 Good evening. I don't want to stop you from Sharing thoughts and ideas with friends and neighbors with the artist with the three Departments of the city that are here tonight. I just want to let you know what the timed agenda is for the evening So right now we're in the midst of a 20 minute. You don't have to sit down You have some time left to grab some snacks to chat with your neighbors to talk with representatives from Burlington Parks and Recreation from REIB Racial Equity Inclusion and Belonging and Burlington City Arts So, you know and at 520 we're going to open up the mic the questions that you would like to ask tonight make sure you fill out a card at the table in the back on your left and Your name will be called and you can come up to this microphone a little bit later And we have basically about 45 minutes for questions and at 520 Kim Carson the new director of REIB is going to do a little introduction right before open mic and then at the end of the evening a wrap-up and Next steps. Okay, we're going to try to be true to our hour and a half Thank you so much for coming out tonight and being willing to be part of a community dialogue that sometimes is not an easy one But this is a wonderful neighborhood a wonderful community and we're here to listen tonight So enjoy yourself. There's hot cider and wonderful treats in the back and we'll be back in a few minutes Okay, let's introduce everyone. Okay. I'm sorry. I didn't do that for myself but with the other team members come up and I chew You're here. Wait, wait, wait I'm so excited I have been thinking about you for years And you don't know who is thinking about you what my design for you guys I have been doing deep research and look at your farmer markets and look all the students in the integrates Academy Beautiful beautiful community and the audience inspired by you by the community and by the students and I'm so happy I'm here Have a pause on my design process and give space and give time and listen to all of you And now I will bring all your thoughts with me and come home and I will Creating with you in my mind. Thank you so much It's okay, we're just gonna we're just part of the community. I'm Doreen Kraft. I'm the director of Burlington City Arts Sorry, I'm Kim Carson the director of the REIB race equity inclusion in the belonging office Good evening, and I'm Cindy White. I'm your director for parks recreation and waterfront Hopefully for those of you who have come in a few minutes ago Make sure that you take some time to go back and look at the 3d modeling that we did that was requested at the last public meeting So that you could look at the scale and appropriateness That's in the back of the room on the table right under the basketball hoop Okay, thanks so much be back in just a few minutes Good evening Can I have everyone's attention move this to the front so we can start the meeting? I want to make sure we give everybody time that would like to speak to speak Good evening and welcome again. My name is Kim Carson. I'm the again the director of the REIB I'm here to talk a little bit about the project, but also introduce myself This is the first time I've been in my official capacity at a meeting so Really excited to be here It's interesting because this is my neighborhood as well So I just moved into this area and I picked this area to move in I could have pretty much picked anywhere and I really love this neighborhood as well as the school My son is a student at this school And so I'm really excited about hearing everyone's voice and what they think about this project and how we can move forward collect lives community I know there's a lot of Tension and and people have different thoughts and opinions about this But I really asked tonight that we all lean in curiosity Understanding that everybody's right, but nobody's totally right right and there's a lot of different voices and opinions at the table And so what we want to do is really acknowledge and listen And so one of the things I would like to do is kind of acknowledge some people in the room That were a part of the process some may already left in my can everyone hear me In my research, I'm very new in this position. So I walked into this project I first walked into it at the MPA as just a resident who was trying to get to know my neighborhood and As I was sitting there I learned about what was going on and so one of the things I wanted to do was take a pause as the director Do a little bit of research about how the process happened Who was at the table? What voices were heard and what that looked like? So if you look back on one of the easels back there says do we park selection process? I think one of the Things that my office didn't do well at that time was explain what that process is I Did some research to figure out what that looked like because I was new myself And so the selection process is what you see there Who was at the table for the selection process was heavily? Bipoc people from this community. Okay, and so it may not have been the usual players I'm from my gathering what I understand But they were from this community who actually not only came up with some of the criteria But as well as on the selection process for the artist, okay? So I want to kind of clarify some of those because we did get some of those questions from the beginning Next I do want to think a couple people so Councilman Bergman has been very integral in this process In making sure that things were the money and the funds that we needed to move forward with this process We're there so he was a part of this process and then I did meet recently Andrea Todd She was a part of this process as well on the parks Commission and so I want to give her a nod because she was really a part of this from the beginning and Kind of gave the legs to this when this was introduced and then next Ben Rogers who was also a part in two capacities He was a part of this as far as the market as well as he does work With park rex and is really helping us Move forward looking at green space conservation and making sure that we're honoring what we say we're honoring in two capacities and so I Really want to give a nod to him because he pushed us a little bit Nothing's wrong with being pushed a little bit right to come up with scalable models and to deliver on things that the community asked for so I really want to say thanks to Ben and then also there were a lot of school staff involved some that are still here some that are Not that were a part of the planning process as well. And then lastly R. I. B. Burlington's arts and park and red just for we don't do a lot of combined Conversations and talking and projects and this is one that we did The intent of this public art. I think is what's most important They embrace and belonging and so I'm actually going to bring a team member up Blame from my team from R. I. B. That was R. I. B. That was here I wasn't a part of the process at the beginning and what the catalyst for that and so I think it's a bit disingenuous for me to stand up here And tell you about something that I wasn't a part of so I'm going to pass it to Blaine and she's going to give some details about that Hi everyone. My name is Blaine and 10 say I work for the R. I. B. I want to speak to the point of this sculpture here is three things we want to remember we want to reflect we want to embrace And the most important thing kind of the the sculpture came out of the racial reckoning that happened in 2020 that I'm sure we all remember And what happened there is a lot of emotions came out and a lot of action came out and a lot of people were kind of We had a mirror up to society and we had to look at ourselves. So in the same way that 9 11 or the Holocaust we have to remember these incredible events or else we are doomed to repeat them. So what we're doing here with this sculpture is really giving ourselves an opportunity to reflect on everything that we learned And sometimes that's hard and sometimes embrace comes with a lot of change and adaptation and that's kind of why we're having this session here but I want to leave that out there for people to think about as we think about the significance that this sculpture could or couldn't have to you and why we're all here. So thank you. Thank you, Blaine. And then lastly I want to talk about the impact on education Blaine talked about a few things like we want to we want to kind of remember and never forget. We also want to educate and that's a big piece of the picking of the location. This is not just a school. This is a school that's an art based school art based school as well as a magnet school. And what's important about that is it's not just the kids that live in this community. It's also kids that come here from outside the community to get the opportunity that don't live in the one to be impacted by the one right. And so I think it's also important to maybe lean in and think with a little bit of curiosity about how a public art piece that's based in education can be supported. As I told you my son goes to the school and I'll leave you with this. We just came from Iowa, which is very diverse. Not really. Okay. And I didn't expect for him to come home on his first day and say this is the first time ever as a student. He's in fifth grade that he was actually the majority in his classroom. He has always been the only one. And to see kind of the smile on his face in the sense of belonging when he said these are my people kind of a quirky art based kind of kid. And so unbeknownst to us. This really fit him. He walks to school every day. He's very excited. And so I took him to the park to kind of tell him what was going on and what this may be. And he was very excited about that. And so I just want maybe to lean in a little bit to us and we'll lean into you. And I want to turn this over to you to hear your thoughts and your feelings so that we can go back and really think about this as we move forward in our process. Okay. So I will turn this over to I believe everyone filled out cards so that you guys can have time to speak. This is more of a listening session. So unless it's a direct question we can answer we really just want to hear with you and think about what we do moving forward. Thank you. So what she said was can the speakers make sure including me that you hold the mic up to your mouth and project because we have a few people online. So thank you. I think the question was about how long for graffiti. Well different parts of the city different times but this sculpture will be prepared with a special coding that's a graffiti coding so that you can remove graffiti from it. One of the things that we did with our display out back is show the tents for the farmers market to show that how they could fit around the art. And so the sense from us is that the farmers market will be able to coexist with the art. And we did have a member of the farmers market was part of the committee to help us assure and ensure that we took that into account. So we never put parameters around our search. There's always a search that goes out. It's only a question of marketing funds that are available and with the budget of the significance. We felt it was important within the community. I think there are many artists when there is a piece that is dedicated to racial equity and understanding a number of artists have stepped aside and would not have participated in that process. They let us know that. And so we knew from the beginning that our search would have to be wide. Second part of the question. We've electrified other public art sculptures in the city. This is something we discussed with B.D. I think Cindy's department probably had those conversations. It's going to be LED lights. It's going to cost about $10 a month. And that'll be something paid for by the project and going to be very soft. You can put a timer on it to turn it off at night. It is not to determine the number of hours it can be turned off at night. First I think when we looked at the pictures it did look completely out of scale. If you remember where it's being placed there actually was a tree there. And so if you put seating around a tree and have the tree it's roughly the same amount of space. I think unfortunately the original pictures that were put out really made it look completely out of scale. And so when you go back and look on the table when it's actually a two scale model you see how everything lays out. And that's our fault. For giving something that wasn't completely accurate to scale. Why this park was picked there was a multitude of reasons and that's what the board says back there. And BIPOC people from this community came up with the reason. The reasonings behind that. I think the other thing to think about is this is the only location that actually has an art academy across from this. And so it's not just about the current education but there also will be local artists that come in and residency and do different things with the school in relationship to this project. And so I think it's really important to understand this is not just the one off that there's really going to be a lot of education. And just kind of an anecdote I come from a stamp come from Iowa where we're really making significant efforts in that state to not educate people about anything to do with race. And it's very important that we do an intentional effort when we're doing this. And this is a way to engage young people who are our future about education specifically to race. And so as a parent of a child that had to fight within the school system in Iowa to even have education around anything race. This is a huge thing that I didn't expect to see. And so having across the school is very, very impactful. Also think about children that come here outside of the Old North Inn that also will impact this. I think it's really, really important. And that's just my personal take on the education piece of it. I think that's a little bit of a complicated question, especially from a person that's new to the city. I think I'm obligated as the race equity director to call out a few things. One of them, look to your left, look to your right. I don't see a lot of diverse voices in this room. When I did my research about the actual farmers market, I don't know how much. I couldn't get a solid answer about the diversity of that as well. So what I would say to you is it's not necessarily all aspects of it are not a done deal. The location, this is the place where the BIPOC people said would be the greatest impact for them. And I don't think it's a great idea to ignore those voices just because maybe they're not as loud or they couldn't come tonight or whatever that might be. I want to be careful about how I say what I say because I am new and I want to embrace this community as my own as well. But I think it's very important to look around at who's upset about this. My question to you, you're asking questions of us, is have you sat down with all of your BIPOC community members that live here and ask them their thoughts? There were people that were a part of this of across the board, not just Black, not just Pan-Asian, whatever that might look like, that said this is where they wanted it. And so I think when you think about it, do we have to pick a side or is it some compromise in the middle? And so I think that's something we're trying to get to here. So the location itself, it's not, it doesn't meet all the criteria. I think looking at some other aspects of the project we may be able to, I know we can look into it. Ma'am, I'm sorry, if you don't mind standing up just for the mic, just so people everywhere can hear. I just wanted to push back on the fact that you said look around and everybody here is white but that's not necessarily representative of who's really here. My children are BIPOC. I might present as older whites as female and that's probably true for a couple of other people here. No, I really appreciate that. And that's why I said I want to be very careful but perception becomes reality, right? And so as a person of color, I'm sitting here as a black woman, really trying to understand the why behind it so I can actually support my community and my official capacity as the director but also as someone that lives in the community because I'm torn, right? And I've met with quite a few people since I've been here exactly one week. And so I spent my time over the last week really delving into this because I don't want it on any level to be that this was something that was already done deal and we're just passifying you to because to be clear, all jokes aside, I could be putting my bed together. So I'm sleeping on the floor. So this matters. Does that make sense? Community matters where things happen matter. And so I want to hear on both sides what's going on and what's the best pathway forward. So I really appreciate you. From the neighborhood to work on in the group that chose the artwork. I cannot tell you just to be transparent how they were chosen because I wasn't here and I couldn't find the documents for that but I did try. And I know there were roughly, I want to say six people on that committee. Six people from the neighborhood. I believe six people on the selection process. So we don't have the documentation from the research that went on from the early part who went out into the community and spoke. It was members of the team who then worked for REIB. Some of them currently do not. And they worked with different trusted voices in the community, went to different settings, took people on walks through the different parks. But those names are not known and I also think I would not, given the setting, just say that. I would only use a number if we actually knew. Then after that happened, it went back to the parks department and REIB worked with the parks department to look through all of the parks. And the potential of each park and what their issues were and were they in a comprehensive planning process. The opportunities that we came with for this sculpture and looked through all of the parks that you can see on the chart in the back. Then there was a selection of which process, Andrea. The second phase is when the phase with choosing the artist. I don't know the answer to that. I don't. To be honest, Andrea, that really resides with the REIB and that information just isn't there. I looked as deep as I could. We made some phone calls. We really tried to get to the bottom of it. But I think people are aware in this community about the strikes that happened with the turnover in this position. And so we just don't have that information. I do know what I do know was the, there were some interns from REIB that went out and talked to trusted members from the BIPOC community for adults. And they went out and surveyed the parks and looked through and then they selected three locations. Those are the top three that you see. And then they went to the parks to hit additional criteria to make sure there wasn't extended barriers as we discussed on the posters. Sorry, people online. I'm sorry. I still was just wondering exactly how many people were on the art selection that were from this neighborhood. Colin, Colin, would you like to come and answer that question? Or Sarah, either one of you, whoever managed the process. Residents from this neighborhood, there's three of the six on the selection. I mean, the other three were. Why are people in the community engaged? Because the first time I heard about this and I paid a decent amount of information as I can for having a job and stuff. Because when it was told to me in the farmers market, this is what it's going to be and this is what's going to happen. So when we're the people that this community actually engaged in this project. Sophie, can you go to that timeline that has the, I think there's one printed out on the table. Can I ask a clarifying question for you? When you're saying the members of the community, when were they noticed and those kinds of things, because everybody's process is different. Do you mean when was it at public meetings or what specifically type of engagement are you referencing? We talked about actually closing off part of Spring Street and having more green space for doing part. That was, we had a meeting right here and that was engaged. It was spread around like all the surrounding streets because it affected all the surrounding streets. So I mean, it would have been nice to have that sort of engagement for something that's such a small intimate part. And so whether you did it that way or it was just, it was at one, you know, 10 minutes at one city council meeting that I didn't happen to see. You know, I'm just wondering when the engagement was and what capacity that engagement was. Looking at the notes here. So the, if you're looking at, so the, it was vetted at the parks commission meeting on September 14th, 2021. And then as you noted, city council ones, that was on May 23rd, 22 parks, arts and culture committee discussed it on September 28th, the 22. The project was discussed at the ward two and three NPA meetings on September 8th, much of that's supposed to be 22 or if that was 21, 21. So September 8th, 21 and then again in October and during the one farmers market, which I think many of you are familiar with on October 25th of this year. That's when we came to talk about the annex portion. Wow, this is a really small park. They don't know. We don't know what it's going to look like. And I expressly said it's really important that this has a big engagement with this community. So October, September 21st, 2021 was the first request for public engagement. Thank you. If you've already asked a question, please make sure you leave room for other folks before you. A teacher at the school, our teacher here, and I'm also a neighbor and living in this neighborhood. And I didn't hear about this the whole time, but I'm really excited about it and excited about the education piece. Our students do not use that park. We use the school really well. You can see some of the grasses worn down. How well they use it outside. The students really don't go to that park much even with the farmers market. So I'm excited for something fresh and new. It wasn't involved in every part of the process and I feel that's okay. My question is if we're going to do improvements and add art to that park, we're also going to paint. The part, you know, like give a fresh look to the paint and I'm just thinking about people interacting with something new in a sculpture and making sure it's not climbable. So when do the cut-outs start? That student or adult or a really tall person can get excited to climb it? I can answer the part. I can't answer the climbing factor. We'll talk to the artist a little bit on that one, but I think anybody can climb just about anything. We're kind of waiting at frame. But so as far as the rest of it, we're on a timeline from the park side to have it looking nice on the old spring steam portion. By the time that the art goes up, the goal is by Juneteenth is when it goes up. So we're looking at refreshing the artist paint there. So potential SAIL, SAIL type structures that would provide a little bit more shade. That down the line could be removed if the long-term vision does not include those. And then also doing improvements as far as the planters go to make that look a lot nicer there. And then we will engage with the process with DPW. One of the first things we need to do as far as for the long-term for that section to become a park is that we need to do a survey of it. We've done an initial look of it and there's a lot of water lines that run under there. It's a very complicated section. So we need to get the first survey done and then we'll work through that process. But there's no plans for that to revert back to a road. It's just a process that we would need to go through, but we're really working to get a really nice refresh. So it doesn't have this beautiful art on one side and then just kind of cracked old, very tired art on the other side. Hi. That was a wonderful question about the client or not. First of all, I want to thanks the teacher and the team of the teachers. They are incredible classes. I first was doing research and I see the quality of the students art is just astounding. I thought I want to bring my kids here. I have five kids, so children is so important that they are our future. So I really admire the teachers here and thank you for your support. And I can guarantee you, I will make sure that it's not climbable. I will make sure that at least three meters from the bottom up, three meters will be smooth texture in no way anybody can climb up. But they can see the birds, the light shining through the birds and onto the ground and onto your face. And the kids can trace picture of birds on the ground, on the seat, and they can become a part of the artwork. So they can know that in early age that we are a part of each other. We are like the light of birds. We can become light. So that is a wonderful educational tool that embraces everybody. And because the sculpture is transparent, so everybody can see through, still engaging each other. It's not like a place that blocks the view. You can see through it and the light can shine through it and they provide shade. And you can sit. So it's actually a wonderful functional sculpture for you to sit and for you to have shade and have community gathering. So it's like also an advertised point like, hey look we can meet in this embrace sculpture. So it gives you a wonderful focal point. You can come together to sit, to relax, and to look at children, play, and learning. The light of birds is representing who we truly are. We are part of each other. We are alike, more than we are not alike. And the connection that we have is the embrace and the belonging. And I think that will serve your community. And as a mother I can assure you it will bring smile to your children's face. And it will not occupy too much green space because it's a transparent design and the scale we will try to reduce to make everybody happy and serve everybody's needs. Thank you so much. I just wanted to say that the vision of the space and other folks from the parks department to come up with a really intentional plan to place such an important sculpture with such meaning. And so when I started thinking about that, I started thinking about what other needs does the park have. We are constantly looking for places where there is access to green space, especially here in the Old Mountain, where the green space is very limited. And I'm just wondering if there is a possibility for doing park to go through more of a comprehensive plan the way that Keasley Park or Oakledge Park received so that before we go ahead and place a sculpture, it can get the process it deserves to see how the community is going to interact with that space and how it's going to continue to interact with the space moving forward. I can go ahead and answer that one. I think one of the things you're familiar with with this comprehensive plan is a long extensive process. We're moving forward with the art in the park, but there will be a process as far as the rest of that space there. We need to figure out there's a lot of pavement over to the side, the end of Spring Street. I know some folks are very interested in it remaining a plaza, that that would be a nice place to envision. Could we have chairs and tables similar to what we have at City Hall Park so you could come over and enjoy a lunch in the park and not have to be sitting down on the grass? Is grass space really what you want there? Are kids really going to be playing at a ball, playing throwing catch when you're surrounded by streets? I don't know if that's really what, but that'll be what we'll go through with the Spring Street portion of that. What do we want to do with the rest of that space? So it will be a process that we'll be going through with that portion of it. I'm all good. Thank you very much, Ke. It's somewhat hard to answer. This was money that was already allocated, I believe, and was passed by the City Council. I come in on the back end of it. But a thought, I know we want to bring up budgets in time like this, but at the end of the day, is that the reason why we don't want to have a sculpture that is memorializing this? And so I want to honor the person's question, but I will tell you as a woman of color, that's hard to hear. That's really hard to hear. That we want to think about money in that moment that we would stop this particular project that has such significance and meaning to black people after what happened in 2020. That's just a hard one. I think the financial piece of it, we shouldn't wait. No more than we would wait on kids. We shouldn't wait. I know what that's talking about. It'll be a parallel process. As this process keeps moving forward for the art, we continue to move forward with on our side. Our goal is to get that survey done in 2023. And again, we're also, I guess there's sort of three paths, because there's the art we're working for, for the survey as far as for the Spring Street side, but we also have another parallel path of making sure that it's refreshed on the art and space so that when the art goes in, hopefully by Juneteenth, that side looks nice too. So there's almost like three paths going through there. My understanding as far as that is that a lot of it is because of what runs under there with the water lines and sewer lines that are under there. We don't want to put art where all of a sudden we're going to having to dig art up when a water lane breaks. We don't mind digging grass up or digging up some pavement, but we certainly don't want to undermine art. I believe we're reaching out to that individual. My understanding was if not, the plan was to be reaching out to that artist with that space. Oh, we have already reached out to that artist. I thought we'd, sorry, I feel unclear. My understanding is that we had reached out to the artist already around refurbishing that art. I looked her in because she had no idea that this was going on. And she reached out to the parks pre-pandemic to say my artwork is looking deteriorated. Do you want to do something? There was some back and forth and when her quote was given and when she was actually asked to, when a meeting was asked, there was just nothing that came back. We'll follow up there and we'll certainly apologize if she felt like that we dropped the ball. I know a lot of things once the pandemic hit definitely impacted, but I don't want to make the pandemic an excuse for communication. But we are very much planning on working with that artist. Each Doreen had a hold of Mike. I think it's multi-purpose. Since we had the last meeting, there were a lot of questions asked by the community. We tried to do the research to have answers about those questions. I think the first images that came out were deceiving and made people feel that the scale was inappropriate. And I thought it was really important that we do a two-scale so we could really look exactly at how this was going to fit within this public space. I think it was important to come into the community and to the school, very much engaging with the administration and with teachers to talk about the future because we were actually beginning that engagement discussion for future residency programs. So it was an opportunity to ask those questions. We also, and I hope this is really clear, when we were in touch with the artist, we asked if this could be put on pause before it goes to the foundry. So you understand we have a signed contract with an artist that this was going forward. And this is very unusual to ask someone to step back who is in the process where everything has been signed off by the city of Burlington and said, could you hold off before going to the foundry? Come, listen more. Look people in the eyes. Get a chance to hear. It's one thing to read a comment online. It's another thing to hear it in person. And we thought it was really important that I choose be with us tonight. And that pause meant that we paused. We paused. We said, okay, right now the sculpture is 20 feet high. It actually was commissioned for 24 feet high. And it was brought back to 20 feet. So what you're looking at tonight is a 20 foot model. And we're, okay, I hear you. And I think what we're looking at is there, what other are parts of this conversation that we should be listening to? It definitely, the part that is not open for discussion, and I want to be honest about that is this park. It was created for this park. This artist did her research, brought that into play in her creation of this piece. It is specifically done for this park. So when you look at it to scale with the tree, which is about 30 plus feet, 37 feet, and you see the difference between the tree and the model, you'll see the difference there of what it would look like in relationship to the tree because the tree is the largest thing there. Created by an architect. So to the best of our ability, this was absolutely one-tenth scale. The model then was taken to Generator and created. So, you know, to our absolute honest, this is, yeah, sorry. I have to be the one to apologize about the rendering. They are just artistically rendering, so they are exaggerating a little bit on scale. Look like 60 feet review. Just look at the sculpture because the embrace is powerful. It's so powerful, it makes you feel like overwhelming. But actually in reality, they are occupied much smaller space when we come to refining the design. We will be more accurate, and now we step back and we pause and we take your thoughts into our mind and design. So the scale will be exactly in proportion fitting the dual part. So please, forgive about the rendering. It is just an artistic exaggeration in a way to show you the power of the embrace. So it's about 20 feet, but that is the part that we are listening to you to see what we can do about the scaling and the size. The park itself is, it's going to be in the park. The conversation that we are having now is, where else can we look at making some adjustments listening to what you are saying? Does that make sense? I just want to also note too that from the base wise, we just got to make sure structurally that it sounds so that everything is protected. So we don't want to be shrinking things in too hard as far as concrete and such too. I feel like I want to answer that one for Kim or maybe we just don't answer that one as far as what this represents. It can be 60 feet tall for all I care. I just don't want to disrupt the farmer's market. So if there is still room for the farmer's market, even if that means, I mean, I don't know if there is room to even expand the farmer's market into the part where Adam's mural is. I don't know. Farmer's market does bring a diverse community together. One thing that the farmers do is that they grow vegetables that are needed by immigrant families in the neighborhood that they can't get at the grocery store. So it really does bring the neighborhood together. So to disrupt something that really brings a diverse group of people together and fulfills diverse needs for something that just celebrates their needs seems backwards. But if both can fit there, that's great. So I'll answer that. Yes. Unequivocally, yes. The whole point of this conversation and everything around it is to and why we developed the model was to demonstrate how the two could coexist. This is not an and or conversation. It's a both and conversation. And not just can the farmer's market be there, but one of my questions when I came on, my first question is, can it grow? And so that was one of the questions I asked as far as how could we support the growth of this market, not just as it exists now? So yes, they both can coexist at the same time. And that was a primary factor is that it did not take away from the market. In terms of also being a fan of the project around how it's acknowledged that the biggest difficulty I had was the how in terms of the process of communication. And I feel like it goes a long way when the partners can acknowledge what is being made. So I really appreciate that because it gives me more confidence that learning is happening as we go forward. I feel like as an employee of the city I also sometimes encounter a lot of criticism about lack of process. And you've listed that there were a lot of city sponsored processes and sometimes those don't reach everyday people. I feel like I'm fairly engaged, but I don't follow board docs and what's on the city council agenda. So I think that's a great way to go forward in a way. And admittedly the first time I heard about it was from Andrea's post on from porch form and I just want to acknowledge in terms of methods of this neighborhood from porch form is really accessible to a lot of people. It's not everything and I think REID is going to a lot of efforts to reach more. Hard to reach populations or people who are using different methods. So I appreciate that. And if I've learned one thing from this process is that it was sometimes if it's after the fact it creates the blow back is almost counter productive. But I just want to enumerate the many things that I do appreciate as somebody who used to live across the street from this park who sent my daughter to this school and was very engaged in this school. This is a really great hub for community meetings and so to encourage to use this again and again as a place to bring people together. And I really love public art. We don't have that many examples of it in the Old North then except for building murals. So I'm very excited about a sculpture and something that is an important public representation of remembering and reflecting. We don't have enough I think physical opportunities to talk about race and the murals that we have had that were not as like and ended up being not the opportunity that I would have hoped everybody loves was not the invitation to talk about race in a productive way in my view and so I feel like BCA has learned from that and I know that REIV continues to learn and then the last thing in terms of what I appreciate is the joining with the integrated arts academy and the mission here and bringing kids hopefully more into discussion and interaction with their community. So overall really thankful and just hope to continue to learn about different ways to engage the community earlier and earlier and thanks to Andrea for bringing it to our attention and bringing more community voices and my name is Stephen I'm the right of the corner of Elwood in spring I've lived there for 38 years and so I've seen a lot of transformations in the park and I think they've all been really good and when I first saw this one I love it, I love the sculpture I love the idea of public art I love the connection with the school I would echo a lot of what Jolie said and the only thing I wish I expected to see a big version of it right here I still have not seen a good representation of what it's going to look like the only image and I look at much much more and I think I saw the only image was a printed version in maybe 7 days or something so I'm still looking for a nice illustration of what it's going to look like and how big it's going to be I heard tonight it's going to be transparent so I'm not even sure what the material is when I saw it I loved it I'm disappointed if there's a reduction in size I think the bigger the better the more dramatic it would be so I'm really hoping there's not going to be a reduction of size if that's a scale model over there I think that's horrible it needs to be twice as big as that to me it was a beautiful representation of the theme that you're trying to express so I hope it's not going to be reduced I think the placement is important the image that I saw that's why I wanted to look more carefully tonight the image that I saw I personally am artistic and I didn't really like the base and I'm not sure exactly how the base works the design of the base works would be flowing so I was hoping there could be some input into the design tonight perhaps not but anyway I'm very much in favor of it I'm excited to see it go up it's the latest transformation of the park that I've witnessed in 38 years where I've lived right in that corner and I think we're moving in the right direction let's get Spring Street closed off next so let me just say that the artist would love to talk with you we're going to be around for a few minutes and she'd love to talk with you Hi my name is Colby I live on Elmwood Ave and that was a good segue for what I wanted to say because 10 years ago the community asked for Spring Street to be closed and the community presented a very clear map of what they envisioned for that which was essentially converting it expanding the green space in the existing doing park so that there was more green space more space for trees more space for shade so the city ended up closing that in 2014 the sign put up by the city in the park says that what they put up in 2014 says we're moving this short term parklet with planters and boulders just in the interim until we implement our longer term plan of converting it into park space and just a note on that back when they converted it they put out the chairs and tables and then about a month later those all disappeared so my my biggest concern is that I really don't see how you can have a park where you put in a sculpture and expect there to be any sort of design cohesion or any sort of complete sensible logical plan for the park when a big chunk of the park is completely unfinished and completely in flux it just to me it's just you're just asking for trouble to expect that you can put a sculpture in there when the whole space is completely unrealized and unfinished so I guess my question is can the sculpture can we finish the park as a unified space can we finish that and then look at it and say okay the park that the residents asked for 10 years ago over 10 years ago we finish that now what makes sense for this park thank you very much so I want to reflect a little bit and take a pause because there's two things coexisting here it's the park and community members wanting more green space and to expand the park which I fundamentally agree with when I walked over there and I drove over there the first time I saw the park I was like and then I took out my tape measure and I was like we could take this and they were like you can't take streets kill right because I was like you need to close this off and you can do this and so they've been obliging my energy about this park but the other piece is I think the whole foundation of embracing belonging and diversity equity and inclusion is it's a process and so I know as a former homeowner where I live and those kind of things you want everything to be complete right but part of embracing embracing, diversity and inclusion and belonging is it's a never ending process and so even with this park who knows what great things will come once this sculpture is there because now you have something that multiple departments are invested in my office is not going to be okay with just this sculpture as what it represents being there and then being dilapidated so there's another department that has funds that can support this happening and so I think that's part of the process is sometimes more eyes more people more attention to something can help spur on what maybe didn't happen for 10 years and so there's going to be more pressing of situations and issues in this area it's you know for it's not to be forgotten let's go back it's about remembering it's about embracing and it's about belonging and sometimes belonging is not comfortable it takes time and it's ugly to get there and maybe we're just in the ugly part right now and we're going to get to the beauty of the radical belonging as we get there the other thing I would caution especially when it comes to black spaces black art black things people people of color is we always want it to be done and I would say let us have our pause as well as members of this community to grow this space too alongside of you and so I think this is the first attempt that I've seen and you can educate me in Burlington with something like this and I really feel like it embodies this this space but it may take some time to develop and become the beautiful place that you want it to be but we can get there because I care about my neighbors whether they like me or not because that's just not my issue right now so what I'm thinking is yes it's a beautiful piece that you're doing beautiful things not black not about white it's not about any kind of color it's definitely about your longer definitely about trying to do the right thing for everybody so on that note I hope there's a huge lesson learned every agency's heart for those that are in a serious tight knit community like the one is because I don't hear much about the other I don't hear about East End I don't hear much about North End hear a whole I mean the new North End you hear a whole lot more going on here in the old North End community wise that's pretty hot too that's pretty important I don't even care a lot so I just want to make sure the right thing's going on I know my taxes will increase that's a given no matter what but that's what stops happening my only concern is as we as a community here in North also know how much damage is going to get done to anything that we do to improve this revenue electric box it's got seven taxons so much expressive artwork going on it's getting a little old and I feel bad for always saying that I'm already feeling bad for you ma'am I don't even want to hear about when you get in one of these things where you say oh my gosh it's destroyed kind of thing and then it hurts in the same token that these young folks that we are trying to impress are the ones doing it so we need to take a step back and think about that kind of stuff too in this process so it can stay there for 24 years for longer so if we can help it all together it doesn't work but I'm not asking much but we try to protect our community especially if you're going around a park that people live around they're going to fuck up and say hey we've got pay attention and that's what I wanted to do is just bring attention to it because I too want to do the right thing with everybody else so I don't see color at all I see male, female human being that's it, that's what I brought up thanks everyone I'm back, okay so before I talked about Amir I wanted to talk to everyone what I took notes on and what people said so that we catch it all and if we didn't catch anything please come to me at the end and I can make sure we write it down so we talked about graffiti and tagging the concerns around that bringing in a non-Brellington artist why that happened electrifying the park and what that means how much it costs the size of the sculpture how many people from the community were on the selection committee which is a really important question we talked about what it means for the students in the school and if they're going to use it or not and we had a teacher kind of share what that means as a teacher of the school we talked a little bit more about possible design modifications if that's on the table still and we also talked about what isn't still on the table and I know that's a hard conversation to have but we can there's some clarity there at least we talked about the farmers market what happens to it, who had input if it can still happen, if it can still grow after this is here we heard some people that were a fan but were mostly concerned about the process and we learned that front porch form for this community is one of the best ways to get information out there somebody said that they appreciated the physical opportunities to talk about race and that's what the whole sculpture is about and other people said that they still haven't seen the illustration of it and maybe that's something that we can get back to you on we heard that the bigger the better which is funny and seems to counteract the other ones but we're taking all of the opinions here about making it safe for the students and making sure that it's not climbable I think when the artist was speaking about it being transparent she was speaking to the holes in the design and not the physical kind of material that it's made out of so it still will be made out of steel stainless steel yeah you'll see a little bit from the design but it's meant to be walked through as well and maybe that's also what you're alluding to more comments about the farmers market this is one of the major points that we heard from here so and then somebody said that they appreciated the synergy with IAA and just you know IAA was a big part of this whole thing and will continue to be through its implementation and even afterwards as Director Carson said we talked about what the pavement around the park is what it means for the sculpture what the future of that means I'm sure there's more conversation that we can have about the future of this park, the streets around it what happens after the sculpture was made but somebody asked a great question of why didn't we do it the other way around why didn't we set up the park first and that's a good part of the conversation to have but to Director Carson's point as well this does give us new opportunity to bring some more attention to this small park that a lot of people kind of forget about or decide that they're not going to change or something so I think that we have some opportunities there we talked about spending money with all the inflation going on and the cost of everything why is the government spending money on this rather than other things that could help people kind of on the ground we talked about a good point I think that you made is we are celebrating diversity and maybe we're taking an opportunity to invite diversity into the community through the farmers market we talked about how the farmers market is going to be impacted and then the last thing is we just really talked about spring street and making sure that we can close this off next that is one of my major kind of takeaways from this and then the last thing is someone said that they appreciated another transformation of this park over the years it's taken many different forms and this is another one so with that I'll pass it back off to Dr. Carson so yes one I want to say thank you thank you guys for coming out thank you for being a part and thank you for sharing your voices even sometimes when you felt like they weren't going to be heard the other thing that we heard loud and clear was about process and part of my job is equity right and so learning from this there may not be a lot that changes with the location with this but what I did learn and got hot coming in on my first week of work was process matters and how we engage people and so one of the things that we did do as a team even though it was in retrospect is really think about what you said and how we're doing other things so I don't want you to think that this is just about the park this was a learning experience for me as well as a new resident to come in and realize and understand that how that each community may be needed to be engaged differently with forms and all of those kind of things so even though we're here talking about the park I want to also give a big gratitude to you all about being willing to be open and share and tell us what you need right and as adults we all know that sometimes we don't get always what we want right but we did learn a lot from this at least my office did and that will allow me to be better at my job when I come to the table and talk about things in other places and so I want you all to know that you have my office email we provided it for everyone please send information to us I do read them I don't just ignore them I actually do read them so I'm grateful and thankful for that and alright so hold on so we're just going to be working to update the website so that we answer some of the questions more deeply that were asked tonight the visuals yes we're going to make some changes um I choose probably going to have a lot of work when she goes home and she put a tremendous amount of work in before she came here so be patient with us on that um if there are other questions yes thank you I was hoping on the website um if you could provide voices of our neighbors who do support the monument and for whom it would be meaningful to have this monument here it would be really helpful for me to hear those voices and understand what it would mean to people thank you I'd just like to Cindy really request that the park let get more um input from the community because I know that everybody who goes to the farmers market wants a trash can I don't know that we necessarily want shade structures um I don't know what that process of input has been but as since you're asking what do we want as a community I don't think we've been asked what we want in that park let refresh and so if that could be stepped back and please ask us what we want um we we were at the farmers market but we will continue to seek that input but I just also want to say it's not the long term piece too right now we're looking at that refresh and the purpose of the shade structures is that we had heard people wanted shade um but we are designing them such that they can be removed and placed in another park if the long term decision is that you don't want to clarify about the material I want to clarify is the stainless steel and going to last for centuries it's like a Statue of Liberty you know it's about owner embrace and belonging that is going to stand test of time because they are meaningful they are standing uh representing our spirit that we all love we all belonging thank you so I just want to end on saying we'll do our best to get everything up on the website if you did not get to ask a question tonight or you have a further question just make sure you leave it at the back of the room or send it to REIB and they add the um yeah the email address is REIB at City of Burlington BTV right BTV so but also just leave your questions at the um back uh as well sorry right thank you very much for being here