 get the meeting going. So as I said before, we're picking up where we left off with our last meeting, which was the end of public forum. So we're going into our agenda again. And so the next item on the agenda before we get into the deliberative agenda was the climate emergency reports. So did anyone have a climate emergency report to offer? Okay, seeing none. I know we do have a big climate related item on the deliberative. So look forward to conversation on that. We already did take care of our consent agenda as there were a number of time sensitive items. I'm seeing, I don't know if the mayor is with us as of yet. He's on his way, President Tracy, but maybe we need to start with a different item other than the city council with mayor presiding. Okay, sure. Yeah, let's let's jump into the presentation from Laura. We lock our senior public works engineer, as well as Philip Peterson, our other associate public works engineer on University Place streetscape improvements, which is 6.01. And then we can dive into we can recess this meeting dive into the mayor presiding stuff and make those appointments and then come back into deliberative. So I think we have some there are. Yep, I see Laura on and Chapin as well. So I will let's kick this item off with a little bit of information from both of you. Thanks for being here. Great. Thank you, President Tracy. Appreciate the time tonight. I have with me city engineer Norm Baldwin, senior engineer Laura Wheelock, and also Lisa Kingsbury from UVM, maybe joining us as well. So thanks for making time, Council, for this presentation tonight. I am pleased to be advancing right here tonight with you a collaborative and pragmatic plan for the rehabilitation of University Place. I think it's fair to say that over the last several decades, this right of way in the city has been a source of disagreement between UVM and the city of Burlington. We've had disagreements around the vision for the corridor, the necessary improvements and who would pay for them. And lastly, how the ownership of the street and the stewardship responsibility would be set long term. In 2018, the city and UVM had an agreement regarding the capital plan for the city and UVM's participation in that. And in that agreement, it laid out a plan for the city and UVM to restart conversations about the future of University Place. Since then, our collaborative efforts really have created a sense of trust and confirmed a shared vision for that corridor. We share a vision that the corridor is safe for all users with a robust multimodal corridor, that it improves the public realm for the University community and for the larger Burlington community to enjoy. And lastly, and probably most importantly during these days, that it balances our shared vision with the financial reality that we all face. So we're going to cover three main topics tonight in the presentation, the planning process to date, the expected recommendation of a preferred alternative for the corridor, and talk about next week's schedule where we'll be coming to you with a request for a third amendment of that UVM city agreement. With that, I'm going to turn it over to Senior Engineer Laura Wheelock for the presentation. Thank you. Thank you, Chapin. Unfortunately, Philip was unable to be here, but he did help prepare this presentation and has been working diligently on the project along with Lisa Kingsbury from UVM. I do want to give a quick high-level overview of the agreement that the city has with UVM since there's some key points in there and selecting a preferred alternative is a really key item inside of that agreement. So when the agreement was crafted and signed back in 2018, it outlined two very specific concepts for University Place. A basic design, which is really limited to repaving, maybe a few sidewalk updates, curbs as necessary, but very limited. So really just paving and paint as a way to spruce up the street. It then also talked about an enhanced design, single enhanced design, that would look at trying to improve the storm water on the street, addressing the grade separations between the sidewalks and the pavement, the crosswalks, and other amenities as desired by UVM. The agreement also outlined some dates to be met by and some of the financial responsibilities. So the original agreement had a concept acceptance date of March 30th, 2020. That wasn't really feasible based on our procurement timeline and something we refer to as COVID. We've signed two amendments. The second one effectuated the end date of the project's concept phase to be December 31st, 2020. For reasons I'll describe a little later on, as Chapin mentioned, we're actually going to come back and look to amend that. The agreement also outlines some of the financial responsibilities. So the basic design, the pavement and paint would have been 100% city financial responsibility for both the design and the construction. The enhanced design has a funding split to help to accommodate the difference between the city's basic infrastructure maintenance and the university's desire to make this a place around their campus. So has outlined the first 130,000 is 100% city responsibility. The next million of costs would be split 50-50 between the city and the university and any costs above the previous two would be 100% UVM responsibility. So with that, I'll get into kind of the planning and the public process portion of the presentation. So our design consultants went through and collected a whole bunch of existing information on the street at a time when we were all during the stay-at-home order, collected the infrastructure that is on the street, crosswalks, grade changes, accessible spaces, transit, bike routes, as well as reviewing a traffic study that was done for this area by the University of Vermont. Some interesting notes from the traffic study. 65% of the traffic on the street is actually northbound. So to orientate, if you're not familiar with University Place, University Place runs north-south. North is up at the Colchester Ave and south is at Main Street's end. They also discovered that the intersection with University Place and Colchester Ave is a high crash location. And as I'll get into a little bit later, when we started looking at the concepts and consideration with the traffic study, we really wanted the opportunity to consider University Place as a one-way northbound to really unlock the ability to rebalance the right-of-way and the use of the road under either the basic or the enhanced concepts. And what this led to is we would need to really consider the improvements necessary at the intersection of Pearl Prospect and Colchester Ave. This intersection had a scoping study done and completed in 2014 with the City Council selecting alternative one, which is realigning South Prospect Street, better with North Prospect. Certainly some challenges there with some right-of-way and boundaries. And there's also some other interesting boundaries with Dewey. So mutual interest between both the University and DPW at some boundary adjustments here to be able to have University Place be one-way northbound. So as mentioned, our project kicked off right at the height of our stay at home. This challenged our consultants and our design team as well as UVM and City staff as to how do we observe behaviors on the street? How do we understand how people are using the street, where they're using the street, or maybe where they're not using the street? We put together a really robust online survey that allowed people to interactively work with a map that would indicate where they crossed the street, where they maybe didn't cross the street, which was really helpful. We got great responses from this survey. We found that a majority of the people using the street are walking or biking. Over 80% walking, almost 40% biking. The other 40% are using it as a cut through. The next other higher uses are vehicle parking and drop-off and campus shuttle. So what did people want to see? They wanted to see prioritization changed back to bikes and pads and shuttle uses. Better visibility for drivers to see the bikes and pads that are on the street. Improving the accessibility, widening sidewalks, considering removing parking and improving the character of the street. So that led our design team into thinking of the following principles. First and foremost, let's improve the safety of all the users on the street and the accessibility. Let's create a place to identify the street for the uses that already do exist. The connection to campus, the gatherings that exist, and the food truck use that's on the street. All while considering the historic context of the green and the adjacent UVM building frontage. Being with DPW, I can't forget about the operation side of a street. It's important that the shuttle that moves people there in high volume can still operate successfully. That our emergency vehicles that use that street on a daily basis to return back to the fire station as well as to access other parts of campus if they're called in is functional. Snow removal, key to be able to having a successful street, as well as there's a few driveways where pickup and deliveries need to be able to access on campus. And then last is reshaping the street for the majority of the users being bike and pad and transit. So here's the first concept. I know that the image is a little zoomed out and the next couple slides zoom in so you can see it but really want to focus the fact that this reorientates the number of crosswalks on the street. This is actually showing a one-way northbound as part of our basic design. It also has bike lanes which the detail will let you see and consideration for a consolidated food truck location and actually some short term on street parking. So looking at the southern end of the road we have Main Street over here. This is the end with the food trucks. So one-way northbound with separated buffered bike lanes, bi-directional separated bike lanes still have the sidewalk in its original location but restoring the green belt to be green and then really consolidating some of the crosswalks. On the northern end of the street providing the pickup and drop-off location but essentially all on street parking has been removed to be able to facilitate the bicycle infrastructure and to better improve the visibility end of the pedestrians that are crossing the street. We consulted with UVM. Lisa Kingsbury is also on the call and she can support this if you guys have any questions. The university does not need the on-street parking. That doesn't mean that we're not going to remove it without public process. We're still working with the DPW commission. We would do still the plate counts to ensure that we understand who's parking there, when they're parking there, maybe why they're parking there. But really the key to being able to unlock either of these concepts is removing the on-street parking which the immediate adjacent property doesn't need. So the cross-section of the street, this would be looking northbound so towards Colchester Ave. We have a single 11-foot traveling buffered bike lanes. This would be the southbound bike lane so a contraflow and then a northbound bike lane on the right-hand side also buffered. This image shows the existing curb lines. So again with the basic concept we're really repaving and repainting and striping the road. The existing sidewalk and then the green bell between the sidewalk and the street varies. So you can put the whole picture together in your head. Here is a rendering of a portion of the street with the bike lanes and repaving. To talk just a little bit about the costs, the estimated design cost, construction, inspection, and a little contingency would bring the basic concept up to around $500,000. Remembering the terms inside the agreement that this would be all city funds if this is the option selected. To go through the enhanced concept, the enhanced concept really lets you do just about anything that you think that the street needs to support the design principles and goals of the project. So under the enhanced concept we have new and wider sidewalks. So replace the sidewalk on the east side of the road and widen it to be 10 feet. This concept includes new sidewalk on the west side of the road in two sections to better consolidate and manage the numerous crossings that have existed out there for a while. It also provides a crossing plaza in the middle of the street where there's a very high density of crossings that exist. Crossings that are placed closer than 200 feet are not compliant with MUTCD and actually do create a lot of confusion and reduce the safety on the street. We will also be narrowing the road. So moving the curb line on the west side east to be able to make the street more of an appropriate width for the uses that we actually want on the street. This also unlocks the opportunity to create the sidewalk on the west side without impacting a majority of the trees over that are in the green. So to zoom in so that you guys can see the features a little bit better. This concept also proposes to realign some of the sidewalks that are on the UVM green, bringing them closer to Main Street to make people be more visible, narrowing the crossing, tightening the radiuses up to really slow traffic down as they are entering the street and change that balance back to being bicycles and pedestrians and to make it it be a slow street. We're also proposing to eliminate one of the cut-through paths that was not identified to be used during our public outreach. This could just be from the shift in the way that UVM's campus has evolved over the last few years that this is no longer a desire line. This concept also is able to facilitate bumped in food truck parking, bringing them immediately adjacent to the sidewalk and allowing for an unobstructed bicycle facility. The crossing plaza would be raised and so this would feel more like a curbless or a shared street type scenario. There's also a rendering showing what this is at the end of all these enhanced slides. The north end of the street, again this is just a concept. The design truly hasn't been done but the idea would be the sidewalk on the west side, consolidated crossings, wide inside walk, a pickup drop-off area, and again still the two-way bike lanes and one-way vehicle traffic to show the two examples of the cross sections. First noting the existing curb line, so again the shift of the curb line from the west side into the street to narrow the road, 10-foot center travel lane, two-foot buffers, four-foot bike lanes, wide end sidewalk, and then down at the crossing plaza again indicating you know the curbless condition which is really significant when it comes to accessibility and the through movement of reorientating the street to be pedestrian friendly. And so here is a rendering of what all of that looks like with the crossing plaza and the bike lanes and again removal of the on-street parking to really be able to facilitate this. This plaza type area also could be programmed periodically by UVM to really activate this location. So we have some approximate costs for this for design, construction, inspection, contingency. For everything that was shown there you know this is really kind of the what we think the top end it's a very conservative number at 1.3. Breaking that down you know it uses 100% of what the city's funding maximum would be in the agreement. It requires UVM put in at least basically 550,000 and then any contingency that the project would have would start hitting the cap. So I'll talk a little bit about the funding and finances later but you know this is feeling still a little bit rich given the climate and the economic times that we're in for both the city and for UVM. I do just want to touch on so when it comes to our public outreach you know we did the outreach in the beginning. We did outreach and public presentations for both of the basic and the enhanced. The enhance that had gone through public presentation was even a little bit more grand with some of their materials and ideas that could go in it but really in general everyone felt like there was no loser in this situation. The basic enhanced the basic concept was great it made a lot of improvements you know it got like a a beef from the general public's reaction. The enhanced concept got the but again there's really no loser when it came to which concept. Both are such dramatic improvements of the street and the right-of-way that either are going to make a significant improvement. So thinking about coming out of our public process which included going to you know the NPAs, the DPW Commission, the TUC, our own a standalone neighborhood meeting back to the TUC it became apparent that we needed something that was a little bit more affordable and you know UVM is feeling the same way. So what we're going to do is instead of asking for a preferred alternative selection tonight we're letting you know that we want to come back next week and ask for an amendment on our due date. It's important to do this from the terms that are inside of the agreement which I can get into and answer more questions if there's anything about that but really we're looking for an extension to be able to give us some time to do the following items. One would be to select the concept before July 15th 2021. Hopefully by then we'll have a better idea where the city's financials are and UVM will have an idea where their financials are. We do want to propose a cap on the project budget both from the city's maximum amount and UVM's contributions. We also want to create a memorandum of understanding about the Colchester Ave Pearl Prospect boundary adjustments and just so that you guys have an idea where this is headed. This is a map of the Pearl Prospect. Switching the orientation now so north is actually up. This is University Place over here, Colchester Ave, South Prospect, North Prospect, Pearl Street. The orange lines if you can see them and I'm sorry you know electronic presentations nowadays. A little more challenging to know how everyone's able to see this. The orange boundaries are existing right-of-ways. The red lines are the direction that we're leaning. So this red line over here is the approximate area that the city's going to need to be able to realign South Prospect with North Prospect and to make the intersection functional, higher functioning than what it is now to really support a one-way University Place. At the same point in time while we were reviewing these boundary lines, it was observed that the city's right-of-way cuts through Dewey Hall. And also then their property comes back out onto the city sidewalk. So the idea is to create an MOU to kind of adjust what's needed here. Playing with boundary lines does take a little bit more time and there was no way to do that inside of a week. So our schedule, we're here tonight December 14th giving presentation to Council of our concepts. Looking to come back next week for approval of amendment number three. Developing the MOU and getting the preferred concept accepted before July 15th. But then long term is moving the project through its design phase. Ultimately, our preferred staffs and the design team's selected recommended alternative is going to be using the enhanced concept. With that idea, you're changing line and grid of the road coming back through to Considia Council end of 2020 beginning of 2022, 2021, 2022 and then still, and then still if we can meet everything in this deadline possible June 2022 construction. So that's the absolute earliest. If not, you know, maybe we'd be till the summer of 2023. I think it's important in a climate where we're going to have a high volume of students out there to really do this during UVM's off months and not interrupt graduation. So that limits the construction season a little bit. So with that, I'm done talking and certainly happy to answer questions. Great. Thanks for that presentation. If we can go out of screen share mode, can open it up the floor. So and I see that we also have Lisa Kingsbury from UVM with us. Lisa, did you have anything you'd like to add before we go to questions? I think Laura's done a great job of showing the project. I'll just add and echo her comments and Chapin's comments from the beginning that I think this has been a great project to work together on. I think that it's been a very successful collaboration working with the city and UVM and getting a lot of public process and input as we move forward. And we're really happy with how this first phase of the design has gone. All right. Great. Well, thanks for being with us tonight. Are there questions from counselors? Councilor Hightower. Yeah. And thanks for the presentation. I realize how much work goes into this stuff before it even comes before us. So I appreciate you all. I actually just missed because it looks like the presentation that we have is just a little bit different. So I wanted to make sure if you could go back to the basic concept cost slide, just like write those numbers down before. It may be easier instead of switching back and forth. So the basic concept. Yeah. So it has 140,000 for the design, 290 for construction, 15 for inspection and 50 for contingency. I had a typo in that in that the construction cost estimate that we had from our design consultant included contingency and I had forgotten to back that out in the version that you guys had. Also in the version that you guys had, you know, we were proposing a preferred alternative and in the last week, you know, discussions with UVM, we've really rethought our position and just are going to request more time first. Okay. And then just a follow up question for my own understanding is the max for the city and whatnot is just for the design, not for the construction? No, the total depending on whether it's in the basic or the enhanced. The basic, we could screw it up and spend way more. But in theory, it's meant to be the least cost alternative for the enhanced, the city maximum in the current agreement is 630,000. Okay. I see. Thank you. And I'll resend this presentation to Lori so that she can upload the final version. I'm also going to be able to post it on the project's website. So if you need to review it again. Councillor Pine. Thank you. That presentation was was really excellent. And I wanted to just pose a couple of sort of higher level questions about our are we required to go ahead with this project? Is there an obligation that we're under? So inside the existing agreement, there's language. If the two parties do not come to a conclusive alternative of the same design, the city is required to pay the funds to UVM one month past the deadline for selection in full for 630. There's also then terms in there about if UVM then does X, Y and Z, what percentage may or may not get returned to the city. It's really specific. So we are essentially locked into doing a project. Is that right? Yes. The way that it words it and works out is that it gives the university the first opportunity to continue on and create an enhanced street. If for some reason that ends up falling through, they do have a repayment option and then the city is still obligated to essentially repaint the street. If I may, if you could explain the, yeah, go ahead. To context for this is that the city and the university back in 2018 were working on the city's sustainable infrastructure plan. And the university agreed to make payments that allowed the city to borrow significant funds to improve our infrastructure in return for certain agreements. And one of the agreements was that after decades of disagreeing about the future of university places that we would work as partners to resolve that. And that's what this language in the agreement really spells out. Thank you. And I do ask, you know, with all due respect that we have sidewalks that need replacement throughout our city. And we hear that nonstop. So I'm just, I'm just trying to prioritize limited dollars to ensure that we are, you know, serving the broadest number of people. And that's my concern is that I know there's a large population served, but I'm worried about prioritizing those folks who are using the street over neighborhoods where we have infrastructure that also needs attention. And even though we've made progress, when you walk in neighborhoods and you see the condition of our sidewalks, we still have a long way to go. And so I'm just, I'm just grappling with that. Honestly, I'm just, I'm really struggling with that as a prior prioritization of resources. That's all. I appreciate that. And then the key piece is that it's the university's support financially that enabled the city to make an additional $6 million of investment in the city's capital plan through their contributions. So part of the return is that we contribute up to $630,000 maximum contribution on this one street. So the net benefit to the city of over $5 million of money that we were able to invest in sidewalks and paving in our buildings was a net benefit to the city. Okay, thanks a lot. That's helpful. It may also be helpful to consider that when the agreement was signed between UVM and the city that this university place was already in poor shape for its pavement condition, it's not improved over the last few years. And so that is one of the reasons why there's a basic concept with 100% city contribution is because we knew we would need to be repaving the road inside of five years. So it's not a new cost. And it was considered as part of the sustainable infrastructure plan that that street would need to be repaved. I just have to add, Mr. President, that there was a discussion at one point of just saying to the university, you can have it. It's yours now. So that was another idea. And that's a lot less expensive to the taxpayers. So I just want to be clear that that was once on the table. Yeah. Thank you, Councillor Pine. Councillor Chang. Thank you, President Tracy. And thank you, Laura, Lisa, Chappan for being here. My question is specific to the following. Do you have another model of redoing this project that is less than 1.3 million? Have you looked into another model? Not at this time. With how specific the agreement language is, we really tried to focus on a basic and an enhanced. We've talked over the last few weeks about ways to reduce the cost even further. The original enhanced concept could include the sky. Lighting, elaborate places, materials, so on and so forth. But thinking about the world that we're currently living in, trying to just make and improve basic services on the street in a thoughtful way. I think that there's still a way to engineer that down a little bit, but I don't know that we're going to get hundreds of thousands off this cost. Absolutely. Okay. So based on your presentation also, it seems now the food trucks are being concentrated in only one area, and they will no longer be throughout that street. Is that you understand? That is correct. Okay. And now with this design, how many food trucks do you think the food truck space can hold, can accept? It's being designed for five. That's what's being shown on the street. They're longer spaces, so they can accommodate five trucks, bumper to bumper. In looking at the use on the street, there's really only four, maybe five that consistently occupy those spaces when they choose to show up. So the thought was that this would be still keeping the food truck spaces, but repurposing the use down to what's really being used. Food trucks, we're part of our specific outreach too, and they liked the designs. Yeah. And why didn't you put them more in the center where the crossing area is, and why is it more south? So the thought was, and this is part of the collaboration with UVM's planning, and maybe Lisa can speak to it, that the ability to make the food trucks be a place and tie it into more morals, circular driveway, and kind of be able to create an event out of that location if it's consolidated was the thought behind that concept. Okay. Sorry, can I just add one thing? In the public outreach, and I'll say in my own use of the street, one of the safety issues that came up over and over is that trying to cross university place in between trucks and cars feels unsafe because cars don't see you very well. So to have them away from that larger crossing plaza seems like a safer alternative. I like it. I mean, I think I like the concept as it is, because I was just wondering why it's more south other than north. And my last question is specific to greenhounds. I remember they used to have a backstop, a bus stop almost at the intersection with sculptures. Is that still the case? No, that bus pickup has been moved to Pearl Street, I believe, but they no longer pick up right on university place. We did design the pickup and drop off to be a minimum of three spaces, thinking about if we do need to get an event tour bus or some larger bus in there, three spaces is the appropriate amount and it wouldn't obstruct the bus or the bike lanes. I'm so sorry for saying last question, but my last question again is this one. It seems after the 1.3 million, if there are all the contingencies, UBM will pick them up and that's part of the agreement inside of the city because things come up sometimes. Correct. That's the way our current agreement terms are written. But we are thinking that we'd like to put a cap on it and really we'd like to get our total project cost down to being the 1.13. So it's 630,000 from the city of Burlington and 547 from UBM as a maximum contribution for this project and maybe even lower. Yeah, I mean for everyone also to understand that for a project that was voted on I think 2014 and it's still not realized yet. Things take time and other things that I just know. Thank you again. Thank you. Any other? Councilor Mason, go ahead. Thank you President Tracy. My question, Laura, is sort of, could you speak to the utility of the sidewalk that's proposed for the, let's see, the west side of University Street? Yeah, so the sidewalk that's being proposed on the west side is a five foot wide sidewalk, maybe six foot wide with a small green belt. It's essentially to help collect all of the various diagonal walkways that come across the green to give people the ability to walk north south on that side of the street and hit a crosswalk that really best desires where they are going on the opposite side. Right now there are more than 12 crosswalks on that street and it really doesn't allow drivers to understand where people are actually going to cross and you almost get numb to the number of crossings. So the idea behind a sidewalk is to collect people on the west side and allow them to move on the west side to get to where they need to cross and limit the number of crossings on the street. I'm a little bit with Councilor Pine struggling, you know, seeing sidewalks on both sides of the streets when we all have streets in our neighborhood where there are no sidewalks and there are very young children who are walking on the street. I wouldn't have expected that explanation that provides a little, I was trying to figure out, you know, you literally have beautiful new sidewalks on both sides of the street but I did not appreciate the safety aspect of the proposed design. I still have my concerns but I'm a little more sympathetic than I was three minutes ago. Thank you. Thank you. Any further questions from Councilors? Councilor Hightower, go ahead. If I can ask one more. You said at the end that your team's preferred way forward was the enhanced concept and I guess I'd like to hear a little bit more about why that is and then maybe also to hear from UVM how they feel about that especially given that we kind of, you know, are hearing in the news staffing shortages and not shortages but layoffs and cuts. Yep. So when presenting both concepts through our public phase, I think one of the loudest things that we heard about what the basic design lacks is people would call it the lack of crosswalks but basically we're putting in only a number of crosswalks that actually are meeting federal code for distance and so there ends up being a lot of walkways at the edge of the green that just empty onto the street and legally we're not allowed to paint them and so that doesn't feel like a great safety improvement. Visibility will be greatly improved by the lack of vehicles on the street and so really thinking about the fact that while it's still a transformational change to really do what's needed to improve pedestrian safety we need to add the sidewalk on the west side which in order to do that and not impact the green we have to move the curb line and so you're talking about adding sidewalk and changing curb line on the street and you're really getting into what's defined as the enhanced concept whether we widen the sidewalk on the west side you know that could be a future phase and I think that's one of the things that we are loosely talking about and it may come back as part of an update to the agreement about future phases and whatnot to be able to make this a little bit more affordable but really fundamentally our recommendation is make the paving and curb line changes now go ahead Lisa. Sure um so I'll just add agreeing with Laura that we had we had a lot of spirited discussions about the basic concept and having walkways that went to nowhere and just spilled you out into the street as she said and whether or not that was safe um but that didn't meet painting those crosswalks didn't meet the safety standards and it wasn't an option for us to do that. Laura alluded to alluded to it before there was another um I'd say higher and more costly enhanced version that we looked at that had um you know a change of materials in that crossing plaza it had a whole area for seating um on the east side of the of that crossing plaza you know this concept doesn't include lighting there are a lot of things that originally we looked at and then pulled back on because the city and the university were concerned about the costs and I will say we we still are and Laura and I have had discussions about um trying to bring those costs down a little bit more but we do feel like this version gets us to where the road is the safest it can be. Great that's helpful I think I'm also a little bit with Councillor Pine you know just down the road we've got the turn to archibald which has no sidewalk at all and it's it's hard to justify such vast improvements when we look at so many other places in our city where there's no pedestrian safety um but I appreciate the do-it-wants-do-it-right argument as well so thanks. Okay uh Councillor Jang briefly yeah it will be very brief thank you um I think it was it's also important for all of us to remember that you know we have great wonderful places the waterfront is one of them chair street is one of them and to me UVM is part of it too because many people will come to the city they don't go to our streets and sidewalks but I think there is a way of selling the street the city you know by making UVM an area more beautiful. Now my question is about the process now from here it seems you're coming to Board of Finance next week for approval will you also need a consult approval again on top of that knowing that this is already an agreement that was signed on between the two entities. Yes thank you Councillor Jang uh this uh amendment the third amendment to the MOU will require Board of Finance and Council approval the same way that the original agreement between our two parties in 2018 was both approved by the City Council as well as the UVM trustees so you know we've come back to you every time that there's a substantive adjustment so that you're aware of uh and approving of the direction we're heading. Thank you. Okay anyone else again like to wrap this up given that we have a lot of other items? Okay we will be dealing with this again next week so thanks for the presentation and answering all these questions. We'll go ahead and close down that item and then go into we'll recess this meeting for just a second and go into Mayor Presiding and believe that we have Mayor Weinberger available here right now. There we go. Hey Mayor. Hello President Fuszi. Let me call to order the City Council Mayor presiding at 6.24 p.m. and the first item on the agenda is the agenda. I would welcome a motion for it. Okay Councillor Wong to make a move move the agenda. Thank you Councillor Powell. I'll make a motion to move the agenda. Seconded. Great seconded by Councillor Hightower. Any discussion of the agenda? All those in favor of the motion please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Just toggling between screens here next is the consent agenda. I would welcome a motion on the consent agenda. Councillor Stromberg. I move to adopt the consent agenda and take the actions indicated. Seconded by Councillor Hanson. Any discussion of the consent agenda? We'll go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. It's consent agenda is adopted. Okay this brings us now to three board and commission appointments. The first is for the design advisory board for a term expiring June 30th, 2021. The floor is open for nominations. Any councilor may like to make a nomination. Councillor Shannon. Councillor Shannon you're muted. I nominate Emily Morse. Okay excellent. Sorry we don't do seconds on the nominations. Are there any additional nominations? Are there any additional nominations? Seeing no, Councillors raise their hand for additional nominations. I'm going to close the floor to additional nominations. Is Emily Morse with us? We typically allow applicants to address the board if they would like. I believe she is. Emily you unmute yourself. I think you can give a short statement to the board. Hello welcome Emily. Hi thank you Mayor and thank you City Council. I don't really have a whole lot to say other than thank you for nominating me for this position. I am very excited about the opportunity to be on this board. I've had you know 10 years in the design build experience three locally in Burlington and the surrounding areas and have got in front of the board numerous times and it's something I find oddly fun and interesting. I think it's really important that we consider how our city grows and adapts to a growing and changing population starting with policy. You know I think a lot about how you know a really significant amount of our global carbon emissions comes from the building sector especially building materials and how we ask our citizens to you know make the right choices and use the right building materials and lower our carbon emissions but how that really all starts with good design and I think it's up to you know boards such as the design advisory board to really set the standard for what good design is and how we can change and shape the landscape of our city by dictating you know what is good design how do we preserve the good design of the past while moving forward and looking through the future of good design too so that is something that's really important to me and something I'm really passionate about it's always been you know what I've known I wanted to do in my life and I'm really excited to have the opportunity to do that on a city scale. Great thank you Emily thank you for your interest in serving on this board and for your statement okay any discussion about Emily's nomination by the council okay if there is no further discussion we will go to a vote and it will simply be approved do you approve of this nominee or not all those in favor of appointing Emily Morse to the design advisory board please say aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? Appears as unanimous decision and thank you congratulations Emily thank you for your interest local government runs on this type of volunteer energy and commitment and there is another appointment to the design advisory board now that we also need to make this is for the alternate position for a term expiring June 30th 2023 the floor excuse me the floor is open to nominations. Councillor Paul. Thank you Mr. Mayor I would place a nomination in the name of Kathleen Ryan for the alternate position on the design advisory board. Great thank you Councillor Paul are there any other nominations any other nominations seeing none we will close Kathy Ryan um with us uh President Tracy not that I'm seeing mayor okay um so then we will um open the nomination for council is there anyone who'd like to speak to the nomination? Councillor Paul. No no I apologize I thought we were going to skip the vote but we're not sorry. You will go straight to a vote now all those in favor of the nomination please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion carries unanimously thank you Kathy thank you for being willing to serve in this role if I'm not mistaken I believe Kathy previously served the city as a development review board member alternate for many years and has really uh done served this city very well for a long time so thank you Kathy for re-upping and now we will go to the final appointment for the evening from the city council with mayor presiding which is an appointment to the fire commission for a term expiring June 30th 2023 and um uh Councillor Jang the floor is open for nominations. Thank you Mr. Mayor I would like to nominate Monica Chapman for the fire commission. Excellent thank you are there any additional nominations that the uh board would look that the council would like to make seeing no other hands I see that Monica has turned on her camera excellent welcome Monica yes this is a an opportunity please address the council before they vote on uh if you could with a brief statement would be great. Thanks mayor thanks city council my name is Monica Chapman I'm property owner in ward seven I've been in the fire restoration field for 16 years and currently I'm a co co-owner of a construction company that deals with fires I also have board experience I'm the vice chair of remote works for women moving into the chair role in 2022 and serving on three of their committees I love being in Burlington and I have a boots on the ground experience with the fire departments and I think it could add a lot of value being involved with the city and directly with the fire departments thank you very much thank you Monica um is any discussion from the council about Monica's nomination seeing none we will we will go to a vote all those in favor of the appointment please say aye hi hi any opposed the motion carries unanimously you are unanimously appointed congratulations Monica thank you for being willing to serve in this way um uh and uh we look forward to working with you in this new way thanks for your your commitment with that president Tracy I believe we have completed the um the agenda for the city council of mayor presiding and without objection that body is adjourned at 6 33 p.m and I'll hand the gavel back over to you thank you for that mayor and we'll go back into our recessed city council agenda and we have just we had just completed item 6.01 which brings us to item 6.02 um which uh is a resolution with regards to just cause evictions charter change and this was an item that we um had paused sort of midstream a couple weeks ago um in terms of the debate we had had an amendment on the floor at the time that we um postponed it um and so we are still at that point because we had not voted on that amendment um that was taken at that time so we're still middle of that debate councilor I believe councilor hightower had introduced the amendment and we were on debating and discussing that amendment so that amendment is where we are in the discussion because the resolution had been introduced and then an amendment had been also put forward so got some interesting procedural things happening tonight folks and so I just appreciate you bearing with us we have another motion that was put on the table in February that we'll be pulling off so anyways um now that we're kind of oriented to where we are in the debate um and that we don't need an an opening motion on this because it's already been introduced and we already have an amendment on the floor I will go ahead and open the floor to to councilors councilor pine go ahead thank you mr president so if you could um uh help help me out here uh we have uh an amendment that is essentially an entirely new version I think is the way that described it and it is an amendment that our community development and neighborhood revitalization committee spent time um discussing and uh reaching consensus on so um what is the course of action that uh is called for here to bring that forward is that an amendment to the existing amendment is that how we should proceed yes that's how we should proceed and if it's a complete just uh completely new amendment or text you can certainly do a strike all and then move to replace it with whatever text you'd like councilor okay uh with that in mind and uh that we've had considerable discussion and debate up to this point what I would propose is that we do a strike all on the existing version that was forwarded to the council for from the charter change committee and instead adopt the version that the community development neighborhood revitalization committee has forwarded uh that is on board docs for tonight and to reference that properly I believe it is listed on the board docs as the amended resolution relating to march 2 2021 2021 annual city meeting just cause evictions charter change um and I would move some move okay thank you for that amendment uh councilor pine is there a number because I see two different versions um one with a number one and one that's just um that title that you read same one just has sorry point of information yeah go ahead councillor high tower I think there's the same one just has the change is tracked which I'm not sure will be relevant since it's now a pdf um the other one was okay all right perfect thank you for that clarification just want to make sure that we all are on referencing the same document so we have a motion from councillor pine is there a second to the amendment to the amendment councillor high tower seconds all right uh did you want the floor back councillor pine no I was just going to ask um for concurrence from uh city attorney blackwood that um that we there is one version that I I picked the first one I came to because and I looked at it and it looked like the revised cleaned up version but as councillor high tower said they're made there's also one there with track changes on it is that correct the the first one is um is what is the one that you should be focusing on that is the amended resolution that linda has prepared to be the official resolution thanks for that clarification uh that's all at this point thank you okay wonderful so we have an amendment to the amendment on the floor floor is open councillors councillor shannon um so we're amending the amendment which if we vote yes will replace the amendment as an amendment I guess we'll figure this out when we vote I think I get the gist of it and I'm going to leave the technicalities alone for the moment um so speaking to this amended language um what I see as a change is it now says such ordinance shall exclude from just cause the expiration of a rental agreement as sole grounds for termination of tenancy in addition to the exemptions in chapter 137 of title nine the ordinance shall exempt from some or all of its provisions subject to mitigation provisions properties such as but not limited to sublets and in-unit rentals be owner occupied duplexes and triplexes see those being withdrawn from the rental market and it continues um my question on first read I read it to mean that those were going to be exemptions from uh the the general criteria of just cause evictions including an exemption that um the end of a lease could end tenancy but on a closer read I don't believe that that's what it says and I believe that you could still pass an ordinance that included all of these listed groups and apply to them a criteria that says they may not end tenancy at the end of a lease I wanted to know if the city attorney can verify that that is a possibility under this language because the language references that they will be exempt from some or all of its provisions but the ordinance shall be exempt from some or all of its provisions and they're subject to mitigation provisions and they're listed as such as so I don't know that that is binding language either so if the city attorney can confirm or deny that these are actually excluded from from these provisions of the just cause definition they are not they are not sorry they are not excluded necessarily it it says in addition to the exemptions these shall shall uh the ordinance shall exempt them from some or all of its provisions um so they are they will be exempt from some um they aren't necessarily exempt from all the provisions of the requirement of just cause and it does not say which provisions they will be exempt from and not exempt and we don't know what the provisions of the ordinance are so we can't even venture a guess as to what they will be exempt from correct we might be able to guess but you're right you won't know for certain okay thank you I am not going to support this amendment because I think the amendment is more misleading to the public than the original language I don't believe there's an exemption here because the exemption while stated with the shall in the first case following that there is language that kind of undoes that and it isn't an exemption and I fear that the public will be misled by that so it won't be supporting this thank you councilor shannon I don't have anyone else in the queue council carpenter um the intent of this discussion was that those four categories the tickets for would be exempt from the expiration of a lease termination and so that was what we had agreed on I want to be sure that that in fact can be included can't uh attorney blackwood can you um I think well councilor pine were you looking were you looking to be recognized okay just after this that's okay okay all right council attorney blackwood go ahead so if I understand your question you're saying that the intent was to exclude those properties from the that just cause means the expiration of a rental agreement of sole grounds for termination of the tendency that is not what it says no they are not excluded from that necessarily they can be excluded from that we had a lot of discussion on that and I was taking at face value that those um four categories would be excluded from that one provision there are other provisions that they may or may not be excluded from but that one in particular um that was the intent I see councilor pine shaking his head so pan go ahead in addition councilor hightower and I both expressed the view that and I think we came to agreement on this as a committee that there may be additional protections such as a longer notice period or relocation expenses provided by the owner to the tenant who gets basically told at the end of your lease I'm going to now move my son or daughter or someone else into this unit that there's be certain protections it built in so that was the idea I think that was what we really discussed but I want to hear councilor hightower and councilor corroborate or tell me I'm wrong no that that is accurate um that they would um those categories of exemptions would be subject to mitigation um requirements as we develop them over the course of time so that was that was definitely agreed upon okay I have councilor pollino uh well attorney blackwood did you have something before that yeah yeah I think if that was the intent then we we should take out the words um from some or all of its provisions and say from this provision that actually wasn't I think was in a previous version and I think may have alluded us when we were talking about all of our maize and chow's and additions and so I I think that would could suffice um to get us where we want which is um this provision meaning the provision in the previous sentence which is the termination of the rental agreement okay so I have councilor pollino to be followed by a councilor hightower councilor pollino go ahead I was going to ask the exact question that Aline answered which is to clarify the language that she felt made it equivocal having heard her response would make a motion to amend councilor the amended version line 21 what would be a motion to strike so so councilor pollino I'm just going to stop you you can't we're on an amendment to the amendment you can't amend a third time so we have to take care of this and then you could make a further amendment after that I apologize for not clarifying that after uh council carpenter's question but you you'd have to hold off on making further amendments because you can't go three three three passed on amendments okay so I'll ask it in question for I thank you President Tracy so um this is to attorney blackwood if we struck line 21 the word from so the order shall exempt these properties which include and then the list so striking from the word in line 21 from to the end of limited to that would that correct the concern here would you say it would exempt these properties and the list attorney blackwood no not without more words if you're if you wanted to get rid of something and just say the the ordinance shall exempt these properties entirely from all of it then you could do what you're saying but I don't think that is what councilor carpenter is proposing and or or councilor pine is proposing that they want to leave those they don't want to exempt those properties from all the provisions of the ordinance they're saying that um it should be just exempted from the provision that just cause um shall exclude the expiration of a rental agreement yes thank you so except from just from the just cause provision specifically sounds like the portion of just cause that says that it does not include expiration of a rental agreement thank you I have councilor hi tardy followed by council carpenter um I don't have a lot to say I just wanted to clarify that there were a few changes both this paragraph um and some of the preceding things to the list the list itself um and a few um other ones including um defining I guess we added some shouts just throughout the thing um it's been a long time working on this since um I think June or July um and CDNR so it's been a lot of input a lot of input both from landlords and landlord advocacy groups as well as tenants and tenants advocacy groups um so I'm really excited to see this on the I'm really glad that we got to some consensus in CDNR which I did not think was possible at the beginning of this process um so I'm happy to see this amendment and we'll be voting yes on it thank you for that council carpenter and I too feel like councilor hi tower I am excited that we've gotten to um where we are and I believe this is honestly a really good compromise and is based on um provisions that are in many many communities um nationally um but kind of speaking specifically to this oversight and I want to re-clarify what attorney blackwood said and I think the correction would be the ordinance shall exempt from this provision meaning the provision of um termination of tenancy release expression and then continue on with a subject to mitigation provisions um these properties um but not limited to and so and I can write that out if we want I'm just perplexed about the process to how to get that sentence introduced but I believe that was the intent so how how does that happen so we would have to vote on this um amendment first council carpenter and then um we would be able to to entertain further amendments to the the amendment as amended so does that make sense so you have to we have to take a vote on this amendment first and then to and then to and then to further make further changes offer further amendments after that point okay and this is an amendment to the very original um language that came from the charter change committee yep and so what councillor pines motion was was to strike all of that amendment and replace it with this text that is on board docs and that was that's that first document on board docs but I guess I'm unclear are we striking the amendment that councillor hightower had originally introduced or are we striking that and the language from the um charter change committee so you're striking the entire motion the all the language that was initially proposed and then you're inserting this this entire language in it as the amendment in its place which would then change the original document that we that was initially introduced so point of information if I could yeah go ahead councillor pines the amendments that came in our last discussion a week ago that councillor hightower offered are being essentially replaced with that original wording as well and we have a whole the thing that we agreed on in committee is what we're voting on replacing those uh the previous version plus the amendments that were being discussed a week ago so we're starting new the this is our version to start with then amendments would come after that are you are you clear councillor carpenter I think so I just want to be sure that we're given the opportunity to correct this what appears to be an oversight and just trying to figure out how to do that I guess sure yeah so we can come back to that after we after we vote on this but by council rules we can't continue to make just endless amendments on amendment so we got to we got to take this one first is there anyone else who would like to speak to this amendment go ahead councillor shannon thank you as a procedural matter I just want to state that it's possible to vote no on this amendment and then introduce a new amendment with the preferred language so once we vote on this there's another opportunity to make a change yep yeah that's another way you could do it exactly yeah um councillor freeman okay anyone else on this amendment to the I should say amendment to the amendment um we ready to vote on this okay will the city clerk please call the roll on the amendment to the amendment councillor carpenter yes councillor jen yes councillor freeman yes councillor hanson yes councillor hightower yes councillor mason yes councillor paul yes councillor polino yes councillor pine yes councillor shannon no councillor strongberg yes city council president tracy yes levin eyes one day okay so the amendment to the amendment passes and we are back on to the amendment the amendment as amended um so now councillor councillors if you'd like to offer additional changes to what we just did this would be a time that you'd be able to do that councillor pine i was going to ask our uh very capable city attorney for language that would get us where we want to get here okay attorney blackwood are you able to provide some language that would let me give it a try okay online 21 um to delete um the so line 21 keep the word exempt keep the word from delete the words some or all of its provisions and replace those with the words this provision keep subject to mitigation provisions then delete properties such as and replace it with these properties i'm still working on it on the end of the sentence i think we would try it with just leaving the rest of the sentence okay so so attorney blackwood are you able to read the sentence as it would read the full sentence as it would read amended in addition to the exemptions in chapter 137 of title nine the ordinance shall exempt from these provisions subject to mitigation provisions these properties but not limited to sublets and in-unit rentals be owner occupied duplexes etc to the end okay so councillor pine does that you have the floor so all right i think these properties or the following properties would also work correct yes maybe a little cleaner just say the following because these gets into what's the these refer to i think the following makes it clear that it's it's about to be listed so i think yeah a little clearer um point of order yep yeah councillor shannon go ahead would it be possible to um have i'm having trouble following the words and i didn't know if it's possible to have it written as we're having this discussion and debate so we're to leave it on screen is that yeah that's fair um i think that would be helpful um is there attorney blackwood do you have the ability to share your screen or should well the promise i have to get a version that we can that i can write on first um so let me try to find that i'm also happy to do that okay council high tower if you could if you're able to do that that would be wonderful i will thanks thanks mr president for bearing with us this is a process that um requires us to it's it's not smooth and clean but it is just what we need to do so thank you very much yeah no problem we'll figure this out um so we just a second so that we can get this up because i don't want to just introduce and have a motion and then not have people know exactly what the motion says oh thank you so much council high tower really appreciate it president tracy point point of information sure go ahead councilor mason am i correct that there's not a motion on the floor we're waiting for the document up before councilor pines making this motion yeah councilor pine has the floor and before making the motion he wants to just be would like to make sure that we're able to see what the language change is um per council shannon's request so we're just getting that up and we'll be able to make the motion just so that everybody can see that motion did you have yeah may i just have the floor for a second to ask there but i don't want to have to go back and make an amendment but my to the maker of the motion i might look look at the language about these types of properties because with all due respect the sublease is not a type of property it's a lease agreement involving a parcel a sublease in an in-unit is different than triplex duplex so i don't know the right language but i don't think it's accurate to call a sublet of property okay thank you for that point of information um so we have it up um on the screen um comment to councilor mason it would it be properties with sublease as opposed to just sublease or can't councilor um attorney yeah i'm not i would defer to eileen or city attorney but i believe the intention is it doesn't apply to subleases as a you know which is regardless of whether that sublease is for a one unit apartment or an entire you know single family home okay um attorney blackwood yeah i i i think the construction that we ended up with was saying those properties um such as these uh yeah that is we do have to do a little bit more editing um councilor hightower i don't can can you edit the version you have up there yes i can okay because i i have the the actual resolution language um that we could put up as opposed to that document that you're working from which is not the actual resolution language and you want me to edit this instead yes because then then you can refer to line 21 okay all right so looks like we have this up um now councilor pine you have the floor um if you'd like to make the make a motion to amend oh i think we're still working on uh exact wording but um as city attorney blackwood suggested line 21 after the word from delete some or all of its present provisions instead say this provision comma subject to mitigation provisions and the next is was it was going to be the following types of properties but i think councilor mason pointed out that um that that is rather big terminology that doesn't accurately depict all of these situations because some of these are in fact contractual lease arrangements not types of properties i think you'd say and i would look to well so we could yeah we have to we we um i think what we would do is add if we say subject to mitigation provisions the following properties um and i haven't figured out what to do with the but not limited to that's that's a piece um a properties with sublets and sorry those with sublets and in unit rentals would be parallel what we do later so after yeah it needs after the word provisions it needs oh i see you're you're replacing it got it is this correct yes okay so what i'm not sure so but go if you go back that's good those with sublets yeah but if you go back above to the to the line above where it's after subject mitigation provisions you're you feed it away from your microphones i just be a little bit i sorry i put my hand in front of it after subject to mitigation provisions if you insert the words comma the following properties yes and delete such as and the comma sorry delete that comma and then such as delete that is that we delete such as yeah delete such as yes sorry delete such as okay and then we just have to figure out what to do with the but not limited to i guess i mean we could leave it it's a little awkward but you can probably it's not terribly good grammar but you can probably understand what it means could i make a suggestion what information i guess i had counselor if i tower had uh we end up before you so um but i can come to you after that i counselor i tower did you have a point of information um just a little bit just because those with sublets um i'm sorry because it's if those with sublets means that the entire property is then exempted from this as opposed to the sublet agreement those units those units with sublets is what it should say then and it should should probably say it's sub leases so yeah point of information sorry to do this on the fly i think the the answer to the question is moving that language sub leases in the in-unit rentals after provisions on 21 such that it would say the ordinance shall exempt from um sorry this provision subject to mitigation provisions comma sub leases in in-unit rentals and then get into properties including but not limited to i think solves it councilor hightower has the same concern i thought of that would work as well that would work too i agree okay so that's the motion so so moved by councillor pine thank you for that thank you councillor hightower also for helping us with this this screen share makes it so much easier to understand um so that everyone is clear on that so we have um a motion um if there's can someone please say a second i can't see everyone right now because i'm in screen share mode if you want to second it do we have a second to the motion i'll second it presentry okay thank you councillor polino so we have a motion and a second on the language that is up on the screen i think the following is now out of place i think you want to say the ordinance shall exempt from this provision subject to mitigation provisions sub lets unrent and in-unit rentals as well as the following properties okay sorry about that okay so is everybody clear on this so that we can go out of screen share mode um um no uh can um so okay we can i don't want to lose the screen share i'm sorry president tracy okay it's just a little challenging for me to manage the debate um and make sure i'm watching everyone um with that so who president tracy could could we get an email version of this maybe so that we can have it on our own screens sure yeah um councillor hightower are you able to just do what you're doing now and just grab that and send it to councillors real quick absolutely and i'll send the document as well i would um copy the whole thing as there might be more i'll send both the document and the specific text okay great thank you so much and if you could also add um lori oberg to that as well um so we could throw that on board docs that'd be great thank you so much councillor hightower for helping us with this okay councillor fine did you want the floor back i'm sorry yeah just real quick we're trying to get the language right we're doing the best we can i would just acknowledge that this is to then be subject to further review and hearings and we can change it at another point based on those tests based on the testimony in our hearing so i just wanted to acknowledge for the council and for the public that you know we're trying to get it as good as we can and it's important that we get it as good as we can tonight but we also need to recognize that there's still a process to getting the language finalized thank you okay thank you for that all right um there are other councillors who wanted to speak to this amendment i just wanted um so councillor shannon to be followed by councillor paulina i was just wondering if we could have a brief you know five-minute recess so that we could review the language because i hours went into this in committee and the language came out and it was you know mistakes were made in terms of the makers not understanding the language and i want us to carefully review this language so that we know that it's saying what we think it's saying and for myself i just need a few minutes of thinking about it if that's okay sure i will be happy to grant a five-minute recess for councillors so we it's seven ten now i'd like for us to to come back um to this amendment in five minutes it's seven fifteen thank you i'll take a second to review that um language we're now clear on it um councillor carpenter to be followed by councillor hightower a clarification for attorney blackwood the um exemptions in chapter 137 title nine say that generally a list of properties like hospitals and nursing homes and dormitories are exempt from effectively landlord tenant law so and our intent is to call that out so i just want to make sure that that stands as a whole that we're saying those type of properties um would not be subject to this ordinance no it's i don't i think this change that you're making is saying they're not they're not subject they're exempt from the requirement that the the definition that just causing does not include termination of the the lease at the termination of the agreement at the end of the lease it's not generally it it is now not generally exempting though the the the um types of properties that are exempted from chapter 137 it's not generally exempting them from the entire ordinance now so should that be written differently i mean our intent is to not include type of properties yes it should be written differently um um i'm trying to get back there now should that be a whole like an additional sentence or something in addition exemptions identified in chapter 137 oh i think we um i think we took care of it in the first paragraph oh okay maybe we did also comes with carpenter do you yeah because we said residential tenants as defined in chapter 137 so do we need it in online 20 oh i guess it's actually taken care of it you're saying by those defined in in the first paragraph that just narrows it to what i'm going to call regular residential right yes okay okay that makes sense okay great i have counselor hi tower great i just quickly wanted to clarify for the um public i don't think a mistake was made i think that there was ordinance language crafted or not sorry try to change language crafted by aileen which the majority of the cdnr committee preferred because it was not as strict so it's not that i didn't notice that that meant it didn't necessarily have to be that provision i just didn't have a problem with it per se um but that's that i think this change makes clear what we intend to do and therefore it's a um adequate change i don't think fundamentally it would have changed what the outcome would have been once this went into an ordinance process if we get that far okay so i don't have anyone else in the queue counsel shannon go ahead counsel shannon yeah i'm sorry counselor tracy um as i mentioned there's an emergency in my neighborhood that's distracting me at this moment um so if you can just kind of give give me a minute um why does subject to mitigate mitigation provisions need to be in this who are you asking the question uh if the makers or or attorney black would want to respond i'm fine okay uh counselor pine go ahead yeah well what we discussed is that um exempting these properties could still put tenants in a really difficult place and cause hardships and so the mitigation is intended to um to in fact just mitigate those impacts so giving a longer notice period covering relocation expenses those are the topics we discussed counsel shannon you have the floor um i'll leave it at that for now thank you okay the floor is open okay go ahead counsel shannon i'm sorry um so what is the logic in logic in these particular exemptions um if the concern is for tenants who are unjustly their lease is unjustly terminated why does it make a difference whether it's owner occupied or not owner occupied um well counselor pan go ahead i will attempt to um i would just add that um the research into similar just cause eviction measures across the country and in the province of kebek and in virtually every country in northeastern europe is that these are common exemptions that try to balance the needs and the you know the the interests of both parties as much as possible recognizing that when someone owns a property and they are going to move into that property that is an option that ought to be preserved and that if an immediate family member needs to move in so these are listed as as issues that are typically found in just cause eviction measures across this country and across all the other countries that provide this level of protection so that's simply what it is and if counselor carpenter hightower thinks that i left anything out about why these exemptions are here then i would open it up to them as well okay i'm seeing some nodding um counselor shannon you saw the floor thank you um i understand the others but it seems like um the owner occupied duplexes and triplex the reason that's in there and that's common is because owners would not want to live next to a problematic tenant but neither do other tenants and that's kind of the baseline problem with this provision is that it prevents you from removing a problem tenant and so i'm just kind of wondering why is um a resident property owner getting a privilege that other tenants would not get you asking this to the maker of the motion anybody wants to answer it okay counselor hightower yeah i'm happy i take a stab at this i actually didn't agree with putting in owner occupied duplexes and triplexes for the reasons that those property owners wanted it i think it's because our city tends to prefer owner occupied buildings because those are the ones that tend to be better preserved and to be better maintained which is something that our city wants to see so if it is a policy initiative that the city wants to see more owner occupied duplexes and triplexes it makes sense to regulate those less in order to make that an incentive that is the reason that at least i personally wanted to see this on the list thank you okay um so we're still on the amendment to the amendment as amended further discussion ready to vote okay will the city clerk please call the roll on the amendment to the amendment as amended counselor carpenter hi counselor jang yes counselor freeman yes counselor hanson no i'm sorry no thank you counselor hightower yes counselor mason yes counselor paul yes counselor palino yes counselor pine yes counselor shannon yes counselor strongberg no city council president tracy no nine eyes three days okay so the amendment to the amendment passes now we're back to that original amendment as amended so that includes the initial changes that we brought and then this now this additional amendment that was brought now both of those have been brought into this this amendment we're back to debate on that so we're not yet back to the original resolution just so for folks in terms of following it is there further discussion on this amendment as amended twice um go ahead counselor shannon you've meant i'm sorry i'm just procedurally a little confused and again i i apologize because i'm a little more distracted than usual um the the amendment is that like a it's a strike all um it's a strike all amendment that has now been amended with this new language so i was confused when you said we're not back to the we're not going back to the original right i'm confused i'm sorry if you can just say it again president tracy yeah so what we did is we we had an initial amendment we struck that amendment through an additional amendment which then replaced it and brought us to that amendment then there was a further amendment to what had what the changes that were made that passed and so now we have the amendment as amended that second time which is what we just did so now we're back to that that motion uh on that because we're not back to the original the underlying yet so it's essentially taking another vote on what we voted on the first time plus the second time which have both been brought in at this point does that does that clarify thank you i feel i'm usually the ace on these procedural things no it's getting complicated so does that clarify council shannon do you okay yeah so we'll talk to that and then so it's the two pieces that we that we just voted on it so we're essentially if we go to a vote right now we're voting on both of those combined again is there further discussion on that i guess point of information councilor president tracy our further amendments out of on out of line until we take this vote and go back to the underlying strike all we've already voted on the the under the strike all that's been that was accepted so that that text it was a strike all in replace enough what i'm i guess i'll be simple if i were to like to make a motion to remove the ability uh to exempt or not be able to use the end of the term it's unclear to me whether now i'm to make that motion or i have to wait you could do either councillor mason i believe okay i would like to make a motion then and i'm forgive me i'm not sure what line numbers we're using anymore because we we have on the pdf if i may call it up it was lines 19 through 25 as it's been amended twice now based on this conversation or our earlier amendments and that just to be clear that this is the language that as a man i'll read the unamended language but it's such ordinance shall exclude from just cause the expiration of a rental agreement as soil grounds for termination of tenancy in the remainder of that paragraph i would ask for the floor back if there's a second okay so we have a motion can you i'm sorry can you repeat that the motion that you'd like to do i i would make a motion to strike line 19 through 25 on the pdf i respect that that's not the actual language because it's been amended twice but it's that paragraph okay point of order can we can we have that back up please president tracy sure yeah that's that's a fair request um thank you thank you councillor hightower so you can see lines 19 through 25 that's that paragraph and you can see the amendments that were made thank you so right based on the screen in front of us the motion would be to strike to delete lines 19 through 25 and again i would ask for the floor back after a second if there is one okay is everybody clear on the what what what councillor what the mason the mason motion is the mason i wanted clarity on the if you could literally read the amendment on the floor and then we could understand that this is amending that um that this is amending that amendment i think that that would help clarify president tracy yep so it is just striking those lines that we just that we just changed um well it's striking that entire paragraph that's now highlighted on the screen so that entire paragraph would be deleted from the resolution he's amending an amendment and my question is what's that underlying amendment that he's amending so the underlying amendment was the the two pieces that so it's this so it's the two pieces that we already voted on which was the strike all and replace and then the additional clarification clarifying amendment that was again provided um that we just debated and voted on that had to deal with the paragraph that councillor mason is now saying you would like to remove okay well i will second councillor mason's motion i'm not a hundred percent clear that that we haven't gone too many amendments down the road but if you say so okay i mean i'll allow it here um and then i mean either way i mean it's this if we voted on this again and then went back to the original motion councillor mason would still be in order to do that so i'll allow it here um so we have a second um to delete lines 19 through 25 um councillor hightower if i could just ask to go out of skit share mode real quick great thank you and really appreciate you um bringing that back up for us just so we're all clear um is there further discussion on the amendment um that is on oh sorry do i get the floor back i want the floor back yes go ahead sorry thank you i wanted to explain what i was doing first um i do want to acknowledge the efforts of cdnr and in particular councillors pine and carpenter who have um i think done as councillor hightower as well done a tremendous effort getting this to where it is um this proposed amendment though reflects a concern that i've i've had since this discussion started and i have shared uh repeatedly with councillors pine and carpenter in particular um i am having and to me this this makes the difference of whether i'm able to support this or not um i have a fundamental challenge as a lawyer with you know a signed lease agreement with the stated year you know end of term simply on a matter of public policy being abrogated so you know no lease you can't go in knowing the end of you know the end of the term is the end of the term um unless you have something else you know material default um etc i'm an attorney who's practiced for 20 years and while i don't do eviction work um i certainly have worked with a number of my clients um and and the way that and they often come out of not so much material breach as councillor um shannon was alluding to before it's a tenant where something's not working you know there may be personality conflicts between that tenant and other tenants personality conflicts between the landlord and the tenant um things that might not rise to a level of a material default which is what this is requiring um and when they reach out you know in order to address that one of two things typically happens you know either they wait till the end of the term depending on where they are in that lease term or um if it's a real big issue they'll often simply pay that tenant in order to leave um because the eviction process um a there's not a default or the eviction process is so long and uh expensive that it's cheaper to simply pay a tenant to leave my concern with what we're doing here is we've increased that payment or we will have increased that payment um no one will know with a challenging tenant or or a relationship that's not working that they have the ability um to to basically at the end of the term um allow that to you know to end and bring on someone else I think this will be fine for our large landlords you know who have outside counsel who are going to be able to look at this and modify lease agreements and pay attention the people that I'm worried about are those who have been emailing me you know the small who own one unit or two units who are very concerned that you know this is going to stick them um or or or leave them unable to end a tendency that is not going well for that um landlord the other challenge I think this presents is like it or not most of our rentals are on the academic student cycle you know on a one year and the consequences of not being able to get out at the end of that are are fairly expensive you know having a tenant leave because they can not because a landlord was able because it's the end of the term means landlords may be renting in november you know or february and the challenge there is that those landlords are often stuck with a vacant apartment you know until the next cycle comes up so um I respect all the work that has gone in but for me this has been um a a yay or nay um and I believe you know based on at least those that I'm hearing from that the public or at least those who are involved you know heavily involved on the landlord side are very focused on this and I don't think it's an unreasonable request thank you okay counselor carpenter um I appreciate counselor mentions point of view but we just fundamentally disagree this amendment just gusts the whole thing so you might as well vote no against it if if you don't support the just cause concept which is people should be given a cause for being asked to leave and should be able to have some kind of due process then vote no but this I don't really see this as an amendment I see this as um wanting to defeat the concept and I understand philosophically there are people who have problems with that um this is a concept though that has worked to increase stabilization reduce evictions in hundreds of communities it will require the landlord um to do some extra work it's going to require them to have a really good lease and have really good due diligence and property management um and that is that is a change it has worked in many communities so I don't really see this as an amendment um to refine it it's an amendment essentially to defeat it and that's really um respect that but that's what this amendment would do any further comments on the amendment councilor shannon go ahead thank you president tracy um these what what uh councilor mason has just addressed with this amendment are some of the things that we heard from many um many people who gave testimony at the charter change committee and the landlords that came to the charter change committee to my knowledge they were mostly small landlords they were not the big landlords in town and I've heard it stated that you know when when this has been presented at npa's that this will um this will cause big landlords to to sell and small landlord you know small mom and pops are going to buy this up and be better landlords but that was not consistent with the testimony that we heard at the charter change committee and so I just want to address some of the things that we heard questions that were raised with regards to the amendment being proposed um well this caused undue hardship for small landlords possibly leading them to sell to large landlords that was a rather common theme um if I have a tenant who is harassing another tenant but doing things that are hard to prove or or legal such as displaying confederate or Nazi symbols hate speech lewd comments in ways that are offensive or threatening to other tenants will I be able to get them out I think the answer is no what does at least mean if it's not a limit on tenancy and uh councilor mason spoke to that should a landlord be required to give a tenant a lifetime contract isn't that something to be negotiated between landlord and tenant there's a long history of cities that have tried to construct lifelong obligations and rent control only to see properties suffer from poor maintenance and decreasing value how will that outcome be avoided um so there's more but I will I will leave it at that for this portion of the debate and I do support councillor mason's amendment thank you okay I have councillor stromberg I'd move to call the question a motion to call the question is there a second seconded by councillor paulino motions to call the question require two-thirds and are non-debatable will the city clerk please call the roll councillor carpenter there's no against councillor mason's um so we're just calling the question if oh okay then uh call the question yes councillor jen yes councillor freeman yes councillor hanson yes councillor high tower yes councillor mason yes councillor paul yes councillor paulino yes councillor pine yes councillor shannon yes councillor stromberg yes city council president tracy yes 12 eyes okay so the motion to the to call the question passes and we are now on to the vote on the amendment will the city clerk please call the roll could you state the amendment the amendment is to strike lines 19 through 25 oh great councillor carpenter no councillor jane no thank you councillor freeman no councillor hanson no councillor high tower no councillor mason yes councillor paul no councillor paulino no councillor pine no councillor shannon yes councillor stromberg no city council president tracy no two eyes 10 eighth okay so the amendment fails we're back to that original that original amendment as amended so the first strike all that were and replace as well as the additional amendment that that took place so any further discussion on that councillor shannon so we can now talk not just about that paragraph but about the entirety of the of the new strike all amendment correct yes that is correct um so what is the we I want to just be clear we still don't know what the amount of rent control or rent increase that's going to be determined in a future ordinance correct we don't have any further information on that correct are you looking for an answer from the committee I see council high tower with there is no rent control proposed as part of this rent control is blanket across the market this will be decided for individual cases and no there is no way there has been no decision on what that would look like this will be I'm sorry I didn't hear this will be decided what this is for individual so there's no there's there will be no parameter saying that the market as a whole can't increase and individual properties can increase based on a certain market wide rate can I continue yes go ahead councillor so then um one person might be able to increase their rent um five hundred dollars and another person might not be able to increase their rent a hundred dollars or how how do we know that that's equitable and that if there's not a set amount or standards or linked to something it's decided on an individual basis how do we know that will be decided equitably and who will it be decided by what who is the deciding body of that council carpenter did you want to answer that the intent of the language and and I believe this makes the test is to provide further definition of what's an unreasonable rent so it's unreasonable rent not rent unreasonable um this is modeled after what the entire state of New Jersey does which is if a landlord comes to a tenant and says um I'm just going to double your rent um with the intent of removing you from the apartment that would probably meet the term of unreasonable in the New Jersey case and we've not defined it they look at market comparability they look at landlord expenses I mean there are varied ways to do this and you'd have to prove intent but the goal is to look at it as sort of a um retaliatory factor um and the tenant would have to make their case in the court that this is unreasonable again it's modeled after what has worked in the entire state of New Jersey there are some states who just do a blanket um percentage and we we we specifically chose not to go that route um and wanted to really focus it on individual cases that where there might be abuse or retaliation okay Councillor Shannon you saw the floor thank you so to be clear rent increases will now have to be litigated by the courts to determine whether they are just or unjust I think that that's really problematic as it is our court system is so backed up that in Vermont much very much unlike New Jersey and and all the other states we're looking at I think um it takes usually about six months to get somebody evicted in in Vermont from the statistics I've looked at in other states it's typically one to three months or or less in some cases you can get somebody out sooner than that but the reason is the whole process you have to go through and if you now have to go through a court process just to raise your rent I think that that's quite concerning um you know if we wanted to have something like that and we wanted to provide a board as an arbitrator that seems like a much better uh solution to this um I also want to speak to the need for this which I don't think you know this kind of started in the CDNR because a housing policy reform resolution was sent to CDNR after the housing summit and this suggestion is not one of the recommendations that was sent though it was addressed and there were other ways to remedy situations where a tenant does potentially um have to move out through no fault of their own and oftentimes when a tenant has to move out through no fault of their own it's for the exact situations that are being exempted which include um the owner wants to move in um there's many times when a lease comes to an end and a tenant is asked to leave because there's very much cause it's just hard to prove so it goes maybe into that no cause category but in fact we're not even really talking about evictions we're just talking about the end of um tenancy so I just want to read something that that came in an email that I think kind of gets to these points as to the need Vermont legal aid has indicated that over the last five years there have been approximately 368 no-cause evictions no-cause eviction cases in Chittenden County courts or about 74 annually we don't know how many of those Chittenden County cases were actually Burlington disputes and what other factors may have been significant in any Burlington cases we also don't know how many leases in Burlington expire every year with tenants and landlords mutually agreeing to end their relationship in partways amicably without collecting more data we don't know if no-cause evictions represents 0.1 percent 1 percent 10 percent or more of the annual rental turnovers in Burlington before the city council asked for new authority to regulate rental owners beyond current state law they should first understand the nature and the scale of the alleged problem more problematic I think is the effect of this on good tenants oftentimes we have buildings where one tenant is disrupting everybody else in the building and those things are the kinds of things they may be doing as I just said are are legal um things such as displaying confederate or Nazi symbols hate speech lewd comments we heard testimony um that one tenant sexually assaulted the child of a of another and the victim didn't want to press charges so without being able to prove a case it's very hard to to get that tenant to to move on and in that case the victim is the one victimized again because they're going to have to move they can't live in this situation and you can't get that tenant out as a landlord so tenants can very much be victimized by what's being proposed here so um I will not be supportive okay Councillor pine I'll just touch on a couple things um throughout the 1980s every single time the tenant advocates and their supporters came forward with the proposal that had anything to do with taking a little bit of the scale and trying to even it out a little bit to give tenants a little protection honestly the word rent control was said so often that our mayor at the time would say let me just be very clear when we're going to do rent control you will know it we will tell you in big letters okay so this is not rent control I know Councillor Shannon would like you to think it is this is actually one of the loopholes that all policies in this country you have to deal with rent if you don't it is the biggest loophole to drive a tractor trailer okay so let's be clear what we're talking about here we're talking about closing a loophole that gives tenants a little bit of protection and if you don't know how destabilizing evictions are for people please take some time to go to evictionlab.com go to Matthew Desmond read Matthew Desmond's book about evictions it is one of the most destabilizing things that can happen to people so please don't turn this into rent control because that's not what we're talking about that's a really misleading argument secondly we don't know how big a problem this is because guess what many of these no-cause evictions happen through a phone call or an email or a conversation in the yard it says we would we're going to end this tenancy you need to be out period they don't go to court so the notion that we have to go to the courthouse to find a record is sort of like saying oh well domestic violence you know the numbers aren't that high what we don't know is that the majority of domestic violence cases don't ever get reported so the data is not necessarily a thing we need to be going with we hear advocates tell us over and over again this is an issue that we have to address so you may not like it and that's fine we can disagree with it but please don't portray this as something that it isn't an attempt to say well you're going too far because you're taking away some rights we are taking away some rights and guess what there are times when the rights of those who have very little power need to be bolstered we're bolstering the rights of those who don't navigate well in the market because they don't own property that's what we're trying to do and I think we as a community I believe our voters will support that thank you thank you councilor pine we're ready to vote on the amendment the amendment as amended okay seeing no one we'll go to a vote and will the city clerk please call the roll this is on the the two pieces that we already passed so the initial strike all in replace and then that additional clarification we still have to get back to the original resolution and vote on that which is again essentially the same thing but you know this is the this sort of procedural steps so will this be voting to change language at this point or no we've already taken a vote on both of the amendments this is just we we amended an amendment so we are back to that original amendment as amended procedurally so we're not changing we're voting whether we want to strike all and replace it with this so this is no this is the we already voted on that councilor shannon and this is that original motion as well as the second the second amendment that was put forward that dealt with the line 21 and those those changes and those shifts so it's those pieces we've already voted on both of those both of those amendments passed so it's this combined amendment then we get back to the original resolution as amended can you just state what the amendment is so it's that the the large the larger amendment that was on that was on board docs that we debated at first that's that first document and then that was that was changed based on an additional amendment that was forwarded related to the paragraph that starts online 19 and had to do with with exemptions that amendment passed so we have a combined this is a combined amendment to the original resolution that include that's inclusive of both of those pieces that we voted on and then we should this pass that would bring us back to the original motion for a final vote on this to to bring finality to the items does that clarify yes so i think we're voting on this amended language to strike all of the original language yes it's a strike and replace with what we voted not what we've been discussing for the last two hours thank you okay is everybody clear and ready to vote on this okay will the city clerk please call the roll councillor carpenter yes to support this with the amendments councillor jang yes councillor freeman yes councillor hanson yes councillor hightower yes councillor mason no councillor paul yes councillor polina yes councillor pine yes councillor shannon no councillor strongberg yes city council president tracy yes ten eyes two days okay so the amendment has amended passes and so now we're back to the original motion on on the resolution so this is the are there is there additional discussion on this okay great seeing none let's go to a vote a vote on the resolution as amended will the city clerk please call the roll councillor carpenter yes councillor jang yes councillor freeman yes councillor hanson yes councillor hightower yes councillor mason no councillor paul yes councillor polina yes councillor pine yes councillor shannon no councillor strongberg yes city council president tracy yes ten eyes two days okay the resolution passes so that moves that for moves that forward in the charter change process and as councillor pine indicated on this will be the same for any other charter changes that should pass just for members of the public so what this then means is that we have a series of public hearings those will take place in january where folks are able to to offer comments on what we have just passed based on that commentary further changes can be made but only based on that commentary that is received in those hearings and then there's a final vote on placing it on the ballot in as well as the short the short form language on the ballot to to go on the ballot that's the question that that appears later in january prior to finalizing so that just to clarify kind of the process for ordinate for charter changes i'm going forward just so that folks can follow it and that's true for other ones that we're going to be debating tonight should they advance so with that that brings us to our next item on the agenda which is item 6.03 which is a resolution on the police councillor freeman thank you president tracy i'd like to move to waive the reading and adopt the resolution and ask for the floor back after a second okay we have a motion on the resolution a second by councillor stromburg um go ahead councillor councillor freeman great so i think first um if it's okay i just um i know we're going to want to speak on the resolution as a whole but because i had um prepared a series of revisions um per input from um counselors um as well as commissioners the police commissioners and community members um i wanted to propose those first if that's okay to walk through those um to sort of it's a little clunky but i wanted to um get to those first if that's okay and then um i think we can um kind of move on to the underlying resolution after that i'm out of information yeah if this is the case would it be wiser for councillor freeman to share her screen so she can go to all of us if you want yeah i i did and these are also they're emailed and on board docs but if if you want me to share the screen i can't i mean for the member of the public so they know what you're talking about yeah that sounds good um can you see my screen that has like four million word docs so quickly that's awesome yeah so so wait so you even introduced the resolute can you just please clarify do you want me to move um so the version so because we referred this from um the charter change committee that would be the one that is on the table right now um but there have been revisions that have been requested by again you know commissioners community members counselors um and so i wanted to put those forward as a slate those have all been sent out to um the entire council i i sent them um actually in like a kind of a revised version but i can't i don't want to really introduce a revised version since this is coming from the committee so i'm just going to introduce them as a slate of revisions um and that's the language that you see here and it's the exact same thing as the as the revised version that i'd sent out okay so you've introduced the original resolution correct second on that and so you're introducing these as a slate of amendments that you would like to correct you're making a motion right now please excellent okay okay so i move yeah so i'm gonna move um uh these proposed amendments um is can i just go through each one um for the sake of counselors in the public if that's okay even though i know we've all gotten them i think it would be helpful um and just so everyone knows um the lines that are referred to in this amendment are consistent and correlate with the line numbers that were sent um from the charter change committee from that version we've had like so many versions and the line numbers always get changed every time you open up a new word doc and try to change anything so i'm just going to use that one for consistency um so on line um 19 and the whereas at the end um we i added this clause to reflect these changes that um that we are making and as part of these revisions um so that it's yeah whereas the joint committee city counselors in the public continue to commit on the language and offer suggestions consistent with the proposal referred by the charter change committee that reflected in the following language um so then on line 77 um i'm going to move to strike the sentence member shall be entitled to the same compensation provided to city counselors under this charter um that was a request that was made um that we changed um is it can i just go through them is that okay i don't need to okay okay people have questions that's fine but okay so on um some of these i just did a strike all um and replaced it because it was easier so on lines 85 through 92 i struck all um the language under the section of that's a diversity and i made some changes um these changes are primarily that um the the um um sorry getting tongue time the um the makeup of the board is now um the numbers have been pared down so where it said three um it's now two and where it says had said two and now says should say one if i did it correctly or maybe i i did this wrong actually i'm so sorry this is what happens when you're working with multiple versions um that's what it should say um all the threes became twos and all the twos became ones um that was a request that was made and also um per some um requests about the selection or sorry about the makeup i also made it um it's to the extent possible um and that's to create ease around filling the board um for lines 94 through 101 i also i'm gonna strike all and replace it um there was a request um this language had been pulled from chicago um and it went back three generations um in terms of prohibiting law enforcement um or people who have ties to law enforcement to be on the board um that was something that we saw in a lot of the research around this to limit it um but people felt that three generations was just excessive for our community and so we pared it down um so that's been limited to just one generation and then um to um like household members um if you're a current law enforcement officer or have been a law enforcement officer and then um there was a request to add um also that people disclose their relationship to law enforcement um on line 103 there was a request to add the term legal um before immigration status so that has been added for clarification purposes um on in section 108 to 114 that was struck um and replaced with the selection process there were um there were some requests that the the selection process be changed um so this um now reverts it or not reverts it rather but most many of our commissions and boards are um appointed um through the city council with the mayor presiding and so this sort of uses that process as opposed to the former process which was to have civic organizations um become an appointment board and appoint members directly um so on line 130 um we also added um I'm saying we because a lot of people worked on this um they we also added that the the mayor would still have the authority around um the chief of police and there was there's a bit of distinction there because legally the chief even though they're the department head are also um you know they're law enforcement officers as well they're they're regular they they do regular police duties and so this was sort of to reflect instances in which conduct would be reviewed by the board but would also have instances in which like incapacity or neglect could be reviewed by the mayor as a department head and by the council um and so that was sort of to um indicate that there are different circumstances um in which the chief of police would be um sort of um under review and that there are different cases in which you'd want the mayor um to have um authority and then also the cases in which the board would have authority um so after line 239 um add a clause g um this so this would be that the director would be hired at the discretion of the board which is a change um from the current language um also strike the line um that had um said that they would shall be a director of the board and was changed or replaced with have an appropriation adequate to conduct the work of the office and then after line 255 add um F um this was also requested to hear from the chief or their designee as part of an investigation by the office and receive any recommendation the chief deems appropriate related thereto okay thank you for letting me walk through all of this so we have a slate of amendments that was moved by councillor freeman councillor freeman if i could just ask um let me just go out of share mode real quick appreciate that so we've had a slate of amendments is there a second to those amendments to the original motion seconded by councillor high tower councillor freeman did you want the floor back to speak um just to say that i appreciate the amount of input that's gone into this process um you know of course i worked really you know i was very involved in the the um underlying resolution i think there are aspects that i see um that i really like still about the original version um you know this isn't a council of one this is a council of 12 and it's a community of many thousands so um we're working forward um to find a solution for the city um and that's where i think some of these changes came from and you know i have my personal opinions on them but um this is um these are some revisions that um came from came from broader input okay thank you for that council paul thank you president tracy um i would appreciate it given the fact that we have seen these um you know uh councillor freeman did get us these um amendments these changes on in in plenty of time and i appreciate that it did come in this afternoon and i was hoping that maybe uh you would be amenable to calling a 10-minute recess so that we might have an opportunity to digest these a little bit further than perhaps we have certainly i think that's totally totally reasonable so it's um 809 now why don't we come back together at 820 as a council so i'll give folks um a little bit of time to um just digest everything and review those um and then again come back at 820 great thank you very much and start it again okay is everybody back just want to make sure again counselors i'm trying to get us back to the debate so if you could please rejoin and turn on your cameras again can counselors please just rejoin i just want to make sure that people are part of this or are back at their computers thanks president tracy i appreciate it okay let's see a couple just looking for just want to make okay councilor mason and council pollino are you with us okay cool awesome it looks like we have everyone back so we are um on debate on the um the initial resolution um and we're on we're debating the um amendments the slate of amendments i should say that was introduced as part of the initial mode um that was introduced after the initial motion by councillor freeman it's their discussion of that slate of amendments councillor hanson sure yeah and i have thoughts on the overall resolution but i'll save those until we get through the amendments um i think councillor freeman was very gracious in how they put forward these amendments and just overall um their willingness to work with others and compromise you know in order to get this really important policy over the finish line um i i think overall the slate of amendments from my perspective somewhat weakens um the resolution and i also i i really agree with and take seriously some of the feedback we we heard and we that we heard at public forum last week and that we've been hearing around sort of the level of work um that has gone into this not just from councillor freeman but community members and the level of diligence in crafting such a complex um oversight body and structure and i definitely want to kind of give voice to just the frustration of you know this has been out there for a while it is complicated and um it seems like you know some folks really waited until the last minute to make these substantive changes and i think that is really challenging for folks who've been working so hard on this for so long and yeah i just want to thank councillor freeman for um kind of persevering through that challenge and um you know finding a way to try to get this resolution over the finish line so even though i think overall the amendments are a bit weakening um i'm interested in overall getting getting this thing done and doing what we need to do and i think that's that's what this is about um so i'll be i'll be supporting the amendments um and can speak more to the overall resolution after we get through the amendments thank you thank you councillor hansen councillor shannon um i just want to speak to that last comment that people have been late in commenting on this which i think is wholly offensive people have this this has not been out there for a while it was referred to the council you know like the week before our last meeting when we were supposed to be debating this it was referred to the council it wasn't even referred to the joint committee before going to the council there has been no opportunity for police commissioners in particular to engage in this and i think they have absolutely gone out of their way to effectively comment despite the handicaps they have been saddled with in this process and how they have been excluded from this process um we have a BIPOC police commission and they've been virtually ignored including in these amendments these amendments are not responsive to our own BIPOC police commission's comments i do have one question with regards to um uh the amendment which is the line 103 add legal before immigration status um well i have i have two questions so the first question is there was discussion in committee and a decision was made that um people should be allowed to serve who were not legal immigrants and just wanted to clarify um you know how this fits into the document um is it a requirement that they be legal immigrants in order to participate in the board because it um it's not that's not clear to me that that's actually a requirement that's one question and then the other question is with regards to organizations um our discussion in the charter change committee initially that was nonprofits but then it was determined that uh people wanted to include groups that were not formalized and so i wanted to find out from this city attorney as we didn't um further define this uh it can can a group of people from say the battery park movement define themselves as an organization uh like how would you define yourself as an organization simply through the application process you come to the city council and you say um i'm the on the lakeside organization and i want to participate in this process and you you would thereby be considered even though you're legally unaffiliated is that correct you're looking for answers to both questions from attorney blackwood counselor shannon yeah sure that works okay thank you attorney blackwood asked your question about the organizations the charter change does not address that doesn't answer your question um and i don't remember what your first question was sorry my so so it doesn't preclude an un you know a not formally organized group from participating in this i think that that was our understanding and i just wanted that to be clear to the council um and then the other question is adding the word legal we had discussion that um it was desired that illegal immigrants would be um would be allowed to serve but now they must have legal immigrant status in order to serve with this amendment is that correct um on line 103 in the well i guess the um i think the the there are two places that the change is made one is in and and um um one is one is in the section called diversity and that change um seems to require a diversity of people with with legal immigrant different kinds of legal immigration status and then there's a change in the line that says members shall be residents of the city of burlington regardless of legal immigration status so that seems to say that if you are undocumented that you would be able to serve on the board okay so then maybe um it could councillor freeman explain why that changes there and what was the purpose of that um it was made to as a request i think it was to clarify the intention was not to change the the legal you know ramifications it's still meant to be regardless of immigration set whether you have formal documentation or not and attorney blackwood my understanding is that putting in the term legal immigration status online 103 does not change it says it says regardless of immigration status legal immigration status it's it means the same thing effectively but i think it the person thought that it was more clear to include the term legal immigration status that was my impression right i think it's the earlier change that it that that does change the meaning of it a little bit where which line is that because that's not in the motion that i made okay maybe i'm i my numbers are different so because i um so i may be looking at a different version i'm looking up in the diversity section was that changed as well i maybe i made it by mistake because there's just a lot of it is on the version that i'm looking at no it says legal immigration status is changed and you think that would change that would because it's that says asking for diversity of legal immigration status okay that that's a mistake then that must have been a that's a typo that's not intended it might have so could you read the line one because our numbers are messed up can you read the line three that it's intended to apply to because it's only supposed to apply to line 103 it's not meant to be on line 86 um it's just um that's just a mistake that must have been a typo because it's not meant to change the the the intent basically so if i made that mistake that's it's very possible but it's that wasn't my intention my intention is to leave the board open to anyone so i can go do you want me to share president tracy maybe my suggestion would be that we move on to other comments and maybe counselor freeman can kind of sort through that okay sure i had counselor jeng in the queue next thank you so thank you president tracy i think i think it is exactly the same exact language because in the beginning immigration a diversity of immigration statuses meaning from my perspective that there are asylees they legal and they hear there are students they have b1 visa they hear k3 visas they hear right there are permanent residents all of those are immigrants with legal statuses right so to me when we say diversity of immigrant status it means that all of those that are legal and that are here they should be able to serve in the board i think the clarification is should be that don't have anyone else in the queue to speak to these slate of amendments counselor freeman go ahead there's no objection from the council since that was a typo can we can that be or do we have to make a formal amendment to this amendment or can i i mean i don't want to i don't want to mess up any procedural stuff and whatever you think the correct procedure is that's absolutely fine with me but to be clear that wasn't i think that you should probably should probably move to amend because it was okay i'll move to amend to take out the typo in line let me go back to the screen where i have the original um line numbers yeah line 86 86 so that it's um yeah so it doesn't um prohibit prohibit anyone you know and councillor jane to your point that it is meant to encompass as you're saying anyone you know visa you know any sort of level of documentation or um it encompasses everyone um the way that it's written and um if if folks are supportive of that and that would be what we would be um what we would be putting in the language okay so councillor jane go ahead that basically you always like a motion there was a motion and then i'm sorry i'm sorry councillor jane there was a motion to amend is there a second to that motion seconded by councillor hanson now you may go councillor jane i apologize yeah um i pass okay sorry about that i just wanted okay any further discussion on this amendment councillor shannon i just want to say i don't agree with it but i don't want councillor freeman to be saddled making an amendment she didn't intend to make so for that reason i will support this okay thank you any further discussion on this i appreciate um catching our councillor shannon okay anything else okay let's go to a vote on this amendment um what does that please call the roll carpenter couldn't hear you i'm sorry councillor councillor jane yes councillor freeman yes councillor hanson yes councillor high tower yes councillor mason yes councillor paul yes councillor palino yes councillor pine yes councillor shannon yes councillor strongberg yes city council president tracy yes cloud wise okay so that amendment passes and now we're back to the original slate of amendments um as um amended is there further comments on the slate of amendments that have been proposed councillor shannon under the current amendments people who do not have legal immigration status would be allowed to serve correct because that was what we just amended got it thank you thanks further discussion of this slate of amendments um yeah i mean i think i think do i have the floor yeah go ahead yeah i mean i think i do not want to put people with no immigration status i do not want to give them the ability to interact with the police and with ice or to just anything that's legal i mean i think for their protection they should not be allowed to to to participate you know because it can be it can have detrimental consequences for them and i'm talking for their protection to not be arrested or deported and i don't even know if those with no immigration legal immigration status can access city email addresses with that guard in it you know i think those those are a little bit problematic to me but at the same time i can let it let this go but at the selection process i think we have to be extra careful in making sure that those who appoint in this board each one of them have legal immigration status i i i i just wanted to put that on the record here thank you okay councillor freeman i i hear your point councillor jane i just wanted i don't want to debate too much of um go back and forth um i know we have plenty to get to tonight um this um request came from my understanding from someone who does not have a legal immigration status um and requested um so i think my understanding is that people will just choose at their you know at their discretion what feels safe for them and i feel okay with that um but that is where this request came from it came at the charter change level um someone came in and spoke and requested that we added i just wanted to provide context that's all thank you okay any further comments on this slate of amendments okay seeing none um will the city clerk please call the roll councillor carpenter hi councillor jane yes councillor freeman yes councillor hanson yes councillor high tower yes yes councillor mason yes councillor paul yes councillor palino yes councillor pine yes councillor shannon yes councillor strongberg yes city council president tracy yes well wise the slate of amendments passes and now we are back to the original uh the original resolution as amended so further discussion okay councillor freeman yeah if it's okay i did want to speak to um the resolution as a whole um i'm pretty excited and also pretty emotional to be bringing this to the council floor tonight um for for a vote um it feels really exciting um it's also been um a really um involved project um there have been so many people you know i mean i councillor shannon strongberg councillor strongberg and i um i didn't know i never thought we would actually have this many charter change meetings um we met you know every week um four hours um we heard um just tons and tons and tons of testimony from the public i know the council has been deliberating this issue for quite some time it's something that came up during the special um committee that was created um that i served on that the councillor shannon i served on um this issue has been debated for quite a long time and um it's just really um amazing to see us getting to this point where we're really moving this proposal forward um and i feel really honored to have been part of that process um for me so a lot of that the um i wanted to speak to some of the the sort of influence that that came out of um the the model that is being put forward um and the process uh in charter change committee we went over um the attorney uh the memo from attorney blackwood which went over a lot of different models from across the country um you know we looked at um consulted with the aclu um we looked at um models of the i mean this is just there's so many different resources that i could pull on that we that we sort of looked at um nicole was another one um that came up which is the national association for civilian oversight of law enforcement um and um beyond that i think what has been so incredible about this process um has just been community members um who have really stepped up and um came to charter change with you know literally like specific line items um you know like they were like online 300 you know not 300 whatever 113 you know right where it says that can you change that exact you know can you change that exact word or change that exact sentence um and it was really incredible to see that level of civic engagement um on this issue um i would also be remiss to not um mention the incredible work that the battery park movement has done um to support this and bring their voice to the table um that you know it's a community group that has worked so hard to um really prioritize the voices of marginalized historically marginalized folks and um center um those voices and these conversations um and it's just been um it's just been really amazing to be a part of so i just wanted to speak towards the overall model um if i can just run through it really quickly and then i'll i'll make a closing statement and then i'll be done i promise so let me just pull up the right where i have my it's too many word documents open um okay so um so i just want to go over like sort of the the bare bones of the model it's um it's a board of seven members um those members are appointed by the city council with the mayor presiding and those um nominations are civic organizations and have input into the the sort of who the the city council and the the mayor votes on for those board members um the board has the power to investigate and discipline um mostly pretty like higher and mid-level infractions of police officers and this is coming right from the resolution that includes complaints of excessive force abusive authority unlawful arrest stops and searches um other unlawful acts discourtesy disrespect offensive language theft discrimination or untruthfulness by police officers um this was something that we went back and forth on it was originally that the board would manage all complaints and all misconduct but we actually thought lower-level complaints could be handled internally but we did still leave the board the right to appeal those decisions and allow them to have this an independent and external investigation if they so desired the board has the discretion to hire staff so that could include a director independent legal council investigators that um that office of investigation would review um civilian complaints would review issues of misconduct and they would present that um to the board who could hold hearings both in the office and the board has the authority under this model to subpoena witnesses and um that's sort of the summary of the model that was created through this proposal um I really strongly believe that this this model um and this proposal that we put forward is this is the right step um and in the right direction um I I feel like um in a lot of these conversations I have um probably seemed like I'm kind of been yelling from the rooftops that I think accountability is really important um and what we're doing to eliminate and mitigate police violence um it's a really really crucial part of this equation um and that's why I feel like this oversight model um and having a strong oversight model is something that we really need as a community um this um this model I'm just gonna the the main principles that I want us to keep in mind as we move through this process pop through this process is um that the board is completely independent um within the best investigatory and disciplinary power that has adequate funding and resources that has community representation and transparency and that is ultimately what I think is retained in this model um and why I will be yeah supporting this proposal and and any proposal that sort of keeps to those core principles um that's what we heard from community members over and over again um it's what the ACLU has proposed um it's what um NACO um has it's very similar to the principles that NACO um as opposed to you know those are really the core aspects um and and I think we've really retained that in this model so that's all I have to I'm gonna say um I I'm really I'm glad we're here I'm curious to hear um you know the debate and um excited to put it to a vote so thank you great thank you for that additional um introduction so are there other comments on the resolution Councillor Stromberg thanks president Tracy um yeah I cannot speak highly enough of Councillor Freeman um being a new councillor uh this year which is just incredibly unique of a year but you know we've seen so many things happen in our community and truly eye-opening things for a lot of residents and we're all moving through this experience and I just want to say that Councillor Freeman has really um brought a lot of grace and empathy and just so much true engagement I mean the most meaningful engagement that you can ask for in a community um and and help facilitate that in such a healthy way so I I just it I'm so inspired by Councillor Freeman and so many organizers and organizations and activists and you know way too many to name people I've met through this process that are incredible and we owe this to them and we owe this to all of the effort and time that has gone into this resolution that Councillor Freeman has taken truly I mean I know a lot of people have put in time and effort into this project as a whole um but I just it takes courage to really bring something so big and and so needed so overdue um forth and I just I am so you really like just should be that textbook example of what it should be to be a real councillor representative or what have you I just I'm so proud to work with you and I'm almost tearing up here so I'm gonna get off but I really appreciate um everything that you've done to to make this possible tonight and to bring it to voters so thank you so much thank you all okay Councillor Pynne thank you Mr President I want to thank uh everybody who worked on this the community members um councillors who didn't always agree and charter change worked really hard to get us here but I think it's also that we important that we remember some of the tragedies that have occurred in Burlington and uh it's it's not a unique unfortunately it's not a unique situation uh in the United States every year campaign zero says about a thousand people die at the hands of police and granted some of those folks are armed but over 65% are not armed and I just want to point out in November 2013 Wayne Burnett had a shovel and he approached some officers in a menacing manner and was shot four times and killed on the front lawn of his mother's house in the new north end the city ended up having to pay uh a settlement of $270,000 for that particular tragedy 2016 Phil Grennan his biggest fear biggest fear was that someone would come into his apartment and assault him he was shot in his own shower he was killed in his own shower and a recent report says that that was an entirely preventable situation I think we all know how Douglas Kilburn ended up after an altercation in the parking lot at our hospital I think what we're trying to grapple with here is that we as a society have accepted violence as as an acceptable way to deal with our problems and the police are not unique this way I don't want to put it all on the police they reflect the culture and the society that we've created we need to do everything we can to move away from that society that type of culture to move towards caring compassion finding a way to resolve these issues without resorting to violence that's what we need to do part of doing that is holding ourselves to the highest standards and one of the ways to do that is to ensure that independent people get to review cases and and issue decisions that have real teeth we've seen over and over again that when the legal system and when law enforcement is is is vested with the power to police themselves the same outcome continues to happen we can't keep doing the same thing and expect a better outcome we've got to build new models and this is a new model it may not be the perfect model but we've got to try something and I think this is getting us in the right in the right direction and so I just want to say thank you to everybody who's worked on this and public you know acknowledgement and apology to the families of Phil Grenin and Wayne Burnett and all the others who have been at the receiving end of essentially brutality and I want us to dedicate ourselves to making that a piece of our history that we never repeat again thank you thank you councillor pina of councillor carpenter to be followed by councillor jane thank um I really appreciate all of what councillor pina is saying um I strongly believe we need um an independent body to support and help us um with how discipline is enacted but I'm I'm struggling with the level of detail in this proposal and my personal sense that we haven't gotten the level of input on the detail that we need and we and is there another way to do this and for instance I thought originally we're starting with an oversight model now we have a control model there's a lot of things in there and I'm frustrated that as much work as everybody's done um that the proposal or a proposal to perhaps make this somewhat simpler and really um put that on the ballot put the put the authority the permission for the city of Burlington to develop an independent oversight board um on the ballot let's agree to do that but let's spend the all of the time we need to work out all of the details councillor Freeman said any and all complaints can be um investigated but then later said well probably the low level ones wouldn't be I mean there's there's all of that kind of thing that I think we need to be clear on how does this board relate to the uh internal human resources of the department the everyday supervision of an officer there's just so much that we um need to work out and we're close I think in the in the conceptual perspective that it would we need to get rid of a few things in the charter like the police chiefs sole authority to um hire and fire we need to fix that we do need a mechanism for an independent board we need permission to do that um but I I'm feeling just very uncomfortable with some of this the level of detail we're proposing today which will now be totally embedded in the charter I personally would love to see us maybe continue the discussion for a while tonight but maybe table our vote so we can have more conversation among us one of the original requests um the council had from a few months ago was that we have a discussion of the various models and we're effectively we've only been talking about one model um and so while I strongly support all of what uh we have said and council point said on the need for the and oversight body I think this proposal is um too detailed and really um puts us in a place that I think will be very difficult to maneuver maneuver away from okay I've counselor jane um thank you president tracy and I think we all owe we all thank you from um um consular freeman I'm saying this because particularly I just love her consistency around this issue this is not today this is not yesterday but she has been very consistent about social justice about criminal justice I think I love that about very do I agree with her all the time no absolutely no but the consistency is here and I think this is nothing other than asking the voters to weigh on this in June we passed a resolution cutting the number of police officers with no input from the community but this one is going to the community we haven't bind ourselves to anything yet until after the voters say move forward do I like it do I don't like it but this is something that I will ask my constitution to vote in support for this and I think in the mayor's memo that we all received that called actually this meeting the mayor by himself said it quote I am committed to forging a new consensus on policing that has the support from both the community and the police department how do we know the community support this if we do not put it on the ballot how did we know we cannot know that's the only way for us to find out and I think again very freeman I love the aspect of her listening because the previous version was not something that I would support that one was too radical or let's say too harsh to the police officers but here it is giving even the power if this passes is giving the council the power to select who are those seven members for right she listened also to the police commission about the pay why this is the only board that will need to be compensated at the same level at the city council I think all of those are concrete and and and and ways that face freeman showed us we can do it if we come together I would be supporting this not only that I will be also working very hard to make sure it passes because if it doesn't work we can come back to the drawing board and change it if we don't see this is this has any use or they don't even receive any cases complaints about police use of force should we reduce them to from seven to five right should we even dismantle it and give that power to the police commission this is a learning this is like a laboratory we have to learn we have to start somewhere and she did the research and she got so many support from so many people and I think we all need to rally behind this idea and see where it's going to get us thank you peri freeman and thank you for all those that supported you in this journey and this again is not new in 2018 2018 this was a subject of conversation at the committee public safety committee I was member I believe fine and roof and city attorney can attest to what I'm saying we had only one page that says the police commission is already doing this and today I find out that actually the police commission don't even access the complaints that come online they don't even even see it they just receive report this is a way forward and I hope that the council will give their constitution the chance to weigh on this thank you peri freeman thank you councillor jake I have Mayor Weinberger to be followed by councillor Paulino thank you president Tracy um for weeks I and and members of my administration have been expressing two things one support for changes in the charter that would remove the near absolute power of the chief of police to administer discipline and two that we have been communicating that we believe the charter changes committee's proposal which goes beyond what was called for in the June 29th racial justice and economic and criminal justice resolution that this council passed unanimously that the work of the charter change committee was headed in a a week ago after parents about this proposal were raised by our citizen police commission in an extended meeting sorry the Thursday I believe before last week's meeting um we and after that in the hope that we could salvage something before the deadline passes that would meet the goal of addressing this problematic part of the charter I put forward an alternative proposal that would knowing and I do want to point out I was criticized for putting it forward last Monday I it was pretty clear last Monday that there was going to be no action last Monday night the council would be deliberating and acting on it that proposal would add subpoena authority and independent investigators and ultimately the authority to override the chief on disciplinary serious disciplinary matters to the police commission such a proposal was consistent with the direction that we've been moving in as a city for for years really we have been steadily increasing the authority of that police commission body and we some of its new authorities and powers have only been in place since August and it has only been a body that is properly representative of the full community for a little over a year the recently added powers came from recommendations from the consensus of the committee to review police practices a seven month multi-stakeholder process with 15 members that represented a broad variety of perspectives around the city the proposal that I put before you would have made the commission still stronger and given these other recent changes a chance to succeed before we threw out all this work of recent years and decided that a totally new direction was needed I made that proposal we need structural and cultural changes in police in American policing and we have a lot of work to do to root systemic racism out of law enforcement and creating a disciplinary system great community oversight and legitimacy is one of the many steps we must take to achieve this presentation I'm just going to pause I got some indication that my connection might be problematic are you having trouble hearing me yeah mayor yeah it's a little bit your it's getting a little spotty Jordan is here and is going to try to make a change we are having trouble with this connection okay hold one second I'm going to try to come through a different camera here apologies one more second all right President Tracy are you able to is this better there's a little bit of an echo mayor okay still now I thought we turned off the feedback but you're still having problems you can still hear a little bit you still sound echoey because I better ended the other connection yeah that was clear thank you okay I apologize no worries thank you for your your patience so I'm not going to go back to the beginning assume enough that came through I'm just going to say I made I made a proposal for change because I believe we need structural and cultural changes in policing both certainly nationally and here in Burlington we have a lot of work to do to root systemic racism out of law enforcement and creating a disciplinary system with great community oversight and legitimacy is one of the many important steps we must take to achieve this I've been calling for a charter change that would address the Chief's near absolute discipline authority since last January and very much hope the council brought forward would be something I could support after weeks of no adjustments to the proposal just two hours before a little more than two hours before the council meeting Councillor Freeman offered a number of changes to her proposal I appreciate that today's changes do represent some material improvements and I certainly appreciate all of the hard work that many people have put in to creating the document as it currently stands unfortunately when especially when the broader context of policing in Burlington right now is considered I cannot support the proposal as it currently stands this draft will exacerbate two serious problems that the city faces right now in several months the mayor elected on March 2nd will need to appoint a permanent police chief our ability to secure a top tier chief to lead the department through the transformations that are necessary will be dramatically negatively impacted by the current language which would grant the new board many causes under which they could remove the chief further I am concerned that police chief candidates will have serious perhaps decisive concerns about taking a position without certainty without certain disciplinary authorities the current language of the proposal allows the board to claim broad firstly all disciplinary powers for itself and I believe that will be problematic for strong future police chiefs secondly the current proposal will continue to put decisions about officer discipline fully in the hands of a board with no requirements for professional qualifications or mandate that they will hew to predictable standards who among us would be willing to pursue a career under such uncertainty the passage tonight of the current language and the placement of this language on the ballot will further deepen the crisis we are facing in our sworn officer ranks we face the likely possibility of needing to curtail policing services from what burlingtonians expect in the months ahead as a result of a decision by a bare majority of this council to cap our sworn officers at 74 a 30 reduction from what it previously was passage of this charter change will accelerate departures from the department and the day in which essential police services will need to be cut for those two reasons I will be unable to support this charter change unless significant additional changes are made and I regret that as councillor jang noted I do think now is the time for us to forge a new consensus on policing our community very much needs that new consensus and this charter change is was certainly and still may be an opportunity to forge an important step towards that new consensus this resolution as it currently stands however will not do that it will drive us further apart and it will badly hurt our imperfect but professional carefully built and skilled burlington police department I hope the council will take the this remaining opportunity to see a different course I have councillor polino in the queue got you councillor tower go ahead councillor polino it's hard it's hard to follow the mayor but I'll give my best shot I just want to take a step back I think that this is a good opportunity given the mayor's speech to take a step back to put things aside for a second and think what we're doing here all right we're doing a lot of important things and very proud to be part of that I think we all agree that we have a good police department that needs more transparency and accountability and I think we all share that goal but I think there's a certain level of irony that the way forward which is what this resolution does is to over police the police because of their history of over policing and misuse of police resources so the way to fix that history is to micromanage them and to over over police them and I'm not making this up based on whim or feeling that's what's written in this resolution it says line 32 through 35 it says any non probationary member of the police force may be disciplined or removed if found to have become incompetent inefficient or incapable from any cause is or has been negligent or derelict in their official duty and is guilty of any misconduct in their private life any misconduct in their private life and any misconduct in their official life or if that wasn't broad enough for any other good reason or just cause I don't know any job that would have that in their contract I don't know any law that would force an employee to work under conditions under that I please prove me wrong but I have not or heard or seen that I don't know who would sign up to serve any job under that much less for a bulletproof vest and a firearm and be forced to make split second decisions that impact their own life other people's life and I think that when it comes to policing as the mayor said officers need to know what they're going to do and they have about less than one second to make that decision and that's where the consistency part comes in and officer needs to know what resources to use and what encounter and they have very little time to think about it and when we over police that we create we create confusion and hesitation and that can create danger for the community for the officer maybe he makes the wrong decision he's not sure so I think the intent is good but I think that line is something that is really concerning to me and we're not we're talking about the police here not another job the other part that further really bothers me is the fact that no person who has had a law enforcement experience can serve on the board and again hindsight is 2020 you know we're going to have this board Monday morning quarterbacking again split second decisions life and death you know with deadly weapons involved and all the people that will be Monday morning quarterback that decision made at the time will never have made that same type of decision in the moment as a law enforcement officer or have that experience I cannot support that thank you President Tracy thank you I have counselor high tower next make a point of information sure go ahead there are a lot of counselors in the queue but I and I'm trying to find the line item counselor Paul you know but one of the I just wanted to give a point of information for the council one of the things that you just mentioned is actually already in the charter so it's already the standard but I'm struggling to find the line item it's in section 1389 it's lines 40 through 43 it was already in the charter counselor probably know or is guilty of any misconduct in his or her private or official life their private or official life I just wanted to make sure that you that that you knew that it's not we didn't change anything by adding that language we just gave gave the powers to the board instead of the chief of police so I I wasn't sure if that's if that was a confusion point of confusion so I just wanted to clarify but that was just put to the to the authority of the board instead of to the police chief that's all I know there's a ton of counselors in the queue I just wanted to do to make a point of information quickly okay thank you I have counselor high tower in the queue I'll follow that up with counselor Jane yeah I just wanted to reflect on the note that came from police commissioners it was drafted by Stephanie Seguina who is one of our police commissioners and then agreed on by the majority of commissioners because it's been brought up a few times and they had a list of concerns the first of which is that this board creates a new structure rather than using the police commission I won't I personally think that that is fine one way or another because they currently are the appeal board we would have to create a second board one way or another we'd have to have two different bodies and so for them to be not this not the oversight one doesn't necessarily I think as a police commission they might be a little bit biased as to who gets that power but we would have to create it there have to be two bodies their second concern was that the proposed model of civilian oversight does not fit Burlington and I think they meant both in size and in substance I think counselor Freeman in her revisions now addressed certainly some of the concerns that I had with the ability to pare down and make it the board and function and office a little bit smaller and make it Burlington size so I think that at least the size concern may not have been addressed for all commissioners but certainly was addressed for me personally one of the recommendations that the Joint Committee had was to have the National Association of Civilian Oversight and Law Enforcement review this before it goes on the before it goes in front of the voters which we still have time for and they gave a initial review that was extremely favorable another concern had been that it didn't provide a role for the police chief I think this amendment does provide that role there was a concern between the how this interacts with the police union I think that's something that we'll have to figure out as time goes on so I just want to make I do think I just I guess as a lot of this discussions had a joint committee I think folks had concerns I think this proposal doesn't address all concerns I don't think it will address everyone's concerns in all ways I do think it addresses a lot of the more substantive concerns we had both around selection and around right sizing and I will and not and that so apart from that this is me half relaying the police commission half just speaking for myself and I want to make sure those two things are separate but I certainly will be supporting this I do think to councillor Deng's point there's we don't know all right I guess we probably do know that this isn't the perfect model and that in the future there will have to be changes to it but I think it's the time to do something and I understand that makes a lot of folks uncomfortable but I think generally when you make the move towards addressing an injustice in society and whether that's racial justice gender justice it makes other folks it makes folks uncomfortable and I think I think that's okay so I will be supporting this and also want to thank everyone who put a lot of work and thought into this thank you councillor hi towerhead councillor jane next yeah I just had a point of information but it seems to be missed it I just wanted councillor freeman to highlight that that language that consular polio is concerned about is currently an existed language in the current charter you know and I think I just wanted to make sure that it come out clearly to all of those listening here as well and councillor freeman can you can you can you come back to that please okay councillor freeman go ahead yeah so that that language because there was a request or this model was to shift to independent investigation and discipline the language that was in the charter regarding the powers that had been formally given to the police department per the police chief to review and discipline so that language around it's online 41 in our draft it says whenever it shall appear to the chief that any member of set force has become incompetent and efficient oh sorry yeah no that's right inefficient or incapable for many causes or is or has been negligent or derelict in his or her official duty or is guilty of any misconduct in her so her private or official life or whenever any well grounded complaints or charges to such effect are made in writing to the chief by a responsible person against each member the chief may investigate and after appropriate notice and hearing a hearing dismiss such member from the force order reduction or suspend the member without pay for a specified time period in excess of 14 days so that language was mirrored after it was stricken here to be the power of the board there were some other small changes like instead of using binary gender language actually that we changed it to their private or official life to be more inclusive which you know we had the opportunity to do it so we did but that those parameters were already sort of they were already part of the jurisdiction of conduct that was being evaluated but we've just we have decided in this model that that we want an independent board to review that conduct and make that discipline so that's where that language came from thank you i'll set counselor jane okay counselor polina to respond to counselor jane i appreciate you asking that question um yes that language was there but the arbiter the judge of that the those very broad term first well i didn't vote for that charter change that's what i'll say to that um those terms are not defined and when you're turning this over to a board that will not be law enforcement officers you should define those terms they should be clear they shouldn't be left up to politics to sentiments to wins and to feeling um and they're very broad terms and i think that when they're entrusted to the chief of the police department is a much different term than when you're turning it over to a seven member board so just to further clarify that thank you okay thank you uh counselor mason thank you president tracy um my thoughts on the overall resolution are aligned with counselor carpenters but i did want to respond i've heard two separate counselors make reference to the ease at which this can be amended stating it's not a perfect model we can amend it you know to be clear our opportunity to amend it after the charter goes onto the ballot is is it is not a simple change it is it would require again a citizen vote approval of the legislature and the governor so for that reason i respectfully push back on this assertion that a few have made that although it's not a perfect model let's get this out and we can amend it going forward um it is not a simple process to amend we would be stuck with this for absent you know voter approval legislative approval and governor signature thank you okay i have uh counselor jing to be followed by counselor pine and paul go ahead counselor jing um thank you president tracy and i think um it is important to also clarify that when we when basically when i say that yes if this is not the best model then we will come back to the drawing board and of course it is lengthy process that get us to where we are right now and the willingness to again go to the same process to make the changes until we all feel that this is right and i think where we are right here again is to send this to the voters of burlington that's what charles that's what that's what we should do and that's why we all need to make sure it goes there and see see what's gonna happen if they say yes it goes to the legislator if they say no then we come back again and do something else it has to be an independent body different from the police commission and i think that's a point uh very freeman and all of us are kind thank you counselor pine to be followed by counselor paul thank you mr president could i ask um as far as what we have ahead of us today is december 14th we will hold hearings in january based on the testimony of those hearings we can change language yes that's cool that meeting is the 21st or the i'm sorry i don't know when that meeting is in january so what what do we have for sort of a absolute drop dead day for changing language attorney blackwood are you able to clarify that yes so right now what we have scheduled is that the two public hearings would happen at your meetings on january 19th and january 25th and that following the public hearing on the 25th you would you would make any changes then because you would not have another meeting before the the final ballot has to go out you when you asked me about drop dead okay you probably could have a meeting later that same week you know a day or two later if you absolutely had to but again i just urge you that you know the later you go the more likely we are to make mistakes when we're trying to get the ballots finalized and so we really would really really want to have your meeting on the 25th have the last of it so we can get the ballots proofed and and to the printer thank you that's helpful um so i just want to point out we do have i don't know exactly but it looks like about five weeks until we actually have to finalize the language so in that sense we do have if there's some fatal flaw that comes back to us we do have time to rectify that language i would also just ask for a moment to sort of give a quick quick i won't be long but a quick history lesson on the origin of commission form of government quickly the city ran for a hundred years after the initial progressive era when the city decided we have to get citizens overseeing these city departments because they're just they're running as little fiefdoms then we had commissioners who ran departments to the point where they were actually ordering equipment and getting overly involved in running departments and and basically controlling departments to the extent that they were telling the mayor you actually don't get to tell us what to do you can create the budget but mr. mayor you don't get to tell us what to do because we actually oversee the chief or the department head of any department so we then as the city decided get away from that form of of governance and we created a little bit of you know accountability around the idea that the mayor is held accountable for the department heads that report to the mayor in this one instance what we have decided i believe as a community is with the police issue of police policing the police that's one area where we've decided we need to shift the way we govern ourselves i believe the community is ready for that conversation i think we should trust the voters to have a really robust debate about this and if this isn't the path if we need to do something different we will know that on march 3rd or 4th or whatever the day is this year we will know that soon enough but we've got to put something forward it moves us along and and really attempts to rectify the situation that we have but there's a real disconnect that is um that is causing the community great sense of of lack of safety and lack of trust lack of accountability that is really damaging the faith in in our in our approach to law enforcement of burlington so i think this is that moment where you know 20 years ago or 15 18 years ago the city decided to move away from the true commission form of government for the commissions ran the departments and instead put the mayor really in the driver's seat of appointing department heads but now what we're trying to say is this particular instance is really different and calls for a different response and so it's time to update and modernize the way we're doing it that's why i think this makes sense for you thank you i have counselor paul to be followed by councillor carpenter uh thanks president tracy um i appreciate the opportunity to speak um and i appreciate all of the comments that so many people have made this evening about this very important resolution um i don't i think there's universal um well maybe i shouldn't say universal but i there is a broad agreement in this community that we need um that the police should not be policing themselves um and uh that we do need an oversight board i was really um i i felt that you know having this as an oversight board made a lot of sense to me um it's that's what they're doing in madison wisconsin and i know that that was one of the models that was looked at by the charter change committee and perhaps by others they have a civilian oversight board they have an independent oversight monitor and while i don't know that that's a perfect model i think that it is something that is working i believe in madison um which obviously is not burlington but is working in another community that many of us point to as one that we admire for a number of reasons um i did want to i i wasn't sure that i followed everything that um a few people have said but i i do think that you know the number of details that are in this resolution um are problematic not because they're good or not good it's not about that it's more because of the way that we can react as a community um um if we find that they're not working and you know putting them in charter despite what anyone may think is not a simple process to then go and undo what we later find is not working um and i do have a question um i noticed i i haven't looked i haven't looked recently to see who's on in the zoom meeting on but either for the city attorney or was hoping also that the director of police transformation kyle dodson is hopefully on in this meeting on when you talk about a model it means that you are you are looking at you are not copying but you're looking at other versions and creating a model for a community and at least that's what it does to me it means to me and so i'm trying to what i'm struggling with is trying to find a model in the in this country that effectively takes away all authority to really deal with the chain of command with the for the chief that effectively the chief that is not the end of the line the chief um can be overruled fairly unilaterally by a civilian control board and so i'm just trying to understand what communities have that model um and was hoping that um one or both of them could speak to that because i know that they've put time into looking into that okay attorney blackwood so there are many i mean burlington used to have a police commission there are many communities around the country that have police commissions those police commissions can overrule the chief on discipline uh matters and uh and some other matters so so there are many models and then there are other boards that have been created in the years since that uh can overrule even as written today our police commission if a police officer were to bring an appeal to the police commission they could overrule the chief so so in you know in terms of your question and there are lots of models where civilian boards can overrule the chief there aren't a lot of models that contain all of these elements and uh and this investigative authority and and all of the different elements that are contained in this particular model that we have before us okay i again i don't thank you thank you very much attorney blackwood i um i don't know i know that a lot of work has been done by the director of police transformation on this issue and just wondered again i i could be wrong i don't know if um uh i don't know if he's even on in the meeting um and it i don't see i'm here can you hear me yes i can oh yeah and my three to speak uh counselor paul are you asking for for kyle to speak to this if you if that would be okay but the connection's a little bit rough but i think we can i i can hear you yes go ahead go ahead thank you i hope everyone can hear me i want to echo all of the uh comments about the respect and appreciation for uh the good time and good work that has gone on to this uh for the questions that uh counselor paul asked i have spoken to a good number of people and uh the attorney blackwood spoke to it if you've seen one oversight agency model you've seen one oversight agency model it does run the gamut just quick numbers 18 000 or so police agencies 160 to 200 have fairly robust models um and uh but i would say that in my research to also echo echo uh attorney blackwood uh it is uncommon to have a body that is not professionally staffed that does not have expertise uh that has these far-reaching powers there are models that do but in my research i did not find uh community-appointed folks who certainly can go to training but it's not the same as someone who is their profession it has accountability that way too has a management structure and has a set of procedures and professional expectations guiding their work and that is often when it's a very well left very strong model that's what i've seen um so um i would just say that um as it relates to that and what i've seen around the country but if you look far and wide enough you'll find some mix of i don't think you'd find any place that has this exact model and you find it'll be rare to find two municipalities that have the exact same thing there's a lot of customization it appears but i do think it's accurate to say that the more robust models generally tend to be in larger municipalities with a large number cases straddle has over 6 000 complaints a year 150 staff multi-million dollar bunch of professionals who do this work now that's an example of what i saw point of effort i'm sure what uh mr datson is talking about is very important but i cannot hear what he's saying okay um director dodson are you able to adjust your microphone or yes here that uh it might be on this computer that uh the problem exists here if you want to have me come back i can go to a device where i know people will be able to hear me about and come back in yeah if you're able to to deal with that we can we can come back i'll be back in a couple of minutes okay i counselor uh paul you you still have the floor okay um uh well my my comments were more related i mean i i heard enough about what enough of what kyle had said to just simply offer that um you know i think in burlington we're very proud of the fact we have a proud tradition of being on the cutting edge of many issues um and leading the nation on a lot of issues um and we love we love to we love to brag about that and we and we should be able to brag about it we have done a lot of things um you know burlington electric was on the was and has been on the cutting edge of many um you know many issues um climate environment um sanctuary city fair and impartial policing policy and most recently divestment um and um but all of those were done either by ordinance or by resolution and i think the benefit to doing that um and i think it's actually a benefit for many people who are proponents of this civilian control board is that all the details in something that's very new are worked out in a living in much in a much more living document which is an ordinance um a charter is like a constitution it takes you know a lot of work to get one to change something um you know there are many years where we only have that opportunity once a year like in 2021 and i think um you know i think a lot of this could have been worked out in an ordinance and allowed us the opportunity to make changes when we saw that there might be a change that's needed because it is so new um and it appears as though this particular model um is crafted as a part of you know from gathering from other other cities um but is definitely something fairly fairly unique um and uh you know if if six months from now we are unable to find a police chief um maybe there would be a reason after giving this model a certain amount of time if it was approved by the voters and it came back from the legislature maybe we would find that there were there were changes that we could make that we could all live with but once it's out there in charter it's a lot harder to do that um and it clearly would be something that a police chief or an officer or even someone moving to to burlington might actually look at um so it's not something that easily goes away if we find that it isn't it doesn't work i just would since i'm probably not going to have the opportunity to to speak again in the interest of time just wanted to um also just simply say that i do think that we do need to to strengthen the community's trust in the operations of the police department and i do agree that we need to provide an independent and independent civilian body to investigate allegations of police misconduct there is very little in this resolution that i don't agree with except for the fact that i think that we do need to um uh i think that we i think that we need to have more in ordinance and less in charter and um i think that honestly that would make for a better charter and i think it would make for one that people can clearly understand when it goes to the voters and i think that even though it may not seem that way to many proponents i think it actually is the better route to go so i appreciate all of the work that has been done on this i feel incredibly badly because i would like to support this and i think that something should go on the ballot that is meaningful i just don't think that it is this um and and again i also would like to i would also like to say as others have said that i know councillor freeman you have put a tremendous amount of time and effort into this you've listened to my concerns as have others of you and i'm grateful for that um so thank you thanks president tracy okay thank you councillor probably we have director dodson back on so director dodson i'll go back to you to just finish your thought thank you president tracy can folks hear me better now much better thank you excellent thank you so i think uh councillor paul asked me to just weigh in on the things i've learned uh through uh this process and and research and uh what i've learned um is that uh if you've seen one oversight agency you've seen one that old adage they're incredibly customized and they differ from community community but what was true is that when i saw bodies that were empowered with a significant authority they almost always were run by a professional organization an entity that is independent um and had the rules about um the no relationships with police all those things that this proposal has uh but they were trained professionals it was their job they had a set of rules and regulations per councillor paulino things were clearly stated in chicago it stated what things the chicago officer of police academy looks at which things they don't um there's some specificity high level of training when there's that robust authority i did not find evidence of a community that had a board of people that were from the general public notwithstanding the ability to have some training who weren't trained professionals as their first time job um so i did not find evidence of that it does not mean it doesn't exist um but i did not find a setup that was quite like ours in the range and depth of its authority um mixed with the particular setup that were contemplated okay thank you for that appreciate it i have councillor carpenter now to be followed by councillor freeman um i don't want to repeat uh much of what councillor paul said i mean i i really support that and i i'm sad and frustrated because i too want to see something on the ballot that gives us permission to develop an independent oversight board we need that but this language is to me is very constraining on both sides and i think we would be so much better served if we could back off a minute get ourselves a charter change that we can all um support with the public and let the public know that as we proceed we're going to put an ordinance um the level of details that we need to effectuate um the board and a program and let the public know that if we need to change that we can through ordinance and it just so concerns me that we're going to lock ourselves into something that appears to be really a big city model for a small town and maybe isn't the best match although some of the elements of it are perfectly fine so i just i'm sad that we can't get to a place where we can get something on the ballot but not this prescription at this point in time okay thank you councillor carpenter i have councillor freeman to be followed by councillor jane thank you president tracy um i just wanted to respond um specifically to um the the this model how it's different from other models that are across the country and why that means it's the right model for us and um if you actually look at um the feedback from um nicole's director of operations liana perez what she writes at the end of her email is um this appears to be a very strong model let me know how it goes so that we can use it as a resource reference for other agencies there are many that we are working with now who are trying to get to this level of authority um and that's exactly why this model is so important to support um it's because um as we've discussed there are a lot of models that don't necessarily have this level of authority um and that is what has made them unfortunately ineffective um you know i've heard um in this debate um in discussion um you know coming back to some of those values those core principles around accountability the police not policing themselves um the change and sort of the the shift that we're trying to make culturally and in our paradigm of public safety um and i think that is really really essential to this um to this change and it's actually why um i feel like it's the right model to support it's that that um that assessment is correct um and i i think it actually lends to the argument to support this um there's the fair amount of documentation about um the issues with models that don't have um sort of final independent authority um those are one you know resources that can be accessed through campaign zeros um work that they've accumulated um there's a lot of research on that i'm happy to share it with counselors um but i just wanted i know there's been a lot of conversation around a lot of different points but that's that's one to me that i feel i really just wanted to clarify um on i think it's why um we need we need to make this decision as a city and why we should put this question to the voters thank you councilor freeman i have counselor once again yes yeah um thank you i mean i think it would be important also for all of us to recognize that we do have outstanding police officers and sometimes it really struck me why do we even need to go outside of Vermont or outside of Burlington or the you know the region to find a new police new police chief in the rank there are people who know this community so much and who are outstanding and who have all it takes to lead this department to the next level and also to change its culture i am confident of that i know people who can do the job perfectly well who may be applied before but never were given the opportunity right there is that my point being we should not be here always trying to find what is good elsewhere but many of us talk about it we should lead and this is a version if it doesn't exist let's create it and see where it's going to take us right it is important for the general public like mr. Dutson talked about to that the police is policing to police it's a police it makes it's just common sense and i think that method or that way doesn't exist elsewhere but Burlington might be the first municipality that have that right let's not run away or bring fear sometime to some of these hard topics it is all about finding out the balance the check and balances that we can implement and see what's going to happen no one has a crystal ball nobody what works in Sacramento might not work here but we're figuring it out and we're figuring it out together by giving our constituents the chance to weigh in if they don't like it it's too wordy we come back but it has to be a check and balances to me it's it's important and to my colleagues if you don't like the language maybe you can bring amendments to the language this is how democracy works but i just don't like the language i'm not voting for it you had a chance to look into it what you don't like maybe propose something that you like in the beginning i did not like it at all i did not like the the mayor to not have the power or the council to not have the power i did not like community organizations appointing the members i did not like that i did not like non-immigrants to put themselves on the line i didn't like a lot of things but i think the amendments we all work through to get us to where we are again it is just asking our voters what they think it might be too radical for you and me but it might not be for them please let's allow them to have a say on this thank you okay councilor hanson thank you um first i just want to thank um councilor freeman for their incredible work and leadership on this i think this is a very strong proposal and it's one that's been vetted and supported by not only um over well over a hundred community members and and community leaders that have been engaged in this type of work for a very long time but also by major reputable organizations like aclu vermont and naco i'm really excited to vote yes on this i think this is a really strong step forward in creating police accountability and building public safety um to respond to one of the mayor's points about finding a police chief i i actually think this will help us find a police chief that aligns with our community's values because if our community votes for this and supports this and passes it that will deter from a chief who's not prepared for that strong community oversight and it will attract a chief that welcomes strong accountability and oversight from our community and chosen by our community in that vote um i want to speak to to all the organizers and community members that have pushed so hard and have really gotten us in large part to this point and if we were in person right now um the room would be packed and i think this conversation would would look and feel different a lot different um you know there's a reason that it's called the struggle for justice i think anyone who's been doing this for any amount of time um knows how much of a struggle it is and it's it's never easy it's never perfect it never ends and this process has certainly been a struggle for a lot of folks who who fought so hard and are ultimately fighting for a safer and more just community and i think it's especially important to thank and acknowledge the black organizers who put their full heart out on the line in pushing this forward and talking about and debating these issues is different when it's your own safety on the line when it's your own family's safety on the line or at stake depending on these decisions um any meaningful change that we push for and i think this is truly meaningful change there's going to be a power structure that's going to push back against that there's going to be people defending the status quo there's going to be people who who fear change and this is no exception to that and i honestly don't know what's going to happen next um i think no matter what happens tonight this fight is going to continue and i'm committed to working with all of you on this um i think no matter what we're going to be able to accomplish a lot together in terms of the idea that this is um you know too cutting edge or too specific or what if what if we're doing it wrong what if it's not perfect um i i disagree that that Burlington's on the cutting edge here i think we've fallen behind i think we're this is so long overdue and other communities that have had this in place for a very long time um even they were overdue you know like that they got there because there was a huge problem and that's what pushed them to get there they were behind we're even further behind um a lot of why these issues have bubbled up so much in our community is because we've deferred them and because we pushed them to the side um so i want to commend counselor jang for everything you said and and for coming on board with this and i think i hope that everyone who's worked on this can be proud of yourselves and of each other and the fact that we're going to take a big step forward i think we are going to pass this tonight i don't know what's going to happen after that but that in itself i think is really worth celebrating and acknowledging so just thank you thank you thank you to everyone who's who's worked so hard and i'll be honored to vote yes thank you for that i don't have anyone else in the queue counselor shannon thank you president tracy i'm actually quite sad tonight that we are passing something that is so divisive when i don't think that it needed to be this way i think that there's actually a broad agreement on finding um a new um independent and investigatory model that um takes the authority away from the police chief without completely cutting the chief out of the process and i think that we could have found common ground um i think that there are many issues that we have yet to wrestle with um starting with we uh you know what originally came to the charter change committee was actually a request to empower the existing commission but we never really uh that was drafted by attorney blackwood and i think that that would have been a good starting point um there wasn't interest in the charter change committee discussing that despite the fact that that was what was referred to us and we moved on um to you know to this investigatory model but we never wrestled with the three types of models and what is the most appropriate for burlington we just drove you know we dove right into this draft and um while there were many many members of the public that weighed in on this there was a total lack of diversity of opinion at the table and it seemed designed to be so there was not a desire um to hear from a lot of people that could have informed our work um among those who were not consulted before this was referred to the council include the police commission um the police chief or any police staff for the police union um the racial equity inclusion and belonging director nacoal was not consulted nacoal has since been consulted but we really don't know what the question was asked of them and we got an email that was probably prepared in five minutes in response to that rather than a thorough review um or any background information to nacoal nacoal about burlington um does it check boxes yes it checks a whole bunch of boxes and in what could be um a good model however it it doesn't look at the unintended consequences of things that go beyond checking the boxes uh our ceo katharine chad was not consulted in this we are creating a new department with staff we don't know what the cost of that is i do know that in our budget adoption process we were we were debating at great length line items that were even down to double digits um we do not have any idea how we might pay for this um and i'm not saying that we shouldn't invest some money in the effort but i think there should be some discussion of where that might be coming from is this a tax increase or does it come from some place else i don't actually know and i don't know what it costs i do know it's it's similar to madison wisconsin it's probably smaller than madison wisconsin in madison's budget it costs 482 thousand dollars a year we have not done any analysis of the complaints that would be reviewed by this body um there is something in the police commissioners report because the police commissioners while civilians and independent they have gained some expertise in um in policing well that's unfortunate okay i was able to stop that thank you um curling currently uh and that information was provided to us there just wasn't interest in reviewing it uh currently burlington police department receives about 28 actionable complaints a year and conducts conducts four to five internal investigations uh repeated concerns about the mismatch of the scale of the proposed model to the needs of burlington were expressed by various commissioners throughout the process one second no i don't know why that continues um so we don't have any evidence that this is right sized to burlington we haven't consulted people who have a lot of experience in criminal investigations and over the course of time i that i've been on the council i can think of at least two major three major murder cases that we've had how is this um going to affect that type of investigation i've had um contact from uh you know from my an attorney who warns that this would be devastating to uh to criminal investigating um i'd also like to say that that i felt there was um i had suggested i think it's problematic the makeup of the board i think is problematic um i don't know why my phone keeps ringing like hang on maybe i'll answer it okay now i hang up on them sorry caller id uh oh my gosh but my computer's ringing um in the process i i had suggested that among the different groups that we were selecting from we include not just um survivors of domestic violence i'm sorry what sorry um that we not just consider domestic violence but that we consider victims of crime that was rejected because it was perceived that victims of domestic violence would be uh more police officers are involved in domestic violence than um the general public so that was rejected because victims of crime don't fall into that category but why would we exclude victims of crime from this it seems to be it seems to be intentionally biased against the police and i think that that's concerning i have no objection to to bringing people to the table who are disenfranchised and may have some bias against the police but to have a board that's intentionally biased is concerning i also want to say that the um as far as a commission form of government it was problematic because those who are elected can't aren't held accountable and that's a problem if this authority lies with the commission the um if if we were left to state law it actually would be these decisions would we would be with the elected body but we now have a process further removed than that because we are appointing um we it's not the council appointing this it's 20 people including the council so the council is not directly accountable even for the appointment of this group which we are for the police commission so i will mute myself now and i apologize okay thank you for that um i had councillor stromberg to be followed by councillor freeman thank you president tracy um i don't mean to put taisha on the spot but if director green would be willing to maybe shed some light um on some insight on this in terms of um their consultation in this matter um that would be really helpful thank you director green uh yes um councillor stromberg what what is the question um just any general thoughts on on this as as you were consulted with this and um just if you want to offer any any um insight on this discussion tonight because i feel like we often call on a lot of people but i would love to hear from you okay thank you uh yes i i was consulted on this process very early on in the process uh council freeman reached out to me um i did not you know get back to her in time with any any thoughts i'm sorry with them in time with any thoughts um but i was consulted on this matter i'll set councillor stromberg um and uh councillor freeman and i have had several phone discussions about the resolution itself okay thank you for that councillor stromberg did you have additional questions um no i'm okay i'll pass it over to councillor freeman or you okay sure councillor freeman yeah i just wanted to clarify on nicole um i'm sorry if that was um vague about how that went about um i asked um uh turn former attorney city attorney bergman who um was a um you know staff support writer on this policy with me um to reach out to them on our behalf um the i believe they had a phone conversation to sort of discuss sort of extensively you know berlington various you know kind of iterations of where we've been you know what has happened you know with um uh response from the public you know in you know since the summer in the fall um and then that response took um i want to say it was several days it wasn't like a like just an email back it was like they they reviewed it over a period of days and then sent um that email um in response so i just wanted to clarify on that and then as far as public engagement um at the committee level um this was something that i fought really hard for um and really took a stand for at the committee level was to make sure we had the ability for the community to engage um i asked many times to make sure that our public forums were inclusive um i you know was glad when counselor shannon moved to allowing people to speak um during um our actual deliberations um there was no intention to not um have um input from the broader community those those are open meetings um i would gladly have accepted people i um sent this the final draft to every single counselor in a personal email on november 22nd there was plenty of opportunity for counselors to reach back to me i was as responsive as possible when folks emailed me and tried to let them know you know i do work in long-term care and it's it is pretty intense um with the situation of COVID right now but i'm trying to be as responsive as possible um i've had countless conversations with police commissioners um on this um one-on-one conversations group conversations um i really you know i am really trying to do extensive work and you know to be as inclusive as possible the opportunity is there for people to reach out and i don't want to give the impression that um that has never been something um that at least i've but like that i have done in this process i i feel like i've i've asked for feedback um this this went to um director dodson on november 20 or maybe 27th actually i'm not sure i have to look at but this went out to people and i just really want to make that clear that i was um i was sending this around and and asking for feedback um and that has been something that i've been committed to um i you know we still have conversations don't necessarily agree 100 but i i was really open to discussion on this so um i just want to make that um clear and um that yeah but that's that is my process and i'm committed to that process um through through um through the rest of this uh this charter change thank you for that counselor freeman um we don't have anyone else in the queue who ready to vote council shannon i just want to say that that was an effort by the public the interruptions to my speaking are members of the public who are trying to silence me on this issue that's why you hear my phone ringing right now um and that is not respectful of public engagement or reaching consensus or having different voices at the table so that we can actually have a civil discussion and civil decision making process and i i think that if people think that interrupting in this way is an okay way to object to what i'm saying i hope president tracy you will address this yes absolutely i didn't i was not clear as to why that was happening counselor shannon or what was going on there so i certainly apologize i just didn't understand what was going on there i think that that isn't appropriate and i would ask people to stop calling counselors um repeatedly while they're speaking on the council that obviously is a time that they're unavailable to reach you i know that counselor shannon does make herself available to constituents so i would ask that people please reach out to counselor shannon in that time i'm sorry i did not realize that that was what was happening i thought that it was something else like just an malfunction so that is not appropriate please don't do that folks please allow us to focus on our work i would also suggest that counselors please silence their phones or put it on vibrate during this time so that we can stay focused and that you don't have these um these interruptions as well thank you my phone is silenced it's ringing through my computer is why it continued okay all right i didn't realize that thank you then thank you for clarifying and if folks could please not do that i'd really appreciate it we need to stay focused on this issue anyone else in the queue okay let's go to a vote all those in favor please say aye all right i'm sorry can the city clerk please call the roll counselor carpenter counselor carpenter couldn't hear you sorry this is sad but no councillor jen yes councillor freeman yes councillor hanson yes councillor high tower yes councillor mason no councillor paul now councillor paulino no councillor pine yes councillor shannon no councillor strongberg yes city council president tracy yes seven eyes five days the motion carries we are now on to our next item which is um item 6.04 a resolution um regarding annual city meeting on a charter change having to do with the airport commission councillor paul thank you very much president tracy um so i recall at the beginning of this meeting that president tracy said that there were going to be a lot of interesting gymnastics when it comes to uh taking some of these and moving them forward and this one is no different um what i need to do first is to make a motion to take the december 2019 resolution off the table and ask for a second okay we have a motion and a from councillor paul a second from councillor carpenter you have the floor councillor paul thank you and then i would like to move to strike the december 2019 resolution and replace it with the revised resolution that we have on board docs um i would also and i'm not sure if i need a second for that i probably do yes believe you do second and thank you for our high tower go ahead councillor paul thanks so much um so i'd like to make a motion to adopt the revised resolution um that we now have before us wave the reading and ask for the floor back after a second briefly okay so we have a motion is there a second seconded by councillor carpenter go ahead councillor paul great thank you so just for the benefit mostly of the public um because this is a charter change on the resolution is proposing a change to the airport commission uh currently the airport commission is composed of four members from the city of burlington appointed by this body by the uh by the city council with the mayor presiding and one member from the city of south burlington that is appointed in a similar fashion um over the course of over a year uh the cities of south burlington burlington and wanouski have been working to find solutions and opportunities for collaboration with regard to the airport um these are all communities that are directly impacted by the airport um the process has resulted in a memorandum of understanding that is to be signed shortly will be signed before this would go to the voters on one of the requests from the city of wanouski is to have a seat at the table on the airport commission and at the last airport commission meeting a few weeks ago mayor lot spoke very um uh very passionately to the desire for the city of wanouski to have a seat at the table it was a very compelling argument and one that um one that one that swayed half of the uh the airport commission there were two commissioners that voted in favor of seeing a seat for the city of wanouski there were two that voted against um uh council member and uh um council chair of south burlington uh helen reilly was not feeling well tried to call in um but you know it is her opinion that had she been there to vote that she would have voted in favor of a seat for the city of wanouski on the the resolution would play that was on the ballot um would include a seat for wanouski and at the same time it would also add a seat a fifth seat for the city of of burlington um thus not changing the balance but offering the two communities south burlington and now wanouski on a voice at the table i hope that everyone can support placing this on the ballot thanks so much thank you councillor paul are there comments from councillors councillor jane thank you president tracy um and i was just wondering if yeah maybe the mayor or mr uh director richard or nicolas is anyone is here to maybe talk about this more uh because my understanding is in order for the other municipalities to have a seat on the airport commission there should be a monetary contribution from those municipalities to our airport that's i don't know if if that's accurate and this doesn't seem to include all those details in here i was just wondering who can speak to that we have someone on the line from the airport it seems eileen yeah okay plenty blackwood i think probably on the one to to speak on that so what this is doing is there has been a lot of discussion about um particularly from wanouski and wanouski is requested to have a seat on the airport commission so they can have some say into a number of issues particularly a lot of the noise issues um and be involved at at the airport commission level of staying up to date on those like south burlington is and and the mayor has spoken with and been in in discussions with the mayors of uh both wanouski and south burlington about um a memorandum of understanding that i think you've heard referenced to and and and i think seen a draft of it's been it's been a number of months here and uh covid kind of intervened in the in the in the middle of this process um the in in the the bottom line is that what we are proposing is is adding a seat for wanouski to be able to share importantly on this commission and uh also add another burlington rep representative and that's the process that was done when the south burlington seat was originally added many years ago so to keep the an odd number it also brings this commission to a size uh consistent with the size of other commissions that we other boards and commissions that we have in the city did i answer everything you wanted council jane no no i mean i think yes i do remember we did have an executive session and spoke specifically about this about a year or two years ago you know and today we haven't received any updates and i don't know where that moment of mou you're talking about where it is and what it entails all of those details and also can you speak to that monetary contribution to the airport from those municipalities okay okay yes so um uh so a couple things one um the mou is not um is not yet signed but it is my understanding that there's conceptual agreement among the three uh mayors about it and that um it is just kind of in the process of of um getting getting finalized and to come to you it has been a kind of chicken and egg issue as to which should come first um showing the city's commitment to this to this charter change is one of the elements on um involved in that mou um so that's what i'd say about that piece in terms of monetary contribution the idea of the airport commission is it is an advisory entity it is not a governance entity and you will recall that you saw a that you've seen some uh from my office about about governance and the issues around that and and the the primary issue here is to say this is an advisory body that does a lot in helping to develop noise plans and having input into having a community voice back to the airport staff and that adding winewski to that level of process makes sense um but having as soon as we start talking about having other communities make monetary contributions to the airport we get into like a whole different universe of um of pros and cons and what it means to the f a a and uh you know our airport is now very very heavily grant funded we get a lot of money from the f a a to run the run the airport and bringing in other local communities into being a part of that um is an issue um i believe that the mayors have reached some some agreements about the local match that is required for the noise funding grant um but i am going to have to beg uh not to know those details and we um i believe that will eventually be coming to you i think the idea here is that this is showing uh winewski that we have a commitment to moving forward um with giving them a a say in a more formal way i mean idin and i completely understand all of this and we and i i understand that this is a must this is something that i support but it seems the information that i have before has maybe changed and we have not received updates as to what are those changes and we are being called right now to approve a resolution that will go on the ballot i just want to be sure that when i'm asked questions about this i can answer and if people ask me where is winewski participating now i would say no or yes because x y and z and i don't have that information but deep down in me i think like that with the f 35 especially especially with the f 35s they should have a seat but at the same time agreements that we have in the past why and i think maybe mayor we can talk about this as a nine-year long commissioner at the airport um can can can shed some light here maybe my question is clear yes i think he could probably add more than i can about where the the agreements with the other um with south berlington and winewski um if there are differences in in in where things are from what we have briefed the council on in the past i guess the question president tracy would you like me to respond or go ahead mayor okay so several things with respect to the mo u the mo u is brought to this body and then referred back in february i believe and then maybe even slightly earlier and then referred so you've all seen it and nothing's changed with it it's the same document it's all and then it was then referred to the airport commission for their take on it they started to review it and develop opinions about it and then the pandemic hit and they have not gone back to it i'm not sure if they commission will in the end take a position or not on the mo u what i have committed to councillor mason who raised this question about some discomfort about moving forward with the charter change prior to the mo u being resolved is that between now and the end of the public hearing on this matter i will do everything i can to get the few dates changed at this point and get the mo u back in front of you for final approval so that that can be done consistent with uh with this i don't believe there's anything controversial in there the most substantive part of the mo u well really there are two things one the city committing to adding a seat and then secondly that we would together attempt to secure a local match source of funds that do not require either of the three municipalities to pay any uh make any payment and we've been successful with that or at least we believe we have with this pilot program that we have with vgs where they are going to pay for the entire local match for the first couple years at least and everyone's expectation is that that will be a successful pilot and then be extended so that's where the mo u stands um i think councillor jang in terms of when uski making a payment i think you know i don't believe south berlington ever made any sort of a remuneration any sort of payment for them having a seat on the board it's never really been part of the discussion that to have an advisory board seat they would make a payment there have been different uh discussions about the idea of regionalization as i think uh the city attorney was referencing there were discussions that if when uski in south berlington or other municipalities became part of some regional authority um that that then um where they were actually taking not just sort of this advisory role but some kind of ownership and governance position one of that was our position that we would demand payment um uh if others wanted to be part of the ownership structure so i think there's sort of two different issues here being conflated um i from my perspective i see i i we have not been talking about any sort of payment i would not recommend that i do endorse um when uski having an added seat in that i think it it will be good for the relationship between the three municipalities to have all three on on the airport commission having the opportunity to that kind of formal space uh for communications and i fully support it and i hope the council will as well and i will be encouraging voters to vote yes on it as well i don't think it in any way uh undermines the city's position we are getting initial seat as well so berlington's sort of authority there's not diluted in any way i think that's a good thing i hope the council will support it um i mean yes i think uh it's it's it's a good it's it's it's good it's just uh that i needed some clarification questions and i'm glad that uh councilor mason it seems ask you the same question where is mlu before you submit but i fully support this this one put it out thank you so thank you for this question before council pine before i come to you one second i just wanted to offer a clarification in terms of process so matroni black would let me know that we should we should vote to to remove it from the table first and then go into this the strike all motion so believe that we should um and it is 10 30 as well so there is that the need to make that motion as well so we have a couple of things so let's take care of the 10 30 motion first um i would please request that i have that that any motion include the council president update i would really like to to to speak at that point so i'd just really appreciate if any motion could include that councilor pine were you going to make a motion that that was the purpose of raising my hand okay okay so what are you are you moving to come i would move that i would move that the we suspend the rules to continue with the charter changes and allow for time for the council president's update and um i don't know if counselors would also like to provide updates but i would i guess i'd move for the council president and that would be it okay thank you very much is there a second to that motion seconded by councilor stromberg any further discussion okay all those in favor of suspending the rules to complete the deliberative agenda and allow a the and to also include the council president update please say hi hi hi hi any opposed okay hearing none our rules are suspended and that will be the remainder of our agenda now thank you for that i appreciate that now let's go back to the the questions at hand so we have we have that original motion to remove it from the table that i would like to deal with prior to continuing with the the additional elements of the debate so are we prepared to go to a vote on removing it from the table all those in favor of taking this item off of the table please say hi hi hi any opposed okay so that passes unanimously and it is now is removed from the table um we have that other motion that has already been introduced on the strike all introduced so um just wanted to do that before we continued with further with the debate um were there further um comments to this to this resolution okay seeing none we'll go to a vote all those in favor please say hi hi hi any opposed okay that passes unanimously brings us to our final item on the deliberative agenda which is the proposed charter change regarding regulation of thermal energy systems in residential and commercial buildings counselor mason uh thank you president tracy i'd like to make a motion to waive the reading adopt the resolution as presented and ask for the floor back after a second please okay we have a motion is there a second seconded by counselor hanson go ahead counselor mason uh thank you president tracy um i thought it it might be um good to sort of explain what not only what's in front of us but how we got here since this was a somewhat unusual process and unless you're sitting on the ordinance committee um i'm not sure you're understanding why we're here so the proposed charter change before us is in essence enabling legislation that would permit the city to regulate thermal energy systems in residential and commercial buildings included in that enabling legislation is the assessment and levying of carbon impact our alternative compliance fees i would also move i think i can do this with the amendment that is also uh on our agenda or excuse me on board docs that also provides that no assessment of a carbon impact or alternative compliance payment shall be imposed unless previously authorized by a majority of the legal voters of the city voting at an annual or special meeting waive for the purpose um that's the motion let me backtrack in terms of how we got here this council second uh thank you thank you yep seconded by counselor hanson go ahead keep continue counselor mason thank you um how we got here this council back in um may of 2019 passed a resolution that required b ed to come back with policy recommendations regarding decarbonization and electrification requirements for new buildings uh it also required consideration of a ban um on buildings connected to fossil fuel infrastructure that process sat with b ed and took some time um there were proposals that came forward to the council in early 2020 b ed did hold a public meeting on in july of 2020 2020 and most of the attendees at that meeting supported a ban on fossil fuel connections for new buildings b ed then came forward with a a more formal proposal um that included a carbon fee if the building was connected to fossil fuel infrastructure it also proposed evaluating policies that would support moving toward net zero in existing buildings um but the proposal at that time was to move forward first with new buildings and then deal with existings b ed was also then and remains committed to incentives in order to get um electrification and energy efficiency started that policy um was then sent to the city attorney's office with instructions to come up with the right language um and sent to ordinance which again this is typically would go to two or a different committee but it was sent to ordinance to review the language um at our first hearing uh the ordinance committee in november uh the city attorney came and and i think raised a little bit of a red flag that based on their review the city did not have enabling language uh from the state uh in order to assess a carbon fee and potentially questionable authority to regulate thermal energy thermal energy solutions um this was a bit of a surprise to the committee and i think the b ed so they were tasked b ed in the city attorney's office were then tasked very quickly to go back and come up with um potential language to provide us with a path forward at our ordinance committee hearing on the third of december what was reported back was an earlier version of this that you know we would be um be pursuing a dual track one would be to pursue a charter change that would enable the assessment of a carbon fee and the second piece which with a relatively quick turnaround as b ed is now tasked with moving forward with building code ordinance changes um applicable to new buildings um requiring them to have a primary system that's non fossil fuel based so so that's that's where we left on the third the ordinance committee then unanimous or it was actually counselor just counselor hanson and i um without necessarily taking a view as to the language out of fear that we would miss town meeting day voted to send it back to the full council for its consideration the city attorney was still in the process of conducting its review that was you know the benefit between last week and now this week they've completed their review and this language um does meet with the city attorney's acceptance the new piece that was tacked on the amendment that counts and i'll let counselor hanson speak to this was a bit in response there was a story on cax that came out that in my view misreported that um this language potentially was requiring every existing home to convert um to a or to force conversion to a non fossil fuel based system um that was not the intent this was just enabling legislation um but in based in part on that concern and the feeling that um we wouldn't have to have more process before that step were to be taken the that's what the extra amendment was intended to encapsulate so with that um i know the mayor is on who has been intimately involved um in this process and i believe darin springer is also one if there are specific questions thank you president tracy okay excellent all right um i'll go to mayor weinberger now before we get into a counselor debate go ahead mayor thank thank you president tracy thank you councillor mason for introducing this i want to thank counselor hanson for the close uh collaboration throughout this process to i hope get to a moment of consensus tonight and be able to move forward certainly i believe that this charter change is a critical one for us meeting the goals that we laid out in the net zero energy city plan that plan made very clear that if we are going to achieve the very ambitious we think it's as ambitious as any goal in the city in the country for a municipality of becoming a net zero energy city by 2030 the area where we needed to make the biggest change was in our buildings and we are already making considerable strides towards that goal in the early years of that roadmap it is very clear that the green stimulus incentives that were offered this year by bd have started to change the trajectory of our buildings and move more and more of our building thermal systems towards electric cold climate heat pumps and other electric technologies however we have a very long way to go the well more than 90 percent of our buildings today are dependent on fossil fuels for their their heating and we need additional tools we need additional authorities we need to work more with the people of burlington if we are going to achieve what we have set out to and more importantly if we're going to do our share to change the trajectory that this plan is on to take strong measures to address the climate crisis and forge a different future for ourselves and our children and the generations to come we this is the kind of strong action that has been lacking from other levels of government for decades i'm hopeful and i'm proud to be with you here tonight on the cusp of going to the people of burlington and seeing if they want to partner with us and really ensure that we continue burlington's remarkable multi decade trajectory of climate leadership i think this is the third great chapter of climate leadership that the city is undergone the first one was back in the 80s when we led the way on initial steps of weatherization the next chapter really has been the last 10 years when we've gone from or 15 years now we went from in 2004 having only 25 percent of our electricity generated by renewables to 100 by 2014 and we've sustained that now for more than five years this is the hardest chapter this is the hardest frontier but it's uh it's one that we can have the same sort of material progress and success on if uh if we put our backs into it and if we're willing to be active as a local government and work with people of burlington to to decarbonize our buildings this this charter change will be a big step in that direction and if if the council does choose to put on the ballot i certainly will be making it clear every step of the way until march that i fully support this and think it's an important important step for us to take thanks president tracy thank you mayor i'll go to counselor hanson to be followed by counselor pine great yeah thanks counselor mason and mayor for getting into some of the details around the policy i just wanted to start with really a reminder of why we're talking about this and why we're looking at this policy as we work our way towards the end of this pandemic and and move towards vaccination we are still going to remain squarely in the middle of an much larger and much more deadly and permanent crisis that threatens really everything that we know and love um the climate crisis and i want to address the cost of doing nothing or in action in the face of this in the u.s alone extreme weather events are costing hundreds of billions of dollars per year and that's just a number that's just the cost um but those impacts go way beyond um economic and that number continues to rise as well um to bring it kind of down to the individual level and and make that number seem a little less abstract um there's a 2016 report really recommend it by demos and next gen climate that says that on the path we're on someone my age earning a median income will lose a hundred thousand dollars in lifetime income and a hundred and forty two thousand dollars in wealth due to the impact of the climate crisis someone born in 2015 with median um earnings will lose 357 thousand in lifetime income and 581 thousand in wealth that's just one person one median income person and that was in 2016 it's it's actually um pretty likely that those numbers have gotten worse um due to the lack of um policy action to drive us forward um in the rollbacks that we've seen from the trump administration so the economics of not acting are horrible but this is really much deeper than economics and this really gets the concerns about survival itself and our ability to access clean drinking water to have stable food um to have housing that isn't destroyed by clean weather events um this is something that's gonna force mass migration creating war and conflict around the world so and so a lot of this is already happening in a lot of parts of the community i think it's easy to forget in vermont because um it's been a little it's been a little while since we've had a major devastating extreme weather event here since hurricane iran so um you know this is already killing or displacing tens of millions of people a year and that's that's only going up and it's disproportionately impacting poor folks and people of marginalized identities so i just want to really hammer home i think this gets forgotten that inaction is not an option we have to act and every community has to act no one's going to come into burlington and just wave a magic wand you know the state and the federal government they're not going to wave a magic wand and suddenly all of our buildings are not using fossil fuels so we really have to take ownership and make sure this gets done and we can't just rely on the market to solve it we have to use policy and that's why a little over a year ago we passed two climate resolutions on the same day and i really hope that we take both of those resolutions seriously and that they're not just words on a paper one of them was that we committed to getting off of fossil fuels by 2030 um the other one was that we're committed to a just transition and one that prioritizes those who are most vulnerable to the climate crisis and who have the least ability to adapt adapt so any policy coming out of this authority um if if we do get this authority and this try to change really has to focus on getting those with the most resources to step up to the plate and any upfront costs that there are should be should be should be should be should be should be should be should be should be should by folks who have resources so that folks who are struggling can not only avoid any burden with this but really get the benefits of this transition and enjoy the enormous benefits of getting off of the fossil fuel economy so this really needs to be about delivering for working people not punishing working people and i think the good thing about this amendment as well is that you don't have to sort of just take my word or our word for that because any policy that would come out of this that would have to do with taxation or a carbon pricing scheme would go back to the voters and what couldn't happen without the voters and so I think that's critical. So I just want to close and say I'm really excited tonight. I'm really proud of what we're doing as a council. I think we're taking major action on some of the issues that are most important to our community which is housing, racial justice and public safety and now on the climate crisis. So I sincerely thank everyone who's working on this, everyone who's supporting this and really just putting you know the need for progress over you know skepticism and over fear and really just putting love first and working for a better community and world so thank you. Councilor Hanson, Councilor Shannon. Oh sorry I'm sorry Councilor Pine then Councilor Shannon go ahead Councilor Pine you're on mute. Sorry about that. So the the issue of I think where we bring together climate justice, environmental justice, social justice, racial justice is right here in front of us tonight and as a community we've we've already long ago democratized our electrical delivery system through the public ownership of Burlington Electric but I want us to just commit ourselves to the notion of energy justice specifically as a way to weave together environmental justice and climate change and climate emergency, climate crisis activism and that we have an opportunity to transition away from fossil fuels to renewable energy in a way that doesn't lead people behind it advances the idea of energy democracy so that low low income households and those without access to capital without access to ownership are able to enjoy the benefits and aren't just left holding on to essentially what are stranded assets that in many cases if we don't get intentional about extending the benefits of renewable energy and energy efficiency to all statements of the community those with the least will end up actually shouldering the burden and so I want us to expand our notion of the just transition to include you know green collar jobs and to include reducing the harmful impacts on those who are the frontline of either delivering the energy or whose community is being burdened by the location of of energy generating systems to the notion that we have to as a city really specifically focus on providing access to the benefits that come with the clean energy economy but we have to be very very focused on extending those benefits that those who are so often left behind because otherwise we will end up with again the haves and the have nots around this this pursuit of what is ultimately the most important challenge one of the most important challenges we face but we can do it in a way that advances our justice goals as well as our climate goals and I think the only thing to do that and hopefully we'll we'll all join together and make that happen thank you now counselor Shannon what about that counselor thank you president Tracy um I am going to be supporting this today and I want to say that I'm surprised I'm supporting this given where we came from um and a lot of public concern about this and I want to be clear on how that has been addressed um yet there were media reports about you know taxing existing systems and many people in the community were quite panicked about that and I really felt like the original proposal was kind of writing a blank check to the city council and saying trust us on this and um I think that the public felt the same way and uh was not comfortable with that and I appreciate the work of particularly counselor carpenter um and the mayor trying to find a um a solution which I think really accomplishes both goals of not writing the blank check of but getting the legislative authority and I did not initially appreciate you know when I first looked at this I thought well why are we asking people to vote on this now and then we're just going to ask them for another vote later like why don't we just do this once but because we will get you know through this charter change we will get the authority to go to the voters with this we won't have to go through the process of getting the legislature to approve it um we can go through a much shorter process and more reliable process that gets the public input that we need and it also creates a process whereby people are put on notice when they're making a decision about buying a boiler they will know that you know we're going to be looking down the pike at what is the technology coming down the pike and what are incentivizing um upgrade upgrading the equipment not just going for that cheapest least efficient model and I think that that is important for transition as we transition to better and more efficient home heating appliances so I do support this with the with the knowledge that the voters are going to get another crack at whatever the proposal is for incentivizing making a better environmental choice thank you thank you councilor shannon are there others wishing to speak councillor mason to be followed by councillor jing oh I have it has been brought to my attention I did not this the version did not include the city attorney's language so I have a minor amendment but if you want to go to councillor jing first and then come back at the end of comments I'll make my motion okay I'm so councillor mason you had already amended once so we're on the amendment now right well the the initial the handsome amendment was included as part of my initial motion okay thank you for clarifying okay I'll come back to you in a second go ahead councillor jing thank you president crazy and I think it is important that you know we have to be bold when it comes to climate change and I think the city has been doing so many great things so many great work right it's not only about thermos uh thermos uh energy it's also about the transportation piece right um you know and then seems about people to switch from you know fossil fuel cars to electric cars you know bike lanes all of those are efforts and to me Burlington is doing well compared to so many other municipalities and like jack councillor handsome talked about this is climate change this is not only affecting people of Burlington or our state it is planet-wide it is you know the whole entire world we only do can do what we can and also what we're doing when is the right time to do it we all know that what we experience as a community as a world with COVID-19 we're not even done with it that and people do not need any other type of unclearity and to me this is not the right time to bring this proposal around the right time could be maybe next year when things settle and people know where they're going know who they are know what they have they're lost what they have gained in order for us to make the right step the timing to me is not the right at all that's one two we should not also over-regulate we can regulate what we can our own buildings as a city those buildings we can regulate whatever we want new buildings we can ask for regulations but for existing buildings and everything people are going through this is not the right thing to do what the news reported is completely right it is right it's not now but you're asking people to to to give you the power to regulate how they choose and what source of energy they would like to have but the news reported is completely right now maybe it won't go through on march second but we the people are giving you the power to do it i completely agree with all of you but now it's not the time to me let's table this maybe until next year do it or at least let's focus only on new buildings existing buildings let's not even have the conversation it's not the right time so for that i gave my promises to so many people my constituents they confused and we should not add any other burden to them right now we should wait i would not but be voting this on this to put it on the bottom thank you thanks and i really um do appreciate that and i happen to have many the same constituents that council jane has and i certainly recognize their fears and concerns and i think misunderstandings um and i think it's really important to understand that this is a progression nothing will change until it comes back to us the city councillor to prove the ordinance and prove and approve any proposals to put on the ballot to increase taxes um we have nothing in the near future that's going to change that um we'll have to make ourselves responsive to what whatever proposals come to us and protect the citizens and then the citizens have the right to protect themselves by voting it down um so i think this is this is perfectly fine and perfectly supports um where we need to be in the progression of stuff starting next year with new buildings if the burlington electric department comes to us in two or three years with more proposals you know we'll talk about them and we'll consider them nothing is going to change in the next 24 to you know many years um months um this just gives us the authority to pick away at it over the next decade and start with where the low-hanging fruit are and move on so i and it allows the citizens to make their own decision around anything that affects them economically council carboner council pine if i could just ask mr president for for clarification probably from councilor hanson or maybe perhaps from someone at bd if they're available do we need this charter language in order to institute any policies like benchmarking which is a is a practice in other cities to really drive much much higher performance in both commercial and residential properties do you know if we need this language specifically for that councilor hanson um if if darin springer's on he can clarify but i don't believe that no i i think we can do that i think we can do that and we should do that and i think we're going to be getting perhaps a presentation soon for the council on that from folks in the green building field um so i don't think this is necessary for that okay thank you second thing i just want to mention is um i watched some of the coverage and it was actually full of of inaccuracies and misinformation and absolutely it was it was appalling at what the media chose to do with this great um i think it was because they knew it would generate a lot of interest but it was just completely factually wrong i spent five years in this field we have one of the most progressive forward thinking sophisticated organizations in the world based now in wanooski but they were based in brilliant history of years be ic and they will make it very clear this is a money saver job creator planet saver this is not this is not a negative thing for us to run away from this is something for us to embrace and it's our job is elected leaders to educate people to educate folks to make it clear what the benefits are please don't run away from this this is something we should all be embracing education is the key here we've got to we've got to get people off the notion that reducing energy consumption is somehow going to hurt them you're going to do this in a way it's going to be a just transition it's going to create jobs and it's going to save our planet it's really the only way forward thank you councillor pine i don't have anyone in the queue so councillor mason would you like to yes um yes thank you president tracy i know um either lori or the city attorney had could pull up on a sheen script screen share um my the amendments that were recommended by the city attorney's office that did not make their way on the board docks in here we go is there any way we can make that a little large if you drag it you can do that so the the amendment i am making is on line 28 on the screen share removing the words and levying and then changing the word fees in line 28 the payments that is the only amendment okay are folks clear on what they are voting on i'm sorry i can't see it is a little bit of a challenge to see the strike out in line 28 but the word after compliance the word fees has been stricken and replaced by the word payments would you make it larger yeah is there any way to to make it the text larger it's also on the bottom right there's a little cursor that you can drag i know i can't find it you're right there oh right there jeez thank you yeah yeah yeah all right perfect thank you for for that now can now is everyone able to see what what councilor mason is speaking to here could you just say it again i don't i can't see line numbers on this but it's striking the words and levying on the second center line after 67 there we go online 28 and then striking the word fees and replacing it with the word payments okay so and ask for a second yep exactly is there if we could go out of screen share mode just so i can see folks again please okay is there a seconded by councilor high tower councilor mason did you need the floor back no thank you okay any discussion on this amendment continue yeah i guess i just i'm curious what the is there any what does this do does this do anything or it's just a technical change this and i i forgive me i should have if i may president racy the the stated explanation was you know assessing in in levy and more synonyms we don't need both um and assessing as a term used in the charter and the second change was based on the explanation that wasn't a fee in the sense of a municipal municipal fee which refers to a payment for a municipal service and the use of the term alternative compliance payment appears to be common in the energy field and therefore more appropriate that was the stated explanation okay councilors great and i think that's helpful and i'm wondering too if the city can attorney could just clarify i've been asking this question too i think this maybe solves the issue but fees that are just you know to cover the cost of a program of a regulation program that we use very commonly for any new regulatory program in the city that is not something that would the way that it's written that's not something that would have to go on the ballot is that right or is that still a concern that president racy may respond the that would not have to go on the ballot that any any fee associated with regulating thermal thermal energy systems that wasn't um related to assessing carbon impact or alternative compliance payments would not have to go on the ballot okay great and yeah just to be clear for the public those fees are strictly limited to just cover the cost of administering administering the oversight for the city so it's a totally different thing so i'm glad that we kind of cleared that up as well and so yeah it sounds good i'll support this any further discussion okay hearing done we'll go to councillor jing you're on mute councillor jing i have further amendments after after this oh okay um do you have any comments on this amendment okay all right so we'll go to vote on this amendment um all those in favor of this amendment please say i i opposed hearing none that amendment passes unanimously we are back to the original um the original motion as amended is there a further discussion yes councillor jing go ahead yeah um i would like to make an amendment and i believe sending it all of you including lori as well as city attorney eileen just now sorry about that and my amendment is specific to you striking the language okay yeah um it is to delete line item line numbers 25 to 27 and replace it with the following to regulate thermal energy systems in new residential and commercial buildings approved by the city of warrington development review boards starting in 2021 that is my amendment when we strike the language the lines 25 to 27 okay is everybody clear on councillor jing's amendment okay is there a second there's a second the amendment fails for a lack of a second we are wanting to put it on the record thank you thank you councillor jing is there further comments on the resolution as amended okay hearing none we will go to a vote will the city clerk please call the roll councillor carpenter councillor jing no councillor freeman yes councillor hanson yes councillor hightower yes councillor mason yes councillor paul yes councillor paulino i'm sorry no thank you councillor pine yes councillor shannon yes councillor strongberg yes city council president tracy yes nis two days the motion carries and will also go to public hearings so that completes our deliberative agenda which holds us to the final item which i had requested which is just the opportunity to address the council and i think it's imperative that i do so as council president um we had a continuation of events that we saw over the weekend that i find pretty troubling and that we need to address um i think that things are that over the weekend we had vandalism at several councillors homes um that is completely unacceptable and i would i think that's completely unacceptable it's not the way that that folks are to engage that i want folks to engage with councillors what councillors to have their privacy respected and so i think that that's completely unacceptable i would also say that it's unacceptable to harass councillors in the context of a meeting apologize to councillor shannon that i didn't realize that that's what was going was actually happening in this meeting and so i think that i would really ask that people please respect councillors as we're in the context of this meeting so that we can have the opportunity to um debate these really important issues um that are before us i think that when we have these incidents um take place and when we see this behavior it takes our focus away from the discussion of these crucial issues like um specifically of debating how we deal with um and how we uproot systemic racism so i think that it's crucial that we keep our focus on those issues on police accountability on the charter change proposals because we still have a long way to go i want us to have a debate centered on the the topics not a debate about what what you know about these issues of acceptability you know is this acceptable is unacceptable what councillors getting harassed in that conversation no i don't want to have that conversation so people need to stop this we need to focus on the issues here so that we can have this debate what i'll also say is that if people are are contacting councillors and and are reaching out and are upset about this i understand why you're upset i hope that you will also engage and show up and model that proper behavior as well as we deal with issues of systemic racism because we have a lot of work to do there we need everybody possible involved in that work and showing up it's not enough to just call out bad behavior we need to be building uh alternatives and uprooting systemic racism in our community and doing and doing that so don't think it's enough for you to just say that you disagree with that i think you also need to show up and deal with this and model the proper behavior because we we do a lot to make sure that we create different channels i know councillors put a lot into making themselves available whether it's through email through phone calls at all hours on weekends i know that we did we've done a lot this year as a council to listen to the public setting aside hours and hours for public comment and i just really appreciate everybody who is showing up in those ways as well i also want to call out that i really appreciate how movement leaders and movements themselves are are encouraging people to show up in this moment they're constantly putting out messages to do that to engage with councillors to have that level of positive engagement they're bringing people to these forums so i really want to just validate and appreciate the movement leaders who are doing that work which is exhausting and very difficult and i just want to thank you for bringing people to all these forums and and sharing your individual thoughts but also bringing others to the council and modeling that behavior yourselves because i think that you you know you've really been an incredible model for our community so i just felt compelled to say this um but i really want to encourage you know i really want to state pretty clearly that this is not acceptable for people to continue harassing councillors please respect our councillors and the work that we're trying to get done here with that a motion to adjourn is in order moved by councillor pine seconded by councillor freeman any further discussion okay all those in favor of adjournment please say aye aye any opposed hearing none that passes unanimously and we are adjourned at 1113 we'll see you next week councillors