Then we will get started the I'm going to call the order of the board of finance for Monday, December 4, 2023. And the first item on the agenda is the agenda. Welcome motion to adopt it or amend it. Councilor on the agenda. Thank you as our second to adopt the agenda second from President Paul discussion. Seeing none we'll vote all those in favor. The agenda. Please say aye. Aye. Any opposed. Motion carries. The next item is the public forum. And first look here in the room. Seeing anyone here for the public forum. However, online it does appear that our councilor Sharon Booker is with us and has her hand raised. Yes, there you go. Go ahead. Hi, good evening. Thank you. I'm the loyal attendee here. Yes, you are. It's a media agenda. And I wanted to just speak in support of obviously free money. The grant that is on the consent agenda for the south end innovation project. I applaud all the partners CEDO and planning and DPW. I think that this is wonderful with Champlain and then the private sector. I'm really excited about having a cohesive proposal brought forward. I think this is good. I think it's going to be vibrant with mixed use. Hopefully a lot of innovation and space for what is there now, what the south end is known for, not just housing. But I also hope that once this comes forward, this plan, I'm hoping the public will have a chance to weigh in on that also. So I'm just speaking to that. The second thing is that I know I'm a broken record, but the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I spent a fair amount of time downtown shopping and actually visiting with some of the, there was a new store that had opened and other stores. And I felt that I didn't know about the increased security, but I had asked about whether they felt they needed some and they certainly do. So I'm glad that there's some increased security for downtown, not only for the businesses, but for the public. I think this is definitely a great measure that's been taken. But I want to advocate again for the fact that the business is, our downtown is so fragile. That I know your money is tight. But I really feel that you need more than just two days of a couple of hours of free parking. There are so many barriers that people look at when they think about going to Burlington. And that's one of them. And so I'm still going to harp on that. It's a few weeks of free parking. I know that DPW is in the red. Catherine was very nice and explained that to me. I get it. But I think we'll, the whole city will be more harmed if we don't do more to support the businesses. So I have to say that. And then the last thing is that when you. Your item regarding on the, on the action agenda regarding BED and the increase to have funding from 5 million to 10 million. I think that it's really important that that charter change be explained so people can understand that slink. To Moody's and cash on hand. The public needs to understand the rationale. For increases, even though that money is going to be paid back by revenue. I, I just feel like that's a really important piece. To make clear so that that gets support. And thank you so much for listening to my comments. Great. Thank you, Sharon. I am not seeing that. I am not seeing anyone else on line. To speak. And so I will close the public forum. At five 41 PM. And we will move to the consent agenda. Which has a number of items on it tonight. Welcome. What's your discussion regarding the consent agenda? Yeah. I will move to. Not the consent agenda and take the action. Great. Thank you. Councilor Barlow. Do we have a second second by councillor. Any discussion of the consent agenda. None. We will go to all those in favor. Adopting the consent agenda. Please say aye. Aye. I don't need a post. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. That brings us to the deliberative agenda for approval. Section four for approval and recommendation to the city council. We have 10 items in this section of the agenda tonight. Before we have a presentation regarding our expenditures. And the. So let's get into it. The first one is March is a March 5th, 2024 annual city meeting. Charter change. This was the one. I'm sure it was just referring to a moment ago and we. Showing you can be assured. We do plan to explain this to the public tonight is the beginning of the explanation for a vote that will. Possibly happen in March and. Welcome. Darren. Maybe could. This is the first time we're talking about it. First to the beginning of the process. And I would. Kick it off first. Thank you, mayor. Thanks to the board. We're excited to bring this forward. This is one of those rare instances where we can potentially do some good. For our customers without asking for additional revenue from our customers. And so the idea here is to take our charter authority. For our line of credit. Which we haven't done yet. But I think we can. And so the idea here is to take our charter authority. For our line of credit. Which we haven't used. During my entire time at the D. Which is five million set back in 2007. And move it to 10 million to better reflect our current budget needs our current. You know, rate of inflation. And by doing so improve our Moody's credit rating metrics that. Former councilor butcher referenced during public comment and public comment. I think that's a great pressure. So I'm going to turn to Emily for a little more detailed explanation. We'd be glad to answer your questions. As well. Thanks, Darren. So I'm Emily Stevens Wheelock. CFO of BED. As indicated in the memo. And as Darren just said. The line of credit established in city charter. We believe was set around 2007. I'm actually not quite sure about that. But that's the best I can. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I could find. And so. The line of credit was initially established, I think, for working capital. BED in the past has tapped it for working capital. We have not done so. However, as Darren said, since 2013. And I can confirm that. So. And, you know, sales revenues, very rep revenues, very. You know, out of the question that we might need to use it in the future for working capital. Certainly not our intent, but it is a possibility. What we use the line nowadays mostly for is to bolster our days cash on hand metric, which is the major liquidity metric that movies looks at as part of our scorecard as an electric utility. And as long as the line of credit is undrawn, the full amount counts toward our days cash on hand. And what's happened is that in 2007. Our operating expense budget was about $22 million less than it is now. And so to, to come up with a number of days cash on hand, you essentially take your operating expenses and you divide them by the amount of liquid cash you have. And that's the number of days. So as your. Operating expenses grow. Each dollar of cash covers less and less. So we need about now we need about $14 million based on our 24 operating expense budget to come up with 90 days cash. So you can see how 5 million is such a less, you know, percentage right of that total $14 million need. Without the increase in the line of credit, what we're increasingly going to find ourselves needing to do is to raise rates to kind of maintain that level of cash that we need to have a 90 day average across, across three years. And that's what we're hoping to avoid needing to do. Probably 10 million is a little less. Sorry, more than we need to kind of be comfortable, but given that this requires a charter change, which is a pretty big deal with the ballot and the voter approval. We, you know, rather kind of try to raise it less frequently and have some future proofing in the amount and not needing to come back, you know, for a little while. So I'm happy to take any questions. So this would give you a charter 30 to have a 10 million dollar line of credit, but you know, if it is more than you needed, like in a given year, like you said, right? So you don't have to put an instrument place for that phone number. That's right. Yeah. Our line renews every two years. And you see court of finance and council approval to renew the line when the loan agreement expires. So it's up for renewal in the sprint of 2024. So we would be coming to you with the actual amount we'd be seeking tomorrow. Most likely we'd come and ask for the 10, but to your point, there could be a reasonable discussion about whether it's at least the appropriate amount. We can have modest unused line fee. So if that was somehow significantly higher at 10, we might consider that, for example. And also the rate we got, right? We haven't used the line for 10 years. And when you say the change of finances, you really just mean that it's a larger budget, not that you're proceeding, having to dip into it a lot more often. That's right. Our forecast, our five year forecast doesn't anticipate using it. So it's there for, if we needed it, there are some utilities that use it quite frequently. And that's part of their operating expenditure and cash flow for us. It hasn't been, but the 90 day cash on hand is the A rating target for Moody's. We always thought to meet or exceed it. We've been able to maintain the A rating for a significant period of time. We're hopeful to continue doing so. So this will be something they would view, I believe is favorable towards that. Great. Floor is open for further questions or a motion. President. I'm happy to, I'm happy to make the motion is recommended on civic clerk. Great. Thank you. Is there a second for motion? Second. Thank you. Councilor Jang discussion. Seeing none. We will go to vote. All those in favor of motion, please say aye. Right. Aye. Any opposed. Motion carries unanimously. And then. So just to confirm this would be. We would warn in this for a public hearing at next week's council meeting starting the charter change process. So that's right. We're planning that it would come on the 11. Council. But I don't think it would be. No, it would. Yes. And then the. I think last the last night to do that. Sorry. Yeah. I think the last night to start the process for this year. So. So I'll be the plan with this. We'll be hearing about it more as it goes forward. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We'll go to item number two reclassification, the titling of a position. Parks and waterfront. Welcome, Cindy. See this one up for us. Sure. So we. In fact, it's taken us a bit to get there. So we requested a reclassification of our land storage position. To put them into more of a manager role. That concerted conservation team as that's grown more complex. The beginning more staffed for it. So it's just taking us a while to get here to this point. So that's where. We're familiar with the work of the conservation team. That's. The work of the conservation team. The work of the conservation team. The work of the conservation team. The work of the conservation team and Cajal. And they maintain a white path. 1. 27 path, the natural surface trails, community gardens. And have representation for us. The open space committee for the conservation board. Among many things. Very good. Thank you, Cindy. Is there. Are there any questions. I'm happy to make the motion is recommended. I'm sort of clerk. Great. Thank you. Second. Second by council far low. Scussion. We'll go vote. All those are fairly emotional. Please say aye. Aye. Any opposed. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next up is a request to execute a contract with the studio. I'm not quite sure how to pronounce it. Renzen. Oh yeah. For the sign and construction like he asked to see all park. This was one of the. Five community projects that came out of the community infrastructure. A grant that was. Using our performance. It was funded by that. By the council. What about. That's six months ago. So let's go. So this is. I think one of the first, not the first to come forward since that action. Welcome. So you're having here. Are you. You're leading the way right. Great. Yeah. I think it's, it's important for the council to just have this background for the public that this was. One of the projects that you all approved as part of the community infrastructure grants. This is to pay for this is a seat council approval or the finance approval first. For the contract to do the design bill, which results in essentially a design that it's 30, 30% sort of complete design at that point, which is pretty far along and. And construction as well. So it basically is approval of both the design and the design. So that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea for the chaos. Great. Thank you. Laura's open for. Questions. No, it's good. Yeah, I, I. I remember we approved this. The projects that we wanted. I'm just wondering, given the conditions in the park, if we understand more about what that design looks like, I mean, even someone with the, with the winter market, some, some of those. Those shelters are used as shelter at night. There's a lot and it was secret fix this morning.  In the park and just have, have it go sort of misused or used for purposes other than it's intended. So without understanding what the design is, I'm curious. So I appreciate the question. So we have, when we posted the RFP for the design, it needs to have certain elements in it. For example, there is an anti graffiti coding that needs to be part of it. There are safety and security elements to it. That have been included in the design. For the protection of staff that's in it. In addition, I'm happy to report that we also posted an RFP for the operator and we got a very strong applicant. Who is very aware of city hall park and some of its current challenges, but is excited to move forward and provided that this chaos comes through, that they would be willing to operate in it as well. We had thought of designs where all the windows and openings can be fully secured in the evening, that if there's any overhang staff comes in through the back and doesn't have to walk through individuals that they might, may or may not want to be engaging with. So that was definitely, I appreciate the question because it is an investment in our park, but we actually feel that it, it will be a positive element within the park and can add as a draw and it will also be there. You know, we have a lot of children's activities there. It would be nice for people to be able to get a beverage and things like that. Okay. Thanks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like the thinking is, you know, I think you maybe just forgetting on the council, maybe even after the, I can't remember if you really round for all the debates, but the, the plan always envision the kiosk in this location. And that was one of the strong messages from the public and from the kind of thinking as what would improve, you know, because we've struggled with conditions in the park for a long time, right? This is not, we're having some particular intensity right now, but it's not a new challenge. I mean, I think the positive activity into the park has always been central goal of the, the redesign and redevelopment, having food and drink in the park has always been one of the ways we believed that we could really generate additional positive activity. We'll be right in a part of the park that we sometimes have struggled to have positive activity in recent years. So I think it's going to have a positive impact on that. And if you in the packet, there's a lot of materials, but if you behind the contract, you can see detailed renderings of what, of what the, what the, what the kiosk will look like. And you can kind of get a sense how it's been designed a way that can be very easy to clean. If possibly attractive, very easy to clean. If it does experience, you know, it's not built in such a way that it should have that, you know, it's not built in such a way that it is closed. It should attract the encampments and, you know, it's thought as they give it to these issues as this has been designed. And I agree with car statement. I think there's one thing very positive will be real. Certainly won't solve everything we're falling, but as part of the overall efforts that we're having to keep the downtown and welcoming positive places will be in addition to that. And it's just that it's a great question. Yeah. I think that's great to hear from the writer that's responded as well. Any further questions or are we ready for a motion to present Paul? Thanks. I just have one question and that is. I haven't read all 120 pages of the contract. But just, but have read a fair amount of it and just wanted to verify that you had said. The contract signing and kickoff says October 17th. So between October 17th and now, am I missing something that I'm just not understanding? What went on in between October and now? Between October and now, there was a refinement of the design. So I believe that's probably a typo that we didn't, they had submitted an original design in October that for some of the reasons that Councillor Barrow mentioned, we asked for some refinements of it and now we have the final one. So I think that's probably where the confusion comes from. That was them preparing for their response to the RFP and then a process the last couple of months of refinement of their response. Okay. But that spring construction schedule is still. It's still that is obviously construction, you never quite know how it's going to go, but the plan is still to have that in place for next season. Okay. All right. I'm happy to make the motion as recommended on board docs. Great. Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Great. Thank you, Councillor Neghi. Any further discussion? Seeing none, we'll go to the vote. All those in favour of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion carries unanimously. So thank you, Brian and Cara. Also, I don't think she's online, but Samantha Dunn really serves a lot of credit for working very hard to make this possible and bring it towards us. Bring it forward. I think she's away this week just like this. That's right. She would be here. Okay. I have now lost myself in the detail of the contract package. See if I can pull myself out of it. So next is 4.4, the ARPA funding, dedicated to housing and homelessness. Go ahead. So we are ready to go. Essentially, what we're asking tonight is for specific allocation of funds, which were previously set aside for housing and homelessness. So it's really, this is not an additional amount. It's a commitment of funds, which basically is five million of the ARPA dollars were essentially dedicated for housing and homelessness. And this puts a, it's just a finer point on that so that we have the ability to address our budget needs for the, for the homelessness efforts, we've bumped that number from 2,975,000 to 3,050,000. So it's a slight increase there. And it's a million dollars that it would go to what is called post-departments, which is the site that people notice, the former VFW on South bonus avenue. And the remaining 950,000 would be set aside for Champlain Housing Trust and Ever North as they look to develop another phase of Cambrian Rise, which would be a big, so affordable rental and home ownership. Any questions? So thank you, friend. The floor is open for a correctional term. That's far out. Yes, I know, I know of Champlain Housing Trust, but the post-departments is that, is that a, what can you tell us about that? What is that? Yeah, what is that? It's a 38 apartments of the site that is the VFW today. Or I should say it's the former VFW, so it's a vacant building. It'll be the winter shelter in a few days. And then it comes down in the spring and a new building will be developed there, which will have space for the VFW, the Community Justice Center, and apartments above with a sizable chunk targeted and dedicated to households exiting homelessness. And is that a nonprofit? Yeah, Champlain Housing Trust. So they weren't close to apartments. It's really just a, it's a nod to the VFW post. Got it. A Howard plan. So that's what the work is. So this is Champlain Housing? It is. Yes, it is. And it should have mentioned that veterans will have, let's just say preferential, there'll be some preferential treatment for some, I think it's 10 of the units will be set aside for preference for veterans. Councilor McGee is, does this end up the same? Literally. Councilor McGee. Thank you. I've just noticed the bullet on page two here about the special assistant to end homelessness position and anticipated funding gap. Is that in FY26? We're estimating right now it would occur actually in FY25, if everything continues along the trajectory that it's on. Okay. I'm happy to make the motion. Great. I made it on civic clerk. Excellent. Thank you. Councilor McGee, do we have a second? Second by President Paul. Excellent. And great. So from my perspective, we talked about 5 million of ARPA going to housing for some time. And this is sort of a significant, we averaged 3 million of that. It's been heavily deployed or it's the process being deployed through the various aggressive actions we've taken on homelessness over the last couple of years. But this commits us to these two very exciting additional projects that have been in the work for some time and are getting close to being ready for certainly the post-project recovery spring and hopefully the initial work at Canberra and Rise, not far behind that. So this is an important step for us to be able to go. Move forward with our partners to see those major projects. Careful. That's exciting for the city to be able to be a partner at this level. Okay. If there's no further comments, we'll go to vote. All those. Yes, there is further discussion. Okay. Sorry, I didn't see your hand. No problem. So Director Pine, I was just wondering about the CJC office. It seemed that you said it would be housed there once it's developed. Yes. Will it be on a rental basis or it's as part of the agreement? It will be, there will be an annual rent that will be part of that project. Wonderful. Thank you. Okay. We're ready to go now. Good. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you both. And this brings us to item number five, authorization to execute contracts with on-call water resources, sewer collection system, filming and cleaning contractors. Welcome, Megan, so not for us. Megan Moyer, DPU patient director for water resources. This is very similar to the catch basin cleaning contract that we have worked with you on in the past, as well as the on-call excavation contract. When and where we can't get access to city personnel, we do still have needs and those include getting into pipes as quickly as possible to follow closed caption television, but basically video of the pipe and where they figure out what's going on. So like when a sinkhole appears in the middle of the street in the old days, you might have just filled it in and not worried about what was causing it, but our methodology now, especially if there is infrastructure in the area, is to go ahead and get a camera and make sure there's not a hole in the pipe, because then we're just going to be chasing our tail. And so while we do have a video truck, which is largely run by our technical staff, we are seeking to be able to act more promptly by using these two contractors that has needed for these types of frequencies. Pretty cool videos. If anybody wants to see them, let me know. Yeah. Thank you. And are we ready for a motion? Councilor Brown, I'll make the motion. That's recommended. Excellent. Thank you. Is there a second? Seconded by Councilor McHeaney. Thank you. And any further discussion? Yes, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Megan, for being here and for this. And I notice as part of the list, I haven't seen much for the new North End. And I remember also last year, I have seen a strong presence in the old North End about these type of services for the sewage. And I was just wondering, can you explain to us why? Why? I think you might be referring to our actual sewer relining contract. So the work which we are doing largely throughout the city, and I believe we still have some, Martin may be able to speak to it in the new North End as well. That's the process that does involve filming, but we're filming, we're cleaning, and then we're putting a new pipe on the inside. Is that what you're probably talking about? Is that what is ongoing? Okay, okay. When you see the truck set up and they're there for a while and there's usually some, what looks like steam that's going off into the air, that's what that process is. And I know we definitely have some stormwater outfalls that we're doing in the new North End. And that project is extending until... It's sort of the middle of next year. The middle of next year. So we're not done. And we have more to do. So we certainly will be coming back as part of our proposal about the sort of next level of wastewater investment because there's plenty of pipes that need love and attention. Thank you so much. Okay. We have a motion on the floor. So any further discussion of the motion? Seeing none, we'll go to vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion carries unanimously. That brings us to item number six, I believe, which is the request for approval of a contract for the long-term climate resilient evaluation of the North Plant sewer siphon. You want to take this one too? Yes. And I'm here with my engineering manager, Martin. Maybe take a deeper dive, but we've all been on this journey that we've been on since July of this year in which the sewer siphon broke. Stout reacted very quickly to fix it or to put in a temporary bypass system which prevented hundreds of thousands of millions over the course of the year of sewage going into the river in October. I can't remember what was the date when we completed the... The most recent... So most recently, we were able to affect a band-aid and repair the pipe that is in the river on the bottom of the river. And that was... I think it was the beginning of November. Beginning of November. So essentially, things are kind of put back more or less the way they were. We've been broadcasting to you all that Burlingtonians and the lake deserve a more modern climate resilient approach. And so this is the hiring of an engineer to look at those evaluations and figure out what our next path forward is and then to hopefully continue working with FEMA to secure funds. They keep broadcasting that this long-term repair seems like it's going to be eligible for FEMA funds. There's a couple of other funding sources we could also look at, but we're proceeding as if this is all going to be a beautiful project at the end where we're protecting our infrastructure and protecting water quality. So yeah, we have actively meeting with FEMA every other week and this project is on their list and we'll be continuing to engage with them and since it's in their system as an eligible project. So we just want to make sure as we come up with alternatives, we continue to present them to FEMA so that they're part of the process and that's our plan. Looking at the alternatives really in our mind, it's a new pump station that would be permanent buried to North Plant or a new double syphon system which would be to modern standards. And we believe that it's probably more cost effective to have a pump station. If Mark is telling us, that's probably where things are going to head but we need to make sure that that makes sense. That's what we're going to look at this project. And that won't be, I think what we've done back at the envelope calculations, that's $13, $15 million to do something like that. So having supporting funding is going to be critical for that. I think interestingly these all are, we've been keeping track and submitting all of our resource, invoices to FEMA until the federal government actually authorizes the pot of money. We're not drawing any money and so those are costs that we're having to carry until such time, literally a person that's coming to fruition. But good that this was a female eligible because otherwise we would be hurting a lot. She think a new pump station like that would be like a $13, $15 million. When I did that rough back at the envelope calculations that's what it came. But FEMA would be a partner for substantial part of it. This, you know, ideally because of the, if we hit that, we've hit the 90% threshold. It's a question of whether Congress authorizes us to get that amount of money. And then because of the planning efforts that Burlington has done, the state should then cover half of the remaining costs. So then we're only looking at a 5% cost share, which would be pretty nice. And it would take care of both the first crossing, the second crossing, and that weird section that goes across half of the cove. So that is indeed why it's certainly my preference. But you never know what you're gonna find when we start crunching the numbers and looking at all the different permitting and things that we have to do. So. Okay. Are we ready for a motion or any questions? We just had one question. Go ahead. So for this study, the city's worst case is around 20,000 dollars. Worst case? Worst case under currents would be eligible for 12 and a half percent of that, no option. Yeah. But ideally hopefully it'll only be 5%. We're ready for a motion. Welcome on. I'll make the motion as recommended on. Okay. Thank you. Councilor Barlow has made a motion. Do we have a second? Second by Councilor Jang. And Councilor is leading the way here. It's key infrastructure. Do we, thank you for the discussion. A little vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion carries unanimously. And that brings us, we got our ways to go here with these. The next three items are essentially the same item, but broken down into three separate resolutions. So I don't know how you do that magic of us. Sounds like maybe they could be done as one motion. Fair way. Thank you. Yeah. I believe that they could probably all be made with one motion. Okay. I want to get up a little more first. Yes. We have many, many, many, many storm water outfalls. My six foot, I took over. We thought, Steve, which told me we only had a hundred, but now we're like up to 160. So one of the benefits consequences of, you know, all the sewer separation we did and whatnot was they had to grab storm water and get it to go places that wasn't the combined sewer. And so a lot of these types were put in that timeframe. And then there's also some historical ones. And Kate Komarowski, our engineer is online, in case we get into any technical questions. But basically we've been picking them off as quickly as we can. They are large intense projects. Some of the ones that we had originally intended to pick up are being addressed through other means or completely failed before we could get to them. If you all recall the North Ave Outfall, which we had gotten to in advance, we could have spent like 25 grand to reline it, but instead it completely failed and we ended up spending like $300,000. And so this body of work is intended for us to try to stay ahead of those types of situations. And so we have three different groupings of outfalls. There's the first and within the first grouping is and the groupings are based on sort of our last in-house assessment. The first grouping includes the outfall that is off of Riverside and is very close to 505 Riverside building where the Kismeo kitchen used to be or is. And that's one that we really want to get in and try to take care of. And then the next one, there's another outfall further down on Riverside and then also one I believe on the beltline that we believe are high priority. And then separately, we want to make sure we then look at the remainder of the outfalls and kind of build our new list. And then if there's any high priority, high risk ones on that list also advance some number of those towards design. We want to try to get to the place where we're in sort of a little bit more of a shovel ready and pluck it off the shelf as we have money. Cause right now we're kind of like, you know, doing building the ship as we go. So if I missed anything, Kate. Yes. So they're broken out into three largely so that those two high priority ones can advance sort of on their own schedule. If we did all as one big project then we would be delayed, I think in acting and constructing on the first two. So a little up in the air about whether or not we will have remaining money within the Clean Water Resiliency Plan, the 2018 bond in order to be able to do these. It all depends on how much our initial phase of wastewater investments costs and comes back as. So I'm kind of holding money in reserve to make sure we can do that. But certainly if there are funds available we would be prioritizing the 505 Riverside and we'll be building our plan for voter requests in November of 2024 to certainly make sure that we take care of any of these no outfall issues. Great. Thank you, Meg. It's very good to see this work come forward. Other questions?  It's to make the motion to approve and recommend to the city council. Item number 4.7, 4.8 and 4.9 as indicated on Civic 20. Perfect. I thought you would clap. Thank you. Was that a second there, Councillor Regan? Yeah. Yes, okay. Any further discussion? Good, Councillor Rodger. Just one question. You're not sure how much money will be available to do to get to maybe the priority threes? You hope there's enough to get to the priority ones? I think there's a chance. I have like a placeholder for that priority one. I think it's unlikely for the priority two that we're going to have enough money, but the state, we recently got noticed that we had gotten a grant for projects that we did two or three years ago. So sometimes money magically appears not usually in my life, but sometimes. And so I'm building my list to try to, try to, and I can't promise that that would be up. And the additional body you referenced in potentially November 24th, we covered the lower priority. Yes, we would be looking at, I'm making sure that that next, if there's 10 or 15 alcohols, it may not ask for that, but at least it would cover the sort of time period that we're envisioning that next dose of money to cover. Thank you. They're really challenging because of climate change. Like once something starts to go and then you get more and more intense rainstorms, it just unravels so much quicker than I think it did in the past. So it's a challenge. Okay. That's like, I'm not seeing any further questions. We have motion on the top floor. So if there are no more hands, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all. All right, thank you, Jayvon. Yeah. Okay. Last couple items of the night here. Number 10, the last one for action is authorization for contract matrix consulting group or city of Burlington operational efficiency study and approval for a budget amendment to affect the contract. Catherine, that's for working hard on this. You want to say a little bit about it, Catherine? I would love to. As you may recall from our first FY25 budget update in September, we talked about several ways that we were going to move forward with addressing a budget shortfall. I will be coming back to you on the 18th. Our next meeting was a comprehensive update. There's been a lot of progress, but first up is based on the results of that meeting, we have moved forward with an RFP process for both the operational efficiency study as well as the user fee study with this one tonight being a little bit ahead of the other one. To remind you, we put out an RFP for an operational efficiency study for seven general fund departments. They are for the most part, our largest share of the general fund budget excluding public safety because we've already had a study of the police department and there's a separate study currently going on for fire. I worked with a group of representatives from across the city to review the proposals that we got and matrix consulting came in as the clear winner. Both, they were competitive on cost and their personnel were also quite impressive because they were some of the only, they were the only group that proposed consultants that actually had local government experience. So that really stood out. They are also available to start within two weeks and meet our timeline, which will allow us to have their inputs before we finalize the FY25 budget. And I'm happy to answer any questions. Great. Go ahead and answer me. Thank you. Thanks Catherine for the presentation. I just vaguely recall the clerk treasurer's office having an assessment at some point or can you remind me what that was and if I'm mistaken? You are not mistaken. Yes, the clerk treasurer's office did have an assessment. That's something that I kind of fought for shortly after becoming CAO. And so that has happened. Clifton, Larson, Allen completed that and they did a really great job and we enacted a lot of what they recommended. And if you have other questions, I'm happy to answer them. Will Matrix be looking at different components of the CT's office or will it kind of, is it a more comprehensive analysis taking in to account other considerations that the previous firm didn't look at or... That's a great question. I think it will be a different look because when we first had the CT office analyzed there were a lot of sort of deep questions we were looking at, such as should we centralize all the accounting or decentralize it? And we've sort of answered some of those questions now and now it's really more, do we have a staff of the appropriate size to do the work that we've been charged with? Okay, all right, thank you. I'm happy to make the motion if there are any additional questions. I'll second. Great, thank you, Councilor Green. President Powell, any further discussion? Seeing none, we'll go to vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say hi. Hi. Hi. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you, Catherine, for your work on this, setting up this going forward. All right, it brings us to the last end of the night. I wish it were vanish. What's that? You can. Or would you like me to? Yeah, because I don't have a link for this. Yeah, excellent. It's just going to take a little bit. Hi, I'm here this evening to give you an update on our ARPA commitments and the expenditures. I attached a brief few slides, which we'll have up on the screen shortly. Should I dive in? No, I'm sorry, I'm having a problem. No, no, that's fine, I should just check with you beforehand. When we look at all the approvals and resolutions around the 27 million ARPA dollars, American Rescue Plan Act, for clarity, that the city received, we can divide them into seven main categories, revenue replacement, wages and operations, homelessness and housing, direct to constituent support, if you can go to the next. Brian, yeah, I'm sorry. Very good. Capital and community infrastructure, health response and economic and business support. The first three revenue replacement wages and operations and housing and homelessness were the bulk of the funds spent. But I just wanted to give everyone a chance to sort of look at the subcategories so you really understand, again, these are just highlights. A lot of these projects are very detailed and have multiple parts to them. We're just trying to give you an overview. And on the next page, you can see it broken down more. Again, I will highlight, if you look at the pie chart, the top three colors there are wages and operations, homelessness and revenue replacement. I will say that the intention of the legislation, as written is and at the time, was to keep municipalities in business, to keep them involved and to keep their operations going and also to increase services to constituents. So you'll see the largest portion went to revenue replacement, the 32%. Not all of that has been fully moved over and committed yet, but it is earmarked, so to speak, for that. And that was really the true intent of the legislation. Wages and operations went for things like CSLs, emergency overdose calls, because we had such an increase in those. Our equity and REIB expenditures during the time, police retention and recruitment, and our RRC operations so that we could better communicate with our constituent base. Some of the larger chunks for the revenue replacement were the traffic fund, as most of you know, and general fund lost revenue. As you know, we lost our sales tax and our gross receipts taxes during those times. Direct to consumer, I think is also important. That was BED arrearages, grants to nonprofits, property tax lag relief. The capital and community infrastructure is a lot of the water projects and water is outlined specifically in the ARPA legislation. And we did use it for there and then some of the infrastructure projects that you recently approved, health response, I think goes without saying, and economic and business supports were grants to micro-businesses and open streets activations to allow businesses to spill out into the streets and pay for excess staffing related to those. And I'm happy to answer any questions. Just for clarity, all of the ARPA funds have been committed thus far. So commitment and encumbrance funds needed as for the legislation to be completed by the end of 2024, and expenditures need to occur by the end of 2026. And we are on track to fulfill that obligation, meaning I do not expect that the city will need to return any of these funds. Councilor McGee. Thanks, Mayor, and thank you, Kara, for the presentation. I think I just have more of a comment or request going forward. I know there are a number of things on the list, particularly around wages that, you know, we created some new positions with these funds and now that they are fully committed, we're gonna have to find general fund sources for those. So if we could get at least a brief update ahead of the budget season on what that might look like going forward, what we're gonna have to replace with the general fund, I think that would be helpful. And I'm just grateful for all the work that's been done to get that funding out the door to support the community. It is interesting to see it presented in the bar graph format there and have a couple of the bars, particularly related to direct support for businesses and residents be a little bit smaller than I think some of us would have liked to see, but I know that in the moment of us making those decisions, the revenue replacement was equally important for constituent services. So I think if we prepare a sort of a final presentation of how our funds were allocated and spent kind of trying to draw direct connections to how they went to support, provide direct support to folks, I think would be important. I agree. And if I may, I would also say that a lot of the health response was also, could be considered direct to consumer and a lot of those we distributed HEPA filters, we distributed masks, things like that. But yes. Yeah, think about like a lot of the reason, some of the revenue that we lost was voluntary revenue that we stopped charging various fees and taxes for extended periods of time. You could. Way, way, good chunk of that. HEPA's simultaneous with all this, of course, the federal government was sending out massive. Correct, correct. I mean, you suggest that we didn't do enough. I just, in communicating how the money was allocated, if we could just at a future date be a little more nuanced and communicate to the public exactly. That's helpful for you. I think that makes sense. And just to add to that, things like revenue replacement when constituents might see that, they might not understand that without revenue replacement, for instance, we might have had to raise taxes more. And so that could also be seen indirectly as a benefit to that. So just helping to make some of those connections could be helpful. So this was really meant as an overview for this audience, but it is important to get it out. So yeah. Yeah, thanks. Good feedback. Thank you. Great, any further questions or thought, reactions to the presentation? Yes. Go ahead. Kelce, Jack. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And thank you, Kara, for the presentation. I think it's clear. It's comprehensive. And it seemed that all these resources have always been allocated, basically, right? And I know that, for example, to support the local businesses, $50,000 was identified as part of ARPA to match the donation that Council President secured from a private foundation. And I mean, overall, and also if you look at the traffic fund, in one point, things started to come back up to normal. So basically what we may have allocated, we did not use it all. And maybe in some of these also, there were, you know, contingencies, right? And I was just wondering on a snapshot, basically, in terms of number, what's the wiggle room left over that we have currently, you know, from ARPA, right? Let's go to clarify, all the ARPA is committed, but yes, you are correct. A lot of these commitments do have contingency lines. So the 50,000 that was used to match the grant from the Palmer Lowe Foundation was taken 30% from a contingency line. I can't remember which one, 30% from a contingency line and 20% from some of my ARPA funds that are in the business support budget. So the only wiggle room we may or may not have would be related to revenue replacement, which there is a portion that has been set aside through the fiscal year 23 budget resolution that has not all been taken in, although I would imagine as we start to look into the fiscal year 25, sorry, 25, as we start to look into there, we will probably be using that. So wiggle room, I would say is minimal to none at this point. We might have a few tens of thousands left in contingency lines. Thank you, thank you very much. Thank you, Councillor Jang. Okay, I'm not seeing any further hands. I don't think there's any action on this. So if there's no further questions, I'm going to close this item and that completes our warned agenda. And thus at 6.30, 8 p.m., if there's no objection, the board of finance is adjourned. See you all next week.


Hi everybody, Sean with jaspyscasebrakes.com and jaspys.com where you get personal breaks from us Doing some late-night early morning personal breaks doing another one or two boxes of Panini Obsidian basketball for Scott He's already picked out which box he's gonna do from this one and If necessary, we'll pick out a second one for him, but this is the box we're going for for now Good luck Scott Getting more luck from the Instagram chat again Scott Good luck Scott starting off with Stephen Adams Oklahoma City base Will he call he's dying base from the Mavericks Really, it's incredible His cards are nice looking feel nice. They're heavy, you know substantial Oh Rehan rondo base for the Lakers Rookie Cody Martin orange that's numbered 43 out of 50 Grayson Allen red or pink should be numbered out of five It is numbered four out of five each one more volcanic signatures for the Pelicans Number eight of 25 And Rookie Otto PJ Washington, Jr. Otto isn't very nice, but good player Five of 99 on that one I Like PJ Washington, I think he's got a lot of potential Okay, guys, we're back we're doing another box for Scott we switched the dice we rolled it Four times one time was a re-roll. I think we got the right box this time Good luck Scott Here we go Scott. Good luck starting off with Indiana Pacers Demontus subbonus Marcus smart Boston Celtics Devontae Graham for the Charlotte Hornets Terry Rose here for the Charlotte Bobcat or sorry Charlotte Hornets not Bobcats anymore 51 of 75 purple Derek Fisher Jonas Voluntunus green That's numbered 23 of 25 Derek Fisher Galaxy Otto That one's numbered 26 of 49 love Derek Fisher all time great and Rookie Paps an Otto your leans pelicans Nicolbo Melly Scott Those are your boxes Thank you very much I'm Sean with jazzy's case breaks calm Those are personal breaks from our jazzy's calm personal site. Those were 2019 2020 leading obsidian basketball And we'll see you guys next time


Welcome to NTA Nightly, I am General Norville, this edition's top stories. The governmental St. Lucia is sparing no effort towards the complete removal of the Leahy Law. St. Lucia commemorates World Day to combat desertification and drought 2021, and the fatherhood and paternal bonds honoured on Father's Day. The U.S. government on 18 June 2021 reinstated assistance to select units within the Royal St. Lucia Police Force, RSLPF. The RSLPF has been excluded from receiving U.S. assistance since the imposition of the Leahy Law in 2013, due to the alleged extrajudicial killings of 12 individuals by members of the police force. The Leahy Law prohibits U.S. funded assistance to units of foreign security forces, while there is credible information implicating that unit in the commission of cross violations of human rights. The State Department Leahy Law, however, includes an exception permitting resumption of assistance to a unit if the Secretary of State determines and reports to Congress that the government of the country is taking effective steps to bring the responsible members of the security forces unit to justice. U.S. Ambassador to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean, Linda Taglia-Latela, who announced the resumption of assistance to select units last Friday, explained what is required for the complete removal of the Leahy Law in a country. What the Leahy Law requires is to have a reasonable, supported prosecution, which means that it has to be well documented. There has to be a significant effort to determine if the alleged extrajudicial killings actually took place and who was involved, and is there sufficient evidence to go forward to a trial. There is no requirement that people must be found guilty or convicted of charges. What it means is that there has to be a reasonable and respectable process by which people are held accountable and determined whether, in fact, they have participated or not in a particular activity. So it's up to the DPP to put together his best case or cases. It's up to him to determine and to document those cases that can't move forward because there is insufficient evidence, and from there we can move forward to go back to the United States government and discuss whether this is acceptable under the Leahy Laws and whether we can then remove the restrictions. The governmental St. Lucia remains committed to ensuring the complete removal of the sanctions. Prime Minister the Honourable Alan Shasne explained that the government has been working diligently to ensure just that. He indicated that while the matter rests ultimately with the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, DPP, the governmental St. Lucia has and will continue to avail the required resources to see the matter through. The Prime Minister expressed confidence in the Office of the DPP. I believe that the DPP's Office is doing everything to protect and enshrine the rule of law in St. Lucia. That's his most important aspect. He also has to make sure that justice is served. And justice means that a person is innocent until they're proven guilty. And we do have a process here which is called a corner's inquest, and we have the outcome of all corners inquest on the concerned matters. Four of them, the corner's inquest, ruled that there was no wrongdoing, and we have one corner's inquest which indicates that there requires to be further investigation. The only entity in St. Lucia that can in any way challenge a corner's inquest is the DPP's Office. And that challenge has to come on the basis of evidence. So the DPP has to be satisfied that the evidence that his Office has collected is sufficient to stand up in a court in his challenge to overrule a corner's inquest. Again, it is not my responsibility to be involved in the details of the DPP's investigations. I am satisfied that I have received request on a regular basis for resources, and we have made those resources available to him. I'm hoping that the DPP will make some pronouncement, because I think it's been some time, and that whether he feels he has enough evidence to challenge any of the corners inquest, that's his part. Prime Minister St. Lucia, the Honourable Alan Chastney, speaking there. The Souffre Marine Management Agency and the German Agency for International Development, GEES, formalized technical cooperation at a recently held ceremony. We get the details from Jesse Laos. St. Lucia is one of four small island developing states in the eastern Caribbean to benefit from a German funded project to lay the foundation for the successful introduction of sustainable financing mechanisms for marine protected or managed areas. The Souffre Marine Management Agency, SMMA, is the local beneficiary of this undertaking by the German Agency for International Development, GEES. The project includes maximizing SMMA capabilities to draw down funds from the Caribbean Biodiversity Fund and other regional donors, also human capacity building, and drawing up national plans of action. Project manager for the GEES financing program is Dr. Hammond Volcker. He presented an overview of the project during a virtual ceremony to formalize technical cooperation between the SMMA and GEES. Mr. Rikki explained a lot about the revenues that are possible together from tourism, but besides that, and we have seen in the COVID-19 crisis that these are very volatile. So from one day to another, tourism almost went down to zero. So this might not be the only reliable or should not be the only source of revenue for the marine protected areas. This is why we want to support the SMMA in accessing funds from the CBF, the Caribbean Biodiversity Fund, or other donors that are active in this region and the sector to diversify the sources of income. During the ceremony, Dr. Volcker was officially welcomed by the Government of St. Lucia through Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Barrymore Felicium. The official wished Dr. Volcker all the best during his tenure on the island and pledged a technical support from the Government in the rollout of this project. We strongly endorse the technical cooperation agreement between GIZ and the SMMA. So that support is there and we'll commit the technical resources to make that possible. There is a need for more robust financing platform to ensure SMMA performance and protection of the marine space. We therefore welcome this initiative. It is timely now. It would have been perhaps even a little better if it had taken place before COVID-19. But now we have it here. We are pleased to have that support and the intervention of GIZ, providing the support for laying the foundation, and it's important for us to make the distinction.  This when successful will provide the SMMA with the financial stability required to properly execute its mandate and boost performance. GIZ's support to the SMMA precedes this 2021 Sustainable Marine Financing Program. It is a progression from the Caribbean Aquaturrestrial Solutions Program in its phases one and two that lasted until 2020 supporting marine managed areas with infrastructure and management tools as well as improving climate resilience through systematic resource management. SMMA Executive Chairman Ricky Alexander says the agency looks forward to the continued engagement with GIZ. It is important to note that existing financial contributions are well below requirements and reveal a strong disparity in collection and user payments. All of which affect protected area performance. Establishing sustainable financing for MPAs is thus an essential exercise to help marine protected areas reach its effective management capacity. This is why the formalizing of this important partnership with GIZ is critical as one of the important mechanisms to enhance the sustainability of the SMMA. The German Agency for International Development, GIZ, has been providing support to St. Lucia and the Eastern Caribbean since 2013. It currently works with 120 countries globally and is funded mainly by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. For the Government Information Service, I am Jesse Leos reporting. With the country focused on economic recovery in light of COVID-19 challenges, the importance of supporting local continues to be emphasized in all sectors. NASA stores recently launched a promotional campaign to create greater awareness and visibility of small and medium-sized local manufacturers, who supply its stores as one such example of how this is taking root. The supermarket retailers campaign complements the national initiative of the Ministry of Commerce, which invites the public to love all things in Lucia. With the right support, small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises have the potential to boost economic growth. It is this understanding that spurs mass stores to improve its relationships with this supplier segment with accelerated focus since COVID-19. Rigor Dolls spices a local manufacturer of herbal teas and spice shakers. Ona, Jassin Tarariga Batsas, her company, has been able to grow and leverage various market opportunities over the seven years that she has been working with mass stores. All of the inputs to Rigor Dolls spice come from Herb's indigenous to Saint Lucia and cultivated by the owner herself. Ria Koshes, Swede Lapol, is a locally made skin care line of body butter and a body scrub that comes in a variety of frequencies. While still a relatively small startup, Ona Maria Johnny says the feedback from the public is very encouraging. She is confident that the very good working relationship which she enjoys with Massey and the added visibility from the campaign will help push her small business in a positive direction. Well, this is a very good idea.  And as I said, everybody has talent, everybody can do what they put their mind to do. As long as they put their mind, they can do whatever they can do, don't be afraid. I mean, I'm shy, but whatever you put your trust in, you can make it happen. For those who are now living that want to start their own products, go ahead, start your business like Massey and the government trying to promote it, why not? These two uniquely Saint Lucia products are all natural and can be found at Massey store supermarkets, island wide. From the Government Information Service, I'm Helmete Mark. The Department of Forestry joined hands with the CIBC First Caribbean Bank to commemorate World Day to combat desertification and drought 2021. The 2021 Desertification and Drought Day held on June 17th focused on turning degraded land into healthy land. In an effort to restore ecosystem services and integrate the ecosystem management approach, the Department of Forestry in collaboration with First Caribbean Bank, CIBC, held a tree planting event in Monsito. Assessments carried out by the Department of Forestry provided evidence of over-utilization of resources for livelihoods in the area, which has the potential to result in a loss of resource base. The forest reserve was intentionally cleared for the production of charcoal and planting of agricultural crops. The activities saw the transplanting of approximately 300 trees with an eye toward combating deforestation. Country manager First Caribbean Bank CIBC Saint Lucia, Nigel Olivier, says that this initiative comes at a fitting time as the bank celebrates its 100th year of banking in the Caribbean. We wanted to have something that would be significant and long lasting and something that would contribute to keeping a greener space. And it sort of fitted well with the fact that we have branches throughout the region in all 16 territories and as you know, a branch is also a part of a tree and we thought that that would be a good thing to do. So we decided that let's do some tree planting and so we've done that in all our territories and today here in Saint Lucia and quite frankly I think we're probably going to be the best because I think we have very special partnership in that today sort of fits in with what is happening as a country and then overall with what we're doing as a bank. The event saw many other national agencies and NGOs coming together in solidarity for the cause. Acting chief forestry officer Alouin Donnelly says the tree planting campaign also aims to help raise environmental awareness and shed light on the importance of its protection. The activity here today would bring you know all those stakeholders, all our partners to actually come and plant the tree. So they would actually take the tree and place it in the soil. You know it's not like we planting and they just come in and watch, no they actually come in to plant and that is also significant because you know that kind of activity can be replicated, could be done you know in other places. They can come back in the next three to six months you know and see the progress you know of what their own work, you know their own labor, they could come back and see it. And in that way you know when you know people are engaged you know in that way and doing the practical work themselves, I mean sometimes there is greater value you know that they place on the resources seat. Mr Donnelly encourages the public to continue to adhere to regulations put in place by the Department of Forestry as the forest reserve and protected forest systems of the country are intended to perform essential functions such as safeguarding and regulating the island's water supply and preventing soil erosion and landslides. The spotlight was placed on the role of a father in the family setting and his importance to society as St. Lucia joined the rest of the world in celebrating Father's Day on Sunday 20th June 2021. On a special edition of the program Issues and Answers aired on the National Television Network NTN, host Dr Barry Innocent and Dr Emmanuel McLaurin engage in a fruitful discussion on the father's influence on the holistic development of a child. Dr Emmanuel McLaurin, family counselor and Bishop at the Bethel Tabernacle Empowerment Center believes that fathers are to provide a sense of security, acceptance and belonging to the life of his child or ward. Because Barry one of the things we've learned in our as we deal with consulate that if the father's role is not proper within the home and the child does not learn how to relate to a father it becomes difficult to relate to God as the father. And you have found that because if they had a bad fathering process in the home so they see God from the same light of that father and so sometimes they seem as creator but they cannot receive him as father. So the father role is very very important that they understand that in their role they must be there as a father with all the sufficient confidence and and building them, guiding them, leading them, spending time with them and really leading them now spiritually. Dr Barry Innocent indicated that the Department of Gender Relations has seen an increase in participation from father figures in the life of their children. A welcomed development. The Gender Relations Department they were telling me through the director there she was telling me that it has been reported that lately they actually said there seem to be a shift in the behavior of a lot of fathers. She was saying that the schools are reporting that you have more fathers not more than modern, modern, but more than usual. Your fathers attending PTA meetings, visiting the teachers, your fathers dropping their children at preschools and daycare carrying them like I said. And she said to me that there seemed to be an improved sense of responsibility in fathers in the way they perform their role and having an integral part in the life of the child.  This is NTN Nightly, up next Primers Hutchingston with the NTN Nouvelle Aquial. Mom, you okay there? Doc said I need to make better choices to get my high blood pressure under control. He said I need to watch the salt. I think he meant you need to do things like read the nutrition facts on the back of food packages. These labels are so hard to understand. Why can't they be simpler? They could be if our leaders adopt the warning labels that are shaped like a stop sign on the front of the food packages. Wishful thinking my dear. No mommy, it's not. Caricorm leaders are currently voting on whether or not they want to introduce them. These labels will make it easier for mom and mom, you and even me to tell when packaged foods are high amounts of sugar, fats and salts. He's right. Eating too much of sugars, fats and salts is linked to obesity and non-communicable diseases like heart disease, diabetes and cancers. Leading causes of death in the Caribbean.  Us children are at risk too. We're basically drinking ourselves sick. Now last deal, you need to wear gloves. Caribbean leaders can make a real difference. Now more than ever, we need them to step up. Now more than ever, we need better labels so we can make better choices for better health. This message was brought to you by the St. Lucia Cancer Society in association with the Healthy Caribbean Coalition. Welcome back. We join Primers Hutchinson for the NTN Neufel. Caposito Neufel, a quail visitor. Primers Hutchinson. Export St. Lucia. Jametissipoi des organizations femmes qui engagent un agricole à cette liste, ça y est allomé Helen's Daughters. Mecudilly says, j'ai 2020. Chef officier ex-executif pour export St. Lucia, Sonita Daniel, s'y ayant agrément des bonnes compagnes et puis chef Helen's Daughters, Mamzelle Keflin-Kerou, organization Helen's Daughters, qui a embrassé un spécial objectif pour bailler femmes dans cette commune pays cette liste, capacité pour bâtir et accroir l'habilité économique. Alors, organization j'ai établi un initiative pour indiquer et renforcer efforts femmes cette liste avec les jeunesse pour essayer pour fuir une production avec recolle qui y a recolté. Par conséquence, export St. Lucia, qui a supporté, indiqué et facilité pour du local pouvant un autre pays. Organization a aussi avancé efforts pour cimer effomations concernées manières et pour y vendre pour du soleur place original et international. Et pour essayer de s'y faire fouiller et chercher une époche de l'occasion pour aider jeunesse-fee, madame, et qu'a pas dit ça. Organization Helen's Daughters pour m'en forcer habilité et pour voir économiques. D'il y a un sérum d'Essie Attisala, qui est passé chef Helen's Daughters, Mme Zelle Kechflin-Kerou, par les opportuns collaborations salaires, il fait qu'au point de guider les opportuns collaborations particuliers en secteur agricole pour aider monde qui place nos besoins principalement les jeunesse et femmes, Mme Zelle Kechflin-Kerou, qui a initié tout ça qui a ouvert et ont conchimé pour femmes églégiennes qui participaient en plein programme pour vendre pour du soleur place original ici. C'est le chef expert Saint-Louis, Mme Zelle Sonnet Daniel. Agency l'a déjà examiné mes façons pour aider pour ces programmes Helen's Daughters d'ouvre. Mme Zelle Daniel, déclaré avec qui, pour avoir une organisation femme agricole salaire, c'est un mape-bipouge, particulièrement femme qui est engagée en agricole en sébitation celle-ci. Daniel déclaré qui.  Viens institutes qui qu'à assister pour renforcer bonnes liçons exportées pour gamme éducation. À celle-ci, ça y est l'au-mai. Effective Learning Institute qui a aidé principalement la famille qui inibuisait assistance à Daniel Haudiguay. C'est un mape-bipouge grand organisation qui établiera un pays Saint-Kitts. Much like Haudiguay. À celle-ci, avoir conduit de l'édividie qui travaille un système d'éducation payier ou un belterre. Ça c'est Peter Arneus. Institution pour aider pour ces éducations, à celle-ci, qu'assister s'offer l'école qui sortit à la famille, qui peuvent épiler l'école, uniforme, assistance finance, l'agent pour payer transportation. Partier commission et l'assistance qui décesse pour gamme éducation. Attention, c'est pour Gwansi Pohsala qu'il faut écoager plus m'mai pour développer le plus fort à l'école et pour ne quitter l'école à valer. Selon coordinateur pour gamme non Peter Arneus, il faut faire un grand effort pour réduire la source de l'éducation m'mai qui peut attirer ces pour continuer l'éducation à l'école. Arneus déclarait qu'il n'y a plus pas capables pour fournir m'ma et puis dégrer assistance l'école et puis tout nécessiter qu'il y a eu mérité. Alors, si ça a établi ces diverses assistances pour s'offer l'école avec la famille. Arneus dit aussi, principal objectif là c'est pour placer la famille ex-enfant à de la meille position pour s'offer m'ma et s'offer pour trouver l'éducation. Pierre Staflavius, qui est Wisconsin pour s'offer l'école ch'a trouvé et qui a continué de trouver support pour l'éducation salare. If I'm a appell pour public la longie y'en est ch'a été tab pour me c'est Arneus l'éducation m'ma la oui commandé pour assistance. Parce que tout ça c'est pour aider m'ma l'école et puis par un y'au qui pleine buiser assistance. Existition de assistance d'éducation salare ch'a collaboré puis magazine Marrage initiative-là pour assister les plus pauvres la famille exerfaillant qu'il a assisté l'école. Bureau des affaires électorales, c'est leci Pavley, Citroen, Pierre, Nytrope, Maltet qui vous souvient assistance, Haud, Bureau handling de l'éducation pour cut ideal. Assistant chef and department électual Alain Filanel déclare qu'il les officiers, Bureau qui a commencé visiter pléziative court commun, eq powers a c'est leci pour protuer service de l'éducation salare. So, Nouteni, Détroit Saint Couté, Noutekavini, Noutekalia, Diffo, Komen, Nufedetwattamiku, Nutekafeli, Weekend, Dimash, XMD, Nufemiku, Nufei, Belvi, Atchon, Mokonukapale, Nukafeli, Weekend, Naswazei. Okay. Exemmounsatika, Service, because lot, As it is la voire, dese un grand chef a departement electoral, as it is si madame Elimphir Alayana, Alexa, Kossano, Watumabutu, Nufella, Makawe, Monsieur Ota, Pukagade, Makawe, Invitation, Pujolevimoa Kossidi, Kosavelavi, Tengai Puzetowalot, Nouvelle, Aqueyala Puzet, Makawe Puzetowu, Channel. Merci Opil Primus. That brings us to the end of NTN Nightly. Join us next time at 7pm, with a repeat at 7am. You can also catch up with us anytime on the St. Lucia Government Facebook page or YouTube channel. I am General Norvel.


So I actually have recently been getting back into the Nancy Drew games. They were a huge series for me and my childhood. I played probably about 10 of them. And then I recently like last maybe two weeks ago I started playing Curse of Blackmore Manor again and I beat that. And then I went back to the first one, started playing Secrets Can Kill and I beat that. And then I recently just went on a like two week escapade trying to figure out how to install the second game, Stay Tuned for Danger, because it was not supported really on Windows 10 unless you did like a couple weird things and you had to install certain things and whatever. So yeah, it's basically like a point and click adventure mystery narrative puzzle game. But yeah, that's been a lot of fun for me lately. A lot of people can relate to this, but as soon as you start kind of working in making games, it can sometimes be really hard to appreciate playing them because it feels a little bit too close to home sometimes. But that said, I of course love a ton of different games. I think Simulation is one of my favorite genres. Definitely Adventure Game is probably my favorite genre. Lately I've been playing somewhat similar to Chris kind of doing a throwback and maybe it's just because we're working on a similarly inspired project. But I've been playing a lot of the humongous entertainment games and they worked on a number of games. They did the backyard sports, the backyard baseball and the backyard football and all these things. I also did a lot of really great family adventure games. So they did the Put Put series and the Spy Fox series and all kinds of games like that. So I've been playing through their library and then I also have been playing, I'm a huge fan of golf games, golf video games. I've never played golf in real life, but I love video games. And so I've been playing the, I think it's the Clap Hands, they developed the Hot Shots Golf series, but I've been playing their latest title on Apple Arcade. So that's been kind of my enjoyment after work. So I have been playing a lot of video games over the course of COVID because it's pretty much like the only way that I've been able to stay in touch with my friends. So I spent an ungodly amount of time playing World of Warcraft and kind of burned out on that. And I played a little bit of The Division, I played a little bit of Destiny, and recently I've been super into Outriders, it's, I really love it. It's so much fun. And it's just been a really nice way to like, you know, stay in touch with some of my friends that I've had for years that live a couple of states away who I can't see in person.  A lot of fun. Babs might be my favorite part because she is so snarky, but also so helpful. And I found like when I first read through the script, she was the person that I was laughing at or like laughing with the most. And she's also a really useful resource in the game, which there, you know, there's there's tons of resources that she's one you can really go to and count on that like, you're going to get some help and figure out something. So yeah, I think, I think Babs is final answer. I think my favorite part of Coach Taikun is probably the hacking terminal interface. I when originally it was asked to put that in, I was pretty nervous as to like what was expected out of it. But then once we had the foundation in, I love just making like custom developer like hacks to just make my life easier. And I just had fun putting stuff into it that we could, you know, use on our end and also the user gets to experience too. So that's cool. I love all the minigames, but I think probably the token factory minigame is probably my favorite just because as we were designing that it was really cool. First of all, how the design was trying to capture the mechanics of how a lot would kind of operate. But then also just as we were designing it, we're like, wow, this could be like a full game like completely like as a standalone thing because it's the mechanics I think are really interesting. We went to these really wild like design inspirations, looking at games like Papers, Please and some really interesting designs to kind of come up with the mechanics. And then the way the aesthetics came together with really cool shaders and visual effects was awesome. And then I think out of all the music tracks, that's probably like my favorite music track we have in the game too. So I think everything just kind of coalesced into the token factory game, probably my favorite part. I don't know if I'm allowed to say this, so feel free to cut it out in post. But save the hamster. Don't let. Don't let the distractions like ruin your game. And so I mean, like try your best to manage all the distractions. Definitely try your best to fix the printer. But if the printer breaks for like the main length of time, it might just be time to kind of let that go. And yeah, just try and get as much work done as you can doing your actual job in Kotaikun. And then also definitely make sure and use the items in your backpack because there are some real useful items in there that will help you kind of block out some of the distractions. And that's going to be really important if you actually want to make progress. We left a lot of the debug tools in the hacking terminal. So if you play around in there for a long time, trying out things that you think might be interesting or would work, they might actually work. I think we left like all the debug tools in there. So you have to know what the commands are, but you could access them and then theoretically do a lot of things. So this is like a more development centered series. But in terms of the art, I think one thing that I really loved about this project was working with a really cool mix of two dimensional art and three dimensional art. We kind of went back and forth for the longest time trying to figure out what aesthetic we wanted to make this project and going back and forth between do we want 3D characters? Do we want 3D environments? How do we want to do all this? And we ended up settling on having these 2D characters that have these cool 2D animations and everything, but they move around in 3D space. And we decided to go with a 3D environment because we wanted to make sure that it was really flexible because we weren't really sure how the environment should be laid out and what it would feel like to actually move around it. And so we wanted to make that really flexible and modular. And so having that be a 3D space that we could modify and in our production pipeline, working in 3D is actually a little bit faster than creating individual sprites for the 2D environments. So coming up with the balance between doing 3D environment, 2D characters, but then having the 2D characters do pathfinding and AI navigation around the environment and having that all tie in with their animation system. And then on top of that, having it all tie in with a pretty robust character creator system that we have for the player. Layering all those elements was a really big challenge, but I'm really happy with how it turned out. And I think it creates a pretty cool aesthetic that I'm really proud of. I guess I wanted to say that I was just really proud in general. This project was like a really fast timeline. It's the fastest I think anyone at Gossamer has worked on. I think it was slightly less than six months, like five and a half months or something to make a full, shippable game with a lot of aspects that we had never worked on before, like online integration and cloud saves and more narrative focus and with like loading up many games in the background while it's time-based and it's a strategy game. So it was like a lot of different things that we hadn't necessarily worked on that were challenging all in like a five and a half month timeline. And I feel like we did really well for that timeline. I feel like we I feel like I learned about myself in that like how much I am able to accomplish, I guess, in a certain amount of time. Yeah, so I feel like we did a really good job and I feel like we were able to work really quickly. And I think that was really cool to learn as a team, I guess. Echoing kind of Chris, I mean, we this is probably an obscenely short period of time to develop a game. I think we all kind of felt like we would have loved to have six more months to do more. And just the every single time, you know, we we had an issue with with whether it was, you know, the hosting or the security or, you know, something that at least that I was involved in, you know, Chris was able to just, you know, quickly just, you know, either find a fix or or, you know, you know, resolve an issue just just with cloud saves, for example, you know, we found right at the beginning of Early Access, we found that there was an issue when you logged in in a certain way. There was there was an issue, a conflict of some kind with your cloud saves and our ability to push, you know, what was currently in your cookies up to the up to play fab while pulling down to save. Chris was able to get to the bottom of that just really quickly. And, you know, I was just extremely impressed with that. So I'm really proud of the team.  But just just the team as a whole, I thought it was pretty awesome.


Our purpose is to begin a national dialogue on the middle market. I couldn't be more pleased about the partnership between G Capital and Fisher. More of our economy is dependent on the middle market. The middle market summit provided an excellent opportunity to highlight the importance of the middle market, the role that they have not only played in the economy but the role that they play in their community. This is a real opportunity for us. We're going to constantly fight to lower the cost of doing business. This is a very large segment of the economy, understudied, and therefore it provides a wonderful opportunity for us to contribute. We have to recognize that the middle market is the powerhouse of the U.S. economy. The summit provided insights about the middle market firms from various perspectives. We had famous CEOs who have either gone through the stage themselves or, like GE, are serving the segment of the economy. This is where the job creation is. It's where a lot of competitiveness is. Right here in the middle market, this is really our bread and butter, and we think we're a leader in the North American marketplace. Following the speakers in the morning sessions, we also held six panels. And the topics for these panels largely reflected what our own research had shown in terms of what distinguishes growth champions. Having an opportunity to attend the GE summit as a student is a phenomenal opportunity. We learn a lot in the classroom, work through case studies every day, but to have a chance to speak to Fortune 100 CEOs such as Jeffrey Emel from GE, such as Fred Smith from FedEx, and actually interact with them, ask them questions, is a good chance to get real life learning to complement what we have in the classroom. GE may have found us to be an interesting partner because we want to approach serving this middle market in a holistic fashion. We want to do research. We want to take the insights of that research to corporate outreach activities, and we also want to engage our own students, be it through projects or be it through a recognition of interesting and exciting careers that are available in this segment of the market.


There's been a drought in Bali.  Normally they capture water from the rain and they have like slanted roofs and they capture it. We give them like water filters. There's so much more you can do with your life and with your money. Now we're excited, man. So I wanted to start with the first question, Tim.  Where are you? So on social media, I'm in Zanzibar but that was like two trips ago, three trips ago. Cause after that I went to Bali, Paris. Now I'm in Italy for the next few weeks. I'm all over the place. I know why you post a little bit delayed but can you kind of give the audience the story of why you started posting delayed? Yeah, I mean, it's fun to be well known. Like I appreciate people coming up to me and it's cool but it's also a gift and a curse. Sometimes I want a little privacy. Also like my friends and family deserve a little privacy. So I've had to like pull back. I started very much in people's faces and just live all the time. And I've kind of drawn back just a little bit. I think people should be a little more careful just about what they post on social media. We don't really realize the consequences. Nothing bad has happened but you just have to choose what kind of life you want. So. Didn't someone try to kidnap you once? Not kidnap me but they met me at the airport when I wasn't expecting them. And I have a few stories like that. But again, it's nothing terrible has happened. Nothing even that bad but it's just like, wow, like we throw ourselves out there. There's a lot of people out there.  So yeah, I'm a little delayed. It's taken the fun out of social media a little bit but they're worth it. I remember sitting at the conference one year. I went to one of the trader investor summits back in 16 or 17. It was like one of those.  How is this happening? And he was like tweeting from Africa.    Now I'm just like, be transparent with your trading, like show your losses. That's, I think that matters more than like your specific location. It doesn't matter whether I'm in Bali or New York or Italy or Paris. Like I'm always keeping New York hours. Like when I'm in Asia, I'm extra crazy because like I'm up all night trading and then we have like charity or like I go on a lot of food trips in Japan. So it's either food or charity during the day than trading at night. So I'm just a psycho more than normal. Yeah, you are always working and traveling with people and just like going like absolutely crazy. Do you ever get tired of making content? Because you have been going making a lot of content man. Like, and it must get tiring over the years. Is there ever a time where you're like, oh my God, like I'm so tired? Yeah, I mean, the cool thing also about posting later is like I have like seven or eight trips that I haven't even posted. Like some, you know, sometimes we work with hotels and they're pissed or like, where are you posting? I'm like, don't worry, I'm doing it. And I also was like fat last year. Now I'm thinner. So like I'm gonna post one of these trips.  And I'm like, yeah, you know, but it's really from like last year, you know. So I have content stored up, but yeah, sometimes it gets tiring. But again, like the world is so fascinating. I can never get over it. I've been to now 134 countries. I'm running out of countries, but we live in the most fascinating time in the history of the world and more people need to see it. And I wish that it was the matrix, you know, maybe like Elon and Neuralink will work or something in the future where like I can transfer all of this into your heads and you'll be like, oh my God, Sri Lanka's amazing. Like there's so many crazy places out there. So it does get tiring sometimes, but at the same time, like I'm just motivated. It's crazy. I feel like Tim, you've been doing this for so long. Like I feel like you were really like a pioneer and like not only like on social media, but like advertising yourself and like being a part of it.   I drank a lot and people laughed when I was drunk when I said funnier stuff. And I was on Wall Street Warriors. I was drunk in every episode. I was very introverted back then. So I needed liquid courage and like it helped because I made it more entertaining. Like trading can be boring, finance, money people can be boring. So I was like, screw this, let's have fun with it.  And now I'm just like, I'm out there too much. I have like verbal diarrhea. Like I can't pull it back in even if I wanted to. So it's just getting it out there. And again, like we're all fortunate. Are you struggling to find the right stocks to trade? Are you making money for one, two, maybe three weeks in a row and losing it all in one day? Are you struggling with sizing up on your trades? Well, I found that the best way to fix these problems is to trade alongside a millionaire trader live on stream with no delays. My investing club's new live trading stream is the missing puzzle piece to your trader. Every day at 9 a.m., I share my screens, find the best stocks to trade and build my watches live. Then I execute those trades live on screen. It's like you're sitting right next to me as I trade every single day. Due to the high demand of the screen share, we only have a few spaces available every single month. So if you're seeing this now, it means that space is still available. And here's the best part. If I do not generate $20,000 in realized gains per month on live stream, you do not pay. So go to myinvestingclub.com slash live trading to get 50% off your first month on the live stream. Spaces are limited and filling up quick. What do you have to lose? This may change your life. To be alive right now with all this technology and we're all trading that this is the best market. We're in the most successful country in the history of the world. People just need perspective. So it feels like I'm doing it for a while because a lot of you guys are young and maybe I've been doing it. I've been trading for a quarter of a century. That's older than a lot of my students. But I've been teaching. It's older than Harry. Harry here. I mean, he's like. It's older than me. It's impressive. It's very impressive. And you can grow more facial hair than I can still. So like, I get like packets. Like it's like weird. You're like, whoa, calm down. Want to be rabble? Like it's not good. I'm in the same boat. Whatever works. I mean, we're still just beginning. Like the internet is only like, what, 30 years old? Like we don't even realize how big this is. This is like being alive when like when the printing press got invented or you know, this is revolutionary and people still don't truly capitalize on it. We have a lot of misinformation. I think people who are using this technology the wrong way, like the Kardashians where like now girls, do you know what the average? Guess this, here's this. How many average photos does a girl take before they post one photo on social media? Thanks to the Kardashians and a lot of other people like that. Yes, on average. Pass me 50. I would guess 100. I'm gonna go low and say seven. Look, the study that I read said 38, but taking 38, understand, they're not going to like 38 different places.  No, I don't like that. I don't like that.  I was even, I posted on somebody posted like Kim Kardashian's sink and it's like this cool sink where it looks flat, but there's like indentations and she had it redesigned seven times and I'm just like, how much money can you waste? I get it. I like luxurious things too, but how many schools can you build? How many other people could you help with your platform? But she just doesn't care. Yeah, something that you mentioned to him is that perspective shift. And I know that you travel the world. So is there a specific place that you went to that you kind of had that perspective shift in your own life? So many different perspective shifts. I'll say Bali really opened my eyes. I was, you know, at the time, this was before I started my charity. I was going, you know, I've been traveling for a while. This is the beauty of trading, but you know, there's only so many luxury pools that you can be in. You can be like, look at this luxury pool. Oh, I have a pina colada. That's so beautiful. And it's like, it's fun, but it gets boring after a while. So I actually said this to my driver in Bali the viceroy Ubud, beautiful resort. And I was like, take me to your village. And he's like, what are you talking about? Like, why do you want to see that? Like, we don't have a lot of money. I was like, no, I want to see like the real Bali. And we saw his village, met his family. It was really cool. You know, and it started me down this path of like wanting to help, you know, other communities, not necessarily just luxury, visit luxury hotels and resorts and really meeting with the people, especially, you know, we are all from the most valuable, most historically successful country in the world. The dollar goes very far. I know it has a lot of haters, but the dollar can go so far.  We have 115 schools, libraries. Now we're doing computer labs. We have a soccer field in Cambodia. We're doing two recycling centers now. And the money can just go so far when you see that impact. So I encourage everyone listening to not just go to the normal places. I know that, especially in the trading world, you can get stuck in this like Miami, New York LA, you know, Vegas every now and then, maybe a little Burning Man, maybe a little like Formula One, maybe a little Art Basil.  There's only so many bottles.  That's incredible, dude. That was awesome. I just, I think it's very rare to meet someone who actually like puts their money where their mouth is, especially when it comes to like charitable and like events and like giving money away.  Or were you like, I just want to do this and like make, and it feels good, but how did you go to like grow this big?  You start small paper trade, take small positions, try to find your process, try to find your groove. And that's what I did with the schools. I mean, I wanted to build a lot, but I didn't really know how there's some bad charities you have to watch out for. You know, we had our first 3D printed school in Madagascar, which has been like a total mess, but we're trying a new technology. You start small and then you see how it goes. And, you know, I didn't intend on doing computer labs or recycling centers, but we found out that's what the community needed. That's why it's good, not just to donate the money, but to go to the community, you see what they need. Like now we're doing clean water programs because we met with people and families and we're building homes now. We built 13 homes at Bali. I went there just on my last trip. I haven't even posted the video yet, but we're talking with the families. There's been a drought in Bali.  Normally they capture water from the rain and they have like slanted roofs and they capture it. We give them like water filters, but there hasn't been water. So they have to go to the grocery store buy water and it's like, this is terrible. So now we're working on new water plants, you know, to get them more clean water. And just by talking to them and seeing them in person, you really find this out. I met this other family, we built them a home. You know, we have one of their children in the school and then I was talking with the family and you know, we're also filming a documentary. So you guys will be able to see all of this soon. We've been filming a documentary for two years. We want to showcase all of it. But just going there in person, meeting the family, there was another one of their children who's too like afraid of going to school because he doesn't know how to read.  He's afraid that like the other students are going to make fun of him. I was like, we'll get you a tutor.  And he was like, the dad was crying, he's crying. And I'm like, this is so simple, but they're so like, they don't want to ask for help. They're very proud. But you know, a tutor, I mean, literally I looked at the pricing and it's like $300 for like a year's worth of tutoring and that will catch him up and then he can go to normal school. And he was just too afraid to ask because he's embarrassed. You never have to be embarrassed. Anybody watching this, if you don't know how to read, if you're not good in math, you're not good at trading, you're not good at anything. We all start somewhere. You should never be too proud to ask for help. That's the beauty of this. Look at this. Where are you guys right now? We're talking all over the world. Where are you all? Colorado. I'm in Jersey. I'm actually in New Brunswick, Canada right now. I'm in Boston. And think about this. This was not possible just a few years ago. And now we have it all. Like I read some report, what we have like three quarters of a million dollars worth of technology like in our iPhone.  You can get your whole DNA sequence now for like 200 bucks a few years ago, it would have been like millions. Like this is insane what we can do right now.  No, it's totally, totally true.