 but welcome everyone to our monthly NPA, it's great that we have such a big group here. I will apologize in advance, my dog is with me and she's not known for being very polite, so just bear with me. But we're going to start off with Speak Out, we have a really packed agenda tonight, which is exciting, so we're going to try to get through everyone. But the first announcements that we have are we're looking for more folks to join us on the NPA Steering Committees, specifically in Ward 8, I'm the only Ward 8 Steering Committee member, so it would be great if I had some friends join me. And we're always looking for more people in Ward 1 as well, so if you're interested in that, feel free to reach out to any of us, you can find our contact at the bottom of any of the agendas and just shoot us a note. And I believe that's the only announcement that we had other than if you have any suggestions for things that you'd like to see at the NPA, also just send us a note. But now we will get into Speak Out, so if you'd like to make a comment, please indicate by raising your hand and I can put you in speaking order. Yeah, Bob. Hi, can everybody hear me? Good evening, my name is Bob Butani, I live on Fletcher Place, which is right off of Colchester. And I just wanted to update everyone, I don't know if Zariah Hightower and Jack Hansen have been following this issue with a developer who's been trying to put 75 apartments behind our homes on Fletcher Place. Now the piece of land that the developer wishes to put these apartments on sits on what's called the Gully Head Failure. So it's a very risky venture. The state is aware of this and they have, the Act 2-5, the commission has asked the developer to come back with it with an alternative plan. The project as it stands poses a grave risk to life and limb, not only for the residents of Fletcher Place and the residents who live below in the River Watch community, but as well as anybody who would be living in these apartments, which are perched right on top of what's called the Gully Head Failure, which is a prelude to a landslide. As you may have heard, there have been a lot of landslides in this area, particularly on Riverside. We've had experts testify, notably Paul Bierman, professor at UBM, who has testified that this project is absolutely dangerous. So the question is, is the state going to try to sweep this under the rug or are they going, who is going to be held accountable for the liability that could exist if this project is approved? We've been dealing with this for 10 years now. So we're at our 10-year anniversary. I don't know what that is. That's gold. It's paper is the first year. I know that, but 10 years have gone by since 2011, since Frank Von Turkovich has attempted to jam these apartments behind our homes. We're not against infill housing. We welcome it, but not something of this magnitude. Thanks very much. Thank you. Liam, I see you have your hand raised. Yeah, I think Karen had her hand raised first. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. I've been having some audio issues. So hi everybody. I've met many of you, but not all of you. I'm Karen Bastin, and I work for the UVM Health Network in the Office of Government and Community Relations. Many of you may know my colleagues, Jason Williams and Maria McClellan. I just have a quick little update to give you all tonight, and that is that the parking lot by the state lab building that many of you use for the community garden to park there and or to pick up takeout from the restaurant on the corner, I just wanted to let you know that we're going to be reserving some spaces in the middle of the lot. This is new. We've never signed it before for employees just during business hours, but it's a little change and I didn't want you all to be concerned that you can't still use the parking lot for those other uses, even though we'll be signing those spaces. So thank you. Thank you. Liam now. Thank you. I just wanted to point out that if anybody needs to share their screen, I mentioned this a little while ago, Google's let me know and I'll make you a co-host and you can share your screen. I'm also using my little raise hand function. Anybody on this call should be able to do that too if you have to ask a question. So we don't have a chat tonight, we do have a Q&A function for anybody who needs to type something down. Great. Thank you. Does anyone else want to participate and speak out? Okay. I think Jonathan, you had a note. Yeah. Thanks Hannah. This is forwarded from my neighbor, Jared Wood, and he actually had kind of a general question about noise ordinances and whether the noise ordinance in the city of Burlington would, whether the F-35s would fall under the noise ordinance and that maybe we should consider some way of enforcing the noise control in the city using existing ordinances with respect to the F-35s. Thanks. Anyone else like to participate and speak out? Your last chance. Okay. Seeing none, we'll move on. We're going to go into the city council update now. So, Jax, Zariah, Jane, whoever wants to go, feel free. Sure. I'll keep it short. I know we have a ton to accomplish tonight. One, I just want to thank everyone and anyone who involved themselves in the election process that we saw last week. That was, we pulled off a really great town meeting day with turnout and safety and everything and it was just awesome to see. So, I just want to thank everyone for being involved in that, if you were. A few updates, I think, on two meetings. I guess one pretty decently sized one is that the council unanimously passed a resolution. The goal of which was to send a communication to the UVM administration regarding the budget cuts that we all know about. And those cuts were in three departments, 12 majors, 11 minors, and four masters programs, as well as the trio services program, which houses a lot of the tutoring center and the student accessibility services office, among many other programs. So, obviously, these are not great cuts. There's a multitude of reasons as to why they are impacting the UVM community. So, that we sent a communication with our, you know, our dismay and kind of discussed about that. And so, we're kind of like in the process of opening communication or hearing back from the UVM administration on that. And then quick divestment update, the Burlington Employees Retirement System Board will be recording back to the council next month, so the end of April, our last meeting of April, to discuss their findings and a timeline that they came up with regarding divestment and how they will achieve 100% divestment within the timeline that they give us. And we'll obviously be holding hearings in the TOOC committee and working with the mayor and administration on this. So, it's kind of an elongated project, but well worth it. And yeah, we'll be hearing back soon. So, those are my quick kind of major updates from my end. Thank you. I can jump in next. Yeah, I would echo Jane's just thanks of everyone for being involved in the elections and for voting. And I want to thank you all for sending me back for another term. I'm really excited for the second term. I think it's a steep learning curve on council. So, I feel a lot more prepared this time than I was the first time and can really focus on the work and don't have as much as much of that catching up and learning that I had at the beginning of my last term. So, yeah, a couple updates. I'll try to go quick too. I know we have a lot going on. So, in terms of the Burlington Town Center, we, in case folks missed it, back in February, the city, we had two meetings where we took, or three meetings actually where we looked at this new development agreement between the city and the developer. And we resolved the ongoing mediation and litigation because if you remember, the city had filed suit and the developer had countersued last fall. But we resolved those legal disputes and we did move forward on a new development agreement that transfers the right of way for the streets and sidewalks immediately to the city and the developer is responsible for building those streets. This new development agreement has firm timelines in it in terms of certain dates by which key milestones in the development have to be met. It also, in one of the key things we fought for as the council and we kind of extended the negotiation process was around wages and we were able to get the developer to formally agree to paying the Vermont prevailing wages, which are set by the state and are very strong living wages that are competitive with the union labor and the unions did end up supporting it after that commitment. So, that's a little bit of a summary there. And then the rental weatherization policy that I've talked to many of you about just past first reading on Monday. So, we're expecting to adopt that policy a week from this coming Monday at our next meeting. I'm really, really excited for this. I think it'll have a huge impact and as a reminder, this is the policy that's going to require landlords in Burlington to weatherize or do thermal efficiency work on their rental units and meet certain basic energy efficiency requirements. And what was the one other thing I was going to cover? We, I think I'll just leave it with those two for now. There was one more and if I remember I'll speak up, but I'll leave it there for now. Thanks. Great. I'm not seeing Zariah on yet. So, I feel like we can just continue and if they hop on, we can just go back. Now, we'll go into the school commissioner updates. So, feel free to jump in, Auden or Kathy. Hey, Kara, were you about to say something? Yeah, I just, Zariah had told us that she had, she was double booked and was going to be here by 730. So, hopefully she'll be here then. She also part of her presentation will to give us a little bit of background about Talitha, our guests and present presenters tonight. So, I'm sure that's what Zariah will be focusing on. Thank you, Auden. No problem. Great. So, my name is Auden Hajji. I represent Ward 8 on the school board and I'm here with Kathy Orwell, the other school commissioner. And we don't really have much updates, but we wanted to say thank you to all of the Burlington citizens for participating in the election recently, time meeting day. I echo a lot of what Jack and Jane just said. And I'm excited to let you know that our budget did pass by 76%. So, again, thank you all for participating in that. We're glad to see that change happening in Burlington. And another exciting news is that we started in-person learning over at the Macy's last week. So, students are now, students now have A days and B days for in-person opportunity. And yesterday, in our board meeting, we heard feedback from our student representatives saying that a lot of students were excited to be back and connect with other students and being able to socialize with other students. But there was also concern with noise complaints and the buildings being too noisy, which we definitely hear how that could be because of the setup of Macy's. Personally, I'm glad that some students are able to get in-person learning and really connect with others. But this is only the first week, so we'll see how things go. And I also wanted to let you all know that our educators do have the opportunity to get their vaccines, which was just announced recently. So, I'm also excited to see how things go on that end. Other than that, I don't really have anything more. I'll let Kathy, Commissioner Owa, Owa explain more. Oh, your music, Kathy. Thanks. Sorry, I wanted to thank you all for voting me back in for another two-year period. I appreciate it. I am getting to the point right now where I think my tenure on the school board should at some time come to an end. I am 72 and I figure, so I am looking for younger people to come take this over. But I will do it for the next two years and I do it because I am excited about what I see going on with our new superintendent. So, I also just wanted to quick talk about the weighted study that we have been working on. We are a group, we have organized a group of school districts around the state and formed a coalition to push through a study that was done by UVM Rutgers and the American Institute of Research. In 2019, showing that the weights that they put on students, so students living in poverty, students living in small rural areas, students that are English language learners, and then there's weights also for kids in high school and kids in middle school, those weights for 20 years. So, since Act 60 was passed, which was hailed as this wonderful progressive school education bill, the most progressive in the country, but the weights they put on the districts were not progressive. They were that as you can see with this study that more affluent communities are paying less taxes and having more funds to support the learning of their students. And we have known this for many years and constantly tried to talk about it, but it was really impossible. Finally, some of the legislators realized that this really had to be dealt with and they put in for this study. It was done. Came back in 2020, was passed through the Senate Education Committee and then COVID hit and then it went dormant and nothing has been done. And we decided we had to push this through that we can't let our students wait any longer to get the kind of support they need. This is totally inequitable. For Burlington, it's 17% less that we're getting for our students. For Winooski, it is 39%. So, we are pushing and we are going to be coming to you to get you to help. Because at this point, the Senate has really put forward another task force to study the study. And this study that came out was wonderfully done. It lays it out with three different options to use. And they're saying that they have to now study it again. This is all politics and it's making me furious. As a result, I will be here asking you all to please start writing postcards and emails and letters to these legislators because they need to do this and they need to move on it now. Our kids have been waiting for 20 years. So, I'm just that's all I'm saying. And the other thing I wanted to say about what Aidan said about the high school, we were also told that the school district understood that there would be noise problems, but they wanted to wait until the kids got in and they decided whether they could change classrooms because teachers speak louder than others and kind of deal with it that way. And then they also are planning and have the funds to put in some sorts of sound barriers at places or things to absorb the sound so that it's not so loud. So, it is not just, you know, it is going to be taken care of. I just wanted to make sure that you understood that. Thank you. Great. Thank you. I see Tom has their hand raised if we want to, Ann Jack, if we want to do brief questions. Hi, Cathy. This is Tom. If you have a pointer to that study and you think people should be able to read it, you send me the pointer, I'll put it in a minute. Oh, okay. I will do that. But you can also the interesting thing is you can watch the legislature now on YouTube. And it's very interesting. It's kind of disheartening, but it's interesting because you hear the discussion. So, okay, thanks. And also I should, while I'm on here, just quick say the city council also has sent and maybe Jack, you want to talk about that because that was appreciated sending support to us for the waiting study to the legislators. So, yeah, you can go, Jack. Okay, sorry, I was toggling the hand function back and forth. Yeah, super important what Cathy's talking about. And we did the council did have a resolution over a year ago, emphatically supporting that and we talked about it at our last meeting and we're going to put another communication, you know, expressing our support for it. And then I did remember the other things I wanted to mention. So one is I'm on the ordinance committee with Zariah and we've been meeting jointly with the planning commission for since since we got on the ordinance committee and even before that it's been over a year now discussing the issue of Airbnb's well short term rentals in general, but Airbnb's are the main player in that space. It's been quite a process. We are at the point now where we've we've warned it for public hearing and so the public hearings are going to take place in April. So if you are looking to weigh in on this issue, I would definitely recommend going to those public hearings in April, but you know, really trying to balance the need to we're concerned about long term housing being converted to Airbnb's and then trying to balance that concern with the fact that using Airbnb is, you know, a really important source of income for a lot of people in the community that take advantage of it. So that's been kind of the tension throughout the debate. And then just the other thing to mention. So the the ballot items, they all pass strongly, which I'm really excited about. And just in case folks don't know the process. So the ballot items that were charter changes, those are all now sent to the state legislature. And it's going to be it's in the legislature's hands. They don't have to approve it. They can amend it. It's really up to them. But the fact that it passed with strong support really helps politically and hopefully the legislature approves these charter changes probably won't happen until next year, though. So it's actually going to be a while before we can start to kind of take advantage of these changes to our charter. So yeah, just wanted to update folks on that. Great. Thank you. Now we'll go to Dave. So you can give us an update on the Colchester Ave study. Great. Thank you, Hannah. I'll pull up. I have a short presentation. Show a few slides of some of the things that we've been talking about. This is a study that's been going on since December of, let's see. Oops. Sorry. Hit the wrong button there. I'm going to try one more time. Since December of 2019. So I wanted to bring up the date on some of the things that have been happening here. This is sort of a long-term project that's taking a look at the mobility of Colchester Avenue. And there's been some recommendations made on the best way to go forward. And those recommendations will be going to City Council and Department of Public Works shortly. So this will be a quick summary of some of the recommendations that are moving forward. The project, as I said, started in 2019 and the advisory committee met on February 18th to come up with recommendations. The project has been conducted by the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission and Burlington Department of Public Works. And the consultants for the project were a third sector associates and VHB. And here you can see a listing of the folks that are on the advisory committee. And it's been a good process. We've been through quite a bit of alternatives to take a look at. Just to highlight the purpose of the project, as I mentioned, it was really looking into how are we going to enhance the mobility and safety along Colchester Avenue corridor. And it was also looking to provide solutions for parking demand for businesses, employers, and residents. Now the project was divided into three basic segments along Colchester Avenue. So it was from Prospect Street to East Ave. East Ave and Colchester Avenue intersection was looked at. And then the portion that was East Ave to Barrett Street. As I mentioned, we looked at about 40 alternatives and all these were reviewed and evaluated using various criteria. And these results were presented both to the advisory committee and as well as the public meeting on January 11th. Now I don't have time to go through all the details on this, but here's a summary of some of the things that came out of it. The overwhelming preferred improvement for the corridor is to add raised and separated bike lanes and pedestrian paths for the full length of the corridor. We'll take a look at these by each of the segments. But in general, this really was determined to be the most preferred way to improve bicycle, pedestrian, and vehicle safety for the corridor. Now this is an example of what raised and separated bike and pedestrian paths might look like. You can see that the paths are clearly marked. There's a green belt barrier between the vehicles and the bike lane. And certainly the corridor would work. This configuration could work for most of the corridor, but not for all because of the existing dimensions. Now here we see this is representing Colchester Ave from Prospect Street on the left to the UVM Medical Center on the right. And in the cross section, you can see that there's a raised green belt. There's a bike path and then a separated pedestrian walk. So this configuration would be on both sides of the street in this section. And the proposed improvement really stays within the existing back of sidewalk dimensions, but would require changes to the existing curves. Continuing down, this is from UVM Medical Center entrance to East Ave intersection. This just shows the same configuration as we just saw. But Colchester Ave and East Ave intersection, the major problem here is that it's a high crash location. And one of the reasons is that the two streets don't really intersect at a 90 degree angle. And so this leads to a problem of line of sight problems for vehicles. And often there are rear end collisions that take place here. And as we know, there's no clear marking for bike lanes. It's difficult to maneuver through this intersection. So the preferred solution for this intersection is to realign East Ave to form a 90 degree angle with Colchester. Clearly mark bike lane and pedestrian crossings and to install special signals both for the pedestrians and for the bicycles. Now as we move a little further east along Colchester Ave, we come to the constricted area that's in front of Campus Kitchen. Now the recommendation here is to maintain the raised and separated bike lanes and pedestrian walkways. And the committee also recommended maintaining two parking spaces in front of Campus Kitchen as well as a nearby bump out for customers, service vehicles, delivery vehicles, and other non-residential vehicles. Oh, that's great. I'm just moving a little bit further along the corridor, just before the cemetery. There's an additional two more bump outs on the south side of the road. This would be for public transit, service and delivery vehicles, and for other types of non-residential vehicles. And finally the corridor would continue down the lower part of Colchester Ave all the way to Barrett Street with the raised and separated bike lanes and pedestrian walkways. So that's a brief summary of the recommendations that are moving forward. The project team is in the process of preparing a draft report. As I mentioned, that one is going to be going to the Department of Public Works on April 21st. It will be going to the Transportation Committee for City Council on a date to be determined. So there's quite a lot behind all of this. And if you'd like to get a little bit more involved and take a look at some of the materials, I recommend going to the Chittin County Regional Planning Commission website. You know, search on the Colchester Ave safety study. There's the meetings from the minutes. There's the video of the meeting as well as the presentations that have been made. And if you have questions or want to get involved more, I'm certainly happy to answer questions. You can give me an email. We don't have time tonight, but if you want to get involved, let me know. And that's all I have. Great. Thank you. I see Jim has their hand raised. And Tom, if it's okay, Dave, for you to take a couple of questions now. And mine's not so much a question as, Dave, you probably can't go back to your slides now and share your screen, but at the intersection, there's also the addition which they didn't put into the slide deck of putting in a western, westerly crosswalk. So there'll be crosswalks on the west side of the intersection, east side of the intersection, south side and north side of the intersection. So that's going to make it a lot safer, I think. That was it. Great. And Tom, I see you have your hand raised. Yeah, Dave, the study, for the purpose of the minutes, I should use the link I think you gave me last time. That's where all the information will be. Yes. And I'll send this presentation over to you too, Tom. So you'll have that the link and the presentation. All right. Thanks. Great. Thank you, Dave. Now we will head into the city assessor's update. So, John, you're up. Feel free to take it away, share your screen if you need to. Well, thank you for putting me on the agenda. I really appreciate it. And I will try to move through my presentation relatively quickly so that there's room for questions at the end. And if you have a question, I will pause and try to answer your question. Let me pull up my presentation. Okay. We are conducting a citywide evaluation, which means that all properties in Burlington will be revalued to their market value. This project started two years ago and we are in the part of the project where values, preliminary values are about to become public and notices will be mailed to all property owners in a couple weeks. And that's one of the reasons why we want to have this presentation so that we can guide people through the process as it becomes public. I wanted to throw out a few stats for you so that you may understand how the market has been increasing at least since 2006. These are median home sales year after year from 2016 295,000 to we're projecting values in 2021 to be 392,000. That's the median home sale in Burlington. The reappraisal was conducted in 2005 and prepared in 2006. So the values are far underneath what their value that they should be. This reappraisal was mandated by the State Tax Department because we weren't meeting statistical measures of equity and we knew it. So we began the process of planning probably even four years out thinking about how we can provide the best most affordable citywide revaluation possible and how we would put that together. And then we went through a process of having contracting with a commercial property evaluation vendor as well as the general reappraisal vendors. But here's the reason why valuations were outdated and we weren't meeting statistical measures and national guidelines of taxation equity. The timeline for the next several months is that we will have notices printed in the third or fourth week of March hopefully sooner than later. But if something comes up that we need to address, we don't want to put valuations out if there's more work to be done. So we really want to put this out in a timely fashion. When we put the notices out, there'll be plenty of information on those notices as to helping property owners conduct a thorough review of their own property as well as what to do if they want to appeal their property value in that process as well. That board of assessor hearings will be held in April and those hearings will probably take all of April. And then when we come into May and June, there'll be resolutions of those valuation adjustments and preparing prep work for the tax bills which will come out in July as they do every year. I wanted to offer a little bit of information. Maybe you already know this. Tyler Technologies is doing the general reappraisal and so some of you may come in contact with one of their appraisers. Safeguard Organic Analytics is doing the commercial property valuation work. My name is John Vickery, the city assessor in case I forgot to introduce myself. The values are as of April 1st and the new values will be based on the current local real estate market. The properties that have sold in the past three years have been used to recalibrate our valuation tables. We will be sending letters to all property owners per the city charter and I ask that everyone read those letters when they come out. Our website has a lot of information already. It does not contain the new valuations because we're still working on them. But as soon as they're ready, they will be put into the property database online that I think a lot of folks are used to because we've been doing this for 10 plus years. And there's information about the reappraisal project itself that people can read about now. And if you were to appeal your property value, there will be steps in the letter that will outline how it's going to be done. We would encourage everyone to file their appeal electronically. It helps us with our communication process back and forth by us being able to manage the data that we have. And it'll streamline the process and make it more efficient and we should have more time for the resolutions and better outcomes. A Tyler Technologies Administrator will email or call someone that has made a request to conduct an appeal and they will schedule them on scheduling software. The hearings will be conducted just as this meeting is through Zoom for obvious reasons of safety and health reasons. And if someone is not familiar with the Zoom platform, we will conduct the hearings through a phone hearing. And we are going to be having a 1-800 number so that folks can call free of charge. That is my short presentation and I'm happy to answer questions if you have any questions. I want to stop the share so people can see me. Are there any questions? Great. So I see Jim and then Tom have their hand raised so far. Hi. It's always me and then Tom, I guess. That's what was last presentation. So I have a question more of asking for clarity. When we look at the value of the houses in the market in Burlington, are we looking at pre-COVID? Because I have an understanding that due to COVID, there's been a lot of high increases of people constantly moving from out of state in state. And I know that a lot of the market is skewed right now. And I'm just concerned as it were that the assessment will be based on inflated prices that will probably go down later. Well, that's interesting. If the market is, if we're seeing a bump in the market like we did in 2008. And oddly enough, I think the last re-appraisal was in 2006. So we used data from 2005. And that was during a time when the market was increasing. And then in 2008, the market softened up values for homes dropped slightly. And condominiums, they dropped even more. But they were still right around the 2006 valuations from at that point. Right now, the market is really strong, partially because of the lack of supply available properties and the demand. And this demand began before 2016. And until we have more supply, I anticipate that the market will continue to increase. Legally, by law, we are to appraise property as of April 1 of each year. So we are taking, we are looking at putting more emphasis in current market sales, which would be the market sales from the past year during COVID. We also did what they call time adjusting. So we took sales from 2017, 18, 19. And we adjusted them for the market inflation so that we would have more sales in the sales set to use, which is very helpful for us so that when we calibrate our valuation tables, which gets applied to the unsold properties, that I think it leads to more accuracy. If the market were to take a sudden drop and significant drop, I would hopefully ask the council if we could have an approval for an adjustment to that change of market. And let's say the market decides to adjust downward 10% this coming year. I would ask the city council for a statistical adjustment and be able to adjust all properties down based on the new market values because the tables will be fresh at that point. It's just a matter of adjusting factors in the system. Any other questions? Thank you, Tom. Yeah, hi, John. Two quick questions. One is can we get a copy of your presentation that we can put in the minutes? Absolutely. I hope you do. I'd love to really want to get the word out as much as possible of what's coming down the line. I want people to exercise their rights to have their property valuation reviewed, not just the valuation, but the property data itself in front of a Tyler appraiser. We want the data to be clean as possible. Okay. If you can send me a pointer, I'll send you a quick email so you have my email. Then you can send me a pointer and then I'll put that in the minutes. Thank you. I'll do that. Second question is, I think the last time the appraisal was done, there was a fairly big shift between the total value of residences as a percentage of the total and commercial properties. I was wondering whether you have any insight as to whether it seems like commercial and the businesses down there in Church Street have really taken a hammering. Are we seeing are residences going to be a bigger chunk of the total property worth in Burlington? I think that's a good question. The answer I'm going to say is yes, the residential properties will take a bigger chunk of the tax burden based on their value. This is our system is based on value. Before this reappraisal that occurred in 2015 and 2016, we saw an inequity with apartment buildings and a few other properties. We adjusted the apartment building so that they would be on the same level as single family homes. Single family homes are the majority of properties and they drive the ratios. We made that correction and commercial property was pretty close to the single family homes and condos. Pre-COVID, I thought we were going to have more of an even adjustment, not entirely even but more even than now. Now that we have COVID, we are the adjustments for hotels and this is rightfully so statistically measured at hotels and retail and office won't have the increase in valuation that houses will have in duplexes and condos. That'll be a smaller adjustment. Okay. I see Julia, I believe your hand raised. Thanks. Thank you for the presentation. My question goes to the information that will be sent out to property owners. I'm curious if you're going to have a way to show what the tax, let's say what my tax burden was would have been under the old valuation versus the new valuation so I can get a sense of what has shifted. That's really hard to do because there's this relationship between the new valuations and the tax rate. The tax rate will be adjusted. There's a provision in the city charter that and also the state as well, the common level appraisal, that those rates are to be adjusted so that there's not a windfall of new revenue for the city. So if we have values that are say right now at 3.8 billion and this reappraisal results in a $5 billion new valuation of everybody, the tax rate is supposed to go downward equitably so that there's no new windfall of money. The thing about this is and this is the reason why we're doing this reappraisal, it is to not every property is going up or going to be a changing at the same rate because the market changes at different rates and it goes up and down and so this is a recalibration of equity really by putting the properties at their market value because this is the system that we have but the tax rate will drop. I can tell you that as values go up but that's hard to say if we go up and we use the same rate that it won't result in what your tax bill will be because it won't be what your tax bill will be. I hope I explain that well if not I can try to elaborate on that. Yeah, thank you. I see Zariah, you have your hand raised and then we'll follow that with Bob. I just wanted to apologize for anyone who hopped on at 7.30 because I misinformed on front porch forum that the Talitha consultant conversation on public safety would start at 7.30 so that will start right after this so if you did hop on and you're waiting for that, my apologies but I'm glad that you're here to hear the full NPA conversation but I did not mean to trick you. Bob, I believe your hand was raised. Sure, thanks. John, I have two questions. Our house was recently assessed. We had a flood and through the permitting process we had to make repairs and we also engaged at that same time in improvements so our valuation went up, I don't remember, $40,000 or $50,000. Will that also factor into this reassessment that's coming down the pike? That's the first question. My second question is does Airbnb, do the Airbnb population or houses, does that skew the tax burden that gets assessed on to single family homes? Thank you. I'll answer your first question and then I'll get to your second question. So the first question was you had some renovations done to your house and either someone from my office or maybe the reappraisal team, Tyler Technologies, someone came in and made an adjustment to your property for those improvements. That value was based on older tables and it also should have been based at a fair rate for pre-reappraisal valuation. The new valuation should represent what your property would sell for as of April 1st, 2021 and therefore you'll probably see an adjustment because of the reappraisal with the new improvements that were made along with the older parts of the house as well. If that answers that question, the second question is around Airbnb and how that affects valuation. Is that correct? That's difficult. I know that Airbnb should pick on Airbnb as an entity, but the short-term rental market certainly helps folks bring in money for renting a room or a suite or sometimes it's even a studio and if it's a duplex and one unit is being used as for short-term rental, our office would look at that against other duplex sales, not looking at the business model within the type of property. That makes sense. The value would be based on other sole properties that are similar and not what's actually being used in that particular property. I hope that answers your question and I'm happy to elaborate on that if you'd like. It does. Thanks very much, John. Okay. Are there any final questions? I see. Is that Mark? Do you have your hand raised? Yeah, you can go. Dude, thanks John. This is really good. I appreciate it and I'll circle back around with you offline for some other stuff, but just this one quick thing. I notice you're using the term assessment and appraisal interchangeably. I'm wondering if you could just provide some clarity on that because I've had experiences where there were two separate things. When we're talking about an appraisal, are we talking about an assessment here or are we talking about an appraisal? There's a second part of that conversation. I'd also be curious to understand how the appraiser was selected as well. The first part of the question is, unfortunately, our industry uses the two terms interchangeably and we really shouldn't, especially in Burlington, so I apologize. We are revaluating the properties and they will be the appraised values, which is typically means the value that is set based on the market, what they would sell for. The assessed part of that is the part that is taxed. There are commercial properties in Burlington that have a factor of 1.2 called the 120% factor that they get adjusted to and we call that the assessed because that's what the assessed values, what the tax rate is applied to for value. The appraised value is, just breaking the two out, is more about the valuation that is set for based on the market and what it would sell for. I hope that helps. The second part of your question, could you repeat that again? It's just a process question. I was just wondering where the appraiser came from. Oh, so we hired Tyler Technologies appraisal firm. They are basically a publicly traded software company that they have a lot of software that they sell to a lot of governments, but they have a division of reappraisal division and originally, they were the Coley or Trumbull company out of Connecticut, but they have a bigger division and they have their own valuation software. We didn't buy their software because we like the vendor that we use, but their team of appraisers are folks that do reappraisals all over the country and we hired them through a selection process. There was three other bidders for the project and we ended up choosing them partially because of their depth of knowledge. They were the folks that did the last reappraisal and they were willing to, we had somewhat of a modified contract that we wanted because we wanted more emphasis put on commercial properties as they are more complicated property to appraise and they were totally willing to do that. Some of the other vendors were not. Thank you. You're welcome. Great. Thank you. I don't see any more hands raised, but thank you, John, for coming in tonight. I think this was a really good presentation. Thank you very much and I really appreciate this. Thank you, John. So now we're going to spend the rest of the meeting on a public safety conversation. So I know we have a few really incredible folks here to lead that. So I'll step back and I don't know whoever wants to jump in first. Feel free to introduce yourself, but thank you all so much for being here. So I asked Soraya to maybe set the scene for us a little bit to talk a little bit about the process that we got to. We got to Talitha through what process. So I think that would be really helpful just to talk about the Joint Committee and the Police Commission. So if Soraya, if you could do that for us, that would be great. Yeah, I'm happy to do that. Unless Skyler, do you want me to set that up and then you how are we going to do that? Yeah, I was going to say maybe you can talk a little bit about the resolution and the Joint Committee and then I can bring in Talitha. Great. So in June of last year, we passed a resolution that did a variety of things. I'm sure most of you all are familiar. But that included starting an assessment process on public safety, who were policing, how, when, why, and also created a Joint Committee, which I'm now the chair of, which started meeting I think end of August, maybe September. And so what came out of that process is two things. We decided to separate the kind of description that we had said in terms of things to do into two different contracts. The first one we awarded to Talitha. This is to have more of that community conversation around what public safety is, what it means, and how we want to see, how we want to see it change if at all in the future. And the second contract is a more direct assessment of the Burlington Police Department, which the council passed last month and the administration is currently negotiating. So this is really meant to be the start of the more community based conversation. You all are the first NPA to start to have that conversation about what we want public safety to look like in Burlington going forward. And I'm happy to take any questions on that. And if not, I'll hand it off to Skylar. I know there's a lot of people in, but I didn't think I saw any hands up. So I'll just jump in really quickly and introduce myself. I'm Skylar Nash. I work in the racial equity inclusion and belonging department. I'm also a member of Ward 8. I live right by the Fletcher Free Library. So I'm the project manager for the Talitha project. And like Councillor Hightower said, we brought in Talitha to assist the facilitation of an inclusive and equitable community visioning and input process around public safety. Basically, we want to expand this conversation that we're having around what makes our community safe, who are playing these roles and how can we do a better job of it. And so far, we've had two workshops with community stakeholders, which I know that the Talitha team is going to jump into for you all and summarizing that. But I think it's really important that we bring them and connect them to the NPAs, kind of being really the backbones of community involvement here in Burlington. And so we hope that this is the beginning, not just to be all end all of expanding this conversation that is kind of centered mainly around policing. And I just want to make that clear that this is not just to focus strictly on policing. This is to expand this conversation to the totality of public safety and what that means. And that goes a lot farther beyond policing. So we've been working with Talitha now for a few months, and they've proved to be fantastic partners. And I'm really excited to be able to be here with them and start this conversation with you all. Fantastic intro. Oh my goodness. Okay, so folks, my name is Keras. All the Hs in my name are useless. I had to, so Keras. And I want, if you could, I would like for my team to unmute themselves. And then for the participants, if you click on the upper right hand corner, go to speaker view. So that way the person who's speaking will be the, will get spotlighted. Okay, so my name is Keras. And I can just say hi, and where you are zooming from. I'm Karima Edwards. I'm the project manager with Talitha Consult. And I am zooming from, zooming from Winter Haven, Florida. And hi, my name is Tiffany Pertiller. And I am a consultant with Talitha Consult. And I am zooming from Savannah, Georgia. And I also have a colleague, Leith Eliza, Hippie Robinson, who is, cannot turn on the video at the very moment because she has a little two-year-old who just came back from daycare. And it's only five p.m. here in our state. Both Eliza and I are here in Washington state. But Eliza is in Bellingham, Washington, which is just 30 minutes away from Canada. So as you can see, we are, I would say kick butt, lady bosses from all over the United States. And I just want to tell you that I had to go to my room and grab this button. Who recognized this button? Raise your hand. Bob, Jay, Sophie. Okay. Anybody wants to sing the little song? All right, Kathy, do you want to do it? Are you talking to me? Yeah. Oh, God, I can't sing. You don't want me to sing. Okay. Okay. If the button is not revealing enough, who recognizes this? Yes. Two thumbs up. Yes, Skyler. You know, I had to do it. I did not grow up in the United States. I learned about Mr. Rogers three years ago on a plane. And because it was the documentary that came out. And then people, I'm learning everything backwards in the US. And I learned about this show that he had. And I was like, Oh my God, I wish I could up watching this. And so after that, I got really into it. And long to make the long story short, I bought this little journal for my spouse, for my spouse, but guess who's been using it more? I want to read something. Neighbors are people who are close to us and close to our hearts. Some people think that friends are always happy, always having fun. Well, it's not true. Friends often have hard times and sad times. But friends can come together again and again, and build a stronger and stronger friendship between each other. May those words flash over you. And I will tell you that we are so grateful to be here. I get a privilege to get to know Burlington through the workshop that Skyler was talking about key stakeholder workshop. And the more I get to know each and every one of you in different parts of the elements, I have fallen in love with Burlington, I must say. And this is the first word that I've been invited to. And Karima and Tiffany and Liza can attest to this, too. We feel welcome every time we enter into the public discourse place. Friends don't always agree. Neighbors don't always agree. Burlington has gone through much. As a nation, we've gone through election, we've gone through pandemic, still going through it. And as a city, all of you just had an election as well. And amidst all that, we have gathered together. So thank you for having us. I would like to share my screen and I want to tell my team we are on a webinar mode, therefore there is no breakout. So we'll have to adapt. With that, I am going to share my screen to show each of you the process that we have done so far. So you'll be looking at my computer for a little bit. And Carol, if you could tell me what you see right now on the screen. I see agenda overview, let the community speak. Perfect. When are we here? Okay. So we are using this little tool, call the mural. Okay, let me back up and say, I do grieve that our team cannot be with you in person. I want to thank Liam for giving me a quick rundown of what NPAs are doing. And Liam, thank you for the time spent today to just give me a heads up. And also, I also learned that sometimes there's dinner at NPA meetings. And oh, man, I was like, Liam, come on, man, I'm missing out on dinner too. So I don't want to get too cozy with COVID. But this is the best we can do as far as sharing screen and whatnot. Okay. So here we are tonight, we're going to talk a little bit to just do level setting. And then we're going to have you speak so we can hear from you about your visions and values for what it means to have a community to build a healthier and safer community. Okay. So again, the agenda is going to be shifted a little bit. And we know that we have 45 minutes. The roles facilitators are to leave a team with Karima, Tiffany, and Liza meeting participants, they are you. This is the participatory planning. Okay. Openly share your input and listen to the input shared by others. If I could have, I'm just going to randomly call on people and sometimes that's not the most caring. So I'm just going to pick on elected officials. So if I could have a Jack and you himself and read through the agreements for me, that would be much appreciated. Yeah, I'd be happy to. Thanks. So agreements seek first to understand then be understood. Pay attention to how your words may impact others and how you make meaning of what others say to you. Recognize that we all carry wisdom. Value the process. Value shared humor. Allow yourself to listen deeply. Thank you, John. If anybody has any concern about what we agree to do in the next 40 minutes. Are these agreements? Let me stop my screen for a second. Are these agreements okay for each of you? If I don't see a hand, we're going to keep the process going. I'm seeing head nods, right? I shared humor is good for me because I, I like to laugh and you've seen me. I am a super expressive person. So, okay. Also, I would like to say that the goals, right? Where are the goals? And here we are when I say why we are here and the we here is to lead the team. Okay. And again, it's to begin the inquiry into the question of how to build a healthy and safe community and what institutions are required to reach that goal. And that is not something we concocted it as a team. It is part of the contract and the request for proposal that we responded. Okay. And then there is a second portion to it. But today's meeting is specifically to have a posture of inquiry. At the end of the day, you all carry more wisdom than any to lead the team combined. Just look at the room, right? There's a lot more of you than more of us. Your collective wisdom, it's what's really going to make this process really rich. Now, I'm going to show you where we are on the process. So, we have a graphic facilitator by the name of Sarah Wilson who was not here today. We try not to bring all the team at all time. We just bring targeted expertise and Tiffany is here and she is an expert in public health. So, I can't wait for Karen and Tiffany to connect too. So, this is the process, right? We started off with meeting the joint committee. People are kind of leaning in. So, I'm going to make it a little bigger, okay? So, started off meeting the joint committee on February 1st. And then we hosted two workshops with key stakeholders. And it's so funny. One time I used the word stakeholder and my little nephew who was 18 was like, so do they just like eat steak all the time? No, it's people who have a steak in it. I know there aren't any, most of you know what stakeholders are. But so, people who have vested interests, right? So, many of them are a nonprofit agency or community-based organization and some unaffiliated folks who also showed up. We had about 26 people who showed up. And Cremal, please correct me if I'm wrong. And so, we have gathered their needs, gaps, expressions, right? Strengths like the SWAT team, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threat type of thing. And then here we are, we're doing another breakout. So, you can see, we are kind of right here. You guys are also, right, with vested interests. So, we are also doing a similar process that we did with the case, key stakeholders, with all the NPAs. But of course, Ward 1 and 8 has amazing leaders who got on our calendar right away. So, give it up to Carol and Aden, right? So, we are coming here first. And then after that, working with Skyler, and sorting out stuff. And it's more like science and art, not so much science only. After all the juggling of calendar, we will also do a public survey that will go out. That's when I really want to ask all of you, won't you be my neighbor and start spreading the word about the public survey? Again, I grieve that there is COVID happening. If it wasn't for COVID, public survey would be very active, not so passive. So, we'll be creative about how to make public survey portion of it very active. So, here we are, host four neighborhood online open houses. And that's NPAs. And then we will do data analysis earlier, John. And also, I think the person who had the cross cut presentation, Bob, I think, talked about synthesis and report and analysis, public discourse discussion. Also, we also use qualitative and quantitative data analysis. After we go through that, we will have key learnings, right? We will, themes will emerge out of it. And then we will be presenting an output. Again, earlier today, Liam and I have this conversation. We are not delivering outcomes. And I'm going to stop sharing my screen because I really want everybody to hear. Talitha, it's not in the business of going around the cities and providing outcomes. And I want to make it very clear. We will have an output of the process, which is key learnings drawn from the voices, visions, and values and worries and, you know, concerns from the community. And we will be metized. And we will present this is what your community from different parts of the city is telling you. And of course, we'll present it to the joint committee members. And that synthesis report will be called equitable engagement and participation initiative, EEPI. That is our output. All right? Are we cool? And we are not doing study on top of study, Kathy. So be at peace. Okay. I just have to pick on Kathy. Okay, there's no study on top of study. Once we have the initiative handed to you, you know who has the power to make an outcome of reality? You. Each of you. All right? So with that, I am kind of tired of listening to my own voice. I'm going to bring up Karima to ask the first question. And hey, there's a lot of us. So I'm also going to ask our fabulous facilitator, Hannah, to call on people who wants to talk. And I'm a very strict facilitator in terms of, hey, you've talked already. Can you have someone else talk? I'll do that too. Okay? So don't take it personally, but it's also a little personal. So just be very generous and forgiving. Okay? Because we want people to have a say. And with that, I'm going to pull up the screen and Karima, will you be so kind to read the first question? And Hannah, pay attention to the hands going up and then line them up for us. Okay, Hannah? I know it's super small. I will zoom it out. Let's go. So I think CARES framed it really well. This is all about what a healthy and safe, your vision for a healthy and safe community. So the first part is, what does a healthy community mean to you? So the first hand that I see up is Anne. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Hi, Anne. Hi. I don't have a direct response to that question. I have a pre-prepared statement. My name is Anne Brenna. I live in Ward 8, and I have a statement from a group of us residents living in Ward 8 in Burlington who would like to respond to the request on Front Porch Forum to offer import regarding police force restructuring and community safety. Recognizing the need for police reform and also recognizing the challenges of work as a police officer and the need for an adequately staffed police force, we are not in favor of quote defunding the police without a plan in place. Fewer police will not necessarily translate into better policing with less racial bias that some current responsibilities of the police department could be performed by non-police staff is not in dispute. But the number of armed officers should be determined by a non-partisan group with consideration to the data and statistics and with community safety as a top priority. We will all likely still be residents here for many years after these changes take place and we are invested in the safety of the Burlington community signed Anne Brenna, Bill Church, Bradley Street, Gabrielle and Mike Sealy, South Union Street, Deborah Roseman, South Union Street, Maddie and James Pulsig, Hungerford Terrace. Thank you. Thank you for that Anne. I'm going to be the Tom of the Tom was the minute keeper right for the NPA and I'm the note taker for Talitha. So would you be so kind Anne to send that statement to Tom so that we can actually put that in our mural because I don't want to do the injustice of just taking bits and pieces of the statement. I see Julia has their hand raised. Hi Julia. Hi, thank you. So on the question of a healthy community what it means to me really is that all the members of our community can get both their emotion, their material and their emotional and spiritual basic needs met so that people don't feel that they are, you know, that basically we have to fight each other for our survival security. Yeah that's what I would say at Healthy Communities. Thank you. Next is Earhard followed by Sophie A. Hi Earhard. Hi thanks. So just elaborating a little bit on what Julia said. This will not come as a big surprise to people who know me. One of the components of a healthy community is safe, decent and affordable, stable housing for everybody. Our entire community that thrive needs and to feel safe needs to have people stably housed in places that they feel comfortable in and that feel like home. Thank you. Sophie A now. Hi Sophie. Hello. I think that a healthy community is one in which community members are looking out for each other and taking care of each other and I think part of that means centering community members that may be marginalized or facing systematic barriers. Thank you Sophie. I'm seeing no other hands raised right now. Carol just put their hand up. Taking a page out of Earhard's book as a teacher I would say that it's important to get all of us our educators and learners about one another, about our cultures, about what the cultures of our community members are and also how does our community work? I mean I feel like I don't know a lot about how public safety is provided in our city for example and as an active member and important member of the community I think I need to take responsibility for that. Thank you Carol. I see Jane followed by I believe Cheryl had their hand raised. Thanks. Yeah I think a healthy community is a place that promotes mental health and talks about it and destigmatizes mental health struggles and issues. Carol, I believe your hand was raised. You're muted. Hi, I want to pick up on what Sophie was saying about ways of engaging each other and so recently Peter and I worked with the group called Food Not Bombs that are cooking and serving food every day at one o'clock to whoever comes by and needs it and so we cooked and we weren't actually on the street to see that happening but the idea is it's solidarity, it's not about charity and I think food is one way that we really engage each other. I also think about things like open streets where streets are closed down North Street for example and some bisecting streets and what real fun it was to be able to be engaged with each other in something like that. So I think it's also important and this was a phrase actually that Keras used which I'll borrow that the engagement is equitable and that the initiatives are also equitable and I would say accessible. Thanks. Thank you and Keras it's Food Not Bombs just there you go. Thanks. Thank you. Jack followed by Brooke for speaking order. Well I love these I I agree and resonate with with a lot of what's been said and one angle that I would add is a healthy and safe environment as well being part of it so clean drinking water for all and clean air clean soils a healthy lake you know outdoor spaces to be in just environmental health. Now Brooke I believe your hand was raised. Hi yeah I think part of what a healthy community looks like to me is one that engages in community care and has a commitment to ensuring that everyone's everyone within the community has an opportunity for their voices to be heard and their needs to be met and just a commitment to equitable access to opportunity and resources. Thanks. I don't believe anyone else has their hand raised right now. I know that I'm muted and Karima will you Tiffany will you take on the next question for the safety and I just quickly realize you know you're the health expert and here I am but the truth of the matter is where is my cross-section person Mr. Cowley will say the intersection of safety and health is kind of hard to just dissect right because we live in a world where things and issues are interconnected so I want to encourage each of you who are sharing your ideas to be a little more specific so for example access to equitable opportunities spell it out education came through 12 preschool that would be very helpful again you're speaking from your heart and your mind and through your experiences everyone every idea is welcome Tiffany has her hand raised yeah yeah I just quickly wanted to say Karis you're doing such an amazing job doing this with so many people if somehow it would help if we have a longer session if we had a second zoom line if you did want to do two breakout groups let me know but other than that you're doing great and I'll keep letting you improve us awesome um thank you so the next question we're going to ask you and as karis just said there is a a beautiful intersection between a safe community and a healthy community so maybe some of your thing your responses will be similar but here we would like to open up the opportunity for you to tell us what does a safe community mean to you see Daniel has their hand raised hey guys so what a safe community means to me is accountability and specifically police accountability I think there should be an independent board with disciplinary and investigatory oversight over the police and specifically the police department shouldn't have so much power over what goes on in there so I guess another thing that goes along with that is transparency good response thank you Daniel Sarah's hand is up as well I think that a lot of what's been said is uh very important and resonates with me too I totally agree with Dan um I think health and safety are definitely super intertwined and um you know accountability is very important I think that a safe community can only be truly safe when there is no discrimination on who is being disciplined and I know that in Burlington um around a quarter of times officers have used force have been with black residents whereas black residents make up around like five or six percent of the population of the city so I think that that is something that's really important to work on um and you know I yeah I think that police should be held accountable um and not the community would be the ideal group of people to do that thank you Sarah Auden followed by David thanks so much um yeah my name is David I'm resonating a lot with what I've been hearing um I think that you know in thinking about a safe community um and I'll try not to go on for too long um but I think that we need a real systemic analysis um and to center solutions that are you know genuinely rooted in transferring power and resources uh to the communities themselves um that we have been policing and so I I think that the model of addressing sort of this inevitable tension and conflict that does arise from you know the crippling wealth inequality and class antagonism that defines our society um along with the of course systemic oppression of BIPOC communities through basically violent repression vis-a-vis the policing system I think it's you know it's an outdated mandate solution um which is both inhumane and you know further entrenched and continues a deeply white supremacist history so um for the time being I think that it's crucially important that we continue to move in the direction of defunding police or at the very least not increasing the cap on Burlington police um I believe that we already have more police per capita than the national average here in Burlington um and secondly creating some basic democratic accountability um of our policing system through um community control of policing like Dan was talking about with disciplinary and investigatory oversight that is independent of the police department um yeah that's all for now um thanks so much for the chance to speak thank you David I was going to say um my name is Aaron and for me I would say a safe community would be that our BIPOC neighbors are able to walk outside freely without being seen as a target or threat and um BIPOC parents and guardians can sleep at night knowing that their children are safe walking and doing their daily routines thank you so much anyone else that wants to speak okay I guess we'll go Julia followed by Erhard thank you um I want to build on a lot of the points that were made about accountability um to say that really to have a safe community we need to transform our culture um and to and to unlearn the culture of white supremacy and that includes um learning learning new behaviors ways of communicating and ways of seeing ourselves in each other so there's a lot of cultural work um and sort of um personal work that needs to happen for people who are willing to do that so I would love to see resources that would help us learn caring mutual accountability as community members right it's not enough to hold up the police as needing to be accountable because essentially the police are kind of the you know spear end of our culture of white supremacy which were you know which which almost all of us are caring to different degrees so having resources available to the community around trauma healing around transformative justice um learning ways of of holding each other more directly accountable person to person um but in a you know in a way that doesn't just create more harm thank you Julia so Erhard then Zariah followed by Sophie thanks um just maybe to amplify a little bit of what Odin said you know um I would say to me a safe community is a community where a young black man uh who goes out with some friends on a Friday night downtown doesn't need to be worried about getting attacked by the police and ending up with a traumatic brain injury to me it means someone with a mental illness who may get somewhat agitated should not have to worry about ending up either injured or possibly dead as has happened in the city of Burlington to me those are you know very real real things and as a father of a young african-american man I who grew up in Burlington I was forever worried he was targeted by the police number of times along with his friends and the safe community to me is one in which a parent doesn't have to worry um about their kids getting uh targeted by the police uh or or worried about their safety thank you now Zariah followed by Sophie yeah I think a safe community is one where we don't wait until a moment of crisis to deal with a problem um and that mental health doesn't need to become a crisis and um domestic situations don't need to become a crisis but where we can start to to work on the kind of underlying problems as opposed to just try to meet a crisis or have a punitive system after a crisis happens thank you Sophie you're up hi um I think a safe community also includes resources for folks with substance abuse disorders um such as like a needle exchange program and safe usage sites I think that's very important I don't believe any other hands are up Jonathan hand just went up thank you I'm sorry I don't know how to make my hand raise um and this is going to sound very pedestrian after some all the all the really articulate things that people have said but again I'm speaking for my neighbor Jared Wood who who wanted to make a little input here um and that is the uh a safe community is a community where pedestrians can cross the street without fear of getting hit by cars um and he told me the story that happened last week where he or a car did not stop at an intersection which is not an unusual thing that happens in this neighborhood um and he was nearly hit the driver of the car got out of the car grabbed him and started yelling at him for being on the street so a safe community is a community where a pedestrian can cross the street safely as well thank you Odin's hand is up I was just gonna add um a safe community uh would mean that folks that have arrived from other countries are um former refugee and immigrant communities feel like they belong and uh they're not shunned out just because of uh their language uh proficiency or uh being of a different culture so in a safe community it would mean that they would feel like they belong and that their voices matter okay now I really don't see any other hands raised right now Jonathan oh Jonathan the lovely person with Jonathan is future and I think a safe community well one can't help but observe that most of the faces at this gathering are white and I think that a safe community is one where faces who are not white for example Odin can speak up and um be listened to because we can we I speak of myself as a white woman I can learn all kinds of things and I can talk about it but I have not walked in those shoes except as a woman as you know as a woman I am vulnerable um and of course a safe community is one where all women could walk around and not have to feel vulnerable but a safe community is one where all kinds of people feel like they have representation and that they can speak up and that we will all hear each other and be respectful thank you okay I don't see any hands Karis I'll turn it back over to you everybody feeling how how is how is this process are you tense in your shoulder or you feel like oh can someone just unmute and yeah Jane you have yourself let me bit yeah um I love hearing from people I don't typically get to hear from so this is really nice and yeah I feel like we're very much listening to each other at least more so so and um I want to say that we are embodying what we the world that we want to live in right not perfect but look at us even with the zoom muting a muting fiasco we are listening in with an open heart hopefully and with an open mind the next section and I know that we are time is near to an end but just like Zariah said this is and Skyler said this is not be all and all right it's a process it's an initiative so there will be times for you to come back in fact I'm gonna do a little plug-in to not June my brain is already in the summer I live in the Pacific Northwest so like summer please come so on May March 15th next Monday there will be a joint committee meeting at a counselor high tower please help me out um 6 p.m. joint committee meeting yes 5 30 5 30 okay so all of you are welcome and and to lead this team is going to present some of the learnings and someone said about accountability transparency and then and the very first person who submitted the statement talked about data informed decision making and so we are going to present the analysis key learnings from deliberations that we have been in okay you are absolutely right my dear um uh chapel circles screen that you know hey look uh there are a lot of you know uh particular race being represented more than others but those are also voices right and so we are capturing that and so please come and listen and all these documents are gonna be public documents so for the very last part um I don't know how it's gonna work as uh Liam can you make for people to do comment not question or just to be able to type in a chat box where they can be keyboard captains at the moment we don't have that um and since the meeting has already started I can't set it up go back so what I'm going to do is I'm going to share a screen yes there is one option maybe if everybody if we moved everybody to attendees we could type it into the q and a if you needed it yes I needed it yes yes yes yes yes yes I can move I can move everybody into the attendees for do you want like a set period of time and then move them back great I'll go ahead and do that give me one second because there's a lot of things the covid is teaching us so many things I don't want to get too cozy I'll tell you that I'd rather be in person wow we still have 41 people gosh this is incredible it's a beautiful day in the neighborhood hang in there my friends they're almost there and I think actually any of the co-hosts that are with me they can also do this yeah I'm going through if you just click the little three dots like Carol Jonathan then you can change um folks two attendees oh I see all right I'm I'm not gonna do it I I'm just I know enough to be dangerous so you're doing a great job Liam thank you very much thank you I'm gonna keep Tom Tom you are recording this I know um so I'm gonna keep you up here if that's okay with you uh and any of the Talitha members do you want to also go to the attendees or oh yeah Liam I need to be there perfect Karis no she won't be able to talk Karis no she won't be able to talk answer live that's fine I won't be able to talk that's fine just so answer so type answer and anybody yeah like you can type your answer into the q&a or like a question but you can also raise your hand and I can allow you to talk if you okay so can you allow me to talk you are still give me one second you are still an attendee or you're still a person so I'm gonna put you into it then and then when I see you allowed to talk okay Karis you should be good to do perfect all right friends so the question I have and yes I saw a comment uh linked to the public joint committee I'm gonna have uh Carol send that out once that is up on the uh gosh board dogs or whatever the city calendar right now for the time being folks I would like for you to answer this question and I will repeat the question twice what needs are you filling in your community so as you as an individual you can answer that you as a participant of the NPA or different positionalities that you're in earlier uh one participant said they go and feed the neighbors right they cook why don't you just put in the chat box what needs are you personally and also through your association with different groups filling in your community can you repeat the question please absolutely and I put it in the chat too what needs there's no chat oh okay what needs are you filling in your community I put it in the question and answer box thank you I'm going to allow everyone to be able so that we're going to do this a little bit it's kind of all over the place folks but bear with us you should be able to view all the questions um if you can just like raise your hand if you can't just raise your hand and let me know I can see my own question no problem what needs are you filling in your community someone said I work for safety on the streets that's great earlier someone by the name of Karen talks about working for health trust another person talking about um doing safe studies perfect answers are coming in I participate in food not bombs okay that's it food not bombs I help share food Carol Livingston I don't know why you're not typing in you are also convening conversations like this right yeah I totally picked on you Carol perfect any others mutual aid support perfect all right so let me also ask another question what needs are still unmet right another way of asking is what needs still need to be filled in the community what needs are still needing to be filled in the community so earlier someone mentioned about safe affordable accessible housing social emotional support training tools and materials things like that Kathy said I'm on the school board I serve on two different boards I work on mutual aid support so within those roles Kathy perhaps elaborate on that what needs are still unmet mental health support age and place support save an affordable housing save stable affordable housing co-housing an intentional community oh my god I love that we're intentional watching out for each other psychological safety and community and if you're not typing feel free to scroll through and look at the answers from your neighbor food security a community without domestic violence excellent all right folks I have even gone 45 not 45 minutes over I have even gone four minutes over I see Julia saying healing and trauma these are all valuable insights and with that I don't know how we can reconvene back to seeing each other faces and I'm not going to do that anymore uh but that I will go we'll just want to tell you there is a sign-up little thing that I will share with you if you want to stay engaged and informed uh with the process and the milestones for this um okay so I think I cut you off as you were getting promoted to a panelist no problem so I just want to put a link in the in the q and a section where people can sign up to receive eblast eblast is when you get like a notification saying these are the milestones of the initiative I'm going to put that link and again all the documents we submit to the joint committee I can put you back in the attendees list if you want me to so you can add it to the q and a okay yeah sure uh let me just finish my thought all the documents we submit to the joint committee it's public records so they should be on board docs right but this is an additional layer it's us over communicating because this is such an important close to the heart topic okay she's here this is carol you actually have 10 more minutes oh okay then how do you want to spend the 10 more minutes everybody tell me questions I am open to question and answer um my colleagues are still here why don't we do question and answer okay and everybody back into the meeting um um air with me for a second and I'm gonna make you a co-host Tom I do see your hand up um so before let's let's give a moment for Liam to bring everybody back in Tom is that an old hand or a current hand it's a new hand a new hand okay I see you everybody's back in I really have a question a quick question for Liam and that's whether the question and answers will be able to get from this zoom meeting electronically I've screenshotted them and I'm gonna like type them all up so they'll be available for everybody okay this is how you applaud someone for the asl community let's give Liam a round of applause oh my goodness excellent all right any other questions and Julia and then Carol how is the University of Vermont gonna be involved in the consulting about you know reimagining public safety I see that they're stakeholder and or I'd imagine that they are and specifically there's two sort of like public safety departments it's not only the burlington police department but the uvm police service also provides another layer on campus and now since they also have statewide authority I think it's important that they be considered as well and I'm going to tell you Daniel that we're going to be coming to you and we're going to be picking your brain and say hey Daniel do you have an idea how we can involve um v so Karima and I will be reaching out to you if you don't mind and I hear you it is a we would call in the planning environment an anchor anchor institution so Daniel please give us give us your info okay I believe Zariah was gonna come in as well Zariah did you have anything to add yeah I just wanted to jump in um and I'm glad Harris gave that answer before I could but yeah that in terms of police department remember we are doing a second assessment that will be focused just on that aspect of it so um they will also definitely that part of it will definitely be included in kind of an assessment and a second assessment Hannah who's next I see Julia followed by Carol thank you um I guess I have two questions one you know the needs that we've identified are deep um they are certainly deeper than any one city can meet so I'm curious to know um whether the the scope of this work can include um at least in at least a statewide effort you know or point in the direction of how we could build a statewide coalition for these shifts and the other question was I know there's a lot of interesting work being done in in different parts of the country around abolitionism and transformative justice and I'm just wondering if it's part of the work plan to um to research those and draw on this thank you it so so um my positionality I want to state that um I don't represent the state of Vermont having said that I do consult nationally and so while it is so deep so real the needs that you all have articulated I will also say that just like our famous poet Maya Angelusa we are so much alike as well because our needs are also very similar across the nation so um in our EEPI that would be if the S that's the aspiration that we are learning from the community that's what's going to get put in the initiative recommendation okay so uh let's make sure Karima and my team that we put that in as part of the comment. Harris I'd also just jump in there really quickly and say I hope that people remember that you know the work that Talitha's doing is really a part of this very large picture of work that is going into reimagining uh public safety charting a course for the city going forward in addition to the work Talitha's doing we also have a consultant that's working on a strategic plan for racial equity for the city for the next three years that is certainly going to inform this work and then Talitha's work will then inform that operational assessment specifically on the police department that I think will get more to the nuts and bolts about you know national best practices the relationships between police departments whether it be BPD and UVM police I know that I sit on the social equity caucus you know at a statewide level and so I'm always able to be in touch with legislators and keep them up to date on the work that we're doing here in Burlington so just that this is one small piece of this larger system that's going to be taking shape. We have three minutes left I think so Carol um just really quickly um the the meeting on Monday um the NPA meetings forthcoming um what what are next steps that we might put our energy into? Yeah so the the sorry do you want me to yeah um feel free Carol if you want to give a summary of what you'll be going over on the joint committee but the joint committee is really um right now I guess overseeing these processes we have managers kind of that are city staff like Skyler and TPD for that second assessment and so it's a good way if you want to join to um have some feedback on suggestions in terms of like you know Carol like you did in terms of like hey are you including this group have you talked to this group it's a good data I guess a good place to come and give those suggestions and any feedback um it is going to be a multi-month process we meet about every three weeks um and I'll try to be better on posting on front porch forum when those meetings are but so that's kind of the joint committee process is both giving some input back to Talitha and then to the next consultant which is CNA um on the if you're more interested in specifically the policing conversation. Great thank you. I see no other hands. For my end I just want to tell everybody to go in peace and thank you for welcoming us and sharing your voices. Thank you Talitha so much this was wonderful. Thanks everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks everyone. Thank you all. Stay safe. Bye everybody. Thank you. Thanks everyone. Thank you Liam. Thank you Liam. Bye everybody. Good night.