 Join the meeting will just welcome them. So this meeting is a little bit different just based on the voting that has to take place for the redistricting committee. And for part of that it is important that we just know who's in the room with us and what words that they are a part of because the way that voting will go is If more than one person is seeking the position for say word one, then we need to go through and have like a roll call vote and call on each person so that way we know who wins. So I've gone through on the screen and tried changing everyone that I knew in terms of what word they live in I have a few folks that I just want to confirm though and then Jonathan. I'll pass it to you and you can kind of go around the in person room. Jack, are you in Ward eight or Ward one. Okay, perfect. Thank you. And then Jean, are you Ward eight or one. Ward one. Great. Thank you. And then sorry just changing this. And then Gail, are you just here to watch are you in Ward one or eight. No, I'm not I'm in Ward four. Okay, great. Thank you. I think that is everyone on my screen and then Jonathan if you just want to make note of all the folks in the in person room that would be great. First person from CEO over here in the corner. Okay, great. Thank you. And then as folks come in we'll just just so all of you know we're going to have to stop and kind of do that as well just so we know. So now we are going to head into announcements does anyone have any announcements before and then we'll go into speak out. Okay, we're going to go into speak out now Brian is already in speaking order and then if there's anyone else that would like to participate. Please just indicate by raising your hand. And so that way I know to put you in speaking order. So Brian, feel free to start. Thank you. Can you tell me approximately how long I have so I can make sure I pace myself and hit the key points in the within the time constraints. I, I think you can just, you can just speak, I won't cut you off. You never want to say that to an elected official because we become like accustomed to like taking a block space but I will be conscious and try to make it brief. Because tomorrow night at the ward two three mpa I'm going to give a in depth presentation so I really just wanted to give people like a, this is like the trailer. Okay, so. And I did post on front porch forum today so people could read some details there so as the coven 19 pandemic has unfolded it's amplified the inequities and disparities of our society, and the pandemic has contributed to greater mental health and substance issues for people from all backgrounds, although it's disproportionately affected our most marginalized and vulnerable people. And the public health emergency of coven 19 has intensified the public health emergency of racism. There has been a racial justice awakening, which has led for calls for everything from greater community control of the police to the reform of police policies to the complete abolition of the carceral state, which costs massive amounts of money, but neither effectively impacts the causes of crime nor consistently provides real justice. So as we debate the future of police in our society. We also have to keep moving forward with alternative ways to meet the needs of people through all of our systems of public safety, health care, and social welfare. And, you know, I've been reading the recent articles following community discussions through the pandemic, Oscar and is good at the community coalition meetings that is good meetings I've talked with neighbors and listen to their concerns. And I think that's what I'm trying to emphasize. Everyone may not agree on the fate of the police as an institution, but I think where we have some agreement is that the police are being asked to do things that police shouldn't be doing. And that when you look at the numbers behind their calls, their hand, they're now telling us that they can only focus on the, I believe that they call level one or priority one calls. They're not focusing on that they should not be dealing with quality of life issues, and that when we look at what causes quality of life issues. Policing is never going to solve that it's something else. And so I've been sort of thinking about this and I sort of imagine a possible alternative way for us to meet people's needs. And it's based on my experiences not only as a community organizer with is good but as a street outreach worker and as a crisis clinician. So I'd like to just let you know that I'm going to be bringing forward a detailed proposal for a new program called the now program neighborhood outreach worker program. And what it would do is it would provide peer outreach and support services by training and paying teams of neighbors, one student in the team, and one resident who's not a student. And they would be peer outreach workers so that they could work together in our in the neighborhood surrounding the colleges to address quality of life issues, and they would do this from the angle of being peacekeepers and guardians of the public good. The quality of life issues that they could address would be things like noise disturbances parties disorderly conduct fighting fireworks fires littering and vandalism there might be more but those were some things I felt based on my experiences and outreach worker we could train people to do who are not police and they teams the ideas that the teams would walk the streets and I'm thinking to start would be like the party nights like Thursday Friday Saturday as a test, and they'd be part time positions. So that you didn't have to commit to this is your main job if you have another job is something extra you could do. If a retired person would want to do it or a student, it would make sense for a student to do it because it's not a 40 hour week commitment. And they'd walk the streets regularly and attend community events to get to know neighbors before problems arise it. And they could be called directly by neighbors or 911 could dispatch them when they get a quality of life call, and it would be it would provide a on an unarmed first response to quality of life complaints. If that burden completely off the police's plate they would only have to come if it escalated beyond the scope of what those outreach workers could handle, however, those outreach workers would be trained in so many skills, and we have precedent in Burlington and the program I work in its spectrum in the current street outreach program, where we, we have successfully de escalated fights, and then avoided the police needing to come. And with proper training they can actually prevent the need for the police. They could intervene before we have giant street parties blocking the street you know they could really change our strategy by like preventing the larger scale problems and preventing violence. And not only would they intervene and use their training to help de escalate and resolve conflict. They could have access to emergency services so if there is a emergency they can immediately get someone there and it's like, maybe it's a button or something we could figure it out. And then they would follow up after incidents, similar to what Oscar does, which I find to be very effective where they would go to people's homes afterwards and say, What happened let's talk about this, how did we get how did things get to this point. What are your needs what are your unmet needs what are the problems you're facing. They could also connect people with resources that they need. You know that might be driving the criminal behavior. They could also teach relationship skills to neighbors to build our collective competency as a community for dealing with quality of life issues, and they would provide ongoing support practicing those skills. So design interventions as problems arise with with the community in ways that empower people. And they would do it under the supervision of a full time director who would be a professional social worker, and they would get professional social work supervision, which is pretty intensive supervision and we could talk more about that another time. Finally, they would be accountable to the community because they would collect data and I would want them to collect data in a way that protects privacy, but gives us accurate numbers about what's going on out there. They would report that in a way that's meaningful and accessible to the community, and we would ask that they have regular engagement in the NPAs and other public venues. So I have a, I'm going to finish my PowerPoint tonight and give it tomorrow at the 23 MPI, and it's going to include some specific details about the numbers, some funding source ideas, the theory behind it, etc. So I'm going to give you a heads up, since I couldn't give the full presentation but actually worked out better because I need a little more time because I've been so busy. But if people want to see the full presentation feel free to come to, or to watch it, you know from the word 23 MPI, and I'd be happy to walk through it with people and I just want to end by saying that this is a the start of a discussion about this proposal that I am open to because the more neighbors I talk with the better, it gets like the more we're addressing people's needs. So I do think it's part of developing this program we'd want to do some kind of formal needs assessment so that we can make sure we design something and it would be a pilot project so you know we try it out for a while and then decide do we want to keep doing this expand it and it. What did we learn from it, etc. So I see a hand and I probably went over my time thank you. Thank you. Tom I see you have your hand up. Yeah, I'm trying this is time to open. I'm taking the minutes for this meeting can I, when you have the PowerPoint available get a copy of it. Yeah, I'm happy to send that to you. Okay. I will post them to the website for both. If you copy person then she'll make it available to everybody. Okay, thank you. Okay, and I see Karen you have your hand up. You're muted. Sorry. I think that's a great idea and I wanted to say that probably 10 years ago or so when our code enforcement officer was Ray O'Connor or O'Connell. We did this and it was actually kind of fun. I remember doing it with Sandy when and Jean Bergman and Ray and other citizens that walked on, you know, like a Friday night Saturday night and when porch parties were pretty wild or whatever we just stopped and talked to people and let them know, you know what effect they were having to the neighborhood and I think it was a great, great thing for the community so I thank you, Brian that's a great idea. Okay, is there anyone else that would like to speak at speak out. I believe Richard has his hand up. I'd like to address a couple of comments to Jack Hansen. Just to register Jack if you're there. I completely agree with Jane Odell probably the first time ever. Brooke had when Bonnie Acre among others in our immediate neighborhood regarding their comments on front porch forum about policing. I would just like to say that and if you'd like to follow up with me anytime then you know where I am. The other thing I was going to say is you're going to discuss trash removal at some time shortly, and I filled in the survey and also sent a link to some other interested parties. I put the same link on the survey to say that in parts of central New York, with which I'm quite familiar. There's a very scalable method of handling residential trash and to a certain extent business trash, which I think should be under consideration by city council when you're sitting around a table and talking about it. Very, very simply, it would be done completely by the city, except at some stage you hand the trash over to a contractor. And each resident when they have trash or in anticipation of trash purchases a marked, pre-marked bag of a certain color and leaves it with their recyclables, fills it in with trash and leaves it with their recyclables and is collected at the same time. If you don't have any trash, which we only put our trash out about once every two weeks, for instance, you don't have to pay a thing. And I think it addresses some of the concerns I've seen in seven days and on front porch forum about why should I pay a tax when I generate hardly any trash. It's, it's so simple. It's probably the reason why no one has come back to me on it. So, I'd be glad to discuss it with anyone. I think it's a very, very simple solution to what is obviously going to be a contentious issue. So, thanks. Okay, and then Carol, did you have your hand raised. No, I was just asking about the ward affiliation and we took care of that. Thank you. Yeah. All right, final call for speak out. Okay, not seeing any hands. So now we are going to go on to the redistricting ad hoc committee appointment process. So as I mentioned at the start of this meeting. We are going to go through and first Tom is going to give us an overview of the process and then after that we'll go into nominations first going for Ward one, then going toward eight. If more than one person is seeking the seat, then we will have to vote by going around and having each person signal who they're voting for so that's why you see your ward affiliation. And then if only one person is then it can be like we just vote at once. And then, but prior to voting though they'll obviously be an opportunity for questions and for that person to give the reason why they would like to serve so Tom I believe you are going to give an overview. Yeah. Can I share a file. I believe, oh yeah. We don't have a chat function. Oh sure. But you can share screen yeah let me just give you privileges for that. I'm not going to go through all this. I'm going to be fairly brief. As you may or may not have heard the city council has passed a resolution calling for an ad hoc committee of district thing. This is different from what was done the last go around for redistricting. And this committee is really charged by city council to come up with ideas on how to do redistricting. And there's really two components to that. What the structure city council should be. Should we have just a straight number of words should we have boards and districts as we have today. And if we do make changes, how many words and our district should we have the other piece that I think is not yet available is that we would also perhaps make suggestions as to how work boundaries could be changed. Given that the city has grown roughly seven and a half percent over the last 10 years. There's some chance that words were boundaries may need to move to make the words more even. I think it's a plus or minus 10% pool that is being imposed on the city to in terms of population for war. So, as a member of this ad hoc committee, you'd represent our ward and take public input and bring it to this committee and to the other seven members who would be from the other words to come up with recommendations to give city council. This is going to be a fairly short type of engagement city council is interested in getting feedback fairly quickly. And I think that not going to say a whole lot more about what the responsibilities are, but I will add a comment and that said, we had a very, very, very brief discussion about this before this meeting started in the public input among some scary committee members, and we're willing to support whoever is this ad hoc committee member to get public input. And that could include putting ads out on a foreign forum, or during a, you know, composing a survey monkey and trying to get people to complete that and compile the results and do that in short order. So, are there questions about what this committee is, and what they're being asked to do. Any questions, I see Karen has their hand raised. Hi Karen. You're muted. Sorry, sorry. Well just because the screen is this part of this I couldn't see. Sorry, but I just wanted to ask again. It said, oh, you moved it. It said that this was going to be a committee different than the city council and school board. Somebody had said that people if you had been on the school board previously you were not eligible, and I did right. Jane Jack and Zariah and asked them about that but I didn't hear back. Is that true, and why, why is that true. If so, I know, I think Jack and Jane are on maybe one of those. So, I am sorry, go ahead. Do you want me to go Jane or you want to go. I was just going to say I do know that that's true, but I actually don't know the context as to why but that's as far as I found out. Yeah, so I thought that I'm, I'm sorry Karen I, I'm looking at the email thread right now because Sarah carpenter who had responded to an email thread with Carol but I guess you weren't on it but it was that same question, and that's why I didn't I thought it had already been addressed but yeah the idea behind the committee is that we were trying to make it as removed, sort of as a political as possible or as removed from the existing political infrastructure in Burlington and try to get folks who weren't necessarily vested in a certain outcome. And just trying to get folks who would. Yeah, not come in with a particular bias or mission, but more that would be representative of their community and able to engage folks that otherwise normally wouldn't already engage with these processes so that was kind of the idea behind it to kind of remove it from the existing council and school board. I don't think, excuse me I don't think of the school board as being a really politically driven group. And I just think that I don't know that kind of certainly limits the pool for people that live full time in order eight, because you because of the way the district was drawn up before. And certainly district if you look at the map that it's this long little skinny river of people instead of kind of chunks of housing. And I think that was purposely done like that and I think balance would be better. And anyway, so yeah I don't understand why you would eliminate people just because they might have served on the school board, you know for a year, like 10 years or so or something that just seems like you know you're hurting the possibilities of people that could help out with that by limiting it. I hear that yeah I hear that the the issue is is that that is the language and the resolution that we passed and that that was signed so that is what we're operating under but I definitely hear what you're saying. And I understand that this was brought forward by Ward wards four and seven who were the wards that had already pretty high representation of their city counselors compared to people in wards one and eight. Is that correct, like you have constituents than the people in wards four and seven that. And that's what we're about to find out with with the census data is kind of how, how, how off is that balance. And it's, it's supposed to be, you know, very similar, but it might, it could be skewed that way that's possible we're about to find out that get that data. Okay, because I thought after you did the last redistricting still Ward one had a lower representation than people in wards four and seven. Yeah, I mean the purpose of redistricting is to bring it into alignment and balance and get the wards within a few percentage points of each other. So I don't know if you're talking about prior to the redistricting or after but either way like we're about to see the updated numbers and see what that balance is. And that's part of what's driving this, this process. Hey, let me just ask something to clarification so pretty, pretty previous city counselors and previous school board members are not in the pool that can be in this ad hoc committee. Correct. Yeah, correct. And Richard you had a question. I was quite involved in this. Seven years ago seven or eight years ago. Until the final committee was established because the work that citizens were doing with the city council didn't bear fruit. So I stepped away at that stage because I am not and will not be a citizen of the US. So I can't technically vote. But I do have a certain amount of institutional understanding and some of the things that have to be considered. Also, I would have thought that previous city counselors and school board members would have a little bit of institutional knowledge which might be quite valuable in this situation. So I mean I can say more about my experience from seven or eight years ago but I'll just leave it at that. And I don't, I saw your hand up for a while I don't know if you still wanted to make a comment. Yeah, this is and brandia word eight. I think Karen summarized what I wanted to say. And I just find it bewildering that somebody who served on the school board what five years ago Keith. Would not be eligible for this committee somebody who actually has the time and the interest in serving on this committee. And so is this a definite. No, for somebody like Keith there there's is there any point in even deliberating the point further. Since I guess the rules have already been decided upon. Yeah that should I jump in. Yeah. Yeah, I mean that that is the language that that council pass and I definitely hear that again it was the idea was to try to get away from sort of the insiders people who are already super involved and who already have a voice in in city politics and who frequently engage that was kind of the driving force behind that language was to try to expand beyond that I understand word eight has unique challenges. Yeah, that's the language that we pass and council and that we're operating under and so we can't at this point, you know, go against that if if we if there's no one from word eight we're going to have to obviously figure something out and and do that at this point. We can't just violate you know the resolution the council would have to the council would have to change it in order to allow that which hasn't happened so we're operating under the resolution that was passed. Are there any other questions. I think we're going to move over to one thing. I hear what I hear what you say. The overriding concern at the last time redistricting was considered was that the new north end should somehow be left intact. And I don't know whether that has been discovered discussed in your discussions in city council. But I think it would be naive to think that that's not going to come into play. And going to impact whatever committee is put together. I agree with that yeah I'll just say I agree with that and I'll leave it at that. Well, I mean it's. It's an it's an important part in whatever arithmetic people put together to try to. Yeah, do the redistricting puzzle. It's very very important and it was an impediment last time. I thought a good impediment because I understand it. So, I mean I'm, I'm being devil's advocate here I'm speaking from one side of my math and the other side. But, but those things come to play in the south end to a certain extent as well, then all of a sudden you've got the two districts in the middle and figure that out and probably around the margins for the for the south end. And that's what it's going to come down to without even seeing the census figures. Okay. Are there any other questions or comments. I don't see any. So I think we can move on to the nomination process. So, I think we'll begin with Ward one. Anyone that would like to make a nomination for the ward one seat on the redistricting ad hoc committee or would anyone like to nominate themselves. You can indicate by raising your hand. I see no, no hands. I also see no hands. I've been asked if I will do this, but it has got to be with the caveat, but I am a non citizen so sooner or later someone else would have to do the voting so it's, it's a little bit of a sort of minister without portfolio really them would be doing the work without any say in the final resolution. I see someone has their hand. Jonathan. Okay. Just for clarification, I don't know what I'm saying counseling, but I don't believe that there will be any votes committee. I think that I think the representation much require residency. Is that not correct. Yeah, I so I can't. Jane or somebody. I don't know why that was the case last time that's why I bring it up and not, and that's that's fine I understand that. Good. I don't, we had a better representative than I would ever be. I don't know what why that was the case last time but I don't. My understanding of the process this time does not require citizenship. I don't think it's a good idea to serve on this committee and the committee is essentially, you know, the committee would offer feedback to the city council. They would report back to the city council so I don't understand any reason that it would have to be a citizen. Okay, so Richard, would you like to move forward with nominating yourself for the position. I'm either qualified now. But if there is no one else to represent more than I will be glad to do it. So last call. I am seeing no one else with their hand raised. So now, Richard, I don't know if you want to say any more words about why you're interested or if anyone has any questions. Just raise your hand and I can call on you. Well, I see you have your hand raised. Richard, thank you so much. We really appreciate it. I mean your past experience will be really helpful. At the same time, please lean on us. I mean, this is, you know, this is really hard to do the meetings. And they can do the outreach. And I think that's a really, it's a really important point that all the word represents me to bring to that committee and to the city council. We've raised it with city council are concerned about the amount of time and energy that this will take. So I think it's important that you as committee members advocate for yourselves and say, this is what we can do. This is where we need the city to fill in, whether it's CEDA or SMPA or it's other city employees are going to need to help with the outreach. So, you are elected as a single person or you're nominated yourself as a single person, but I feel like we've got a whole lot of people here who are going to support. Thank you. The same thing that's why my hand was raised and I be more than happy to help you with like a survey monkey survey, if you think that's actually help. Okay, great. So now I think we can move on to the voting process and correct me if I'm wrong but we can just because one person's running. We can just all like all ward one folks can just say like whether they're in favor of it or correct. Oh, okay. Okay, awesome. I think there should be some clear like decision though, whether it's a vote or something at least for the meeting minutes. So, yeah, let's just do everyone all in favor. Good from all ward one folks that are voting. I okay and then anyone on the screen if you want to give me a thumbs up or I see jeans giving a thumbs up. Okay, Karen is so it looks like all of the ward one folks on the screen are saying yes as well. So, I think that is good and then Jonathan if you just want to mark down everyone in person as well. Congratulations Richard. Very exciting. Thank you. Now we're moving on to Ward eight. Is there anyone that would like to nominate someone from Ward eight would like to nominate themselves. I'm seeing and you have your hand raised feel free to go. You're muted. I'd like to nominate Keith Pillsbury. Keith, I, it does Keith say something now. Sorry, I don't. I want to make sure I'm doing this correctly so I don't mess anything up for the minutes. Keith you're muted if you're speaking. Thank you and I indicated an interest earlier because as the ward eight clerk I walked our ward. And regularly one year I was running for city for Ward clerk. The next year I was on the ballot as school board member. And so I got to know the neighborhoods really well. I got to know the people really well and most specifically, the more longer term people. I got to know the ward and at the same time I was also regularly attending the SGA the student assemblies about every three weeks. So I thought I was getting a good sense of the ward and I thought that I could bring that that knowledge that background information along with the issues that we've had in having our elections or polls, which have been. I do a lot of advocacy for ourselves like getting a bigger space, being able to get people who do not live in the ward to work at the polls because you don't get enough thought we aren't able to get enough volunteers from our own ward. So that was what I was going to bring to the committee. And I thought that I had enough connections through my work already that I would be able to get input from the ward one voters. So I read the resolution, and it just seemed like they were taking me out of the ability to bring my knowledge and connections in the ward to communicate with my ward members about their desires about, you know, what's going on and in the representation. That is why I thought I initially volunteered and said I would be willing to do it if other people weren't able to or weren't interested. And now I feel like the city council has sort of said, we can't have you because you are already to whatever bias and I can say that we weren't really diligently to register up to 300 students new voters every election. We have a, I can talk about the numbers that we have over 4,000 and if you look at the numbers of people are actually voting in our in our ward it's nowhere near 25% of that so it's on some times I won't say every time we did have one 1400 time for votes that can't explain how that happened but anyway, I just think that I could bring some information to the full committee and be helpful in that way that was that was all my intent. Thank you Keith. So I, I don't know like Jack or Jane if either of you can speak to it but are we allowed to like will this be a valid vote at the NPA if we move Keith forward I just don't want to. I know that we have to be like diligent about that so I don't want to move it forward if it violates the resolution and it's not going to be. Okay, I don't know if there's any insight about that. Yeah I mean this just wouldn't. You know, if we took the vote tonight I don't really know what would happen because it wouldn't be. Because unfortunately Keith doesn't fit the criteria laid out and so we wouldn't be able to. You wouldn't be able to serve on the committee so I don't, I don't think it would really get us anywhere to vote that way. Okay. Brian I see you have your hand raised. If not, yeah I do I, I know I don't live in these wards but I do represent the interests of people in these wards and all the and what happens in these different wards all affects other wards. So I was hoping I just could just make a comment about this and then step back. That's okay. I people look like you're tolerating it so thank you. So, um, you know, I, I'm struggling with this because I feel like to imply that a person's more political because they serve in a political role than a person who isn't. It's a big assumption because everything we do is political and when people say they're not political they're just not aware of their politics they're not aware of how their decisions are affecting power dynamics in our society. Everything is political on some level. And I think that's anyone could have an agenda. And just because someone's an elected official we may have an agenda but when we're representing people we have to figure out the balance between the people and like, and so I know I struggle with the decision that was made but the reality is, is it sounds like the city council and the mayor have already decided this and I wouldn't want for the whole city things to get disrupted and I'm, I'm just wondering like in the case in a case like with Keith because you're interested and yet you can't do it. Is there going to be a way and this is where I'll step back is question and I'll step back is, is there going to be a way for members of the public to just weigh in on the decisions of this body because you know, even if Keith Pillsbury can't be on it Keith you could, you could be at every meeting. You know, like, like influencing that process, because we live in this open democracy so I just want to put that out there that whatever you all decide, you decide but my concern is just I wouldn't want a decision to be made that then undermines the whole process of the city, because one of the members, you know, can't participate fully, and I wouldn't also want the people represented by Ward 8 to be to miss that chance of representation. And I don't. And I think the problem here isn't Keith's interest, it's that we've been set up. And I get there's good reason and I'm not judging you all I'm just kind of questioning like the assumption that about people's agenda but it's unfortunate but I just want to share my thoughts on it and ask that question of like, can, is there going to be meaningful ways for public engagement to influence the decisions of this group. That's my question. Thank you. I don't know. Yeah, Jack if you want to speak to that. Yeah, I think you raised a lot of great points Brian. You know behind this committee and having the NPAs choose someone from each ward. It's not about trying to get someone who is going to, you know, you're going to put someone in there and they're going to. They're going to go at it alone and kind of, and really work as an individual on that committee it's more about how do we. You know, from folks across the city and so the, in my mind the primary goal of the person serving on the committee is to bring in those voices and Keith could be one of the primary voices that that individual brings in and listens to because Keith does have that experience and Keith could still do that outreach could still participate in the meetings. But you know if someone else serves in that role they could really give Keith as much of a voice in the process as they want to, and ideally bring a lot of other folks into the process as well. All the meetings are public and yeah, they're, you know that whoever serves in this role is meant to bring folks from their ward into that process keep them informed keep communicating with the NPA and with the broader community in their ward. Thank you, Jack. So is there anyone else from Ward 8 that is interested in serving that would like to nominate themselves or would anyone like to nominate someone from Ward 8. Again, you can just signify with raising your hand, and I'll call on you. And I see you are raising your hand. Yeah, I think it's unfortunate that will have no representative from Ward 8 so I will nominate myself I guess. I've been anticipating this redistricting process since Ward 8 was initially formed. I was hoping that I would be able to participate in the process I just feel a little pressured, because of the time commitments and because of my work responsibilities but I'll do the best that I can. Thank you. And yeah just to echo Carol's comments to Richard if like anything that I can do to help with like posting up from Fort Forum or gathering public input that would kind of lessen that load for you I just let me know and I'm happy to do that and work with you. But thank you so much for stepping up. Does anyone have any questions for and I have not a question but more of a comment. Yeah, thank you so much and for stepping up into this I know it's kind of going to be a short stint but a full stint of work and Keith I appreciate you also doing that. Looking back on it's I kind of almost yeah I wish there was a different way that that was set up because I do agree with what a lot of what Brian said and it yeah shouldn't leave just because you have a history of being so committed to your career and and holding that position. You know it shouldn't leave you out of the process your ears down the road and so maybe this is a good learning experience to for the next time we do something like this to look at that a little bit more deeply so I know that that's frustrating and I apologize for that but thank you both so much and that's greatly appreciated because we need it desperately. So now we'll just kind of do the same process of voting that we did for Ward one so all folks from Ward eight if you want to just raise your hand to vote and and forward that would be great. Thanks to Keith's raising their hand. Jack thumbs up, Jane. So am I. I think that is everyone from Ward eight so thank you and so much and thank you Keith as well for being committed in trying to get involved. Thank you, and I look forward to working with Richard Hill yard. Yeah, thank you and Richard and thanks. And Keith. I just want to thank everyone to I know it was, I know this process is not exactly how everyone wanted it and it's, it's, it's a pretty fast process to and I really appreciate everyone being willing to step up and try to make the best of it and try to make sure that our district is represented well in the process. All right, now we're going to move on to the Burlington capital plan. Martha I believe you're here to present on it so thank you for your patience. It's been fascinating to listen to your conversation so I learned a lot every time I go to any meeting so thank you. I'm Martha Keenan I work for the clerk treasures office, and I am happy to bring you information on the continuing of the city of Burlington's capital infrastructure plan so I have a slide show to that I did email, however, I have it to share. And I am still sometimes technologically challenged so we'll see if we do this correctly. Are you able to see the slide. Yes. Okay. So, you know the main things are what have we accomplished what have we learned and what are next steps. So a little history is that in 2014, the mayor stated that he wanted to create a capital plan for the city and that it would be presented the following year. We did present the first drafts of that capital plan, and in September of 2016 we came to the city council and it was a proved in a resolution, a 10 year capital plan. And on the in November of that same year the voters approved general obligation bond of $27.5 million to invest in our infrastructure. And this is pretty much I've been with the city for eight years, almost, and this has been my life, all eight years, and so I'm hoping that you will come up with lots of good questions for me. We have completed our first five years and the, the bond that we received was to cover the first five years. The capital plan when it's created is a picture in time. And as you probably know capital and projects are not stagnant so every day things evolve and a good example is tonight we have a tremendous thunderstorm out there. We received over an inch of rain in less than an hour and roofs leak potholes are created. There's flooding and so projects are created from an event such as tonight and so it is always evolving during the first five years, which ended in fiscal year 21 we worked with all the departments we worked with the public we worked with the city council to invest wisely in the city's infrastructure, and it touched all aspects of the city from the greenway streets and sidewalks buildings, our it our fleet, and each project that we consider takes into account the impact on the city's net zero energy goal. And I'm hoping you can't hear my dog in the background my apologies that he doesn't like thunder. So over the last five years, what have we accomplished a lot. We've improved over 14 miles of sidewalks, we doubled our street reinvestment from $1 million to $2 million a year. We rehabilitated seven miles of the bike path 90% of it. We created a new parks facility in Letty Park where the grounds and trees maintenance crew are now housed and that makes them more efficient. In that same facility we added gas pumps so we have both diesel and gas at Letty Park which previously, if a person was out plowing in a big snowstorm, and they ran low on diesel they had to go all the way back to 645 pine in gas up and then go back out and continue their route. This allows them to stay out there and keep doing their job so it saves both on time and labor and wear and tear on our streets. And our fire trucks don't have to go out of their zone when they fill up now so they can stay in their area. So it's really helped us to save in many different ways through creating that facility out there. We've improved a number of the city buildings, envelopes, insulation, new roofs, HVAC systems to improve the efficiency and reduce costs. We have worked with our IT infrastructure. Before this plan was implemented the city spent about $125,000 a year on their infrastructure for IT. And that is really not sufficient for the technology that is coming these days. We spent a lot when the pandemic hit to bring people to these hybrid meetings such as we're doing right now. And we are going to continue doing that in the future. This is implemented for security purposes both an electronic door system for the city buildings. This ID is also a person's city employees ID with a picture on there, so that they have a key and an ID at the same time. This includes all the old city video systems with one single system that is tied into the dispatch in the police department, so that if there is an incident, the dispatch can pull up the camera closest to the incident and provide input to the person responding so that they can do it most efficiently and safest for them and for everyone else involved. We have created a couple of committees that have made life much easier as we try to strategize and be efficient. We created a capital committee, which is made up of department heads from a number of the areas that have the largest capital public works, CEDA and the parks department as well as the CAO and the administration take part in that. We have a fleet committee and the fleet committee created a policy and a strategy for financing, and that financing strategy is within this capital plan that we have. And then right now we're in the process we have an asset management committee and we're in the process of implementing an asset management software platform. This one is really the next step for the capital plan it provides the inventory of all of our assets and what their condition is so that we can make good decisions. As we move forward it allows us to know what is failing and what the likelihood of failure is so that we can strategize and use our dollars the most easily possible. What did we learn, we learned that the capital needs are evolving within the city and our understanding initially wasn't complete. We worked 18 months to come up with the first capital plan, and every day we learn of things that we have have to include in it now. We hadn't included bridges, the city has a lot of bridges. We haven't included public safety so there are a lot of radios cell towers repeaters that help both the fire and police department able to respond to their work and we didn't have any of that included. So this is going to take us decades of deferred maintenance to catch up on and it's really going to take us decades to get there this is an ongoing process it is going to just keep revolving and if we do it well, we take care of that deferred maintenance and then we're able to be forward looking and make sure that we spend our money and prioritize well as we go forward. Basically your 22 budget survey that the administration put out showed that there was strong support for our infrastructure. When we looked at it, what our needs are over the next three years we have needs of around $140 million. We have a lot of opportunities to fund that 140. There's the federal infrastructure bill, there's the American rescue plan, there's state funding for climate change and infrastructure. All of these are opportunities that we need to look at as we move forward with our capital plan. However, even with that and the grant opportunities there's a need beyond that, and we still need to make a request of the voters. We're still in, but what we need to do is prioritize and make good choices because we really can't fit everything in in three years, even if we were able to fund all $140 million. The city would be in chaos if we had that much construction going on within the city so we have to time it well we have to be thoughtful about how we do it. That's where all of the funding sources we could possibly find. So, when we created our first capital plan, we had different main sources of reinvestment we did our sidewalks our streets the it transportation planning our capital project management facilities parks fleet, and our public safety. And what we have we had a basic amount that we're putting in each year in order to try and reach our goals and we took the sidewalks from one mile a year to three miles a year. That move helps us move from 100 year turnover of our sidewalks to a 40 year turnover of our sidewalks which is more within line of what that should statistically be our streets, we have a street capital tax which provides around 2.3 million. But we also added another 700,000 into that with the climate change that has been occurring, we have streets that are failing faster. The freeze thought that's occurring over these years and these are large rain events is playing havoc on our streets. So, we need to continue that investment. I already spoke to the it infrastructure. There's a lot of transportation planning there are a number of different studies that are out there. And when I started the budget was $125,000 a year. We've moved it to 460,000, and they have a number of projects generally planning is is exactly what they do is they set up the designs and get the project started and then they move into a project beyond it. Capital project management provides all the resources to be able to get this work done from consultants to staff. The facilities, we did some major work on some different facilities city hall and 645 pine were both renovated and we did a lot of work there but what we need to look at facilities like streets is that potholes are never going away and the problems and buildings are never going to go away and we need to continually reinvest in those buildings. Parks does have money that comes from penny for parks and from impact fees but they also have parts of their facilities and areas that aren't really covered under other either of those areas one being the boat house. It's not really on land, so it isn't in a park so it doesn't qualify for reinvestment from those sources. So we need to supplement the parks projects with these reinvestments. We need to reinvest in this plan we have for let's see three fire trucks, three snow clouds and three sidewalk tractors so we picked items that have a life of 10 years or more that we could go out for a 10 year bond and be able to replace. We finance the fleet two different ways we have this bonding for the larger vehicles with a longer life and then we each year we have been doing a master lease, which helps us get the items like the pickup trucks and the ambulances and the police cars the items that do not have a life of 10 years. And lastly we have the public safety and right now the communication system radio infrastructure for the public safety for both fire and police is that end of life and it needs to be replaced and that is about $5.3 million. We're going to be adding multiple routers and repeaters and improving cell towers to make sure that there was coverage throughout the city. So they can respond correctly. Of course there are a lot of other capital needs to and we try to find different ways to match them. We have a lot of grant projects, some rail yard enterprise Champlain Parkway. We have a lot of rail and street roundabout the rail realignment right now Shubrin streets underway and the rail realignment with Amtrak planning on being back in December. These four projects are about a $60 million worth of investment, and the city is only putting in $6 million. And this is one way that the city really looks at leveraging their dollars is that we can go out and use federal or state dollars to improve our infrastructure in a much grander scale than we could ever do ourselves. We have a lot of comprehensive plans to utilize for helping our strategy like pet master plan, the park master plan scoping in corridor studies. We also have some larger revisioning projects that we need to consider or are considering the library went out and had a consultant come in and revision the library for what should it be in the 20th century. People now depend on the library for computer needs and so their technology center has expanded greatly. They have a really large youth group and good teen and youth programs. And the building was last redone in 1980. So it needs to come up that is around $22 million. The fire station and the fire chief looked at consolidating a two stations into one, which would save the city money in both resources and location it came in around $16 million. And it was they did find a location that would keep the response times equal to what they are now. So it would not hurt that in any way. And we have consolidated collection which I believe Richard spoke to earlier about a conversation that's ongoing with that. That's around. If we were to take that in house ourselves that's about $6.7 million. All of this work comes operational maintenance that goes along with it. We have to look as we're looking at this work. What does it mean for the work that has to be done to maintain it moving forward so pavement markings landscaping facilities maintenance. All really important things to try and consider as we're looking at what work we do. What are our next steps. First is presenting this three year plan which I am going around to all of the wards, the commissions, the committees and talking and helping educate I met with the community voices last week trusted community voices last week. And it's been great to go out and help people understand this ongoing need that we have. Next week, we're looking to meet with both the board of finance and city council to go through this plan and determine whether we wish to bring a request to the voters in November, which right now there is a special commission set up for November 9 and we would try and go at that same time. During all this time of the next four months three four months is to prioritize our need and get input during some of that is strategizing is what can we use the American rescue plan funds, what could be done through the state funding the federal infrastructure bill. They're all coming forward. They have different items that they can address. And so we are looking at with the American rescue plans can they help us with building ventilation with and making it better that way. This as example is the Miller Center is a recreational facility for the city, the windows don't open within the building. So, can we replace all the windows so that they open so that we improve the ventilation there. We do it through opportunities from funding other places and if we can't, then we need to use our own bonding dollars. And during this time where we're continuing to look at what makes a sustainable capital plan. And what is that annual number that we need that will help us maintain this on an ongoing basis. What are coming up at this point is in 2018 the city created a debt policy cap and looking at that and what are we able to borrow what the other funding opportunities are the request, this is strategy. The longer we wait and defer the more the repairs are going to cost us. So, this is just a small portion of the schedule that keeps expanding as I'm able to reach out to more commissions and committees. So I think I had three more added this week. And it's really fun to go out there and talk with everyone. If anyone has any questions, please just raise your hand and I can call on you. I'm seeing Richard you have your hand up. No, just three real quickies Martha that was great. Thank you very much indeed. That's really interesting. So, first of all, I think you should give mega more a high increase, get around the contract for 20 years. Second of all is, is memorial auditorium under facilities maintenance. So, memorial is a part of this request. And it's something that we're looking at right now. I know it has been discussed as possibilities of a number of things, just before the pandemic we had been close to working out an agreement to renovate it. Unfortunately, the pandemic has not been nice to it. And it does have a lot of deferred maintenance to it. So we are going to, we do have money to do something with memorial the question is what will we do with memorial, and that will be a further conversation. Just as long as it's on the radar anyway I think it's really important that that's a statement at the gate where you, Burlington. The last one thing is, you haven't mentioned the school district at all. And I don't, I know that's a can of worms but I really think that any capital plans, the city and box on. I can never understand why there wouldn't be some sort of intersection with the school district, but I'll just leave that comment out there. So, you are correct. And I actually helped the school do their capital plan and have worked with them in the past, and we are very cognizant of the high school and issues there and their bonding tie into our bonding and our debt capacity. So, we are very much. Is it tied at the hip per se, and something that is needed to be collaborated on. There have been a number of conversations over the years of ways we could do that whether that be with our, their general services and our facilities, sharing or using spaces together. And I don't think that that conversation is done yet. So, it's good point. Anyone else have any questions Tom I see you have your hand up. Yeah, just a quick question follow up on the school issue is there been you've had discussions with the school people with regard to capital budget is, is there any potential for state money to be used to rebuild the high school. And what you said is, is that not going to happen. I do not know that answer. Um, so I can't speak intelligently to it. Are there any other questions. Seeing no other hands. Thank you Martha for coming in tonight. Thank you very much for having me I really appreciate it. And if anyone has any questions. Please feel free to contact me. Great. Now we are moving on to the presentation on the addition to Cots family shelter so folks that are here to present on that feel free to get started. Good evening everybody. I'm not sure how to make myself seen here but I hope you can hear me my name is Bob Duncan. Here we go join as a panelist. Good evening everybody. I had sent height there's Jonathan, and I think maybe Arthur Chukman from our office is on the on the call as well. We had sent in our presentation materials and I'm not sure whether you're able to put them up on the screen or whether I should do that for my computer here if you give me share screen capability. I think you should have the ability to share your screen. Okay, and just give me one second to bring that up. Okay, thank you. Okay so does everyone see the site plan that's here. Okay, so I assume that everybody in words one and eight is familiar with the location. This is the Cots family shelter was for many years, the YWCA headquarters at 278 Main Street. So in the drawing that you see in the screen if you can see my cursor along the right hand side here. This is the Main Street. So North is actually facing to the left and across the street, pretty much directly across the street is Edmunds middle school, and just up the hill a bit the elementary school with the connecting building in between the two. And this, this heavy line here indicates the edge of the footprint of the consolidated communications building that is on the corner of South Union and Maine. This is a property that a bus eventually on College Street at 289 College Street, and to the east is a building that is a series of condominiums there's a Victorian building that sits on the street in an addition built in the 1980s with condominiums in it. So the, this plan that I'm showing you is a combination floor plan and site plan. This portion of the building this L shaped portion is the historic building with this portion being the actual original masonry building, and this portion being an L that was added to that probably in the late 1800s early 1900s, and this small addition right here was added in 1991, when this became the headquarters for the YWCA. So we're proposing an addition to this building of 16 units of perpetually affordable housing. There'll be a mix of units ranging from studios to two bedroom units. And the reason that it's an addition, rather than an independent building is really twofold the site limitations are pretty considerable. This is the rear yard setback line here, according to zoning. It's 25% of a lot depth. So we can't really go any further to the north. And we also are fairly limited because this is the western setback line. So we can't really go any closer to consolidated communications building. And we also wanted to take advantage. One of the other reasons for doing the addition is that the existing historic building is handicap accessible only on its main level. So it's accessed from this addition that was built in 1991, which in this corner right here includes a wheelchair lift. So from the rear folks can enter and get to this main floor this plan happens to be the main floor of the family shelter and access those rooms and those common public facilities. But the second floor where the majority of the bedrooms are is not accessible. So one of the reasons for making this an addition to rather than separate is that we're putting elevator in here that actually will be able to serve the new addition. And through this link at both the first floor on the second floor will be able to serve the existing building. So all portions of that existing building will not be handicap accessible, which is a nice benefit for that building. So the approach to this. There is an existing driveway here to gravel drive. We're proposing to pave it, but it is coming off of Main Street this location. And so we're maintaining that driveway. The primary entrance to the building is here, which gives you direct access to the elevator and to the stair, as you can see, but in an effort to to prioritize the sense of pedestrian importance here since we're sharing. So people are actually coming in by cars, not very many but able to drive across this for creating this plaza area here that is linked to Main Street being a sidewalk, so that there's a direct pedestrian connection that brings you here. The scoring and pavement of the concrete will act as a means of alerting drivers is there's a different thing going on here, so that we can focus on the main entry which is a covered entry at this location. It also connects via sidewalk to this rear parking area where a total of nine spaces. Interestingly enough, given the recent zoning change, there are no requirements for parking at this location under zoning, but we realized that both for staff who serve the family shelter, as well as some of the residents in both family shelter and the new construction will have cars. We've maximized the amount of spaces we can provide on the site for a total of nine spaces, one of which is handicap accessible and located close to the main entry here. We're also providing a trash enclosure here, which is an approximate same location is the existing trash enclosure so that it'll function the same way. The trash collection vehicle comes in here, gets the trash and backs out. They've been doing that for over 30 years for service built this building and its various ownerships, and that will continue to be the case. We're also because we're encouraging a bike circulation we're building a covered bike here, part of which is required by zoning but nevertheless, we want to do that and all of our projects we encourage bicycle storage and parking and use of bicycles. Switch now to a different screen which shows elevations of the facility so the, excuse me, I'm just going to scroll here. If you were actually approaching the building on the driveway from Main Street, you would see this facade, which has some brick detailed in a way similar to the historic building that signifies the entrance when I was describing for you that this is really right in this area here outside the entry, and this walkway then continues to the rear of the property where the other parking areas. We're also providing at the second floor here, a common space for all of the residents of the 16 apartments to have shared space that can be used for things like birthday parties or some other celebratory event, or for events that might happen, or there could be a community meeting could be a building wide meeting, for some reason, that would occur at that in that location. And then at the third floor the roof over the second floor here is an outside terrace so we have some outside space for folks living the building that can use that space in certain obviously a nice weather. Protected from the weather but for small roof over this, this connector piece here. So it's accessed from the third floor in this location. This, this elevation that I'm showing you here is actually the West elevation. So this is what you would see the existing family shelter and it has a lap siding addition this is the L that was built, subsequent to the construction of the brick building in the late 1800s or actually brick building is probably more like 1850. And we think this addition is probably more like the 1890s. And then this addition that was built in 1991. It currently has a sloping roof on it we're proposing to put a flat roof there in a way to make this connection between new and old, more gentle connection between the new addition here and the existing building. So you'll notice here is a slight differentiation in materials at this lower level here. We're proposing to use a porcelain tile product there that will not emulate the stone foundation of the existing building but it will recall that as a as a means as a base for this addition to sit on. We're using a combination of lap siding in a couple different colors and also some panel siding and some metal siding on this and I'll go over that as we go around the building. This building is being proposed to be an all electric building. So that we'll be using heat pumps for heating and pooling, and as such will be providing a very robust envelope, which is necessary when you're looking at doing all electric heating. The existing building however will stay as gas fire boiler system for the existing building. It's not feasible to change the envelope there sufficiently to be able to rationalize or justify and all electric composition there. So this elevation you're seeing is the east side looking at the building from the driveway. This would be where that little plaza area is that's designated in concrete you can see the band of the base of tile coming around. There's a break in material here between the first floor and the upper floors of building. And here, the, the purple siding that you'll see in this elevation and also in the north elevation are actually defining the circulation systems in the building so this is the stair tower on the north side is actually a little recess where the corridor has light at the end. And, and so those those methods are, are being defined by a slightly different material. As I mentioned the building served by an elevator. It has a tower which is both necessary for the elevators functioning itself. And we've chosen to put a slope roof on it. The roof does slope to the north so that it can drain on to the new flat roof and not cause any drainage problems for the roof below or the pedestrian terraces there. And then on the north elevation, as you can see here is where that purple siding continues this is the corridor that serves all the units on both sides. So here we have some of the lap siding in a slightly different articulation here, the two components of the facade here, separated by the circulation corridor, and also this repeating of this motif on the fourth floor will be slightly step back from in two locations from the west side and from the north side. I'm going to stop screen sharing right now and just open up another file if you'll give me one second, as I do have some perspectives of the building that I'd like to share. So we, sorry, I don't think that showed up. So are you seeing the bird's eye view here. Okay, so, so this is a perspective that's taken, you know, obviously from bird's eye view. This is the existing original 1840s 1850s building with its L, the portion of the existing building where we're proposing to take off part of the roof. And then this is the proposed addition here and you'll see on this drawing, this is really the only place if you're a bird, can you see the rooftop equipment so we've, we've been consulting with our mechanical engineers for locations of rooftop convincing units and, excuse me, condensing units and the energy recovery ventilator the ERV that will provide fresh air and makes austere from the building. And this is the consolidated communications building that's on the corner of South Union in Maine. And then this is a relatively accurate but rough approximation of the existing condominium building that is located to the east. This building in the rear is what I described earlier as 289 College Street. That is an accurate model of that building as it's a project that we designed. This is a view that was left a dozen years or so ago in front on College Street so we know that that fits in here contextually and it's the right size. So this is a view as your, if you were a pedestrian coming down the sidewalk on Main Street with the historic building here and the new addition at the rear. The driveway comes in this location is actually a shared curb cut with the condominium building to its east and our driveway here. The entryway here that we've chosen to clad in brick to relate back to the existing building. And then this is showing that sort of little plaza area that bisects the driveway and and serves as an indicator of this is a pedestrian space. So if you're looking more closely down the entryway you can see of course, this is a person's eye height, looking down the driveway and none of the rooftop equipment is visible. This is the arcade under which the main entrance of the building leads to the elevator and stair and the driveway broken by the plaza in this location. So looking Southwest so in the background you see admins middle school here with the connecting building between the middle school on the elementary building which you can't quite see in the background there and consolidated Edison. This is a modeled height. There are windows in this facade that we don't have accurate information to locate them but there are some windows in this facade but we just don't know where they are. From the one thing I didn't mention in the site plan and discussion is that the rear parking here. All residents of the building can access to get easily out to trash or out to bike storage or to a car from a stair that that's right here that goes from grade up to the first floor level and leads into the first floor corridor. So unless a person was bound by a wheelchair, they would all residents would be able to come out here and access this picnic area and landscape area, as well as get to bike storage and trash. Otherwise a person would use the elevator come down to this level which is at grade and actually halfway between the basement level on the first floor. This building is four stories in height. It does include an occupied basement and in the basement there are storage units, a laundry space for all building residents and mechanical space including electrical room and and and the elevator machine room and so on. So these windows are well above, you know, they're, they're full size windows, and there are three small apartments through the studio partners are located at the lowest level. And then this is a view doesn't have buildings across the street modeled in it, but this is where the bike storage building is in the north, west corner of the site. This is the trash storage here in the northeast corner of the site. There's that stair that I was mentioning you can see the basement units in this location here. And then one final view. So this is the original 1840s 50s building here, the current play space that exists between this building and consolidated communications. The property line here is really in about this location. So consolidated communications does have a little bit of property here but they very graciously allowed class to use this space for for their outdoor space, and their kids use this and it's this place basis on. So once again you can see four stories here. No mechanical equipment visible, the basement location of windows of these three units on the lower level to our corner units which means windows on two sides, and one center unit with windows on one side. So if anyone would like to see, I could share the electrical site plan that we have that shows photometrics because I know people are are sometimes concerned about that and we have a very strict Sony ordinance that defines light levels and so on. So this drawing is oriented in same way as the original drawing that I showed you with the existing building this location, the new addition here, and probably hard for you to read. But all of these little dots are foot candle readings at these locations so along the perimeter here, they're all either zero or point point one foot candle which is, which is very small amount of light. The highest readings, excuse me, I have to take out my glasses to read this at this point. The highest readings are right here at the main entry of around between 10 and 14. And the majority of them are in the range of two to three foot candles so like for instance in here is 3.3 scaling back to 1.3 at the building where there is a there is a pulmon and light here at the ground here about 3.5. And they great away, much in the way that Contra is great away from the building to be diminishing and foot candle as you get closer to the to the property lines, which is one of the requirements of the dark sky ordinance. There's more some more detail here, including some of the light fixtures that we're proposing. These are some, they look like can lights but they're actually a surface Monday late they only stick down half an inch these would be in the soffits of the arcade at the entry, and also the cover group by the rear stair. And then the we have a these fixtures here this actually this fixture, excuse me, this fixture I'm sorry, is located on the building. And these two locations and just gives it some additional pools of light right there at the main entry to accentuate that as a as a pedestrian, an important pedestrian place. But as you can see, the foot candles drop off pretty dramatically so they're down to, you know, 0.1 at the property line, and then this ballard fixture is also a downlight only fixture, and it is located right there. To give some additional illumination just as you enter into the into the property here. So I know that I've gone through this very quickly and I'm speaking very fast, because I know you have a big agenda and we didn't have too much time allocated to us on the agenda so I turned over you folks for any questions you might have be happy to answer them. And if you need more information that I haven't already given you, I'm happy to do that as well. Thanks. Thank you. Does anyone have any questions. Keith, I see your hand is raised. You're muted. Okay, Bob I understand that you said you have 16 new affordable units. Will, yes, will there be spaces for temper temperate cuts is usually temporary housing. Well, does that mean that they will come they won't. They have a long term ability to live there. And in the other space where there were people families living for a little bit before they moved on. Are there is there another space for more temporary living for families. So Jonathan Farrell who's with cuts might be able to answer this better than I but I'll take a stab at it. Thanks. Hi Keith, Jonathan I'm with cuts the facilities director there. So the new building will be permanent housing for folks. We're specifically targeting families in this in this location because it is in addition to our family shelter. The unit sizes are based on the last five years of data, three years pre pre COVID and the last two years of our motel outreach that we've done for families that are housed in emergency motels. So the new building will be permanent housing. The shelter will remain as it is we have capacity for 10 families in that building now. Thank you. You're welcome. Do you have any questions. Jack, I see your hand is raised. Yeah, sorry if I missed this and this this is I can literally see out my window well it's kind of dark now but the location I'm right. I'm on College Street right behind it. So this right now it's just a parking lot right what you guys are planning to build on top of. Yes, that's correct. Okay, great. Yeah, this is exciting. Thanks so much for presenting. My final call for questions. Okay, I'm not seeing anyone else's hands raised. Thank you Duncan and Jonathan for coming in tonight. So just if I may just add one thing, as you all know, a condition of applying for a zoning permit for a major impact review project is to present to an NPA which we're happy to do. And I'm glad to have the opportunity. The, I was just checking to see, do you have some sort of formal process where you alert the zoning department that we have been before you or is that just something that we say that we've done when we make our zoning application which we hope to do in the next week or so. So just a curiosity as to how that, that I get started and take us across to when we make the zoning application. I think you just go up for. Okay. Yeah, and they'll be able to, these are recorded and put on YouTube so if they want to like double check, they can, I'm sure they could just reach out to someone on the student committee which is public, or just check on the YouTube channel to confirm it if they need to. I think we've ever been asked before to confirm. Thank you. And Bob the agenda is also on the NPA website. Okay, okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Awesome. Now we're going to head into the city council update and I'm not seeing any of the either of our school commissioners. So unless they show up in the next couple of minutes will probably just not. We won't put that on the agenda. So, Jack, Jane or Zariah, whoever wants to kind of kick us off feel free. I am happy to. Sorry, I'm keeping my screen off. I have a bad eye infection and don't want to present that to y'all. Um, so I have brought up divestment from fossil fuels to this group before based on a resolution that I brought forth in November of 2020. That's almost a year ago. But we did hear back from the Burlington employees retirement board, the representatives from that board regarding divestment of our assets from fossil fuel companies. And I can happily say that the report confirmed that the only fossil fuel investments the city has are actually in the pension fund and that total was about $4.5 million. And those are in a lot of the major companies. So what the board now is going to do is explore ways and methods of actually divesting that and coming back with a plan for divestment. So they control that fund, the council has zero control over that and that's why that board is tasked with this. So that's just an update on that front. On more new information. We voted on a sex work. Resolution brought forth by counselor Freeman. That resolution was passed unanimously and what that resolution does is it helps start a process of looking at the ordinances and the charters in the city regarding sex work. And the primary whole purpose of this was to decriminalize sex work and essentially so this is something that would make sex work safer and would make sure that there's a lot of safeguards in place in terms of prevention and obviously we, I mean, this is something that I read about a lot, but there are incredible statistics about the crimes that take place. Involving this work. And so this is something that would help at least prevent and enforce, you know, crimes against or make sure that this is where we're helping to prevent these types of crimes and violence and things like that. So this is a really good step in, you know, in a good direction for our city and making sure that people are safe people at work are safe and so I was really proud to vote on that. Yeah. Oh, another good thing that I think I'm trying to cover for two months of, of, I think we took a two month hiatus from NPA. So, I know that we voted 10 to one on a resolution I actually brought forth, which was to divest the city funds. I know I do a lot of divestment to divest the city funds from nuclear weapon manufacturing and weapon systems. So that's something that a couple of local activists came to me about. And I had some ongoing conversations with them through the spring and into the summer about this, and also talked to the same board the Burlington employees board about this. And so it's a similar system of divestment and process. In terms of, you know, going to the, as the sorry the fossil fuel resolution is so that was kind of an easy step for us to take since we kind of forged that about a year ago with with divestment from fossil fuels. It's a similar process and I can definitely report on that in future meetings so I'm happy that that process has started, and that that was also, you know, voted 10 to one on so happy that we are moving in that direction as well in terms of peacekeeping and not investing in weapons and manufacturing. Another big, big thing and you might have seen me write some things lately in BT digger and north of news and on our front porch forum about but it's revolving around consolidation of waste in the city of Burlington. I did not know that this was going to be such a hot topic. But it's something that I think if we do this right, regardless of what direction we go in and what what decision we make, it's going to be, you know, really good for our city. But I do know that things need to be changed personally that's what I believe. We're looking at consolidating the waste collection citywide so currently we have separate trucks doing separate routes and we have a lot of companies kind of involved with collecting trash recycling organics compost what have you. So the whole goal here is to make it so there are less trucks and and and the same truck can pick up two different types of waste per se. And we'd have less companies less different companies having so many different routes so a lot of roads, and a lot of the roads that I actually live near have multiple different trucks different days of the week. And sometimes multiple times a day. That's a lot of routes to be taking. That's a lot of emissions that's a lot of noise. And so our whole goal is to reduce that and consolidating just makes things efficient across the board. So that is what we're currently debating as a council and as a city is to how we're going to consolidate if we choose to. We can kind of choose between implementing a municipal waste collection system where it would be more of a public model, or to create a district model where private hollers would enter a bidding process and the bitter that was selected would be able to collect from whatever district that they were bidding on exclusively. So that's kind of somewhat how we have our current system. So we see a lot of those bigger companies bigger names going around our city. So what consolidation would do on the municipal level would implement things more at a, at a city level and make it more of a, it would be a city entity, like our, how our water department is and how, you know, so it's like we would own it, and it kind of keeps the assets here and yes it would be a bit of a financial lift in the beginning but long term and even medium term there's a lot of payback there and essentially making it a lot of dollars and I think that there's, you know, there's benefits to both sides, and we are weighing those options, but definitely reach out with any questions about any, any type of system. Because this is something that we do want as much input as possible on, because it will impact every single person whether there's an opt out method or not. This is a decision that people will be looking at at some point so we are taking this up on, I believe the meeting of our one of the 27th, which is the last meeting of this month, most likely it will be on the agenda for then. And so, yeah definitely reach out if you have any questions between now and then I'll also be posting more information as I learn it between now and then to. But yeah it's a it is about trash but it's a big deal, and it's, it's kind of exciting because change is coming. Hopefully no matter what and it will be good no matter what because it's a long term plan and there's going to be a lot of input. And whether we go with the hybrid model or the municipal model consolidation seems like a really good option for Burlington. That's all I have for bigger updates. So I'll kick on over to whoever wants to take it next. Thanks. Zariah you want to go where you want me to jump in. I'll let you go first. Okay. Great thanks Jane so. Yeah, another, another big action that we took at our last meeting and continue to grapple with and I know. I'm not going to get to but is around policing and staffing levels at our last meeting, we had a resolution to increase staffing at BPD. It ended up getting divided the question was divided into two questions and we, the council was split how to split vote on raising the sworn officer cap so that failed that aspect failed. So we did approve two additional community service liaison roles and those are not sworn officers but they are full time positions at BPD that deal with a lot of, you know chronic issues around a surrounding homelessness surrounding addiction and substance use mental health. They require a high level of service and who interact a lot with BPD and these roles would be trained specifically to respond to and try to provide resources for for those folks. And I know that I think there was just a story today or yesterday and WCA acts that those roles are now being hired we had approved a few of them way back in, I think, March as well. We just added two more. And I'll let Zariah talk a little bit more about other public safety stuff that's going on but she wasn't at our last meeting where we took that vote so wanted to touch on that. So we haven't had a meeting since August 9 was our last meeting, but we're meeting again on Monday and we're going to get back into meeting every two weeks it's going to be really busy, especially with the fact that we are going to have this special, you know city election in November that Martha alluded to. So we're going to have we'll be voting on this sustainable infrastructure bond that you all just heard about whether or not to place that on the ballot. For November there's also a proposal from Burlington Electric Department, which would allow them to basically seek out seek out money so that they could do a lot of their infrastructure investments and net net zero related investments upfront without having to put as much pressure on rates. So it would be it's kind of a financing bridge, but they need voter approval to be able to go out and get that money so I think both of those are really key for the city for our infrastructure and for our net zero goals and we'll be voting whether or not to put those on the November ballot. So today I'm bringing a resolution on Monday regarding legal resident voting. That's what I'm choosing to call it it's been called non citizen voting it's been called all resident voting but Burlington, the city council has passed this a couple of times. So I'm going to put it on the ballot I think in 2015 or 2014. And I'm looking to place it on the ballot for for March so I'll be. This is just the first step in that process but I'll be introducing that resolution on Monday. Another, another item that I'm bringing on Monday has to do with the regulations for new development. We had in the presentation that we just had around this new development on Main Street. They mentioned the presenter mentioned the parking requirements that was in reference to change that we made last year. That was related to that but basically shifting what we require of new developments away from just requiring parking lots and towards requiring sustainable transportation for for new developments that was something we started in on last year with the change. Yeah, Duncan I think you mentioned it, but it was only for downtown and along transit corridors, and I'm bringing forward a proposal to expand that throughout the city. I think those were the main items that I that I was going to cover so I'll pass it off to Zariah and then if there's questions or if I think of something else, I'll maybe grab it back. Like Jack mentioned I haven't, I wasn't at the last city council meeting and I've been out of state for a bit so I don't have as many updates I will say the CNA report I think it's supposed to come out today tonight so I haven't seen it yet, and I assume they're probably working right up until the deadline so but we should have it. By the end of this week which is pretty exciting I know that some of us, including me we're a little disappointed with Salisa and then the college Watson reports I think it'll be good to get kind of a good report. It'll be a really good report to help us make some decisions going forward. The only other thing to mention is there's an emergency city council meeting I think is the formal name for it, but it's been scheduled for a while. Regarding the airport director, which I think folks may have seen there's been some news articles about it. And so there will be a kind of a unique city council meeting where there'll be much more of a presentation from to legal councils but the city has an outside council and then Jean Richards has an outside council. There will be a vote on termination or not and it's definitely just a tough kind of issue because it's clear that there have been leadership issues but they also I don't think have been elevated in the way that you might expect that there should be so I think there's both kind of personal issues but also highlighting some structural issues with how things get reported up the chain so. We're going to have that meeting tomorrow but that's kind of the one thing that's happening before we go back into a regular city council schedule. And that is it from updates from me. I'll just note one other thing too there's not a proposal on the table yet but obviously the reappraisal has been a huge issue on people's minds and the council didn't, you know we didn't play a role in that. In the recent reappraisal we didn't have formal decision making over how that took place but some counselors, including the three of us here are looking into not only ways to make that process better in the future and try to be proactive about it. I think that we don't have a repeat of what we've just all experienced but also seeing if there's ways that we could better provide relief for for folks who've been hit hard, and in general who are hit hard by property taxes who are struggling really so it's a very difficult issue but some of us have been putting our heads together and trying to come up with some solutions so just wanted to make you all aware of that and it's possible that we'll try to bring something forward at an upcoming council meeting. And in checks as some of us I think it's been especially helpful. There was, it sounds like a meeting between Joe who was recently elected and was on the tax board and then some other folks in the community. And I think Jane joined as well to kind of brainstorm some solutions so. Not just us as counselors brainstorming but I think there's been some community effort around finding, finding some solution. Definitely and one of the ideas that we've discussed is specifically to try to get more community input on this and on how we move forward. Does anyone have any questions for the counselors. And I see you have your hand raised. Yeah, a couple of real quick ones. First of all, seeing as it's the next one thing on the agenda or your agenda is, is there any sense that Gene Richards behavior is worse than the mayor's behavior. In front of planning commission and city council and coercion and menacing behavior from about five or six years ago when we were discussing city place. Just leave that on the table because his behavior was awful. He is saying you spoke well about the consolidation of trash for one of the better word. And I got some ideas on that but not for now but I've often felt that Chittenden County is poorly served by selling so many different municipalities competing against each other. So have you, what are you doing to engage Chittenden County solid waste, so that we have a county wide solution rather than just Burlington going out alone. You could also reference that as well to Jack's comments about social workers. Sure. Yeah, no, that's that's a great, great point. Well, the other thing just to interject is, is we're paying for social workers basically for people who are from out of Burlington, and I just leave that on the table that's a country by problem is just deposited in Burlington streets but it's a country by problem. Anyway, Yeah, I mean, in a lot of my research, especially since I became a counselor I realized that a lot of the issues I see in Burlington I see in a lot of towns and cities across Chittenden County and in Vermont we see a lot of parallels so that that's that's a larger fish to fry in terms of municipal waste. But it's definitely that that you bring up a really good point because you know a lot of these hollers there, you know they're driving through these, these other towns to and they serve a lot of the other towns so that's any thematic issues we're seeing here, I'm sure other people are seeing other places and and there's, I mean there's so many reports of that to statistics on that, but in terms of our influence as you know city in you know in Chittenden County has helped to, you know, move the needle forward in some way that's good and different to help kind of inspire these other municipalities to maybe move in the same direction. That's the only answer I really have to the Chittenden County wide issue to on that point for right now but you bring up a really valid concern and something that is a, you know, it's a very, it's very real, and there are very real solutions that's just, you know, one counselor. Just to comment on the scale is all I was thinking. Yeah, no absolutely and I think that that's really good to think about and hopefully, you know, our representatives and, and such can be engaged on on this topic as well. And, and some of them are actually but in terms of implementation. I don't know what that timeline would look like and what changes, you know, we still have to figure out our own situation first I guess. But yeah, thank you for bringing that out. Thanks. Are there any final questions. Oh, can I say one more thing. Yeah, and then John. Well there's another question so I'll hold on. Okay, Jonathan. Good question. Welcome back to Ryan. And when do you expect the public to be able to see the CNA report. I'm sorry I didn't catch that. When do you think the public will be able to see the CNA report. It should be. I think that I don't think anybody has it yet. And then so I don't want to promise anything on if they're going to deliver by tonight but I know that next week. They're supposed to be kind of meeting. Sharing it with I want to say, maybe the public safety committee. Sorry, I've been skipping my email so quickly that I'm don't want to misinform anyone. And I assume that it'll be public after that. So I would assume by latest next week. And then Jack, do you want to make final comments? Yeah, I just didn't want to I remember. I remembered that Richard earlier had raised the point about crime and the statistics because I had posted the front porch forum, just sharing statistics from a recent BPD presentation to the police commission and yeah, those, those aren't meant to be like this, these statistics are everything and you know they reflect what's going on in every community and they're the definitive, you know, they're there, they're the sole source of what's going on in the city. So it wasn't meant to be that it was just meant to provide that high level data in terms of city wide crime that BPD is aware of so I think it's definitely one of the best sources maybe the best source of data that we have for the city as a whole regarding crime but it's it doesn't encompass everything that happens in every neighborhood or the trends don't reflect what's happening on every street. There's a lot that BPD doesn't necessarily capture in their data so just wanted to clarify that. So it's in front porch forum. Okay, any final questions. Okay, so doesn't look like our school commissioners showed up so we're just going to skip over that. Thank you all for coming tonight. It was a great meeting, and we'll see you next month. Thank you. Thanks everyone. Thank you.