right now. This is, hopefully by March of next year, but we don't know. Like that's the whole point of sending it to committee so we can get at least an idea of how much work this is and what this looks like. This is not something that needs to be rushed. This is not something that needs to take years, but I'm amendable to pushing it to September. I'm amendable to that type of thing, but I do think that there will never be a perfect time. And often we find in this committee, or I'm sorry, council body, the argument of like, oh, things are a little rushed and there isn't enough time. The whole purpose of me bringing this forward is early on as possible, right after the committee was reshuffled, after everything's kind of getting more organized and we're having more of a trajectory of the year, is I'm bringing it forward now to make sure that we have the time. So there's that no rushed feeling that we're having like multiple committee meetings in a month or something like that. And then having multiple projects at the same time within the same committee. So I wanna avoid that at all costs because I feel like we don't wanna put that pressure on staff. We don't wanna put that pressure on ourselves and we wanna deliver on things that we need to do quality research on. And then I do wanna just mention, Councillor Barlow mentioned the school board. I am fully supportive of all elected officials being compensated and I think the school board absolutely does put in tremendous hours and I don't wanna undervalue that at all. This is not to exclude them, this is just to start getting the ball rolling in terms of what do we find? Because then we can build off of this and we can move from it but this is just to literally start the conversation. So I'm so supportive of that. And one thing I do wanna mention further, last thing I promise is there are really good points in those amendments. Really, I mean, I was on the phone with Councillor Carpenter earlier and I said, I agree with so much of what you're saying. I understand where it's coming from, I do and I value it. I do agree that we do need to have dependent care compensation for sure that should be added and obviously redistricting is gonna be something that naturally comes about because of the synthesis or because we kind of help bring it forth and really kind of delve into it. That is something that's gonna happen in unison more or less anyway I think. So I feel like that's something that we have to research no matter what because that's obviously gonna play a role in terms of the budget and what we can allocate. So I can guarantee that that's gonna be part of the research.  I know that as a counselor myself. But so I hope that you trust that and I hope that you believe in that because I know that this is something that can be a really good thing for our community if we just really kind of delve in and look at it properly and again, we don't know what the outcome is but I think more information is always better especially for us, we're the legislative body of the city. So thank you so much. Okay, I'm done, sorry. Okay, all right. Again, counselors around please keep it brief so we can get to a vote on the amendment. Councilor Hightower. Great and I promise I will keep it brief which I think the first thing that I just have to say is we are not representative as a body of the city of Burlington. There are, I think, in the next month there will be two people in the council who don't either own the home or their partner owns the home that they're living in which in Burlington is only 40% of the population but for us it's the vast majority of us. I wouldn't have run for council if I couldn't have worked 80% time which the reason that I can afford to do that is because I had a very well-paid consulting job and if I had done that years before when I didn't have a well-paid, high-paid consulting job I couldn't have done it if I'd had to go because it is almost impossible to do this job if you're working in nine to five. And one or two of us who don't have their very flexible work schedule still manage to do it and that's amazing but I think that it is to say that it's not a barrier when we know that it's almost impossible to do it for the kinds of jobs that most people in Burlington will have without them cutting down their work hours I think it's just not fair or true. Comparing ourselves to the city of Montpelier like Montpelier has contested mayoral elections in the past few years. So it's like we're not the same city as Montpelier in terms of what it takes to be an elected official in the city. And so I just, I think that there are, I absolutely agree that I think city councilor should do as much work as possible to be as explicit as possible about what research still needs to be done and to do that research, like we need to do the work. I agree that this is something that may not help. I would say that there's probably people on the city council today because we did increase it three years ago. And so I think when you're a body that has so much privilege where most of us have so much more wealth than the average Burlingtonian to say that pay isn't something that will help just does not strike true at all for me. All right, I got councilor Hanson to be followed by councilor Paul and carpenter. Again, let's try and move us towards the vote on the amendment. Great, thanks. Couple of things. One similar to councilor Jang and councilor Hightower yeah, I've cut back from working full-time to working part-time in order to do the council role well and feel like I'm doing what constituents expected me. But that's just because of the fact that I'm able to do that is because of my financial privilege. And I think that just hits the point again. It's like, if we're saying that we can't do it while working full-time, but then we're gonna ask somebody else who can't afford to work part-time, like it just doesn't add up. The numbers just don't add up. I think on the point of dependent care, I think that's great. I don't think the resolution excludes that at all because it talks about compensation, not only direct pay, but also other benefits such as healthcare. It's not exclusive to healthcare benefits. So that would be looked at as part of this or could be looked at as part of this and I'm supportive of that aspect, but I don't think it requires an amendment to achieve that. And then, yeah, the other point that Councillor Shannon raised just about the reappraisal, I think is a good example of when a big issue like the reappraisal comes up, people call us, right? Like people call their city councilor because you might be the one that knocked on their door that they have a relationship with or they know that they can call when an issue does impact them. And folks, a lot of the folks that reached out to me about reappraisal and I was helping them, they were apologizing because they're like, look, I know this wasn't the council, I don't know how busy you are, I know how many things you're managing, but I really appreciate the help. And again, I was able to go out of my way to try to help constituents through the reappraisal process, but that's just because of my own privilege and being able to take on that work. But it just, yeah, this isn't, not everyone can do that. Like I think it's just pretty clearing that not everyone can do that. So thanks. Okay, I have Councilor Powell to be followed by Councilor Carpenter. Hi, sorry about that. I will try to be brief as well. I had said at the outset that I can certainly go either way with this mostly because of the fact that it's an amendment that isn't line by line. It's all one. And Councilor Stromberg, well, Councilor Hanson is not on the Charter Change Committee, which is where this is going, but Councilor Stromberg is. And I do have faith that the dependent care stipend will be discussed many years ago when I was encouraged to run for city council, I had three very, very young children and that dependent care stipend was still existed. It doesn't exist anymore. And I do think that it is important to have that or at least have that discussion. It may not be direct salary, but it is financial support. And I think it's important. And I trust that there will be a discussion about future redistricting. The administrative support, I think, is more ancillary. And if the members of the committee feel that they can do this work and do it, whether it's in an amendment or not, then just as I would hope they would take my word for it, I will take theirs. Thanks. Thank you. Councilor Carpenter. Thanks. Again, I mean, I think it's important to look what I've offered. And I appreciate people's saying or guaranteeing they're gonna cover these issues. My goal is that we look at this holistically. And I appreciate all the arguments people say. And one of the most important words that I added was, look at the appropriate level of support, not just commutation. So I think we've got to look at these issues. You've got to take the time to look at these issues. And the main thing I struck was in consideration for Charter Change on 2022. So what I'm asking is for us to look at the, look at it holistically and not presume we need a Charter Change, because some of these things we may not need a Charter Change at all, just look at the whole package of how can we support people? That's what I'm trying to ask. Okay, are we ready to go to a vote on the amendment? All right, let's do that. So will the city clerk please call the roll on the amendment? Councilor Barlow. No. Councilor Carpenter. Yes. Councilor Jang. No. Councilor Freeman. Councilor... Councilor Freeman is absent. Councilor Hansen. No. Councilor Hightower. No. Councilor Mason. Yes. Councilor Paul. No. Councilor Pine. No. Councilor Shannon. Yes. Councilor Stromberg. No. City Council President Tracy. No. Three ayes, one abstentia, it does not pass. Okay, so we are back to the original resolution, not as amended, Councilor Mason. Thank you, President Tracy. So I did not weigh in on the amendment because I didn't, I wanted to see, or I didn't excuse me on the speak to this. Well, the amendment was under consideration, but while I respect and I've heard the passionate arguments in terms of making this just, in isolation, I would be supportive, but the problem is we're not looking at this in isolation. We are, like it or not, and I respect that the timing may not have intended to come up, but it is in the middle of a reassessment. We have all, or at least I won't speak for anyone, I have heard from hundreds of Ward 5 residents whose assessed values have gone up 80 plus percent. And we all know that, you know, I can't tell them the specific amount that their taxes are going to go up, but they are going to go up. And every single one of them has come back, renter or homeowner saying, you know, we cannot continue to sustain this. This is not acceptable. So optically voting in favor of, and I appreciate whether it's a pay increase, healthcare or other, those are all expenses that we will be asking our fellow Burlington residents to shoulder and to take that vote or even consider moving in that direction in light of what's going on in terms of at least the emails and the communications I'm getting seems very tone deaf by this council and I cannot support it at this time. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Mason. I don't have any other Councillors in the queue. Councillor Shannon. Thank you, President Tracy. I think it's interesting that so many Councillors in support of this initiative have talked about having to cut back work hours in order to do the job. And I think that gets at the crux of the barriers for most people to do this job. And yet that's not what we're looking at. We're looking at Councillor Perry. And while that can be related, many people do not have the privilege of reducing their work hours and then going back to the same job, their job just won't allow it. It's not merely a matter of money. And I don't know that we're really talking about enough money here to compensate for needing to reduce work hours, but that is a very important aspect of this. And with that, I would like to offer an amendment that I'm just going to send to everybody now in the hopes that the committee is willing to look broadly at barriers to service because I think that we do need to address barriers to service. And I had the benefit when I first started on the council of being able to tap into a fund that allowed me to pay for childcare, which I needed quite a bit of in the early years. And I think that there's a number of ways that we can support people serving short of increasing the stipend, but giving those who have other various barriers, the ability to overcome those barriers. So with that, I would like to offer the following amendment after the first resolve clause, which is be it further resolve that the Charter Change Committee will further research what the barriers to service are for potential candidates other than the stipend. And I hope that the makers of the motion will consider that. So Councillor Shannon, you're just inserting a resolve clause to be clear. Correct. So adding one, not deleting anything, just adding that language in. Correct. Okay. We have a motion from Councillor Shannon. Is there a sec seconded by Councillor Mason? Are you all set Councillor Shannon or did you have further comments to offer? No. Thank you. Okay. All right. So we have an amendment on the floor, Councillor Mason. Well, I guess point of information to the maker if you'll permit. Is other than intended to mean in addition to or to the exclusion of stipend? I'm not sure what your intent is there Councillor Shannon. Councillor Shannon, go ahead. I don't think that this body is interested in eliminating the discussion of the stipend. So I would consider it in addition to. I also haven't deleted any of the previous resolve clause. So that's still there. So it would be in addition. I mean, it's my hope that looking at it holistically like that, the committee may reach its own conclusion that there are more meaningful changes that could be made. But we don't know the answer until we look at it. Thank you. And Councillor Stromberg? Thank you. Councillor Shannon, thank you for this amendment. I just keep it simple. I support it. I think that that's fine. And that's a good approach to look at things. So thank you. Okay. Anyone else on the amendment? Okay. Seeing none, let's go to a vote on Councillor Shannon's amendment. All those in favor of adopting the amendment, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? No. Oh, all right. Will the city, will the CAO please call the roll? Councillor Barlow. No. Councillor Carpenter. Yes. Councillor Jang. Yes. Councillor Hansen. Yes. Councillor Hightower. Yes. Councillor Mason. Yes. Councillor Paul. Yes. Councillor Pine. Yes. Councillor Shannon. Yes. Councillor Stromberg. Yes. City Council President Tracy. Yes. 10 ayes, one nay, one absent. Okay. So the amendment carries and we are back to the original resolution and as amended. Further discussion. Councillor Carpenter. Well, you had asked me to break up the two amendments. So there's still another amendment to be considered. Yep. For sure. Would you like to offer it at this time? Sure. Just going to find it. So that was a, what was the last resolved clause. And this was in the context of my concern about. Rushing this for the 22 ballot, but I think the word still whole, which is. Bring back. The information to the full city council. For its review. And my intent there is that. We can again have a fuller discussion of. Would be the pros and cons and what to go with and what not with. As opposed to just a specific recommendation. So that the work of the, of the charter change comes back to the whole council. I suggested September, if, if it needs another month, I'm okay with that. And, you know, the report. I think it could include all that whatever suggestions. Might be there for ballot items. Okay. Are you offering it? Yes. So I'm further be it further resolved the city council. Requested the charter change committee for this item back to the full city council. For its review. No later than the last meeting in September. I think the, the, the report may include any recommendations for a charter valid item to be considered at an, at annual. And I didn't specify a date. Okay. So we have a motion from councilor or an amendment from councilor carpenter. Is there a second to that amendment. Seconded by councilor high tower. Any further comments, council carpenter. No. Okay. Councilor Hanson. I just had a question for the maker. I don't know. Does this. Does this exclude or prevent, I guess. The committee from actually having a charter change proposal. Written out. Like, is the intention that it's changing from them coming to the council with a proposed charter change for the council to consider versus. I don't think it's going to exclude that. Well, I honestly think because of, of the previous. Paragraph no. So yes, you could bring a charter change. But what I really want is the research and the conversation. I want us. You know, sometimes you assign something to a committee. And it's pre. Ordained what they're going to come. Not preordained, but it. You're expecting them to come back with something specific. But I don't think it's going to be the same. I want an opportunity. For the whole council to talk about. Some of these broader issues. We just, we just voted on an amendment that said. Let's look at the broader impediments. I want to have that discussion. And have it. In the context of. What are the varied options. That we should. And could consider. I don't think it's going to be the same. I don't think it is. Relative to any of this.  But I think more important for me is that this. And because it affects us personally, and this is a little bit different. I think than how we approach. Other policy items where. You have a lot of broad input. We're trying to understand. More narrowly. What would stop us. From being a good counselor, so to speak. So I guess the intent of that is. Bring back. A lot of the information to us. The pros and cons of which. You vetted out and. Have some thinking on. I mean, and I don't even know how. An example might be that. You decide dependent care is more important. And let's do that first. And that may not need a charter change. I mean, it really will depend on. Kind of the outcome of the conversation. And I think there's other, you know, it may. Be that we need more. Research time. And that might be. More helpful to. The time issue. The conversation. So I just want to see the whole. Package of discussion. That's what I'm trying to try that. Okay. Yeah, I just, I was just trying to understand. I just wanted to make sure that. This wasn't meant to sort of bar the committee from. It says they may bring a recommendation. So. I mean, I think I'm there's certainly that bar. And I think it says may bring a recommendation. I think I'm saying it with. The sense that there might not, they don't have to, but they may. Got it. Got it. No, I, yeah, I get the recommendation aspect. I just. There's a difference between in my mind, I guess the committee saying, yeah, we looked into this issue and we think it's worth. Moving forward versus saying we drafted. We actually drafted a charter change. An actual charter change for you to consider. And that's what I wanted to make sure it was still on the table. But I think. Given the other resolve causes and given what you're saying now, that that is the case. Well, I think we have time between September. Let's try not to do too much back and we're starting to get into back and forth here. So. Councilor Hanson, are you all set? Yeah, I think that that was my only clarification. And I think, yeah, with these charter change processes, I think that's the best way to get to that. I think that's the best way to get to that. And I think that, like, interested counselors, this has happened to me many times. Can go to those committee meetings and really be an active participant, even if they're not. On the committee. So hopefully. Folks that are interested in this. If it moves forward can, can do that and can stay engaged with this issue. Within the committee and or. Folks have other issues that are related to this that they want to address. So I think that's the best way to get to that. Okay. Thank you, Councillor Hanson. I have councillor Jang to be followed by Stromberg and Paul. Councilor Jang. Yeah. This is a quick question for the city attorney. Very quick. So I don't know. The past. Console increased pay. Did it go through a ballot item? Yes. Yes, it did. But the city councils cannot increase their own pace, but they can increase, they can pay, let's say the boards and commissions without the borders. No, I don't think they can pay the boards and commissions necessarily either, but. So this has to. This is, this has to go to the, this is in the charter, how much counselors get paid. It has to go to the, as a charter change goes forward and it goes to the legislature to determine. So basically you're saying if the city board of finance. Identified resources to be able to pay the. The boards and commission of the city of Burlington. It still has to go to the borders of Burlington. In order to be approved. I haven't prepared to talk about that issue tonight about other boards and commissions, but for the city, for the city council. Yes. The one thing I would say though, is that you do have these expense accounts. That are available and, and there are expenses related such as childcare that are related to service that likely. Don't require you to necessarily have to go get further. Charter approval to. To spend those kinds of things. So it's a little bit of a complex question as to what is payment to a city council and what is payment for us to assist a city councilor in carrying out city duties. Okay. Yeah, that was my only question. Yeah. Yeah. And I support the amendment from council. Thank you. Okay. Have counselor Stromberg to be followed by councilor Paul. Yep. Short and sweet. Again, I also support this amendment. I think that that's fine. It gives us flexibility and with something. That's fine. I think that's fine. I think that's fine. We, we, we should have that. So I am supportive. Thanks. Thank you. Councillor Paul. Thank you. I can be short as well. So the first amendment that failed. Means that the, the line that says for consideration of a charter change to be considered. And voted on at the 2022 annual city election. So I think that's fine. I think that's fine. I think that's fine. I think that's fine. I think that's fine. With the amendment. I was more than happy to support the second amendment. However, I just want to point out that we basically have said two different things. In the same resolution. We're saying. At. Ann. At an annual city election without saying which one. And we have said it earlier. So I'm not really sure how that. Is resolved. I just wanted to say that I also support this. Not least because I think it gives us a little bit more time after we do have the tax rates to figure out how this. Works in. So I hope that the charter change committee will consider that. When we do know the final tax rates with implications are. For folks. And then in terms of the contradiction. I guess just, just quickly. I'm not sure that that's because it's a vague to be an election. So it's not opposed. It's just not quite aligned. So I wonder if we can move forward as is. Okay. Councillor Schrumberg. Yeah. To me, it sounds like it's not opposing either. It's not two different gates. So I'm comfortable with it as is. But I understand that point. Okay. Any further conversation. The amendment. Councilor Paul. I apologize. So I just want to make sure that when you say. In the fall of 2022, I think we need to clarify that. I think we need to clarify that. I think we need to clarify that. I think we need to clarify that. I think we need to clarify. 2022 annual city election. That could mean in the fall of 2022. Is that correct? Good question. That. Doesn't, because if it doesn't, then it is only one election. There is only one annual city meeting and it is in March. Okay. So that is a contradiction. And I think we need to clarify that if we're going to. I think we need to clarify that. I think we need to clarify that. I think we need to clarify that. Unless, unless the city attorney says that that's okay. Okay. Well, let's, let's go to attorney Blackwood. Do you feel that the, that the language. In the amendment is in contradiction with that earlier resolve. With the language in that earlier resolve clause. I guess I'd say more that. I think we need to clarify that. I think that my job in looking at a resolution that you would adopt would be to try to reconcile it and I could reconcile it with, but what it would mean is, is, is it would make the second. Sentence meaningless because the first one already says you're going to do it. City charter change for the March 22. Election. Okay. Thank you, attorney Blackwood. With that. Councilor Paul, would you like to offer an amendment to the amendment? I would say that. Yeah, I mean, we've already voted on the first. So it would seem as though we would have to say. On the last line. Consider it at the annual city election. I mean, I don't really know how we can reconcile the two of, if they're, if they contradict each other, which the city attorney is now saying, I don't think we can vote on something that contradicts each other. One another. Okay. I'm open to others if they have, there's another suggestion, you know, and I don't even know if the, if the amendment will pass, but I've got to try to assume that it will so that we should vote in something that makes sense. Okay. Councilor Hanson. Yeah, I think it just, what, what doesn't make sense to me is if the, if the charter change committee is going to come back to the council in August or September. I just don't think there's a scenario where they're going to say, this is going to go on the ballot for town meeting day 2023. That's a, that's a future council's decision. So the decision, if it's really happening this fall, we're deciding about March 2022 election. That, that's what we're deciding. It's not ambiguous in my mind as to. Is this 2022 or 2023 because that's a future council that's going to decide what's on future, you know, ballots. So I think we should stick with that aspect. I think the September change, I don't have an issue with, but the other change, I don't think makes sense. Okay. Councilor Carpenter. Um, back to my original. Conversation is, and why I had proposed the other one is. We've. Presumed or assumed already that we're going to put a charter change on the ballot in March of 22. And I'm just not ready to say that I want to look at the package. I guess is where I'm coming from. And, um, I want to understand the options. I don't want to presume we're going to have to put something on a ballot. Um, because I want to see what the different options are. And there might be. The committee may come up with a plan and the plan might be, let's do this over time. Understanding we can't always bind a future. Um, committee, but I think it should be in the context of a. Um, an overall plan. How do we attract? Make it easier for people to run. What do we do to do that? What's the plan? And that was my first intent. By specifically saying we, we have to do something in. November or March of 22. I guess it's presupposing more than I want to presuppose. Councilor Hanson. Yeah. So I think the way to achieve. All of this is just, yeah, I'll just propose an amendment to the amendment, which is. That last sentence. The report may include any recommendations for a charter change or ballot. Item to be considered. At the 2022. Annual city election. And so. So I'll, I'll speak to it after a second if there is one. Okay. So. Councilor Hanson to be clear that you're only, you're adding, you're deleting the, the, the word and and saying at the 2022 annual city election. Is that correct? Correct. Correct. Exactly. And. Okay. Yeah. So if there's a second, I can just briefly explain. Okay. Seconded by councilor Stromberg. Go ahead. So I think councilor Carpenter is raising the point of we don't know if the committee is going to say that that's what should happen or not. Or we don't want to assume is the intention. This does that. But my point is, if they do say that, it's definitely for 20. 22. It's not for 2023 or whatever. That just isn't within the realm of possibility in my mind. So this leaves the door open. If the committee doesn't want to say that we should look at. A charter change for the ballot. But if they do, it's a specific year, which is next year. Okay. So thank you for that councilor Hanson. Is there further discussion on the amendment to the amendment? Okay. Hearing none. Let's go to a vote. Will the CAO please call the roll. On the amendment to the amendment. Counselor Barlow. Just to be consistent and clear. I'm just going to vote now. Counselor Carpenter. No. Counselor Jang. Yes. Counselor Hanson. Yes. Counselor Hightower. Yes. Counselor Mason. No. Counselor Paul. Yes. Counselor Pine. Yes. Counselor Shannon. Yes. Counselor Stromberg. Yes. Counselor Carpenter. No. Counselor Jang. Yes. Counselor Hanson. Yes. Counselor Hightower. I'm sorry. Yes. Counselor Mason. No. Counselor Paul. Yes. Counselor Pine. Yes. Counselor Shannon. Yes. Counselor Stromberg. Yes. City Council President Tracy. Yes. And again, we have. Three eyes. Sorry. I don't have my glasses on. We have. Two mays. One absent. No. Three mays. One absent. And. Eight a's. The motion passes. Okay. So yeah, we have the amendment carries and we are now back to the original resolution now as amended. Is there further discussion on that? Are we ready to go to vote on the amendment on the resolution as amended? Councilor Shannon. I just want to make clear the intentions of my vote. Are we ready to go to vote on the amendment on the resolution as amended? I don't want to get into this because. I can't in good conscience be spending. Be asked the city to spend a lot of resources on increasing counselor pay. However, I believe that this discussion is going to be broader than that. And I do fully support. Really looking deeply at what the barriers to service are. And I'm not going to make an amendment at this point. I'm just going to ask that the charter change committee. Bring forward a report that, that looks at all of the different barriers that people have. Towards serving. And also looking at other communities. And whether or not increased pay. And I welcome that conversation. I hope that the charter change committee will bring forward a report with kind of listing the different barriers to, I thought about making an amendment, but I'm not going to make an amendment at this point. I'm just going to ask the charter change committee. So I'm not going to make a amendment at this point. I'm going to ask that the charter change committee. If there is not increased pay. Actually has had a positive effect. On perhaps increasing diversity in some way. If there's any correlation between those things. And so. While I am not. Likely to support increasing counselor. Pay at this time for the, for the next. support, some of which would be financial support in other forms. So I will support this. Thank you, Councilor Shannon, Councilor Barlow. Yes. So I realized that this is very likely going to pass tonight. And I do support looking at barriers to service and also looking more deeply at the resources that are already available to city council, especially in the $5,000 it's available to every city councilor to supplement their research and aid them in their council business. But I won't be supporting this resolution because I don't support addition, the prospect of a charter change that would result in additional additional councilor compensation. So I won't be supporting, but I do serve on charter change. And I look forward to the discussion about additional supports for councilors to understand barriers and understanding barriers to service. Thank you, Councilor Barlow. Are there further comments from councillors? Councilor Carpenter. Well, again, my goal is exactly to have those conversations. But now I feel the way this is sort of locked into having coming up with something for March. And I don't know that that's the answer. And that's what's sort of frustrating me. So I'm that's what I'm having hard time supporting this because I feel like it's prescribing something that we haven't spent the time to figure out yet. OK, thank you. Anyone else are ready to vote? Councilor Hanson. Yeah, I just want to kind of respond to that. I don't I think with with your amendment or it was your amendment, you didn't support it, but the amendment around saying they may bring a proposal. I think the purpose of that language was that it doesn't lock them in. But now I'm confused because I don't know. It seems like that's not your interpretation, but that was your language and it got in. So I'm just confused, but thanks. Let's try not to get into it back and forth here, councillor. All right. Any further comments from councillors? OK, all right. CAO, please call the roll. Councilor Barlow. No. Councilor Carpenter. No. Councilor Zhang. Yes. Councilor Hanson. Yes. Councilor Hightower. Yes. Councilor Mason. No. Councilor Paul. Yes. Councilor Pine. Yes. Councilor Shannon. Yes. Councilor Stromberg. Yes. City Council President Tracy. Yes. Eight A's. The motion passes. All right. So the motion carries and that item and that brings us to our next item, which is item 5.05, resolution on creating a dog task force. Councilor Zhang. Thank you, President Tracy. Yes. But first and foremost, I wanted to thank definitely City Council's Barlow, Carpenter and Shannon for their time and energy, including the community into this conversation. And as you all know, you know, the pandemic has definitely increased a lot of dog ownership. And in the new North end and particularly and the city in general, the state even in general, you know, many people do not know how to definitely handle their dogs very well. And this is also something that has been shared with professionals that work directly about dogs, with dogs and their owners. And, you know, we also definitely recognize that the City of Burlington through the Burlington Parks and Recreation has been doing an incredible job and have made a substantial amount of renovation, thanks to the mayor.  And now it seems that it was evolved due to Cindy and all the volunteers that she worked with. Now, the issue in front of us right now has been communication from from porch forum, direct communication to us City Council's, you know, new North end Facebook group, Facebook in general, social media. And these issues include, you know, off-leash dogs in the city parks, natural areas and beaches.  And we all know the correlation with, you know, the quality of our lake.  There are so many issues that involve dogs. But what I know is people love their dogs. They feel as if they are part of their family, you know, they are part of the family. Some people choose to not have children because they have dogs. And you ask them about their family members, you know, I learned to respect that. Someone who's new in this culture and I love and I think whether you are an animal or a human, we should all learn to live together, work together. And among us, there are people who are capable, who are expert in this area and who are willing to help the city. But reason why this resolution was crafted by the four city councils with the help of Eileen to do the final edits and to put it posted. And in front of us, it is simply asking for the Burlington City Council is respectfully refer this issue raised this resolution and possibly all the related issues to the Parks, Arts and Culture Committee where Councilor Shannon is a chair. I am a member of there and I think we will be including people to bring the next steps. And we also expect for the PAC to report back to the full city council this relatively very soon by June 28 meeting. So I want to make the motion of this resolution and I don't need the floor back sitting with Councilor President. Thank you. Councilor Jeng has made a motion. Is there a second to Councilor Jeng's motion? Seconded by Councilor Shannon. Councilor Jeng did not request the floor back. Is there further commentary on the resolution? Okay, seeing none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of adopting the resolution, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That carries unanimously. We are now on to item 5.06, which is a resolution regarding the city's COVID response and funding for that response. Councilor Paul may please have a motion on that. I'd like to move. Thanks, President Tracy. I'd like to move the revised version of the resolution, waive the reading and ask for the floor back after a second. Seconded by Councilor Jeng. You have the floor, Councilor Paul. Thanks very much. So I think one of the things that we heard at the outset of this meeting was the announcement by the mayor that we're really turning the corner in terms of the number of people that are getting vaccinated, the number of COVID cases that are on the decline of Vermont is leading the nation along with two other states, Hawaii and Massachusetts, in terms of vaccines and vigilance and addressing COVID. And certainly I think we're all growing weary and looking for brighter times ahead. At the same time, there are still people that are struggling. And this resolution is talking about the amount of funds that are needed to bring us to the end of the fiscal year, which ends June 30th, on talking about public health concerns in terms of wastewater testing, vaccination sites, helping low-income neighbors, locally-owned businesses, our youth, and our plan towards a post-COVID world. And not only that public health response, but also the Resource Recovery Center, which has done some amazing work that has helped to address constituent needs. And then there's also a very creative list of initiatives to reactivate the economic sector for all our businesses, not just the downtown, but all our businesses, our waterfront, and our community, particularly as we gear up for the summer. And so I also do want to acknowledge that there are a great many members of city staff that have worked on this. Kara Alnazwari, who is the Marketplace Director, although I believe there's been a title change there, because she's been doing a whole lot more than the marketplace. This, she, and others have worked on the ARPA plan that we have before us. There's a whole lot of different initiatives in the three-page document. One thing I did want to mention, and I give a lot of credit to Kara and the administration, is that there were a number of concerns that were mentioned at our last meeting about the graffiti response. And the administration, Kara, listened and balanced the needs of what was voiced in terms of graffiti response with the need to act with consideration for all, and just wanted to mention that. The resolution is very comprehensive, very responsive. It's creative, and will help our community not only recover, but move on to better times ahead. I hope that it can get our unanimous support. Thanks. Thank you, Councillor Paul. I see that we have both Director Alnazwari and CIO Lowe with us this evening. Would either of you like to share anything with the council before we open it up to further council discussion? I'm happy to jump in. Although people have any specific questions about the public health response, I would encourage you to direct them towards CIO Lowe. As you know, he has been in charge of that for over a year now. So the city wanted to be able to respond to immediate needs. We saw these needs in three separate buckets as listed in this memo, the public health response, which we see as ongoing, even though the tide seems to have turned a little bit. In addition, community and economic reactivation, this is not just geared towards businesses. It's also geared toward our residents and towards welcoming people in our community back outside. There's concern about our residents' mental health, about people not having had enough community contact. And we want, as a city, to try and encourage that. And we plan to have activations in all neighborhoods of the city. In addition, we do envision sort of a surge need for our constituents to be connected with services programs, grants coming down from the federal, state, and our own municipal government in the coming months. And we want to be fully funded and prepared for that, including some additional funding for language resources and perhaps some satellite locations so that we can reach all our constituents, even those that are not necessarily connected to technology. Thank you, Director Alness-Rowey. C.I. Lo, did you have anything to add? No, I think Director Alness-Rowey said it quite well. And the public health focus is really doing everything we can to continue the work and outreach around vaccinations and set the community up for the next period of time where we will need to do some kind of surveillance to decide how and if we need to deploy different resources, testing, vaccination, as we have been based on some of these wastewater readings and other information. So thank you very much, President Tracy. Thank you both for your work on this and your work throughout the pandemic. It's been very impressive to watch and be part of as well. So thank you very much for that. Counselors, are there comments or questions regarding this proposal? Councillor Stromberg. Thank you. Yeah, thank you all for working on this. And this might sound weird, but it was actually like enjoyable to go through because it was kind of refreshing. We were focused on more like different things that I haven't seen us be focused on as a city in a while. And I thought that that was really great. And I also had some feedback about the graffiti ban. And I sent that to the administration and got a prompt response. And I felt like this was a very collaborative process, even though I had only a few pieces of input. So yeah, I just appreciate all the work that went into this and all the math that's above me. So I really do appreciate it. And I'll be obviously very supportive of this. Thank you. Councillor Shannon. Thank you, President Tracy. I have first a question and then a comment. On the large public art mural projects, which has a $30,000 dedication, it says includes Juneteenth-themed mural on 339 Pine and additional art installations elsewhere in the city. And I thought that there was specific money allocated to the Juneteenth artwork through the REIB. And so I wonder if I have that wrong. And if this is going to be allocated for that purpose or if that's covered by other funds, which would allow us to use this $30,000 for other things. Yeah, so to clarify, and I think there have been some changes since the last wording of this. There are funds in REIB that Director Green is controlling for specific Juneteenth murals. The 339 Pine Street was selected with graffiti in mind because that building has been tagged quite a bit. And we are looking to creatively place some public art to deter some of the tagging that is viewed as vandalism. The timing of that mural, if you approve the funds today, would have ended up coming out in June. So at the time, the thinking was that we would add another Juneteenth mural. It does not necessarily have to be Juneteenth themed, however, but it is placed as a part of a graffiti deterrent initiative. OK, thank you. I really think that we should be considering dedicating a lot more money to this mural initiative for a bunch of reasons. People may think that the graffiti around town is not really a problem, but it's often very much a problem. There's a lot of hate that is spread through tagging, and it creates pain in our community. It creates pain because private property owners are victimized by this, whether it's on an old North End residential fence or a business owner downtown on their building. It really hurts people, and it needs to be addressed. And for a long time, we have felt that there needs to be a community response so that people who feel victimized by this crime feel supported by the community stepping up and restoring what was there. And I think it's important that we step up and do that for our community. The graffiti removal, sometimes graffiti removal is all that's needed, but sometimes the graffiti removal itself is causing detriment to the substrates below the graffiti, and it's doing damage to the building or the fence or the wall. And there's an opportunity to actually beautify our city here by taking these walls and allowing them to be used by artists to create beautiful works of art in our city that would benefit everyone. In partnership with the property owners. And I don't think $30,000 really goes nearly far enough in this, but I also understand that our funds at this moment are limited and we have a lot of other priorities that need attention too. But I fear that if we're just removing graffiti, we're inviting people to come back and do it again. And it's a never-ending cycle. And the more that we can take these open spaces and allow them to be utilized for beautiful artwork that really supports our community, both those that own the property and those that are looking at it and make us all feel better about our city and pay artists for their work. I think this is an opportunity. And so I hope that going forward as we go into the budget process, we are looking for a lot more money to beautify our city and to help support artists and make the city what we think it should be, not a never-ending cycle of removing graffiti. I think we need to move past that. So I appreciate everything that is in this report and all that you are doing to help us through these difficult times. And these are initiatives that we haven't had in the past. So thank you for all of that. And I will be supportive. Just wanted to put on the radar that I hope we can do more in this one area in the near future. I don't have anyone else in the queue. I'm sorry. Yeah, I just wanted to say I appreciate. I think if folks haven't seen the original proposal around this that came to the council two weeks ago, I think it's improved a lot since then and really strengthened and appreciate all the work that went into that and the responsiveness to some of the concerns that folks like myself and others raised around this. One idea that I didn't raise yet, but I just wanted to throw in there. I'm not sure if it's already been discussed, but around these first two items about the community reactivation and economic reactivation, the mobile place making kit and the storage, it didn't occur to me before. But I'm wondering if perhaps within that we can look into storage lockers for houseless folks. That's an issue that I've had constituents raised to me who have a lot of conversations with houseless folks and work with them is that over and over that need comes up of just having a place for people to keep their belongings that they know that they're not going to be stolen. So I don't really need a response right now unless someone wants to, but I feel like that could be an important initiative potentially within that. And if not within there, then maybe more broadly as we continue the process, because just to remind members of the public, this is just the first $900,000 out of over $27 million that we have access to now. So I'm really excited that we have this opportunity to use this federal money to really build up and support our community. Thank you, Councillor Hanson. I don't have anyone else in the queue. Okay, seeing none. Are we ready to go to a vote? Okay. All those in favor of adopting the resolution, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? That carries unanimously. Thank you, Director Anasarawi and CIO Low. Again, for your work on this and we'll look forward to continued collaboration going forward. All right. Our next item is item 5.07, an ordinance change having to do with weatherization in rental housing, Councillor Mason. Thank you, President Tracey. I'd like to make a motion to waive the second reading, approve the ordinance as amended and request the Burlington Electric Department and Department of Permitting and Inspections return to the Ordinance Committee within 90 days to discuss scheduling of rental properties above 50,000 BTUs and ask for the floor back after a second. And we have a motion from Councillor Mason seconded by Councillor Hanson. You have the floor, Councillor Mason. Thank you, President Tracey for the benefit of the Council and the public. This is continued discussion of the weatherization ordinance that was brought before the Council at our last meeting. It was referred to Ordinance Committee for discussion about some of the changes that had come through at last minute. The Ordinance Committee did meet and the focus of our discussion was really relating to subsection A, which was the implementation schedule of the proposed, in essence, applicability of the ordinance as was alluded to in the memo. What we, where we landed was, in essence, putting in place a firm date for those that were the worst offenders, those that used more than 90,000 BTUs. The majority of the committee then felt that putting in other deadlines, if you'll recall, in earlier iteration, sort of stepped down from 90 all the way down to 50 with subsequent dates. There was a debate at the Council about whether the proposed five years was acceptable or three years was better. The committee, the majority of the committee felt that we would, in essence, neither run was accurate right now in light of the fact that we don't have data. So as this is proposed, we've put a place in the sand for the 90, those individuals will be, or those who are impacted will be notified with the expectation that with data in the next 90 days, the ordinance committee would then take up what I think is, we would believe would be a reasonable schedule for implementation down the further tiers. I will acknowledge there was a discussion in the committee about whether we should pick, go aggressive and put in place holders and potentially change them or go with just the one placeholder and the majority of the committee felt this was the prudent approach. So with that, there really was no, for the benefit of the Council, there was no discussion on any other points in this ordinance. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Mason. Any Councilor wishing to speak to the ordinance? Councillor Hanson. Yeah, I would just say, I think we've discussed many times in the public as well, just why this is so important and why this is meaningful in a number of ways. So I'm just really excited for the opportunity to finally, hopefully, depending how this vote goes, but to finally get this into place and really start moving forward on rental weatherization. And just wanna thank everyone who's been working on this, which is a lot of folks on this call and also people not on the call, but it's been a lot of folks working hard on it and I think we're finally making progress. Thank you, Councillor Hanson. Anyone else? Okay, seeing none, let's go to a vote. All those in favor of adopting the ordinance, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That carries unanimously. Brings us to our final item this evening, which is a communication from Attorney Blackwood regarding recommended changes to, specifically to the designated accountability monitor as outlined in our level wage ordinance. I'm gonna go to Councillor Pine for a motion before coming to Attorney Blackwood. Councillor Pine may please have a motion on this item. Yes, I would move to waive the first reading and refer to the ordinance committee consideration of the proposed amendments to the level wage ordinance concerning the designated accountability monitor. Thank you, Councillor Pine. Do we have a motion? Is there a second? Seconded by Councillor Mason. Councillor Pine, did you want the floor back? I am all set, thank you. Okay, I will then turn it over to Attorney Blackwood. Thank you. I gave you a little preview about this last week, but this is a recommendation from our office because the originally in 2014, when changes were made to the level wage ordinance, the designated accountability monitor was added into the ordinance. In the time from 2014 up through end of June of last year, the Vermont Worker Center had served as the designated accountability monitor. We had done an open RFP process and had regularly looked to whether or not there were other entities interested in doing this. And we have never received any interest from any other entity in serving as designated accountability monitor following the Worker Center decision at the end of the season last year that they did not want to continue in this role. We also talked to them about whether there was another entity that they could recommend that would serve as designated accountability monitor. They didn't have any ideas. We did go ahead and put out an RFP to which we got no responses. However, I was contacted by a couple of individuals who have served, have done investigations into wage an hour matters and said they'd be interested in doing something like this for the city, recognizing that it would not be a full time kind of position and we had some discussion with them about the kinds of things they could do. And it sounded like, wow, that actually sounds like an interesting way to go since we've been having difficulty finding someone to be the designated accountability monitor. In addition, over the years, what we found with the designated accountability monitor originally they started out doing a lot of education. We held some public meetings. They went around to each of the different contractors that they could get access to. They talked to workers. They did a lot of put outs and educational materials. They kept an open hotline available for people to make complaints. But the whole system was based on essentially someone reporting that there was a violation. And what we found was that as we went along we started making some adjustments. We had a lot of trouble because the city didn't have a centralized contracting system getting information to the designated accountability monitor on time and we worked through a lot of those issues and over the years we started adding in having audits conducted in which we picked larger contractors and asked them to provide payroll records and monitored those and went through and audited those payroll records. And those were the places that we mostly found complaints. A lot of times we chose contractors because the designated accountability monitor had gone on site and had found that there was an issue that they just kind of thought maybe we should check to see whether or not they were in compliance and that seemed to work fairly well. So it seemed from our experience over the last six, seven years that the most effective way to enforce the ordinance was to have somebody going on site to check in with workers and then conducting the actual payable audits. That's been a challenge for city staff because we don't have a lot of expertise in doing those kinds of audits and because we don't have a lot of time to do that as well. So what this proposal is, the way I've written it is a fairly modest change to the ordinance itself, but the idea is to say that instead of having to have a nonprofit organization, we could either hire folks or hire a business or do a consulting agreement with someone to assist us in conducting these audits and in doing some of the going around to workplaces and seeing if there are issues and essentially being a little bit more proactive in the enforcement side of this rather than waiting for complaints to come in. So that is the proposal. It does require a change to the ordinance and I've done a draft of a change. I'm not wedded to the draft at all. I'm hopeful that you'll refer it to the ordinance committee and we can have some discussion about the specific summit. I'm more than anything wanted to get some ideas on paper for you to get this discussion started. Thank you, Attorney Blackwood. Any questions or comments from counselors? Okay, hearing none, we will go to a vote on the resolution. I'm sorry, the yeah, is there all those in favor? Please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? That carries unanimously. Which brings us to the end of our agenda and having already done the committee reports and other items at the end of the agenda, a motion to adjourn is in order. Move by Councillor Pine, seconded by Councillor Chang. Any discussion? Okay, hearing none, we'll go to a vote on that. All those in favor of adjournment, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? That carries unanimously and we are adjourned at 9.53. Good night, everyone. Good night. Good night.


This is Donna Prosser, Chief Clinical Officer here at the Patient Safety Amendment Foundation. Today, we're going to talk about the topic of informed consent and what that means, both to patients and families, as well as to clinicians and administrators. And so we're so excited to be joined today by Dr. John James. He's a leading patient safety advocate, and you may know him from his work, a new evidence-based estimate of patient harms associated with hospital care. And that's the paper back in 2013 that estimated that between 200 and 400,000 people die every year due to preventable medical error. So thank you so much, John, for joining us. So glad to have you here today. Well, thank you, Donna. I always appreciate a chance to help out. Great. I wonder if we can just talk real briefly about informed consent. Like, what is informed consent? Why does it matter? That's actually a very important question. It is the opportunity for a patient and clinician to interact and for the clinician to ensure that he or she is optimizing patient care based on patient preferences. Shared decision-making tends to be a subset of informed consent. On the patient side, it's their chance to ask important questions based on the homework they've done and their worries and concerns. And in case I forget, I want to say at this point, the patient should always cast their questions in terms of, I'm worried that I am not going to make the best decision for my own care because I don't get all the information I really need. You don't want to cast it in terms of, I don't trust you, doctor. That is not the way to do it.  So informed consent is the time when critical elements come together that have the potential to optimize the patient's care. You want to talk a little bit about the ethical principles behind that? And you think about where we've been the last several centuries. We've been very paternalistic in healthcare. So can you talk a little bit about the ethical principles behind why patients should be part of that decision-making process? Well, the primary principle is called autonomy. It means that we each assume beings to determine what happens to our bodies. And so the idea is that nobody interferes with our body without our permission and in the case of medicine, our informed permission. The other perhaps a little less critical but still in the mix are beneficence. There should be something beneficial and what is done for the patient and there should be non-maleficence. That means harmful things done to the patient that should not have been done. And that's pretty rare in medicine. But we read stories periodically of unethical doctors, very small minority doctors, that intentionally do things to patients that they know are wrong. So it's all those things, autonomy, beneficence and non-maleficence. Now I know your background was at NASA in the past. What made you get interested and involved in the topic of informed consent and patient safety? Well, I came to patient safety because of what happened to my son in 2002 in Waco. He had collapsed and was cared for for five days in a couple of hospitals in his college town. And things just don't go well. He died as a result of medical errors and I was shocked and I was very ill-prepared in terms of informed consent to help him through his process. And looking back I realized his informed consent process was terrible. And while I spent years trying to change the system, I've learned in the past few years that what's really important and doable is to change how much patients know about the informed consent process. So they can really get it. I remember my son's fear-mongering was used. His cardiologist told him a frightening story, the Pete Marovitch story that I won't go in here, but it scared him. And then it turned out I found out a long time later one of the key things before invasive procedures was to do a cardiac MRI. While they did that, it was never properly done. And a radiologist much later told me that. So his informed consent was very unethical part of his care. And so in the past few years I've tried to become a champion of sorts of improving informed consent. Well, I'm so very sorry to hear that about your son, but we're grateful for the work that you've produced in patient safety as a result. I wonder if you can tell us a bit about what's happening today? I know we've been talking a lot about improving patient safety over the past 20 years and that includes conversations about improving informed consent. So what are the current gaps that we still have now in this process? I think perhaps 15 to 20 years ago, the concept of shared decision making began to enter into the picture of informed consent. By that is meant that a conversation occurs between the clinician that's going to do a potentially invasive procedure and the patient. The patient voices their preferences. They may have a huge fear of surgery or they may have a huge fear of infection or just a lot of these, their preferences for their care. And that has to be matched up with the options they have for taking care of whatever problem they may have. And it applies even to screening because a lot of screening is done on people that don't understand the downside of screening, for example, for cancer. I think it's hard to characterize the whole system within the US. I believe there's islands of excellence that really do share decision making well. But I think across the country, there's a lot of places where hospitals and clinicians that are stressed there do not really fully engage in shared decision making. It takes some time. It takes a lot of listening and that's a barrier. So we kind of have this bright light of shared decision making and we need to begin to pursue it as the backbone of informed consent. Well, very well said. What recommendations do you have for clinicians and administrators and what they can do better in improving their own practice? Clinicians and administrators. Okay. So one of the pushbacks for a more complete informed consent shared decision making process is clinician time. I really think that especially highly trained nurses, nurse practitioners and physicians assistants and so on could get more involved in the informed consent shared decision making process and get the patients prepared to effectively engage in those processes. For example, are there decision aids available for the situation the patient is in that are well vetted, not a sales job, but really good decision aids? You know, what are their concerns about cost? Do they have concerns about alternatives? Kind of work some of those questions and then have a more efficient shared decision making with a clinician that's actually going to do a potentially invasive procedure and even one of the questions and I've heard this from some MDs say, hey, I was going to have this critical surgery and I went to the local good hospital and they didn't tell me what I found out, which was that over here at, let's say Mayo Clinic or somewhere, they're doing a progressive new procedure that has virtually no side effects on its own. So he went there, he got the procedure and it was great. So there's always the question, does your institute, your hospital have the capability to give me the best treatment that I need? So there's a lot of interplay here and of course, clinicians don't really want to send you to a hospital somewhere unless they really, really have to. That's true. Now how about for patients and families that are currently dealing with these issues in the hospital or even for the general public that might not know that this is such an issue, what recommendations would you have for them to help to navigate this process more safely? Okay, let me, I think that's an important question. I'm going to put some background to a little bit. So there's two kinds of informed consent basically, state by state. About half the states have what's called a clinician-centered informed consent. That means doctors have decided what the patient should do for a given procedure. The other half of the states have what's called a reasonable person stand. That means, okay, we should tell that patient what we think a reasonable person should know before having a stent stuck in or something. By the way, by all of this is about non-emergency procedures. It's an emergency informed consent that's set aside. Anyway, so who says what a reasonable patient wants to know? Interestingly, in my state of Texas, which is a reasonable person's standard for informed consent, a bunch of doctors and malpractice defense lawyers are setting the standards for what a reasonable patient should know. We're trying to fix that. We don't think that does not make it a reasonable patient informed consent. It's really the doctor thing. Now, so I decided a couple of years ago, maybe we should ask the country, if you will, do a survey. What does a reasonable patient want to know? And I did a paper published in BMJ Open in 2019 in which I had surveyed with my colleagues the national population through SurveyMonkey and we asked them questions about what people want to know. And I was amazed at the strength of which people wanted to know things if they knew to ask. This is things like, what are all my options and the risks and benefits of each? What about off-label drugs or black box label drugs? Yes, they want to know if they're going to be given any of those. They want to know about decision aids. They want to know cost. They want to know exactly who's going to give the procedure or do the procedure. And the scenario I painted was in a training hospital. So, you know, people have to do first surgeries. And I'm okay with that, but it has to be rigorously overseen. And the people want to know that. They want to know how to make entries in their medical records. And especially they want to know what the outcomes are, even if things go well. I mean, am I going to have to do this for a month or two? Or what am I going to have to do? What do I expect even when things go well? And of course, what happens when things don't go well? So, there's so much information that a patient needs to come in prepared to ask about. And in any other situations, like there's subsets like patients with cancer. How effective are these drugs you're going to give me and what are the side effects? I have a 92-year-old friend who's got pancreatic cancer. And when he looked at the treatment and the possible outcomes, forget it. And he's done fine for a year and a half walking around with his pancreatic cancer. No treatment. So it's very important that the patients get prepared to deal with these things. Long answer. Sorry about that. No worries. No worries. That was exactly what, you know, what folks need to hear. You know, we need to be as transparent as we can be. So that people have the information that they need to make the right decisions. Absolutely. And I might say there was a paper published in 2020 by Erica Spatz MD and her colleagues. And the same journal mine was, BMJ Open. And she asked the question, well, she had set up a 20-point quality evaluation scale for how well documented informed consent is in hospitals. She queried 25 hospitals, 100 records each. Of the 20 points, the average score was four and a half. Eight of the hospitals scored two or less in this 20-point quality scale. So based on the documentation that actually is present in hospital records, we have a long ways to go with informed consent. We have a very long ways. So, and I think with patients pushing the issue and clinicians welcoming the dialogue, we can make progress. Wow. Well, thank you so very much for joining us today. This was excellent information. And I look forward to having continued discussions with you in the future as we continue to evolve patient safety in hospitals. Well, thank you, Donna. I appreciate your interest for sure. Excellent. We'll have a great day. Uh-huh. You too. Bye-bye.


I was a communist for the FBI. Starring Dana Andrews and an exciting tale of danger and espionage. I was a communist for the FBI. Many of the incidents in the story you're about to hear are based on the actual records and authentic experiences of Matt Sevettik, who for nine fantastic years lived as a communist for the FBI. Here is our star, Dana Andrews, as Matt Sevettik. There is no peace, there is no security, there is no hope for those who live in the chains of communism. Those misguided fools, who for one reason or another have chosen to sleep in the red bed, don't realize until too late that they can know no rest. They're worshipers in a strange religion, a religion in which their savior, the communist party, crucifies humanity to save itself. In a moment, listen to Dana Andrews as Matt Sevettik, undercover man. Matt Sevettik, undercover man. This story from the confidential file is marked, jump to the whip. To most people living in a free country, being awakened at three o'clock in the morning by a pounding on the door is merely annoying. Unlike the citizens of Iron Curtain countries, you do not, as yet, live in constant fear of the MBD. But I was a member of the party, a communist for the FBI. And when I was awakened at 3 a.m. by a pounding on my door, I was afraid, afraid that I'd been found out and that the time had come for me, like others before me, to disappear without a trace. Yeah, coming. I can't find the light. Wait a second. Comrade Morgan. Get out of the doorway and let me in. Oh, sorry. You kept me out there until I awakened everybody else up in the house. Are you so anxious to be seen going out? I hadn't intended going out. I was asleep. Well, wake up and get dressed. Party business, Comrade Morgan? MBD. MBD at 3 o'clock in the morning. I dressed slowly, stalling for time. While I racked my brain for some means of escape, but there was none. I went with Morgan quietly, hopelessly to meet the man from the MBD. He was waiting for us and cell leader Morgan's home.  Is this our man, Comrade Morgan? Yes, Comrade Comrade. Good. Bring him in the other room where we can sit down. This may take some time. Now, as Comrade Morgan already knows, Comrade Frederick, I arrived in this country this morning to eliminate the traitorous actions of certain party members. The welfare of the party is my only interest, Comrade. That makes my mission less difficult. I'm taking you to Chicago within the hour. Chicago? A matter of discipline. It was decided to make an example of one man to discourage further crimes against the party. The man chosen is Woodruff Harper. Woodruff Harper, the Chicago millionaire? Through fear of the Un-American Activities Committee, he stopped his contributions to the party. Now, he's begging us to save him. From what? Criminal charges of arson, in connection with the burning of a large, heavily insured tenement building he owns. How was that arranged? The two workers who set the fire have confessed to the police that they were hired by Harper to do the job. Well, that should make an example of Harper all right. Precisely. But I can't see how it'll help the party's treasury. The party can reward as well as punish Comrade Frederick. That is why you and I are going to Chicago. To get the workers out of the jam? To get Harper out. When did you say we leave for Chicago, Comrade Cormac? Immediately. Well, then I'd better get back to my hotel and pack a bag. It's too close to train time. We were able to buy anything we need after we see Comrade Harper. And you're not to leave Comrade Cormac's side for an instant, Comrade Frederick. He has no personal knowledge of this country and has to be guarded against unfortunate incidents at all times. I'll drive you to the station. Despite Morgan's orders against leaving Cormac's side for even an instant, it was vitally necessary for me to contact the FBI before leaving for Chicago. After Morgan had left us at the station, I tried to get away from Cormac, but it was impossible. Until our train departs, we have only seven minutes, Comrade Frederick. Seven minutes? Then you better buy our tickets, Comrade Cormac. Well, I pick up some newspapers and magazines for us to read. The tickets were purchased earlier. Oh. You seem nervous, Comrade Frederick. Oh, I am. I just thought of something which might destroy my usefulness to the party. What do you mean? My landlady. I'm going to have to phone my landlady and tell her that I'm going out of town for a few days on business. Why? Why should you tell her anything? She might notify the police that I was missing. We might be picked up. Why should she even know that you are gone? Well, because yesterday was rent day. I came in late, didn't see her, and I didn't pay her. She'll be looking for her money and for me. Why didn't you tell this to Comrade Morgan? Let him contact her. All right. I just didn't think of it. I was so impressed by the party's power in this proper matter that I had no thoughts concerning myself. I see. But if I don't call her... We can take no chances. You will call her, and I will stand outside your booth to make certain that there are no eavesdroppers. With only minutes till train time, I couldn't stop to argue. While Comrade Cormac stood outside my phone booth to make certain there were no eavesdroppers, I phoned my FBI contact. Hello, Mrs. Carlson. This is Mr. Svetic. I get it. I missed paying my rent today, and I didn't want you worrying. I'm forced to go out of town for a few days. Very important business. I'm sure I'll enjoy the change. The city is so windy at this time of year. It's been Chicago. Goodbye, Mrs. Carlson. Thanks a million. It took you long enough to say nothing. Mrs. Carlson did most of the talking. I will discuss that later. Sorry before we miss our train. This you hadn't called your landlady, Comrade Svetic. I had to. Did you have to tell her that you were going on very important business? It was the best way to avoid suspicion. To avoid it? Americans can forgive anything done in the name of business. Then they should certainly forgive our visits for the Comrade Harper and Judge Walczek. How long will we be in Chicago? Not long. This afternoon, we will call on Comrade Harper to secure a large contribution for the party. Tonight, we will see Judge Walczek and secure his promise to exonerate Comrade Harper. What happens if the judge refuses to cooperate? He won't refuse. He can't refuse. That is why it was arranged for Comrade Harper's case to be tried before Judge Walczek. Without a jury. Well, where do I fit in? As Secretary of the Slav Congress, you will be able to arrange a meeting between Judge Walczek and me. Without arousing the slightest suspicion. Should I mention that you have recently arrived from Czechoslovakia? By all means. And that I bring greetings to Judge Walczek from his wife. His wife is still in Czechoslovakia? Yes. She returned to settle her mother's estate. It was her presence that gave us the weapon for implementing our plan. In fact, it was her presence there that instigated the entire scheme. Someone had great foresight. Thank you, Comrade. The hierarchy agrees with you. That is why I was permitted to make this trip. Congratulations. After I have successfully completed my mission of disciplining Comrade Harper and shattering the American vercus' stupid faith in their judicial system, I will return to Czechoslovakia and join the hierarchy. What if you fail, Comrade Comrade? I will not fail, Comrade Svetik.   Is Judge Walczek a party member?  You think he will cooperate in exonerating Comrade Harper? I know he will cooperate, Comrade. For a moment, hearing Cormac's statement and ghoulish chuckle, I almost forgot that I was an undercover man. I wanted to take his fat, greasy throat in my hands and chuck the light out of him. And he seemed to sense my attitude. By the time our train reached Chicago, he was surly and uncommunicative and suspicious of every move I made. You walk ahead of me, Comrade Svetik. Slowly, so that we do not lose contact. You're the boss. I'm glad you understand that. Meaning what? It might be unpleasant if you were to forget. I never forget, Comrade. My mind was filled with deep, dark thoughts as I walked the length of the noisy train shed, followed by Comrade Cormac. In fact, I was so preoccupied, I almost missed the message when a man jostled against me and said, Take care of the cofax hotel in North Beerman Street. The hotel manager will contact you when you're along. The man and the message threw me off stride, and I must have hesitated for just a second because Cormac noticed the incident. What did that man say to you, Comrade Svetik? A man who just bumped against you. Oh, I don't know, some sort of apology, I guess. Well, don't let it happen again. I can't keep people from apologizing for their clumsiness. You can avoid their clumsiness. Well, I was thinking of something else. And apparently you can think of only one thing at a time. Where do we get a cab? Downstairs. Lead the way. That's what I'm doing. Just follow me. We'll stop at the cofax hotel. We'll not. Now, direct the driver after we enter the cab. Reservations have been made by the MVD. Matt Svetik in I Was a Communist for the FBI and the second act of our story. When we got into a cab outside Chicago's LaSalle Street Station in Cormac, the Czechoslovakian MVD man ordered the driver to take us to the Montsport Hotel on West Roosevelt Road. I knew I'd lost my contact with the FBI. At the hotel, we found that reservations had already been made for us. So Cormac and I went directly to our room. After a few hours' rest, we went to see backsliding comrade Woodruff Harper in his loop office. Oh, go right in, Mr. Svetik. Mr. Harper has been expecting you, gentlemen. Thank you. He's come to help me. Happy to. I'll do anything you want. Give you anything you want. For the reason. Reason is an elastic word, Thomas. I will handle this, comrade Svetik, though you're quite right. Thank you. Before we set a price on our health, comrade Harper, let's first examine what health is needed. Your charges were framed against me, and you'll know it. The party exercises discipline in varying ways, comrade Harper. Discipline. Watch yourself, comrade. I'm sorry. You are charged with hiring two men to burn a heavily insured tenement building you are. You know I didn't.  Any amount, of course. $100,000? Certainly. The moment I walk out of that courtroom with three men, would you give $50,000 now as evidence of good faith? It is you who must stand trial, comrade Harper. Wait, I have no choice. You'll give me us the $50,000 now? Who do I make the check pay for? No check. This must be cash. Dollars. Yeah. But it takes time to collect that much cash. How much time? Possibly a little later this afternoon. I'll be back. If you have the money, you will be a free man tomorrow. If you are short one dollar, you will face the consequences. With Harper safely on the hook, Cormac's attitude toward me onto when it changed for the better. However, when it came time for us to meet comrade Harper and collect the $50,000, Cormac insisted that I remain in the hotel room. You have earned this chance to rest, comrade Fett. But you don't know the city, comrade Cormac. You might get lost. In a taxi? Well, you might get robbed. $50,000 is a lot of money. I will be guarded. Not if I stay in the hotel room. Even if you should drop dead. V, you and I have been under the protection of the MVD ever since we arrived in Chicago. Just when I was rid of Cormac and had a chance to contact the FBI, I learned that both Cormac and I were being shattered by the MVD. Cormac had left me alone and I was supposed to be with him every second. Perhaps that was to give him an alibi away from the scene when whatever was to happen to me happened. My attention made me jump almost three feet from my chair to knock on my door. It crossed the room and opened it. I wonder if you'd mind turning down your radio. It's awfully loud. Radio? I don't have a radio turned on. You might if I step in while we discuss it. What? What color is your tie? Last night it was red. Come in. I couldn't get a way to make a contact. How did you find me? Find a cab driver who drove you and your friend here from the station. What's the setup? Woodruff Harper stopped his contribution, so the party framed him on this arson charge as a matter of discipline. But he's stiff discipline.  Cormac has a recording she made. He's going to play it for Judge Wolczyk tonight. Quite a coincidence having Harper come up for trial before the only judge whose wife is in red hands for them. That's no coincidence. A party member employed in the courthouse made certain that the case was placed on Wolczyk's calendar. We'll take it off his calendar. It's condemning Wolczyk's wife to death. Well, what do you suggest? I don't know. Maybe Wolczyk will settle it for us. I'll turn in your report and get headquarters reaction. Contact will be made with you just as you leave Judge Wolczyk's. You'll be watching for it. For an hour after the FBI agent left, I was alone in a hotel room. Much of my nervousness was gone now. Then Cormac returned and I was freed for my vacuum. Cormac was unhappy because he said Harper had been able to raise only 40,000 cash. However saddest that he was, he bragged considerably when it became time for us to see Judge Wolczyk. And when the judge ushered us into his study, Cormac was exerting himself to be charming. You have a lovely home, Judge Wolczyk. Thank you, Mr. Cormac. It misses my wife's touch. She is a charming woman. Did you see her often in Prague, Mr. Cormac? Just before I left, I saw her almost every day. Did she say when she was coming home, Mr. Cormac? Just as soon as possible. Did she send nothing more definite? No more personal word than that? Indeed she did, Judge Wolczyk. That is why I brought this portable record player. She made a recording she wanted me to play for you. If I may. Please do, Mr. Cormac. Please do. The record is on the turntable. She was so happy to make this record. Listen carefully. This is Mary, Joseph.  That's my Mary, all right. It's been so long since you held me in your arms, Joseph. So long since you kissed me goodnight. Too long, Mary, much too long. It has been thrilling talking to you even on a phonograph record, Joseph. Please do anything you can to cooperate with the person who plays this record for you. Play it again, Mr. Cormac. Please play it again. Presently, Judge Wolczyk. First, I would like your cooperation in a matter very important to me. Why, anything I can do, Mr. Cormac, I would be most happy. Dismiss the case against Woodruff Harper. Dismiss... Mr. Cormac, you must be out of your mind. Before you come to any decision, Judge Wolczyk, let me play the other side of the record for you. It also features your life. Joseph, it's a month since I asked you to cooperate. Please don't refuse, Joseph. Please don't refuse, Joseph. I can't stand much more of this, Joseph. If you don't agree to cooperate, I'm afraid I'll never see you again.  Kill you both. Or do anything you'll be sorry for, Judge Wolczyk. What would you suggest, Mr. Svetic? What you do is your wife suggests cooperate. Cooperate with communists, murderers, blackmailers? If you ever want to see your wife again, Judge Wolczyk, you will cooperate. I can't. You have no choice. I'll be in your courtroom tomorrow morning, listening for your verdict. As we walked out of Judge Wolczyk's house, Cormac laughed. What's so funny? All that sentimental fool, Wolczyk.  Is that so funny, Cormac? It is to me.  This has been a very rewarding mission. A very rewarding mission. The phrase didn't make sense until I suddenly remembered Cormac Lyon about Harper's giving him only 40,000 instead of 50,000. $10,000 would make this a very rewarding mission. Momentarily, though, I lost interest in that subject when I saw two men waiting for Cormac and me in our camp. Only the FBI and the Communist MBD knew that we had gone to Judge Wolczyk, and I knew these men were not from the FBI. I decided to do what I could to square things for Judge Wolczyk's wife. I took a wild guess and silently prayed it would come off. As the cab door opened and the MBD men stepped out toward us, I said, I denounced Cormac for misappropriations of party funds, comrades. Thank you, Cormac Static. We know all about it. What are you talking about? You turned over only 40,000 of the $50,000 Cormac Harper gave you. He gave me only 40,000. He says he gave you 50,000. He lies. Cormac Cormac lies. I'm making charges against him in my report. In fact, just now, he was gloating over the reward of this mission. He's lying, Cormac Lyon. We believe him, Cormac, because we know that Cormac Harper gave you $50,000. You? No. Harper's office is wired. We listened while he counted it out to you. Get in, Cormac. It'll be easier if you come quietly. And me, comrades, you'd better find another cab, Cormac Static. Thanks. Thank your loyalty to the party, Cormac. Had you not denounced Cormac, you would be taking this ride, too. Immediately after the cab pulled away, my FBI contact appeared. My knees were still shaking as I gave him a full report, including Cormac's account of the death of Judge Walchek's wife. He took it from there and told me about it the next day, just as I was ready to leave for home. It was a good job, man. Your boys moved fast. Fast enough to save Harper's $50,000 from going to work for the commies, but not fast enough to save Cormac. What happens to Harper? The case is being continued until we have a confession of perjury from the two goons who set the fire. A confession which will exonerate Harper and convict the party. Can you get that kind of confession? They were talking when I left them in headquarters, hoping to cop a plea. I was watching Judge Walchek's face and I told him what happened to his wife. I have no doubt they'll pay the full penalty for their crime. As I walked toward my train, my mind was preoccupied with thoughts of the complete ruthlessness and the utter disregard of all human values, which were the qualities that attracted official attention to Cormac. Exerted in the interests of the party, those qualities can lead to a place in the hierarchy. Exerted for personal profit, they can lead only to the unpleasant attentions of the MVD. Up toward the hierarchy, or down to the MVD. That's the path a great mass of communists must tread or walk alone. As a communist for the FBI, I chose to walk alone. Whose will return in just a moment? This is Dana Andrews. In this struggle between pre-men and puppets, the masters of the puppets bar no hold. It is, at the moment, a silent struggle. But don't let the silence fool you. It's a struggle to the death. To protect innocent persons, the names, dates and places used in this story were fictitious. Next week, we'll bring you another strange adventure based on the fantastic experiences of Matt Savetic. Won't you?