time is 5.40 we're going to get started because we have a busy agenda and I would entertain a motion to opt our agenda and to read the recommended action if there's someone who's willing to do that anyone willing to do that thank you thanks Councillor Barlow it's right it's it's it just was updated on on yes I have it here I move to amend adopt agenda as follows at an agenda item 5.19 communication vehicle for hire licensing board vehicle for hire modernization to the consent agenda item 5.20 communication Dana Poverman regarding resolution on tomorrow's agenda add to the consent agenda item 5.21 communication Ed Baker regarding comments agenda item comments agenda item 6.2 note proposed amendments for agenda item 6.2 per Councillor McGee thank you for that motion is there a second to that motion seconded by Councillor Travers is there any discussion on that motion seeing none all those in motion please say hi please say no we have agenda also know that Councillor Grant is also joining us by Zoom and Councillor Grant did you have a did you have something that you wanted to add I did I apologize I'm on my way back into Berlin's either do Councillor Grant if you could just stand by we're having a little bit of a technical difficult we'll get to you as soon as we can I'm sorry we could hear that small sound so we can hear you okay Councillor Grant on Councillor Travers has has his computer on audio so we might be able to simply hear you through that audio you hear us she can hello okay so Sarah Councillor Carbonary you can hear us yes I can now Councillor Grant can you hear us can you hear me great yes we can Councillor Grant if you wanted to go ahead okay thank you so I have to apologize because I missed the beginning of the motion where we I wanted to add an item to the deliberative agenda well we voted on the we've voted on the agenda we had amendments and we voted on that but if you weren't able to hear us I don't know that we need to go and make a motion to reconcile at this point given the fact that there was a technical issue if there is then we'll have we would have to do that at what would be your opinion the correct manner of doing it would be for a motion to reconsider what to be made from a member of the majority you did have a quorum of the body who vote adopting the agenda so I think you'd have a motion to reconsider which has to be made by a member who voted in favour of the motion first and I would so move okay thank you Councillor Bergman seconded by Councillor McGee I believe that requires two thirds is that correct just the majority okay so we have a motion to reconsider all those in favour of the motion to reconsider please say aye any opposed please say no okay so there are 11 of us here yes there are 11 of us here so that that passes 10 to 1 Councillor Grant please continue you I wanted to add a brief agenda item to discuss a plan of action Councillor Grant do you have anything anything for that item staff is going to be presenting something anyone that you have contacted in advance to do that Councillor Grant I have had communications with the city attorney today and I would just go to the city attorney were you able to communicate prior thing with Councillor Grant and what was your what was your opinion on this I did speak with Councillor Grant I would just speak to the agenda I think that if Councillor Grant wants to address this there is the opportunity to address it in the affairs which is part of the City Council agenda which was my advice to Councillor Grant at that time in terms of actions that this may or may not be taking it with regard to the NPAs that's something that we're still developing a strategy around but it is something that we're working to actively address her concerns as well as others is it is it is it your is it your opinion that or the opinion of the issue that you will be able to come forward with something by our next council meeting on October 23rd I think that we are actively working on it again this is a something that has developed quite rapidly and so to make a definitive timeline it's hard to say set that as a goal okay thank you Councillor Grant did you want to continue or we would then have to go and vote to amend the agenda to include agenda item is there anything else you wanted to add thank you very much so given the fact that we are not amending our agenda we still have to vote on the motion to reconsider because that's the motion on the floor is that correct even though there was no change to the agenda no I believe that there was a motion to reconsider you did vote on that and so that's there now you had it would be adopt the agenda and then you would have moved on that so I think that that's what's before you was to adopt the agenda again okay so we are doing the motion to adopt the agenda with the amendment that we already had yes okay so is there a motion to adopt the agenda thank you count and seconded by Councillor Jang um is there any discussion on that motion seeing none will go to a vote all those in favor of the motion as as presented please say aye aye any opposed please say no that motion passes unanimously so that moves us on to item 2.1 which is a communication Mayor Mayor Merrill Weinberger it's a privileged update on Memorial Auditorium as well as discussion regarding a negotiation of an agreed tank pertaining to capital investments and as these items relate to contract negotiations this agenda item contains an expected executive session before we go to those motions Mayor Weinberger it's our custom to go to the administration if there's any update that you wish to provide to the public in open session thank you all I'll speak briefly to both the first item with respect to Memorial Auditorium the council remember that we last discussed Memorial Auditorium at this body sometime in the spring after the unsuccessful RFP that did not result in any project to move forward with at the time we had discussions that we would the CEDO led by Samantha Donner our assistant director for community works would be exploring through a number of means how to go forward considering a new RFP perhaps with different constraints than the initial one CEDO has been doing that work and we do have an update to share with the council it's there is the possibility that what could unfold in the months to come would involve new real estate agreements and so our recommendation that we brief the council on this in at first so as not to negatively impact the public's position in these possible with respect to the second executive session this is the second time we've requested a session to share with the council all information regarding capital investments at the airport by the Vermont International Guard and again I think it's in the interest of the council and the public that we have the discussions in executive session there were I think it there will be no action expected on either of these items tonight I do think it's likely that we will be seeking action on both in the in the weeks to come and we will be there will be future public communications well in advance of those votes thank you mayor Weinberger with that we'll go to councillor travers if you could please make the motion the first motion executive session I'm going to find that premature general public knowledge of contract negotiations related to the Patrick Leahy International Airport and also a memorial auditorially place the city at a substantial disadvantage because the city risks disclosing its negotiating strategy if discussing the proposed contract terms and negotiations in public your councillor travers is there a second to that motion seconded by councillor Shannon thank you is there any discussion on that motion I see go to a vote all those in favor of the motion please say aye and he opposed please say no that motion passes unanimously and with that to the second motion councillor travers based on the finding of substantial disadvantage I move that we enter into executive session to discuss contract negotiations real estate purchase or lease options pursuant to one vsa section 313 one a and two thank you councillor travers seconded by councillors a motion has been made to go into executive session all those in favor of that motion please say aye aye aye any opposed please go that motion passes unanimously so we will now be in executive session we we will be going downstairs into the busher conference room everyone who is here to sit and make yourself comfortable and we do expect to be back here before 715 thank you thank you so much for your patience while we worked out a few technical details and thank you so much for joining us for the city council meeting the time is now 717 so we will resume our council meeting with item number three which is the public forum before we begin public forum I I would like to note that we do have a process for this part of our meeting and I speak for the full city council as we share a strong commitment to an orderly process and one that honors all voices and respectful discourse for those that are in con choice who wish to speak during public forum we have a timer system that is on the table in front of me and it has three lights on it the green light will shine when you begin speaking the second yellow light when you have 30 seconds left and then the last light is a red light that will shine when your time is up please complete your sentence if you are in mid-sentence when the sound and light indicate that your time is up so that everyone has the same amount of time and we can keep the public forum moving along if you're joining us online there is a timer system that will be set up on zoom we don't have a light system but when your two minutes are up then the clock winds down to zero please complete your sentence so that we can move on to the next community member we have a hybrid system for public forum if you wish to speak in person there are forms to my right in the back of the room please complete one and then bring it to the clerk that is in the on the right to the in the front of the room if you wish to speak on zoom you can go to the following website and that is our web page that is burlington vt.gov forward slash city council one word forward slash public forum when you do that there'll be a form that will come up if you complete the form your answers will come into a spreadsheet that I have right here on my computer and that way I can call you in the order in which you had requested to speak it has been our practice that Burlington residents will have first priority we will go to Burlington residents in con toys who have submitted a form in person and these are the forms that I have with me you're welcome to fill them out as we are doing public forum and then we will go to Burlington residents who have completed an online form we will then come back to Berlin non Burlington residents who have joined us in con toys and then we will finish with online non Burlington residents that have joined us on zoom during public forum we ask that you please use respectful language we would like to mine remind everyone here this evening and online that there are families who watch our council meetings as their connection to teaching their children about civil engagement civic engagement please think about that when you are speaking and remember that your words are being heard by families and by young children we ask that everyone refrain from speaking speaking and using profanity when you are speaking please face me director comments to me as the chair and not to anyone else at this table or not to anyone in the audience gathered please do not personalize your comments this rule will be enforced again we want to hear what you have to say and it is much easier for us to listen intently to you if you speak respectfully with that we will go to those that are joining us in con toys and we will start again with Burlington residents the first speaker is Stephen Whitaker to be followed by Reagan Lafferty good evening and all you need to do is make sure that the green button in front of you is on can you hear me yes you could even get closer to the microphone that would be okay so I want to address I'm going to talk fast and I ask you to consider putting this issue on a future agenda soon because the impact I cannot do this and I don't think two minutes is consistent with law we've got some misdirected reactions to problems that we're compounding we have a beautiful waterfront a treasure thanks Bernie we have facilities a shortage of facilities and our reactive mode is shutting down facilities I pointed out to the mayor that we had four concerts on the waterfront lawn with a thousand people outside of the concerts and we locked the bathrooms at eight o'clock and low and behold North Beach was closed for E. Coli so I asked the mayor what did you think was gonna happen but the restrooms at the Boat House I've reviewed the contract with Burlington Harbor Marina Boat House is seasonal because of the temperature control as is the marina there used to be 24 7365 bathrooms there at that were torn down to accommodate that marina their contract requires them to be open eight to five eight to seven on Thursdays and Fridays or Friday and Saturdays they're in consistent violation of that contract and no one reinforces it I've called it to the mayor's attention to the park's director's attention no one enforces that and it's a problem of dignity we've got a hundred people living out in the northern open lands or more than a hundred people who are living out there and we deny them dignity we're compounding the problem of addiction and and waste and hopelessness so these are big issues it's unfair for me to try to do justice to them in two minutes but the city is now complicit with the Burlington Harbor marina in allowing them to no trespass me because I'm calling attention to this issue thank you very much our next speaker is Reagan Lafferty to be followed by Andre Clark good evening hi my name is Keegan sorry Regans my apologies you're good all right first I want to say thank you to the city council president for listening to what I have to say and giving me a chance to speak and also thank you to the city council and the mayor for your thoughtful leadership and for listening to what I have to say I'm here on behalf of big heavy world we're a music nonprofit in Burlington we focus on advocating for musicians and making Burlington's music scene more equal and accessible we recently developed a licensing platform that gets Vermont artists paid when their music is used in media progress projects it gives marketing agents agencies access to authentic music and it's a large move toward fair compensation and direct benefit for artists it also moves the state toward a reputation defined by thoughtful and inclusive exposure of its creative sector so that's something that we're very proud of that we've been working on we're also working with a group of youth in our community to develop a plan for a youth led and youth run cultural space and music venue we need it's really important that we have programs that engage the youth and give them meaningful experiences because it keeps them away from dangerous alternatives like drug use violence so it's really important that we have a space like that that exists in Burlington and we need the support of the city and its residents in order to effectively provide a space like that so I just wanted to put that on the forefront of y'all's minds and put it out there so thank you so much for listening thank you thanks very much our next speaker is Andre Clark to be followed by David Maher is it working perfect so my name is Andre I'm a student in University University Vermont's master of public health program formerly unhoused so the state of Vermont is amidst a crisis when it comes to housing their citizens that requires immediate short-term solutions in conjunction with long-term plans for affordable housing Vermont has the second highest per capita rate of homelessness in the country behind only California based on the latest data from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development the point-in-time count in January 2023 found an 18.5% increase in persons experiencing homelessness in Vermont compared to the prior year this is an increase of 197% since the pre-pandemic point-in-time count 2020 this problem has only gotten worse as the state continues to wind down their motel housing program causing more strain and overburdened social service providers the housing market and directly impacting individuals health and well-being all of this comes as local shelters at capacity in Burlington where many people are likely to head as a rental vacancy rate of 1% this creates a scenario where people are forced to sleep unsheltered due to there being no other options available to them while the city of Burlington is discussing opening an emergency shelter with up to 30 beds on December 15th this is not enough beds and it is being opened too late winter is on its way now and will not wait until December 15th to make living outside even more unsafe and unsustainable there are already over 200 people who are unsheltered and sleeping outside or in places not deemed fit for human habitation this necessitates an immediate and comprehensive solution to deal with the health and safety hazards inherent to people living unsheltered that include threats to the individual the community and the environment to help remedy this scenario I propose a policy that allows for sanctioned encampments to take place on public and private land within the city of Burlington and hope that this can stand as a model for Chittenden County and the rest of Vermont as we move towards a path towards more sustainable housing options one option to consider is utilizing North Beach campground which already has the infrastructure including bathroom showers and waste receptacles to house a temporary winter site thank you thank you very much our next speaker is David Maher Dave Maher to be followed by a Romeo von Herman good evening thank you and good evening my name is Dave Maher I've lived in the Burlington area most of my adult life I'm gonna talk about the opioid crisis you know there are two sides to the opioid equation there's supply and there's demand now the police are responsible for the supply end and we're gonna hear from them in a little bit about what they're doing about that but seems to me we're not doing enough about the demand side of the equation hear a lot about harm reduction we're giving out free syringes Narcan and there's talk of safe injection sites but these actions they don't reduce demand if anything they will increase demand because they make drug use safer so I think that we could all agree that we want to get drug users off the streets and into rehab but how do we do it usually it takes some sort of intervention and a lot of times the people living on the streets taking drugs they don't have someone a family member a close friend who can take the action to do an intervention of that sort but I've got a suggestion that probably won't be very popular but I'll make it anyway and that is to employ involuntary commitment which is allowed by Vermont law now that may sound harsh but I did it for my brother who was drinking a quart of vodka a day and I'm glad I did it so I think it's a good option for people who are living on the streets and injecting poison into their veins and you know maybe that's not the best option I'd like to hear other options but we need to do something different what we're doing now we're not going to solve the problem thank you thank you very much our next speaker is romeo von herman to be followed by david call good evening good evening madam president thank you for having me I just wanted to speak to a just my support for a couple of resolutions I was already on the books one being the deliberative item agendas 6.2 as well as 6.4 but before I go into that I wanted to show my support for the people of Israel going through such a difficult and unprecedented time today and they had their own 9-11 over the weekend and it's been really gut wrenching to see the families being torn apart children being hunted down young adults being shot on site it is just heartbreaking to see what's happening over there and I hope that they get all the support that they need to get back on their feet as best as possible I don't profess to know the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians but it's just just heartbreaking to see what's happening over there and I hope that someday the city or anybody will show them as much support as they need but beyond that just want to show my support for items 6.2 and 6.4 thank you thank you so much our next speaker is david call to be followed by janna coiley I hope I pronounced that right hit the green button yes just make sure it's the light is on can you hear me yes madam chair council mayor I want to say that we're doing the best we can in this community to solve all the issues I have hope and faith in our society that we will solve some of these major issues I think sometimes we all look at the negative more than the positive but I'm a I've been a Berlin Tony and for a very long time I want to say also the Almond Avenue shelter is extremely going well and I'm proud of the work that we all have done and I hope maybe someday we could engage other community members to solve some of these odd issues that we're having now so I have faith and that sometimes which all you need is faith thank you thank you very much our next speaker is janna coiley to be followed by Megan manier and again you'll correct me if I've mispronounced your name good evening good evening my name is janna coiley I am a business owner here in downtown Burlington I own home and garden Vermont at 206 College Street I also live at 40 College Street and number 203 every day I walk to my shop every single day from 40 College Street to 206 College Street I have been doing this for the past five years five years ago I wasn't nervous I am nervous now I'm scared now it makes me extremely nervous to walk to work but I'm going to continue to do it every day I walk around tents and people laying on the sides who have made homes in front of ace hardware the old Burton building sometimes in front of my building I am sick and tired of being sick and tired I'm tired of being scared when I go out to take my trash I have to take my slicer with me not only because I'm slicing down my box cutters but because I'm scared about who is going to come around the back of the little recycling container to try to assault me I have poop on my building I have graffiti on my roof as of last week we have taken graffiti down from my building two and three times it is costing me money to get that graffiti off of my roof now whoever mother is I have to spend another $600 I'm trying to run a business a nice business I sell flowers I sell encouragement in my building it's a nice shop and I want to continue to be there my husband and I retired here from Hilton Head Island oh to seek a better finish the sentence yeah we tried to come here to seek a better life and I'm not sure about that now anyway I have a lot more to say but another time thank you thank you very much so our next speaker is Megan Monier I believe that's what I believe that's what it is but you'll correct me if I'm wrong and the next speaker will be Michael Nadel hi I'm Megan Minan sorry it looks like an R I'm Diana's daughter and she's the reason why we moved here we've been here now for 12 years from South Carolina but we live on North Prospect Street and I similarly the concern is great for that the way that the city has gone and not only for ourselves but just for the people that are experiencing the the crisis that we've seen right now the conversations that I have with my eight-year-old daughter on our walk to school our conversations about how do we solve this problem how do we care for these people and at the same time how do we keep ourselves safe if something happens that's a conversation that I'm having with my eight-year-old daughter on the way to school that's not the conversation that I want to be having and that she wants to be having she considered writing something because she knew what was happening like the conversations that are happening here and she would be here if she could so I just want to voice my support for six two tonight that we're talking about and voice her support too as an eight-year-old girl who wants to be active here in local politics and really care and love our community and really see our community thrive once again I want to see a place where people aren't saying that they are afraid to come downtown that they're actually excited to come downtown again to see a place where really again all people can thrive and I know that there are folks that are unhoused and we have we need to solve that problem as well so that we can all feel safe and have a safe place to live and in the winter have a safe place to live as well I thank you all for the work that you're doing and I just hope that we can work together to solve the public safety crisis here that we're having thank you our next speaker is Michael Nadel to be followed by Andrew Voda good evening my name is Michael Adele I live on Peru Street live within 50 yards of a preschool on Allen Street I live close to the Elmwood Cemetery I think the pods on Elmwood are a great program but they've attracted drug use and and and transients to the area and I've watched more people than they care to see shoot up within 50 yards of that preschool and climb the fence over to Elmwood and and use the cemeteries to toilet I don't wish to see that anymore I've noticed in a police log that there's three foot patrols that go up Church Street every day I know for you know this but Elmwood is really close to Church Street so if they could just continue up Elmwood three times a day perhaps that routine kind of surveillance and and foot patrol would detract these drug users and transients who are preying on those people in the pods from using that area as a drug use area thanks thank you very much our next speaker is Andrew Voda to be followed by Andrew Janice Janice good evening my name is Andrew Voda and I'm a parent and a 25-year resident of Burlington President Paul I'm here to thank the Public Safety Committee for authoring the resolution to be discussed later and I respectfully urge the council to approve it without further delay Burlingtonians myself among them have grown incredibly frustrated with the situation in our downtown in our neighborhoods our parks and across the city we are not okay with the level of property crime brazen drug dealing and use violent crime and most of all people suffering we want acknowledgement of the situation from our leaders and we want to hear you say that it is a crisis we want more data and transparency about what is and isn't happening in response we want to know why it seems to be getting worse and not better but most of all we want action there are many reasons why we're in the situation that we're in and we can't do anything about the past but what you can do now as leaders is to act with urgency and collaboration with the administration our dedicated police and fire departments our state's attorney's office judicial system state government and federal delegation to respond thank you for your good work and for the opportunity to speak with you tonight thank you very much so our next speaker is Andrew Janays I'm I you'll you again will wow okay I really didn't get that thank you welcome so hello everyone my name is Andrew I'm a business owner here in Burlington I'm also a father a husband and a homeowner prior to any of those blessings I was a broken individual who moved to a sober living establishment in the south end of Burlington in the summer of 2011 to recover from an opioid addiction over the past 12 years I've helped many people get sober and more importantly stay sober I currently help lead a group known as the family restored which focuses on speaking with families who are impacted by their loved ones in the in their current state of using during this meeting we often teach that enabling can come in many forms and that engaging in any behavior that is providing comfort to an addict or alcoholic can be detrimental the desire to change comes from discomfort I didn't ask for help until I had been arrested and was facing a lengthy prison sentence as well as my friends and family were no longer who will no longer willing to provide me any form of comfort my clients have told me that the only reason that they come downtown is is to come see me and otherwise they refuse to spend money in Burlington as they do not want to support what is taking place aside from the business I have worked extremely hard for and wanting to be successful it pains me to see the current state of Burlington downtown is dying some families don't feel comfortable walking around violence is up and there are multiple overdoses daily I see myself and the people around downtown afflicted by the illness of addiction and all I can speak on is what got me better and that was accountability and tough love there are countless amounts of others that I know that would agree with these statements I believe the proposal being discussed is a movement in the correct direction in my opinion in my experience to keep the focus on the current drug drug epidemic that of solely harm reduction will ultimately lead to more overdose deaths so I thank you president and the rest of the city council for allowing me the opportunity to share my experience with you I do believe this is a crucial moment for Burlington and I appreciate that the council is focused on the work thank you thanks very much our next speaker is Eric Cronk to be followed by Todd LaCroix good evening just press the one in the middle where it says push trying it's on it's on thank you for having us this evening I live downtown a long-standing member of Burlington and a common theme I completely support the resolution that's being proposed to address our crisis our mental health crisis and our opioid crisis in Burlington clearly our humanity wants us to reach out to our brothers and sisters in need but we also have a multi-layered problem as we all know homelessness oftentimes is overlying a drug problem which is overlying perhaps a mental health issue which perhaps might be overlying a host of other issues going back to childhood trauma brought on by poverty and brought on by lack of positive role models and on and on and on so balancing our our humanity our humanity must be a level of common sense to really find creative solutions to this problem and I applaud the others who have spoken here tonight but we need to employ some very creative problem solving on this the second thing I wanted to say is it's implied in the resolution and it's been touched upon here tonight but one example is this which is quite interesting so we spent a very nice sum of our treasure to create this beautiful city hall park perhaps one of the great hallmarks to our city and right now as we sit here there's an act of drug market happening 50 yards right over there I walked by it coming here it's let's make a deal right now right over there so I have friends in Chittenden County who quite apprehensively will come downtown in Burlington right now and we have stores that are leaving I've seen tourists shoved to the ground on Church Street so we must take some action to reclaim our city because we're driving people away thank you our next speaker is Todd LaCroix to be followed by Ryan Nick good evening you people are ridiculous you say you care about all this stuff but listen to this everybody's like what the whole society is in trouble yet you guys just want to start wars elsewhere and spend all this money on wars elsewhere making more homeless in those wars and then they all these refugees that we make with disastrous foreign policy and we're having to deal with the influx of the damage that we've caused and here we are dealing with climate refugees on top of it and then the reason why most people are homeless is because there's no affordable rents and there's no livable wages that ends up homeless and then the drugs and the problems usually get exasperated in the desperation of the homelessness and the fact that you guys don't care you talk about caring but yet here you have spent 12 years since I was abused and tortured by the Burlington police just dehumanizing me you are using the police to harass me and help destroy my life I am literally being prosecuted for stuff that is insane right now and yet you're smiling while you're doing it to me giving me $500 tickets for walking my bike for speaking out for police reform that happened the day after you cut off my mic and supported the violation of my civil rights yes you are harassing me outside and violating my civil rights and destroying my life and you're enjoying it and you're doing it to all the kids out there and you're doing it to your children too and other people's children all over the world thank you so much our next speaker is Ryan Nick to be followed by Morgan Hilla Brann Hill and Brann good evening thank you for the time to speak tonight I'm Ryan Nick a Ward 8 resident in a downtown employee and I'd like to take this time to emphasize and reiterate the urgency of the problems we face downtown the resolution you're considering tonight is a great first step but I strongly encourage you to pass it as is and move quickly on to taking actions that will improve the situation of our city the systems in place right now are not compassionate for anyone and fail the most vulnerable of our residents this summer has shown just how far Burlington has fallen an immediate action is required to get people the help that they need please do not delay further with amendments that weaken the resolution be thoughtful in your actions but please pick up the pace we cannot wait any longer and the inaction at the local and state level has been disheartening I hope the council continues to publicly call for action and funding from our state government as well as data from our prosecutorial and judicial systems the atmosphere downtown is one of fear anger and despair amongst a wide range of community members and we feel abandoned by our leaders we have seen businesses closing downtown and the ones that remain open cannot find employees for fear of their own safety downtown's fail slowly and then all at once please help us turn the ship around thank you thank you very much our next speaker is Morgan Hillenbrand to be followed by Chad mangan good evening nope there we go hi thanks for having me my name is Morgan Hillen brand and I live in Burlington with my husband and my two kids I'm a working mom and for the past 20 years I've worked on State Department and USA initiatives overseas I'm speaking tonight as a concerned parent and a career development specialist that has spent most of my life working with communities in crisis I believe that we're framing the discussion of the opioid crisis in a way that's limiting our thinking and trapping us in a zero-sum game where we feel we only have two approaches to the problem harm reduction or law enforcement which folks feel are diametrically opposed the reality is that we need we have two crises in town and we need to use both of these approaches the first crisis is a humanitarian crisis where a large population of sick unhoused vulnerable people are physically mentally and spiritually brutalized by their disease a humanitarian response to the crisis is required which means services food water shelter and yes harm reduction strategies as part of the as part of the solution but we also have a governance crisis and rule of law has been compromised in Burlington we have high crime drug trafficking public drug consumption home invasion auto theft and a host of other issues community faith and the leaders responsible for upholding the rule of law is compromised trust between the police and the community is compromised criminals thrive during humanitarian crises and the chaos that ensues holding them accountable is part of the job of a humanitarian response without rule of law societies cannot function and I have lived and worked in many of them the economics of this town are based on people feeling safe here I ask our council leaders to pass the resolution and provide care for the vulnerable groups in our community while also upholding the rule of law thank you so much for your work and your time thank you so much our next speaker is Chad mangan to be followed by and tuxbury fry good evening good evening thank you council my name is Chad mangan I live in the south end of Burlington I grew up in Burlington I've been around Burlington my whole life and I can say without a doubt that the rampant drug use and violent theft is at an all-time high the services that we're providing are apparently attracting people who don't respect our community example being doing drugs in public littering needles especially being the concern there sure we've all had our experiences additionally I think if we're going to provide these services we should provide them in a way that discourage drug use rather than allowing without any repercussions to do drugs and benefit from the services and programs that we offer while acting in a non-neighborly fashion I'm a dad of a toddler and I choose not to bring my family to the new City Hall Park because of these issues these aren't back alley drug users they're open in City Hall Park and it doesn't feel safe for me or my family and that's the first time I felt that way in the city thank you very much our next speaker is Anne tuxbury fry to be followed by Brian Boardman good evening good evening everybody my name is Anne tuxbury fry I'm a resident of Burlington I'm a long time former teacher in the Old North End presently teaching at St. Mike's and I'm honored to be here as the president of a non-profit that you may not know about in Burlington called jump jump stands for joint urban ministry project and it's been happening in Burlington for 35 years I'm just here to let you know during this incredibly important evening that we are here and we are helping and hoping to continue to serve the population that you are talking about jump is a non-profit 501 3 organization with interfaith roots and support that provides practical resources hospitality and thoughtful referrals to people in need jump was founded in 1988 and is supported by 28 Vermont faith communities foundations local agencies and partners businesses individual donors volunteers and committed leadership and a gifted staff we provide gift cards to local grocery stores and thrift stores vouchers to the laundromat as well as helping people to pay the utility bills so they won't get shut off since January of 2023 jump has served 984 households representing nearly 2000 individuals we assist residents of Chittenden County once every three months the continued housing crisis those struggling with their mental health and increase in drug use in Chittenden County has risen to a crisis level and we know that we're open two mornings a week at the first congregational church on South Winooski Avenue I would like to be able to I want you to know that we're there and we're doing our best and we would love to be connected with the city council I have business cards that are a little bit enlarged because I had a lot to say on the back and is there a way Madam Chairman that I can get them to people on the council I'm sure that the CAO would be happy to take them off your hands and we'll each get one thank you so much thank you our next speaker is Brian Boardman to be followed by Lee more again good evening are we all right you don't need to press one of those just the microphone okay great or it should be on our my name is Brian Boardman I'm a resident of Burlington I grew up here and I was not going to speak tonight but I had a really disturbing experience on Saturday being downtown just trying to get cash out of the community bank ATM and there were people behind the bank eight or ten different people camping hanging out and it's for the first time in my life this was in broad daylight ten in the morning I really felt unsafe in my own city and it just really it just hurt to the core and it though I already knew there was a problem I'm in recovery and the first step in recovery for any addict is to acknowledge the problem and then recover move forward to recovery the city of Burlington is at that point now we need to acknowledge that there's a problem and move and take the steps to move forward to get into recovery and take care of this problem the solution is the resolution that's on the table it doesn't need to be changed it needs to be voted on tonight and approved so we can move forward and bring Burlington back thank you thank you very much our next speaker is Lee more again to be followed by Isabella Farron good evening Lee my name is Lee Morgan I live in Ward 7 and tonight I will add that I am also an alcoholic and a drug addict I'm able to sit in front of you here tonight because of a very complicated blend of harm reduction and enforcement in 2007 I had an overdose that knocked out my ability to talk I sustained a chemical traumatic brain injury and I was involuntarily committed to a mental health institution I was no stranger to mental health hospitals but that was my first involuntary commitment and it was very different when I discharged my psychiatrist who I had been keeping in the dark about a lot of my stuff I told him I drank occasionally but he found out through my hospitalization that I was in alcohol induced hepatitis and in the early stages of liver failure and I could no longer talk very well so he used the powers of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to seek the appointment of my guardianship and told me if I did not want to live in an institution against my will I had to get clean and sober for a certain amount of time my intention was to get clean and sober and get out of trouble and continue drinking and that's exactly what I did in two hours into a relapse I wound up in front of more people who got to make decisions about me and while it was very difficult to go through that I'm grateful for it I know I never would have chose to get sober I know that I was in liver failure and I couldn't talk and I thought it wasn't that bad yet so you know I think we need to not fall into the trap of thinking one answer is is how to do it because I know if there was just one focus with me it never would have happened and I give a lot to the city and say what you will about me I show up in my life and what I lived through I will show up when it's hard I show up when it's easy and I'm really glad to be able to share my story with you tonight thanks our next speaker our next speaker is Isabella Fern to be followed by Christopher Aaron Felker hi my name is Bella Fern I use she her pronouns and I live in word three I'm here today with my friends and neighbors asking you to support harm reduction instead of increasing use of law enforcement and imprisonment for those struggling with drug misuse as much as I'm tempted to read off compelling statistics and I'm more tempted and compelled to tell my family's story two years ago while I was moving into my Park Street apartment I received a call from my sister we had lost our cousin to an overdose she was 23 she had a bright future ahead of her and a family who loved her deeply before this event she was had encounters with law enforcement because of possession but nothing meaningful was done on that day she had a friend her and a friend had overdosed in her car with no one there to support her no one there to save her if she had a place to go like a safe injection site maybe she would still be alive today maybe like one in five people who use safe injection sites she would have gotten the support that she needed if we continue to villainize those who use drugs and deal with their issues through increased enforcement rather than compassion nothing will be nothing will happen but more casualties of this war on drugs when we use incarceration and the criminal punishment system to solve this crisis we push people into the shadows we push people into their cars we push people to their death thank you thank you very much our next speaker is Christopher Aaron Felker and then we will proceed with Burlington residents who are joining us online good evening good evening so it's been over ten years since governor Shumlin dedicated the state of the state addressed to it focusing on the heroin crisis at the time in that amount of time this state has opened zero zero additional inpatient treatment beds as a matter of fact we've lost in patient treatment beds it's incredibly upsetting to me on a deeply personal level that politicians tend in this state tend to talk about the addiction crisis every 18 months and yet they can't manage to get anything accomplished in the last 10 years of real value we can't open beds this is a multi-layer failure of every level of governance in this state from governor Scott's office to the regulatory agencies to the state's attorney's office to write down here to Burlington we need to work together to find solutions I'm 44 years old and I've never seen so much despair and hopelessness in my entire life that I see on the streets today we talk about harm reduction harm reduction is a very broad term that is all-encompassing I support needle exchanges I support Narcan I support fentanyl test strips I do not support illicit injection sites or safe injection sites or safe consumption facilities or whatever your focus groups tell you is the least repugnant branding for this type of center the data is clear clients of these so-called safe injection facilities tend to utilize them every 10 to 14 days but we know that fentanyl addicts are shooting up seven eight ten times a day safe injection facilities will do absolutely nothing to stop people who are smoking crack and meth on our streets thank you thanks very much so we will now move to those people who wish to speak online and we'll set up a timer on the screen over here thanks very much so the first person who is joining us to speak online is Kyle Dodson and Kyle I have found you and enabled your microphone if you unmute you should be able to speak hey there chairwoman Karen can you hear me yes yes we can wow look at that technology I just want to say it's inspiring and moving to hear all my fellow Berlin Tony and speaking out tonight I just wanted to reach out with the encouragement for everyone we're in a tough time and we're moving to a tougher time the issues we're facing seem irreconcilable I don't know what the solutions are to the challenges with mental health crises opiate crises homelessness crises and it's going to take a while to move through them what Amish then personally and as the CEO of Y is making sure that we move through these challenges with the greatest amount of cohesion unification and togetherness as possible next year the election year with the national election and now our own mayoral void that we're hoping great people who want to serve our community will step up but it's going to be tough it'll only be tougher if we're at each other's throat so we have a challenge of getting all the voices in the room right it's been wonderful to people who came to speak up tonight but for each of us who came to speak up there's 10 50 100 people who are at home they're jaded they're cynical they're disconnected they're living their lives and we got to figure out how to get more of us talking thank you to the council thank you to all my fellow Berlin Tony and we at the Y are going to be presenting some opportunities for convening and talking about these issues so I just want to say I hope all you know how much I care about this community and I don't have answers but I certainly have a lot of love for you that's about it thank you very much Kyle our next speaker this is definitely going to be a name that will challenge me is Tomas Schispjorski and I don't find that name on Zoom however I find I do find someone with the same last name so I'm going to assume that they're related and will allow that microphone to be enabled it's Alexis Schispjorski so all you need to do is unmute on your end and we'll be able to hear you I believe I've located the right person and you're you are muted on your end so what we'll do is we'll go to the next person in the queue and then we will come back we will come back to this person the next person is Kelly Kimball and I don't see anyone online with that name if you are on if you are on Zoom with a different name just simply use the raise hand function and I will find you the next speaker is Sharon Busher and President Paul point of information I do see a raised hand here it is from a different name okay well we'll see would you like me sure so that's it's under the just one name Robin yes Robin are you one of the two people that I had just called off and you just need to unmute yourself no I'm I'm sorry what I am not one of those two people I am not one of those two people okay so have you signed up to speak on did you sign up to speak or just so that I know which which person you are on in the queue I already removed her permission to speak I was a little happy there with the button the next person that is in the queue is Kelly Kimball and as I've said I cannot find I cannot find Kelly so please use the raise hand function and I will attempt to find you as we move on in the queue the next person in the queue was Sharon Busher and I don't see you online or do not see you online so again please use the raise hand function the next person is Mary Cox and Mary Mary I have found you and enabled your microphone you should be able to speak if you just unmute yes we can please go ahead so I'm speaking I'm speaking in favor of item 6.2 the resolution having to do with substance abuse and the I like the whole spirit of the resolution I like the things that are in it one of the things in particular is the willingness to try innovative things and my family's been beneficiary of a program in California that tackles one small portion of the problem through a felony diversion program with low-level felonies committed by a person that has one of three specific mental health diagnoses but virtually all of them end up also having a drug abuse substance abuse problem and there it's a long two-year program with inpatient for a year in a mental health facility and then in a organ care for another year and what's interesting about this program is that it was actually started by judges in the Riverside County and they just decided they needed to do something different other than putting people with mental health problems into the jails where they really don't get the help that they need and so through this other program it's a very long program gives people a chance to learn how to have a different life and I'm looking forward to sharing more about this at a public safety committee meeting but I just wanted to say that I think that there are things all around the country the people are doing that are innovative approaches to different parts of the problem and then if we can just cobble these together that we can maybe make some strides in the right direction one other point is that the Riverside County started this program with zero funding so there was simply a willingness of the courts and of the community and of the providers to do something to solve a problem three years later they're doing great thank you very much thank you so much our next speaker is Jill Baudelato and Jill I have found you enabled your microphone you just need to unmute on your end am I here yes we can hear you am I yes you are I just wanted to say thank you for this much needed dialogue as you all know I've been pushing for this and it makes me very hopeful that we can all come together as the community that I moved here for and so many people moved here for and be together and get innovative and solve this problem together and bring our community back for everybody and I think I just really want for everyone to push for the resolution that we all worked really hard on or the subcommittee worked really hard on to be pushed through as is because I think a lot of thought was given to that and I think that's a way to quickly and urgently move forward thank you thanks so much Jill the next person in the queue is Rachel Siegel and Rachel I oh is Rachel here in person no I can't find you online so if you can just use the raise hand function I will I will I will find I will find you President Paul I don't believe Rachel's able to join us this evening she's in transit back from a trip so okay you won't be able to make it thank you thank you thanks so much the next the next person in the queue is Claire wall and Claire I have found you enabled your microphone you should be able to speak just unmute on your side thank you thank you President Paul thank you city councilors thank you citizens of Burlington that are present tonight on behalf of myself and our family I want to extend a great appreciation for the resolution that was approved by the public safety subcommittee I urge the city council to approve it tonight as is I want to also acknowledge Morgan Hill and brands test public comment tonight incredibly valuable as a citizen and a caring member of our society with experience I want to thank you again on behalf of all the citizens of Burlington listening tonight it is an incredibly critical time for our city thank you thanks so much Claire our next speaker is Tony Finnegan and Tony I have found you and enabled your microphone you should be able to speak just unmute on your end thank you so much I really appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight and I am a resident of Burlington I live at 77 residences on Pine Street we gather often many of us residents and talk about the issues and how we're all feeling and how are you staying safe and it's become a more frequent conversation over the last year and a half that I've lived in the building and I know that there's a lot of concern I know some people want to leave the area at friends that won't come downtown the city I didn't want to go into the meeting tonight because it's after dark and it's three blocks from my apartment and I don't want to walk alone at night so I am here asking you to please adopt the 6.2 resolution as is this is a crisis and I think something needs to happen thank you for listening thank you so much our next speaker is Tracy Moran and Tracy I believe I have found you and enabled your microphone you just simply need to unmute on your end somehow I unmuted you and lost you I will come back to you I for some reason as soon as you were unmuted I lost you I lost you on zoom so if you do come back if you do come back please reuse the raise hand function and I'll I'm happy to recognize you the other names that I called before were Tomas Pjorsky and I do see someone with that same last name I'll try it again just in case that is the correct person you just simply need to unmute on your end first name of Alexis and the other tune the other name was Kelly Kimball who I do not see who I do not see on zoom and then Tracy Moran one more time I don't see either of those two people on zoom if you if you do come on please please use the raise hand function I do see someone who's using the raise hand function please go please go ahead I'm not sure I don't have there's no name on it so if you can just identify yourself please I will this is Sharon Busher oh okay I'm not I'm not sure why my name didn't come across one for you but thank you so much this was a very I don't know complicated and yet encouraging public forum it was something that I'm really glad I had a chance to listen to because so many people with so many perspectives came together to offer their insights into the crisis that we all face and I was encouraged by that I certainly support the resolution that the Public Safety Committee put forward it's it's lengthy and it's complicated just like the opioid crisis is so but I also wanted to say that I also support on your agenda the recommendation by the Burlington Fire Department their proposal for the overdose response team pilot I think that's innovative and will be incredibly helpful and the other comment that I made at the Board of Finance was the other agenda item which has to do with the warming shelters which someone spoke to the fact that as I had said at the Board of Finance that our climate gets colder before December 15 and I don't know whether there is monies or resources to have that open before that time period whether it could be like December 1st I don't know if that obstacle is if there are other obstacles that prevent that from happening but I would appreciate that consideration and then the last thing that I mentioned was there was a suggestion of a morning snack and I had suggested with food and security maybe it could be breakfast hot oatmeal raisins brown sugar nothing fancy but something warm to get their stay started so thank you for listening to my comments I wanted to make them again so that the full council could hear them thanks thank you very much we will go we will leave zoom for a few moments and go back into con toys there is a non Burlington resident who is patiently waited to speak that being Kelly divine I don't have the good fortune to live in Burlington but I do represent several hundred businesses here I want I can't really say anything more than your own residents said tonight we are in a crisis and I'm going to ask the council to act swiftly on the public safety resolution which something that I intended the committee meetings to work on and I think we got some good work done there it's just the beginning we have a long road ahead of us and I would say that while I'm very supportive of that resolution I think we need absolutely some immediate action to help relieve the pressure that is on our downtown we have a downtown that is only I think 19 blocks and I hear a lot of references to San Francisco other US cities are facing the same kind of crises I don't know that many of them are safe are facing them in such a small concentrated area if we lose the vibrancy of our downtown I think we lose something that's really important to Burlington we can certainly you know continue down the path that we've been on and see what happens with that but I know from a lot of research I've done that losing a vibrant downtown is very difficult to reclaim I also would like to speak about the warming shelter there was a social media spread that said the Burlington Business Association is not supportive of warming shelters that's absolutely not the truth we were actively involved in the program starting in 2015 had a board member of ours on the advisory committee I do think that there is a place for that I do think that given the crisis that we're under the state of our downtown and the weight that is on our downtown already that I'm concerned about how we make sure that we manage the behaviors that seem to gravitate to that periphery of a of an organization like that and I hope that the city will take that seriously thank you thank you very much so we'll return there are no there's no one else who signed up to speak in con toys so we will return to zoom and finish up finish our public forum with a couple of people on non Burlington residents who had requested to speak and the first person is Daphne Hewitt and Daphne I'm unable to locate you on zoom you can use the raise hand function if I'm missing you the next person is Mariah Flynn and and Mariah I have found you and enabled your microphone you should be able you should be able to speak just unmute yourself hello I'm sorry I'm not able to join you all in person this evening for counselors I haven't met yet my name is Mariah Flynn I'm the director of the Burlington partnership for a healthy community or BPHC I'm also a certified prevention specialist BPHC is a local coalition focused on addressing the causes and consequences of substance misuse in Burlington we want to applaud the council and the city for your tireless dedication to finding solutions to the addiction crisis and to share our support for the resolution presented in items 6.2 to increase community attention and resources to this important issue we're also aware of how important this resolution is and we know how much you all want to get it right so I came here before you today to also draw attention to a gap our team saw in the resolution substance use is impacting everyone in our community in some way and our team has seen and met a part of efforts to reduce harm and create comprehensive community response to support people with substance use disorder and get them the help that they deserve but at the same time we've seen little attention and dwindling resources to support strategies that prevent the development of a substance use disorder or addiction I want to speak to advocate for more in your resolution that focuses on increasing protective factories in the community that have been proven to reduce high risk substance use substance use prevention work is not a crisis response but it's the steady long-term investment in policies and practices and education and community assets that prevent the constant need for a crisis response I would strongly urge the city as part of this resolution to make that written commitment to community level prevention strategies that are proven to prevent substance misuse and increase public health myself and our team and coalition partners at BPHC are dedicated and informed and already ready to do this work we're here as partners to support you in your next steps please don't hesitate to reach out thank you so much for your time thank you so much Mariah the next person who had asked to speak is Andy Blanchett and Andy I have found you and enabled your microphone you should be able to speak now all right can you hear me yes we can good evening thank you my name is Andy Blanchett I'm a resident of Winooski but I am president of AFSCME 1674 which is the Howard Center Workers Union I'm here to discuss a bit about what a worker from the chicken and clinic in South Burlington has had to say about city's response to the opioid epidemic and I also want to share my own experiences so firstly I want to let you know that I am personally as president of AFSCME 1674 in support of the resolution 6.2 a question I think we need to ask ourselves are do business owners and reactionary citizens want people to just disappear out of sight to no longer make us nervous or do we want people to live are we serious about working class people being able to literally live or do we want working class people in poverty to just disappear do we allow business owners in Burlington to continue to dictate public health policy or do we look towards those with evidence based solutions to lead the way a quote from someone that works at the clinic who is a member of our union said if the city were serious about harm reduction there would have already been low barrier methadone clinics located downtown years ago or some movement towards safe supply now the city can't even address wound care let alone public housing I'm tired of the theater the thing the city has most control over is housing and all they seem to want to do is do literally anything but build actual public housing after watching the city of Burlington fail for over seven years straight I don't imagine the next seven will be any different I would like to share that I think if we interrogate are not in my backyard attitudes towards harm reduction and we take actionable steps to try to reduce death we will have a better community I think when folks are talking about we need an immediate solution there are evidence based solutions that we can enact right away if that is what we want to do and the last thing I wanted to just echo here is that there is proactive solutions and if we continue down reactionary short-sighted or lackluster policies we will find ourself in a worse situation thank you thank you very much and our last person who has signed up to speak is Peter Duvall and Peter I've enabled your microphone you should be able to speak just simply on mute on your end comment my name is Peter Duvall I live in Underhill and my comments relate to the McNeil generating station and the proposed steam transmission line between McNeil and the hospital running any organization whether it's business city or utility is a series of decisions about using available resources the decisions are not zero sum but budgeting priorities are often pitted against each other in that spirit do take a look at the finances of the McNeil generating station which is a drag on the city and the state there are many entities that should be carefully monitoring plants finances and the rationale for its continued operation including McNeil joint owners to attend Vermont utilities including Burlington Electric Department which owns 50% of the plant and operates the plant on behalf of the other utilities in the state there's the Vermont Public Service Department Public Utility Commission who also have oversight responsibility as do the members of the Burlington Electric Commission City Council don't let the bystander effect cause you to think that others are fulfilling their duty to be diligent in the operation of the plant keep your attention on the business risks and costs that are involved in continuing to operate the plant and the effect those risks have on the proposed steam transmission fight thank you thank you very much and that concludes the people who have signed up to speak during public forum thank you all for being here thank you all for coming to speak during public forum we will continue with our agenda at 7 at 731 I believe that 831 I believe that our local control Commission and local cannabis control Commission were called for this hour so we will go to the next item on our council agenda and then recess for a few moments to complete those items the next item on our agenda is item number four which is climate emergency reports is there any counselor or the administration who wishes to offer a climate emergency report Councillor Bergman I just want to briefly talk about this is there clearly times that try our souls as Thomas Payne said a long time ago and one of the things that we have is a crisis around the existence of of habitable planets so I don't mean to take away much time on this really critical public safety in Burlington but that climate crisis is really important and we have as a council before us a carbon fee ordinance and we've got issues as you've just heard related to the burning of of wood to heat do thermal heating up at the hospital it's been my opinion that we need all the non-emitting sources of power generation and electricity as we possibly can and that includes the incentivization and the de-incentivization or the re the regulation of those those sources of power so I just want to mention that we have heard and we will I think continue to hear about thermal energy networks these are networks in buildings that are mostly newly built but can also be for rehab buildings that link a variety of heat sources including and I think it's a very significant the tremendous amount of waste heat that particularly larger entities have I think that the ordinance committee could take that up is one of the explicit items that we exempt from the fee as a first step I think that we at the TUC and maybe the ordinance committee as well as the administration's permitting and inspections department can look at changes in our building and zoning ordinances to make this happen South Burlington is making some efforts on solar ready and this is another area that we've got a tremendous opportunity to do our place to stop or to mitigate or to lessen the burning of the planet that we seem as a as a species intent on doing so thank you for letting me take this time thank you so much Councillor Bergman is there any other councillor or the administration who wishes to offer a climate emergency report seeing none before we get to our consent and deliberative agendas what we'll close out item number four and call to it we do have as I had said a local control commission and the local cannabis control commission meeting that we need to attend to they're very brief but we do need to get to them so we will recess the council meeting at 834 and call to order the local cannabis control commission meeting at the same time at the same hour the first item on our agenda is one point one is there a motion to accept the agenda move to adopt the agenda thank you so much commissioner Shannon chair of the license committee seconded by commissioner travers is there any discussion on that motion seeing none all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye any opposed please say no we have our agenda which leads us to the next item on our agenda number two which is 2023 cannabis applications we have one application this evening for verdant with wisdom LLC and it has been our practice to ask if owners of a business are present with us this evening either in person or on zoom and they're welcome to come forward to introduce themselves and their business they're under no obligation to do so but because we have so little information on these businesses this is an opportunity to make yourselves known if you wish to do so and I will look online to see if there's anyone who is using the raise hand function oh good evening good evening my name is Ishmael Ahmed and I actually use the Vermont pronunciation of the word verdant verdant wisdom so it's a basically a micro cannabis grow using basically old-school land raised seeds that have been grown in Vermont for quite some time so you have any questions or concerns doesn't seem so but we are we're glad you we were glad that you came and thank you for telling us about your business thank you with that we will go to item 2.1 which is which is the application for verdant wisdom LLC commissioner Shannon move to approve and authorize transmission of local approval for verdant wisdom LLC to the state cannabis control board thank you commissioner Shannon seconded by commissioner travers is there any discussion on the motion seeing none all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye any opposed please say no that passes unanimously and seeing no other items on this agenda and hearing no objection we will adjourn the local cannabis control commission meeting at 837 and call toward of the local control commission meeting the first item is item 1.1 motion to adopt the agenda commissioner Shannon move to adopt the agenda thank you commissioner Shannon seconded by commissioner travers is there any discussion on that motion seeing none all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye any opposed please say no we have our agenda our next item is the consent agenda is there a motion to move the consent agenda and take the actions indicated so move thank you commissioner Shannon seconded by commissioner travers is there any discussion on the motion seeing none all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye any opposed please say no that motion passes unanimously which leads us to seeing no other items on that agenda and hearing no objection we'll adjourn the local control commission meeting at 838 and resume the recess city council meeting at the same hour so returning to our council agenda we will continue with item number five which is our consent agenda is there a motion to move our consent agenda and take the actions indicated so moved thank you councillor Shannon seconded by councillor jang any discussion on that motion seeing none all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed please say no we've approved our consent agenda which brings us to our deliberative agenda and we have four items on our deliberative agenda where appropriate there were time limits set on each item which we have agreed to by approving our agenda and we will do our best to to keep to our agenda the first item on the agenda 6.1 which is a communication from lieutenant mike bellow and deputy chief brian lebarge the burlington police department a presentation regarding the drug crimes unit and for this item I will go to mayor Weinberger for an introduction thank you president paul and thank you all for for coming and being part of this conversation tonight I do just want to give a little bit of road map for people I know we're starting to lose people but for people watching at home still with us we're gonna have this presentation from Burlington police department on the city's ongoing drug enforcement efforts in a moment later tonight after this item we will be taking the council be taking action on two related items that deal with aspects of the challenges we're facing in a vote to approve the creation of a new winter warming shelter and a new fire department initiative that has come up through the ranks and through the chief to have a new fire department led response to the enormous number of overdoses that we're experiencing and I I mentioned that to invite people just to stay but also I think it points out that as we face these challenges the the city is acting on many fronts to try to respond I very much welcome all of you coming tonight it is I consider many of you in the room friends neighbors colleagues people I've worked with in in in various ways for years and it is I think an important community conversation that we're having with you all in the room I spend a great deal of my day-to-day time right now having conversations like this with various stakeholders constituents residents in different parts of the city especially in around the downtown I think it is welcome to have this in this public forum we have not always had consensus at this table on public safety items in the past that has changed over the last couple years we have had much greater consensus since the fall of 2021 on most public safety issues I think with your strong voices tonight and passion behind what said I'm hopeful we'll be moving forward with even more consensus going forward I'd like to take just a moment before handing over the microphone to the police department to take a step back and I think try to share from my perspective some answers to questions that I think are underlying a lot of the statements made tonight and certainly underlying what I'm feeling from from residents day in and day out there is this real question and concern about what is going on why we are seeing so much more drug use in the downtown and oftentimes a real question about what the city and others are doing about these crises from my perspective the answer to what going on it has been fairly clear for for a couple of years now we have had dramatic shifts in three major areas since 2020 the most dramatic change is that fentanyl and meth have become the dominant drugs here in Burlington and nationally and these drugs have a far worse impacts on the people suffering from addiction and on the community around them than prior opioids opioid drugs did there's also been a real shift with homelessness we have seen an enormous increase in the number of people who are unsheltered in this community even just over the last few months there was about approximately be in the spring a hundred people in this community living unsheltered that has risen to approximately 270 today a lot of that came in the immediate wake of the state ending of the motel hotel program that overnight put about 200 Burlington sorry chinning County residents on the streets a third major change since 2020 and of course is that our police department's ability to respond to issues in the downtown in the in the city is substantially less than it was just a few years ago with us down about 40% from our peak of just a few years ago following the council vote to eliminate 30% of our officers that decision has been reversed and we are building that department back but we are still suffering from the effects of that decision so what is the city doing about these three areas tonight is probably not is not a place to offer a detailed briefing on each of these we are going to hear about the police department I do just want to summarize as quickly as I can what we are doing in each of these three areas first of all with the police rebuilding we are a little more than a year since the council approved the rebuilding plan and that rebuilding plan is on track to according to the timetable laid out by the chief a little more than a year ago we're up now to almost 70 officers from a low of 60 and we have also added substantial other public safety resources community service office errors community service liaisons park rangers and all that is starting to have a positive impact and you will see in the presentation tonight how the resources specifically that the police department has for addressing the drug crisis have taken a hit over the last two years but have stayed in place and continue to work and work hard and how as we take the next steps of the rebuilding and as we all anticipate get to the mid 70s and officers by next spring how we will see a restoration of some of the drug enforcement activity that we've had in the past responding to the drug crisis continues to be a top focus of mine in the city as it has been since 2016 I continue to host a monthly meeting we call community stat that brings together dozens literally dozens of stakeholders who have some aspect of this work on a monthly basis when we have these community stat meetings we have in the room law enforcement officers prosecutors defense attorneys houses doctors drug treatment professionals and many people who have had lived experience in one way or another with with this challenge including parents who have lost children as well as people that are in recovery themselves our effort is led by an individual who works for the city who is in recovery and is extremely committed to this issue for a number of years these efforts were clearly working this was a top priority the day chief del pozo was sworn in in the fall of 2015 I asked him to review our drug crisis response and he did so and in the years particularly 2018 and 2019 we were making progress with these issues the number of overdose deaths in Chittenden County went down by 50% it stayed at that level in 2019 it was dramatic a drop as any improvement in the country and it came as as we had mounted as robust a local effort to address the drug crisis as as any community in the country we dramatically changed prescribing practices we expanded treatment access in and more that all changed the nature of this crisis changed dramatically in 2020 when fentanyl became the dominant drug opioid in this community just it is a long and detailed story why it changed so dramatically to summarize just a few points that I think point to the how dramatically our challenge is different now the main medicine that we had for treating people suffering from opioid use disorder in 2019 is no longer nearly as effective it simply doesn't work with fentanyl people go into withdrawal if they attempt to take the medicine and they give up and won't won't take it the nature of people's addictions has changed dramatically it used to be before 2020 that people would take an opioid an elicit opioid two or three times a day every eight to ten hours now with fentanyl people go almost immediately into withdrawal after taking the drug they need to take a new dose of fentanyl every two hours it is a dramatically different addiction it is an addiction that is only possible because the price of drugs has dropped just precipitously the where we used to monitor the price of drugs in the hundreds of dollars per gram and we see that as some level of our enforcement success my understanding now is a hit of fentanyl can be obtained for for less than a dollar in many cases and so it's just a dramatically different drug to try to interdict and intervene with but we still have these meetings we still convene we still try to grapple with the changes in this problem we out of these efforts come changes like the ones that will be approved later tonight other recent changes have involved investing in Vermonters for criminal justice reform to have a downtown site this has gotten more than 150 people I believe now into treatment that the state systems were previously missing only the city can will fund this kind of intervention we have brought new public health approaches to the homeless shelters to try to make those shelters vector into recovery we've added social workers at the Burlington Police Department we have we are supporting there's a new needle exchange program that is just now being launched by the Howard Center to try to respond to just the extreme increase in the needs that were we're seeing needles that are being seen around the city we have received two hundred thirty thousand dollars of opioid settlement funds from the national lawsuits that have been settling over the last few years this is just the beginning of money that is flowing to the city we have already committed to some of the efforts I just listed in others all that money and more we are moving with urgency to get that money into the field to try to positively impact what we're experiencing we do need I also because local government has been given a voice on how the state uses its funds which is a departure from the tobacco settlements in the past out of a sense that those monies were not used to effectively address the problem through the settlements half the seats on this settlement advisory settlement committee go to local governments and I'm serving on that advisory committee as well as this other individual reference who works on on this challenge for us and there are others in Chittin County are on there we have made more than eight and a half million dollars in recommendations for how the state should be investing to expand and improve access to treatment and we got an update on the legislature actually approved those recommendations almost accepted entirely what we had recommended in May we got an update from the Department of Health in August about the implementation efforts and we're discouraged to hear that very little had been done to put that money on the street and start to positively impact this issue not only that we also learned that the state has already received another 13 and a half million dollars of funds that the legislature hasn't even begun to grapple with appropriating yet I raised alarm at that issue as this happened others did as well and I am happy to say I was at a meeting with the Department of Health Commissioner Levine last week where it is clear that in the last six weeks the state has begun to move with some greater urgency to get this money on the street I welcome that the resolution calls out explicitly the help we need from the state to get this money invested in and leading to improvement finally the city is aggressively leading the response to homelessness we will have a greater discussion about this later tonight as we talk about this winter winter shelter we here too are in a deep hole that has been built up over many years and has been exacerbated dramatically by the pandemic and the substantial number of people moving into Vermont in recent years because of how well we did during the pandemic our housing production has not nearly kept up with the demand we are trying to change that as we sit here right now we have either completed or having construction nearly 900 new homes it is as much as the city in its history I think has ever had getting built at one time we also have a new special assistant and homelessness Sarah Russell who will be given a presentation later on that is trying to mount emergency responses until that supply can catch up I firmly believe that how homelessness primarily is a housing problem and we simply don't have nearly enough housing we are engaged in both long-term and short-term efforts to address it and if you're interested in hearing more please stick around for the later presentation the city can't do that this work alone and in when we act to ask what should happen next I really welcome that this resolution calls out action from others because I do believe even the great city of Burlington cannot fix this alone for many months I have been saying that the drug crisis needs to once again become our talk top public health priority I made an extended speech on that in April and I welcome tonight's resolution by the city council is consistent with this call when it what we did have this issue as our top priority for many for years governor shumlin in 2014 made this the top priority and by devoting his entire state of the state address to it and as I described before for years we were making substantial progress do we need the state to declare the crisis a top public health and public safety priority again if we're going to again turn the corner with this we need help on property crime from legislators prosecutors and the courts two years ago I called for new retail theft legislation I pushed very hard for that again last year we got no action from the legislature on prioritizing that we need action this year we also need law enforcement at all levels of government doing their their best to interdict the trade of fentanyl meth and other illicit drugs that are harming our community you're gonna hear the extensive efforts the Burlington Police Department continues to attempt to make the I do sense the gears of fed the federal government moving in this direction just three weeks ago that a new federal report was issued calling for a new strategy from the federal government for this interdiction effort we need a multi level multi agency effort to incorporate that new federal strategy with our local strategies and straight strategies to bring a very different level of interdiction efforts going forward and I am going to be very vocal about that further in the weeks ahead to summarize let me be clear to confront our drug crisis we need both law enforcement action and harm reduction efforts this administration is and has been wholly committed to both because without having both we will fail with that I now would ask the representatives from Burlington Police Department to walk us through the the BPD's drug enforcement efforts thank you can you read better good evening yes my name is deputy chief Brian LeBarge I am the deputy chief in charge of the administrative services bureau which among other things oversees the detective division with me I have detective lieutenant Mike Belevo who is the commander of the detective services bureau and detective sergeant Phil Tremblay who is in charge of the drug unit to continue with what the mayor was saying we're going to try to provide you with the overview of the drug unit operations and some information for you in this presentation next slide we can hear you in the room but it does make a dip thank you it does make a difference when people might watch this meeting later at home you wouldn't be picked up as well it so thank you so much for your attention today so as we've all heard over years and even tonight there's several pieces to this complex issue we're going to talk about obviously the department's enforcement activities from that lens today the numbers of overdoses is that 373 that slide says 361 and when I checked the numbers we are at 373 today we're obviously all working to try to lower those numbers with everything that we are working towards next slide please with that we have our detective services bureau has a narcotics unit and that narcotics unit is made up of a sergeant and assigned detectives amongst the cases that they deal with we also have a general investigations unit who handles general crimes one of those general crimes would fall under if there was a drug overdose investigation or an untimely death that may fall under title 1842 50 which deals with death resulting is a charge in the statutes the statute however only applies for person you the person's use of the drug is the proximate cause of death and so as we battle these these issues and we deal with these issues we collaborate with the state's attorney but also with the medical examiner's office and these details about a death if it's drug related come back in a toxicology report and what we are seeing and detective bellow could speak to it maybe a little bit more in detail is that it's not just one thing usually it is a mix of things in a person's system and those usually don't result in the medical examiner making the ruling that the specific drug type led to the cause of death which can be a challenging thing and heartbreaking thing for for families who loved ones past and they want you know justice and people to be held accountable and we're not always able to do that based on the way the law is currently written and how we handle these incidences next slide please chief before you leave this slide actually I think the graphic on the right especially it is an important one and requires some interpretation given how it's sort of showing up here this is showing the that state I think there is this sense sometimes that Burlington is experiencing a loan or unusually the opioid crisis what this shows is that in terms of deaths statewide the average is 17.8 Burlington is just a little bit higher Chinden County is a little bit higher than average than that average at 19 in this most recent data there are numerous parts of the state that are considerably have considered higher rates the point there being not that we are performing at an acceptable rate I do think we heard some public comment before that is if like nothing has been effective or happening I do believe that we would have a considerably higher overdose death rate in Chinden County if we're not for the efforts that were being made to get people in the treatment and to stop this so as I spoke about earlier we have a drug unit and that drug unit is temporary is technically staffed with a sergeant and three detectives and then one task force agent assigned to the DEA our current staffing we are down one of those detectives but throughout the last couple of years as an administration inside the department we as we struggled to deal with staffing issues we prioritized the Bureau and the response to the violent crime and drug incidents as a top priority we did not deplete the Bureau we understood obviously that it was important to have a high-speed unit responsible for investigating everything that took place especially when we look at what took place in 2022 with the shootings and the homicides and so without a Bureau at that point we would obviously been on a worse off place if we had shifted everything to patrol but our drug unit focuses on dealer level and higher level enforcement and not necessarily street level enforcement at a ground level which we will speak to further the department is continuing to rebuild and our priority is to fully staff all units to include the drug unit and our street crimes unit which Mike if you would you would speak to yeah Mike I'm the lieutenant over the Detective Bureau and the chief touched on it but overdose deaths yeah we're slightly above average we do see them Phil and I see every single autopsy for the city that comes through and we review them and major hurdles that we are seeing are certainly the poly drug overdoses and based on our state statutes how they're written it leaves extremely limited avenues for holding people accountable through law enforcement essentially to my left Phil Tremblay he's essentially spent the last several years specifically focused on enforcing narcotics operations he started with a street crimes unit he worked his way up to drug detective was assigned to the DEA task force and he now supervises the narcotics division within our detective bureau so I'm gonna pass them like to him to speak a little bit about that because I think he's probably our resident expert thanks no pressure hi what I'd like to point out is that I actually had an easy out I was told that I did not need to come to this this evening but I elected to come here because it's literally what I've been working on for the last several years and I take great pride in it so basically what I'm gonna touch on a little bit is kind of what we have had what we currently have and ultimately what we're trying to get to so the slide that you see up here is regarding our street crimes unit and that's kind of answering the question of what are we missing right now so the SCU as it's called is the street street crimes unit it's basically a unit that at its height was four officers and one sergeant and they were basically assigned department needs on a week-to-week basis so it's your flavor of the week for lack of a better term so if we're struggling with car breaks they might be assigned to to focus on that you may recall fairly recently we had BB gun incidents shooting out windshields and windows of cars they were assigned to that if we have a rash of burglaries they might be assigned to that so it's kind of whatever problem is surfacing that's that's the unit that kind of focuses on that street level focus so what right now we're missing that that's what we're missing so previously we've had up to four it typically we had two and then the one sergeant as well so as you can see on this graph here back in 2016 for instance we had that four-person team that was supervised by a sergeant and you go to 2020 and we've lost the ability to staff the street crimes unit we go to the next slide please so we don't have the street crimes unit so to do quick math here the available resources that are dedicated to drug investigations and so I mean dedicated we're always gonna have that patrol level response where if we to use the term inadvertently stumble across drugs right we're arresting somebody who were responding to an emergency and there are drugs present we'll address that if that means an arrest if that whatever that means it will be addressed and then the drug unit we're focusing on that higher level we're focused on the folks that are bringing in drugs they are trafficking and they are profiting from poisoning our community so I have a microphone in front of me it doesn't happen very often so I very briefly just want to say how proud I am of the drug unit specifically for the continued work that we've been able to do despite our staffing challenges because because we have been diminished to a certain respect in terms of what we're able to do that has not seen a significant drop off and I know what everybody's probably thinking here today is that I look outside and it looks like there is a tremendous drop off that's that chunk that's missing that middle ground area that's what's missing right now so the entire department I tip my cap to the entire department for our successes so what I'm going to talk about briefly here is I'm not going to go into great specifics regarding an narcotics investigation because some of that is intentional we don't want to be in the spotlight because a lot of a lot of our success relies on kind of being in the shadows so to speak so we can unbeknownst to the folks that are trafficking drugs take down an organization and that's that's what we're dealing with a sophisticated organization intended on profiting so think about any business that you know of and there's there's very specific goals in place to make money that's what the drug unit is focused on those individuals that are profiting off what everybody is seeing in downtown Burlington so I'm going to give you a couple examples I'm happy to be able to share some of the examples that are on the on the screen here but just know that I'm not going to go into great detail about how these investigations take place I just want to kind of throw them out there because sometimes it's unknown what's actually happening right in the backyard here so to start we currently have several ongoing investigations each detective will typically have each drug detective I'm sorry will typically have anywhere from three to four active investigations again that's that's not the dealer level for drug trafficking our focus right now and has been for some time is fentanyl as we've heard about is methamphetamine which has been growing every year and kind of a hot topic of late xylazine it and it's now being found in our opiates and it's having the same devastating effect that fentanyl previously had on the community when we went from heroin to fentanyl in our opiates we're having that same effect now where xylazine is added to the mix as well so a couple of cases that I want to touch on at the top here you'll notice this is a 21 BU what that's saying is that case was started in 2021 so I think that's important to note that a drug investigation in order for it to be successful and actually prosecute a drug investigation that can go anywhere from a month for a fairly small operation to this case at the top was about a year and a half to successfully bring this case to the federal government so this is an ongoing federal prosecution so I can't go into great detail but there have been press releases regarding nine members of the Philadelphia based drug enterprise arrested and this does touch on the xylazine that I previously mentioned so in this specific case that we ended up making arrests and executed search warrants in January of 2023 there were 13,500 bags of suspected fentanyl and 1.3 kilos of crack cocaine that came just just from this single group now that that was not I don't want to say that was the total amount of drugs that came up in a year and a half that was what was caught with this group so you can you can do your own math in terms of how much drugs in a year and a half's time were coming up and hitting our community the next one a gentleman by the name of Quentin Dodson from Detroit Michigan was arrested this occurred in 2022 this was also over a kilo of meth amphetamine so to say that meth is in our community that's an understatement we are seeing large quantities of meth and and oftentimes that's that's the cause for some of the behavior that we see downtown that's that's alarming ultimately results in calls for service to the police next the Melvin Hill a gentleman out of the state of Georgia he was recently convicted after a jury trial I'm sorry I should know that mr. Dodson is being prosecuted federally as well that's active prosecution Melvin Hill was just convicted by a jury down in Rutland for a federal trial for drug and firearms charges he was found to be in possession of fentanyl crack crack meth and a gun that was after multiple controlled purchases again of dealing these substances one that hits a little bit more locally Kenneth Jackson he was convicted just in September of this year in sentenced to 48 months in prison that is also a federal investigation mr. Jackson was involved in sales of opiates in City Hall Park that has been a priority for us as many have brought up today just walking through the park you can see almost an open-air drug market again our goal is not on that street level hand-to-hand dealer maybe somebody that's supporting their own drug habit ours are for the people who are actually trafficking and profiting off of that mr. Jackson was arrested regarding that investigation was found to be in possession of fentanyl and a gun and finally something of a different nature manual Francis was indicted recently again this is an active federal prosecution this is a burglary of the lakeside pharmacy so a number of controlled substances were taken during a burglary that the drug unit assisted in this investigation as well so that that prosecution could again go to the federal level you'll see at the bottom left-hand side this is a basic rundown of case loads over over the year for the drug unit what I want to make very clear is that a case in this setting it entails an active follow-up so that might mean active surveillance it might mean setting up controlled purchases it could mean a number of things this does not represent a drug tip which we're actually going to touch on in just a minute so just because a tip comes in about a drug house or drug activity that is not making this list this is an active investigation where it proceeded forward from there so just a touch on the numbers you can see 2018 2019 we're in that mid 30s to low 40s range for the drug unit specifically you see the drop off down to the high 20s and we're at 20 today in 2023 again I'm going to note that we have lost one drug detective so you're looking you can you can do the math there in terms of what that means to a unit of four for instance the person talking right now represents 25% of our dedicated narcotics team so that means 75% is not in this room right now on all these cases they have various resolutions so just because that number 43 is up top that doesn't mean there were 43 arrests there might be multiple defendants multiple people of interest there might be no arrest that might turn into a larger investigation where there's cooperation involved these investigations go all a number of different directions next slide please Chief did you want to touch on this so as the mayor spoke about the different things that we've done in the department over the years to address lower level issues one of those was the use of a street crimes team but also taking on certain stances for small amounts or personal amounts of drugs dealing with buprenorphine and how we several years ago kind of led from the front on dealing with those issues and trying to get people help knowing that those lower level individuals were being preyed upon by the higher level dealers during this time regardless of the things that we've gone through with staffing we have continued to our best effort and with our resources to continue to enforce state laws local ordinances deal with open air drug use public intoxication open containers and the likes as best we can this summer we obviously attempted to saturate the downtown with the help of marketplace patrols CSO's urban park rangers the VSP detail and then a heavy presence of uniformed officers in the downtown corridor next slide please so there was talk about community engagement and and assistance and the different ways that we build cases and gather intel one of the ways that community members can provide information through online tips which is on our website and you can submit a tip online you can remain anonymous you can provide information you can have leave a contact number for us to contact you next slide please this breaks down the number of tips over the course of several years and how those tips are taken in I'll be the first one to point out there that as we are tasked with dealing with narcotics cases and tips that come in tips although very helpful and can make a large difference in cases sometimes do fall by the wayside in the sense of the response or how long it takes the detectives to get to them we want tips to continue to come in Phil do you want to speak more to the tips so yeah regarding drug tips I'll be the first to acknowledge frustration in that you can see on this graphic 2022 we had 405 drug tips does that mean all you know all tips are not created equal that doesn't mean every single one of those tips was something that could have been an active investigation but I would be silly not to acknowledge that there is a tremendous amount of information that is probably beneficial in those 405 community members that are reaching out attempting to give information so one of the things that's been brought to my attention that we're trying to work on is responding to folks that are making these tips in a reasonable amount of time the reality is that with ongoing investigations those are going to take the priority we always are going to get to the drug tips but it might it might not be the absolute priority what I don't want to get to is a point where we we see this number diminish for the wrong reason so if next year we have 50 drug tips because people say it's not worth making a drug tip that's a failure and that's what we don't want to get to that so so at the end of the day a lot of these drug tips are coming in because what you can see around you right it's a lot more visible right now so that that makes sense in my mind on why we're getting more drug tips so one of the things that that we're trying to do as a drug unit is is be able to respond to those people who wish to receive a call back and to get further information to hopefully help ongoing investigations so what are our next steps we're obviously one of our several top priorities is rebuilding and we're making good strides in doing that but it's it's going to take time as we continue to build up all of our other resources we still are prioritizing building up uniform patrol officers currently our headcount is as you can see 68 total sworn and there's a breakdown of kind of where we are with supervision with officers either on leave or in field training we have six in the academy which is great news officers at the airport officers in the detective bureau special assignments which currently our recruitment officer and our domestic violence prevention officer we have the marketplace officers and then 25 patrol officers currently on the streets in total the uniform services bureau and at the bottom zero street crimes officers we hope that as we explore different avenues internally to retain officers who are getting close to retirement if we can be successful in doing that while also meeting our recruitment goals that we would hopefully within the next year 18 months be able to get back to a position where we can fully staff street crimes unit and be able to focus on those those gaps in coverage between patrol and the detective bureau and to build on that as I said as we continue to do those things it will obviously allow us to key in on some of these issues that are not necessarily getting addressed like they used to based on our resources as of most recently we are refocusing and I think has been spoken about with the priority response plan and dealing with a lot of the larcenies and fax and property crimes that are taking place and I know that the mayor had spoken about dealing with repeat offenders and accountability across all wakes that are involved in the law enforcement around because it is not just the department there are several stakeholders that are involved in this process in the system once the case is turned over. So the mayor went into great detail earlier about all of the things that the chief and the mayor and his administration have worked on recently and over several years so I don't think I need to repeat that but as you can see it's not internally as a department school we have different breakdowns and we have enforcement and we have patrol but as a greater department and administration we are off obviously looking at the larger picture to try to solve these issues because it's not just going to be solved at the department level it's going to involve the community and I think that we are moving in the right direction as a as as a city and as a government organization and I'm hopeful that we will be able to return to providing the level of service that we were several years prior. Thank you very much we will open open this up if there are any counselors who have questions before we get to the resolution and that would be that time on the presentation. Councilor Grant. Thank you. Just the first quick question is this presentation was not in civic clerks will it be provided and added. Yes I believe is that is that correct. Yes. Yes. Excellent. I have a couple questions. Thank you so much for your presentation. It's it's been one I've been kind of dreaming about for the last four years as I've thrown myself into a lot around public safety in the community. As you know I was a police commissioner for a few years and one of the things that I advocated quite a bit about was a particular house on Champlain Street was one of them really long time activity well known. I think that as as a police commissioner being the only police commissioner that was from the old north end I was particularly focused on what was happening in the old north end and how fast I saw certain things accelerating such as the types of property crimes that we saw more of than the rest of the city and now it is clearly all over the city. I guess I want to say that some of this information that has been provided tonight and in the past couple of weeks I am I'm hard to see because when I spoke at the public safety committee meeting on August 17th to really drive home the questions in the city questions that weren't getting answered responses that weren't occurring not even being on our agenda conversations happening behind the scenes but not fully being explained to the city of Burlington. So what you've done tonight is great and extremely informational and I know I will be and I'm sure some my colleagues on the council will be saying here's a link to this meeting here's a timestamp you need to watch this you need to know what's going on and I do appreciate because the drug tip line you're involved in a previous conversation on the public safety committee where I felt like okay are we utilizing this are we do we not want people to use it do we know how many submissions there are that was a major concern so I appreciate that at the last police commission meeting the chief did put it on his monthly report I hope to see that on his future monthly reports because to the point of yes we do still value that information we don't want people to think it's a useless thing to do and furthermore we want to educate some more people are using it I literally forwarded an email to the chief from a group text of people like hey you know the city the police department has this tip line and we're supposed to be using it did anybody know that so I think to say that we can be doing more education around that to involve more citizens reporting what they see I'd love to get you guys involved I'll be talking to Sarah Tim this week about some ideas that I have about engaging in a way that the department isn't currently and I'll just leave it at that so thank you for acknowledging the backlog on responses I think people need to hear that I think that's honest and and transparent to know that you're looking at it but you don't have the bandwidth to always respond because that has been a big concern in the community I also appreciate the chief talking about the same issue with the incident logs and I think that's important again to get that out there so worth it for people to continue to do that and it's it's not going into avoid somewhere that it is going to be looked at but just the response might not be there is there a way and this is just something to think about I don't expect an answer I've been engaging with someone who regrettably lost a child to this crisis and had a number of questions and the response time around the questions wasn't what I guess certain things could have been better how can we display information for individuals who may have be suffering in this way from the crisis so for example can we make it more known how long it takes for autopsies to come back wasn't getting a response but an autopsy wasn't available anyway due to the current time that it takes so things like that what what can family members because some of these people they're not on the street they have homes they they work they get a bad mix of something and they have people that care about them and want to know what happened so how can we improve that communication with those individuals and I just appreciate the information about the street crimes unit and I also want to encourage my fellow counselors the mayor talked about com stat I tried to go or watch the recorded meetings I think it's crucial viewing for the Public Safety Committee but I really strongly recommend everyone watch it you supportive of a drug checking program in Burlington as a well I don't really know what that would entail so short of getting into some details okay do you watch the com stat meetings I do not okay I will send you the link with the presentation and when you can fit it in there is a drug checking in a nutshell it's different from testing in that it is done to identify what is here so that we can be more proactive in addressing the mix of drugs that are coming into our community there is one that's being operated now they call it like the I-91 corridor so just south of us so for you that information because I'd love to have your feedback on that and I'd love to see our department sponsoring something like that so we can get legislation passed in the state of Vermont to initiate that type of program and have our department be the supporting agency for that because you have to have a law enforcement agency be supportive of that and I is anybody else have any other questions I don't want to just go yes there are some other questions and I will cease for now thank you great thank you so much we'll go to Councillor Doherty to be followed by Councillor Traverse and then Bergman thank you I just want to thank all three of you for being here tonight late into the night providing us this presentation and also specifically thank you for the work that you do it is I know firsthand from working with Burlington Police Department other law enforcement agencies incredibly time-intensive work requires massive amounts of time away from your family nights weekends holidays and it's also incredibly dangerous and you guys put your lives on the line and I just want to express my gratitude for that work and I know the community feels the same way my question is about we've had a number of discussions and I've had a number of discussions with community members about the distinction between folks who are suffering from substance abuse disorder particularly with respect to opioids and higher level drug dealers and at least during the time that I was prosecuting drug cases and working with BPD my understanding from the folks that I interviewed and from the cases that I was working on was that although you know folks suffering from substance abuse disorder here in Vermont would engage in lower level drug distribution to support their addiction that by and large almost to a person people who are bringing narcotics into our community from out of state did not use opioids and in fact held those who used opioids in contempt and I remember quite distinctly and I think Deputy Chief Labarge you may have worked on this case before you were a deputy chief where we had a Title III wire warrant that allowed us to listen in real time to the drug distribution organization's phones we had that up for a number of months and the dealers were very explicitly mocking the addicted folks who are blinding up every day in front of the various just drug distribution houses it's been a while since since I was involved in drug prosecutions and I'm wondering if you could speak to that dynamic and whether that is still whether whether you still see that distinction between higher level for-profit drug dealers who don't use opioids and and the lower level folks who might be suffering from addiction is that still a vivid distinction so as you somewhat dated my time I'm about a decade past that time for me so I'm gonna default to fill on his current trends and things that he's seen yeah so obviously I don't want to over generalize so I can't speak to every single person that's involved in trafficking narcotics to our community but overall yes that that's still accurate that the folks that are here making a profit and then leaving the community they enter the community with drugs the drugs are sold they leave with a profit they're typically not using their product and and do in interviews a common theme is kind of looking down on the the user community in which they're profiting from thank you thanks a Councillor Doherty we'll go to Councillor Traverse and then Councillor Bergman thank you President Paul first of all I want to echo the comments made by Councillor Doherty thank you very much for being here this evening and allow me also to extend my general gratitude and thanks for your service to the City of Burlington I know that it's been a very difficult time for the department recent years and difficult time for for policing for many reasons and I'm grateful for your continued dedication to our city and for really sticking with Burlington so thank you the most poignant part of your presentation for me was the fact that in recent years we have had to eliminate the street crimes unit and it seems like that that has been a significant issue for you all in your ongoing investigation efforts and I suppose I just have a couple questions with respect to that one is in looking at your presentation it appears that there's an effort thankfully to restaff the street crimes unit one part of the graph was 2023 the next part that you saw was 2025 I'm curious if there's any intentions between now and then and I understand it's probably somewhat dependent on on recruitment and folks coming out of the academy and so on but if there's any effort between now and then to stand up that initiative again so yes we obviously have the goal of getting back to restaffing it fully as a crucial assignment as we currently stand because we are technically down one drug investigator if staffing allows we have been allowing a like a nine month special assignment for a patrol officer through a process to join the drug unit as that fourth investigator in a temporary status to help supplement that unit while also gaining professional experience in their career and maybe mapping out what their future goals are it's going to take time you know we obviously want to prioritize getting to that spot and adding that extra person for nine months on a rotation has helped out we've also taken steps throughout the summer months to try to do a voluntary overtime assignment for people who are interested although there's no shortage of work there is a shortage of staff and it's hard for officers to balance working their shifts plus any patrol overtime and then picking up a voluntary street crimes unit over time they had they've made some progress with that but it wasn't obviously as successful as we wanted it to be it's really going to depend on what our retention looks like in these next 12 months in my opinion I don't run patrol but obviously communicate with the other deputy chief daily on that and we need to be able to respond to the 911 calls and the immediate needs and then hopefully be able to have staffing to do that somewhat and try to backfill that street crimes unit so it is a goal and we're going to push for it but I I'm not going to make any promises on timeline great and as you looked at backfill the street crimes unit do you anticipate the staffing plan is that current officers would move back under the street crimes unit do you anticipate that it's newer recruits that would staff the street crimes unit do you have any plan on that end so we obviously contractual obligations with special assignments through union contracts and so there's a process and requirements for that it is usually an officer with a couple years on and they go through a process with the detective services supervisors and then they pick from that group and usually create a list and kind of get on a rotation of interested people so like we're doing now with the nine month rotation that's in theory that is what they're doing they're doing a special assignment as we build that unit back up it becomes a one-year assignment that we usually stagger with the officers so you keep into institutional knowledge from the detective side you don't have this mass exodus you have a rollover with the people that are on street crimes as you continue that program thank you if I may the last follow-up question that I have with respect to this is I'm assuming that you all are directly involved in the department's recruitment efforts given your senior status within the department this counts over the last year and a half has from my perspective tried to take a number of initiatives to assist the department in those recruitment efforts including among other examples ratifying a new collective bargaining agreement within the police department I'm thrilled to see what appears to be some successes from your recruitment efforts and the size of the current academy class that we have since we have you here I'm wondering if you can just speak briefly to the extent to the extent we've had those successes in the current size of the recruitment class what would you account those successes to and to the extent you're still facing challenges in recruitment efforts can you describe a little bit what those challenges are and how you think we could do better on that end so part of our success or the large part of the success internally is Carolyn Irwin and Anahad Bajwa who are our recruitment officer and a recruitment coordinator they are the face of the department with recruiting and Carolyn did recruiting for seven or eight years prior to then going back to patrol and then when we had some shift in staffing we convinced her to rejoin recruiting and still move forward and be successful and she they are both doing an excellent job and we've had decent turnouts with our class size we I know from the last conversation that I had the police profession in general right now is across the nation is struggling to retain officers and recruit officers and we're we're no different and the last conversation that I did have with Carolyn and I don't remember the numbers because they didn't come here prepared for that recruitment discussion but we were not seeing the numbers recently that she had seen in the months previous and so she was kind of frustrated or disappointed in and kind of where we what we were getting for applicants that tends to I think ebb and flow but we are not receiving the applicant pool that we had in years prior I'm aware of that thanks again for being here I think it would be great for us to continue that discussion on recruitment efforts for the department for the street crimes unit and look forward to having you Carolyn others at the department back to discuss that issue thank you thanks councillor travers we'll go to councillor Bergman and then to councillor Jang followed by councillor Shannon so first let me echo what folks have said and thanks to you for being here for working hard on these cases which is they're long to to prosecute much quicker than it was my elation which I prosecuted for you guys for for many years a long time ago I'm going to actually ask you a what I think is a more difficult question related to the current state of the lack of the street crimes unit and the the fact that we are not engaged in the open drug market you know and how you characterize it I don't want to re-characterize what you what you did because I'd probably get it wrong but I'm I sat here you sat here and listened to in particular the concerns expressed about City Hall Park its relationship to not only the downtown but to this building and when I go through and listen to the report I am actually not hearing a plan to deal with what seems to be the impunity that is occurring out our doorstep the seat of government here you know it is would be if it would if it's just bad in in Battery Park as it is here then you know it's out your door too but it really is a special case so understanding the the staffing issues understanding the need to balance prevention and health well-being with it with enforcement all the things that we heard about about accountability as well I'm wondering what kind of plans what kind of ideas generally speaking what kind of programs we can have to in a nearer term than in a couple of years when we restaff the street crimes unit we can deal with the impunity that exists out there that is making folks feel that they cannot come to the heart of their city that they can't walk from their house to their business that they can't bring their kids to the splash pad that we spent so many dollars on thinking that the environmental work that we're gonna do is gonna you know displace the efforts it obviously hasn't happened and I am really curious about the ideas that you can have given the resources that we as a city have but that we may also be able to tap be they the university be they the state police be they health services whatever because it's a complicated problem I know and it's not a question of I'm not asking you how are you gonna solve it so thank you you know as the person at the most responsible for working with the chief and put forward plans I think I'll respond to that Councillor Bergman respectfully that's not what I heard from the presentation tonight at all what I heard from the presentation tonight is that despite severe resource shortages imposed upon this department they have continued to have keep Mr. Mayor let me just tonight no I just want to correct that I wasn't talking about their presentation so I wasn't criticizing their presentation I just so that you don't go down that we're not gonna get it I just want to make sure that that we don't get into a back-and-forth on that it was I was talking about the the public form comments not not theirs on it so just I don't want to I'm not being critical that's not how I heard your question that's why I wanted to that's why I wanted to clarify so that we didn't get we're still not getting into a back-and-forth you asked a question do you want the do you want the officers here to answer that question with the clarification that I wasn't criticizing I wasn't criticizing their presentation I was asking for some ideas based on what we heard from the public tonight do you have it do either any of you have a response to that I will you obviously you asked a very important question and everybody in this room everybody that walks around has seen what's taken place I've been here over 18 years I've never seen the city in this type of shape and we are doing the best that we can with what we have and I think as the city and as the department we've also as we're working towards those those improvements and increasing our staffing we've had other things in place that have been topics of discussion whether it's the CSOs the CSLs Cape and cares and the different programs that are kind of running parallel to the department to help with some of those low-level things as we spoke about when I worked patrol it was a different time and you might deal with somebody that you would inadvertently do an interdiction stop on or get something low-level and there were different ways that you would deal with that they might not be a person who is in an extreme level of add