentioned those last time. So that will continue. And the last question was about the funding and what funding is in place. And I would just, and so the funding we've already identified 25 million through grants and savings and reduce the cost of the original design by 20 million. And we've also chosen of the five option designs that were presented to us by our design team the least expensive option from the start. So we'll continue though to complete or we are completing, we're sort of in the end process of doing the state and federal research and I've identified, we have identified funding sources to go after when we are going after those now working in collaboration with Senators Leahy, Sanders and Representative Welch in that work and also partnering with the Brownington Student Foundation so that we can launch fundraising efforts to private for private fundraising and we have a mechanism to be able to bring those funding streams toward this project. The next steps which is that last slide are that the schematic design cost estimate comes to us in July. So we've been talking about the $165 million number but that number will become more precise once we get the schematic design cost estimates in July. And the bond ballot item then we plan to bring to you on October 15th, sorry, August, not October. Thank you, what time is it? And then we can take questions now or we can also take them and answer them now or we can take them now and provide some written commentary. So with that, did I miss anything? Anything else, the other, Claire or Nate? No, we just looked forward to, I know we'll have questions whether we come to the Board of Finance for mechanical questions, meeting mechanicals before your August meeting because we know the deadline to the state for ballot language is the 17th. If you could just speak into the mic. I'm sorry, yep. So it would just be what meetings we'll be attending between now and August 15th if any with the Board of Finance and getting that bond language in front of you. Great and my understanding is that you will have the tax and bond, the tax implications that will be available hopefully by the end of July so that, and those will be forwarded to us so that we can at least on an informal basis be taking a look at that before we get to August. That's great. So are there comments or, Counselor McGee? Thank you and thank you all for the work you've done to get this to this point and the work you'll continue to do before we have to vote on a bond in August and for sticking with us to this late hour. The only question I have is about the bond amount. The last presentation we saw had an amount of 150 million and I noticed that this one says 165 so I'm curious if there's been a change in between the last meeting and this one or if one of those figures was incorrect. Yeah, so we showed you the $150 million amount but also spoke and showed you the $165 million amount to show the difference of where we were from 150 to 165. We were and still are aiming for 150 but we are coming up to a critical moment in time and so one of the things that we have been thinking about is the wording of the bond language. So there have been prior bonds that have and really any bond says that you will borrow up to a certain amount. So we had a bond that the citizens of Brownton voted on that said we would borrow up to $70 million for the renovation project that we didn't complete. We did not borrow. We borrowed 66 million of the 70 million and then we did not borrow the rest of the, we did not borrow the 66 million. So it's an example of we don't have to borrow what we asked for in the bond and we are gonna continue to aggressively seek funding for that. The cost of the current estimate for the bond if it was today is $165 million. And so that's where we're modeling what the impact of that $165 million will be on taxpayers and the tax implications and our team is working on that. But it's important to note because I've heard that there's some question about cost of the building. The cost of the building is pretty strictly based on the square footage at this point and it is the cost of a high school building in our region now and we chose the least expensive option from the beginning of the five options. So I just wanted to make sure that was kind of reiterated because I think it's an important point that I don't want to get lost. But the current bond amount if it were today would be $165 million. Great, thank you and I certainly appreciate the care and attention you've paid to making sure that we're bonding for what we might need for this project and also all the avenues you're pursuing to reduce the impact on taxpayers. So look forward to supporting this going forward and hopefully having a new BHS by August of 2025. Thank you. Thanks, Councilor McGee, Councilor Hightower. This isn't a question, this is more a comment but just looking at the new schematic designs and how much grading will likely have to be done behind the building for parking and just maybe a small nudge of encouragement to look at what the cost of the building is versus the cost of that parking and then if we're going to make cut somewhere and maybe making it to the parking and especially thinking about what we could possibly be by 2025 and or beyond. And yeah, thank you all for sticking out with us this late and keeping us up to date. Absolutely, we will do that. We're also excited this building has a huge number of bicycle parking spaces both covered and uncovered. So I think we're gonna do all that we can to encourage multimodal transportation for sure. The other thing to mention that I didn't but when you mentioned it, Councilor Hightower I wanna just make sure that I didn't forget to say it that the cost of the bond if it were today is the building plus the 30 million that it costs to remediate and remove the old high school. And that's important because we originally did not know that we would need to take that down first but based on everything we know now we need to take it down first so that we can build when that site has been remediated and removed. So that's a piece of the cost of the building that I wanted to make sure was clear. Great, thanks Councilor Hightower. Councilor Barlow. Thank you and I wanna reiterate my thanks to you for sticking with us for so long tonight. My question is more about the progress. I'm wondering about the progress you've made in trying to find alternative sources of funding specifically for remediation. We know 30 million dollars of the, up to 30 million dollars of the project is for site remediation and demolition and 50 million dollars is to support the tech center. And my understanding is tech centers historically have not been born by the local taxpayers but by state institution funding or other mechanisms at the state level. And so have you made any more progress, material progress on identifying sources of funding from state or federal sources for either of those two parts of the project? Yeah, well yes and I'll ask Nathan to talk a little bit about the fundraising efforts cause he'll have a little bit more detail on the specific programs that we're eligible, we think we're eligible for and are applying for or we are eligible and are applying for. But I also wanna, but in terms of the technical center we've already taken 20 million out of the technical center. So about half of the students who attend BTC go to BHS. So they spend half the day at BHS and half the day at Burlington Technical Center and half of the students at Burlington Technical Center are BHS students. So what we have done with our conversations and with the possibilities that have popped up at just the right time at the airport with the city and the folks who were here earlier with data and Nick Longo and team to move about half of the program space of our technical center to the airport. We are not planning to go to bond to support that because we already, we have $10 million that we received in a grant that we applied for through Senator Leahy's office. So that's, that's, that 10 million is in addition to the 25 million plus the 20 million that we pulled off that we've already taken away from the project. So I'd say we've put significant effort toward reducing the overall cost of the building already and we're gonna continue to do that through specific fundraising that relates to the federal and state kind of programs and some private fundraising. So Nick can talk a little bit about that. Any, oh, sorry, go ahead. Sure, so with respect specifically to PCB remediation and kind of how we dispose of the buildings, we've got a couple opportunities there. There's significant money in the state budget put toward dealing with PCBs in schools. Not all for Burlington, obviously. Most of that money is not going to be available until next year, which is an example of what we talked about earlier with respect to needing to bond for the amount we need because we won't have certainty on what kind of allocation we could get. But that's a very real source right there. We've also made some progress trying to and work with our attorneys on the potential eligibility for Brownfield's money. There may be a path toward eligibility for Brownfield's money, which would be another opportunity and there's formally the limits to Brownfield. The words were lower, but more recently, there was the state creates more flexibility in the size of those awards. And so we think that there's a potential there to, that's the case scenario, probably be kind of an eight figure award. That's all at this point, it's not concrete, but those are the areas that we're pursuing aggressively. And then beyond that, there are a number of other opportunities for funding other pieces and components of the project, be it stormwater, the kind of landscape and environmental design elements of it, things like electric car charging stations, even like there's a lot of different avenues. We've looked at both the state budget and the federal infrastructure bill to identify all those sources and then we've prioritized which of those we feel like we have the most potential to kind of draw down or achieve. And I think the good news is that these are all, as Superintendent Flanagan mentioned, they're all existing programs predominantly. So we know that even should we successfully pass a bond that doesn't change our eligibility for these programs, meaning that we could still draw down at least as much money as we would need to reduce our borrowing to 150 million and perhaps even below that amount. We won't necessarily know that by the time we go to voters, but the potential will remain even after the bond vote. Thanks. Thanks, Councillor Barlow. Are there any other comments or, Councillor Travers? Thank you, President Paul. Councillor Barlow asked one question that I had. I echo the comments made, appreciating your being with us late this evening. Mindful the fact that this is our last meeting before our meeting on August 15th when we'll be voting on a bond. So thank you for taking time with the questions. Councillor McGee mentioned our discussion at our last meeting with respect to 150 million. I know 165 million has also been the number. I appreciate the extensive work that you have put into already bringing that number down to 165. I also appreciate the efforts you just spoke to to bring that number even lower. I suppose to a certain extent though, I am holding my breath as I suspect you may be as well with respect to estimates to come at the end of this month regarding the schematic design cost. And I'm just wondering if you can speak. I know we've been speaking quite a bit to each other and I know that those who are involved in the schematic design have been tuned into these meetings as well. But I'm wondering if you could speak to the extent that you've stressed with those coming up with these cost estimates, the discussions that we're having, the city's bonding capacity and the need that are interested in keeping it as low as possible. Yeah, I mean, I appreciate you bringing that up. We've certainly stressed the importance and they're very aware having been here through the last meeting and just knowing that this is an important part of the puzzle, right? That we make sure that we are really mindful of the impact of this building on the taxpayers of Burlington. So that's something that everyone is keenly aware of. But as you mentioned, it also in some ways is out of our hands when it comes to the costing of the schematic after that we get the schematic design cost estimates. So I don't know if you wanna talk at all to the... Just the kind of a clarifying element. So I think what specifically we're talking about is kind of the design elements, right? And making sure that our design team understands the need to kind of produce a cost effective design, which I think they're aware of. They've been working with us obviously to maintain that. There's gonna be opportunities in the future as well to make design decisions that would reduce the cost, albeit potentially in ways that will force us to grapple with difficult choices. But that is separate from the cost estimating process, just to be clear to folks, that's being done by an independent third party. So they're kind of looking at saying, we don't care what you wanna build. Our job is just to give you a good faith estimate of what that building would cost if you went out to bid for it, right? And so just wanna make sure that's clear. Like there's a design team that kind of works with us on building the building and we can make choices, reduce square footage, add components, whatever that'll impact price. And then there's cost estimating, which is done by a separate group, not being done by our design team so that we get a kind of neutrals view on that. The last thing we would wanna do is successfully pass a bond that turns out to be insufficient to deliver the building that we have advertised in during the voting process. So we look forward to those numbers, but as you noted, I think we're also holding our breath because we know that there are a lot of pressures and most of the pressures are in the wrong direction right now. Thanks, and thanks, Councillor Travers for that question. Councillor Hanson. Great, thanks. I just wanna second, Councillor Hightower's push for looking more deeply at reducing parking as a cost saving mechanism and a sustainability measure. And then, yeah, I would love to follow up with you all in the net zero piece, maybe with Burlington Electric as well. Have you all been consulting with BED on that aspect of this? We haven't had extensive consultations with BED yet. We're playing the energy modeling, which I think is the kind of preliminary step so that then they can work with us to figure out what it would take to get there both in terms of technical elements of the building and cost. Okay, great, yeah, I would love to discuss further because I'm a little confused about this, what I'm seeing in here with wood chip plants because at least under the ordinance that requires new buildings to have primary heating that's renewable, I believe wood chips are allowed under that. Maybe you all don't consider them net zero. Maybe that's a different conversation, but yeah, anyways, we can talk about it offline, thanks. Yeah, and we're happy, if anyone has individual questions, we're happy to talk and then this is an area where we do know we need to get you more material too. Great, thanks, Councillor Hanson. Are there any other questions or comments from councillors? Councillor Jang. Thank you, President Powell, and you don't need to answer me right now, but I wanted to circle back around the fundraising. Yeah, I think it is an, there is no details presented yet. Is it going to be a position? What's the goal that you're trying to reach? What are the elements of the fundraising? I mean, you talked a little bit about senders, Patrick, Peter, Welsh, that's it. But where else or how does it work? Do you have a team looking into that? I think that's important as part of selling the bound too. It will be important to start right now. Yeah, so I won't take that, I won't go into too much detail, except to say that we did, we have hired a consultant who helped us gain the people waiting formula victory that is gonna bring, that is gonna help our schools and our taxpayers. And so we're continuing to work with Lee and I in public affairs, who's helping with the state and federal fundraising. And then we are partnering with the Burlington Student Foundation so that they will provide a mechanism for us to do the private fundraising so that we can do individual outreach and that's gonna be calling lists of people to ask if they want to have a gym named after them or a library and so that's gonna be a part of our fundraising strategy, that is a part of our fundraising strategy. Thank you, Councillor Chang. Any other councillors who have questions or councillor Carpenter? I think I said this last minute, I just wanna repeat that I hope you can, as we get closer to the vote, have developed a portal where taxpayers can figure out how the homestead credit affects them. It's so important and it's underestimated. I mean taxpayers don't understand, I mean they understand it when they get it, of course. But it's another translation and I just, the state has it in a global way and if you can get somebody with a creative mind to figure out that would be very helpful. Great, thank you very much, Councillor Carpenter. I remember that comment from last and saying it twice just means it's incredibly important and I think something that's shared by all of us to just give that level of transparency to our taxpayers. If there's no other comments, then we will, it doesn't appear as though there is a recommended action so I guess what that means is that we'll close this informational item and thank you very much. We will look forward to seeing you at our council meeting in August and please do communicate with us in between. Any information that you have and you can share with us would be greatly appreciated. The more time we have, the better. And thank you as well for staying until this hour. Greatly appreciate it. Wonderful, that's great, thank you again. So that completes our deliberative agenda and as per our vote to suspend our rule is that completes our meeting. So I will take a motion to adjourn. Motion made by Councillor Bergman and seconded by Councillor McGee. All those in favor of the motion to adjourn, please say aye. Aye. I assume no one is opposed. We will end our meeting at 11.25. Thank you so much for joining us this evening.