 and justice for all okay second item of business is instructions on exiting the building in case of emergency whoops oh I'm sorry so that's me so for those of you in the building there's an emergency you can go out either door at the back of the auditorium turn left or right and proceed to the main exits for those of you joining us virtually thank you for being here we will be monitoring the chat in case you want to be heard by the council please indicate your interest in speaking in the chat and we will call on you and you can unmute and turn your camera on and speak directly to the council we will not be monitoring the chat for content thank you all ready next item is the agenda review are there any additions deletions or changes in order of agenda items okay seeing none comments and questions from the public not related to the agenda yes please Monica up to be and just make sure the green light is on please thank you you can take your mask off while you're speaking clear um having a hard time getting my thoughts together I'm really upset I just came across something in the other paper that I just got today so I haven't really gotten through all my thoughts but I had to come in and say something coming into request that the city council reconsider the name of the South Parlington Senior Center and name it in honor of Jennifer Coakman Jennifer Coakman passed June 11th of last year and I am one of the community members who reached out privately to ask you to consider honoring her because she was so committed to making that senior center in this building become what it is I learned that there were other plans in place that was June 11th that she passed I have stacked to give Jesse when I'm done here but June 17th Kevin Dorn sent an opinion letter into the other paper that was extremely irresponsible disrespectful discriminatory and it caused a opinion piece back from the board on genre board chair of the school board on June 24th which said as a white man in a position of power in a majority white community Dorn deemed it appropriate to try to discredit a woman of color Dr. Travia Childs a school board member when she had the courage to give voice to concerns of students and families of color in our community regarding police in our schools the point is his opinion piece was factually incorrect and targeted very inappropriately that was very upsetting and upon reading it I again contacted certain members of the city council and asked you to please reconsider honoring Kevin Dorn by naming a room after him and I get this week's paper and I'm finding that again Mr. Dorn in the repeat offender Andrew Johnson's case is quoted in the paper sorry he's not quoted because he refused to respond but he's written in the paper as in this Dorn for which the city's new senior center is named is called out in the complaint for allegedly ignoring the evidence of sexual assault in the investigation report and failing to notify the criminal justice training council and permitting Johnson to stay on paid leave for four months before resigning without discipline Dorn did not respond to a quest request for comment I I said I I'm just sharing more of the past I wasn't able to get my thoughts fully together on this but you can tell this is very upsetting to like you yet another and let me say in the very powerfully written June 24th opinion piece backed by the board she did close it by saying I hope that the incoming city manager will be willing to partner with the school district to do the work necessary to make our community welcoming to all the name on that senior center was not welcoming to all and I officially ask you to please consider renaming the senior center in honor of Jennifer Cokman and can I approach to give this to you Jesse it's a whole stack of historical articles that thank you very much are there any other comments from the public not on the agenda okay seeing none we'll move on to announcements and the city managers report start with Tom announcements I was just thinking of one thing I'd comment and I don't mean to put the city manager on the spot so no need to react but I was on pedestrian Wilson Road today from Dorset Street to Heinzburg and that sidewalk is just in terrible disrepair that I know that we have the the possible project with the Tiff but I'm just wondering if there's anything that we can do to maybe in Burlington I see they sometimes and do some patchwork but I mean it is just treacherous and I don't know it doesn't shine well on us and city of South Burlington Wilson Road Shelburne Road I've walked many a time and I just feel like the sidewalks are a little bit better maintained and that stretch just is in dire need of some tender loving care and I just offer that opinion I'll just add on that Airport Parkway and Airport Drive sidewalks could also use some attention if we're going to talk I brought sidewalks up earlier I don't know the cost because we are going to start the Wilson Road project is it next year or is it starting this year I can't we still need to bond for it we still need to bond for it okay all right but the the vote would be this year or early next year the vote would either be November or town meeting day next right right okay we do have engineering underway for it for Wilson Road okay thank you all right man nothing to report I do have some very positive news in the councilor's committee assignments later on oh oh you're making us wait oh right Tim yeah so on Wednesday March 9th the the CCRPC will be hosting a public hearing on the Queen City Park bike pad connection work with their proposals that's online remote I don't have a link for you here but I'm sure you could just Google that and find it if you need if somebody needs it let me know and I'll find it for you it's also I think in one of the agenda it's it's in our email there's probably a link to it also it's pothole time yeah so I urge everybody to approach water-filled holes in the highway cautiously and this could be an opportunity to go out and patch a few things before because all the water melts and runs any like oh that's just a boom oh that's a $200 alloy rim repair and a blowout tire so there's some nice coverage I don't know if that you're responsible and CX about that connection about the bike pedestrian connection on CX was there yeah yeah I did see that yeah they did they did a little drone flyover too right which was kind of nice yeah that's all I have thank you I don't have anything to report I have quite a few things to report so bear with me for just a few minutes as I was starting with our COVID numbers we had 28 cases last week reported to VDH that is few fewer or a few more than our cases the previous week so we're maintaining at about a 1% increase a week Paul and I did want to give you an update on land development regulations as you may know the Planning Commission has warned and the next public hearing for land development regulations updates for March 22nd and then assuming they move something forward that will come to you likely in April so this is based on the conversation about the full LDR package you previously had they heard a lot of interest from the council around a generic PUD option and really have prioritized that and done yeoman's work to move that proposal forward to you so this would establish the new general PUD to accompany the conservation PUD and traditional neighborhood PUD that were previously adopted and allow for those to be available anywhere in the city and be available for those where the others to are not in place and be available to those that are already under permit to ease that review so many more and they also with this proposal or bring forward to you a slight amendment to the existing site amenities that are required on site which is kind of a additional thing they had hoped to do with the LDRs so much more to come to you we were gonna we're thinking about doing a full presentation on that tonight but since you'll see it at least two more times we just want to give you that quick update and teaser in city updates you'll see more about that just a reminder to the community that final tax installments are due on the 15th thank you very much and the city clerk is in there last three weeks of registering dogs and cats last year we broke all records for registering dogs and cats and we are actually ahead of our our rate where we were last year wow so the word is percolating now she's putting it out email and yeah it's good she's doing great job that's without the police letter that's without the police letter right so that's good we received last week our latest local options tax allotments so this is the holiday period from mid November to beginning of February we are ahead of budget per what we budget in FY 22 if the trends continued for the rate we receive received last year for the remaining remainder of this year we will have a surplus in that budget line at the end of FY 22 and we'll continue a similar surplus through FY 23 assuming rates continue to stay because we budgeted relatively conservatively for that in 2023 so great news for our economy that things are continuing to come back we just heard today from v-trans that they are intending to pave route 7 from charlotte to the 189 line this summer and next summer so that's shellburn road for that's a huge a road in our city likely over two summers there are probably some sidewalks on route 7 that could use some attention but yeah so much more to come on that but I just want to give you a heads up that we may start seeing communication from v-trans on that I have a question Jesse is the design open for change like having a median strip or something to make it a little more pedestrian friendly so if we want to pause this we could ask the state to consider that but when they do this paving program on class 1 highways it's solely repaving they don't they don't adjust the the curb lines they just shim code the top and then repave it and I'm sorry we don't I don't want to draw yeah I'm not here to say I'm gonna put a wrench in the works but if it's just I'd like to know if you know we we're making the lanes a little bit narrower to ensure that or give drivers a reason to drive more slowly so if there is a way just to have narrower lanes and and just have a foot or two of median strip what I would love to know if that could be added afterwards or I would think it should be done at the same time what the process would be I don't want to put a wrench in the works because I know that potholes are our priority but I it's it's really not pedestrian friendly and that won't be repaved then for 10 20 years right on a stay highway like that probably closer to 10 but yes unless we did a streetscape improvement project the way we're doing on wellston road or something else so I can explore that that I mean that could also be a striping solution that doesn't require the curb line moving right so there may be options there so are you proposing the fog line be drawn closer to the middle on both sides to give a little bit more room to bikers that's a potential of a possibility I just don't know the other possibility was having it down you know just like our Dorset Dorset Street having having a median and there could actually they do this in Europe they have bike and I know that we're thinking about it for Williston Road over 189 having the bikes go on that median which is the problem is when you hit the old UNOS that's when the bike lanes disappear when you're going north right and then you have like basically this from the fog line to the granite curb it's about that wide it's really it's really narrow and there's no right it's just a sidewalk on the edges it's not bike friendly at all they do the striping though the transportation so we would have to so there's opportunity to agree to make the lanes 10 feet instead of 12 narrower and then have that's four extra feet I mean four extra feet is a lot yeah if they even have an extra foot it would be nice because it's I suspect it's a state highway and they will ignore whatever we say but it doesn't mean it's just they're just gonna shim it right as opposed to what they did on Williston Road right from the old Earl's all the way back to Taft Corner almost right they actually you know designed in very wide bike lanes that were integrated with the turns and things like that with the green coloring and stuff and but that was all engineered that which isn't wasn't just a and they dug up the highway and actually rebuilt it from scratch it wasn't just a shim so are they just putting a surface coating or are they actually going to grind it and V so the update I heard today was be trans maybe paving route 7 this summer you want to tell council period so so that's what I know and I would be happy sounded so easy right so my follow-up questions if you could ask as I like to know is is what their hours are going to be if they're going to do it during commute hours we know that spear Street and Dorset Street will be used heavily by commuters trying to get into the city and do we have I should know this but I don't do we have the speeding signs that alert people at our disposal to prepare for that eventuality when we're going to have if it is during commute times people taking spear and endorse it to avoid the the paving machines because certainly we want to make sure that the people don't think that Dorset Street and Spear Street are highways and that they should be the speed limit 50 miles an hour right great thank you and is Dorset Street going to be continued the paving because it went to a certain point and then right every year we were going to go a little bit further is that on the that's not the train so that's right right right so this is just since we're talking about paving yes okay a great deal of additional groundwork but if we were to reconsider the suicide lane and instead just make more room on both sides for bicyclists that's also less distance for the pedestrians to have to jump across traffic does the state have a entire authority over the suicide lane or do we as a city have some influence over going from five lanes down to four in order to make for more multimodal travel as well as less of a pedestrian danger that'd be a question I'd love to talk about at a future discussion CCRPC did a study on Welleson Road for us to go to the suicide lane it was it was a pilot that then became permanent so I don't know if we can do it without that study I don't know not to be a stickler but there's two ways center left turn lanes I don't know I just don't like that term suicide lane there are two ways center left turn lanes that's all okay lots more updates yes okay so two I hope fun library updates for you students from the high school big picture program will be painting a mural in the young adults locked in the library in the coming months and they have I will be bringing two proposals forward to the community so you will see those options out there soon later this month and then the veterans telehealth project that you approved a grant for several months ago is kicking off they're having their volunteer training at the end of the month with full implementation in April and libraries training all their staff about how to use how to support veterans as best they can as they come in for those services three other things as the council knows but I'd like to share with the community effective today I am thrilled to share that Tom DiPetro will be our permanent public works director we have the opportunity to celebrate him at a staff event earlier today Tom joined the team in 2006 and since that time has held several different positions in the city brought in tens of millions of dollars for infrastructure improvements and saw that construction move forward and really become a statewide expert in stormwater and environmental services he has an MS in plant and soil science from UVM and a BS in environmental management and technology from the Rochester Institute of Technology and we're really thrilled that he's taking the helm after a basically a two-month job interview and then fantastic things in the last two months and we look forward to seeing what he can do next what will the state do without his stormwater expertise I think he will likely still hopefully coach up the next future leader so stormwater expertise it does mean that we now have the two vacancies still so we will be filling his position and the new CIP position in the FY 23 budget so we're spending a few days working with Tom on what his vision is for those two positions and hopefully leveraging even more support to infrastructure projects and connection to maintenance in the city with those two new leader hires so more to come on that front but please join me and welcoming Tom to this position today we also celebrated a bunch of police hires and promotions so and retirements we celebrated the retirement of Lieutenant D more who has served South Burlington for 25 years and is stepping down we celebrated the promotion of Officer George no Greg short officer Greg short to sergeant he is wonderful staff person is probably among the best officers I've ever heard talk about de-escalation and use of force and really excited about his leadership and then I wanted to share with the council that we do have three new officers that were two that were sworn in today and one that was sworn in about a week and a half ago going to the police academy this spring so hopefully with those three officers coming out of the academy we will address are pretty significant staffing levels and then finally as of today the university law property has sold I can officially share with you that Eastern real estate has taken ownership of that parcel they're a nationally national privately held commercial real estate company they have offices in Boston and Santa Barbara they've been in business for over 30 years we have met with their representative half a dozen times over the last couple of months and I can say that as their website says they start every conversation with what are the goals of the city and how can we help achieve them so we're really excited to welcome them to the community they are planning their own kind of official launch and introduction to the community but I was given permission to officially share that information tonight and their identity of course the law will continue to operate as is for the foreseeable future that's wonderfully exciting it just that it's like turning a page it's like the sun is rising that's that's very cool yeah very nice thank you for your attention thank you very much thank you item six consent agenda we have two items the disbursements and then the second one approval for a 2022-23 after school and summer expanding access grant to support summer programming through recreation I'll move it to approve I just have a question I'll wait for the second okay okay it's been moved in seconded discussion was there a second yeah sorry yeah the quiet second yeah the recruiting and testing it's RJ gone was that for hires for city staff Andrew I believe those are the two new officers that we just on police officers police officers yeah so those are polygraph testing I think specifically very good okay thank you and I'll just let people know that's $850 so they're definitely investigated right $850 you're not just doing a google search yeah right and I have two questions yes one or just two items from the financial warrants why did we need jp hoofworks do we have a horse that we don't know about it's a veterinary service do we oh oh that was that that's rush our police dog oh it's for the dog yeah oh okay it's hoofworks okay and what what truck did we buy what freight liner truck did we buy was that for public works and yeah so that's a large hauler for our to bring biomass from Bartlett bay to airport parkway the one we bought a few years ago kind of ended up turning out to be a bit of a lemon and it's sort of been been in the shop and unoperational more often than not so we've actually been contracting with one of the septic services which has been a huge you know yeah much more expensive than than this so we were able to lock in a price pretty early on before we see any additional increases so this is a brand new brand new yep it says 2022 so yeah right so will you try to sell the one the lemon I yeah I don't know what the plans are for that for that yet but presumably so yeah putting my Craigslist as long as we let people know full disclosure I guess they do now all righty that's all I have thank you okay are you ready for the vote then all those in favor of the consent agenda say aye that passes five zero item seven is considering an extension of the mass mandate currently in place Jesse sure so I've given you two options although you can decide to do whatever you would like here the two resolution options I've given you one is to continue what we have currently which is the mass mandate in place with the opt-out provision for commercial businesses the second is mandate for city hall in public spaces but an encouragement for private businesses also those are the two options before you you can also select you can create your own option if you would like I do want to share that the governor announced at the very end of the week last week that per his decision he is lifting the mask recommendation for all indoor spaces including schools with specific vaccination rates on March 14th Burlington has lifted their mask mandate I share those with you as pieces of information so I'm sorry I guess I would encourage you so there's been a lot of confusion about the the different mandates we have put in place so if you would like to keep a mandate in place I encourage you to keep the same mandate in place or if you would like to lift it that's of course fine but going into a mandate with another type of mandate may be challenging for us to continue to communicate okay Matt my question was and you may have said this and it may be in the text but just to confirm if we do nothing it expires what day if we do nothing it expires tonight tonight okay I'm in favor of doing okay so you would like to sort of just be a week ahead of the governor yep and lifting all the mandate which mandate mask mandates that's right other thoughts if there are I'm in favor of lifting the mandate as well okay yeah we're under five percent statewide I realize that you know there could be a new wave as more people feel comfortable and I just want to again reiterate that I will continue wearing a mask and anybody who wishes to continue wearing a mask should feel free and it's it's something that we should all respect for sure Tom yeah I'm ready to drop the mandate so I would I would propose to not do anything and then the mask mandates for both city buildings as well as the rest of the opt out policy would drop tonight is what I just heard Jesse say okay that would still allow a business to require them but it would be just fully their decision because I don't think the hospital's going to drop or medical or public transportation and federal transportation right yeah right I don't know about that ends on the 18th for for state transportation right well anything that's federally funded which includes GMT so that's on the 18th but airports and the airplanes oh I don't know about airports yeah I think that's a they're maintaining that as far as I know okay so I have a question for the city manager what are you comfortable with within the city-owned buildings so my approach would be if the council decides tonight to let the current resolution expire that we would just shift over to encourage language for city hall especially for the library that has you know many patrons who are under 5 we had a lot of success with that encourage language early you know early in November and December before the mandate was in place we'd still offer masks at the front door so if people wanted to be masked and protect themselves they could I feel completely comfortable with that okay I would agree I think it's probably time and we'll see what happens yeah but I agree with Councillor Emery's sentiment about you know you can always wear a mask if you're uncomfortable in an indoor location you know spot in people or the year with the general public so please if you feel like you want to wear a mask feel you know go ahead and I will probably wearing mine in certain situations as well so sure I'm on board all right so if you're ready for you don't have to take any action right no action is needed oh okay do we agree yes we can well the current resolution expires this evening and tomorrow everyone is satisfied with that all right if we wait till midnight we can take our masks off yeah if we have a really long meeting okay okay item eight um consider entering executive session for the purpose of discussing Rudofsky versus city of south burlington so I'd entertain a motion to go into executive session can I read that motion yes you I move that the council make a specific finding that premature general public knowledge of civil litigation in the matter of Rudofsky versus city of south burlington and confidential attorney client communications made for the purpose of providing professional legal services to the council would clearly place the city at a substantial disadvantage second all in favor hi so I now move that the board enter into executive session for the purpose of discussing civil litigation in the matter of Rudofsky versus city of south burlington and receiving confidential attorney client communications made for the purpose of providing professional legal services to the council inviting in Jesse Baker Andrew Bulldock and Colin McNeil into the session with the council second all in favor hi we will be returning to open session following this executive session with our it's not going to read them all but there's numerous ones where is the alpine waffle cabin I thought of everybody likes so that is in the old kmart plaza in oh it's going to be part of the alpine shop yes it is okay so when you go get your bike fixed or buy a new one you might have a waffle and a beer to go with it yeah that's too many carbs okay so I would entertain a motion to approve all these first third second whatever liquor licenses I'll I'll move that we approve them second okay is there any discussion all right all in favor signify by saying aye aye okay that carries five zero so a motion to come out of the liquor moved second all in favor aye so we are back into our city council and let the rooms and meals tax go higher that's right not the tax itself the revenue from the tax right by increased you know visitation of these establishments thank you okay um reports item 11 reports from counselors on committee assignments are there any yep there is with Megan for it the zoning task force we had our meeting last Thursday after our reorganizational meeting and we heard uh from brandy saxon who's our consultant and as she told us at the very beginning we had three choices which was we approve the request for rezoning to airport or we disapprove it and this is all advisory this is all right a task force that the planning commission has put together and and we'd be sending that on to them or we we come up with something else to suggest to the planning commission so the catch is that saying no um could according to brandy saxon uh potentially um lead to a legal uh case on the part of the owner of the airport on the basis of being deprived of the value of the land that they purchased with faa dollars so that um that's something we'll have to contend with um she is going to be coming back to the task force on the 17th so that's a week from this Thursday uh it's going to be same paradise day um and we are going to be looking at three memos that she's put together so what would it look like to say no what would it look like to say not now uh we are in the process of starting our new uh comprehensive plan and so that could potentially you know just let's hold off and wait till our planning commission has a chance to to look at that area so it would be you know a decision that could happen in two years or a discussion was had about dimensions of potential structures that would be allowed with some kind of zoning looking at um what is it called setback from the road looking at having uh there be a berm like a building could actually be underground under a berm um and plantings so that's the third memo that she's going to be preparing and we'll be discussing that on march 17th okay do you anticipate a vote that no no you're just going to be considering these after this we're going to have another public hearing oh okay that would make sense so and it has been i think uh been the date is maybe the second thursday in april when we would finish so it's pretty fast which is of concern to several people um and there's a lot of question you know about what other land exists on the airport property where um you know the the needs could be met so uh huh you know do we have enough time to to actually answer that question as it's a question we'll have to to look at too okay so have they reported about other options for the as i understand it the what is in the pipeline now i guess you're not supposed to use that term i'm sorry what is being planned what's wrong with pipeline that thing there was a whole article about um appropriate language and one of the terms i guess it's offensive to indigenous people because oil oil was often i blind over their land and destroyed their water i'll send you the um the link it was interesting was a report that was done and it was um very different topic was startling to me because when i worked in the legislature i had to relearn some things that now are inappropriate for example hearing impaired you know we used to call them deaf people then we were i was trained to know that's inappropriate hearing impaired well now we're back to they want to be called deaf people or deaf so it's just sort of interesting it's that whole process of understanding he she they all of that as well as all these other i just learned about two way center left lanes tonight yeah well exactly well i mean yeah which is harder to remember two center left lane two ways center left turn lanes yeah but anyway so um my understanding is the only thing that's being a discussed and planned at the moment is the shed for the um and the need for it i mean i would go along with that that there is a need for a new one and a larger one and a better one but i haven't heard if there's any other land available i mean or even a structure i don't know how many hundred acres they have there might be a little pocket somewhere else but i don't know 847 last i heard 847 yeah and they probably don't need more than an acre that'd be a big building yeah so okay thank you um matt do you have any updates on yeah the great news is that there is going to be no strike there will not be a strike the rural bus drivers they have agreed to and it's publicly announced it should be in the press very soon the rural bus drivers have agreed to terms and that means all three labor unions have agreed to terms with gmta we still have gone to reduce services in order to provide certainty because of the lack of bus drivers if you anyone would like to be a bus driver contact john more at gmta um they are hiring um but the good news is that there is a labor agreement and we're good for for a couple years so what was the issues around mass part of it i mean since there's been a change both by the cdc and um the governor and uh certainly there has been issues around mass uh those weren't part of the the labor negotiations that was as you might surmise mostly about health care and salary okay but and how what was the outcome of the health care insurance uh well it's different for the different um three different labor unions um and they came from different starting points so in the rural drivers which is the most contentious one because that almost led to a strike it was the coverage for the individual drivers was very very strong uh 100 percent everything but they they gave up in a prior negotiation the the uh health care for the dependents the the wife or the the spouse or the children um that one went down one went went up and everyone came to an agreement so i think that's positive going forward okay good okay tim nothing thank you okay and i don't have anything from the um any of my many committees so um is there any other business to come before us then that we can consider entering an executive session for the purpose of discussing pending litigation we will not come back to the auditorium after that so let's move into executive session this meeting will be ended so i moved that the council make a specific finding that premature general public knowledge of civil litigation to which the city is a party in confidential attorney client communications made for the purpose of providing professional legal services to the council would clearly place the city at a substantial disadvantage second uh all in favor aye so having found that i now move that the board enter into executive session for the purpose of discussing civil litigation to which the city is a party and receiving confidential attorney client communications made for the purpose providing professional legal services to the council inviting in jesse baker andrew boldock paul connor and collin mcneill second all in favor aye same place yeah eat drink a little but be very merry