 reached out to Councillor Shannon so hopefully we'll get her on in just a moment. We'll call to order the special meeting of the Burlington City Council at 6.07 p.m. The first item on the agenda is the agenda. Councillor Stromberg, are you able to please make a motion on the agenda? Yep, I move to adopt the agenda. Okay, so we have a motion and then is there a second to that motion? Seconded by Councillor Pine. Any discussion on the agenda? Okay, hearing none we'll go to a vote. All those in favor please say aye. Any opposed? Okay, that passes unanimously and we have an agenda which brings us down to our next item which has to do with City Place which is the real reason why we are having this meeting this evening. Just wanting to make sure we get on the same page. Before that though there is the public forum. I've got that forum open and I'm not seeing anyone having signed up for public forum so I'm going to go ahead and close that public forum and move us into our item number three which is a communication from Attorney Blackwood. Attorney Blackwood I'll turn it over to you. Are you able to provide any public updates on where things stand just so that folks can understand where we are in the process and anything that you're able to share publicly at this point? I don't think there's a lot new publicly. What we've been working towards is having a mediation with BTC mall associates and that is now scheduled and that's what we want to talk with you all about this evening because the mediation is essentially a negotiation, a chance to look at take positions and for us to talk to you about what kinds of positions we might take and confidential matters. That's why we're asking for this session tonight and for you to go into executive session to discuss that. Hopefully after the mediation we may have more that we can report to the public but all depends on how that goes. Okay understood. So you're not anticipating action coming out of executive session this evening. Is that correct? That's correct. Okay all right. So we would just you're expecting us to just go into executive session, discuss our strategy going into mediation and then come out of executive session without any additional information so that is just folks shouldn't wait in anticipation of action coming on the other side. That's correct. Okay all right. And I guess I should say Councillor Tracy to just to be clear with everybody that if there is an agreement that comes out of mediation that would come publicly to the council and it would be distributed publicly and discuss publicly and you all would have a public vote and just want to make sure people are clear on that. Okay all right I appreciate you clarifying that. Okay so with that understood I would now entertain a motion to go into executive session. Councillor Stromberger are you able to make those motions that we have up on the on the on board docks? Yeah so I'd move that the council finds that premature general public knowledge of the city's strategy legal advice and other information related to the pending litigation with BTC mall associates would put the city at a substantial disadvantage. Okay so we have a motion on a finding. Is there a second to that motion? Seconded by Councillor Freeman. Any further discussion on the finding? Okay hearing none we will go to a vote on that. All those in favour of the finding please say aye. Any opposed? Okay hearing none we had we have a finding now based on that finding are you able to make the motion to go into executive session? Move that based on that finding that the that the council go into executive session to consider pending litigation and confidential attorney client communications pursuant to one VSA 313A1B and F. Individuals to be invited into executive session in addition to the council and mayor is the mayor's office staff city attorney, CAO, Jeffrey Goldberg, Downs-Rackland, Martin attorneys, CEDO director and Grace Chippo. Excellent okay thank you so we have a motion to go into executive session. Is there a second to that motion? Seconded by Councillor Freeman. Any discussion? Just to notice Glasberg. Okay thank you for that Councillor Shannon. Appreciate that. Was that what you were saying as well Councillor Pine? Okay wonderful. Okay so everybody all clear any further discussion? Okay seeing none we'll go to a vote. All those in favour of going into executive session please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay hearing none we will go into executive session Councillors please keep an eye on your inboxes we'll get you a the city staff will get you a fresh link for the our executive session shortly. Thanks so much and members of the public we're not again expecting action on the other side so I wouldn't say it's not uh no need to wait around at this point. Thank you.