 Everybody's queued to get up and leave. We'll be starting the NPA in a couple of minutes once you get quiet. Things kicked off, starting off with the announcements. Introduce yourself. My name's Lizzie Haskell. I'm one of the Steering Committee members for the NPA. And I'm Emma Schoenberg. I live in Ward 2. And we're, yeah, and we're on the Steering Committee. If you're on the Steering Committee for the Ward 2 NPA, can you raise your hand for 2-3? 2-3. If you have any interest in participating in the Neighborhood Planning Assembly planning process, feel free to reach out to any of us. Our meetings are open. If you have ideas about what you want to bring to this space, it's your space. So feel free to track us down. All right. So if you remember at some of our last NPAs, we've started doing a survey of what you want to see here in this space, what can make it better, more accessible, bring more people and bring more of our neighbors in here. So Jim Lockridge is going to do a really brief report back on some of the key highlights from that Neighborhood Planning Assembly survey. Sort of. The results of the survey were all put together in one big long document, which is taped up on the wall on either side of the back room. So if you're curious where we landed with everybody pitching in their comments and all those comments, they're all taped up in a row. You can see for yourself. The document that's the way you wrote it down was shared with a lot of city departments and leadership of the city as well. And I want to say thank you to whoever suggested that an improvement to their street would be a community hot tub because everybody has heard that now. So that's it. Jim, was there one highlight you can share with us? The most surprising thing. The most interesting thing. Sure. I personally didn't do any analysis, but I did type everything in. And the one thing that stood out without thinking about it hard at all was most people were renters and most people had issues with weatherization in their homes. So that stood out as a... There were top suggestions for people to get items on the VA for presentations. And the content that we gathered from these surveys will be feed into the agendas of future NPA meetings. Thank you, Jim. This is all part of an ongoing process to see what we can serve this community with with this function. Just a couple of how to do the NPA. I'm seeing some new faces. We're going to have a public announcement period after this agenda item. So if you have a public announcement that you want to discuss is bullet point style, an event that you're hosting, something that you want to talk about, back down our micers. That's the second point. That's our mic run reason why we begin to mic. Everybody has the same hearing level as everyone else. Additionally, we do live stream and record these videos. So when we look back on it, if somebody's using the mic, it means we can hear them. Let's try something a little bit new tonight. In an effort to have more people talking to one another, we'd like you to quickly find one person that you don't know and say hi. Introduce yourself, where you live, and one thing you like about the neighborhood planning assembly. In about 45 seconds, we're going to start the public announcement period. It's a fun part of the agenda. Okay, I'm going to try to do a couple of announcements here. I won't actually start until people are quiet, right? Lizzie, is that the idea? We keep people quiet. Okay, so coming from North End, I'm going to talk to people who couldn't be here tonight at their request. So Megan Humphrey, the old North End, one perspective is a photo display right here in this building on the second and third floor. Over 1200 photos of the old North End. It's people in its places are hanging, so you'll be sure to see people in places that you recognize. On the second floor, there's a box of photos that Megan wants people to feel free to take. The old North End project is an offshoot of one perspective. Laura Hale created a website where they're hoping to capture images and stories about the history of the old North End. Megan's history of the old North End is there and we'd love other stories of the home you live in, landmarks in the neighborhood, resident stories of the old days and more. There's a webpage which I'll get every announcement to. So please tell us the word, the stories that are there. So if you have a story to share about either your family or your neighbor or the people who used to own your house, that's the kind of stuff they're looking for. Laura asked me to announce the One Good Deed Fund, which is an organization that helps people in the old North End, and neighbor to neighbor assistance for folks who have come upon hard times for one reason or another. They're holding a brunch on Sunday May 5th from 11 to 1 at the North End Studio, have food, and we'll celebrate, as she said, wonderful as in O-N-E, derful award winners who make our neighborhood a better place. There'll be plenty of time and opportunity to talk to folks and hear about the efforts that people are undertaking. There'll be a lot of data with information to provide a lot of supplies for folks who make hard cards that will be distributed throughout the city as just a random acts of kindness and materials for take home gardening projects. So the one community, the one Good Deed event is May 5th, that's a Sunday from 11 to 1 at the North End Studio. And that's it for other people's announcements. I'm going to announce something real quickly that Stu McGowan and I and maybe some other folks in this room, I'm sorry if I'm not recognizing who else is on this committee, but for the last couple of years we've been raising money for this building to be the community center that it is now and will become even more of a community center. It is a piece of undertaking. People think the city owns this building, so what do we have to do? Well, the city doesn't actually own it and in order to get access to lots of tax credit dollars you have to get this very complicated ownership structure which I would never go into but there's about 15 different funding sources and then there's the public portion, which is what I'm going to talk about right now which is a way for the community to get behind this overall project for the community by donating whatever you can and I really mean that whatever you can. So Stu if you could come up and tell people what we've been doing and why you think this is a good idea. I didn't think it was a good idea to start with just saying. The only part about this idea I liked was the fact that I used to be a Cub Scout pack leader and we used to have our down here, we used to meet, we had other events that happened here, this was years and years and years ago before it was broadly used by a lot of people and it was all by the Catholic Church. When the Catholic Church needed to sell it all of a sudden we were faced with this dilemma which was it was going to likely get sold to a developer that was probably going to turn all this into condos or housing or whatever they wanted and I got the call from Brian, thank you Brian to come and help out. I've done a lot of capital campaign drives in my time. H.O. Wheeler my daughter went there for the first time in 93 was a decrepit run down building and we managed to raise two and a half million dollars to renovate it it was a hell of a process it took me and another dozen people two or three years to get it done but we got it done. I've done other projects around the city I've only ever volunteered to do them for the old North End. I'm really interested in spending my time spending well. So when this one came I was not doing any more capital campaigns they frankly oh they stink they're a real pain in the neck you basically spend all your time asking well to do people to give you a lot of money and we did that long process we got it done took two years and I couldn't be more excited to come here now because essentially I know that most people in this room are not going to be given ten thousand dollars they're not going to happen however what we're looking for is any amount anybody can spend because I feel like it's really wrong that the old North End doesn't represent itself with a little bit of your cash these are all people that have done nice things for us outside of the ONA a lot of them by the way have connected to the ONA they grew up here but maybe before grew up here Archibald Bissonnette grew up here a lot of the folks that are captains of industry now grew up in this neighborhood and they're giving back but this is the new old North End almost done is that what you're telling me so Brian's going to walk around with pledge cards if you can do anything and I'm serious anything ten dollars twenty dollars you feel like a hundred give it up we'd like to be able to bring it back to the committee and say look we in the old North End care as well as all these other folks who are going to miss money thank you do we have any more announcements tonight okay looks like we got three Kevin if you want to come on up here hello everyone good to see you again I just wanted to give a couple of quick updates I was here last month and talked about the city's new first steps scholarship programs for high quality scholarships for kids ages zero to three infants and toddlers application period for the scholarship program has been extended until April 26 so there's still a few more weeks to get applications in if you know anyone that is interested you can get help with that application right here in the family room they've got all the information and it does take some effort but there is some real resources to help you through it so I also wanted to another just plug for the mayor's book group discussion that's going to be next Wednesday we come yesterday April 17th in old spokes home which is a discussion of street fight no I was it is it is Wednesday April 17th at old spokes home I think what time is it Jordan it starts at seven right six seven and it's a great if nothing else it's a great book very interesting book and if you haven't been there's the new old spokes home space yet it's a chance to do that it's quite special what they've done and then the final thing one of the issues we're really going to be focused on over the next year they talked about when I got to give the state of the city address last week is we are focus again focus on housing and there's going to be a inmate kickoff what we hope around additional reforms to help create more homes and resources for housing of all types and we will be pushing out details on that summit in the next few days here so look for that if it's an issue you're interested in thanks a lot thanks Maro who do we have next I believe we gave the mic out hello hi folks my name is infinite former steering committee meeting member I am here tonight as a community organizer I work with a small organization called parents of youth for change we do community organizing work with families who have kids in the Burlington schools and the Wynuski schools and we are hiring a community organizer so if you are interested in being a community organizer about education issues please come check me out or look us up on facebook parents of youth for change and thank you for the time good evening I'm Mark Hughes with justice for all just got a couple of announcements for you number one there is a there's a petition at the front door it's a civilian oversight of law enforcement next subject I'm going to go to the fourth Sunday of this month I think it's the 28th if you're looking at your calendar it's the 28th Jordan said it's the 28th at 3 p.m. it's always the fourth Sunday of this month it's the first computational where what we do is we have community meetings we do board games and have chats going on and just to get together and have some fun so we'll have some fun if you come and then the last one is an event Brian helped me next next Wednesday April 17th from 6 30 to 8 30 p.m. at the Davis center we're having a town hall to talk about the possibility of an apology and reparations for slavery in Vermont it's next Wednesday from 6 30 to 8 30 p.m. okay next we have I'm going to take off early in case I'm leaving so if you want to sign it quick announcement that I think May 4th Saturday is a clean up day green up day and it's been a little less organized I think in the last few years but it's still happening so if you have time on Saturday morning I don't even know what's happening but I think it's happening so look around for it on Facebook and at the local schools and clean up your neighborhoods thanks bye okay and one more announcement is it work there we go hi everyone I'm running a new project called at the root and it's fundraising and educational social and non-profit we have an event next Thursday from 6 to 9 is a diorama exhibit there's going to be a bunch of dioramas at the hive on pine 420 pine street from the sale of the dioramas will be donated to 350 Vermont if you have questions you can come find me thanks okay and up next we have Liz and she'll be the last announcement for tonight thanks I just wanted to call everyone's attention to an announcement that the school district made today apologies to French speakers but the alliance Francaise has been asking the school district for over five years to look at a dual English-French immersion partnership with the embassy to do an emergency program pay for start-up and help recruit instructors and give instructors grants to learn how to do dual language immersion so it's an exciting development in our education institution unfortunately we have reached the end of our announcement period can we get it under a minute sweet thank you I'll do it in 20 seconds so I came back here last month to ask for your support for car share Vermont pod location north and north union happy to report that the public works commission has approved that and because of that we're going to go and ask for the one this one it's downtown and it's for adding our first EV so appreciate your support there it will be on the corner of main street and saint paul thank you very much all right we love report back success stories how cool is that tell us when things go right so next on our agenda we have a wienewski av corridor study update from our representatives as well as a few people who are here from the city it's got maps I'm told and we're going to be doing this for 20 minutes just let people know this is jake flanagan this is elissa favor where your representatives on the wienewski av corridor study and brian davis where do you go he's over there setting up the slide as you come here he's from the regional planning commission and he's going to walk through some beautiful slides of some work that our engineers have done on different alternatives of what could wienewski have looked like to help solve some of our issues that we were having and see our new goals also on on the tables you'll see this thing it's got a whole bunch of stuff on it take a look see what you like scribble on it let us know what you think and enjoy the presentation and keep talking until brian's ready if you do scribble on it just give it to us so we can take off ready I'm going to try to drive the computer and talk at the same time thanks for having me my name is brian davis I'm a transportation planner with the jitney county regional planning commission we were asked by the city of burlington to take a look at wienewski avenue and when I say wienewski avenue I mean north and south wienewski from riverside health center all the way south down to st paul and howard street where shy guys a lot of us so the whole corridor almost two miles I came here last fall I think in october to ask for your initial opinions on it you know what do you think what do you like about it what don't you like what would you change if you could I appreciate all of your feedback very helpful consultant team over the winter took a look and came up with some initial draft concepts which I'm going to describe for you tonight I put some big 11 by 17 handouts tables one of those I'm going to use that as my reference point as we move along I had extra copies up here all right let's see what happens okay we did all that already so the city asked us to look at this because they want to can they want to create a corridor that is safe inviting convenient it's attractive for people that want to come and use it regardless of your age regardless of how you want to get around they want this to be a corridor that is safe and viable for you to use and that is our objective what we want to come out of this is something that is implementable at the end of this we will have both short term and long term recommendations ultimately adopted by city council with public support that then the city can go and figure out how they're going to implement each piece so we're getting for this we can make the roadway safe and better for everyone this is a snapshot of where we are in the process right now you can see we've already done some corridor visioning and goals we did some initial public outreach we are where the red circle is now getting feedback throughout the month of April we're going to take this back to the drawing board so to speak over the summer months refine these based on your input and then come back to you maybe late summer early fall some revised concepts based on what we're hearing what you like and don't like you'll see on these 11 by 17 sheets my name my phone number my email address please be in touch with me that's my job I want to hear from you there's also a project website up there where you can find all of the past minutes all of the presentations comments from other people and so on what we're doing right now we're talking about your dinner so keep up the dinners other MPAs are jealous of that we're going to do some specifics outreach to businesses we're going to meet with the downtown businesses through the BBA and church market place we're going to work with Sean at the old north in arts and business district to do an old north end specific there are some businesses who want to meet personally again reach out to me I want to meet you where you are and hear what you like and don't like about that so through our initial talk we're going to talk about the major themes that we've heard for example from main street to Pearl Street the downtown section people feel like it's a little bit aggressive they feel unsafe people are speeding weaving there's no bike facilities people are interested in continuous north side parking we're hearing that especially in the other parts of the town is full people that are coming into town the residents that are looking at using that on street parking so we're trying to find a way to balance all of these things that we're hearing okay now to the the good stuff in the big sheets on the back page this is a configuration of what is there now so starting from the outside in the blue is sidewalks there's sidewalks the entire length of the corridor on both sides the blue you can see from the blue represents parking in the south the red or pink depending on your eyes are the travel lanes and the little V's represent the travel direction bike facilities are in green and then the upper part dashed green represents the city so sort of up here in the old north end there's a few blocks that have where bicycles will share the same lane as auto so this is where we're starting at some of our design goals going into this the city doesn't want to acquire any extra right of way we're working within the city's current right of way as it is we also want to minimize moving any kerbs it's much cheaper to use the existing curb to curb look at ways to create options, but going to it and again based on plan BTV walk bike we're looking at developing continuous bike lanes in both directions. Some of the areas of focus I've already identified those so let's jump right in. So this is alternative one. I'm gonna get my cheat sheet. This alternative adds conventional bike lanes the entire corridor and what I mean is it's just a striped bike lane. It's not separated there's no barrier it's just a striped bike lane. It reduces the vehicle lanes between Pearl Street and Main Street so that four lane cross section now becomes a travel lane in both directions with a two-way center turn lane and with bike lanes on both sides. To create that extra space this alternative is parking between King and Maple on the west side and then so on your big sheet you've got that schematic and on the right side you have the cross sections for reference. With alternative one there are a few variations of that alternative which is on page two. I'm going to speed through this so that we have time to so I can answer your questions. If you need anything clarified on any of these please let me know. So alternative one A on the northern section between Riverside and Decatur we're looking at widening the curb which keeps the parking on both sides and adds a bike lane striped for bikers. Alternative one E like Main Street to Maple Street a little bit south of downtown it keeps the parking on the west side converts the traffic operations south of Main Street to southbound only and then it adds a southbound bike lane buffer so if you're familiar with the term doring if you're riding a bike next to a parked car and someone opens the door so this creates a little bit of a buffer to give you some of that safe space. Alternative one C again this is looking at widening the curb converting North Winooski to two-way traffic from Pearl Street to Union and Decatur so currently the southbound section this could in theory become a two-way travel situation with bike lanes on both sides. And then alternative one D this converts this is basically looking at using Cheros the entire length from both sides and it keeps parking on both sides. Alternative two this adds protected bike lanes the entire corridor so instead of just a striped bike lane now there is a buffer that provides a buffer between the cars. Let's see this widens the curb between Pearl and Main so in order to keep that buffer through the downtown area would require riding the curbs out to get that extra space again it reduces those vehicle lanes downtown as a center two-way turn lane eliminates most of the parking on the east side except between Decatur and Pearl and the Formani King converts this again southbound to Southbound. And you'll see on the next page there is an option for alternative two from Riverside south to Decatur and Union this is looking at widening the curb to retain the parking on the west side and create a northbound protected bike lane and a southbound protected bike lane. There's a protected lane option from Decatur to Pearl as well. We're looking at widening curbs from Pearl to Main. Did I not switch the slide here? There we go. And in looking at widened curbs to keep the parking on the west side. So you'll see a theme here trying to find a balance in the parking demand. And this is alternative three which looks at adding a two-way protected bike lane so instead of having either a conventional bike lane or a buffered bike lane this is a protected bike lane so there's some sort of barrier protecting the cyclists from the cars. Again it looks at removing the parking on the east side to create that space reduces the vehicle lanes downtown. South to Main it converts it to southbound travel again and all changes are within the existing curb width. There's no widening in this particular option. I will say at this point we had a project advisory committee meeting at the end of March. You see the data on this. Based on the feedback there are other options to play. We're looking at how can we retain all of the parking in the old north end and still add a bike facility. So is there space within the green space and the sidewalk space. Is there a way to create a bicycle facility and retaining all of that parking in the old north end. So the consultant team is working on that now. We heard that. Thank you for that feedback. And there is another option was brought up can we use the parked cars to create that buffer between as a cycling buffer. So that's another option that we're looking at. So even though this material is pretty fresh it's not fresh as of this afternoon. So you have a summary using these alternatives. This is sort of that shot of change proposed. So we go process cut off on this slide but you can see it on your handout. The things that we're considering once the alternatives are developed how will we decide the trade offs among each of these alternatives. And again based on your feedback. I've only shown you cross sessions at this point. I haven't talked about intersections. The consultant team has looked at both signalized intersections and roundabouts at all the intersections and either work both roundabouts and signals work at all the intersections mostly. So what is going to be a major determining factor is what type of bike facility folks agree on. If we're looking at a two way protected bike lane on one side that really doesn't function around the back. And then we're looking at the roadway needs and the intersections. So once we put public on preferred alternatives designs that they like and don't like then we can start taking a closer look at what intersection options might work for this. There's a few schematics for you just to see what that looks like. There's a criteria I mentioned. What's next as I mentioned April we're coming to the NPAs having other public meetings. Also the first week of May we're going to pick a date the beginning of next week. I'm looking at the first week of May to do a public forum. It will be an open house style with a presentation a little bit more robust than this. We'll have some big displays put up where people can come and look at those. We'll be available to talk about that. So stay tuned for those dates. This is content info. I'd like to open it up to you now. Questions. Is it me. Thanks Brian. So what I what I never really understand about bike lane planning is that on a corridor like South Winooski it's a corridor and North Winooski it's a corridor that has some of the highest density of rental housing which means that there's a lot of working people who don't have a choice but to own and use a car to get to work on second or third shift or when buses don't go in a small rural bus system like ours doesn't go to a lot of places. So and secondly we do have a bus and the pictures never have a bus on cars and I know the legal limit is 10 foot wide for a bus but that never really works when you're unloading a person in a wheelchair and or a person who's getting their bike off and they have to get like they're in the middle of the street and they have to get all the way over to the curb. So I don't understand why planning doesn't create bike routes. The way you create truck routes on a separate road like you don't put trucks through a neighborhood. You make it go on the main corridors. Why can't we create bike routes that aren't on corridors where people rely with a lot of density and where the bus route goes. Why can't it go on Interveil and Elmwood and Union and other places where it would be more comfortable and accommodating and inclusive. Of. So looking at. Using other. Corridors for those bike routes. OK. Thank you. I have a mic so I'll just go. Does this look at street trees at all. I don't see any trees on the diagram. The trees are on the diagram but there is a quantified aspect of impacts to trees and it may not be in the chart that I included on this handout but it is a specific metric that was looked at. It is available on online. OK. I might be a little hard to find but I'm happy to send that. There's a number of trees depending on the different proposed options or. There's curb widening there may be tree impacts involved. In a reduction trees is there a look at planting more trees. That's a great question. I'm not sure at this point if that's pretty detail oriented. So right now we're at the planning level. Right. And then next step once it's adopted and the city moves forward then we get to the design level and that's where the really specifics come in. But we are keeping tree trees in mind. Yeah. So that's down the road. Yes. Thanks. I'll go next. So the term share those is not used in the bicycling community at all. That's just standard. What is occurring now. So to have that in the plan is sort of it's sort of false secured without bike lanes. They're really not considered making things as move most of the protection that was temporarily there. The drift happens all the time. So if you can't allow your 10 year old to ride their bike on that bike lane then it shouldn't be considered a bike lane at all. I know you have I only see I think number three is the only real what I would consider as you know a cyclist that drives too much. I would be encouraged more had it not been hit several times. The other thing is the economic I guess the Liz's point more poor people ride their bikes and own cars. In this city it is actually true and I disagree. But it's not our. But so just I'm clear I'm hearing support for something like alternative three that has a protected bike facility rather than something like a share which is just a shared space. OK. All right. So one thing through this whole process I've never heard anybody say is sorry. One thing I've heard nobody say is that North Winooski Avenue is actually U.S. Route 7. It is a U.S. truck route. OK. Now how are trucks supposed to come into Burlington to make those if they're coming out of Winooski and you take away parking. Or you know read your traffic. You know work so of course people bring their cars to me to get worked on. We're limited on parking as it is. There's I know there's another garage down the street a one automotive. They're always packed. They park cars on the street also. So by taking parking spots away you guys are going to hurt all the small businesses. I mean the laundromat. There's restaurants junk teaks. I mean to be honest you know if you go by a dresser at junk teaks you're not riding a bicycle. You're going to drive a vehicle to go pick it up. But if there's no parking they can't go there to pick it up. So ultimately it's going to cripple all the small businesses on North Winooski. Not only that it's going to drive property values down because people will not be able to rent because there's not enough parking. It is. Next to me you don't have nearly enough parking spots for the number of units they have let alone for two cars per unit. So the overflow goes on the street. You know I've actually written up a couple a couple diagrams which I'll give you afterward of how things can be you know accommodated you know and make everybody happy where we can keep the parking you know keep the lanes the way they are make actual bike lanes and everything. And you know yes it doesn't involve widening but it doesn't really impact the green space and the trees and it can be done without costing a lot of money because the sewer and water systems need to be read on anyway. They can do it all when they redo that. So I'll give them to you afterwards. That'd be great. Thank you very much. Appreciate that. You can clarify your definition between protected and buffered like and all the different types of bike lanes that you have talked about and your thoughts about what has been put up in the last year or two. And if that's something that you would continue to think about using because it's pretty ineffective and unsafe and wondering what if you can clarify there's what a buffer to protect a bike lane would look like from your perspective. Sure. Yeah. Thank you. So Sheros are simply shared lane markings. You know you can from Riverside down to you know past Dolan's it stops at Decatur North Union. Those are Sheros. It's a couple Chevrons above a bike symbol in the travel lane which lets the bicyclists know where they're expected to ride out of the door zone. Let's people driving these bicycles looking at trying to get our young folks in the community riding bikes. That's not the safest option. Nor is it for inexperienced people who don't like riding in traffic. The conventional bike lane is just a striped white bike lane designated with markings and signs. Minimum is four feet wide. Five is better. Six is great. Which is what you'll find south of Decatur. That was a nice wide bike lane south of Decatur to almost to Pearl Street better. But still if you want your 10 year old to bike probably not where you want to send your 10 year old by themselves. Buffered bike lanes are two feet wide. It's a little bit better. I think on Union Street that's probably a two foot except that is now protected with the baller in the road. The difference between protected lanes generally want that three foot buffer with some sort of displacement. It could be a vertical thing between it such as a ballard or a planter. It could also be a horizontal displacement. It could be raised up above the level of the roadway. Some folks who travel to Europe and come back and say why are the bike lanes the same level as the roadway here. Can we raise them up. If not to sidewalk level can they at least be a couple inches higher. So that's a different way to to separate that space for cyclists from motorists. So there's a different ways out there and again you'll see we haven't in these representations you may see some flex posts in the concept designs. We're just showing that as one idea there's numerous ways out there to create a protected bike lane. We're looking for feedback on those as well. Hi I was wondering about how much research there's been into year-round protected or just bike lane use in places that have winter like we do. Just my experience as a year-round cyclist is that the protected lanes on Union are completely unusable and then I'm ending up just being in the road and cars are like get in the bike lane and it's like you try riding in that. So yeah so that's been problematic for me but I also realized that probably there's so few of us who really ride all winter and there's so many needs to accommodate. Yeah I just want to know if it's been looked into in terms of like this and dealing with things like this and my work at the Regional Planning Commission we do often look to sister cities that experience the same type of snow events. We can agree we had a lot of snow that started early this year and makes places like Union challenging to ride. Maintenance is always a challenge. The other aspect of that is a connected connectivity. If you're in a bike lane that suddenly ends and you're forced to ride in a lane you know we're trying to create facilities that keep current users riding but attract new users into those facilities. So now instead of just looking at using shadows or striped bike lanes we're trying to delve into buffered and protected lanes for people biking and then it does come down to a level of maintenance. Challenging in winters like this where we have the snow but there are other places that do that. Always learning from. Hey thanks. I think I'm back here Jacob. There's a lot to talk about not enough time here but there is a email sign up back here so if you want to learn more about this stay more involved put your email down here we'll stay in touch with you. Thank you. Okay next we have a presentation on implementation of the Sustainable Infrastructure Plan done by Robert Goulding from the Department of Public Works. Robert where are you. He's getting his presentation ready. And this is such a great time for public discourse back and forth. And just keep in mind that there's a lot of sagetta and try to keep your questions. It would be helpful to keep enough time for the question and answer period so that we can fit it neatly into our agenda. But again this is kind of like juggling torches on fire sometimes. So thank you for your patience and feel free to always reach out to us if you want a message passed on afterwards or ask someone out for coffee to talk about it more. I want to thank you very much for having us here kind of on dual agenda. Thanks Brian for giving that presentation somewhat on part of the city as well. I have three big topics but I'm going to keep it to 10 minutes and I'm going to run through these and leave enough time for questions. Thanks again. So the first place I want to start is just show you a couple images from our construction portal which is about land. So really I think it's going to damage a lot of the work that has been done over the last two years. We're really taking a unique once in a generation approach to reinvesting in our core infrastructure. Thank you. And just a demonstration here of the last two years of work that we've done on the left side and on the right side is a plan a map of all the plans for 2019 really a citywide effort here and a lot of concentration for sure in the old north end which I'm going to talk a little bit more about. I always end with this but I thought I'd start with this tonight. We do maintain this really important resource online. It's called the construction portal. It's a citywide effort plugged in by multiple departments. We probably have the biggest footprint on it but this will allow you in map form and list form looking at 2019 looking at completed projects looking at all projects planned for the future. You can really drill into the work that the city has done and plan to zoom into neighborhood amount to city. It'll give you a lot of key details and projects, benefits, contact information and some time. So we really encourage you to take a look at that to get a sense of the work that is going on. Two years ago, thanks to the Mayor's leadership and city council, we had a sustainable infrastructure plan passed and then funded by two really important capital bonds. As a demonstration of the work that's been done and the trust that the voters did place in the department to get this work done, I like sharing some of these details just to show some of the comprehensive work that's been done, really the historic work that's been done in the city since the passage of the bonds in 2016. You can see we've essentially doubled our annual paving that we would normally undertake, almost tripled our sidewalk work that we would normally undertake. And really for the first time ever, proactively rehearse maintenance and replacement or re-paying. We all benefit from all delivered work. This increases water flows, this sizes our water flows in general. It's really important and we all really benefit from these projects. I'm going to skip over the rest in the interest of time. All that being said, I'd like to point out that we have an extensive network of roads, sidewalks, water mains and my personal favorite on the right. I'd like to share our 2,500 maintenance, C-click fix requests a year just to demonstrate that all of this work is a balance of the proactive assertive efforts that we're undertaking as a city with a lot of the reactive work we have to do with a pretty old city. So there is a balance that's always involved. I want to share with you our original paving list and kind of a last minute pivot to address some of the serious winter problems we've experienced and you've probably experienced on the pavement. Probably the third year in a row, climate-related changes with our streets and sidewalks. What we're noticing annually and as we begin to dig into the national and scientific data is we have increasing freeze-thaw cycles in a given winter. In the past, we experienced maybe one big thaw in January with a refreeze until we thought out again in March-April. We're really seeing a lot more ground movement over the last few years, which is disrupting pavement, sidewalk, and some additional stress on our water mains. So it's something we are mindful of. Maybe you should be mindful of too, as you notice these things, because we're going to have to work through this as a city with increasing climate challenges all around. Specifically, I just wanted to highlight the Wards 2 and 3 map here. You can see there's a couple of responses in green to the last, not last minute, but the kind of winter deterioration of the Wards 2 and 3 map here. So I'm going to show you some of the pavement. Lake Street, Shrines Street, some adjacent streets, arched out by the Wards 2 and 3, many of you will travel. Just that one segment of arched out, which might be outside of this ward. I want to share, and I'm happy to circulate these. These are also available on the portal, but some big upcoming projects, which are going to make a dent in some of the sidewalk reconstruction efforts in the old North End. You can see the list here. It might be harder to read, and again, I'm certainly happy to circulate these. We also have some really important transportation, pedestrian improvement projects planned on Ward Street and at the Washington Bury Intersection. Among quite a few others, just wanted to pull these out for you to show some of, you know, wide ward work that we're doing in Wards 2 and 3. Related to the Sustainable Infrastructure Plan and its implementation, I want to dive into a couple of projects and initiatives. Just to be mindful of the opportunities we've come into, so don't forget. When the cars are gone, we are trying to get the message out that, you know, we'll be through sweeping the street. It's really important for the lake. It's really important for the beautification of the city. We sweep throughout the year, but this is a really concerted effort we make to get the debris off the road and keep it out of the lake. One big project nearby that we like to make people aware of, the Great Streets Project on St. Paul. It's a really important project. It's going to add a lot of sustainable features to our streetscape. A lot of stormwater infrastructure, which is critical to a really challenged area because there's a lot of combined sewer overflow in this area that we're managing actively and this project will really help a lot with that. We're also widening sidewalks and crosswalks, really potentially friendly features that really are going to help the residents, the business owners and the business visitors. So we like to make you aware of that. This project will go through August. There is a street closure right now. There's a couple side street impacts that will be sporadic. So be mindful of that and we appreciate your patience as we work through this really, really important project and it's really going to transform an important adjacent downtown street. I want to end before I kind of pivot to another important topic. In November 2018, the voters approved the Clean Water Resiliency Plan and funded it with an important bond. Work is underway, work has been underway and the team is working really hard to meet the commitment that we asked for and that the voters approved. In fact, the city has just been awarded about a million dollars in CSO grants, which is going to make a real measurable difference over about a two-year construction period for building small water revests in the city. Concentrated in combined sewer overflow areas and it's part of the demonstration that we are trying to make to keep rates affordable but also to protect water quality. So a lot of work is ongoing. We heard the commitment that you asked us to make and as an early indication of that, this one million dollars will help as we construct 12 retrofit projects over two years to capture and prevent stormwater from going through the system. So I'm going to pivot a little bit different of a topic to our proposed e-bike and e-scooter share. Just curious who's heard about the proposal. Most but not all. So I think a key principle as we've undertaken this proposal is providing transportation options, expanding transportation choice, continuing, I think the lead is showing sustainable options and battling climate change on all fronts. So we are introducing this proposal for e-bikes and e-scooters in the city. We've had a couple public meetings. We've brought it to our oversight committee of the city council a couple of times to give us some airtime and really hear from the public what their expectations are and what their input is. So I think an important note to make is that we are in the proposal stage and agreements are not signed and we are here to continue to take public feedback. You can watch any of the videos, any of the public meetings that we've had. They are available on our website and we are continuing to take feedback. But let's dive into the nitty-gritty a little bit. So we currently have a bike share system. It's a regional effort coordinated through the regional commission and CHAPMA. Three municipalities including ours is the largest part of this. Long-term plan behind that to continue providing transportation choices, continuing our efforts on sustainability, reducing fossil fuel dependence and battling, you know, climate change effects as we've already talked about, is transitioning to an all e-bike fleet. We think that's important. We live in a hilly city. There are people who want a bike who may have interest or ability in manually biking. There are people who don't own cars, who might need to commute to work, might need to commute for recreation, might, you know, might want to take trips. This helps people on the first mile and the last mile. This is another choice that people can have when they commute to avoid being in cars and to help them get around the region, which is an important part of this. We're going to talk about this in particular. It's all existing manual bike share system coordinated regionally to an all-electric assist bike share system. We expect that we could do this as early as August, maybe even a little sooner. We're trying to work hard with our regional partners to make this happen. We have mentioned e-scooters and we heard a lot of public input. People are very interested in transitioning our fleet from regular bikes to e-bikes. There's quite a lot of interest in that. There's been a little bit of anxiety around scooters. There's some uncertainty on the regulatory side and in the state statute climate. We're looking at all the issues right now. And people just want to know a little bit more about the rules of the road, how they apply, how the people are going to quickly consider this and just know that we are doing an e-scoot right now. It's practical by talking. So we're going to hope to transition to e-bikes soon, e-scooters later. We are really interested in hearing public feedback, public input now or later. And the regional planning commission is undertaking a micro mobility study whereby you can provide input to them on existing hub locations and give feedback on the overall approach. We really appreciate the time. I'm certainly happy to answer any questions. Hi. Great presentation. Thanks for bringing it to us. I have two questions. You mentioned that you've noticed the climate that construction needed. You look at what construction you're doing has an impact on the climate. Was there like a greenhouse gas emissions inventory being done on how we're doing construction? So it's an important question. I don't know that we've conducted that exact inventory. We are trying to build more sustainably. Any time we undertake any kind of project, we're looking at opportunities to build stormwater features into the system or you know, that's one of the most important endeavors we're undertaking. We heard about trees earlier. Certainly, we're always looking at the natural ecology of any streetscape or any project we're undertaking. To A, not do harm and B, what can we do to maybe leave it a better place. St. Paul is one clear example of that. Another clear example on Allen Street in a couple of months in arguably a couple of short impacts from a lot of these projects and of course some of them create traffic and disruption but the long-term benefits we see a lot of real ecological benefit. I hear your point though about construction vehicles, certainly there is going to be a short-term impact. Well, long-term impact I'm thinking. You know what I mean? Yeah, carbon emissions. Yeah, anyway, second question, how are the e-bikes charged? The e-bikes are going to be charged daily overnight through a battery. The local vendor will essentially be collecting these batteries, charging them and replacing them. I'm going to ask my Brian might know that detail. Right, so one of our requirements was that we have vehicles on the road and so that's why you've seen old vehicles pulling a full of bikes and bringing bikes around. So that's as of now Yeah. I have a question. Oh, am I over here now? I just wanted to know about the construction when the construction happens because I have a business that's over on Kilburn Street and all of a sudden we came into work and there was a giant traffic jam in front of our work and none of our patients could get to the office through their appointments and it's, I'm wondering how we can hear about that in advance because if we hear about it we can call and tell people to leave extra time, there's no parking for businesses and is there a way for us to be notified that happened? I can definitely appreciate that question. Was that a recent backlog on Pine Street? It's happening right now. Yeah. It's happening right now and we keep going. Let me first sorry that projects and project impacts are affecting your business. We do try to keep social media updated regularly. We do try to keep front porch forum updated. We mentioned that there would be some side street impacts. I'm not sure that I got into the entire business down on Kilburn. Yeah. It's pretty much all the businesses there but we love it. If that's going to happen the whole entire street is owned by one person and so just contacting like Parmalo property management will get all of the businesses at least on that street and that happens to us a few times a year. So I think just to know that and somehow to be able to just paper or reach out to the businesses would be really awesome so we could plan for it. We are trying to do that here. I'm sorry about that. Pine Street where it was reacted last year a lot of people of the pavement this year there was a little bit of that but you'll have impacts like this so thank you for that feedback. Awesome. That would be great. Thanks. I have a question. Can you explain over here? Hi. Can you explain the rationale of getting rid of all the manual bikes and replacing the e-bikes and the scooters? Yeah. It's really shifting. A lot of the feedback I think that we've heard is that there are different abilities. E-bikes provide a whole range of options whether you want to you know use the the electric assist or not. I think the plan all along was to make sure we did have some transition over to electric so we see that as an important kind of factor here in terms of transitioning the whole system Brian do you have any insight to add to that from the manual to the electric or why for transition we see a big because more people being able to use the entire fleet whereas you know somebody took a manual bike from one location to another location you might not be able to activate as many people using that bike if you know somebody really would prefer to rely on an e-bike. Sure. There are people just with different abilities who might choose an e-bike because of the assist. I think that yep. It doesn't make sense to me based on who we are thinking about moving forward that we wouldn't have manual bike options for a lot and especially if like I'm thinking about visitors are coming or people I know are myself who prefers a manual bike to have those options in addition I hear what you're saying about accessibility I don't know I think there are options but to get with the kind of productive to what we're trying to do with the environment right now. Thank you for sharing that I think one of the main challenges with the map where they start and where they end bikes always ended up downhill and they were not winded up uphill until they were collected and brought up and so you know we're working with a vendor who is making their own choices that I think many of which in principle we're agreeing with because they're going to help with larger impactful goals related to sustainability I hear your thoughts to see if there's any any other thought going into that and remind you this have information that you can share that back other options like that one in the study that Brian is coordinating for the region I have a question about the e-scooters my understanding is that the e-scooters can be programmed to not function in certain parts of the city and the purpose is to have them not maybe I'm too close to you to have them not work or just turn off on church street there are so is that true and are there other parts of the city that you know and I've also heard that they're going to be docked and not dockless is that right that's right I guess I didn't launch into some of those other who maybe did this in a less needed way is wound up with dockless system so we are pursuing a docked model so there's a little bit of predictability and coordination behind this I already forgot the important first question that there are certain that it's possible to shut them off in certain parts of the city there is geofencing technology which allows you to adjust on where you are and would I think be able to shut the equipment down with a warning to the writer as well ahead of time I think for bikes it would transition to just manual mode only so that is a technology that is viable other cities have adopted it we're very interested in that we want to work through a careful thoughtful process to figure out where that would make sense to use or not of course okay it's to wrap it up we got to move on to the next presentation thank you so much Robert okay and up next we have a presentation on the MPA proposed funding resolution this was first proposed last month and discuss and now we're bringing up again Jim you ready so we live in a weird and wonderful world when it comes to MPA finances a few weeks back in the PAS we started discussing a follow up address some of the white boarded issues and needs and wants that were expressed last June by the MPA here and at every steering committee meeting we move that along a little bit whether it's agenda subjects or addressing the specific needs that were noted some of those needs were a request for a website and for childcare at MPA meetings and we formulated a request for funding for for the meetings that was $800 from the city in addition to the 400 per ward that's already allotted for .org website domain and annual website hosting and for childcare at MPA meetings now at about exactly the same time that we formulated this request the all wards also formulated a request in support of the entire MPA system that request was for $2500 per ward for each ward that each MPA would be able to distribute to utilize as it saw fit to serve its mission so we have two concurrent concepts here for funding for for securing funding for the wards two and three MPA meetings and the question to be simple about it is whether we support tonight wards two and three requesting $800 from the city in addition to the 400 per ward allotted for a .org annual website hosting childcare during each monthly meeting if we do we'll move that request to our city councillors and to the mayor and that would be with the understanding that the support we're seeking may arrive from a different direction if the all wards request for support for the entire system is successful so I don't think we I think we can look at this as covering the bases and being responsible to ourselves and the needs that we've identified for ourselves and stepping up and whether resources materialized through this specific request if it were to pass tonight as a resolution or to arrive via the all wards and the you know I think it would happen either way but for the sake of formality and drawing this question to conclusion I think I'll pose the question to you is this a resolution that the NPA supports? Am I doing this correctly Emma? I'm going to look to the expert because I'm perfectly happy to yell into a microphone but that doesn't mean I know what I'm doing here okay so I I like the Robert's rule suggestion I think I'll ask is there a motion for this resolution from Ward 2 okay is that is there a second or is there a discussion Brian is second is there anybody like to contribute to sure are we spending that $500 that $400 on a website okay this request for $800 is for a website and childcare and this request is in addition to the $400 that we expect annually from the city that's correct yeah yeah the we currently spend the $400 mostly on the community dinner Jim I have a question sure what is your recommendation do you have one I don't know what is this me do you have one in terms of whether we should do this approve this and and then continue to work with the all wards or would you recommend waiting to work for the all wards just your personal not holding you to it personally I think I'm comfortable following through with the steering committee recognizing the specific interests of the NPA formulating a response and carrying it forward with your support that if there were two successful resolutions the all wards funding request this will utilize the need to speak in horizontal so we would be making a stronger argument for the support that we all we all know we need and I think that any question about whether about equity down the line among how much funding each ward might receive can be resolved you know we might be facing the question next time of do we say let's stop asking for this because we've been because we're guaranteed to get the other supports go ahead so basically these meetings just have 10 people come to them now we've got hundreds I don't know this for a fact but I've been a plent of NPA meetings I suspect that the equity issue is not an issue I think there's a lot more people we need it takes a lot of money for people right doesn't seem a big question to me any more comments okay go up here I think I might have missed this but in terms of these was this determined by the like the survey was that how we for the website and the childcare was that how more monies was determined to be spent this conversation references a project we did a meeting here in June last year where we had a white board up here and we wrote down people's interests and there's some that feel as though they're simple enough to bring forward early others might take longer for us to process into action but these seemed actionable I want to also ask possibilities of spending money is for paying for translators to come and to do outreach into their own communities so that we really see what the old north end community looks like when we're in this room together yeah the white board has a long list of items for us to address and we're taking that we're taking that to heart as a steering committee we have two minutes shall we bring this to a vote in ward 2 all in all in favor aye aye all opposed I'm not seeing opposed I'm assuming that means we're in ward 2 so we'll ask this question would somebody like to move this resolution forward in ward 3 thank you is there a second thank you all in favor any opposed it looks like it passes in ward 2 and 3 so thank you we'll move this forward okay up next we have our city counselor report it looks like we have Perry Freeman our central district city counselor here tonight and Brian Pine ward 3 city counselor do you guys want to come on up do you have another mic hello hello I can go first okay I'm Perry Freeman central district city counselor just got sworn in first yeah that's exciting so just have a couple of updates mostly the swearing in ceremony was awesome and exciting and then you know beyond that just have been attempting to meet with as many departments and department heads as possible we just had a work session on Monday meeting with water resources which went well to talk about some changes to DPW potentially some changes to setting and so the council will make sure people informed on that I have been assigned committees so I will be public safety was one that I was really interested in serving on so I'm able to serve on that as well as human resources and institutions is one committee and then the favored committee which is tax abatement so I'm on that as well and no I'm very excited and I'm so in regards to public safety I do want to draw a few things to attention so are folks familiar at all with the encampment policy ish some folks are so I'm not sure people are aware this has been ongoing lawsuit because there are particular parts about the encampment and deemed unconstitutional at least by standards of the ACLU so my interest is to at least at a bare minimum bring that up to at least making sure that all of it all parts of it are constitutional and then what I'd really like to see is a best practices policy around encampment encampments and around yeah folks who are sleeping outside so there's a there are other municipalities that have pretty okay policies I wouldn't say that there's like one go to in terms of like best practices it's there's definitely a lot of room for improvement there so I will definitely continue to work on that I might be reaching out to folks about hearing to share it with and then on that the citizen oversight is coming through public safety again in terms of police affairs and practices and that was something that came up a lot in the campaign and was just people talking about policing and and I definitely want to keep the door open in terms of that and so I'll be following up about that I wanted to I thought about passing around a clipboard yesterday there was our folks aware that there was a press conference yesterday because the altercation between a civilian and a police officer was rolled as a homicide or folks aware of that the autopsy report came back so I just want to approach me about that I think there's some interest in setting up a community meeting to talk about that further but it'll just sort of policing probably put a court out people can on it if they're interested in following up about that you know we sort of have a date in a meeting place then I can put that out on five porch forum and social media and keep people up to date on that I'm just trying to think I think that was everything yeah great we'll have questions and I think might help yeah so the committee assignments are something that is an interesting process you compete perhaps if you're running for the board of finance among all counselors and you then give your first choices second third choice to the council president and the council president at least in recent history tries to make a balanced representative they give you one of your first choices as a member of the board was a five the mayor ex-officio but also voting member and then the council president again ex-officio as a voting member and then three counselors the other counselors who were incumbents on that were Sharon Buescher and Karen Paul and I appreciate the rest of the council support I actually made case that with council leaving the council that was her role she was on the board of finance that it was important that our wards our neighborhoods are part of the city deserve representation on the finance board which does guide some of the city's financial decisions so I will be looking for people's you know continual feedback cajoling disagreements when it's necessary and a little bit of support to the board of finance hopefully representing the board as best I can even though I'm just a word three counselor my other committee which I continue on is a long name we call it CDNR which means community development neighborhood revitalization and that's a mouthful and I chair that committee and we have a lot of work ahead of us this year focused on continue to focus on housing policy the mayor mentioned in his state of the city that there's going to be a housing summit that will have hopefully inclusive summit that will not just it's not going to be just about development it will really be about issues that run the whole spectrum of you know homelessness with care type issues around how to do housing first really address people's needs but looking at the issues right looking at the issue and the fact that departments people are struggling with their utility bills bringing them into a pretty unaffordable situation I wanted to mention something that was a little bit controversial people have kind of moved on but I just want to at least mention that last week I put in all the front porch forum there are four different front porch forums that are in this our wards so there's downtown there's King Street there's central and people tell me it was probably too long to get through so I'll say it real quickly it was around City Hall Park and I actually am the person who in the beginning of this process in 2011 I still worked for the city I kind of thought it was a silly idea to even looking at a major revamp city hall park a really expensive I lost that fight that fight was lost a long time ago that fight was it came forward with a plan that had some unpopular features as in taking down too many mature trees perhaps too much concrete the historic fountain a number of other things that were in that plan that really made people upset and I'm getting that speed up thing but I'm going to say this because I think people deserve to hear it is I felt that that plan was overkill had a lot of problems we created an ad hoc committee that ad hoc committee met for a few months they came back to us with a compromise it wasn't it had some reluctant support from really everybody felt like they gave something up we went forward with a level one with only councilor voting against it so the specifications go and do the work for that project we gave the green light last summer on that citizens came together in the fall gathered signatures on a petition couldn't get the ballot a signature is in time for the fall vote but brought enough signatures for March and again after putting on the ballot we did not win that fight it was a 6-6 vote then it came down to we have a contract to award and the contract price was considerably higher than the original estimate for a lot of reasons including competitive bidding environments including more environmental remediation than was envisioned just a whole number of factors materials have gotten more expensive these things called tariffs which affect prices and those prices actually have gone up so the project is quite a bit more expensive so rather than to oppose the project I chose to figure out how to get the best project for the most competitive way we could reduce the impact and I got involved in that process at a cost of the project down I ended up voting in favor of it it was a 10-2 vote and I just wanted to at least explain that because I think there's a feeling that wait, if you were against the park why did you vote for the contract my feeling is as a city once we decide to go forward we kind of have as representatives of the whole city at that point and I felt like that was where we needed to go with that so thank you questions Lizzie we got time yeah hey I just have one quick one okay so I'm not cutting that off so is there any that was that speaker okay is there any word about Brookfield coming to give an update that would we read in the news really there's not a whole lot more that I know unless Perry has something newer I forgot to mention so there was also a new counselor orientation and there was the consultant on the project which is Jeff Glasberg who came to chat with us a little bit about that and I think it's public knowledge that Brookfield is essentially like Don is not really so much in the mix anymore in Brookfield so that was sort of part of that briefing and then beyond that I kind of chatted with Jeff a little bit afterwards about maybe bringing in Brookfield is this something that you're about I mean he mentioned it basically to this point of bringing folks from Brookfield to have to engage the community more I think folks actually feel like they feel like they've been left out so I can follow up about that and kind of blast that out and try to push for that more if there is interest in that and I think it sounds like that that could be something that could happen Andrew Yes hi unfortunately there was a shooting on the corner of Clark and Grant and I've talked to both of you that my number one concern is always everyone's public safety I'm glad you're on that committee but that's frightening it's it's discouraging it's happened several times in the last couple years in the old north end and I was told that that is still in the hospital in a coma so I'm praying for him and you know it's just you know walking home from here walking down and me I don't think I have a whole lot to say other than it's incredibly tragic and the person who is suspected of committing the crime is has not been apprehended I know that so I know that they don't know where this person is I think it's obviously a much deeper issue around you know the root causes we could spend an awful lot of time on the police department has a certain amount that they will tell the public around investigations again this is a case where we only we probably know as much as the public knows through normal media yeah very much so and it's I agree it's incredibly sad and I would echo sort of they're pointing that there's a sort of in terms of public the the causes of crime and that's something that I think we need to address going forward is sort of the systemic things that need to change in order to address that beyond that I think something that's come to my attention through this campaign and through community work is just thinking about restorative justice and what do we do when things like this do happen and that's something that I'm interested in looking into more and I'm very open to hearing more about resources about that but I would say largely crime is and the construction of crime is just it's it's about a systemic sort of that and it is very sad but I think we need to do a lot to improve the system to address crime is a great importance it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's one way. Greenway sort of project. Okay. Well, anyway, we were not able to get out quickly. I was able to direct the bus back because I've experienced this and we were able to get out of there. But then again, it was a 45 foot bus on a 26 foot street on streets that are narrow anyway. Those barricades got to come out. These are a hazard. Thank you. Okay. I think that's it. Up next, we have a presentation from the director of the Burlington Parks Rec and Waterfront Department, Cindy White. All right. Let me just grab my stuff over here in the corner. My name's Cindy White, director of Burlington Parks and Rec. You get end of the agenda and you get someone who goes to bed normally at like 8.39 o'clock. So if my eyelids get a little lower, I apologize. So one of the things that we're trying to do is make sure people know about Penny for Perks. That was a dedicated couple fund that was passed by the voters in 2008. And we've seen a decline in the number of requests that were getting direct from the community. And we realized that probably that's because a lot of people don't know how to put a request in. So we're coming to words two and three to just make sure you understand how do you put an application in for parks. There was right on the front worksheet and we're going to kind of lead you through how you can put a Penny for Parks application. So this is a map of all the parks in the city. And Penny for Parks works not just for parks, but also for community gardens. So if you look at your worksheet up at the top, as you first want to think to yourself, well, what garden or park would I want to have improved? And so we listed most of the parks and the gardens that are in the Old North End. And you might think to yourself, well, maybe there's an improvement I want at Battery Park. Well then your next thing is to think about, okay, what's already at Battery Park? Is there anything missing? Is there anything that needs improvement? So that's kind of some of the things you're thinking about as you're filling out a Penny for Parks application. And then the next part in the worksheet are all schools that have a Penny for Parks application. So some of the things we're thinking about is, is there an environmental impact benefit? Will it improve the lifespan of the equipment? Is there opportunities for us for programming? Does it align with our master plan? And you wonder what our master plan is on the third page of your handout are our system themes. And these are the themes that came up when we did our master plan in 2015 that are really guide the work that we do. So if you think that this aligns with your idea for an improvement at a garden or a park aligns with the master plan, you would want to make sure you called one of these out. And we have right up here on the website, this is the Penny for Parks project. So if you go to www.JoyBurlington.com and the link is on the bottom, it's not defined, but it's the Penny for Parks program. So Penny for Parks program. And it's right on there that you can submit it. So it's actually really easy to do if you know where to go. But you can also take this application that I've handed out for you. Oh, that's right. You can take this application and fill it out and then even just drop it by our office if you want. So it's supposed to be really easy to do. We set aside money every year for community projects. We get about, it's around $370,000 a year for Penny for Park money. A lot of it goes to larger projects that's deferred maintenance in our park. For example, in FY21, one of the projects we're looking at is the Shalhae Park which needs a lot of improvement. So we're going to be putting some money in the Shalhae Park. We've been working on a lot of the tennis courts, getting those rehabilitated. One of the ones we just finished is Shemanska Park, I think that's in Manuski, but it's not, it's actually in the city of Burlington. It is in the city of Burlington. It is. Yes, I know that. That's your old neighborhood. So Shemanska Park, we just renovated the court out there, it was in really bad shape and one of the cool things about that park is how we renovated it. It's no longer two tennis courts. It's one tennis court, one pickleball court and one to crawl court are also known as cane ball. And if you've never seen that sport played, it's really pretty cool and it's used pretty much every single summer long that the crawl court is used for American families and it's a pretty fun game to play with your feet, kind of like hockey, soccer, all of that. Before we go too much further, I want to just say this is what happens to you when you are a retired park and recreation professional, you become a flight attendant and then you tell your friend that you're going to be overnighting in Burlington. This is my good friend Marilyn, she is based out of Memphis and she told me that she was going to be stopping by and I was like, that would be great, we can go for a lovely walk and then about noon I found out that I was going to be presenting at the NPA tonight. So I sent her a text and said, what do you think about putting your parker rec hat on and coming to a community meeting? So I'd like you guys to welcome Marilyn to Burlington. So that's a bit about what penny for perks for the application. I really want to make sure people have time to ask questions and Brian, where's Brian Piner, thank you for punting me right before I got up here. So Brian gave the opportunity for those questions, thanks, that was really wonderful. All right, so if anybody has any questions, I'm happy to take them for anything, I mean it could be about penny for perks but also if you have any other perks projects or questions for what's going on at Park Shrack, Jim go ahead. Is this fund available for improvements to new bumpouts, green belts that have been extended? So the question about new green belts, this is specifically for perks. It's in the resolution, it has to be a park or it has to be a park, a park that's listed in the provinces or a community garden that's listed in the provinces. For example, we were looking for money from a park cemetery and we can't use penny for perks, more penny for perks can be used for parks and community gardens. So I can't help you out on the bumpouts. Is there a deadline? There's no deadline. So we take these year round rolling applications, if it's something simple, it might be something that we can just kind of make happen right there or if it's something more complicated, we might need to work through, I'm not sure why that's squealing, sorry. If it's more complicated, it may be something that's got to get in the swing. So we put $45,000 is what we have set aside for the community-driven projects. If it's something that's more than $45,000, it's like a much larger project. It's really going to be online or rent a larger project for maintenance and parks. So if it's not heard from a big project, if it's new, it doesn't necessarily mean it won't happen, but just know that it's going to get ranked against playgrounds that are falling apart. It's going to get ranked with tennis courts that are needing to be completely refurbished. So really big projects sometimes, hint, hint, Sean, have to get fundraised for. Sean's got a great bike park. So it's been about a year and a half that I've been here, and I want to thank everybody for being super welcoming. I felt welcome and supported into the community. I'm one of those bike riders out on the bike path and out in the bike lanes, and I really appreciate having a safe place to bike here in Burlington. So what's the status of our park? Someone asked me that. I think it was Perry that I was meeting with, and she was asking, what would you give your parks? What kind of grade? And I was like, okay, Waterfront Park is about an A. It is beautiful down there. We've invested a lot of money. We're finishing up, regrading the main event area. Everything should be all set for the marathon. It's going to be a tight one, but we should be all set for that. So Waterfront Park and A. We've got parks that are like season D's. Playgrounds need a lot of work. We're going to be working on this as we put some money into more of them into compliance. So playgrounds need a lot of work. We have just the smallest grounds crew you can imagine for the number of parks that we have. We've got four full-time people that have to do all the grounds work throughout all our parks in the city. We do have some support. We work with corrections. They help out. They were actually just out at the cemetery yesterday doing a lot of the raking, bringing the leaves out. That's a help along with seasonals. So some of our parks are definitely in the sea type area, but we're working to bring those all up. But it's not for lack of really hardworking people. That's one of the things Marilyn that was asking me when we were driving over here. She says, tell me about your staff. What's your staff like? And I'm like, we have amazing, incredibly dedicated, creative, technically savvy staff. And they work really hard for the city and really care about the city. So it's not a matter of, I have a job, they need to do their job right. And I feel like also like not getting the way as a part of my job is not to, I came out of Rutland, which is very, I was much more hands-on. So I'm learning a little bit of that balance of, you know, where can I support politically, but not sort of getting in the middle of it. I have a question. Are there, I know in other municipalities, there are friends of parks. And you know, parks have kind of independent support. Do you, do any of Burlington's parks have that? Do you recommend that? Do you, what are your thoughts on that? So we do have, one of the, we do, one of the friends of Letty have, they formed, was it back, was it eight or nine years ago with the whole sort of, of the disc golf that, but when they were done, kind of sort of fighting that, it was really amazing that they didn't just say, oh, we won that battle, now we're done. They stayed formed together. They do some cleanups twice a year at the park. The regular users of the park, they let us know if there's things going on. So we do have a friends of Letty that they're also really a good go-to first resource for me to talk about some things that we're thinking about the parks. For example, Sean in the bike park, we, one of the first groups we met with, when we're thinking about something at Letty was, we met with the friends of Letty. What do they think? Because they're there all the time. So they're great to have. I know there's been some thoughts as far as Pomeroy Park. There's a lot of challenges going on at that park as far as dogs going into the playground, which is set aside for children. And that's where like a friends group could be super supportive is to have there and just keep in the eye on the park and giving us enough ideas of maybe how to improve it. Pomeroy will be getting new stands. Just let you know the new basketball standards will be going up sometime the spring they've been ordered. Okay, I think that's time to wrap it up. Thank you so much, Cindy, for coming out tonight. Okay, up next we have a report from our state representatives. It looks like we have Representative Jill Kroinski and Representative Cormac and Brian Cena and Selena Colburn. We're going to make sure the mic situation's okay here. All right. Hi, everyone. I'm Representative Jill Kroinski. I represent the Old North and in downtown, along with Kurt McCormick. And we're just going to quickly give a couple updates on things that we're working on and then open it up for questions because that's what we really, really want is to get your feedback and what you're interested in hearing about. So I'm going to cover three things. One, as you know, with the developments happening in Washington, DC and the Trump administration, reproductive rights are under attack. And so we are taking action in the House and the Senate to come up with a two-tier approach to ensure that everyone in Vermont has their reproductive rights no matter what happens in DC. So it also has to be H57 that makes access to Washington fundamental right and really keeps in practice what we've had for the last 46 years in Vermont and making sure that we're just enshrining that so that no matter what happens in the Supreme Court, we're safe here in Vermont. And while we were working on that bill in the House, which we did pass over to the Senate, the Senate's been working on the long-term strategy, which is to change our constitution to say that access to reproductive rights is a fundamental right in Vermont. The constitutional amendment process takes about four years, so that's why we felt the strategy was important to have both bills go through. So I anticipate both of those pieces of legislation passing this legislative session. The other thing I want to mention is that last week, last week, the paid family and medical insurance leave back to the House, my favorite thing to talk to you all about. And the bill that we passed and gives eight weeks of universal paid family leave time for new parents to bond with a new child and eight weeks to take care of a sick family member or yourself. And so that bill is off to the Senate. And we're really excited to get that back and to send that to the governor. And then the last one was our child care bill that we passed. I have to tell you, I got more constituent emails on child care so far this session than anything else, so I'm excited to report that we invested in over $10.5 million in a program that would increase reimbursement rates and loan programs for child care providers. It does a couple other things too, but it doesn't mean that a lot of people and we're excited that we can make the best in child care centers across for month. Hi, I'm Brian Sheena. I live in Ward 2. I represent part of the Old North End and most of the East District. I'm going to speak with you about two bills related to social justice. One of them is the Ethnic and Social Equity Studies Bill. It was H3 and it actually is Act 1. It was the first bill signed into law for this biennium. And this was the work, this work's been going on for many years. What this bill does, or this act, what this act does, is it creates an ethnic and social equity standards advisory working group. And this group will look at how to include the contributions of prominent racial ethnic groups in the United States, including Abbey, other indigenous people, people of African, Asian, Pacific Islander, Chicanx, Latinx, or Middle Eastern descent and social groups, including women and girls, people with disabilities, immigrants, refugees, and individuals who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual, or non-binary. And the bill creates a working group that will have 10 members appointed by the Ethnic and Social Equity Studies Coalition. And those 10 members must represent the groups that I just read. And two of those members must be high school students. And then the other 10 members of that 20 person advisory group are a combination of education professionals and government officials. I'm not going to read it all to you, but I'm going to do that with you later. And what this group will do is review standards and recommend additional standards that will increase cultural competency, increase attention to the groups I mentioned earlier, promote critical thinking, and try to eradicate racial bias, and do this by improving the curriculum of schools and creating a more inclusive and welcoming school environment. And so this group, this bill, once it became an act, it goes into effect. And that group will organize itself and it will provide the legislature with a report in March of 2022. And it also gives recommended additional standards to the State Board of Education. And they have to adopt those by June 30th of 2022. So that's an act one. It was a primary in our schools and create a society that's more inclusive and welcoming to all people. The second bill, or effort, I should say, because there's two bills involved, involves Indigenous Peoples' Day. There was a House bill and a Senate bill to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples' Day. Both bodies took testimony on these bills and advanced the bills. And the Senate passed theirs out first. But because the House already did all the work, the House committee will pass the bill out this week. It will come to the floor of the House next week, and we anticipate it will pass. There is some resistance, but we're getting a sense of overwhelming support. And if this bill passes the House, I should say when, optimistic. When the bill passes.