involves more than 45 active partners at this point, partners in most cases being organizations that the next slide actually shows some of the kind of logos of some of the organizations that are involved. You'll see in addition to the groups that have already spoken here tonight, we have many law enforcement agencies are also involved in this. I think it is an unusual public health effort in that way and that we do have such a mix of stakeholders of organizations from different sectors trying to work together in new ways to address this epidemic. The principles that we try to bring to Community Stat flow from the principles of a law enforcement effort in New York of what was known as COMP Stat in New York. We try to use timely and accurate information and intelligence, effective tactics and strategies, rapid deployment of resources and relentless follow-up and assessment to move our collective work in a new direction. And we are 18 months into this effort now. We have the effort, I will point out Jackie Corbley, our Opioid Policy Manager and Kayla Donahue who's our data analyst for the effort, our key members of this effort. And 18 months in, I do think we are starting to see some impact from this collective work. Although sadly, those numbers that we just heard from the state's attorney, the first time I've actually heard the numbers through the beginning of July, very sobering and concerning to hear that we are on a record pace again in 2018. And it's certainly my hope that the work that we are doing together as we implement some of these strategies that really are within the resolution tonight, we'll start to turn the tide on that. If we wanna just quickly go ahead to the next slide. Here's a list of some of the things that has been worked on together at Community Stat. This will be posted for people who wanna spend more time on it, but I'm mindful we gotta get to the debate. Let me just focus the moraine of my efforts on what is coming next. I do have great hope for this low barrier, a medically assisted treatment effort that is happening both, is projected to happen both at the safe recovery site and at the UVM Medical Center Emergency Department. The Emergency Department will become, when this is up and running, which is projected to happen soon, will become one of the very first emergency rooms in the country that will prescribe buprenorphine to people who will come in to the emergency room suffering from, in the wake of an overdose. And we know that individuals, there's good data out there on much better outcomes for people that receive that first dose of this very effective medicine before they leave the emergency room. Similarly, the safe recovery site, this is the Howard Center Run needle exchange site that sees over 1,100 people a year and probably serves thousands more indirectly. And in last year, 200 of those people who came into safe recovery were, everyone was asked, do you wanna go into treatment? 200 did successfully go into treatment through the safe recovery center. We are hopeful that that can be increased dramatically through this new method that would have rapid access to buprenorphine take place right when someone comes into the needle exchange site. We know that other communities that have dramatically lowered the barriers to buprenorphine have seen dramatic reductions in overdose rates. In Paris, they saw an 80% reduction in heroin-related overdose over a four-year period when they adopted low-barrier buprenorphine strategies. The city of Baltimore saw a similar, very striking reduction among certain populations. These interventions, we are hopeful, could have similar impacts here in Burlington and Chittenden County. We welcome the idea, we have not, the community stat has taken on a lot of issues as the previous slide showed. We have not engaged at the community stat table. The safe consumption sites or overdose prevention sites, I think that is a venue that we can engage and further vet this idea and make some progress with this idea. I appreciate the remarkable leadership. Councilor Paul has shown in working on this resolution over months now and seeking input from many people and bringing forward the resolution and trying to bring forward in a productive way. This discussion about overdose prevention sites and I did encourage her to think about bringing this to community stat as opposed to creating some new committee or structure to review this and it is my hope that that proves to be a helpful suggestion and that we already have so much of the key community focused on these issues with the community stat table. Having that issue engaged there with the help of a couple city councilors that strikes me as a councilor or representative Colburn suggested a way to move forward and expand progress on this area. So with that, President Wright, I appreciate the opportunity to share those thoughts and we'll hand the floor back to you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, I appreciate that. And now with that and thank you all for the comments that everyone made. We appreciate the input from everyone, including the mayor and the presentation. And now we will go back to the council for deliberations on the resolution. And the way I wanna go first to amendments because I think that makes most sense before actually going and debating the full resolution. I think in the essence of time we should go to the resolution or amendments first. The first one up will be Councillor Hartnett. Thank you, President Wright. I do have an amendment.  And it's really just deleting lines 92, 93, lines 110 to 118 and 124 to 133, which basically deals directly with the sites that we are. Right. Councillor Tracy, do you have a point of order? A motion and then a second? I'm sorry. It was never moved and seconded. Oh, it hasn't been. The original resolution, no, no, the amendment. Okay, so the amendment, Councillor Hartnett has proposed an amendment and Councillor Nodell is seconding it. Okay, thank you. No, that's fine. I think it was a good clarification. So lines are right here. So 92, 93. This is on the revised version, right? The original one, this is why it was delayed a little bit because it was confusing. We're all working, we're working from the revised resolution. Yes, they all have it. Do you have the revised version? No, you don't. This is the problem, see? No, I think the revised resolution should be up there. It's the first. Well, they should be, but do they have it or not? It's on board, Ducks. Okay. Do you guys have it? It says revised. We have it, it's revised. It's the first, and I think Councillor Hartnett, you should just proceed and others can find that. I think we all should have it. So lines 92, 93 deleted, 110 to 118 deleted, 124 to 133 deleted. And those are all, whereas clauses that deal with the actual sites, ejection sites, where I'm asking those to be deleted. And Councillor Hartnett, those are actually resolved clauses. Resolved clauses, yes. Right. So, you know, there's a lot of good things in this resolution and the stats team has done a lot of good work in the city. But when we talk about these sites and you've heard all this information, you know, it's interesting, I've done a lot of research over the last couple of weeks and you call Vancouver and you call these different and you get different information from everyone that you talk to. Are they effective? They're not effective. Vancouver would tell you they're not as effective as they first were when they opened.  But that really wasn't the main focus for me. Late Friday, early Saturday, it was brought to my attention, which I didn't fully understand. I gotta be honest with you. But these sites aren't legal. We had a ruling from the U.S. Attorney General here, locally, Christine Nolan, who said point blank that these sites aren't legal. Any activity in these sites would be met with criminal prosecution. I mean, she was very clear about that. All right, very clear. All right, I talked to the AG's office. Although they think the concept is interesting and it should be looked at maybe, but it's the same thing. Once Christine Nolan issued their ruling, the AG office here locally backed off this. These sites aren't legal. And it's nothing really Montpere can change. They tried to do it earlier last year. And I appreciate their effort, but this has gotta happen in Congress. This is a federal law. It's not gonna be changed in Montpere. And so we have a long road ahead of us. So when I look at this, and I look at all the work that we have in front of us, do we really wanna waste the time and resources over how many years is it gonna take to potentially make this to be legal with federal law? There's no gray area here, like sanctuary cities or anything like that we dealt with. There's no gray area at all. These sites are not legal. And I would hope that we would take that in consideration. I know we talked to Chief Locke, spoke tonight, and I know the Burlington Police Chiefs behind this, but if you talk to the actual working force on the ground, firemen, police officers, they're not in support of this, okay, in general. And so for me, I would like to see us really focus on prevention, education, getting to the next generation. We talk about this epidemic, it's still soaring, right? I mean, Governor Sheldon was brought up tonight, right? 2014, it was the state of the state speech, right? And it's only gotten worse from that point on. And I know treatment has to be a part of this, and I get that. But if we don't get the prevention and we don't get to the next generation, we will never stop the deaths that we're talking about. We'll be walking the streets for a long time. Someone mentioned you should walk the streets with me. I can't imagine what you see. I appreciate what you were saying to us. But you know what? That walk is gonna happen a lot longer if we don't get to prevention and start using our resources where they should be used. Councillor Coleman, who I have a lot of respect for, House Representative, she talked about the harsh reality that somehow we don't pass this resolution or we're not in favor of this. You could just assume somebody shooting heroin at a McDonald's bathroom and dying. Well, let me tell you, I'm one counselor here that never wants to see that, and I'm not supporting this resolution for the safe ejection sites. So it might be a harsh reality, but I think when we talk about things that are real in our community, nobody wants to see that. It doesn't mean that we agree or disagree on every issue going forward. But I don't think there's a counselor here that would want anyone to shoot up in a McDonald's bathroom and die. That's for sure. Okay, but the question is, where do we spend our money? Where do we spend our time and where do we spend our resources that are most effective? And exploring this opportunity when we have been told point blank that these sites aren't legal and any activity involving these sites will be met with criminal prosecution. I think that's something that this counselor should take seriously and really consider where we should go. For God's sakes, we can't even keep a low barrier homeless shelter open year-round in this city. We don't have the resources to do that. And how many people in that low barrier shelter and the homeless shelter that we have here six months a year, how many people you think those people have addictions? I would say it's a high percentage, right? That's a captive audience for us. Maybe we should spend some more resources there. Try to get those people into recovery. Try to see if we can help them out where we know it can make a difference. So that's why I offered this amendment. I understand the concept. I get it, but the fact of the reality is we're a long, long way from a reality here and we don't have the time to spend. So I hope you will support the resolution amendment. Thank you. Councilor Hartnett and before I recognize Councilor Mason, I just want to remind the people that are left in the audience that we all listen politely to each one of you that came up and spoke and told us about your support for the resolution. I want that same respect back for differing points of view here on the city council. In Burlington, we respect and recognize different points of view. Everything is not black and white. So I would appreciate that same respect for everybody in the audience. Thank you. Councilor Mason. Thank you, President Wright. I will be opposing the amendment. I want to take a little of the emotion out and sort of look at the actual resolution. I don't think there's any secret this council and this resolution acknowledge and reflect that there remains work to be done at the state legislature. Not because it's illegal under state law, just simply because we have a potential concern about immunity and whether any social service providers willing to step up given the potential liability. At the federal level, there is no question and this resolution acknowledges it is currently heroin as a controlled substance and it's illegal or ibuprofen or others. Both the bullet points in 109 and 111 specifically recognize both of those points. I don't think, and I hope a majority of you agree that those are acknowledged as things that ComSTAT will need to be working on going forward. I don't think we should sit back and simply wait for the legislature to do something or this sends a message, I hope, to the legislature encouraging them to do something and also for ComSTAT and Sarah George and the state's attorney to work on the federal issue. I don't think there's any secret. Nothing was hidden. I also think I do not have the time that Councilor Hartnett does to make the phone calls and I appreciate what Dave often brings in terms of his direct experience but on something as complex as this, I'm looking to the experts who have come before me tonight universally in support of moving this forward now and not waiting. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Mason. Councilor Busher. Yes, I'm only speaking to the proposed amendment and I appreciate Councilor Hartnett's thoughtful input. I won't be supporting it because I feel that I agree that some of these things are not ready for prime time but we can't wait, as you said. We can't wait because we're not putting all of our, I hate that statement, all of our eggs in one basket. We're not. We need to cover every aspect of how we can address this crisis and this resolution is providing an approach. It's not the only solution. It's not the only way we're going to put our resources to fight this epidemic but it is one that I think is appropriate. The overdose prevention site, I can take you back in time. I represent Ward 1. The methadone clinic at UHC was incredibly controversial. It's a dispensing clinic and it also dispenses buprenorphine. Also, I just wanna make everyone know that and it has for a long time. I sat on the advisory committee for that clinic and Ward 1 and the community were very concerned about what this would bring and what it brought was an opportunity for people to change their lives, to have a new life, to get control over an addiction that was controlling them. It didn't bring about any of the fears that people saw. As far as where it's located and what it could mean, that's one thing but as far as the fact that it's not legal, I think we work through that as we move forward and so I will not be supporting the amendments although I appreciate you're bringing it forward. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Bush or Councilor Tracy. Thank you, President Wright. I will not be supporting the amendments. I think that there are for a couple of different reasons. First, I think first and foremost, I agree with Councilor Bush or that we don't have time to waste the numbers that Councilor, that the state's attorney shared with us are stark and scary and the longer we wait, the more people die. Plain and simple, taking this out, cuts off at the knees, the opportunity to explore and get all information on the table. So we take out, we're basically making a decision on whether or not we even wanna have a conversation around whether or not we wanna get full information out before making a final decision. I think that even if you're skeptical on this, you should be willing to explore these issues, get the full information on the table because we're all learning about this crisis in real time, trying to get the best information on the table and that's what these clauses that this amendment tries to remove would actually do. It would strike these clauses, prevent us from gathering this valuable information that would actually help us to make a more informed decision on the specific issues of legality that are mentioned in the resolution. And finally, I would also state that while this resolution focuses on harm reduction techniques from a variety of different perspectives, it in no means is comprehensive when it comes to the opioid crisis and I would also say that it's not an either or proposition when it comes to this. It's not either we do harm reduction or we do prevention, it's both. It's everything, it's all the time and we need to do those things. So if you wanna bring a resolution talking about prevention, I welcome that. Let's bring those providers, let's have that conversation but let's do this also. It's not an either or. We need to do everything all the time to address this because people are dying. Thank you, Councilor Tracy. Other comments by the Council on the amendment? Councilor Nodell and then Councilor Jang then back to Councilor Arnett. Yes, thank you, President Wright. I second to this and I am supporting it. We, yes, we need to do everything all the time but we have limited time, we have limited resources. And so we can't do everything all the time. We have to choose. And the fact is that Comstat has been doing a lot of good work and they did not bring this to us. And so my sense is that Comstat is the group that has been prioritizing strategies and I would be more comfortable leaving it to them to kind of prioritize. Instead we are basically moving this to the top of the list. We're moving this up to the front of the queue. And I don't feel like I have enough to go on in order to kind of say that this is like now the most important thing that we should be doing. I have more other concerns if this fails, I will be bringing some emotion to postpone. President Wright. Thank you, Councilor Nodell. Councilor Jang and then Councilor Arnett. Thank you, President. And I think I heard a couple of comments especially from those who were presenting here and I did not hear anybody talking about going after the drug dealers. Nobody talked about that. And we don't even know what type of disease this is. Is it brain disease, heart disease? What is malaxone? What is Biporphine? What is so many, many N-thing? And we also know that currently, we legalize marijuana in Vermont. And we also know that these type of sites, they're not anything other than inviting children, youth to try harder because we're giving them now an opportunity. It's legal for you to come and use. It's okay. I think as a community, we need to think about that twice before we do it. I am not against such a site but we cannot do it alone. I think Councilor Arnett had the point. I'm just hearing right now that this is illegal. Do we have our state attorney in board with us? What does he think? TJ Donovan, I mean. Attorney General. Attorney General, right? And when we're talking about federal, we should not take it lightly. And also, we know there are a couple of articles around here that I've been reading since just a couple of days about this. And one of them is like just highlighting the great work already being done in Burlington. If we know David and Goliak doing great work, Ali Baba and the 11 Chiefs don't have any idea what's going on. I think we need to move together and be able to tell our constituents as elected officials, we did this because of these reasons. We will be able to go back and have our heads up. We should not also choose to take federal or any litigation lightly. But we know how all is connected. We know that many people who are using are maybe homeless. We know that by fact. We know also such progress, such as the needle exchange programs. I mean, it is incredible. And this resolution is talking about 74 people that were interviewed, 74. And of those 74, there's like 6,691,000 syringes that was delivered. But we don't know how many people. I think it is important for us. If we're going to do this, let's do it right. I don't have all the information that I need. But when this resolution came up, I was in Cincinnati. I took the liberty to go visit their clinics. And I talk to a couple of, I have even interviews of people who are doing exactly this, that chemical dependency counselors. And I just ask them a couple of questions. Hey, what do you think of a safe and what they're saying is basically to focus on prevention and to focus on treatment. And I think already in Burlington, we're already doing it. I don't want to see my city as a small city as it is to be a hub for the whole region to be coming here. We need to do it proactively with this state of the month. And making sure that these sites will exist throughout the state. And anyone from across even the lake could come and be able to join there. We heard, like right here, 25 years old, or 27 years old, who shoot, who did this, who did that. But you know, this is your job. And I think the city of Burlington is already doing incredible job. I am not against this totally, but I just want us to find a way to be able to do it and as with the state of the month, proactively for everyone. So as far as this amendment, I am not pretty sure if I will support it, but I would want to see something else that's a little bit different. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Jang. Councillor, back to Councillor Hartnett. I'll be brief because Councillor O'Dell kind of hit on my points, but Councillor Tracy is 100% correct. It can't be one or the other. It has to be both. I agree 100% with that. I just don't think this treatment is where we need to go. I don't think we have the time. We're talking years. I don't know if we have the resources. And I think the hardest thing we have in front of us, and I'll say it again tonight, and I'm gonna say it probably 10 more times tonight, is the prevention piece. And how do we do it? And how do we get that going? Because that will be the saver of this epidemic that we are fighting. And I know treatment's important, but if we don't get to prevention and we don't get to education and we don't get to the next generation, we'll all be back and I probably won't be around, but there will be another group of people back in this room talking about what are we gonna do? What are we gonna do? And so I do think that prevention is huge. Thanks. Thank you, Councillor Hartnett. Councillor Buscher. Point of information is the first, does your amendment, may I ask through you, President Wright, if this stands still, will be it further resolved that the City Council supports and endorses the implementation of a buprenorphine prescription pilot in the ED of the UVM Medical Center? Does that still stand? Councillor Hartnett, I recognize Councillor Hartnett to respond to that. I think, Councillor Hartnett, you are removing just any sections that have to do with the safe injection sites. What happened was, what I was doing, I went through this and I wanna thank... Councillor Hartnett, please make sure you use the microphone, Councillor Hartnett. Lori Olberg for her help and Councillor Wright, but there were some parts where, to keep it cleaner, it overlapped and some of the lines deleted. If there's something that you think has been deleted that you'd like to build back in. I just wanted to make sure that that was not deleted. What line is that, Councillor Buscher? Well, it's in the old version, but I thought it was. It's in the old version, okay. So anyways, I just wanted to make sure. All right, let's work from the new one. Okay. Yeah, let's work from the new one. I know, I know, I'm not, I'm just wanting to make sure. No, I get it. I'm only kidding. Okay. I'm not great at this stuff either, so. That was my point of information. Okay. All right, so we're clear on that. Councillor Buscher, thank you. Councillor Shannon. Thank you, President Wright. I just want to be clear that this resolution does not establish any safe injection sites. It only supports exploring how we could possibly set up safe injection sites if that's a good idea. It would involve a lot of process to get to that point. I also want to say that as a city councillor, I always think that we're charged with making decisions about things we know very little about. We each bring our own expertise to the table and usually it doesn't apply. This would be a fine case of that. I have no expertise for which to make this decision. So I have to rely on the information that's provided to us by experts in the community. They're on the front lines of addressing this crisis and it absolutely is a crisis. Prevention has been kind of the staple, I think, of dealing with addiction problems over the course of time. And we certainly put a lot of efforts into prevention and obviously we have not been very successful with regards to this epidemic addressing the prevention side of it. That doesn't mean we don't continue to try. I think we very much have to continue to try and we will continue to try. But people are dying and we have to look beyond what we have historically done. And we have made progress in some areas and at the same time we fall back in others, particularly with the issue of fatality. I appreciate the experts that have come before us tonight that are on the front lines and there seems to be little dispute that this is the direction that we need to go in. With regards to the way safe injection sites are addressed in this resolution, I am comfortable with that. I don't know if ultimately I am comfortable with having safe injection sites and I'm quite sure the devil is in the details of how to get there. But in terms of its legality, I'm no lawyer. I don't bring that expertise to the table. But I do know that we have come, we've decided to legalize marijuana in the state of Vermont and somehow that's been okay. So exploring the possibility of safe injection sites should not be cut short because it's illegal at the federal level. That can be addressed in the process of exploration so that we can better understand what that means in terms of establishing safe injection sites here. Thank you. So I will not be supporting the amendment. Thank you, Councilor Shannon. Councilor Nodell. Thank you, President Wright. I'll be brief. I don't think it's true that everyone who is on the front line dealing with this crisis, responding to people who are actively having overdoses supports this view. They don't. There are people that weren't part of the group of experts that we heard from tonight that I have spoken to who are on literally the front lines. They're not literally the front lines who do not support this approach. And I think that I would have liked to hear from more voices and more perspectives. And I also think that while this resolution would not commit us to setting up safe injection sites, that if it passes that we'll be told that well you voted to do this and so it'll be harder to kind of go back, I think. So I think that you would only vote for this and support this if you think that it is a good idea based on what you know. Not that you're not sure if it's a good idea but we should go ahead and explore it. I think that to commit to exploring it is to say that I'm pretty sure it's a good idea and I'm personally not there. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Nodell. Anyone else on the Councilor? Are we ready to vote? Councilor Bushard. Yes, I just wanted to say that my experience, I, when I was not participating tonight, I was talking to Bob Bick and he was reminding me that when the methadone clinic first started, there was a waiting list of around 600 people for access. So I guess my point is that the need is great and delay will cost lives and there needs to be a number. I agree with the Councilors that spoke about the fact that Burlington shouldn't do this alone, that it needs to be statewide, there needs to be more than just one overdose prevention site. I don't think anyone really spoke to there just being one by any means. So I think that, I think time is of the essence. So the exploration of this is really important because I feel like we're gonna be, we're not gonna be able to meet the needs of the people that are currently in crisis who will be there and hopefully won't be still growing those numbers, although I don't know how we're gonna prevent those numbers from stopping because I haven't heard a point about that. So anyways, that's my point. I won't still be supporting the. Thank you, Councilor Busher. Are we ready for a vote? We are ready for a vote. So all those in favor of Councilor Hartnett's amendment, please raise your hands. And all those opposed? So Councilor Hartnett's amendment fails by a vote of nine to three. The three Councilors who supported it are Councilors Hartnett, Nodell and Wright. I will now recognize Councilor Nodell for an amendment. Thank you, President Wright. I would like to move to postpone action to the Council's October 15th meeting and to hold so that the neighborhood planning assemblies can weigh in on this resolution and to hold a council work session on this resolution between now and October 15th. And after a second I'll. Councilor Nodell has proposed her amendment. Councilor Hartnett is seconding it and I will go back to Councilor Nodell. You have the floor back, Councilor Nodell. Thank you very much. So it's postponing action so that the NPAs can weigh in and so that we as a council can hold a work session. The language of the resolution did include and I appreciate all the work that Councilor Powell did to address some issues over the weekend. But and including reference to exploring the possibility of mobile sites. But we are still talking about also a physical site that would be some place in the city of Burlington. And I represent the part of the city that is by far and away the most likely location for such a site. If you look at the Vancouver site it's in a working class ethnically diverse neighborhood. And I think probably if you look around the world at these sites we don't have information here but that one is in a working class ethnically diverse neighborhood. We have mixed use zoning. I think there are lots of reasons I could go into why I really feel that it's very likely that if this like we were to do a site it would be in the old North End. And so I just feel that I need to hear from my constituents I need to hear from people who live in the old North End that they feel comfortable with us moving forward with exploring this. And I think other NPAs may also feel the same way the NPAs aren't meeting over the summer. So that was the reason for the motion. Thank you Councilor Nodell. There are a couple of counselors ready to get in the queue but my understanding is Councilor Pine has requested a recess, correct Councilor Pine? Correct. And so I will grant a recess it needs to be relatively short 10 minutes five no more than five to 10 minutes. And when we come back we will be at the bewitching hour and we will need a resolution. So someone needs to think about suspension of rules and what you want to include in that of what's left. Okay we're on recess till 1030. We are at the 10 minute mark for the that we said for the recess. So we met our timeline there. And can I get? I bet you're right, yeah. We're back. Okay. Hold on, hold on. I'm gonna recognize Councilor Mason for a motion on suspension of rules. Thank you President Wright. I'd like to make motion to suspend the rules to complete action on 605 only. Okay so Councilor Mason has moved to suspend rules but to complete the action on this agenda item that we are working on now only. So everything else will not be acted on tonight. That's council reports, committee reports, mayor, president, et cetera. So this does require a two thirds vote for approval. So all those in favor of the motion by Councilor Mason to suspend the rules complete action on this agenda item only please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? No. Councilor Hartnett is opposed. So it passes by an 11 to one vote. So we have suspended our rules to complete action on this item. And where are we? We're voting on it but do we have other? Councilor Pinedt asked for a recess. So we had the recess and now is further comments from city councilors on the motion to postpone action. No. So we are ready to vote on Councilor Nodell's motion to postpone action. And Councilor Nodell can you remind me that until the time certain was... The October 15th, councilman. October 15th, thank you. Thank you, Councilor Nodell. So all those in favor of Councilor Nodell's motion please say aye. Aye. Opposed? No. I need a show of hands. Those that are in favor of Councilor Nodell's motion please raise your hand. In favor of Councilor Nodell, there seemed like there was a number of guesses and now there's only about two or three answers. In favor of Councilor Nodell's motion please raise your hands. We only had, and those opposed? Okay, so the vote is nine to three in opposition to Councilor Nodell's amendment. And again, the three in support were Councilors Hartnett, Nodell and Wright. Councilor Nodell, you have a further amendment now. I'll wait for Councilor Jang to do his amendment. Okay. So we'll go to Councilor Jang, recognize Councilor Jang for amendments that you do have up on board docs. Yeah, I think then it is very explicit and we all know the information what is needed. Basically, the first one is for the title to include the word explore, the Council in support of exploration of an overdose prevention site, et cetera. So that's the first amendment. Should I put them all together? Let's do one at a time. So Councilor Jang, this first amendment is to include the word explore into the actual title. Councilor Paul. Thank you, I apologize for the interruption. The three amendments that Councilor Jang has are friendly to me as the first and I believe also to the second. Councilor Paul, I'm sorry, I think that we've... I understand, but perhaps we could just take them together. Councilor Paul, hold on please. I think that I have been understood that we do not have that process anymore of friendly amendments. That's what City Attorney Blackwood had ruled before. I have always been in favor, I like friendly amendments, but unless someone can correct me that that's wrong. That's no doubt. My predecessor, President Shannon, I think has clarified that we would no longer be doing friendly amendments and ever since then we haven't been doing friendly amendments. Yes, and so I'm following the precedent that has been going on for a while now by the past two presidents and has as suggested by the City Attorney Blackwood. So otherwise, Councilor Paul, I otherwise I would have liked that. But so we have an amendment by Councilor Jang first. We know that it apparently has support, so let's take that. Are there any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor of Councilor Jang's first amendment, please say aye. Aye. Okay, that passes and we've changed the title to add explorer to the word. Councilor Jang, take the other two. I think it's important that the other two amendments are explained so the public hears what they are. So if you wanna do the other two together, go ahead, but let's at least make sure the public hears what they are. Okay, so then the second amendment line 92 and 96 and the amendment is asking for the followings. Now there be it further resolved that the Council supports and underlies exploration of hosting a pilot overdose prevention site in Burlington and to provide a report of that exploration to the full Council no later than the first Council meeting on July 2019, next year, one year basically. That's the second to just include pilot as well as to present the findings to the Council by. Okay, Councilor Jang, everybody understands. I don't understand that. So maybe someone could explain it to me. I can explain it to you. Yeah, that's good. Okay, and I think it's in front of you as well. Yeah. Yes, so basically this resolution been just asking we are going to explore hosting an overdose prevention site, but instead of... Oh, instead of site you wanna say... Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, can't go back and forth. Yeah, instead of hosting an overdose prevention site, but we are going to explore hosting a pilot, a pilot, which mean we can try it out, okay? And then if the exploration also should come back to the Council in form of a report. So basically that's what he's asking. All right, thank you, Councilor Jang. Everybody clear? Councilor Paul. Thank you. I didn't read this correctly. And she wanted to be friendly. Yes, and I did, I did, I did because I saw what I was looking at was the stuff in red. I wasn't looking at the whole thing. I apologize. I thought that all that... I thought that all that Councilor Jang wanted to do was to just simply add the word pilot to before, after the word and, and before the word overdose, on line 93. Councilor Jang, your amendment in line two has the language that's in there saying now therefore be it resolved that the Council supports and endorses the exploration of hosting and you put a pilot overdose prevention site. Is it correct that that is the extent of your amendment is to add the word pilot to that language? Okay, not only that, but also if you go do the exploration you should come back to the Council with a report of your findings. So you've added the word pilot as well as to report back to the Council. It's a specific date, yeah. Okay. May I ask a point of information, President- Point of information, Councilor Mason. From, if you wouldn't mind asking Councilor Jang from whom is this report? Is this community step? Who is, my concern is in that resolution that expresses support is further clarified below by sort of the action steps that it's asking ComSTEP to do. So I'm not sure that's the appropriate place. If I, so I'm trying to understand are you hoping to get a report back because I think what I've heard is it is highly unlikely that there will be a site up and running in July of 2019. So who's reporting back? I guess Councilor Jang. Okay, Councilor, thank you Councilor Mason. Councilor Jang, can you respond to that? Councilor Jang. Okay, can you please re-ask the question clearly? What are you asking? Yes, my understanding of the proposed amendment is it's asking for a report back by July of 2019. My question to you is who is, from whom are you expecting a report and is it merely a progress report in terms of what ComSTEP has underdone to effectuate this? I'm not sure what was the intent. Yeah, and thank you for that question. And specifically because this resolution does not state clearly who is going to explore. Is it the Council? Is it the ComSTEP? Is it a member of the mayor's office? Who is actually going to do that? But I think this is basically asking whoever's doing it once with their findings to come back to the Council and make a report. You know what I mean? Okay, thank you Councilor Jang. So Councilor Jang has the word pilot added to this and is asking for a report on the exploration to the full Council no later than first Council meeting in July 2019. Further comments from the Council or questions or do we want to vote? Call the question. Councilor Hartnett has asked to call the question. This also takes a two thirds vote. So all those in favor of calling the question voting on this amendment please say aye. Aye. Those opposed? No. How many people who vote no please raise your hands just so I clear that one, two, three, four, five. Okay, we do not have the votes to call the question. We did for a second. We didn't. Okay, so we did not call the question.  Whoa, whoa, whoa, Councilor Hartnett. Okay, Councilor Powell. Thank you, President Wright. I have to confess I'm still, just, you know, Councilor Mason asked a question, President Wright of Councilor Zhang. I'm still not clear on what the answer to that was. This report on the exploration, now one thing that it could be is a report could come back from the two Councilors that are on Comstat should this pass in its entirety that would report back to the Council in a year. That would seem to me to be reasonable, but I just wanna make sure that I understand, you know, as long as we haven't called the question exactly where that report is gonna be coming from if I might. Okay, thank you, Councilor Powell. Councilor Zhang, we're gonna try one more time. If you just can just clarify the report that you're asking for, do you want it to come from the two Councilors that we may be putting on this or from who do you want the report to come from? Okay, thank you. And again, you cannot answer a question with a question, but basically here it is, whoever is going to do the exploration, who do you think will be doing the exploration? Then we will need that group of person or that person to come to the Council and make the report. Okay. Yes. Councilor Powell, and then we need to move on. Thank you. So the resolution calls for Comstat to be doing that work. We are not gonna be creating another committee or it's not gonna go through a committee of the City Council, it will go through Comstat. That was the intent of having two City Councilors on Comstat. And I think the Mayor actually explained that fairly well. Earlier. Okay. Thank you, Councilor Powell. So we would get a report from Comstat, from the representatives of Comstat, Councilors or whatever. Okay. Yes. All right, so I'll, Councilor Nodell. Well, I remember when I did this when Councilor Nodell was president. You're giving me the same look that I gave you. So, okay. So a question, may I ask a question for the lead sponsor? Yes, you may. Who is very, okay. I didn't see any report back dates in this resolution. Did I miss it? Councilor Powell. You didn't miss it. All I did, all that it does say is report quarterly to the council. It says that the councilors will report. So there was no date per se. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Councilor Nodell. Okay, so I think we are ready to vote on Councilor Jang's amendment, the second amendment. First one was successful. So all those in favor of this amendment, please raise your hands. That is seven in favor. Let's just to make clear all those, gotcha, Councilor Spusher. All those opposed, all those opposed, please raise your hands. One, two, three, four, five. Okay, so. Posing your own amendment. No, you, Councilor Jang, you do not want to oppose your own amendment. Yeah, yeah, yes. Thank you. We are really going down a bad avenue here. Thank you, Councilor President. So with that, the vote was seven to five, I think. I think it was seven to five in favor of the amendment. So that amendment passes. Councilor Jang, your third and final amendment. Thank you, President. And I think this is for line 119 and 120 and for the amendment to state the following. Be it further resolved that the city council supports the work of the community side and request that the council president to appoint two city councilors on community side and the mayor to include one additional member of the community to offer greater diversity or perspective, not already included in the community side. Thank you, Councilor Jang. Is there a second to Councilor Jang's amendment? Second by Councilor Pine. So let's just, the basics of this amendment, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, Councilor Jang, are that you are requesting that the council president, rather than the mayor, make the two appointments to community staff. Yes. All right, thank you. Discussion by the council, Councilor Shannon. This has been really the mayor's initiative and I think it has been highly effective to date. The piece here about including a member of the community to offer greater diversity of perspective seems somewhat random to me. I think this is a large group that has been brought to the table with the intent to include anybody who can be helpful. So I'm not sure what kind of perspective we would be looking for that is not yet at the table. And certainly if there was a perspective that was not present, we would want to invite them, but I don't know what that is or who this is intended to include who's not currently included. Thank you, Councilor Shannon. Other comments by the, by Councilors? Councilor Busher. President Wright, may I ask the mayor a question? Yes, you may, Councilor Busher. You ready? So I guess, as was referenced, community stat, you've been involved in completely. How do you respond to this proposed amendment? I'd like your opinion, I guess, that's what I'm asking. Thank you, Councilor Busher. I would, I appreciate and welcome Councilor Paul's effort here to create greater involvement between this community stat effort and this council. I think that will be healthy and positive things will come from it. It is an initiative that the chief and I have put enormous personal energy into and are very committed to and will wear as, you know, I certainly understand why it's appropriate in many cases for the city council president to choose which counselors are involved in this particular case given the history here and the effort here, I would welcome the opportunity to, I certainly will consult with the city council president and would welcome hearing, you know, it's gonna take a real commitment, I think, I will say for many councilor that wants to be involved. These are, these are an equipment that not every councilor will be able to make. I'd like to be, they are last Thursday a month meetings from eight, 30 in the morning to around 11, 30 in the morning. And so I would welcome the opportunity to really have the chance to talk through with counselors who are interested and make sure they understand what they're signing up for and work with them on, I think, preserving what has been a helpful and important kind of culture that has made this work. We have, we've had to build a great deal of trust to make these effective meetings and having some ability to work with people chosen to make sure, I think, would be helpful to making this successful. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Councillor Bushard. Councillor Hartnett. Can I get a clarification through you, President Wright? I'll do the thing right for the first time in my life. Thank you. Councillor Shannon, could she clarify what she meant there? Is she saying that she doesn't believe we should appoint two people or two counselors? I was, could you clarify what you were saying? Thank you, Councillor Hartnett. I think that, I'll let Councillor Shannon respond. I think she was talking about the additional person from the public. Councillor Shannon, respond. I made an error in that I thought that this was additional that rather than I was confused about what Councillor Jang's change was. So I do think that the, you know, this has been the mayor's committee and it seems reasonable that he would be allowed to appoint the two counselors in this case, where, you know, normally I do think that it's appropriate for the council president to make the appointments and in this case because it's been the mayor's initiative and his committee up to this point. I think that seems to allow him to have this appointment. Okay, thank you, Councillor Shannon. Councillor Wright, thank you. I'll only to speak to the amendment, so I won't be speaking to that. Before we have a final vote on this whole resolution, we'll have a discussion as well, right? We'll have an opportunity. We have to go back to the full resolution. All right, so, okay, perfect. I'm clarified there. Yep, I'm ready to go. I can make a decision now. All right, any further discussion on the amendment? Hearing none, all those in favor of Councillor Jang's amendment, please raise your hands. All those opposed, please raise your hands. That amendment fails by a vote of six to six and the mayor will make the appointments. And with that, Councillor Nodell is ready with another amendment. Yes, I have two very short amendments which are now been shared with the council by email and hopefully can get posted up on the screen. This is two new resolve clauses at the very end. So the first, at line 134 add, be it further resolved that the establishment of a safe injection site in the city of Burlington will not take place unless and until the city council affirmatively votes to do so. Okay, and we have it there on the screen. We do not have that, that one is not on the screen, sorry. It is now on, is that on the one on the screen? Yes. Okay, we need a second for that amendment. Councillor Hartnett seconds, discussion. Councillor Paul. Thank you. I just have a request to make. When we were writing this resolution, originally it did talk about safe injection sites. Upon further research into this and in talking with people that really are on the cutting edge of this, the term really isn't, is no longer safe injection. It's overdose prevention site and for the clarity of having consistency in the resolution, I was wondering if you would consider using that term. That's up to Councillor Nodell. I, out of respect for this sponsor, I will change the language to overdose prevention site. But I think that most people in Burlington are not clear on what an overdose prevention site is but they understand what a safe injection site is. But I'm willing to change the language at the request of Councillor Paul. Well, if you, if. No, we're not going back and forth. I'm President Wright. I just would add if that would, just to make everyone happy, if we could say overdose prevention site and even in parentheses, just say also known as, that would be fine. Thank you, Councillor Paul. Councillor Nodell, you're willing to. I will change the language to that. Establishment of an overdose prevention site, Perenn also known as the safe injection site, Perenn. Okay, any further discussion on this amendment? Hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That one passes unanimously and we have added that language from Councillor Nodell. And Councillor Nodell, did you have another one? Yes, so immediately follow this result, that resolve clause, there is it to be a second one. Be it further resolved that the vigorous prosecution of illegal drug trafficking in the city of Burlington would not be compromised by the exploration of an overdose prevention site, Perenn also known as a safe injection site, Perenn, as proposed in this resolution. Thank you, Councillor Nodell. Seconded by, seconded by Councillor Bushard. Discussion on this amendment? Councillor Shannon. One of the things that we've heard is that we cannot arrest our way out of this problem. And I'm wondering if what we have now is defined as vigorous prosecution of illegal drug trafficking, because I'm not sure what that means. All right, thank you, Councillor Shannon. Further discussion? Councillor Nodell, we'll respond to that. Thank you. I think in the city of Burlington, we do have a vigorous approach. And I just want to make sure we continue to have a vigorous approach because I think that illegal drug trafficking does have a lot of negative impacts on our community. And I just want to make sure that as we pursue harm reduction strategies, which I think are important, that we don't back off from the prosecution of illegal drug trafficking. That's the only purpose, is to say, let's keep doing that as well. Just as a point of order. City Attorney. I would just point out that there is prosecution of drug trafficking by other entities in the city of Burlington besides the Burlington Police Department. And if you were to change it from in the city of Burlington to by the city of Burlington, you'd probably be safe and not be binding. So you recommend us say by the city of Burlington? By the city of Burlington. Yes, the only thing under our control. To the extent that we are an entity prosecuting, it would be by us. Thank you. That's a good change, thank you. I will change the language to by. Okay, so Councilor Nodell changes from in the city of Burlington to by the city of Burlington. Councilor Tracy. President Wright, I'm wondering if I can ask State's Attorney George a question. Certainly. Ms. George. So would the exploration of any of these sites provide any impediment to any of the work that you do prosecuting drug traffickers in Burlington? Absolutely not. It doesn't now, it won't then. There are two completely different populations. They're totally different charges. They would have absolutely nothing to do with it. One would have nothing to do with the other. Okay, and can you describe your current prosecution strategy? Would you describe your current prosecution of illegal drug traffickers as vigorous? I agree with Councilor Shannon. I don't really know what that means. What I consider vigorous may be different. It's certainly different than what the feds would consider vigorous. Illegal drug trafficking to some extent is almost always prosecuted federally because of the amounts involved. But in our office, most of those individuals face incarcerated sentences unless they themselves are also suffering from substance use disorder and then that's an entirely different prosecution. They would typically go to treatment court or some other form of treatment. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Tracy. Thank you, Ms. George. Appreciate that clarification. Are we set to vote? Looks like we are. All those in favor of this amendment please raise your hands. That's eight, those opposed, just to make sure we have that right. As opposed, it's eight to four. Councilor Nodell's amendment passes eight to four. And I think that now disposes of all amendments. So we are back now with the amended resolution with some different amendments in there from Councilor Nodell, Councilor Chang. And is there further discussion on the Councilor Hartnett? On the resolution? Now we're back on the resolution as it's been amended. Thank you. I'd like to adjust the mayor. I could. President Wright, a couple of questions. You can pose your questions and then I can recognize the mayor to address them if he chooses to. At this time on the stats team, do we have anybody from the Vermont Department of Education and do we have anybody in the medical field in the pediatrician profession? Mr. Mayor? So it's interesting, Councilor Hartnett, the focus of community stat has just in recent months begun turning to a sharp focus on kids. The last month was we had child protective services in and the plan for the months ahead is also focused on children. There has been members of the Burlington School District have been participated in many of the meetings. I mean, certainly the governor, many members of the governor's administration, some of the most senior officials frequently attend. They have not generally been in the education department. I can't say there has never been someone from the education department there, but the more prominent members have been the health department, corrections, child protective services, as I said, I think was there this past time. And similarly, there have been many medical professionals in the room. I believe there were some pediatricians at the last effort which was focused on children in protective custody, but generally the pediatricians have not been the focus of the effort up until now, and it's an interesting question. I ask those questions really because I really think it's the focus of really this whole crisis. And I know we wanna talk about treatment tonight because it's here, we see it, it's in our face, we're watching people die every day and I know that.  But I'll say it again, if we really wanna get real and you really wanna stop this crisis, it's in prevention. And if we were going to put two more people on that staff team, it shouldn't be two city counselors, right, because we'd be back here in front because city counselors by nature are just, they think they're experts, I just counselor Shannon said on every issue. What the reality is, until we get this message to the next generation, till we have it part of our curriculum and our schools, till we have it part of our pre-nutrition handbook with parents and newborns, we will never win this battle. Prevention, prevention, prevention. No, we want to talk about it really because it's hard, it's not easy. It takes resources, it takes manpower. But you can talk about safe ejection sites, you can talk about this site, you can talk about any site you want. And the reality is, until we really get serious and address the real issue in the room and where we have to stop this, so this crisis doesn't come at us again, it's prevention and it's in the next generation. And so, you know, resolutions like this, there's a lot of grandstanding. You're bringing elected officials, you're bringing department heads, city counselors, now you can Google, growing to Vermont and it will pop up, they're talking about safe ejection sites and that's all great for national headlines and all that, but really, if you really truly want to make a difference, then you really got to put all your focus on prevention and you got to put the experts in the room and they should be part of your team and they should be at every meeting and it should be in our school curriculum and it should be in our pediatrician handbooks and it should be in people's living rooms. Otherwise, we will be back here year after year after year talking about the same problem. So, I don't support this resolution. I think it is in some ways well intended. There are some good things in the resolution that I do like, but it really takes, I think, distracts from the work that your group has done, mayor, and it's trying to do, I really do. And from that, I'm disappointed. And if it was about expert testimony tonight, we certainly could have got experts in on the other side to say just the opposite of these experts tonight. I don't think we want to make that about expert testimony, right? We're not pitting experts against experts. We really just want to solve this crisis and so I hope we're committed to really doing that and I just don't think we are. I think we're more interested about grabbing headlines and that's unfortunate. Thanks. Thank you, Councillor Hartnett. Councillor Busher. So, I will be supporting this resolution. And as we said, you can't have one without the other, but if you just focus on prevention, what about all the people that are addicted right now? What happens to them? What happens to them? I guess that's what I want to know. This is about dealing with those individuals who have found themselves in a crisis state often from, as we know, by getting prescribed medications. This is not, I mean, this is so complicated, I can't even wrap my head around it sometimes, but it is that way and so prevention, yes, we don't want anyone else to find themselves in this situation, but we have all those people that are already in that situation and we have to do something for them. So that's what this is about and that's why we need to explore this as an option and that's why I'm trusting the mayor because I voted for you to appoint two city councillors and I'm hoping that you look at where the concerns are and the availability and you get the people that want to be there and make that commitment, but I am supporting this because I feel like this is a necessary step. I have heard from people that I respect. I agree that there are always differences of opinion, but I do respect the people that came to speak tonight in support of this, so I will be supporting this. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Bushard. Councillor Pine, then Councillor, I'm sorry, Councillor Roof is first, then we'll go to Councillor Pine and then Jane. I feel the debate coming, I think, possibly to a close soon and before we vote I just wanted to speak up and say, while we've been talking a lot about overdose prevention facilities tonight, there is another really important piece of this resolution, another tool which is low barrier access to buprenorphine which is incredibly important when we talk about the different pieces of this puzzle that will need to come together over time. As with any crisis, which we often refer to this as because it is in the truest sense of the term, there's always been debate about how do we efficiently and strategically allocate resources and that, to a degree, is really what we've been doing tonight, it's do we allocate resources to something that, and resources isn't time and money and attention, column inches, what do we talk about, what do we spend money on, what do we spend time with and we need to be doing both short, well, Councillor Tracy had said, get it be both, everything, I think we can frame it in a different way of, we need to be looking at short term and long term solutions to a crisis like this which is chronic and systematic. Short term buprenorphine, that's a short term, we can immediately implement that. In many ways we already are, have begun to be doing that which is critical. As with any response to a crisis, at least in my non-expert opinion, you should be coupling short term strategies with long term strategies. And then the folks who are on the ground and off the front lines as well need to be having those conversations about how are we dedicating immediate responses and how are we balancing that with a longer term look. And I think one of those longer term strategies is overdose prevention facilities or safe consumption facilities. I sort of stayed out of the debate up till now because I've been very clear of my support for them. So it's no surprise that I'll be supporting this resolution and I support the exploration and hopefully we can find a way to do it right here in Burlington and be a leader because yes, we will need enabling legislation from the State House and yes, we will need a change at the federal level to really have this streamlined but that doesn't I think prevent us as a city council to send the messages upward and onward that we're willing to take those steps. So I'll be supporting that, this resolution for those reasons. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Roof. Councilor Pine and then Councilor Jang. I just want to speak to the, I think we've been faced with what sounds like a choice or maybe a dichotomy between treatment or intervention and prevention. I think what's important to think about is that when we fail at preventing the use of opioids we have to focus on preventing the harm the opioids can cause. So I think there is actually, this is a form of prevention, it's just after the fact you're preventing harm. So we're not preventing the use when we treat people in this manner and I kind of think this is a little bit analogous to we're all taught to brush our teeth, right? We're all taught later to floss our teeth.  So think of it as you can't just do one or the other. It's not quite that simple. I really think this is a case of we really have to do it all and we have to try everything possible because it feels a little bit like not just in Burlington but in America where we're fiddling a little bit while Rome is burning and I don't think we really have that luxury. I think we have to try everything and I think we've reached that point. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Payne. Councillor Jang. Thank you and I don't know if you still can ask questions about the resolution itself. Give it a shot, Councillor Jang. Quick ones. And one of them is like in line 94, 95. So basically it has the council, you know, what I'm asking is just if the resources given to Howard Center, I believe, you know, I'm pretty sure it come to the council or to the board of finance before. I'm pretty sure, right? What is the question that you want to pose, Councillor Jang? So it's that, it's basically 94, 95, it's saying be it further to support and under see the continued and adequate funding of our community's safe recovery site. So looks like there are already funds being allocated to those sites already currently. And it's asking to continue doing it so, you know? And my question is basically, did that come to the council before those funding went there or it was just from the community side directly or just from the mayor? Because here it is asking for the council to approve that and was wondering in the past if it came to the council or the board of finance. Thank you, Councillor Jang. Mr. Mayor, did you want to give a brief response to that? I was trying to understand the question, but I denied, I needed the council to repeat that question. Councillor Jang, can you repeat that? Okay, thank you. So here on the resolution is say be it further resolved that the city council supports and under sees the continued and adequate funding of our community's safe recovery site. I've been here just for a year, but I'm asking, did the council or the board of finance approve? Sorry. Did the council approve this funding? Did the board of finance approve the funding? If you could respond to that, Mr. Mayor. All right, the safe recovery, I apologize that I didn't understand it first time. That's a clear question. The safe recovery has had for reasons that are not entirely clear to me, has had its funding in jeopardy in recent years, despite the fact that it is essentially the only needle injection, sorry, needle exchange site in the state that is open frequently. It serves all 12 counties of the state and it's a very valuable resource. This needle exchange has been proven definitively to be important and yet the city of Burlington, it has never been a funder of safe recovery. It has been funded by the state and by the federal government. And that again, this past legislative session was in some question. It does appear that their baseline funding after some lobbying by many, the city certainly was active in lobbying for the continued support of it. The baseline funding has been continued and seems to be in a safer or more sure place than it has been in some time. And that is critical if this low barrier buprenorphine pilot is gonna succeed and that we are essentially adding additional service onto that baseline needle exchange service. So this isn't something the council has approved in the past because this has not been city money. This is something that is, I think, properly really a regional and statewide resource and is funded by the state and federal government. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Councilor Zhang. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Now, more questions. And because it sounds like this resolution had two components. We passed one and the second one, just getting into it with more questions. If you could please allow me to ask a couple more. Okay, let's get all the questions that you have out here at once and so they can respond to it. It would be complicated for me and everyone. So just allow me to do one by one, please. How many do you have? Four or five more. So I go fast, okay. So now I wanted to explain, if you can please explain what are the differences in couple of lines here? And the difference is in line 96 and 97. How is it different from line 98 and 99? What are the differences if you can explain? Councilor Powell, can you respond to that? Yes, the first one is, the second one is talking about specifically a pilot at the emergency department of UVM Medical Center. The other one is talking about a program in the city of Burlington. Safe Recovery has expressed that they would like to also have a low barrier buprenorphine program within Safe Recovery. That's what that is referencing. Okay, so then line 96 and 97, can we be very specific instead of city of Burlington is vague, but I wanted to see the barrier buprenorphine prescription program in like the power center or another specific place. Because city of Burlington, we don't know exactly where, with who is it spectrum, is it city market, is it where? Councilor Powell, can you respond to that? Well, I'm much, I mean, if you're asking me to whether or not it should say safe recovery, I, you know, Bob Bick unfortunately has left. I don't feel comfortable putting it in there without having discussed it with him first. So that was one. And line 103, it's specifically talking about spaces like it says, be it for the resolve that the city council support in Andos is a universal low or no cost availability of malaxone throughout our community. Again, very similar to that, distributed in a way in places that will help maximize its availability during the time of great risk to opiate abuses. So again, it doesn't specifically say where. I think it's, if we can tailor that, that would be amazing. Or maybe postpone to get more questions. Councilor Mason, do you have a point of order? I guess I'm not really sure where this is going. I mean, I thought we were on discussion about the resolution. These seem to be either, could have been proposed amendments or other, they're not factual points. That's actually, I'm viewing this as a debate. Maybe I'm incorrect. So the hour is also late, so I'm a little more, you know, not as willing to allow this to go on. The point of order is that, yes, we have, I mean, the expectation was that we have moved through all the amendments. There are no other amendments out there and that we are debating the final resolution on this as it's been amended. And so, so Councilor Jang, I think it is important that you wrap up all your questions now. I mean, into, I mean, I think you need to put out whatever questions you have left. And if there's someone that can respond, Councilor Paul can respond, but we need to move forward. So wrap up whatever questions you have here. Are you suggesting you might wanna make amendments as a result of what you're saying? Okay, so I wanna be very clear and we all in the record here. This is not something that we need to take lightly. And we wanna make sure that everything we voting on here today, tonight, to be clear. So we know exactly. Amendment was proposed here to postpone action. It failed. So there are now questions that no one can answer, right? And I cannot just wrap my questions. And I do believe that it is important for us to get these answered in order for us to move forward, right? So basically that's where I am. So I understand, I understand your points Councilor Jang. So I'm just asking is to just present. I don't wanna stop and go and stop and go each time and say, so if you can put out whatever you have left, I wanna hear your questions. And then what you will have to do is make a decision. If based on the answers or potentially lack of answers to your questions, you can then decide whether you wanna vote yes or no on the resolution based on that. So pose whatever questions you have left. All I'm asking is that you now at this point sort of round the questions up and we'll see if there's, okay, thank you. So we are going to work on this as a body, right? So I have questions, the table, they're not answered. And maybe I wanna put a amendment to postpone action until another time. Yeah. The problem, Councilor Jang, I'm sorry to interrupt you. The problem is we've already dealt with a proposal to postpone action and that failed. So that would be, I think it would be an amendment that would not be, that could not be recognized at this point because we've already, unless it was a different motion than the one that was made if you made a different kind of a postponement that what Councilor Nodal did. If you proposed a postponement to some different date but we can't have the same motion on the floor that Councilor Nodal made this. Point of information. Can you remind me when was your amendment? What date, Councilor Nodal? Councilor Jang, it was to October 15th, Council meeting. And Council President, can you please remind me when is our next meeting? Our next meeting is August 13th. Our next full city council meeting is August 13th. Councilor Jang, you saw the floor. At the moment, we've got a resolution that's awaiting a vote with Councilor's making final comments and if Councilor Jang is making comments and it leads to his making a motion to continue till August, he'll need a second but to just engage in questions, I think we're past that. He's got to just either make his comments and wait the vote or make his comments and then make a motion. Thank you City Attorney's Office. I'm actually going to make a ruling on that. That's I think up to the Council President to decide and Councilor Jang, do you have an amendment to offer? If you do, now is the time to do it. I want to request a recess, two minutes please. You want to request a recess? Yes. Request for recesses are honored. So it is going to be a very short recess of five minutes. Yes, thank you. So we are back in five minutes, no matter what. We're in recess. Unbelievable, just unbelievable. All right, everybody take their seats please. Councilors take their seats. We are back. We are reconvening from the recess at 11.30 and Councilor Jang, Councilor Jang, Councilor Jang. Councilor Pine and Tracy, if you could hold just one moment please while Councilor Jang has the floor to finish what he started. Thank you. Thank you very much everyone, President, the Mayor. But again, I think we just found a little bit of explanation that this dispensary of brief briefing won't be in any places where there is not a medical or healthcare professional. So I think for that we all agree to just move forward. But now this is my comment is basically I want to take a special time to say a special and great give up to the Mayor for his leadership around this issue. And also for Councilor Paul for your hard work putting this together. I think it took you a lot of time and I know you've been helped by all the Councilors to put it together. And this is, we all can be proud that under the leadership of our Mayor we now finally joining forces to see something that is very meaningful in making sure that we will save lives for our resident and hopefully even at the state level. Thank you and I'll be supporting this resolution. Thank you, Councilor Jang. Is there any other comment from Councilors? Councilor Nodal. Thank you, President Brown. I do need to explain my vote. If the motion to postpone had succeeded I think I could have eventually gotten comfortable with this but I have not heard from any constituent. I have heard from nobody about this and so it is hard for me to say yes when I have not heard from anybody who may be most likely to be affected if we end up having a physical site. I am concerned that we have not heard from important frontline personnel in the city of Burlington who are currently responding to overdoses who we haven't heard from them. I have spoken with some of them and they provide a different perspective we haven't heard tonight. I worry that we are falling into some group think here. We need to hear the other perspectives. I hope that when, I know this is going to pass tonight and I hope that when Community Stat takes this up that we also hear from the people who are skeptical about these sites and that we really look at unintended consequences and really fully evaluate it and not go into it with the idea that we want to do this and we know that it's right because academic literature was nicely cited in the resolution but I know that there will be debates and there will be people who will talk about moral hazard and talk about all kinds of problems and we need to consider those and not just go into this already deciding that we know that this is a good thing to do and I will just note that I haven't heard any claim tonight that overdose prevention sites reduce addiction. I've heard that they reduce harm, they reduce death. I have not heard that they reduce addiction. I just think we need to keep these things in mind. So I'm fortunately not able to support this tonight, President Wright. Thank you, Councilor Nodal. Councilor Tracy and then Harnett. So I'm very excited to be supporting this resolution tonight. I think that it brings together a whole host of different harm reduction strategies in a pretty thorough resolution that deals with this from multiple perspectives and engaging multiple stakeholders in a conversation and I think that it's important to understand that it is a conversation and I would refer back to the last whereas clause where it talks about wanting to engage in an ongoing education for ourselves in the community through public forums, work sessions to discuss developments and in the case of hosting an overdose prevention site, a full community vetting that would include our own mindful and deliberative due diligence that would entail but not be limited to testimony from experts and visits to sites and operation before a site is hosted in Burlington. So I see that this idea of asking questions, this idea of doing public vetting, this idea of engaging constituents as being quite literally baked into this resolution and enabling us to continue a really thoughtful dialogue around this. If we don't pass this resolution because of fear that it might be in one place or another and let me be clear, this resolution says that very clearly that we are going to explore the zoning implications but there's nothing in this resolution that says that this will be in the old North end. It's very important to understand that this resolution does not have anything to do with siting of a particular facility so I think that we need to rather than base our feelings on conjecture or fear, we need to understand what is actually in the resolution and that this resolution really forwards a community dialogue and discussion around these issues and I think that that's particularly important because of what we're seeing happening in our community and I think of what's happening actually in the old North end. I think about overdose prevention sites being statistically proven to prevent needles being dropped. Well, we found needles in Pomeroy Park and we've had constituent meetings around that. We had to close the bat. We had, I found needles on Loomis Street. We had someone, I came home to 12 police cars around the block for me because there were police officers there dealing with this issue. I have people telling me that they wanna move out because they have people who are actively using and having people come in at all hours of the night. We had two people in the back seat of a car in the parking lot of Pearl Street shooting up with a kid in the car. The windows closed on a summer day. All of these things are things that are dealt with in some form, at least provide some option to provide a different place for people to deal with these issues whether it's getting rid of dirty needles or providing a place that's not a car or a McDonald's bathroom to shoot up and so I think that this really does deal with some of the active harms that are facing our community and at least my neighborhood, the old North End specifically. Thank you, Councillor Tracy. Councillor Hartnett. Yeah, I'll be real brief because of what you explained but just to Councillor Nordel's point, it's one of the questions I asked when I called around Vancouver and these other sites I asked if it stops addiction. And again, you ask eight people and four people said yes it did and four people said no it doesn't. So it's expert against expert. Now I don't know if it really does make a difference and nobody has said that to me that it does make a difference. I think that's a good point. But I just wanna, from a process standpoint of view I just wanna go on the record to say, you know, when we first got this resolution on the end of the 4th of July weekend and we looked at it, the first thing I thought about was the scope of this resolution is so big, so controversial that there is no reason why we shouldn't have a council or work session on this thing before it comes to the council. And not that I like to say it but I was proven right again. Here we are 1130 at night. I won't even describe how I wanna describe how this night went with this resolution and this all could be prevented if we just realized that work sessions are so important and we can hammer out these details and those work sessions before we bring it to the council floor. And so we could spend 20 minutes then discussing resolutions instead of basically two hours at 1130 at night to do it. We don't learn from our mistakes and it's too bad that we don't because it would be a much better meeting and it'd be a much better council if we could do that. So I think it's unfortunate. Thank you, Councillor Hartnett and thank you for not describing what you might have thought of the process tonight. Councillor Shannon. Thank you, President Wright. I wanna be clear that I'm under no illusion that exploring overdose prevention sites will prevent addiction. Going back to Councillor Pines analogy that would be like saying filling a cavity prevents a cavity, of course it doesn't. It doesn't mean you shouldn't fill a cavity only in this case it's life and death. If somebody would die if you didn't fill that cavity would you still only give them a toothbrush? No, we give them a toothbrush but we're also going to address where we can the possibility that somebody is going to die and try and save that life. We don't have all the answers but exploring overdose prevention sites is an important next step. This is a multifaceted resolution and we have had amendments on many of those facets. I thank Councillor Paul for the thoroughness and thoughtfulness of this resolution and the kindness as well. I am fully supportive of moving forward with this and I hope that the rest of the council will also be supportive. Thank you. Thank you Councillor Shannon. Other councillors? Councillor Pine. Hopefully one minute. While I do appreciate what Councillor Odell said about the evidence may not necessarily point to reducing use and addiction, what it clearly shows is that these types of facilities lead to much greater utilization and access for treatment. And so I think again, we can't just pick one aspect of this issue. It is a such a complicated, challenging issue and I think we have to keep in mind that this is chipping away at a really deep, deep intractable problem that's affecting this whole country and I think we have to take this step. Thank you Councillor Pine. Okay with that, I'm going to say just a very brief remark as council president because I do think it's important for at least me to explain why I'm voting no in a very brief way and it's just simply this, that I think there are a lot of great strategies in this resolution. There's a lot of great things that the mayor, community staff are doing. I think that this, the one controversial part of this that is very controversial, certainly I know with my constituents, the safe injection sites are over those prevention sites. I think that to me that is going to detract from the many good things that are being done and that's one of my big concerns. And as well, we had two judiciary committees that were very sympathetic to this issue and yet the legislative action that was required to actually allow these to happen legally did not happen in this last session. So that's where I am on this. That's why I cannot support this going forward. And Mr. Mayor, I'll recognize you and then we'll go to a vote. Thank you President Wright and I'll just be very brief. I do just want to say this has been, this is a challenging issue and it's been a challenging conversation tonight. And I think we will be continue to talk about these issues because it continues to be a massive crisis. I do want to say that I appreciate the councilor Paul brought this forward because she is sad and listened to the people in this community who are desperate for a facility like this and that that is the place that she was trying to respond to. That very emotional and deeply felt desire within elements of the community. It's certainly the case that is not unanimously felt throughout the community. This is something that's needed, but there are people who intensely believe it is and she's trying to be responsive to them and I respect and appreciate what she has tried to do there. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. You have the last word. We are ready to vote. The roll call. The councilor Harnett calls for a roll call. The clerk will call the roll. Councilor Bush or yes. Councilor Dean. Yes. Councilor Jang. Councilor Hartnett. No. Councilor No-Dow. Councilor Mason. Yes. Councilor Paul. Yes. Councilor Pine. Yes. Councilor Roof. Yes. Councilor Shannon. Yes. Councilor Tracy. Yes. City Council President, right? No. Nine ayes, three nays. The resolution passes as it was amended and I just want to make sure the clerk's office because I think there are a number of amendments so we'll be looking to make sure all those amendments that were in there get incorporated into the final version. That resolution passes by about a nine to three and I look for a motion. Could we please have quiet while we wrap this up? Could we have a motion to adjourn please? Councilor No-Dell moves to adjourn seconded by Councilor Hartnett. All those in favor of adjournment please say aye. Aye. Opposed? No. We are adjourned.


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