for people struggling with opioid addiction. Councillor Paul, Tracy Shannon, Dean Booth Mason, for Councillor Paul. Note additional written materials for this agenda item per CAO Anderson for Councillor Paul. Note proposed amendments for this item per Councillor Hartnett. Note additional communication for this agenda item from Governor Shumlin, 2011 to 2017. For Councillor Paul, note proposed amendments for this agenda item per Councillor Jang. Thank you, Councillor Nodell. Is there any, Councillor Busher? I would just like to further amend by noting on 5.33 the resolution authorization for reimbursement from public improvement bonds. The dollar amount is 5 million, not 10 million in that resolution, so. Thank you, Councillor Busher, for that little $5 million correction for us. What's 5 million bucks between friends? No, thank you, that was an important correction. Okay, with that correction by Councillor Busher, is there anything else from the council? Hearing none, second for that motion? Councillor Hartnett, so the agenda as amended has been moved by Councillor Nodell, second by Councillor Hartnett, any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor of the agenda as amended, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? We have our agenda. Item number 2.01 is a resolution recognizing Deputy Chief Plant, Councillor Nodell. Yes, President Wright. I would like to move adoption of this resolution recognizing Deputy Fire Chief Robert Plant for completing the executive fire officer program, waive the reading, and after a second turn it over to the chief. Seconded by Councillor Roof, and we will now turn it over to the chief. Chief Locke. Thank you, and thank you for having us here tonight. With Deputy Chief Plant. It is my honor to be here tonight, sitting before you with Deputy Chief Plant as he has in recognition of his completion of the executive fire officer program, it is the pinnacle of educational program for fire service leaders, and it requires the applicant to attend four years, two weeks a year at on campus course here, so eight weeks of your life into Emmitsburg, Maryland, with other fire service professionals, but away from your family, and then after each two week class you have to come back and work on a research paper on an issue that betters the fire department and this community, and Chief Plant has completed that, and it's interesting to know, I think the statistics a few years ago, less than half the people that start the program complete the program. It is labor intensive, and as fire professionals, research isn't necessarily our strong suit, and the first year of the course is really about how you complete research and bring wealth of knowledge back to the fire service, our profession, and the topics that Chief Plant has looked at certainly has made Burlton Fire Department a better place. Must also recognize his wife Dr. Laurel Plant who's in the back of the room and their daughter Sadie. Some Ethan was a baseball game tonight, which is probably a very important thing as well, but this is as much about your time away from your family and the time it takes to do your research and your paper, and a lot of hours spent away from the family, so again, when we honor, when we give a round of applause to Chief Plant, also it goes to his family for a big commitment, so we do have a certificate, Frank's certificate to present to him, but again, thank you for letting us be here tonight. And here that comes now. Chief, thank you for your congratulations, Deputy Chief on behalf of the city and the city council, and actually if your wife and family would please stand up as well. Thank you. Okay, way to stare out to meeting on a positive note. It's great. And we need to vote on the resolution, so all those in favor, any discussion on the resolution? Any comments? All those in favor of hearing none, all those in favor of the resolution, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, that passes unanimously. Again, congratulations. We now move back to the agenda to annual reports, item number three, and we will start out with 3.01, which is a report from the fire commission, and I think we should have the chair, Mr. Perkinson. Thank you, Mr. President. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of the city council, Mr. President, thanks for having us here tonight. I believe that you've all received the written report from the fire commission, so I won't believe or that. I would like to extend my congratulations to Chief Plant, and I would take the opportunity to just reflect on the fact that Chief's Plant commitment is exemplary of the commitment that you found throughout the fire department and the E-City of Burlington is well-served with both the command staff and the line staff of that department, so I certainly haven't witnessed it firsthand in the test of the fact that we are lucky and just wanted to state that publicly at this opportunity. I don't have much to add to the written report, although there is an update on the training section we did swear in this morning, Troy Ruggles, who I think is going to be a great addition to the department and has many, many years of professional experience in training firefighters and will contribute a great deal to the department. And again, as a testament to leadership that we have at the Burlington Fire Department bringing in talent and also, as exemplified by the paramedics program, bringing up talent and continuing the educational process for the benefit of the people of Burlington. I would like to turn it over to Chief Locke. Thank you, and I'm going to be brief because I know you have a long agenda that'll let the written report speak to itself. The cliff notes are that the department continues to be busier and busier and your members in your fire department provides a very high-level service and I'm honored to be their leader and with that I'll turn it over to any questions you may have. Thank you, Chief Locke. Councilor Buescher and then Councilor Hartnett. So thank you very much. It's always enlightening to get these annual reports, but just clarity, a good intent call. What is that? I knew you were going to ask that. A good intent call could be someone thinks a smoke is coming out of a building and it's really a dryer vent. So it was a good intent. I can identify with these kinds of calls, so thank you. And everyone that has to fill out a report in the back is there's a long list of codes and they fall into a certain number of categories and at times can be challenging, but that's what a good intent calls. I'd say thank you very much. Thank you, Councilor Buescher. Councilor Hartnett. Thanks. I was just wondering if you could give us a very quick kind of update where we are with regional dispatch and kind of the voters overwhelming support of that and I think it's important that we kind of keep them in the loop themselves. Sure, at this point we have released an RFP looking at the next steps they're going to. So the authority has been created. We've met about six times, five times. We've released a request for proposals that will look at 11 pointed questions about the next steps and as well as management services. So basically someone to help us who has done this work before and to lead through transition and to get you those answers that we'll need to make that final determination whether we're going to join and we continue to have our monthly meetings with dispatchers in an effort to continue to build a relationship with them and the latest kind of positive news is that the dispatchers will be, one dispatcher from each community will be participating in the RFP review process so that we can, as we select the next consultant that they will hopefully have some ownership to. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Hartnett. Other questions? Hearing none, thank you very much, Chair. Thank you, Mr. Chair and Chief. Great work, keep it up. Now we will move to item 3.02 which is the annual report from the Public Works Department and we have Director Chapin Spencer and the Chair of Public Works Commission, Tiki Arshabal. Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity to have a quick few moments to chat with you and thank you again for all of us on the commission to serve at your desk. We do appreciate the opportunity. You do have a report similar to Mr. Perkinson previously I won't read it to you because clearly you can read it. Just some highlights were, as the Chair of the Commission how I structured this, which was more of the treats of the department as I've seen it over the past year. So adaptability being one of the first ones that I called out and really seeing an apartment that is adaptable but not approaching a project that's rigid but being able to welcome public comments and even change that project and the parameters of that with some feedback for the community. So it shows a real level of engagement. I think the second piece I put in was routines because let's face it every department has a routine and it's just highlighting some of the issues that we as a commission have faced that only touches upon the magnitude of issues that the department faces as well. And then lastly I indicated progress in the report which really in my, I used to call it a short tenure compared to some, but six years in the commission there's been a lot of progress. I cannot recall seeing this much progress and maybe you've seen it in your neighborhoods in terms of streets being redone or even sidewalks that have long since not received attention are now being redone and people are excited to see those changes too from just people in the neighborhood. So those were just a few of the traits that I highlighted in the report why I went about it that way and of course listed a few looking ahead issues but I know we all have our own concerns and issues in our own neighborhoods too so I don't put it up to any thoughts that you have. All right, thank you for that report. Counselors, questions for Councillor Bushard. Most interested in the recap was very informative and I really liked how you did this, how you broke it up with topics. I thought that was a nice way of presenting info. I'm more looking ahead so one of the things was certainly wastewater discharge. I'm not gonna touch upon that. That's a conversation that's ongoing and I know that there'll be more to come back to the council but I know everyone is concerned about that but likewise I represent ward one and I'm equally, well I'm not equally but I am concerned about residential parking and I read that there's amendments or changes to the ordinance that are being brought forward and these are going to be reflective of the overall 2015 parking management plan and that whole process that we went through quite a while ago and that was as on the last time I remember we were at BED and it was a room divided. There were lots of, there was lots of information, lots of passion, including my own and so I wanted to know not so much to hear about the proposed changes tonight but will those proposed changes come to the city council before they're acted upon by the DPW commission? I just wanted to understand that process. Yes, thank you Councilor Busher. As council recalls, I came a couple of weeks ago, probably a month ago to talk about this and we will, we had promised to notify the council. I think given the interest at the council level I would like to bring the recommendations to the TUC, Transpatient Energy and Utilities Commission prior to it being reviewed at the commission level. So that is the plan at this point if the council would like further engagement feel free to let us know but we expect to be in front of the commission this fall with some recommendations that come from that plan from 2015, thanks. So may I just. Continue. So for me that serves me well because I'm on the TUC committee but I think it's really important that when that appears on the agenda that the whole council is aware that that's an opportunity to come and hear the proposed changes so. Happy to do so. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Councilor Busher. I have Councilor Dean and then Councilor Pine. Thank you, President Wright. So continuing the line of questioning on the looking ahead portion of the report. You as item number three you report that we now have a narrow streets policy that was recently adopted and I looked to see whether I could find it anywhere on the website to familiarize myself I wasn't able to find that. So can you give us a little insight as to what that particularly addresses and what changes to UN vision or updates adaptations to it UN vision going forward? I'll give you the origin of it just from hearing from residents who lived on streets that were maybe narrower than your average street that are out there especially when you introduced parking on that street where you now had a concern about emergency vehicles being able to access that street at all times of the year especially winter when you have snow piles perhaps if there are no green belts on that particular street pose some unique challenges so that's why those streets were grouped into that effort in terms of looking ahead maybe I'll direct to Spencer to speak to that. We had some individual requests to adjust parking on narrow streets and found them to be quite controversial in a number of scenarios where there were divided interests between accommodating emergency services and snow maintenance and the desire from residents to have as much parking as possible. So instead of looking at this one street by one street the goal was to develop a policy we're now reviewing the narrow streets within the city and plan to bring to the commission a recommendation on how to apply that policy to those narrow streets across the city. Thank you. Thank you Councillor Dean, Councillor Pine. Thank you Mr. President I'm just wondering if you could both for our benefit and also for the public talk a little bit about your thinking going forward in this next few months planning for potentially a bond question to deal with our stormwater and sewer overflow and discharge issues so just if you could briefly. Sure, let me be clear that staff has been working around the clock. The recent releases are a very serious matter we are redoubling efforts to per the mayor's direction to bring a full multi-year capital plan to the council and to the administration by December 1st of this year for your consideration. We have already started that work and as you may recall in our presentations to you we did identify a capital need in the order of eight to $10 million on the plant and pump stations to replace existing equipment. This is not including TMDL requirements or other increasing regulation but really to maintain the systems that we have. We need to do much more additional work here before I can give you refined numbers but we will deliver on this promise to get that in front of you by December 1st. I'll say Councilor Pye. Thank you, Councilor Pye. Anyone else on the council? Comments or questions? Hearing none, thank you very much Mr. Chairman and Director Spencer. Thank you again. You're serving on the commission and a lot of big issues. Thanks. We still have about eight minutes left before the public forum. Time's certain so we will move to, I will recess the regular city council meeting and move to the local control commission, convene the local control commission meeting and the first item on the agenda is the agenda, Commissioner Dean. Thank you, Commissioner Wright. I would move to amend and adopt the agenda as noted. Moved by Councilor Dean to adopt the agenda as amended seconded by Councilor Roof. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor of the agenda as amended, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? We have the agenda. Item number two is the consent agenda, Commissioner Dean. Thank you, Commissioner Wright. I'd move to adopt the consent agenda taking the actions as indicated. Seconded by Councilor Roof. Any discussion or questions? Hearing none, all those in favor of approving the consent agenda taking the actions indicated, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, we have passed the consent agenda and item number three is adjournment. Commissioner Dean. I would move in adjournment. Moved on adjournment by Commissioner Dean and seconded by Commissioner Roof. All those in favor of adjournment, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? We have completed the liquor control commission agenda and I will now reconvene the regular city council meeting at 7.23. We can, we only have a few people speaking but I think we will start the public forum out. So we'll move into item number four which is the public forum and for those who don't know, if anyone's preparing the speaker wants to speak there are these little slips over in the corner table over here, fill them out and bring them over here to the clerk's office on the corner table. They'll get them up to me.  When the yellow light goes off I think you're down to about a minute and the red light goes off you need to conclude your remarks. So with that, we will ask Eileen Whelan to come up and then Deb Snell. Good evening, Ms. Whelan, welcome. Well, it's really a pleasure to be here this evening. Thank you so much for allowing me the opportunity to speak. My name is Eileen Whelan. I'm the president and the chief operating officer at the University of Vermont Medical Center. I also happen to be a Burlington resident. Our mission is to improve the health of the people in the communities we serve. We do that with a team of over 8,000 employees working in Burlington and beyond including more than 1,800 nurses working across our inpatient and outpatient areas. Our nurses are absolutely critical to the success of our team. They are often the first person a patient sees when they come into the emergency department into the triage area. They are the first person that they wake up to after surgery. The last person that typically sees a patient when they leave an office or leave the hospital is one of our nurses. They bring expertise and skill to their work and they provide the human touch that our patients and families need to heal when they're at their most vulnerable moments. In the wake of last week's strike, I know that the Burlington City Council will be discussing a resolution tonight that calls for the medical center and the union to find common ground and to reach a fair agreement. All of you and all of the people in this community are counting on us to do just that. We support this resolution. I know that you'll be speaking to it later on. On behalf of the medical center, I wanna say that we honor and value our trusted nurses and we are committed to reach a fair agreement with the union that represents them. I am confident we will find common ground through what unites and sustains our service to our patients and our families. That really is our common ground and that's truly our mission. That is what unites us, our patients, our families and this community and our mission to really serve this community. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Whelan. Deb Snell is up next. They followed by Molly Wollner. Good evening, Ms. Snell and welcome. Thank you all for having us here tonight. I am the executive vice president for Mount Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals representing the nurses union here tonight. We strongly support this resolution. We believe the values shared by the city of Burlington are also shared by the nurses at the medical center. We also hope to find a fair resolution in these contract negotiations that have become rather contentious. We strongly feel that the hospital needs to think about investing in nurses in the future and it's not just the nurses here at the medical center, it's the nursing future across the entire state of Vermont. Vermont ranks 47th as you noted in nursing salaries adjusted for cost of living. That is not sustainable, not to keep nurses here. We're losing nurses. They're coming for a two year period, getting their sign on bonus and then leaving. They're getting amazing experience at our hospital by the nurses there and then leaving. We need to be able to keep the nurses here. We recently learned that our comrades over at Dartmouth raised their starting salary to $30 an hour, which is about what they'll be paying at Plattsburg starting in the next fiscal year. Our current starting salary is $26.80 an hour. The hospital has proposed a 5% increase. We are at 10% because that's what we need to be competitive with these other hospitals in our own region, let alone nationally. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ms. Snell. Molly Walner is up next to be followed by Joanne Hunt. Good evening, Ms. Walner. Welcome. Thanks for, can you hear me? Thanks for having me here tonight. Make sure to pull the microphone right in. I've been working at the University of Vermont Medical Center for five years. I've been living in Burlington for 10 years and I encourage everyone here at the City Council to support this resolution. It's obviously very important for our community. As Deb just stated, we are still rather far apart in negotiations as far as getting to a compromise. We do hope the hospital can meet us halfway in compromising, but I would like to highlight some specifics that are truly important to us. As the hospital's gotten much larger and we've taken on other patients from other areas, we have seen a large increase in the number of patients coming to us as well as the acuity. What I mean by acuity is that patients are sicker and it involves more staff to do the same tasks that maybe we once did with less staff. These things are immensely important for patients getting the high quality care that we all want them to receive and that they all deserve to receive. So as nurses, it may sound and look on paper that our asks are bigger than what the hospital agrees us thus far but our asks are not meant to be just because we want it or just because we want to live more lavish lifestyles but rather to meet those needs of the patients we're seeing and again the higher acuity patients tend to be more complex and difficult to manage with the same ratios we've used in the past. I hope that the city council takes this very seriously and understands the importance of this with our community and I think everyone here probably agrees that we want to care for our community well so I hope you can support us in that. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Walner. Joanne Hunt is up next to be followed by Charlie Messing. Good evening, Ms. Hunt. Welcome. Joanne Hunt, I live on Leonard Street. Most of you know me. This is my third city council meeting to support the nurses and I didn't know that you all would be here, Ms. Whalen, so I'm a little nervous about that. I both appreciate that at the same time. I wish that you would have been more present rather than just at one final negotiating session and I don't want to change too much for what I want to say tonight and I might cry because I'm really moved. I want to thanks Max and Dave and Kurt and Joan and however much the rest of you have supported us but I have been in touch with you who I've mentioned and I've really appreciated all the support that you've given us.  And when we decided to strike, I felt both the proudest I've ever felt as a nurse and also the saddest and throughout the days of the strike, I felt completely exhausted and exhilarated. I've been overwhelmed with the support of the community. I've been overwhelmed with the strong connections and unity of the nurses that work at the medical center. I have not felt disconnected to them ever. I got to run into lots of nurses that I used to work with when I worked in the ICU and what I know even more than I knew before is how strong we are, how clear we are, how much we have not felt respected in this process or heard and I think it's really important. I think nurses for years have gone, have done what they need to do but they haven't really stood up for themselves and as we were marching down Church Street on Friday night and I've been in a lot of marches in my time, it was absolutely amazing because for the first time in my life, it was nurses speaking up for nurses and patients and the community and I just don't remember that ever happening before. I strongly support this resolution. You already know that. I think it's incredibly important for this community to step up as I asked you the last time you are and we really need you to continue stepping up because we deserve a fair contract. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Hunt. Charlie Messing is up next to be followed by Laura Lucini. Mr. Messing, welcome. Microphone. I don't think I brought any of my friends tonight. Ladies and gentlemen, Councilors, Mayor, everybody, have something to show. Well, as you know, the park has gotten dirty. City Hall Park is dirty. I'm fully in support of the nurses, by the way. Did I say that yet? The park has gotten dirty. I think it can be summed up with the very first letter of the word park. This is the Portland Lou. It's from Portland, Oregon. It's an enclosure with one toilet seat within it. You can kind of see that in silhouette there. Ah, camera. This is the Portland Lou and it's the solution to your public restroom problems. It's got louvers so that you can see inside and make sure there aren't more than one person in it and that they aren't doing something. They do have on the price list a sharps container, but the idea is that it's sort of something you can look into and they've never had it in an area that went this cold in the winter, but they're willing to insulate all the water pipes. I think it's a couple thousand bucks more. Oh, sorry, 4,500. And they use them in Portland, Oregon. And we're talking about one seat in an enclosure that weighs 6,000 pounds and the sink is on the outside and it gets connected to the water and sewer systems and I can just picture 20 tourists online waiting to get in because it's so swell in there. And they have one in Canada and here I have the price sheet. I have been online. I have gotten a 3D model from them. I got the price sheet. It's only about $110,000. One toilet seat. So I want you all to consider this as a solution to the public restroom problem in the park because of course we need, hi. How many times? I think it's done. Okay. I think you'll agree that we need public restrooms because we want this new park to be clean and well, the old park is a little dirty. So that's the Portland Zoo. Hot dog. Thank you, Mr. Messing. And Mr. Messing, hopefully the headline in the press tomorrow will not be the park is dirty. I support the nurses. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Messing. It's just a little joke. Ms. Lukini is up next to be followed by Sarah Adams-Collich. Good evening, Ms. Lukini. Welcome. Ms. Lukini, I am a native remonter. I am also a Montessori teacher. Can you hear me? That's better. And I feel it's very important to be respectful of nursing employees. I feel that it's one of those positions where if you are stressed and if you're under a lot of pressure, nurses could make more mistakes. So I think that the training is important and I also feel that that it's very important for them to be heard and be honored for who they are and what they do because we all have people that need to go to the hospital some time in our lives. We really love for those people to do well and to be healed and come out of the hospital more healed than they were when they went in. So I really appreciate everybody here listening to all of this time, spending time and their energy and their efforts to resolve this issue and I thank you. Thank you, Ms. Lukini. Lukini, that's right. I think I said it right the first time and wrong the second time. Sarah Adams-Cullits, good evening and welcome to be followed by Kyle Dodson. Welcome. Hello, counselors, thank you for having me. I'm Sarah Adams-Cullits. I'm the director of the Burlington Children's Space and I just wanted to comment on the Early Learning Initiative grant program. We are a proposed recipient of a grant through that program and the Burlington Children's Space has a 34 year history in Burlington and was started when Bernie Sanders was the mayor with help from many stakeholders and CEDO and we have operated in the city for that whole time in two different spaces. Now we're in the McClure Multigen Center and through a 20 year agreement with the Champlain Housing Trust we are attempting to purchase that building so we will own our home and we are trying to secure a more sustainable future for our program and this funding helps us do that. So we have been engaged for a very long time with the mayor's office on this project three years of discussion about early childhood funding and what it takes to run a program in the city and before that time, before we engaged in that discussion we had really been feeling a little bit like when you run an early childhood program and it's a nonprofit and you serve infants and toddlers which we do, we have 54 children and you work with Head Start and you work with the Howard Center and you have a sliding scale and you're committed to economic diversity. You really never balance your budget. You just throw money into the hole and then January 1st comes along and you start throwing money into next year's hole and so we have really been trying very hard to find a way to secure a more sustainable model and we think that purchasing the building where we have been for 20 years will help us do that and we're just very grateful to the city and to the mayor's office and to the city council for making a commitment to early education and to making not just one time funding available but trying to think about how this funding could be available for multiple years going forward. So we're very supportive of that and we just appreciate feeling that the city does care about the work that we're doing and does care very much about the families who use the Burlington Children's Space and other programs that are getting funding and that the city is committing to making more spaces available in the future but also holding onto those longstanding resources that are in the community. So as the mayor knows, this is a very long process and we like to think of it as a three year discussion about what it takes to run this program and we appreciate that outcome. So we're looking forward to future conversations. Thank you very much. Kyle Dodson is up next to be followed by Keith Pillsbury. Good evening, Mr. Dodson, welcome. Good evening, Chairman Wright, other counselors, nice to see everyone. As announced, my name is Kyle Dodson. I'm the CEO President of the Greater Burlington YMCA and like my colleague, Sarah, also the Y is a proposed recipient of the Early Learning Initiative grant and so I'm really here to express gratitude on behalf of the Y and the families we serve, the community we serve, to the council and the mayor and the grants committee for making this possible. My sense is that the counselors have had an opportunity to be educated about the challenges that face those who want to be in the infantile business. Perhaps some people in the public aren't aware. It is arguably our most important time when we need to have this care available and is the most expensive. It actually is prohibitively, prohibitively expensive. The ratios to do quality the right way make it so that it's very difficult to pass that cost along the families. Even families who are well resourced will struggle to pay the full cost of that business. And so this support is really invaluable to help us build the seats. It still remains, and I think my colleague, Sarah, was speaking to that. It remains to those of us in the business to figure out how to sustain those seats but those are ongoing conversations and this partnership with the city is really exciting and encouraging to show that the Burlington community is getting behind this. Also in the research for the public, the challenge of not having this opportunity, for some families it is support so that families can work and they have high resourced households where things happen. But for some families, the vocabulary development, play opportunities, understanding of neurological development, if it doesn't happen in a classroom like these, it will not happen. And the cost of that to those children of those development is really often irreparable. So the fact that we're making this commitment as a community is just really exciting. Thank you all. Thank you, Mr. Dodson. Keith Pillsbury. Commissioner Pillsbury, School Board Commissioner Pillsbury, welcome. Welcome, thank you very much, Mr. Wright. Here as a representative of Vermont Interfaith Action as a member of St. Paul's Interfaith. Mr. Pillsbury, can you pull the microphone in a little while? Don't always tell me that, Mr. Wright. I never tell you. Because we always can't hear you. I know, I don't understand that. Anyway, we're very consistent. I am a member of Vermont. You are too. What's that? I said, you are too. I am a member of St. Paul's representative on the Vermont Interfaith Action with the Local Action Committee on Affordable Housing. St. Paul's is a sponsor of the largest provider of housing for the senior citizens and disabled, but we're also concerned about the younger people, young families and professionals who can be able to afford to live in Burlington. And I'm here to talk about Vermont Interfaith Action's reaction to the inclusionary zoning working groups report. We are continuing to do some more research on it, but we are very in support of the statement that where they say they want to improve the quality of life for all residents by having an economically integrated housing supply throughout the city. The committee would like to see affordable housing spread throughout the city in an effort to make more inclusive economic integration. That is something that Vermont Interfaith Action supports. Being a school commissioner, as you mentioned, having social economic integration in all of our neighborhoods is also gonna have a great benefit to our public schools. One of the concerns that we have is that we're not sure that this report has some very good things in it, but we also have 4,000 plus students at the University of Vermont who are gonna be told by the university next winter, next spring, that there's no housing for them on campus, and therefore they're gonna be coming into the neighborhoods. I represent those students as the Ward 8 School Commissioner, and they keep telling me they like better housing for they say a cheaper rate, but I say a less expensive rate. And I think we'd like to also urge the city to work harder through the administration and the city council with the university to provide more housing on or near campus to open up housing for those young professionals, housing for students so that the students that are living in units in the core of the city can vacate them so that young professionals who and graduates of UVM would like to stay in the city but can't afford to, can stay because there's availability of housing at a more affordable rate. So that is my statement, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Pillsbury, and it's only because we want to hear you. Don't feel bad, people often don't tell me to move the microphone further away. Almost went by someone. Laura Lisa Pollander is up next to be followed by Barbara Hedrick. Community Unities Pollander, welcome. Thank you. I'm the executive director of the Sarrah Holbrook Community Center. The center has provided services to some of this community's most vulnerable children and families for the past 81 years now. And as my friends Kyle and Sarah spoke to, I'm here to say thank you to the mayor and to city council. We are one of the proposed recipients for ELI money. And the timing of this was perfect for us. We are, we have been working quietly for the last two plus years to raise $3.9 million to expand our facility so that we can serve yet more kids and families. Right after I received notice that we were one of the proposed recipients, one of our major donors stepped up. We are $1.5 million short of our goal. And this donor stepped up and said, I will give you half a million if you raise the last million. So this ELI gift will count toward that challenge. I think public servants are very often not recognized for the hours and the efforts they put forth supporting their community. So I'm here to say my sincere thank you. Thank you, Ms. Hedrick. Hollander, Hollander, Ms. Hedrick is up now to be followed by Barbara Noffi. Welcome. Thank you. Good evening, counselors. I'm here to talk about the inclusionary zoning report that you have in front of you for this evening. It's a 103 page document. The purpose of it is to increase the amount of affordable housing in Burlington. And rather than approach it the way the recommendations are outlined in that report, I would like to provide some alternatives. I think the number one thing that the city could do is to be more effective and have more productivity in its discussions with UVM to use the Trinity campus. There are 20 acres there and UVM could house the 3,000 undergraduates that currently live in the city off campus and instead house those 3,000 students on the Trinity campus. And if UVM did that then there would be about 350 houses and apartments that come available in the city for non-students. And those would be in the price range that are targeted in the inclusionary zoning report. You know, houses that are $300,000 or less. So I think that's a better approach because then we aren't having land taken out of the tax rolls and being used by Champlain Housing Trust in Cathedral Square. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Hedrick. Barbara Nolfi is up next to be followed by Therede. Good evening, Ms. Nolfi, welcome. I'm here to talk about inclusionary zoning. I was on what was then the Board of Aldermen when we passed inclusionary zoning. And we adopted it and it was, for those of us on the board at the time, it was a meaningful event. As we were planning our co-housing, I believe I live in co-housing as we were planning our co-housing project off East Avenue in 2006, 2007. We began to think about units for families with limited income at 80% of median. There were subsidies available and working with the city, we decided to have nine of our 32 units be affordable perpetually. This works out to be 28%. We work with Champlain Housing Trust so they would help screen people who were interested in living in the community. It has worked well. When some folks left, others were interested and were available through CHT. These units have brought us more diversity in many ways. Having read the IZ documents, I am in support of the changes I saw. I plan to stay in touch with the process as it moves forward through the standing committees. Thanks to the IZWZG committee for all your work. Thank you, Ms. Nolfi. Fareed to be followed by Kelly Devine. Good evening and welcome. Thank you. I'm here to support the nurses and also the nurses' aides, the techs who work at UVM as well as the custodian staff and everybody who works at UVM. Also as a resident of Burlington, I would like to remind you that livable wage is a good thing. It's something that Burlington values. It is something that the city council has recognized in the past and adopted as an ordinance. And according to the city's website, the city recognized that businesses and entities that does business with the city or receive financial assistance from Burlington should be able to pay, should be made to pay their workers livable wage about almost $15 an hour. And the voters also have overwhelmingly supported $15 an hour as minimum wage. Since UVM received $600 million and UVM Medical Center an additional $400 million in tax deferment, I think that qualifies as financial assistance that's greater than $15,000. So please do your job and enforce the law, make UVM, pay all their workers livable wage, and pay any back wages owed. Thank you. Thank you very much. Kelly Devine is up next to be followed by our final speaker of the evening, Jen McCarthy. Good evening. Good evening. Thank you. I want to start by thanking the IZ Working Group for the, I think a whole year's worth of effort towards reviewing and working to improve this particular piece of ordinance. As folks may know, at the Burlington Business Association, we've been really concerned about the housing affordability crisis in Burlington and really feel like the city needs to move in a multiple directions to make improvements. We're encouraged by the work that's being done through CEDO on the housing report. Specifically, the working groups resolution, I think does some important things. I think that the payment in lieu of option is a real critical one, because I think we know from the development community that some of these project, smaller projects really, they teeter on the edge of feasibility at the $115,000 level of payment in lieu of, and small projects really are critical to, I think redeveloping some of our housing that's in and around the downtown. So that's a step in the right direction. And our consultant for the DID project, Brad Siegel has been talking to us a lot about how Denver has been addressing their affordability issue and bringing money together in a pool seems to be a really effective tool. So we're encouraged by the fact that there's an opportunity to do that. In addition, we would like to see consideration of the parking minimums that are associated with inclusionary zoning. We definitely have been working closely with the city and the downtown as well to try to prove transportation options and how parking, people hear me talk a lot about parking, but it does take up a fairly large land use when you build a downtown project and the cost is fairly expensive and that cost gets transferred to the owner and reduces people's affordability by about $15,000 to $30,000. So we'd be interested in that being supported. I have some written comment I can give you. The other things that we'll be following along with this is whether or not the program has an opportunity to for review written into the changed ordinance because sometimes these things get passed and then they're around for a long time. Basically, we are in support of the resolution tonight that will continue to move this forward. I think it's really important for the overall economic health of the city and our ability to attract young people. And so I just wanted to come and offer that support and have copies of our comments and we will hopefully be able to continue to follow this when it goes to committee. Thanks. Thank you, Ms. Devine. Good job on the radio this morning. Well, thanks. Our final speaker is Jen McCarthy. Good evening, Ms. McCarthy. Welcome. Thank you. My name is actually Jean McCarthy. Jean, sorry. No problem. I'm just here to kind of spur the moment, speak to the council and ask your supporting supporting the resolution to settle a fair contract at the hospital. I am just short of a 30 year RN at the hospital. I work in mental health and I've been most dismayed about the misconceptions and the misleading information regarding the wages that we're requesting. As I said, I've worked at the hospital for just about 30 years and my pay salary has decreased. I'd make it all less than I did seven years ago. I was out on work as compensation and got demoted because they wouldn't let me come in for meetings. Anyway, I've only gotten a 2% bonus since then which gets taxed at gift tax. So I do not come home with much of a salary increase. The last wage increase that the nurses union asked for was 8% for year 2019, not 23%, not any other percent. 8% for 2019. The next year, 2020, we requested a 4% increase and the year after that another 4%. The hospital has offered 3% wage increase for 2019, a 3% wage increase for 2020 and a 1% wage increase after that. Executives wages have increased approximately 625% over the past 20 years. Nurses have increased approximately 17%. We work hard. I'm here representing myself and my fellow nurses but that's not acceptable. When executives are getting wage increases at 625% and the laborers, the professionals or have wages have only increased 17 and 13% for I believe the LPNs over 20 years. It's grossly, that's just a gross injustice and I asked the city council to do what you can do to support the resolution for a fair nursing contract. Thank you. Thank you very much. And we are prepared to conclude the public forum but I just wanna make sure I know that a few people just came in so we're concluding the public forum unless someone else wants to speak to us before we conclude. If you do, there are slips over here or let me know and looks like there is not. There is.  My name is Stephanie. I'm a nurse at the UVM Medical Center. I work in the Cancer Center. I've been on the bargaining team sitting at the table for four months. Thank you for your support of this initiative. I wanted to just say that there are several articles that we've tried to pass in the contract that aren't just about wages, having to do with staffing ratios, lip teams, non-nursing functions that are subtracting from our time with patients and those have all been really challenging to get management to listen to us so. I think that wages have gained a lot of publicity but there are a lot of other things that we're going for that are really important. Thank you. Thank you very much. Anyone else before we conclude? Sure, come on down and just identify yourself. Donovan, I'm a registered nurse. Good evening, Ms. Donovan, welcome. Ran from the hospital and I've been at UVM Medical Center for 12 years. I've been a registered nurse for 21 years. I grew up in Burlington and I graduated from the University of Vermont nursing program and I've worked in many hospitals around the country, a lot out west. Ms. Donovan, you need to pull the microphone right in close to you. We're not hearing you very well, thank you. I have been a nurse for 21 years and worked across the country in different hospitals and I've been at UVM Medical Center for the last 12 years. I am a certified progressive care nurse. I'm an RN3, which is one of the higher level senior nurses on the tier. The past three years at UVM, we've seen a lot of change in terms of patient population, volume of patients and the acuity level, which means how sick that patient is. Since UVM has acquired all these surrounding hospitals and clinics, the volume has just gone maybe tripled or even quadrupled in the last several years. It's been very difficult for the nurses to keep up with that volume and the intensity of the illness that is presented. We're not short staffed on a sporadic basis.  I'm talking three shifts a day, seven to three, three to 11, 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. And it's not the nurses who are paying the price when we're not staffed appropriately. It's the patient. I struggle to get my work done in a 12 and a half hour span. I did not complete my work today, which is highly unusual for me. I'm a fully efficient, organized nurse who can do her job, but I cannot do it in these circumstances. And it's been hard to reconcile that because I grew up here and these are my family and friends that are using this facility. And... I can finish here. I just wanna say that it's very challenging to have the administration not hear us. This is not about wages. That's part of our problem, but it's more about the culture of UVM and how it treats its nurses and the community that it serves. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Donovan. Anne Taylor is up next. And since people are continuing to go up, if anybody else wants to speak, because again, I think I'm making it difficult on the clerk's office who like to have the slips because they need to record the names. So if anyone else wants to speak, please do fill out a slip over here and get it to the clerk's office. Anne Taylor, right now you are the last person speaking. Okay. I as a physical therapist, in practice, 41 Main Street, Erlington, Vermont. Okay. I have seen nurses working for multiple decades. They are really stressed. Now, here's the answer. It's very simple. Okay. Ever heard of the Me Too movement? Well, women are always underpaid. Nursing is a women's profession. Yes, there are more men in the profession today because there is great opportunity and nurses are really needed. So the UVM nurses deserve whatever support we citizens of Vermont can give them. Anne, remember, women are always underpaid. It's a reality. Now, here's the second point to summarize. Okay. When an institution has 150 positions unfilled, it's clear they are being underpaid. And one of the nurses who is a negotiator, I don't know if this is true, but she said, Vermont's 47 out of 50 states in terms of the pay. So the nurses are not all concerned just about money. They are concerned about the safety. And if you've been there 20 years, well, I should say 24 and you're the top of the steps. That's the language in the negotiation contract. They haven't had a raise in 10 years. 24 years. So guess what?  You know the job and you get more pressure. They don't get more help. We have to fight for these nurses. They're not fooling. What they're asking for is absolutely deserved and deserved. All right? Now, have one other topic. Okay. Most people don't know this. I've been talking about it for years. I don't know how, but our legislators voted a lot into effect that it's okay to dump sewage into Lake Winooski, the Winooski River, which ends up in Lake Champlain. So what we all have to do is take the 81 or 84 million that lay he got and start giving one municipality a big hunk of money so that they can start improving our sewage plants. Okay? And I miss Chape and Spencer speaking. However, we as a city have got to get with the ball, you know, get with the program and get the money. It's not all the farmers fall. It's all of us. No more chemicals, no more sewage. We want Lake Champlain to be beautiful again. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Taylor. And with that, we will conclude tonight's public forum and move back to the agenda for item number five, the consent agenda. And I will recognize Councillor Nodell. Thank you, President. I move that we adopt the consent agenda and take the actions indicated. Moved by Councillor Nodell, seconded by Councillor Pine. Any discussion? All those in favor of approving the consent agenda and taking the actions indicated, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? That passes unanimously and we have passed the consent agenda. With that, I am now going to recess the regular city council meeting at 808 and turn it over to the mayor for city council with mayor presiding, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, President Wright. I will call to order the city council with mayor presiding at 808, PM, and the first item on the agenda is the agenda. I welcome a motion regarding. I move that we adopt the agenda. Thank you. Is there a second? Seconded by Councillor Roof. Discussion? All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes unanimously and that brings us to the consent agenda. I welcome a motion regarding the consent agenda. I move that we adopt the consent agenda. Excellent, seconded by Councillor Roof. Discussion? All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, the consent agenda passes unanimously and it brings us to a series of board and commission appointments. We have three of them tonight. The first is an appointment for the Parks and Recreation Commission for a term expiring on June 30th, 2020. And I would welcome any nominations for this seat, President Wright. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm excited to place a nomination in the name of Alex Farrell to serve on the Parks Commission. Alex has served the city for a number of years now on our Board of Voter Registration, as well as being very active in Ward 4 and 7 on our steering committee for the MPA. So he is a young professional and I'm excited to nominate him to fill this position. Great, thank you, President Wright. Are there any additional nominations, Councillor Paul? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'd like to place a nomination in the name of Ann Parity so to serve the term on the Parks and Rec Commission. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Paul. Are there any additional nominations, Councillor Buscher? Yes, I'd like to place a nomination, Stephen Gomez. His credentials looked amazing. Excellent, thank you, Councillor Buscher. Before we go to the Council for any further discussion, are there any nominees? Well, first of all, are there any additional nominees? Didn't think there'd be more. Any nominees would like to address the Council, share any thoughts before the Council or it's on this appointment? Come on up, Alex. Welcome, Alex, if you could try to share. You'll have to a couple of minutes remarks, thanks. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Mayor, Councillors. So there's a lot I'd still like to learn about this but I'm excited about the opportunity to fill this spot. There's a lot going on. There's improvements to Parks Going and we all wanna make sure we keep it accessible to folks of all income levels. We wanna make sure we're using the Penny for Parks Fund responsibly, renovating tennis courts, whatever it needs, but we wanna make sure we're using those funds responsibly. And I think I just wanna make sure we're working the Commission with the Council on the Memorial Auditorium renovation. That's something that we should work closely on. So there's a lot I still need to learn here but I'm very excited about it, so thank you. Thank you, Alex. Are there any other nominees that would like to address the City Council? Okay, I don't believe there are so we'll go back to the Council with any further discussion before we have a vote. Councillor Jang. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I was just wondering if we can ask a question to Alex or any of the nominees here present today. Why don't you address your questions to me and I'll determine whether or not we ask. So we know that Alex is also running for Senator and was just wondering if given the opportunity to serve as a commissioner at the parks and also if he wins, would he be able to provide services to the City of Wellington? Through the process. Would you continue in the role? Would you continue to serve? The question just to be clarified, the question is would he continue even if he is elected Senator? Yes. Could you address this question, fair question. For about to point you to 20, your term would last until the year 2020, which would overlap with a Senate term where if you were to be elected, do you intend to continue to serve? Yes, yes, I would. Are there any, thank you. Why don't you stay there in case there's further questions, any further discussion? I think was there another hand? No, sorry. Okay, so just confirming it's been a little while since we had three nominees at the same time. I do believe the rule is that someone needs to receive a majority of this 13 vote body to be confirmed and we will continue to vote until someone receives a majority. So with that, we're gonna have a show of hands for each of the nominees. Unless there's further discussion, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor, if we'll go in the order that they were nominated, Alex Farrell, please raise your hand. Great, that is by my account. City Clerk confirms I believe that's seven and congratulations, Alex, on your appointment and we look forward to working with you on all those issues and more. Thank you for your service and I also want to thank our other applicants and nominees for their service. It was, again, this is, we're just coming out of a, it's an annual thing. City Council and the administration do in filling, refilling the standing committee and board seats and I think this year's batch of nominees. I can't remember a stronger field of applicants. We appreciate everyone who has put their name forward and those that we were unable to find a role for this time, including on this commission, we encourage you to consider applying again. Many of our best commissioners and board members applied multiple times before they were appointed. Okay, with that, we do have two more appointments to make. The 3.02 is an appointment to the Board of Tax Appeal for the term expiring June 30th, 2020. I would welcome a nomination, Councilor Shannon. I nominate John Qualey. Excellent, are there any additional nominations? Seeing none, we'll close the floor for nominations and I'll have a voice vote here. All those in favor of appointing John Qualey. Is, I'm sorry, is Mr. Qualey here? Would you like to speak to the Council? Seeing that, we'll go to the vote. All those in favor of Mr. Qualey's appointment, please say aye. Aye. I believe it's a unanimous appointment. Welcome, congratulations, Mr. Qualey and thank you for stepping up. And finally, the Board of Registration of Voters for term expiring June 30th, 2023. I would welcome any nominees for this seat. Councilor Mason. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'd like to nominate Larry Granillo, please. Excellent, thank you. Are there any additional nominations? Is Mr. Granillo with us tonight and interested in speaking to the Council? Welcome, Mr. Granillo. And again, if you could share up to a couple minutes of remarks, I'd be welcome. Thank you for having me. I didn't expect to speak tonight, but I figured with the opportunity I would. I just want to mention I've been in Burlington for four years, I worked at the University of Vermont. And I feel very strongly in democracy and the people's right to vote. And I feel like any attempt that or any effort I can to help make that more available to everybody in the city, make it easier and the registration easier would be a valuable thing that I could add to the community. So thank you. Well, thank you, Mr. Granillo. It's a much appreciated. It is the Board of Registration of Voters and others that make our elections possible. Thank you for your interest. Are we ready for a vote? Any further discussion? All those in favor of pointing Mr. Granillo to the Board of Registration of Voters, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion Mr. Granillo is unanimously appointed. Thank you for your service and we appreciate it. Thank you. Okay, with that, President Wright, the city council's mayor presiding is adjourned without objection at 8.18 p.m. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And we will reconvene the regular meeting of the city council also at 8.18. And go back to now onto item six, the deliberative agenda. And that is back to you, Mr. Mayor, for item 6.01, a communication from the mayor on appointment of assistant city attorney. Mr. Mayor. Thank you, President Wright. I am excited to bring to you tonight with the assistance of city attorney Eileen Blackwood, a nominee to be the next assistant city attorney, the individual we have appointed for your confirmation tonight is Nick Lopez, who is here tonight. And Nick, if you come up and join us here. You know, it's a full agenda tonight. I just want to briefly say that I, and I believe the entire city attorney's team is excited about the prospect of adding Mr. Lopez to the team. He comes to us after a very interesting stint of service with the, as an assistant attorney general for the state of Colorado, where his duties included a wide range of legal activities ranging from advising on public records and open meeting issues to land use, water rights, constitutional law issues. He has experienced staffing commissions and representing government bodies. And I must say in our due diligence, confirming that he was as great as he appeared on paper, we got nothing but glowing recommendations from the various colleagues and firms and organizations that he's been involved with. So, you know, with that, President Wright, we're very excited to bring Mr. Lopez here tonight for your confirmation. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And Mr. Lopez, would you like to say a few words before we go to the council for a motion? Yes, sir. As the mayor indicated, Nick Lopez, I am very honored to be before you today and excited at the opportunity to serve the city of Burlington, serve this body, the departments, the mayor and the various agencies of Burlington. As the mayor said, I come from Colorado where I've served as an assistant attorney general and very excited about the opportunity to work in this fabulous city. Happy to answer any questions. And I look forward to the opportunity to work with each of you. Thank you, Mr. Lopez. Any questions from the city council? Councilor Busher. I don't really have a question, but welcome. You sound great on paper and I look forward to working with you. And I was so excited to see that you have actually firsthand experience working with commissioners and committees and public meetings because, you know, as you have already been probably told, you will be staffing some committees. And so that expertise really pays off for us as city councilors. There are some around the table, as you know, who have some law background. But for me, I don't. And I rely heavily on getting advice, which I can either take or not take. I just want to be upfront, but I rely on getting the advice from an attorney. So thank you so much. And I look forward to working with you. Thank you. And I look forward to working with you as well. I understand the complexities that exist for city council and I'm looking forward to working on those issues. You'll be hearing from Councilor Busher. Other councillors questions for Mr. Lopez? Hearing none, I will recognize Councilor Shannon. Thank you. I enthusiastically moved to approve the mayor's appointment of Mr. Nick Lopez to the position of assistant city attorney. Moved by Councilor Shannon and seconded by Councilor Dean. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor of the appointment of Nick Lopez as the assistant city attorney, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That passes unanimously. Congratulations. Congratulations newly appointed assistant city attorney, Lopez. Congratulations. Thank you very much. And I'm sorry. You're on your own. Item number 6.03 is, excuse me, item number 6.02 is a presentation on Lake Champlain Community Sailing Center. Welcome. I'm Kirsten Mermin Shapiro with the Community and Economic Development Office and with me tonight I have Owen Milne who's the executive director of the Lake Champlain Community Sailing Center. We have a brief presentation that he'd like to do to share with you some of the work they've been doing over this past year and many years down on our waterfront. Thank you. And thank you to Councilor for having this opportunity to share a little bit about what we're doing down on the waterfront. We were asked to prepare an annual presentation for the city based on our performance in four key areas. And yep, and we'll address those now. So the first one up on this. Come on. All right, there we go. Let's go to the next. I don't know if you can advance it. Much for technology. It's okay. I have them pretty well memorized at this point. So the first of the four that I want to make sure to talk to is floating classrooms. So some of you may or may not know that we partner with schools in the Burlington School District and regionally on helping to integrate STEM and even STEAM education curriculum into the schools. So we partnered directly with teachers and engaging them in getting kids out onto the lake over the course of the process and creating this program. We've actually now served 100% of kids who come to the Burlington School District as of right now, every fourth and fifth grader in every school in the city currently has some form of place-based lake education through us at the Community Sailing Center. And we serve about 900 and 45 kids a year through that program in Burlington and regionally. The second program that I want to make sure that I'm talking about today is what we call leadership. It's a program that we actually do in partnership both with the school districts and with likes of King Street Youth Center and other programs in the area to essentially provide lake-based actual resilience work and grit building and leadership skills in kids that we've identified as being potential leaders in their own communities. The third program we work on, so we actually partner with an organization called Vermont Adaptive to create a program where we reduce the barriers, whether it be cognitive or physical disabilities in getting out and having lake recreation every year. So we have around 345 people that come through that program every year. And the last program that I'll mention to you is a program that we call Women in Wind. It's gender-specific programming to help engage women in the area and kids so that they get out and get an appreciator. Like one of the things that we found, especially both with sailing, but also with education is that it's our recreation that has been primarily focused around men and boys engage it more than women do, so we're actually taking conscious efforts to be able to do that. And then the last part about this presentation is that the community credits that we apply for every year related to our lease come through our ability to measure our performance on an annual basis. So in the report that you have and in this presentation, we actually denote the amount of scholarship money that we provide for all of these programs. So in many cases, it's well over 50% of the number of dollars that we put forth into making these programs a reality for the community. So our annual target amount to hit for providing community support that we can calculate is $40,000. And over the course of the year, we measure that we're well in excess of that. So I wanted to be able to share the presentation that's now up, but also feel any questions that you have. One of the things that you'll see is we'll come to you actually annually with this report to demonstrate this performance. In some cases, we'll ask you to approve for us to actually add new programs and take a look at how we provide that performance on an annual basis. Yes. Thank you very much for that presentation. We're glad that you were able to keep rolling without the slides going. So we didn't have any dead time there. So we appreciate that very much. We'll turn it over now to the city council for questions, Councillor Bushard. Not a question, but this presentation occurred at the Board of Finance. And I just really hope that the president, thank you President Wright for bringing this forward because to me, this is a way of getting this information out to the broader community. I just think the sailing center has such value of giving people access to the water that don't have the means necessarily and all the good things you do. And as a woman, not a girl, but a woman who doesn't have a boat and is actually a little afraid of water, I should really take advantage of the gender specific program because looking at Burlington from the lake is amazing. And you can really only do that when you're in a boat. So anyways, thank you so much for tonight's presentation. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Bushard. Councillor Hartnett. Thanks. And we were able to have one of our pack meetings down there last year and it was great and we learned about all the activities with the schools and I think that's a great program. Could you touch on outside of the school year though, what type of impact you would have on some kids? I know you mentioned King Street Youth Center and the other ways that we're reaching out other than just the school district. So every summer we run summer camps and an important thing to note is that we actually operate as a social enterprise. So two thirds of our budget is earned revenue that we don't get through philanthropy and one third of that is done through a private foundation and individual support. So summer camp is one of our more popular ones. About 475 kids came to the camps last year, 500 this year and that group extends well out beyond Chittenden County. We end up scholarshiping 33% of every kid who comes through that program. This year we've actually, but we're approached by the food project to now also provide free lunch to every single kid that comes to that program because we're able to grow it so much we can actually point to knowing exactly how many kids will come through that would not or may not have been able to access free or reduced lunch because it's now the summertime. That would be one example of those things. You mentioned a number of kids in outside of the Burlington area, but to the Burlington kids, is there a waiting list? You were talking about where you were turning kids away at one time for the summer camp. Do the Burlington kids get preference? I mean, in a sense that they're a Burlington resident, is there any thought to that process or we never turn a single person away. The only thing that might happen is we run out of scholarship dollars. So if the only thing that would ever occur is if we hit that limit and we do every year, then the amount that we'd be able to appropriate for individuals would be limited at some point in time. Fair enough, thank you. Thank you, Councillor Hartnett. Councillor Shannon. Thank you, President Wright. I just wanna thank you for the access that you provide to the lake for everybody and I hope that the council and the public appreciate that for a lot of people in Burlington, I think we have pretty good access to beaches, but that's different than really accessing and navigating the lake, which is what you allow people to do. You allow people to do that from all economic backgrounds, as well as ability. Not only on sailboats, but on other hand-paddled boats and things like that as well. I will share that I had the opportunity to sail one of the adaptive boats, and that is quite an experience. It's an incredibly sporty boat. It requires a lot of skill to sail. It is an invigorating experience and I was thrilled very literally with my heart and my throat to crew for somebody who was a very adept skipper in that boat. I just think that we're really lucky to have the Community Sailing Center because without that, the vast majority, I think, of people in Burlington would not have the availability of access to the lake that you provide. So thank you. Thank you, Councillor Shannon. Councillor Dean. Thank you, President Wright. I think I want to follow on a little bit on Councillor Shannon's remarks about the truly great service that you do in providing access for people who are differently abled, people who are handicapped in wheelchairs to actually get out and do something new and do something exciting and enjoy the lake. I think that that is an incredibly important mission that you fulfill and I want to applaud you for it. I also wonder if you didn't take the opportunity, I think, to say a little bit about how you are forwarding that goal with this planned investment in a new waterfront launch. I wonder if you could just say a few words about that. Yeah, so actually one of our greatest barriers right now for helping bridge that gap for access is the fact that we are operating in kind of two sites using our existing dock infrastructure and the new building site. So as processes move forward within the city to address the future of the Moran Plant site, we will need to move quickly and helping redevelop our waterfront, which is an image of what you see before you. As we move forward in the process of designing and working through helping fund this, we'll be remaining actively engaged with CEDO and our partners in the city to kind of ensure that that project moves forward swiftly and accurately. The thing too is that we will be moving forward to making sure that it stands as a shining example of ADA compliance and access to the waterfront. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Dean, Councillor Jang. Thank you. So quick question and basically it looks like you're enjoying your new facility, you know, but I was just wondering in terms of next step, in terms of programs, you know, what is in the horizon? And also, what do you guys do during winter when there is no sailing? So as an organization that depends on our year is made and lost in eight weeks. So if you could imagine, that's like working at Vermont Teddy Bear. You, your entire year is spent planning for that summer. So traditionally in the past, that was what winter looked like was really preparation. Now we are actually doing year-long programming. So in floating classrooms, we're bringing kids down into our classrooms all year long. So now we are having that program is running spring, winter and fall. So that's a new thing. This upcoming year, we struck a relationship and partnership with AARP. So one of the things that's really important about being a community center, so community is our first name, sailing is our middle name, is not making sure that we're not missing out on any part of our demographic. And while we love having summer camps for kids, we are consciously making efforts to make sure that there are summer camps and opportunities for everyone, irrespective of what their age happens to be. And then another one that we're working on too this year is expanding away from just sailing as a medium for lake access and providing opportunities at looking at rowing and other lake-based activities that would essentially work in days that aren't great wind as well. So the idea is making it so that our actual recreational choices don't themselves become a limiting factor for access as well. Thank you, Councillor Jang. Any other questions from the City Council? Hearing none, we appreciate very much that presentation. I echo and second all the great comments that the Councillors have made about being part of the great revitalization of our waterfront and along with the bike path and the skate park, the Community Sailing Center I think is doing some impressive stuff down there. So thank you very much. Thank you. Item number 6.03 is a resolution from Councillor Nodell. And I will go to Councillor Nodell on inclusion area zoning. Thank you, President Wright. I would like to move adoption with reading and request the floor after a second. Second. The resolution has been moved and seconded by Councillor Pine. Councillor Nodell, you have the floor back. Thank you very much. I have about a 10-minute presentation of the work that is coming to council tonight from the inclusionary zoning working group. So I want to walk through the presentation and then I'll just briefly say what the resolution does. Go to the next slide. So the ISU Work Group was created by resolution about a year ago, a little over a year ago, and we started our work in September of 2017. And our task was to go through a consultants report that the council got in January of 2017. And this report was evaluated the City of Burlington's inclusionary zoning ordinance. So the work group was asked to review those recommendations and make suggestions based on those back to the council. Next please. The ISU Work Group was deliberately created to represent multiple points of view. And so we had for-profit developers, not-for-profit developers, affordable housing advocates, the director of the city's planning and zoning and our Community Economic Development Office, a representative from the Planning Commission. And I was honored to serve as the chair of this group. And everyone on the committee has had a lot of experience working directly with inclusionary zoning from different points of view. And our task was to come up with, I was hoping that we would achieve some consensus and I think we did achieve that with what is coming to the council tonight. Next please. So just a reminder that the inclusionary zoning ordinance was adopted in 1990. And the intent was, as stated on the slide, to create housing opportunities to ensure the provision of housing that meets the needs of all economic groups and to improve quality of life for all residents by having an economically integrated housing supply throughout the city. Next please. So just a reminder of what the kind of the bare bones of inclusionary zoning ordinances. They require developers of residential housing to include a certain number or percentage of all the homes that they went to build, include a certain percentage that are affordable to moderate income households. So there's four basic decisions that policymakers have to make when they're drafting or amending an inclusionary zoning ordinance. First, who's covered? Does this law cover all projects or are only certain projects? Secondly, how many homes will we require a developer to produce? Thirdly, how will we define affordability? So for whom will these homes be affordable? And finally, are there any other options, any other ways a developer can meet the obligation other than building their homes on site? Next please. This is an extremely quick and dirty summary of the consultant's recommendations. Very long report, great report. The kind of, in terms of those four elements, which projects are covered? The consultant recommended exempting more small projects from the requirement. Our law currently says the law applies to anyone developing five or more homes. The consultant said, just think about increasing the threshold project size, that is the minimum number of units. Because the economics are very challenging for small projects and you're maybe, you're maybe discouraging small projects because of that threshold. In terms of for whom, the consultant recommended some flexibility where you, if the developer produced homes that are for higher income households in our current law says, they'd have to build more units. But then if they went deeper down and produced homes that were more deeply affordable, you would allow them to produce fewer units. So that was like a flexible approach. And in terms of other options, they said you should create a meaningful payment in lieu option. And a payment in lieu is where a developer meets the obligation by making a payment to the city's housing trust fund, a per unit payment instead of building the sites that required homes on site. Next please. So the inclusionary zoning recommendations kind of in each of these areas. In terms of what projects are covered, we ended up recommending no change to the current law. So we said keep it at five. We did spend a lot of time on this issue and I could speak at length. But we ended up saying let's just leave this to change where it is at five and let's get at this small project problem a different way. In terms of how many affordable homes workgroup also recommends no change to the current law which says 15% generally in the city, 25% if your project is in the Waterfront District and 20 to 25% if your market rate homes are targeted to the very, very high end of the market. Next please. So now affordable for whom? The workgroup again recommended for the rental housing, keep it where it is under the current law which says set your rents so they are affordable to households at 65% of area median income and we get this data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development and it's adjusted for household size. We decided 65% still seemed about right. For owner occupied units, we actually recommend reducing the target income from 75% to 70% so to dip down a little bit more. Next please. Okay, how about other options to meet the requirement? So this is the payment in loan. This is where most of the recommendations are very somewhat or build on a consultant's recommendation. What a current ordinance says is that a developer that wants to take the payment in lieu option brings it to the Development Review Board when they're in permit process and the DRB has to find that there are unique, difficult and are challenging site conditions that prevent the construction of the units of the homes onsite. Then the DRB might say yes to the payment and then, but that has to be approved by the city council. The currently the payment per home that you don't build onsite is $180,000. Next please. So the consultant said that $180,000 is just too high to be a true option and actually no one's used it in 10 years which kinda tells you that it's not a true option because the $180,000 is so much higher than the cost of developing onsite. But the consultant says it was an important option because it provides flexibility and also that the revenue from payments in lieu can be used to support other affordable housing strategies through the city's housing trust fund and actually serve households that are below 65%. By working with non-profits. So the IZ workgroup recommendation was we agreed with the consultant that this is an important option and it has not been viable, it should be viable. We recommend that the payment in lieu option should be available by right. By right means either you get to do it or you don't and if you don't go through a process where that is subject to the discretion of a city board or an official. But the payment in lieu option is available on a restricted basis. It depends on how big your project is and where your project is and we would say if your project is in the waterfront district you should have no payment in lieu option because that's prime and we want the affordable homes there built onsite. Next please. So our recommendation is trying, that kind of comes to the next slide, is trying to address two big issues that came up a lot in our work. One was that that small project problem which is there are so many fixed costs of that involved in developing housing. That is a fixed cost that are about the same if you're producing five units or 50 units. That it made it really hard to make the numbers work for small projects with inclusionary zoning requirement and we looked a lot at proformas and we tested this and we were convinced that this is a significant real issue. And secondly we noted that there's been a striking geographic concentration of inclusionary homes built to date under the IZ ordinance in parts of Burlington that already have pretty good economic integration. And that was what we learned from the consultants report. Next please. So the IZ workgroup says for the payment in lieu we have three different size categories of projects, small, medium and large. Small projects have a smaller payment in lieu of $35,000 per unit. They can exercise that option anywhere their project is, but not in the Waterfront District. Medium and large projects, so medium is 17 to 49, large is over 50, pay more. They have a bigger payment in lieu because they can afford it. They've got a little bit more, they have advantages of scale. But they can't exercise that payment in lieu option anywhere in the city. If their project is in a part of the city that's currently less inclusive, offers less housing opportunity to people of moderate incomes, we want them to build their affordable homes on site. If their project is in the area that today has good inclusivity, they can exercise the option of the payment in lieu. Next please. So the idea behind it was we're addressing the economics, the tough economics for small projects. We are trying to foster inclusive neighborhoods throughout the city. We think that is a benefit for the city. And this is really important I think that it allows the payments from market rate housing to be leveraged with other funding sources through the Housing Trust Fund to support the creation of more homes and more deeply affordable homes than would have been built on site. So there's a powerful leveraging that happens from payments in lieu that go into the Housing Trust Fund. Now we didn't think, we didn't want everything to go into the Housing Trust Fund but we think some payments into the Housing Trust Fund would result in better performance overall. Next slide, this is the last slide. So the report also talks about a bunch of other topics including unit comparability, that is we want the inclusionary units and the market rate units to be comparable. We have some suggestions for density bonuses that haven't really worked very well under the current ordinance. We think that they should be, again, real. Monitoring of compliance, there's been a lot of great work and great progress made in monitoring of compliance in CEDO, affordable housing levy, the accessory units idea addressing how do you apply inclusionary zoning to privately developed housing built for college students and there's some other ideas to promote inclusion other than through the inclusionary zoning ordinance. So thank you for the assistance with the presentation. The, I'm almost done, President Wright. The resolution is just a referral. We're not taking any action on any of these recommendations and the working group had no authority to make any changes. They're just helping us think through this important issue. The referral is splitting the report in two parts. One is the part of the report that deals narrowly with the inclusionary zoning ordinance. This resolution would send that to a joint committee of the community development and neighborhood revitalization committee and the ordinance committee and I do have support from both chairs on that and that group would work on the inclusionary zoning ordinance changes itself and we're asking them to identify any recommended changes that could come from the working group, could come from the consultant's report, could come from the thinking that that group brings to the issue. The other referral goes just to the CDNR and those are the elements in the report that really are just about our city's housing policy and the housing action plan sits with CDNR so that would become part of that body of work. We're asking both threads of that referral to come back to us in December. On the ordinance changes, those would then come to the council president right under this thinking for a resolution that would refer to the planning commission and that would give specific direction to the planning commission for their work which would then come back, be fine tuned by ordinance and then at the end of that process would be actioned by the council on any recommended changes to the inclusionary zoning ordinance. Thank you for your. Great, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Naudel. And the joint committees would also be required to have at least one public hearing. Thank you. With that, I'll turn it over to the city council for questions or comments. Hearing none, it looks like we are ready to vote. All those in favor of passage of this resolution, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That passes unanimously and we'll take the actions as described by Councillor Naudel. Thank you very much for the good work. And we will move on now to item number 6.04. That is a resolution from Councillor Pine and others. President, excuse me, Councillor Bushard, you have a point of information? I do. I need to recuse myself from this item on the agenda. I'm citing the city charter section 133 which deals with mandatory and voluntary recusals based on my position at the hospital. I am not able to act on this and I will not be participating in discussion or the vote. Thank you for that, Councillor Bushard. So Councillor Bushard will be recusing herself from this vote. So now I will recognize Councillor Pine to move this resolution and then to describe it to us. Thank you, Councillor Pine. Yes, Councillor, thank you, President Wright. I want to just take a minute and acknowledge that the, I'll first move it, thank you. Move the resolution and then raise the resolution. Second by Councillor Hartnett and then you have the floor back, Councillor Pine. I want to just acknowledge that the council in the past on issues involving labor disputes, labor negotiations has chosen not to take a position really. And I understand and appreciate that past practice by the council. What inspired me to bring forward and draft this resolution was a recognition that much like our first responders are police and fire, the work that our hospital does and specifically frontline staff which are represented here tonight by some of the nurses who've come is so critical to our community's health, safety and well-being that it really is a little different and it's a little, I think it's appropriate for the council to take a position on something which maybe there was initially a little reluctance to and I just want to acknowledge that. I actually don't have the resolution open. I was writing comments and Councillor Nodell suggested that we read it into the record. Councillor Nodell, you're a sponsor as well. Why don't you go ahead and do that? Yeah, I could just yield. Councillor Nodell will take the floor to read the resolution. Absolutely, okay. Thank you, President. That whereas the UVM Medical Center based in Burlington is part of a six hospital network and home healthcare and hospice agency that is the regional level one trauma center for Burlington and the rest of Northern Vermont and New York, thereby placing an essential role in people's health, safety and well-being in the same way as police and fire services are. And whereas the UVM Medical Center is also the larger employer in Vermont with over 6,400 employees, $1 billion in unrestricted net assets and an operating surplus of $69 million in 2017. And whereas the UVM Medical Center is also a 501C3 non-profit institution exempt from paying Burlington property taxes with a mission quote to improve the health of the people in the communities, close quote they serve, and a key value of being quote caring and compassionate to each other and to those we serve, close quote. And whereas in 2002, the nurses at UVM Medical Center organized a union Vermont Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals, a local 5-2-2-1, in order to improve standards of patient care, work to secure a healthy and safe working environment, and establish equitable wages and benefits for frontline healthcare workers. And whereas the nurses union represents some 1,800 nurses and other health professionals and is currently in contract negotiations with UVM Medical Center Management. And whereas the critical issues in negotiations are safe staffing levels, competitive and equitable pay, and fundamental respect. And whereas safe staffing is at issue because there are over 110 nursing positions that are currently open, thereby making much more work for existing nurses, which translates into less time with each patient and a risk to patient care. And whereas a cause of the high number of vacancies is the non-competitive wages paid to nurses, which makes recruitment and retention difficult and is reflected in Vermont being ranked 47th in the nation for nursing pay. And whereas low pay makes hiring and retaining licensed nurse assistants and other support workers difficult, so the nurses have to do their work when there are too few on shift. And whereas the pay for executives, nurses, and support staff also reveal the problem of increasing economic inequality and lack of affordability in our region, which Burlington's voters have gone on record by a 77 to 23% margin as calling for government action to combat. Now therefore be it resolved that the city council in the interest of the well-being, health, and safety of the cities and regions, residents and visitors, hereby calls on the UVM Medical Center Management and the Vermont Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals to find common ground and come to an agreement that is in the best interest of the community and respects the worth and dignity of UVM Medical Center's nurses and other healthcare workers, leads to safe nurse staffing and a reduction in vacancies and pays fair and equitable wages to recruit and retain high quality nurses and support workers and be it further resolved that the clerk treasurer's office sent copies of this signed resolution to UVM Medical Center Administration and the VFNHP Local 521. Thank you, President. Thank you, Councillor Nodell. Councillor Pine, would you like the floor back? Sure, I just would close by saying that I think we can all appreciate the difficult position that folks are in right now and we hope that it will be resolved as soon as possible. I think we all could also agree that genuine health and well-being for our community depends on healthy environments and truly just communities. And in Burlington, we have a real tradition of caring for each other and the first line of defense in this community are nurses along with our first responders. My first child was delivered at that hospital and I've lost some friends in the hospital and I've seen nurses do amazing things and the doctors as well, but right now we're here for the nurses. I think they deserve our full support and I hope we get behind them tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Pine. So we'll open it up now to the City Council, Councillor Hartnett and then Councillor Shannon. Thank you, President Wright. This is one issue that I don't normally sign on to and I keep a distance and we're not in the weeds. We don't know the negotiations, we don't know what's going on and I appreciate both sides and I can't imagine what family life is right now for the employees up there and really for the administration and I mean that sincerely. But the reason I did sign on to this is that I do think this is a public safety issue here in the city and I do think it's a crisis and one thing about Burlington is that we're such a small community, everybody knows everybody, right? Everybody appreciates all the work that that Medical Center has done in the University of Vermont and anyone that you'll stop, you hear it all the time about how much they appreciate that facility, the employees up there, the staff, the administration. I unfortunately had to deal with all sides just three years ago when my wife received a new kidney right there at the Medical Center Hospital and the care that we got from the administration side to the nurses, to the doctors was just incredible and we would have never got through it without all of them as a team coming together and making that happen. But tonight something doesn't jive, right? You know, I hear the administration speak tonight about how much the nurses mean and how dedicated they are and how much they think of them and that there's, you know, we need to get through this together and we're going to get through this and it's a wonderful institution. And I hear the nurses talk about how much they love their job and I don't doubt either one, but then I look and I see no contract negotiations going on now after two days of a strike that's already been. And so I wonder really what is going on? Why can't we settle this? I thought there was a good forth effort put by the nurses about, talk about a one year contract just to get through this just so we wouldn't have to live through this hell that we're living through now, right? That we could settle this for one year and then hammer out a long term contract. I thought that was an interesting and yet we end up paying, you know, three to $5 million for a two day strike and I find that hard to believe as well. And I'll be honest, I don't know both sides. And so I really don't want to get into all the details, but I do think we owe it to everybody to get back to the table, to settle the contract, right? And to put this behind us because the longer this goes on, the more it tears up this community and we're too small a community to allow that to happen. So I urge both sides, starting tomorrow, get back at the table because I fear if we wait longer in another two weeks, we're gonna have another strike on our hands and we're gonna go through this whole process all over again. And to me, it's not worth it. So please get back to the table, hammer this out and get a fair contract. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Hartnett. Councillor Shannon. Thank you, President Wright. I agree largely with everything Councillor Hartnett said and particularly that I also don't like putting ourselves in the middle of union negotiations because they're complex and it's difficult for us to really know the details well enough to weigh in effectively. But in this case, I think that this is this is just so important to our community. It's life or death situations and we really need to have this resolved as a community and I know that you all know that obviously. But I think that part of what makes this difficult is the problem that goes beyond our community with the disparity of pay between top executives and the rank and file worker. And it's a problem in our country and you have to compete in that environment for executives but you also have to compete in an environment for nurses and it looks like that's falling short. It's hard to see this great disparity in pay between executives and nurses in a non-profit healthcare institution. It seems even more egregious than when looking at for-profit corporations where that still is unacceptable. So I urge you to consider that as you go into negotiations with the nurses that the staffing issues are critical. The ability to hire is so important and to the extent that that's a problem we really need to address that. There is one thing in the resolution that I think one of the nurses stated a little bit differently than the way it's stated in the resolution and I think it's important to be accurate and I'm hoping that if I am correct that the makers of the sponsors of the resolution would be willing to accept an amendment and that is on line 21. Whereas the whereas clause is whereas whereas a cause of the high number of vacancies is the non-competitive wages paid to nurses which makes recruitment and retention difficult and is reflective in Vermont being ranked 47th in the nation for nursing pay. The way I heard that at public forum was Vermont being ranked 47th when adjusting for cost of living and if I have that correct, I hope that we could make that amendment and I don't know if you would consider President Wright a response before I formally make that amendment. We can, I can recognize, recognize Councillor Pine to respond to that and then come back to Councillor Shannon. I see that as a clarification. I have no problem with that. Thank you, Councillor Pine. Councillor Shannon, would you like to offer that amendment? I will offer that amendment. Okay, so you are adding the words to repeat please. Vermont being ranked 47th after adjusting for cost of living. So adding the words after adjusting for cost of living. Yes. Okay, thank you. Seconded by Councillor Dean. Any discussion on the amendment? Hearing none, all in favor of passage of the amendment please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Passes unanimously and we are back now with to the resolution as amended. Further discussion from the city council. Councillor Tracy. Thank you, President Wright, certainly appreciate it. I will be supporting this resolution wholeheartedly. I just want to commend the nurses and their organizing team for their efforts. I feel like throughout that time that they've made a strong effort to engage with me as a city councilor early and often. I've appreciated that personalized attention that they've given me and really explaining the case that they have around their conditions that's been particularly helpful in understanding what they face day in and day out, whether it's the issue of lifting patients and some of the danger that's associated with that, some of the danger that's associated with not having proper staffing levels and then just the desire of not only retaining younger nurses but also making sure that we keep those nurses who are more experienced in our community so that they can then train the next generation of nurses. So being able to interface directly with nurses has been particularly helpful for me in this process and I just want to commend them for being so open and really inviting me into that process because that's really helped me to form my position on this. So I really appreciated that. I also just want to just note just an experience that through that engagement that I had, a community member, someone who I would term a regular caller that I have here at the city council who's someone who calls me all the time at my office. He was not doing so well a couple of years ago. I actually thought that I was gonna lose this person and I went to visit him in the hospital and he had a phenomenal nursing staff there, someone who actually spoke this evening and I just want to thank her for all her help that she gave to my friend who's now better but when I visited, when I was on the picket line, that nurse recognized who I was and had seen him in the community and knew who that person was and knew that that person was doing better and that just speaks to me at least, the degree to which nurses are connected to their patients, the tremendous impact that they have on our community in terms of healing our community and I think that they absolutely deserve our support because of that. So thank you for bringing this resolution. I'm absolutely supporting it tonight. Thank you, Councillor Tracy. We'll go to the mayor, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, President Wright. One of the things that makes this such a great community to live in is the high quality of care that we're able to receive at the Medical Center and it's really striking to hear people go around the table and talk about their experiences and certainly my family has had that experience as well and you can't go through a medical procedure there and not understand what a central role the nurses play in ensuring that these incredibly difficult times in the life of a family come through as positively as possible and this dispute, this labor dispute threatens that and it is a great concern to me that it is going on for as long as it has and for that reason I fully support this resolution and I welcome the sponsors of the resolution that have brought it forward and particularly Councillor Brian Pine for his leadership on it and we'll certainly be supporting it tonight. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Any other comments or by City Council?  We all have been at the hospital for one reason or another either there for ourselves or visiting friends or family and we also know that the patients are always gonna get the best care by the nurses that know the needs of their patients and so we want to see this resolved as quickly as possible without taking sides. Between the negotiations we want to see this resolved as quickly as possible in the fairest way possible. That provides for fair contract, for the best care for patients and for better morale for all of our nurses. So with that, I will ask for a vote of everyone who supports this resolution. Please raise your hand. Anyone oppose? That passes unanimously. We look forward to seeing both sides back at the negotiating table and resolving this as quickly as possible. Thank you very much, both sides. With that, we will move to item 6.05, which is the resolution in support of overdose prevention sites, et cetera, et cetera, a lot of other stuff, but we will, I'm not gonna read all of it. I will go to Councillor Paul, the main sponsor of this resolution to move the resolution and describe what it does for us, Councillor Paul. I was actually gonna read the resolution into the record. That's up to you. I'm only kidding. I would move the resolution, ask for a second and request the floor back after a second. Seconded by Councillor Shannon. Councillor Paul, you have the floor back. Thank you very much. Opioid addiction, as we all know, is a complex health, public health and safety crisis. Challenging social and societal problems like this one require us to look beyond the problem at the surface of the problem, to find the root causes, to understand what has not worked in addressing the problem, and to oftentimes think beyond what is comfortable and conventional when seeking solutions that work. For many years, this country's attempt to address drug addiction did not work. It is widely held that the war on drugs was a failure, it cost lives, and we spent trillions of wasteful dollars on the war on drugs. We know that in many cases, those suffering do not respond well to incarceration, and that only offering a recovery and treatment to those who have hit rock bottom is simply not the answer. Conversely, a lot of studies, research and data from other countries tell us that public health policies do work. Research tells us that people can learn even when they are struggling with addiction, and as human beings, everyone in this room knows that we all learn better when we are treated humanely with empathy and with respect. People who are addicted to drugs are struggling with a disorder, a compulsive behavior that becomes a habit and addiction despite knowing that there are harmful consequences. We as a society do not do well with trying to figure out solutions to medical problems that are about our minds. We're very good at pouring a lot of money into diseases of the body, and we empathize all the time when people are struggling from them, but when it comes to those of the mind, we are much less comfortable. The time has come for that approach, that discomfort, and that stigma to change. Why? Because people are dying. The opioid epidemic has killed more of our monitors than those who perish on our highways every year. I could go on and on with statistics about how many people we lose, but I think we all know what that loss is. We also know that people dying from drug overdoses in most cases are things that can be avoided. It would seem that the techniques that have been successful in helping to ease overdose deaths in other parts of the country could work here just as they have worked elsewhere, and those are techniques that have been around in other countries for decades. These are not new things. Numerous studies, including some of the ones that we have in our resolution, have shown that these techniques are effective in saving lives. Harm reduction is a term that takes time to absorb, and it may run counter to your beliefs. Instead of dictating to someone struggling with the disorder, harm reduction is about meeting a drug user where they are at. It's not judgmental, it doesn't condemn, it doesn't coerce. Harm reduction incorporates a spectrum of strategies from safer use, managed use, to abstinence, all predicated on the individual, and not what society thinks is right for the individual. Not that long ago, needle exchanges were seen as very radical. Today, they are accepted as smart public health policy. A recent study from Vermont Cares and Safe Recovery surveyed their clients to find out, among other things, where they consume drugs. In each case, over 50% of those surveyed said that they have consumed drugs in public parks, in alleys, in their car, alone, and in public restrooms. These are simply unsafe injection sites. Overdose prevention sites provide a safe place for users to consume drugs. We often talk at this table about protecting our most vulnerable. This resolution cites consistent evidence that overdose prevention sites are uniquely effective in sustaining contact with the most marginalized users who inject in public places. Overdose prevention sites do not encourage naive use, and they have been shown not to lead to an increase in crime in the area in which the site is located. It's time for our community to begin a journey, to begin to explore hosting such a site. This exploration is an uphill battle legally, but what this resolution is saying, the resolution we are voting on tonight, is that we support exploring one. It is quite simply a first step. Like other harm reduction strategies, low barrier bufin orphan is also counterintuitive to many. What we're doing is advocating for prescribing a mild opioid to take the place of heroin or a painkiller, and that runs counter to our thinking. But bufin orphan eases withdrawal and can allow people to live productive lives under treatment. The resolution goes on to express support for safe recovery, our support for a low barrier bufin orphan pilot, a program in the city for medically assisted therapy in Vermont's prisons, and it also supports immunity for low level diversion of appropriate quantities of medications used in the treatment of opioid addiction. There are a lot of reasons to be hopeful about addressing opioid addiction in our community, and one of the bright lights in that battle is community stat. The mayor and our police chief, Brandon Del Pozzo, in concert with many stakeholders and advocates, and those with personal experience with addiction have come together and meet monthly to actively and with data and lively and very real debate work to address this epidemic. The mayor's efforts are proactively to bring these parties together, and that has resulted in greater coordinated action and many around the table who have said, many around the table at community stat that say that community stat is largely responsible for the elimination of wait times for those seeking treatments. These are not my words. These are the words of experts who are in the trenches dealing with this epidemic every day. Rather than reinvent the wheel, the resolution asked to work with community stat to address the charges of the resolution. Having two city counselors on community stat will offer a transparent link to this important committee. In closing, I'd like to say that this resolution is a first step. We, as the policy-making legislative body of the largest city in Vermont, are declaring our support to work to address a public health crisis that affects many in our community by exploring strategies that are evidence-based and supporting ones that can be implemented now. For most of us, addiction is not a disorder that we face every day. Working on this resolution has provided me a small window into that world. I'd like to express my appreciation and how grateful I am to state's attorney, Sarah George, to Grace Keller of Safe Recovery and to Scott Pavek for their wisdom and expertise in crafting this resolution. I'm also grateful to our chief, Brandon Del Poso, who's not here this evening, and to the mayor for their direct input and support of this resolution. I'd like to thank Councillor Tracy for working on this with me from the beginning and for his unwavering support and co-sponsorship with Councillor Shannon Dean Roof and Mason. Every human being has the right to be defined, not by their struggles, but by their potential. Let's make this first step together. I hope this resolution will be broadly embraced this evening. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Powell. Any? I apologize. That's all right. I did also wanna recognize that we have a number, we have six people that are here to answer questions. A few of them would like if they could to make a brief statement. They are Bob Bick, who is the Executive Director of the Howard Center, Sarah George, our state's attorney, Dr. Patty Fisher, the Chief Medical Officer at the UVM Network Central Vermont Medical Center, state representative and our former colleague, Selina Colburn, Jackie Corbley, the Burlington's Opioid Policy Manager, and Stephen Locke, our fire chief. Okay, so that is quite the group. So, but I appreciate that. And so if you want to come up and speak or come up in groups, we can't spend 10 minutes per person obviously, but if each person would like to come up and spend a minute or two a piece, that's fine. Welcome, and if you each would just go ahead and give us a couple of minutes and introduce yourself. My name's Patty Fisher. I'm a family doc. I've been- And make sure that you pull the microphone in and speak right into the microphone so everyone can hear you. Thank you. I'm a family doc. I've been practicing in Vermont for about 15 years. For my first 10 years I was at the Community Health Center in Burlington and then five years at UVM Medical Center as a hospitalist and then recently I was appointed the Chief Medical Officer at Central Vermont Medical Center. Medical providers such as myself are faced with the challenging challenge of addressing complications from opiate use disorders and associated injection drug use. IV drug use, as you know, has reached epidemic proportions in the United States. We are seeing more and more people dependent on opioids, abusing opioids and switching to IV opioids including heroin and fentanyl. And suffering consequences of opioid use, including serious infection and death. Unsafe injection practices among people who inject drugs can lead to complications that require people to seek provider care in doctor's offices, emergency rooms, and in the hospital setting. Oh, I'm nervous. I talk about this whole time. Serious infections of the bloodstream, heart valves, bones, and spinal canal, and skin are recognized complications of IV drug use. And also a major cause of illness and death among people who inject drugs. IV drug use also dramatically increases the risk of individuals acquiring hepatitis C and HIV. Hospitalizations related to opioid abuse continue to increase in 2012 in patient charges for US hospitalizations due to opioid abuse reached $15 billion. The primary payer for this was Medicaid. Despite all the interventions that have taken place over the past several years, I still see the opioid crisis expanding at alarming rate. And despite the dramatic decrease in opioid prescribing and increase in access to treatment, I still see people with addictions who aren't ready or able to comply or stop using drugs. I see people in treatment. During this past winter, during one week on the hospital service at UVM Medical Center, I took care of three individuals with complications related to IV opioid use. One was a 26 year old young man admitted with heart failure, whose only path to survival was a heart valve replacement and sobriety. The second was a 19 year old kid who was in treatment, who lost the vision in his right eye due to injecting drugs into his face. The third was a very medically complicated 23 year old pregnant woman who had heart valve vegetations as a result of IV drug use. Each time her heart beat, her infected heart valve threw off cloths to all parts of her body, her hands, her feet, and the placenta, which was taking care of the baby. When I went off service and transferred her care, it was not known if her or the baby would survive. I was initially inclined to oppose the concept of safe injection sites. I wondered if such facilities would just encourage IV drug use. I also wondered if it wasn't just better to get people into treatment. But the research shows that safe injection facilities do reduce harm. Safe injection facilities have been established in Canada, Australia, and Europe, and have been associated with lower levels of drug injections incurring publicly, safer, syringe disposal, and reduced overdose death rates. Since Insight and Vancouver opened their doors in 2003, they've reported a 35% reduction in deaths related to overdose, and a 30% increase in their users entering treatment for opioid use disorders. They've also shown a reduction in bloodstream-related infections, a reduction in HIV and hepatitis C transmission risk behavior, and a reduction in the incidence of needles found in parks and other areas in the community, and a reduction in people injecting in public areas, including parks and vehicles. They found that just one visit to a safe injection site can lead a user to develop safer injection techniques, even when they're injecting outside of the facility. 129 individuals die in our country every day from the consequences of IV drug use, and despite all the time and money invested in this epidemic, the deaths keep mounting. The cruel reality of the opioid addiction is that one episode of use can be immediately fatal. Even when recovery is the goal, the path to it is often circuitous, and most people with addiction have recurrences along the way. The odds of dying before reaching the goal are tragically high. If the current epidemic can teach us anything, it's that drug use is soaring, unassisted, in conjunction with prevention, including education to our youth about the risks of opioid use and IV drug use, reduced and safer opiate prescribing, increased access to treatment for people with opiate use disorders, and improved opioid disposal, safe injection facilities, and access to low barrier buprenorphine, maybe two ways to meet people where they're at, it may just enable people to stay alive long enough to get into treatment and recovery. Thank you very much. Representative Colburn. And then we'll hear from State's Attorney Sarah George. Thank you.  And I'm here to express support for the resolution in front of you, and also really to commend the resolution for embracing proven treatment access and harm reduction approaches that are evidence based that when adopted absolutely will save lives. I also wanna convey the support of Senator Chris Pearson, who along with Senator Rogers, Representative Rachel Sen and myself in the last biennium introduced companion bills in the House and Senate that would have created a state regulatory framework for safe consumption or overdose prevention sites to operate legally at the state level. So I think the resolution does really important things. I think it supports and affirms a lot of initiatives that are already underway around low barrier access to buprenorphine around medication assisted treatment access and corrections and around some of the important work that's happening to get buprenorphine to people in the ER, but that work is happening. It's important to have your support and affirmation, but I think the resolution does two really important things that actually advance and move our work, our shared work on this issue forward. And the first is really the expansion of ComSTAT to include a community member, but also officially to counselors and to really link the important work that's happening there with the work that you're doing here. I think it really signals that the council is ready to take a more engaged, more active, more vocal role in this work. And I'm not saying you haven't taken an important role in the work, but I think that link is really important. And I appreciate that piece of the resolution. I also think that it's important that the resolution commits to further understanding the role of safe consumption or overdose prevention site could play as one of many tools in our community to combat the opioid crisis. So we've heard from counselor Paul and from the resolution itself that there's lots of clinical research that tells us lots and lots and lots of clinical research that tells us that overdose prevention sites save lives, that they create important pathways to treatment, that they prevent infectious diseases and deadly infections without enabling drug use or criminal activity. There's study after study that shows us this. There are also studies that show us that there are positive benefits to communities that host these sites. And I know that's an area of concern for the community and for some of you around the table is what happens to a neighborhood that hosts a safe consumption site? Well, what happens is a reduce in public drug consumption and a reduce reduction in discarded needles. So those are positive benefits that come to communities that host these sites. And I'm not making that up that comes from peer reviewed studies that have told us that repeatedly. I just wanted to close with something I read recently that has the more I've learned about this issue of safe consumption sites, this really stuck with me. So I follow a number of doctors now on social media who are prescribing to patients struggling with opioid use disorder. And it's really eye opening to see what they have to say about their daily work. And one of them is Dr. Carol Fenton, who recently posted, I saw a great quote the other day that anyone opposing safe injection sites must finish their point with. And that's why I think it's better to inject heroin alone in a McDonald's bathroom. And it's crass, and I know that the concept of some of what we're talking about can be uncomfortable, but really that is the kind of choice that we're talking about when we think about, when we think about these harm reduction techniques, and especially safe consumption sites, is, you know, that really comes down to a basic question of do we think people deserve a basic modicum of dignity and. Thank you, Representative Colburn. Yes, okay, because I mean, because honestly, we have more people to speak and we have, the mayor has a presentation. So I just want to caution that we have to move forward because we then have a significant debate to come and several amendments to come as well. So I want to hear everybody's remarks, but we have to keep it concise. And with that. Thank you. City of County State's Attorney Sarah George. Thank you very much. I actually, for sake of time, I will keep it very short. I think that my opinion on this matter and my support for this resolution has been very clear. When I first heard about them, I was very skeptical of the idea. And a year later, I am frankly appalled that our country has not started implementing these everywhere that we can. And this is a very easy resolution for me to support. I hope that it is for everybody else here. I think we do a lot of talking about wanting to be a part of the solution and we're not doing a lot of action. And I commend the mayor for the steps that we have taken in ComSTAT. I would just let you all know that as of the first week of July, we had 75 or monitors who have died from fatal overdoses. I know of two more that died last week in Chittenden County. And so if that continues, we are going to be every other year before us. So it's time that we start to actually do something about it. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate that. And now we'll bring up the next group. Thank you for those comments. Just for the Channel 17 viewers, please identify yourself and then give us hopefully a couple of minutes of comments that you wanna make about this resolution. My name is Bob Bick. I'm the CEO at the Howard Center. I will be extremely brief. I wanna thank you for introducing this resolution and for the council's support and consideration. What we're talking about here really is adding tools to the toolbox to do everything we possibly can to keep people alive because ultimately that's what harm reduction is about is keeping folks alive long enough for them to get into treatment. And for those of you that continue to read the Burlington Free Press every day, the sheer number of individuals, young individuals, whose obituary says that they have died unexpectedly is a telltale indication of the impact that the opioid epidemic is having on our community. The other final point I would make is that even as we talk about these three specific interventions, considering them, supporting them, engaging with them, and expanding them, it's important to recognize that this is a community effort and that while the Safe Recovery Program and the Howard Center play a pivotal role, the mayor's office, the police chief, the University of Vermont Medical Center, the Community Health Center of Burlington, private practice clinicians, and other social service agencies are all playing a very critical role as we move forward in addressing the challenge that confronts us. So thank you for presenting this and I hope you'll support it. Thank you, Mr. Bick. Hi, I'm Jackie Coroughly. I'm the city's opiate policy manager and I just quickly want to say you've heard some very true stories. I've been doing this work for 32 years and I have to tell you I have never seen an epidemic that we are struggling with today. If you question why we need this resolution passed, come with me and speak to the 22-year-old girl that I'm working with whose boyfriend continues to have to put a needle in her arm or speak to the 25-year-old young woman who's walking the streets right now prostituting herself or speak to the 27-year-old girl who OD'd and if it weren't for the likes of Narcan, would no longer be with us. I could give you story after story of residents or your friends and family. This resolution is dire important. We are losing people and Sarah spoke to the two fatals. We had 13 non-fatal overdoses in the past six days and if it weren't for Narcan, we would have had 15 fatal overdoses so I really encourage you, even to step out of your comfort zone and you question why you need to support this resolution, just walk a mile in the folk shoes that are having to put either pills in their nose, needles in their arm and we're struggling with an epidemic that we have never ever seen the likes of. Thank you. Thank you very much. Chief Luck. I promise. And I'll just say this, I think that about a year ago, the mayor asked me if we were losing 12, because I think that was the number of city residents we lost.  But he posed a question, chief, if you were losing 12 people in the city as victims of fire, would you take no action? And I think that's absolutely where we're at. I mean, we are, this is a public health crisis and we are emergency responders. And I think at this point, it's doing everything we can to help this tense turn the tide. So I'm not sure what the right is thing to do, but we have to do more than what we're currently doing. And it's only through these conversations that that happens. So that's our position. Thank you. Thank you, chief Luck. Does that complete the group council poll? Okay, thank you. And now I'm going to turn it over to Mayor Weinberger for some remarks. And I think there may be a presentation. Is that correct? Thanks, President Wright. I think we did prepare a few slides. I'll try to move them to quickly. And some of what we've discussed has, some of what's been presented in these slides has already been discussed by our speakers. Let me start by just saying a couple things. The, I just noticed that it came in in your packet that just arrived today, a letter from a former governor, someone who notes we all have gotten, I think a little numb to the size of this epidemic. Somehow he reframes it in a way that is quite striking, that since the year 2000, we have now lost more Americans to this epidemic than were lost in the entire Vietnam War and World War II combined. There is really no doubt that in Vermont, this is the leading public health, public safety issue that we face. And I do just want to express the thanks to the many community partners in this room who have worked with the city over the last few years to try to forge a new direction. Many of them have just spoken and I certainly say thanks to them. I do also want to specifically say thank you to the UVM Medical Center who that has been a key partner in this effort. I mean, Eileen Whalen, President of the Hospital of Co-Chairs, the Chittenden County Opioid Alliance with me and Maureen Vinci next to her is one of the most active members of Community Stat and they have taken decisive actions throughout, throughout the time we've been working together. So what is Community Stat? Just to make sure the council is being asked to weigh in tonight and add a couple of members to Community Stat. Just wanted to make sure it was clear to all the counselors and the public what Community Stat is. This is a monthly meeting that we hold often in this room. We're down in the spark space at Burlington Electric Department that