 For those of you who just joined the mayor is not able to make it so for the evening. The first item on the agenda is the agenda. Do I have a motion on Councillor Paul. So I'll make a motion to approve the agenda as presented. And just for those who arrived a little bit late, we will be just for your knowledge. Items 4.08 4.09 and 4.10 are separate resolutions, but we will be voting on them, moving them together. And with that, I so move. Excellent. Thank you, Councillor Paul. Is there a second? Great. Thank you. Thank you. All in favor. All in favor. All right. Great. I know you just got on President Tracy. Have you had a chance to see if there's anyone signed up for public forum for board of finance? Yeah, so I was just actually getting all my public forum stuff ready for this evening. It looks like the only sign up was in the public forum box with the agenda. And then the, the sheet itself looks like it's all related to items having to do with our deliberative agenda on the council meeting itself. So I do not see anyone for public forum specific to this particular meeting. It rarely happens, but thank you for checking. Yes. Thank you. Just, just to make sure before we leave the item, I would just like to make sure that we have all of the items that we have. So if we can look, you know, are there, does it appear as though it doesn't. You know, I don't know, but it doesn't appear as though. With the exception of one or two attendees. That there's attendees that are other than C. Town meeting TV and. Staff. So it would seem as though there's no one here. I think. With the exception. That is true. If you are here and want to speak, you can raise your hand. But based on the group of attendees. And seeing no hands, we will close that item out. And the next item is the consent agenda. Do I have a motion to adopt the consent agenda? Thank you, counselor pine. Second. Okay. All in favor. I. Great. Moving on. The first. Item is 4.01. The Corona virus emergency supplemental funding. Burn grants acceptance from CEDO. I'm happy to make a motion to approve and recommend that the council. Approve the acceptance of the Corona emergency supplemental funding. Burn grant. And authorize the mayor or his designee to sign all necessary documents to affect the same. Great. Is there a second? Great. I mean discussion. All right. All those in favor. Yes. Councilor Paul. I, I mean, I'm obviously would welcome any discussion that we can. All right. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Great. And next week. Katie Kinstead, who is now acting director of CEDO. And I will be presenting to you an update on the COVID budget in light of this grant acceptance, which was received from the state. And an update on those funds. So thank you for that. This is not a large amount of money for this burn grant, but it is the most flexible of the monies that we've received. So it's an important piece of that puzzle as you'll see. And we're also going to go through the explanation of the, both of our TIF districts for related costs for FY 20. This is a CEDO item and I am pleased that we have Richard Hasler here who is my partner in crime with TIF. And ready to answer any questions. move to recommend the city council approve the attached resolution related to reimbursement of waterfront tiff district in downtown tiff district related costs for f y 2020 great is there a second president tracy any discussion all right all those in favor hi hi great thank you for your work on that richard have a nice evening you too i'll be watching council and uh but it looks like everything's looks like my job is done thank you folks the hard part was earlier thank you um the next two items are for our innovation and technology department item 4.03 authorizes our cio to enter into a contract it says for email services but it is a little broader than that uh if you notice in the memo it includes a lot of the additional services that city employees have been employing during covid um to really help us work better remotely um is there how would the board like to proceed yes councilor khan uh i would move to approve and recommend the city council that it authorized the chief innovation officer to execute an agreement with planet technologies microsoft email and other services for a total amount not to exceed one hundred three four thousand dollars over three years subject to the final approval from the city attorney's office excellent thank you is there a second second counselor paul any discussion questions all right all those in favor say aye hi hi thank you for your work on that brian uh the next item is creation of the health equity and engagement manager position when i came before you several weeks ago and we said we had two good candidates for a position and karen said let's find a way to hire both of them brian found a way and here's the candidate and just thank you say oh shed but i just want to say for counselors quickly that we don't have the second candidate in place we would post this position um and it would be a competitive process the other candidate is aware of what we're doing um and um i believe is likely to apply but is well aware that it'll be a competitive process and i can't guarantee um what the outcome would be thank you for that very important um clarification how would the board like to proceed with the creation and posting of this important position on health equity yes president tracy yes i wanted to ask some questions i'm not i'm personally ready to make a motion so i i guess i'm just curious as to why um this position is being placed under the c i o's office and not under r e i b and um just what the consultation with r e i b has looked like and if r e i b is supportive of this current configuration i'm happy to speak to that um i think if uh if the board of finance members in october we had a similar discussion about the first candidate there's um and i think the names are somewhat confusing there's a public health equity manager that has been hired and is now working within the city um in the innovation and technology department this second position the health equity and engagement manager would be working very closely with that first position and so there would definitely be some loss in putting these two people who are closely engaged working hand and glove on the same projects in separate departments with different reporting lines um in terms of i guess a couple points i think there is definitely close consultation between r e i b and the innovation and technology department on a number of different projects um i've spoken with taisha green directly i know the mayor is talking with taisha as well i think she is supportive of this um arrangement but i think there's a caveat there which is i do not expect and the mayor's been very clear with me that this is not a position that's going to stay in it for a particularly long time i think that um there's a crucial data component to the work of this position and the partner position health equity positions where it is best suited to help get everybody on the ground oriented and moving um and i think especially in the near term there's a lot of ties to the kovat 19 response and currently um the currently our department my department is leading the city's kovat response and so there's a lot of nexus between these two positions the one already in existence and the one before you tonight and that work so i can i can stop there unless there's further questions president chris well i guess so is there any documentation of of director greens position or anything along those lines would it be possible to hear from director green i don't know if she's joined us this evening um but i would also invite chief of staff redell uh if she has something um to say uh on behalf of the mayor and that decision um i would welcome them great thank you katherine um i don't want to speak for director green and it looks like she's not part of this meeting um however i i can um share that we did speak with her about this directly and she supported the position being in the ci um under the innovation and technology department wearing my oh i'm sorry counselor tracy i was just going to add quickly wearing my hr director hat um it was clear to me that this uh was an interim place to put this position and that we hadn't exactly settled on where it would go permanently and i'm sorry what was uh how would you like to respond the floor is yours i'm just curious if it might be possible to get that that actually in writing from from the reib and really having that that clarity that's i just really want to make sure that we're clear about how this is working and i really value director greens opinion especially on equity issues so i don't know that i'm ready to support this absent you know some real just hearing directly from director green and and really understanding that because i'm not sure that that's necessarily my understanding um you know on on this matter so sorry president tracy are you saying that you've heard otherwise from i'm just not it's unclear to me if your comment just now is that you heard something differently than what i have reason to believe that there's a difference that there's a difference of opinion so i'm just wanting to make sure that i'm understanding what all is happening here i that's not what i've been led to believe and so i feel like i really want to get some clarity on what it is here i feel like i'm not i'm getting different stories here and it's not feeling good and so i'd really like to get a sense directly before we support this that this crucial staff member has position is being appropriately conveyed to the the board of finance yes counselor paul well i i i appreciate that i did want to make sure that councillor uh president tracy has has finished i do i don't want to interrupt i'm good thanks councillor paul i appreciate that all right sure no problem so along the same lines is what president tracy is saying i think that we have a we have a board of finance meeting in seven days in eight days i would make a motion that we postpone the approval of this position until that time unless there is somebody who can give me a compelling reason otherwise but without that compelling reason i would make a motion that we postpone that for a date certain of next tuesday the 16th of february okay thank you councillor tracy uh cio low how does that work for you and your department um i guess two points you know on the on the first point um delays are always a challenge in the sense of um keeping people interested in applying for the position so there's some risk um if there are other candidates out there they may not you know they're considering other offers as well so there is some risk to delay from that perspective being a competitive process i'm sure there are potentially other candidates out there that we could try to find i have spoken to director green directly about this and so i would feel comfortable proceeding here she has indicated to me that she is supportive of this move and understands it's a temporary move but i understand that if the council would like to delay they certainly can yes councillor pine sorry i was also trying to promote councillor jen who i think has just joined us and i hope is um now councillor jen are you here and able to speak to us if i can hear you very well and maybe yes we can i just wanted to make sure you are able to participate sorry there's like a lot going on when you're the tech person and the moderator apologies to everyone i feel president tracy just a tiny bit like all the things that are going off like wow okay it's a lot so i apologize where are we councillor find i was just about to add um the the issue of where it goes in an interim basis i think is is of some importance but to me more importantly is the overall strategy for the city to build up a new public health capacity a department and arm of city government it hasn't existed at least that i know of for a very long time it has a public health focus so i think when the pandemic began this was a conversation that i had um with the mayor and i think i brought it up in a council meeting that we as a city because we're in a state that has a health department that has all the power all the resources all the authority we as a city don't have a whole lot to work with and so i'm very interested in that issue as a result i'm sorry as it relates to the issues of health equity and engagement um and i think it'd be great to get that higher level sort of you know higher level view of of where we're heading as well that would be really helpful i'm happy to speak briefly to that now if it's helpful but if it's i'm not sure if i'm if i'm interpreting the question correctly and i want to make sure i would love a response now that'd be great yes thank you yeah and i appreciate the count the question councillor find i think i think there's broad agreement within the city team about the point that you're making here and that there is a real need for increased focus and functionality around public health and health equity within the city um the innovation and technology department in a very different context a couple years ago ran a huge effort that resulted in the department of permanent inspections being created and formed and there's similar thinking here that we have the makings of an embryonic new public health function that we need to coordinate work within the city to consolidate various different functions that are currently operating in silos operating well but could operate much more effectively together bring those different internal structural reforms together at the same time we continue to engage external partners and we could leave the city in a far better place better prepared to serve our community thank you that's helpful yes councillor paul thank you um so i have two things i wanted to mention uh the first is that i of course agree with councillor pine um that and i'm and don't want don't want to speak for president tracy but having spent countless countless meetings with him at com stat and talking about public public public health there's no doubt that we all support the creation of this position um the you know um if it is possible um and just in the interest of um if we can be able to move this forward this evening i mean i would be willing to um see if we might just simply be able to delay this item to being last on the agenda if there is the possibility of others being able to come and speak to this issue um i mean obviously we don't want to um uh we don't want to lose a good candidate if if there is one um but at the same time um you know i'm i'm i'm always in favor of the process of having that conversation so i don't know if that's possible this evening but if it is i'd be happy and as long as president tracy is okay we could delay that to the last item on the agenda if others can join i suggest we do that uh as i believe the mayor may want to join and um i'm not sure if we could get director green but we could try um to see if she's able to join as well uh so i am going to as i don't want to i don't want to go and withdraw that unless it's okay with the seconder uh i'd really prefer to postpone and and have that and and take this up in our next meeting but um i mean if we're able to get that to happen at this meeting then i know that's fine okay i mean i'll take that as a i'll take that as a yes for now yeah for now so eileen um the city attorney blackwood sorry is it um okay for us to now just delay this until the end of the meeting are there special things i need to know and do uh i i mean technically folks should should put it on that you know and vote on it great vote on what making a put it on the table till the end of the meeting fine i'll make a motion that we put it on the table till the end of the meeting second all in favor hi hi great not opposed all right great thank you um brian and we'll see you again shortly in the meantime um item 4.05 is an authorization to execute a contract with lake champlain sea grant for the development of a residential stormwater management incentive and education program and those are a lot of words but i hope you had time to look at the memo because it looks like it's a very exciting program how would the board like to move forward on this yes counselor pine i would move to approve and recommend the city council authorize a director of dpw to execute a contract with lake champlain sea grant for an amount up to 184,700 for development of residential stormwater management incentive slash education program subject to the prior review and approval of the city attorney excellent thank you is there a second for that motion yes president tracy thank you um all in favor please say aye aye aye i neglected to ask if there was any discussion um it doesn't look like there is but we look forward to hearing about the results of this program because um it looks like something that is going to be very interesting for our consumers and i think there's going to be some really great results based on what we even saw from the pilot so i'm very pleased we're able to move this forward thank you team water um we've got um another water uh request 4.06 to execute a contract for fire alarm system upgrades obviously we want safety first uh is there a motion or how would the board like to proceed on this item counselor paul thank you um i would uh unless someone would prefer to have well actually i think it might be a good idea to just simply have three minutes for or two minutes from megan since she's here sitting in the water um uh about this agenda item and then i'm happy to make a motion thank you counselor paul and i'm actually going to defer to mike sham who is uh one of our water resources engineer who's been leading up this project he knows a lot more about the specific ins and outs so mike take it away with the some of the details okay thank you megan good evening everyone um this item is for the upgrade of of the uh existing fire alarm systems at the water treatment plant and also the main wastewater treatment plant admin building the existing system at the water plant uh is from 1984 37 years old at this point and the one at the main plant is 27 years old both systems have reached the end of their reliable service lives uh back in early november we released a rfp for design build for the upgrades of these fire alarm systems we received three proposals um back in on january 13th uh from mei electrical peck electric and standard electrical with mei being the lowest bid 103 thousand dollars total that's for both facilities um they were also the most responsive the the proposal was not just price based it was they had non-price based elements to it as well and our review identified as mei being most responsive to what was requested in the rfp uh we contacted references and i did it personally and everyone i spoke with um was generally pleased with mei's work and no substantive concerns were identified so i guess with that uh if there's any specific questions i'd be happy to try to address those by having lots of water in the water plant and wastewater plants we do still need the fire protection this is yes counselor pine i'm asking this only because um it helps it to understand the procurement process and what type of qualifications are reviewed as far as those contractors that did and i just want to check and see did these did you review these contractors through the lens of the city's uh pre-qualification of construction contractor ordinances the ordinance i i'm not sure i fully understand the question we had non-price components we asked for relevant project experience on similar projects uh there needs to be a licensed certain level designer on the team that's going to be doing the the design and stamping off on those improvements so i can get into the rfp i don't those are just some i remember i i think i think brian um because it was a design build because we weren't just we weren't going separately for design and then having all of those design specs then bid by a contractor we just we did a more simple rfp process is there a particular concern you have about the pre-qualification process i don't know that it would apply i don't ask i was wondering why it doesn't apply so that's what i'm trying to get i think i think any contract of over 100 thousand it's supposed to be part of the process and i just didn't see it mentioned here so i was just trying to figure that out and we can certainly make sure to confirm that before we submit it for execution by the by uh by chappen um but i i believe just thinking back and i can talk with steve roy a little bit more um to confirm that if you're willing just don't consider that you know to approve it but we will make sure to have that checked out by the city attorney's office before chappen signs just one other point i'll add is we the we are uh we did sort of develop the rfp around a game well system which is a certain manufacturer or certain product system and that's to have consistency uh there are buildings at the main treatment plant that were upgraded about five six years ago with the game well system the admin building was not done at that time so we did spec around the game well system and um we had to have certified installers with that product to bid on the work okay great thank you they they did the fire alarm upgrade to the library for us five years ago and did a very good job so i was one of the references that was called so i can verify that they did a good job great thank you and they have done other city work for us any further questions counselors or counselor paul are you ready to make a motion uh yes i am and also wanted to acknowledge um thank you michael for being here and for giving us the the whole the whole rundown thank you thanks for having me uh i would make a motion to approve and recommend that the city council authorize the director of public works to execute a contract with me i electrical contractors for design build services for the upgrade of the fire alarm system at the water treatment plant and main wastewater treatment plant administrative building for up to 103 thousand dollars with an additional 25 thousand dollars in contingency totaling 128 thousand subject to final review and approval by the city attorney's office excellent thank you is there a second to the motion great there's all the seconds to the motion counselor jang um so all in favor please say i i hi great thank you water team thank you michael megan thank you and martha um the next item is 4.07 um which is a very straightforward um acceptance of the highway mileage certificate how would the board like to proceed on that one i am happy to make the motion but i was wondering if chappan can give us a quick overview because it doesn't seem it's understandable from my point but that what this is specifically sure counselor jang chappan um is actually out sick um but we have laura wheelock here who wrote the memo and can speak to it for us so laura why don't you give us a quick overview please yes so this is the certificate that v-trans sends us um to ensure that we've accurately communicated the number of accepted miles of streets within the city it's the form that they use um to determine our payment that they give us for annual maintenance fees um that gets sent to the city based on the number of class one class two and class three miles that we have uh this year we had no changes it was difficult to work at any of the any new little differences that we've found as we've kind of edited ending streets um removing slip ramps and things like that last year we had a lot of cleanup items i think there's a few streets still that we have left to do but it's uh challenging in the pandemic year to have worked on those so there'll be more changes next year not a significant dollar amount um but really this is just to record for payment which is why you have the pleasure of seeing it wonderful and is this on a yearly basis you have to accept it on a yearly basis or that is correct yep if no further question i want to make the motion thank you councillor jeng is there a second councillor pine great all in favour hi i'm sorry uh councillor tracy president tracy did you have a question yeah i just wanted to to know about like how this relates to the city's goals that called the city's climate goals regarding vehicle miles traveled um that's a great question uh i'm not sure it has a direct tie this really is to help municipalities afford the maintenance that's down on the roads where v-trans doesn't take it over um city of brongton is actually one of the very few communities in vermont that has taken snow plowing maintenance on our class one highway so portions of main street shelvin roads so on and so forth i mean you go into south burlington and v-trans does the plowing for that so v-trans doesn't pay south burlington the fee on those those roads um it's really just for maintenance okay all right thank you very much i appreciate that clarity okay i believe we do have a first and a second are we ready to vote i apologize i wasn't trying to cut off conversation there yeah all right great all in favor please say aye hi all right thank you thank you laura the next one um is uh really an exciting one that we've been working towards a long time and i know director spencer um is sad not to be here um and uh we for those of you uh who may have joined late 4.08 4.09 and 4.10 are all of a piece so to speak as you probably noticed from the memo um and they all involve improvements to our asset management program which we know uh has been a real focus and so i'm going to turn it over briefly um to martha and the dpw team um to give us a very quick overview thank you very much it's a really exciting time um we've been working on asset management since 2014 and so what you have before us is um finally the platform and uh this past fall we hired guest of sex hour who is our asset management administrator and uh he is going to do a brief overview this has been a great collaboration between water and dpw and all the other general funds as well as we've been talking to bed and the airport about this being a citywide uh platform that we can all work together on to manage our assets bestive hi i'm guest of sex hour asset management administrator i've got a quick powerpoint to share with you so we'll get that up here okay so we've got uh four requests for you tonight uh two are contracts one being the asset management system itself and one being uh an amendment to a contract with our consultant kci and then two loan amendments that support the funding for these projects currently the city's asset management uh is is disparate and unorganized uh departments siloed we're not uh we don't have uh all encompassing inventories of our assets we are working on uh preventative maintenance and reactive maintenance uh on many things across the city through many different systems uh different departments and even divisions aren't working out of the same system uh the inventories for assets that we do have are often uh not put in place with protocols to update them regularly and it's hard to uh because of this it's hard to report on what we have or where things are and when we are able to do reports it can be time consuming and the numbers could be faulty because you're pulling from so many different sources we've had several reports done over the past few years when we've been looking into asset management on the city's current state and where we could go from here and if we are able to implement a robust asset management program there are a significant amount of savings that we could be uh realizing in uh capital requirements uh just a reminder that the the city's capital budget uh is around 20 million a year so 20 percent of that is a pretty large number and uh how you end up saving these costs uh just to give you a couple quick examples is is by getting on top of your preventative maintenance of things you have you're not doing as much reactive work or responding to emergencies because you have things that are that are running more efficiently uh asset life gets extended and the energy required to be running your assets is less because they're running in better condition and by having quality data on what assets we have we'll be able to make more informed decisions and therefore have a better capital improvement planning process in the future so back in october we put out an rfp to get an asset management system with the help of our contractor kci and our consultant kci and we had 19 proposals out of those we chose dts as our preferred vendor we chose them because they seem to have the most intuitive system for managers working on desktop but also field staff working on mobile devices in the field we know that if people are able to put in information in the field they handle they need to handle it less and it will take less time to keep everything up to date uh they also have a strong user network in the northeast and we called many references to see how they like using viewworks and received primarily positive feedback and viewworks also has a wide variety of life cycle tracking tools where you're tracking costs from work orders and linking them to assets and they also have risk tools for calculating business risk exposure and many valuable reporting tools we also chose them because they had a good value value for the cost of the program and getting onto the costs here's just a quick summary of the funding uh we have the capital budget uh and two water resource loans that we're asking for amendments from and then the costs on the right uh you will be uh we're asking for support for the dts and kci portion today but the gis services will be uh we'll be coming back to you uh hopefully next week to talk more in depth on that when we have that contract sorted out um and just the breakdown here the three sources cover roughly a third each uh if you have any specific questions i'd be happy to answer them i know that was very quick thank you gross stuff that was very helpful um we have had the mayor join us mayor would you like to take over facilitating i'm catheter i'm happy for you to finish this item if since you're midstream great sure um any um yes counselor pine i was asked this question by someone so i'm going to ask it for them um is there any risk that the city spends money on planning and scoping and a project doesn't come to fruition is there any protection built into this or is that just part of the risk we have to accept when we are undertaking um you know capital asset management project planning is that it's that's they're just inherent in the in the way we are set up so this is actually the beginning of implementation brian so we're actually buying a platform and implementing um and so for non performance they would not get paid um so we are actually at the point of pulling the trigger rather than just planning um so uh there is still risk of course but uh now we are getting something tangible and if we were not the platform could still be usable even if our relationship was not what we would like um it might be a little more difficult but we can still use the platform and it is gis based so much of this will be managed in-house by uh gustav and the uh team water that we have which is rocky and jillian who are also doing asset management they will be doing a lot of the work and can manage it in-house okay so the risk is is there's always some risk but it's quite you think it's quite mitigated and quite manageable yes yeah okay thank you any other questions or is anybody ready to make a motion on this item maybe a quick question for martha if i remember correctly we did approve such a similar item not long ago right um and was just wondering what are the differences in in in this one particularly so last april you approved a contract with kci who was the consultant who got us to this point so that's where the risk was that brian was speaking of is that we had a consultant who came in who helped us determine our rfp and what we were looking for and what um the basic needs were and they took us through the rfp and helped us with negotiating on this team and and determining what the best move for the city was and so now we're at that next step where we're actually going to buy the platform and start implementing where we start to actually manage our our assets within this tool that we're getting and based on my understanding mr gustav so how do you say sorry your name gustav sexer yes sexer you know it seems he stated that you already also contacted references of this entity and to see the scope of work in all the communities or other municipalities did i hear that right yes that's that's correct for dts we contacted eight different municipalities and utilities that were using fireworks it was probably the most extensive reference check process i've ever been a part of so we flipped over every stone to make sure people were happy with this product perfect and to tie it to consular uh pines question so the risk in any are almost minimal or not existence because other people using it gave you the thumbs up that this is so manchester new hampshire portland main springfield massachusetts we spoke to all those different municipalities who are using it right now and got good references from them as well as others as gustav said there were eight of them wonderful all right perfect i think this is a big motion but i can make it uh with just you will understand what i mean okay um um yeah should i go ahead yes please okay i would like to make the motion to approve and recommend that the city council authorize a director of public work to sign a contract agreement with e s t uh view works for the hosting implementation and management of c m m s platform system or the city of boilington not to exceed four hundred ninety nine thousand subject to final review uh and approval by the chief administrative officer and the city attorney for um items number two three and four give it or take it good and we also want to move forward 4.09 and 4.10 do we need to specifically say those motions at the same time or can we just note that for the record city attorney blackwood are you having trouble there on muting um i i think you can note it for the record great it is so noted and thank you councillor jeng is there a second councillor pine all in favor please say i hi hi any opposed great the motion passes and i know this has been a tremendous amount of work between dpw team water and lots and lots of other departments across the city um but this is a very important step forward so thank you for that thank you everybody thank you and mayor we just have one more item before we get to our delayed item um and that is the fletcher free library integrated software um and just as we introduced that item um i was going to let director dango speak briefly she had one very minimal correction she wanted to make why don't you do that quickly for us mary sure for the um motion it says uh the second last line it says and a one-year contract with the total value of 20 180 with by water solutions that should change to a contract the contract with by water is just for the migration and the training the yearly contract is with um vocale so if we could just strike one year and change that to a contract i'm happy to answer any questions all right um i'll take it over here from here kathryn i guess for just the any any questions are we ready for the motion that's fine i would move to approve the director of fletcher free library to execute a one-year contract with the total value of $12,500 for vocale for ils hosting and support services with the option to renew i'm sorry take out the word one year to execute no that one that one year is fine it's the second one you wear you were fine counseling with the option to renew annually is that correct still yes yep oh it's next sorry for an additional four years for a total of 62,500 and a contract with a total of $20,180 that buy water solutions for ils migration and training subject to the final review and approval of the city attorney did we have a second great thank you councillor jang uh any further discussion all right looking we'll go to a vote all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye and any opposed the motion carries unanimously um and so that finishes that item um so so we have tabled item number 4.04 mayor and um i believe we were gonna go back to that item no i appreciate that and thank you for the to the board for um postponing that so i could participate in this part of the conversation um uh i appreciate that um i of course don't have the benefit of i know there was one i'm aware there was an earlier conversation um and some appropriate question about the right location for this position which is of course an issue that we have thought about quite a bit um in the lead up to the this proposal to you and um at the risk i'll stop in a moment because i'm conscious the fact that i may be being redundant with some of what's said before but i want to just make sure that is uh crystal clear that um in some sense i think i just want to make sure that with all the events of recent months that the history behind this that led us to tonight um and how we are approaching the public the racism as a public health emergency is clear and that i think the decisions we've already made should have a significant impact on how we how and where we locate this position this is what i mean by that this is this is the second position right the the public health equity manager position has already been created last fall and i'm so happy to report that um we have filled that position um from by uh uh mariel um i'm sorry help me out brian mariel's last name is uh mariel matthews mariel matthews started with us last tuesday and um and she is going to very excited about her during the team she's going to dramatically accelerate our ability to move forward with a community stat like effort um to address uh racism as a public health emergency and we have been working for months with um uh more than a dozen other leading shitting county organizations that are part of the population health alliance and uh have involved the concept for the you know how we will you know pursue this work it has a lot of similarities i'm conscious that president tracy and councilor paul have been very involved in the community stat effort uh we're trying to build on that concept and sort of expand on it i think this would be a much larger number of organizations ultimately they're involved in this um and uh but that and that we're on the cusp of kind of that expansion and and moving outwards and having mariel on board is going to really help us with this this second position public health this health equity and outreach manager position is envisioned by brian mariel and i as being a position that works closely with the first position and so i just i want to make sure that that was clear as we deliberate on here we have we made the decision last october to lead this work uh out of the innovation um uh department i've saw that as being a kind of comparable decision to the way when we were developing the department of public um permitting and inspections we incubated that in the innovation department before it we kind of before what was sort of we gave birth to it it became its own department uh similarly with this nation health effort um i don't believe this will be the permanent location for uh our our health work um but i think uh i'm very optimistic about the innovation department getting it off the ground so with that i'll stop talking and see where if the the third any further questions i can speak to um and we'll go from there so the floor the floor is open president tracy thanks i was just concerned about coordination with reib as part of this and i know that we were trying to get a little bit of an understanding of where director green stands on this and i'm just wondering if anybody was able to reach director green um and speak to that that aspect it's just really important to me that um we are bringing this that perspective to the table because i very much value director greens perspective on these issues especially given that this specifically is named equity and has that that focus so does anybody was then anybody able to to get that yeah president tracy so first of all let me just say i'll turn over to brian who i think has been trying to reach out to her and let me just in the setup to that say that um both the decision last fall on the location of the public health equity manager as well as this decision was a decision i talked directly um to director green about and um we um uh agreed that um with the logic behind looking locating it here that said brian do you want to add to that because i know you've been trying to reach her in the last half hour no thank you and thank you for the opportunity to take the time to go reach director green council president tracy i think she actually texted you while we were on the phone together i do believe this is an acceptable outcome to uh to director green okay yeah i see let me i can take a look at that in a moment but yeah thank you for that yeah that um yeah i appreciate that and um yeah the um that that's super helpful i really appreciate that additional outreach and that clarity um and yeah it does seem like that that that that is okay i'm just curious as to what the the um the additional um what the additional um when when we would come back to this as a as a like what the interim period is like when when you're thinking like we're gonna this conversation like and and what that will that require further discussion important finance and council or is that something because that's important like if we're saying this is interim like i think it would be important to understand when we're when we're thinking about moving forward with the position going in a permanent capacity very fair question president tracy and one that um we yeah i don't think we've had explicit conversation about here's my my thinking is um that um i this this work is is is is is getting going it's just off the ground we um have has a number of people us a number of us on this uh board are where we are in the middle of the mayoral election i think where this work heads after that election and i think you know whoever wins on town meeting day um it will drive uh you know what what becomes of this initiative and certainly if i have the privilege to continue working this position um this is going to be a major focus um of of the administration over the next three years and i think there's some big questions as we come out of this pandemic about how we best organize ourself around health issues i um so i i would envision over the being a very active discussion between the administration and the council in the kind of year that kicks off with the state of the city in april where what we want to do um with health equity and health more broadly uh going forward so i i think there will be much discussion over the course of 21 and um i think even before a budget is approved there would be further discussion on where this is headed i'm not saying it would necessarily move in that time period but i think uh there would be greater clarity by the time a budget is passed about um what the you know uh how at least for a process of how we consider reorganizing ourselves with respect to um public health issues i don't mean to be so cryptic i just i think the the i just my it is my observation after having worked on the opioid epidemic after having worked with lead issues after having worked on the pandemic that um we uh we are organized differently than many cities in terms of our health function and that may be something i think we want to bring some real attention to that and so we're doing that obviously with these two positions but i'm i don't think that's the end of the story i think we may want to be having any more robust uh health function going forward and how we do that is a big conversation that we will have in over the course of 21 okay thank you mayor i really appreciate that additional clarity on this that that's that's incredibly helpful i would hope that you know to anyone who's applying to this job i understand that there may be some interest in the position that that is just fully clear to them that things may change because i would pay for someone to get into the role thinking it's one thing and then have it shift to something different um and just have someone who's really with that understanding that this is an iterative process and that who's fully on board with that excellent point and one that we have made to the candidates both for the position in october and this position that we see this an area of um you know and we've tried to sell that as an exciting part about the job frankly that this is an area that we're figuring out an possible expansion within the city and uh so there the candidates will be well aware of that okay all right well thank you very much mayor i appreciate that and thank you for the additional outreach c i o low appreciate that as well excellent thank you president tracy and again apologies for um that wasn't available for this discussion earlier to make this clear so any is there any further discussion or are we ready for a motion yes i have a quick question uh maybe a comment first and i am reading this memo and i could not find anything compelling that tells me there is a need of such position to be created um i could not find it and the second question that i wanted to ask is also why now why not since the pandemic hit our shores and why now and the third element about this is knowing that the public health manager um you talked about the job description was developed since the fall and we just had a chance to hire someone i believe last tuesday right and don't you also think that before the pandemic is over uh there might not be a need to find a person to do this job that is not very clear to me do i get all the three elements right i think i understand your question councillor jane fair questions the here's um here's uh how i see it and and director lowe can can fill in um what i miss here um we um we have given the brand new public health equity manager an enormous um portfolio already we have asked her to take on racism as a public health emergency which we are declaring we are we are taking a very broad view of that this is this will require active work across all the social determinants of health so we're still finalizing exactly what that list is going to be but it's healthcare access it's housing it's uh economic opportunity um and um two or three more you know people debate over exactly how many of these determinants you should work on and um so the way i envision it this will you know to again president tracy and councillor paul like this is in each of these areas is almost going to require um i think a community stat like level effort to forge progress in each of these their own areas they're going to be nested together but they're independent they require different sectors of the community working together it's huge it's a huge undertaking and that's one piece of what we've given um uh the this position a second piece is we have not won we have made progress but we have not achieved our goal of breaking uh chitingin county from the grip of the opioid crisis we're still losing people they're still considerable work at community stat to be done we have not you know we have not declared mission accomplished there we that continues to be an intense monthly uh cadence effort to that and then thirdly this conversation that was just happening with president tracy i think we have to think about a a fairly dramatic reorganization to properly do all our health work uh correctly so right now all of that the only staff we have for any of that is this one position it's clear to me that if we're serious about this uh we um there's a a second um uh position that could we could benefit from today and we have some um funding available that um that i think we we should deploy and and bring about results um with so that those that's that's the need from my perspective uh council jeng and and that's that's the best way i think i can defend it we don't it's not one of the situations where we have some third party report but i do think we all there's a kind of consensus i sense among the council that we're serious about doing this anti-racism work and and uh we have a theory here that builds on our uh how how we did work together with the community to make progress on opioids i think we should pursue it and see if we can make it make it work um uh brian did you want to add anything to that did i miss anything i mean i yeah go ahead you want to add to that no i i don't i don't have too much to add to that no i think there are significant disparities and it requires more than one person to address and there's a huge engagement and communication component that needs to be strengthened in the city and this is a step toward that yeah i mean from my perspective it's just it is more important from my perspective to put more emphasis on the language access access plan and maybe hire people with knowledge and expertise in language groups to do that work instead of creating this position that's too broad when we talk about um health disparities within our community and it seems as if like the mayor said maybe in march by april all of this will need to be reimagined really looked at but i will be voting in support of you tonight this reservation that we can do better okay thank you council jane um i certainly agree with you that there is a real need on the language access side and we have that is more i don't want to open a whole debate on that other than to say agree with you and we are deploying resources there as well i don't think i think this is an and and kind of situation i don't think they are coming i think we're gonna make progress in both areas if this is approved and i appreciate that your signal support um i where do we stand kathryn is a motion on the floor or do we need uh doesn't i see shaking ahead so i would welcome a motion if we're ready for that councillor pine i would move to approve and recommend the city council authorize the creation of a regular full-time exempt non-union grade 21 health equity and engagement manager within the innovation and technology department so moved thank you councillor pine and do we have a second thank you councillor jane any further discussion we'll go to vote all those in favor of the motion please say aye hi hi are there any opposed believe the motion carries unanimously um thank you and uh i think with that i think it might be welcome for everybody if we adjourn now and we had a 15 minute break before the the next item councillor paul thanks thanks mayor we do have a communication at the very bottom 6.01 um and given the value of the fiscal health report um wouldn't want to skip that unless you want to discuss that at the next meeting which is in six days seven days all right good um thank you councillor paul um just quickly uh the history of this report people this goes back a while now um really to the years just a couple years after the uh passage of the fiscal stability bond back in 2012 the council requested um that we kind of tracked us and a lot of claims were made at the time about the significance of the fiscal stability bond and people wanted to know what how those were holding up over time and and whether uh you know there was a desire from the council to keep coming back to this so we we did this we initially published this report at the council's request um it's been in 2019 with the transition from one ceo to another and then the pandemic i didn't get published um but um we basically took the form of that report from before and updated it and catherine put her own stamp on it and i thought made it livelier and and even more readable and i appreciate that and um uh you know the highlights um of course are that the it really documents how the impact of an improved credit rating on the expense of borrowing over time and how every time we borrow um doing so with the double eight credit rating versus where we were when this effort to restore the finances began that it really adds up over time i think is the big top line message from this over 21 million dollars of locked in savings uh that um are calculated you know that've been calculated through this methodology that passport of finances have kind of kicked the tires on and we've talked about i think there was general consensus uh with this methodology um the other thing i guess i would note uh i think you know there was a nice chart in there documenting where we stand with the unassigned fund balance and how um we you know we have still uh have a significant resource there to help us through the challenges ahead and uh those were jumped on me but it's catherine it's your report i should be letting you speak to it um you want to add anything no i think you've covered it very well mayor um and uh if there's any questions i'm happy to answer them otherwise i'm happy to give people a break in between the meetings okay seeing no questions um if there i see we do have some members of media on there it is an interesting document you might want to check it out on board docs and happy to answer any questions others have thank you also to rich goodwin who um has played a big role in the creation of the report and and you know figure out and really the work behind the report rich of course has been a leader in as well thank you rich and with that um if there are no objections at 619 uh we will adjourn the board of finance and um i think we will just put this we're all going to turn off our cameras and uh we will resume at 6 30 is that presentation is that just on this link yeah exactly yeah so thank you for that mayor yeah so we will come back to this at 6 30 we'll be having a work session on city place we'll get um a little bit of a briefing on what's contained in the potential in the the settlement um that was announced um last week and then we'll um have that for about an hour so i'm going until 7 30 at which point we will go into public forum and um the rest of our uh city council meeting for this evening if you are a member of the public who is interested in signing up for public forum you can do so by just going to uh burlington vt.gov slash city council and that's one word no capitals or anything slash public forum and that will take you to a sign up form that you can use um to sign up for the forum if you are calling in on a phone number um if you could just in the comment section let me know what phone number you are calling on just so that i can better identify folks who call in um and yeah we'll be back with you in about 10 minutes to get that work session going so thanks folks the work session i only see a few counselors on just give it a little bit longer i'm going to check and see if anybody's yeah doesn't look like anybody's signed on otherwise i'll give it a couple minutes for folks to get signed on i do see i think council carpenter for getting on council pine council jane council paul council shannon okay do we know um is i believe jeff glasberg is also going to be joining us this evening let's see oh there you are jeff okay i just saw your list it is eileen okay great um okay we still have a call yeah i'm sorry because i sent you the invitation jen and jeff and then we need tim samson as well okay okay i don't know president tracy there are four eileen blackwoods here a lot of a lot of legal expertise um we two more minutes before getting started i do want to get us stuff and okay why don't we go ahead and get things started i've texted the the all the counselors who i don't believe i see on here right now so um why don't we go ahead and dig in i know we've got quite a bit of ground to cover here so um i believe we're going to start with a presentation um just giving us some background on the item itself on the the item i do have indication that both counselors mason and paulino are getting on as well and we also yeah and so oh okay let's see council paulino okay great okay um so we are going to get started with a presentation so just wanted to i'll turn it over so to attorney blackwood um to kick us off and then um any others who are on the team i know we have folks from downs reclin martin and then also the city's consultant jeff glasberg with us this evening to help walk us through um the proposed settlement agreement so attorney blackwood thank you so much for your work on this and i'll turn it over to you great thank you very much so as you know we filed litigation with against burlington town center back in september gen mcdonald is here tonight she's one of the attorneys that has been working on that litigation and as part of that litigation we engaged in mediation and we have come out of that mediation with a some documents of a proposed resolution of the litigation and uh ongoing documents what tim samson also from down drackland martin is the attorney who's done most of the drafting and put in a heroic amount of work over the last two months to bring this to this point and he is going to walk you through what the agreement is that is leading to this resolution so tim okay thanks ellene so high level right the the uh the most important document among the many that that you've seen is the amended and restated development agreement and so summarily this is a uh an update to the development agreement that was entered into in 2017 and it was an important principle as we've discussed with the council along the way to maintain to the extent we could you know much of the integrity of the original development agreement you all had been through the city had been through a long set of processes to get there in the first place there were some very important things in there as i understand to the city and getting there um and and those things we didn't want to reinvent the wheel over uh and so the framework for the development the amended agreement um is very much like the existing agreement and keeps a lot of the principles intact from that existing agreement in terms of what you know we understood the city was most interested in before the major difference of course is in the amended and restated version of this is trying to address the uh the adjusted vision that the owners have for the project and that vision as you know is uh just now beginning uh into the design review community outreach process in the city so that that puts the structure of the agreement in a different place than was the structure of the existing development agreement um because the existing development agreement was premised on uh a planet that had already been approved by the DRP and and was it was launching itself from there uh and that existing development agreement also um anticipated uh the opportunity for a TIF financing associated with implementing the improvements the public improvements and the additional public improvements um that would have required issuance of uh city debt after the project delivered and as you know uh because of the timeline associated with the waterfront district um that those uh the timing is now kind of reversed and so that the issuance of debt now would have to occur um you know commensurate with the start of construction not the completion instruction construction and so there are uh a lot of changes to the document to reflect that reordering of events the other uh key principle uh that we worked through in in the amended restated development agreement was to ensure that there's clarity in the event that the project does not restart as it's envisioned to restart or if it does restart that it it happens to stop you know before it's finished um or if it starts and restops and restarts again that it doesn't finish on time and so we're focused a lot in the new agreement on uh making sure that those kind of eventualities are dealt with in a clear way so that the city were to find itself regrettably in a place it did now again uh with the project not proceeding there would be a much clearer path uh out of that those sets of circumstances so those are the high level uh principles we we had in mind with the document and the negotiations from the beginning and and I said say I guess the third high one is to maintain throughout the process the protection of the city and the taxpayers from economic uh risk associated with the project so that's the high level I think that the the mechanics of the agreements as they come together at this point I think what needs to be recognized plainly the the agreements in front of you is as you know come under the package of what we've called the escrow agreement and that is because there is more work to be done before this amended and restated development agreement is ready to be effectuated and that uh in in anticipation of a favorable vote from the council what would happen next is the agreement would be signed but then placed in the escrow and there are certain conditions that are set forth in the escrow agreement that have to occur before that the agreement is released and the settlement is final so what are those conditions what would happen between now and the release of escrow where the council to approve of the the deal structure uh what would happen is several things one there are some uh matters of title to the to the street parcels as you know one of the critical elements of this that we've been had our eye on from the beginning is making sure that effectuated at the time of the settlement uh and the and the effectiveness of the development of the amended restated development agreement the city the developer would convey the street parcels where the future pine street and st. Paul streets would be extended uh to the city and I think that was you know one of our key sub-principals to getting the city in a stronger position of control with respect to what happens if the project doesn't proceed as anticipated and so having control of the land of course is is integral to controlling whatever comes next to the land so that principle is effectuated by the conveyance of the land for the streets that would happen at the end of escrow um again and in what's anticipated in a couple months time we would think uh the dates in the agreement suggest may 15th um that's kind of an outside date for release of escrow could be sooner conceivably it could be later but just order of magnitude let's think of that date in mind um so between now and then however there are some title issues that have to be cleaned up on those parcels so that the city can accept a good title to the streets subject to only limited easements that we've discussed along the way uh also during that time the city is is continuing its uh environmental due diligence on the property to make sure it understands from an environmental liability perspective the condition of the property so it knows um what it's getting and can be in a in a position of being a protected purchaser um under federal and state regulations uh also during that window from again this window being asked from signing the documents uh in the near term to about may 15 the scope of the public improvements will continue to be developed um we're starting from a baseline that should be familiar with folks because this of course has been through a process before and you have a sense of what yeah the scale of or the scope of the public improvement is and we're starting from a place that is analogous to where the developer is starting back in its design review process and that process will be advanced over the next couple weeks or months to to launch into the development agreement with 100 construction drawings for the public improvements is the idea the other thing that will happen during that period of time is that the a subset of the public improvements known as the modified public improvements and this is consistent with our conversation with council along the way but that subset of improvements will also be defined and that subset of improvements the modified public improvements uh become a separate scope of work that get attached to a construction contract uh and that construction contract uh is the parties to that are the developer and and s d island and the beneficiary of that contract is the city and so that contract would also launch into effectiveness uh but remain in an escrow until such time and and be called on at such time were the uh owner to falter you know in the in the preceding months and years with the project so again that's the snapshot of what happens in the immediate uh term between uh and you know and anticipated signing the documents if that's the will of the council and the release from escrow in a couple months and their and their effectiveness um so let me talk about and I've touched on already but a couple things you know I think it's I'm trying to present this chronologically because I think that's the best way to kind of get a handle on on all the pieces here in the order in which they will unfold if we move forward from escrow uh what happens next well the project continues by that time hopefully it's through its designer review process um but the obviously it needs to get into further design it needs to get further into its financing it needs to resolve some additional offsite uh property interests and and during that during the period then from say this spring until next spring um what will be determined is this the the scope of the project and its ability to qualify for for TIFF and so uh right now as you'll see in the agreements what we are estimating is that the scale of the project if it were all developed at once uh would would generate enough tax increment to support debt issuance of 10 million dollars and that's a lot less as you recall than the initial agreement anticipated up to uh over 21 million dollars and that difference is reflective in the scale of the project having been reduced um primarily um also the the other thing causing that reduction is the uh now the fewer years of increment that can be earned on uh if you will or contributed by a completed project before the end of the legislative window which ends in 2035 as you probably recall so those two factors smaller project and a smaller window for that project to generate tax increment results then in a uh a lower um threshold that we would anticipate the project being able to qualify for debt issuance for again those numbers that that estimated number now will be refined with much greater precision over the ensuing year from uh you know again roughly spring of this year to spring of next year and if the project is able to uh come together around those numbers if it's able to uh get a construction contract that is guaranteed it has a guaranteed maximum price has a completion guarantees and and is able to qualify um with uh with through the VEPC process through approval of the city's bond council through some other conditions that will require the developer to fund an escrow account or a letter of credit to carry the city's debt burden during the period of issuance of of the bonds in in June of 2022 until the project is complete if all those conditions are met and the developer starts construction of the project by June 1 of 2022 so again advancing roughly a year from escrow release then the then the city would be in place before the end of the June 22 June 2022 deadline to issue a tiff debt in the amount that the project is demonstrated at that point in time to generate uh at that point in time the project proceeds the expected delivery dates are are phased according with the the owner's project schedule um the outside dates for delivery of the the first segment of the public streets will go with the delivery of the first phase of the project and the outside date for that is July of 2024 and the outside date for the second phase of delivery would be July of 2025 again those are outside dates that and you know in looking at those dates with a developer they are going to pick dates that are hopefully way outside because they don't want to miss them and be held to the consequences of of missing them so we're certainly hopeful things are happening on a faster schedule than that so let's talk about then the the uh unfortunate consequence if if the developer starts down these paths but falters okay and so what uh what we just described was the potential for tiff debt issuance in June of 2022 again that's the legislative deadline that's why that is a a a uh a very important marker not one that is up to negotiate at all but became a real point at which the whole deal turned um if construction has not started by that point in time what happens well tiff debt doesn't get issued right the city does not go at risk issuing debt if the project isn't under construction at that time what happens to the project the project under this agreement has a couple more months at that point in time uh to start without a tiff element to it um and if the project does not start within that next ensuing window of several months um then the city's has a new set of remedies that it doesn't have in the existing development agreement and that is to issue a notice to proceed under the construction contract I mentioned before uh with control of the streets that the city will have because they're taking ownership of them you know this spring at the end of the escrow and compel the construction of the uh of the new modified scope of the public streets through that construction contract all at the cost of the developer so again that's not the circumstance uh we envision it's not the circumstance we want it's the backstop uh that exists in the event that the project you know again uh it fails to restart uh on on its next phase so what happens if it restarts and then stops same result city has an opportunity to issue the notice uh to proceed under the the modified public improvement contract and have the streets built at the developer's expense what happens if the project starts stops restarts again and and you know and it's kind of more of this you know who knows what's coming next well ultimately as I mentioned before there's an outside date for completion of the public improvements for the street improvements that if it's not met again the city is able to issue notice to proceed under this independent contract and have that work have that work finished um ultimately again that's not the path that anyone wants not the path that anyone expects it's the path that the city has the opportunity to plainly take under the new agreements in the you know what would be very unfortunate event and hopefully unlikely event that the project is not able to proceed as it's now re-envision I would also say that I mentioned before with the reordering of events with the debt being issued before the project starts construction sorry the project has to start construction first but then the debt is issued before the project completes construction there's obviously a risk there to carry the carry cost of that debt during the construction period and actually beyond because what has to happen right for the increment to start flowing is that the completed project has to be reassessed on April 1 of the year following its issuance of the certificate of occupancy and then the tax increment wouldn't really be generated until the next July and so we have thought about those windows of time and the agreement provides that if the debt is issued as anticipated that the developer will be covering the the city's borrowing costs during that period of time and those that commitment to cover those borrowing costs is not just a promise from the developer it is backed up by a very secure commitment for there will be for a letter of credit or you know a cash funded into an escrow account that can pay that debt service along the way and what happens if that debt surface you know what happens if those agreements are put in place there's no escrow there's no letter of credit in time you don't issue the debt right it's as plain as that you don't issue the debt you don't get take the risk without the certainty of those measures in place to ensure that the city's cost borrowing costs are going to be covered during that period of time now what happens if the everything goes according to plan the project delivers and and when the project delivers it's now time to pay the developer for the cost of the streets that those that are tip eligible costs and and the city provides that reimbursement however as in the current agreement there is a further protection for the city right which is any the period of time between delivery of the project and again that window I described a minute ago the next April one and then the next July one if there's not enough tax increment actually being generated by the project as it's fully completed there the provision remains that the city is able to to create a property tax regime for the project and some of the adjoining properties owned by in common interest that will tax those parcels at a higher rate it in effect tax those parcels at a higher rate than they are assessed in order to ensure that the the increment flowing into the tiff district is what it was anticipated to be and and again covering the city's potential exposure for the project not delivering again that's a feature of the existing agreement that's brought forward now and it's kind of the in this chronology if you will the the last piece of the the protection to ensure that the that the city taxpayers are not at financial risk through this process so I have said a lot quickly and I suspect some of it is sunk in and there are plenty of questions to follow but I'm going to stop now and ask Attorney Blackwood if that suffices or if you'd like me to hit on other things before turning other places and I do see the mayor has joined that too so defer back to you all. Thank you Tim and I just want to make sure the council knows that Tim has really put in a major effort to get us to this point has really labored over these documents and been a key part of the team. I will try to just add a few high level comments to the discussion and then then open it up for whatever questions you have. I'm obviously pleased to be presenting to you tonight a settlement agreement with the developers of City Place Burlington. I see this agreement as a real milestone in this long-running project and one that we've been working towards since initiating legal action last July last summer. I think if you even step back a little further this is not just about the project we've been pursuing since the signing of the development agreement in 2017. This is an effort I think really you know within the context of Burlington is has some historic significance. I know I'm well aware of the colorful nicknames that have been given to this site over the last couple years as the demolition happened and then the construction stopped and you know I'm aware of all them of course but I think in reality the we've had a large hole in the heart of our downtown going back much longer than 2017, going back to the 1960s when we tore down a historic neighborhood, streets were ripped out, homes were taken out, this huge super block was created that was really very different than the rest of the fabric of the city and eventually a suburban shopping mall was was constructed that spanned three blocks of our small downtown. This settlement if approved by this council I think what's what's kind of hanging in the balance here is that this settlement ensures that that historic mistake will be fixed. If this is approved the streets will be reconnected the public infrastructure will be built to ensure that a vibrant downtown neighborhood with homes and jobs and shops can once again flourish in this part of the city. Hopefully that will happen quickly that is certainly our desire coming out of this settlement and we both wish well the if this is approved we'd be wishing well this development team that is in place including the three respected local partners and we will be supporting them in a number of ways going forward if it is executed. On the other hand we should all be aware and certainly the amounts of last couple years have made clear that the city does not ultimately control the success of any particular private development project including this one and this is a challenging project that they've taken on. What this settlement agreement ensures again is that the public infrastructure will be there and that if somehow this most recent incarnation of this effort falters does not succeed again that the that the next attempt will be even stronger in the same way that this attempt will be stronger for the fact that the obstacle of the mall building has been removed and is no longer a new expense that needs to be undertaken by this development team. If this effort is not full then the public infrastructure will be there and have added value and made more likely the success of a future effort. So I see this a very significant step in addition I think this does address something I've heard many times from voters while talking about the project there's been a lot of concern and belief that that the city has been negatively impacted by the delays with this project financially. That is only accurate in a limited sense because of the development the existing development agreement the city has been insulated and walled off from the losses of the site which have been substantial. It is clear that millions of dollars have been spent to get to this point by the developers. None of that expense though has been tens of millions of dollars has been spent. The city has been protected from those financial losses entirely. The one exception is that the property taxes being paid by the project into the TIF district are less today by about $150,000 a year than they were before the building was taken down by settlement agreement between the tax assessor and the owner. That was only intended to be a one-year agreement. It has stretched to basically three already and is likely that it could go another year. This agreement ensures that when the project moves forward the unanticipated years of lost compensation will be paid for and that again is something I've heard many times from our constituents is a priority. In short to sum it all up I believe this is a settlement that allows the city to hold the developers accountable for what has happened in the last couple years while also creating a path forward for the project to succeed. My hope is that you will consider the approval of this agreement at your next meeting on the 6th. I believe it's the 16th, right? And the alternative just to be clear is there is an alternative. Voting this down would mean that the city would continue with the litigation. We've reached the point where I'm sorry Mayor you cut out. Hey everybody I'm sorry trying to figure out what happened there. Okay he's he's he's basically done so pardon that and you can move on while we try to get reconnected. Okay so we can come back if there's if the mayor has further thoughts to add. I would like to get us into questions and would just note that we have about 30 minutes for questions like can go a little bit over but not a ton and so because I do want to get to public forum at 7 30 so just please be mindful as you're asking questions to leave some space for other counselors to ask questions as well and if you do have questions this is part of the reason why we wanted to do this two step was to have some questions for this and get an initial briefing and then again as Mayor Weinberger did say so we'll be back on the agenda for a vote so if there's additional questions you can you'll certainly have this week and then the next council meeting to have those so with that I will open the floor to councillor comments and questions. Councillor Stromberg. Yeah real quick it's kind of in the vein of where Maro dropped off. Yeah what is the alternative so litigation would continue and then what would the timeline kind of shift into what would what would that look like if this was voted down. Tourney Blackwood are you able to clarify that? Yeah Jen do you want to talk actually as our litigator I think if Jen could speak to it that would be great. Sure can you hear me? Yep you're good. Okay I changed my audio so in terms of a timeline if this were to be voted down we would be back fully in the litigation and would there would likely be a period of limited discovery it wouldn't be the typical type of discovery that you would do in a litigation but we would be then setting our sights on scheduling a hearing on our motion for preliminary injunction that would likely happen hopefully sometime early spring given that we're now at February but there's no guarantee so I think the timeline now has certainly been shifted from the last time I spoke to you which was prior to the mediation given that we've been in this ongoing negotiation period so you know at this point it's hard to predict anything but we can certainly say that there is time that would go by until we can get this to the point of having a hearing and a final resolution. I'll say Councillor Stromberg. Okay Councillor. So I think that Tim mentioned the issue that I think it bears repeating and that is that there's a chance and I think maybe a fairly good chance unfortunately that there will not be sufficient tax increment financing increment to cover the full cost of the upgrades that are planned for Cherry and Bank Street and I just would like us to be specific explicit with each other with the voters because that was certainly what the project envisioned I'd like you to talk a little bit about that and what would what would need to be in place for those upgrades to be fully covered by TIF revenue that's what I'd like to hear. So I think I would summarize that and folks you may recall from the existing agreement the scope of the full scope of the of the street and streetscape improvements were broken down into what was called the public improvements and the additional public improvements and the the public improvements generally are those street and streetscape on the extended segments of Pine Street and St. Paul Street. The additional public improvements generally speaking are streetscape improvements on additional blocks of Cherry Street and I know Bank Street and so the additional public improvements were kind of a second layer if you will in the in the in the among the components of public infrastructure in the project in both instances and the in both instances I mean the existing development agreement and now the amended and restated development agreement so the concept for being able to add the additional public improvements is the same in the amended and restated agreement as it was in the existing agreement you start with the public improvements to the Pine Street and St. Paul improvements and then there is an opportunity to add to those with the with these additional streetscape improvements on the blocks. The difficulty that Councillor Pine is pointing out is that with the scope of the project now being reduced and as I mentioned earlier the the the window if you will during the TIF window if you will from the date the project would complete until 2035 there's less capacity to generate tax increment and because there's less capacity to generate tax increment there's not as much money obviously to fund the full scope of that and so the expectation now is that the and again this is this is the preliminary expectation based on the $10 million figure I mentioned before would would be enough to cover the public improvements and and some of the money that has I'd say I think most of the money if not all the money that has been spent you know by the city and will be spent by the developer in in bringing those along and and by the time though you get to the additional public improvements there is not enough money left in the in the project to deliver the full package that was anticipated the last time and what could be done to expand on that is I think really the primary thing would be to the opportunity to expand the legislative window you know I have no idea how to suggest what the likelihood of that would be but that is that would be simple math because you extend the years that could be that the increment would be contributed and the other the other way is if the project the the other improvements that were anticipating being covered before that that scope of improvements end up coming in and costing less than they're being projected now and there's probably you know I hope you know they're being overestimated now somewhat and they should be right on the going in front but I don't want to suggest that they're being overestimated in a way that's going to change dramatically what's available for additional improvement so I should say one of the one of the primary features and I mentioned this before I'll underscore it one of the primary features of putting the deal back together around TIFF was maintaining a structure that's premised on the existing legislation we were not going to anticipate you know any scenario that would involve that legislation changing okay that's not to say that the project couldn't benefit from that legislation changing we were just not going to do anything to commit anything in a direction toward suggesting that would be a unnecessary precondition so I hope that helps that does help um I think to the average person we're sitting here in February of 2021 and if this gets approved next Tuesday you look ahead and it's not till September 30th of 2022 the construction begins could you or Jeffrey just talk about why it's what is that 20 months that's something like that's a long time yeah so it's let me let me try to break that down again that the the if you're if you're proceeding with TIFF construction has to begin by by June of 2022 okay because the TIFF debt has to be issued by June 30th of 2022 so the deadline to start construction for to qualify for TIFF is is June 1st 2022 that now you know that can get extended but no longer than June 15th so you may have seen that that uh that June 15th 2022 day some place that's the date for construction having to start in order to qualify for TIFF and what I I I tried to mention earlier and I'm sure it's there's a lot of parts here it didn't sink in if that deadline is missed that doesn't the project can still proceed obviously um and and the next deadline that arises and the deadline counsel prime that you're referring to is September of 2022 is the is the deadline that that triggers that city's alternate set of paths forward if the project hasn't started and so those two are not the same those two deadlines are not to say there's start construction to get qualified per TIFF June of 2022 there's start construction to avoid the consequence of having the city take over the street building project September of 2022 the difference is that obviously there would probably need to be some adjustment by the developer if he's preparing for TIFF and can't make it things may have to change there's a window there for that to occur the other date to to make sure we're very clear about what this is but to risk muddying things a little bit that that September of 22 date can get extended for various things it could be an event of force majeure and we all have that front and center these days it could be because the developer gets through a design review process but gets appealed and things take longer but there is a drop dead outside date of having to restart construction and and beyond which it can't extend even for an event of force majeure and that is June 30th of 23 so one more date to get in so it's you know hopefully it's June of 22 and everything is TIFF oriented and that's what the outside time the construction starts those other back updates are again in the in the circumstances where that hasn't happened and you're in closer to a enforcement mechanism I would say also you know and I'll say it again we we you know I've negotiated a lot of these type of things over my career and my experience with developers always is that they will want to throw out dates that they're comfortable making right and so I saw in the paper today I'm sure you all did too comments about a start as soon as September of 21 right so I again I think that these outside dates are very important milestones to understand in the structure of this deal but remember that they are outside dates too and that um you know I that doesn't mean that they can't happen sooner I'm sorry I just one very quick question maybe Eileen it's it's the notion that if the project is finished any day after April 1st of whatever year we have to wait all the way till the next April is that state law is that really the only way we can reassess the value um right they'll have an assessed value once the grand list is published then they you know they get their next reassessment the next year to look at like almost they could get 11 months of practically no assessed value because it's assessed as a as a whole it's assessed as a piece of land right right well but that whole is going to be a set I mean but that last year of the whole is going to be a substantially complete building right so that that assessment should be changing incrementally every year as it comes out of the ground that helps thank you and if I could add too again as I was mentioned earlier you know if it were April 2nd that it delivered that'd be rough but remember this agreement keeps the developer on the hook to carry you know the interest um on that debt until you know through that 11 month 11 months and 30 days or whatever right so it's not there's nothing here to I don't you know if he's going to be motivated they're going to be motivated to you know not land on April 2nd just because of that right it's like Councilor Pine okay I have Councilor Paulino to be followed by Councilor Jang go ahead Councilor Paulino this is for Attorney Sampson um you talked a lot about uh dates construction and the words begin construction have you been able to define that clearly going forward or make changes to what that term will mean so that we don't sort of fall back into this what does begin construction issue again yeah there's a definition that I spent some time on um and and we worked out with with the developer it's in the in the development agreement it's uh I point you to it quickly it's on page six right at the very beginning of the agreements starts to define three very important terms commence construction of the rise project continuous and ongoing construction and then what completion is and it's a pretty long paragraph about what construction is and what construction is not and um but the I think the uh intention behind your question Councilor is something very much front and in the center of our minds in making sure we have a uh a clear understanding that you know we don't mean just going out there and moving stuff around with the bulldozer and calling it good thank you thank you Councilor Chang yep thank you um so I think I want to start by saying thank you um Jen Tim and all your team for helping the city um into this past year and now two questions for you one is why do you think altering the current existing agreement is better than starting over starting from scratch that's one question and the second question would be moving forward what would be now your involvement helping the city in this um in this business project um I think why why not I mean what's better than starting from scratch I think that the development agreement that existed would have worked had the project not stopped right that I think I mean for the most part right so you you all spent a long time putting that in place and it it was a lot of thought and intention put into that it and to start over from nothing I think would be um I don't know what anybody would gain from doing doing that I think the objective was to keep the project to keep the principles intact and find a way for the project to move forward which has been the very clear intention of the city in this process um is to make sure that the project can move forward but do so in a way that is very clear about what happens if it doesn't move forward and making sure as we've talked before along the way here tonight that it's moving forward in a context that's different than before because of these timing mechanisms around the TIF district and everything else and making sure that as the deal structure needs to adjust for that that the city is going to be you know protected at every turn and in terms of what role we play on a going forward basis I think that's entirely up to the city will be here to help uh administer the contract to the extent that is required um that said I think I you know is hopefully here to be administered by whoever you know needs to run it so we will appear at your disposal to to help in any way we can we are certainly not required um to uh to make a success going forward okay wonderful um and lastly I think this is for consular president Tracy and was just wondering if the 16 we can hear from the local developers directly about the timeline about their financing as well as about the project itself if it's a possibility I think it will be valuable we don't have a lot of time to ask them more questions right now well sure I can um I can ask them if they're willing to come and if if attorney black what is that okay okay yeah so I we um I can ask if they're willing to to join us um for that meeting and certainly welcome that that request councillor jane are there other questions from folks councillor mason go ahead thank you president Tracy I think this question is for Jen um I was trying to go back and remember our motion there was a question earlier about what if we didn't the council didn't approve and you referenced the motion for preliminary injunction um my recollection is that motion was merely seeking uh a declaratory action to move forward with the public improvements um so if we were successful on that I just want to be sure we all understand what that means you know that doesn't mean the old project goes up if I'm remembering our motion that just means well I guess maybe you can answer is it just you know because we've had a preliminary conversation about the what I'll call the public improvements as opposed to the additional public improvements so I don't recall whether our motion was everything and whether it extended or would require in essence then to build the project that was permitted you know back multiple years ago no no uh that's exactly right so the the motion for preliminary injunction um just related to the compelling the conveyance and then construction related to the public improvements and as the name preliminary injunction suggests it is a preliminary step to a completion of a litigation we would need to have further discussions about where we went from there the complaint that is filed currently and which we're still under the litigation is obviously broader than just the request in that motion um so there would be a lot of steps on the road to completion thank you um and I my my next question I think is for Tim I know and I've seen reference to sort of in essence the restoration of the $150,000 deficit you know based on the assess value and tonight we talked about that was supposed to be one year it's now stretched in the multiple years what is the and I saw it and I think in morose summary you know the triggering event was commencement of construction so I don't know you know could you maybe more narrowly define and is it in essence uh 150 going forward or is it looking back 150 starting from April 1st of 2019 because that there was a that was when the agreement burned off if you will right and construction would have would have started and so that incrementally going forward then each April 1 there would have been more investment in the ground the tax as basis would have risen and the assessment would have gone okay so it's it's a reimbursement and the in the trigger for that I mean is it tied to commencement of construction because the belief is that's tied to financing so they have the capital in order to make that reimbursement or yeah that's right commencement of construction occurs with financing in place um and and and and then I think it's consistent it's also consistent with the theory of um making the city whole from what has transpired right and and you could look at it the inverse of way of thinking about it is the additional time that the project has sat idle right and not and not being put toward a more productive use that would be generating a higher assessment and so that it was expected that there was a period of time um where the where that assessment would be lower because there wasn't going to be a building there but that period should have ended a long time ago and am I correct that those dollars would go into the TIF fund and not into the general fund okay in the TIF district yeah okay thank you yep okay any further questions from counselors any further questions from counselors okay seeing none um was there were there any final thoughts um that the team wanted to offer or that Mayor Weinberger that you would like to offer um I would just say that uh that if you have questions over the week and and and and counselors if you have questions about legal issues in in any way if you want to email them to to me or to Tim or or or Jen that would be great and and we'll be happy to answer them over the okay cool thank you for that attorney Blackwood Mayor Weinberger I see you turn on your camera did you have anything else you'd like to offer um thank you President one more time sorry President Tracey you're having real troubles technologically here um basically I just wanted to really reiterate the basically the same offer I'm happy to spend time um with any counselor who would like uh to discuss this further um I you know personally attended all of the mediation sessions and think I understand well the details of what we are putting forward here and I think it's a really consequential decision and one all counselors to be as informed as possible um you're making the vote next week and so if there's any desire to speak with me further about this um I'll make the time uh to do that wonderful thank you Mayor um so counselors if you do have those questions we have time to get them answered um with that I will go ahead and close down the work session um and go into our meeting we do need a motion on our agenda so I'm going to go to Councillor Stromberg for a motion on our agenda for this evening all righty I move to amend adopt the agenda as follows no written materials for agenda items uh 2.01 work session regarding update on city place per city attorney blackwood no adjustments regarding agenda item 6.01 outdoor entertainment permit renewal 2021 through 2022 arts riot 400 pine street per Alan Newman no written materials for agenda item 6.02 presentation Darren Springer general manager BED regarding district energy update per Darren Springer uh no corrected version of agenda item 6.03 resolution breaking out the cost of police services at the Burlington International Airport and studying how TSA requirements are met in other airports uh counselors Paul Pine, carpenter and Paulino per city attorney blackwood uh notes proposed amendments for agenda item 6.04 resolution approval of public safety continuity plan revised uh board of finance per Councillor Hightower removed from the consent agenda item 5.21 resolution authorization to execute contract for operational and functional assessment of uh police department public safety committee in place on the deliberative agenda as item 6.05 per Councillor Shannon remove from the consent agenda item 5.09 communication Jabalani Gamachi police commission uh chair regarding BPOA statement and placed it on the deliberative agenda as item 6.06 per Councillor Hightower great we have a motion on our agenda seconded by Councillor Freeman any discussion okay hearing none we'll go to a vote all those in favor of adopting our agenda please say aye aye any opposed hearing none that passes unanimously so we are a couple minutes ahead of public forum so I'm just going to go to I'm going to jump ahead a little bit to a non-deliberative item to see if there are any updates on climate emergency reports does anyone have a climate emergency report that they'd like to offer Councillor Hanson go ahead yeah I'll just note one because I don't think we noted it at one of our previous meetings but 2020 did just about tie with 2016 for the the hottest year on record and that was despite La Nina cooling effect so it was pretty unexpected even with the warming trend that we're seeing so um just another reminder of you know the importance to double down on this work and I'm really excited to hear about the district energy presentation tonight and hope we can move forward on that and many of the other initiatives that we're that we're working on great thank you Councillor Hanson any other climate emergency reports okay seeing none I'm going to just skip a little bit even further ahead to go down to the committee reports are there any committee chairs who would like to offer a report this evening okay seeing none I will um Councillor jane did you have something yes uh guess an announcement that the racial equity inclusion and belonging committee will be meeting on the 17th you know 530 via zoom and the same agenda at the previous meeting that was cancelled okay thank you uh Councillor Mastin to be followed by Councillor paul thank you president tracy the joint uh ordinance committee planning commission will be meeting tomorrow virtually at 630 to continue our discussion on short term rentals I am cautiously optimistic tomorrow's meeting where that meeting after may finally produce something that will come back to the council for a work session thank you thank you i'll stay tuned for that Councillor mason Councillor paul thank you president tracy I just wanted to note that we have had our challenges with the scheduled PAC meeting that was supposed to happen in january it was scheduled for the 26th and due to a technical issue where the agenda and the zoom link were not were listed but not listed on the official city calendar we postponed the meeting um and scheduled it to the 10th of february that happens to be the night of a number of council debates uh and so we've had to reschedule it again and I'm hoping to have it um sometime in the around the 22nd or so of february but we don't have a date yet I will hope to have a date by the 16th of february so we're working on that but that's uh that's the reason why we haven't quite had the meeting yet so thank you thanks very much okay great any other committee chairs looking to offer a report okay seeing none I will go ahead and close that item I'm not going to move into general city affairs since we are so close to 730 um well actually Councillor paul did you have something I don't have as I don't have any agenda item under that I just wanted to make sure that um I'm going to have the ability to share a screen if you have given that to uh if you have given that to all of us or um just wanted to make sure once we get into public form yes you should have that excuse me yes you should have that ability Councillor paul thank you thanks very much excellent okay so we appreciate that Councillor paul we it is exactly 730 so I'm going to get us into sorry Councillor Shannon did you have something um yes President Tracy I just wanted to say that I've had many complaints from constituents and other people in Burlington who have tried to participate in our public forums unsuccessfully and I they they've said that either they get called on and they can't be found or they don't get called on after waiting hours and I would just ask that you please try to call on people that we have not heard heard from before that um you see on your list you know those names that maybe you don't know or uh it would be helpful to hear from a broader range of people thank you yep so it looks like we're going to be able to get to everybody that has signed up this evening if folks are interested in commenting on public forum um you can sign up for public forum by going to uh Burlington VT.gov slash city council slash public forum and that will take you to a forum that automatically fills in um I am going to be going to people in the order that they are received um so um with the exception of trying to get to I'm going to be getting to Burlington resident people who have affirmatively indicated that they are Burlington residents be going to them first and like I said I'll be going to folks in the order that they were received um and like I said and if anyone is interested in signing up go to Burlington VT.gov slash city council slash public forum and that way you'll be able to access a forum that you'll be able to sign up with um and I have been going back to folks um multiple times if I haven't been able to locate them and we have had quite a few people um in public forums of course over the last several years or last several months and so I understand that not everybody has been able to speak but um we um have had a lot of interest in that and I will continue to try and make sure that everybody um is able to as many people as possible within the time that we've allocated in our agenda are able to speak and also like I said before that we'll be going to people in the order that they signed up um on this forum and um again if you're using a phone number or calling calling in just if you can indicate on that form that I that I was talking about um just the number that you're calling in on sometimes that has been challenging also if you are signed up um just if you could change the name um that you're signed up as or give an indication um of the the name that you're signed up as as being your the actual name that you signed up with um sometimes people will sign up with the name and then they'll sign up with another uh or they'll sign on with a different zoom account um that's not um that name and maybe another individual um or an organization um so just make sure that um if that is the case that you just let me know um with that and you can do so by going to um by just um emailing the um emailing me at uh mtracy at burlingtonbt.gov and I try to check that um as much as I as I can so um this evening we will be having um a number of folks speaking like I said and um I'm going to go to our first speaker in the order that it was received um that is zoe uh kenninger kenninger and for zoe and I've enabled your mic just want to make sure President Tracy you can see the screen sorry um sorry yes I can see the screen and I would just wanted to also reiterate to folks that we will be having two minutes as the time frame here the city attorney has advised me that in these time limited forms that do have to try and keep people to the time for the time limit um so I will be um allowing people to finish their like a sentence or two right after that but please please don't go over um I will start asking you to just please wrap up um if you're going um beyond that um just because we really want to like I said try to get to um everybody who's signed up here and also um give um the give folks um the amount of time so the same amount of time so here we go hello um my name is zoe kenninger and I live in ward four I'm white and I use the other pronouns I've been living in burlington since 2015 and I graduated from burlington high school in 2019 and today I urge the council to listen to the voices in the community those that have been calling in week after week and vote against increasing the number of officers on the police force I am concerned about the rhetoric that has been expressed over the past few meetings that the opinions of those who are current or former elected officials should be prioritized over those of ordinary community members these ideas invalidate people's experiences and frankly insults our intelligence um and they also fail to note that former elected officials have been unable to solve the problem of policing in burlington we still live in a city where if it serves target black individuals at a horrifically disproportionate rate a city where officers use excessive force against black individuals as recently as last month and a city where officers face essentially no accountability for their actions and can even threaten the members of the board that are so that are supposed to keep them in line ultimately ideas from the past cannot solve this problem we are facing now we cannot solve the issue of police brutality by working within a system designed to allow the police to brutalize citizens cutting the police department slack and bending to its every whim only further perpetuates the cycle of violence that we see throughout the history and now in the city and we can only solve this problem by dismantling the system of policing in burlington by completely revolutionizing public safety in the city and by listening to the hundreds of community members who are telling you month after month how crucial it is to hold burlington police department accountable and reduce its power and finally I want to emphasize for all white people on the council are calling in that speak about quote public safety it's incredibly important to understand what a privileged perspective the idea of police upholding public safety comes from for many many people in burlington increasing the number of police officers will not make them safer in fact it'll do the opposite so the council does have a duty to uphold a standard of public safety but that can only really be accomplished by turning away from a police space disciplinary white supremacist model that disproportionately harms people of color true public safety can only be achieved by taking the steps to make the police obsolete thank you very much thank you our next speaker will be Linda Patterson to be followed by Phoebe Perrin Danielle Shaw Lola Fortunoff has to be removed so then um Stephen Margolin Lillian Vincent Jess LaPorte Nell Carpenter Mark Hughes Eva Fusco Hannah Brislin Jenny Papazov Marissa Kamler McDonald and Bryn Martin so that's just a couple of folks that are in the queue behind them just to give you an idea of where things stand and I'm going to go to Linda Patterson now hi my name is Linda Patterson I'm a resident of the Burlington south end thank you very much for this opportunity to speak I'm here to comment on Burton's proposed hub which will include a 1500 person concert venue surrounded by eight residential neighborhoods around Queen City Park Road I have a sense of why the city supports this proposal but I'm very concerned because the project is not fully and honestly addressing the obvious safety traffic and congestion issues prior to the opening for the protection of everyone I want to underscore that there are no crosswalks no shoulders no designated bike lanes and no sidewalks for these 1500 concert goers to get in and out of home avenue and Queen City Park Road one out of every three nights of the year in my opinion the city is putting corporate interests over people's safety by refusing to delay the opening until these issues are addressed Burton is predicting that this venue will become the likes of Ben and Jerry's and Waterbury quote unquote however Burton's campus is not on a major artery such as route 100 instead its roads will weave late night patrons in and around the eight neighborhoods Burton does not have the necessary parking spaces available there are only what 417 and this is clearly an inadequate number for the average 500 patron vehicles plus employees and patrons of other parts so there will be over 100 vehicles searching for parking on the neighborhoods the Burlington police department is moving towards ceasing the night shift the current higher ground brings an average of 130 calls per night per year and is half the size of the new venue so what does this mean for how many we might get with the new venue and finally I ask given the fact that the city has now rubber stamped this car intensive development what will the city do to realign itself with the climate emergency declaration that this city council passed in 2019 the hub is completely antithetical to this declaration so I ask please to the council take action to put safety in our environment before profits thank you very much thank you I'm going to go to Phoebe Perrin next to be followed by Danielle Shaw Phoebe I've enabled your microphone hi um my name's Phoebe I use she her pronouns and I'm a white resident of ward two and I've been a Burlington resident for five years now I'm calling to voice my concern about a few matters related to the police I don't think that the number of police outlined in the racial justice resolution should be raised from 74 to 74 to 84 I think that loosening what has been outlined in the racial justice resolution is dangerous I don't we don't need police officers to keep our community safe police officers in fact do not keep our community safe especially those who are BIPOC um we already have proof of proof of this from personal accounts and data um proof of this has happened as recently as January 6 Burlington police officers prove that they are not meant to keep our community safe what police officers did to mr uh Maffata Maffata on January 6 is unacceptable I'm disgusted and deeply saddened by what happened it's beyond inhumane um to do that over allegedly using a screwdriver to break into a car the police officers escalated that situation hurt and traumatized this young man I I really um am at a loss for words I I don't understand how this is not enough to even try reimagining public safety the reality of policing um as it is now is really scary and it's extremely frightening and frustrating to think about what it will take for you all to not only understand the terror and physical harm that police are causing but actually take action to stop it um please do not raise the cap of police officers um and to the white city counselors I would like to urge you to look outside of your own perspective and please not only listen to but center the voices of those who are suffering the most at the hands of the police when you are making your decisions thank you thank you our next speaker is Danielle Shaw uh Lilla Fortunoff let me know that they are not interested in um speaking this evening the email and pulled off so I'm going to go to Stephen Margolin after that Danielle I've enabled your microphone hi um my name is Danielle I'm a ward two resident I've lived in Burlington for the past six years um I'm a white woman I use she her pronouns and I want to say to city council that when you talk about maintaining um inadequate and responsive police force what that says to me is that you're asking your most vulnerable neighbors to sacrifice their immediate and literal safety for the perception of safety of the more privileged among us there's data that show that the vulnerable community members in Burlington are not safe under the current police force and the idea that you are looking to increase that police force for the perception of safety of others is wild to me there's a hierarchy of needs at play here like if I can't trust you to make moral and empathetic decisions around public safety around police reform around racial justice I don't understand how you can ask me to trust you to make decisions around things like electricity rates and music permits I don't it is profoundly disturbing to me like very disturbing to me that there are people in city government who are comfortable and content to leave the most vulnerable Burlingtonians behind like you have neighbors that live in a very different Burlington than you do you have the power to change that and from what the city sees you are refusing to do so I'd also like to ask city council to check in with the city attorney about the request that was just made to alter the way that public forum has been run you placed a time limit on public forum when too many of us were calling in to say things you don't want to hear and now that people that are saying things you do want to hear can't get in under the time limits that you have set you'd like to alter how people are called on in public forum so please review that with the city attorney thank you thank you our next speaker will be Steven Margolin to be followed by Lillian Vincent Steven I've enabled your microphone and I can't hear you if you're Steven Margolin there you go hi yeah okay cool um I'm not here to be angry this week or call people out because reading the news it's really come to my attention and actually finally listening to you council president Tracy that directly naming city council members isn't really the best that kind of direct attack is misinformed and leads people to getting bad ideas about what public discourse is supposed to be so that's why I'm really deeply concerned by the public attack that has been made by the burlington police officers association on members of the police commission as stated in the letter from uh commission chair gara mesh how can any current or future police commissioners have open discourse if we are fear of being publicly attacked and blind by the police union it's that kind of assumption of power that willingness to intimidate and that direction towards violent that makes me deeply afraid and worried for what's happening in our police department police cannot police themselves let's take what commissioner gara mesh said and expand it outward how can any current or future resident of burlington have open discussions if we are fear of being publicly attacked and maligned by the police period please do not raise the cap on officers this goes against what was set forward in the racial justice resolution this gives unnecessary power to the police who have already proven that they're out to intimidate threaten and hurt residents of this city and in particular they attack marginalized and by pock residents it's not fair it's dangerous and the council's willingness to backslide on these issues shows a failure judgment on all parts oh well i guess i did get one insult in there oh well the next speaker lily and vinson is also on this call so i'm going to pass off the mic thank you black lives matter okay great if we could just wait one second and then okay thank you for resetting the clock if lily and if you're on i had you um i have you as as next um so go ahead oh yeah i'm here thank you um yeah my name is lily and vinson um i'm a white resident of ward eight in burlington um i've been emailing about the my concerns about um the police staffing over the past couple weeks but i just wanted to call in today um to address that and sort of like um speak to how white womanhood is being used as an excuse to um cause harm to the city and uphold these white supremacist systems um like i i've been a victim of domestic violence and every single time it's been in a city where there are police actively patrolling and that doesn't that doesn't stop anything like particularly if your abusers are white and the system doesn't serve anyone who is actually a victim of um domestic abuse for instance um i don't know i i i see that being used as an excuse um as like a fear tactic to make people think that they'll be less safe in their homes but our current system does not protect anyone including white residents um police actively patrolling will lead to more racial profiling and violence against marginalized communities um i would personally feel a lot safer if the resources that we would spend on hiring more officers were reallocated to um resources actually intended for victims of domestic violence um psychologists like mutual aid resources to help house people um and get them what they need to leave those situations um but yeah uh anyways that's just to say that um i would oppose um increasing the number of police officers on the force i also am disappointed that it is directly against the racial justice resolution um and that it feels a little bit like a breach of trust that that will be broken um but thank you black lives matter thank you her next speaker is just la port um to be followed by nel carpenter just i've enabled your microphone good evening council my name is just the port i use she her pronouns and i'm a resident of ward two um members of the council are very familiar with me because i have been engaging consistently for a number of months and i'm incredibly frustrated by uh white mediocrity and the ability to complain about not being heard when your voices are the ones that are most likely to be heard um if members of the public want an opportunity to speak on public forum you have to be patient you have to show up you have to pay attention and wait for your name to be called you have to have a wi-fi connection and a place where you can do all of those things and concentrate which is an incredible privilege um so i don't i find it very disrespectful to all of the members of the public who have been engaging that were spending so much time accommodating people who are being lazy and unengaged i called in this evening to state my deep remorse fears and frustrations with the ways that members of this council and our mayor have responded to the the case of excessive force used against mr. mafuta um in january it is deeply disturbing to me that police officers can act outside of their current protocols um not de-escalating a situation using force without adequate um other interventions and immediately have members of this council and the mayor come to their aid publicly that the police chief can try to set the record straight and um and not only not hold them accountable but spin another narrative saying that crim we're trying to let criminals get away in this city it is deeply concerning to me that police officers can act first and ask questions later and i fear that if i were to be stopped by the police if excessive force were used against me as a black femme in this city then not only would i experience that violence but i would also have a public shame campaign and smear campaign made against me because that is what some of the members of this council are doing to mr. mafuta thank you all right our next speaker will be nail carpenter to be followed by um mark hues avafusco hannah brislin jenny papasov marissa kemler mcdonald brinn martin dana keys gibbons uh grace um and um now i've enabled your microphone hey can you hear me yes go ahead awesome good evening all my name is nell carpenter and i'm a resident of ward four i want to start off by saying that i'm just pretty disheartened that by the fact that um jess la porte and some others particularly by pockfems have been cut off uh before they were able to finish their public comment in the past couple of weeks um i think their words are a gift to this city and deserve to be heard um so i'm calling it tonight to urge the council to not pass the public safety continuity plan and also calling in to express my severe concern for the issue raised by uh commission chair police commission chair grimache surrounding the intimidation tactics of the berlington police officers association um the bpoa and bpd leadership have been leading on scare tactics and misinformation to make the case that we need more officers in this city and as commissioner grimache's letter demonstrates the ppd and bpoa will go to great lengths to silence and shut down those who speak out in fear that their that lives are being negatively impacted by the actions of bpd officers these are issues that need to be addressed at the city level according to a growing body of evidence that the berlington police department is not keeping our city safe as it operates right now i want to read a little bit of some lines from the racial justice resolution that was passed this summer um so berlington's number of police officers per capita is more than 30 above that of the national average um black students are disciplined at far higher rates in our schools um data collected by vpd reflects racial disparities in police neighborhoods contact with you traffic stop search rates etc um these truths and realities haven't gone anywhere and they haven't changed um since then more data actually has demonstrated the disproportionate impact of police force on bipac um my question is just one will it be enough one will personal accounts of encounters with police that results in injury traumatization death or more or the voices of thousands of community members stand up to the word of a few in power um so if you've been listening you know that bpd isn't working right now or quote-unquote public safety that's not working right now so please act in accordance with this fact in both upholding the 74 officer cap by not passing the continuity plan and ensuring that the police commission is able to fulfill their responsibilities without fear of threat and intimidation thank you okay i'm gonna go to um mark hugh is next to be followed by avafusco mark i've enabled your microphone hey good evening y'all uh good evening uh mr president and city console and those who are watching so yeah i want to just give a shout out on over on the um what we're calling the right way uh that was the champagne um parkway just want to flag that and just you know just go back to the fact that that is just going right through the middle of the blackest neighborhood in the state and uh yeah i'd like y'all to go back and take another look at that you know we're engaging on the right way um campaign right now and uh we're talking to folks across uh you know all the way up to the uh the governor and some of the federal delegation so yeah do the right thing on that um don't do it the old whiteway do it the new right way um yeah and i'm also proud to speak on behalf of the racial justice alliance tonight on on on this whole business about this uh this i guess you're calling a continuity plan if there was a continuity plan i hope it'd be a continuity plan to protect black and brown bodies uh this is pretty much evolved uh into a coordinated effort uh it looks like uh you know you got paid press you got mass melons you got you know the fear mongering going on the gas lighting efforts by the administration to seek to convince us that this uh work is of addressing systemic racism somehow makes white folks less safe i mean dog whistles is crazy um y'all know better uh we've been we've been watching this play out at the national level we've been listening to the same dog whistles throughout all history um this is um nonsense i think um you know really what we ought to be looking at here is how we move forward with the plan uh that we originally created thanks i hope y'all have a great evening bye thank you our next speaker is avafusco to be followed by hannah brislin avive enabled your microphone hi can you guys hear me yes i can go ahead okay um hi i'm ava i'm a white resident of ward eight i'm here to address items 6.04 and 6.06 uh i believe they are i want to once again urge the city council to not raise the cap from 74 to 84 officers and stay true to the racial justice resolution especially after the horrifying and disgusting events of january 7th that are clearly part of a larger pattern i'm also really concerned about a recent article by the vermont digger that states that the burlington police officers association recently um released a statement calling out police commissioners by name and criticizing them in a threatening manner um honestly i don't feel safe knowing that by pock and other marginalized citizens of burlington are actively being kept unsafe by the police i don't feel safe knowing that the police union has such a monopoly over not only the commission but the rest of the city i really hope that the right thing is done tonight and that we continue to invest in transformative justice and accountability black lives matter and i yield the rest of my time thank you our next speaker is hannah brislin to be followed by jenny pappasov or pappasov uh hannah i believe i've located you and have enabled your mic hey can you hear me i can go ahead hi my name is hannah brislin my pronouns are they them i am a resident award too i've been here for 10 years um i've been on intermittently on these calls uh for it's gosh it's almost like a year now and um you know it's uh it's really frustrating um watching the consistency that we see play out particularly in the state just far too often of you know people who who do the research but because they are only there only have the research are not the experts and the people that actually are the experts the actual ones with lived experiences are being dismissed gaslighted and ignored um that's the level of expression of anger i'm going to show this evening um i just want to give gratitude to all of the amazing individuals that that come to these forums and sacrifice their Monday nights for hours um to to speak um and refuse to be silenced uh particularly jess and ashley i know that you're sacrificing so much of yourselves and so much of your well-being to do this but you know i'm completely grateful for you i'm grateful for the hard work of activists in the city no matter how much they are dismissed no matter how much they are villainized no matter how much they are treated as less than your amazing human beings and i am truly grateful for you and quite frankly you're the only reason why i'm still in this city um and you you may be able to hold me here for a little bit longer but i don't know how much more i can tolerate of this nonsense and there's only so much gratitude to give before i am i am exhausted and i'm sure y'all are are feeling the same we need change um and we're not getting it and in the meantime we're being told have a facade put it on our face that does not truly represent what is happening in this city and then behind all of it the reality is just i'm losing my words right now because i'm actually shaking with anger um please wrap up so i'm done thank you thank you okay our next speaker i was not able to locate jenny pappas off i'll search again um jenny if you're on a different name um just you please use the raise hand function um i was able to locate marissa mcdonald so marissa i'm going to come to you hi good evening um i'm marissa mcdonald i use she her pronouns um i think there is work to be done around police accountability and more needs to be done to address the inequities and underserved and vulnerable communities that said we need to address what is happening today and that we're currently lacking an actual plan to do better specifically how and when will an increase unarmed responders mental health professionals and other trained staff we've been focusing solely on police numbers but not looking at other parts of this situation therefore i support the public safe content continuity plan um which provides the first actual steps to getting additional support staff on board thank you i'm not able to locate brinn martin um so i'm going to go to dana key's gibbons next dana i've enabled your microphone hi there thank you my name is dana and i'm a healthcare worker and i live in ward eight in burlington i've been here for about a year and a half um i've been following these meetings for the past couple of months um i'm really just calling in again to ask you to uphold the racial justice resolution that you passed in in june and don't increase the number of officers um we've seen already this year how dangerous the bpd can be for bipoc in our community and i just can't imagine that we would hire any more officers with the potential that they could harm people um in burlington we've also seen the data that shows that the burlington police department disproportionately uses force against bipoc um so i think that we really need to look into other ways to keep our community safe and really addressing how people are already unsafe who already need safe homes to live in and need health care and put money into that um and i think that we need to like really rethink this sense of urgency we have about filling police staffing when police aren't keeping all of us safe we keep each other we're safe and we need to reinvest those resources into the community so that we can care for each other thank you thank you um our next speaker is grace amed to be followed by nithaniel millerhouse um patrick johnson dav fairington christopher erin felker julia pupco and emma chaffee um so grace i'm going to come to you um hello um i'm calling to speak a little bit about the public safety continuity plan um to the progressive caucus i'd like to um address some of the things that you released in your statement um i do appreciate the creation of cso's to respond to type one calls i think that that is maybe a move in the right direction i have really serious concerns about csl's um i disagree really strongly with embedding social service providers in the police department uh when the issue that we're really grappling with the bpd is accountability and and transparency and our ability to assess efficacy and and the safety of our community um i think that nonprofit health organizations in burlington have their own soul searching to do um two um but i don't see that moving those services within the police department is is a path to get them out of the police department at all and on on that alone i would hope that you would reject this plan um i support operation phoenix rise and i think we need to stay focused um i think that the the information going out from the officers association about the loss of what they call the midnight shift which is the loss of a 3 30 am to 7 am patrol unit um has really caused a lot of undue fear in the community and people don't understand that those people will be at the station and violent calls generally come in through 911 and phone and not through patrol thank you thank you our next speaker nathaniel millerhouse nathaniel i'm not able to locate you if you can use the the raise hand function um to just identify yourself and i'll try and go back to those folks i'm not able to locate and search for them again um so i'm going to go to patrick johnson next patrick i'm enabling your microphone good evening thank you uh i want to quickly go through a very parallel public safety issue that has occurred many years ago in the firefighting uh fire prevention world we started off responding calling and responding to house fires stopping them after the fact we quickly realized that this method was extremely taxing and funding dependent um we looked as a community and as a country looked for a much more comprehensive approach to firefighting which was uh public education uh hiring scientific organizations like u l laboratories to um have uh materials that were fire retardants we did so many interesting and wonderful things around fire prevention that it saved communities money and if we do not reduce our current force and reallocate those funds to policing we won't be able to have a 21st century police force uh thank you thank you um i was able to now locate brinn martin so brinn i'm going to come to you brinn i've enabled your microphone can you hear me yes go ahead great um my name is brinn martin i use she her pronouns and i am a white female from ward five i also work in the old north end and like so many before me i'm just asking the council to vote against raising the cap of police officers more police officers do not make burlington safer and in fact make it more dangerous for bipoc people as was proven once again on january 6 if we want to be a city where i'll feel safe we need to be investing money in our communities and issues like homelessness drug addiction and mental health issues not in more cops with guns thanks and i yield the rest of my time thank you our next speaker is dav fairington dav i've enabled your microphone dav it looks like you need to take yourself off of mute on your end hey good evening uh president tracy city council and mayor uh want to thank you for discussing and considering this uh city place issue that was put in front of you earlier just want to let you guys know a lot of hard work went into this on both sides and obviously we we feel that this proposal that's being presented solves a lot of answers to a lot of questions and issues on both sides and just want to make ourselves available for any question and answer period you might have in the next week or so as you ponder this proposal and try to make your decisions and you guys know how to get a hold of us thank you great thank you so much and again we'll certainly welcome your presence at the the next council meeting as part of the as part of the the item itself so if counselors do have questions then we can also welcome that but thank you for for joining us this evening and now i'm going to go to our next speaker christopher erin felker christopher i've enabled your microphone good evening can you hear me perfect uh thank you for thank you for having this uh this public forum this evening i'm calling in this evening to support the public safety continuity plan i believe that this puts forth a a strong strategy to to move forward to build off of and and actually start to reform our system i that is i yield the rest of my time to anybody else who's calling in thank you very much okay thank you all right our next speaker i'm still looking for jenny pappasov jenny i cannot locate you if you could use the raise hand function same thing with nathaniel millerhouse nathaniel i'm not able to find you um julia popco i'm going to come to you next julia i've enabled your microphone hi can you hear me yes hi my name is julia popco i you see her pronouns and i'm deeply invested in the well-being of our community i want to voice my opposition to raising the cap of bpd officers 284 and want to speak on the unacceptable actions that continue on the part of the bpd and the bpoa as i hope you all know in 2020 statistics showed that bpd used excessive force at high rates disproportionately targeting black community members 28 percent of cases of use of force were against black residents even though they only account for six percent of the population the bpd has failed time and time again to follow protocols that are in place both in terms of correct practices prior to use of force and in terms of correctly using their body cams all of these unacceptable practices have continued in 2021 additionally the recent actions of the bpoa to publicly name and attack members of the police commission thereby potentially putting them in danger is unacceptable i urge this body to take action in response to the bpoa's problematic actions as well the fact that trends of police brutality in burlington are so already so apparent one month into this year highlights the need for action before more community members are harmed or lose their lives to the bpd this will not be fixed by increasing the number of bpd officers or ignoring the blatant acts of violence perpetuated by the bpd and bpoa both of which are inherently entrenched in systems of white supremacy this is why we need a fully independent community oversight board in addition to the police commission with the power to hold those partaking in unacceptable and violent actions accountable listen to your community we are still here and we are still shouting stop ignoring our needs and do your job black lives matter thank you our next speaker our final speaker for this evening is emma chaffee or chaffee so emma i've enabled your microphone hi can you hear me yep go ahead um my name is emma chaffee and my pronouns are she they um i'd first like to say that i think it is unacceptable to cut off black fans while they are speaking and especially to do so when this council so often throws back in their faces that you don't get enough input on issues that matter to them you do not need to adhere to this restrictive time limit change it let by puck speak and listen to them i'd also like to reiterate a point that just made earlier it is insulting and harmful to center white people in public comment when we show our inherent laziness and lack of commitment white people show up when we feel like it because our lives aren't on the line by poc folks who are dedicated and always show up when the when they are the last people who should have to know what they're doing and plan accordingly lazy white people do not and to say that we must be more considered and catered to is ridiculous and racist i'm also calling to demand that you not increase the hiring cap in the first 10 months of 2020 149 people were subjected to police force and 42 of those people were black if berlington had a population of a whole of only 149 people only eight of those people would be black this disproportionality is higher than any other recorded in the past eight years black people are disproportionately harmed in berlington because police officers are not only allowed to act first and think later but are supported in doing so by the mayor and by this council even when they blatantly disregard the already minimal and insufficient protocols that they're supposed to follow black lives matter let black them speak thank you i yield my time our next speaker i did have one more spine up who just came in um that um loaded into the sheet oscar flummer just came in oscar enabled your microphone awesome hi my name is oscar and i'm a lifelong resident of berlington please don't up the cap of officers in berlington i've already gotten past the point where i feel like words are getting through to many on this council the community will keep showing up and supporting the racial justice resolution just like we were doing a year ago but i feel like a lot of the politicians present in this meeting have just been waiting around for this inevitable white wash that was going to come out of their more privileged districts getting frightened for reasons i think are pretty unanalyzed um i didn't plan a ton to say tonight but i hope you'll stand behind the racial justice resolution and black lives matter thanks thank you so i don't have anybody else in the queue i did not was not able to locate jenny papasov or nathaniel miller house so i'm gonna go ahead and close down the public forum let me just do one more thing yep i don't see anyone else in everybody did sign up who i was able to locate was able to speak this evening and so in the order that they were received i will now move us out of the public forum phase and we'll go right into the next item we already did the climate emergency report so i'm going to come into the consent agenda and go to councillor stromberg for a motion on the consent agenda i move to adopt the consent agenda as amended and take the actions indicated okay we have a motion on the consent agendas or a second seconded by councillor carpenter any discussion okay seeing none all those in favor of adopting our consent agenda please say aye hi hi any opposed hearing none that passes unanimously um before we get into our deliberative agenda i am going to recess this meeting and have us go into the local control commission meeting um or february 8th so it gives us a second to just sign over to that agenda we'll take just a moment folks before we get back to that deliberative agenda um the i'll call the order of the local control commission meeting at 818 um the first item on the agenda is the agenda um may please have a motion on the agenda uh commissioner hanson yes i'll move to adopt the agenda a motion from commissioner hanson seconded by councillor stromberg any discussion of our agenda for this meeting okay seeing none all those in favor of the agenda please say aye hi hi hi any opposed that passes unanimously we have an agenda um which brings us to our next item which is the consent agenda uh commissioner hanson may please have a motion on the consent agenda i'll move to adopt the consent agenda and take the actions indicated thank you for that we have a motion is there on the the consent agenda seconded by commissioner freeman any discussion of the consent agenda okay hearing none all those in favor of adopting our consent agenda please say aye aye aye any opposed hearing none that passes unanimously which moves us into the deliberative agenda where there is just one item this evening uh commissioner hanson are you able to please offer a a motion for item 3.01 i move to approve the 2020 2021 first class restaurant bar liquor license application for vivid cop coffee 150 cherry street with all standard conditions okay we have a motion is there a second seconded by commissioner stromberg any discussion of this item okay seeing none let's go to a vote all those in favor um of item 3.01 please say aye hi hi any opposed okay hearing none that passes unanimously um motion to adjourn is in order so moved moved by commissioner hanson seconded by commissioner stromberg uh all those in favor of adjourning our local control commission meeting uh please say aye hi hi any opposed passes unanimously and we are adjourned at 8 20 we'll now reconvene the burlington city regular city council meeting at 8 20 and we will go into the deliberative agenda where are where we have um item 6.01 as the the first item uh councilor hanson are you able to please move that item sure uh i'll move to approve the 2021 2022 outdoor entertainment permit renewal for arts riot 400 pine street with all standard conditions okay we have a motion from count councilor hanson seconded by council stromberg any discussion of this item councilor shannon go ahead thank you president tracy when i saw this i was a little bit concerned because it extends the hours from 9 to 11 p.m and it is adjacent to to a neighborhood and arts riot has historically had very good relationships with its neighbors but um i want to be sure that that continues i had a very good uh discussion with the new owner of arts riot alan newman he explained that um he because of coveted some music will need to move outside as was noted in the application but mostly what he's looking to do during the during the week particularly is uh show movies and that was not on the list of of things for the outdoor entertainment permit so i wanted to make sure that movies got added to that um and also he he needs the late hours for the movies because in the summer you can't start the movies until nine o'clock because it's not dark enough so but but for the other entertainment he was amenable to cutting that off at 10 p.m and i wasn't sure and maybe counselor hanson has some guidance as to how best to do that can we do an entertainment permit that shuts off certain activities at 10 p.m while allowing the movies to go to 11 p.m mr newman did uh he he was amenable to that but i'm not sure if the permits can be structured that way sure i will direct that to to counselor hanson counselor hanson do you know if as chair of license if you are are you and are you able to to do that um i see lori on muting i'm gonna defer to lori and hear what she has to say if that's all right okay so when you recommend and determine what you would like for entertainment permits then they're edited as such so yes this can be clearly defined if that's what you choose okay does that require lori amendment at this time in order to do that i think you probably should um i did put on board docs what alan newman agreed to i'm not sure if anybody saw that or not um i do see that yeah i think it would be best if you made a motion based on that so it'd be clear for the minutes okay great i'm okay i'm happy to make that motion or if counselor shannon would like to i'll go back to to counselor shannon um since this was initially raised by by counselor shannon counselor did you want to make a motion to to clarify what it is that you're seeking to do here yes i'd like to um amend the the permit to read from uh from sunday through thursday the permit would go to 10 p.m for music for the list of things that's there music um hang on one second uh dj's and outdoor movies and would extend to 11 p.m only for movies okay and then uh and then for friday and saturday nights it would remain the same with the entertainment permit um for all of those things and just add to include movies until 11 p.m okay thank you we have a motion from counselor shannon is there a second into that motion seconded by counselor stromberg any discussion of the amendment counselor shannon go ahead i i believe that alan newman is here if you wanted to enable his microphone just to confirm that um i i know that arts riot is a really valued um venue in the community and we want to accommodate both arts riot and the neighbors and i think that i have what i've just offered is consistent with what their plans were but i was hoping he could confirm that sure yep so i've been able to your microphone alan go ahead contained that's exactly what we agreed to okay great thank you for for that and for being here it's always helpful when we have the applicants here to clarify any questions like this um did you want the floor back counselor shannon good thank you very much okay thank you and i saw counselor jeng did you have your hand up yep it was exactly that if mr alan was here told that he can hear talk to us directly inside of a council making this motion on the floor thank you okay thank you for that uh counselor mason uh thank you president tracy i just before we vote i want to note for the record my recusal on this matter um due to a professional conflict of interest thank you thank you for that um any further discussion on the amendment okay hearing none let's go to a vote on the amendment um all those in favor please say i hi any opposed okay hearing none that passes unanimously and we are back to the original uh permanent the original permit application as amended any further discussion on this counselors okay seeing none let's go to a vote on this all those in favor please say i hi any opposed that carries unanimously that takes care of item 6.01 which brings us to 6.02 which is a presentation from darin springer regarding district energy we'll go ahead and turn it over to darin thank you for joining us director springer hi good evening counselors i wanted to note that i am joined by michael ahern who's on camera here as well and is the senior vice president with our partner on the district energy effort evergreen energy based in minnesota so michael michael and i will both be here for questions but i wanted to provide some context about our announcement earlier today so we have good news to share on district energy earlier today we announced that we've completed the phase two work that began almost a year ago today and was delayed significantly due to covet 19 impacts on the number of our partners but we've completed that work we have some interesting and innovative findings from that effort and we have a letter of intent that's been signed by the parties to the district energy work to advance to a phase three which would cover the next three to six months work plan and take us right up to a point where we will be able to determine if we can make a binding commitment to take district energy to permitting and construction so i'll back up a little bit i just wanted to to frame that up front just as a reminder for counselors this this work with district energy started this current version of the work with district energy started back in late 2018 after we had completed our prior work with corex utilities and i had recently been named as general manager burlington electric we had reengaged with michael and evergreen energy as well as vgs vermont gas systems uvm medical center and university of vermont and looked at whether a district energy system focused on those parties as opposed to also trying to go downtown could be more economical and provide more emissions reduction in a cost effective way you know per dollar and phase one analysis showed that yes that was possible that we could get more benefit per dollar invested by having a system focused on uvm medical center with potential addition of uvm buildings and we took that to phase two we made an announcement february of 2020 phase two work included route analysis which michael and his team worked with dpw as well as university of vermont medical center it included updating the economics of the project through an rfp that evergreen issued to get indicative pricing from contractors it included a look at the potential financing and ownership regulatory models for district energy as well as a lot of engineering work with university of vermont medical center looking at the operational protocols between the mcneil generating station and university of vermont medical center because mcneil would be providing a renewable steam in this project to the medical center and potentially other buildings as well so i have i want to share my screen here briefly because i have a graphic that i think can be helpful in looking at this model that we are proposing you should be able to see it now as well this is a proposal a working concept based on the work we did in phase two and i'll walk you through it we start at the mcneil station where mcneil would generate a steam both from waste heat as well as additional production and provide that steam in a district energy pipe evergreen which has expertise in operating these systems and developing these systems under this proposed model would own and operate the district energy system as a not-for-profit entity and the benefit of that is severalfold not only would they bring their expertise to bear they would secure financing for the project the city would not be required to fund or finance the project there would be no upfront funding required from the city the construction and operational risks for the project would would sit with evergreen under this structure and they would operate the district energy system as a not-for-profit entity and provide steam under cost-based rates evergreen would then deliver the steam energy to uvm medical center and other buildings that we wouldn't attempt to include in the district energy system they would be the hosts for the district energy system essentially um vermont gas systems vgs would purchase the full output of the district energy from evergreen under this model and then you can kind of see that we have a couple of different offshoots in this graphic because we're really talking about two distinct attributes that come from the energy production from district energy one is the actual physical steam that would be delivered and would displace fossil fuel use and that would be the thermal energy the physical energy that would be delivered to university vermont medical center and other potential buildings as well but just like we have with community solar with the cow power program in vermont there is a renewable credit that's associated with this district energy and environmental attribute and under the model we're proposing and this is unique and innovative and new something we haven't discussed with the council or the public previously we would propose that the that different buildings different customers would be able to buy in essentially to these district energy renewable credits um so anybody who was a local business a local resident the city's buildings themselves could potentially participate in the district energy system by opting in to purchase some or all of their thermal energy through these des renewable credits so you can see that those credits are flowing in this model to different customers to potentially the medical center the local residents local businesses the city of burlington to help offset city municipal fossil fuel use and carbon footprint and then under this model if there were unused credits in a given year vgs would utilize those for its own system portfolio to help meet its renewable goals that have been set over the past year so this is a creative and innovative way to share some of the benefits and share the investment needed to bring district energy forward uh with the entire community potentially uh for folks who want to opt in i'm going to unshare my screen there um a couple other highlights from from the phase two work the cost of the project i mentioned we did indicative pricing the cost did go up but it remains at about 60 of the cost that was originally assumed under the 2018 plan with corex and yet this project would deliver more than 72 of the emissions and fossil fuel reduction benefit of that project so it remains cost effective we are looking in phase three at a variety of different pieces of the work plan as part of it evergreen would be working on securing financing for the system we would be looking at finally identifying any available incentives senator lehi has continued to make sure that federal appropriations include language that is supportive of district energy systems so there may be federal opportunities and we'll certainly be monitoring for those and make sure that we apply for any grant opportunities that may exist at the federal level vgs and bed would both potentially provide incentives to make this system happen so we would conclude that piece of the work in phase three there would be additional engineering work to be completed with university of vermont medical center we continue to also seek opportunities to engage with university of vermont as well to see if there are buildings that could be good candidates for inclusion in the district energy system whether right away or as part of a future expansion we would pursue regulatory approvals from that are necessary from the state to make sure that there was support for this at the state level we would identify all the different permits that would be needed we would pursue an agreement with the mcneal joint owners of which bed is 50 percent share along with our other two joint owners green mountain power and vermont public power supply authority and we would create and michael and his team would really help us with this create supply agreements so that the end of the phase three work which again would be a three to six month work plan will be in a position where all the parties will be presented with the opportunity to review and commit to a binding agreement that would take this project to permitting and construction and on the city side that would mean that we'd be needing to look at what level of commitment the city would be willing to make for its own buildings to sign up as a potential customer of the district energy through the district energy renewable credits and look at whether there was desire for a certain level of participation whether there's desire for a phase in approach for that participation and we'd be doing that with other potential customers as well so just to summarize briefly we're really trying to take this this model of community solar essentially and bring it to the district energy system to help advance this and make this a reality it's a very exciting project it would reduce thermal commercial sector natural gas emissions in the city of burlington by more than 11 and a half percent under current projections so this is really the single biggest step we could take in that sector to reduce emissions it's an exciting project we're really pleased to be partnering with great partners like evergreen energy as well as uvm mc and vgs to be bringing this forward and we welcome your questions feedback and and thoughts as we embark on this phase three work starting this week excellent thank you so much michael did you want to offer something as well i don't know that i can top what darin walked through i think he did a fantastic job of summarizing it so happy to field any questions you might have excellent excellent and it's good to see you again michael likewise max yeah all right uh next counselor stromberg go ahead thanks president tracy uh thank you so much darin and michael um yeah this is this is really exciting i love the idea of steam and thermal energy in place of fossil fuels as much as we can um i guess i have two questions what is the full timeline for phase three and i apologize if i missed that and you mentioned it um and then the other question has to do with um is there is there i wouldn't use the word risk but i will for the lack of a better word is there like or potential for excess energy to be produced to a level that can be like purchase back from i think you said vermont gases behind that um could you just kind of like clarify that side of things would they like the incentive um for people to actually like buy into this is that the best i don't know if that's the best way to ask that question but i feel like if you could just go over that part a little bit absolutely um so the the phase three timeframe is is three to six months depending on you know how quickly we can get the work product complete we have we've experienced COVID impacts obviously you know the hospital and all the partners have had different impacts from COVID that that really slowed us down a little bit in phase two we would have expected to complete this work closer to fall 2020 under normal timeframe so we say three to six months to build in a little bit of buffer to understand we still are facing COVID impacts that could delay things in terms of the the district energy renewable credits the way it would work is those would be offered two different customers we're hoping to have obviously a few significant anchor customers for that output so we would we would love for the city to be a part of that and for other customers to be a part of that but if there was an unused quantity in a given year and those were unsubscribed and they went unused and and unpaid for then the project economics really might not work and so the role for vgs in that sense and it's a critical role is essentially as a backstop to ensure that if those credits are are not fully subscribed by the burlington community or the broader community then vgs is willing to essentially fund the purchase of those credits for use in its own system and then can credibly state that those are part of its system-wide portfolio thank you so much that makes sense thank you for that i'll go to councillor hanson next thanks so much this is really exciting and thanks for all the work that and creativity that went into this proposal um by one question is you mentioned darin that it's 72 percent emissions reductions compared to the 2018 plan can you just explain why that is absolutely um so if we look at the 2018 plan was connecting to uvm medical to some uvm buildings and then also was going to run downtown and try to connect to a number of different buildings downtown so it was a bigger system although that model was uh approximately two thirds on biomass steam renewable steam and one third natural gas uh so that was a bigger system but it included about a third natural gas built into it this system that we're talking about here is a hundred percent renewable on the district energy side it's all renewable steam coming from McNeil but it's it's targeting a smaller footprint because it's really focused on connecting to uvm medical center and potentially some buildings that are in close proximity to McNeil and uvm medical center so it's it's still delivering the kind of majority the vast majority of the fossil fuel emissions reduction benefits but it's not capturing all of them because it doesn't go downtown however it's doing so at a much better cost uh you know per uh emissions avoidance compared to the prior model okay thanks for that and then my follow-up would be I think when we had spoke about this the other day you'd mentioned that the hospital oh sorry the hospital has enough thermal load in theory to take the full the full waste heat from McNeil is that the case and if so how does that kind of relate to what you had just said yeah so in terms of and Michael may want to touch on this as well in terms of the mix of energy being delivered a portion of it would be from waste heat that is essentially otherwise lost uh under current production and a portion of it would be additional steam that's generated as part of being essentially a combined heat and power operation at McNeil uh right now we're only an electric operation but under this model we would be a more efficient combined heat and power model so we'd be producing additional steam uh through that as well um and I think there is opportunity to not only supply University of Vermont Medical Center but also to have enough production to uh expand to other buildings in close proximity as well Michael I don't know if you want to add to that yeah I think that's it's a fair way to play uh stated Darren the all of the waste heat that we can capture from the from the exhaust at the at the facility at McNeil can be captured and is and would be utilized by the hospital as well as as Darren had mentioned earlier that then there would be some supplemental electric generation or combustion of the biomass for purposes of of serving some of UVMMC's load okay great thank you appreciate it you counselor Hansen counselor Freeman did you were you trying to go in the queue yes thank you um thank you for this presentation and for the update um I had a question so the the the previous COREX agreement uh had so my understanding was that the the contract was set or the tentative contract you know hypothetical that had been set up was this um 30 years of ownership and then at that point it could have been renewed and then there was also the option for local control and um I was just wondering you know it's the nonprofit model with evergreen um I didn't know if there was a similar um potential for local control at some point maybe not upfront but down the road as we were I think considering and pursuing with the COREX previous agreement with with COREX so I'm just curious if that's something that has been looked at it we have talked through that and counselor and Freeman and and our intention is to create a structure where local stakeholders would have governance of the board of of our advisory board for the for the district energy business right away upfront so it wouldn't have to wait until until some time out in the future we would structure an advisory board to the district energy system with the customers of the system with the local stakeholders that would actually participate in the in the budget setting and the rate setting for for the system up front and maybe to further address that um we don't have a we obviously we don't have a contract with evergreen right now right to build the system but um I think what I'm hearing is is you're asking if we would have some sort of an option for the city to purchase the system at some point in the future um and that's that's something we could discuss as part of phase three if that's of interest okay I mean yeah that's something you know it being a publicly owned utility um you know I'm really excited I think as you know counselor strong work hints and I've mentioned you know like the um the ability to get away from fossil fuels to use steam energy um is really exciting um the infrastructure is really exciting um I am interested in sort of long term um you know the longevity you know how um is this best um maintained as a public good and as an asset as a utility so I you know I it's interesting to hear that um stakeholders will be um potentially have a seat at the table up front but you know what could that look like down the line in terms of um this actually moving to a public utility so I appreciate um you speaking to that thank you for the presentation great I have counselor hi tower next oh great thanks um just a quick question just because this is mostly going through my board um what the expected I guess construction impacts are going to be in how we're or how you all are going to collaborate with department of public works like if there's any street or sidewalk improvements and it will mostly affect the street or the sidewalks just some logistics around that so counselor hi tower we've we've been working very closely with public works through our design process before we went out to contractors to solicit pricing it's it's a little bit of a mix of some piping in the street as as well as some piping in the boulevard um underneath the sidewalk we are also working to coordinate with public works for any upcoming other street construction work or walk path work where we could have a combined project so that nothing things aren't getting torn up twice and um and and we are they have a sense we haven't formally submitted the design for approval but we have been submitted several iterations of it and they've been giving guidance through along the way suggesting areas where we should where it will be more acceptable for us to run and less acceptable for us to run and we have we've incorporated that into all of the design and and our our goal is to be breaking ground on that distribution construction next year best case scenario we'd be we'd be breaking ground next spring with an expected two-year construction window two season construction window so constructing through the summer of 22 as well as on the summer of 23 thank you so much great any other questions from counselors i'm going to be followed by councillor paul go ahead councillor jane thank you darren and my mic michael uh for being here so i have two questions and one of them is from an engineer who texts me earlier today and he stated that the city of burnington mcneill plain what the city need to think about is to phase it out because it's only generating carbon monoxide and it seems as if only 25 percent of it is only efficient what the city needed to be talking about right now is to phase out and was just wondering if there is if there are any you know plan to to get the city there or the city is not even thinking about such plan so that's the first question yeah i'm happy to answer that one the mcneill facility is you know a key part of our being 100 renewable utility in terms of generation it's also an important facility for the state of vermont it's actually the largest energy producer now that vermont yankee nuclear has closed back in 2013 and you know i think that there's a lot of kind of misconceptions but we are fairly unique in the country at mcneill in employing four foresters who work on staff to ensure a sustainable harvest for the supply of the facility which really can ensure that we obtain a carbon benefit that there is a sustainable harvest so you know combustion plants are not typically going to be 90 or 95 efficient they are going to have lower efficiencies depending on the fuel source the benefit of district energy is it would increase the efficiency of the facility which is something that we want to see happen and it would also ensure that we are providing some additional emissions reduction benefit but with biomass it's one of the more complex carbon accounting questions that exist in and when we look at renewable technologies and with biomass you have to look at how sustainable is your harvest are you able to have regrowth or are you simply clear cutting lands and not regrowing trees and not keeping the forest soils intact if you're if you're doing this in a sustainable way biomass can have a significant benefit and be a truly renewable resource and we feel we're doing a good job of that at the mcneill facility yeah thank you and i think you and i we did talk about this specific question before and but is it is it correct what he's stating that it actually provides more carbon monoxide but it saved the is that accurate i i don't think i think if you're talking about carbon dioxide so greenhouse gas emissions um then it it has a cycle essentially where um the combustion of wood would produce emissions but the regrowth uh the sustainable harvesting sequesters emissions and so there are analyses that suggest that that can be a closed loop a carbon beneficial cycle um if you do it well and we're we're in the business of trying to do that well i'll just just cite some data you know if you look at the state of vermont um 50 percent of the new growth in forests is harvested and 50 percent remains in the forest of the of the growth that's happening every year the mcneill harvest only uses about five percent of that new growth every year so you know you probably couldn't have 25 mcneill plants running in vermont and still have a sustainable supply but if you have a plant like mcneill that's that's properly sized and that's managing its impacts you can have a sustainable harvest cycle and keep the emissions benefit intact okay so that was the question from an expert and as i say i rely on experts to get uh make a good decision now this is my question and i think about the district energy it's it is it feels it sounds so good to be true and i trust you right so it seems you stated that the city has no cost associated for this project to move forward right did i hear that right under this model there would be no upfront cost to the city uh we wouldn't be looking for a city bond for example uh we wouldn't be looking for city uh funding up front that the one piece financially for the city to consider is would the city be willing to sign up to take some of the output annually from the district energy system for its own buildings reduced its own carbon footprint in that manner and there would be a cost associated with that and it's something that we want to discuss as part of phase three is what is the city's appetite for taking on some of that responsibility okay and lastly and it seems earlier you talked about a tax credit for residents who would want to participate in business right did i get that right yes well it'd be it'd be more like what i mentioned was a renewable credit so it'd be like something where on your bill if you were a vgs customer you could check i want to have 10 of my energy come from district energy or 50 percent or 100 percent and you would pay a an additional amount to have that be part of your personal energy mix essentially okay and then the the payment or the connection about district energy from a residential perspective is not true the boolean ton electric department but now it will be true the gas or evergreen that's correct it would be on your gas bill you would have the option to make that election under this model that's right it seems them now our entity is just facilitating for this project to to to stand up and to be solidified that's our role we're doing that but we also as the 50 percent owner of mcneil we would be an important part of providing the renewable energy under this model as well thank you so much no further questions thank you councillor jane councillor paul thanks president tracy just wanted to quickly mention that district energy has been a solution that simply has been waiting for its day and that day is getting closer and closer now and uh you know i looked at the report that mentioned the number of studies that have been done on district energy i think there's been i don't know five or six um i haven't been around to see all of them by the time i got on the electric commission i think we'd already done two um but this has been something that has been going on for a very long time and literally just waiting for the right the stars to align for us to be able to move forward so to all who are involved with this this is a terrific idea to be harnessing the energy that is coming out of mcneil that we are losing um and put it to incredibly good use recirculate it reuse it um this is a terrific move forward and uh i'll be i'll be interested to hear when you come uh when uh uh you move forward with these other phases and uh um just wanted to say thanks so much and uh it has my full support thanks thank you it's our paul a mayor weinberger go ahead thank you president tracy before the discussion ended tonight i just wanted to um make sure the council and the public was clear that uh this effort has my uh full and strong support um i am really excited to be here on the the cusp of moving forward with this long desired project it was really not at all clear we would get here as some of the historic discussion we've had tonight points out but we before giving up on this we want to leave no stone unturned there's been setback after setback but we've found a way to keep moving this forward and i do see this as a really critical step if we are going to continue to meet our net zero energy city goals this is the largest single step that we can take at one time if we can if we can make this work and so i really appreciate the creative approach that has been brought to bear here i appreciate that the welcome that the council reaction to the creativity has been positive tonight i think it's really quite um i and i've said this before i think well vgs um being um at the at the table willing to help move this project over the finish line instead of seeing this as a threat is a sea change in the way in which the that utility is approaching this and i think with as we have seen in many other areas if we have all the institutions and different stakeholders within burlington pulling in the same direction just about anything is possible i think our work together in so many areas where you have the whole community working together is whether it's with the opioid epidemic or responding to the pandemic when we get many different institutions working together we can overcome major challenges here i'm hopeful that we're on the cusp of doing that again with uh with the second thank you for that mayor weinberger councillor jane quick and was just wondering if michael or darin can talk about maybe next steps especially around the non-profit organization and the mou what's next and when should we expect next step thank you thank you councillor jane so as as darin had mentioned that really really immediately now our next steps are we are working on drafting the proposed agreements that would be between the different parties researching and setting up the structure for exactly what how the business would be structured that the the entity the new district energy business would be structured and be able to facilitate the the procurement of the steam from mcneil and and sale to vgs as well as then the delivery of the steam to the to the hospital we also are speaking with the folks at uvm mc and working through more of the details of exactly how there would be an operational interface between the district energy system and the hospital so the hospital has the the confidence that this will enhance the reliability and not hinder their reliability which is of course the most important part of all of this and and and then working through a little bit more of the planning for for them the next phase which would be more of the technical work the the permitting the engineering and and the construction planning but that focus right now is is absolutely that being able to get agreements drafted that are amenable to all parties and also will facilitate the hundred percent debt financing that we would intend to deploy for this opportunity and and we would expect to come back to the council sometime in the three to six month window with probably at least two items that would need review and approval for this to move forward one of which would be for the city to participate as a customer of the district energy system and make a commitment in that regard and the second would likely be approval for burlington electric and mcneil to enter into a multi-year energy supply contract for mcneil to provide the renewable energy to the district energy system so those two items would likely be coming back to the council for review and discussion and ultimately approval if we were to advance this keep up the good work thank you thank you thank you any further comments from counselors okay seeing none i will thank both director springer and michael ahern thank you so much for being here and all your work to advance this incredible opportunity for our city having visited michael in st paul and seen the district energy system that they have there i'm definitely a believer in it and really just appreciate all the work that you've done to help burlington achieve similar gains especially towards our goals of producing carbon emissions so thank you very much and look forward to working with you on next steps thanks president tracy thank you well thank you absolutely okay so we will go ahead and shut that down and move into our next item which is item 6.03 a resolution regarding breaking out the costs of airport police services at the burlington international airport and studying how tsa requirements are met in other airports and go to counselor paul for a motion on that thanks thanks president tracy so i would move the resolution with a slight change and with thanks to counselor hanson for catching an oversight of mine which is online 27 to include the following wording after the word enforcement the following phrase with a report back to the city council at its second meeting in april which was an oversight of mine with that i would then waive the reading and ask for the floor back after a second okay we have a motion from counselor paul is there a second seconded by counselor stromberg go ahead counselor paul thanks very much president tracy so this resolution has been a long time in the making this summer during the discussion that we had on the racial justice resolution and then with the passage of the annual budget i and others had expressed concern that there are a number of sworn burlington police department officers at our airport who during their rotation at the airport are not involved in community policing as their assignment but instead are working every day at the airport providing tsa mandated police services in arriving at a target staffing level for our police department several of us had raised concerns about the the awkwardness and question the appropriateness of including officers at the airport in our authorized headcount since their service time was far removed from patrol work or from the supervision of patrol work and just by way of background for those who are listening the current vpoa contract which is the union contract provides that all necessary police work needed at the airport is done by burlington police department officers the costs for these officers at the airport their salary benefits costs associated with a vehicle are paid for by the airport and you know other other many many of the other departments in the city you know police fire parks and rec unlike those which are part of the general fund the airport is an enterprise fund and by definition is a separate financial reporting entity for which revenues and expenditures are segregated with their own financial statements separate from all of the other governmental activities it pays its own expenditures out of its own revenue revenues it is a self-sustaining entity currently in the police department there's a revenue line item that shows the payment the airport makes to the general fund budget due to staffing rotations and some unknowns when the budget is formed as to exactly which officers may be working at the airport the revenue equates to an averaging of salaries and benefits and other costs associated with staffing what this resolution would create is a new division within the burlington police department known as the airport division so that the revenues and the expenses associated with the officers at the airport would be separated as they are not engaged in community policing at this time nothing else would change regarding these officers only the creation of a new line item and a division within bpd one of the other aspects of the resolution is that all airports across the country are subject to the same tsa requirements regarding the use of sworn officers policing at checkpoints but all but but many airports handle this requirement differently and over the next two months this resolution asks the airport leadership to survey other airports of like size and report to the council again at our second meeting in april on their findings and lastly the the resolution asked the administration to report back to the city council again at the second meeting in april about how law enforcement needs of the airport can be met without including these officers in the authorized headcount at bpd the resolution um has been communicated to the ceo who would be responsible for these budgeting issues the acting chief of police and the director of aviation all of whom are supportive um i'd like to thank co-sponsors um counselor pine jang polino and carpenter for their support and i hope that the full council can be supportive as well thanks very much thank you councillor paul any councillors wishing to speak to this item the councillors wishing to speak to this item councillor jang yeah other than thank you councillor paul for taking the time to craft this resolution and to do the study i think this is exactly how we should do business before making any decision to study and ask expert to help us in this i'm just glad that you have that mindset thoughtfulness thank you thank you councillor jang any other comments from councillors okay guess everyone's ready to go to a vote okay so will the city clerk please call the roll under councillor jang councillor jang i couldn't hear your vote yes councillor freeman yes councillor hanson yes councillor hightower yes councillor mason yes councillor paul yes councillor paulino yes councillor pine yes councillor shannon yes councillor strongberg yes city council president tracy yes 12 eyes the resolution carries unanimously thank you very much thank you councillor paul that brings us to our next item which is 6.04 the approval of the public safety continuity plan um for this item i will be passing the gavel uh to councillor hanson i can actually pass it but i'll give gavel councillor hanson um so i can participate in the debate on this one thanks president tracy um so i'll look for a motion on on the resolution councillor mason thank you acting president hanson i would like to make a motion to waive the reading dot the resolution uh and then ask the mayor or acting chief mirad to speak to this item um if there's a second all right see a second from councillor shannon um so councillor mate so motion's been made in second ed you wanted to go straight to the mayor yes my apologies we did not choreograph this i'm not sure which uh individual representative of the administration or the department would like uh i also see director of police transformation dodson on is on as well and maybe the answer is there's nothing they would like to withhold and we'll just field questions but i'd like to afford that opportunity okay would a member of the administration like to i'm only seeing okay the mayor's camera's on now did you what would you like to speak marijuana burger um i thank you councillor hanson um i i would certainly um like the opportunity to speak to the council um i i would welcome um the opportunity for a short recess um given the the um numerous late um numerous amendments that have come in over the course of the afternoon um i think it would be helpful to have a significant recess at this point to assess um where we are before the discussion began so a 15 minute recess i know it's not exactly my place to call for a recess but before making i would i would be pretty sure for me to make my comments uh before we have that discussion okay um typically the mayor doesn't request the recess but uh councillor mason thank you acting president hanson i would like to request a 15 minute recess to afford us the opportunity to digest some of the amendments came in and avoid uh if possible discussion on uh motion or a resolution that may be substantially modified if and i don't know if well i shouldn't say that it's a you're a prerogative whether to grant or not okay um yeah yeah i think you know we delayed action for for a couple weeks on this to to dive in but i understand there were some additional changes i would just ask that um this be our only recess and then we dig in in public session and you know debate the merits of any amendments for in front of the public as a council um but we can we can take a recess now and then do that but may i ask a point of clarification before we go on i know councillor hightower had put in some amendments then pulled them out and put in so i'm just before we move in our our what is being proposed by councillor hightower up on board docs as the actual amendments um councillor hightower did you want to clarify yes i have pulled no amendments there were some amendments that i discussed with councillor paul over the course of the last week um but the only ones that are official are the ones that are on board docs thank you for that clarification all right um the recess has been requested i've seen councillor shannon and councillor carpenter raising their hands is this something that you need to express prior to the recess or i was just going to ask for the recess i think councillor carpenter has something else councillor carpenter uh i'm i'm not sure if this is appropriate i was um a little confused by the amendments that seem to amend to amend a section and then re re amend it and i don't know if this is more appropriate after the recess but or whether councillor hightower can i think if you could let's let's use the recess to clarify that since we're taking the recess um thank you but yeah coming out of the recess let's let's debate these amendments and everything um in in public um so we'll do 15 minutes and we'll be back at 9 29 thanks everyone all right everyone it's it's been 15 minutes if people could turn their cameras back on and rejoin all right i believe we have a we have a quorum at this point um i see councillor hightower looking to speak um i'm happy to move to make the amendment i didn't know if the if that's what we want to discuss or if the administration wanted to talk about things more generally now but i'm happy to move to make an amendment if that's this is the appropriate time point of order yeah councillor shannon um in the confusion with different things getting ideas being thrown around um if it's possible i think we'd like to to remake the motion the original motion to remake the original motion yes because we we didn't move what we intended to move originally is that eileen are you with us is that is that possible yeah it's there has been something moved and seconded but if it was if if there was confusion about what it was i think there can be clarification of the motion there there was a um amended version put on to board docs which i thought had an amendment that was not included in that when it was moved the revised are you referring to the revised version councillor shannon yes so is the revised version what was intended to be made or yes but there was a further reason revision that was not included in that is that revision posted or it's not posted it's simply to move it um with an authorized cap of 82 rather than 84 okay to me that seems like an amendment eileen could you clarify it sounds like an amendment to me as well okay in the resolution be withdrawn and resubmit it hi lean if you can move to withdraw it and the body can decide that to allow it to be withdrawn yes is that all councillor shannon yes okay great all right um councillor high tower you still have the floor and i moved to withdraw thunder i can come to you i have councillor mason i can come to you after councillor mason i think i'm sorry go ahead i well i i don't know that councillor high tower had given up the four yeah great so i'll go yeah if i i think i'll go ahead and make the motion to amend if that's okay okay can can we just can you just walk us through the amendments please yes so i moved to amend as stated in the um bpd continuity amendments removing cap increase which does a few things to the whereas amendments um notably strikes line 16 and 17 um or not doesn't strike parts of line 16 17 strikes line 28 through 29 slight strikes lines 30 through 35 and strikes in line 36 just removes the phrase which is likely later this spring in the their information um yeah councillor polano are these amendments being moved as a slate or what are we doing yes this is a slate of amendments okay all right the thank you the next part is it moves removes the entire first paragraph um the first not therefore it be resolved clause in the second one it just clarifies that since we haven't actually seen a job description that the police commission will be the one to approve that so just have to go back in front of the full council um for the second resolve clause for the community support liaison um it again clarifies that that can be approved by the public safety committee so it doesn't have to go back in front of the full council since we don't have those job descriptions and that um both the public safety committee and the director of police transformation will develop the the remaining two job descriptions and clarifies that this should come out of the burlington police department budget so these are similar in terms of intent to what had been posted two weeks ago for the original resolution but did a few more amendments okay um all right that motion has been made are folks clear on the motion i have a point of information councilor freeman um just because i think i understand that this was maybe a typo but i just want to make sure that this remove what is currently lines 67 through 85 and replace with the replace with is just a typo right it's just remove what is currently lines 67 through 85 correct no it is then replaced with the text that follows oh it is replaced with the text that follows okay sorry i think i was in tracking when you were if all of the resolve clauses and replaces them with the resolve causes answer okay sorry i just missed this okay that makes sense so thank you okay um are folks clear on the amendment uh mayor weinberger uh thank you uh council hands i appreciate the opportunity to weigh in here i'm i guess weighing in with a little bit of a alarm at the notion that the council have been the job descriptions they were all point of sorry point of order president tracy what's uh was there a second on the amendment well i i was just making sure folks were clear on what the amendment is there's not been a second yet is everyone clear on what the amendment is at this point no councilor carpenter is not not yeah unless i'm misreading i see two amendments one is to remove lines 67 through 85 and then um strike line 74 through 85 and replace it so i'm i'm confused councilor high tire can you clarify please yes so i am intending to make two amendments this is only making the first of those two amendments so right now we are only on bpd continuity amendments removing cap increase so i'm just moving that as a slate so you're moving the whole thing is a slate but then um you're i unless i'm thick here you're and you want to replace several whereas clauses with new language but then you're you have an later amendment to amend those those two paragraphs if it's okay um council hands and can i ask the maker the what the end game is what where you're trying to end up i'm i'm i'm i'm i guess i'm confused by an amendment to your own amendment is what it seems to me yeah i'm happy to answer that and that's fair i think the first set of amendments was something that had been discussed and that i think folks maybe were expecting in terms of last time whereas the second slate of amendments was something that really came out of discussion over the past week so i didn't want folks to feel like they had to vote yes on that one to get to the first set of amendments so i'm happy to i and eventually want all of them to pass um but given that some folks may just want the first amendment i wanted to make sure that we had that as a separate rather than trying to divide the question later on so your first set of amendments is a slate um all or nothing basically and then your second set of amendments is uh well i just see the second set as um just the last two paragraphs is that all right councillor carpenter are you are you clear on what councillor hightower is proposing at the moment i guess just the amendments that that she took us through just now it's not anything else posted okay um does anyone else need clarification on the amendment uh councillor palino and councillor schianna i had a a question for attorney blackwood and and then i'll follow with to councillor hightower i know i've spoken about this rule in the past and i i know attorney blackwood answered it to a certain extent i don't remember the rule or where i read it on robert's rules but i mean my here's here's so it's the it's a rule referring to amendments that take away the substance of the resolution so here we have a resolution that begins at line 67 and ends at line 85 and we have an amendment before us to line to strike line 67 through 85 essentially creating a whole new resolution by amending as opposed to drafting one and gutting the essential piece of the resolution which is you know the public safety continuity plan we've had this plan for over two months more longer than that a committee level and i'm trying to understand and how is that like we're using an amendment to gut a resolution by taking away the cap which is the whole purpose of the staffing um and essentially creating making another resolution about the cso's and the clo's and i remember reading something about that um and whether those kind of amendments are appropriate or not i that's what i don't remember okay city attorney backward would you like to clarify on that um the the this strike and replace is on the topic that the original um resolution was on it is proposing a different solution to the what is put in whereas clauses and what's happening and i think that's all within the an appropriate resolution um that you can strike that and you can propose something else and then the body can choose to vote it down and go back to the original resolution that doesn't like it this isn't like but obviously um acting chair hanson it's up to you to determine whether or not you think that the amendments are so inimical to the original purpose of the resolution that that it's there they are out of order but my sense is that they are within the subject matter they propose a different solution to the issues raised and that that's uh not inappropriate okay anything else um councillor poli know that you wanted to clarify well yeah i mean i guess my question would then be for the maker is why this process you know we have a certain level of public accountability to this plan that's been received you know a lot of attention from public response both yeah councillor poli know just to cut you off this is i'm just trying to make sure folks understand what the amendment is your question seems to be about why this is just i want to make sure people the council understands what the amendment on the table is so if folks have questions on what the amendment is that's that's fine but in terms of why or the process that we can discuss that within the debate itself so does anyone do you have any confusion about what's being proposed councillor poli know no okay councillor shannon um i'm very confused and i don't know why anybody would expect that we knew all of this was coming there was an email that was equally confusing a lot two weeks ago with not any explanation and i don't understand what's being called the first set of amendments and the second set of amendments is the first set of amendments um we got an email at 436 today with some amendments are those the first set or the second set of amendments is that what is that all in whole what's being moved here or is part of that being moved here answer hi tara yeah happy to answer that so there is one set of amendments that we're currently dealing with they are on board docs under the title of bpd continuity amendments for moving cap increase dot docx so that entire all the changes in that it's a word document so the changes are tracked is the proposed slate of amendments for this first set for this so that is the only thing that is on the table i don't think we need to worry about anything else just this yeah any other documents that are posted that's not what we're deliberating it's just the amendment proposed um councillor mason you have a clarification i mean i i think the challenge with what's been done is it doesn't show much of what is in the amendment on the one page is already there the challenge i and i think i've been able to look back and forth and decipher what's going up to three things that are going on this amendment is striking the increase in the cap online 67 to 70 this is not asking the council to approve the revised job description rather it's sending it to the police commission everything else remains the same in that resolve clause in the next resolve clause there is again a delegation to the public service committee for that for that description instead of it being done by the council and there's some additional language about that the liaison is addressing with individuals with a mental health crisis and then my under and then there's a report back date and then the last resolution merely moves the funding of this from the police transformation fund from the you know from have it come out of the police budget the challenge and i appreciate this the frustration is it's hard without an actual tracked version that shows what's changed we're all kind of scrambling trying to figure if i've mischaracterized my summary then correct me councilor hightower but that's what i believe is being changed or proposed go ahead councilor hightower i believe i i'm sorry i did i did wasn't a hundred percent listening because i was making sure that the one the version on board docs is a word document where the changes are tracked so you should be able to see a tracked document and the one that i sent you um that has the changes tracked in the document second of all yes from the part that i was hearing that did sound like an accurate summary of what was being proposed so i'm i'm sorry as a point of order i do do not see a track change versions i see the proposed resolution i see a word and then i see two word docs which have no red lines no nothing it's just straight language so if i'm not seeing something on board docs that others are can someone email it to me i think sorry i'm sorry hightower yeah i think that's probably on your word document if you go to track changes and go from simple markup to all markup you should be able to see it i think that is a your word document settings issue would some i mean would you like me to screen share it um councilor mason to show you the track changes or do you feel like you understand the amendment at this point i understand the amendment but i think it would be helpful to the public to see it so i'm sorry all markup yes there it is thank you councilor hightower okay that that makes life much easier okay great but i do believe it would be helpful to the public to see what the heck we're talking about okay i'm happy to i'm happy to screen share that i'm just doing that in a minute once we kind of resolve things because then it goes to the other screen and you can't see people who are raising their hands okay is there are there any further um clarifications um i see i a city attorney blackwood trying to get in city attorney blackwood you're muted um yes i just wanted to clarify the amendment because it's it's taking out the now be it resolved clause and it's starting would be it further resolved so so first of all i i think you need to be it resolved but also it then jumps right to saying the the council delegates responsibility to approve the revised job descriptions for the new community service officers but it doesn't um it well maybe it's just that it's backwards and it makes it in in any event are you comfortable then if we just if we at least change it so it says now therefore be it resolved that i see a nod councilor hightower okay yeah all right thank you city attorney blackwood so so yeah that's now therefore be resolved that just a technical change in the first resolve clause um any other clarification on the amendment before we debate it okay seeing okay present uh councilor tracy uh just wanted to know that there needs to be a second right okay so seconded by councilor stromberg all right i see the mayor and i see councilor freeman so now we're now we can finally debate the uh the amendment would folks still don't like me to screen share it at this time all right i'll i'll briefly screen share it just so the public can see that but to be clear not everything is in track changes their part the re changing the resolve clauses is in track changes the public still won't see the parts in whereas causes and it's okay is this is this showing up for people yes this is with the track changes councilor hanson i do have a technical point to it okay go ahead mayor ronberger i just want to clarify out of the box that you have received the job descriptions that you all received a memo from chief mirad for this item as part of the you know as part of the package for this change the job descriptions were attached to the memo it also you know has already been to the police commission um where they also had that full memo from chief mirad and so they've already weighed in and endorsed this plan so i think much of the language in resolve clauses two and three is sort of almost like out of order it's certainly not consistent with uh the reasons just given for why it's needed are not accurate thank you mayor winberger um are folks comfortable if i leave screen share at this point yes okay all right i'm gonna exit screen share um all right um i have um councillor i see councillor paulino looking to be recognized go ahead so i just want to ask the maker of the motion the amendments sort of the same kind of process question um the background being how long this has been on the table how much public input we've received from people that don't normally engage with us as councillors and and are are very invested in the public safety number specifically the three m to seven am shift that people have been demanding to us to fully staff and the purposes resolution clearly being that and the cso cl o clearly being a subsidiary issue and now we're striking that um you know it seems like a separate resolution that could have been brought on its own merits um that's so i just wonder why are we going about things this way i mean people are expecting a vote tonight to fully staff our police department or not and what we're basically doing is we're taking that part out and saying well we're going to do all this other stuff um and we're going to just not and answer what people seem to be most concerned about and i just kind of wonder i don't understand this this this way of doing things okay thanks councillor paulino and that's my mistake i should have given the floor back to uh councillor high tower to in order to to speak to the amendments made my apologies councillor high tower did you want to speak to your amendments yeah i'm happy to do that um so i think first of all um i do want to clarify i have not seen the job descriptions i think i asked for this two weeks ago and we said i was told that was the same there is language on it in the memo but i didn't see separate job descriptions um so i think those are available happy to review those um the second thing that i'll say is this is the same or in the spirit of the same amendment that i was going to make two weeks ago when this item got postponed that had also been on board dux two weeks ago when we discussed this item um was to remove to remove some of the whereas clauses and then to remove that first paragraph and put put the question of that the staffing level of the sworn officers aside i think then as now um i i'm very excited about um the community service liaisons as well as the community officer positions and hope that that is something we can move forward on i think that's something that's been proposed by the administration that there is consensus on and moving forward and that those positions um can do a lot to address the type one calls that we're seeing that folks are wanting to have answered as well as um address some of the root causes that we were hoping to do um that we were hoping to do with the racial justice resolution and i think this entire resolution is or this entire change is to get us to um moving towards those alternatives so i think the racial justice resolution in june um really wanted the attrition dollars from these police officers to be moved towards and i quote um be further resolved that the general fund dollars freed up by reducing the number of uniformed officers shall be used to reduce the demand for police services through a variety of social services as well as social justice racial justice and economic justice justice initiatives and for eight months we've kind of been on trying to figure out what those alternatives are how are we going to reduce demand um the divestment does not work if there's no reinvestment and i was told to wait six months to get an update the answer i got last month was that there would be 20 544 dollars available for alternatives in this fiscal year um i don't think that at this point we should be moving to increase the cap i think we should be moving to fund the alternatives um the decision to move from three a.m to seven a.m is a reduction i mean it is a decision and it's a decision that the leadership at bpd made based on what when they have the fewest calls it certainly sounds scary to not have um to eliminate some police services or to eliminate some police in the wee hours of the night but it's a database decision the odd thing to do to me is to make an announcement saying that you'll be reducing police shifts and expect trying to expect crime to go up because of it i would find it strange if the lou took out advertisements saying reduce security from three a.m to seven a.m every night and would take an average of nine minutes instead of five minutes to respond to break-ins but in politics our police and administration are doing that and has decided to come to us with the solution and so i'm proposing the same thing i proposed last time which is to move this out um i did try to compromise on this um i was ready to go against my instincts try to do that compromise is the only woman who identifies as a person of color in this council i unsurprisingly again had to do the like work of that compromise i do have to say huge thank you to democratic counselor karen paul for working through this with me unsurprisingly as another woman i appreciate her efforts at compromise it didn't happen it fell through and so i think i think i think my efforts that compromise fell through um and this is an effort to get to where we can compromise on which is the cso's and the cs bells i think we have a lot of disagreement on the path forward with public safety and how this relates to the number of traditional armed police officers but i think we owe it to the community to move forward on what we can deliver and what we do agree on which is this part specifically i do not personally believe that we have to raise the officer cap to 74 um i also don't think we're in a crisis we had 91 officers before now we have 81 this resolution originally said that the target should be 78 i still believe the target should be 74 um and if it should be between 78 and 74 i don't understand why we're in a crisis at 71 but i think more importantly we need to start looking for the alternatives i know that our systems have a habit of underfunding racial justice gender justice economic justice initiatives and then um calling and using the lack of resources that they give um as a race as a reason to call it a failure over and over again in institution after institution and then give up on the whole effort i understand that there is not clear compelling evidence that more officers on the street means less crime and at the same time there's clear and compelling evidence that proactive policing means more racial and economic disparities and so i am excited about this resolution and what it does to move us forward on the alternatives which i think is long overdue eight months overdue um but i cannot support raising the cap at the same time this resolution would give immediately for um for ununarmed officers to the burlington police department and up to 10 in the next few months which if you do the math with me gets gets us to 84 um officers not sworn officers but 84 officers and i am supportive of that okay thank you councillor hightower um anyone else looking to speak on the amendment oh councillor jang yep so i don't know if it is specifically about the amendment but about a point that um councillor hightower just made and i don't know if i understand uh that question clearly can i ask that question can i uh i don't well let me hear what it is i guess so basically in her um statement just right here she stated that when the council reduced the number of officers through attrition to 74 right there therefore there may have been maybe 17 police officers whose fund was supposed to be diverted to social services and it seems that i'm hearing she's saying the administration um um related to her that actually only 29 000 dollars is available did i get that right or no that's a question for councillor hightower i councillor hightower did you want to did you want to respond to that yeah so um because the but so that the intent of the resolution was to divert those funds to alternatives and start to reduce the demand for police services um we however had one million dollars in the budget that was already um allocated to attrition um and then we have a further 330 000 dollars that somehow seem immune to that resolution and are being repurposed as over time within the burlington police department which i think i do not think that it was the intent of the council when we created this proposal to just have fewer officers on patrol who are increasingly up for work but that's i think the the outcome that we are at today yeah man so basically what i just asked you saying that's true you've been asking okay and it's a true that's all i needed to understand thank you okay all right next side of mayor weinberger thank you i mean this is a point i appreciate the opportunity to speak to this and again this we have talked about this numerous times in the past as the full council but there's ongoing confusion about it and i would like to try to address this once and for all we were very clear about this before the racial justice resolution was passed and certainly there was extensive conversation about it before and they'll lead up through the budget passage in the work sessions and there was written communications with many counselors the reduction of the officer cap alone does nothing to save money because the reduction of the officer cap does not drive the assignments that police officers are assigned to and the contract that we have in place and the minimum staffing commitments that we have in place the that's one key point secondly we had already before the discussions of a reduction in the number of officers began our first drafts of the budget because of covid included 1.1 million dollars of cuts in staffing costs and attrition savings is what was labeled the idea being we were going to leave a substantial number of vacancies open and not be filled and that was already baked into the budget before discussions began of the racial justice resolution that is triple almost four times the normal amount of attrition that we budget i believe i think we normally have budgeted around 300 000 dollars in attrition savings this time was 1.1 million so this was clearly communicated and explained that the reduction of the cap was not going to result in we in likely in any new savings because we had already booked the savings that could be expected from attrition and because there would be a need because we were not the council gave no direction the council didn't say stop responding to noise calls stop don't staff stop uh you know don't have a domestic violence specialist anymore uh the council didn't direct didn't weigh in and take the time frankly to um figure out where we would cut back on public safety services that burlingtonians expect and we have not so we didn't think we certainly didn't we had not cut those back we have attempted to continue doing everything the people of burlington have come to expect to do that with less officers requires more overtime as i think would be i think people understand it's not some mysterious relationship between the two it is it is necessary if you have less officers the same number that was those people need to work more uh in order to complete the same number of duties or approximating the same number of duties so that created a problem um and we addressed that problem in the budget that since there was going to be no savings from the racial justice resolution we needed to find a way to make progress on racial justice and police transformation nonetheless that is why the budget that i came to you with had a million dollars in it for we used essentially reserves a million dollars for racial justice and 250 000 for police transformation and they're in within this budget year there is no tension between wanting to fund and move forward with racial justice and the need to cut police i actually think that um we should think about that this is an aside for future budget years i think if we set it up so that the only way we can fund racial justice is by cutting the police budget i think that is a recipe for ongoing conflict and disagreement and uh fights over this and it it unnecessarily pits these two things against each other unless you are from the perspective that less policing equals racial justice which i know some people are um if but i don't but i think many people um don't don't see it that way certainly i don't see it that way i actually think below a certain point cutting from the police budget uh actually can worsen some of our racial justice goals so i would say going forward i would recommend that we seek to avoid putting these these two important values uh and initiatives in intention with each other that's what the budget you are working under this year does and we will attempt to submit if i get the opportunity to continue to submit these budgets that's what i'll attempt to do going forward so i hope that is clarifying uh in terms of the count important question the counselor jang is asking here um finally again i the the amendment that is now before you for action is premised on the idea that job descriptions have not been submitted to you and need to go back for more further process slowing this down further i would respectfully request the council consider deleting those resolve clauses because you have had for two weeks the job descriptions they were part of chief mirad's memo uh chief of staff ridel has posted in the chat the link to to those sometimes you know staff we could have carried over all those items from last time maybe there was some confusion because they didn't get carried over again that's typically often how it happens they get published once they don't get republished when the item is continued the job descriptions are there they've been through the police commission i think we should get the final approvals tonight uh for those that would be a good outcome from tonight if there is a if there is an amendment that passes tonight okay thank you mayor weinberger i have um councillor tracy to be followed by councillors jang and paulino thank you very much councillor hanson i fully support this amendment because i think it really does the work that we need to be doing as a community to to transform public safety and to really realize the vision that was set forth earlier this summer and that vision was really predicated on the idea that we needed to fundamentally transform policing in our community that the efforts that had been made prior halting as they were as incomplete as they were as insufficient as they were were quite honestly and wholly inadequate to address the systemic racism that we see in our community and specifically within public safety that the key piece of that was the element around cutting the officers down to 74 and then and then creating these additional positions um over time in order to properly resource uh key community needs and i believe that by properly uh that by building out these positions we will be able to address those needs within our community whether it's dealing with substance use disorder issues or the vast majority of calls those type one calls that have to do with things like noise noise complaints like sometimes with traffic direction or other issues like certain types of crashes we have an opportunity here to properly resource those positions while also holding true to the vision that was set forth in that resolution and it's important to revisit that resolution a resolution that was supported by nine counselors on this on this board and that was signed by the mayor on on july 13th that resolution recognized the the deep roots that american policing had that that american policing has in the slave trade and specifically the the fugitive slave act and how that has carried forward till today till today when we have a system where people are are still disproportionately stopped because of the color of their skin where people are disproportionately used against have force used against them because of of that where we we see these disparities we have not adequately addressed them and we're in a position now i believe where we need to fundamentally transform public safety where we need to lean into these efforts and where we need to really make sure that we're making real a real effort to implement change in in service of racial justice and in line with what the what we know will bring up will bring about a better racial justice outcomes that will at least specifically prevent harm and i say prevent harm because we see again record levels of use of force against people of color but we don't see an oversight model and that's i think a key element of this is that i'm certainly opposed to to bringing back staffing levels when we have an oversight model that was just vetoed and no real account no meaningful accountability mechanism to deal with the harms that that we've seen spread out across our community i think the other piece that i that i'll also speak to is that we also see um we also just after this item we have an item specifically geared towards uh doing that that full-throated analysis or i should say a full bore analysis of what it is that uh that the that bpds operations involved so i think that for those reasons it makes sense i also think that it makes sense because we have seen a decline in in in call volume overall with the 36 percent decline from 2016 and even if you take out 2020 we see them calls it remaining down 23 percent so i guess i'm just not seeing the the rationale for for increasing officers before we've tried out these other these other positions and given them a real honest chance of of of addressing the needs of our community the social needs but then also these other functional needs that we've identified within within the the the the the resolution so i fully support this amendment because i think it brings us into line with something that we that we all can agree with which is that we need to to to that these csls and cso positions make sense and then that we continue to to look at and have this this meaningful and important conversation around bpd staffing specifically sworn or armed officer positions but that we make sure that we're doing so in an intentional way with regards to this this analysis as well as oversight issues that are i believe fundamental to realizing a more comprehensive vision of racial justice okay thank you councillor tracy i have councillors jang paulino and carpenter in the queue councillor jang i see pine and mason after councillor jang you're you're muted thank you acting president what i wanted to say will not be relevant to the uh to the amendment here but i think um real effort in in bringing change just make me think of this concept about doing things right and also doing the right things and doing the things right i think we we we we as a body we are here now crumbling with the question and i think whenever i say we made a mistake this is exactly what i was saying you know and i think in front of us we had an amendment that would prevent all of this but we did not we did not support it and it's unfortunate i'll i'll just pass i'll pass okay all right thank you councillor jang um councillor paulino thank you councillor hanson i just want to say this is the most important vote i'll take in the two years i served as a councillor um it's i have not had one person reach out to me say we need more cso's we need community service officer we need more community liaison i know some people have but here in the new north end not one person has emailed me and say you know what decrease the number of officers so that we can get more communities service officers and community liaison and the reason that is because this is a pilot program this is not even in effect as we just established there's a a vague description of the job and we're going to essentially agree right now to not even address the immediate issue that our constituents are asking us to act on regardless we may disagree with it but but i'm so frustrated that i cannot by the virtue of this amendment vote yes or no on the cap this whole resolution establishes a problem that by september 2021 it is likely there will be 38 38 officers for patrol less than 38 and that is a problem and that people want a solution to that they've been we've been we delayed it they want us to vote yes or no on that and i'm so frustrated that i can't and i appreciate councillor hightower's efforts i have no doubt the amount of energy that she put into but my original point was we can still those that's work we do in committee we established the jobs we can do that with or without we don't have to gut a resolution in order to be able to do that work we don't have you know and that's why i'm so frustrated at this you know max makes great points but again we we're still have a problem that we may disagree on how to tackle it but we don't have the the the way to deliver the problem at hand for the next nine months until we get back the assessment and that's what constituents want us to answer and so i ask i think i'm just asking councillors who are on the fence who have some reservations to really think about the problem that our constituents are asking us to deal with which is just a temporary problem and whether with this amendment we're adding to that problem we're providing any level of clarity or we're just kind of passing the buck and i think it's pretty clear thank you councillor hightower's okay thank you councillor paul you know i have councillor carpenter pine mason and strongberg in the queue um councillor carpenter um comment and a little clarification as um i read the current amendment on the floor it it does remove the paragraphs related to um the cap of the officers um as well as authorizing um the community service officers or at least it rewrites it if that amendment fails we are back to the original amendment or the original motion which at the minute sets um a staffing level of 78 and a cap of 84 there have some people including the police commission advise 82 would be better and it still retains the um four community service officers up up to 10 and i so this is more to councillor tracy's point in either version i hope we are voting for the community service officers which i think we all agree we want um councillor hightower has some subsequent um amendments um related to how that would be carried out which we can talk but i i guess i'm saying if this amendment fails we still and need to have the opportunity to approve um the community service officers with four up to up to 10 if i'm misunderstanding it please tell me but that's what i'm i'm reading and then there is of course the open ended question on the cap which could be changed by another amendment we've not seen am i understanding that accurately were you looking for an immediate reply councillor hightower i guess you want to give a quick reply yes so if this if if the amendment were to pass it would keep the cso's the same intact and the csl's it would just change some things about how it's done but it would keep the number intact if it fails the underlying resolution would also then still have the cso's and the csl's okay okay great thank you councillor carpenter um i have councillors pine mason and stromburg councillor pine thank you acting president hanson um i think that the biggest challenge that i believe we're facing tonight and throughout this conversation is we're really trying to create an entirely new approach to public safety and i think that's where we're we're struggling because we're not we don't have like a lot of muscle memory here we haven't done this we're trying to build a new emergency response model that doesn't revolve around police showing up for situations that involve mental health crises substance use disorders and other disturbing behaviors that don't present an imminent threat to public safety so i think we have to look around and ask are we alone are we the only ones doing this and it's clear that there are dozens and dozens of other communities not in vermont necessarily but across the country large and small that are really doing this incredibly hard job hard work about reinventing public safety and and i found a really interesting story that i just want to share because i did a little bit of research recently and in eugene origan a bunch of activists back in the 60s they formed something called the white bird clinic because they really felt that rather than rely on the police for for these types of incidents in the community that we need to gather medics and social workers and you know people who could really address the needs in a different way and so they put together this incredible clinic and fast forward about 20 years into the into the 80s and they decided that they would actually pilot something with the local police force that they ended up calling cahoots and it stood for crisis assistance helping out in the streets now 30 years later there's a mobile crisis response team many teams in eugene that really kind of an odd marriage of police resources and kind of this counter cultural group that they're really focused on creating new successes that are built on the idea of of a caring community of a community that actually finds a new way to address these issues and so now there's cities all over the country that are asking eugene for their blueprint for how do you do this how do you actually create this system and so what they did is they they essentially created a new dispatch program within their existing communication center and they have a non-emergency number they provide unique response to nonviolent situations and in mostly 12 hour shifts made up of a medic and a crisis social worker they respond to urgent medical or psychological crises that come up in the community that in burlington right now we depend on our law enforcement to handle and i actually think it's incredibly burdensome on our law enforcement to expect them to handle people suffering with addiction people suffering with disorientation with mental health emergencies and sometimes houseless folks who are really in danger of of harm or perhaps inflicting harm on someone else so i think they came up with a much better approach and between the two cities that it serves the cahoots program handles about 24 000 calls a year incredibly positive response and better outcomes for the individuals and for their community at large and i i did hear during one of the maryl debates that it was suggested that we're really you know kind of alone in this and we're not you know we're not in good company or there aren't many other cities that are doing this but i did a quick quick research and there's there's actually quite a few communities that are engaged in this issue so you know real quickly austin texas denver colorado aurora colorado memphis tennessee los angeles san antonio minneapolis and in many cases what they're attempting to do is actually reduce the number of law enforcement officers and in fact create a new core a new sort of civilian core a partnership that brings together the service providers in a way that really provides the support and and sort of redefining and reimagining our public safety approach that's what we're trying to do here i don't think anyone on this council set us set out to let's let's reduce the police force so we can make burlington less safe and i actually don't know that i think we've done ourselves a disservice to get really mired down in this notion that a reduction in police officers is inherently going to be a less safe community i have this debate with friends i have friends who think that's true i have people who think we should go much further um but i think you're misconstruing things to say that we are somehow willing to put the public safety at risk i think that's a i think that's really unfair i think it's actually kind of lazy to call it a a riskier approach because i think the current approach is pretty risky we've seen the results we've seen the results so we're now spending a hundred thousand dollars of taxpayer money on a consultant who's going to give us an operational assessment and one of the goals of that assessment is to identify appropriate number of sworn officers based on our real needs and to identify what agencies could be providing services to citizens in lieu of asking police to respond to everything that comes up so i'd rather have us make an informed choice we have this report look at the data so far by the way the data that we have that counselor trace you referred to earlier doesn't show that crime is up it shows that it's actually down pretty significantly and honestly that time period that folks are most concerned about in the middle of the night the the call volume is incredibly low the call volume is actually averages between zero zero and one call during that four-hour time window so i think the notion that we're creating this really dark dark dangerous place that folks are going to be at risk i think that's a real disservice i think that's really unfortunate that that has been the narrative that has emerged in this conversation so that you're either you're for safety or you're against safety and i kind of reject that that binary situation that has been created i hope that we can can do this assessment figure out what's best for burlington it's two months away this assessment is going to take place starting now and by sometime in april we're going to have a pretty decent assessment meanwhile we're making an investment in the community support officers and the community service liaisons to help us build this more caring or compassionate approach to dealing with public safety i think it's a it's really uh that's what we're faced with so thank you very much thank you i have counselors mason stromberg and freeman and i see counselor carpenter i'm looking for a second second round so we'll assess at that point same thing with counselor high tower um counselor mason first i want to note it's 10 27 so i'll make a motion to suspend our rules to allow completion of 604 605 and 606 which is the remainder of our deliberative agenda okay that motion's been made seconded by counselor stromberg um any discussion seeing none all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed okay seeing none that passes unanimously and we will complete the deliberative agenda um counselor mason you have the floor thank you yes thank you uh acting president hansen um as i'm listening to counselor pine i it's interesting i i could almost give the same speech but potentially draw different conclusions um what i'm struggling with is you know we have a report and a plan in front of us presented by the experts the chief of police um supported by the director of police transformation the plan has been vetted by the police commission with whom we have entrusted really to deal with operational matters um and their recommendation maybe didn't come back at 84 but came back at 82 um and yet we seem to be or certain members of this body seems to be substituting their judgment for those um who actually we've we've been trusted with operational control and and that's really the piece that i'm struggling with i i'm not hearing you know and and i agree with uh counselor pine that we've somewhat put in many ways the carp before the horse we've asked for a study i've said this repeatedly but it hasn't been started much less completed or discussed um the plan that was put forth was intended to be temporary until such time as that plan came forward and my belief you know based on the projected retirement numbers is that if the right number is 74 it's we're not going to have an issue hitting 74 um but to not you know start the process of hiring to fill those public safety holes that have been identified and that people are reaching out to all of us saying you know please do not allow this to continue i think it's irresponsible for us to simply say the chief is wrong these aren't real problems he should be able to move people around so you know that we do have coverage 24 seven they've tried that and they've come to us and said we cannot do that so i i disagree um you know that that moving forward with this cap that i felt you know i voted against and i thought was the wrong thing out of the gate i'm not suggesting at the end of the day that may not be the right decision but we've created this problem um and we've been afforded a lifeline to potentially solve it and i'm hopeful that this council will take it and move forward the best and i appreciate the concern that this is pitting you know public safety against um potentially achievement of the racial justice goals but i don't think it has to be that way and i got an email that i'm going to read from a constituent that says it better than i think any of us did dear members of the council i'm a resident of the old north end and i strongly support police reform i also strongly support the hiring of enough qualified police officers to adequately fill all shifts around the clock i do not believe it is morally sound to deprive vulnerable citizens of a resource to call on in times of need nor do i believe it is ethical to deplete and exhaust the team of community members whom we entrust with our grave is concerns safety and welfare i think it's absolutely necessary to review and improve police protocol to safeguard against corruption injustice and behavior that can engender both citizens and police simply removing resources from the bpd is not an effective means to that end burlington deserves deserves a holistic approach that fully considers the needs of all residents no one should ever have to be asked to sacrifice their safety or security on the on the path the responsible police reform i think that constituent stated better than i ever could thank you thank you councillor mason i have councillor stromberg and freeman next councillor so much um can you hear me okay my uh computer's weird okay um so i don't know how eloquent this is but to be i guess as transparent and candid as humanly possible which has always been my goal um i fully support this amendment um these amendments i i think councillor high tower laid it out really well and councillor tracy and councillor pine like you guys really i can't say it better than you did but i do want to add a few observations um i've had more constituents from all wards across the city um email me text me call me um about keeping the cap at the same level that it is the racial justice resolution and um so i've had more people contact me in support of that than raising it yes i hear you the folks to who wrote me and said that we want to raise the cap i hear you loud and clear um but i've had more individuals by far reach out in support of lowering it or keeping it as is um in terms of the resolution whatever our goal a little bit rather through attrition um so that's one thing i just want to that's simple and i just want to put that out there um i've also noticed that you know bpd i've never seen a bpd and the unions be so active as they are lately um regarding this topic and it it feels and i've heard from members of our community especially by pock community members say you know it's it's like you only hear from them when there's kind of this like undermining effort to to undo this this work that has been done for for months and months i mean this pain and emotional um real pull that this has been for for folks um so that's another thing i just want to put out there but my main point here is that you know one of the speakers during public forum actually said it really perfectly and it was again simple it was that hearing by pock community members and specifically pointed toward by pock them hearing them speak is a gift and i obviously i couldn't agree more um one thing i do want to point out and most of us if not all of us heard amanda gorman speak during the inauguration early january of course and even last night if you got the super bowl and my purpose in bringing amanda gorman up in this discussion is that following her um speech and her poem um i saw post after post after post of love and admiration and and a captivation of her words on social media i mean people were wild about her or are wild about her and i saw a lot of white folks myself included posting things about her in a very positive light um you know embracing the sentiments and i think that it's a perfect example of people embracing um especially this young black activist who put so much on the line there in that moment i mean that's it was huge is you know just 22 years old um she happens to say a lot of things people liked especially around unity and healing after such a heinous political mess of the you know federal level for four years um and i i noticed that we embrace people especially by pock people when they are saying things um that that we like and um when when people get on these public forums and are pleading with the council for just basic safety um you know they just feel unheard and on like just so you know forgotten in in society and and left behind and truly just not embraced and it's like you know it's like when bipoc folks are saying things that you know our traditional systems of oppression are not in favor of hearing um then the the embracement goes away and the the the the posts of love and admiration are not there when especially they need it the most and i know that these are two very different things but to me it was just like such a hypocritical moment of um realization of where we are in society and how far we have to go um so you know there's so much beauty out there and i there's so much potential and we have to get there we owe that to our community so those are kind of my maybe less eloquent words but those are my thoughts on this and i'm very supportive of the amendment brought forward thank you thank you councillor stromberg um i have councillor freeman and then i have councillor carpenter and high tower looking to get in on second second round comments um but councillor freeman go out um i was going to move to um amend something but i think someone else was planning to make a different amendment similar so i don't um i will i'll just skip for now because that's what i was prepared to say um but i think someone else is planning to address it so you're passing for now yeah i we're getting close to the end of the debate so i might just want to circle back um before we vote okay um sorry it was simultaneous okay um so is there anyone else on first round before we enter into second round of of comments for carpenter and high tower okay great seeing none so we should be moving closer to a vote then so councillor carpenter go ahead um thanks a couple different comments first i want to just have us look back at the racial justice resolution which i was very proud to sponsor part of it did um place a cap um which with a minimal of information part of it asked for a functional assessment which we're just tonight hopefully approving the other big part of it i think we're some of the items that councillor pine talked about about transformation and one of the speakers tonight said we needed to be true to the racial justice resolution and i don't think we've been true we have not done enough of that work that's the work we need to do now the proposed um resolution even if it's amended later the community service officers and the community service liaisons are in a room so beginning that process as is approving the rfb contract tonight so that's the work we need to start the fact that we're behind schedule is unfortunate but we are um and the fact that we in this this is an interim plan that we're being proposed asks to add essentially four more officers i don't is not not being true i think it gets us from here to there i mean we don't have plans in place i'm old enough in my early social work years to remember what all the work happened with the institutionalization great idea we advocated it and we didn't have plans in place and it didn't work so well so for me the goal is let's get that planning in place and not be so focused and let's get our our um average cap which we never discussed in july or june the difference between functional and effective and and all of that we're getting i believe so hung up on that piece and not really focusing on the fact that tonight we need to approve the community service officers we need to have the community service liaison we need the money to do that piece of work and get that work started and the mere fact that we need more officers in this interim period until the assessment comes back and we vet it out shouldn't be the driver i think it's getting the other work done that's really really critical thank you councillor carpenter i've councillor hightower and you're muted thanks that's helpful the only thing on the job description i just i didn't mean that to be a block the csl job description is a paragraph it's 116 words it says as much about what it's not as what it is i've written well over a dozen job descriptions um kind of in my own professional life for all kinds of different roles and i just i i think it's a little bit of a blank check i would like us to put more parameters around that i don't think it's crazy to say that we want some part of our body to do do do just around that before we just say yes so that was my only intent with that what we have i don't consider job description i think it's the start of one it's a good it's a good building block um i don't i guess i don't want to go too far into other stuffs and to other things folks from my ward who are writing me are either saying don't raise the cap or they're saying raise the cap so we can have 24 seven coverage and look into alternatives and training i think it's very easy to go back to like to go back to what you had that is the easy thing to do um so i think if that is the thing that we need to do we will do it um and i won't make myself popular in my ward by saying this but it's like i don't care if we go i've told the mayor weeks ago that i'd be fine going to 78 which did not end well but i told him that i've worked with counselor um paul and told her that i'd be fine with 79 but all of that i think is a little bit secondary because that's not what we need to hold ourselves to we need to hold ourselves to doing the transformation work which we have not done and so i think getting the transformation right making sure that that's funded that that is covered to me is step one because we are very quick to say oh um to call 10 officers leaving a crisis offer 30k in alternatives and do the attempt to transformation eight months later we say oh that didn't work let's let's go halfway back to how it was and i guarantee in eight months if we don't do the hard work we'll say oh let's just fully go back to the way it was not we missed the boat on transformation and so i guess i'm asking us tonight to prioritize transformation i agree we shouldn't be pitting racial justice and policing against each other to me this resolution isn't about racial justice i notice for others it's not for me it is about alternatives to policing and alternatives to policing to me should be funded by reductions in policing racial justice should be separate our racial justice fund is separate has not been fully allocated not even by half but it's separate this is about alternatives to policing and right now we're under resourcing both of them alternatives and racial justice so this is my plea to ask us to work on alternatives and transformation great thank you i have councillor shannon and then councillor paul and then councillor freeman after that councillor shannon thank you acting president hanson um i wanted to go through um i think we understand kind of what is being proposed but i haven't heard why it's being proposed so the first um the and also correct me if i'm wrong about what is being proposed but the first thing that i believe is stricken is um line in line 16 and 17 i think the words that are stricken are and two more are expected to leave shortly which will bring the effective number to 77 um talking about swarm swarm personnel why is that being stricken and is that is that correct that's what's being stricken there and why if the maker of the motion um if you would allow a response acting president hanson um councillor high tower would you like to respond to that um sorry i heard the first part is it about striking lines can you repeat the question yes it's just um i'm just going through this to understand why these why you proposed what you're proposing so my understanding is what's being stricken is and two more are expected to leave shortly which will bring the number to 77 and you've asked for that to be stricken and i wondered why oh yeah because it's conjecture i generally tried to remove some of that conjecture that was not factual but conjecture okay so then going to at the current level of 79 swarm personnel there are only 41 sworn officers available for patrol resulting in a need to reduce coverage i believe that was stricken councillor high tower did you want to speak to that i can so the it just i couldn't get the numbers to add up so it's just easier to one we have at least according to another part of that resolution it says that we have 81 so 79 if it's 79 then it should say effective and then 79 if you look at the proceeding paragraphs it should be minus eight minus five minus 13 which got me to 53 not 41 so it was just i couldn't quite make the numbers work so okay um when i'm done i'd like to go back to that one and get get a response from chief mirad to see it just what he has to say about that then um the next one whereas one sworn officer may depart for a long-term military deployment and in the next six months two sworn officers are known to be actively exploring other job options and one sworn officer is on extended planned fmla leave and whereas 11 sworn officers are currently eligible for or will be eligible for retirement by september 2021 so that if all left the total sworn officers would be reduced to 59 with only 28 officers available for patrol um so i assume that that is eliminated because that is conjecture that's consistent with the other okay um whereas then 36 or fewer officers are available for patrol which is likely later this spring the department will no longer be able to deploy full overnight coverage and that has been stricken because that's conjecture so um then the cap then there are um from there we move to the whereas clause is the action items and the change is to remove the change of the cap which is so that's just stricken we're not changing with this amendment we would not be changing the cap and then the job descriptions um we would delegate the responsibility for approving the job description for a bpd based community support liaison to the public safety committee and but the job so that job description has already been approved by the um police commission is that correct and we're being asked to approve we were being asked to approve the job descriptions right um who is that who was that direct um who were you directing that question to i'm happy if anybody wants to answer the question um there's been some discussion about who has approved the job description i thought it had already been approved by the police commission um councillor hightower just spoke to that and so my understanding is you're dissatisfied with the job description um so i see chief mirad and councillor hightower both trying to get in councillor shannon who did you want to hear from i would be happy to hear from both of them in whatever order you choose okay all right i saw chief mirad chief mirad first if you want to speak thank you very much uh mr president um i just wanted to clarify that the police commission saw the job descriptions because they got the same memo that you did but those job descriptions were not presented to them when we presented the plan to them we just presented the continuity plan the job description for the cso was presented to them because that's the extent current job description for the cso it's the one we use we don't anticipate needing to change it until we have a better idea of what they may or may not be able to do and it's about 770 words the csl position is about 1200 almost 1300 words it is a full city job description and while it's certainly open to edit and and input and can be shaped what by what we learn once we start to hire some of those positions it is it's not a small one by any means um but no the police commission didn't approve those descriptions it approved the continuity plan and then presented to you the letter from commissioner harp it donors don't our um job descriptions usually go through board of finance yes and so that it would apply to the one that is the cso it would not yet apply to the csl the csl is a is a is a hypothetical position it's one we're developing okay so we already have a process for that going through council council committees and um since since I have chief murad here I did want to go back to him on the current level of 79 sworn personnel there are only 41 sworn officers available for patrol and counselor high tower was saying that she couldn't um she wasn't clear on where the math came from um it's it's just the math we have 41 officers who are assigned to uh usb patrol that doesn't include the airport that doesn't include detectives that doesn't include supervisors we have a total of 79 officers who are currently effective in that they are available to be deployed um our headcount is a little higher than that on paper because as i've said before we do have two officers who are on retirement they're burning their time but they're gone um but they're still on our books we have a long-term disability who's supposed to be off our books in the next week or so um we have two on long-term military deployment of more than a year and i just received another resignation retirement resignation from an officer who will be off the road in april and off of our books in june that lag time is the amount of accrued time that he has to burn which is his right but he'll be off the road in april um i am anticipating another one who is going to come to me has asked to come to me and i think what he's going to tell me when he does come to me is that he is entering into uh employment with another agency um and then i have two others who i fully anticipate giving me the same kind of news sometime in a short time frame okay and then um so the there's a number of things here that have been arguably speculative um is the loss of the overnight coverage speculative it is not it's not speculative it is probable uh once we get to a certain level of officers again about in the mid 30s 36 or so available for patrol we will not be able to staff a true midnight we will have to move to a midnight that is purely uh responsive and we're not sure what that's going to look like i think we'll probably step towards it bit by bit we'll have to learn as we go we've never done something like this um and we're going to have to figure out what kinds of things we still would send officers to how many officers will actually have if we plummet more than just a few if i lose several in a short time span then i'm not going to be able to even able to have uh an in-house response i'm only going to be able to keep one officer in the building nearly to protect the dispatch that is there and the resources that are inside the building the weapons the contraband the evidence um and we'll probably have to look into hardening the building in ways that maybe don't even need an overnight officer uh but that depends on how low we get and how quickly we get there um if it's if it's a more uh sort of incremental approach towards lower numbers then we may be able to have a supervisor and maybe one or two officers but remember this that yes the the call volume at that time of day is the lowest that is why i have chosen in order to maintain as many of our normal services as possible during our highest call volume periods to look at that period of the day but the fact of the matter is that the calls that do come in at that time of day can often be quite significant and if i have two officers and only two officers on duty and they respond to a domestic uh incident in the new north end the far end of town that's it because every domestic has at least a two officer response it is the only safe way to approach an incident like that and we want more officers on scenes by the way i think everybody knows if we have an incident where there's one person versus one officer that is more likely to result in a use of force than if there are two or three officers there who can quite clearly make it clear that the individual is not going to get anywhere with a use of force or trying to physically resist an officer but when we have a domestic we send two that's our minimum that's that eats up everything and if we suddenly find another one in another part of town and while it's true that there are nights where we don't have much there are other nights where we have a lot and where that midnight shift is really really humming uh then we don't have anything to send to that and mutual aid is not going to cut it because other agencies have made it very clear they will not assist us for a problem they see uh as burlington zone making um and with regard to call volume that that came up a little bit earlier i just wanted to point out that uh 94 percent of our calls are in the type one and type two call type uh they're not the type three the most serious we're very fortunate that's about six percent of our total call volume or incident volume let's not call it calls let's call them incidents because they're not necessarily calls incidents of the 94 percent that are type one and type two uh 62 percent of our internal have dropped from 2015 to 2019 we saw a 62 decline for internally generated incidents that's things that are generated by officers proactively deciding to engage with crimes that they witness or with certain kinds of behavior and instead of doing those kinds of engagement they are finding other ways to engage that don't require the creation of an incident and the issuance of a ticket for example whereas our externally generated incidents for type one and type two only declined four percent from 2016 2015 to 2019 this means that the calls that are generated by people calling for help and for assistance haven't budged they have remained incredibly flat and the 47 percent of the decrease total decrease in incident reduction from 2015 to 2019 40 percent of that alone was traffic stops which are largely discretionarily implemented by officers officers initiate those on their own so a full 47 a full 47 percent of the total decrease in incidents from 2015 to 2019 I'm discounting 2020 because of its anomaly uh its anomalous nature owing to COVID-19 but almost half just from traffic which is officers choosing not to make car stops and that was a concerted effort on the part of chief del pozo and other bosses to say that we don't want to prioritize this kind of enforcement because we can realize the same benefits which regard to traffic safety from other methods including road reconstruction including different kinds of traffic patterns etc um chief mirad I think councillor shannon was saying that you had answered the question is that what you were trying to say a couple minutes ago sorry I think going back to the the question which was whereas when 36 or fewer officers are available for patrol which is likely later this spring the department will no longer be able to deploy full overnight coverage um that is not the only part of that that's speculative is which is likely later this spring that number 36 um it is with certainty that the department no longer will be able to deploy full overnight coverage when that number gets to 36 is that correct that is correct we will full overnight coverage will be impossible with that number okay um um that's that's helpful I think that's what I had for um acting chief mirad um resolved causes um I'd just like to know that if I received this at 4 36 this afternoon um well that's when it came into my inbox it's not actually when I got to look at it that was about when our meeting was starting and I wondered if um if the if the chief had been consulted in these amendments um or the director of formation whereas this is just the good idea of an individual you know what has were they were they consulted to understand how these changes would would affect them is this for councilor hightower it is okay and then let's let's try to you've had the floor for some time councilor shannon so maybe after this one if you could start to wrap up your comments councilor hightower did you want to address that I have neither consulted with the chief of police nor with the director of transformation on that first on that specific change okay councilor shannon I think it's really inappropriate when we have had this proposal since december and it was on our agenda two weeks ago um to becoming to the meeting with new changes that haven't been vetted by our professional staff or by the public you know the public has weighed in on what they've seen they don't get to weigh in on this stuff that you just throw on the agenda at the last minute and I know that there are times on the council floor where something needs to change um and things evolve but that's not really how this came about um and it's it's becoming a really bad habit of this council to be throwing out new ideas that are not vetted that are extremely important to the community um um and I'll also note that councilor hightower um bemoaned the fact that we're we're not really prioritizing transformation but these amendments I don't see how these amendments prioritize transformation in fact I don't think the purpose of this resolution is the transformation itself it's to bridge the grab the cso's and the csl's are part of the transformation but the rest of it is really to bridge the gap to transformation because they were defunded um on a friday afternoon we got a resolution to defund the police that was to be considered the following monday that doesn't even meet our council guidelines for when something is supposed to be submitted and that kind of something can be as simple as uh um you know honoring a soccer team when you're talking about transformation that involves process um it involves vetting and it shouldn't it can't just happen with the wave of a pen um so I also would note that uh councilor pine noted many communities that he says you know we're not we're not in this alone but when they created cahoots they did not defund the police and they're that's a great program austin also did not defund their police I can't speak to every community on that list but I haven't really found communities defunding their police successfully um adding these supports is critically important to transformation that is for sure and I support transformation but we we have to have a bridge to get there and that's what this is providing is the bridge and we shouldn't be dismantling the bridge without even consulting the bridge builder who has expertise in this matter so I hope that people aren't going to you know to just change everything without proper proper consultation or vetting or even being able to talk to our constituents about it and I'll leave it at that thank you okay great thank you um councilor shannon so we are an hour and a half into the debate on the amendment at this point we still be underlying and then our other items to get to tonight um councillor paul has not spoken though and is next in the queue councillor freeman also had taken a pass so neither of you has spoken so I'll give you an opportunity but let's let's please try to wind this down folks councillor paul thanks very much um I can assure you I won't be speaking long um uh but I feel like I should say something uh that I think is that I think is important um first of all I I just you know it two weeks ago when we sat here and postponed the vote on this on this resolution um I had high hopes as I think a lot of people did that we could find a middle ground and one of the one of the upsides of having spent the last week and working on that is I got to work um just sort of because it sort of happened and because we came together with councillor high tower and councillor pine um I can attest to the fact that they worked very hard to find a compromise and that compromise did include on the issue of the target staffing and the cat and um it was a compromise that I thought was reasonable it wasn't everything that everybody that anyone wanted and it wasn't as little as anyone as everyone wanted um but we couldn't find a way to get to seven votes um there was just a reticence on both sides to compromise on what seemed like a reasonable number and so here we are we're not going to compromise on this number this number is not going to change this evening and I believe that the resolute that the amendment that councillor high tower has proposed is going to pass and when it passes we will we will have the cs well this one and the other have the csls I plan for the csos we will be moving forward now are we moving forward in the same way that every single person wants probably not um but we are moving forward and I think it's important to acknowledge that um I appreciate very much the work that both councillor pine and councillor high tower did with me to try to get to a place that we could all support and I really felt up until a few hours ago that we that we were there um but everybody has to give a little bit and everybody has to appreciate that you don't get everything when you've got people that disagree with each other you've got to find a middle ground and I felt that we had that and I am sorry that we are not there um so instead of having a middle ground the cap will not change this evening and so instead of getting something we're not getting we're not getting a change to that number and I think for those people that want that that is very unfortunate um I support the um uh I support the the the csls and the csos um I'd like to see those as part I'd like to give those a chance and hope that this will help us in addressing some of the calls and I do also hope that bpd and bpd leadership will look at this as yet another opportunity to be creative define solutions um within within the parameters that are given um you know all of us that are in professions know that we don't get everything we want we have to work with what we are given sometimes and sometimes those are not great alternatives but we make the best of it and we make it work that's what makes people leaders and successful at it and that's that's what I hope we can do I um I would have loved to have seen a compromise on this um and I just want to as I say I just want to again acknowledge that there was difficult work done and I am grateful for those who did it and uh and I'm sorry that we can't find a compromise that we can all move forward with thanks very much okay thank you councillor paul um the last person on first round since they took a pass earlier is councillor freeman um I feel like we've been chatting about this for a while um thanks um for giving me the floor um I agree um you know I appreciate what you're saying councillor paul um and I appreciate just um how much councillors have had to come to the table on this issue um I think we have done an immense amount of grappling with this issue I don't think there's one among us that has not felt um just the like sort of the immensity and the scale of how much um we have put thought and um this issue has been discussed and rolled over um so I just wanted to acknowledge that um and acknowledge um that it's a it's a very it's a hard thing that we're doing um and I think people are trying to come to the table and we are trying to figure this out um and I really I really commend that work and I commend that the city um and us as a community overall is doing that work um I share a councillor high tower sentiment um around um the need to invest um in community resources um I I agree that that is um for me ultimately um the way that we reduce violence in our communities and that's why I say committed um to a strategy that invests resources into our community um in this way um I also agree um with what councillor pine shared about um the fact that other communities are making these changes um they are too grappling um with this very um complicated um complicated issue and these complicated policy changes um you know there's for example out of Austin right now Austin has both reduced and invested around over 30 percent of their police budget um there are um there are considerable changes being met because um there have been considerable issues um historically in policing I think we all know that um you know I started um much of my community engagement activism in the Black Lives Matter movement um in 2013 um or around 2013 2014 and um I you know this is um it is this has been um this is a long time coming um and I I think we're all really grappling that so I I do support this amendment um I think this is um a step towards making a change I think there are um things that I would continue to tweak in this um but I I want us to move on this um so I am withholding some of those things um because I think we as a body we are trying to push forward um in in something that is a semblance of a middle ground a compromise um of sorts so um I'm I'm glad that we have arrived at that I you know I appreciate all the comments tonight and um yeah I will be supporting this amendment thank you all right thank you Councillor Freeman so I see the mayor trying to get in and previously had seen councillors tracing carpenter um all three of you have already spoken and councillor carpenter twice is are these brief comments or I just want to make sure that we're moving towards a vote on the amendment to get to the underlying I'm all set okay councillor carpenter I had seen you I just want to comment that we're only talking about an amendment the underlying resolution can be further amended if we choose to correct correct uh Mayor Weinberger thank you acting president hanson um I I would like clarification for my sense of this amendment um there are I guess I'm interested if the sponsor Councillor Hightower disagrees with the assertion that the um the underlying motion the underlying met uh proposal um is includes comparable provisions for moving forward on CSOs CSLs and um funding uh funding even more CSLs in the future I don't I see my read of this amendment is some that there is some additional process added but otherwise there is no material change um in this amendment to those provisions um Councillor Hightower did you want to did you want to speak to that yeah and sorry I'm keeping my video off because I've unstable internet but um I mean I think yeah I think we have the same understanding okay thank you for that clarification so I just want to be really clear before this vote then and I would like to share some thoughts I think this is the consequential vote on the evening not because of um the detail that has been added in those areas but because this vote of uh is the vote there will not be a later vote in this if this succeeds this is the vote that is a vote on what the administration has been calling out since December on the urgent need to raise the cap to 84 um this is this is the most consequential thing about this vote and I just don't want there to be any confusion with the public this is this is voting for this is not to vote for CSOs that's in the underlying uh proposal it's not to vote for CSLs that's already there it's not to add additional funding that's already there this is a vote about blocking the administration's proposal that we move from 74 to 84 as the cap yeah let's talk so with that let me be very clear that proposal is an enormous compromise over where we were just several months ago the notion that the administration has not been willing to compromise if anyone is suggesting that I want to categorically disagree with this we had after years and years of decisions gotten to 85 as something that had tripartisan agreement under it gotten to 105 sorry as a as an officer level that had tripartisan agreement around and um I actually hadn't remembered it quite as counselor Shannon suggested if that if it actually was proposed on a Friday and implemented on Monday I thought it was a few more days than that but it was a very sudden change in reversal of direction on the number of of officers we went from 105 to 74 after having fought and worked hard together to get to 105 many people on this council voted for our grant uh applications to the federal government that allowed us to make that transition so it was a it was a dramatic change in policy that came about over a matter of days and uh resulted in a major reversal of policy and we at we said it was a problem at the time we we were explicit that it would force the city into emergency staffing uh by contract at the time and that was ignored and discounted so we are back again to try to avoid that very consequential action avoid emergency staffing avoid the loss of services that this community has come to expect and does not understand fully what the consequences of removing them is going to be um this this is a compromise I was willing we proposed it at 84 which is if you is is not meeting in the middle it is going two thirds of the way in the direction of uh those that think we can get by um without the same number of officers prior to an assessment being made so let's just be really clear what is the fundamentally what is being proposed is an enormous compromise in favor of those who don't think we need as many officers I was to be clear willing to accept the police commissions propose number of 82 and acting president hanson had you allowed the resubmission of the motion um that is what would have been proposed but unfortunately uh you know I guess that that is that can't be done although you know the council could still find a way to get to 82 if if the compromise could there were many people there were several councils at least who were willing to vote for 82 maybe at 84 uh we're going to have an issue so I think we'd be unfortunate if that there was not a clear vote on that further I want to talk about this 74 number that we're asking to be amended I want the public to be really clear what's going on here 74 came forward again in a matter of days reversing decades of policy tripartisan uh support for a hundred or more officers which again has been reasserted by letter from uh over from 19 counselors and a mayor um who have asserted that they believed we needed those officers and 74 was arrived on as something that was reported to be a national average this 74 of the uh council's own logic here has not held up in the months since 74 was made the new policy it was held out there as a number that should that that was an average we were attempting to get to if that is the average we are attempting to get to you cannot set the cap at the same number as you're attempting to get to that should be very clear to everyone now that chief murad has uh shown us the history on these numbers and the police be uh we are likely to be at any given time four to six and up people below that average so that was one problem with the 74 cap a second problem with the 74 cap that was debated at the time but was not satisfactorily resolved is that even if you accept the logic which i and many other people do not that we should go with this national average the national average should take into account the fact that we are also responsible for an airport an airport that has eight dedicated officers to it and there was an effort in june to to have that acknowledged and there has been an effort again here that could be a logic by which the council could fix the crisis and i do think it is a crisis and i'm shocked by the cavalier nature in which counselors can casually suggest that this is manufactured and is not a real problem when by contract we are on the cusp of going into what is called emergency staffing when you have your chief telling you we will not be able to properly staff the department 24 hours a day that that cannot just be brushed aside the way we could fix that crisis could be either through acknowledgement that we are shooting for an average or through acknowledgement that the original 74 calculation did not include the airport i understand that there has been some further examination by counselors of the airport question in recent days there was a belief that some of the comparables included airport numbers in the past and it's turned out that that was not accurate the comparable cities that have been pointed to are not also responsible for airports that require more than 10 percent of the remaining officers to be dedicated basically exclusively there so within the logic of the council's own thinking around 74 there are remedies that get us to a number that the administration that the police department leadership is saying is workable that is what we're asking for an up or down vote on tonight i see this amendment is basically an effort to camouflage this and not have an up or down vote on that question so let's be really clear before the vote this is the vote this is the vote that will be remembered by burlingtonians for a long time this is a consequential vote this is a vote that will impact the lives of our constituents going forward and will be remembered as such and there will be regret i believe under counselors that vote again now with with everything laid bare with none of the confusion or the events that made the original votes in june very challenging votes there's this is now a vote that is coming forward after two months of process and where no one can assert that it isn't totally clear that the that the outcome of this vote will be to lose an overnight shift and to force the city to curtail public safety services that our residents our constituents have long expected that is what this vote is about make no mistake and a vote yes for this amendment is a vote to go over the edge into that crisis and accept it and welcome it a vote no gives us then a chance to vote on the underlying amendment and hopefully avert the crisis that has been brought to brought forward by the decisions in june i urge in the strongest possible terms the council to vote no on this amendment and to vote and then allow us to move on to the police con the public safety continuity plan as proposed by the administration and let's have a clean-up or down vote on that as well okay thank you mayor weinberger um i don't believe anyone else was the cute was in the queue unless counselor jang were you trying to get back into the queue for another round no i address it another way so all right all right yeah i think let's for two hours into the amendment debate so um i think it's appropriate at this time to vote on the amendment i'm not seeing any other comments um so could the city clerk um or are we without um could ceo shad call the roll still on lori still okay all right great yeah if you could just please call the roll um for the vote on councilor hightower's amendment sure councilor carpenter no councilor jang yes councilor freeman yes acting city council president hanson yes councilor hightower yes yes councilor mason no councilor paul no councilor paulino councilor paulino councilor pine yes councilor shannon no councilor strongberg yes councilor tracy yes seven eyes five nays okay so the amendment passes we're now back to the underlying resolution as amended um is there further discussion on the underlying resolution as amended councilor paul i'm just trying to understand isn't um this was one amendment aren't we voting on the second amendment or no that is up to the body if someone wants to make that amendment they can make that i apologize i thought it i i sort of thought it had been made but i knew that was the plan i didn't realize it hadn't been made yet i apologize no no that's okay um councilor hightower yeah along those lines i'd like to move to amend um the resolution as posted on board docs in the document called amendment increasing csls.docx do you want me to walk through it great if you could just yeah state the state the amendment out loud that would be great yes so um oh you want me to read it or just explain it i think you i think my understanding is yeah you need to read the amendment for the public and for the council okay so this amendment would strike what in the original was 74 through 85 so the last two be it further resolved clauses and replace it with be it further resolved that the city council delegates approving the job description for bpd-based community support liaison to the public safety committee the community support liaison will provide support for individuals who have come to into contact with police and are suffering from substance abuse disorder or mental health crisis be it further resolved that the city council approves the creation of a reserve fund in the police transformation fund out of the burlington police department budget in the amount of 450 thousand dollars which shall be known as the community support liaison fund and is to be used to fund up to seven new community support liaison positions in fuller in part in whatever departmental budget they may be placed and shall continue from year to year until fully expended for that purpose the director of police transformation in the public safety committee will develop descriptions determining the roles of reporting authority and other aspects of the positions no later than march 15th 2020 which will come back to the council for presentation and approval great the amendment has been made is there a second second from councillor stromburg did you want the floor back councillor hightower on the amendment yes please and so just to quickly explain what this means is some of the changes that it made we've kind of already incorporated so really the heart of what it does is it changes the amount that we're sitting aside for community service liaisons from 150 thousand dollars to 450 thousand dollars and instead of having one now and two later it is one now and up to seven later okay great councillor paul thank you i'd like to add and i i did have a chance to talk with councillor hightower in advance about this the 450 thousand i am hoping that we don't do friendly amendments so we'll have to vote on this but the the funds are not currently there for 450 thousand dollars so in other words we have to create them on 150 is for this year for the for fy uh 21 the rest of it would be in fy 22 so i would ask that or i would propose an amendment after the 450 thousand comma to say over the fy 21 and fy 22 years requesting inclusion on in the fy 22 annual budget because of course that budget has not been formed yet so we and we are not the ones that propose that budget we approve the budget so we would be asking the administration at that time to make that to include that and i would i hope that makes i hope that makes sense to people um that would be my um my amendment to the amendment second okay um the amendment's been made is there a second i i see councillor hightower uh city attorney block would i see your camera come on would you like to clarify this just i need to i need you to read that again because i need to understand how whether or not that can work but would you read it again sure um well i'm not really reading it i'm sort of sort of doing it as i go um but it would say um after the 450 thousand it would say over the fy 21 and fy 22 years comma requesting inclusion requesting of the of the administration inclusion in the fy 22 annual budget of 300 000 so the numbers make sense but as written what it's doing is it's creating a reserve fund which the council can do can create a reserve fund but that a reserve fund is created out of the current budget and you put it aside that it will be used for a certain amount i mean i guess you can request you can indicate some intent or request the administration to include in the in the future budget additional amounts but there's not a lot of purpose in doing that because it it's not really binding and if you're creating a reserve fund right now you can put money into it right now but you can't make the future happen yet so another word so in other words um what you're saying is that it is better to leave it as it is i if if you leave it as it is i want to be clear that it's saying that you're taking 450 000 out of this year's budget and putting it into a reserve fund but you haven't identified where that's coming from so that's a little bit of a problem too well that's what i was trying to solve because there isn't right 450 000 in the in the in this fund so we have to we have to create that from another source and it would be difficult at this point in the calendar year in the fiscal year to do that unless someone else has another suggestion okay um city attorney blackwood so based on what you're saying is was councillor paul's amendment to the amendment was that is that potentially out of order or not i i i think both the amendment as it exact stands now and councillor paul's amendments are both problematic because they they can't happen okay if we don't have 450 000 in the police transformation fund now you can't create a reserve fund out of it with that much money in it and and you also can't direct that reserve fund be set up with that much money in a in a future year what about a request you could you could direct someone out this year and request that additional funds um that the administration bring forward a proposal for putting additional funds in in a future year okay um councillor hanson i'll i'll um i'll hold we have a first and a second but i know that councillor hightower wants to speak and i'm just trying to figure out a way to get from point a to point b perhaps um she has another option so i'll i'll okay i'll resend the floor so just in terms of the amendment councillor paul um the amendment to the amendment that you made and was seconded um you're you're not intending to do that anymore i i would if we can find a way to i mean i'm looking for a way as i say to get from where we are now to 450 000 we don't have that money in the budget this year so this was my way of bridging that however um others may have a better idea and i'm happy to to withdraw the motion if if others have something a better idea okay city of city attorney blackwood is it all right if i is it okay if i essentially um strike down the the amendment to the amendment just so that we don't get stuck in this limbo i think so okay so i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna um rule the amendment to the amendment out of order just because otherwise we won't be able to function um but we can now we're on the so we're on the underlying amendment or we're on the amendment from councillor high tower and we're trying to figure out how to how to make this work does anyone have any does anyone like to speak councillor high tower go ahead and councillor mason and shannon next yeah i didn't mean to make this something that we try to figure out how to do um on the council floor so um if this whole amendment is out of order it is something i care about deeply um but i wonder if this maybe is better served as a separate resolution to come before the council floor another time um which i will also say in the spirit of figuring this out later i do think that this is something that's important i think it's something that we as a council should take up and move on is having more of these positions that are um really getting it's some of the real needs in the community and getting to that preventative rather than just reactive um um description but i also don't mean to make councillor poll or anyone else um try to amend my resolution on the floor to try to make it um in order so okay um all right well if there's no objections then i think i would just rule that amendment out of order does it would anyone object to to that okay seeing none so oh councillor mason were you objecting to that or i'm not objecting i'm just before we councillor high tower goes off on a chase i don't know that i've sat on a council that's told the future council or administration what it should do on its budget so i mean we do have an election we don't you know there may be you know who we don't know who will be mayor we don't know who will be on the council you know way this is usually dealt with is information of the budget in the following year i i appreciate it and i think there's consensus on the council to increase these positions i don't think that's controversial but i would encourage councillor high tower to take this up as we work on our budget you know once after the elections so thank you okay thank you councillor mason so yeah i'm gonna go ahead and rule um councillor high tower's amendment out of order um that would bring us back to the underlying resolution um councillor shannon were you still looking to get into the queue or was it on that previous point it was on the resolution and um i'll let others get into the it was on the other amendment so okay all right so okay great so we're back on the underlying um we are um you know well over two hours into this item so let's let's try to move towards a vote because we do have other agenda items tonight councillor palino so in the spirit of the length of debate we had and everybody voicing what's important to them um i'd like to make an amendment to the amended resolution um to add an authorized cap of 79 officers okay could you just can you clarify specifically i understand what you're trying to do yeah it would be formally yeah it would be formally line 70 which is now stricken so i would it would be in the revised versions before line 70 it's not nine so it would be before councillor high towers um but first honestly can go anywhere let's just councillor jang if if you could mute because there's a little background noise councillor jang um so councillor palino you're looking to insert a new resolve clause at this point yes i think that's just the cleanest way it could be at the let's put it at the end and it could just say i'll just use the language that was there before um that city council be resolved the city council approves the department's public safety well that an interim pilot plan be implemented for fy 21 through 22 fiscal year until another plan is adopted following the functional assessment of the department in which department will have an authorized cap of 79 officers all right all right is everyone clear on what the amendment is um councillor jang did you need clarification i was not clear if he can repeat please okay one more time councillor palino sure so be it resolved the city council um um implements an interim pilot plan over fy 21 and 22 fiscal year until another plan is adopted following the functional assessment of the department in which the department will have an authorized cap of sworn uniform officers of 79 sworn uniform officers okay um i'm just going to i have a clarifying question myself um attorney backward so this is f you said fy 21 and fy 22 is this bringing us back into the same issue attorney backward of a future budget um no because i think you're not necessarily talking budget here you're talking about authorized personnel caps and future council can always change that okay all right thanks um any further clarification on the amendment okay all right is there a set oh i do yeah go ahead yeah and was just wondering where because when we talk about 84 um as just what i asked the council to put it on the ballot as an advisory asking the number 84 was told that i don't know where the 79 came from why 79 councillor jane we can get into that when we debate the item i'm just trying to make sure everyone understands what the amendment is okay is everyone clear what the amendment is okay is there a second to the amendment okay councillor shannon has second that second that um councillor jane did you want to yep uh for councillor polino uh why 79 and not 84 or 82 or 80 um i think you know we've talked about this number a lot um in the past eight eight months i don't even remember um and i think we can all agree that there's no magic number um 84 was what was recommended by the staff and the department has um their their number so that's how we started with 84 and how the conversations evolved as which i think was the department's compromise given our previous um resolution obviously they would want to stay at 105 so the 82 came out of the police commission so we talked about 82 for a long time and there's support for that as well uh councillors it sounds like so the 79 is just another further compromise that hopefully could get us to seven votes so that in case the worst case scenario plays out as laid out very clearly in the resolution between now and the assessment we have you know just a few more positions basically enough to what it sounds like to cover those key components where like chief mirad said where they might need two you know two officers actually statistically a better and you can imagine i mean that makes total sense if you're an officer by yourself and and there's a you know a threat perceived threat of violence an officer there can engage in de-escalation that is the way they patrol one officer sort of engaging the other officers making sure that officer's safe uh whereas when you're on your own you're doing both and you can't necessarily do things well as well so i just think that any put any number at that point at this lower cap i think one of the things that councillor yang that really changed my mind that councillor carpenter and the mayor spoke about was this thing about effective number of officers versus you know working off the 105 how many officers are effectively patrolling how many of those are effectively uniform patrol like in a cruiser driving around town as opposed to not as well as you know we did get this intended well this reduction in force that we wanted and even back this summer there were all sorts of numbers being tossed around so 79 is just an offer an olive branch is the best way to put it okay okay thank you councillor polina um councillor yang were you all stopped yes okay all right councillor high tower um yes so 79 specifically came out of the compromise that councillor paul and i were contemplating i'll be brief i will not vote yes on this i think this is a compromise that i proposed um to some of the councillors um to vote for this one i can i'm happy to give some justifications for the numbers but more than anything to vote for an increase i would also need to see um a higher commitment to the alternatives which is what my um amendment that we ruled out of order um was trying to do and i think to me that is i need to see a commitment to increasing funding for the alternatives before i can justify any increase in the cap and so i will be voting no on this okay um councillor carpenter um i i really appreciate what um council high tower saying and i'm just wondering if there's a way to get that i mean we got stuck on sort of future committing a budget year but attorney blackwood said if if you were committing to a cap was different than a dollar amount and so i'm wondering and i'm maybe asking a question of attorney blackwood if we added in a commitment a commitment to a higher cap on officers and a commitment on a higher i'm just going to call it a cap um uh of cso's is that something we could do if you're saying that you want to add a cap on officers and a and a cap on um on cso's yes but subject to what i said before which is you know any future council can change that cap it's not you're not like setting a budget so true and i where i was trying going if because knowing that 84 79 or 74 can be changed at any other future time we're just trying to deal with this time and be respectful that we also want a commitment on the cso's i'm just trying to figure a way to say for this period of time in the transition we need um we need some number of more officers and we we want a commitment that in this period of time same period of time we will commit to hiring an adequate number of cso's so that's i was just trying to figure a way to if we can get there okay so is that possible city attorney blackwood it sounds if i'm understanding correctly yes okay all right i would be glad to add that language i can understand councillor high tower's point um okay hold on councillor pollino councillor carpenter still does have the floor you can put your hand up if you want to that was i i would ask that we consider adding it because i respect where we're trying to get time just understood understood um all right councillor pollino did you want to go out yeah so it would be the same language except and where i would end with 79 sworn uniform officers we could just then add and let me look at councillor high tower's uh solution it says we could just add i would i think as councillor carpenter said up to seven up to seven new community support liaison positions and then and i think we can leave it there um and then we can figure out the budget stuff as okay so you're making an amendment to the amendment to add in and up to seven community support liaisons okay is everyone clear on the amendment to the amendment is there a second councillor paul has seconded that all right we're on the amendment to the amendment now any discussion specifically on that all right let's go ahead and move to a vote can i ask a question i'm sorry councillor mason point of order the so we it's both things that councillor paulino just introduced increasing the cap and committing to see it five more cso's well so we're on the amendment to the amendment now which is specifically just adding in the language and the the cso phrase and up to seven cso so this is just the amendment to the amendment okay i want to i want to speak to the amendment then please if i may have a floor um once we vote on the amendment to the amendment we can we can do i not get to speak to the amendment before i must devote to the amendment to the amendment we're not voting on the underlying amendment yet councillor mason we have to get through the amendment to the amendment first which is just to add that language that's all we're voting on is to add that language then we would have to take up the underlying amendment as an understood but i am allowed am i not to speak to councillor paulino's proposed amendment the amendment to the amendment yes that's okay sorry amendment to the amendment yes i will be supporting it but only because of the up to language i appreciate what the commitment that councillor hightower is seeking but again i have a problem we are committing to a cso without having done an analysis that may come back and say no you should be doing something with howard or a non-cso so i'm fine with the up to language but i i don't want this to be held in my face if you know my belief after the recommendation is we're supposed to be going a different direction so thank you okay thank you sorry for the confusion i'm councillor mason any any further yeah councillor freeman yeah and then councillor pine um the addition was with the cso's if i'm hearing this correctly sorry it's a little bit hard when it's not written um but was i'm just curious is does this does councillor hightower feel that this is in line with what you were envisioning i i'd heard you speak more toward csl's i i'm just trying to put pieces all together um i understand the amendments the amendment as being regarding csl's liaisons is that correct councillor palino it is okay all right councillor apology for any confusion i created by using the wrong terminology oh okay got it all right councillor pine go ahead yeah i was going to ask for clarification and to actually say the words it's not that much harder to say community support officer or community service liaison let's just say the words i think we yeah we combine the two in a way community service liaisons is the amendment to the amendment you do you have that city attorney blackwood it's yes but i think it's okay yeah i i think it's community support liaison and community oh i just did it again thank you yeah yeah thank you i just did it again i'm so sorry all right are we all clear on that all right great anyone else on the amendment to the amendment okay let's go ahead and vote on the amendment to the amendment all those in favor please say i all right hi are there any opposed okay so the amendment to the amendment passes unanimously we're now on councillor palino's amendment as amended is there any further discussion on the amendment as amended uh councillor tracy to be followed by councillor hightower let's please we we do need to keep these comments brief yep understood um i'll just say that i'm not supporting the amendment as i said before i don't support us lifting the raising the cap because the fact that we are right after this amendment right after this item i'm going to be approving a full functional analysis that the of the department so i think it's important to carry that through and then base it off of off of that well also at the same time building out these additional cso and csl positions i also just want to re-raise the issue uh raise the issue again around community oversight and the lack of oversight i have a real issue with the fact that we do not have a meaningful community oversight at this point while we have really significant and glaring issues both in terms of specific incidents and then broader trends that demand real community oversight we don't do not have that in place and i think it bears us having a real path forward on that when it comes to when we're looking to move forward especially with bringing on new new officers to the force i think it's important that we have those those in place as as a part of that process so i will not be supporting this this amendment at this time and hopefully we can get back to the the original motion as it was as it was amended before thank you okay thank you councillor tracy councillor hi tower um yes i still won't be supporting this i appreciate the gesture um this was the to be transparent this was the original compromise that i had kind of asked for but i think this isn't i i feel like we need to figure out where the 450 is coming from i need i think the funding is is the it's the money behind this is a promise and given that when i propose the promise it fell through i don't feel all that comfortable that the that the promise will happen um if i vote yes on this so um i think this is a style of compromise that i was hoping would happen um but it it doesn't it's it's just a promise okay um councillor pine yeah i would like to ask the um the mayor since we really are you know let's be blunt about it we have three potential mayors sitting on this meeting and we have most of the council is going to return uh with the exception of franklin councillor polino so i think we can get a sense of the body if this is a direction that we want to go um sure it's not binding we can't find a future council i'm glad councillor mason pointed that out and and reiterated it again and again because it's clear that's not something we can do but i'd like to get a sense uh from the mayor about how he views this okay mayor weinberger thank you acting president hanson i'd like clarification of councillor pines question how i view the possibility of further expanding csl's yes exactly so um the proposal that chief mirad made back in december um and maybe the chief can help me out here chief how many um in your in the proposal in december how many cso's and csl's we're in that proposal versus what we asked for authorization in the in the actual resolution at this point there was a variance there i believe you mean in the the final vision of the proposal sir i mean ultimately what it envisions is uh six csl's in order to have those compute those community support liaisons co responding with officers and it also envisions about 12 cso's in order to have sufficient resources on all four shifts the day and both sides of the day and both sides of the evening in order to replace officer response and be able to simultaneously continue to have all of our other officer resources available to us a full detective scott a full ability to have a domestic violence prevention officer community fairs officer etc so all of that remains with fewer officers on the road many fewer um and then the cso's taking those places so that was the final build out um in so far as our request it's what's in the memo sir and what you and i discussed as as you guided this proposal uh towards what could be achievable in the off chance that we could get one hired by the end of this fiscal year uh but more importantly to get you know i believe four to six on by the end of the the following fiscal year thank you chief so that's i hope that's illuminating um counselor pine the the vision that we laid out in december essentially had this larger complement of csl's as well as a larger complement of cso's so that is the direction we are envisioning this moving uh in and i think that has been sort of lost in the debate today is as a pragmatic notion we said that we thought would make it easier for the council to approve prior to the completion of the the operational analysis assessment we proposed a step in that direction with the authorization of up to six cso's now and the three csl's so that that it was a pragmatic let's start moving in this direction we know there's consensus around moving here it was not we think we're going to end up in a larger complement of each of these but it's going to take time to do all these hires all we saw was the authority to start moving in this direction so i would hope that would give any counselor who is concerned and further we did include in the backup materials for this a pretty good budget analysis showing that if we are able to return to pre-pandemic levels of uh of spending related to public safety um that there would be um ample room in the budget for both the uh four new cso positions you would be authorizing tonight and the two the three new csl positions um and more so if we only hired that there would still be there'd be six hundred thousand dollars of savings um if you had uh so there's there's clearly budgetary capacity as as well if that is sort of the baseline of where discussions kind of start from so um i do think there is both a potential source for funding um more than three csls in future years and you've seen that the administration has put the current administration to the point made that perhaps someone knew that is making these decisions after march but if it is a continuation of this administration uh you've seen we've signaled in writing uh months ago that we expect to do this new staffing plan right we will need more of both of these type of professionals so i'm thanks for the opportunity to clarify that yep thank you i i just wanted to ask because i do think it's important for us to think about it in the real world that we're in which is that that we will we will either have a continuation of this mayor or a new mayor who's sitting in this meeting so um i have a sense that there's broad consensus for community service officers and community support liaisons and that that is a direction whether they're housed within bpd whole another debate for another night but i just want to say that consensus is important to be because i think that is the alternative support system that the community deserves and demands us to create and so i think we're getting part of the way there thank you thank you councillor fine um councillor hi tower yeah and i'll be brief again i just want to say that i do know um having been on the SRO task force over the past couple of months i know that there's gonna be like i know that i'm personally gonna i don't want to get ahead of the report or that process but i know that i personally want to recommend that um remove the that's a whole other debate with the SRO officers out of that full time and that the school district is going to ask the city for alternative um for alternative sources that aren't um uniformed police officers and so i know that there's going to be at least a need right off the bat for that um i also know that there's going to be alternative needs right off the bat i think very quickly from our um community engagement process next month and so i think it's very credible that we're going to see a very fast increase in the need for these csls which again i see as preventative positions and i know that my vision of what that looks like is a little different from um the mayors because we've spent many fridays talking about this i don't think that it's um unsolvable but i i i need i need a commitment to having different kinds of csl positions who can do different kinds of work that we currently that can do really proactive work and that's not just responding to immediate calls but that's really doing follow-up with us folks figuring out why neighbors are having issues with each other's figuring out you know like why are we having um the same conflicts in our neighborhoods over and over again so i think getting it more of the not being more doing more of the proactive work i think is really what this is getting at and that that is the heart of what i want i think um i guess i just want to field that here and so i think if this doesn't include a guarantee of that then i can't then i won't support it okay thank you counselor hi tower um so we're on counselor poly knows amendment as amended are there any final thoughts before we vote on the amendment as amended um mayor wine burger so thank you president hanson i did not intend to speak again but given counselor the final comment that was just made there i i just you know it would be a shame to see this go down i i genuinely don't believe there's a way to give you tonight the guarantee you are seeking i don't believe there'll be a way to give you that until a new budget is passed and i um uh based on our prior conversations where you wanted to start making moves in the direction we want to end up getting to i would ask you to uh see this um uh proposal as i think as as doing that and um so it just seems it seems uh i think if you take the total i just want to make sure you heard what i just said and it's clear we we presented the proposal we made to you included basically the number of csls that you you are talking about that was what we put on the paper we have shown that the budget will have capacity uh and we um and there's no way to go beyond that legally as we've been through with the city attorney so to somehow um for the lack of going farther given that clear intent uh to then vote against the increase in the officers i don't uh i think that's i i i've jack you know i i hope you'll reconsider that jack you're back i'm needed i'm sorry um i have counselor paulino then counselor high tower just because um counselor high tower you you had already spoken but um we really should vote on this amendment and be really quick still have the underlying i'm like you're gonna call me like take a step back guy or something but like i'm i'm gonna look at counselor freeman right now and counselor and i'm you know mayor makes a good point we're trading at this moment three officers on the cap for seven csls that is so huge and i'm looking at counselor freeman because her and i have been talking about this for two years and i know it's been a weird way to get here like hey we're here we're talking about seven we have the mayor saying we have the money we're gonna fund it i can't tell you i'm gonna fund it tonight and i can't tell you i'm gonna fund it you know before the next budget but we're all committed to this goal now it's in writing i don't see any way why we wouldn't do this counselor pine made a beautiful point most of the people will be here and one of the the three people here will likely be the person in charge of the budget so that's all i wanted to say i thought those were some really good points and it's a long night it's easy to miss all that stuff okay um counselor hi tower now we brief again i guess i don't one this again i proposed i was the one who proposed this compromise and it was rejected it was rejected for a reason i don't know what that reason it but it was rejected for a reason two um i don't believe that there's not a way that we can create a fund this year to somehow fund these positions into the next year i don't a hundred percent know what that looks like otherwise i would have proposed it with the amendment but just to say oh like we can't because we're spending some of it i like we have created funds this year that go into next year it's like i don't i'm not there is a way to do this i think we can figure it out we're not going to figure it out today which is already a new day but i it's i do not believe that it is not possible and i think it is not great that people are telling me that it's not possible when we have done this before in other ways okay thank you counselor hi tower um so we're still on counselor pollinio's amendment as amended um we're two hours and 40 minutes into the debate um counselor paul can you please keep it brief absolutely um i can certainly confirm uh counselor hi tower is absolutely correct this was the compromise that we had tried to get votes for um it was um it was not met with with a warm welcome by a by a number of people um but we here we are and uh if we can get the csls and um a slightly larger number which is what i had spoken to before just some some amount of a compromise that moves us a little bit one step closer um then it's something that i can support um thank you thank you counselor paul any further discussion okay seeing none let's please vote on the amend counselor pollinio's amendment as amended um could the city clerk please call the roll counselor carpenter yes counselor jang no counselor freeman no acting city council president hanson no counselor hi tower no counselor mason yes counselor paul yes counselor pollinio yes counselor pine yes counselor shannon yes counselor strongberg no counselor tracy no six eyes six nave okay so the amendment as amended fails um we are now back to the underlying resolution as amended by counselor hi tower um is there further discussion on the resolution as amended counselor carpenter um i just want to make sure so um the this is the underlying amendment we we adopted um counselor hi towers set of amendments the first set the second set we essentially ruled we're out of order correct yeah okay so this is the underlying this is the amendment with that we've amended okay this is the resolution it's been amended um yeah so it's the resolution as amended yeah any further um discussion yes one more yeah go ahead for the clarification um if this passes there will be no ability or decision around the cap on the officers um on sworn yeah on sworn officers that's correct yeah um did you still want the floor counselor carpenter okay um no i think i'm okay okay um counselor mason thank you acting president hanson just because this has been over two and a half hours i want to ask a follow-up to what but my understanding is is as counselor carpenter has just alluded to the cap the adjustment to the cap is now gone but in the absence of this underlying resolution passing at this point there will be no provisions from the plan on csls or csls is that am i correct in that understanding if the entire resolution fails which is what we're voting on now am i correct we're voting on the underlying resolution yeah correct so as amended in the absence of a yes vote on this resolution there would be no authority no job description no nothing as to reach the outreach on for hiring csls and csls that's my understanding yeah okay thank you for that clarification yeah no problem um any further um comments counselor polina i mean to delay this any further but can counselor basic clarify that for me so because i read these amendments and they don't really say much to me um it says we're going to create a job description and we're going to send to committee and we're going to take a hundred fifty thousand set aside um but my point is if this doesn't pass if i vote no because we've essentially created what i think is the mayor point out something was already in the works um which i'm going to vote no because this is not what i signed up to vote for today um and this is not the vision that we had collectively in my opinion we've gutted this thing and so my point is like it can still be done whether this passes or not and i understood counselor mason's point saying no it can't um i'm not sure exactly what you mean counselor polina you're saying could the administration execute this without counsel taking any action is that your question i'm saying the resolution as amended really just says we're going to create a job description at committee and we're going to set some money aside but you know we can still create like like back the original memo that was taken out we've created seven positions we create two the program can still continue if i vote no i don't i don't want to you know i'm saying um counts i see counselor carpenter did i i mean i i'm trying to get at the same place counselor polina was but right that the amended resolution creates four additional community service officers so if we vote it down then we voted against creating community service officers and i think that was the question counselor mason was asking if we vote no and and it stands with no then the community service officers are are gone and i'd like that affirmed well i so i i think i'm gonna have to defer to city attorney because i don't know if the question is if you're trying to ask you know if the council defeats this resolution and takes no action what can the administration do is that what you're trying to ask because i i can't answer that um but if you want the city attorney to answer that question um i can ask point of order for the floor yeah go ahead counselor shannon i think i think that the question is where in the language in the amended language does it say we have x number of community service officers and community service liaisons that language was stricken and i don't see where it was put back in so if the maker of that motion could explain where in here it says we're going to hire community service officers and read that that would be helpful to the discussion okay um counselor carpenter is that all right with you because i don't know that yeah i mean i was reading authorizes the department to hire for additional uh unarmed community service officers but i would like that clarified okay council hi tower did you did you want to just clarify yeah that's my understanding as well as it says you know it delegates the approval responsibility but then it authorizes the department to hire for additional community service officers um and then yeah and approves two other communities so i think i i think it does that i'm not the city attorney but i think that was the intent and okay i i see the city attorney nodding nodding yes okay all right um counselor mason thank you acting president hanson so with that explanation my analysis as much as i am did not support removing the cap um if i believe this takes additional steps toward addressing some of the public safety concerns that have been identified and i think even though i don't like where this ended up voting no does not achieve the objective that i think we all seek so i will be voting yes with um on this thank you thank you councillor mason any further comments before we vote on this yes i wanted to go ahead councillor jen yeah i mean i think i want to thank everyone the police officers who've been here and everyone been involved uh about about this specific resolution and i think what i am looking for and still haven't seen is in order for expert to tell us how many police officers we definitely knew in this great city but until then let's add these non uh sworn police officers and i will be voting in support of this resolution thank you thank you councillor jen any final comments councillor shannon um i'm i'm sorry i i do see where the community service officers are that i don't see where the community um service liaisons are how many of those do we get i'm sorry you know maybe it's just because my printout of this is small and i'm not seeing it and it's late okay um city attorney back what i saw you turn your camera on could you clarify that or yep it it it says it it says the first sentence set of the second new paragraph says the city council delegates the responsibility for approving the job description and then the next sentence says the community support liaison provides support for while it is not entirely clear it is clear enough to me that the essence of that is one community support liaison yeah and then it goes on to say and approves two other community support liaison whose job descriptions will be developed blah blah blah so i believe that that is authorizing three community support okay thank you okay great councillor tolly now point of information on that to councillor shannon's point which is sort of my point earlier it really just says we're gonna take 150 000 to fund them doesn't actually authorize the department to hire two more like the cso's up top so we we are giving the department authority to hire four cso's but we're only saying that's what i that's what i read it says is to be used to fund two so it says we're creating a fund and then we're going to use it to fund to fund these new positions and i so i'm just pointing out that's what it says i i believe the city attorney clarified that her reading of it is that indeed it does authorize it but do you want to repeat it um a city attorney blackwood for councillor paulina of course it could be clearer you know it's an amendment so so it it could be clearer but i believe that you cannot read it any other way than to say that it the intent is to authorize the hiring of three community support liaisons okay does that clarify councillor paulina okay councillor high tower oh sorry this was just a councillor paulina's point i think he's only looking at the last resolve clause but the one above it says that um approves two other community support liaisons so it actually is approving the way it reads as approves okay any further comments before we vote on this the resolution as amended okay all right seeing none um would the city clerk please i'll call the roll councillor carpenter yes councillor jang yes councillor freeman yes acting city council president hanson yes councillor high tower yes councillor mason yes councillor paul yes councillor palino no councillor pine yes councillor shannon yes councillor strongberg yes councillor tracy yes 11 eyes one day okay so the resolution as amended passes um and that concludes that item thank you all for bearing with me as acting chair i will pass the gavel back to president tracy great thank you for that councillor hanson appreciate it we are now back to deliberative agenda we have two more items on our agenda for this evening our next item is item 6.05 which is a resolution authorization to execute contract for operational and functional assessment of burlington police of police department um i believe councillor councillor high tower are you moving this may please have a motion in that case yes i would like to waive the reading and adopt the resolution and i'm happy to take the floor back after a second we have a motion from councillor high tower a second from councillor paulino go ahead great sorry did i miss it did i get the floor back yeah you have the floor back sorry sorry i'm very tired at this point um but this is just um we received a and i think there's actually a mistake i think it's the proposals range from 32 000 to over 300 000 but we received 12 proposals um 11 of which were i think full compliant proposals and we chose one of them cna corporation which had a cost of as councillor pine mentioned a few times um just under 100 000 dollars to per form this work and i'm happy to answer any questions on this are there any questions from councillors councillor shayna um thank you i just you know we just referred um we just referred these uh job descriptions to the public safety committee and i'm concerned with the process of the committee and why this why this took so long i know that chief mirad had submitted this to the committee on um i think on september ninth but the committee didn't take up the rfb until november and i just like to know the the resolution was referred to the committee june 29th i think and we were supposed to get a report back in october and so why why has all of this taken so long and what was the benefit of the process taken um thanks so the first item that we took up was the um another rfp that the city council has passed where we've engaged the consultant was on the community engagement process which the committee decided to prioritize and then we gave couldn't and um chief mirad was kind enough to give the first version of this which we gave considerable um edits to and then approved on and then voted to choose this one in december it just takes a while generally um to then do with the holidays to do the because we do reference checks so by the time um that was completed it was january and then there was just a miscommunication with the city's attorney's office that pushed it into february so it was a mix of committee decision and priorities initially and then just administrative hurdles i just want to say that you know with something that is so urgent and we had to defund the police before we had this assessment which i think is the backwards way of doing things and then taking more than seven months to even hire somebody doesn't really bode well for a committee micro managing a process that really should be left to the administration with the check and and balance being the the city council then approving that work um so i'm very concerned with this process moving forward and the committee's ability to get things done in a timely manner uh because if we want to prioritize transformation we can't do that and spend seven and a half months uh hiring somebody and more than five months just issuing an rfp and i will i will support this thank you council shannon any further comments on the rfp um council jane go ahead yes this is one of a question i know this is only on rfp and we authorizing the funding but i was wondering in terms also of timeline now do we have any any ideas or how when they can start and also when they would bring recommendation to the council or the city in general council are you able to answer that yeah i'm wary of giving a timeline just because the last contract that we approved um and once the council approved it it took like two months for the city attorney's office to negotiate the contract finalization if not longer um which is a process that you know the committee has no control over and so i'm very much hoping we won't catch the same kind of um administrative lag on this um but i obviously don't have control over that process um i would say generally it's been frustrating for me as well as um committee chair on how slowly things have moved so i empathize with that with that feeling um maybe city attorney can weigh in a little bit on this okay attorney blackwood are you able to weigh in i can tell you how long it will take to negotiate it it depends how how many changes they want to um make to the contract and how we have to go back and forth and figure that out okay and city attorney and also um zoraya um consular high tower i was wondering if the amendment as part of the racial justice resolution that i introduced can also be taken in consideration when um crafting the way forward or the scope of work for that person you know i'm sorry i don't understand the question i'm so sorry all right no no no no no problem i'll send you an email thank you okay great any further comments on the rfp ready to go to a vote okay all those in favor of approving the resolution please say aye hi hi hi any opposed that carries unanimously brings us to our final item on the agenda which is a communication from jabalani gommash police commission chair regarding the bpo a statement may i just please have a uh a motion to waive the reading and accept the communication place it on file before we get into the debate counselor high tower i moved okay we have a motion from council high towers or a second seconded by councillor freeman okay the floor is now open so councillor jane yeah i was wondering if whoever pulled it from consent to give us a summary about this issue what it is about what does it entails and why did you bring it here for us to discuss thank you councillor jane um councillor high tower um i pulled it but if i could defer to councillor pine i think he'd be better if we're to cut it short to keep it to one voice okay thank you councillor pine are you able to speak to this yeah sure um we did get a um communication that i think raised concern for me and i believe we heard some speakers in the public forum tonight essentially addressing the notion that um when commissioners especially in the police commission role are um in their carrying out their role that the the city council and the the charter has vested in them and in performing that role to their best ability to have um the union officially come out on their statement as um calling out individual commissioners calling them up by name um all of that is i i i understand is is and i believe is protected speech and it should be however it doesn't mean that the the um the conduct should go sort of unnoticed i think it's important for us to you know reiterate the concepts of decorum and the way we conduct ourselves as a as part of a functioning democracy and uh i think it's important that we have differences we express our differences we do it respectfully uh i felt like that that was an example of of calling out an individual two individual commission members both of whom happen to be women um there's been other commissioners in the past uh who've made you know equally strong statements perhaps stronger who were never called out but somehow it was deemed appropriate uh to call out individual commissioners in the way that the uh bpoa chose to do that and that was uh that's what sparked the comment from the letter from the police commission i think it just deserved to be um discussed by the by the council so i wanted to see the council discuss it a little bit thank you councilor pine is there further discussion mayor weinberger thank you president tracy um and thank you uh counselors high tower and pine for ensuring that we have this discussion tonight i appreciate the opportunity to share some thoughts on this as well um i appreciate that commissioner gibosh has uh written this letter to support two women serving as volunteers on the police commission the letter makes clear what a challenging moment we're in and attempting to navigate through and how some of our most deeply held values are in tension with each other right now on one hand commissioner gemash is right the bpoa statement has put additional scrutiny on the statements of two of our commissioners and we're living in a time where far too often heightened public scrutiny can lead to harassment intimidation and worse actions this is especially true when the comments of women and bipak individuals are called out for greater scrutiny at the same time let's be clear the bpoa was clearly within its legal right to make this statement and more to the point our democracy requires us to find a way for different individuals and organizations to disagree with each other in the public arena in fact to meet the challenge at hand to just to forge a new consensus on policing in this community we need police officers at the table and participating in discussions about how we want policing conducted in this community so how do we move forward through these tensions i think we all have responsibilities in this first i urge the bpoa to consider expressing their opinions differently in the future in this moment we all must consider the recent history of women and bipak leaders being harassed and intimidated in vermont and seek actively to avoid any action that may in any way contribute to this result second i hope that as elected officials at this council we can do a better job of inviting police officers into our discussions and treating them as essential partners and figuring out the challenging issues of how we're going to transform policing here in burlington finally i want to reassure the commissioners and the public that we continue to have a zero tolerance policy for hate speech and intimidation in burlington and we'll do everything we can within the law to discourage and punish such actions when they do happen something i'm proud to say our police department has been particularly aggressive and successful at pursuing thank you presentation thank you any further comments from counselors counselor hinson yeah no thank you all for raising this and thank um thank you the mayor and counselor pine and what you said and i just want to also appreciate um the chair job of lani gamash for for writing this letter i think it does take a level of courage um to speak out in this way especially given what had just you know what led to this and um i think it's really important um what he's raising and i just want to appreciate um the chair for doing that and i i agree that it that it is very problematic um so yeah i just wanted to say that but it's late so i'll leave it at that thanks thank you counselor hinson anyone else on this yeah counselor jake yeah thank you um i mean i i basically to me personally this is not a problem that has been bigger and and and and and and stronger problems in this community that no one has taken the chance to write a statement about it and i think it is about time that people do not fight each other it is about time for the great people that love and serve the city to come together and to not fight each other when i see the police commission and also the burlington police association fighting sending letters i think it's it's it's it's a demoralizing and that needs to change but now i have more questions hearing the mayor speak right now and i think i will be able to maybe follow up with him directly and the question i can ask whether or not he had taken the chance to speak each of those groups that what you are doing is not okay or call them together for a compromise as we can move together that's just a question and i think if they make an answer perfect if not it's also okay okay thank you mayor did you want to speak to that um yeah i'm happy to say i talked to commissioner komash earlier today and and i thanked him for his letter and my intention to share additional thoughts tonight and also reached out to the bpoa and gave them a heads up that i would be making a statement and asked them to understand the reasons for it and and what i'm asking them to do in the future also counsel jay yes okay anyone else on this item okay seeing none will move to a vote and this is just on accepting the communication and placing it on file um all those in favor of accepting communication and placing it on file please say aye hi hi any opposed hearing none that passes unanimously and we a motion to adjourn is now in order it moved second moved by councillor jang seconded by councillor mason all those in any discussion none all those in favor of adjournment please say aye aye any opposed that carries and we are adjourned at 12 40 thank you good night everyone