 a pronoun. Hi, I'm Skank Bouchard. I live in Ward 7. And that she her pronouns Ward 7. Mary Mitchell, she her Ward 4. Hi, everyone. Sarah Kleinman, I use she her pronouns and also or I'm in Ward 7. I live up by the bike bridge and I'm in Ward 7. Bob, right. And I look okay, can you hear it now? Yeah, so I'm Bob, right? I live in Clare Point and I'm in Ward 7. Believe it or not, fair. I hear Ward 7 or Nancy Strong, Ward 4. I did it. I'm Laura Goodkind, Ward 7. Linda Rich, I'm new to Ward 4. I'm Kyle Tansley, he, him in Ward 4. She, her Ward 4. Karen Chikering, Ward 7. Luke Franske, a member of the steering committee, Ward 4. He, him. Betsy Gentile visiting from Brattleboro. Ritter Hewn, Ward 4. She, her pronoun. I am Kathy Foley, I grew up in the new North End since 1956, but I'm crashing the party from Ward 5. Lori Chesrow, Ward 7. I'm Annie Lawson, I'm in Ward 4. She, her pronouns. Martha Malthus, she her pronouns, Ward 7. Good to be here. Thoma Darrow, she, her Ward 7. She, her Ward 7. Susan Ogden, Ward 4. Linda Eyre, Ward 4. Jim Palmer, Ward 4. Solomon Frank, Ward 7. Brian Frink, Ward 7. He, him. Rara Carpenter, she, her Ward 4 and also City Councilor. I do yoga with Ilse at the Senior Center. I live in Ward 4. Ward 7's news. George Slider, I am He, him and Ward 7. Zoe, I'm in Ward 7. Monica Ivancic, she, her pronouns and I'm on the steering committee and I'm also school commissioner for Ward 7. And I also wanted to let you know that our Mayor-elect Emma Mulvaney Stanek had planned to be here with us this evening, but her day at the State House was really long today, so she will plan to join us in April. Andrew Cronichfeld, Ward 7. He, him. Hi, my name is Lee Morgan. I live in Ward 7. My pronouns are they, them and I am your Parks and Rec Commissioner. Hi, I'm Ali. I live in Ward 4. Hi, I'm Olivia. I live in Ward 7. I use she, her pronouns and I am a member of the steering committee. Hi there. My name is Gordon Dragoon. I'm in Ward 4. I use he, him pronouns and I was your CDBG rep and I'm on the Burlington Walk and Bike Council. I am Ward 7. I'm Maria. I'm Maria. I'm Maria Bravo. I use she, her pronouns and I'm in Ward 7. Amy Bilasky Branch. She, her Ward 4, Ward Clerk. I'm in Brotsky Branch. She, they and I've been worked for. Hi, Karen Turner. She, her pronouns and I'm from Ward 4. Some folks over there introduce themselves. Hi, I'm Calvin. Ward 7. He, him. Hi, I'm Abby Duke. She, her and Ward 7. Hi, I'm Mark Barlow. I am Ward 4 and I'm the North District City Councilor. I'm McGrath Ward 4. Landa Wood. I prefer she, her pronouns and I'm in Ward 7. I'm Joanne Hunt. She, her pronouns and I'm on the steering committee. Thanks everyone. We're going to keep going on this side. I almost got everyone. I need to introduce ourselves. You want to introduce yourself? I'm Jenae. I use she, her pronouns and I'm from Ward 4. No. Ward 4. Okay. Hello, everyone. My name is Partoon and I'm the North District City Councilor. Okay. Hello, everyone. My name is Partoon and I'm the North District City Councilor. Hi, Lynn Eisenbray, Ward 7. General Conroy, Ward 7. Hi, Lauren Chuppey, pronouns are she, her and I live in Ward 7, up in Clear Points also. Colin Barson, he, him, Ward 7. Brian Williams, Ward 7. Edward Ward 7. Mary Jane McMahon, Ward 7. And this is Hunter whose mouth is full. He's also Ward 7. Thanks so much, everyone. Introduce yourself? What's up? Super quick announcement. We do have some copies of the annual final report of the sign with Google. We built a new take one. Now we're on the way out. And we wanted to also lay our ground rules, which would be a great job so far. Listen to other speaking, respect the agenda and process, share your opinion with the library and people in second. I just want to say that I didn't get a chance to introduce myself. I'm Hickey Houston from Ward 7 and I'm also the timekeeper. I've just been helping around. So I've been given a chance to say hi. Welcome everybody for sighted to have you here. I know you're doing a lot already. Steering committee is we're all moving around. So very much appreciate all the time and you that has been already put into getting everyone here today. And continuing meetings for Ward 4 and 7. I don't know if the agenda is a quick overview of our bylaws at our meeting in January. We made a choice voted to create a subcommittee for the revision of our bylaws, which is a very important part of the agenda. So, after a resolution by the city in October, we were asked to not quite, I was just introducing myself. I'm going to introduce myself. I'm Hickey Houston from Ward 4 and 7 bylaws at our meeting in January. We made a choice voted to create a subcommittee for the revision of our bylaws, which the Ward 4 and 7 bylaws currently are from 2008. So we were asked to not quite, I was just introducing what this item is since there isn't really any info. There are some tables and Olivia is handing out a few copies on the tables as well. We just didn't have those printed yet, but of the bylaws that are have been being reviewed in the last couple of months. So I'll just give a second for everyone to get a copy and take a look. I'm going to get you the mic, even though I know you're loud. I am so excited to see that we're handing out these bylaws because we work so hard on them. And we're also going to talk to you a little bit later about the process we went through to land where we are. So we're very proud of them and we hope you are too. Audio version is now uploaded to CEDAW as well. And they've been approved by the attorney changes minor. We don't have to actually, but we will. And so, yeah, up and onward. Thank you. Thank you. So we're ready for the presentation, Vicky. All right. Yeah, or Caitlin. Okay, let's do it. Yeah. Yeah, feeling good. Okay. Post guy. I think that you have a little presentation that we were going to put up so that folks have just a little visual for what we're going through. As I mentioned earlier, part of the request for revision was not only because our bylaws are from 2008, but also in accordance with the resolution passed or adopted in October of 2023. To maintain open and accessible neighborhood planning assemblies or NPA. So that's why we're here today. You don't have to feel like you need to read that, but. So you can. Yeah. Yeah. This is just a copy of. Yeah. The second slide was just a quick overview copy of that resolution. And to go a little into again what Vicky had mentioned, sort of the history of how we began this process a bit. You want to start. Yeah. My glasses on the sanction. Um, we just need readers. So Good. Good. Um, the resolution relating to and maintaining open and accessible neighborhood planning assemblies was the city's response to what happened here last fall. When a steering committee member refused to use the pronouns of another steering committee member. What happened was there was a big conflict that went public. And then the city responded. Essentially, this resolution is the city's response. That they will not tolerate discrimination of any kind in the NPAs that things are meant to be inclusive diverse and inclusive environments. And so this resolution. Oh, so well, what ended up happening is that the steering committee. Um, all the steering the wards were told that they would have to put a non-discrimination clause into their bylaws and this. Um, steering committee resigned the whole steering committee resigned. I suspect because they didn't want to do that. Um, but we have to in order for us to be community we have to and we want to we have to and we want to. And, um, yeah, that's it. Um, so yeah, just to kind of hark back to that second slide, which listed the full resolution. Um, the focus points here and I will read them. One, there were as by resolution enacted more than 40 years ago, the city of Burlington established neighborhood planning assemblies in each ward. And whereas the resolution resolution provided that NPAs shall be quote open and accessible to all residents. Um, so this required some looking back at our 2008 bylaws to ensure that we are moving towards this open and accessible space. Same point of information. Sure. All of our city councilors, uh, co-sponsored this resolution. So, thanks city council. Thank you for that input. And thank you city councilors for making this happen. Um, so there you go. Yeah, I mean, I can read it from here, I think. Yeah, I guess maybe not. Well, I can maybe I shouldn't, but there we go. So, yeah, these four requirements by this resolution are one non-discrimination. So a non-discrimination statement providing that each NPA will promote and work to sustain an open and accessible environment and shall not harass or discriminate against any individual because of gender gender identity or expression, sex, sexual orientation, race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, place of birth, pregnancy, age, disability, or any other care protected by law. Secondary election and removal of officers. So this is something that again was not required in bylaws, but now is a clear process by which NPA memberships may elect and remove their NPA office. Open meeting law statement committee to comply with all applicable public meeting requirements. So essentially this is just that we warn this meeting. You can put it on your calendar. This was also true of the bylaw subcommittee group meetings. So when folks were interested in being part of this process, those meetings were warned. And finally, a conflict of interest clause to further support the fair review of matters without prejudice or bias, a conflict of interest policy requiring that NPA members disc. Any conflict of interest prior to voting on or taking action with respect to any related agenda items. So those are the four excuse me clauses that we had to include in the new draft. Can you hear me still. Okay, I'll be loud. So, thanks. So the process that we went through was really extensive at the January 24 meeting right here in this room for people signed up to kind of be on a subcommittee. Kind of. It was just to make sure that people showed up. We were actually supposed to have these bylaws revised I believe by January 31. We failed. But we've been building something greater so it's worth the wait in my opinion. So, then we, we warned all the meetings that we had they were open to the public they were highly publicized and also put on the CEDA web page. And, oh, I thought there was a question. So, we got together three times or more and. We used we used the original bylaws of wards four and seven. We also CEDA provided like a base outline of a new bylaw that we could look at and use what we had to use and also what would be helpful to our ward. And we also looked at all the other wards bylaws. And with the non-discrimination clause. It tells us what not to do what to move away from. And we didn't really feel like that was adequate to represent who we are where we want to go. So, instead of centering what not to do. We centered what we want to do, which is to be a diverse and inclusive environment where people feel safe in a sense of belonging. And so, so we cultivated and prioritize that vision. And so, so we started with these bylaws. And we collaborated extensively on each and every element included to ensure the sanctity of the original bylaws, but better, because it's done so. And it's like a hug of inclusivity. So, a lot of blood sweat and tears went into these a lot of love. The next page is that one. I can see what it looks like. So, the overview of the new bylaws. It's actually much more involved in this. I'm going to give you the 101 version. The bylaws went from two pages to five and a half. And they, and that partly is font size and formatting. But also because we deserved more than what the original bylaws gave us. And if we truly want to be a diverse and inclusive and caring and compassionate community, then we have to have guidelines for what we're moving towards. So it starts out with a brief introduction about what the NPAs are. And what you'll notice is by the revision of my bylaws, we actually change the city's website, because their website page used to say NPAs seek to be. No, they used to say NPAs are grass roots neighborhood organizations. But we have to go to the root of the problem, right? We have to all be in sync. And so the commute we communicated with the city hall and city hall updated the website to say NPAs seek to be diverse and inclusive grass roots organizations. Isn't that beautiful. So that's how our bylaws start off. And then the next section of our bylaws are guiding principles. These identify ways, these identify ways of being that uphold the goal and value of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging as a means to ensure that we are maintaining an open and accessible neighborhood planning assemblies. And I hope you appreciate that section because it's a really important part of who we are and how we show up. Yeah. Article one just goes over the purpose of the NPA. A lot of that is cut and paste from the original. Again, inclusivity tweaks. Article 2 is about membership. About members about non members, and we're adding what we're adding in there is also how to participate in meetings and have your needs met. If you, you know, accessibility needs met. That's going to be the thing something we're including and then article 4 is about the steering committee and this includes information about the election that's required information about removal of officers that's required in a statement about conflict of interest. And then finally article 5 is about miscellaneous provisions and that's where the non-discrimination policy lives and compliance with open meeting laws information is there. But see, that's at the bottom, right? That's inadequate. You know, to like have steering committee bylaws and then at the bottom and by the way, don't do these things. And so we wanted to make sure that we uplifted the purpose of the resolution from beginning to end. And I believe we did that. And we, I hope that you come next meeting. We're going to publish this. Come next month. Make sure you're here if you care about diversity. You care about equity. You care about inclusivity. You care about all your neighbors. Make sure you're here next month so you can vote these bylaws in. Thank you so much, Vicki for being a big part of the process and also for sharing the process that we went through. Caitlin was also at our last meeting. And as Vicki said, we will be voting these bylaws in. Not necessarily as they stand if people do have feedback. You know, there's room for discussion. That's what this meeting is about. However, this is a draft of what we think is pretty darn good. Yeah. Um, great. I'm going to come back over to the front. Which four members for the January. Um, Vicki garrison was. So the question was, who was on this committee of for the bylaw creation. There were different members who attended. At the last meeting when we did finalize. Anybody that's been to the bylaw meeting better here can stand up. The meetings are online. There was anywhere from 5 to 8 people at each meeting. Yeah, the meetings were recorded by CCTV and are like Vicki said available online. For review. Yeah. Thanks for your question. Cool. I don't know if you can lift the lights a little bit back there. Thanks team. Right. Um, so our next point of the agenda is we have some eclipse glasses. Okay. April 8th. And the city provided. 500 pairs. So each person is welcome to take five pairs tonight. We up to five. Yeah, you know, up to five. We have more than enough. We have more than enough. All right. You want five. I'm going to hold them just so that they're not getting. That's right. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. All right. Okay. All right. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. I think everyone. Who needs a pair. Okay. I'm going to go back over here. Thank you. Very exciting. Very exciting event that's coming to our city. If you do have any. Hey, everyone. We're going to reel it back in. Everyone's super excited. We're not traveling too far. There's going to be a lot of people visiting our beautiful city. But I hope you have safe and fun plans. And now you have some eclipse glasses for you and your friends. Loved ones. There's also more information on the city website as well as. Obscura. VT. Com I believe. There's some flyers up there that have the information that I don't have in front of me. Thank you, Caitlin. That's why we're a team. Love it. Excellent. All right. So to move our meeting along, we're going to go to our next item on the agenda, which is to vote in our steering committee members. Traditionally, each March is when steering committee members would be voted in. As most of us know, we've been on a little bit of a funny timeline with our steering committee. Our current. Committee was begin at the end of our. In our November. And over the last few months, we've had some folks who were interested in joining some other folks. So it's March again. We are putting the current steering committee members on a slate to also vote us in, but meanwhile, we have a few neighbors who are interested in joining our steering committee. So Hunter McMahon. Okay. I'll pass it down over here, Hunter. I know you were introduced. So excited to have Hunter as a part of the steering committee. And Hunter is 14 years old and an eighth grade student at Lyman Sea Hunt. He enjoys writing and is starting to formulate ideas for books. He enjoys the natural world and animals and likes to improve the world for them. He also notices problems in the world that he's concerned about and would like to be a part of solving. And he hopes to work on some of those with the NPA. Okay, so I heard a nomination for Hunter over here. Did you want to say anything else, Hunter? Okay. We have a second Sylvia. Okay, you're seconding. Okay. Yes, Vicki nominated. We have a second. Okay. I think that's the, yeah, like working on the practice. Okay. All right. Well, welcome to the steering committee. Folks in, folks in ward seven. Thank you. Only Ward seven by a show of hands to vote Hunter into the steering committee. Ward seven. Yes. Okay. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you. Anybody opposed? That's the thing, right? Okay. Great. Yes. We also have a nomination already on the floor for any Lord. Annie Lawson in Ward four. You want to say some. You're welcome to speak for yourself if you would like to. Yeah. Okay. I'm worried if I am over there, I'll have my back to people. I'm Annie Lawson. I use she her pronouns. I live in Ward four. I am a social worker here in the community. I was at one of these meetings over zoom sometime in the last few years. I was at one of these meetings over zoom sometime in the last few years. Somebody mentioned how they were really new to town, and it didn't feel welcoming to hear everybody rattle off the number of years and decades that they've lived here. And I noticed that. So I'm not going to tell you how long I've lived here because I do think that can be kind of off putting if you're new out of town. I'm interested in being on this committee because I've been involved in my community in a grassroots way for a while. I've been involved in my community, but also learn a lot. I don't really know how the NPAs work. And so this is a good opportunity to just find out more things about my city and my community that I don't yet know. And just, I really, really like living in Burlington. I like living in the New North end. And this feels like a good way to meet more neighbors. Hopefully make just an impact in the community that helps keep us all healthier and cohesive and in community with each other. Thanks. Thanks so much, Annie. So folks, we have a nomination. So Ward 4 has a second. And folks in, okay, we have some seconds. And now to vote. Folks in Ward 4 only to vote. Annie Lawson on to our steering committee. All right, lovely. Any oppositions? I see none. Welcome to the steering committee. I also have one more nomination for Andrew chronic felt. I don't know, Andrew, if you wanted to say a few words about joining the steering committee. I'm coming over to you with the mic. Hi, everyone, Andrew chronic felt he, him I'm married to my. He right here. I think I, from the new bylaws, an important part is accessibility and I'm kind of an expert in that. So I can make sure everything is good to go for, you know, different populations. Also, I have a bunch of good ideas for events. And one thing is some block parties to our area. And maybe some battles of the band. So. Thanks. Thanks, Andrew. And I believe you're in ward seven, correct? Okay. So folks in. So we. A second thing. Okay. Yes. Thank you. We have a second. And now residents of ward seven. All in favor of voting Andrew on to our steering committee. All right, beautiful. Myself. This is, but yeah. Okay. Any opposition? I see none chronic felt. Yep. All right. All right. Welcome. Yeah. Okay. And now I think we can do one collective vote for the current steering committee. Yes. If the current steering committee members can stand. Joanne Hunt, hand, Hank Prensky, Caitlin, Katlyn Ettenborough, Casey Carpenter, Sarah Diaz, myself, Monica Iván kick. I said that. Iván Chich. Okay, I'm working on it. Bikki Garrison and Olivia Taylor. Hey, beautiful. I think we're all here. Beautiful. So formally interim current steering committee slates. vote since we're a combination of Ward 4 and Ward 7. So all in favor of these members to remain on the steering committee? No, I don't think I can vote. Okay, any oppositions? Beautiful. Thank you all. We are remaining on the steering committee. Okay, thank you. And is there anyone else in the room that would like to be on the steering committee or nominate someone to be on the steering committee? All right, seeing none right now, we will move on. Yes, I'm sorry. I would like to nominate someone. This is Ali. I'm sorry. Hi Ali. Hi Ali. Right. Yes, I know that you know the steering committee had, you know, the interim had a lot of people and I don't know the reason as to why they're not here anymore. But I wholeheartedly want to nominate Carmen George to come back to the steering committee. I don't know if she's there or she's online or even if she's interested. But I would like to see her back into the committee. If Carmen is there, would you accept the nomination? She is. Okay. Yeah, we only have, yeah, not in person or online. Okay, wonderful. Then let's move forward then. Thank you. Excellent. Thank you, Ali. Well, actually, the next item on our agenda is an outgoing message from Councillor Ali Jai. So feel free to unmute once more if you don't mind. Yes, sorry. Right now is exactly the time to break the fast, but I will be very short to really say thank you so much, people of Ward 7 and people of the New North and in general for trusting me over six long years since June 27, 2017. Right? You've been elected me to office in order to represent you and to vote on your behalf. I think collectively all my campaign promises were met basically two years ago, but I decided to come back because we just needed to make sure that we have someone strong to take back the seat. And those accomplishments include a library in the New North and also an ambulance in the New North and also strengthening the community right here. It is with no doubt that right now, when you see the NPA steering committee and the way in which they are conducting business based on respect, based on inclusion, I feel that we are on a good place and I hope that you all continue to bring us together and also to actively participate in what makes our city the best it can be. I also would like to apologize for anybody that I have heard knowingly or unknowingly or people even that I was not, that I could not see eye to eye on city issues, but just know that I was coming from place of just doing what's right and based on the information that I had. And those include the police department, those include the Burlington telecom, those include storm water, those include our taxes, right? But I believe that I have done right and I just want to say thank you for giving me the time and also for making me a better leader, a better community member and because no one would thought that one day this new American who's not speaking English very well will run in the New North and win and represent them for six long years. From the bottom of my heart, thank you so much and let's keep on making Burlington the best small city in America. Thank you all. Yeah. Thank you. Allie, I just want I know I'm speaking for many people in this room saying thank you so much. You have done so much for us and for the whole city and I haven't agreed with you all the time. You know that I helped you on your campaigns, but I respect you everything you've done and I know we all really appreciate so much your service. So thank you and you need a break, but then we want you to come serve on the steering committee. Thanks for that input, Deb. I also want to give a personal thank you to Allie. I think I don't know if you were the one who nominated me or seconded my nomination, but you're one of the reasons that I'm here now on the steering committee and wanting to bring your energy to making this community a better place, feeling more belonging, feeling inclusivity and this room that we have tonight. So thank you from all of us, I think. Hi, Allie. This is Monica. I wanted to thank you as well. Thank you so much for your service. We all know that serving on city council is a lot of hours, a lot of time. Hard to keep up down a full-time job on top of doing that. And I always felt a connection with you because our daughters are the same grade in school and you got on city council and then six months after you, I got on the school board. So we were kind of the Ward 7 team. So I'll miss my teammate starting next week, but thank you so much. We really appreciate your service. I know we could pass the mic around all night to thank Allie, but unfortunately he graced us with your presence right now and breaking fast with your family, yeah. And to move along on our agenda, unfortunately our house representatives are in multi-year, hard at work, and they were not able to make it to our meetings tonight, nor chime in. However, our city councilor, Sarah Carpenter, there you are, has and Mark Barlow to say a few words as our representatives for this evening. Thanks for chiming in. Thanks. I think I said this earlier when we were looking at meetings, you can check in with the reps, but never schedule a meeting the week after crossover and they'll explain that to you, but I think you might want to ponder, like having them just before the session starts and maybe just after the session starts or something like that, because this will be a unbelievable crazy two weeks for them. It's supposed to be during the 18th, I think, but who knows. So yeah, yeah, and I'm sure that they can give you feedback. We, on the other hand, are just starting. We all get, or I get, I don't know what the right term is sworn in, I guess, on Monday. So thank you all who supported me this election. I'm pleased and happy to continue as your representative from Ward 4. We will have the beginning of our new year, as I said, on Monday. Our new mayor, Emma Mulvaney-Spanick, will get sworn in. And so that will be an exciting new, the first woman mayor. So that will be exciting. And we have five new counselors. So that'll, we got a lot of learning to do in the next year. We have a new counselor here in Ward 7, Evan Litwin. Evan is off and celebrating his 40th birthday. So you can wish him happy birthday when he returns. He had made a plan with his good family friend many, many months ago before he chose to run. And we said, take the vacation now because you may not get one. So he'll be back. Unfortunately, he's going to have to swear in over Zoom, but he'll be back running full course in a few days. So this is actually a kind of awkward and hard time to speak because all of the committees that have ended were not quite clear yet what committees, everyone, we put on. This is a week of grand negotiation, particularly between the two parties, around, we've all sort of thrown our interest in a hat, not quite that casual, and the trick of the day will be to figure out who lands on what committees. And this happens every year, but with the turnover of five counselors is particularly different. And so we don't actually have a lot. Mark can speak up. We don't have a lot. To tell you I can answer a little bit, which we think is what's still on the docket. And certainly there's a bunch of unfinished business that we have to start out the gate running with for the next year. And we've not yet had an opportunity to sit down with the new mayor and find out what her priorities are. So there's a lot. And I think to be honest in the next months, we got to finish the business we've got on our plate, and I can speak a little bit about that. And it'll take a little bit of settling in, I think by everybody's new counselors, we'll have a brand new administration too. And we don't have a lot to know about that at the minute as well. The department heads are typically reappointed July one. So that that's not an April one day. It's a July one day. And that those are typically may or may or appointments. But I think having Emma come next week next week next month is probably actually better timing than tonight. Because I'm sure she is quite frantic with finishing up her legislative business and then figuring out her city business. So I would assume in a month or so she can be a little more settled in. So I'll let Mark talk for a couple of minutes. And then if you want to ask us anything that you know is on the docket, or you have any curiosity or one of the updates, why don't you please do that. Yeah, I think you covered a lot of it. I've heard a lot of this Sarah. I'm looking forward to the five new counselors who will be joining us. And of course the new mayor elect who will be joining us as well as City Hall and really look forward to a spirit of collaboration trying to solve the city's problems. A lot of a lot of the partisanship has to leave when once the elections are over. And I'm hoping that everybody, I know that everybody on the council and I hope everybody in the community also come together and help us solve the big problems before us in this city. One of the things Sarah didn't mention that's coming up is we're going to have, you know, we're going to have to pass a new budget by June. And it's going to be a particularly hard year this year. We've had a lot of COVID money circulating in the community. And that's essentially gone now. So there's just going to be a lot of hard decisions that we're going to have to make as a community going forward for the next couple of years. And that's one of the most important things I think that's before us right now that we really haven't been talking a lot about yet. But you'll stay tuned. We'll be talking a lot about that in May and probably be back before you to discuss those things more. So awesome. Thanks for those little updates. I know it can be hard to find something to talk about when it's in transition, but I think it's really valuable to have that that transparency. Does anyone have any questions for Sarah or Mark while they're up here? Yes. So I brought this up on Monday, and I'm going to put a period at the end of the sentence. I am very concerned about the loss of institutional memory. We're going to have six new people around that table of 13 of 13 policyholders. And none of those six have been in city council government at all in the last decade or at all. And it's there's some concerning when you guys are negotiating about the committee assignments. Some of these committees are pretty small, like three people. Try to make sure that there's at least two people that are experienced that are incumbents on those committees. Try to make sure that you don't come up with a completely green committee that is learning on the job. I appreciate that, Robert. I will tell you that I can't, many of the committees are staff. And so, you know, we will have some institutional memory in the sense of the staff with the policy makers. Right. And you know, we talk a lot to each other. You might not know it from Monday nights where we all sit there. But in between times, there's a lot of conversation. Certainly there was in my last years. And I've already, you know, we've all met with the new counselors individually. You know, I think we're coming out of the gate good. So I expect and I think the new folks that I've met with anyway, are very eager to you know, ask questions. So I think it's generally a good environment to ask to ask questions. So we'll have and I don't know that this is the first time that's not happened. I can't I can't tell you whether has or happened. But there's always a lot of turnover, not so much six, but, you know, three or four every year. Yeah. And just, I think there is an intention to make sure that we have some continuity on committees wherever we can and have that institutional knowledge. I don't know if the pen committee assignment is the the responsibility of the city council president. So the city council president gets to just say we don't we won't know until Monday. But the city council president is elected by the body as a whole. So you need you need you need to have a majority vote. Yes. All right. Thanks for that. Get another question. I really liked your answer, Sarah, the institutional memory. I think you're absolutely correct. And I don't think there are people that are on city council that haven't been to a few council meetings or watch them. We've been able to watch them from home. And I think that the people who are who were elected have been watching for quite a while. And I think they'll do a great job. And I also want to point out that the analysis of the vote after the election was that a lot of Democrats crossed over to vote for a progressive. And so you've already got a bipartisan and even try partisan that people working together. And so I think you've got the best chance this year that you've ever had to have a multi partisan working group. The other thing I want to speak to in the spirit of our new inclusivity is that we can't talk about not having meetings and pass over. We're in Ramadan. We just finished having a big Nepali celebration in Winooski. At any time of year, some cultural group is celebrating. And so it really means a lot to me that we beat on the fourth Wednesday of every month, because then the residents can plan and these meetings are supposed to be resident centered. And if we know that the meeting is always on the fourth Wednesday of the month, that helps us to plan people that need childcare, people that don't want to go to other meetings because they want to be here for the NPA. So I want to speak in favor of keeping that fourth Wednesday. Thank you, Lee. Yeah, I was like, did you need to respond? Okay. Okay, I think it was more of a comment. Yes. What happened to agree with me is that you're doing it regularly. I also regularly said meetings. We all love to plan. Did we have another question over here? Oh, okay. So I know on Monday you passed a resolution or something called the neighborhood code. And if one of you or both of you can talk a little bit more about it. I read something about, I don't know if it's just certain zones in the city where you can have three to 10 extra living units in your backyard. Well, I know it was passed to solve this housing issue. So yeah, just asking to speak to the neighborhood code. There's a lot in it. So the neighborhood code was an amendment, a zoning amendment. It's not really a resolution. It's very complex. And it was really a process that was started probably 18 months ago as we looked at all variety of ways. It's been infill housing is another another term for except about how do you get more land use utility and housing in existing lower density zones. So you've all followed, you know, for instance, the permitting of Cambrian rise. We just repermitted what we call the South End Innovation District, which is where the Champlain College parking lot is and who in that all area. So that's had its has its own process. You certainly have followed city place. Now we're going to try to tackle more. But kind of a conversation around locally and at the state level is, you know, really good as a city, where are there spots, small spots that we could infill with housing? And that's the code. So called neighborhood code. The city planning office for probably 18 months. That kind of a jumpstart when the state legislature last year passed something. And I don't know. I always call it s 100. It's the home act. Got many names that essentially as cities, particularly cities with municipal water and sewer no longer own single family housing. By right, you can have duplexes and you cannot zone out multifamily units. And that's really the process that we have been looking at where and what's appropriate. Burlington is probably more sophisticated than a lot of the communities. We have many zones. And I don't even know that I could tell them all to you. We have low density zoning, medium density zoning and high density zoning. And those are for smaller lots when you plan unit subdivisions, which are like bigger like a Cambrian or a South End Innovation District. And then there's probably five other zones in between. We were really focused mostly, the neighborhood code focuses mostly on the residential zones, although they lock into commercial, the sort of so-called low density, medium and high residential, which is different than commercial. And there's a lot we hired a consultant who helped us model what would work with existing zones. What are some folks in this room who are actually probably more expert? I think the folks from Montes or people oriented places, they've got some to be blood zoning nerds really involved. And Colin and Gordon and others can probably even give you more detail than I can about how we got to where we are. And we had to start with things like lock coverage, setbacks, front yard setbacks, back yard setbacks, height. So all of that kind of material has been looked at and what could reasonably fit on a lot. And the end proposal has sort of a couple of provisions. And certainly Colin and Gordon jump in because you've been following it and others I think in this VM as well, been following it pretty diligently. What we voted on Monday night was effectively a code that came out of a joint process with the planning commission and the ordinance committee. Usually the process with zoning is the planning commission spends a lot of time and they have spent a lot of time on it and it comes to the ordinance committee which puts it into ordinance. We met in a parallel process about 10 times throughout the fall. In addition to that, the planning office had a number of community groups. We had two with the bagel, one here and a few we call earlier in the fall that came to the NPA and they've done that all over the city. So the end result is the proposed neighborhood code and what it does and the new north end is predominantly lower density. But the lower density and again somebody correct me if I'm wrong. First and foremost will allow two buildings on a lot. That's been prohibited. Our current zoning outlaws a lot of what we actually have in the center city because all that was predating zoning. So it's trying to bring it back up to what's been outlawed and I can't remember the dates but certainly in the 70s we effectively downsized the entire city and prohibited a lot of what actually has already been built in Burlington. So the goal was to try to bring it back up to what could we build here and the net result is the potential of two buildings on a lot up to four units in each of those buildings if they meet that back and lock coverage. And there's a lot of nuance. I think part of the concern is there's been this mythology that all of a sudden every single lot and the new north end is going to have well it's just physically not going to be possible. You've got to measure your lot. You've got to see what your existing footprint is. Can you fit a new building? Do you have the side yard setbacks? Do you have the backyard setback? So there's a lot of process and you know people are saying well shouldn't we have analyzed every single of the but I think we have 10,000 lots in Burlington or something to that effect. It won't work that way and so we the city have put a lot of energy and effort. What passed on Monday is called there were some modifications from the original provisions and like everything else some compromises. I will say the folks that live up near UVM have been the most concerned and they're concerned about the impact of new housing in their neighborhoods becoming more student housing and that is a tough issue to control because zoning doesn't say who can occupy the building. It can only say it's this size and this many units and this high and so there's a lot of parallel work to be done. My personal opinion and there's disagreement on what that is. We need to continue to push UVM. We all need to continue to push UVM. UVM is ready to build 1500 units and I think we got to move on that. Some people don't and that's sort of a parallel issue but we need those 1500 units more and so I hope we can move that very quickly and get that in process and I respect where the Ward 1 neighbor's field. One of the negotiations was there was a proposal to up zone an area that has a lot of smaller residential homes on it from low density to medium that got put back and it will remain low for the time being and remember these are ordinances. You can always up zone it's always harder to down zone. So that was one of the compromises. There was a conversation in the medium density area which again has affected a lot of the homes around UVM to modestly reduce the increased lot coverage and modestly reduce the number of buildings units in the second unit. There was a modification for wildlife corridors. What? Requiring and this is actually a good one which I don't know if I've talked about requiring that anybody that comes in for a permit under the new code be compliant with the minimum housing code and we actually haven't had that in our zoning bylaw. So that was a good step forward. There was a proposal because of the depth of concerns of that neighborhood to delay the implementation of the additional building. There are some things to work out. We knew already like can that building be higher than the primary building. So that second building piece will be delayed until October. So there's a lot of work for the ordinance committee. It is. Now reading all 20 pages of that code is I'm going to tell you isn't yeah they actually have a very you know the planning staff in my opinion Burlington Vermont is really excellent. We're about to lose our planning director for no other reason than she got a really great better job. I mean it wasn't political it wasn't I don't think it's Burlington. It's just she's a very talented person and so she's moving on to Madison Wisconsin which I'm sure professionally was as the director as a director. So professionally for her it'll be a great loss but they've got good support staff. But you're right the website I think you just Google in neighborhood code and there's a lot of historical information there's that code itself it's some of the modeling we did by the with the consultant. I was just going to say I'm a visual learner so the imagery was really helpful to understanding some of that code. Mark did you have anything to add? There is a resident housing expert and said on the ordinance committee so I think she covered it. Thank you and you know I'm saying yeah there will be changes and I don't think I said it when I was campaigning we should not be afraid of the built environment and I think people's concerns that all of a sudden every single lot is going to be multi-families it's just not realistic because they physically can't do it and so you know building permitting is still lot by lot people express concerns about short amount of runoff most of these will have to go through the development review board that will be looked at that will be looked at. Thank you for that. Well I'm officially still a city councilor. Do you remember? Yeah I mean I think they covered it very well and just wanted to add that you know to send my appreciation to Colin Larson he's right there to also Ryan Flink he's also right there and also a couple of the new north vendors who deeply were invested into this issue since the 18 months ago and I think you know they have done a great job and maybe the steering committee will consider having them as a panel to really because they know it they know it deep down and they've been following it from the get go and wanted to just say Ryan and Colin and Dragoon I believe he's in world four thank you guys so much because you pushed it very hard and you made it happen. Thank you. Thanks for chiming in. All right um any more questions for Sarah and Mark while they're up here? All right thank you both so much appreciate you stepping in to tell us a little bit about what's going on and answer some questions and that brings us to our pretty much our last agenda point which is an open forum so I wanted to ask if anyone had an announcement or other updates to make about the community. Yeah I'll start over here and then to you. It's like a two-parter so do you want to go first? A one-parter all right. Thanks school board for really explaining clearly the school budget and thanks community for passing our school budget it's a really big deal for us to maintain what we have and not lose the communities around us that didn't pass are going to be in really really hard times and so I'm I as a community member and a parent I'm really grateful for the budget passing thanks. Hi is Katie from the CDBG also here? No I was your CDBG rep in ward four your ward seven rep is oh yes the community block development grant or community development block grant one of those. I just wanted to basically tell you guys where we decided to put the money real quick and then I have one separate amount announcement on the Burlington Walk and Bike Council. We ended up giving $1,500 to the volunteer income tax assistance which is a long-running program in the community that has done a lot of good if you'd need any help with filing income taxes apparently they can help and they've done it for quite a while. We have given $20,000 to Lund's residential community treatment services which is a family support program. We've given $25,000 to steps to end domestic violence which provides emergency housing to first support services for people fleeing domestic abuse. $20,000 for Vermonters for criminal justice reform which basically is like a no limit limit isn't the right word. You can walk in and basically get a lot of like consulting advice for any sort of problems that you're having with rehabilitating and $25,000 for Pathways Vermont which just provides permanent housing for community-based services like for homelessness and such. A lot of these were similar to the ones that were given last year but HUD's definition of what qualifies hasn't changed so it kind of just made a lot of sense. I'd be happy to answer to what we did not choose to fund and why we choose to fund it that's a longer conversation but just feel free to chat with me if you'd like. Pause. That's a good question. That's a good question. There was about like 11 so we chose to fund like probably a little less than half of them all together. One was supposed to be in like a different definition. I'm just talking about public service in this context there was also the development. There's some idiosyncrasies to it that made it difficult but we were only able to fund about half of them and even then only half of the funding they were asking for. HUD limits how much input in public service but it's really most of the HUD money is either housing or economic development. It's a smaller research for public services what they were applying on and it's been a source of frustration but that is the way yeah there was there's a separate program for development we just fully funded everything except one program that was just like a out-of-state non-profit that had a like they were asking for an absurd amount of money and we gave them nothing and we gave them back to our planning department to basically spend on development as they saw fit because we thought that'd be a better service but everything else that was asked for on development was fully funded so that was a it was a good year for that. There's no other short questions can I continue on to one other thing okay uh sorry I I'm not so good off the cuff so I just have to find my notes. I am also your Burlington Walk and Bike Council rep-ish I mean anyone can join in fact folks should if they want uh quick updates on what sort of things are going to be changing in the area on the road from DBW. Staniford is going to be completely repaved with new bump outs so this year uh you might have seen Ethan Allen Parkway that's going to be a high priority this year they said next week in the last meeting but I don't know if anyone can is there have done anything now so this year hopefully uh Plattsburg and Shore Avenue are going to get an annual paving Rock Point Bridge is going to be rebuilt Woodbury Road is going to be patched North Ave is going to be getting sideways sidewalk improvements between industrial and Lakeview Cemetery and between Cuyuga and Fairmont on the east side for both of those and there's just general crack ceiling in North Ave and Star Farm Road West Road and Tracy Drive are identified as high priority in the next year or two as well. Yes the bike bridge do you know what's happening to that? I do not they had not mentioned it. It's going to come down over the decade. Oh sorry uh he he had asked about the bike bridge I imagine is it between Polchester? Serious erosion from all of these rainy vents that maize landing which is Winooski is almost gone it's it's disappearing rapidly and every level of government needs to be paying attention to it. I am merely representative of DPW on this front but the Burlington Walk and Bike Council Burlington Walk and Bike Council will meet again on April 5th and it's just open attendance if folks want to hear about what DPW is going to be working on they're going to be talking about great streets and some bridges and is in serious trouble we all we do yes I mean I can try to bring that up but if you wanted to bring it up the more voices always does help to that effect. I'll ask you a question. We had a couple other questions for open for oh oh yes sorry I didn't mean to dominate. I was gonna say thank you for letting people know that they can continue asking you questions. We had a question over here and also one on this side so we go ahead. I wanted to speak to the agenda and the fact that open forum is in the last 10 minutes of the meeting. NPA meetings are resident centered and I often talk to people that have a problem in their neighborhood and I say take it to your NPA talk about it there your city counselors will be there there might be people there from city departments that's the place to go and talk about it but then I see on the agenda that open forum is in the last 10 minutes and so I want to urge you to put the open forum first okay. I wanted to make sure everybody knows that these little comic books that are on the table to pick up these were done by Jess Hyman and I think she wore three Charlie wore two and she put these together and she's about ready to do another printing which will be translated in several language so take one with you leave it in your community center leave it in the library leave it at the gas station so many people don't know what the NPA is and this is a really simplified version the last thing I want to think talk about is this city report it's not the annual audit the annual audits in the last four pages but what this is is a report from the mayor a report from each of your city counselors a report from all the department heads about what they've done in the past year and what their challenges are there's also a listing of every city employee and what they're paid there's a list of every pensioner and what they've collected in pensions this is a really valuable resource to have at home remember when we used to have a telephone book and you kept it in the drawer by the phone that's what this is keep this at home and then when you're like you've got a platform you go to the go to the that department in here it tells you who to call and what phone number to call I just want to support you I'm curious how many people would like open forum at the first 10 minutes raise your hand if you're interested and encourage your neighbors to come when they have an issue because this really and it might take more than 10 minutes because this is really a place for the the grassroots to come thank you me yep we had two folks over here just gonna we got one before you then you'll be next my name is Sarah Hernandez Tim I'm the public information and community engagement officer with the burlington police department um just wanted to highlight a friendly reminder we sent out recently on our social and on front porch forum regarding our bpd press releases if you would like to be added to that distribution list you can email me directly at s him t im at bpdbt.org um and if you'd rather not be on the distribution list all of our press releases are on the city's website on the bpd's web page thank you thank you thank you we had another announcement here question in between like the meeting if we have like something we want to check in about or like bring up is there a good catch all place to contact steering committee or is it better for to use like the facebook group or like what's a good way to continue or have like side conversations um I don't know if you're gonna just touch on the email address that is on the agenda um that does go to all of our steering committee members um we typically meet the Wednesday after this meeting so that'll be next Wednesday we are able to meet as a group we do try to stay in touch in between but we're all volunteers in this position so I'll live in our different lives but that's a good place to get concerns to the entire group where we all have access to it at once I hope that answered your question and is that a direct um the facebook page is also like it's a place I'll say that is this a direct response just it is um so it's on the second page it when you email that doesn't seem that's fine oh sorry yeah I hate it I don't I love it so when you google the wards four and seven sc at google groups.com it goes to all of us individually um and you know I I don't think it's here that you're going to be responded to on the facebook group I mean we are all volunteers and that's what I wanted to piggyback on you to say we live really busy lives too and our primary responsibility is putting the meeting agenda together um and hopefully working together in um a supportive way so that we can create and cultivate an environment that is healthy for our community um we don't have all the answers and um so please be kind and we're all new you don't know what we're doing that's what that's what I was going to say we have a lot of suggestions which we really appreciate that like we're all brand new and we keep getting new members which is awesome but then they're even newer so also be patient go ahead Andrew just one thing that might help the facebook one thing that might help the facebook group work better is if we add additional administrators because we'll all get notifications and then it will be easier for multiple people to respond to thanks for your input Andrew and welcome to the steering committee I'm really excited for your input I know we're we're gonna I just want to move on to make sure that if there's any open forum questions because I think that was just I hope that answered the initial question that we had to get in touch with all of us um we had one more two more okay two over here go to ellie so this is lots of question and more just actually I might have a question but this is more I have two parts one is a statement and the second one is a question first part is um I just want to thank you all for basically everything you've been doing is every everyone in the community especially the steering committee um in regards to the new bylaws in regards to basically everything that's been done and is being done in regards to acceptance of everyone of all marginalized identities and like as well the new residents here I am I felt very I feeling very accepted in this community and I said thank you all for all the acceptance and so my question is um this is kind of unrelated to the thing I just said um I did not use Facebook and the last time I tried to open a Facebook account I got denied so I I'm wondering is there like another place where there's like a similar form to the ward or sort of an mpa form or whatever it's called um that's not on Facebook yeah obviously the best place would be right here tonight for Wednesday of every month um and we also have yeah that email that we had mentioned um goes to all of the steering committee members um and we meet once a month to primarily as vicki mentioned to set the agenda for the following month's meeting um and as we get um suggestions they might not make it to the very next month's meeting but we are trying our best to kind of fill the agenda with things that people are wanting to talk about and bring to these meetings um I hope that sort of answered your question for now um just wanted to oh you were okay lee you were the so I have a pretty quick announcement um so the city um at moon on friday in front of city hall is raising the burlington trans pride flag um and so this is in uh celebration and acknowledgement of the international transgender day of visibility which is um on march 31st and I do just want a a lot of warm feelings tonight I want to thank everybody so uh it was in in the slide the slide about the bylaws it referenced a steering committee member who was discriminated against and a lot of you know that was me and if uh you were to tell me during that time which was very challenging and very dark that a few months later this room would be packed with happy people who are excited about fostering an inclusive environment I just like I could not have imagined this and I really want to thank Olivia Taylor who for years has been working for the trans community and this wouldn't have happened without Olivia a lot of times we rely on our allies to be the one to smash the door down and Olivia came in screaming so so thank you to Olivia and thank you to all of you thanks lee um I saw one more hand over here okay um uh Sylvia declined um good um when we were almost talking and I was just talking to Adam you were chair of the parks contingent just this week um when we went out with our sir is this an announcement do you want the mic real quick okay yeah an rp for the bike park at letty and so I just turned to abby and said I think this npa might want to get an update because it's not going to happen right away because there's a rule people money to make it happen but I think the rp is to design it and so in terms of putting in input for design and I'm looking at Jordan and abby I would think that would be fine who's fine thank you uh anton um earlier you said that it would be good if everyone more people i'll give it a little later on facebook yep um every steering committee member if added as an administrator oh so since you're doing this theory you're going to use that Gordon said he has an answer to my fighting heart it's great it's fine I think I think it's like the mic's going to Jen I can show you yeah that fact I can talk about it I try to send the message to make me pretty good on the agenda midline yes let's do that okay thank you I appreciate that I appreciate the energy about this topic that is important and I just want to say please put your chair back before you leave back there see Caitlyn's is right there put your parents back that's very helpful okay thank you