 It started hello everybody and welcome to September's award five NPA meeting thank you all for coming this is the first of our in-person meetings so we have this new fun space for us to get feedback in I wish we could show it to you but we have this amazing new technology that I don't know if it's that new but it's this amazing new computer technology that allows us to show us this whole room and work with this hybrid model so we're just gonna start by kind of introducing some of the principles of the NPA as many of you may know the whole purpose of one of the many purposes of the NPA is to be a neighborhood institution that provides a lot of different services for residents of the south end and the city wide as well but some of the things that we're trying to create in our spaces that we're trying to create a safe space and a welcoming forum for all folks to be able to join and participate however they would like to we'd like it to be accessible for our neighbors cultivating involvement from a diverse spectrum of community members we're trying to be respectful inclusive culturally and economically aware we're trying to be vital we're trying to be fun we had an amazing performance by a young musician and even Jorgensen some of you may have seen as we were getting started and that's just one of the things that we're trying to keep it as a part of these meetings we value varied perspectives and we're always non-partisan and we do not endorse political candidates as some of you may know the way the NPA is set up is that if you're a member of the ward 5 community you're a member of the NPA community as well really this is this is a community-wide type of thing but we're also organized by a steering committee which is made up of are we eight members now yeah we have an eight members steering committee with myself Nate Lanterie who will be I'll be hosting throughout the rest of the hour and a half but we have we're joined by a few other members of the steering committee in the room we have Joe Derry and virtually we have Shirsten Bohm and I saw Lucia there's many folks and the whole list is on the screen as well something that I'd like to plug to aside from the Brallington.gov link that you'll see at the bottom we're also working on creating a new website which is found at NPA5.org and one of the purposes of creating this new website is to try and really be a community resource it can be a landing page for for a number of different things so keep keep this in the back of your mind as we're adding new features to it over the next few months we will be reaching out to the community and letting folks know as those come online as well yeah next slide as part of this hybrid model we're still using zoom seems like we will be using zoom for a while so it's always good to just get a refresher on on the way that we organize these meetings if you are a participant and you'd like to participate just press the raise hand button that can be found at the bottom of your screen and we will try and recognize that and give you an opportunity to speak if you are if you raise your hand and you become a presenter then you have the opportunity to unmute your mic and start your video as you're not speaking just remember to please unmute yourself if you'd like to keep your video on and you're still in the presenter mode that's that's okay but do please try and keep your mic muted when you're not speaking oh we have the agenda so for the rest of the this is what we're working with with our meetings tonight and in the next slide I'll show you what we're working on for next month's meeting we started with our performance by even we're gonna shortly after we finish up this introduction move into a public forum a chance for folks to share whatever they may be thinking of we will then move into the session that we're having on redistricting as we get into that I'll explain a little bit more about it ultimately citywide we are hoping to create an ad hoc committee on redistricting and each ward has a member and we will be selecting our member tonight following that we'll have some back to school updates from several of our our southend school representatives we have Joe rest againi whose principal of Champlain elementary as well as the two school board members for Ward 5 we have Mike Fisher who is the Ward 5 member and Jeffwick who is the southend member after that we'll have an update from Kevin Pounds the director of a new place regarding the going on to Champlain in and then we will finish up with an update on the city of Burlington's capital plan from Martha Keenan who is in the clerk's office looking forward a little bit to next month still putting together to the agenda but here's some of the highlights of what we ultimately will be looking at we'll have some updates from city counselors an update on the net zero energy revenue bond as well as some updates on Champlain Street Park in addition we're also seeking musicians as I've mentioned a few times we had a great performer today if you or someone you know would be willing to do you know a short ten minute presentation we'd love to have you on and and get you a chance to perform in front of the community so that's what we're looking at for October let's bring it on back to September with that we have entered our oh it was our audio on so we're back in our room our hybrid room thank you all again for coming with that I'll open up the public forum if any members of the public would like to share now it now is a great opportunity to do so remember you can use that raise hand function on zoom if you're in the room and you would like to press the raise hand function you know I should press about nutrients so you get a couple cheesy jokes for the new hybrid model so when anybody does anybody have anything they'd like to share for public forum again now is the chance to do so I do all right I just want to point out to people I want to mention the fact that we have a meeting on October 21st our next meeting here if conditions permit and I also wanted to point out the beautiful mural that's happening by juniper creative at 339 pine street just down the street that I haven't looked in the last few days but they were still working on it and it's absolutely gorgeous they've gotten feedback from the community about their other murals and are trying to incorporate according to them more images of young people in our community and not just you know their daughter and idealized people of color but people in our community who they've they've met and worked with so I just I just like to highlight their work it's so beautiful and so vibrant thank you yeah that's the new mural going up on pine street I'm sure many of you have seen it it's really cool watching the way that they actually make that happen projected on to the wall it's cool it was really cool part of our job to see that anybody else have anything for for public forum that they'd like to share it looks like Jane is raising her hand Jane you can unmute yourself okay thanks yeah um I'd like to say that um being in the south I mean um that that that recent that the being in the south has a disadvantage in that and in that recycling and that our recycling day Monday often often wait we often catch the catch holly holly holly holly holly day and and it can and it's a hard and it can be and that can be it and that could be a hardship sometimes waiting for another week especially when you when you live in a multi unit unit development with only a certain number of so I think there was a way around that I know in the very beginning of the beginning of the cycle they did have another day but I think it was just too hard for the city to do that but you know and and and and and I've had to remind and some and some of us don't play and forget and forget or I guess like and maybe well it shouldn't just be that a couple really just couple size at each time as somebody complies at each time there's no recycling on one or no recycling on on this holiday and even on on on some certain holidays because I think the Howard Center forgets but I'm trying to tell them that what I've seen that they just left out there put out their own on the Labor Day or the Memorial Day. Thank you for sharing Jane. Definitely appetizing that. Does anybody else have any anything that they would like to present as part of the public forum session of the meeting? Hi, I do. Sure. Amanda, the floor is yours. Thanks a lot. Just two quick things. For anyone that lives in the south end, well we all live in the southern area, but the area that's heavily impacted by the roundabout project, if you have concerns, please reach out because I believe my building is going to be meeting with the state of city next week. We have some concerns. I mean, I think a lot of things are going really well with that project, but there's some things that we're hoping to see resolved. So if someone else has has an interest in this, please reach out. I can leave my email in the chat box. And the other thing is, I'm just hoping that people will, whatever your position is on the policing issue, that people will write to their counselors on what their goals are because with the CNN report being released, this conversation is rapidly emerging right now. And so whatever your values are, it's really important to weigh in and let your counselors and the counselor, counselor of large, know what you're thinking and what you need. Thank you, Amanda. Thanks for sharing all that. Yeah, definitely do put your email in the chat and we can pass that on as part of the notes as well. Does anybody else have anything that they would like to share as part of public forum? Yeah, it looks like we have a hand raised for A, Goodrum. Hi. Yeah, I guess I just want to say I think the reason that we are really here is because we were hoping to start or continue a conversation about where we are headed with the homeless encampment that exists on Sears Lane that has grown exponentially over the past couple of years and as someone who lives in Lakeside neighborhood is definitely causing some problems for us. And I don't know where the conversation stands, but the reason we're here is to try to start a conversation about it. I'm hoping that we are, there's a plan heading somewhere with what we're doing because things are getting a little bit out of control over there. Sure thing, and thanks for sharing. Is there a good way to get in touch with you if folks would like to follow up? Certainly, I can put my email address I guess in the chat. Perfect. I'll do that. Thank you. Yeah, what was your first name as well? Ashley. Ashley, thanks for sharing. Thank you. And anything else as part of the public forum that someone would like to share? Just to mention quickly, Nate, it looks like parks and rec is kind of in the final stages of the master plan for Callahan Park. And there's a virtual public meeting in an online survey, but they'll also be tabling in the park from September 18th to the 25th. So folks want to come by and talk with them about, I guess, print plans and inspiring photos that can help community members understand what's in vision. I don't know the specific times that they're tabling, but I imagine it's probably available on Parks and Rec website. Thanks, Jerson. Picking up the slack for me on the Parks and Rec Committee, you got the update before I hang up. I have one update as well in my time outside of the MPA. I also work at a CVO, you know, Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity. And we're helping folks who are eligible to apply for the what's called the VRAP program, the Vermont Emergency Rental Assistance Program. It's really flexible money that folks are able to apply for. If you find yourself behind on rent or find yourself behind on utilities or really have any expenses related to housing as a result of economic burdens that have come through the past year. So if you or someone that you know think may be able to use that program, please do recommend it to them. Do recommend the community action, the community action folks at CVO, they're really happy to help. It's a little bit of a challenging program at times in terms of some of the documents, but a lot of money's going out and helping people just stay in stable housing. So if you know somebody or you or yourself would qualify for that, do please reach out to community action because the money's there. Would anybody else like to share anything as part of public forum? I just want to ask you a question. Sure. So the eligibility, you can self-attest right now. So you don't have to produce reams of documentation to prove income eligibility, etc. So that streamlines the process I think for a lot of people. Yeah, definitely. And what Tim was just saying is that there are some flexibilities in what documents you actually do need to provide some certain documentation and things like that. You can do a self-attestation of your income if it's too burdensome to produce those documents. So thanks for sharing that point, Tim. Anything else for public forum? Check the gallery view. Miss it any hands and that's right on time to move on to our next piece, which is on redistricting. So this beginning section, you're going to hear my voice a lot and then slowly I'll fade away and we'll get to the great presenters. But as part of the recent census data that has come out, the 2020 census data, the city is looking to create an ad hoc committee, which is a committee that's formed just for this specific purpose to gather public input on what the community would like to see regarding redistricting. This is not going to be a binding committee. It's not something that is going to draw the map in the next month or so. The whole purpose of this is to really gather community input and see how folks in, you know, not just Word 5 but Citywide are feeling about the process of redistricting. And as part of this committee, the city council has asked the MPAs with selecting a member from each ward in order to serve on this committee. So we're doing that tonight. We're actually the last of the eight wards in order to do that. So we have had a few folks who are interested in participating in this. If anybody in the audience is also interested in participating, that's definitely fine as well. We will, after we've given each of the interested applicants a chance to share a little bit about themselves, we will conduct a vote and that will be a hybrid vote too. You know, we don't just get the benefit of just having a hybrid meeting. We've got a hybrid vote too. So we will be doing it in person via paper ballot and then digitally via a Google form, which I believe one of the folks that's living in zoom land has got that. It looks like she's got that. So be on the lookout in the chat after the session wraps up. We will cross-tabulate these two things afterwards and then we'll announce the winner, you know, the selected community volunteer to be able to serve on that. And we'll announce that after the back to school updates. So I will open the floor right now. I know that there are two folks who are interested and I know at least one of them is here. So I'll give Bill Kehoe an opportunity to, you know, say a little bit about himself. In addition to Bill, we've also received interest from Gregory Shepler. Are you Gregory Shepler? No, I'm right here. All right. And in addition, if anybody that is in the audience will hear or on Zoom if you'd like to participate after we get these two folks a chance to present. Feel free to raise your hand and we can do that. Or even raise your hand now just so that we get it, you know, on our minds that there are more folks. So Bill, the floor is yours. Do you mind going towards the microphone? Hi, my name is Bill Kehoe. I've been running the South End for a long time. I'd just like this opportunity to serve on this committee because I think it's a grassroots committee that needs someone representing the South End, who knows the South End, who's lived in the South End a long time. As you may know, I've been an elected official from the South End for 16 years. I've been a department head in Burlington for six years and I just been around the block. I just think I'd be a good candidate for this process. I think it's going to be a meaningful process and a long process. It's going to end up in the legislature and the government operations committee is going to fool around with it. But we're starting here. I think it's important that you have someone who represents the South End and is experienced in the city. So if you have any questions, here I am. Thank you. Thank you, Bill. So Zoom is back out and Gregory, could you step towards one of the mics as well? That is yours. Hi, my name is Greg Schupler. Well, first of all, if I would have known that Bill was running, I would not be here at all. I think he's a great candidate. I've been reading his columns for years and he is the best person for the job. So I would encourage the NPA to select him for that. I kept seeing the ad in front porch form. And I just recently retired from 33 years of teaching history on the high school level and have been advocating democratic involvement and participation for years and it was an opportunity for me to exercise that and express that in an action format. In addition, I have a law degree and this is a legal issue and I just am fascinated with the law and how it works and impacts our lives. But Bill's the best person for the job, so go for him. Yeah, sure. We have a question from the audience, which is from Andy. Well, I actually have several questions. Sure. One question is, can this job be shared by job shared? Because I think both candidates who've spoken are extremely qualified and obviously have a share point of view, if I might generalize, and experience. So I'm wondering if that is at least a possibility. And I'm interested in more information about, because I'm not completely up to date about where we are in terms of census information and what we've found out so far about the census data that's going to inform the work of this committee. And my third question actually I realized is one that Charlie, who's filming this meeting brought up in the NPA forum is, what's a rush? Why are we in such a hurry to get this done if this is indeed an important decision about how the redistricting happens in Burlington? Why is there such a hurry? Can't it be extended for a longer period of time so that the people who are involved, be they volunteers from the NPAs or city councilors or others, or the general public, be able to express and explore all the different possibilities for the redistricting and not be crunched into a time period, which seems incredibly short, given the fact that the last time that we went through the redistricting process it took quite a while. I'm hoping that it won't be as contentious as it was the last time, but there certainly are lots of things to consider. Thanks for asking those points, Andy. And I think I can attempt to answer a few of them and I'll also lean a little bit on Kristin, who is the fantastic NPA staff person from the CEDA office. Regarding the number of members, I think it has a number certain within the city council's proposal of eight, one from each ward in particular, so I do think we would have to select one. Even if there were only one vote among shared by DUP. Say that again? Even if there were voting in a group of volunteers, even if Ward 5 only had one vote, could it not be shared by two people? I'm just putting that out there in case there's interest. Ward 3, who did the alternate? The alternate? Oh, okay. So that is something that we could potentially look at. I thought I might have been mixing that up with a different discussion, but I remember there being the potential for it. There we go. That's a path forward on that one. And regarding the latest data, it was actually presented to the city council on Monday, and from the previous redistricting, it was a 10% threshold that needed to be reached in order to do the redistricting, and they found that Ward 1 was 10% larger than the standard and Ward 7 is 10% smaller than what was determined to be the average. So presumably that would mean that some form of redistricting needs to move forward. Regarding the timeline, I think the expediency on this is not for the sake of getting right to it, but getting to the process of collecting input on what the community's appetite is for this. Kristen, do you have anything? I think those are all good answers, yeah. The timeline that we're working with is just what's proposed by the city councilors, and it's come up before in some of the other forums. The representatives on this committee don't like this timeline. They could work together and go back to city council and ask for an extension. That's always in the option, but I think the thought was to... I know the last redistricting was a long process, so I think the thought was having a timeline could help just keep things moving forward, but I definitely hear your concerns about it feeling rushed. And I saw her raise her hand over here. Yeah, I'm French. I lived here for over 40 years, not in the south end. I ran the Center for Rural Studies and we were the center for the census. I don't particularly want to serve on a committee with no mandate and no power, which is what this sounds like. But I'd sure like to be part of a discussion. I know a little bit about Chris and certainly Bill Kiehl's been here forever, and I think you both got some insights, but I'd like to have a little bit of discussion. It's important. It's a numbers game. We got the 22 election ahead of us. We're going to have some contentious elections right here in this city. That's pretty clear. So I would like to see a little bit more discussion around it. One vote, share vote, whatever, but we need to get something out on the front porch forum and have a little dialogue about it, because there are a lot of problems with this census, as you all doubt that we know. Plus the major, the agency head has still not been removed by Biden, so we're not getting any cooperation out of Washington. Right. Actually, excuse me. What was the data you had at the table? I emailed the secretary of that committee and asked for the data presentation, and I never got an answer, but I did. You said that on Monday. Yeah, the Monday City Council meeting. Right, that's what I tried to get over, but you said something about Ward 7 was 10% above what? From the standard deviation. In terms of head counts? This is what I'm going to be talking about. Deviation between most and least populist Ward. So the idea being that the Ward's would all be equal, Ward 1 being slightly larger, Ward 7 being slightly smaller, or 10% in either direction. So it's total population that you're looking at. Okay, not voters, not 21 years old. Total population. Sorry. Because the return rates were so incredibly important, and we worked statewide on return rate, and it was miserable. We had only 60% turnout mid-summer last year. So it'd be interesting to know what the turnout was to participate in the census. Yeah, and I recommend to all folks, if you'd like to learn a little bit more about what has come out of the 2020 census so far, if you check the Burlington Board Docks website, there was a presentation by the planning office on Monday during the regular City Council meeting. That was basically a distillation of that data that came out. Great. That's what I was hoping for. And I know that I saw a hand raise from Amanda previously. Amanda, would you still like to share? I'm just wondering if you and you both are very well-qualified, and this is not a pointing question, just out of curiosity though, one of the questions coming up as we redistribute is has creating district-wide councillor positions that has not been successful? So for example, I have Chip Mason representative in Ward 5. I also have Joan Shannon for the South District. So how do you guys feel about how that's worked to have the broader district positions? I just really quick to say one thing about this position, which I think you said, but just to articulate it again, is that the primary role of the committee is to take public input and gather community input into the process. So it's more about organizing opportunities for people to have these really important conversations going forward to the question about timeline and about content. I don't want to miss Amanda's question, but just also being mindful of time, just to reiterate that the primary role of this position is to gather this type of community input and to organize sessions like this to have these conversations. Yeah, you hit the nail on the answers. The goal of the committee is primarily outreach and gathering feedback. So we're actually over time on the agenda for this item, but it also looks like we don't yet have, unless there are any attendees list, no, there are not. It looks like Mike, while I see you're here, are you going to be joined by the other two? Oh, I see one. There's Joe. Yeah, and unfortunately, Jeff would call me about Amanda tonight. Okay. All right. So with that note, I think that for the sake of time, and unless either of you would like to very briefly talk about the ward versus district breakdown, otherwise we can move on and provide people the opportunity to vote and if it's a situation where whoever receives the most votes is interested in being the lead and the other person being the alternate, that could be something that we move forward with. I don't know, did we actually have a conceit, perhaps, during the presentation? A conceit for... Well, I was just suggesting... Mr. Shepler suggested that Bill be elected into the position. Yeah, would you like to... I think Bill is the best, as I said, and I've met with all due respect for the... I mean, he's... I don't know how long he's been in the South District. I've been in Vermont for 40 years and living in the South District for 20. He's probably been here all his life. He knows everyone. If the task of the organization is community input, he is the known commodity. And so I think he would be the best person for the job. So I'm willing to step down. I'm willing to serve as an alternate. If something comes up and prevents the work that he's certainly capable of performing, I'm willing to step in at that point. But I do believe that he's the best person for the job. All right. Well, with that as a consideration, just as a last feed... I'm sorry, but I appreciate that. And I see him as an upcoming public servant for the Southland. That's what we've got to do in Ward 5. We've got to have good people serving in city council, school board, et cetera, and offices like this. So I think it'd be a great alternate. Thank you for doing that. All right. Well, with that, I mean, that certainly makes the voting easier. But before we, you know, fully move in that direction, I just want to give one last chance for folks in the audience. Is anybody else interested in serving in this role? Or if I see no hands, we can move in this direction. And I guess in that same basis, is anybody opposed to, you know, moving forward with Bill as the lead on this and Greg as the alternate as they have decided that their preferred roles would be? Seeing no hands and hearing no voices. I think that we can move in that direction. So congratulations to both of you. All in favor. Many more public meetings are in your future. It was a voice vote. Yes. So with that, we can move on to the next agenda item on our list, which is a back to school update. And we are joined by Joe Restigini, who is the principal of Champlain Elementary School and Mike Fisher, who is the school board member for Ward 5. So, Mike, Joe, thank you so much for joining us. And the floor is yours. Thanks, Dave. Yeah, thanks for having us. We appreciate the time and your being. I will say, Mike, I'll see the floor you really quickly, but I just want to mention what beautiful Berlin, Tony, and I hope that that was in the democratic process, how somebody came and then just stepped aside for the people that was really, really lovely to have some midwifes to myself. Michael, I'll give it to you. You hand it back to me. Thanks, Joe. I just want to say that Joe and I have got a little mini agenda. We're going to run through a bunch of things, and then we're going to try and leave 10 minutes for Q&A at the end. So, Joe, do you want to start with the... Sure. So we started back to school upon time this year, which was lovely to have been able to plan this entire summer for kids being in the building five days regular schedule, and teachers were ready to go prepared to receive kids the first day of school. Things are still precarious in terms of our population at Champlain Elementary School and the other Berlin Elementary Schools. Our population is kids that are the unvaccinated population at this point, the Delta variant kind of hovering above us. That leaves us in a situation where we are still monitoring the daily numbers and still keeping close check on the symptoms for students as they come to school and being in touch with the families about taking the necessary precautions. And then at the same time, having less regimented guidelines from our friends at the state level and from the Agency of Education puts us in a little tricky spot. But that said, for the students at Champlain Elementary School that we see each day, it is really just business as usual. They have gotten used to school with masks on and there is a certain level of comfort that the students have really given us, extended really the trust in their adults to say, we understand that you're doing the right thing for us being as safe as you possibly can to keep us safe. And so, we're going to let the adults in the building absorb the stress and we'll just warn from you. And so, it feels like business as usual at school this year, which is a lovely thing. And highlighted by last week at Champlain, we did get back into kind of the tradition of having a harvest fest on the school property. We brought a lot of South End community to Champlain Elementary School on Friday night and advertised it very openly that we were expecting that adults would be responsible in modeling the right procedures and wearing masks when on the school campus with the exception of when they're eating the delicious food that's coming off the grills. And they did just that. It feels to me like the folks in the South End of Burlington have handled this pandemic as responsibly as they could possibly have. Have modeled it really well for our students and for our younger population. And that has led to really, I hate to remark on our results, but things right now, all the students are in the building right now and we don't have an influx in cases as you can see in other schools across the state. I think it's because of our mitigation strategies. We can't predict the future. The variant is hovering above us. We anticipate that we will have cases and contact tracing to do, but I can say for sure that the population that I am in touch with has handled this situation as responsibly as we could have. And I'm proud to say that everybody who we've asked to step up has stepped up. So with that, I hand it over to Mike and again, at the end, if there are questions for me, I'd be happy to help answer them. And you brought up a great point, which is the guidance from the state has been significantly less than it was last year. There was an emergency office who were operating on our governor's emergency decree or orders, and this year, the province has been significantly less and a lot of school districts are struggling because the guidance is less than the CDC guidance in terms of its level of protection. So we're a little bit on our own in making some decisions and the board and myself are very confident that Joe and Superintendent Flanagan and that team, they're listening to the health experts, both from Wynette Burlington and from Odao, external from Vermont, and making decisions. So the decisions are going to change as the situation does. But we have a lot of trust that the leadership of this district that made great choices in the past and we're not getting it from the state, we're going to make them locally. So I'm going to talk about a couple of different things before we get into the Q&A. So Burlington Tech Center or Burlington High School Site Search, there was a big decision made, a big milestone made on Tuesday where we narrowed the site search down to three sites. The real estate consultants originally had identified 16 possible sites. They immediately eliminated four of them, including two on Pine Street next to the Arch of Canal Superfund Site. I heard some people were worried about that, so those were off the list. And then they ranked the 12 remaining sites. The top two made the list, and those top two are both near the existing site, near the existing campus. The existing campus was on the north side of what's called Institute Road. And so the top-ranked site was actually in the north side of the Institute Road, and it would likely be to the, you're looking at the building from the road, it would be to the right. The second site is on the south side of the Institute Road, so it would likely be where the baseball field is, and there's another athletic practice field there. And would not be the stadium and the track of the field would step, a card stadium would step. Those were the top two. We also identified that there's a high interest for everyone, sorry to say, overall, the feedback that we heard from the community was keep it at the same site. But there was also significant feedback of let's have the high school be downtown. And there are some advantages, obvious advantages to being downtown in connecting with the community. The Institute Road site has some advantages of its beautiful grounds, its access to the lake, it's somewhat of a central location, it's got parking, but the central place in this high school downtown has some advantage of connecting with the rest of the community, including the medical center, UVM, Champlain, and lots of businesses that are downtown. And some of you might have seen that the mayor is campaigning to put a high school down there and also have that project include renovation of Memorial Auditorium. There are a lot of questions about putting the high school in that space, a lot of things that our real estate consultants have highlighted. So what we thought too, it was important to bring forward the most attractive downtown site. So those three sites, North Side of Institute Road, South Side of Institute Road, and the Gateway Block, the next phase of review, and we're gonna go a little to the consultants, gonna go deeper and start looking at the more level of detail into things like what's on the grounds, can we build on it, all those level of detail, and we're looking to make a decision to get down to one final candidate in November. So we're really moving forward because one of the things that we the board and the superintendent agree on is Burlington has a habit of making, taking a long time to consider our decisions and get a lot of feedback, but our students and our community really need a co-blown high school. My daughters are gonna graduate from downtown DHS, not gonna impact me, but for us to attract families in the future and for families that are coming up through the elementary schools, and those schools now, it's really important to have a real high school. So we don't want to take eight years to get to a high school. All right, this is education, financing and promoting. So if you're tired, this is just gonna be a news fest. So try to simplify it. Burlington, Lewinsky and a number of other school boards across the state are trying to push the legislature to fix a funding plugin that is out of date and that doesn't give appropriate resources to the students that need that the most. Students in poverty, English language learners, students in rural districts, those types of students, and we consider this an equity issue and we feel that and there was a report done by the legislature and commissioned by the legislature that lays this out pretty plain. The legislature has a task force that is looking at how, what to do with the reports recommendations and they are straying from those reports recommendations and looking at other ways to do that. The Burlington School Board is pushing hard. We're giving a lot of testimony. We're working behind the scenes. It's gonna be a big, big deal for Burlington in terms of expanding our programs for our most neediest students. So we're working behind the scenes on that. Burlington School District's strategic plan. So we have a strategic plan that's five years old that was built under Superintendent Obed and it's now five years old and it's supposed to last five years so we're working, we're actually superintendent, planning executive leading the effort to create a new strategic plan. He's got some working groups, there's a name for them, a coalition I think is what they're called, volunteers from staff and students and community. They're getting some training now and they're going to engage the rest of the community in a process and we're looking to come out with a five year strategic plan by the end of the year and that will give us some strategic goals that we're gonna try and hit over five years. So for me the big difference in the old strategic plans to the one that's coming up, the new one we're going to have indicators that are gonna be measured so that we know are we achieving what we said we're going to achieve and that will be of course shared. All right, we're like two minutes early, okay. So we ran through that stuff pretty quickly. Why don't we open it up for Q&A? Nate, can you facilitate? Is that possible? I don't know if I can see everybody. Yeah, yeah, I can definitely facilitate, Mike and thanks for the update. So we will move to Q&A. I see one hand in person. So why don't we start it there? So Tiff, can I just start this out? Yeah, thanks so much for these reports. I'm just wondering what you... There is another public hearing that I believe has not been scheduled yet, correct? A range of people waiting. Yes, I'm sorry. Yes, so here is another opportunity for public comment I think it's October 12th. Okay. I think and would you like to encourage people to speak to the issue? So we... Probably, it's going to be my answer. We just had an initial conversation, this coalition of school board had a conversation today about tactics. What would you want to do about tactics? So I think my answer is probably, but we're going to be very... We're going to try to be very specific about what kind of voices we want to bring to that conversation. Yeah, great. Okay, thanks. Michael, along those same lines, a point that may still be a point of understanding, misunderstanding is, is in the new concept of a formula, is income sensitivity still something that will be part of the updated formula? It is. So the simple answer is, income sensitivity will not be impacted by this. This, the recommendation from the study simply has to do with how students are waiting. So there's something called an equalized people account. So somebody who's got, who's an English language learner, there's more resources to educate that student than there's somebody who understands English. So that person gets a waiting. So what we're talking about is what should that wait be? Should they be counted as 1.2, 1.3? And the weights that we're using are 20 years old. And apparently there was no real scientific or academic basis for that. So it was a political decision. So what the study in this work is, is adjusting the weights from what's known academically, what other states do. And what we're advocating for is nothing about the system changes except what those weights are. That's great. I think it's important and really the advertising of when things finally sugar it out this coming year, the change goes into effect for this year that people understand exactly how their taxes are valued because there are times where folks who don't have students in school systems see it as the school systems being pit against, they're against citizens who don't have kids in schools. And so I think knowing where things stand in terms of what you're paying for and how, especially when it comes to income sensitivity, that's a really important thing to be advertising. Thank you. Yep. Well thank you both. The next hand I saw was from Billy Clark, another MPA student who made numbers. So Billy, you can unmute yourself and then next up in the stack we have Amanda. And then Paul, Fred, did you mind? Yeah. So we'll have Billy and then Amanda and then Fred. Awesome. Thanks, Nate. And thank you, Mike, for all your discussions on this. I have a couple of questions on the new high school site. So first I just wanted to check merger is off the table now, right? I know that was something that was at least vaguely discussed of exploring when you see or South Burlington, since at least South Burlington has major high school projects, but I'm assuming that's off the table at this point. I know that that's been brought up by a number of people and there have been some reaching out, but nothing has progressed to any level of usability. Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. And then as to the sites, you know, I just think this is more a comment than a question. I am somebody who really grow the gateway block site. I think it's amazing opportunity to invest in a public space and public building that's very, very likely to be left to rot. Otherwise just give it as you sort of commented on the state of inertia that can happen in Burlington. So I think it's a really widely way to have a downtown high school and save what should be an amazing public space and that I worry will not be saved unless we can get behind on this public project. And I guess a final comment slash question, mostly I guess just comment would be that as to like wanting to get to, which is, you know, getting through this process quickly, I really appreciate that. I just hope that we give sufficient time to do the analysis of the environmental concerns of doing it in Institute Road, the environmental concerns of doing it in the gateway, the, you know, logistics of that. Because I do worry that just focusing on the quickest in Russia is too much. It may likely lead to Institute Road, but you know, it's totally fine. And I understand the advantages there. I just, I really feel like the gateway block presents an amazing opportunity that's been, it's been on that, you know, discussion boards for a long, long time. And this just strikes me as such a good fit in a lot of ways. But I'm really glad that you're this move forward and I really appreciate all the work and, you know, this superintendent statement on it was great and all of you guys were orchestrating, but those were just my sort of comments. I appreciate that, Billy. And you're not the only one to say that. Someone said this is a generational, once in one or two generational decisions. And we should make the best decision. And it's not about the quickest and if the best location is downtown and it does take an extra year, it's not just about the kids that are going to be in downtown VHS for next year. It's the kids that are going to be in that building for 50, 70, 100 years. So I do appreciate that, that's my point. Yeah, thanks for sharing, Billy. And next up was Amanda. And then after that, we had Fred and then... What was your name? Alex. Amanda Alex. But if you would like to join the stack just let me know, either raise your hand on the Zoom or raise your hand in... not Zoom, man. It's yours. So I haven't really taken a deep dive on the waiting issue yet. I did a bit of reading. But can you just briefly explain how the waiting process will or will not change funding for students with developmental disabilities? I worked with that population and I know there are some districts that have significant numbers of students with developmental disabilities that do need a lot of resources. And if it's not to take away from students in rural communities, they obviously considerable resources and students that are at DSL. But I've just... I haven't seen a lot of information about how it changes the waiting for students with disabilities. It's a great question, Amanda. And the reason why you haven't heard it is because students with the funding for students with disability is not part of the current waiting formula. How that... And there's a change that's happened when it comes to students with special needs. So in the past, there's been a complicated way to provide funding where the district has to say, this is what we spent and then they have to submit it and say, okay, here's what we spent and then they get reimbursed and it's a ton of paperwork and I'm sure Joe is unfortunately very familiar with that load of that administrative load. Fifty-five percent. What's that? The number that we get reimbursed on which is the formula you can spend hours looking at a single bill. So at seventy-three or one seventy-three, what are those? Something seventy-three. That was done a year or two ago and it's going to change the way that special needs is funded from a reimbursement model to a, I think they call it block grant or census grant. So your districts will get compensated for the number of special needs kids they have and what kind of needs they have. And so then the school district doesn't have to say here's how we spent the money they get the money and they're making the decisions in front of their students. That mechanism is separate from the waiting form. So that's why you haven't heard around the special needs kids when we're talking about the people waiting. And so I do estimate that that will actually potentially open up more money or will it reduce. Like if it comes to their grant funding and my understanding is in my experience grants have a cap on the amount usually. Like what funding is there? Will that impact or diminish what districts have to use for those students? It's a complicated answer because the system that we're moving to is not settled yet. But from what I hear from our administrators is it will help Burlington because number one is going to reduce that administrative burden. So how many hours are spent by our student support services team doing the paperwork? Much better to have them providing the services you recommend to the students. So right there that administrative burden is going to help Burlington whether we're going to get more cash or actual funding. I don't know if that's been if we figured that out. Thank you, Mike. So next up we had Fred and so I'm going to take this opportunity right now too. If our next presenter Kevin Pounds, I don't see your name in the participant list but if you could raise your hand if you are here that will kind of give us a sense of what we have for time and definitely want to make sure we get any comments. Kevin, if you're here if you could just raise your hand on Zoom. So you may have actually just walked in. That's perfect timing. I didn't want to crash the party. So we have two more questions here and then we'll move over to Kevin. So we'll start with Fred. I think two quick data questions. So are there any data on how many kids dropped out, went to private school or took another alternative over the two years? I heard the number was less than 25. You're talking about from DHS? Yeah. So I heard the number was the net number, the net decrease was less than 25. Probably more than 25 left but we did have new students coming. That's great. The second question, I saw a release from Lay's office about two weeks ago that said he'd identified 64 school buildings in Vermont that had similar PVES issues. Has anybody seen any more information about that? There is a bill I think the I think the governor signed to, so just take a step back. The thing that's scary for Vermont districts and the legislature is if you look for PCBs, you're going to find them. Is it going to be as bad as Burlington? Not always. So like Champlain Elementary had a scan done and they found PCBs that were over the level and just in like I think two rooms and they fixed them. Winooski is doing renovation and they had some PCBs were able to fix them. But you're going to find them in the buildings especially from the 50's and 60's and 50's and 70's. So there's a hesitancy to do a ton of testing because once you find them, like us, you have to fix them. Or you have to get the kids and students out of the building if they're bad. So there is a bill and to admit you can help me if you're aware there is a bill to essentially stand up like a program to figure out what to do. It's a construction, school construction bill that first has to do an assessment of what is actually what the construction costs are likely to be. What schools need renovation or repairs and that's that's a their school funding for school construction from the state has been halted. And so step in the process would be once we knew what the universe of funding that's needed is then the legislature would appropriate funding for that construction. But I think there's a lot of concern about PCBs in many many of our schools. I'd heard today two public buildings. Apparently there are a lot of public buildings built in the 60's. Just quickly, Mike. Don't give up. The last thing in the world I thought was that we'd have another kid at BHS but my grandson came up from Maryland this year and went to BHS and had a fantastic year. The curriculum offered him opportunities that he would not have gotten in Maryland so and now he's college bound which was not a plan of his when he came up here. That's great to hear and thank you for that and I will say I heard from one of my daughter's teachers at his classroom that he's happier at downtown BHS than he was in the old building because when it rains it doesn't leak into his oh my god. So downtown BHS has a lot of challenges. There's not a good gym. There's not a kitchen. It's not as big as many of our challenges but the kids and the teachers in the community are really doing great work in that building. So I'm going to ask this question's friend and we'll pass it over before I pass it over to Alex I wanted to just introduce also we had another presenter in that a differently representative from Chittenden 6.5 so 118 seconds to shut down it's a new technology we suddenly got a candle so I just converted everybody who's not in the room we just had a doom clock thankfully great so Alex here's the last comments on that on the session so floor is yours Thanks. Regarding the site of the new high school without knowing I guess the sort of geographic distribution of the students I might assume that high school downtown would be more accessible from the perspective of people being able to walk or bike to the high school and I'm wondering if there's any tradeoffs to be considered there whether it's concrete things like attendance or I guess more squishy things like the psychological independence of the students being able to you know get themselves to and from school at a younger age and things like that. No it's absolutely that's one of the factors there's I forget how many factors there were in ranking all of the all of the sites and transportation and environmental impact of transportation was definitely a factor I think you've got bus lines coming in to downtown so it's not just you know students from the core or from the all north end but that there's an opportunity for people from around like the south end or the north end so that's absolutely a factor out it's just one of a number of them for example I don't want to end on a downer but someone reminded me that for the history buffs there was the old ravine and you don't know about the ravine go do some looking but this is where the old everyone used to dump their trash in like 1700s and 1800s that goes and it's been filled in that goes underneath the gateway block right so there's all sorts of scary stuff but one of the the school administrators the other night said there's so much we don't know about the gateway block we actually know what's wrong with Institute Road right we've done so much testing there we know where the PCB soil contamination ends for example right so all of these factors we want to take all of them together transportation of the the ability to connect the community downtown all of that and add that all up and try and get it down to one but definitely transportation is a huge thing for downtown and that's also environmental right more kids that are biking and walking is less motors that that go out to north down alright well on that note thank you Mike, thank you Joe you know we always appreciate hearing what's going on with the school especially there's been a lot of news going on so we always appreciate this opportunity for folks to be able to ask questions directly to you and I'm sure we will see you in the future MPA hopefully it won't even be Igreen maybe it'll just be Igreen's pretty good, Igreen's pretty accessible but it's nice to have this opportunity to see folks in person so if anybody has any questions what would be the best way to get in touch with you, shouldn't it be watching this at a later date you can email me at mbismoyfisher f-i-s-h-e-r at dsdbt.org I'll put that in the chat and I'll definitely take a look at the front porch forum I'm posting there and stuff, recently seems like weekly Lawrence, well thank you all so much I'm going to have a good rest of your night and by that note we will pass it over to Kevin who is the director of a new place who would run the Champlain Inn and before Kevin goes I just want to give a quick shout out again Christy Wilson the MPA specialist it's been a lift to make this hybrid model work citywide and she's out a lot under her shoulder so just definitely kudos again we wouldn't be able to do without you so without much further ado here is Kevin my name is Kevin Pounds I'm executive director of a new place and I want to say thank you to Kristin and Nathan I'm not sure who else was on the email list but thanks for inviting me to share at the meeting and also I think there's probably some neighbors on this that I've talked to whether on the phone or via email believe it or not I actually do appreciate neighbors reaching out directly with questions and concerns it's really tough to offend me on a personal level unless you're making fun of my mom and you don't know my mom so we're safe yeah we're obviously a homeless service agency in Burlington we ever see three facilities one of which is the Champlain Inn which we began operating in December and I'm just going to hit some high notes and just leave lots of space for questions we typically and even in the beginning our goal was to operate with 50 guests on site we typically operate with about 60 that's the number we're hitting regularly now 40 of those are in what we call permanent beds and what that means simply is like once somebody's in a bed it is their bed every night until they either choose to move on or they get dismissed for some reason we have 10 what we what we call walk-in beds and that means it's a first come first serve every night like you show up we open those up around 7.30 and it's first come first serve we have 10 of those we typically have 20 something people show up and so we have that's the reason our numbers have eaked up a little bit is for obvious reasons we prefer not turning people away because it generally means they're going to head to the park to sleep and that's going to happen and so we kind of either be honest about what happens if we turn people away and so even with us up in the number we're still turning away 5 to 10 people each evening most of our guests have to check out in the morning at 8am they check back in at 6pm that's the permanent beds walk-ins and there's a reason we don't do walk-ins until later is we need to actually see how many people we have on site for letting walk-ins check in there are 4 people right now who have what we call reasonable accommodations that can stay 24-7 and so they have a disability or health reason over the next month we're looking at expanding that to 10 people ask all the time why do you capital 4 because that's how many it really comes down to staffing it really does and I'll just say that the people we have with reasonable accommodations in the world most of them would be in a place with nursing care to be quite honest a lot of times the people were providing reasonable accommodations to would not be people saying that we would have seen in a shelter maybe a few years ago services are maxed out right now we also beginning November 15th through April 15th in the cold weather months we are going to be opening our common space even if people have to check out at 8 o'clock they can still access like we have two living rooms in the house they'll be able to access during the day there I think just some general statements about just homelessness in Burlington in Vermont I think us like a lot of homeless services agency and the people that works Howard center doing street outreach Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity they have a street outreach team I think it is safe to say all kind of collectively feeling this stretch right now and I think that part of that is just because a lot of people are just kind of maxed out space wise we're maxed out staffing wise and we're always looking to grow that but it's just very difficult to grow at the rate of what's happening and I think you can just kind of eyeball it around Burlington without even knowing the numbers like I try a few times a week to do a walk between where I work and I live right on the edge of the between the old north and the new north and at Cambrian across the street from Cambrian Rise and so like my weekly walks you know I kind of zigzag back and forth between like I see Sears Lane I see all the parks it's some green spaces and it's just you eyeballing you can see that there's more people that are camping sleeping in parks stuff like that and I think the other reason we're just feeling the stretch too is I think it's if it's not common knowledge it's going to be common knowledge that there's another 600 people that are going to be losing their general assistance support in another week so actually September 23rd so it's next week and there's going to be 600 people statewide exiting onto the streets and so I figure and I don't know how many of those will end up finding another place but I think it's safe to say that many of them are going to migrate to population centers we're obviously the big population center in the state so we're kind of anticipating that whether that's 50 people 100 people whatever it is that we're going to see an influx you know of that and just trying to figure out okay what do we do with that because you know it's as I have talked to different people in leadership in different you know different roles it doesn't really matter if it's five more people or 10 more people or 20 more people if the shelters are at capacity that means that whatever that number is they're on the street especially now that they're being we know hotels are not an option for them so we're filling that stretch also I also want to say too just because I have the mic for a second is I don't think there's anybody that works for a new place that thinks more shelters is the long term ideal or the long term solution I mean I love my job but our growth is not something like it's not that I don't wake up in the morning I mean I'm thankful for the people we get to serve but I'm not pleased that we have to increase capacity I'm really not it's like I know that long term affordable housing with support services is the solution and so I beat that drum every chance I get is like you know it's that a lot of times people are going to ask me is like where do people go from the Champlain Inn or where do they go from your sober shelter and right now the answer is nowhere a good example would be even because we have about 16 people right now that are in a special program where they're maintaining sobriety 80% of them are employed pre-pandemic they would stay with us maximum nine months many of those people are waiting over a year to get into housing and so I mean I think that gives you kind of an idea of how much the landscape has changed kind of I want to say post-pandemic but whatever we're in right now so yeah and so I'm also any questions I'm more than willing to answer yeah I'll with that thank you so much for sharing Kevin and we'll open it up to questions I saw one hand in person already but again if you'd like to ask a question please raise your hand either in person or via zoom and we'll add you onto the stack but seeing none immediately other than Andy we'll start with Andy hi Kevin my name is Andy Simon I with my partner Ruby Perry I work coordinators of the community garden in Callahan Park and we have been sort of playing phone tag with you about talking and just discussing the situation in the park as it relates to Champlain Inn there's been an incredibly fruitful discussion among the 20 families or so that are gardening in the community garden about the situation in the park as it relates to the garden there's been a really lively discussion both in person and on email about sort of okay what is our responsibility and what are the impacts individually to the gardeners how do we relate to the presence of a lot of unhoused people in the park who are often hanging out right next to the garden smoking talking loud all sorts of things I guess the biggest question that keeps coming up is sort of what trying to understand what options there are for people besides just hanging out in the park you know during the day when they have to leave the shelter what options there are and especially for people who are wouldn't sort of are below or above a sobriety level that would be acceptable say at the library or at other shelters so maybe you could just talk about that just for the general edification of people that sort of understand what happens for people during the day for people at Champlain Inn for instance one of the challenges to what you're saying is very few places and I'll say this, if somebody is stumbling drunk we have issues with them coming into our common space too so I think that that creates even that there's a lot of options around town and I'd say a lot there are several options which includes for somebody pursuing sobriety which some of our guests are turning point center and turning point center we work closely with so there are some of our guests that go there day station, cost day station is another popular place and as you say the library is also open but again if you're like heavily intoxicated that's not going to be a place for you to go so it is limited options but those are kind of the three go-tos is the library, day station day station is by far I would say the most frequented of the three I just mentioned and just because there's not like a strict sobriety test there it's more about it's more behavioral I think that during we did do a test run for a few days during like the 90 degree weather just to see if people would and given 90 degree weather is different than 10 degree weather now people respond to that you just want to see if we would have a majority of people show up and stay in our common space if we opened it up and it was pretty simple we have a TV in there it's air-conditioned water, some simple snacks, nothing complex and we had maybe six or seven people utilize it so we realized that opening in common space was not going to I thought maybe that would draw people in but it did not so that's not really great answer as much as just saying that's kind of what the landscape is and options are for people I do think I do think on the cold weather we will have people utilize our common space more I mean I think that's just going to that always is a catalyst for people coming inside thank you for the question and Kevin for the response it looks like we have another question from Amanda Amanda you can unmute yourself and ask your question thanks I have to admit that when you were first starting out I was a little bit nervous because it happened very suddenly and I I was nervous about the prospect of even though it was important and valuable I was nervous about how this was going to affect things I lived right down the street from you and I think you guys do a really good job and I'm happy that people have a place to go irrespective of their sobriety but can you just explain a little bit about why they can't and I'm not saying that they should have to that anyone should have to not they're our neighbors and they're welcome to any space but my father was in the house for a little while so wouldn't it be very natural to want to if you have a bed there permanent bed to be able to stay during the day if you wanted to stay in your room because it's your room and I don't know how that I know that the motels before since I've lived here for five years they've always been used to some degree just with fewer I think there were fewer beds that were dedicated to this usage but was that a shift in the past were people able to use their room as though it was their room so I mean if you're speaking about the Champlain Inn's history before us purchasing it I mean it was a I guess you could call it was an extended stay motel that was functioning beyond that but yeah for a very long time for some cases months or years so yeah it was it was functioning very differently before we took it over I would say historically we took over running the low barrier shelter for the city and the I guess it was November 2019 and historically it had been just overnight and run November 2015 through April November to April and sometimes it would eke into May a little bit and so for us we thought the big step was figuring out how to make it year round figuring out how to create some more space for reasonable accommodations I think everybody knows what that term means by now for people with disabilities and health issues but and I'm sharing personal perspective there are definitely agencies that have a different opinion than I do on this but I do think one lesson that was learned from 2000 people being in motels is that people staying in their motel rooms for days at a time that may be struggling with mental health challenges and substance use challenges it looks really good on the COVID tracker and really bad on every other tracker of metrics in their lives right? the thing that doesn't make the press is how many ODs happened or how many Narcan Narcan incidents happen per day and I can just say that given I think it's hard to have good metrics during a pandemic so there's been all kinds of factors since the spring obviously it's summer and so people function better during the summer but I'll just say that our incidents as far as um have decreased when people have motion outside of their room even if it's just like and it increases the chances significantly that even if it's just a portion of the guest right it increases the the chances significantly that because they're having to like have motion during the day that they're going to go to the safe harbor clinic and show up for their appointment right or that they're going to get a turning point and meet with their coach or they're going to go to if that makes sense it does increase that unfortunately you know it's kind of a a plus and minus on that and I think I could speak for our shelter coordinator Heather does a good job of of explaining this sometimes better than I do is we want to create a safe supportive environment for people we don't want it to feel like home we actually do want there to be a little bit of discomfort so there's forward motion in people's lives you you explained that really well and I thought about that too sometimes being pulled up in the same space um even with mental health issues can be detrimental it's just I given that word I worry about what you just were talking about before that given that there's very little to move forward to in terms of housing getting out I would love for them to feel like they own something but that's not to say you're doing an amazing job so it's not a slight I don't just saying I don't feel that as a slight it's a tension it's probably going to make you feel better but it's a tension we feel to it is it's um I don't want to get too philosophical but I'll just say like sometimes I mean a term we use sometimes is creating false bottoms for people right it's like where they need something and so like if by yeah sometimes you create a situation where it's actually seems like it's helping them but it's actually preventing them from taking steps on their own and I would say that a lot of this is definitely an increase is that we really want like we can't force our guests to access services but part of the reason of even opening the common space during the winter period right is like bringing services into that right so like that it's kind of creating a space where okay you're in here and here's the safe harbor clinic nurses right you know you're in here and look there's a turning point you know recovery coach you know in our offices right so it kind of there is some method to the madness there well seeing no other hands and looking at the time I think that that seems like a good spot to stop for the evening and thank you so much Kevin for presenting and sharing a lot of information you know as someone who works in housing and works with the homeless community you know I definitely empathize with the idea of I love my job but I wish I would rather not have to do it so if folks have any other questions what's the best way to get in contact with you I think probably the most straightforward way is just sending me an email it's it's just my first initial K pounds at a new place vt.org and I have put that in the chat it sure did too we both are on it look at that well alright thank you so much Kevin and you know it's great to have you and I'm sure that the conversation will continue with that we move on to our last agenda item which is with Martha Keenan who is in the clerks and treasurer's office sorry to have you start a little bit later than the anticipated time but you know thanks so much for sticking around and thanks everybody else for sticking around and with that floor is yours Martha I really appreciate your letting me come tonight and I found the last two conversations fascinating I've been going to all of the NPA's and it is just great to hear the various conversations that you all have I work I am a capital and special projects director I work in the clerk treasurer's office I am a flat lander who went to UVM and married to Vermont and I've been here ever ever since and pretty much I have worked in Burlington almost all of my career which is almost 40 years so I started on the career of doing capital type things I helped remember they were in Boston Lane and they became agency buildings so the hate building is where bone is on a waterfront and the agency building is one next to it that houses gentlemen's top option so I've been doing construction all of these years and using it also with finance so I started with the city in public works eight years ago and I'm going to give you a nice little slide show on the capital plan it was pretty much the first large project that I was given my start in January 2014 and the story of capital plan started in March of 2014 so we are hoping to help you understand what the capital plan is and the infrastructure and the overall needs and the end goal is that you understand it and have an opinion that when we go to a special election our hope is to have a special election in December where there will be a vote for you regarding a fund to help continue attending to the needs of the capital plan so that's our goal is to help you understand what that need is and answer any questions of how it impacts you and I really like the notes that you all gave on how to start this because that is a really nice way to do it I haven't had that in any of the other MPIs that I went to so thank you I'm going to share my screen unless anybody has any comments before you get into it and you all see my screen yep yes okay great thank you so this is continuing the capital plan infrastructure plan the history of it is as I said it is that in 2015 the mayor in his state of the city said that he was going to create a capital plan and would present it following year and indeed we did present our first drafts that next year but it took us until September of 2016 to actually have a 10 year capital plan that we were able to bring to the city council and they approved it and with that approval it was the request to go to the voters for a bond in November of that year which we did in November and we were successful for $27.5 million and it was we need 66 and 2 thirds percent and we got 78 percent so we had a really strong showing that the public believes that we had this need that was to cover our first five years so 2021 finished the first five years of the capital plan and what did we do we worked with all the city departments the public city council to reinvest in the overall city infrastructure it's what makes the city vibrant we touched everything the greenway bike path sidewalks roads renovating a lot of buildings and every project considers how we can move towards our city's net zero energy goal one of the other areas is in fleet and we have been electrifying our vehicles as we move along as well so what have we accomplished we improved over 14 miles of sidewalks prior to the capital plan we were doing one mile a year we're now doing three miles a year and when we were only doing one mile a year we have over 100 miles of sidewalks so that meant that a sidewalk was being replaced once every 100 years which isn't really what you call a good turnaround the average is more 40 years so we are moving in that direction that's what we're trying to do is a sustainable level of reinvestment in our capital we doubled our street so we're trying to do 5 miles 45 miles of street every year we have rehabilitated 7 miles of the bike path 90% at the end of this year the only part that will be left to complete that renovation is the north beach overpass bridge which has to be replaced we created a new parks facility in Letty Park so we moved the grounds and trees divisions of parks to their own building so that they have their own space and can keep their equipment there and it has helped them be much more efficient and use less labor because they're more organized in one area it also we put in diesel tanks in Letty and at the same time previously the all of the fleet that was out there had to go to 645 to gas up and so if you have a snow storm and somebody is in the north end and they're plowing on the north end and they need to get gas they would have to drive all the way back to 645 Pine which could take a half an hour drive back and then continue their route now they can fill up in Letty and fire trucks don't have to go out of service in order to fill up which we're doing previously so it helps all the way around the efficiency it helps our streets because they actually get used less and we use less fuel that way we've improved a lot of our building envelopes, insulation new grooves, new HVAC systems doing all of this improves the efficiencies energy efficiency in them and reduces costs improved our IT infrastructure originally there was $125,000 a year was all that was spent on IT and over the last year you all can know how hard it was with technology tonight you have this really neat new TV that's at 645 Pine that you're looking through and that's one of the things that we're investing in getting those in most of the major conference rooms that do a lot of public meetings so that we can continue to have hybrid meetings in the youth we did a lot of security improvements electronic door systems and our video system we brought the video system all in house to one system and it is housed in dispatch lease department so if someone has to respond to an event the dispatcher can pull up the cameras and help whoever is responding know what's going on before they get there so that helps them walk into a situation with eyes already on it so they can be better prepared for whatever it is we have created three new committees that are really important to making the capital plan work we created first capital committee when we started I was the only one doing capital and I was the one saying yes or no little project that's not a really comfortable spot at the end we created a committee that is made of all of the major departments so CEDO public works parks and the click treasurer's office along with CEDO are all together and that helps us create a better process and ensures equity across the board we also set up a fleet committee and previously each department bought their own vehicles and there was no real collaboration or system now it's all in one place we created a financial strategy that uses both master leases and bonding to return over our vehicles in a timely manner and prior to 2016 we had had four years we replaced no vehicles they have 350 vehicles so of those vehicles they just got older and harder and to do anything like that in the last five years we replaced 28% of our vehicles and we want to keep doing that as we return as we turn them over we actually have more equity in them so when we turn them in we're getting more money back for them and that helps we have less maintenance so we're spending less time maintaining the vehicles as we go forward what did we learn that the capital needs are evolving we've had a lot of different weather events that have affected the city and that although the capital plan is a picture in time when you look at it it's a spreadsheet and you have your needs for one day it actually changes every single day because we have a rainstorm we get two inches of rain and a roof fails or you create a new pot hole or you get flooding in one of the basements so it creates a capital project right then and there and that goes on all the time we also have a better understanding of our assets and what their deficiencies are the other committee I forgot to mention is our asset management committee and we are in the process of implementing our own asset management platform where all of these assets are in one place and we can record their condition and help us prioritize when we need to replace it rather than just saying it's 20 years old it needs to be replaced we have decades of deferred maintenance to catch up on and it's going to take us decades to get there this is not a one-time deal it is an ongoing deal or forever we're always going to have pot holes and they're always going to have to be fixed we have a better understanding of all the competing needs and that helps us prioritize better when we did the budget process this year there was a survey that was sent out and it showed that the public strongly supported the infrastructure for the city over the next three years which is what we're looking at we have a need of over $140 million and it's not just going to come from one place there are a lot of potential funding sources right now which is an opportunity in front of us that is really awesome we have the federal infrastructure bill it's the first time we've had federal help of that in decades there's the American Rescue Plan and then the state has a lot of new programs as well from money that they've received and so we have a lot of opportunities in front of us that we're looking at but even with those opportunities we still have the need we have items that can't be covered under those different opportunities so we're looking to do a special election why um when the pandemic hit it set all of our planning back a year we were looking at coming to everyone the voters last year and it just wasn't the right time and so we're here now we're coming before town meeting date because it would negatively impact our construction season next year most of our planning is done in January, February, and March and we put out our RP's then and we award it as early as possible so that we can get the most competitive bids if we were to go on town meeting date we would not be able to have a very good construction season because we would lose out on that timing and go out and try and put in our RP out we don't know we have the money to pay for the contract we're going to make that for everything our interest rates right now are really low but there's questions as to whether they're going to stay there so it is a good time to go out of financial support and we want the community to focus on the high school plans on town meeting day even with all these other resources that might be there more is needed so we broke down how these different RP sources could be used now but the answer starts to build and grants we have to apply for them so it's our hope that we are going to be competitive and can get these things but we have streets capital tax that covers a lot of it we have a traffic division that can make a contribution to it and then when you can see where we have a large amount that we're hoping to get from the federal infrastructure bill and then we have a lot of grants that are already existing such as the rail yard enterprise and shelter street run about which you all see daily we're going to use just a small amount of water proceeds what we're looking at is for streets sidewalks and bridges that the main investment is going to hoping and working to get through the federal infrastructure bill and only using minimal fund proceeds for those items at this point we have a lot of intersection improvements to do and that's going to be a combination of different funding sources with the grants that we have we have local matches that are required so we are looking to fund some of them through that we also get $2 million every year for the capital and we would address obligator hold a lot of that for those local matches once you accept a grant you are obligated to the match that goes with it so we have that up in an obligation going forward so we have credit for parks as well and then with our vehicles every year we do an annual master lease to take the vehicles to that have a life of less than 10 years what we're hoping to put into the bond are the fleet vehicles that have a longer life such as fire trucks sidewalk tractors plows that type of thing so this is the breakdown of the request let's bring the voters in December for sidewalks streets the intersection improvements are local matches we have a lot of bridges in Burlington it was here that have an immediate need the north beach overpass bridge the run point bridge the queen city bridge and the wood news que bridge I also all have needs right now in order to do all this work we have project management our buildings even though we've made a lot of strides we still have more to go we have a lot of historic buildings and they need rehabilitation rather than replacement and that is more expensive so we have a lot of windows that we need to replace and an example city hall has 79 windows in it and each window is about $500 a piece to replace so not and that's not even the installation in the parks parks have pennies for parks but they have some larger projects that if they were to use their pennies for parks funding on them they wouldn't be able to do any work in the small projects in all the parks and items such as that is a boat house it's not really a park and doesn't come under the pennies for parks funding and so it is in need of a replacement of its barge so it's sinking over time and so that would be a bond item rather than an item that could be covered by a pennies for parks I spoke a little bit about the fleet but we have public safety infrastructure the city has its own radio system for both recent fire with their cell towers repeaters everything and it's at the end of life and it needs to be replaced and the price tag is $4.3 million and lastly is memorial we're in a tough spot memorial is a historic building it has been vacant since 2016 just prior to the pandemic we had almost an agreement to renovate it with a partner and that fell through when the pandemic hit and the building has just continued to go downhill since then this set aside is going to help us determine whether it gets rebuilt in a way so that $10 million would really only allow it to get upgraded system so it has no elevator and it has no ADA access it has no ventilation system and its boilers are from 1963 so as well as it needs a new fire and sprint system so those are just simple everyday things that it needs we've had structural engineers look at it and it's a steel building with masonry around the outside and water has come through the masonry and rusted the steel and it's rusted it so much that it's broken the bricks on the outside so it needs to have the masonry taken off and the steel repaired and some structural work done we don't know how stable it really is so the question is does it get renovated does it go to help another such as the school or does it transition and not be memorial anyone this $10 million will help us with those discussions and decisions but something has to happen because it just can't sit there any longer it's the boilers themselves are pretty much at the end of life they usually let the boilers 30 years it's more than double bits life and those boilers would not be used if you picked any other use for the building you wouldn't use that type of boiler in this day and age so you can't just replace it when you don't know what you want to do with the building that's our $40 million request that we would like to make for the building we want to be discreetly responsible and in 2018 the city came up with a debt policy and so it looks at various main ratios and the target on one is 1.75 but the high limit is 2% and when we get it on we don't draw all $40 million at once we draw in tranches and so it would be drawn over the three years and as you can see and then it starts to go back down and it goes back down again because there is debt that's being retired and so it actually will decrease that ratio and put us in a good shape we're really conscious we want to keep our Moody's Credit score and we can still do that with this bond and with the school bond so we did the calculations with the understanding that the school $70 million that they have authorized and so these calculations are taking back into account the other target ratio is 4% and on this you can see that we don't even come close to that so we are staying discreetly responsible with it and we've been very thoughtful about how we would pull it and what it would do our credit rating of course how does it affect you the residents of Burlington and we made it home right now $379,000 and with this you would see that there is a slight increase so between $7 and $13 a month it would increase it so your high point is this for your 25 where it goes up in that time frame and then it starts going down again and that's again because that debt is being retired so it would be a $7 a month to a $13 a month increase for the median home what are our next steps we did meet with the board of finance and city council on this past Monday and presented all of this information to them they did have some questions and we had a great discussion on it and so we are coming back to them on September 27 and hope that we will get approval from them to be able to put an item on a special meeting ballot in December I am continuing to meet with commissions and wards all the way through it other committees as well and hope that I can help people understand what this need is why we need it and how it will help keep the city vibrant moving forward live schedule and questions sorry we were muted thank you so much Martha I'll open the floor to questions now and let's see if anybody has any questions please raise your hand either in person or in the zoo I know it's a lot of information but happy hands I just want to say thank you so much for breaking down some of the things especially regarding what the money looks like going towards the memorial it's really great to have a little bit more of a breakdown of where this is actually going so I really appreciate you presenting it's my pleasure I actually have a lot of fun doing it it sounds like you really know what you're talking about it's overwhelming thanks for all your hard work thank you this has been pretty much my life for eight years sort of like the person do for me I love what I do will there be any other question on the December ballot if there's a special election so there is the Burlington Electrical have a revenue bond so even if we were not going they were already going for a special election meeting in December I'm wondering whether with the tax hit after the reassessment whether people are going to be skeptical about any ask for any money that will increase their taxes we thought about that and I would say that you are at my fourth board that I've talked with and I believe that everybody understands the need and that deferring it only makes costs higher and so that most people that I have talked with feel that it will hurt to a degree but that the alternative would hurt more I can't I can't be single I want to ask whether does someone audit the work that you do as I mean I know you could but do you have people looking at the work that you do on your level or at the state level and verifying what you've been telling us so in the way of having infrastructure and other funding sources or in the way of I work for the CAL of the city and we work closely with the Vermont League of Cities and Towns as well as the National League of Cities in Towns and because of all of the grants we do we have a lot of relationships with both the state and the federal government for the work and any grant is overseen by them does that so they so they so they can verify so is there any question about the information they verify the information they verify the information for themselves right yes one thing that the city does have is that they have an auditor that every year looks at the work that's done and make sure that it stays within the bounds of what is normal best practices for a government and so they look at all of the capital projects budget and projects and look to see if they're in line with what is known throughout the nation for governmental agencies sure yeah thank you Martha and thank you Jane for the question and seeing no other hands and seeing the time it looks like it's getting to be about that time to wrap up our meeting for the evening thank you again Martha thank you to all the presenters and all the members of the public who were in attendance today and thank you to Kirsten again for helping out with all of the technological needs and to our volunteers and the redistricting committee thank you to everybody anybody who can hear my voice thank you thank you remember be sure to join us again next month the third Thursday which is October 21st it's the last day that could possibly be because we will be rolling we'll be doing hybrid we'll have a lot of great information some updates from city counselors as well as some other updates on things that are going on in the city so thanks again and have a good night everybody thank you have a good night thank you be me partners too thank you so much have a good evening you all good night