 Second, any further discussion of the amended agenda? Seeing none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. And we have an agenda. That does bring us to item number two, which is the public forum. And I can see, so we'll see if this works. If that is you on the 3604 phone number, Councillor Busher, go ahead. You can be the first comment here. I think someone has to do what enabled them. I could do it if, like Mayor, I don't have post responsibilities, but it says talking for a minute. I think that Councillor. Yes, I'm sorry. I just enabled and President Tracy, I will also go ahead and make you a co-host because you will need that soon. Awesome. Thank you so much. Can you hear me now, Max? Yes, we can. Go ahead. OK, thank you. So I'm not going to make a habit of speaking at public forum, but since this is the budget, I wanted to make some additional comments. I made comments earlier regarding the cemetery maintenance and also crossing guards, so I'm not going to repeat those. I am concerned. I have an overarching concern and question of how we sustain the budget that's being recommended. And my concern is really the impact it's going to have on the median income homeowner. I really do feel like this budget will really play out in a negative way over the next couple of years for those people. So that's one overarching concern. My second comment is regarding the Housing Trust Fund, which was talked about earlier, that you had decided not to raise or not to go to the full penny that had been authorized. Yet housing is one of our top priorities. And as we know, the money that is generated from this one cent is significant. We really leverage significant dollars, so I didn't know whether the administration and the Board of Finance had considered using the ARPA funds to bring this to the full penny just for this year. And then in future years, obviously, go back to generating the full penny. I think it's really important. I think you're going to have another housing summit, and I really feel that those dollars are really needed. So that's one comment that I have. The other comment has to do with, I couldn't find it. So if it's there, maybe you can direct me and the public. Is there a page that shows all the utility rate increases and how this impacts a property owner and a renter also? Because they will bear that burden also for the most part. I think that that's really something that I like to look at, and I couldn't find that. The next comment, these are all related to the budget, but all kind of unrelated to each other. I am concerned about the shift of an 80% shift of general fund dollars to help fund the marketplace. I know you did this last year, and you want to continue it. But we did this with CEDO. And then it just became an expectation, and those are additional general fund dollars that we need to meet. And I am concerned about that. The last point that I have has to do with accessibility. And when I first was on the council, technical review had more teeth. I think that it's done, but it's done piecemeal now. And technical review of developments or proposals coming forward. And at that time, there was an engineer who really had expertise in accessibility. And I was just hoping that maybe you'd ponder that as you're looking at who you have for staff. I think that that would really go a long way in helping make our city more accessible, not only with development at DRB, but sidewalks, any number of scenarios. So those are all my comments, and thank you very much. And I hope all of you are not sweltering like I am. I hope you've got air conditioning, but I don't. Anyways, thanks again. Bye. All right, thank you, Councilor Busher. Appreciate the comments. There are responses that too many of those comments, but it's in a place for back and forth. So maybe there's some other mechanism we can have some engagement. I will go now. I believe Ben Travers can we enable Ben's mic? Ben, I think you're enabled now. And Ben. Thanks, Mr. Mayor. City Council President Tracy, Councilors Paul and Jang. Ben Travers here in my role as the Chair of the Parks Recreation Waterfront Commission. And sorry for not filling out the form. I saw the form online. It looked like it was designed for the regular city council meeting. I didn't know if there was another way to get in line for the Board of Finance, but appreciate you're taking me at this point in time. I'm here to speak with respect to the Penny for Parks program. On behalf of the Parks Commission, I sent you all a memo last week, and I won't read that verbatim, but just thought I would show up at public comment here to provide a bit more context for it. The Parks Commission meets monthly, and we met for our last meeting on June 1st. Between our early May meeting and our June 1st meeting, commissioners were able to see the recommended budget, which includes a slight increase, but roughly keeps funding flat, at least as a dollar value year to year for the Penny for Parks program. And on its own initiative, the commissioners raised on our agenda on June 1st the question of whether or not we wanted to make the recommendation to you all that the assessment for the Penny for Parks program remain at a full penny, which of course, with the recent citywide reassessment, would, through that, generate new revenue. The vote in favor of this recommendation was unanimous. The Parks Commission is made up of counselors from across the city, Alex Ferrell from the New North End, Andrea Todd, Harley Johnson, and Fauna Hurley from the Old North End, Nate Lantieri and myself from the South End unanimously voted in favor of this recommendation outlined in the memo to you all. And I suppose what I would say here is that while I recognize there are many worthwhile initiatives, which of course could highly benefit from increased funding, and while I also recognize that there's understandable apprehension, particularly right now after going through this last year and a half with increasing taxes, the commission doesn't really view this as a potential tax increase. That while the Penny for Parks program includes charter language like that that's included for the Housing Trust Fund and the library that allows for the council to assess an amount up to 1 cent, that this is a program that back in 2008 and year after year has always been publicized to voters as a penny for parks. And our concern is that with the recent reassessment that if funding stays flat at this point in time, that it's no longer a penny for parks program, that if we're going to call it a penny for parks program and that that's what voters approved of, that it should remain at a full one penny assessment of one cent, which will generate much needed revenue that actually far from addresses the many capital improvement needs that the parks department has, but would go a long way to addressing some of those needs on items like accessibility, public art, improvements to athletic courts and fields, and so on. And one really unique aspect to this program that I would say that Cindy White in Parks leadership under the mayor has really taken to another level recently is the citizen driven component of this program. Over the years that I've been on the Parks Commission, I'll now be going into my third year here. Additional efforts have been made to publicize this program, to take suggestions from the public. I know that in the coming year we intend on going back to, we've met already with and going back to programs like the trusted community voices program as well as through the schools to solicit additional suggestions for our parks, for resident driven penny for parks programs. We're going to do that obviously regardless of what happens with the funding here, but we're very excited by the opportunity to perhaps do more. And so I thank you all for your consideration this proposal. Thank you for adding it to your agenda this evening. I'm going to be in transit home here shortly, but if it would be helpful to hop back on, I'd be happy to do that later. Otherwise again, thank you and look forward to seeing you. Great, thank you, Ben. Thank you for the time to wait in here. Is there any other member of the public that would like to speak to the Board of Finance? And these who are on a couple others who are seeking to be recognized, and can use raise hand function. I don't have access to that email Catherine or presentation. Do we see any other emails that have come in for the Board of Finance? I do not, Mayor. There were two that were folks who were not able to attend, but the council meeting, and I forwarded those to the full council. So council have those comments, but I do not see any folks who have decided who have decided to show up for commerce and who wanted to sign up for public forum for Board of Finance. Very good. So with that then, I'm not seeing any more hands. I will close the public forum at 5.18 p.m. and move to the consent agenda, which has just one item in the May 24th minutes. Do we have a motion regarding the consent agenda? So moved. Thank you, Councillor Jang. Is there a second? Second. My President Tracy, any discussion of May 24th minutes for the consent agenda? Councillor Pau, go ahead. You are on mute, Councillor Pau. Thank you. Sorry about that. I just wanted to commend the minutes that are being done now. They're much more complete and I think are really being well done. So thank you. Just wanted to mention that. Thank you, Councillor Pau. I appreciate it. With that, we'll go to vote. All those in favor of motion, please say aye. Aye. Ready to post? Motion carries unanimously. And that brings us to our deliberative agenda. 4.01 is a solid waste generation tax. Lee and Chapin are here to address questions. How would the Board like to proceed? Are we ready for a motion or, I guess, overview to take things on? Councillor Pau. Thanks. I think it would be important for, particularly for the public, to understand what this tax is, why there is a tax increase and how this works into our recycling program and all of that. So I think brief background would be good. Great. Is that going to be Chapin or Lee? I can start off and then Lee can pick up any thing I miss. Thank you for having us, Councillors and Mayor. This is related to the city's recycling program, which for decades, the city has been running a consolidated recycling program for residents of Burlington. This solid waste generation tax is the tax that is added on to trash bills that funds the city's consolidated recycling program. And so for each resident in the city who has trash service through a subscription service, pays this tax on their monthly bill. We are proposing to increase it from $4.84 a month to $5.36 a month, which translates to if there's four pickups a month as there are in most months, a dollar and 34 cents per pickup per week, which we believe is a great value to the city of Burlington. And there are two drivers this month or this year that are driving the increase. One is the amount of recyclables being generated at residential homes, given the pandemic and people working and staying at home more. So they're generating more recyclables. That's a significant driver. And the second one is the need for us to purchase a new recycling vehicle and the additional payment for a lease payment for this year for that new vehicle is also included. We also have funds in this budget for looking at a transition towards consolidated collection overall across trash recycling and organics. That's a conversation that's going to be happening in the coming weeks with the council, but there's a placeholder to assist us in the development. If the council goes in that direction. Lee, anything to add? No, Chapin, you covered it pretty well. The increase in recycling has been just staggering this year. Usually right around 2,880 tons, you could almost bank on it year to year. And, you know, we're going to be pushing 3,200 tons this year. You know, that extra amount wasn't budgeted for in FY. 21. So. I foresee it continuing on because the trend hasn't really slowed down in our monthly tonnage. Thank you. Presentry. So I guess I'm a little, so with the, with the idea of purchasing a recycling truck while also looking at potentially doing consolidated collection, I'm just kind of wondering what the thinking is there because it's, I'm wondering why we might invest in a truck. If we were considering that I don't favor necessarily privatizing or going to or taking the recycling out of city hands. I think. The city workers do a great job with that program and I really like the service that's provided now. So, but I just, I'm just wondering why would we invest in a truck in that, that capital expense. If we're going to continue to explore this other thing, which I don't really think is necessary, at least on the recycling side everywhere else. Yeah, that's fine, but the recycling pieces. I think should stay in city. Thank you, President Tracy. The quick answer is that the trucks. We need reliable trucks to be able to provide the reliable service that you certainly acknowledge that, that we are able to deliver most times this year. We twice we had to rent a truck from a private hauler to collect recyclables. And I know Councillor Paul and others have reached out to us with confused constituents wondering why there's a private hauler collecting recycling in the community. It's gotten to the point where we need to replace this truck. That said, these trucks, should we go ahead with a municipal operation of consolidated collection will be assets that will be used in the future. Should we transition to a franchised consolidated collection system? What we've talked about is the timeline is three plus years. That gives us time to get significant use out of this truck and then either sell the truck at the end of the life or repurpose it. But it is an asset that has value and could be resold if needed. Okay, great. Thank you. That helps to clarify. Further discussion. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And thank you, Councillor Tomas. So the rental fee for a private hauler, right? And the push us of a new truck. You know, basically you just talked about it will be just three years and then we will come back to the drawing board, whether or not we'll continue with the consolidated approach or the city will continue to provide the service. I was just wondering about is it, to continue to rent at least a new truck or is it beneficial for us to buy a new one? Which one? Yes, thank you, Councilor Jang. Lee Perry does oversee the city's fleet team, both on the maintenance as well as on the acquisition side. And given that these trucks are in use every business day and that we need a truck that we feel we can control and is in good shape, the rental payments, if we were to rent for a full year, would very likely be far and above the annual payments, lease payments for a new vehicle. So not only is it good financial sense, it also puts us in control and making sure that equipment is maintained to the level and standard that we expect. Lee, anything else you want to add to that? No, for what we were paying for that rental truck, it would not be double what we would pay for an annual payment, lease payment, for the recycling truck. So you're correct, not assumption. And we have more direct oversight over the maintenance on the vehicle as well. Yeah, I mean, I think my question is specific to the three years because it seems maybe in three years the whole thing might change, right? And was just wondering, is it beneficial to rent for three years or is it beneficial to push us a car of new truck for three years? That's that's a question. The three-year piece, I think it's important into it. And the other element is also when you contract a private hauler, you don't worry about, you know, the condition of the car because the maintenance, you don't worry about it. They just, you just worry about the service being delivered to clients. Can you speak to that? Yes, Councillor Jang. Just from a financial standpoint, as Lee was discussing, the annual price we would need to pay to rent a vehicle for a full year is far in excess of what it would cost for us to lease it. So financially, we'd have to pay more to rent. And then we have less control on the on the quality of the vehicle and the maintenance schedule of that vehicle. So from a financial standpoint, we think it makes sense to lease to own. And if we need to sell the vehicle three years in, there is a robust vehicle market for quality commercial vehicles. And we're confident we could get the value, any remaining value back through a sale. Thank you. How does the board like to proceed? Anyone want to make a motion at this point? Thanks. I'll make a motion to take the recommended action as detailed in Board Docks. Thank you. That's seconded by President Tracy. Further discussion? Very good. We'll go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Please. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you. Okay. That brings us to 4.02. Chief Locke is here. Chief, why don't you give a quick summary of Chief Libby. Nice to see you, Chief. I want to give us a quick summary of the need for the change that you're proposing here in this. Sure. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So, but for COVID, we would have had this before you about a year ago. So, just before COVID, we were preparing to bring this and then with the budget reductions, we put it on hold. So, yeah, as you know, as you well are probably aware, the fire department runs about 70% of our call volume is medical calls. Yet we had, and we run a paramedic level service. But we don't have a dedicated supervisor overseeing all components of our medical program. And so, a few years ago in 2015, we started running at the paramedic level service. And that, while it's great for our citizens at a high level of management, it really requires someone with a paramedic skill set to oversee everything of that operation, including from our credentialing to mentoring new paramedics to medical administration and ordering our supplies. New paramedics need precepting, whether it's someone to ride on an ambulance with them, all of our training, our quality assurance program. And so, about three years ago, when we were in bargaining with the union and for the third ambulance, we had this plan at that time to do this kind of the way we're doing it. So, we currently have two shifts with 25 staff and one shift with 26. We know with our staffing factor, we need 28 positions total, yet when we hired the third ambulance, we hired nine, knowing that we were going to transition one of those vacant positions to this EMS leadership position. And so, that's what's before you now is it takes a vacant firefighter position, transitions it to an exempt supervisor position that would be in the command staff overseeing all operations and training of our medical division, working with the hospital and our EMS medical district to ensure the highest level of care. And so, this is the execution of a plan that's been in place for about three years. It's about a $25,000 paid difference and that's been factored into the budget that's also before you. And I think with that, that's the rundown and I'll take any questions. Thanks Mayor and thanks Chief Locke. I'm just curious given that we're eliminating a bargaining unit position, I'm just wanting to understand the consultation that's taken place with the bargaining unit and if they're on board with this, I know they're heavily in favor of the expansion of EMS services, but just wanting to understand if they're okay with this additional change as well. It's absolutely a great question. A lot of conversations with the union president and I purposely didn't use the word support in the memo because I didn't want him to have to put him on the spot, but he certainly understands the need for it, acknowledges that this has been the plan from the very beginning and knows that it's the best thing for the organization in the long run and is something we've been needing for years. So just to not put him on the spot to have to say he technically supports the elimination of a bargaining unit position, he would definitely concur that this has been the plan and the right thing to do for the organization. Okay, wonderful. Thank you. Further discussion? Councillor Jang, go ahead. I am just happy to make the the motion to approve and recommend that the City Council approve the creation of the chief of emergency medical service EMS a regular full-time exempt grade 23 position and the elimination for back-and-fire fight of all as a regular non-exempt full-time EFFA union grade 15 position within the Burlington Fire Department as outlined as a chief or as a chief was memo dated May 22nd, 2021. Thank you, Councillor Jang. Is there a second? Second by President Tracy. Further discussion? Seeing none, we will go to vote. All those in favor of the motion please say aye. Is there any post? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Thank you too. It is spring system 4.03 which is grant approval for electric bucket truck to be the item GM Darren Springer is here. Darren, can you give us a quick summary of the site? Absolutely. Good afternoon. This is an exciting item for us as part of the Volkswagen settlement fund that the state is administering. We have a grant agreement before you that would provide up to 85% of the cost for purchasing the first electric bucket truck for line work in Burlington and one of the first that we're aware of certainly in the state, maybe nationally as well. This is going to with the grant be a less expensive purchase than just replacing the bucket truck with a conventional diesel bucket truck. We'll be saving on operations. We'll be reducing emissions and pioneering some new technology here with our line crew. Excited to bring this before the board of finance city council tonight. Thank you, Darren. Visually does this look very similar to our other trucks or will it appear different? I believe it will have a similar look. There will be a bucket and some of the other tools that the line trucks typically carry will be with a different vendor than we would normally use. And I think our intent is to have it really be in service in much the way that the conventional trucks would. Okay. The other Councillor? Thanks, Mayor. Darren, this is really exciting. Really exciting. I'd make a motion to recommend the council authorize the general manager of Burlington Electric Department to enter into a grant agreement with the Vermont agency of natural resources with the term ending June 30, 2023 as described above to accept up to $560,000 in grant funds to support the purchase of an all electric bucket truck for Burlington Electric's fleet subject to final review and approval from the city attorney's office. Second. Any further discussion? It's exciting that it also includes a fast charger and this will have broader application than just this could be used for other vehicles as well. Yeah, it's coming with a 50 kilowatt fast charger and I'm sure we'll have the potential to if we are able to add future electric bucket trucks to to use that charger for additional vehicles. Okay. If there's no more discussion, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you, Darren, for moving on this. I think to have, you know, this will be one of the larger pieces of equipment that we've city itself has purchased that is electric. So, you know, important step towards hopefully the first and many larger vehicle purchases to come. Good. Thank you. This brings us to 4.04. This is a Parks Recreation Waterfront item for leasing the Information Center building on the Burlington Waterfront. Hello, Cindy. I think Cindy may be zooming in while taking some time off. Appreciate the extra effort. And why don't you give us a quick summary of this item? Nick, go ahead. Erin, if you could give the quick summary, it'd be great. Sure thing. Hi, everyone. This is a lease agreement for the Information Center down the P's parking lot. For those of you not as familiar with either the name of the parking lot or the location, the bottom of College Street diagonally across the street from Echo. This is used as a gateway entrance for information and welcoming folks down to the waterfront. So, it's with excitement that we put this request forward to the Board of Finance. We had a successful RFP with Lake Champlain Chamber, bidding again. They have had this contract or this lease agreement in the past, and they have requested to continue their services. What they do is they welcome folks in. They staff it seven days a week during the summer, and they certainly help out, spreading the word about our events, but as well as helping folks find a way around Burlington and providing recommendations. They would also potentially be selling train tickets out of this building when the train is in operation. So, that is covered in this lease agreement. It is for three seasons. We say operating seasons because this building is not open for information services in the winter. So, for three consecutive seasons. Thank you. Great. Great. Thank you, Aaron. Exciting that the services may expand and include a train ticket. I hope that unfolds. The floor is open for questions or a motion. Councillor Jang, go ahead. Yep. I would like to make the motion to approve and recommend to the City Council to release a vendor space of information center building at the Burlington Waterfall. Very good. Thank you. Councillor Jang, is there a second? A second. Seconded by Councilor Powell. Any further discussion? Okay. We're going to vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? The motion carries unanimously. And then our final deliberative item tonight is 4.05. Thank you, Aaron. Now we're joined by Sophie to talk about, I think this is another exciting item. This basically is the final contract of our five-plus year effort to rebuild the entire bike path from the southern segment zero all the way to the Winooski River. This is the remaining, attention to the meaning, uncontracted for section through Oakledge Park. And Councillors will remember we did have some discussion a few weeks ago about the possibility, the need if we wanted to make progress this construction season, approving this before the rest of the capital budget, so that we, because we have actually initiated the bidding so that this work can take place this season we can finish this work this year. So that's where this is back a little bit like the, this Council will remember we approved the sidewalk, additional sidewalk contracting. And the last time we met, this is an amendment for the, like there appeared to be support for it when we last discussed. So with that, Cindy or Sophie do you want to add any other opening remarks about this? I just said that it's the continuation of this section we ended with last season where we replaced the culvert. So we're just starting north of the culvert and going all the way to Austin Drive. But we're actually going to construct it in the opposite direction so that the access to the park remains open into the beach as long as possible throughout this already very warm summer. So definitely, sorry, planning for everybody to be able to access the park as much as possible. Thank you, Sophie. And yeah, thank you for the measures that have been planned to ensure minimum disruption possible while getting this key piece of infrastructure rebuilt. And there's some alterations to the route through this year that the public's going to like the new alignment. With that, the floor is open for motion or discussion. Councillor Jennings. Thank you, Mayor. I would like to make the motion to approve and recommend to the City Council. Great. Thank you, Councillor Jennings. Is there a second? Seconded from President Tracy. Further discussion? Great. We'll go to vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. All right. Are there any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Great. Let's go get this built. I can't. Look forward to being able, next season to, by luck, ride the whole continuous a mile stretch newly rebuilt bike path. So thank you for your hard work on this huge project. All right. With that, we are done with the delivered items and we're acting on at least tonight. And the next item is 5.01, which is a final discussion here at the board. Point of information? Yes. Go ahead, Councillor Jennings. Didn't we amend the agenda to add agenda item 5.00? Yeah. So I think it makes, I understood that to be we were going to start with the overall budget discussion and then have the discussion of the Parks Commission tax as a part of that discussion. But if Councillors would prefer the opposite order, we can do that. I think let's get the, and if there's no objection, let's get the full kind of like the Catherine moment just to talk about the submission she's given you and any highlights from that. There's memo portion of the companies as well. But Catherine maybe like to kind of summarize where we're in the process and and any notable, you know, updates in this, in the version of document they released on Friday. Thank you, Mayor. I've talked a lot about the budget and we've all talked a lot about the budget. So I'll keep it brief. Really, this version of the budget is quite similar to what we have all reviewed in the departmental marvelous sessions in May. But it does take into account many of the pieces of feedback that we have received from you throughout that process. I outlined them in the memo. I would like to say that there are at least to my knowledge, two things that are outstanding that the mayor and I will be talking about tomorrow. And that specifically is traffic calming and getting some more money for traffic calming and also as President Tracy and I believe Councillor Hanson have both spoken about a resolution around reparations for Indigenous people and the taking of land in Burlington. So those are both things that could still change from this version of the budget to what is submitted on Friday. Other than that, what you see, I have tried to really take into account all of the feedback that you have given and all of the feedback from department heads. And so with that, I am going to stop talking and see if there are any final pieces of feedback or comments. I have gotten a couple of emails and I'll continue to respond to those, but I'm happy to take anything now. So thank you for providing that update and for taking a number of suggestions from councillors and that feedback. I appreciate the additional conversation both on the reparation study and I just want to be clear, it's a study along the lines of the ideas along the lines of what we're doing with regards to chattel slavery. Currently, understanding that there would have to be additional work to define the scope of that committee, but I think that what is being conceived is really an academic study similar to what has been put for with a committee of academic researchers and other community members potentially who would be able to really take a deeper dive into that issue and understand what value those resources have and what might be some appropriate steps to take coming out of the recognition around those resources having been taken or not ceded. So that's that item. I just wanted to ask specifically also about the climate piece and just getting that overarching analysis. I was pleased to see the additional funding for the electric charging stations and that bulleted item, but I would still like to just get some analysis around how really this budget in a much larger sense addresses the climate crisis and hopefully more so on a department by department level. So I'm glad that you asked about that and only answer first and then I'll turn it over to the mayor and essentially we are pulling that together for the Friday submission which will be a much larger and more thorough outlining of all of the budget pieces. But yes, we are currently working with Martha Keenan and the department heads so that that will be a much fuller piece as you gave us feedback at the beginning. And I think we all agreed we hadn't outlined that as fully as we had our racial equity initiative, for instance, so you can expect that to be fully detailed in the mayor's memo on Friday. Mayor, I'll turn it over to you as you could expand. Yeah, I mean I think that's right. The fall, we have added, based on conversation in recent weeks, there is, you know, now we consider a climate item. As noted, there is a study that will be funded in this budget for a transportation demand management system. There is as you noted money for the chargers, fast chargers as well as a plan that we feel pretty helpful about to seek state money for a significant expansion of city fast chargers. The other items that will be, you know, summarized, I don't think there'll be a lot of surprise in them, but I think we'll be helpful to have it all in one place. There's, you know, if you add it all up, it certainly will include all the transportation, the active transportation, capital investment that is planned, the sidewalk funding as well as continued work on the bike paths, bike lanes. It will include all of the green stimulus incentives that have been detailed, or within the BED budget, and there are some other smaller items, but those are the major initiatives and I think you'll see in that summary what we call it together. And yeah, you'll see that detail more fully by the end of the week. Okay, I guess I'm wondering, is this summary going to be your full recommended budget, or will that come earlier? Because I know that for some feedback from a few counselors that they'd like as much time as possible prior to a budget vote to get a sense of the full outlay of your recommended budget there. Right. You know, I do, you feel like we can try to get out before Friday this summary. It is something that just get a little lucid. There's been some work going on it for a number of weeks. I think we could get that packaged up and out as a communication sooner than the end of the week. Our plan is to submit, even though the charter doesn't require it, but our plan at this point is to give the councils some additional time and to have the full budget submission in by this Friday. So if you could act on Monday, if you chose to do so, no obligation to do so, you know, you have until the end of the month, as you know. But we are planning on making this submission this week unless somehow this conversation suggests we'd be better to wait, you know, technically we could have it until next Tuesday to get it in. But I'd rather, I'd rather get it in by this Friday. I feel like it'd be fairer to the council if we could. Yeah, I certainly appreciate that. Any further advance notice, I think, you know, I just like I said, I've heard from some that they'd like a little bit of additional time from yeah, with it. I think that's a fair point on the climate stuff. So why don't we Catherine talk about that tomorrow morning and let's try to get a memo out. Sure. Great, thank you. Is that responsive what you're asking? Presentation? Yeah, well, and I just wanted to understand, you know, and I guess I'm just looking for some clarity as a for agenda forecasting and that kind of a thing as we kind of look towards next Monday because we do have that next meeting and whether or not we would be coming in with the expectation of voting on the budget there. You know, I know the Board of Finance has had significant time there and that many counselors have come to different budget sessions over the course of this. But, you know, I do think there may be some who say, you know, they they like that final product and being able to really compare different items against each other that see the totality of the recommendation and have some time to sit with that a little bit. So that's it. And so I was hoping to get it earlier in the week so we could really have a chance to get those. And then it's also just from a from a planning standpoint, it's hard, you know, it's better to have things, you know, on Tuesday or Wednesday, so that the clerks and all that can have those in. So we can post it at that point. Okay. Sorry. So, okay, so I was not fully appreciating your point. So I'd say I'm optimistic we can get you this climate emergency summary document that has been a request from the council for some time. I think we can get that to you quickly. And you can assess that. I am not optimistic we that we will be able to publish the full comprehensive document plus support all the supporting materials, a supporting memo prior to Friday, maybe we'll be that maybe there've been some years have gotten in Thursday, but I suspect we're going to need till Friday. So it certainly would be understandable, you know, and sort of comparably times sometimes the council has gone ahead and acted even with just that short period between this administration submission and that Monday meeting, but certainly understandable if the council wants to take, you know, an additional weaker or so with it. That's obviously your your discretion. Happy to talk to you further offline if there's anything I can do to help you with that decision. And just I'm not confident we're going to be able to accelerate that. Okay. Okay. Councilor Paul. Thanks. So I don't know if now is the time that you wanted to. Yeah, let's do that. Okay. I'm I just wanted to I'll just sort of throw this out. I want to I saw the the email that we all received from the Parks and Rec Commission on Friday, Friday afternoon along with an attachment that has a fairly detailed list of items that are in the works to move forward with Penny for Parks funding, as well as a very compelling memo from the Parks and Rec Commission about how our community views parks as an essential city service. And I think we've all seen that particularly during the pandemic. But I think we see it all the time. Parks are recreation and relaxation for many, many people in Burlington, as well as being a huge asset to our city for visitors who come here for people who live here for people who work here. And they are here, they are available to us year round on the, you know, the Penny for Parks program was started on spearheaded to a large degree by John Ewing, who was a Parks Commissioner at the time. And, you know, Penny for Parks, it is a penny. The reappraisal did add $150,000 to that penny. But I think what we can get for $150,000 that would address accessibility murals, bleachers, rehabilitation of the Chief Greylock Monument and Battery Park amongst many others. And the list of additional funding, the list of needs is citywide. I would like to see us fully fund the Penny for Parks program this year. You know, I think when we're going to, I certainly understand and so just for us to share my reaction to this, I think it's wise that the Charter Language was written the way it was that does, unlike the, for example, prior language pre-2020 Charter Change, the trust fund language did not, you know, locked in, did not allow for inflation essentially, did not allow the Housing Trust Fund allocation to be increased with each reappraisal, unless you really saw the value of the Housing Trust Fund allocation every year eroded significantly over the 20 years, leading up to the Charter Change that we did last spring, you know, by some standards, almost like 50% of the purchasing power. And now is a problem that was fixed in that 2020 resolution Charter Change. I do think the crafters of the Charter Change clearly gave the council, the city government the discretion in saying, you know, did not mandate a penny at the clear discretion that was given to us collectively. And I think this is a moment where we should, you know, think about with that, that discretion. I guess from my perspective, knowing that we have great burdens on certainly property tax, it's been a principle of this budget that I still believe in that we are trying to minimize the property tax burden increases for multiple reasons with this budget. One, that we have numerous members of our community that are suffering badly coming out of this recession. It's been very uneven. Some people are doing just fine, but there are a lot of people who are really hurting and any tax increase contributes to that. We also have found ourselves having to, we know that there are utility increases that are happening for all electric customers and some water customers. And we also know that some individuals have been hit very hard by this reappraisal or it's been uneven there too, but there are some people have been hit hard by the reappraisal. So for all those reasons, what the principle that Catherine and I and the department team have been pursuing is to minimize discretionary tax increases as much as we can. I certainly find it hard to justify discretionary tax increases when we also have available to us very substantial amounts of federal funding that could be used in its place. And I guess that's, I'm interested in the rest and hearing from other members of the board of finance here, but I guess I would be inclined to not, I mean, it's going to be hard for me to support a tax increase when, or the items like councilor Paul just listed could also be addressed using ARPA funds through the process that we are considering having the rest of this summer into the fall and more. I actually think the parks items are likely to be, you know, community infrastructure is certainly one of the things that I'm interested in funding with those those ARPA funds. And so, you know, I think we may have the enviable position of being able to avoid a tax increase and have an unusually substantial amount of parks project funding this year. In fact, we just approved a seven, you know, almost $700,000 of additional parks funding, you know, kind of dwarfing what we're talking about here with the tax increase with the fight path. So that that's okay. I shouldn't hear about those reactions, but that's sort of my initial thinking on Councilor Paul and then Councilor Dyer. Okay, my apologies, Councilor Jang. I just wanted to say so in, so what you're saying is that while you prefer it not come in the form of the penny for parks, you are committed to doing at least as much as that, if not much more, that will address many of the many of the items that are on this list that the Parks and Rec Commission gave us in the email that they gave us. Yes, I think both. I mean, I'm confident the FY22 budget includes the item that the Board just recommended and I think the Council will approve later tonight for this additional almost $700,000, I believe, in parks funding for the bike path. I don't think that would be only additional item that we are, parks item that we are recommending in the FY22 budget, capital budget that you received this week. In addition, I think we're going to have, you know, this will not be my haul alone by any means. We're envisioning this as very much a community-engaged process, but I, you know, I think there's going to be a lot of appeal to using federal dollars for one-time community infrastructure, if you will, investment that will include parks projects. So, yeah, I think we're going to, I think that's likely and I certainly, I'm definitely committed to a FY22 budget per what we just said and I think that it's just the beginning. Okay. All right. Thank you. Dr. Jang. I mean, basically, I am very surprised, Mr. Mayor, to hear you today outline all of those concerns to the boroughs of Burlington, to the taxpayers of Burlington, and I do feel that what I envisioned, you know, your way of moving us forward, I mean, and what you just stated here is completely different. And I just completely agree with you. Yes, let's look for another ways of supporting Penis for Park, including the ARPA fund, and let's not increase the taxes. But I think my biggest concern about all of this is the timing in which this memo came to us and was just wondering if, you know, Commissioner Tavern also had the chance to introduce this to the Director of Parks and Recreation about those needs because the timing to me is a little bit is not aligning, but Mr. Mayor, I'm completely in agreement with you and thank you for allowing at least us to have the discussion and I approve your plan. Move us forward. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Jang. Is there further discussion on this or any other element of the any other last comments as we head into the final budget week here? Go ahead, Councillor Jang. Yes, and I think the last memo we received today about, we're discussing today from Catherine and also what I've been, there has been an increase in terms of revenue to the general fund of about let's say $7,000 or $70,000, I believe from $82,000 to $87,000. Was just wondering where that $7,000 basically came from in terms of or we were just putting on things in an approximative way. What is it? That's my first question. Good question. And we are always in an approximate way until I get you the budget, but I have increased revenues and part of that is because we have seen both gross revenues and local option taxes rebounding significantly over these past couple of months as we have seen people getting vaccinated and the recovery and that also impacts not only those revenues but parks revenues, waterfront parking and a lot of other things. So that did help to make our forecasts more rosy and as you'll see we still do have the $5 million of ARPA funding in there. So I hope that answers your question. Yeah. Thank you. Yes. So thank you so much for the answer. Now the other question and I try to be very mindful the staff capacity including the mayor's office as well, but I haven't received any response yet about increasing some funding to DPW in order to take care of the condition in which Franklin Square, a residential neighborhood where low income new Americans reside. And I was just wondering if we have a plan for that for these budgets. I see Director Chapman Spencer has materialized here. I go ahead. I very much appreciate the Councillor, Councillor Jang's question. Franklin Square is an important area of the city as you know after a 44-year discussion between the Brownington Housing Authority and the city. We finally brought a resolution with this council, this administration to have the infrastructure accepted as a city street. We too are eager as Councillor Jang is to see significant improvement in the assets. Some of the assets are significantly deteriorated in that area. Part of what we are doing right now Councillor Jang is the necessary pre-work to figure out how to coordinate the significant upgrades that will be needed in the coming years. Stormwater, the property itself is over three acres in size and so the state's new regulation may require some stormwater upgrades to that facility. There are some other subterranean utilities that may need attention. Some of the manholes are appearing to be failing. Before we move to paving or other surface activities we are doing a coordinated planning effort. I can assure you that we are working on that. The surface improvements are likely to not be for a year or two, but that they are being actively coordinated so that we do the subterranean work as you've seen us do recently and then the surface work to follow. I'm happy to get you a general timeline of what we're thinking about but the high visibility work would not happen this construction season for this fiscal year. Thank you and I definitely understand the complexity and the need that we have there and was just wondering if maybe just a paving for this fiscal year could be you know allocated for that specific site at least so that you continue to work on the other details and studies. Right and the hard part is the paving when we work on right of ways usually the last phase after all the other work is done because it is the surface treatment on top of all the other infrastructure. So I'm happy to work with you Councillor Jang to share a timeline of what we're thinking about to do the comprehensive reinvestment in this area that it certainly needs. Wonderful and lastly thank you for definitely including the traffic management as part of an addition to your budget about this. Thank you all. Thank you Councillor Jang. President Tracy. Thanks Mayor I just wanted to return to the penny for parks issue because I tend to agree with Councillor Paul and the commission that I do think that you know we should really try and cue to that that intent of more fully funding the capital investments. I fully understand your point about the the use of ARPA funds and I guess what I'd be looking for at least in this year would be some sort of more firm commitment as opposed from your end on that you know on that spending because I think the intent really as I see it is to make sure that this additional capital work is able to take place and so I just like a firmer sense whether it's as part of your recommended budget or something that that is what you're looking to do because I do really hear their point on this and I support it and I think it's something that we need we're going to need to grapple with in future budget years as well as we kind of go forward. I do really hear your point recognizing that we've had a number of utility increases as well so I just would like to see some some assurance around that so that I feel like because I think that that's really what the commission's looking for. Yeah okay I hear you President Tracy and I appreciate how you stated it and I actually think I'm not sure I said clearly enough what I was trying to get at beginning my statement there but I definitely think we should use this authority to bring us I don't think we should allow Penney for Parks to be eroded the way the housing trust fund was eroded by inflation over time. I think having the ability to do that is discretion we should use in future budget years and I'll think about how you know I'll put that in right and I think there are a couple other and so it's certainly I think for future budget years we are going to need to so and I take your point and let me and let me leave it there hopefully that's really showing you know I do not intend to hold it at this level and definitely I see this is a using this discretion in this you know this year essentially and that it would certainly be my anticipation that next year we would be bringing it up to the full full penny but I will consider that further consider other parts of your statement there and work that into the final submission this is helpful feedback okay okay um if there is nothing for the Catherine do you have any final thoughts this discussion leaves you wanting to make I don't think so just that uh you and I will touch base tomorrow and I'm not sure uh how critical it is to get everything submitted at one time but if it is helpful for us um I'm not sensing that there's a lot of changes to this particular budget maybe just a few so perhaps um it would make sense to post things in tranches and that's something we could talk about and perhaps that would be helpful uh in terms of the city council being able to have more time to review so I don't want to promise something without having talked to you mayor but just something that we could think about yeah um good point Catherine so um is that of interest to I mean it typically has been our practice to present it all at once and like here's the budget um would it be um but of course that does involve what what Catherine's looking through is there are many there are many sub elements of this you have essentially the general fund budget is what we've been talking about tonight we have these different enterprise fund budgets we have the capital budget so um would it I guess maybe that'd be a final helpful point of feedback would people would it be appreciated to kind of release a piecemeal as different elements are final finalized or do you like the formality of it being a kind of comprehensive budget if you don't have a strong feeling either way understand it back I mean I can see it both ways mayor and CEO shad I you know like it's really helpful to have everything in one place to to go back to and review but at the same time like I was saying before I think it's helpful to have as much in advance as possible so I kind of go back and forth on that um well maybe we'll try it and see how it goes um but thank you all for um for your engagement throughout this process the through you I know I've been very diligent through all these sessions and communications offline um thank you for partnership through this and I look forward to completing completing this process with you over the next few weeks here so with that if there's no objection we'll adjourn the board of finance at 618 and hand it over to you presentation if you'd like to make any remarks about the upcoming council meeting yep thanks mayor so we will um stay on this zoom so for folks who are interested in tuning into that full council meeting we'll stay on this same zoom link so we folks can just turn off their cameras and mute them for the time being um or sign out and sign back in using the same link um for members the public interested in addressing the city council at public forum this evening the way that you're able to sign up for that is to go to burlington vt.gov slash city council slash public forum that's burlington vt.gov slash city council slash public forum you're interested in speaking at the public forum that will take place at a time certain of 7 30 this evening so if you are interested in signing up please do so but we'll bring the full council to order at 7 p.m. so we have a little bit of time in between these meetings this evening thanks so much councilor stromberg are you able to please make a motion on the agenda which is the presentation presentation to right before the public forum or yeah before the public forum and then add to the consent agenda item 4.08 communication uh kara oniswari director economic recovery regarding activation of college street terrace in city hall park with the action to waive the reading accept the communication and place it on file note councillor carpenter as the sponsor for agenda item 5.05 resolution rescinding on covid-19 emergency order wearing face coverings in retail stores and city buildings great thank you we have a motion on the agenda is there a second seconded by councillor high tower um any discussion just so councillors no i was able i noticed that our board of our board of finance discussion did not go um very long and all this evening so i wanted to give us a little wiggle room there but i i really just want to thank um our our um colleagues from bd who are our immediate bt um who are willing to to be flexible with us and join us before the presentation i just want to make good use of our time while also not getting into deliberative items prior to public forum so they're able to actually go earlier in the evening and share their update with us there it's an informational update so that's why i've asked them to make that shift and ask councillor strongberg to make that motion um so um is there any further discussion on our agenda okay seeing none let's all go to a vote all those in favor of adopting our agenda please say i hi hi hi hi any opposed the motion carries unanimously and we now have our agenda i see our other counts the other councillors have joined us this uh this evening which is fantastic great let's get everyone on now that's wonderful all right so i'm going to um go to that to our burlington annual burlington telecom update um we have chris uh doutel or doto and mike lucy um please correct me if i pronounce your names incorrectly really appreciate again your flexibility and willingness to be here to provide um an update to us and to the community with regards to what's happening at bt uh well thank you for having us uh it's been we were trying to get in earlier in the season but obviously with the covid and you know some of the other stuff that was going on it was tough so we appreciate you allowing us now you know in june to give you an update for our 2020 um thank you so uh chris is our director of merger and acquisitions just so everybody has an understanding of the background and i'm the gm here at burlington just in case there's folks out here don't know either one of us um so chris um you're going to share your screen for us that way we run through the presentation that may be the easiest way yes i do i do have a message that says host disabled participant screen sharing them i have the presentation right okay so i've enabled it um for all panelists so you share we do so now thank you perfect can you see that uh that's looking good thank you good so here's uh the agenda i don't anticipate reading through everything chris will cover a couple of slides i'll cover the vast majority of them but by all means if somebody wants to raise their hand or speak up and ask a question along that we're happy to dive into the kind of questions that you may have um so chris reminds me about right end of the first slide for the highlights so uh you know we're happy to say that uh we worked through the entire pandemic um we were deemed as an essential provider um so our team you know prepped worked through it we were fortunate enough not to get any infections through our work so that was a great thing for the team to be able to pull that off with ever-changing dynamics which i'm sure everybody on this call is aware of we also created a special learning program uh when the schools went full remote uh there was uh you know a certain part of the population that just didn't have ready access to um good broadband uh so we created a special remote program to help address you know directly address you know that community that may have had a challenge with getting uh good broadband at their home to allow them to do their remote studies um as well as their parents to be able to do some work uh from home as well uh we worked with the city to provide voice access and an encampment that the city had set up it was a temporary encampment they set up at light park um we kind of put our technicians together and figured out a way to be able to provide some free voice calling for those folks that were housed there for the temporary part of the summer last year um but then a week we also we also found out from the remote learning that some of the folks that even though they had access to the remote learning program still found that they needed to go to a centralized location so we actually within a week stood up five well four wi-fi hotspots in addition to the 14 that we currently run which with free access it was primarily directed to help the Burlington High School students that were displaced not for pandemic reasons but for you know the other building concern that developed during the year and then I think importantly we tried to work with our customers understanding that you know nobody knew what the pandemic was going to bring so we actually voluntarily uh suspended our um our disconnection practices basically for customers that couldn't pay their internet bill we actually allowed them to carry that on through um the seasons matter of fact that's still going on right now um and then we're working with those folks to provide a lenient repayment program if we can we work with our business customers because we know the small business customers really took a hit uh when the commerce stalled um we actually hosted phone numbers for them to help them work through it we actually uh kept providing information for both for both you know uh consumers as well as business customers about a state program um that was available to the most people that they may not have been aware of so we tried to help both you know the schools the city um our consumers as well as our business customers through you know the pandemic as best as we could you know as things evolve so Chris I don't know if you want to go on to the next one um we also secured our ETC designation this allows us to provide our lifeline program to the Burlington it's a three-year program we have to resubmit every three years to the state we did secure that in 2020 at the end of 2020 um you know we did some unique buildouts too we built out to a area that hadn't been serviced just primarily just because people hadn't asked for it but it was a during the time the high school had worked reached out to us to see if there was something we could do we figured out a way to get into this one area off of Riverside Avenue to help those that are a little lower income to have access to the broadband once again and remote learning um we completed buildout of north side in our street so we could service the folks on the south side of the street we also worked and participated at ward six this is an area that has some challenging build areas for us that's in the APA um trying to really meet with the community let them know that we're here to try to figure out any creative ways that we can work with them to try to bring a solution we're actually able to solve something down in Oakledge but it was a combination of working with GM Burlington Electric Department as well as the homeowners down there so they do actually have access to Burlington Telecom Services down there now so the 120 is down to about 112 now for that hard to work areas but we continue to work with the folks on Edgewood Lane as well as some of the other folks up on the other part of the hill up there we continue to try to look for solutions to be able to get in there in a manner that works for all the parties um and we also donated widely on top of that you'll see in the next couple of slides here you know as part of the city migration over to their new phone system um you know our team has pretty much donated you know well over 300 hours which you know in our terms it's about $30,000 worth of installation costs that the city didn't have to assume because we were working with them trying to figure out their phone systems their old phone lines where they had moved how it was just a technical thing that took quite a bit of effort on our part um and we were happy to work with the city to work through that new system and at the end of the day it ended up saving them also an additional $2,500 a month reoccurring charges for the phone system that they migrated to basically modernizing their phone system uh we stood up while we maintained the 14 public wi-fi locations that we had throughout um the city um innovation fund which chris will get into a little bit later um the stem we released those funds early last year to try to help the business community as best we could we'll have a little bit more on that also later on presentation we supported btv ignite uh with leadership as well as financially and we maintain the lifeline edginate programs and we honor net neutrality throughout the whole process um and we don't anticipate changing really any of those things for new products once again the remote learning program which supported um over two dozen families with that program uh which which we're quite proud of and then we actually rolled out a new giga center which is basically a wi-fi product that allows for better coverage to take advantage of the higher speed bandwidths um that most homes um needed during that pandemic while people were working remote and doing remote learning uh some of the donations that we also did this is all primarily financial um you know the burlington wanouski and south burlington food banks the high schools as well uh they they had some unique challenges last year to graduating costs that they weren't anticipating a new cots the dream program fletcher free highlight of course dragon boat spectrum youth burma youth orchestra uh so we continued to believe that by trying to work with i mean we're a burlington company we're here to try to help you know our burlington partners here as best we can and this is just an example of some of the things that we wanted to make sure that everybody was aware of that we're still continuing to do um here by the numbers uh at the end of last year we're over 9400 subscribers um and obviously the usage was up but i think with every isp you know the usage was up just because of the remote work and remote school we did build uh during 2020 increased our mileage by about 14 percent here are a couple of builds that we did in cambrane north street oak ledge and some minor expansions into wanouski and south burlington uh which are also contemplated in the apa um and we still maintain 29 employees we did have one retirement um our replacement hire we added a head count and had internal promotion as well so that seems to be a consistent trend uh over 19 19 we had the internal promotion we also added a head count there so we are growing a little bit you know in a in a you know a measured fashion along with our growth and our needs with a number of customers so and then for our capital spend um in the apa there's a requirement to spend a minimum of 2.2 up to 8.8 but as you can see from the numbers we've already committed by the end of this by the end of 2020 um about 9.9 million um and that is basically we've updated uh what we call our head end uh you know we have a phone system an internet system and a cable system those all required modernization uh which is quite expensive as you can imagine um and then along with the growth that we have done a little bit into wanouski into south burlington plus those expansions within burlington itself to those areas is basically what builds up to that 9.9 million of them so we've you know committed you know to continue to spend that in dollars we believe that you know there's more areas in town here and as well as adjacent to burlington that will help just continue to make us uh a much more viable um um continuing to grow company here in burlington and that's just an eye chart a representation it's an eye chart but it's basically the roads that we're covering now we fiber and then the innovation fund chris i don't know if you want to kind of take this because i know you're more directly involved with us absolutely uh thank you uh so uh shers and burlington telecom committed to spend $250,000 per year for 10 years in investments in support of local startups and growth companies that have a social diverse or green aspect operating under the name burlington telecom innovation fund and we work through a terrific committee um we were lucky enough to put together which i will talk about shortly uh in 2020 despite covid and actually burlington was my last business trip before everything shut down we were able to invest $350,000 in five local companies burlington code academy og sassable faraday and zero gravity and there's a description of each on the slide there and then moving to uh 2021 we just recently held our committee meeting and invested $190,000 in three more businesses and those were easy probate salt and bubbles and upright education in total the fund has deployed 540,000 in investment since inception and on the next slide uh and we have a strong pipeline of five companies that we are evaluating to bring to the innovation fund committee for the next round of investments and those dollars will be deployed before the end of 2021 in aggregate these eight investments were part of investment raises totaling $7.7 million and total employment directly related to these eight companies is over 151 jobs and counting both cohorts represent investable companies with diverse aspects and approximately 40 percent diverse employees in aggregate and the committee is committed to working with the leaders of the invested companies to continuously improve diversity inclusion in their workforce their leadership and their boards in order to expand access to the fund by diverse founders and groups we've reached out to nonprofit and support organizations that assist startup and growth companies with mentoring and loans and funding sources and and also introductions to investors like the Burlington Telecom Innovation Fund and I can't say enough about uh the committee that we put together that reviews and approves the investments I've gotten to know each one of them and I am proud to have them working together uh to get these investment dollars out into the Burlington community the committee's made up of myself and Sam Roots Gerber from VSAT Basel Nazar from ZRF Partners, Janice St. Ange from Flexible Capital Fund, Liboye from Fresh Tracks Capital, Dan Harvey from UVM, and Luisa Shipoli from Milk Money Vermont. I would like to take a minute to thank each one of them for their work and their time and their focus in helping the Burlington Telecom Innovation Fund and creating access to capital for those groups that need it and I will pass it back to you Mike. Yeah great thanks. Yeah so you're gonna yeah there is yeah so the STEM grant program which I'm sure everybody's aware of but if not it's basically a grant an annual grant that Burlington Telecom funds for $50,000 a year and it's actually administered by BTV Ignite Board. In 2020 because of the pandemic and especially the hit on the smaller businesses in the area we released that program several months ahead of what our normal schedule would be primarily to see if we could you know continue to bolster you know the community around us. The two that were received it this year while in 2020 anyways was launched Vermont what you can see was for 30,000 you can read the description what they're trying to do with their their effort and resource received $20,000 grant and we try to on the board I mean I don't want to speak on behalf of the board but I am a board member we definitely try to look for applications that support the low the disadvantaged communities as well as really training so that they can help you know be self-sustaining going forward with the program so that's kind of a high level on that and the 2019 awardees generator was awarded 30,000 out of grant and Mercy Connections was 20,000 and we can do the grants in whatever number whatever dollar amount we want we try to gauge that against what we think the return is going to be make sure they give them enough money where they can be successful at doing what they're trying to do but that's the the basic premise behind the STEM and grant program and for 2021 it's actually out now we're actually looking and seeking for applications now for the 2021 awards so and I think that's pretty much it for the update unless there's any questions excellent so if you could just go out of share mode so we can get back to the full council and then yes go ahead and excellent thank you so much for that presentation very much appreciated um if we can I'm I'll open it up to counselors now in case you have any questions counselor carpenter um I'm glad to see that you're moving into Cambrian rise last I knew when I could be out of loop here you've been unable to serve a fair number of the larger older affordable housing projects and I just wondered if there's been any progress on that yeah we yeah we remain in contact with with those folks um there's some contractual obligations that they they currently have that you know that it's just the timing thing it's more of a timing thing so we stay in contact with them but yes well I guess on behalf of the tenants I encourage you to um pull them together there's only really three operators in town so maybe you can get them all in the room and talk about a contract or timing of a contract that works for all of those projects okay any further questions or comments from counselors councillor jake thank you president tracy and thank you mr mic and team for being here from the past today the way that I understand it Burlington telecom your fiber optic network is underground and it seems that you are doing new penetration such as you know on riverside avenue what I haven't noticed though in the city or as part of your work is some disturbance in terms of the traffic or I almost do not even see you working to extend your fiber optic network to different locations can you speak to that are you using a different system or what what what is it now I would say to characterize it on a high level I would say 90 percent of our network is actually aerial maybe about 10 percent is probably underground the underground portions are as you can imagine it's very very expensive in order probably four or five times the order of magnitude of doing it aerially so we have to make sure that when we're doing those uh you know it's done in a manner that's as efficient as we can be so maybe that's why you're not seeing some of it because it's it's not a huge production to actually do aerial or underground when you actually look at it on a surface it's usually just a couple of vehicles and usually only three or four workers at a time so it's not a real big production it just can be expensive while you're going through that work depending on what you have to do so and then I thank you for the answer I'll tie it to the next question is basically the raise of 5g and based on my understanding in order for 5g to be successful you have to have a network of fiber optic network is that still the case or is completely different well I mean I'm not in the wireless side of it but they definitely need a fiber backhaul to make the 5g actually practical so yes so I think your assumption is still correct thank you so much yes thanks Councillor Cheng I'm going to go to Councillor Shannon next thank you President Tracy and thank you for the presentation I just wanted to share that I have recently had a professional reason I had to deal with Comcast and we are so lucky to have Burlington Telecom all I wanted to do was order a channel and took hours and hours and hours with customer service to do that through Comcast I was not a counselor who was in favor of this deal but nonetheless I very much appreciate what you're bringing to the community and your continued you know high level of customer service but I wondered if you are tracking that because I would really hate to lose the quality of customer service that we have always enjoyed with with Burlington Telecom and I know that we had been doing a lot of tracking of customer service ratings and wondering what you're doing on that front and understanding that with COVID that might not have been the highest priority but I'd like to hear what your plans are in the future yeah I mean we we we track all of the social media because that's the number one instant feedback if somebody's disappointed typically that's where you're going to get our marketing manager watches that every day we actually bring up if somebody has an issue actually bring it up and try to work through it and see you know is it is it a process thing is it just a situational thing so we do monitor that on top of that SCI in 2019 and 2020 hired a third party to actually do a customer survey so we actually did get customer survey we also did employee survey as well and we haven't done it yet in 2021 but we also go that to that level just to make sure that we are touching the box and just our kind of our two tenants here one of them is customer service because we know that that stands apart and I'm not just saying I mean that is you ask anybody on our team here they will tell you the two things right and that's one of them the other one is to you know make revenue so those are the two drivers for us and we know if we take care of the first one the second one's going to follow so so we appreciate that comment um counselor um and and we do believe and live that today so great well thank you very much for that and keep up the good work so I don't have anyone else in the queue anyone with further questions or comments mayor did you want to get in go ahead mayor mayor thanks president tracy um I just wanted to um thank chris and the night for being here tonight and also just to make sure it's clear to members of the public the media newer counselors um the kind of background to tonight's presentation um of uh the agreement the and we had that um defined the separation between burlington telecom in the city uh did require um many things of uh burlington telecom um for the long term fundamentally aimed at ensuring um high quality high speed internet choice for burlingtonians for for many years to come it also um required certain policies and uh investments to be made into the community for an extended period of time and so what we've heard tonight um is um sounds like a a fulsome report on um a bt remaining um you know full compliance with that agreement and um and continuing to make the investments and the expansions of service and um investments in this community that um were sought uh I like uh you looking out into to the future are you seeing any um concerns or questions on the horizon about um the ability of bt to continue to uh be in compliance with the agreement and and meet you know the goals that the community set up in defining the agreement with you the commitment that was made by shers in upgrading our whole head end is is testament to that fact right we modernized everything downstairs so we are we are set for growth um so I think we're very comfortable with where we are here great well thanks again it's good to see you both and and uh good to hear the the substantial progress thank you thank you want to thank you both as well and just appreciate your flexibility this evening and willing us to come a little earlier in the agenda and present to us and also just um your work in our community thanks so much okay thank you for having us thank you so it being 731 it's time for us to move into public forum we have a couple of folks signed up for our public forum this evening um as is our practice we do prioritize burlington residents so i'll be following that but we will be able to get to everybody this evening um folks can please um focus on uh on issues um and um turn refrain from personal attacks and then as well um i'm going to give folks uh three minutes this evening if you haven't signed up but are interested in addressing the public forum um you may do so by going to burlington bt.gov slash city council slash public forum that's burlington bt.gov slash city council slash public forum and that'll get you in the queue for to speak at this meeting so um if the um city clerk could please yep oh great thank you so much appreciate that and then um i'm gonna go our first speaker for this evening is um nathan greenstein our steen um to be followed by dale tiltson ben traverse and richard watz nathan i'm not able to locate you um so if you're signed in under a different name or using a phone number um if you could just please use the raise hand function um and let me know um what you're signed in under um i however am so i can come back to you if we're able to do that um i'll try again in a second um but i will then move on to dale tiltson and dale i believe i have able to identify you um dale i've enabled your your microphone but it looks like you're going to need to unmute on your end i am unmuted great welcome thank you um not to cut into my time for the comments that i want to make but uh tonight's meeting is not available on berlington telecom uh channel 17 or 317 the signal is not available that's quite coincidental considering your last presentation just a point of information now to get what i want to speak to thank you mr president while i do not know what the council's vote will be on continuing the masking requirement within the city tonight what i do want to mention is the importance of social distancing also known as in my book meaning invasion of personal space do not invade my personal space let's call it six feet with the loosening loosening up throughout the country spectators allowed at events restaurants and buyers now open until the 2 a.m times if they choose and if they were able we have seen an increase in lack of crowd control at major events locally let's look at the asian street incident as well as the city hall park sunday just yesterday at 2 a.m a shooting occurred in 2006 during the presidential debates it was not proper for donald j trump to invade secretary of state clinton's personal space it never is well sadly we are already there with the pga golf championships fans storming towards the golfers and nba players being spat upon and having bottles tossed at them during playoff games in just a few short weeks after loosening the restrictions we have dropped our guards and returned to the 70s where fans stormed the fields and escaped all courts bottom line give each other personal space whether it be in a grocery store crowded park or sidewalk we need not return to the walmart black friday mayhem from a few years ago in closing i am a 42 year veteran of the retail wars and do not accept my personal space being invaded you should not accept it either thank you mr president thank you mayor thank you city council thank you dale i'm still not seeing still not seeing nathan green sign or green stein if you are on the call nathan please indicate what you're signed in under by using the raise hand function and i can come to you i'm going to go to ben traverse ben i've enabled your microphone thank you council president tracy mayor weinberger city councilors this has been travers i'm here in my role as chair of the parks recreation and waterfront commission late last week i sent you all a memo reflecting a decision by the parks commission at last week's meeting recommending that the penny for parks program remain funded this year for f y 22 with a full one cent one penny assessment the parks commission meets once a month on the first monday of the month usually if anyone wants to attend and between our may meeting and our meeting last week on june 1st we had an opportunity to review the recommended budget for f y 22 just as citywide properties haven't been reappraised in the last 15 or so years the penny for parks one penny assessment has not gone up over that same time period the reassessment provides an opportunity for the penny for parks program to generate additional revenue if in fact it remains funded at a full penny which was the parks commission's recommendation i want to thank councillor paul for raising this issue at this evening's board of finance meeting also want to thank council president tracy for your voice support of the effort and councillor jane and mehr weinberger thank you for your support and consideration of the issue i appreciated comments from mehr weinberger that with the availability this year of arpa funds that the difference in penny for parks funding and meeting the parks capital improvement needs may be made up for this year with those funds and while i can't speak quite yet on behalf of the entire commission i suspect that that will be a more than satisfactory answer to my fellow commissioners however federal funds arpa funds will not be available forever and so i would ask you all to keep in the back of your minds for f y 23 that we will still have an opportunity next year for the penny for parks program to truly be funded with with a full one penny assessment and hope that at that point in time you all when you're in your budget process consider returning the assessment to a full penny at that time thank you very much for your time great thank you for that we do have one other public commenter i did hear that nathan is not able to comment this evening and so i'm going to go to our final public commenter who richard watz richard i've enabled your microphone thank you mr president and city counselors and mayor weinberger my name is richard watz and i am a resident of heinsberg i'm a regular traveler to the great city of burlington and i'm here to speak strongly in favor of resolution 5.06 to reform and refocus the i89 study sometimes called in vision 89 and there's three reasons i support this important resolution first the study needs desperately a clear focus on reducing car travel before adding capacity the council's focus here on vmt reduction is exactly the right approach vehicle miles traveled of course the current vision's goals and objectives of this study are a mismatch of competing priorities there's a goal for mobility and efficiency which is mostly about moving cars efficiency here means making it easier for cars to travel there's no mention of a goal or objective to reduce how many miles of travel planners could easily have drawn from the electric efficiency example the cheapest and greenest watt of electricity is the one that is not used we could apply that same approach here the cheapest and greenest mile traveled is the one not traveled in an automobile instead of capacity and efficiency in the way they're using it in this terms we should this study should focus as the council is suggesting on how we help people drive less put vmt reduction at the center and that could save literally hundreds of millions of dollars of road improvements that are planned in the current metropolitan transportation long-range plan just imagine for a minute if we took what is now nine hundred thousand dollars the largest planning study of its kind in the region and focus that instead on how we help people drive less secondly the study uses traffic data that is pre-pandemic so all of the assumptions in the study are based on travel and traffic counts before the pandemic as if the pandemic never happened and we know we know in research that I've done that people are going to tell a few more we know the traffic is already down 20% whether or not it'll bounce back we don't know but what if we focused on trying to understand how we could help people drive less and thirdly just to move along here planning ultimately is the guidance of future action vmt reduction should be at the center of what we want our future to be and the council's focus on that in this resolution is exactly the kind of approach this study desperately needs thank you mr. president thank you for that we have one more speaker who's signed up um zoe kennedy zoe i've located you and have enabled your microphone hi uh can you hear me yep go ahead great thanks for letting me speak today my name is zoe kennedy i see her pronouns and i'm a resident of ward one i am here to speak in support of the of councillor hanson and councillor tromburg's resolution to refocus the i-89 study i just like to quickly second everything ridgid waltz has said i completely agree this study's goal of making it easier and more quote-unquote efficient to drive just continues to focus cars at the center of a transportation system and in the middle of in the midst of a global climate crisis this is continuing to harm or that's continuing to harm our city and its population we need to refocus our transportation system on sustainable infrastructure walking biking and public transit and this study in its current state is not doing that and it will it is a waste of time and a waste of resources when we need to urgently act on um act against climate change and our contributions to it which in vermont is transportation um so i'd just like to restate i'm in support of this resolution thank you thank you for that our next and that was our last speaker for this evening so i will go ahead and close our public forum and we will move into our city council agenda um with the next item being climate emergency reports are there any councillors with a climate emergency report they'd like to offer councillor hanson great thanks president tracy just wanted to note i'm joining the call the night from from northwest minnesota where enbridge which is a large fossil fuel company that also owns vermont gas and part of green mountain power here in vermont is building a massive pipeline to transport tar sands oil from canada into the u s and for export um through the great lakes um if folks haven't heard about this um definitely check out stop line three dot org um there's a lot of vermonters that have made the journey out here to um and and join a couple thousand people from across the country um and across tribal nations uh to try to stop this new fossil infrastructure um so just wanted to mention that and if folks haven't heard about it um please do check it out thanks thank you councillor hanson uh mayor weinberger thanks president tracy yet um i just wanted to share uh with the council in the public um some statistics that um i think are worth taking note of um the we've had several record high temperature days in the last few weeks here in berlington on june 6th we had a 95 degree day which was the highest uh breaking year in 1925 record um and we had a 92 degree day um breaking a 1975 record on on may 20th um these record highs in berlington come in a time when nasa has identified 2020 as being tied with 2016 for the warmest year on record the last seven years of the warmest seven years on record and uh i really think that underscores the need for to continue with urgent action to support our net zero energy goal and um i do think uh note shipping away um uh and what we can do here at the municipal level there is an item that was just approved unanimously at the board of finance that i'm hopeful is the first of many purchases of large vehicles all electric vehicles you will hopefully tonight um on the consent agenda be approving the purchase of a all electric bucket truck which is our first large vehicle that is all electric and uh in the budget that you get from the administration this week there will be a summary of the full range of net zero and climate emergency related investments that we are proposing for the upcoming fiscal year thank you president chris thank you mayor warger are there any other climate emergency reports from counselors okay seeing none we'll go ahead and close that item and move to our next agenda item which is the consent agenda councilor stromberg may please have a motion on the consent agenda move to approve the consent agenda and take the actions indicated thank you we have a motion from councilor stromberg is there a second seconded by councilor freeman any discussion hearing none we'll go to a vote all those in favor of adopting our consent agenda please say aye aye be opposed that carries unanimously and we've adopted our consent agenda which brings us into our deliberative agenda for this evening we'll get started with a couple of special event entertainment permit applications and i'll go to the chair of the license committee councilor mason for emotions on those so if you can make a motion on 5.01 councilor mason thank you thank you president tracy i would like to make a motion to approve the one day only special event outdoor entertainment permit application for zero gravity 716 pine street june 12th 2021 1 to 4 p.m fundraise for loving day vermont with the dj and president tracy i don't know if anyone from zero gravity is in the participants to maybe answer questions if there are any thank you thank you for that we have a motion from council mason is there a second from is there a second from other counselors seconded by councilor hanson any discussion okay seeing none we'll go to a vote all those in favor of adopting this or approving this special special event entertainment permit please say aye aye be opposed that carries unanimously brings us to item 5.02 which is another special event entertainment permit councilor mason thank you president tracy i would like to make a motion to approve the one day only special event outdoor entertainment permit application for zero gravity 716 pine street june 13th 2021 3 to 6 p.m this consists of a trio of jazz musicians thank you thank you councilor mason we have a motion is there a second seconded by councilor freeman any further discussion okay seeing none we'll go to a vote on this all those in favor please say aye aye be opposed that also carries unanimously we then will move into item 5.03 which is the the annual reappointment of the mayoral appointees for the fiscal year 2022 before i go to the mayor i'd just like to get a motion on this so councilor mason are you able to make the motion yes president tracy thank you i would like to make a motion to confirm the fiscal year 2022 mayoral appointments and then turn it over to the mayor after a second thank you great thank you councilor mason is there a second seconded by councilor carpenter mayor weinberger you have the floor thank you president tracy um this is uh always one of the most important and one of my frankly favorite annual duties of bringing forward a department head team a slate of department heads for for confirmation by the council the group i'm putting forward is an enormously counted and committed group of individuals i also and that's i'm happy to say has has pre-consistently been true for the last nine years i feel so fortunate you have been able to serve in this in this job with just a great set of colleagues and that will certainly be true for for the year ahead what is different this year is what this group has has been through over the last 12 months since the last last time you took this action the department head team i hope the council and the public aware is understands just how hard this group worked during covid to keep this community safe and to continue to deliver the essential public services the city of berlington is responsible for under some tremendously challenging circumstances there has been enormous pressures on this group internal and external pressures and they have rallied and and worked through it and as we start to come out of this pandemic hopefully they are starting to feel some some let up as well but i i i just want to say here thank you to each and every one of these individuals it's been a privilege to work with you so thankful and grateful to have you on the team and be proud to be submitting your name again and with that i was hoping that the department heads who have joined us tonight would turn their cameras on and and the public and the council can see this the slate before you and you are about to vote thank you mayor very much appreciate it it's fantastic to see all the department heads in one place excited to get you all back into con toys soon for various different meetings and i agree it's also always a very very special night and it's always exciting to see everyone in contours on this night so thanks for joining us this way is there any discussion from the council prior to the vote they'll set to vote counselors not seeing any comments or questions our councilor stromberg go ahead super quick i just i really want to reiterate the fact that this past year has been something that i in many ways cannot imagine just how much pressure and stress many of you fell and i just want to say that i really appreciate the work through thick and thin truly that you've done this year so i just want to personally say thank you and um yeah just reiterate the fact that it really hasn't been an easy year so thank you for that councilor stromberg other counselors okay i'm seeing any other counselors so let's go to a vote all those in favor of approving the mayoral uh department head reappointments for this year please say hi hi hi any opposed that carries unanimously congratulations it's excellent thank you for all your work and certainly look forward to your continued partnership and collaboration as we continue to to work on making the city better thank you so much now we have another nomination um that was um created by the recent appointment of counselor pine to serve as cedo director um and this is specifically regarding the board of finance which is a board for which the entire council votes on appointments to that board usually we do it at um the organization day and those folks serve for that um that entire council year vacancies arise we do um come back to the council for another vote on who will continue to serve um or who will fill that vacancy and so we're in that place now um with councillor pine having been confirmed at our last meeting so i will um open the floor to nominations councillor stromberg thanks president tracy i would like to nominate councillor zariah high tower to the board of finance thank you for that we don't need a second um for for those did you want the floor uh briefly yeah if you don't mind yeah um yeah so i i am honestly just very honored to nominate someone so obviously organized and thoughtful and diligent to the board of finance um zariah undoubtedly is an extremely valuable addition to the board or will be if nominated voted on um and i i just feel very confident in this she is a realist she's very responsible she's a planner and i i just feel very comfortable knowing that our city's financial health and futures and such hands um so i just want to say that i'm appreciative of her stepping into this role one that is you know that often calls for marathon meetings so thank you to all of you who are currently serving um and thank you zariah for all that you've done for our community for all that you are currently doing and for now also stepping up yet again into a position where you will continue to lead and and put the best interests of our community first um so i'm very excited to see what this board accomplishes together thank you great thank you councillor stromberg are there any other nominations are there any other nominations okay i'll go ahead and close the nominations councilor hightower would you like to speak um no thank you for that councillor stromberg and um look forward to being on the board with the people who are already on it awesome thank you councillor hightower um any further discussion okay seeing none let's go to a vote all those in favor of confirming councillor hightower um as a as our fifth board of finance member please say aye all right aye any opposed that carries unanimously thanks again councillor hightower for being willing to step up and serve very much appreciated and look forward to your collaboration on the uh on the board of finance all right brings us to item 5.05 which is a resolution regarding rescinding the COVID-19 emergency order on wearing face coverings in retail stores and city buildings and this was an item that we dealt with several weeks ago and that we had postponed until this meeting so we are now um revisiting that item and so i will um come to councilor carpenter for a motion on this item point of information here on the council please go ahead councillor jing yeah and it was um just a quick question for you as a president we know that councillor fine was also involved in all the committees and what are what are the plans to fill those committees as well yeah i will clarify that during my my council president update later in the meeting councillor jing thank you councillor carpenter thank you um i'm just trying to i lost the resolution so i'd like to move um the resolution uh 5.05 rescinding the COVID-19 emergency order for wearing face mask coverings in retail stores and city building we have a motion from councillor carpenter is there a second seconded by councillor hightower councillor carpenter would you like the floor back sure just really for a minute um i think um to say that i think we did the right thing waiting a few more weeks and um i'm very pleased where we are now chitlin county is almost 82 percent vaccinated our 18 to 29 year olds the group that we were most worried about has come up almost eight or nine percent in the last couple of weeks so i feel confident that we're on the right trajectory and it's time to put us in order with um the state and federal um outlines and i just want to compliment the city for its creativity in the pop-up um vaccination sites and i hope we still continue to do that at least through the remainder of this month um to capture some of our younger citizens thank you councillor carpenter is there any other council discussion councillor hightower yeah i just wanted to um yeah i agree with councillor carpenter that i think it was the right thing to wait a few weeks i think we all feel hopefully a little bit more comfortable as the vaccination rate continues to um move up and folks who are you know in the young age group continue to be able to get their second shot if they already had their first one made the initial decision or be able to get their j and j um and or go to some of the pop-ups i do just want to i'm i was looking at disparate sources um so i guess i just want to encourage folks that if they haven't gotten their vaccine or if they're waiting to get their second vaccine that that's an important step to take because the 80 percent of course is as far as i've seen is still for the first first shot which is very very helpful but just want to encourage folks um to talk to friends and family and um as folks are able or as they feel comfortable to get um any of their shots and or their second shot if they've just taken that first steps thank you councillor hightower any other comments from councillors okay see none i'll go to mayor weinberger sorry about the button um thank you i uh just in response to councillor carpenter's point wanted to note that there will in fact be continued pop-up sites in city hall park during the friday and saturday nights of jazz fest um which is coming saturday as there were this past weekend it was uh really quite um heartwarming to to see the kind of interaction between um people who were um enjoying the other elements so of that evening jazz fest the fountain and um taking advantage of the pop-up site they will be there again uh from four to seven p.m on on friday and saturday there will also be um a um a pop-up site on juneteenth and i'm not sure details of the exact location i've been released yet but we'll be pushing that out there will be an essential location available on 15th and um and the uh by pock um brilliant and by pock vaccination clinics will continue in the coming weeks as well so there continue to be many many opportunities uh for people to receive the one and done johnson johnson um uh vaccine in the weeks ahead um one other thing i just thought i would add on on the day in which um this vote is before you uh it today for my read of the dashboard is um another um day we've had several of these over the last few weeks in which there are um zero there were zero new chitney county infections reported um yesterday so we are it is really uh quite encouraging to to see that in the 70 averages down to just a little bit over one and a half um it really appears uh when you combine that also looking ahead at the the wastewater data we have that um uh we um have have gotten two important threshold and things continue to go very well right now and uh i appreciate um the administration of course continues to support um the council taking this action um and uh giving yet another reason uh for individuals to um who have not yet gotten vaccinated to consider doing so um what it wants the council if the council does approve this resolution tonight what it will mean is not that there is no mask mandate in place um but that the mask mandate in retail stores and public buildings is listed for vaccinated people um unvaccinated people will still uh be under the strong recommendation for their health and the the requirement from the governor um that they continue to wear a mask in those settings and and other settings thank you president tracy thank you mayor weinberger any further comments from the council okay seeing none let's go to a vote all those in favor of the resolution please say aye hi any opposed that motion carries unanimously brings us into item 5.06 resolution refocusing the 2021 chinin county i89 2050 study councilor hanson great thanks i'd like to move the resolution posted but with a small amendment i had sent a different version but it wasn't posted so i'll move the resolution with a small amendment which is to delete um on line 27 um the words or maintaining pre-covid capacity just removing those those four words on lines 27 and 28 and uh would ask for the floor back after a second seconded by councillor stromberg um councilor hanson you have the floor great thanks so this is um a resolution regarding um a study that's been underway for over a year that the regional planning chinin county regional planning commission is undertaking um we received a presentation in the transportation energy and utilities committee back in april uh regarding this study and the progress so thus far and and um where it's headed going forward at that meeting there wasn't much time or opportunity for us to really weigh in or ask questions but um we got clarity that um the ccrpc and the study and the project team for the study would welcome the city's input and so i took it upon myself um and along with other city councillors who collaborated on this resolution um to to do that and to weigh in i think it's really important that we as as the largest member community of the regional planning commission i think it is really important that we weigh in on this study as richard watz and the public comment mentioned this is um the largest study that that the planning commission's undertaking right now i think it's really critical when we're doing these long range range transportation planning studies this one looks out to the year 2050 i think it's really critical that we are not spending expertise time energy and money looking at expanding um automobile infrastructure um the climate emergency but also a lot of other issues around access equity land use environmental impact resource use um and just straight up economic costs for both the state and taxpayers and also individuals there's so many reasons that we need to shift our transportation system at this point um i think money and resources that go into just expanding and and kind of going further down this this road of automobile dependency um is really wasteful and so the idea of this resolution is that we as a city council would express our input that we would like to see this this major study really focus on ways to reduce vehicle miles traveled along the i-89 corridor um and really put that that planning expertise that we have towards trying to answer that question and come up with creative solutions that is a component of the study as it is right now but it's as you know as others have mentioned it's it's combined with looking at these possible capacity increases new exchanges or new interchanges etc so that is the idea we don't have control over this we didn't have a formal burlington didn't have a formal role in the process but we were given the invitation and the opportunity to weigh in and so i think it's important that we do that and make our voice heard and hopefully that can have some impact on this study and also in general on how these regional transportation planning dollars are are used thank you thanks councillor hanson any further comments or questions from councillors councillor schromburg thanks president tracy um i want to thank councillor hanson for the work that he's done on this and other councillors too that have weighed in um i'm kind of looking at more from a climate perspective um although i totally agree with exactly what councillor hanson had just mentioned but um you know obviously we all know climate crisis is an issue um i also know that it may feel too big and overwhelming to tackle um but we are all very powerful and influential together as a city um so you know things are obviously so much easier with collective passion and hope and our success as a planet honestly depends on people power and i think every single one of us knows that um and as a city every single day we can obviously leave the way right um and we can leave the way on combating this very very real and very tangible crisis and when we do we show that change is possible and that it helps other municipalities take this seriously and set their own realistic but aggressive goals um so i i like to think about like what happened during the shutdown during the shutdown we saw you know where like smog has historically covered cities and things like that people were able to see mountains for the first time in decades because they they couldn't see it because they were in the distance and the smog was blocking that and that that's like that alone is just baffling to me because we don't experience that here but our actions here have effects um in other places um and you know like we also saw ecosystems start to flourish even after just like months of you know human patterns kind of ceasing um so obviously i could go on right um i know you get it though i just want to reiterate how much power we really do have as human beings so when i pull back and look at this what this resolution actually does it changes the trajectory of a study from vehicle infrastructure expansion to looking you know more sustainable alternatives um so this to me is like a very healthy and almost natural shift given the crisis that we're in um but it also is a very easy ask um and one that i'm very proud to support and i think that something that has this kind of um attention on it um should should definitely be focused on sustainability at this point um so i i think that this is just honestly a very simple but the right thing to do um so i really appreciate that this is an opportunity for us um to hopefully weigh it on or have a little bit more say in in what happens um so i just i appreciate that this is existing because of counsel hanson and and others so thank you counsel strongberg any further comments from counselors counselor hightower um yeah i just want to say that i'm excited to support this and just thank you to counsel hanson for always finding every way possible for the council to help um help meet our climate goals and start to make a dent and um our impact on climate change so thank you for we're going to fund our freedoms to cancel sorry counselor hightower you'll set okay any further comments from counselors counselor barlow go ahead um yes thank you uh president tracy um i like to take more of an and approach than an or approach on these sorts of things and i i believe some of the changes of being explored in the study especially at um exits 13 and 14 have the potential to make those interchanges actually safer for all modes of transportation passing over those busy stretches of road so i hate to like throw out that good work um and i also support increasing mass transit um and strengthening cycling and pedestrian infrastructure um and support stronger climate policy and action but i don't necessarily feel that this current planning project is incompatible with those other goals so um i have a i have a hard time supporting this tonight thanks thank you councillor barlow any other comments from counselors councillor jane uh thank you president tracy and i think this is a question for the work counselor from bergs and hanson it seems i took you received a communication about this back in april right and it's basically for you to represent the council and say what else you would want to see have you had this conversation with that commission in order to add the elements that you're raising in this on this resolution and what was their response i'm sorry hanson yeah so the chinning county the the the board when you say the commission do you mean the board of the regional planning commissioner yes so i did have well and to answer the other part of your question when we got the presentation at tuc it was time limited and we had a really packed agenda so we literally didn't have time to really engage at that level which is why we i raised the idea in that moment of you know doing a council resolution and the ccrpc um the director and i think there are a couple representatives they they welcome to that idea um in terms of the board of ccrpc we didn't present to them i did get feedback on the resolution from the burlington member of the board which is andy mantra and basically his responses was like it's impossible or it's too late or we can consider this if the full council supported what was his answer yeah and we did get i did get feedback on the resolution as well from the director of the ccrpc and it has been an ongoing conversation it's gonna continue continue to be and i'm sure any of us that would want to keep that dialogue going with the ccrpc canon should do that um and they definitely they definitely welcome it um i think they're very open to taking an approach that is more focused on reducing vehicle miles traveled that's not laid out as an explicit goal of of the study if you look at the project overview and the goals it doesn't say reducing vmt but they do they have talked about in public meetings on this the desire to put a large focus on that i think a difference that what i'm sharing which is different from um councilor barlow's perspective and maybe from the current trajectory of the study is that we also this resolution is really saying we want them to stop studying um new automobile infrastructure so that is kind of the key difference i think there's widespread agreement on studying alternatives but there's a question of are we going to continue to devote resources towards expanding automobile infrastructure or not okay probably more question but president tracy it seems there was an amendment on the resolution should we vote on that too so councilor hanson introduced the amendment introduced it with with the amendment so there's no need to vote on on an amendment considering that it was introduced as such and it was a very it was a largely small amendment so thank you i'll set counselor okay any further council discussion okay seeing none let's go to a vote will the city clerk please call the roll councillor barlow no councillor carpenter yes councillor jane yes councillor freeman yes councillor hanson yes councillor hightower yes councillor mason yes councillor paul yes councillor shannon yes councillor stromberg yes city council president tracy yes ten eyes one nay okay the motion carries and we have approved that resolution so we will now move into our next item which is 5.07 regarding the solid waste generation tax and a removal of specific solid waste generation tax rate councillor hanson may i come to you for a motion on that as well there i will move to um suspend the rule move to vote to suspend the rules and place the ordinance amendment to chapter 14 um 14 section 14 solid waste generation tax subsection to be in all stages of passage okay we have a motion from councillor hanson is there a second seconded by councillor stromberg i believe councillor hanson did you want the floor back okay we i see we have director spencer with us this evening so i will go before we open the floor to council discussion i'll come to you director spencer um if there's anything that you'd like to add or clarify um with regards to this item thank you president tracy i'm joined tonight by division director lee perry who oversees our maintenance division who is here to also answer any questions uh basically as the memo lays out there are two actions we're seeking tonight one is to adjust the solid waste generation tax which funds the city's consolidated collection of recycling from 484 up to five dollars and 36 cents per month per customer and also adjust how the rates are set each year so that we can establish it by resolution uh in the annual budgeting process and not have to adjust ordinance each year we're happy to answer any questions who had a good conversation board of finance tonight i appreciate the consideration thank you director spencer any questions or discussion from the council okay seeing none let's go to a vote all those in favor please say i hi hi hi be opposed that carries unanimously thank you very much thank you very much director spencer and director perry certainly appreciate it and appreciate all the work that the team does please you know convey that i know they've had a very difficult year so thank you so much for the work that you and your team are doing um to really um deliver this crucial city service to to our residents thank you i will pass that along to them i appreciate it i see them out there working hard especially on hot days like today yeah hard work so thank you so much you're welcome thank you yep all right we'll go we have already done item 5.08 which was the burlington telecom presentation so we'll go to our final item on our deliberative agenda which is item 5.09 the chitinan solid waste district proposed fy 22 budget before i turn it over to sarah reeves from cswd i'm going to go to councillor carpenter just for a motion on it councillor carpenter i would um move um have a resolution around the solid waste chitinan county solid waste district proposal for right and to be clear councillor you're moving approval yes i'm moving approval okay so we have a motion from councillor carpenter moving approval of the the cswd budget um is there a second seconded by councillor barlow okay so now councillor carpenter did you want the floor back no okay great i will turn it over to sarah reeves now um before we get into council discussion and for a presentation and description of the budget itself okay thank you very much president tracy i appreciate the time my name is sarah reeves i'm the executive director for the chitinan solid waste district and i am here to present our fiscal 22 budget as presented in your packet for those who may be new to chitinan county or new to the solid waste district we are in municipality created in 1987 to oversee the and manage the waste generated by residents and businesses within chitinan county we are governed by a volunteer board of commissioners each of our cities and towns for points a representative um your representative your commissioner is lea perry who you just read from our mission is to as i said manage the waste generated in chitinan county in in environmentally sound efficient effective and economical manner so i'm here to talk to you about our fiscal 22 budget and whenever i talk to our member towns about our budget i like to not only describe how we receive our revenue but also where we do not receive our revenue so we receive our revenue from three main areas the first is user fees or tip fees and those are fees paid to us directly by our customers who bring materials to us to manage directly the second main source of our income our revenue is the solid waste manager fee and that fee is a per ton fee that we charge to haulers when they bring material that needs to be disposed at the landfill of in Coventry and then third main area where we receive our revenue is from material sales so that is what we receive from the sale of our compost products our local paint and from the sale of recycling that we process through our materials recovery facility where we do not receive any revenue is directly from our member cities and towns we do not charge your per capita fee we don't charge you any assessments we don't receive any local property tax sales tax income tax we only receive our revenue from those three main sources we do receive some grant funding as well but it's for those three sources that that compose our revenue source so this year in the fiscal 22 budget we are anticipating revenues in the amount of 12 million nine hundred and fifty four thousand seven hundred and ninety three dollars we are anticipating expenses in the amount of twelve million three hundred twenty three thousand seventy two dollars the balance will be a divided between three main reserve funds our solid waste manager fee reserve our biosolids reserve and operating reserve we are holding our pricing steady for most of our services we are raising our fees slightly at the organic diverging facility the mountain compost from sixty dollars per inbound ton of fruits perhaps to sixty five dollars per ton and we are increasing the fees slightly in the biosolids program as you know you participate in our biosolids program and that is a pastor we essentially manage the contract on the behalf and that is directly related to the amount of material that is managed to get programs so as those materials increase then the fees increase we are expecting that the revenues will most likely be a conservative number we are anticipating having another strong year just like we did in 2020 with our both with our material sales both in compost and in recycling what one of the things that covid did for a lot of us was get us back into gardening so we saw a very very robust compost product sales as people were spending their gardens cleaning the gardens throwing food home that is continuing this year and we're anticipating a similar result for next year we also saw a very strong year in the sale of recycled products so process to our MRF again mostly due to covid we saw a large increase in the need for cardboard products as people were ordering a lot online and also in recycled paper products so things like unsecured demand for toilet paper paper towels wipes those tend to be made from recycled paper so 80 percent of what we process through our MRF fiber products so though that demand increased demand really helped helped us through a otherwise weak fourth quarter that demand is continuing through this year and we are anticipating it to continue again through the next fiscal year we are also anticipating another large capital infrastructure year we started a very robust four-year capital plan last year with improvements to our compost facility as we knew that act 148 was was wrapping up with its final piece we're keeping all food scraps out of the landfill we are continuing with that expansion we are also looking to make some improvements to this year to two of our drop-off centers one in Milton one in Richmond the drop-off centers are on a rotation rotational basis we are also looking to begin the permitting and design process for new materials recovery facility we anticipate that project is going to my board this month for their final approval and should they approve their project which hopefully will we will be needing to come to our cities and towns to request authorization for a municipal bond we don't have that money in the bank so you have a one page very very brief description in your packets we would clearly be cutting back to our cities and towns to our residents to our voters with much more information over the course of the year we would expect that bond to go to the voters in November of 2022 we will not be asking the cities and towns to pay for that bond we will not be placing an assessment on our river towns we will be paying the bond that through mainly through user fees or took these after material recovery facility if for some reason those user fees are not enough we will supplement that with the revenue from material sold if for some reason that is not enough we will supplement that with the revenue generated by the solid waste management fee so we have three streams of revenue to pay down that bond so we are not looking to come to our cities and towns to to pay anything towards that we have applied at least the beginning stages for an earmark through senator levy's office as we all know those aren't guaranteed but we are hopeful that because this facility is essentially a regional facility regional to really to move in northern vermont we're hopeful that we may get us the opportunity to go forward with that application we are also reminding all of our members towns of the use of the community cleanup fund and i know lee has been talking to you about that as of right now and i think bonetown is not yet submitting receipts for a project that you're doing but you have just shy of $10,000 in that fund so i don't believe the project was going to cost all that money so that your next bit of money will come on july 1 so whatever is is drawn down you'll get another $2,000 on july 1 and we'll get you that that updated number when that occurs so and then you must have other questions so i didn't want to take up too much time with the overview and i would love to open up to any questions you may have for me thank you very much appreciate that i'll now open it up to you counselor comments and questions counselor hanson to be followed by counselors high tower great thanks um thanks for the presentation my first question is just around the process around this so in 2019 you all came to the council i think in may or maybe even april or march um and then we referred with the with the draft budget and then we referred it to the transportation energy utilities committee and we're able to like have a longer dialogue and understand a lot better which was very appreciated before we then voted on it in june um last year you know was the beginning of covet and so that wasn't possible but i'm curious why that didn't happen this year and if is that the norm going forward or what should we expect um around process in the 2019 the budget going to the tuc was the first time that it happened so the norm is is what we have here today um our board the cswt board passes the budget approves approves a for transmission to you all in april and then from there we have 45 days to gain the approval of our member towns so if it is um something where the city wouldn't like the um the new process to go through the tuc we can definitely implement that um we would just need to work with you very very early in the 45 days make sure it gets to the tuc early enough um and then most likely would be heard by the full council at the end of the 45 days okay got it no that that can be something we can we can have it more of a conversation on i just that was my first year on the council so i didn't realize that that was an anomaly that year so thanks for clarifying that um so my biggest my my main question and i guess concern is around uh reducing waste which is i really appreciate in the mission statement of cswt that it's reduced first reduce and manage um and i i don't you know i see a little bit about that in the budget overview about some of the initiatives to review waste reduce waste but when you look at the big picture of the volume of waste it's it's increasing and we've had the conversation the last couple years about this of the solid waste district taking a more comprehensive look at or studying um strategies to to reduce waste and try to meet that mission statement so i'm curious what um what work you all have done to try to investigate that further and what we might expect around reducing waste going forward it's a it's really a great question and it really is a conundrum it's difficult to measure what isn't produced so and that's the overview answer what we always do is and can always do a better job but a huge component of of what we do is education and outreach and it was really hard for us over this past year and a half to not be able to be in schools in businesses out in the community really educating and talking about strategies to reduce waste um we are thrilled to be able to be getting back into that now we're we're just chopping up a bit as far as strategies a lot of it is taking a look at what's happening in in each of our communities and what are some of the drivers that that are leading to more waste generation and a lot of times we just did a a study to help us model generation rates it is very much related to the state of the economy the overall economy when the economy booms more waste tends to be generated because people have excess extra money and they're able to buy things instead of maybe making do when the economy is not so great and people hold on to things um so how do we kind of combat that and talk about the the benefits of reuse repair holding fixed cafes you know passing things on through front porch forum and other ways to get things on to folks who may want to continue to use these are maybe perfectly good but just not needed but it really is getting at motivations and we could I think always do more work in understanding people's motivations as far as waste generation and assumptions um a lot of what we have found when we do some research and it may just be due to research but other research is also around wasting food scraps and making food waste is small techniques to help people understand and use what they have before it goes back how to shop how to to buy in better quantities how to not make the waste in the first place that is again tricky to measure so what we can do is we can see as we're tracking demographics as population growing is that leading to an increase in waste what is what is the demographic makeup is it you know our more families moving to chiming counties and more singles what does that look like families will make more waste than than um one or two families so it's there's no pat easy answer um we're constantly you know looking at at all of these these different factors and trying to see is there is there something out there that someone else is doing better that we can try here in Vermont um and we are open very open to any suggestions you all may have if you come across things and different you know your travels and say you know I read about this study that was happening in Richmond Virginia let's try that we want to try it thanks um I appreciate that yeah I think and I so on the educational side I feel like there is a lot of effective there's good things happening and I I see that and I noticed that and I appreciate that um I think what I've tried to raise the last couple years that I still feel is more on sort of the rate structure side and some of the more so the economic side especially and how that drives behaviors in order to better align um you all balancing your budget with folks being able to reduce their waste um and kind of align those drivers and but in general I think just a deeper commitment to that goal of reducing waste and just a reflection that if rate waste is increasing that means that that bottom line mission and goal isn't being met and therefore serious change is needed and yeah I think your last point is I agree of really looking at what other what other departments and districts and municipalities have done that have been successful and there are those models and those examples and I yeah I guess I'd just like to see a deeper dive from CSWD into some of those especially rate structure but and other innovative models to reduce waste and just yeah I'd love to see a deeper commitment reflected around that so yeah those are my thoughts and comments but and thanks for answering my question. I just didn't and you have brought up the rate rate incentives or disincentives infrastructure before and and one of the the issues is friendly with the way that we collect waste and and haul waste in in Vermont is that you know for us to have a an impact at the the individual generator level we would have to be basically taxing each individual and that isn't how it works in Vermont is the the management fees of a district's charge are charged to the haulers we then float that across all of their customers so the any increase in that fee wouldn't be felt to the degree where it might make an impact on an individual's decisions so we have to go about it different ways we have to get at that waste reduction in different ways and so so that's really where we want to I think you're right we want to focus more attention and see if we can learn from others. I'll say Councillor Hanson. Yeah I'm all set thank you. Councillor Aitawa. Um yeah I have a comment based on that conversation and then a question because I wasn't going to speak to this but to some extent um it is difficult to measure but it's not impossible and other cities are doing that work or even in our own city Burlington Electric Department I think has gotten very good at kind of understanding reduction and how to incentivize that and what that means for their rate structures and so on and there's also a lot of cities who have committed to no waste and moving forward with that not that you're a city but um to some extent I think there are a lot of examples of like ways to help reduce waste um and yeah and I think the bottom line that it takes is you know that commitment of having zero waste and when you were just resigning the mission I think you even left out the word reduce which is in your mission um so I think the first the first step is just saying this is a goal that we have that we take very seriously and prioritizing that every year um and making sure that it is part of your plan every year um so I guess I wanted to speak in support of everything that counselor Hanson just said um and I think the first step is having a real commitment and having a real goal and then I think the measuring comes um after that and the other thing that I wanted to ask is just specific to the vehicle that you're um going to be purchasing which is just curious because it looks like you purchased it I forgot but I think it was maybe nine years ago um and just curious what the usual life expectancy is of those cng vehicles and if anything is happening with the previous vehicle so which could you have the page number for which vehicle you're specifically referring to yeah we don't have any cng vehicles so and I'm not sure okay I was looking at the memo that came with this ask and the new recycling truck that may be for the city okay yeah that that was for the solid waste generation tax okay my apologies yeah no worries we also are buying new vehicles and um one of the the things that we did this past year was we we extended our compost facility we made sure to run three phase power out to the farther side so that we would have a location to plug in our screener so that we could run our screener on electric versus on diesel um and commissioner Perry actually has been very strong in recommending and and requesting that when we go out to bid for new trucks that we always include an electric um option so he's had definitely had an impact on how we bid for our vehicles I want to thank commissioner. Great thanks sorry too many tabs open and I got them confused appreciate that clarification. Hey counselor hi tower any other comments or questions from counselors counselor jane. Thank you president Tracey I have one comment and two questions and I think the first comment is about during the COVID-19 it has been just appreciated how your staff and how you guys manage the facilities in responding effectively to the state guidance you know even though the prices in some point was higher for residential you know but we understood right um thank you for Lina and along those same lines what is the plan with the facility in Burlington what do you what's the plan in the future. Yes thank you for that question I appreciate that so so yes um as you all are aware the facility and on pine street has been an organic selection facility only and we do own still own property on flood avenue that we've owned for 18 years I think and that is has always been thought of as the the destination for a new larger adequately sized dropout facility for Burlington as you may recall the pine street location when it was originally constructed was constructed as a walk up facility and I think though it was never intended to have vehicular traffic there I think the walk up version lasted less than a year before it was realized that it was that was not going to be feasible so it has always been undersized it has always had the kind of the cross traffic situation so it's always been been unsafe we have been very recently having some really great conversations with Burlington staff about the options that we may have for a local dropout facility in Burlington and and really what is where we are now is kind of similar to where you all are right now is where you're you're coming to some decisions around the solidated collection from the city so it doesn't make sense at this point in the moment for us to make any decisions about the dropout center until you all make some decisions about consolidated collection from there we will continue to work with staff on identifying you know what then makes the most sense and what that timeline looks like so we know we want to have a presence in the city our board did confirm that several years ago one of our board retreats but what that looks like and the location whether Pine Street if there's any additional you know options there or Flynn Avenue that hasn't yet been decided but we're having very very good constructive conversations with their public work staff so I feel really hopeful that very soon before the end of this calendar year we will have the direction and then when we know what that direction is obviously the council will be doing important um yeah thank you and I think you know this is still my my second question will come later but based on what you just talked about like Burlington and South Burlington they're exploring this concept and based on your budget I see that there is this hollow fee basically what are your projects and will this hurt you or will this basically increase your capacity and revenue what do you think it's too good yeah so the solid waste management fee that fee that haulers paid on trash that goes to the Coventry landfill this program the consolidated collection program does not affect that at all so it's still whatever whatever trash is generated by Burlington residents will still have that fee associated with it so whether it's a hauler paying the fee or the city paying the fee it's the same the same thing so it won't it won't it leaves no impact essentially um did you repeat the second half of that comment question um basically you answered it they any direct um maybe you know you you will not even feel it basically it's just business as usual things will continue to go so this is a question and I think we'll try to tie it with consular hansons question is about the education piece and in Burlington we hear we used to have an amazing school called the sustainability academy basically what is your organization doing in in in in planting the seeds about the importance of your work with younger generation with school district in the student and county as a part of your strategy planning absolutely it is a cornerstone of all of our work and in fact that solid waste management fee that that fee that the haulers pay those dollars are used to support that education program that that is what pays for that education program so we have a phenomenal staff person who um recycled ronda who is uh goes to all of our schools as she does it in a rotational basis she can't get to any school every year but focuses on hands-on programs in the schools we uh again are so excited for covid to kind of be waiting so we can get back to our normal tours of our facilities we bring kids to us so that they can see the machines in action they can see the compost machines working um we like them to get their hands on we go into the schools we help the schools design um food scrap programs for example or get x programs for fellow so we produce um material for for teachers we have wires available but it nothing takes the place of going there and talking to the kids and getting the kids engaged and hearing their questions and helping them understand what how to recycle what to recycle um and why it's it's the why right you're talking about sustainability it's why is this matter why is this important so talking to them about why it's important to compost why it's important to get soil health all of that it is absolutely cornerstone of what we do um so we did over the covid when we couldn't be in the schools we had a series of video programs webinars a bunch of online workshops to continue that educational effort with our students we also we work from k to the university it's it's the whole gamut uh we do education at senior centers we will go talk to anybody about yeah we have materials translated in several different languages um yeah we want to talk trashed to anybody who wants to listen to us talk trash for sure thank you thank you yeah no further question okay great thanks council jane any other counselors with comments or questions okay seeing none let's go to a vote will um the ceo please call the roll counselor barlow yes counselor carpenter yes counselor jane yes counselor freeman oh counselor hanson no no counselor hi tower yes counselor mason yes counselor paul yes counselor shannon yes yes counselor stromberg no city council president tracy no seven eyes for maze the cswd budget carries thank you sarah for joining us again and presenting um this evening very much appreciate it and absolutely thank you so much and that now concludes our deliberative agenda for this evening which will bring us into our final segment of the meeting um starting with committee reports are there any committee chairs that wishing to offer a report this evening from quick fall thank you uh so i have two committee uh well one committee report and then one other report um the public safety committee is meeting this uh wednesday at five thirty uh and we will be discussing the csl job description and um police oversight is also on the agenda um the other thing the other update just wanted to give you uh president tracy and i are the two counselors that are members of comm stat um comm stat meets monthly uh it met in april in late april meets the third usually the third thursday of the month uh when we met in april we had a presentation from janette bowls um dr bowls is a uh physician at st michaels hospital in toronto and is affiliated with the center for drug policy evaluation um she has worked extensively in philadelphia on uh in the homeless shelter shelter system as well as working with hiv risk um reduction research and she moved to toronto just recently um for her to her present role and is working on in overdose prevention sites so it was a very interesting presentation um we discussed effective effective community engagement um and implementation and as well as an implementation plan for burlington we talked about the different models um of implementation so it dovetailed nicely into the resolutions that we have passed in uh it may be uh discussion mostly focused around h 225 which is the um which was the house bill in the vermont house um relating to possession of therapeutic dosage of euphan orphan and uh how we could affect that passage um happy to say that it was signed by the governor on june 1st of this year um and we've we reviewed as we do almost every at every meeting um monthly data um and in this case the hub and spoke data so uh it was a very interesting meeting the next meeting is in june um i don't have that agenda yet um but it will be coming out probably in the next week or so thanks very much president tracy thank you for that update council paul other committee chairs council shannon thank you president tracy the parks arts and culture committee is going to be meeting june 21st at 6 p.m and we will be discussing the dog task force among other things um the dog task force is an item that was referred to our committee from the council thank you council shannon council handsome the transportation energy and utilities committee is going to be having a special meeting next tuesday june 15th at 5 30 p.m to discuss um rooftop solar um and setback requirements and other regulations to help facilitate um rooftop solar in burlington thank you council handsome any other committee chairs wishing off a report this evening i'm sorry i don't uh the next joint committee meeting we unfortunately couldn't find a time to meet where we had a quorum in early june so we'll be meeting on the 23rd of june um as part of that meeting we will be going over the results of the tlitha survey which is now closed after a month of being open and um they are currently working on analyzing it and plan on having the first results ready by the 18th so just wanted to flag that that if folks have been following that effort that's a good time to check in on um what happened and sorry this is where the joint committee of the public safety and police commission um great thank you council hi tower any other committee reports okay seeing none we will transition to city council general city affairs i'm wishing not for comments on that i just wanted to note myself um and mark the passing of sharyl mcdonough former city councilor and crossing guard here in the old north end um sharyl was just a wonderful community member and i just have such incredible memories of door knocking and just the degree to which sharyl continuously centered low and moderate income people in those conversations in her work in the council and just the general warmth that she brought to our community over her years of service and dedication to burlington she'll be sorely missed and i know i'll miss the conversations that we had when we were door knocking so just always like to note when those folks who have done significant community service pass away so thank you sharyl really appreciate all the work you did for our community council shannon thank you president tracy um i am so sad to hear that and i wasn't aware of passing of former councilor mcdonough and i'm not sure if i may be the only counselor who served with her at this point but um sharyl was a truly kind soul and thoughtful person and always um really looking out for what was best for burlington what was best for her her constituents and um i think really was a great steward of the city and the interests of her community um and thank you for for sharing that very sad news thank you counselor shannon any further comments on general city affairs okay seeing none we'll move into the city council president council updates i've got a couple updates for you all um so as councilor jing had highlighted that there are several other committees on which uh former councilor now cito director pine served and so i just wanted to clarify my plan for those committees going forward so councilor pine served on the racial equity inclusion and belonging committee as well as chairing the community development neighborhood revitalization committee for both of those committees my plan is to serve temporarily prior to the special election over the court that's going to take place in august just to fill in for those roles i don't i understand that committees have gotten going and you all are in the swing of things so i don't want to reshuffle committees i thought we had some good balance coming out of those appointments so i'm going to fill in the idea that the um that the newly elected ward three representative or counselor will serve in those roles once they're sworn in for the cdnr committee um counselor pine was the chair um counselor high tower has agreed to serve as chair of that committee um uh for the remainder of the year um however given the additional responsibilities that councilor high tower is taking on there in terms of um board of finance chairing that also chairing the special committee um counselor high towers asked to step off of the public safety committee at the uh once that new person um in ward three is sworn in um recognizing that they that uh count that um she will continue um at serving as chair of the um of the special committee on policing until its conclusion and that's likely to happen over the course of this year so that's um the plan for those additional seats and i just want to just again thank um councilor high tower just for being willing to step up and on a number of different fronts and just being willing to serve um the council i know you have a lot on your plate so just thank you so much for being willing to step up and um i i look forward to joining these committees and working with um the members of those committees the chairs of those committees and also the staff that that work with with you all on those committees in the intervening period um i do also want to just flag for counselors that um been in conversations with the administration about our transition back into con toys i think we're getting closer to that point um we're um need to figure out some of the kind of logistical questions i'm having to do with um that transition and to that point i'm going to be looking to schedule a work session in advance of our next council meeting to discuss some of those considerations whether it be around um how we manage public forum um the in those kinds of questions of you know how much do we have remote um or in person within those how do we facilitate that on a techno technological basis um i think these are important questions for us to weigh in talk through and certainly open your feedback so i encourage you all to put some thought into that and see if you and bring any ideas to the table at our at our next council meeting on next monday i think it's likely that um the summer will be able to get back into con toys which is very very exciting i actually i ran into council former council president right this weekend and i we were outside of city hall and i remarked on how excited i am to get back to con toys because um we have there's a brand new sound system in there so you won't have to constantly tell people to lean into the mic and i believe that that technology should help us to facilitate some of these um some potential changes to public forum should be we choose to do that but certainly want to get some full council input on that so looking forward to that conversation um at our next meeting and then one final thing that i did want to just highlight for counselors is that we do have the board and commission meetings uh or board and commission process ongoing at this point um and we had our initial meeting for that um as a committee the counselors that are serving on that are counselor jang counselor carpenter and counselor hansen in addition to chief of staff for del at that first meeting as it has been our process we go through the list of appointments if we're able to reach consensus on placing an applicant for a particular um uh spot on the slate that we then vote on um we we chose not to ask that those folks um to come in for an interview um however if there was not consensus we had um that we have asked those folks to come in for an interview um and have um and have a conversation here just hear a little bit from the hear a little bit from them as to what they see as um their qualifications any any ideas they have for the commissions those kinds of things and we'll be getting into that tomorrow um that meeting will be at 5 p.m so we'll be hearing from about 39 different applicants for a wide variety of different commissions um we are approaching it optimistically hoping that we'll be able to not only get through all those interviews but then also um talk through um the um the appointments um and see where we're able to agree on or find consensus as a as a committee um placing those uh applicants on the slate um for council approval at a at a late at a meeting later in in june um if folks are if we do not reach consensus then that will that individual appointment will be voted on by the full council or full council with mayor presiding um as it's identified in the charter so that kind of that's the the process going forward we did hold um a meeting on the 21st just in in case we need um or where we the interviews take much longer than we think we've tried to manage it and set some time parameters for applicants in terms of the interviews um but just wanted to alert folks to that um we may choose to do that depending on how we're feeling um to make those final appointments but hopefully we'll be able to um at least conclude that aspect of the process before it comes back to the full council so um if you are interested um that's on board docs and so you can access that meeting um and check out any applicants um there so with that I will close my update and go to the mayor to close us out thank you for all that presentation and um uh I like councilor bush uh Shannon had um not heard uh sad news about former councilor mcdonough so thank you for sharing that I too um I did not serve uh directly with her although I did work with her when she was city councilor but in recent years I've enjoyed um her presence and array of changing uh hats as the iag school crossing guard she had a huge impact on uh both my daughters um going to school there I know hundreds of other kids as well and um I'm glad her passing did not go unnoticed back here tonight uh presentation um a couple items in business and then I wanted to bring attention to a few community events um one I just wanted to make sure the full council was aware where we are in the budget process we had a really final um discussion at the board of finance tonight as well as a special meeting last night um securing feedback on the budget still are uh several outstanding items responding to questions or suggestions that um counselors have made in recent weeks that we're working on um CAO Catherine Shad and I do intend to finish this effort package all of this up um all of the uh all of the different budgets that that are make up the annual budget the general fund budget the capital budget and the many enterprise fund budgets um and submit that to you formally as the mayor's budget um at the end of this week um we are going to try to get out some additional information earlier than the end of the week about the climate emergency questions uh which um uh we want to kind of put in one place um all of the uh climate related investments that are in this budget and um that is uh our goal it will then be in front of the council um for your action either either Monday um or later in the month uh depending on the council's discretion and presentry see uh we had some discussion the board of finance in the time and I think there's still some uncertainty about exactly what we'll come to the council for but um that is uh we'll we'll finish our part of the process by the end of the week um the other item I just want to make sure and would um again ask the council's help in this um the police chief survey um is another public safety survey and a different addition to the Talitha survey that has been out for several weeks now it will be out for um at least through the end of this week and we um do invite many Brawantonians possible to engage that survey we've sent it out through a number of methods uh already but you just want to put out a kind of final call um for um people interested in giving feedback into um really guidance to the to me and the search committee on on what Brawantonians are looking for in the next chief uh the survey provides a way for many Brawantonians to weigh in on that question it's exciting that we have community events to talk about again after 16 months when basically everything was canceled I do just want to make sure that uh I want to highlight a few first of all I'm excited to be going to Brawanton High School graduation this Friday there will be an in-person graduation um and really a great celebration after everything that this year's senior class has endured um first with remote learning and then um uprooted downtown high school it'll be the first of a number um I'm clear how many but a first of a number of downtown BHS graduating classes there will be and um I want to say congratulations from the city to to all of the Brawanton seniors who will be graduating this week um jazz best we're in the middle of jazz best it started last Friday after a year hiatus um Jay Walls the new Flynn Center executive director who joined the Flynn Center this key leadership position in this community in the middle of the pandemic uh kicked things off down on the waterfront along with more than 80 saxophone players uh it was really exciting to see so many people out enjoying these COVID safe outdoor events um spread around the city it is a jazz fest that is different than past years COVID forced it to be in some ways it has a greater emphasis on Vermont artists local artists I really encourage everyone to check out the lineup and think about coming out and participating in the remaining almost week worth of programming that is out there including again I just want to make the point again that there will be a pop up COVID testing at jazz fest in City Hall Park on Friday and Saturday from at least four to seven p.m. and then we will meet again before this event takes place but it's the first time we're doing this event I really want to make sure the word is getting out there I think it is we the city of Burlington will be hosting for the first time a Juneteenth celebration on June 19th Saturday June 19th that is coming up two Saturdays from now and there is a great website up that I would encourage everyone to check out that has all of the programming and educational programming food opportunities and that is juneteenthbtv.org and hope to see counselors and the public at this first first time city hosted event so that President Tracy is my update for tonight thank you very much mayor appreciate that update and certainly agree about jazz fest it was great to just see so many community members again this weekend looking forward to further events this coming week so with that our meeting is our agenda is concluded a motion to adjourn is in order moved by Councillor Stromberg seconded by Councillor Mason any discussion hearing none let's go to a vote all those in favour of adjournment please say aye aye motion carries and we are adjourned at 9 12 p.m. good night everyone have a great week