rom HUD we're continuing to see changes in the state level program and we are incorporating those design changes into what we what we kind of will finally present you know at the end of this process what we're asking for now is input on our plan to essentially use these funds in a high level way towards rental assistance and small business assistance so I will end there I'm sure there are questions and I'm happy to take any I'm joined by colleagues from CEDO Katie Kinstead and Todd Rawlings and Christine Curtis who have been working on this who have been doing great work on this so far but yeah I will stop there and take any questions that there are and thank you okay so if we could go out of share mode please thank you okay I just want to recognize that we still have four pretty uh substance substantial items on the agenda so if we can keep any questions brief also recognizing that we do also have this on coming to us on at our next meeting so again and we do also have to open a public hearing as part of the requirements so are there any questions from counselors counselor pine yeah thanks to the presentation Luke I'm really pleased with where CEDO has decided to focus these resources I really I think you've identified the some of the most pressing needs and there's never enough of course so we we have to be really careful and strategic about how we use these funds to really lift up people who are most impacted by this crisis I want to just know the administration or the sort of management of a rental assistance program is is a pretty daunting undertaking and the idea that it might be done by CEDO I think was a bit of a red flag for me I I worried that a city department that's never done this and I see counselor carpenter raise shaking her head she and I know this system very well I know way more about that I'd like to admit and I can tell you right now it is a full time undertaking a large group of people to just run a rental assistance programs I just want to put a caution out there that it's not something you want to do take on lightly thank you counselor pine counselor carpenter I mean I would reiterate that I also know that we're pretty close on the state level to a statewide rental assistance program so it'd be very important to be sort of coordinated with that you know so a tenant is not having to go two places and sign up for two programs I don't know a lot about all the detail on the statewide program but I'm pretty sure it's pretty close to being signed so it'll be key to coordinate that the other thing and I just want to mention it and I've been in communication with loop that somewhere in this part of activity I think it will also be important to have good foreclosure counseling and mortgage counseling we're going to see that a little bit later in the year I think not as quickly as evictions but it's a resource we're going to have to think about thank you are there any other counselors with questions counselor jane go ahead thank you president tracy and thank you look for the presentation which I appreciate it um but my first question is maybe if you know if surrounding communities such as winewski south burlington conchester sx if they are receiving similar grant from the federal government if you know yeah it's a good question so the wave vermont is structured essentially we have two communities that receive cdbg funds burlington and the rest of the state and so they receive uh cdbg funding on a statewide level and those are allocated sort of around the state everywhere except for burlington and because we're an entitlement community ourselves we receive our own sort of specific cdbg funding a lot okay thank you and I think there is this addition or before that I think it will be imperative also to highlight that of the presentation and also even last year the cdbg grant that we receive were primarily allocated to organizations that help low income people and most of those organizations do not serve burlington people alone now I was wondering if you receive data from those organizations around how many burlington people are they um they have um serviced do you do you have any idea don't have sort of specific data in front of me I know there are a number of rules and restrictions that require sort of the bulk of the activity to be directed into burlington when they are when funds are awarded to organizations that sort of do services both inside and outside of burlington um but if you want more specificity to that you know I can ask my colleague Todd to chime in on how we monitor that type of uh compliance okay um thank you and I think you know I was a member of cdnr last year and it was the same question that I'm asking here again in making sure that these dollars are specific to people who live and work here in burlington and also we need to ensure that every penny will go to burlington residents so it seems we don't have the data but maybe we could work on putting those provisions while working with those organizations now we also receive a 450 thousand dollars extra for our response to COVID-19 now I was wondering why couldn't we use that funds that specific fund back to CEDO the whole amount back to CEDO in reimbursing the the the fees or the the amount we already allocated as part of our general budget why couldn't we use a 450 and just payback CEDO or any department that helped with COVID-19 um so you know one thing I'd say is we do you know I didn't get into it in the presentation but you know CEDO does fund itself in part through cdbg grants through a administrative fee that's taken uh and which we are anticipating taking from this 450 allotment so we've sort of built in the cost of administering the program uh into kind of the the proposal that we've presented but we are being flexible in the sense that you know as councillor pine and councillor carpenter we're getting at it is complicated to run a rental any new program especially a rental assistance program if we decide that the way to meet the needs we've identified is best met by uh awarding it out to an organization to do so then those administrative fees would pass through uh you know to that organization so that you know partly we're still being flexible because we don't know what the state and federal response what it will finally look like so we are giving ourselves some flexibility right now okay um yep I think you know lastly I think it would be also imperative to try to include the NPAs or at least give them a certain amount of this money because they know best the block that where they live in and was just wondering if we can put a mechanism in allowing them to disseminate these funds to the real people that live and work here. I'm sorry the question is the question is I haven't seen any amount being given to the NPAs and was wondering what mechanism we can bring in place in making sure they access it and also disseminate it in in in their communities. So it's a good point so we do you know some of the work that you know CDO does through CDBG funded efforts is in direct support of the NPAs my understanding is at least some of our HUD funded work directly supports the NPAs but in terms of taking community feedback we do rely on this citizen public advisory board to bring that feedback into the process but yeah I was just wondering maybe if Todd you know this we have this conversation last year and was just wondering what what changed we we we you have worked on for this year. Yeah a couple things first Councilor Dain I wanted to address the your question about how many Burlingtonians are served by CDBG and every September we're required to submit something called the Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report or CAPER that describes exactly how many folks are served by the by the Burlington CDBG allocation. So I'd be happy to forward that document to you it's certainly a public document but I'll I'll forward that on to you. The the NPA question is a good one and I guess I would also call on Councilor Pine to to render some background as well but just I just wanted to point out that the CDBG advisory board that made the decisions on the vast majority of the CDBG funds that we receive have at least one representative from each NPA so the NPAs have a clear voice in this decision-making and that has been the practice since the advisory board process began. Councilor Dain are you all set? Thank you yes. Okay are there any additional comments from Councilors? Okay Mr. Mayor did you were you looking to get on? Okay all right with that I will then open the public hearing did the City Clerk have anyone who wishing from the public wishing to speak to these this particular item in this item alone? No I have not gotten any requests for this item. Okay all right given that there are no requests for this item I will then go ahead and close the public forum again just for next steps for Councilors this is going to be coming to us on our at our June 1st meeting so again if you have additional questions feel free to connect with the team at CEDO with regards to this but we will see this on our next agenda. We'll go ahead and move on to our next item thank you for being here we'll go ahead and move on to our next item which is a item 7.04 a resolution with regards to the development agreement for Cambrian rise is there a motion on the resolution? Councilor Pine. Thank you Mr. President I would move to approve the resolution as proposed and request the floor back after a second. You have a motion is there a second? Seconded by Councillor Jang. Councillor Pine you have the floor. Thank you the the process for the Cambrian rise development agreement amendment to be considered by the council started with the council anyway after or through our committee our community development neighborhood revitalization committee. I just want to be clear for for I think the council gets this but I think the public is under the impression that the council is vested with the authority to approve the changes to the project around issues of parking and traffic and stormwater and all a host of issues that are really important in terms of development review that's not what the council is actually vested with in this process I want to be clear that the council is is responsible for the development agreement which is unusual and the reason why we have a development agreement we don't usually do this in in development because development usually occurs on private property and the city goes through regulatory process what was unique here was that the city and the developer and the nonprofit partners if you will came together and came up with this plan for roughly a third of the property being reserved for public access through trail through a beach you know through essentially preserving in perpetuity a portion of the property again about a third of the acreage so the development agreement includes things around amenities for public transit it includes how much senior housing there will be how much family housing how much rental housing how much home ownership housing what type of mix of home ownership mixes of uses all of that and so I just want to be really clear with the public that that review process will still be followed to the T it's going to go through all local and state review processes required this is not a circumvention of any of those processes this is really the council essentially being asked to allow for a reconfiguration of the project which is really a response to real significant changes in the market not due to covid but due to the notion of micro units and people choosing to live in really much smaller housing units than we've ever seen in burlington before you know 350 square foot units are even a less than half the size of your typical mobile home or manufactured home so it's a it's a really different project today in terms of what was envisioned when it originally got permitted and so it's a reconfiguration of both the residential portion of the project but also some of the commercial uses are now being moved over towards residential so there's a lot more residential being proposed so someone mentioned a height increase and in the material that we received from the developer there is a a reconfiguration that does involve going to the maximum height allowable and I don't actually have that in the material what that height limit is but all of this needs to be reviewed within the context of the zoning ordinance and the developer review process so I just wanted to reiterate that as part of this process thanks thank you councillor pine councillor Paulino and then I see you councillor hightower go ahead councillor Paulino I don't have much to add I think Brian did an excellent job introducing that hitting all the high points a few of the low points I think that for me you know I did a lot of legwork last year on this and I would encourage councillors to support it I think my main concern is traffic but we are not you know these units are not going to get built tomorrow when they will be built exactly it'll be a rollout and it'll be a gradual increase so I don't think that it'll be a concentrated immediate problem and we will be able to mitigate it with the revenues to the city coming out of this project so I would encourage councillor support I think this is the kind of building that we want to have in our neighbourhood we want people to live in a small area in a condensed area in order for because we don't have many spaces to build on and because it's more energy efficient so I really think this is a good project thank you councillor Paulino councillor hightower oh sorry I probably when I just spoke um thank you President Tracy um I am I was one of the I was on the committee that proposed or that put forward this resolution I will say I'm a little bit disappointed um by how this was explained and introduced to me and also disappointed myself for failing to catch that there was also a height increase faked into this I felt like every time we talked about it we talked about that this wouldn't change the envelope of the buildings which I guess I understood an envelope to be three-dimensional which is not necessarily true and so I really wasn't factoring that into some of the like discussions we had after that regarding you know like how this would affect traffic how this would affect the neighbourhood um so I am disappointed and that that didn't come up during the conversations I'm disappointed myself that I didn't read the memo well enough to flag that for myself um but I definitely think that that should be a consideration going forward um and I would highly encourage um councillor carpenter councillor dang and councillor Paulino to start um to encourage um the developer to come before NPAs as soon as possible to notify them that this is not just a increase in the number of units that will be shuffling around square footage but that it's also potentially an increase in square footage which um is not I think how it was originally presented so I wanted to flag that thank you councillor high tower councillor Hanson great I'll try to speak loudly I changed the setup of my computer so hopefully you can hear me a little bit better um so yeah I've done a lot of a lot of engaging with folks on this issue the last few days and can you still not hear me well yeah thank you all right I'll keep I'll keep yelling um so yeah I've been talking to a lot of folks about this issue and it's been a little bit of a tight time frame to consider this but um I've made the time to try to really dive in on it uh I don't have any issue and I think there's a lot of benefits of of adding more units um what I have been concerned about is um the transportation impacts and particularly um as it relates to how we're changing our culture and we're changing our regulations and policies as a city around parking and around transportation um we're in the process of changing um our ordinance around minimum parking requirements and and really shifting that mindset I think in a very positive direction to instead of forcing developers to build um high amounts of parking we are instead having developers support alternative forms of transportation which I think is is a great step in the right direction um the timing of this project is interesting it's it's an obviously a huge project and um it might be getting um it might be getting permits slightly before we finish um enacting that new policy that I reference um so I was able to engage with the developer and engage in a lot of other folks on how we could in this huge development how could we potentially incorporate this new model that the city is shifting towards um and I think we were able to we were able to make some progress on that um and I'm going to send around language for an amendment that I would like to propose along those lines um so I'll send that around I sent it earlier in the day to to city staff um I'll send it around to the council just for people who want the visual um but so what the amendment would be um and it should be in your inboxes now um is that for all rental units the development sorry um for all rental units um the developer shall decouple the costs of of a parking space from the cost of housing such that a tenant utilizing one or two parking spaces pay no less than $50 a month for each parking space they use while tenants who do not own a car and do not utilize a parking space will not pay for parking this requirement applies to all residential lease agreements that commence July 1 2020 or later it does not impact current lease agreements while this requirement does not apply retroactively to Cathedral Square Corporation's Juniper House or Champlain Housing Trust's Laurentide we strongly encourage these entities to similarly decouple parking costs from housing costs the developer shall at least once per year for the next five years fare with the city council the parking lot utilization data including but not limited to the number of parking spaces occupied and the number of spaces empty at various times of the week um example being one p.m. on a weekend 10 a.m. on a weekday and 10 p.m. on a weekday um so that language should be in everyone's inbox and the city staff has that and I would like to move that we amend the development agreement to include that language we have a motion is there a second to council a seconded by councillor Stromberg um before I open discussion has everyone had a chance to review that language so everyone see that language in their inbox and if I could have the floor back councillor Jason okay all right you have the floor okay I'll try to wrap up I know it's a long amendment but there's been a lot of legwork over the past few days that has gone into this a lot of thinking that has gone into it and discussion and the idea is that we don't want to force people who don't have a car or maybe who have one car instead of two we don't want to force them to subsidize people who have one or two cars that we you know that that is a backwards approach because that's pushing us in the direction of more cars rather than less and when we're trying to move towards a more sustainable transportation system for a number of reasons so I think this is kind of undoing that perverse incentive and it's also allowing housing costs to come down because we're not forcing the cost of parking to get shifted into the cost of housing so this is the same mentality again that is informing our policy changes that we're making as a city that I think also can be incorporated into this development and I'm happy to say that after talking a lot with aircoaster the developer this language is is acceptable and if we do include it if we do add this to the development agreement the developer is willing to accept that in the agreement I'll set counselor answer yes okay I had counselor mason and freeman in the queue for on the underlying counselor mason did you want to speak to the amendment or do you still want to speak to the underlying I want to speak to the amendment okay go ahead I'm slightly concerned that it's at 940 for the first time there seems to be a relatively material amendment being thrown out it seems a little inconsistent with our protocol I mean I respect that jack has been working on this for a couple days but unbeknownst to anyone my other concern is I appreciate this is based on something that's come out of the planning commission but it has not been presented or adopted by the council so it presupposes that whatever you know that policy or removal of parking minimums will be adopted by the council I respect what he's trying to do but I'm very concerned about what this establishes in terms of a precedent going forward thank you counselor mason I have counselor freeman and carpenter and I see both of you Paulina and Hanson so counselor freeman you have the floor thank you I will be supporting um this amendment I think that it's a good stuff in terms of really thinking critically about what the climate-centric design could look like going forward I don't want it to presuppose that an ordinance would take like that that change is going to take place but I see it as being in alignment with my values and the kind of ordinances that I see as being necessary and vital moving forward I would like to say that the piece on the utilization of parking I really appreciate I was a bit I'm dismayed by considering how much parking might actually be built on this project given not just the traffic concerns but obviously the sort of climate and pollution concerns of car based travel and car based design I know Mr. Farrell are you on the call and potentially available to just answer a question or two about that component I am hi Eric thank you for being on the call hi hi yeah I did want to I know we got a chance to talk sort of initially and you answered quite a number of my questions then I was curious and I just looked through the memo again but I didn't see how many parking spaces are anticipated for this project I think there's I think there's around a thousand spaces okay um and from where you're sort of configuring the designs and perceiving the design going forward do you anticipate any reduction in that or do you to me a thousand parking spaces sounds like a lot and would and really concerns me that we're so that we would be building a project that would be so um car centric basically and not um yeah do you do you do you anticipate it staying at that or do well I I don't think it's a lot of spaces given the number of units but let me say a couple of things so we've done we think we've taken extraordinary measures to get people out of their cars we share the jack's desire to accomplish that because we don't you know we just soon maintain less and build fewer parking spaces but that requires a change in people's habits in their culture and so we we built the second nicest and probably the second most expensive bus stop in the city of Burlington and we have car share we're soon to have bike share we're connected to the bike path we're members of catma so we're doing everything we can to provide alternative modes of transportation but that doesn't necessarily get people out of their cars interestingly enough we had already undertaken discussions in our own company about decoupling the cost of parking and I have talked to jack about it recently and so we're I don't have I don't take any issue with the amendment regardless of whether the ordinance ultimately passes that might apply elsewhere in the in the city so the other thing that the other initiative that we are undertaking is that we want to build less structured parking and more surface parking and the reason for that is once you build structured parking somebody's got to pay for it and there's no going back after you have made that huge commitment whereas for example at Liberty House we built surface parking but it's a gravel lot we're going to continue that strategy going forward so that if we are successful in getting people out of their cars and reducing the total number of cars per unit or cars per occupant then we can reclaim some of that surface parking we might not even pave it at the outset but that's not an opportunity available to us if we build structured parking so structured parking is nice in terms of reducing coverage but it's a huge long-term car centric commitment which we would rather not make we're still going to have a lot of structured parking but not as much as we originally planned okay thank you for providing some more information on that and I would love to I you know I've heard other people's concerns around traffic I think that was an initial concern I think we are unfortunately have a really packed agenda for tonight's meeting so I think I'll follow up with that offline and it doesn't directly pertain to this amendment as well but that is something that I'm curious about following up with and I appreciate whether there's part of it as well and thank you for jumping onto this or being on the call but jumping on and being willing to answer some questions I really appreciate that I'd like to make one other comment if you don't mind to address Zariah's comment about height of course we're not before you asking for any Mr. Ferrell if you could please just save that we're on the amendment so that it's not germane to our discussion right now that's fine I think we I'll recognize you again when we get back to the original motion um counselor carpenter you're in the queue go ahead thanks um the amendment I told I support it but I'm really concerned about this the process of this just popping up we didn't just talk about it cdnr um you know we haven't we're really moving in to questions that seem to me more zoning and development review board related as opposed to development which is really a higher level um concept about you know who occupies this piece of property is it small apartments big apartments and a hotel office space and so I'm just concerned about the process of kind of on the fly adding adding an amendment like this with sort of out of the blue and I guess I had a question for um Eric if if we defer this is is this going to be a problem I mean um I don't know what the timing of the development agreement is is for you um I and I want to say how supportive I am this is a fabulous project that meets all of our goals so I don't want to do anything to delay it but I just want to make sure that we're mindful of all the nuance of what's being proposed and it's a fact and there are some nuances even on noting the exceptions for cathedral square and cht when you combine parking fees with some of the federal subsidy programs you just get into the problems and sometimes you get into problems with that with mortgage financing on condominiums and I just want to be sure we thought it all out even though it's it's the right thing to do um can I respond to that yeah go ahead um some of you will remember you that have been on the board for a while I started this process uh nearly a year ago so this is not a this has not been a speedy process it's not a snap decision it's uh I've talked to every counselor uh new and old and most tours of the property some recently some last summer and so um I need to move on with planning this is holding up our our long-range planning process and so if you're so disposed to approve this I'd like to I'd like to get it done and so that I can get on to the work that we need to do to plan this project I don't really want to I'll set counts of carpenter okay counts are Paul you know uh I would encourage uh counselors to vote against this amendment um I appreciate the intent behind it I appreciate the goal uh I think this amendment is its own resolution and it very much is it hasn't been finalized yet I don't think it's appropriate for us a public forum when a Burlington resident has come before us asking for um essentially uh an agreement that's been reached and now is being amended and we're substantially and meaningfully altering that agreement on the floor um I don't think it's fair it's I appreciate I I'm very thankful that Mr. Ferrell is okay with it but I think we also owe it to those future tenants to vet this the right way for example in reading one of the sentences it says while this requirement is not retroactively applied to Cathedral Square um we encourage them to decouple parking costs so I understand that Cathedral Square Juniper House CHT it as written it applies proactively um so and as I understand their federal subsidies do not allow them to decouple parking at this time so I just think this is problematic in from procedural standpoint even though the goal I appreciate I appreciate that we're trying to encourage people to not own cars to drive less to use alternative forms of transportation but we are also um you know there are tenants now they're going to have to pay for parking um starting July 1 of this year that didn't expect to do that and they should have a right to be heard and just because I agree with the intent of something doesn't mean I will rob the public process and follow the procedure that we've previously had and not to add such a substantial meaningful amendment that it alters the essentially the resolution in my opinion thank you thank you councilor Paulino councilor Hanson great thanks sorry Eric I called you Eric Hofstra I meant Eric Farrell I wonder that's probably I don't know there's a compliment um so yeah I mean I'll be honest I mean we're talking about process I'll be honest I'm I'm not too happy with the process I mean we got this is this is a pretty substantial discussion that we only had a few days to snap into action on two and believe me I used a ton of the time that we had I dropped almost everything else to work very hard to work with many folks including the developer to come up with this language and I'm happy to take more time to work through this but I was the reason I put so much time into it is because there was a concern about trying to get this done for Monday and so again I did I use the most of the time that I was given to review this to try to push for something and you know in my opinion our role as city councilors in these development agreements in any situation anything we're considering is try to make it better on behalf of the public and I think there's pretty widespread agreement among councilors that this would make the project better and we have the developer sitting here saying that he's amenable to these changes and we put a lot of work back and forth the two of us to achieve them and now they're sitting here for us to improve this project all we have to do is say yes to it so I really would encourage folks if you think this is going to improve the project here's your opportunity if you feel like we need more time then you can propose that we take more time to look at this and I'm fine with that I would support that but again many people want to move on this and if that's the case here's our chance right now to to make it better and I just want to be clear the reason we arrived at this language and the reason that Eric supports the language is because we did carve out CHT and we carved out Cathedral Square and we carved out the condominiums so that's why he supports this and that's why it ended up the way it is if you know if the word retroactively somehow nullifies that we can fix that word because that's not the intention the intention is to carve out those entities for which this doesn't apply and that's why we came to an agreement on it that's not a difficult fix whatsoever especially when there's widespread agreement around it so if you believe that this will make the project better and we have the developers sitting here ready to go please please support this thank you Councillor Hanson Councillor Shannon thank you President Tracy um I do appreciate the goals of this amendment but uh a counselor working out a special deal with the developer is not appropriate public process and especially something that has gone on as long as this our timeline to affect this didn't start on Thursday when our agenda appeared Mr. Ferrell has been meeting with all of us for months um has let us know about this probably back in the fall at least and if we wanted to work in some deal there there was a a very lengthy process where that could have been done to spring spring this on us at this moment almost at 10 o'clock at night as we're ready to approve an agreement um and you know that that's not okay uh when you write things like these write things like this there's a possibility for unintended consequences and it should go through a committee process um it should not be decided at this hour on the floor and for that reason not because of the merits of it I will not be supporting this and I hope that other counselors even who think this is a good idea won't support a process like this thank you Councillor Hightower um yeah so hearing a lot of the concerns I want to flag that I do think that development agreements at least are the right time to do this I think that the proposed changes have a very credible impact on parking and not doing anything to limit parking at the same time would greatly hurt some of the um residents of the new north end as well as this project specifically um Eric I just want to ask a clarifying question if that's okay the $50 shift to um Councillor Perlina's point that's supposed to be a reduction of the rent right not an additional $50 that they weren't so if you don't have a car you reduce the rent by 50 if you um do have a car the rent stays the same that's that is correct and if you have an extra car then you then you pay extra we had already instituted our own policy of charging for a second car to discourage people and so I appreciate all this conversation about process I don't want to be I don't want to be the baby that goes out with the bathwater this is a very important um project for us I think it's uh I think that the amendment notwithstanding the process has uh has a lot of merit we enthusiastically support doing that and so even I would rather you guys fight among yourselves about process going forward and don't make me pay the price for the process I don't want to I don't want to go out with the bathwater please thank you Eric and then I guess my closing point on that is I having been on the DRB I know how pro parking they are I feel like this is one of our few kind of instances to signal for the process going forward that we don't want just right next to the lake to be a huge like surface parking lot not and I understand the reasons that Mr. Farell wants to move towards surface parking but I feel like that is so unideal and increasing the amount of units by 180 units without doing something to address the parking issue I definitely would vote no on that I think that is very concerning especially considering the height increase so we could even be talking about you know increased bedrooms um just more units and just as much surface space and of the original unit so I feel like there's a serious car issue that we should that we need to talk about without just passing it sorry that was long confusing thank you councilor hightower councilor jane thank you president tracy and I think before I start I wanted to thank mr. Eric for his courage for his vision about housing and also development and I think the merit about this is specific to the experience we have with all the developers now in front of us we have a developer who delivers who makes agreement respect them and move us forward that I want to thank you for that but I wanted to respond to just a comment that I heard here about process about a counselor making deals with a developer I think that counselor jack henson has done what we call due diligence and he has done it beautifully by reaching out to the developer and trying to come up with some agreements that move us forward jack did not start it here right now but he been working with him outside of here and he has done a great job jack thank you for that and I am very much going to support this amendment thank you thank you councillor jane councillor paul thank you thanks president tracy um you know I will agree with those people who have said that this on what we're doing this evening is highly irregular we we don't do this and that this approach is a bit unorthodox we're the ones that are pat we're the ones that are voting on the development agreement we don't negotiate the development agreement on you know that being said I would I certainly would not be inclined to even consider supporting this were it not for the fact that uh eric is amenable to it on and I do believe that uh councilor henson and the developer have worked together uh to come up with something that is amenable to um to both of them I have a feeling that probably was other language that councillor henson wanted put it in put in and there was probably some that count that the developer did not and they somehow rather figured out something that does make the project better um uh I would like to also say that um to eric that you know you did I I went out for a tour of cambrian rise last year I can attest as I'm sure all of us can that this is a developer who has done everything that we um in the city want um he's worked very hard to provide on an ease for alternative modes of transportation that's all we can really ask and he's done more than what we can ask for um and uh uh so while it is highly irregular and very unorthodox um I will vote to support uh the amendment thank you thank you and I also and I'm sorry I apologize and I and I and I would and I do hope that um we can approve this this evening um you know I think I think eric has been extremely patient with us he needs to get going and I hope we can just move on this evening thank you thank you councillor paul councillor strongberg thank you I'll be very quick I know we have a lot to get to um I just want to say a huge thank you to eric for reaching out to me and having really good conversation and answering all my questions I felt very comfortable having a dialogue and supporting this project because it does promote accessibility and inclusivity um I to the points of of you know the question of procedure I understand the hesitation there but I you know climate change is very time-sensitive and I know that yes councillor paul said it perfectly it is unorthodox but I I don't I I'm just going to say it blatantly I didn't like the fact that it was mentioned that councillor Hanson was making deals with anyone that's I think this was a very transparent process um it might have been more communication on one side of the fence than the other but I you know I feel like we could be more proactive moving forward this is very imperfect how we're doing this but I'm you know I'm excited about this project and I think this amendment is extremely meaningful and does make the difference for a lot of people in burlington um so I'm excited to support it and everyone else said everyone everyone else said everything else I was thinking so thank you okay councillor freeman to be followed by councillor paulino and then councillor pine um again folks it's after 10 um so please keep comments you know let's try and move ourselves to a vote on the amendment and then to the the final vote because we do saw three items on deliberative go ahead councillor freeman I have a point of information go ahead councillor paulino so my question is uh I guess for the either the person who drafted the amendment because it says I understood it can hear you so the way I read it it says if you own a car you will pay no less than $50 so you'll pay at least $50 if not more so there will be no reduction if you do not own a car but there will be essentially a tax a car tax if you own a car um so my question is there was some misunderstanding I heard a couple times that that it will be that it was the opposite that if you don't own a car you pay less and if you and if you do you pay nothing my second question is that uh when I was talking about cht there's going to be some new iz housing as a result of this increase and according to the way it's written any new iz housing um will be subject to this requirement which I understand they can't comply with so those are the two issues that I was uh concerned about point of order go ahead councillor hanson I mean I'm happy to answer that but how is that a point of order that just seems like discussion of of the item I'm going to agree with that and go to councillor freeman councillor freeman go ahead I'll come to you next councillor councillor paulino and we'll get to those questions but councillor freeman was in the queue ahead of you so go ahead councillor freeman wasn't at a point of information also I think I'm on a lag I'm sorry can you hear me yeah I can hear you okay do you want me to go yes please okay um I just had a quick um I was confused about all the comments about bad process um my understanding is that this was introduced to sort of the council as an idea from the administration and mr ferrell several weeks ago it was meant to come directly to council um and to not go to cdnr I understand that there were some conversations that occurred last summer about this potential change to the cap from 770 to 950 units but my understanding is that it wasn't even intended to go to cdnr before coming to council um that the administration was given sort of um I I guess I don't understand why the administration is given a unilateral um place and sort of negotiating these and I think also um from my perspective um the developer has individually reached out to councillors um to ask for their feedback so I around process um I don't see how this is um like uncouth or um unorthodox I guess it it seems just like having a conversation this is the development agreement we're asking to reopen it um what is if you know then it's on the table if we want to make changes to it so I I really don't understand that um perspective around process um I you know I hope there was good communication around it I'm you know I apologize if folks did not get language until um you know feeling like it's last minute but um in terms of the process sort of leading up to um tonight's meeting I don't see it's I don't if you have a point of contention with the uh with the substance of the amendment I think that makes sense but to me the process doesn't seem from my perspective out of the ordinary I think the other thing I would say is that um I understand that people were concerned about um retro not not having retro retro active changes but having changes to the new lease um I did consider that myself but again because I don't think it's really um a fee it's more of a reduction um or like a benefit when you decouple um I think that that's an improvement but I um counsel Hanson can clarify that point um because I think there's maybe some confusion around that and then beyond that I think that um tenants broadly have been talking about wanting protections when their lease turns over um a big one has been just um not raising the rent um and there's really big issues to talk about when the lease turns over and so decoupling parking and so that um people without cars don't um have just don't um or rather the you're you just see the you see what you're paying rather you're not actually getting charged more you just um see it basically you're aware of what um it seems really minimal and it's not actually a conditional cost at least from my understanding and we've been talking I think tenants have been talking about really serious things about when um leases um when you were near your release and um the really unfortunate changes that can occur there um and so this doesn't really flag for me um as a as a serious issue but I did I did think about it check on what's it thank you thank you counselor Freeman um I had uh counselor uh Paulino and Pine in the queue uh again folks we really need to move towards a vote because we have a number of substantive items uh counselor Paulino so I I stand by my point that I it was a point of information because I don't understand what's being proposed in other words there's conflicts the question in in what is written says you will pay at least $50 or more likely more and and the second part says retroactively doesn't apply to the agencies that can't comply with it but it could prospectively in the future for any future units and frankly as written you could argue it's it's uh it could apply July 1st um to new leases as well um I appreciate Mr. Farrell saying uh that uh he doesn't want our his whole resolution not to pass or you know I understand it's a very big process but my point is that we're voting on just the amendment first so I'm asking that we consider the effect of this and I don't believe it is inclusive of people who own a car is my point they're all and and it's not appropriate for us to negotiate last minute in the ninth inning um for something that's going on for months um it's it's it's just not the right process by by its very definition the maker said that there's an ordinance in place address this and the public process for that hasn't been completed yet we're going to circumvent that now at the last minute and I'm just not okay with doing that there should be people I know I have I know people that live there and they all own cars and most of them don't drive but according to this resolution on the fly they will not pay more for it Mr. Farrell Eric are you able to answer uh to clarify yes uh Franklin that's not correct all we simply agreed to do is we're going to reallocate the rent that we currently charge and allocate part of it to parking and part of it to base rent for the unit so if you if you have a car you don't pay if you have a car it's included then then then your rent it doesn't change if you have two cars you pay extra if you don't have a car you save money I'm not gonna I'm not I'm not gonna charge extra for a car I'm just allocating the rent that we collect part for the apartment and part for parking that's the essence of decoupling I just want to identify for folks who live there that there is a cost associated with owning a car I'm not going to penalize you for owning a car thank you Mr. Farrell is that are you all set count yeah it's probably not counselor pine I just wanted to um to take a little bit of this spotlight off of counselor Hanson because I um I played a role in this uh sort of conspiracy of goodwill he he he expressed concern about parking I knew Eric was amenable to some changes I helped bring them together to come up with this so please don't attack counselor Hanson for some sort of nefarious circumvention of the process this was just an attempt for all of us to get to yes that's all this was thank you counselor pine counselor paul well thank thank you uh president tracy um I'd like to uh call the question please we have a motion to call the question uh that takes two thirds um so um then that is a non non-debatable motion um so um we will go to a vote will this city clerk please call the roll counselor carpenter counselor jang is that a yes counselor jang counselor jang please that's a yes thank you counselor freeman yes counselor Hanson yes counselor hi tower yes counselor mason counselor mason calling the question this is a motion on calling the question I can't hear you I'm sorry yes yes okay affirming yes okay counselor paul yes counselor paulino this is just on the amendment right this is on calling the question I have a vote to on the amendment after this if this passes yes counselor pine yes yes counselor shannon yes counselor stromburg yes city council president tracy yes fell buys so that passes unanimously we will now move to a vote on the amendment itself um will the city clerk please call the roll on the amendment counselor carpenter yes counselor jang is that a yes that's a yes sir counselor freeman yes counselor Hanson yes counselor hi tower yes counselor mason no counselor paul yes counselor paulino no counselor pine yes yes counselor shannon no counselor stromburg yes city council president tracy yes nine eyes three days okay that passes and so we are back to debate on the original motion are there for is there further discussion on this item again recognizing that we still have three items in our deliberative agenda counselor freeman go ahead i just had a is there is eric still on the line i did have a quick question about the square footage and i know that he had wanted to actually speak to that oh you're still there sorry i you moved in the in the tiles um actually i think you wanted to address counselor hi towers um point about the square footage and that was actually my question um because i understand that the sort of footage horizontally of the project isn't really changing but um there were questions about the height and i'm wondering if we are seeing an increase in potentially of um yeah height or square footage in terms of height i don't i don't i'm not sure i'm using the right term it's getting late but perhaps you know what i'm getting at or someone else can fill in if i didn't ask the question correctly eric are you prepared to answer that question sure um so you may recall that this is a brand new ordinance that was written for this district when we did the development agreement it's an nac district uh and they wrote a new height ordinance for it which is not dissimilar than other districts uh we have several buildings that are already at the maximum height um but some of them are not uh some buildings are six stories some buildings are four stories so um on a case by case basis we go back to the d rb and and sometimes we max out the height and sometimes we don't um are you also does that answer your question perry um so we're not asking i'm not asking for a change in the height you know we still have to adhere to all of the underlying zoning and planning regulations that are in place they've been in place for for quite a few years now i think the the question is so if the units are increasing i know that there's you know it's a lot of there's these micro units that are part of the picture and all this sort of stuff but i think based on someone who called in from public comment i think the concern was because you do we do only have so much um you know sort of we're put it in the foundation that's a lot of that that would imply maybe um or you could suppose that then that would mean that you would have to sort of max out the height limit on more of the um of the buildings is that fair to well i think i i think it's fair that some of the buildings will max out the height and i think it's also fair that uh many of the buildings that are already done do not max out the height and won't max out the height the height is not going to change just as a result or and only as a result of of the increase in density the increase of density is is largely driven by the reduction of the size of units um buildings grow and shrink and change size and shape based on market conditions that are that uh you know and we'll build this project out over several years and it'll go through iterations over those years all within what's allowed under the zoning for that particular district okay i was just curious because people do end up asking a lot of questions about the character of the design and what that means and so i appreciate you um elaborate on that thank you i think it yeah and i think it's fair to say the character of this neighborhood isn't going to change and when it's all done it's going to be spectacular counselor carpenter to be followed by counselor jane go ahead counselor carpenter if you could just re-explain what you what you have agreed to to date and what you haven't agreed to you've agreed to 14 buildings you've agreed to um what i'm going to call a certain amount of footprint right i mean no not necessarily when i first approached the mayor's office uh last summer what i did agree to was that it was that we would stick with the number of buildings that we have um but every building that we got originally approved we've tweaked the footprint based on you know tweaking of the designs and so so the only thing i've agreed to is not to increase the number of buildings in terms of their height and their their precise their their footprints aren't going to change much but they they you know we do massage them around as the process goes forward what what is the buildable area what explain that then well the buildable area so this is a this is in a district where you can build it's a floor area ratio you can build two times the land area in total building square footage for us that means we could build about close to two million square feet we are currently approved for about a million one um the district doesn't regulate density per se um so we might build a little bit more than we might build a million two or a million three we'll never get you could never get close to the maximum amount of building area that's allowed theoretically in the district and because you'd have to build a 10-story building to do that it was just not possible but when you say you've agreed to a million one or whatever the number is that's what i'm trying to get at is how much more than that no we are permitted currently for about a million one okay the only the only thing that i agreed to in the development agreement is the cap on the density and the only thing i agreed with with the mayor is that i wouldn't ask for more buildings other than that whatever the zoning allows is is fair game okay and and i'm just um theoretically if you don't get the smaller units you could build all three bedroom units and still have a bigger project i mean or you could build your hotel and have luxury suites or some such thing i mean those are all still presumably allowed so well they are allowed and the interesting thing is if i've or if if if if you weren't uh disposed to increase the number of units it would probably force me to build a lot more commercial area which which is not what i want to do um i don't think that's the best fit for that neighborhood but in theory i could build several hundred more thousand square feet of commercial area which would just which would just exacerbate traffic exacerbate parking and it's just not the right thing i i think building more more residential units and smaller units is very appropriate for our location and for what the city needs what's that counselor and i i'm just gonna confirm it if you don't get the units you can't build and most likely would build more commercial space i would likely build more commercial i'd have to build more commercial space don't say councillor carpenter okay councillor jane to be followed by councillor high tower and paul again folks let's please try and move towards a vote because we do have those three additional items councillor jane go ahead yep um thank you president and i think it would have been imperative from the get-go after the resolution was introduced to have eddie give a summary of a overview i think we all received the the memo but i think there are many people here that might not understand what we're talking about i think for next time it would be imperative but eddie i wanted to circle back around the traffic impact so from 707 units there were a traffic study i i believe so right and now don't you think it would be better to wait until those 770 units to be occupied and fully operational to then think about adding more units to this um to the development no it's not it's not practical ali to do that because you have to do a serious amount of forward planning what i do today is is real very much dependent on what i'm able to do you know tomorrow you have to be strategic about the way you built out a build out a project that's going to take several years and so you can't do something today and then wonder well am i going to be able to do this or that next year i can't make today's commitments if i don't have some assurance as to where we're headed and what the end game is but traffic that you know traffic analysis is pretty pretty sophisticated and scientific today so they're they're they're pretty good at at predicting and and our original traffic study was vetted not only by dpw but v trans not sure why v trans looked at it it's not a state highway but they did and signed off on it we had that traffic study updated it was vetted by dpw they signed up on it so i think that uh there should not be any real concerns about traffic impacts the conclusion of the updated study was that the impacts would be pretty minimal very similar to the to the study that was approved uh four five years ago three four years ago yeah so i mean i think um 180 apartments are being added which mean 180 people and potentially 180 more cars and they're all going to use north avenue to go north or to go south you know and i really doubt that there won't be any significant impact on that 180 you know and 900 also parking blocks that we're talking about so now that put aside what's the plan in the community engagement about this project what do you have and jen moving forward including the the communities well and you know we have to go through the the the entirety of the of the local review process with the planning office and the drb and act 250 every time we do an amendment we've gotten three or four amendments since we were first approved and one thing i should i would like to correct though we were originally approved for about 125 000 square feet of non-residential space and that's down i think right now our current plan is for about 25 or 30 000 square feet of commercial space that's making up a lot of the difference in residential in the right you were growing in the residential residential doesn't have nearly the traffic impacts is commercial or non-residential uses so by building more residential we we don't have to build more commercial space and and it balances out yeah and i think what i meant is not maybe drb and all of that but it means the npa's and also the people who live uh in the area we we've probably we've probably made more trips to the npa than any project in the city of brolington we went through 45 public meetings when we originally got our approvals many of those were npa meetings we went to uh two and three and four and seven we went several times and we never hesitated we i'm i'm happy to to talk about our project yeah i mean i think we talking about the 950 the amended agreement right how do we include the the the communities that's what i'm asking well we would go back to the npa's okay thank you for the planning process that's what i needed to know thank you so much yeah i'm sorry hi tower to be followed by councillor paul go ahead councillor hi tower i see you councillor carpenter councillor hi tower go ahead um thank you president tracy i think right now i'm a little bit debating between tabling this to time certain to give councillors a little bit more time to look at this with the proposed changes eric i know that's the opposite of what you want to see um but i guess i'd like david's quick input on what he thinks about the proposed amendment um and where we're at um sure thank you i'm happy to comment um this is something that uh the planning office has been working on um with eric really from the very beginning and um as he said there's no there's nothing in this proposal that suggests to change the underlying zoning um if he wanted to build to the maximum height limit of the 75 feet um for senior housing or 65 feet he could do that right now what what's important about this proposal is that allows him to build more housing units which is really a critical need as i think we all understand in the community so um he's proposing to do it within within the 14 building um structure or format that he um is already permitted for i i see this as a as a very positive thing for the city thank you thank you councillor hi tower it is 10 30 so we need a motion on the agenda councillor paul go ahead um okay i i thank you president tracy i actually wasn't gonna make a motion to um didn't realize it was already 10 30 um i'll make a motion i'll make a motion that we extend our meeting to um um to move um item 7.05 7.06 and 7.07 okay so there is a motion to suspend the rules and complete the deliberative agenda is there a there's a second to that um and i believe that that's non debatable is that correct attorney blackwood um um i i think it's debatable if you want to debate it you have to have a vote okay any discussion on the the motion to suspend the rules one of information point of order so go ahead councillor freeman freeman uh yeah i just called a quick point of information you did say councillor paul 705 706 and 707 the entire deliberative i did i'm sorry okay sorry i wanted yeah the entire deliberative agenda okay that was all my point of information i just wanted to make sure i knew what i was voting on okay any further discussion on the motion to suspend the rules councillor paul thank you um as i say you sort of caught me off guard a little bit um if there was any of the sponsors of the these items who was willing to put them to the first of june if they are not completely time sensitive that's why i was just simply going to ask ask that but if hearing none i'm i'm happy i will make that motion which i've already made okay so we have a motion um any further discussion seeing none we'll go to a vote all those in favor of suspending the rules and completing our deliberative agenda please say aye aye anyone opposed no okay so will the city clerk please call the roll councillor carpenter hi councillor jen yes councillor freeman yes councillor hanson yes councillor hightower yes councillor mason no councillor paul yes councillor paulino yes councillor pine yes councillor shannon yes councillor stromberg yes city councillor president tracy yes eleven eyes one day okay the motion passes meaning that we will complete our deliberative agenda we are still on item 7.04 councillor paul you are on the floor councillor paul go ahead thank you very much thank you president tracy um we have been discussing this item for some time um there is uh i believe there's only one thing and only one thing that that that the developer is asked of us and that is that we not delay any further so with that in mind i would like to call the question okay the on the amendment on the on the on the resolution there is a motion and a second uh this is not debatable we will go to a vote on this item um will the city clerk please call the roll councillor carpenter councillor jen yes councillor freeman yes councillor hanson uh no no councillor hightower yes councillor mason yes councillor paul yes councillor paulino yes councillor pine yes councillor shannon yes councillor stromberg yes city councillor president tracy yes eleven eyes one day so that passes and we will now move to a vote on the uh original resolution as amended um will the city clerk please call the roll councillor carpenter yes councillor jen yes councillor freeman yes councillor hanson yes councillor hightower yes councillor mason yes councillor paul yes councillor paulino yes councillor pine yes councillor shannon yes councillor stromberg yes city councillor president tracy yes bell buys thank you for calling the roll and that item passes which brings us to item 7.05 uh a resolution thank you all thank you all yes thank you for being here eric appreciate it and um that brings us to item 7.05 the resolution decarbonization and electrification of buildings councillor hanson or i'm sorry yeah councillor hanson go ahead great thank you uh i will move to waive the reading and adopt the resolution and just quickly take the floor back after a second please seconded by councillor pine go ahead councillor hanson great so the good thing about this given how stacked this agenda is is that we're not we're not making policy right now with this we are what we're doing with this item is we are initiating a policy process that is laid out in the resolution that puts us on a path to explore options and ultimately draft an ordinance to debate around electrification and and decarbonization of buildings in burlington the idea and the intention is that we would um try to first address new development and and then also begin to address existing which is going to be a much more complicated process legally and otherwise so yeah this is just to really say we want to explore this we want to develop policy to decarbonize buildings um it doesn't predetermine how you'll note that there are some particulars in terms of what we want to consider as we look at different options but again it doesn't predetermine the outcome or the specifics of the policy it just begins to define what options are laid out um through this process as we debate it thank you councillor hanson are there other councillors wishing to speak to this item sorry if i could just one more thing councillor chaser okay go ahead finish up i just quickly want to just thank um and acknowledge councillor busher who had initiated this process the way back in october and just make sure to give her credit for initiating this all the way back then thank you councillor hanson are there other councillors wishing to speak to this item okay councillor stromberg go ahead um yeah i'll just keep it brief because this isn't like super controversial or anything but um yeah i really appreciate this and i think that this is incredibly important especially as we now have that standing agenda item um for us to just kind of circle back to and this is going to open up a lot of doors for for the policy discussions and climate addressing the climate crisis is not only a personal issue for me um but it's it's something that i ran on it's the reason why i got involved in politics so it's incredibly meaningful to me to know that we're really starting to take a stance and this could potentially affect any new building moving forward if we're serious about it um oh yeah i just i'm really excited to support this and and move on thank you councillor stromberg anyone else wishing to speak to this item seeing none we will go to a vote all those in favor please say aye hi hi any opposed sharing none this passes unanimously i don't think councillor freeman sorry it was an a i'm an i sorry i didn't it didn't unmute okay thank you councillor palino and councillor freeman for clarifying uh that still passes unanimously so we will and we will now move on to item uh 7.06 which is a resolution uh regarding the COVID-19 emergency order wearing face coverings required in retail stores councillor shannon you're muted councillor shannon sorry about that uh looks like somebody decided to print in here so sorry about that noise um it wasn't me i'd like to make a motion to waive the reading and adopt the resolution that is labeled revised and ask for the floor back after a second your motion is there a second councillor stromberg you have the floor councillor shannon uh thank you i think that everybody um is aware of uh of this issue i i really see this as kind of a workers rights issue um the governor has required workers to wear masks um when they're at work in retail stores as we open up the stores to the public but uh the workers themselves would not be protected unless members of the public coming into the store we're also wearing masks nor would the customers be protected unless you know other customers were also wearing masks so to make sure that everybody is protected from each other uh we have i am offering this resolution and i appreciate the many cosponsors that have signed on to this i think that um it's been well received by the retail community it and for the most part there there are people that disagree but for the most part i think the public really wants this to feel like they're they're safe in the shopping environment um and they want to support our downtown businesses but they feel like they can't do that unless they feel protected uh and there are a couple of um changes that have come into this over the course of um the time that i've circulated it to council counselors including to allow um to allow face shields not just masks and um there was a request to also include city buildings that are our public buildings should be included in this as well so i would like to add an amendment there and i would note that city employees are already required they have certain masking requirements that are specific in the hr um in the hr policy so uh they would still have those requirements um but this would be for the public and i asked uh attorney blackwood to draft some language this is uh let me get it one second online 46 add additionally members of the public are required to wear cloth face coverings or face shields over their nose and mouth while inside city buildings city staff are required to wear face coverings as provided in the city's face covering policy um i apologize i thought that this had been amended into our resolution but it had not the language i just read came from the city attorney and attorney blackwood if you could share that um with the clerk's office i would appreciate it and i'm looking for a second to that amendment see a second from um counselor uh high tower counselor shannon you still have the floor um and i'm all set thank you okay thank you um is there um any um well i guess we were still introducing the resolution but is there discussion on the amendment that counselor shannon introduced counselor jane yeah i mean i think i will support it and i wondered why it was not initially um added in there but i think i will be supporting it now i would want to also on the same line i would want to add another amendment to the same amendment after line 49 i believe to add another store another specific location where covet 19 could be easily transmitted and as we all know we all received uh during public forum the executive director for farmers market stated that they would like also to be included in this it is a request for all the vendors that work with her specifically they request to be added in this resolution and would want to add burlington farmers market after line 49 okay our folks clear on counselor jane's amendment to the amendment does everyone understand counselor hanson um counselor jane could would you if you are in the counselor jane would be willing to clarify just to remind us where the farmers market is taking place this summer it so i believe they are still working on it in terms of the specific location but it will still be will be outdoor so they have different um options including the parking lot for champlain um champlain school and i know that they will be opening on june 6 and they're still working on a specific location but it would be definitely an outdoor location we got it got it okay no that makes sense i just wanted to verify i wanted to understand how it seems like we're getting into discussion but was there a second i'm sorry i'm sorry good point uh is there a second to counselor jane's amendment to the amendment seconded by counselor carpenter please proceed okay great um so yeah no though i just want to say the only reason i raise that is because there are certain locations for example the farmers market used to be at city hall park that are highly public gathering outdoor spaces where i think we would be entering into new territory to require a mask in sort of a highly public outdoor shared space um but i think a parking lot is me is different because it's not a place where folks are gathering and they would really be going there specifically to go to the farmers market so for me that that does make a difference but because this because of that i'll support that for sure okay any further discussion on the amendment to the amendment uh counselor shannon followed me by counselor mason i'm sorry this is the first i've heard of that and um there are a lot of outdoor markets that are going to be happening this summer including most of of church street really becoming an outdoor market and um we've gotten a lot of support for this but it's it is partly because we're just talking about indoors and not beyond that i don't really know how the public feels about um taking the step of requiring masks in the outdoor environment um and i'm also not sure if that's consistent with the the parameters that we were given by the governor's orders so i would like the um because we were given we were given authority to do this in in retail stores but um i'd have to review that to even know if this is possible but i'm not really comfortable because i'm not sure whether or not the public is with us and whether or not the science is with us on this particular decision thank you counselor shannon i see you counselor jane um i have mason high tower and then uh counselor jane so uh counselor mason go ahead on the amendment to the amendment but my comment was all on the same lines it was unclear to me whether counselor jane he referred to it as the farmer's market if he was referring specifically to the one on pine street or his amendment was intended as the language is written to apply to all farmers market or all farmers you know all outdoor um sales on the assumption it's the latter and not the former i share the concerns that counselor shannon has put forth uh as well as concerned about public reaction thank you counselor jane are you prepared to clarify yes thank you um and i think it is very clear also online three of this resolution it's it was highlighted especially in areas of significant community based transmission that's very clear and it does not exclude stores it does not exclude many things i think also in addition the director we are talking about farmers market not all the markets in burlington but specifically burlington farmers market the executive director mario zenko did speak in public forum in front of all of us she made that very simple and clear request that has already been approved and vetted by the vendors that she worked with so reason why i think it will be imperative for the council to allow addition of burlington farmers market into this resolution thank you thank you counselor jane uh council high tower um won't add to keep it quick i think i have the same thoughts as shannon and uh council shannon and mason um especially wondering what that looks like for the posting requirements for like the entrances and so on to a public parking lot um so i think i would defer to counselor shannon and which if she thinks this is appropriate given the new limitation that counselor jane just made thank you counselor carpenter go ahead um i supported it because i i wanted to support the woman who came from the farmers market but in second thinking it it doesn't seem well thought out i think we should just pass what's on the table we can always add classes to this if we need to and and things are going differently i jone did a great job in getting a lot of support for the resolution as it is think we should just pass it as it is and if we need to broaden it we should do so thank you counselor freeman i just i support encouraging people to wear them at the farmers markets as well people will be in close contact you can just put up a sign at the beginning of the parking lot it would be very very easy it's a place where people i imagine will be congregating if people are sneezing or coughing which hopefully they're not doing at the farmers market or they're not sick if they're coming and going the farmers here not in favor and it is eget spearhead this resolution that makes it a not a not so friend can you hear me now yes i understand that makes and it's not as such council freeman you're breaking up again it's internet i'm not getting anything council freeman i'm i'm sorry i'm not gonna i i'm not getting anything i'm gonna have to can you hear me now i can't you keep freezing up um okay i'm gonna go to i looks like okay i'm gonna go to counselor carpenter just to say everyone should be wearing a math and i support it but this was very specific to a set of groups we still just need to keep on doing our education and like i said i think we can add classes if certain classes of businesses aren't complying next meeting okay counselor freeman i'm gonna come back to you go ahead can you hear me now yes okay my my thought is just i don't understand why we wouldn't want to add the farmers market i mean it is more open air but people come into close proximity you also have customers who are coming in close proximity to the people who they are receiving the goods from so i guess just because i'm in close proximity to people all the time and i think the science backs that it can that the particles can linger in the air that any area where there's any just sort of um broadly like people being in proximity to each other i just i guess i don't see as a hindrance and i was trying to say when it cut out that i apologize to councillor shannon because i know that you spearheaded this resolution and i don't want to um create an unfriendly amendment on the floor um but i just i guess just working in health care and just thinking about the proximity that we had to people it just doesn't seem like a problem to also loop in um loop in farmers markets which are another place of commerce and also i think sign in terms of signage you could just post one of those i don't know what they're called billboard things that you just prop up and say please i adhere to um to wearing face covering so that's that's my preference um just wanted to put in a minute two cents okay so we are still on the amendment to the amendment is there further discussion on the amendment to the amendment okay looks like we're ready to vote will the city go to a vote will the city clerk please call the roll councillor carpenter nay councillor jang yes councillor freeman yes sorry councillor carpenter again what was your vote no thank you councillor hanson yes councillor hi tower you're on mute uh i didn't actually hear back from councillor shannon so i'm going to say no councillor mason no councillor paul no councillor paulino no councillor pine yes councillor shannon no councillor strongberg yes yes city council president tracy yes six eyes six nays the amendment to the amendment fails we are back to the original amendment as put forth by councillor shannon is there further discussion on the amendment okay seeing none we will go to a vote on the amendment um all those in favour please say aye hi hi any opposed hearing none the amendment to the resolution passes we are back to the original motion is there further discussion on that councillor hi tower um yes and i apologize to do this again so late i did post an amendment which is on board docks and they also sent to councillors um adding the language where some members of the community such as people with health concerns and people of color especially young men of color may be made unsafe by wearing a face covering business initiative and understanding of cultural competency and consider how to accommodate customers who may feel safe wearing masks i'd like to amend the resolution we have a moment we have an amendment is there a second seconded by councillor strongberg uh is there further discussion on this amendment did you want the floor back i'm sorry yeah sorry about um i'd just like to thank councillor um freeman for bringing this up and councillor shannon for being open to adding this so very late in the game so thank you for that awesome is there any further conversation i just don't understand i'm sorry councillor jane go ahead yeah um maybe they can clarify a little bit what that amendment is trying to do councillor hi tower yeah sorry go ahead yeah i think we've just seen enough um acts of uh violence against especially um men of color and we also have some concerns that some of the health concerns maybe not listed by the cdc would also make it harder um for people to wear masks so just generally want to flag for community members business owners to approach anyone not wearing a mask with a sense of compassion and some cultural competency to understand that there could be very valid reasons that they're not wearing a mask around further safety and making sure that i don't think this resolution is um race neutral so kind of calling that forward saying that this is a potentially race-based issue councillor jane are you all set or do you have further comments um yeah maybe if i understand so basically if people don't wear mask because they people of color we asking these store owners or the managers to understand that these might not understand what's going on is that the language is that consistent okay councillor jane you are you all set um i'm all set yeah any further discussion on the amendment councillor hanson yeah i just i mean for me just to explain why i would support it i mean i think to me what what i see this as being about is basically racial profiling and racial profiling is already obviously pretty pervasive but if someone you know if someone feels like they're more at risk of being racially profiled because of the face covering and and how that could um lead to additional risk of racial profiling i think this is a good way to ask businesses to to listen to that and be sensitive to that and be willing to to to hear that and take that seriously so that's for me how i how i view it and i support that um i don't know if i'm misinterpreting it based on the maker but that's kind of my takeaway and and why i support it councillor mason thank you uh president tracy i i had the same interpretation as as councillor hanson but i also want to be clear in supporting this this to me does not say that if you're not wearing a mask and you're a person of color you have to be allowed into a store if a store owner you know as a matter of policy or a matter of city regulation wants to exclude someone for health safety and welfare that's permissible there's also a scam going on where people who oppose these are concerning you know under the ADA sorry and they have a right not to wear one that is not true if someone is not wearing a mask in your retail establishment you do not have to let them in whether it's because of an ADA or because of cultural sensitivity i appreciate um councillor hightower bringing this up um and i hopefully you know i i believe it will be a dear to thank you thank you councillor mason i have councillor freeman councillor jane since you've already spoken on this i'm going to go to councillor freeman first councillor freeman go ahead thank you and i just want to pull up the language i had a question about because i was um speaking back and forth with city attorney blackwood about um sort of some of the things that councillor mason brought up sorry this is not the this is just a clarification i just jumped right into the the technical aspect of it but i am really curious about this because um to councillor mason sort of clarification um i do see in the resolve clauses that we have online 73 exceptions um and so um that does basically my understanding is that the only people who would legally be accepted and and i this is why i'm asking the city attorney for clarification because i think it is a little confusing at least for me um that like they couldn't refuse um a child under the age of two um or someone who's having trouble breathing or unconscious etc um but then um the way that the policy is written um that this they're sort of like if you're a person of color or if you um are maybe not covered under the as um calzahay tarah said under the health issues considered to be under the cdc guidelines that you're not um considered in that sort of accepted class i don't know if that's the right term but um i just want to final clarification from the city attorney on that before i um understand what we're voting on uh attorney blackwood are you able to to clarify um i'm not sure that i fully caught the exactly what the question was but but yes we have there are exceptions in in what you are adopting for the cd what the the cdc recommendations and and in addition there there may be like you have to try to accommodate someone who has a disability that may prevent them from being able to to wear a mask for example if they have a breathing issue or something like that so because there're going to be other laws that kick in so there there are ways that people who can't wear masks can um ask for accommodation and be able to to not wear a mask and so and because so the cdc so this is so basically to your point the the other laws are kicking in so that would mean that it's not because of the way that the policy is written based on line 73 of the resolve clause but it has to do with as we um exchanged in some of our emails sort of the underlying um like if you're in a protected class you're not like you're not able to just get kicked out of sword just on the face of like um sort of like equal opportunity like if you're a person color woman whatever it is like if you're you can't be discriminated against just on face like that's already an underlying and those would kick in um and that has nothing to do with the policy but is there anything within this policy that um is uh giving additional protection I guess other than like the underlying would or is it possible to do that within this policy or is that not within our purview as the city giving additional protection to whom for what um I mean based on the conversation that we've been having so far I mean I think the question and what councillor mason brought up was around um the question of like if you're a person of color you can and and or if you're someone who feels that you I didn't I'm sorry councillor mason because your um wi-fi I think might have cut out or minded but the um I think you said something about people misutilizing AVA to suggest that they can't wear a mask but actually need to or something I couldn't I couldn't hear it and I apologize fully but you know there were sort of um examples beyond what is written um or what is sort of underlying I guess does that make sense all right so so so somebody a store owner can't say to someone you can't come in because of your race because of you know the and and they can't use discriminatory things that are proxies for those um um those characteristics so that's and that's law and that's the law of regardless of anything we do here what what this does the exceptions that are special in this regulation are those that are online 73 through 77 though and and those are based on advice from the public health authority which is kind of what this overarching uh mask wearing is about it's relying upon the public health authorities who are saying it's not safe for some people to wear masks and there and and that's who we're accepting there's also a sense of discrimination laws but now if a person I think if I if we go back to like the issue though that has that started some of these emails back and forth if a person of color um came into a store without a mask and said I'm not wearing a mask because I feel unsafe wearing a mask because of the the just the way that people have treated um people of my race who are wearing a mask that that is probably that's a difficult one because I'm not sure that that's going to be a basis for not justifiably not wearing a mask in a location where you're required to wear a mask okay I think that um that gives me a little bit more clarification um and I don't want to prolong the conversation anymore because it is getting late I do think that I'm I'm really glad that um counselor high tower is um bringing forward the amendment for the resolve I'm sorry for the wearers clause um I think perhaps I could have seen a resolved it being involved in the resolve clauses as well but I think we're past that point now and I will be supporting um the amendment that um counselor high tower and I worked on and I appreciate your clarification city attorney blackwood thank you councillor freeman anyone else on the amendment councillor jane yep um I I definitely understand the intent of the amendment but I don't think that I will be supporting it because it is sending a clear message that people of color or people from different technical background this policy does not apply to you because you're different or we are sending you to go contract the covid night in the virus a policy is a policy and it should apply to everyone regardless of their race their ethnicity or their background any store it is required it is required but now the question is if they don't have it how fast can they go get it and come back I will not be voting for this amendment because it send a message of discrimination to people who are different in this community thank you thank you councillor jane is there further debate on the amendment seeing none we will go to a vote will the city clerk please call a roll call the roll for the amendment councillor carpenter I couldn't hear you Sarah I mean councillor carpenter yes councillor jane nope councillor freeman yes councillor hanson yes councillor hanson can you just yes thank you councillor hightower yes councillor mason yes councillor paul yes councillor paulino yes councillor pine yes councillor shannon yes councillor stromburg yes city council president tracy yes 11 eyes one day the amendment passes and we are back to discussion on the original resolution as amended as there further discussion on the resolution as amended councillor jane thank you council president and I think I did ask these questions and they were specific to enforcement of this resolution what are the procedures in place in enforcing the resolution so that all members of these communities are required to wear mask that's the question mr tracy does the maker of the resolution have an answer looks like it like you do councillor shannon go ahead yes there's no enforcement mescanism included in this there's no civil ticketing the truth of the matter is even where there is civil ticketing I don't think that they're really issued much enforcement is primarily just by request and a business owner could deny somebody's service but I would say that that's it if uh attorney blackwood wants to correct me or expand upon that I welcome that attorney blackwood do you have further further information offer I don't really have anything to add that was what I would have said thank you councillor jane the floor is yours yep um so then I think then this resolution is almost meaningless because you know you vote on a resolution and you're making things required and there is no way of enforcing them it is just reminding me of a policy on chair street asking people to not smoke on chair street but people smoke all the time and when I asked that question it was I was told that oh basically it should be a community um self enforcement basically you have to remind people and for some people it's not a good idea if we bring policies we should have ways of making sure that it is uh required and it's also it is enforced um that's that's that's one so then I I am also wanting to add that some business owners um did make it very clear to many of us that city should not get involved in such a policy requiring people to wear masks this should be at their discretion between the business owner and also the customer for their safety now we don't have procedures in enforcing and also some business owners did not don't want this resolution to move forward I just wanted to put that out there and also another point that I wanted to add is why the city is not going the extra mile in producing more mask and making sure that all stores right have access to them that they can be displayed and people if they don't come in if they come in without much they can take one wear one and start to do the shopping and was just wondering if the city has that capacity I was told no but maybe the city can work on adding more and at least giving each of the stores that apply for this resolution to have them in that sort for display Councillor Shannon would you like to provide an answer to that question yes thank you um there there is a couple there's a few points there so the point of the resolution is really that without this resolution um individual store owners were left to their own discretion to decide whether or not they were going to require masks and a lot of the store owners wanted to require masks but they didn't want to be kind of the bad guy and they they wanted a level playing field and so that's what this accomplishes and I think it's an interesting comparison with the smoking ordinance which actually does have teeth in that ordinance and there is an ability to give tickets with that ordinance it's not generally how that type of of ordinance is um is enforced because usually you just ask somebody to stop smoking and they will stop smoking but that's kind of my point that we could put teeth in this ordinance but effectively it's going to be the same thing because people don't get tickets for this type of behavior and with regard to the masks the city has made 20 000 distributed 20 000 masks of as of I think last Friday and purchased fabric to make those masks and had a very successful campaign we provided masks to all of the essential workers first and um then expanded that to other workers and we've expanded that we we have provided masks to all of the senior housing facilities to all of the nonprofits and and the last phase was providing to the residents of Burlington I do think that we want to continue our mask making efforts but we can as the city transitions to new efforts which include really feeding people there are lots of community efforts and volunteer efforts and I am part of it to continue to produce masks and make sure that everybody has access to them thank you for that answer Councillor Shannon Councillor Hightower did I were you looking to be recognized okay I'm sorry I must have misread a wave or something are there other councillors who wanted to to get in on discussion on the okay councillor Collino go ahead I was going to move to call the question the question has been called is there a second seconded by Councillor Hightower I'm not debatable I will go to a vote would the city clerk please call the roll Councillor carpenter Councillor Jang no Councillor Freeman yes yes Councillor Hanson no Councillor Hightower yes Councillor Mason yes Councillor Paul yes Councillor Paulino yes Councillor Pine yes Councillor Shannon yes Councillor Stromberg yes City Council President Tracy yes ten eyes two nays that passes and the question is called we will now move to a vote on the underlying resolution as amended I will the city clerk please call the roll on that resolution Councillor carpenter hi Councillor Jang no Councillor Freeman yes Councillor Hanson yes Councillor Hightower yes Councillor Mason yes Councillor Paul yes Councillor Paulino yes Councillor Pine yes Councillor Shannon yes Councillor Stromberg yes City Council President Tracy yes eleven eyes one day that resolution passes which brings us to our final item of the night which is which is a item 7.07 a resolution removal of everyone loves a parade mural Councillor Pine thank you Mr Tracy Council President Tracy this should be a quick one that was a joke but I got that way too late yeah sorry about that I know it's it's a kind of late for humor but you know and I had planned to make some pretty extensive remarks I'll shrink them to the shortest I could possibly make on this topic oh I would move the move the resolution and request to floor back after this is there a second seconded by Councillor Hanson you have the floor Councillor Pine um in light of the hour I'll try to be succinct as possible on this topic um but I had to write this down because this is it's been something that um you know it it's a it's an issue that I think is it's really complicated even though people on the outside look at it and think it's quite simple um I was asked last fall when we were debating this as a council they're getting ready to debate in October actually 2018 so a year and a half ago what's the big deal with this mural um I've had constituents say um it doesn't really bother me that much couldn't we just make some changes to it or couldn't we just put another mural beside this mural or across the the the lane from this mural um I just want to say that I have um art art is not just an insignificant thing it's not just something that you you know look at occasionally or go to a museum or flip through a magazine while you're um you know having a cup of coffee and that that's what art is art really fundamentally shapes our stereotypes our our images our ideas our conceptions of ourselves and of our society and of each other and the roles that that race plays in our history um I I personally feel um that removing this mural is is ultimately a symbolic gesture but that that that undoing racism actually requires us to take both substantive and symbolic steps to repair the damage that's been done um I believe this mural is deeply problematic since it's ultimately a city commission of art that has divided us and caused pain in our community and does not accurately reflect a rich history as a people as a place um I I think it's ultimately an exclusionary piece of work that essentially erases entire um entire groups and races of people it erases them I'm sorry about that and it essentially implies that we are here in a great state in a great community almost entirely due to the work of of people of European descent and I think that that causes real pain and real harm so I I think it's again while it's a small step compared with structural and systemic forms of racism um I think this action does it says a great deal but our shared values of creating a community of inclusion and genuine belonging and so even though we are a busy council and even though it's really late at night I would assert that it's always the right time to do the right thing and I hope we'll join together tonight to pass this resolution thank you very much thank you councillor pine is there further discussion on the motion or the resolution councillor high tower to be followed by the councillor carpenter um thank you councillor tracy I am having a tough right time right now because this was kind of going to be the one time that I took a long time and just gave a real speech about how I felt on this um I've been really frustrated about this mural um but like in terms of who has contacted me about it in terms of like the difference in debate that I've seen about it the rhetoric that I've seen about about it um I mean when I don't know how much of this I should say now because I know that it's so late but when I moved to Burlington I saw the mural and I also thought that it was the whitest mural I've ever seen like Vermont is white but not that white um and one of the few unnamed people in it is indigenous I mean I think it's misguided but I also feel like the response to it has been a little bit misguided um I feel like communities of color are like in particularly are really struggling right now for reasons that we all know and um not right now they're always struggling and struggling particularly right now and as I'm racking my brain to try to figure out what to do about this I'm filtering hate mail the tell that's telling me that for Monter's own shotguns and hate niggers I'm reading problematic language about the slum that Burlington has become on front porch forum and I'm also fielding pairing emails from supposed allies that I'd be racist not to take this up as the racist issue in our city and that really only newcomers see this as a non priority which just isn't true or that if you like me if that if you're like me you're a newcomer um your voice doesn't count which I find extremely problematic and so I understand that the vote that the council had on this previously it didn't feel like a win because in a lot of ways it really wasn't um there was so much work that was left to do but I just feel so strongly that the work is not the home that the mural is not the only work that is left to do and it bothers me that this is the win that we're fighting for and who seems to be fighting for it people of color are losing in Burlington in all kinds of ways but instead of looking at that it feels and looking at the hard issues the systemic issues that people of color are finding um we're finding ways to make Burlington look less problematic and to me it feels like we've doubled down with what I think honestly is some white privilege on um removing this symbol of white guilt and so if I were getting a flood of emails from white folks also talking about de-aggregated data and pay gaps and police training really the hard systemic issues I wouldn't be as worried about this as I am but the fact that this is the only race issue that's been brought up to me by white folks um and that's only been brought up to me by white folks until yesterday I find problematic um and so I don't really see this vote as a vote to bring forward the voices of marginalized folks it does not feel to me like a stepping back of predominant culture to a lot of other cultures um and I know I haven't been here very long and I'm just one person and not representative of people from Burlington um but I did almost decide to vote no on this in protest um knowing that I may be the lone councilor to do so um and if any of my council and if any of my other counselors you vote no I hope that all of the activists in that that lone vote could have been me before they decided to vote as racists there are a lot of people sorry councilor hi Tara councilor Mason will you please mute yourself thank you go ahead councilor Tara thank you there are a lot of people there's a lot of reasons people vote yes or no and I encourage you to not boil it down to one word and I'm going to close by saying that I will vote yes because while I do not agree with the spirit of the resolution I do agree with the heart of it but I hope that all of the activists who have been working on this um really step back and we'll work with Taisha work with the indigenous communities which I again have to represent like flag that I'm not representing and I have not heard from an indigenous person in this debate um but I hope that they step back and work with these communities on issues that are close to them across the economic spectrum in Burlington not for them not lifting them up even but really just supporting them on the issues that they bring forward um and I apologize in advance for those of you who are disappointed by my voice um I'm really not saying this to be divisive but rather I'd like to start a conversation around how we have raised conversations in Burlington and the way that this was brought to me and how much I've heard about this from exclusively white folks until yesterday um I just has been bothersome to me thank you thank you counselor hi tower I had counselor carpenter to be followed by counselor Paulino I see you counselor Stromberg counselor carpenter thank you it's hard for me to speak after listening to Zariah um just from white girls always been in Burlington um you know my interest in being a sponsor is to help us just move on I think counselor pie is right art should not be hurtful and we've got to move on get the systemic issues work done so I feel like this action that's being proposed just helps us do this and we just need to get it done now it's been too painful to keep waiting um I had hope that we could sort of whole heartedly support moving on I had suggested a few language changes that I'm going to propose dropping and just adding for expedition that an option be to cover the mural as opposed to to um um remove it entirely the the resolution asks for a plan to be brought back and there would be more to that so I'm just going to propose an amendment um that two words be inserted on line 15 okay go ahead um I propose that haven't very in front of me I gave it to you on line 15 that um the city council and public works department work together by august 31st to cover or remove the mural to a suitable place so that's the proposal so the the language that you'd be adding would be cover or yes remove okay all right so is everybody clear on what the amendment is okay is there a second to the amendment seconded by councillor Stromberg is there any any discussion on the amendment I think this is an important I'm sorry councillor Paulina go ahead I think that the intent of this amendment is very important right now I think that uh as you heard in public forum constituents say that um you know some people to first of all I I'd like to start saying that there's nothing I can say that tops what Zariah says I totally echo what she says and I also echo I come from this at a very weird angle so I come from what Zariah has to say and then from councillor uh Carvach's perspective as well which is like you know a lot of my constituents just want to move forward and turn the page and and like Zariah said we need to start by looking at elsewhere and I think we you know this piece of art became something that wasn't it was in my opinion it was never intended to be that by anybody involved with the city but perhaps maybe by the artist you know to be this controversial piece where people would talk about it um and and that I do believe that that was the intent to to arise you know emotion from it um and so I I'm glad we're have we're having this debate I'm glad we're voting on this I think that the removal piece is really important for me because I have a fair amount of constituents that are very concerned about their tax bills and if we can possibly mitigate the cost of removal even by a few thousand by by covering it's very important so thank you uh council president Tracy thank you uh councilor Paulino on the amendment I saw councilor Freeman would you like to was that a hand councilor Freeman it was but I'm retracting it it's okay we can okay anyone else on councilor carpenter's amendment councilor Hanson yeah I just for for me personally and I'll speak more to the underlying when we get back to the underlying but for the amendment I I I just want to remove it I don't really want to take kind of the half measure of covering it um so I'm gonna I I'm gonna vote no on the amendment and I do want to talk about the resolution but I'll wait till we get back to it okay anyone else councilor pine go ahead uh mr president if I could I was going to ask on behalf of councillor jane just because he lost contact with us for a while I don't think he didn't get to hear the amendment because he was struggling with technology so he's there speaking for himself I'm sorry I'm sorry about that councillor jane uh councilor carpenter can you please clarify your amendment for councillor jane it's to add in line 15 add um cover or remove so it's adding the words cover or remove the intent is that that could be a temporary option until such time the the um the resolution calls that full plan be brought back by september 30 so the point is that covering could be an option councillor jane are you clear on what the amendment is now yeah okay good all right councillor pine did you have anything else okay councillor jane yep um I think I received the amendment before and um just made it clear back then that I will not be supporting it because covering the middle as it is right now you're putting the middle subjected to more vandalism again there are people who are in favor of removing it and some that are not in favor of removing now if you cover it both of those groups can continue to vandalize it I think it's when we're taking action we should not add water to it let's just remove it if that's what we want to do or leave it as it is but no middle ground here I won't be supporting it thank you thank you councillor jane anyone else on the amendment seeing none we will go to a vote will the city clerk please call the roll councillor carpenter hi councillor jane no councillor freeman no councillor hanson no councillor hightower yes councillor mason yes councillor paul yes councillor paulino yes councillor pine councillor shannon yes councillor stromberg yes yes city council president tracy no eight eyes for nice the amendment passes we are back to the original resolution as amended is there further discussion on actually we had a queue going councillor paulino was in the queue to be followed by councillor stromberg councillor paulino do you want to be recognized on the original resolution okay councillor stromberg I had you in the queue next yeah um well I just want to thank Zariah for being so open and and it's not you know I just I you said it beautifully I can't possibly measure up to that I just I want to bring up the fact that a lot of people reached out to me within my district and also just in general about the mural about this like not being the ideal time during covid and I just want to say that you know we can't play into the narrative that there's a right time and a wrong time to address racial issues so I really I feel like it's also a good stance to say that no matter what is going on that this is something we're always going to address and I just I want to take pride in that as a council and as a group of people that you know cares for one another and cares about how marginalized folks in society are feeling right now and you know people are disproportionately affected by covid 19 that's happening all over the news we're seeing that everywhere we're seeing so many different acts and I just I just I you know I stand with you Zariah and support you and and I think that what you said was absolutely on the mark and thank you okay further discussion on the resolution councilor shannon to be followed by councilor hanson go ahead council shannon thank you um I want to say I really like everybody else I very much appreciate um counselor high towers insight and analysis and um willingness to say what she said because those were not easy things to say um I have only been contacted by uh white constituents about this issue and I think that it's important to reach out to people who don't look like me um in making a decision like this and when I have done that I have heard from many people exactly what counselor high tower was saying that this is um that they had issues with the mural and they didn't like it and maybe a little bit different than counselor high tower many many said that um it wasn't really a priority but that they did not find it inclusive and I don't think that that's what we want to present in the entry to burlington and I don't in any way dismiss the importance of removing it and replacing it with something that is more welcoming and we went through a process to figure out how and what to do about this mural and that process um convened a group of people who were um as uh as somebody said from in um public forum they were strongly in favor of removal and despite that they went through a process of getting informed and understanding the whole realm of issues and they laid out a path for dealing with this which we agreed to um and we took action based on their recommendations I don't think that this is something we should dismiss but at the same time I don't think that this has become a higher priority during COVID and I was very much um concerned this weekend we did a food distribution counselor uh Paul counselor Mason and I and with all of your help we did a food distribution in the south end and that was attended predominantly by by people of color and I think that counselor pine acknowledged that this is a symbolic effort and it's a very costly symbolic effort and to the extent that we have funds to address racial issues and inequities I think we should spend those funds at this point in time in ways that that meet a very real need in our community that go beyond symbolic gestures that maybe make us feel good um so in in saying all that I'm not I'm not defending the mural but I am not willing to uh change to move this up on the priority list at this point in time and I will be voting no thank you counselor Shannon counselor Hanson thanks um so I guess I would start off by saying that I'm glad that I'm glad that this mural has gotten us talking about um issues of racial justice in the city and I and I'm glad that the focus of the conversation and thanks largely to counselor high tower for opening it up in this way but the focus the conversation going beyond just the mural itself um and the fact that counselor high tower within the mural discussion has faced racism is just highlights the need for us to do work much more deeply beyond beyond this particular mural the mural itself I find very problematic I I think the representation of of Abenaki people and the lack of representation of people of color are both just completely inaccurate and damaging narratives that just reinforce harmful um a harmful narrative around white supremacy and this is this is a public display right in the heart of our downtown so I think we need to get the mural down I don't believe this mural should be up um at the same time to the points that have been raised I really hope that we don't pat ourselves on the back for this I think this is let's we you know hopefully this will spur us to continue to have deeper conversations and address more systemic issues and there's a benefit there um but removing a racist mural um should be done and also shouldn't be considered again something to pat ourselves on the back um so I definitely support doing it and I definitely support continuing to move forward even within this discussion of kind of public art and public display this opens up a new opportunity for how we want to move forward and what do we want to display at the heart of our downtown and who who gets to lead that process and who wants to tell their story and use this space so I think it opens that up um and I think we need to continue to have all these other discussions as well I don't like the idea of you know because we're removing the mural we are deprioritizing inherently other things I think we can get this done I don't think we have to turn it into I just don't I don't accept that I think it's on us to raise those other issues proactively and do that I don't think the mural is preventing us from taking stances and moving stronger policies around racial injustice I think we should have been and should continue to step up more than we have been on that regardless of the mural and I don't think the mural is an excuse or something to point at and say this is why we're not doing that we're not doing that because we haven't been doing that that being said though I want to acknowledge some of the work you know we are doing I think more substantial work through creating this permanent senior position in city government we have this new committee we have set up forums to get deeper into this and and that's that's a win and you know I want to thank thank all the people who contributed to that and made that happen and now let's let's use that let's utilize that structure that infrastructure that we built in our city government to try to undergo this process of addressing other racial justice issues so the hours late I'll leave it there but those are some of my thoughts and I'll be voting yes I thank you councillor Hanson councillor Freeman thank you President Tracy yeah I did also you know as others said wanted to echo just appreciation for councillor hightower's comments I think that I have also I think the conversation around race issues or just equity issues has like spotlighted this onto this mural when there are so many other and I think councillor hightower put it really well there are so many other systemic issues that are facing sort of the most vulnerable people in our community and I would really like to see people proactively take those issues on and I think the comment specifically around white guilt is a really is a really pointed one and really important and interesting and I think it's something for a lot of further reflection and I just really appreciated that as being part of the conversation I think you know personally like when I weigh out the fact that there was a young black man in our community who was given a great injury due to a violent interaction for like peace apartment versus the mural which I will be voting to take that I absolutely don't think it should be up but that the the sort of obsession with the mural versus something that caused someone to have a brain injury is it really kind of has confounded me about how we're addressing sort of broader systemic issues and how the conversation has at times felt like it has evolved into sort of like a white savior or white guilt conversation around the mural without really leaving space to dig into deeper probably much harder issues to address but are really about foundational issues that we have as a community so I absolutely I see that but just the mural is incredibly frustrating to me it depicts a version of history that is completely and absolutely false it doesn't exist it's I understand that there was some feedback at some point that it's not supposed to be historical but I think it is used as a public education tool I feel frustrated when people will say that the mural should say up because it shows our history and now our history is changing because we're becoming more diverse I think that that creates a lot of miseducation and confusion that Vermont was brown it was it became white through colonialism through like incredible amounts of violence and also through forced migration of enslaved black people that history is so incredibly violent and putting up this this depiction of Vermont that it is white and predominant there's also a lot of men in that mural it doesn't really it creates this sort of illusion about the history and how we got to where we are and I think that really is bad for us I don't think that's unhealthy and I think it needs to confusion about really understanding broader systemic issues because people don't even have a context or a foundation to talk about those things and the inequity that has brought us to where we are so I will be supporting taking down the mural and I'm looking forward to voting on this tonight thank you thank you Councillor Freeman are there any other councillors wishing to speak on this item Councillor Jang thank you President Tracy so I'm sorry that I missed what Councillor Hightower was talking about it seems many people address it in their comments I had technical difficulties but I think it would be important also to highlight the hard work of Councillor Bushel who before her departure from the council have provided courage so much courage of someone who has been here more than all of us who also has changed her mind over time about this mural I think she was getting ready to introduce the similar resolution of taking the middle down and has started the background work with the administration and we all know many of us have known what she has the level of pushback she received during that process I think it's important to say to her thank you and also to highlight that also many people former councillors who voted in favour of keeping the mural up are no longer here they no longer here the middle could have been taken down way back when when we recognise that as a city we made an error commissioning a mural in 2009 in 2012 that is only highlighting businesses that participated financially in the for the creation of the middle a mural that did not get so much of community input the mural that did not recognise the changing demographic of our city as the city calling itself as a progressive and welcoming city it lacked definitely the representation of what Burlington is about we recognised it back then and the middle is still up then we have a problem we have a deep problem as leaders of the city justice delayed is justice denied there are continuity of people saying no this middle should stay up create a different middle so many different arguments and lately the argument that I hear is about the cost so now I have a question councilor Tracy I don't know who maybe Eileen maybe Mr Mayor maybe Doreen can tell us the cost associated in putting the middle down I have no idea I'm just hearing it's expensive we don't have the money we're going to put it in 2020 2021 budget but I just wanted to understand how much it's going to take to unscrew the panels and store them away whoever can answer that question Mr Tracy thank you councillor jane director craft are you prepared to answer that question I'm can you hear me yes I can director craft go ahead I believe okay we have you back director craft can we yes so this is not something that was put out to bid it is something that we just gathered from one company that was the company that worked with us when we repaired after the vandalism this mural and the cost that were represented for taking down the fuel full mural which is 60 panels was somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 to 20,000 and what Paul at that time suggested to us is that would just be to take the panels down what that does not deal with is the amount of damage that is behind taking the panels down because each panel has dozens of holes that are about one inch wide put into the masonry holding up the structure as well as the wood panels that go substrate excuse me that go horizontal and vertically and were glued to the wall to the old mural that exists behind so that estimate is something that has not been done professionally there was a round number given by the team at the marketplace and of around 10,000 so that's where that number between 20 and 30,000 has come from but I think it is something that as we move forward now we're just going to have to have formal bids placed yeah I'm sorry you still have the floor thank you director craft thank you Doreen yes but I think it is always important also to highlight that when we talk about 15 to even 100,000 dollars is it even better than the feeling the hurt of people who live and work here in this community is it better they should not be moral the moral we should always go with what's right and do it right now also we know that the the the the bca has commissioned is working into commission a new mural and dpw has pledged over 40,000 dollars to much a grant that bca was applying to commission a new mural why can't we use those 40,000 dollars to take the middle down today tonight right I think it is important for the sake of inclusivity for the sake of working against racism against discrimination to take the middle today and then that will allow us to move forward I am very concerned about the aspect of covering the middle it will even it's even harder especially for those who support to keep it to keep it there I will keep my comments to that at this point thank you so much thank you councillor jing is there additional comments regarding the resolution seeing none we will go to a vote will the city clerk please call the roll councillor carpenter yay councillor jing councillor jing couldn't hear you yes councillor freeman councillor hanson yes councillor hightower councillor mason yes councillor paul yes councillor pollino yes councillor pine yes councillor shannon no councillor stromberg yes city council president tracy yes 11 eyes one day the resolution passes a motion to adjourn is in order councillor pine seconded by councillor freeman any discussion all those no seeing none all those in favor none okay we are adjourned at 11 56 thank you everyone have a great night good night everyone good night