call this special meeting of the city council to order at five before we get to agenda approval with the pledge that brings us to our next item, which is the the agenda itself and have a motion on the agenda. Move to adopt the agenda as amended as follows add a consent agenda add to the consent agenda item 3.02 communication Solvegg Overby regarding five reasons to vote no on the new city place development documents on February 23rd of 2021 special city council meeting item 3.01 resolution with the motion to waive the reading accept the communication place it on file add to the consent agenda item 3.03 resolution extending date for finalization of annual city audit or this is not supposed to be on the shoulder night um can there we go sorry about that please continue Councillor Stromberg yeah um 3.03 resolution extending date for finalization of annual city audit for fiscal year 20 Councillor Paul with the motion to waive the reading and adopt the resolution per mayor's office and CAO Shad no additional written materials for item I'm sorry for agenda item 4.01 was 3.01 per mayor's office add memorandum regarding requiring union labor in development agreement to this agenda item per CAO S. Excellent thank you for that motion do we have a second seconded by Councillor Pine any discussion Councillor Hanson can we just get and maybe for the public to just a quick overview of 3.03 since that wasn't I don't think that was originally discussed as part of the special meeting so I think it might be helpful sure um Councillor Paul are you able to speak to that through point I apologize I don't have it in front of me but um you know essentially it's just simply that the school audit was not completed on the same timeline as the city's audit and um you know this happens this has happened before um and what we do then is are the city's auditors will take a look at this and review it and that is essentially what we're basically voting on um if Catherine if you have anything else that you wanted to add perhaps we could have Catherine speak to this uh President Gracie that is sure yep go ahead just I just want to be go ahead thank you and I'll be brief that sums it up pretty well Councillor Paul I would just say that um we're just voting to extend this timeline because of the school issue um and we will present the final audit on the 8th um to the Board of Finance um and you'll have a chance to review it at that time okay thank you for that are you clear Councillor Hanson yeah thank you okay so we have a motion and a second on our agenda all those in favor of it please say aye hi hi can you post that carries unanimously that brings us to item number two which is our public forum for this evening so if folks are interested in signing up for the public forum the way to do that will be to go to burlingtonvt.gov slash city council slash public forum so that's the way you're able to sign up and then that inputs into a spreadsheet um per our our how we've been doing it in the recent meetings I'll be going to Burlington residents first in the order received followed by non-Burlington residents we should be able to get through everybody this evening in the time allotted so um we so and we'll have um two minutes per speaker this evening um and just ask folks to please respect the that time limit I'll let you finish a sentence or two after that but after that I'll start to ask you to just please wrap up um this again as I've said before is part of the the city attorney's guidance when we have these limited forums um to make sure that we um are giving equal time to to different folks and so um please um just respect that and just um please direct your comments to the chair um within this uh within this the public forum itself it's helpful if we are just focused on the issues at hand um and we certainly want to hear everybody's thoughts on um the matters that we're going to be discussing this evening so with that I'm going to go um get into our public forum and I just want to specifically thank councillor paul for doing the timer this evening we're trying to give the city clerk Amy Bovi a little bit of a a respite given the the hard work that she's putting in to to pull off the third election of this year so I just want to thank just everybody in the clerk's office as well for their hard work um in pulling off a challenging election so thanks for that um we're going to get into that public forum now we got a few folks signed up um so the first person um that I have in the queue is uh Solvi Overby to be followed by Chayuho Sampson and Charlie Messing as well as Ali Jalili so I'm going to go to Solvi right now second Solvi I have located you and enabled your microphone so you should be able to speak hello yes is that better audio than last week in fact it is thank you I know what happened it was a technical error okay good my name is welcome back um thank you all right my name is Solvi Overby uh Burlington is more than ready to see something happen with the excavated pit in the center of the downtown however I am asking the city council to vote no on this item the replacement city place development documents my concerns are not about the union labor issues because I understand a letter from the developer addressing those has been added to the agreement on my concerns are not about the new building designs as these can be addressed during the development review board process my concern is that the proposed replacement development agreements will cause the city to repeat the experiences of its three prior failures past city councils were induced to sign similarly immature and obfuscated development agreements the predictable bad outcome that we have has been compounded by the city's manual spreadsheet based tip accounting procedures that's why we have nothing but a pit today I have five reasons for you not to vote to vote no on this resolution first there is no looming deadline in the chitin and superior court case that forces a rust decision on these documents city council must take the necessary time to understand them second the city must first resolve the problems with the city's accounting procedures for tip funded projects 10 years of auditor's warnings about the city's accounting problems as noted in the annual management letters must end the city failed to meet its 2017 development agreement tip administration responsibilities and this could be repeated the history of three the third reason the history of three prior failed development agreements with btc mall associates should have taught us a lesson the city must take care to avoid following the same pathway to failure fourth the disorganized and confusingly identified documents provided to the city council for this consequential decision has resulted in obfuscation of the contract terms being approved fifth the litigation resolution agreement includes an overly broad mutual release of liability for all claims against btc mall associates that might exist under any of the prior failed agreements after the new versions of the development documents are approved thank you please vote no for these reasons great thank you all right our next speaker will be chihuahua samson to be followed by charlie messing located you and have enabled your mic hello this is a chihuahua samson i own a single pebble downtown brolington so i'm here today again to urge council to vote yes on the project and prior um yes they might be have five reason to say no or there are many many reason you can say no for this project but my point is for what cost though the cost of the city entire city of the residents and business and the tax revenue and then the for the future of a city brolington how many years going to take city to have this vibrant atmosphere and business again how long should we take we don't want it to of course we want to do everything as much as careful as we can and i'm i'm thinking i'd rely down all the councilmen to make that decision but if we're afraid to make a mistake so we don't make a move so i don't think that's that's a progress i do hope that we learned a mistake but then really really push this forward and then i really urge all the councilmen make a decision for what is greater good for the city of brolington not i think that's it thanks thank you next speaker will be ali i was not able to locate charlie messing let me just look one more time charlie if you let me know how i can find you or if there's an issue i can try you again on the other end so i'm going to go to ali jalee lee right now and ali i've enabled your microphone thank you i want to urge the city council to vote yes and move this project forward i am relatively new to brolington i moved here last year but we've owned a place here for years and i've been following this issue i believe since the beginning the idea that we would somehow reject this right now at this point in hopes of i am not sure what some other developer coming forth with a new project a new proposal and going through these processes all over again i think sounds like madness to me you know making the the perfect the enemy of the good i know that many people have very legitimate concerns but i believe that if this is rejected at this point you're going to be years and years and years away from developing that plot furthermore probably likely scaring off people who would similarly be interested in investing tens of millions of dollars in downtown burlington or in burlington at all it's not so easy to come by this size of an investment before picking burlington i checked out a lot of cities all over new england let me tell you there are a lot of cities uh that would uh could benefit from development i think a lot of places have somehow believed that they that they should maintain their character and i know i'm not saying that you know pejoratively or sarcastically but i know that that's the intent but what has happened is new england is littered with decaying cities and i think we have a chance here probably a once in a generation chance to seal the deal on a major improvement to downtown and we should take it thanks thank you our next speaker will be um michael long michael i believe i've located you um and michael will be followed by pete kelly tim lavambard kelly divine um liz medina david van duessen amanda caller daniel pizer and daniel bombardier so michael i believe i've located you and have enabled your microphone yeah our comments limited uh max tonight to uh the the development project or is it open as usual um i mean you can i mean you can make your your comments i would you know i you know i didn't say that at the beginning so you can make your comment your general comments hoping that folks will give us input on the development um the matters at hand but i'm not going to limit your comments at this point okay thank you i'll just do this is a different issue uh i've been concerned about the conduct of the mayoral campaign since watching a debate in early february the mayor tap counselors tracy and yang for causing a crisis in the bpd he then press pressed them to commit to supporting his continuity plan the solution of the problem they of course had caused or else he'd be labeled enemies of public safety the mayor's attack was not only a false dichotomy and a logical fallacy but we're still a scare tactic only the mayor can keep burlington safe only the mayor can lead burlington beyond the pandemic and now only the mayor can secure the 14 and a half million federal dollars just granted for airport expansion thanks to senator lehi a recently retired or deposed politician used the same sort of scare rhetoric only i can fix it watch out for those radical leftist democrats they're coming for your way of life when politicians try to scare us it's because they themselves are frightened scare tactics do not belong in our politics they demean the political process and the public discourse they show disrespect to voters residents and other candidates in the race unfortunately about a year into this plague people are probably more susceptible now than ever to scare tactics like these but i think in hope that people will be repulsed not persuaded when a candidate tries to scare them thank you for your time thank you all right our next speaker will be pete kelly to be followed by tim labombard pete go ahead pete click you're muted on your end pete kelly okay can you hear me yes i can go ahead okay sorry about that uh thanks for the opportunity to address the council my name is pete kelly i grew up in burlington and graduated from the university of vermont i'm the vice president of business development for dw construction i'm also the president of associated general contractors of vermont today i'm speaking on behalf of agc agc is a trade association with both union and non-union labor forces across the country agc supports the revised development agreement including the commitment to pay vermont prevailing wage to all city place construction workers there's simply not enough union labor locally to meet the demands of the city place project the vermont construction marketplace is very competitive workers enjoy safe working conditions with competitive salaries above the livable wage it's time to move forward with city place vermont contractors will meet or exceed the proposed city place labor agreement the developers involved with this project are people we already know they build vermont projects every day this group will execute while maintaining the vermont culture and needs of burlington these companies are vermont based give back to the community and have a verified track record we urge you to support the updated agreement and move forward let's finish this project burlingtonians deserve it thank you thank you next speaker will be tim labombard to be followed by kelly divine tim i've enabled your microphone can you hear me yes i can go ahead tim where it was on me um i'm tim labombard i'm president of the rott construction and building trades council um i'd like to start out by thanking the developers devon wood dawn uh al scott and david mayor uh wineburger and the council for bargaining in good faith and coming up with a very good solution and a positive uh outcome for all workers and i suggest we vote yes to this revised contract and uh i'd like to talk to the last speaker offline at some point at my office because i disagree about the union labor statement but um that's why it's america thank you and i hope you vote yes thank you our next speaker will be kelly divine see you on two different ones i'll try one of them and see if i can get you there we go it looks like you were able to unmute thanks yeah i have a i don't have a great wi-fi connection where i where i am thank you uh council president tracy kelly divine i represent over 200 both small and medium-sized businesses in our uh in burlington and south burlington um i say medium-sized because most of our businesses almost all of them are small and locally owned or locally run um our downtown our downtown our burlington community really needs this project to move forward um we've been looking at a stalled project for a long time i'm deeply appreciative of the work that has gone into coming up with a compromise on a whole bunch of fronts on this project including most recently the question of labor um thank you to mayor weinberger and the project development team i know who worked hard over the last several days to come to an agreement that seems to be amenable um it's really beyond time when we need to move this project forward almost every business i speak to uh downtown will reflect that they see the impacts of having that undeveloped site downtown because when there are more stores and more activity there more people living there more people will be a part of our vibrant downtown chiho samson i think said it well that we we there is a cost to waiting even though the project may not be perfect and our downtown businesses really need a reason to keep going every day now that we're in the middle of this pandemic it's many of these businesses are alone owned owned by local people by burlingtonians by members of our community and they really need support right now and knowing that this project is moving forward and that the city council has come to an agreement with the developers on this will make a big big difference in the lives of a lot of people so i urge the council to vote yes thank you thank you our next speaker will be david van duessen to be followed by amanda calder daniel pizer and daniel bombardier if you're interested in signing up for the public forum you may do so by going to burlington vt.gov slash city council slash public forum which will take you to a fillable form that then feeds into the spreadsheet again we're prioritizing burlington residents to be followed by non-burlington residents in the order received so david i have found you and have enabled your microphone thank you president city council president tracy for your leadership on this issue and working hard over the last few days to help us come to a deal the remont afl cio and building trades council recognized the significant progress made on the legal settlement document concerning burlington devenwood and the city place project unlike the first iteration of the agreement this agreement before you tonight includes provisions which establish the vermont prevailing wage as the base rate for all construction workers on this project and in many instances having vermont prevailing wage in place will boost workers pay and benefits up by a value of 42.5 percent making the jobs on this project truly family-sustaining jobs these are real victories for working people in barlington and construction workers across the remont at least we forget none of this would have occurred without the intervention of the vermont afl cio the vermont building trades council and our community allies over the last 14 days so we are proud of this intervention and are pleased that we can once again demonstrate that when organized labor stands tall when we do not take the status quo as the end point we can make progress towards economic justice but this cannot be it must not be an end it must only be a start if the significant block of this city council and the next mayor of barlington agree with us that these victories are only the start and if you are ready to join us in taking the next steps towards economic justice by supporting the passage of the responsible contractor ordinance in 2021 to see major public construction projects done through project labor agreements with organized labor and stand with us to establish a $15 an hour liberal wage for all workers in burlington then we invite you to pass a unanimous vote to adopt this agreement and to move forward with city place project this is only a start and not an end we ask you to vote yes please vote yes thank you thank you all right i was not able to locate amanda calder so amanda i will come back to you if um you're able to to um i keep looking for you i was able to however locate charlie messing so charlie um thank you for for that and i will come to you now just to give you a chance to speak so charlie you're just going to there you go stay formula for did not do your wants to help you own a piece of history for bronco sports we're getting a lot of tv feedback oh boy are you still there yes i am go right ahead i'm sorry something turned itself on no worries it's okay if you could just please reset the timer counselor paul just to give charlie a chance to get settled okay charlie so thank you ready well i took a look at all these things uh solvig over me wrote that uh paper and i believe in her and i believe we should pay attention to her she's the expert uh just as tony is the expert with roundabouts and roads so um i'm for whatever solvig has said i i hear that you've gotten a an agreement going about the union that is terrific i was uh definitely on that side the union um i guess we're just talking about the one thing this week so just cause you know i mean if it's a just cause it's a just cause if there ain't no then it's just for nothing and you can't get rid of somebody for nothing so um yes i hope the police thing is okay with everybody i know it's in flux but yes the city place it'd be great as long as solvig is happy with it if she says okay i say okay uh the agreement hadn't been reached when she wrote that paper so she was saying vote no but uh if everything's changed and they're now gonna be fair to everyone and get it going then i'd be for it if she's for it i'm for it and um well nice to see you i uh i'll just be up here rotating around the planet in space and uh max did you read that letter yet uh i don't know what you're talking what what letter you're talking about charlie seven days this week okay i'll have to take a look thank you i know you've been very busy i appreciate it i appreciate it okay thank you very much everyone all right thank you very much have a good night good night okay our next i'm still unable to locate amanda calder um so i'm gonna go to um daniel pizer um to be followed by daniel bombardier or bump yeah bombardier um so daniel i've enabled your microphone like you're muted on your end got it okay can you hear me okay yep go ahead um yeah i uh i'm daniel pizer i'm the president of afts me local 1674 we represent around 700 plus workers at howard center um i just wanted to voice my support for the agreement uh and for organized labor in general and to that end um i wanted to also express my support to what uh vermont afl ceo president van duzen uh said a few minutes ago around passing the responsible contractor ordinance thank you that's it thank you okay our the last speaker i have signed up for this evening and believe is um daniel bombardier bombardier so daniel i've located you and have enabled your microphone great thank you uh good evening i'm daniel bombardier i'm an ibe w union electrician uh representative of construction workers across all trades and i want to thank the city council and mayor weinberger for negotiating with the city place developers to include the provision requiring vermont state prevailing wage be utilized on the city place project you've all shown your commitment to building a viable construction workforce in burlington the as others have said the vermont state prevailing wage is more representative of a livable wage for vermont construction workers and will continue to drive wages up for some time to come rather than continue the current race to the bottom as contractors skimp on wages and especially benefits for their workers which has essentially eliminated the opportunity for union contractors to competitively bid i believe that uh we've made significant progress to improving the lives of construction workers with this provision and adding this wage requirement truly puts value in the work that we perform so i urge you to vote yes on the new agreement thank you thank you um amanda caulder i'm still unable to locate you i'm also looking for damien gilbert um who also just signed up damien if you could use the raise hand function um not able to locate you in the attendees still trying to locate damien i'm not able to find you and again i'm still not able to find um manda caulder yeah i'm sorry oh and i believe wait a second did i mess up i think i missed oh i'm sorry i missed another person liz madina i'm sorry i missed you um so liz i'm gonna um allow you to speak right now i apologize for that liz oh um no worries can everyone hear me yes great thank you my name is liz madina i'm the executive director of the vermont afl cio um you know i pretty much have this what i have to say is already been said so i'll just keep it short um i'm really glad that um with the invent intervention of my union brothers sisters and siblings and our allies that we reached an agreement that does right by working for monters and protects prevailing wages and creates opportunities for apprenticeships for bipop um and you know i think moving forward we have to consider into the future how we want to do these big projects as a community we have to keep fair labor standards in mind all the time also sustainability i think we need to eat with each project move towards a green new deal that also has a just transition at the heart of it and um i'm excited about this small step and i hope we can do more in the future thank you thank you right i was able to now locate amanda caulder so amanda i'm gonna allow you to speak i'm able to your microphone great can you hear me yes i can go ahead um so i um i just wanted to call in to um to say that i support organized labor i work at the Howard center and part of the Howard center union and um i see the difference for myself and my co-workers um having a voice on the job and being able to have more fair benefits and pay and i support the ordinance to um to have the responsibility responsible contractor ordinance i think that especially when the city is putting to financing or any other financing into a project we owe it to ourselves to have it have environmental you know strengths and also to be done right in terms of contributing to our community um so i just wanted to call in to support that and i support i encourage everyone else to support it too thank you i am still not able to find damien gilbert damien are you able to use the raise hand function i'm just gonna take one look through the participant attendees list okay i'm not able to locate you um so i believe that is our final speaker for this evening in terms of sign ups we got to everybody else so i'm going to go ahead and close the public forum at this point and we will move on to item number three which is the consent agenda um councillor stromberg may please have a motion on the consent agenda i move to adopt the consent agenda and take the actions indicated okay we have a motion on the consent agenda is there a second seconded by councillor freeman any discussion okay hearing none um all those in favor of adopting the consent agenda please say aye aye any opposed okay hearing none that passes unanimously brings us into our deliberative agenda where we have one item this evening item 4.01 which is a resolution um authorization to resolve litigation and execute amended and restated development agreement with btc mall associates this is an item that was table that our prior meeting so we're going to need two motions um one of which is to first remove this item from the table and then the next of which will be to actually introduce the item itself i'm going to go to councillor paul for both motions so councillor paul may please have a motion regarding removing this item from the table hi thanks president tracy i'd make a motion to remove item uh 4.01 uh the resolution you just noted uh from the table okay we have a motion seconded by councillor stromberg um was there any discussion of that okay hearing none i will go to a vote all those in favor of removing item 4.01 from the table please say aye hi hi any opposed that carries unanimously and the item is now removed from the table and uh able to be introduced as a motion councillor paul may i please have a motion on the item uh thanks president tracy i'd like to make a motion uh to move the resolution uh wave the reading and ask for the floor back after a second you have a motion is there a second seconded by councillor pine go ahead councillor paul thanks so much uh president tracy um um uh you know it's it's been an interesting year uh this last year um we've dealt with challenges that we never thought we would deal with um uh through covid and uh at the same time this council has taken uh several what i think could be called important and rather historic votes to be remembered and tonight's vote on city place burlington on the settlement is one such vote um i think the you know the motion to delay last week was a really good decision um it gave all parties the chance to um to listen to one another for voices who often disagree to engage and to find common ground for the greater good of this project and the resulting settlement on and the successful outcome and we've heard some of the people involved in that outcome speak this evening um the the the settlement that we're voting to authorize the mayor to sign is an agreement that has the support of our local union leadership the developers of the project the mayor who has worked very hard on to bring this forward and hopefully hopefully the unanimous support of this council um i i wanted people to also for the public to understand that you know this um legal action the mediation and the resulting settlement have been going on for quite some time and the current council the current council members have been involved in that discussion um we've met specifically four times over the over as many months with an executive session in october a work session in november another executive session in december and then a work session on february eighth and in these meetings i think it's important for the public to know that the council was fully consulted on the ongoing mediation all the priorities we discussed as a council and further important protections for the public for the community and guarantees that we all felt were important are included in the amended and restated development agreement by our strong vote this evening i think this settlement that we are authorizing the mayor to sign retains the benefits of the original agreement it secures millions of dollars in public benefits um it is a strong voice for labor and it ensures that we can turn the page on this project and show our support for city place to move forward um the project that's moving forward as designed is you know sometimes there's a good thing for projects taking a long time because the project that we're looking at now is much more in line with burlington's priorities its skyline its need for housing really above all it's for it's an it will show a reinvigorated retail space that's in line with burlington's needs it's adaptable because it's being going to be built in phases and the reconnected streets are public assets along with the amenities and public spaces that we'll get um you know a number of people have spoke in the public forum that you know no settlement is perfect by definition no one's going to walk away with everything that they want but that said the amended development agreement will renew the developer's commitment to affordable housing and local employment opportunities which means jobs for burlingtonians and vermoners and hundreds of crafts and trades people allowing for apprenticeships and opportunities in the heart of our community um the other thing i wanted to also mention because it's something near and dear to many of us is that the settlement is in keeping with the community's goals and priorities for plan btv which was a process that we conceived um through this council in 2009 and is a planning blueprint for our downtown and waterfront um i just wanted to also mention that you know with later with more time and greater clarity um and support from the unions who have been incredibly and highly collaborative in this process some of whom spoke in the public forum the developer has committed to a side letter that is now part of the amended and restated development agreement and it commits as many have said to paying all workers at the site a prevailing wage um and it also includes um equally as important a firm commitment to a fair and transparent bidding and hiring practice to favoring hiring of burlington and nearby residents as well as a preference if candidates are otherwise qualified to those who are unemployed veterans minority persons women and new americans and you know at the heart of this the letter recognizes that it's imperative to honor and employ union workers and also honor what we asked the developer from the very beginning which was to hire as many local workers as possible um in closing i just would like to say that sometimes it takes a long journey to find our way home and what we've got in front of us is local development partners for the first time who are committed to our economy in the same way that all of us are local high paying jobs local housing and a renewed downtown i really hope that the 12 of us can unanimously support this resolution sending a strong signal to our community that we are committed to moving forward and doing what is best for our future thank you very much thank you councillor paul i'm going to go to mayor weinberger next go ahead mayor thank you president tracy i appreciate the opportunity to add to uh councillor paul's excellent opening remarks on this consequential vote tonight and to frame it up further for the council uh and the public what i think is a very consequential vote tonight as councillor paul noted it's been a long road to get here from the very beginning of that road the city we have been clear on our goals to make good on the community vision of planned btv downtown a vision that emerged over the course of a year of workshops in which thousands of berlingtonians participated in which the planning commission and the council eventually baked into our formal plans for the future that vision involved restoring the connectivity of our streets and sidewalks in the northwest quadrant of the city to support the rebuilding for the first time in 60 years of a vibrant neighborhood with homes jobs shops and restaurants right in the heart of the downtown we want to do this we want to do this on land that the city did not own or control and not required a public private partnership and we knew from the beginning that public private partnerships particularly real estate development projects inherently carry risks and uncertainties in a large complex project like the one we have been focused on here for years there are a myriad of opportunities for cost overruns and construction mistakes and delays as a result back in 2017 and really going all the way back to 2016 it was a 18 month process we hammered out a development agreement intended to protect taxpayers from the many risks of construction and development the settlement agreement before you for action tonight should be understood as a sign that the development agreement in many ways worked exactly as designed as a result of the project setback the city took action starting in 2018 to hold the developer at the time which is a different development team than is before us tonight we took action to hold them accountable and we received approximately five hundred thousand dollars in payments acknowledging the delays and the costs that the city and surrounding businesses like like single single public we heard from tonight that there are impacts of those delays and we received the payment as a result of that we would not have received corporations don't go around handing out half a million dollars we would not have received those payments had we not had a strong development agreement protecting the city's interests when that managing partner of the previous development team brookfield the largest developers in the world reneged on years of commitment to burlington leaders and the people of burlington we immediately defaulted them and then took action to sue them and hold them responsible and I hold that required they make good on their promise that construction would continue without interruption once demolition began the lawsuit that lawsuit has resulted in the settlement agreement that is before you for action tonight this settlement agreement achieves a great deal for burlington residents it will result in just a few months if the council approves it tonight in the city getting back the land for streets and sidewalks that it gave up in the 1960s and it creates additional bankable guarantees that those lost streets will get rebuilt one way or another over the next couple of years without payment by city taxpayers the agreement also when the project goes forward will recruit property tax payments into the waterfront tiff district that had been lost over the last couple years as a result of these delays and very importantly this settlement agreement includes an amended and restated development agreement that continues to protect the city going forward from any future delays and construction overruns it continues to provide those protections and it also renews the developer's commitment to affordable housing alternative energy use and more in addition and ultimately I think probably even more importantly to the community this settlement agreement also clears the way for the developer to be able to the new developer the developer that is now includes as councillor paul said not only don synix who has shown his commitment to this project for many years now but also three respected local business owners who have built a great deal here in the burlington area this clears the way for this new development team to be able to move forward and advance the transform transformational project that they have planned the conclusion of our dispute with an approval by you tonight will have an immediate impact on that project with this settlement agreement approved the developer will be able to move forward next week with their efforts to secure a new land use permit from the burlington development review board and then we certainly hope and will support they will move forward with the rest of the design bidding and construction process from there I want burlingtonians to know that I was personally very committed to getting us to getting us to this milestone tonight after consulting with this council agreeing on a legal strategy and then a negotiation strategy I spent four and a half full days from november to february leading the city's negotiations personally during the settlement process throughout that process I was appreciative that the current development team again Don Sinek's Dave Farrington Scott Ireland now Seneca was committed to collaboration and compromise and commitment to honor the key elements of the of the original agreement and ensure that there was a path forward I think we're going to hear from them I believe they're with us tonight and the council will get to hear from them directly but I want to make clear my appreciation for them in playing the role that they did in avoiding litigation and getting tonight getting to tonight as well as their work to resolve the final issues that came up over the last week and a half and get us to tonight it appears that the settlement agreement from the conversations that have happened up and to lead up to this meeting is likely to have broad support among the city council tonight I hope that is indeed the case and I'm glad that the additional week of time we're able to to come together on this important agreement there's been enough divisiveness around this project over the years it would be it would be great if this is something that we can do largely together tonight I also want to thank city councillors Karen Paul and Brian Pine for their patient diligent detailed work over the last couple of weeks to keep this agreement on track as as well as their long-standing commitment to this project in closing I urge you to vote to approve this agreement tonight while I expect some of you have long years of city council service still ahead of you I think it's very unlikely that you will ever have another vote that has as great an impact on the future of the downtown as this vote before you tonight a yes vote will ensure that we will correct the historic mistake of the 1960s ensure that the streets are reconnected and build the public infrastructure that will allow homes jobs shops and restaurants to once again flourish flourish in the northwestern quadrant of our downtown thank you president Tracy thank you mayor um councillor jing I did see you raising your hand I will recognize you in just a moment I want to go to the um I'm going to see if the attorneys that worked on this immediate settlement and our consultant um have anything to add so we have Jen McDonald and Tim Samson from down Dracula and Martin and then also Jeff Glasberg who has been a consultant for the city so um attorneys Samson or McDonald do you have anything that you would like to add to to the discussion before we get into the council comments uh no sir we don't I think if you have questions of us we'll be glad to field them but certainly nothing to add at this point thank you okay wonderful will counselors please note if you have further questions we have um legal representation on hand um and then uh Jeff did you have something that you'd like to add no similarly um available to assist with any question okay excellent all right I did also let the partners know that I would let them speak so prior again to getting into council discussion I'm going to let the the partners give the partners a chance to speak we have I see Dave Farrington um I believe Scott Ireland and Don Cinex are on so um you're all panelists um I don't know if you had an order of speaking that you were um looking to go in but okay you're all together uh looks like um okay I will let you go Dave um thank you for being here and welcome yep well thank you guys thank uh President Tracy City Council and uh Mayor Murrow we're all uh very happy to be here been a long long let's just say it's been a long long journey getting here um I want to just basically uh echo what um Murrow had said on you know the from the the beginning of our disagreement the lawsuit and then getting into the mediation piece of this and uh a lot of long days a lot of extra hours um the the lawyers um did battle and did did fought well Murrow and uh Don both um they kind of made the decision to get through every issue and it was some of the issues were harder a lot of back and forth but they um they decided they weren't going to quit and we got to that MOU back in the middle of December um polished that up with the lawyer's help and got that signed and um since then you know a little bit of back and forth but we're all happy to be where we're at and uh looking forward to moving on with this project uh we got the DRB on the I believe it's the 3rd of March and uh that's just one more big step ahead so we're very excited and uh can't wait to get going here thank you for that was there any other comments from the partners before I open it up to counselors so now step up just like to say thank you for all the uh the hard work that the city council did over the past week I know or two actually and and you know we've we've had several conversations with with some of them and um really appreciate all the hard work and the push in to get this project to go through and we just uh hope for your yes vote right now we think we've satisfied a lot of different aspects of this and I think it's the best thing for the city thank you thank you once again I just want to thank everybody there and I appreciate everyone's effort to make this happen and one thing we can assure you if you guys pass it tonight uh I think uh we won't let you down and and uh I think it's going to be a great project the city and we're all looking forward to being a big part of it so thank you for everything wonderful any further comments from the partners before I open it up to counselors I think we're I think we're good we're all set thank you okay wonderful well thank you for that I appreciate it and I'm going to go um now to uh counselor jing um I have you in the queue and if other counselors are interested in um addressing the council counselor pine I'll come to you next others please give me an indication go ahead counselor jing thank you uh president tracy I could not agree with um counselor paul more that we have dealt with so many issues over the this year the past year and uh unfortunately some of them could have been prevented um and I think for this one it was just a pipe dream and it failed and we should accept that there was a failure and now we have a new opportunity in front of us because a development of this side should not be pushed to the voters of Wellington we should work with them in collaboration to see it true and to not look at this issue only from an optic perspective because right here today it seems as if we have one we have created something new something meaningful this is about a project we talking about that need to be built let's not focus on the optic of a settlement agreement of a development agreement and forget what is at stake what's at stake is for these developers to be successful the question is how far the city can go to support these developers to be successful how far should we rally the community members to step up to support these developers that are local that have partnership with the city that are respected throughout the state and even the region how far can we go to see this once for all being a reality that's a question that's what i'm interested about and not this optic this small gains that that was pushed on us it's unfortunate this is not a big win yet we haven't even started the hardest part of all of this is yet to come as a visionary the hardest part again is yet to come let's give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and i'm saying consular pine thank you for the amazing job work you have been doing behind the scene to bring us all together and move forward i know you were ready to vote last week but you listen to your constituents you listen to your colleagues that were not ready to cast their votes that's what a leader should look like and that's what this leader should do we were attacked for not voting last week and i don't think it's a fair i cannot be here and spend my time in this community to try to tell people what is really at stake there is no a win yet not a win yet i am proud to be voting about this today and i'm confident that the full council will be voting in support of this and i'm looking forward to work with these developers to support them to the best of my ability to see this through and then we can think about what downtown should look like thank you thank you councillor jane i have councillor pine to be followed by councillor mason thank you president tracy um i think the best person to answer these questions might actually be the mayor um what i'm going to do is i think survey over these questions were communicated to us ahead of times i had a chance to look at them and i just i feel like we owe it to each other and to our community to answer some of those questions before we vote even though i think we many of us have already made up our mind i just still think it's important to take an opportunity and the ones that stand out to me um would be the um sort of shortfalls and the way we've we've um that have been noted by the auditor around how we've um accounted for um for tiff projects and tiff expenses i just want to hear a little bit about that and then the second thing is i guess it's related but sort of the costs yet to be determined that uh would possibly be eligible for reimbursement on the public improvements there's there's still a lot of information to be gathered there and you could just just discuss publicly at what what we should expect as far as um uh the forthcomingness of that information because i think you've been asking for that information i just want to give you a chance to explain that or may are you able to answer that or can go to ceo shat if you'd like for that instead um i'll kick things off and and then i think it would be great to have um the ceo speak to some of the internal issues within the department i must say i did not i'm sorry counselor pine did not understand just right at the end the could you just repeat the i'm certainly having to speak to the accounting issues raised about and how that relates to tiff but the information request i i'm sorry i didn't get that i'm sorry it's the sort of the costs yet to be determined for possible reimbursement the pre-september five 2020 costs that the whole column is to be determined and that was asked of us to to sort of disclose why it is all yet to be determined so i guess that's what i'm hoping you'll answer okay all right great um well let's let's start with the um the question regarding um concern over the city's ability to manage the accounting i think is basically what it comes down to i i appreciate the the attention to our management letters i think those management letters are very important documents and they really have guided the work that we've done together the administration and the council to strengthen the city's finances over the last nine years and i i do want to make sure everyone listening understands that the overall trajectory of the city's financial management has been one of um outstanding improvement and that has been recognized by our independent credit agencies that is a leading credit rating agencies that is really the leading reason why we have gone from being a city on the edge of jump on status to having a AA rating again is because we have went from a situation nine years ago where there were 27 material sorry 27 negative findings and 12 material weaknesses with our accounting and financial management practices we cleaned up every single one of them and there have been no it is it is correct that there has been a point raised in these management letters for several years now that an area where we could still further improve is in our accounting projects but that concern has not risen to the level of material weakness and it is one that we are in fact that have been in fact pursuing revenues on for some time and and i'll let the CEO speak in a moment to kind of where we stand in that process there is absolutely no reason for concern that because of that sort of suboptimal structure that we're working to fix that somehow we don't have the ability to properly account for this the TIF projects going forward further i will note that i mean it's a little bit of a minor issue here but the nature of this project is such that the city's accounting is actually very straightforward going forward really because of the way this agreement has been structured it's it's very different than the Moran frame project or any of the projects where we are doing the building ourselves here it is you know going back to that point that we've set up this agreement where the developer is taking all the construction and delay risk we actually the great majority of the transactions from here will be reimbursements simple reimbursements of the developer when they reach milestones going forward and it will be very straightforward it is something one could do in an excel spreadsheet it's not something that we need to worry about you know exactly how well new world is performing to get done great Catherine before i go on with the second part of the question could you speak to because then you know it is i think it's fair to give the council an update on where we stand with this effort to improve our project accounting absolutely um i will say that uh i just had my one year anniversary and on um probably my second day of work uh the mayor gave me five priorities and they're on a sticky note in my office which i rarely go to but i recently visited and excuse me the second one was audit management letter and to me uh the things that i really wanted to focus on were things that said prior year because i really wanted to understand why they were still there and make sure that we were making progress on them um thankfully for me this is one where i can take credit but i won't i will say a big thank you to rich goodwin and also former ceo beth anderson because when i came in we had already set up a contract with an outside firm called cla um clifton larson allen um and they have been working with us since about last february um and they are uh have completed all of what we have they have asked for the auditors uh in terms of going backwards and auditing all of our past projects as the mayor said uh for this project we could use an excel spreadsheet one of the concerns of the auditors was we were using excel spreadsheets for some of these we are not doing that anymore so what these consultants have helped us to do is to go do a backward look reconcile all of the expenses to date for all of our projects so that has been done and then starting on july 1st so with the new fiscal year we've started implementing our new system and so i am confident that in next year's management letter this won't be a finding because we have a much stronger system moving forward um and we are in fact looking to build on it by rolling out a whole set of policies and procedures around it um but there has been a lot of work done in really the past 12 months around this so i feel very confident um in our ability to handle all of this even though as the mayor says this particular project isn't that complicated um because of the resolution you just passed we'll be talking about the audit again um march 8th so uh i'm responding to one of the findings now excellent well thank you for that mayor weinberger did you want to go to the second part of councillor pine's question and then i'll go back to you councillor pine because you do still have the floor great um for uh i'm actually going to turn this over now to jeff glasberg who can speak this initiative he's long been focused on and worked on i think he can kind of lay out where we stand on it poor go ahead jeff thank you councillor pine i believe the question you were asking related to uh costs that had been incurred by btc prior to september of 2020 associated with the project correct that's correct those costs are indicated in the budget as to be determined because the city has not received and reviewed any documentation related to those costs so that's why it's indicated as to be determined i remind the council that the way we structured the flow of tiff funds those sunk costs that i'm referring to those that would be to be determined are at the very bottom of the waterfall um and the lowest priority of potential cost reimbursement thank you right that helps yep let me expand on that just uh you know i think waterfall is i think a great real estate term but not one with that maybe immediately obvious meaning uh to um to people have not kind of worked with an agreement like this so i think and this appreciate the opportunity to kind of lay this out i think will help the public understand it's an example i think of of how we've worked to protect the city especially in this new reality where the delays of the project have impacted the size of the tiff district the the amount of resources that are going to be available for the building of public infrastructure um to just do a try to be really brief because about about the way tiff works this project the voters in 2016 supported the building of public infrastructure using this state economic development tool notice tax increment financing that even more so than normal with this project only the future taxes generated by the redevelopment of this site will be used to build that public infrastructure and so for the from now from now until 2035 any new incremental taxes that go that are are paid as a result of the increased property values from the development of this site 75 percent of those incremental new revenues go into uh this it's actually known as the waterfront i know this has caused some confusion it's the waterfront even though this is in the heart of our downtown the way the waterfront tiff district was was drawn it includes this property um if the project had had had been built on schedule and had been built at the scale of the original project we projected uh nearly 22 million dollars of new taxes incremental taxes being generated by the project and being available for the construction of up to eight blocks of infrastructure the new streets and the rebuilding essentially of six additional blocks because of the delays the the size of the tiff district is now projected to be approximately eight to ten million dollars so the delays and the smaller project every year of delay has a very significant impact because you know we were projecting more than two million dollars of new revenue each year from the old project so every year that is lost and already a couple of years have been lost has an impact on on that availability so since there are going to be constrained resources flowing from the tiff district we have a very clear kind of order of priority on what gets paid um from those from the funds that are generated and the first thing that gets paid is any additional costs the city will face from here uh in pursuing this project the uh the next thing that gets paid is reimbursement to the developer for the the new streets and it proceeds from there there's probably more detail than we need to get into but it to just restate Jeff's point this these sunk costs these costs that have already been incurred in the years leading up until now that um had originally been part of the plan that the developer would be reimbursed for them they still may be reimbursed but only if there's sufficient revenues to get through all of those higher priority items first okay thank you that's helpful thank you that's helpful for that piece and um President Tracy if I could I I just want to give a couple of um remarks that um I grounded someone in our history as a city and I just like I want to share my thoughts on this that I I believe you know we all know that um during the period in the 1950s Burlington made a um in many cases I think a fatal decision for a lot of people in our community when we decided to go down the path of urban renewal which many um later termed urban removal and because it mostly took an a working class neighborhood of primarily Italian families um living in the eight block area of our downtown and it displaced them and demolished all the structures um and I just want to mention it it's um part of my ward I represented this ward in the early 1990s and there were many families still feeling very much feeling the pain that was caused by the city um action that was funded by the federal government and it was a national effort to um to so-called reinvest in our downtowns but this and reason why I mentioned is because this is part of the core of the urban renewal area which was called the Champlain Street urban renewal area and I was not living here at the time but I heard stories from the boves and the quarries and the nanas and the isos and the dutras and the marolas and families that lived here uh and they still do live here today who suffered who suffered from that time period and I just want to call out that period because I think it's important for us to remember that this is the area we're talking about um and the final home that was raised in the late 60s was actually Victoria Dutra and her family still lives right in Ward 3 um in our neighborhoods so these families that were displaced um you know we we kind of I think owe um in many ways a huge debt of gratitude you know our downtown um is what it is today partly because of some of the work that happened as a result of that displacement I personally think it was the wrong strategy but it was done long before I had any involvement the other thing that was happening that I think is important for us to acknowledge is that um in the 1970s in in Vermont throughout Vermont the building trades were were increasingly a unionized building um trade workforce and several large contractors really refused to honor the contracts of uh of the trade unions and essentially broke those unions and really drove it was a race to the bottom uh the unions saw their numbers dropped significantly and we've really never fully recovered in terms of the building trade union memberships uh that we had back in the day there was a union hall on North Street when I first um arrived in Burlington it had the operating engineers it had the laborers it had the carpenters it had the plumbers the pipefitters the bricklayers they were all still operating a union hall where you could count on as a working person to to have a decent shot at a decent life and support your family um with a job with benefits all of that really took a dive um in the 1970s and um you know we've been sort of trying to build back some of that support and I think the prevailing wage victory that the the unions fought for and won at the state level is something that you know we are now embracing locally and I hope it becomes part of everyone's vocabulary that the Vermont prevailing wage is is what our goal should always be we should always be looking at how to ensure that as we develop we ensure that those who are doing the work of development are benefiting um and getting some share and enjoying more of the fruits of their labor uh from that work and then my last piece of history is that TIFF is really a tool that came about as a result of the federal government turning its back on local government I did a quick check because I do keep annual reports going back way too many years and when Bernie Sanders was first elected mayor the city general fund budget was 10 million dollars and a million of that came from the federal government and federal revenue sharing and with the arrival of Ronald Reagan and that sort of right-wing shift in this country federal government stopped putting money into local government and so the local government had to come up with ways to fund services and to fund infrastructure and that's why tax increment financing is a tool that is so popular by local governments because the federal government if they had kept investing at that level today would be putting in about six million bucks into the city's coffers to do infrastructure and other projects so we are where we are today from our history I think it's important to remember that and I think we are turning a new chapter in Burlington and I'm hopeful but I'm also hopeful that we remember from where we come and the people who sacrificed on whose shoulders we're standing today thank you. Thank you Councillor Pine I have Councillor Mason in the queue and if others are interested in getting in please let me know okay Councillor Hightower I see you go ahead Councillor Mason. Thank you President Tracy and thank you Councillor Pine for that history lesson important to ground us I want to provide just a few remarks I too will be voting in favor of this resolution that seeks to resolve the ongoing litigation with BTCM all associates the developer of the mall and also authorizes the city to enter into the amended interstate development agreement approval of this resolution from my perspective is is a big win because I see it as a path forward for the pit that I and all of us had looked at you know for the last four years to be transformed into the mixed use development that we all approved and the cities behind that will provide the much needed shot in the arm to downtown retail and our housing stock to be taking this vote and also step back and remembering we're in the middle of a pandemic you know activity in downtown is non-existent but we have the opportunity to transform you know the the center of our downtown into what we want it to be a no vote which is our other option puts the city back into litigation jeopardizes the TIF financing because I think we all lose sight of the fact that that date is coming fast so a no vote puts us back into litigation putting that TIF financing that will pay for our streets and this potentially hard-fought project you know back into great uncertainty the amended administrative development agreement before us tonight provides material concessions from the original development including you know deeding the both st paul and pine street upon execution and ensuring you know with a viable financial partner standing behind that that those streets will be built at no expense to the city in the event that something unforeseen happens in this project does not move forward it also seeks to reimburse the city for you know approximately $150,000 a year for lost tax revenue for a certain period of years depending on when the project starts those are all concessions we got in this amended in development agreement as a result of the litigation we went into litigation not knowing you know what the outcome was going to be but I believe with the benefit of you know the input of this council of the administration those were our goals and to be clear we achieved all of them those concessions are on top of I think what we all lose sight of you know the the concessions we obtained that were in the initial development agreement that included you know 426 new housing units including 84 affordable units that's a 20 threshold which is higher than what's required under our own inclusionary zoning ordinance 422 parking spaces additional downtown bike parking guaranteed reconnection of the streets rooftop observation deck lead gold certified buildings state-of-the-art stormwater system those are all benefits we were very excited about when we authorized this project in 2016 and then are still there I view this unlike one of my colleagues as a big win only from the sense of as a lawyer who I'm not a litigator but I deal with litigators on a regular basis and litigation is not a place where we want to be it is uncertain is it expensive and who knows but through you know the strong mediation efforts working with the developer and the input of this council I believe we have provided at least an optimistic path forward is it possible that something could happen of course you know we've seen it happen over the course of the last seven years but my view is this you know entering into this development agreement the amended industry development provides a much more beneficial path forward at little to no risk to the taxpayers and is the only way forward I would like to echo my colleagues in thanking you know our litigation team the mediation team as well as the effort of certain counselors to get us to what I hope is a unanimous vote thank you very much thank you councillor mason I have councillor hightower great thank you president tracy um I have two sets of questions and I'm not sure who wants to take the answer this I would assume that it's either the mayor or the city attorney um or jeff glasberg and happy to get the answer from any of them um I certainly appreciate the extra week because I think I had a lot of questions last week that I needed answered um and I think I got the answers to some of them but I want to make sure that they're kind of on the record and clear to the public and the first one is something that councillor mason just mentioned which is the 20 inclusionary zoning requirement and for the public's reference this year the inclusionary zoning rent limit is um for a two bedroom is 1342 so folks can get an idea of what that kind of means in terms of affordability but um I'm hoping one of you can talk through how the 20 percent that is in the development agreement interacts with inclusionary zoning ordinance what could change that percentage um despite what is said in the agreement and how that will be enforced sure um maybe you want to mayor go ahead great yeah I will start and and um again maybe get some help from others an important overarching point which isn't just relevant to this affordable housing issue but maybe relevant to other other questions is um what is the relationship between this amended and restated development agreement and the all of the other city state and local rules and laws that um the developers need to comply with that apply to construction projects and um I think it's important the public understand that the development agreement does not um relieve the developer of responsibility of any of those other other laws um this essentially sets out uh specific additional commitments that the developer needs to make because of this public private development but it does not it does not sort of trump other elements of our of our zoning ordinance within our zoning ordinance uh is an inclusionary zoning requirement um it is a requirement that has some variability to it that means that and councillor pine could speak to this as well it occurs to me because he used to administer this um I I I don't know if there's ever been a project that basically the the projects need to meet a 15 20 or 25 requirement and for affordable housing and that is driven it is variable depending on the rents that the the average rent charged by the development when it is completed when it comes online and it's actually having been on the other side of this and working with Brian Pine when I was in the private sector and trying to build a project in Burlington and it's actually a very challenging thing to project out um exactly where you're going to land the great majority of projects that have fallen subject if not all and Brian Pine may know uh that have been subject to this requirement have only the rents the market rents have made it such that only 15 the 15 threshold is what the required threshold is um I this project has voluntarily agreed or agreed through our negotiations to a 20 percent threshold regardless of where the average rents um fall and it is exceedingly unlikely that any project would because of the rents uh result because the basically you would have to have an average rent greater affordable at 180 percent of median income to require the 25 percent threshold and that is a project a level that um projects don't come anywhere near hitting um in the Burlington market um if they were uh to do that because of the desirability of this project they would still be subject to that requirement but this defines a floor of 20 percent that it will not go below uh even um if it only if even if the math doesn't mandate it thank you mayor does that answer your question counselor hi tower yes it does um I guess the one additional question that I have which the mayor does need to answer with somebody else if um if it does get to that 25 percent what is kind of the process that happens to kick in if that were to happen yeah I may actually be the best again instead of the counselor pine I may be the best to speak to it and that this is something that the CEDO uh CEDO administers and regulates and we have um in my time as mayor we have we have tightened up the enforcement requirements um uh of the inclusionary zoning ordinance we used to only enforce them essentially at the time that a project came online um and then didn't have a system to ensure that the city was going back and double checking that those units were staying um regulated at the rent levels that they were supposed to going forward we now have protocols in place uh for CEDO to do that it's it's managed by Todd Rawlings who's one of our assistant directors and we we both do there's a formal kind of certification process at the certificate of occupancy level when all the rents are declared and and the average is determined um and then there is a a ongoing uh enforcement to ensure that the project continues to um uh to to make good on that commitment. Comparator you solved the floor great thanks that answers my first set of questions the first one um is the public improvements versus the private development um so I'm going to make I guess first a statement that is at least maybe somewhat objective but that the city should have more authority over and therefore also bears more responsibility for how public improvements are built versus um private development and so the question is how the city is ensuring now that the project is involves more kind of public improvements um as part of the agreement um that it retains authority over the public improvement process and then what that development looks like um so that it can meet that responsibility of making sure that that is how how we want things to be built. Great so I go to Jeff for this one Jeff are you able to speak to that? Well there is a process by which the city has to review and approve the proposed design plans for the public improvements and when we speak about public improvements we're speaking about Hein and St. Paul streets those plans are measured against the standards that the city has adopted in its great streets standards so that is the method by which the nature and type of public improvements are reviewed and overseen by the city. There will also be construction period oversight as the improvements are being completed. Am I answering your question? Yes but if I can ask one follow-up question which is specifically around um the say is complimenting a responsible contract ordinance which kind of happens during the bidding process and so given that we've got um you know the other party has kind of developers who build public improvements on hand how the bidding process um will happen and therefore trigger that responsible contract ordinance and that's kind of a big question but uh so there's a process associated with the public improvements and that's separate and apart from the private improvements. There are a series of new commitments that have been made in the side letter to making work available to trades for bidding purposes and I believe that that there's a hierarchy described in there as to how that will occur. I may need support on that piece. Mayor did you want to add? Yeah I think so I mean and this is um this is not I mean just quite right that there are some additional commitments made in that side letter but the question of how we would oversee the public improvements has always been at the heart of the development agreement and continues to be and there we have a um for it is very clearly laid out in I believe it's section three of the development agreement that the public improvements need to be broken out and separately identified from the private improvements. There is going to be a budget established for those public improvements that is a a process that nothing can be built without the city signing off on that budget and and we have a good sense of where that budget should land based on the estimating that has been done both by the developer's construction manager in the in the years leading up until now the independent estimation that we have done on our own and then also the city's recent experience building very comparable streets so we will agree on a budget the developer is required to get three bids for trades that they go out to bid on and and this and make those bids available for inspections we have a quite a bit of transparency and visualization into the selection of um subcontractors the developer we've always contemplated it was part of the 2017 agreement that the the developer may want to self-perform some of their own work and that is certainly true and expected now that this development team involves contractors who may you know I think you can expect will want to perform some of their own work there the city and the question has come up how do we make sure that the city is paying a fair price for that self-performed work that goes back to the itemized budget the city approves and the requirement that any self-performed trades you closely to that budget and if it doesn't the city won't approve the work it won't happen thank you mayor councillor hightower you saw the floor thanks and sorry just one follow-up clarification on that and I appreciate some of these questions I've also gotten the starts to the answer to offline so I appreciate some of the double work to answer them um I guess the last clarification question then is so it is possible that some of the public improvements will be self-performed without a bidding process or yes that's exactly right the the agreement explicitly contemplates that the developer contractor may self-perform some of the work if they are choosing to do so it's a very transparent process with the the city where they have to declare that that's where they're doing and where the city regulates and and has to sign off on on the the acceptable fee to be paid and that acceptable fee the city will come to has a lot of information behind it on what it will sign off as as acceptable it's based on a series of estimates for this work as well as the city's own experience that is broken down by trade and uh you know we're confident we we can ensure that we'll not be overpaying for that work great and can I ask one more follow-up question go right ahead um what is kind of the city's recourse at that point to reject a self-perform and ask for there to be an open bidding process for again only for the public improvements go ahead mayor yeah I you know on this one Tim has also looked at this and is the lawyer and me you know I can give an answer but it may be more precise coming from Tim yeah I think that the answer is that if it's within the the budget's margin if you will that it would that it would proceed that way but if the cost was out of that range out of the range if the actual work was going to cost more than the line items as budgeted beyond the beyond the margin um then there would not be authority to proceed without the city's approval so that would be it's it would be its own enforcement mechanism thank you also counselor yes okay I do not have any other counselors in the queue any other counselors wishing to speak go ahead counselor hanson yeah I can jump in um thanks everyone um yeah I think the the council's role in in these sort of negotiations is is always sort of challenging and tricky and and confusing um because you know we're limited we're limited in our ability to make amendments and and to even to some extent especially in this situation where we're in mediation from litigation just our ability to even send the administration back at this phase and also when we when we were able to see this a few weeks ago we you know there's a lot of pressure for us to act quickly and to review some very complicated and and long legal documents very quickly and try to make a decision so but I think given given those circumstances I feel that the council's um really navigated this well and especially um counselors pine and paul who really leaned in um into these negotiations especially in recent days and I think as others have said I'm really glad that the council voted to postpone action on this and as a result of that um we've been able to cement some critically important provisions and you know to ensure strong wages to prioritize the hiring of of women veterans new americans people of color prioritize local workers um compel the developer to at least act in good faith towards pursuing AFL-CIO housing investment trust financing which would guarantee union labor um so I think this you know and even before that but especially now this this new development agreement is a lot stronger than the previous one um in a number of ways um and just want to echo what we heard from some of the leaders in organized labor which is you know tonight is a victory I believe um but but really tonight is just one step on a journey and there's so much more that we need to do to ensure fair wages and benefits and you know safe working conditions um for all workers in burlington on every project and all workers period and that's a broader struggle and we really shouldn't have to struggle so much in a piecemeal manner project by project to try to get what really should be um universal rights um for workers um and then I also just wanted to know what I see as a big difference in sustainability and and the climate impact of this project compared to the old one and the the mayor and city attorney have confirmed this for me is that the new transportation requirements that this council approved last year um are vastly different than what the city had required around transportation for new development previous to that um and we've really shifted our mindset as a city in terms of what we require of new development away from simply requiring developers to just build a large amount of parking spaces but we've actually shifted that away to requiring developers to support their tenants using transit walking biking um using car share things that actually reduce automobile dependency is what we're having developers um subsidize and prioritize and we're actually not we're not allowing developers to just push the cost of parking into the cost of rent and force people who might not even own a car to have to pay for a parking spot that they don't use um so I so the fact that this new project is going to be under that new regime is is a big deal as well um so yeah I I'll be supporting this tonight and there's definitely some things about it that I'm excited about um I will say though I am also you know there's also a part of me that is uncomfortable and is nervous because we're years into this and I think the city has been burned along the way and been misled and trust has been broken along the way um so I I kind of echo Councillor Jang that this is really a starting point or a reset or a restart point rather than being viewed as okay we've we've fixed this whole debacle and and we're good now I think we still have a lot of work to do to to actually um achieve what we actually want to achieve which is the project itself um being built in the downtown being revitalized um so I yeah I appreciate all the work that's gone into this and I'm definitely ready to continue working on this really important project and ensure that we move forward and and create a more vibrant um and sustainable and livable downtown thank you Councillor Hanson there for I don't have any other councillors in the queue Councillor I'll go to Councillor Stromberg on first round I do see you Councillor Hightower but I'm going to go to first round first so Councillor Stromberg thanks um so yeah I'm very supportive of improvements to our downtown um I feel though that I have every right to have apprehension and distrust um this has been like a topic of you know nothing but issues since I've been on council and I know this is extended beyond that um prior to my um taking this council seat but um we do have to move on um but so yeah I'll say this I am voting yes tonight but it is probably the most reluctant yes vote I will ever cast um I know I'm not you know I feel like I'm a little bit more pessimistic just because this has dragged out in such a way um so you know this yes vote is probably like 1% more than it is a no vote and I want to be very transparent about that and the reason is you know we've been thinking too small as a city um generally speaking we need to be bringing the unions in earlier on and in more meaningful ways moving forward including like you know what David Van Dusen said during his public comment you know a real green new deal and and moving into the direction of you know good paying union jobs to help build our community um I'm being really serious and and full of intention with that um so you know I support this agreement because I support the trades and I support working families and I want what's best for them on the most genuine level tonight is a great example of the benefit I think um that you know of the council taking more time to be informed and to come together to compromise an agreement and I know a lot of work went into that a lot of conversations and um I was back and forth on this like the reason I'm speaking up is because I feel like I'm on such a fringe of like I didn't know if I was going to vote yes for this um so you know I appreciate where we've ended up because it isn't it's a true improvement compared to where we were just a week ago um but we all know we can do better and I do expect that from everyone moving forward I I I know that we all know we can do better as a city so we owe that to working families and and union workers um across the state um but yeah we we owe that to our community so thank you I had Councillor Hightower on second round anyone else who has not spoken on first round yet okay go ahead Councillor Hightower great and I'll be super brief because I know I've already taken a lot of time um I will also be supporting this um I also appreciate again the extra week that we were given to ask questions about it as well as the week and how Councillor Pine and Councillor Paul used that week to um make changes I do hope that in the future we take a little bit more responsibility and accountability for public improvements especially and make that part of our process that that is not self um self-built and that always goes to some kind of that the city retains more control over public um public improvements I think that's an important thing for us to do going forward I don't think that given how much work this agreement has gone through how much negotiation this agreement has gone through that this is the time or the place to stick a no vote on that for that kind of small um piece so thank you all and I appreciate it thank you Councillor Hightower um I see you mayor anyone else on first round Councillor Hanson I think you've already gone so anyone else on first round okay mayor and then Councillor Hanson thank you President Tracy I just want to be really clear why the public improvement um public improvements are being built um the way they are under under this agreement um it was very intentional and was one that had the full support of the council um at the time the agreement was made again this goes back to our desire from the beginning our acknowledgement and understanding that a development project comes with enormous financial risks and um that those are risks that we wanted to shield taxpayers from entirely um this is keep in mind uh the agreement was made um as we were still working our way out of the city having taken enormous entrepreneurial risk and suffered enormous financial consequences uh as a result of Burlington telecom we were determined to find a way for that not to happen here and that's exactly what the this structure does the developer um is responsible for building these streets to our standards we have enormous control over what gets built over the design of it and the construction of it we will have people in the field watching very carefully uh to make sure that all of this subsurface work is done in a way that meets our standards and that will not result in construction defects in the future um there's a a plan in place to be monitoring that very closely um the developer does that work um and then two things have to happen before the taxpayers pay a dime for it one the work has to be completed to those very high public standards and secondly the uh we need to know that we have the taxes flowing to the city from the new private improvements to um uh to pay off the debt that the city will be responsible for as soon as it buys these streets so that's the that's the reason it's set up as it is to fully protect our can protect our constituents from something going wrong and this has happened to numerous other cities around the country for us to go out and pay for public improvements assuming the tax revenues are going to come online and then something to go wrong and there to be a delay there where the taxpayers have to go into their own pocket to pay for those costs that's why it's set up the way it is I think it's an important provision that's kept that way and the council should be very confident the public should be very confident that we'll be monitoring this very closely to make sure that that these uh these streets meet our our high design uh public improvement standards thank you mayor I have councillor hanson to be followed by councillor jing on second round any councillors who haven't spoken yet please let me know if you're interested okay go ahead councillor hanson great thanks yeah I just wanted to mention something I didn't say on the first pass which is I do think what has happened here is an important reminder yet another reminder of the importance of organized labor you know not only to directly secure the dignity and the rights and the economic security of of workers represented by labor but also their ability to advocate into to influence on a broader level and I think that's what we've seen here is that organized labor was able to play a strong role and to really improve this on behalf of the folks that are going to be building building this project downtown so just want to shout that out and appreciate that in addition to as I said you know the council and me administration and everyone else who's worked on this is is organized labor for their involvement thank you councillor hanson councillor jing um I mean yeah I want to say a lot but I let me pass I'm passing okay I don't have any other councillors in the queue are you ready to vote councillor shannon go ahead thank you president tracy um I just after these last comments I have been part of this since it was first thought of in 2014 and I want to say we were really excited about the possibility of being able to follow through on plan btv and and make reality a vision that we really had no idea how we would make that vision um when we didn't own the property um and fortunately we found somebody who shared that vision and my recollection is that the unions have been at the table in these discussions since maybe 2015 um and we have been working collaboratively with them since that time but um I also want to you know the council has been pushed to make a decision on very complex matter in in some sense a short period of time and in another sense a long period of time we've had many updates over time but it's difficult to absorb all of this information and especially once the information gets finalized to realize to to be sure that it is what we think it is and to work out all of these details I think we've had some really good discussion about that tonight and I appreciate that counselors have had the opportunity to dig in and get their questions answered and and satisfied and feel comfortable with what we're voting on and that we've been given the opportunity to weigh in on this project along the way and participate in that negotiation um and I wondered if um Mayor Weinberger if you can just clarify if there's anything that's um really different now than what came to the table a week ago what are the significant differences and what's changed Mayor are you able to speak to that please uh yeah I'd be happy to I think there's two um significant differences as we sit here tonight that um from where we were a week ago um one is and I think it's been understated in this conversation so far um the uh the developer uh was very upfront and generous um in um being willing last week to be very public about what their intentions were uh in terms of how uh construction workers would be compensated on the site um the developers um uh all of whom have stellar reputations uh the local contractors have stellar reputations in terms of how they treat their employees and the type of jobs that they manage and their safety records they um they uh in the issue that came up at the last moment um about uh the city putting me in place some kind of requirement for union labor they were clear that they couldn't for a number of reasons and wouldn't at this point agree to that but what they would make public is their intention which was as I understand it sort of pre-existing intention to pay a wage equivalent of what is known as the Vermont state prevailing wage this is a regulated wage that the state publishes at I think on an annual basis um and that any contractor that is uh I worked with the developer and Tim Labombard the president of the Vermont Building Trades Council to um uh to and with with counselors who who were really uh focused on this to take that from being a public letter to being something that is formally part of the development agreement and that is what is before you now is that this is that letter is now a binding and forcible uh element of the development agreement like all these other provisions we've been talking about and um so that is that is that is uh that is that is that change and that is the extent of that change um I do think it's really important remember there's been some reference and talk tonight to apprenticeship requirements and and requirements to try to hire uh Burlington laborers new americans all of that is not new all of that is language that was in the agreement that we negotiated three and a half years ago that was done in consultation I really pushed back on the notion made by uh counselors that somehow organized labor was not properly consulted or included in the beginning back back when this was done there was full collaboration with unions then just as there has been now and there was a consensus and no disagreement from the building trades about the language that was put in place at the time um and uh and and that has been there that has not changed um the other thing that changed between last week and this week is that um it became the we've had an opportunity to have our city attorney dig into the demands that were made last week by um some individuals that uh we go beyond um the original agreement that we go beyond what is now in the agreement uh with this additional letter and require the developer to use unionized labor uh for either their private improvements or the public improvements and let me be clear that the prevailing wage commitment is for the developer is made is for both the private and the public improvements there was a demand a week ago that we require a certain percentage of all or a certain percentage of the dub to be um built with union labor and our city attorney has now looked into that um last minute demand and uh to evaluate it you know I say it was the last minute because I may understand why I hadn't been fully evaluated before last week um it's not an issue that had had ever come up in our many discussions at the council level um or in the months ahead of time uh leaving up to this and so uh it has been over the last week that the city attorney has fully dug into that and has published both a um protected at a current attorney client uh communication that you all have seen but it's also made a public version available now that makes it very clear that it is not within the city's sort of lawful authority to require uh require that and that we would be putting the city in legal jeopardy were we to um were were the council to vote to turn down the agreement um based on the that lack of that requirement so those are really the two things that have changed Councillor Shannon in the last week thank you for Shannon you still have the floor thank you um I I just really appreciate that um you know everybody has has worked here at the table to resolve all the issues and that's an amazing accomplishment and I definitely want to credit my colleagues Councillor Paul and and councillor Pine for all of their contributions as well as as the mayor for this and really all councillors um because this is this is not easy I am I actually don't disagree with councillor Strom Stromberg in terms of the future and yet I'm very optimistic um this is a great opportunity for Burlington and I'm kind of surprised about how it's come together uh we there's there is kind of a strong misperception that the city has lost money in this project or put money into this project which we have not but there has been a cost to the city there's been a real cost um particularly to the adjacent businesses have been have been paying that cost and um this is an opportunity in my mind to to build something even better than what was initially proposed not being a fan of super tall buildings um this being shorter I put that in the plus column um the the more modest project I think is going to fit better for Burlington um and it's going to bring a lot of uh vitality to the city however this is a multi-year multi-phase project and I will say what I have said in past votes on moving this project forward and that is this is probably not the last hurdle in order to get those public streets we are in a partnership and there may be other things that come up along the way that we have to work out and I look forward to working collaboratively with the developers and fellow counselors and the administration um no matter what is put in front of us to assure the citizens of Burlington get the project that they're expecting that workers are treated fairly in the process and I think it's going to be really a great benefit for everybody what we're doing tonight so thank you to to everybody who's contributed to getting us here thank you councillor shannon any further comments are we ready to vote okay seeing none um let's go to a vote um will the CAO please call the roll yes apologies the CAO did not know that was her role she's going to go get her role she just give me 10 seconds usually we have the city clerk doing it but we don't have the the clerks on the base yes apologies one second no worries take our time well why don't we do this let's let's let's try and see if we're unanimous and if not we'll go to a roll call so um we'll all those in councilor poll did you have something yes I'd like a roll call please are you like a roll call okay all right if there's a roll call that has been requested then I'll honor that so I'll wait for the um the seat with the sheet okay apologies for the delay councillor carpenter I am very pleased to vote yes councillor jay yes councillor freeman yes councillor yesen yes councillor high tower yes councillor mason yes councillor paul yes councillor paulino yes councillor pine yes councillor shannon yes councillor stromberg yes and city council president tracy yes it is unanimous great so the motion carries unanimously um we before we um we've completed our agenda but before we adjourn I just want to just let folks know that we do have a meeting tomorrow at five to go over ballot items so I just wanted to remind folks of that this is the the statutory requirement to just provide an informational meeting so just want to make sure that's on folks radar for tomorrow it's no no deliberation or decisions it's purely informational but just want to make sure that councillors remember that that's happening tomorrow that being said um a motion to adjourn is in order move by councillor pine seconded by councillor jang any discussion hearing none we'll go to a vote all those in favor of adjournment please say I I am the oppose that carries unanimously and we are adjourned at seven oh eight thanks councillors and see you tomorrow