o is not white. I've also listened to city counselors explain how much they care about racial justice. To those of you who are white, you just cannot have it both ways. You cannot claim to care about racial justice in the issue of police accountability in particular and also continue to, at the exact same time, actively block police reform efforts brought forward by black and brown community members. This is just blatant hypocrisy. Local racial justice leaders have been clear that the only way to get meaningful police accountability is to give community members more oversight, particularly around disciplinary and investigatory powers. The ordinance will hold on tonight. There's neither of those things. It keeps the police commission squarely in an advisory role and it creates the dangerous illusion that progress has been made. Until decisions around discipline lie in the hands of people other than the chief, nothing changes. The only way to get meaningful change here is with a charter change. The effort to distract with this incremental change is a clear political strategy to try to appease people without actually sharing the power. The same strategy is being used in regards to the evictions at the Sears Lane camp. Postponing this fight several days is meant to take the heat off and give people a chance to feel that something's been done when ultimately no meaningful change happens. I hope that the administration is aware that activists are onto this strategy. It does not work. We're coming out in numbers. We're coming back. We'll keep coming back. We'll keep showing up. We've done it for a year and a half and we're not going anywhere. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so I believe I've gone through all the Burlington non-imperson. So I'm gonna go into the non-Burlington in-person now. The first one, non-Burlington in-person is Kelly Devine. Is Kelly Devine here? Then next person is Jeff Nick. Good evening, everybody. I think y'all know I'm the chair of the Church Street Marketplace Commission. And just to start off, I was shocked at the level of disrespect you've been shown tonight by some of the speakers. Maybe I'm old school, but I never thought I'd witness that in this room. It's a little disconcerting, but I do wanna talk about some of what I heard tonight. And also, capitalism got a little bit of a bad rap today. And if it wasn't for capitalism, you'd have a lot of empty storefronts on Church Street. So just keep that in mind. A lot of the people I hear from on the Church Street, the merchants and the employees, they are fearful out there. It is not a good situation. You've also heard that the reports of crime are down. I would suggest that that's probably because many people just stopped calling in. A lot of low-level crime out there that we deal with every day. And people have stopped calling in, so keep that in mind. One of the biggest problems we have on Church Street is a disorderly conduct caused by the intoxicated folks that drink all day long in City Hall Park right out here and in front of City Hall over here on Church Street and up and down Church Street. We have laws on the books that say that's not allowed and we allow it to continue day after day after day. And that ends up causing retail theft. Ends up causing harassment, fights, you name it. It's all from the intoxicated folks out on the street. A good majority of it is. And we allow that to happen. We need to follow the CNA's suggested increase in the number of officers to 80. I would suggest that's low. And the reason I'm suggesting that's even low is because nobody bothered to consult with the business community. Nobody asked the marketplace, what do we need? What do the merchants need? What do the visitors to our downtown need? So please support the increase. Thank you. Okay, our next speaker of non-Berlington in person is Vicky Rathgab, or I'm sorry. Thank you. Good evening. I'm Vicky Rathgab and I am the executive director for the Chittenden Children's Advocacy Center, which is co-located with the Chittenden Unit for special investigations, which is CUSI. And I'll refer to it as CUSI. Recently, you had a report come out, the CNA report. And from my understanding, you would like to remove at least one detective from our task force. That would put us in an absolute crisis mode. Burlington was the foundation for CUSI. We have a director who was a sergeant and two detectives from BPD at CUSI. These men and women come to help protect our children in Chittenden County. These children don't have a voice. They cannot afford to lose the people that give them their voice. I hope that you will consider changing your mind about removing at least one detective from us. We cannot function without one. CUSI was started 30 years ago and will be 30 years old in 2022. I'm sorry, I'm a little nervous and I wasn't really prepared to come here today. I have been there for seven years and it's the job I am the most proud of and I'm the most proud to work with these men and women that come. When they come, we give them training that they will not receive at their agency. Agencies cannot afford to train their detectives with what I can give them and I can provide them. I level fund my budget for three years in a row and I can still provide these people with the best training so that when they go back to their agencies, they have more skills than anybody else there has. The men and women are valuable. Our children do not have a voice. If we lose a detective, people that are going to take the hit are gonna be the men and women who also are sexually assaulted. There will be, there will be a pushback. We will have to give them back to the other agencies. So please, my hopes are that you will keep the detective there. Please wrap up. That you will keep the detective there to give the children who don't have a voice a voice. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, now we're gonna go back to online, not in non-Berlington. We had Kelly Devine. Kelly, I've enabled your microphone. Thank you very much, Council President Tracey. Sorry, I couldn't stay in the meeting. I'm recovering from a concussion and it's difficult for me to be in a brightly lit room. I just wanna speak in favor of the plan put forward to follow the recommendations from the CNA report, which I was happy to have some of our members speak to when they were gathering input, which they could have taken more from the business community, but they did at least let us have a couple of people speak. And I do think that that's a valuable piece of data. And I think raising the cap right away is critical. I mean, the problem that we have right now is there's a lot of unchecked behavior going around downtown and we've had a person show up dead in a local parking garage. I've heard from countless businesses about how their female, mainly, but not just female employees feel threatened. They feel unsafe. And I think it's the responsibility of the city and the city council to address that very real concern. We've been talking to the city about that. We had a merchants meeting with the Church Street Marketplace over a year ago. Council President Tracy was nice enough to join us and women talked about it then. They've talked about it more recently and they continue to talk about it, how it just feels like the harassment that they receive, the physical harassment just does not feel okay. The last time that we had this issue come before, so it was a statement from the Street Outreach team, I asked them today if they could reconsider this letter that they sent then as being part of the testimony. So if you could do that and here's just a quick read from that. The Street Outreach team is finding it increasingly difficult to respond to both the nature and the number of calls we are receiving. We see this as a direct result of the uptick in behavioral problems downtown and the reduction of the number of officers responding. That's directly from the Street Outreach team. I talked to Tammy this morning. She said she broke up three fights this week. Please help our downtown safety system and vote for this tonight. Thank you. Thank you, our next speaker. We have two more speakers. We didn't start right at 9.30, so I'm gonna allow the last two non-Berlington speakers to go and then we'll wrap things up. Then that speaker is, the next one is Dana Key's Gibbons. Dana, I've enabled your microphone. Hi, thank you, Max. My name is Dana. I use she or her pronouns and I'm a healthcare worker in Burlington and a former resident. Like many others, I moved out of Burlington because of the lack of decent and affordable housing in the city, but I still work there and wanted to speak on this tonight. I'm against the eviction of the people who are living in Sears Lane and the destruction of their homes. Doesn't matter if it were happening tomorrow or in two weeks, it shouldn't happen. It's cruel and unnecessary as cold weather is upon us in the middle of a pandemic and with social service resources and housing programs already spread thin. The Sears Lane community is being held to an unequal standard and being targeted because the elites of Burlington would prefer to criminalize poverty and to try to make the people that you view as lesser disappear instead of offering resources or care. I'm also feeling really disgusted by the way that white women's fragility is being weaponized in these conversations about imaginary tipping points and just want to reiterate what Harmony said earlier that about the study that found that 40% of police officers are perpetrators of domestic violence. We must care for the health and safety of all people and that doesn't mean hiring more police officers or giving them $10,000 bonuses. The city's money needs to go to those who are actually taking care of our communities and healthcare, including resources for people struggling with addiction or mental health and making sure that everyone in Burlington has enough food to eat, warm clothes and shelter. And I also oppose 7.09 and 7.10 and support the charter change that really had already been laid out for y'all on how to set up a system for community control of police. Thank you, good night. Thank you. I cannot locate Susan McNamara. So that concludes our public forum for this evening. Thank you everyone for bearing with me as we've tried to get through the transition to having both online and in-person commenting. So we'll transition back into our agendas and having completed public forum that brings us to item number five, which are climate emergency reports. Did any councilor have a climate emergency report that they'd like to offer this evening? Okay, seeing none, we'll move to the consent agenda. Councilor Stromberg, may I please have a motion on the consent agenda? I move to adopt the consent agenda as amended and take the actions indicated. We have a motion on the consent agenda. Is there a second? Seconded by Councilor Hansen. Any discussion? Okay, seeing none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of adopting the consent agenda, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? That carries unanimously. It brings us into our deliberative agenda for this evening. However, before we get into the deliberative agenda, I would like to recess this meeting because we do have one other meeting that we need to get to in our structure, which is that of the city council with mayor presiding. So I will recess the city council meeting at 9.37 and turn it over to Mayor Weinberger. I'll give folks a chance to just flip over to that meeting. And a call, excuse me, I'm gonna call into order the city council with mayor presiding at 9.37 p.m. First item on the agenda is the agenda. I would welcome a motion to accept it. Thank you. Any discussion of the agenda? We'll go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. The next item is 2.01, a motion to adopt the consent agenda. Take the actions indicated. Councilor Mason. So move Mayor Weinberger. Is there a second? Seconded by Councilor Hansen. Any discussion on the consent agenda? Seeing none, let's go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? The motion carries unanimously. This brings us to two appointments. 3.01, the first of the appointments is for the Design Advisory Board, an alternate position for the term expiring June 30th, 2023. The floor is open for nominations. Councilor Shannon. I nominate Robert Brewer. Thank you. Are there any additional nominations? Are there any additional nominations? Seeing none, I will close the floor. The nominations is Robert Brewer in attendance and interested in speaking to the City Council Mayor presenting. We do typically allow that if the nominations of the applicants are here. I don't see Robert. So we will go back to the Council. Is there any discussion on this nomination? Don't see any hands, so we will go to a vote. All those in favor of appointing Robert Brewer to as the Design Advisory Board alternate for term expiring June 30th, 2023. Please say aye. Aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? That's unanimous. Congratulations, Robert. Thank you for your interest in serving the city and on this important board. We will move then to the second appointment. It's a Development Review Board appointment for term expiring June 30th, 2023. And I turn to the Council now. The floor is open for nominations. President Tracey. I nominate Leo Sprintson. Thank you. Are there any additional nominations? Are there any additional nominations? Seeing none, we'll close the floor. The new nominations is Leo Sprintson in attendance and speaking to the Council. I am not seeing Mr. Sprintson, so we will turn back to the Council. Is there any desire for any discussion on this nomination? Seeing none, we will go to a vote. All those in favor of appointing Leo Sprintson to the DRB for term expiring June 30th, 2023. Please say aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? The motion carries unanimously. Congratulations, Leo. And thank you too for serving on this keyboard. We now go to item 4.01, which is section four is for youth appointments. We have two appointments, one to the Conservation Board and one to the Board of Health. Floor is open for nominations to the Conservation Board. Councilor Paul. I would nominate Elizabeth Cunningham for that position. Great. Is there any additional nominations? Seeing none, we will close the floor. Is Elizabeth Cunningham here and interested in speaking to the city council? I am not seeing Elizabeth, so we will go to the Council for discussion. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, we will go to a vote. All those in favor of the appointment of Elizabeth Cunningham as a youth member on the Conservation Board, please say aye. Aye. Is anyone opposed? The motion carries, the appointment is unanimous. Congratulations, Elizabeth. Thank you for your interest in serving as a youth member of the Conservation Board. It's exciting to see interest in these positions. It's been a while since we have seen a youth applicant. The Board of Health is our next appointment and the floor is open to nominations. Councilor Paul. I would make a motion to appoint Hannah Cunningham as the youth member of the Board of Health. Great. Is there any, are there any additional nominations? Seeing none, we will close the floor to nominations. If Hannah Cunningham is here, she's welcome to address the city council. I'm not seeing Hannah, so we will go to the council again. Is there any desire for any discussion? Seeing none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Congratulations, Hannah Cunningham. You have been appointed unanimously to serve as the youth member of the Board of Health. And with that, President Tracey, if there's no objection, we will adjourn the city council with mayor presiding at 9.43 p.m. Thank you, mayor. I will reconvene the city council meeting at 9.44 p.m. Get folks with chance to just switch over to that screen and we will continue on our deliberative agenda this evening. We have our first item, which is an appointment regarding the Church Street Marketplace Commission. Are there any nominations? Yeah, yes. Councillor Stromberg. I would like to appoint Kara Tobin to the Church Street Marketplace Commission. Thank you. Are there any other nominations? Are there any other nominations? Kara, are you with us this evening? I don't believe I see Kara not seeing them and having no other nominations. I will take us to a vote. All those in favor of appointing Kara Tobin to the Church Street Marketplace Commission, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That carries unanimously. Brings us to item 7.02, a motion regarding the Board of Tax Appeals. Councillor Carpenter. Thank you. I, as you may remember, volunteered and I've been serving on the Board of Tax Appeals and find it very interesting. I really do. But next week, I have to have eye surgery and two weeks after that eye surgery again and just decided it was more than I could manage and Councillor McGee offered to step into my place and I appreciate that and he actually comes with experience having served on the Board last year. So I'd like to nominate him to sit on the Board of Tax Appeals. Okay, thank you for that. Are there any other nominations? Okay, seeing none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of appointing Councillor McGee to the Board of Tax Appeals, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That carries unanimously. That brings us to item 7.03, a presentation regarding Burlington's Racial Equity Strategic Roadmap from the REIB team who I believe will be joining us virtually or remotely, I'm sorry. Yes, I'm here, Max, can you hear me? Yes, I can. Go ahead, Dr. Green. And you can see me, I'm assuming. Yep, we can see you, we got you up on the big screen. Yay, all right. I'm gonna ask Blaine Antensay to share her screen and once she does that, we'll get started. Wanna turn my head so that I can see on my other screen here.  All right, so again, my name is Tayisha Green, I'm the director of the REIB. I have with me my colleague Blaine Antensay, she is the strategy and innovation manager for the REIB. And we are here to talk about our Racial Equity Strategic Roadmap. Next screen, Blaine. So everyone, I think everyone knows that I am trying to shift the culture here at the city of Burlington, Big C and Little C. And this is because Burlington is heralded as progressive and egalitarian, egalitarian. Burlington is also a dominant civic and institutional culture of whiteness. This roadmap commits to that cultural shift and it does that by targeted universalism. Next slide, Blaine. With the group Grayscale and All Aces, we used several documents, as you can see here, one of which being the city of Burlington's 2019 Equity Report, Operation Phoenix Rise and the Community Declaration of Racism as a Public Health Emergency, just to name a few. All of these documents gave us a foundational grounding in what you see in the report that you all should have received a copy of and what we're gonna talk about tonight. Next slide. I believe this is you, Blaine. Yeah, sorry I was muted. Hi, everyone. Thank you, Tayshia, for introducing me. A big part of this roadmap is starting with the documents that Tayshia talked about, as well as establishing other groundwork, which would be a lot of community engagement with the BIPOC community so that this strategic roadmap is led and designed by the people that it will impact the most. It involved identifying the key stakeholders in those groups, data gathering and a gap analysis, as well as case studies of what other areas of their cities, other states have done and then reconvening this group of BIPOC stakeholders in another listening session to kind of go over what we took from that and refine the goals. There we go. Like Tayshia said, as well, we're working with Operations Phoenix Rise as a foundational document and kind of a North Star for us in this. It was also guided by five of what we're calling the racial equity domains for the city of Burlington. These are kind of pulled from the 2019 equity report, but they are Education, Economy, Health, Housing and Justice, and these are meant to encompass five sectors of society that we can kind of categorize our goals into. And as we'll see, we came up with these three main themes. And the themes are grounding values, which are community power, identity and representation in safety and freedom. These themes were developed from the first listening session itself based on what we heard, gathering all the qualitative data and then with Grayscale, figuring out what are the three bins these fall into and what is going to guide us in this process. Then with Grayscale, we were able to develop an eight step kind of process to change in culture and disrupting oppression, which is what we're trying to do with this racial equity strategic plan. All of this is outlined in the plan itself, but what I guess what we'd like to note here today is that step one through three have already begun through this analysis, through the listening sessions, as well as the work we've been doing in the RAIB to start creating an iterative process so that we can go through these eight steps each year at a time and keep building on the goals that we set with the community. Important parts of this are not only that it's data and community engagement base, but that there is specific ways to repeatedly identify our short-term wins, make sustained progress, reflect on the progress that we've made, recenter our goals if they've changed over time. We know in the last few years the kind of national and local narrative around racial equity and racial justice has changed and therefore we want us our work to evolve with that and then kind of reset, recommit, create new urgency and keep working with the BIPOC coalition that we built up through the listening sessions and other engagement that our department and the rest of the community has done. So in the strategic plan near the end, you'll see that each of those five domains, the racial equity domains that we laid out before, they're kind of then fleshed out a little bit more. There's a vision for each domain, the main challenges that we heard from the community. Some baseline metrics that we'll use, but really we'll just be a starting point, as well as three or four main goal categories for this domain. So economy, you see these four main categories, some of them might not be surprising and some of them might be surprising as you read them out. And then there are national models that we can learn from, build off of tweak and apply to our city or just figure out how they might come into play here. The last thing that Taysha will go into is obviously this all requires funding and resources. So Taysha, take it away. Thank you, Blaine. So as you can see here, this number isn't small. I would say it was probably around $2.5 million yearly to fund the, not just the REIB team, but this roadmap, this strategic roadmap to make the changes that we need to make in our community to make us a more racially just community. And I'm sure we're gonna come back to this slide. So once we're done, we'll come back to it because I know you're gonna have questions about what each section means. The only thing that I'll say before we move on to the next slide is that these numbers were, the recommendations made by the consultant team, Grayscale and Allaces. So foundationally, they came from all the research that they did the qualitative and quantitative analysis of the Burlington specifically of the listening sessions that went into creating these recommendations. Yes. So I think just before we go into any more conversations, something that's important to know is that we have a few commitments we've made to ourselves and to our community in this process. And I think that they're important to stay here. So there will be sustained community engagement that centers BIPOC voices. The listening session was the first way to do that. But in this racial equity strategic plan, there's no other path forward without centering and powering and prioritizing the voices of the people of color in our community. The second one is sharing decision-making and resource allocation with the community and partners. There are partners who do the work in our community that have been doing the work since before we were here, even before the city decided to have a more acute focus on racial equity before our department existed. And there are even more experts in the community than we are. Our goal is to work with them, share that decision-making and those resources. The third is creating high impact systemic change. And this is even when that may require a more challenging or lengthy process. The REIB is focused on not only culture change, but systemic change. And the important part here is that this racial equity strategic plan was designed by our department, but will be implemented by the entire city of Burlington. And we welcome all the departments to come with us on this process. And we will create a system that will make it a cohesive way to all work on these domains as they apply to each department. And then the last one is that measuring and evaluating the process through disaggregated metrics. This part is a little hard because we know that disaggregated metrics by race are hard to come by in our community. But again, that is something that we're committing to is making disaggregated data more available in the city of Burlington, both Little C and Big C. So with that, we invite everyone who's listening, everyone in the city, the capital C and the lower KC city to join us in this process. Thank you. Thank you. So President Tracy, do you want us to stop sharing our screen so we can see the council? Whatever your preference is, Director Green. Okay. And we can always come back to it. All right. Great, awesome. So would you like to take questions now or do you have more to share? No, I would like to take questions now with you if there are any questions to be had. Okay, great. So we'll open it up to the council. Are there any questions or comments from counselors? Councilor Hanson. Yeah, thanks so much to both of you and to the whole team that worked on this. This is really incredible. And it's also great for, you know, we appreciate getting an update and getting the chance to hear about it. I guess my two questions would be, one is obviously this is a longer conversation but maybe some initial high level thoughts on how the council can better support this effort specifically and my other question is around the community engagement and input and just how that's gone so far. Like, have you seen a lot of turnout and engagement from a lot of folks and just thoughts on, you know, how turnout's been and why that may be the case? I'm gonna take the second one first if you don't mind, Councilor Hanson. So the community engagement piece, we had a really big turnout for both listening sessions and it was amazing. People didn't even wanna leave. So we just turned some music on and just had people just sitting around talking on Zoom and just communicating with each other because they had never been in a space that had that many black and brown folks. So it was amazing. It was an amazing space. We're trying to figure out a way to continue on with that in some way to bring the community together. And Blaine, do you wanna talk about the, what we need from council specifically as far as helping us through this work? Yeah, before I do, I will say one more thing about turnout to these listening sessions was huge, but I will say that the turnout from those listening sessions then kind of spewed even more. There were so many different ways that engagement continued after that through all the other work we've done or other community events that happened after that. So it was kind of just a jumping off point and it was really successful. How council can help? I would say that obviously you, the most glaring thing is you saw that this plan means a financial commitment. There's no way that we will ameliorate or amend any of the harm that's been done thus far without committing actual funds to it. So I think that that's something that we need to take seriously when we see the strategic plan. The other thing that I will say is, obviously you all represent different sectors of the city and our leaders in your sectors of the city. So each one of you doing your part in your individual awards is obviously what your roles are but specifically here with making racial justice change it all starts with leadership. So I would say those two things. Yeah, and I just to add onto what Blaine was saying, this is a yearly commitment from council. This is a five year plan that we have created that we paid for to have created for us. And so these numbers that we showed you earlier are a yearly number, not a in totalitarian number. Thank you so much, really appreciate it. Okay, do we have any other Councillors in the queue? Any further questions or comments? Councilor Shannon. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for the presentation. It really was a lot to digest and I have to be honest, I had trouble reading some of the slides, particularly the eight steps to changing culture and disrupting oppression. But it's also just kind of me and my learning and processing style, I find it easier to actually read reports. And I wondered if I thought it might be helpful to me if there's actually, there is a report. This is your summarizing and presentation to give us a synopsis of a report, which I appreciate, but I wondered if we could have the report that this is based on. Yes, Councillor Shannon, I sent that report out when it was finished. So back in at the end of June or beginning of July, City Councilor should have received the report. Thank you. I will go back and now connect those dots, which is gonna be helpful to me. Thank you. Awesome, thank you. Okay, any other, any further comments or questions from Councillors? Councillor Jain, go ahead. Thank you, President Tracey. And this is more for you and maybe then this item was placed in the deliverable and what does it mean for the Council? I'm sorry, can you repeat? This was under deliverable as an item. What motion is needed? Just accept the communication, place it on file or? I believe, Director Green, were you looking for us to take action to formally adopt the strategic roadmap this evening or were you just looking to make the presentation? I was looking to make the presentation because we have had it for a few months and we were supposed to make the presentation back in July, but it got pushed back a couple of times. So however, Council typically accepts this type of document, puts it in motion as fact and what we intend to do as a city is what I intend for tonight. Okay, so Councillor Jain, I believe that it would be to accept the communication. Councillor Shannon? I move to accept the communication and place it on file. Thank you, Councillor Shannon. Is there a second? Seconded by Councillor Hightower. Any further discussion? Okay, seeing none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? That carries unanimously. Thank you so much, Director Green and Belen for all your work on this plan, absolutely incredible. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is, our next speaker, our next item is item 7.04, which is a communication from CAO Shad and Manager of Strategy and Innovation, Emily Stebbins-Wheelach regarding use of ARPA funds to clear BED customer arrearages. Councillor Paul may please have a motion on this. Do you want the motion before the presentation? Yes, please. Okay. So I would make a motion to approve and authorize the utilization of ARPA funds to Burlington Electric Department for $1.3 million to eliminate customer arrearages and fund the temporary energy assistance program as stated above. Thank you, we have a motion. Is there a second? Second. And Councillor Stromberg, Councillor Paul, did you want the floor back? No, but I know that we did have a presentation by the CAO at the Board of Finance and I think it would be helpful to hear that one more time. Sure, CAO Shad, go right ahead. Sure, and I know I have my colleagues from BED here in case there's any more questions, but I think it's pretty straightforward. So the reason this is before you on the agenda, again, is essentially a request from our auditors. You should recognize this request for $1.3 million for the use of ARPA funds, for arrearages, for our BED customers, because you already approved it in the FY22 budget. Like I mentioned, our auditors would like to see a separate approval and that's what this request is for. As the memo mentions, there are up to $1.5 million in arrearages for BED. They are dutifully working with their customers to take advantage of the existing state of Vermont arrearage assistance programs, but because of limits on funding, that's only been able to support about $600,000 worth of funding. So this additional money from ARPA will be used to supplement those funds. Anything else from my BED colleagues or any questions? Okay, any questions from counselors? Counselor Hanson. Thanks. So if we're able to get more uptake on the state funding that's available and get more of the arrearages cleared through that and we don't need the full $1.3 million in order to clear out what happens with any excess. Would you like to handle that? Yeah. If you could just please join us here. I'm gonna invite GM Springer up because we have discussed this, but I think it's best if he speak to it. Thanks. Good evening, counselors. Counselor Hanson to your question. The major state program called VCAP, which is supporting customer arrearages is scheduled to end in a week. So we've been able to draw down about 500,000 with another 100,000 pending as the CAO mentioned from the state programs, but we currently have over 1.5 million. So we don't anticipate being able to utilize or we anticipate being able to utilize a full amount of city funding to help clear the arrearages that exist in combination with the state funding. The challenge is through the pandemic, even as the PUC has had a moratorium and then lifted the moratorium on disconnecting customers for non-payment, Burlington Electric has voluntarily continued that policy. We have not disconnected customers for non-payment because of that, we do have a significant number for arrearages. Other utilities have begun that policy again and our hope is using these funds, we can help every customer who fell behind on their bills during the pandemic catch up before we have to reinstate that policy. Okay, yeah, that's definitely helpful. So it sounds like you're saying that it probably won't happen, the scenario I'm describing. I guess I'm just wondering if it does what would then happen? My understanding is with the ARPA funds, we have to be able to demonstrate that we have customers with that arrearage level in order to utilize them. A portion of this will also go to help with our temporary energy assistance program, which is helping our low income and moderate income customers with assistance because we had a rate increase and it's offsetting that rate increase during the fiscal year. So there's a small portion that's going to support that program as well. But if we were unable to fully draw down the city funds for the purpose stated, then I imagine at the end of the fiscal year we would have to revert them to the city. All right, thanks so much. Thank you. Are there any further questions for counselors or comments? Counselor McGee. I just had a quick question regarding the state assistance and whether or not that is something that the governor is in charge with extending. It's my understanding that those pots of money are still pretty full, excuse me. So I'm just curious if this is something that we anticipate perhaps the state will extend so we can further draw down from that. And I should clarify, there are currently two funding programs that are supporting a rearage assistance. One is called VRAP and it's a assistance program specifically for low income renters and doesn't just cover utilities, covers a range of support. We anticipate that program will continue for a period of time. With the VCAP program, the latest communication that we have from the state is that we expect it to end within the next week. So although if there were more funds, perhaps they could extend it, we've been told that they expect it to end within the next week. Thank you. Okay, anything further, Counselor McGee? Okay, any other counselors? Okay, seeing none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? That carries unanimously. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. That brings us to item 7.05, which is a reclassification for the Church Street Marketplace Director. Counselor Stromberg, can I have a motion on that, please? Yes, I'd like to waive the reading and adopt the resolution. There was a second seconded by Counselor Paul. Any discussion, did you want the floor back? No, I'm all set. Thank you. Okay, CEO Shad, did you want to just describe what was happening here? Sure, this is a reclassification of the Church Street Marketplace Executive Director who has taken on significant responsibilities throughout COVID, and it was unanimously supported by the Board of Finance. Thank you very much. Any further discussion from the Council? Okay, seeing none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? That carries unanimously. Okay, brings us to item 7.06, and I was gonna have Counselor Hanson move that. Is someone able to just please make the motion? Counselor Hightower. Authorize the Director, I moved to authorize the Director of Public Works to execute a contract subject to city attorney approval with NS, Hengen, Brussels, and BHB in the amount of $1.2, $1,213,923 thousand dollars and further authorize the Director of Public Works to execute any necessary future amendments using up to 15% and available contingency funds for a total authorized amount of $1,396,023 for the development of the design of the Great Streets main project. And I moved to authorize the total project of $1,775,000, which includes design, contract, and contingency funds for lighting design costs to be used by BED and funds for public art procurement and design costs to be used by BCA. Thank you for that motion, Counselor Hightower. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by Counselor Stromberg. If I could just invite the engineers, Wheelock and Darice up to the table. So if you could just please provide an overview of what it is that we're voting on this evening. Yeah. My name's Laura Wheelock. I'm a Senior Public Works Engineer with the city. My colleague. Go ahead. I'm Olivia Darice. I'm a Public Works Engineer with the city. If it's okay, can I share a brief presentation to kind of give everybody a little bit of a background where we are tonight and what we've done and then we can go into what we're working on. Nope. So going through Great Streets was a concept that the city brought through back in 2016. We hired a consultant to develop standards for the downtown. We advanced preliminary concepts for Main Street, St. Paul Street and City Hall Park. What Great Streets standards did is it took the piles of studies that we had for our downtown area at the time and brought them into a single document to make a cohesive plan for how we should lay out our streets and the opportunities that they can provide. The four pillars that we came out of the downtown standards with were walkable, bikeable streets made of high quality materials, pedestrian bike networks that were safe, convenient, shaded and protected. Sustainable infrastructure that benefits air, water, quality, stormwater, smart, energy efficient and transit friendly. And to make a street successful, we needed it to be vibrant, lively, attractive, diverse, accessible, inclusive and supports the adjacent economic activity. And lastly, at the heart of DPW Functional, that it really works for all users, vehicle types, emergencies, events, is affordable and maintainable. So here's the layout of Main Street. We're looking at six blocks between Battery Street and Union. We looked at all the various activities that occur along the corridor and really recognized the intersection where Main Street meets Church Street and City Hall Park. In this area, our consultant identified that there's a struggle point as people either end at the bottom of Church Street on Main Street and don't quite maybe know where to go next. But there's also a point that occurs on the block at College Street. This is why it was important at the time to advance both Main Street's concept, City Hall Park's concept and St. Paul Street is to really provide a cohesive network and the connectivity between the vibrant Church Street, Main Street and ultimately down to the waterfront. Main Street's not in good shape. We've hoped to do something with it for a few years now. There are green belts that show that we don't have a wide enough sidewalk. There's infrastructure that is in poor condition and we have very wide crosswalks. The predominant cross-section is a roadway designed to serve vehicles and parking. In many blocks, there's low street ecology or less functional street ecology. Stormwater is not managed or mitigated. What the Great Street's design standards did was take a look at rebalancing the right-of-way, making it functional for all users, starting at the boundary with the private interface and moving into the public roadway, creating space for retail frontage, clear walking zones, tree belts that will be successful at growing trees, buffered bike paths, stormwater areas, and also the parking and the roadway. This graphic is designed to show on the bottom two existing blocks of what's out on Main Street today versus a rebalanced cross-section of what Main Street's concept concluded with when the concept was paused back in 2018. Really, the goal is to rebalance this area and provide spaces for all of our users. A standard block, this image is from the concept plan that we had stopped, looks at Main Street, this being the downhill side, as a way to collect our stormwater and add in rain gardens, convert parking to be able to make space, provide bicycle facilities, large tree belts, and clear sidewalks, as well as at each intersection, look at narrowing the crossing distance to improve pedestrian safety and visibility. This is one of the renderings that was generated from the last effort, and this is where we need to pick up. The last effort really focused on the mid block and didn't get very specific with our intersections. And so there's work that needs to be done moving forward to get to an approved concept plan that considers where we were back in 2018 when this concluded, and where we are today with our newer standards, even our new department that is part of our city that needs to be included in the advancement of Main Street's concept. And why are we doing it? So in and amongst this timeframe, we were managed to advance St. Paul Street's construction, taking a look at what St. Paul Street used to be versus what it is today to provide the potential of the rebalance of the use of the space in our timeline. So we're here in front of you today looking to talk about approval of a concept designer. We also will be back next week to talk about some of our funding sources as we seek approval for expanding the TIF district to pay for all six blocks of Main Street and not just the two that we currently have voter authorization for. The project will collect information over this fall. Survey, utilities, water, sewer, you name it, if they can find it, they're gonna look for it. So that when we create a concept that we present back to the council, the public in January and February, it has good information in a concept that can be constructed. We will seek to go to the voters in March to approve the TIF district on all six blocks. Final concept back to the city council late April, early May. And after that, we would move into design and construction. That is kind of the spiel where we are at right now. As the communication provides, the funding for this is coming from downtown TIF. This is a resource that the city is already collecting. It is a separate funding source from some of the other bonding and funding sources that have been talked about recently. There is a time limit on the amount of time remaining that the city can incur the debt and spend this money. We have until March of 2023 to develop a project and know how much it's gonna cost and go for bonding. So that's why we are here today with one of the TIF projects, seeking authorization to move to a concept and get into design. Thank you. Appreciate that presentation. So let's open it up to our counselors. Councilor Shannon. Thank you so much for all of your work on this over a very, very long course of time. I am wondering if the, I understand the tight timeline and that your hope is to get TIF funding for this, that you will come back to the council if you don't get TIF funding. But I am wondering if any part of this was included in the plans for the capital bond that will be going before the voters if there's a contingency that was included in that bond or not? No, there's no contingency. Four of the six blocks have VEPC approval. So they're already authorized to spend TIF dollars on. It's the lower two blocks from pine to battery that we are seeking VEPC approval for. The voter authorization comes from the ability to incur the larger debt to go into construction. They need, we need their permission to go out to bond for it. The designer fees were able to handle internally with repayment from existing TIF funding that's been collected already. Thank you, Councilor Shannon. Councilor Mason. Thank you, President Tracy. So I was following you until you just said what you said and now I'm confused. I had heard you say earlier that we had voter approval for two of the six blocks and then I heard you just say we had VEPC approval for four of the six blocks. Yep, it is. Are they the same? What do we, what I think I just heard you say is we have VEPC approval for the four upper blocks, not the two lower blocks. What are the two blocks that we have voter approval for? The center two. Okay. It is certainly an interesting layer cake which also speaks to the fact that we only have council approval for the two center blocks as well. So when we went for the original filing of the TIF district, there was a much bigger project and there's still a much bigger project but we will be in front of you next week to explain how we want to revise that. And at a grander use, it looked at doing some projects on Winooski Avenue. We've done those projects but we didn't use TIF money. So we're looking to make use of the funding that we have available and apply it in the most logical way. Main Street, what we struggled with is while we had voter authorization for two blocks, council authorization for two blocks and VEPC authorization for four blocks, those last two blocks are really significant when it comes to the connectivity for bicycles, pedestrian and the street ecology. And we were struggling with a way to be able to fund that. We've had early conversations with VEPC. They seem very open and interested in the idea of this connecting project. And you'll hear more about that next week unless Catherine wants to divulge anything. No, we have other stuff to get to. So I'm certainly happy to wait until next week. Thank you. Okay, any other comments or questions from counselors? Counselor McGee. Thank you all for the presentation. I'm looking forward to hearing more about the project and hopefully moving it forward. My only concern is that it seems like this doesn't have a completion date until 2025 and the sidewalks on Main Street are pretty brutal right now. So I'm just curious if there are going to be efforts to address some of those serious concerns in some of the areas where they're really not accessible right now or if this is going to have to wait until this project is completed. Thank you. It's a great question. It's something that public work struggles with a lot of knowing that we have large capital work coming up but failing infrastructure. In recent years and having the outcome of tonight we'll know which direction that we're gonna go with the sidewalks for this area. There are interim measures that we can take. We can pull slabs and place asphalt. It's usually a five to eight year fix, but certainly would meet within the construction window and create a more accessible surface. We wouldn't be able to expand the width of the sidewalks but we can certainly bandage some areas to make them more walkable. If this is not successful tonight, bandaging them wouldn't be our approach. We would look more for a replacement and creating a more sustainable surface within investment there. Great, thank you. Any further, anything else, counselors? Okay, seeing none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. That carries unanimously. Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay, it brings us to item 7.07, an ordinance regarding use of buildings by disorderly persons, 21 to 23 prostitution and 21 through 34, keeping a house of prostitution. Councillor Mason. Thank you, President Tracey. I'd like to make a motion to, whoop, and I just lost one more. We have the second reading. Adopt the ordinance as amended and ask for the floor back briefly after a second. Okay, we have a motion from Councillor Mason. Seconded by Councillor Hanson. You have the floor, Councillor Mason. Thank you, President Tracey. The proposed amendments, I believe, are self-explanatory. This came out of Councillor Freeman's earlier work on sex workers. In essence, what it does is strikes the proposed offenses and miscellaneous provisions relating to prostitution, keeping house of prostitution. The Ordinance Committee also felt that removing penalty for vagrants, gamblers and common prostitutes was not being utilized and made no sense. So after two contentious hearings, this was, I'm kidding, was unanimously put forth by the Ordinance Committee. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Mason. Were there further comments from councillors? Councillor Barlow. Yes, thank you, President Tracey. I just had a question that maybe the city attorney could ask. If we make these ordinance changes, prostitution would still be subject to state law? Is that true? Would you just be? That is correct. The state statutes would still in regards to prostitution apply. Okay, thank you. Any further comments or questions from councillors? Okay, seeing none, let's go to a vote. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? That carries unanimously as well. Brings us to what was item 7.1, 7.10 that was moved up, which is a resolution raising the authorized sworn head count of the Burlington Police Department. Councillor Shannon. Thank you, President Tracey. I'd like to move that we waive the reading, adopt the resolution and ask for the floor back after a second. Okay, we have a motion from Councillor Shannon. Is there a second? Seconded by Councillor Jang. Councillor Shannon, you have the floor. Thank you. I wanna start by especially thanking the members of the Joint Committee, Director Green, Mayor Weinberger and Acting Chief Murad for all of your efforts to bring this ENA report to us that is the basis for this resolution tonight. This council has been anxiously awaiting the functional and operational assessment. This council has been in agreement that reforms are needed and we need to address racism both in policing and in society. We have not been in full agreement as to what reforms are needed, how to implement them, and we hope to find guidance that would bring us together in the CNA report. The CNA report has provided us a range of recommended sworn officers outside those required at the airport. That recommended range acknowledges that the City of Burlington would like to reduce our police force to reduce our police force and provide non-police services in a variety of forms to address our community needs. Our police department has not increased in size as demands have continued to increase on them. They have been asked to meet the needs of people struggling with mental illness and addiction. They have learned to administer Narcan and saved many lives. When I say that the police department has not increased in size, I'm really not referencing anything in the last year but it's really what's happened in the last 15 years. We are in agreement that there is a better way to provide social services and that the police are not the best equipped to address these problems and we can do better for our community. We have shared hope that reducing the size of the police will help us fund needed social services that our community needs and deserves. Tonight, I am recommending to the council that we adopt a police headcount at the upper end of the recommendation given by CNA at 80 officers. The lower end of the range, which is 77 officers, assumes the elimination of the domestic violence officer and reducing our QZ detectives from three to one. These are services that are provided to victims. I am not hearing demands in our community that services for victims should be reduced. CNA's solution for eliminating these positions is an inferior solution for victims and may cause actual harm to these victims. While I appreciate the desire for the numbers to be as low as possible, I believe that the number of 80 officers is the lowest possible while still offering the services that victims need. I don't think, in the CNA report, it was referenced that they were not able to verify the fact that the city of Burlington needs to contribute officers to CUSI. And I was able today to speak with people at CUSI to find out that CNA had not actually contacted them. They had not actually had the discussions to really understand what's happening there and Burlington's relationship with them. And we heard some of that tonight in public forum and I think that that's really important to remember. I genuinely hope that we can reach agreement tonight for the best interests of all Burlingtonians. I think that my progressive colleagues care about all people in Burlington as do I and my other colleagues at the table. I believe that we share desire to protect victims of sexual domestic violence and child abuse. At the end of our discussion tonight, I hope we will be united in how best to provide police services that protect everyone. If I have misunderstood the CNA report and if there is a path forward that doesn't require sacrifices from our most vulnerable victims, I hope to learn what it is and we'll support it. I hope on the other hand, my colleagues will also consider how best to serve our community and be open to the possibility that there might be some information tonight that is different than what they thought. I look forward to this discussion. I also wanna recognize that there were 150 recommendations in this report that go far beyond anything related to what our policing head counter cap is and that we need to sort through these recommendations and start moving forward with many changes to our police department and how we provide public safety in our community. As I hope we can engage in a really meaningful discussion tonight, I'd ask my colleagues at the table to allow broad discussion of this resolution and share your thoughts and ideas generally before we go to amendments. And I understand that there is an interest in bringing forward amendments, but I think it'll be helpful to our discussion to just weigh a little bit on that part so that we can have a really engaging discussion here tonight. And I really hope for the sake of this city that we can move forward together. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Shannon. Before I move into that discussion, it is 1032, which means that we need a motion to suspend the rules for the city council. Councilor Hanson. Sure, I'll move that we suspend the rules to complete the deliberative agenda. Thank you. So under this motion, we would not be doing committee reports, council general affairs, city council president, mayor or mayor general affairs. Is everyone clear on the motion to suspend the rules? Is there a second? Seconded by councilor McGee. Any further discussion? Okay, hearing none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That carries.  Okay, the floor is now open for discussion. Councilor Hightower. Great, thank you. Oh my God. So a few thoughts. I think the first of which is, I'm sad that we moved through an agenda generally that didn't have this year's lightning campment in it. Not least because, and this is germane to some extent, that both as someone on the council who has been houseless and who has been houseless because of domestic violence that I regret that I voted yes on an agenda that didn't think that that was a priority issue that we should address today and all these other items were. And beyond that, I think I want to speak a little bit to the report and what I read the report as saying, and I want to say first of all, that it did not suggest a cap at any point of 88 officers contrary to what at least the mayor statement had said. So I want to be clear for the public because I think some of the media things also then said a cap of 88 that the report spoke to a number of deployable officers. It accepted the mayor's suggestion of having five to count for attrition, which was based on historical data of attrition rates at I think around the 105 level. And then it also spoke about having a difference between the airport and the officer count. I also want to highlight that in that, it wasn't quite as clear, but it was clear in the final report and even more so clear in the preliminary report that they recommended for officers at the airport instead of eight. And with the understanding that that would be something we would have to negotiate in the BPOA contract, which seems inappropriate, but that is the way that the contract is currently written. So an independent body of which I think we all agree did a great job and we're fortunate that we had the funding to ask for this report through the Joint Commission. I think did a solid job of trying to give us a great number of 150 recommendations. I think some of the things that are missing in this resolution is that full understanding of some of the officer numbers that I just said, including and then an understanding of timeline. I don't think we will be able to recruit 88 officers before the next time that we will be negotiating a contract. I don't see why we would be going for a number that assumes we will have eight officers at the airport when that is not the goal, even according to this independent body. So I do not support an understanding of having a cap of 80 with four or with some undefined amount at the airport. I think the second thing is we know we're going into negotiations, so going for the highest number doesn't make a lot of sense to me right now, especially given that we won't be able to recruit all those officers before the contract comes forward. So I definitely think that going for the lower range using it as part of letting the administration use that in negotiation is the better way forward. I will say that I also agree that the Domestic Violence Prevention Officer, and I've never called 911 through Domestic Violence, but I understand that that is an avenue that other people do need and desire. So I do think that preserving, I agree with the mayor's assessment and the assessment of this resolution that maintaining the Domestic Violence Prevention Officer is something that the city certainly could use and plenty of residents have asked for. And so by my understanding, I think there's a few changes that this resolution needs. Those are posted on board ducts as provided by Councillor Hansen. I do think we should be making those amendments. And second to that, I think another thing that I'd really like to see from the administration going forward and therefore another resolve clause that I think would be good to add as an understanding of the financial implications of having an officer cap of in the amended proposals, it's 81 in line with the CNA report, as well as the projected costs of the 10 additional CSOs that we have authorized in addition to the two that we already had, the three additional CSLs, in addition to the one rule that was similar to a CSL, and then of course the Kahootz model. And then I will just say that this has been that the last thing that I wanted, I guess the Joint Committee I think was a very, was an important process for us to go through, especially the Police Commission and the Public Safety Committee working together a little bit more closely. I think there was a lot of misunderstandings about what the Police Commission's role was. And I think it's been good that there's been a closer connection between those two bodies. I think that moving forward, it would probably best if the Public Safety Committee took on some of the responsibility of following up in line with the Police Commission, just because decision making with a body of 10 or more, as we all know, can be a difficult thing to do. So I would also ask as still the chair of the not yet disbanded joint committee that we seek to have just the Public Safety Committee being the one to report back to the Full City Council. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Hightower. I don't have others in the queue, Mayor Weinberger. Thank you, President Tracey. And I appreciate the engagement in the details of the report, grounding this conversation so far. We, this report that we've waited for for a long time. It is a report that we've invested a great deal in. And it's a report that the administration is prepared to embrace the decisions made grounded in the report. I do not, however, agree with some of the characterizations about the report that were just made, at least with respect to the airport. And I would like to clarify, and I did put together a PowerPoint that Amy, is it possible to bring that up so that we can look together at what my, what the points that was objected to before and that I get the opportunity to clarify and hopefully we can come to some kind of agreement. So if we could go to the next slide, the what I tried to say is precisely as I could and this is quoting from the prior press release with respect to the airport as the second bullet. There are presently seven officers and one sergeant deployed at the Burlington International Airport. These, this is CNA's language. These officers would need to be added to the sworn headcount to continue to provide this contracted service. The point I did say 85 to 88 is what the report suggests, but this is how we frame that. Until and unless a change in airport police staffing is made, the CNA report's findings in combination mean that an authorized headcount of 85 to 88 sworn officers is needed. I understand Councilor Hightower's point that there is a desire to change the eight that are currently there. I think there is an inaccuracy, however, in the statement. It is not the collective bargaining agreement that is driving the eight. The collective bargaining says only four need to be at the airport. What is driving the need for eight is our need to meet federal regulations and the CNA report did not directly opine on this. I've scoured the report and they quote airport staff, they do not make an opinion about the eight. They make an opinion as to whether the way in which federal regulations and what we've negotiated with the FAA is the minimum. They quote the airport director saying that perhaps the number could be reduced to seven or six. So again, this is not a collective bargaining issue. This is us meeting the rules of the federal government. We could go deeper into this debate and I guess we'll have to if the head count, authorized head count remains tied to the airport the way it is in current policy. The way it is in current policy since we feel we have no choice, but because of our commitments to the federal government to have eight officers there, the effect of the 74 cap currently, which is inclusive of the airport is that the number, the authorized head count for the rest of the city is only 66. One way and so if this is a very important point, if the airport remains part of the authorized head count, if we were to make a decision as was suggested a year ago and which I think is still available to us to separate out the airport and treat that as really a separate question that I think everyone, certainly the administration and the airport management and passengers are aligned and wanting to save money and have as few officers there as are needed to keep the airport safe. If that's separated out, that removes further going deeper into this debate, which I think is, so that is one thought I have about that evening. I'm happy to come back to this and others would like the administration to speak to this further, but I would like to, I welcome and I'm really encouraged to hear Councilor Hightower supporting the need for a domestic violent police officer. This is a relatively new position. It was created while many of us were together and I think the feedback we've always gotten from steps against domestic violence and other advocates is that it is a positive addition to this police department. If we could go to the next table, Amy, we, I want to be clear that the difference between the 72 and 75, this is a table on page 90 of the report, which shows what the precise makeup of the 72 person department and then the next table shows the 75. They are virtually identical and let's toggle back to the first one. There are only two differences. The first, they are on the bottom rows. Here you can see in this, in this table, CUSY has only one officer assigned to it and there is no domestic violence police officer. That's how we get to, that's how CNA gets to 72. If you toggle to the next, you see the only changes are on the bottom two rows. CUSY now is shown at the current three officers and the domestic violence police officer is added and that is, those are the only two differences between 72 and 75. I would welcome understanding where my, as we heard tonight from direct testimony, there will be a substantial impact on CUSY, which is the way in which we attempt to protect individuals from sexual assault, the way we attempt to hold the offenders of sexual assault and other serious offenses accountable. This is long, the city of Burlington's commitment to this has long been three. I support that as well and I'm hoping that the council will support that as well. I welcome, again, Councilor Hightower engaging directly in the details because I do think where we land between 72 and 75 plus the five as Councilor Hightower went through, there are policy choices involved in that and I appreciate the grounding of this decision in those policy choices. Thank you, President Tracey. Thank you, Mayor. Are there other councillors? Councilor Hightower. Thanks, not to make this too much of a back and forth but so first question is the federal policy as if we've had confirmation that it will cry our eight officers and if not, why we're going with that number? So happy to speak to this as best I can and again, here's my understanding of what we have negotiated with the FAA. The FAA essentially requires one AF officer per gate which would be three officers that would be on duty when the airport is in full operation. We have had secured special dispensation with the FAA to limit that to two and that is what we've been at for many years. I don't know how long ago that was secured but it was many years ago. Two officers on duty at any one time since it is an operation that operates virtually 24, it does operate 24 hours a day. The gates are not all open 24 hours a day and so when the gates are shut down, we do at some time per day drop down to just one officer but we have gates open generally speaking from five in the morning or earlier for people to get to the planes to midnight or beyond. So the airport is basically a 24 hour operation. You need to have those two individuals on at all times to meet the response times that the federal government expects police officers, the hired police officers to be able to provide. So where that has landed has been at those two people, two officers on duty at all times unless the gates are closed and when you multiply that out for the three shifts that are necessary to staff, that essentially means that you need six people and those shifts you need a person available for leave and replacement and then you need a supervisor. That's how we get to the eight. I'll tell you from almost 20 years of involvement in the airport, there's always been frustration at the airport from management, from the commission, from the leaders out there, from the past directors about how expensive the service was the airport pays for all of those costs and there's always been a desire to push that lower. This is as low as we've been able to get it. Perhaps in the wake of this report that has at least raised the possibility that efficiencies can be found there through changes in shift negotiations and that would need to be negotiated and that is an area where there is a nexus with the negotiation. If we can negotiate more efficient shifts, perhaps we could drop it down to the seven or the six. Again, I would see a lot of value in separating this debate. And then a follow up question if I may to Director Green, just because I think for better, we, most of the political folks in the room weren't involved in the actual management, including the mayor and I of the contract and so is Director Green still on? Director Green, are you, I'm fully, I see, yep. Am I on? Yeah, you're on. Okay, great, thanks. Yeah, just any follow up on terms of the airport and the specialized advocacy roles that you had with CNA, if any. I'm sorry, Councilor Hart, could you say that one more time? Yep, any discussion in your understanding of the airport roles and the specialized roles such as the Domestic Violence Prevention Officer that you had with CNA in terms of the total headcount? Yes, as far as I understood that the total headcount was different. Was that four for the airport? That was my understanding directly from CNA. Great, and then the specialized roles, did you have any discussion with them on the? The specialized roles, and as far as I understand, they can remain depending on which grouping you choose, but you don't have to stick to the 72 or the 75. You could still have CUSY and DVPO and still land at 72, 73, or even 74. Great, and then just thank you for that, Director Green. And then just my last follow up comment, especially as it comes to the amendments that I am about to propose, is I think that part of it is not just this one recommendation that we're spending a lot of time on discussing, but I think for the other 148 that we're hoping to implement, some of it is directly tied to the BPOA contract, and therefore I think coming in with an understanding of flexibility for what the cap will be in the future is better than going as high as possible now. Again, especially given that, I think we will hopefully have every negotiated contract before we move this forward. And the last thing, I think that I wanna, yeah, and then some of the amendments as, again, they're now on board docs that were sent by Councillor Hanson, I think around 8 p.m. Is, well, one, I think that this has been, a journey for all of us, a learning journey. I'm glad that there's so much movement happening with the administration on Cahoots, and then, you know, Burlington Police Department and how they've moved forward on hiring the CSLs and the CSOs. And even though maybe a lot of us are frustrated in this moment for various reasons, I think to some extent we've made a first step in re-imagining how we want to operate as a city, and that is very difficult to do in a political process, and we haven't done it very well, but we're doing it, and certainly encouraged by that. And with that, I would like to move the amendments posted by Councillor Hanson on board docs. And I'm happy to go through those, if that's helpful. Yes, please do. So the first amendment, and I'm gonna move these as a slate, is lines 12 through 15. It's just a simplification to make sure that it's accurate, kind of with the findings of the report. Tins did use the language that says, whereas the report made approximately 150 specific recommendations, offering suggestions to improve practices and standards they feel are incomplete or lacking. Deleting lines 27 through 29, particularly as, I'll just leave it there. Deleting lines 34 through 38, then in lines 48 through 49, removing the assumption, are changing it to say, Tins did read, policing me to begin the long process of hiring sworn officers up to an authorized head count of 81 officers, inclusive of the officers assigned to Burlington International, in line with the discussion that we just had. In lines 54 through 58, amending it to say, be it further resolved that the council's public safety committee in collaboration with the police commission and the administration engage in a collaborative and full review of the report over the course of the next several months that will include a stakeholder and by community input with an initial report back to the full council in January, 2022. Unbarc is made towards evaluating and offering recommendations to CNA's process and professional report. So changing that from the joint committee to the public safety committee, on line 60, again, eliminating the exclusive of officers at BAA to read safety transformation of sworn head count of 81 officers must. And then adding a new resolved clause stating be it further resolved that the city council requests that the administration provide a financial analysis comparing the costs of a fully staffed department with a sworn officer cap of 105 to fully staffed department with a sworn officer cap of 81, as well as the projected costs of CSO's that should read CSL's and the CAHOOTS model. Thank you, councilor Hightower. We have a motion. Is there a second? Seconded by councilor Hanson. Did you have anything further? Complete. Okay. Thank you, councilor Hightower. The floor is open. Point of information, President Tracey. Sure. I appreciate the attempt to do this, but it's pretty hard if going forward as we're doing amendments, if you can actually see a marked version of what's being changed, because now we're all on one screen, trying to throttle back and forth to actually understand what is being amended is a bit of a challenge. So to all of us, if there's a way to actually do it, which we all have skills to do a word mark version, that's much easier to read and for us to digest at 11 than throttling on a single screen back and forth. So, sorry. I was trying to track and I honestly, I'm not, I'm gonna need a little bit of time to try and understand exactly what's being proposed, particularly on the, not strike all, that's easy, I know that, but amendments are not shown here, so I can't really follow. Okay. Thank you, councilor Mason. Are there other councilors? Councilor Hanson. Yeah, just a quick response to that. Board docs wasn't updated until, you have to refresh it because it wasn't updated until like, I don't know, 10, 15, 10, 30, so. But the document that I sent around and that it is in board docs now, if you download it, it is, other than the straight deletions of lines, it is in the track changes format, so it should be easy enough to just look at that document and understand the changes. Not, no, I don't look at it, but whatever. Okay, what? Can I get in? You have to download it first. Sorry, sorry. Yeah, looks, it only works if I'm sorry. I don't work on my tech, please. Can we please just. Yep, may I get in the queue after? Are you all set, councilor Hanson? Well, I have a lot of thoughts overall on the resolution, but I can, I'll go after councilor Mason, because I think he was right at me. Okay, go ahead, councilor Mason. Thank you, president Tracey. Some of these I will be supporting, and some I will not, but I'd like to speak to the authorized head count. For those of us who have not been as intimately involved in the process, it's a little bit hard to actually track all of what's going on, but what I understand these changes, I'm reading these changes, it implies a little bit of magical thinking from my perspective. It's, there seems to be a recognition that we have eight at the airport. We have to have eight, but we think we might be able to get four. So it implies that magical thinking, but my concern is the practical reality is if that magical thinking doesn't happen, if we are not able to convince the FAA that four's the right number or bargain, if it is part of the bargaining process to get down to four, what then? We still have to have eight. We've now taken four detectives or four officers that were going to be available to render general public service, and now they're shifted to the airport. So I'm not fully understanding the logic behind the makers of the amendment on this. Generally speaking, I would also say, and I appreciate, we are just a sort of level set here, we're negotiating over two bands of the CNA report right now on authorized headcount, whether it's 77 or 80, those are recommendations that came from a consultant, we're not bound by them, but there seems to be at least a movement or a consolidation of support around 77 or 80. Where I'm coming from, based on what I'm hearing from my own constituents, what I'm personally experiencing in terms of the level of vandalism that's going on in my neighborhood, what I'm personally seeing at my workplace, I work, I have 45 employees that I work with in downtown Burlington. What we're experiencing in terms of drug use, vandalism, et cetera. In our parking garage, I'm dealing with it every single day. So from my perspective, I go to the high end of the three additional officers. If things turn around, we can revisit this, but it's a no-brainer based on what I'm hearing right now from my constituents and people that I work with in terms of a public safety issue that we need to deal with. So I will not be supporting this amendment, thank you. Thank you, Councillor Mason. Councillor Shannon. Okay, Councillor Hanson was actually in queue. I just have a quick clarification that I think might be helpful, which is that I wasn't clear when I made my motion that I was moving the revised version of the resolution, and I wanted to clarify that. And I can add detail if somebody wants. Thank you, appreciate that. Councillor Hanson. Thanks. Yeah, so I guess I'll start by saying I continue to be frustrated with, and I think we all probably are at this point, the cap taking so much of the focus when we're talking about comprehensive change that's needed across the board. And that was part of why I didn't vote to slide this agenda item ahead of the oversight agenda item that seemed another example of, you know, putting the cap as the priority above other issues and taking that up first. But that being said, I think when it comes to the cap, we need to keep in mind like this is a long-term decision. It's not an immediate decision. We've all, I think, agreed that it's gonna take quite a while to get up to this level of staffing. And so this is really not about an immediate change. It's about what future are we envisioning and planning for. And I think we should be planning for the sort of public safety future that we want. And that I think we're starting to really build here is that we're building out the CSOs and the CSOs and we're making progress on building out the CAHOOTS model for mental health response. And really what we're trying to build a safer, more just, more restorative response to issues that arise in the community. I think we should be proud of that work and continue down that path and really plan for this future where we're moving away from traditional policing and moving towards building out alternatives. So my vision would be that by the time that we would even get back up to this level of staffing that we're talking about, that the alternatives at that point will be working well enough that we would want, at that point we would decide to allocate additional resources to those alternatives rather than back into traditional policing. I think that's the future that we should be planning towards and heading towards. And also another thing I think important to emphasize is that we can't just only focus on response and because whether it's sworn officers or even CSOs or CSOs or even CAHOOTS, that's primarily a response model for the most part where you're responding to issues that arise but I think we need to talk more about the proactive prevention and addressing the underlying issues that lead to crime or addiction or mental health issues. And then we won't need as expansive and expensive apparatus to respond, whether that is sworn officers or whether that's other positions responding. And I think the, we have examples in our community that have worked like the Isgood model, the Isham Street Gardening and other optimistic doings which State Representative China has been talking about at NPA meetings recently and is working towards trying to expand within the community and that's a proven model where it did reduce issues that on that street and it prevented them from even arising in the first place and also allowed neighbors to solve problems without having to call on an external response. So I think we should be exploring expansion of that model and similar models that are proven and cost-effective and really build a healthy community. In terms of the cap, the report recommends between 77 and 80 sworn non-airport officers. And I do think we probably should focus on that because I think the airport aspect is pretty convoluted and might be getting in the way of what I think the core of the debate is, is the number of sworn officers actually policing Burlington, which is that range of 77 to 80. And I think 77 is a substantial increase from, you know, it's an increase from where we're at now and I think it's for those of us that want to build these other models, it's a concession that we haven't, we're not where we need to be yet and we haven't built these alternatives enough. And so for the time being, we need to trust, you know, CNA's recommendations of a minimum number. But I think we should start with that minimum number, focus there, continue to build and continue on this trajectory of alternatives. And it's possible that, you know, those alternatives won't work as well as I and others hope. And if that happens, then a future council, you know, can pivot back towards traditional policing and move the cap above 77, but I don't think we should plan for that to be the outcome and do that preventatively. I think we should plan for a better future and work together to build that future. Thanks. Thank you, Councillor Hanson, Councillor Barlow. Thank you, President Tracy. The unfortunate reality is that we're gonna see continued attrition at Burlington Police Department, regardless of what we do here tonight. At our last meeting, we passed recruitment and retention bonuses. And I think what we really also need to focus on is the morale at the department right now. And we need to show that we'll support them. And so we all know that we won't be able to snap our fingers and get to whatever the number is, 77 or 80. But we'll send the right message to the department that we support them as a city department and we're behind them. By setting the number at 80. And I'll just take Councillor Hanson's argument and sort of turn it around and say, if we find that some of the alternatives that we're considering right now actually are effective and we don't need 80 officers, we have an opportunity later to reduce that number further. And I would welcome that. But right now, I agree. We have an overstretched department and a real bad attrition problem. And we need to improve the morale at Burlington Police Department as much as we need to do anything. So I won't be supporting a reduction from the 80 sworn head count for patrol. But I am open to taking the airfare out of the discussion. Thank you. I don't have anyone else in the queue. Councillor Paul. Thanks. I just wanted to add in mostly in agreement with Councillor Hanson and now with Councillor Barlow that back in last June, Councillor Carpenter and I worked pretty hard to try to get the officers at the airport out of the equation in that resolution. And the other sponsors didn't want to do that. But the reality is that the officers at the airport are not engaged in community policing. It's just plain and simple. And they should not be counted when we're talking about an authorized head count of the people that are actually doing active police work in the community. I would be in favor of eliminating a number in this resolution. I realize that this is something you want to move as a slate and that's fine. But I think that we should try to get away from that. We also passed a resolution a few months ago that talked about taking the officers that are at the airport and creating a separate division and a line item in the budget. And part of the reason for that was that they shouldn't be counted in the rest of the airport budget. Because first of all, the airport pays for them. And secondly, they're not actively policing in the community. So I hope that we can... I agree with you, Councillor Hanson. I think we should limit the discussion about the authorized head count to the numbers that are in the CNA report that do not involve any officers, whether there's four, eight, six, or 12 at the airport, that the number doesn't really matter at this point. What matters is that we need to pass a resolution, hopefully pass a resolution or not, that revolves around the number for the authorized head count. And I hope that that will happen. The other thing I just wanted to also mention is that I don't know that it happens very often, but Councillor Barlow sort of took the words out of my mouth. There was someone had said something about the fact that we know that it's gonna take time to hire officers. And that's true, we do. And so you could say that this is a longer term change, but I do think that this is an immediate change for the very reason that it does send a message not only to the department, but mostly to the community about where we as a council wanna be headed. And I think that's important. And also a sign that we support the findings of the CNA report that include continuing to have the three specialized positions that I think we all think are important. Thanks very much. Thank you. I don't have anyone else in the queue. Councillor Jain, go ahead. I think thank you, President Tracy, and thank you, Mayor, for that presentation. Thank you also, Chief Mirad, and all the officers actually of the city of Burlington, at least those who stayed. Thank you also for the city council, especially the progressive city councils. You have moved the needle, whether we want it or we don't want it, you have moved the needle. The question where we are right now is no longer about the cap itself. It is about time for the city to move away from a dark chapter of our city's history with the police department. It is this resolution in front of us is celebration, is the acceptance of our mistake and also put a plan that will address it and focus most importantly on the healing that we need. That was also recommended. Councillor Hanson did talk about proactive prevention. I think right now in front of us, what we need to focus on is proactive leadership, and that's exactly what I've lacked around this process. We need to foster retention like many people talked about and also focus on attracting new trained officers in the city of Burlington. Let's find the closure by voting on this resolution, leaving the eight officers at the airport outside of the mix and supporting the resolution as is. The amendments in front of us, one, they are complicated and two, I don't think I would be voting in support of them. Yes, let's move this forward and build back better our BPD. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Shannon, go ahead. Thank you. After talking to Coosie today, I am profoundly concerned about making sure that we can maintain those positions and I appreciate that Councillor Hightower asked Director Green about conversations with CNA, but I do think we have to rely on the report that CNA presented to us. And I wondered if Director Green can give us any reference in this report that explains how you could attain the lower number of the recommended headcount without eliminating Coosie and the domestic violence officer, what would be eliminated alternatively and where can I find that in the report? I would say, I would say look under the staffing section. I can't scroll through the report on a whim and say, oh yeah, page 28, paragraph three, that's unfair. But the staffing section will provide you with all the information that you need, Councillor Shannon. As far as what I meant when I said you can play with that range, it's a range, 72 to 75. So you can still in fact, within that range, still have Coosie, it still have your domestic violence police officer. But what would be eliminated in order to reach those numbers because something would have to be eliminated in order to have those officers, so what? Well, the report also says that the workload doesn't support Coosie or domestic violence. So if it doesn't support it, and they're saying that you can put other work to the 20 hours of work, because that's what it is, over to a detective and remove those positions, you can do that. But I understand that the community wants those positions. So if the workload doesn't support it, you can get by with one Coosie officer and then have your one DVPO officer. Or you can have two Coosie officers and have one DVPO officer, but you don't need three. The report is very clear about that. I would just say that talking to Coosie, that was absolutely not the case. They were really clear that they are completely dependent on Burlington's participation in that program. Burlington provides the director and it provides two detectives. 60%, I think that was the number they gave me, that's not quite right. 40 to 50% of the work that they do is focused on Burlington, done on behalf of Burlington. And 60% of the work that they do involves child abuse. We would be losing those services and we do need to fund Coosie in order for Coosie to function, not only for the benefit of our residents. And I really think that it is unfair, that's really not the right word. I fear that it is dangerous to be eliminating those positions without the benefit of having talked to Coosie. And what I was told today by the director who spoke with us, who came to public forum but unfortunately couldn't stay as late as to be here at this point in the night was that they weren't contacted by CNA. So I don't, just on that particular point, I don't have confidence that we have the full information to make that decision. I think that's inaccurate, Councilor Shannon. That's inaccurate. Sorry, Director Green wants. I also want to say that the airport, I am reporting what my conversation with Coosie and my conversation with Coosie is accurate. That's what was reported to me. With the airport funding, I don't object to eliminating that number from the report, but I want to point out just for everybody's understanding that the airport is an enterprise zone and the police are funded through the general fund. So if the airport only needed four officers, it wouldn't give us any money to be used for the other services that we all want. And that is because the funds within the airport can't be used for those things. So if the airport only needed four police officers, it would save the airport money, but it would not save any money out of the general fund and it wouldn't make available any money to do anything else. So I don't object to reducing the number of officers at the airport to whatever the number of officers is that's needed, but I just want to be clear that that's not accomplishing the other objectives that have been the base objectives of reducing the number of officers that's not accomplished with airport officers. I cannot support the changes that are proposed here in the case of the lower number because I do support the domestic violence officer and I do support CUSI. I also don't support removing acknowledgment of the good work that our police department has done that was recognized in the report. We are also pointing out the many things that need to change. And I think that it's fair to acknowledge good work as well as areas that need improvement. So I will not be supporting these amendments, but should it fail, I would be willing to consider the removal of the specific number with regards to the airport. Thank you. Don't have anyone else in the queue? Councillor Hanson. Yeah, I'm gonna move to further amend the amendment. To, so for lines 48, 49, it would be up to an authorized head count of 77 officers exclusive of the officers that are contractually assigned to Burlington International Airport as well as line 60, a sworn head count of 77 officers exclusive of officers at BIA. Okay, we have a motion. Is there a second? Seconded by Councillor McGee. Point of information. Sorry, go ahead, Councillor. Can you hear me? This is an amendment to the amendment. Did I hear that correctly? Yes, you did. Okay, thanks for the clarification. Yeah, I mean, I have plenty of other thoughts, but I think we need to first figure out are we debating the airport issue or are we not? I guess I'm proposing that we're not right now. So that's my intention with the amendment to the amendment. Okay, we have an amendment to the amendment. Is there a discussion on that? I'm confused too. Councillor Carpenter.   So the amendment before I just proposed to change it, the amendment is 81, including the airport. I'm saying 77 excluding the airport. That's the change that I'm proposing. You clear, Councillor Carpenter? Yes. Okay, is there further discussion of the amendment to the amendment? Councillor Zhang. Yes, I just wanted to understand the reasoning behind that change. Sure. Yeah, so the amendment right now, the 81 number is based on the CNA report lays out in a table that you get to 81 through four airport officers and it lays out in that table kind of the two extreme ends of the 81 and the 88 officers. That is a debate though that we've been having. Is it even possible to get to four? How would you get to four? Went on what timeline would that happen? We can have that debate. I'm saying we should have that debate later. We should stick to what is the authorized head count excluding the airport. So I'm saying 77, which is the low end of the range. 77 to 80 is the range. When you're not taking the airport in and I'm saying we should go with 77, we should leave this airport debate for another time is what I'm trying to do here. Councillor Zhang, do you have the floor? I wanted to understand the technicalities of this from the expert who is assigning the officers to do their job for patrol. And I was just wondering if I can call Chief Mirad here and ask him about your proposal right here. What does it mean really for the officers knowing that we're taking now the police officers at the airport out of the count? Can I respond? Yes, go ahead Councillor Hanson. Just to be clear, I'm not proposing doing anything to the airport officers. I'm just saying I'm proposing that we make that we make a decision tonight on the non airport officers. 77 or 80 is the debate or somewhere in between. I'm saying let's focus on that debate. We can have a later debate about the airport. That's really what I'm trying to get at. Thank you, we don't have anyone else in the queue. I want to make clear on perspective on behalf of the administration, I believe the sponsors, the resolution agree. I mean, as I understand what you're suggesting now, you're saying the edit that you had in there that you had removed this section that your amendment would remove what was in the original underlying resolution which says parentheses exclusive of officers at BIA and put that back in. And there, there's no disagreement. I think we, sounds like we have brought multiple people have expressed support tonight for the idea of separating the airport question. I certainly believe that. So welcome that no longer being part of the amendment. The key debate then of course is 80 versus 77. And I think I certainly am fine with us voting on that. I don't understand how you can be proposing that that be 77 when consistent with Councilor Hightower's point that the DVPO should remain, the report is clear that if you're going to do that, you need 78. And then effectively what you're recommending is the elimination of the two CUSY officers, which I do not support as a policy decision. I think we should be clear that's the policy decision being made if the reduction is made to 78. If that's a policy decision the council makes I would live with it, but I think it's something that should be done transparently. That's the only way to read the report without coming up with some whole new way of interpreting. If there is some other way to interpret it that should be stated transparently. Thank you mayor. Don't have anyone else in the queue. Sorry Max. Councilor Hightower. I'll go one more time. So one, I don't think that necessarily is what it's saying. Like we are, we do still have the five attrition folks, which I still think that based on the number of 105 original officers is like, it's an assumption that like that will, that 105 and 74 has the same amount of attrition needs. And I don't, and I think we're building ourselves a buffer there just with that. So I don't think it's fair to say that we are necessarily eliminating the other positions just by saying that this is the new is number one. So I don't, I'm not saying that when I say that. Number two is, I mean, CNI did interview Kuzy. So they must have had some understanding of the model and the importance. And I don't think that they made a completely uninformed decision based on the fact that they must have talked to them probably for the same amount of time that they interviewed other folks, which was an hour, I believe, again, I mean, maybe I'll defer to Director Green on that. Director Green, are you with us? Yes, I'm here. Okay. Yes, Kuzy was interviewed as was a lot of other people. I heard a comment earlier about Church Street not being interviewed. That's, that wasn't true as well. I don't have a list of all the people who were interviewed, but there were a couple of people not being interviewed. I circled back with what CNI and CNI confirmed that they had in fact been interviewed. I don't know for how long though, like what the timeframe was of those interviews. Okay, thank you, Director Green. And then I do agree. I think the underlying resolution attempted to take the airport out of the equation. I agree with that reasoning now and I hope that we move in that direction. I do also still think that there's so, I, which is just a conversation that we skipped altogether, but I understand the moral piece, but there's so much negotiation that needs to be done. And I think that this, we don't have a lot of leverage points for that. I think putting all of our cards on the table right away is not a good way to start negotiations. I think that I really hope that we can move forward today with 77 because I think we need to have a bridge to bargaining as President Tracy likes to say, but that's not, I don't, that's not a bridge. So I don't, I do not want us to stay at a cap of 74 officers, I hope that is not. And so I hope that we can come to some kind of agreement. Thank you. Councilor Shannon to be followed by Mayor Whiteberger. Thank you. I wanna say that I, this is being portrayed as there's a lot of flexibility within these numbers, but my read of that report is that these numbers were pretty much the bare minimum that they could come up with. They talked a lot about the community's desire to reduce the police force and we're offering these suggestions with that in mind. And one of their suggestions that they said that they relied on heavily for designing their staffing and coming up with the numbers that they came up with was reliant on a 12 hour shift for efficiency. Now, I think that that, so when they give us these charts of how the staffing can work, you can't work with numbers that small and have the 10 hour shift that we currently have. A 12 hour shift would have to be negotiated in bargaining. And I would question if a 12 hour shift meets the goals of any member of this council because I think that we all want better policing. And I think we want police officers that use better judgment and make better decisions. And if there is evidence that the 12 hour shift works against those goals, it's not meeting any of our goals. And I mean any of our collective goals. I understand that there was a presentation to the police commission at their last meeting with a police mental health specialist who had strong warnings against adopting a 12 hour shift. Now, despite saying all that, I don't think a 12 hour shift should be taken off the table. I have also heard some good things about a 12 hour shift. And we can consider that, but I don't think that we should take it as a foregone conclusion just because it's efficient in terms of how you structure staffing because of course they're human beings and we need them to function at a really high level. And there certainly is evidence that people do not function as well towards the end of a very long shift. So, I think that the, I appreciate that for some people at this table, the number 77 is still too high. But I would also say that the number 80 is actually they only come up with that entire range is based on a 12 hour shift. So, I don't see the flexibility that others see at this table to shuffle things around. I don't see it with the 12 hour shift. I don't see where it was reported that we have that flexibility. And I have read that report carefully and multiple times. So for that reason, I will not be supporting the amendments. Thank you, Mayor Weinberger. Thank you, President Tracy. I think Councilor Shannon just put her finger on it here. And this really goes to the heart of whether or not we have a way forward with this or not. It is challenging to sit here and be told that we're spending too much time on the officer count when the only reason that we are debating this for the fourth time is because by the Progressive Caucus insisted on pushing forward a 30% reduction before doing a report explicitly, make the cut first and then later do the analysis. And that same thinking has been used in the times that has come up to say, we're gonna make our decisions based on the recommendations of the report. The report was commissioned in a way that is unique in my nine years of experience. The administration has never had less of a role in the formulation of an RFP for professional consultant. This was something done by the Joint Committee. This was the Joint Committee's RFP. And before that reason, there is this strong thrust to the report, which as Councilor Shannon says, right, the whole basis behind this report is that we should be reducing officers wherever possible. That is said again and again in the report. And that is the whole context for where this report comes back. But you know what? Although I don't think there was a consensus on that being what the people of Burlington want. The administration is sitting here ready to accept this report. We are not debating, we're not quibbling over the recommendations of this functional and operational assessment. We are saying we will accept the recommendations of this report as it goes to officer staffing so that we can move on, so that we can focus on these other items. It is a progressive caucus that has brought us back to this debate again and again by first getting the number wrong, dramatically wrong, almost twice what this report says is is the appropriate level and then refusing to change it as months have gone by. We're willing to accept the report. The report's recommendations are very clear. If you start saying we're gonna quibble with this recommendation or that, then yes, we start looking at this incredibly, incredible assumption in the patrol officers, the 51, which is a 10 person reduction from currently, which assumes that we go to this maximally efficient 12 hour shift, people working 12 hours. I mean, it is remarkable that a pro union city is holding out there as what we should be aspiring for, people working 12 hour days and doing, but we're willing to accept that as the basis of the math here. We're not arguing over that because we do agree with you, Councilor Hanson, that these other supports that we are creating and are committed to and are making progress on will mean that even though that is an unrealistic recommendation, we will be able to make it work. If we start this debate of projecting the report, the parts of the report we don't like, accepting the others, I think we're never gonna get to an agreement on this. So the administration, the Democratic caucus is sitting here willing to accept the recommendations of the functional and operational assessment and we're willing to accept the recommendations on its terms. And what those recommendations say is, if you want a domestic violence officer, if you want a CUSY department, you need 80. That is what the vote should be on tonight.  If you voting against that, I think you're voting against a functional police department and I don't think we're ever gonna get an agreement until there's a change in this council. Thank you, Mayor. Any other councilors? Okay, so, all right, Councillor Paul, sorry. That's okay, that's all right, it's late. I feel badly asking, but could we have five minutes, please? Sure, we will reconvene at 11.44. Is it that late? Yeah. Yeah, so the amendment to the amendments 48 and 49, hiring sworn officers up to an authorized head count of 77 officers exclusive of the officers that are assigned to the Burlington International Airport. Line 60 would be a sworn head count of 77 officers exclusive of officers at BIA.  Any further comments? Will the city clerk please call the roll? Councillor Barlow. No. Councillor Freeman. Yes. Councillor Hanson. Yes. Councillor McGee. No. Councillor Shannon. Councillor Strongberg. Yes. City Council President Tracy. No. The amendment to the amendment fails and we're back to debate on the original slate of amendments that was proposed. Is there further discussion on that? Are we ready to go to vote? Councillor Hightower. Councillor Tracy, President Tracy, if I could potentially start with dividing the question, and I'm not 100% sure if I'm doing this right, but between all of the amendments with the exception of lines 48 through 49 and line 60. So keeping the new resolve clause, keeping the change to the Public Safety Committee, keeping some of the whereas clause changes and only removing the head count essentially so that we're having two separate discussions. Okay, so you're moving to divide the question on the amendment. Attorney Richardson, are we allowed to divide the question on the amendment? Oh. That's not debatable. So we have a motion. Is there a second? Is there a second? Seconded by Councillor Hanson. Point of information, if the intention is to keep out the authorized head count, there's a separate line in the new resolve clause that also has a head count number in it. Correct, but it's an analysis, so I assumed the, it doesn't bind them to having 80, 81 or 79 or whatever the, so yes, but it is not a, it is about the analysis, not about what it actually will be. Yep, so Councillor Hightower, can you just restate the? Yes, so dividing the questions to go through to change the whereas clauses, change the resolve clause that's line 54 to 58 and then still add the new resolve clause as one suite of amendments and then moving the ones that have the head count a some kind of binding statement on the head count, which is lines 48 through 49 and line 60 and a two separate amendment suites. Okay, I'm clear on that, thank you. Any further discussion, or there is no discussion on that. Are we ready to vote? Let's go to vote. All those in favor of dividing the question or well, will the city clerk please call the roll please? Councillor Varlo. No. Councillor Carpenter. This is a vote on dividing the question. Dividing the amendment, yes. Yes, I'm sorry. Yes. Councillor Jag. Yes. Councillor Freeman. Yes. Councillor Hanson. Yes. Councillor Hightower. Yes. Councillor Mason. No. Councillor Paul. Yes. Councillor McKee. Yes. Councillor Shannon. Yes. Councillor Strongberg. Yes. City Council President Tracy. Yes. Ten ayes, two nays. Okay, thank you. So the motion carries and the question will be divided. Is there further discussion on the underlying amendment? Councillor Appall. Thank you. I just have one other question and I apologize because it's probably just adding a layer of challenge here but I'm just wondering and I'll give you the reason why. It's not so simply an exercise. I understand the reason, I think I understand the reason behind Councillor Hightower's changes to lines 54 to 58 and I'm happy to support them. Is it possible to, after you've divided a question, to divide it again? Yes, the rule of thumb on dividing a question is that once the division occurs, each component must be able to independently stand. So in other words, because we're dealing with an amendment, if we divide this and lines 54 through 58 are approved or disapproved, the remaining amendments can be approved and disapproved and as long as they are independent of each other, which is to say that you came out with a function that wasn't dependent upon one, both passing than the division is acceptable under Robert's rules. Okay, then I would make a motion that of the, I'm not sure if it's the first or the second, but of the one that includes lines 54 to 58, that we would take lines 54 through 58 out and vote on them separately. So the divide, whichever, if it's the first question or the second and I'm not really sure which it is, but whichever one it is, would be to take out lines 54 to 58. So there would be three votes on amendments. Okay, we have a motion to further divide the question. So it would be a division between the numbers, lines 48 and 49 and then 54 and 58. That's a separate question, is that what you're saying now? No. I mean, I'm sorry, lines. 54 to 58 only. So that is part of the one that doesn't include 48, 49 and 60. And 60, okay, so that's a separate one. So you're breaking it off. Point of information. Yes, I'm sorry. Just wondering before we get a second, if the maker of the motion would be willing to add the other resolve clause. Understanding that you're might be, that's the number that's throwing you off. I would like to see line 54 to 58 pass. Okay. Okay, seconded by Councilor Carpenter. Yes. Okay. It's non-debatable. Are we clear on this? Okay, let's go to a vote. Will the city clerk please call the roll? Point of information. We're voting on a further division of the question. Yes. I'm sorry, can you, can you, I'm so sorry. Can you just wait? There's so many different things being voted on. Now I've lost the, I'm so sorry. It's okay. I've lost the original amendment to my tabs. Okay, found them. Oh my gosh, kind of good. So you're just dividing, point of information, we're just dividing out lines, the line 54 to 58 amendment. Is that what we're saying? I don't know if I followed this. I'm really, yes. It's just a standalone from the other warehouse clauses. Thank you. Yeah. And okay. Thanks. Sorry. Too many, too many things, but thank you. Vote on that. Will the city clerk please call the roll? Councilor Barlow. Yes. Councilor Carpenter. I'm sorry now. We're voting to divide this out. That's all. Yes. Councilor Jang. Yep. I'm sorry. Councilor Freeman. Yes. Councilor Hanson. Yes. Councilor Hightower. Yes. Councilor Mason. Yes. Councilor Paul. Yes. Councilor McGee. Yes. Councilor Shannon. Yes. Councilor Stromberg. Yes. City Council President Tracy. Yes. 12 ayes. Okay. That carries. So we are back to the original resolution as now divided three ways. The original amendment as divided three ways. I'm sorry. Point of order that reported on the vote was not consistent with the vote. I think Councilor Barlow voted no. It wasn't 12 ayes. It was yes. Oh, forgive me then. I'm sorry. I apologize. Okay. Further discussion on the amendment. Are we ready to vote on these three separate pieces of the amendment? Councilor Mason. I'm not sure which amendment or is it any of the amendments? It's, you can speak to all three because they're all. I have a question really more for the maker on the 54 to 58. I understood the report that the, it was clearer to me the report back if it had been from the joint committee. I'm not clear under the new framework what's envisioned in terms of the report and the involvement of the police commission. Is it just consultation or is it expected that the report back would be from the public safety commission and the police commission? I think the report back would be from the public safety commission and that we would invite members of the police commission into that discussion on a, which we've started to talk about doing either as a representative basis or as the full commission. So that is a change. Let me just to be clear that it's, I was under the mistaken assumption that what this was doing was relieving certain members of the public, the joint commission who, from this going forward, but the joint commission did include both committees. So in essence, you're removing the police commission from in essence, authorship over the report should it come back, which. I think especially because if I can answer, I think especially because it's a report writing anything as a group of 10 people is very difficult. So I think that the police commission is going to be in charge of implementing a lot of the 150 recommendations, which is not the same thing as reporting back on progress necessarily, but I'll let Councillor Paul as the chair. Councilor Paul, I mean, Councilor Mason, you end the floor, sorry. No, I'm just trying to, I guess my other question, maybe for the chair of public safety is whether January 2022 is an actual realistic deadline for 150 recommendations? I don't know if that is. The reason why I'm supporting this is two reasons. One is that, I've said this before, but I think it's worth saying again, there are very few people that get elected and then to the city council and then the first year take on a joint committee with the complexity and the time commitment that Councillor Hightower did and did it well. And I am happy to support this change because I think that it is probably time for the joint committee to not be as highly functional, perhaps as it has been and that we move back to probably a more traditional approach of a city council committee leading an effort. The other thing I will say is that we hopefully will get to this a little bit later is the oversight resolution. I can, I think all of us on public safety, the three of us on public safety can certainly attest that the police commission was incredibly actively and proactively engaged in that resolution and I have no doubt that they will be the same when it comes to this report. So I don't know if January 2022 is reasonable. I guess we'll find out and if it isn't by December, there will be a report from the public safety committee saying that we need until February or whatever is a reasonable amount. But I think January is a good way to go and I see the other two members of the committee shaking their head. So I hope this is something that we can, we can all agree to and support. Thank you. Councillor Jang. Yeah. I think I wanted to talk about the timeline here a little bit based on this amendment. It doesn't seem it asking for a full report but at least an initial report. So it doesn't mean you have to finish the whole recommendations but just maybe partially and bring something by January 2022. Is it my understanding? Yes. I mean, I shouldn't say it's not my amendment but I think it's yes. Oh, sorry. Yeah. Yes. Okay. Councillor Jang. Okay. Any further discussion? A point of information. Yes. I think one would be the best time for councillors who are looking to make comment on any of the amendments. Is this the best time now? I know we spent a lot of time procedurally with dividing the question, which I think at this point I've actually lost track of the first division of the question. If we could. I'll certainly go over that before we vote. So sorry. If you like. It's not been a good night for me procedurally unfortunately, actually not my best but here we are. But I actually don't have a comment. I just, I was guessing that a few councillors wanted to, at this time, but I just wanted to make sure that councillors had a chance to comment too. Yep. Okay. Any further discussion before we go to a vote on each of the different sections? Councillor Jang. Yes. I mean, I think it seems this item is just trying to take the commission out into reviewing. Is it? That's why they brought this amendment to take maybe the commission outside of the joint committee that will look into the details. Is it the only change? Councillor Hontower. Yes. So to have it be the public safety's responsibility and collaboration with the police commission instead of having it be a 10 member body to create, to be responsible. Thank you, Councillor Jang. Councillor Powell. Thank you. I just want to say as a member of the public safety committee that you can be rest assured that if you vote in support of this and this passes and the resolution passes that you have the word of at least mine and I imagine probably the other two that the police commission will be actively engaged in this process. In the end, what we're basically saying here, I believe is that we will take the lead as a city council committee and as opposed to having to have meetings with 10 people, we will have meetings that will eventually, any report that will be written will be written in collaboration with three with us eliciting information and feedback from both the administration and the police commission. I think this is an effective way to go forward. Thank you. Okay, further questions or further comments from Councillors? Okay, we're ready to vote on the different segments as we've separated them out. So as I understand it, the first thing, the first question we will vote on is lines 12 through 15, the change there, delete lines 27 and 29, delete lines 34 and 38 and then add the new resolve clause. That's at the bottom, is that correct? Let's please go to a vote on that. We're voting on. I'll reread it. So the section online, the changes on lines 12 through 15, delete lines 27 through 29, delete lines 34 through 38 and then the final piece, which is adding the new resolve clause that the council request that the administration provide a financial analysis. Councillor Carpenter. Are we beyond discussion on this or? I'm trying to take us to a vote here. I'm just gonna say I probably won't support it, but I think we can come back for an analysis at another time. Okay, thank you. All right, are we clear? Yes. We are not now voting on the language we've just had a lot of discussion about with regards to public safety. That is not what we're voting on, we're voting on the other items. Okay, thank you. Okay, so on those lines that I just stated, will the city clerk please call the roll? Councillor Barlow. No. Councillor Carpenter. No. Councillor Jenning. No. Councillor Freeman. Yes. Councillor Hanson. Yes. Councillor Hightower. Yes. Councillor Mason. No. Councillor Paul. No. Councillor McGee. Yes. Councillor Shannon. No. Councillor Strongberg. Yes. City Council President Tracy. Yes. Six ayes, six nays. Okay, the first portion of the amendment fails. So we'll now go to the next portion, which is on the lines 48 and 49. And line 60. So police immediately begin the long process of hiring sworn officers of turn authorized head count of 81. Inclusive. No. And then the line 60 safety transformation to sworn head count of 81 officers must. Is that clear? Point of information, I thought we had amended lines 48 through 49. Oh no, did that amendment fail? We had separated those from the other from. Okay, but that amendment failed. Sorry, there were just so many changes and I'm just doing a horrible job tracking them. I'm so sorry. Okay, I'm sorry. Okay, any further discussion? Are people clear on this? Lines 40 police immediately begin the long process of hiring sworn officers to an authorized head count of 81. Inclusive of the officers assigned at the Burlington Airport. And line 60 safety transformation to sworn head count of 81 officers. So these are the head count clauses and the head count of 81. Very clear. Will the city clerk please call the roll on this? Councillor Barlow. No. Councillor Carpenter. No. Councillor Jang. No. Councillor Freeman. Yes. Councillor Hanson. Yes. Councillor Hightower. Yes. Councillor Mason. No. Councillor Paul. No. Councillor McGee. Yes. Councillor Shannon. No. Councillor Strongberg. Yes. City Councillor President Tracy. Yes. Six eyes, six nays. That portion fails as well and we are now onto the, be it further resolved that the Public Safety Committee in collaboration with the Police Commission so lines 54 through 58, that section. We clear on that? Everybody clear? Okay, will the city clerk please call the roll? Councillor Barlow. Yes. Councillor Carpenter. Yes. Councillor Jang. Yes. Councillor Freeman. Yes. Councillor Hanson. Yes. Councillor Hightower. Yes. Councillor Mason. Yes. Councillor Paul. Yes. Councillor McGee. Yes. Councillor Shannon. Yes. Councillor Strongberg. Yes. City Councillor President Tracy. Yes. 12 eyes. That carries and is now a portion, those changes are now incorporated into the resolution. So we're back to the resolution as amended. Further discussion? Are we ready to go to a vote? Councillor McGee. I just want to take a moment to acknowledge the testimony that we heard from numerous folks identifying the serious safety concerns that marginalize people have if we make this move to raise the cap. I don't think we have seen from the police department a serious effort to change training practices. I don't think we've seen a serious effort to roll back the way the police department responds to the so-called low level crime that we heard folks talk about tonight. And I think it's always easiest for this body to make a decision to go back to the old strategy of over-resourcing the police department to a point where we're asking officers to deal with humanitarian crises that they're not trained or equipped to deal with. And I have serious concerns that if we vote on this resolution tonight as it stands, we're going to find ourselves in a position of not holding the promise of what the council voted on last summer in furthering racial equity and developing non-police alternatives that really get at safety for our entire community. And I think we heard numerous people state that the city has failed to provide for the basic needs of the most vulnerable among us. And for us to vote on this resolution shows that we haven't learned that lesson. And so for that reason, I will be voting no on this resolution. And I implore others to join me because I don't think this is the way forward. Thank you. Thank you. Don't have anyone else in the queue. Councilor Shannon to be followed by Councilor Carpenter. Thank you, President Tracy. I think that this is a difficult vote for many of us at the table. And I would just ask for one last five minute recess, lateness of the hour, but this is important to our city. Fine, five minutes. I'll give it until 12, 18. Back to the underlying resolution. Further discussion. Councilor Shannon. Thank you, President Tracy. And so as things have gotten amended, I am not sure exactly where everything is, but I would like to amend the number of authorized headcount of 80 to amend that number to 79 and 49. Thank you. I think it appears any place. 60. Okay. Change that number from 80 to 79. Okay. Okay, we have a second from Councilor Jang. Councilor Shannon, do you want the floor? Honestly, I think we've had enough discussion. Okay. Any further discussion on the amendment? Will the city clerk please call the roll? Councilor Barlow. Yes. Councilor Carpenter. Yes. Councilor Jang. Yes. Councilor Freeman. No. Councilor Hanson. Councilor Hightower. Yes. Councilor Mason. Yes. Councilor Paul. Yes. Councilor McGee. No. Councilor Shannon. Yes. Councilor Stromberg. Yes. City Council President Tracy. Yes. Three nays. Okay, so the motion carries and we are back to the underlying resolution as now twice amended. Are we ready for a debate? Are we ready for a discussion? I think we've had plenty of debate. Any further discussion? Just gonna say my piece. I will be voting yes on this. I think this is within the range of what CNI recommended. I think it is time for us to stop talking about numbers. And I think that this is a serious move from both where we are now, but it's also a serious move from where we were 18 months ago. And that is all. Thank you. Any further comments? Okay, will the city clerk please call the roll on the underlying resolution as twice amended? Councilor Barlow. Yes. Councilor Carpenter. Yes. Councilor Jang. Yes. Councilor Freeman. No. Councilor Hanson. No. Councilor Hightower. Yes. Councilor Mason. Yes. Councilor Paul. Yes. Councilor McGee. No. Councilor Shannon. Yes. Councilor Strongberg. Yes. City Councilor President Tracy. No. Eight ayes, four nays. The resolution carries. I have a couple other items of business on tonight's agenda. Let's keep it going. So the agenda was amended and we moved 7.10 up before 7.08. Councilor Paul. Thanks, President Tracy. So I would move the resolution. This is the resolution on the Mental Health Summit. Is that right? Yes. I believe so? Yes. With a slight amendment to add to the list of organizations that begin on line 30 and to add a line 52 with the words the State of Vermont Agency of Human Services. It's a minor change I hope will be acceptable to all. I would wave the reading and ask for the floor back ever so briefly after a second. Okay. Seconded by Councilor Hightower, you have the floor. Thanks, thanks President Tracy. So just very briefly because this was sponsored by 11 of us, I just would like to mention that we've spent a lot of time talking about the police commission this evening. They are I think a really great example of what we hope for in boards and commissions to be actively even proactively engaged in community challenges t