erate the demands of Burlington citizens and the Battery Park Movement. We continue to see demands not being met and the urgency of the issue of racism in the city of Burlington not being acted upon. I just want to reiterate the demands that we have. So the first being we demand that violent officers, Cory Campbell and Joseph Coro be removed from the Burlington Police Department and not be rehired by another state or local agency. These officers use violence and force to pose a threat to the Burlington community, especially the BIPOC community. And as we have expressed in recent Charter Change Committee meetings, we are calling for an independent community police oversight body that has full disciplinary and investigatory powers and that is representative of community members with lived experience. And we demand that this Charter Change be present on the March ballot. I also want to reiterate the demand that all police officers in the Chinden County consistently use body cameras with this footage being made publicly available to citizens for free and be updated regularly. Lastly, we demand that the Burlington Police Department continue to be defunded. The massive amount of funding that is funneled into the department should be diverted and invested in our community, the BIPOC community in particular. This includes investment in alternatives to address community safety that is not policing as well as housing and healthcare for all. I'm also calling to ask for a public share out from the executive session discussing the Melly versus City of Burlington case. And then I just want to encourage the city council and the city of Burlington to center BIPOC voices within these discussions. And as we know, the city of Burlington declared racism as a public health crisis. So it needs to be treated as such. It must be addressed with urgency. It deserves and demands. Thank you. Thank you. All right. I'm going to try Malisha DeMario again. And Malisha should be enabled to speak if you just unmute on your end. Okay, still not seeing that. Okay, so our next speaker will be Marcia Johnson. Marcia, I've enabled your microphone. Marcia, you should be able to speak. Hi, can you hear me? Yep, go ahead. Hi, I'm calling to agree with many of the other speakers. I wanted to support the charter change needed to form a civilian oversight board with investigatory and disciplinary power. And I want to see that put on the March ballot. I agree that body cameras need to be worn by officers at all times and footage needs to be publicly available for free. I do also support reducing the police budget and having actual oversight of the budget. I think citizens and police officers may have a very different idea of what spending priorities should be. Police work for us and we as citizens need to have power over not only disciplinary decisions but also helping manage the police budget. It's not fair for police to say there's not enough funding for body cameras when citizens have no oversight of what their funding is going to. I also support removing officers Coro and Campbell from the force. I don't know if they've been formally asked to resign or if that's something that could be tried. I hope that city council will just keep looking for a creative solution to remove them from active duty and I'm really not okay with them being on force. And I think a lot of other people have said that as well. So I hope that you will keep trying and not give up on that. And I just wanted to echo the demands of everyone else who supports the battery park movement. Then that's all I've got. Thank you very much for your time. Okay, our final speaker for this evening will be Ava Fusco. Ava, I've enabled your microphone. You should be able to speak now. Ava Fusco, you should be able to speak. You just need to unmute your microphone. Okay, Ava, I'm not able to hear you at this point. Okay, Ava, I'm still not able to hear you. So we're gonna close down the public forum for this evening and we'll move on to our next item. Move into the consent agenda. Thank you to everyone for sharing with us this evening, I always appreciate so many people coming and sharing their thoughts with the council. And we'll have move into our next item, which is the item five, which is the consent agenda. Counselor Stromberg, may I please have a motion on the consent agenda? I move to adopt the consent agenda as amended and take the actions indicated. Okay, is there a second? Seconded from Counselor Pine. Any discussion on the consent agenda? Sorry, Counselor Powell. You're muted, Counselor Powell. Thank you so much, President Tracy. Just wanted to, and I apologize, I've gotta get back to it. Okay, take your time. Thank you very kind. We had not eliminated item 5.24 when we did the, when Counselor Stromberg did the the amendments, I probably just didn't make it on there, but just wanted to note that the council, the Board of Finance did not vote on item 5.24, so we should remove that. Okay, that's a great point. Thank you for explaining that, Counselor Powell. Is everybody clear on that the consent agenda does not include that item? Okay, great. Any further discussion on our consent agenda? Okay, hearing none, let's go to a vote. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, hearing none, that passes unanimously, which brings us now to our deliberative agenda, but before we get into that deliberative agenda, we have a number of other meetings that I'd like to address, so for members of the public who are watching, the city does have a number of other sort of structures in which we conduct business to deal with different aspects of the city's business that we will deal with as a full council, but that are nevertheless sort of considered separate meetings, so we're gonna recess this and go into three different meetings right now to deal with different kinds of business having to do with the city, so I'm gonna recess the city council meeting, we'll come back to our deliberative agenda after we do the business involved with these specific items relating to local control commission, the Board of Civil Authority, and the full Board of Abatement of Taxes. Let's get started with the local control committee, so I'll convene the local control committee at 8.13 p.m. The first item on that agenda is the agenda. Councilor Hanson, may I please have a motion on the agenda? Yeah, I'll move to adopt the agenda. We have a motion from Councilor Hanson, second from Councilor Stromberg, any discussion on the agenda? Okay, hearing none, let's put that to a vote. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, hearing none, that passes unanimously and we have an agenda, which brings us to item number two, our consent agenda. Councilor Hanson, may I please have a motion on the consent agenda? Move to adopt the consent agenda and take the actions indicated. Motion from Councilor Hanson, is there a second? Seconded from Councilor Stromberg, any discussion on the consent agenda? Seeing none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That passes unanimously. So now that brings us to our deliberative agenda and item 3.01, Councilor Hanson may have a motion on that. I'll move to approve the 2020, 2021, first and third class restaurant slash bar liquor license applications for Mad River distillers, 137 St. Paul Street with all standard conditions. Okay, we have a motion, is there a second? Seconded by Councilor Stromberg, any discussion on the motion? Okay, seeing none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, hearing none, that passes unanimously. May I please have a motion on item 3.02, Councilor Hanson? I move to approve the 2020, 2021, second class liquor license application for Hilton Burlington, 60 Battery Street with all standard conditions. Thank you, is there a second? Seconded by Councilor Stromberg, any discussion on this license? Okay, hearing none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, that passes unanimously, which brings us to our final item in this particular meeting, item 3.03, may I please have a motion on that, Councilor Hanson? I move to approve the 2020, 2021, second class liquor license application for Mayas, Mini Mart and Delhi, 78 North Street with the following conditions, completion of a second class DLC seminar training and all standard conditions. We have a motion from Councilor Hanson, seconded by Councilor Stromberg. Any discussion on this? Councilor Pine, go ahead. Yes, if I could, Chairperson Hanson, if you could, the applicant spoke during public forum and there seemed to be some questions about what is required. Did you actually have a direct, I guess you'd have a Zoom meeting, so did you have a Zoom meeting with the applicant and did it seem as though there was some unanswered questions perhaps that came out of that? Not that I'm aware of based on the subcommittee meeting, we didn't have any issues that I'm aware of. I think a follow-up question, Council President Tracy is just whether the, I guess the staff who handle the applications and deal directly with the business owners, the applicants seeking licenses could just confirm and double check and make sure that there's not a language barrier that's a barrier for the folks who've requested the liquor license. So that would just be, I don't know if that's really just a friendly request or if it needs to be in the form of a motion. I would look to Councilor Hanson, are you able to follow up with the licensee in this case, Councilor Hanson? I could, yeah, typically, Lori Olberg is the one that interfaces with the businesses in terms of letting them know what they need to submit and what's still outstanding and all of that. So that's the typical process. And I can follow up offline with Lori just to make sure that everything's clarified with this business. But if they're, in case they're watching if this is approved, they are approved just pending that remaining condition of the DLC seminar training. But certainly, yeah, I'm happy to follow up. Okay. Okay, thank you. I would just ask, I think this does raise that issue that we're dealing with right after this meeting into the next Council agenda item is the language access policy and whether the city can be a little more proactive about providing access to full translation for customers who come in and clearly have questions that can't be answered due to language barriers. So I just, it was interesting to have it highlighted right before we come to that agenda item. So I just want to call that out. Thank you very much. That's it. Thank you, Councilor Pine. Councilor Hanson, I can come to you in a second, though I did see Councilor Jang before you. So I'm just going to go to Councilor Jang first.  Thank you, President Price. And I think Sukhsuba is here just to hear the verdict of his application. And also to remind everyone that he's not new in this process. When former city council, I forgot his name was the chair of this committee. We were having the same type of issues, but he's here just to hear the verdict of this. And we all looking forward with MPaSTions language access plan, which I think is a great point. Yeah, thank you. So thank you for that clarification, Councilor Jang. Did you have anything else to add, Councilor Hanson? No, that sounds great. Okay, wonderful. Thank you for that additional discussion. We have a motion and a second. Is there any further discussion? Seeing none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Hearing none, that passes unanimously. And barring objection, we will go, I will adjourn this meeting at 8.20. At this point, I'm going to take us into the board of tax abatement, which is the other structure, one of the other meetings that we need to attend to this evening. So I will give folks a second to just click over to that screen. And I will call to order the board of tax abatement at 8.20. The first item on the agenda is the agenda. Is there a motion on the agenda, Councilor Paulino? Yes, thank you, Council President Tracy. I will make a motion to amend and adopt the agenda's follows. To note written material on agenda for items number 3.01 and 3.02, to remove from consent item 2.03, the request of tax abatement from Joanne Lafei Holdings, which involves six properties, same property owner, and place it on the deliberative agenda as item number 3.03 per Councilor Paul, with a second. Okay, is there a second? Seconded by Councilor Stromberg. Any discussion on the agenda? Okay, seeing none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, that passes unanimously. So we now have an agenda. Councilor Paulino, may I please come to you for a motion on the consent agenda? Thank you, President Tracy. I will make a motion to adopt the consent agenda as amended as previously stated by Councilor Paul's request and take the actions indicated therein. Thank you. Is there a second to Councilor Paulino's motion? Seconded by Councilor Paul. Any discussion? Hearing none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of adopting the consent agenda, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, hearing none, that passes unanimously, which brings us down to our deliberative agenda, an item 3.01. May I please have a motion on that, Councilor Paulino? Yes. The motion is to deny the abatement request of penalties and interest in the amount of $1,583.87 and adopt the findings, the reasons for the recommendation, which was to deny the request for a property tax abatement for Sweetwater's LLC at 118 Church Street. Okay, thank you for that motion. Is there a second? Seconded by Councilor Stromberg. Okay, I'm gonna, now that we have a motion to second, I'll come to the city assessor to explain the case. I believe we also have the applicant with us as well. So I will find that person and give them a chance to address the board as well. So the assessor Vickery, are you able to just explain your recommendation? Yes, the committee decided to deny the request for abatement on the grounds that the applicant was late in making the payment. And the applicant, a petitioner made a request that it was an error on their end as a mistake. And with much deliberation, the committee decided to deny the request. Okay, thank you for that. I'm gonna enable David from, looks like Sweetwater's. I'm just gonna give our practices to give folks who are petitioning for abatement a chance to just address the board. So David, I've enabled your microphone so you should be able to speak. Yeah, okay, I just, can you get me now? Yep, go ahead. Okay, great. Well, thank you for giving me the opportunity to revisit this with you. When I got the abatement letter back that it was denied, I guess I was taken back to a certain degree. I get that if you're late, you're late for taxes, but it just didn't really happen that way. I mean, obviously the taxes were late, but it's pretty extraordinary times when middle of the pandemic. And the city had put out there that we would be able to defer taxes for three months and you had to sign an applicant. So it's not like anyone that didn't sign a piece of paper or form, they got their taxes to be pushed back three months. I was part of the mayor's task force as you saw in those notes. And so I knew about that. I went to the city website on two different occasions to look for the application. It wasn't up at that point in time. I did communicate to my bookkeeper who works in a restaurant to look out for it. I don't know if she misunderstood me or if I misspoke, but she just thought that it was an automatic, that the taxes were being deferred for three months. If it wasn't for COVID, this would have never happened. She works in the restaurant and the taxes would have come in and we would have paid them. The restaurant is starting its 40th year of business. We've never been made on our taxes. And so what happened was she has preexisting conditions. So I felt like I was doing the right thing by telling her to only come in the restaurant every couple of weeks. I would gather the mail for her and told her to come in in the morning when no one was around to pick up the mail. And it just so happened that by the time when she picked up the mail and then a two week period of time went by when I guess the taxes were due on I think the 12th of June. And then there was a notice sent that our taxes were delinquent. And then according to from what I understood from John, the city assessor that because it was the fourth quarter the window of time that you guys give to and I don't know what the technical word is for but to not be delinquent but pay it. It's a shortened period of time than normal if I heard that correctly because it's the fourth quarter. She came back into, so then the letter went back out I guess we were delinquent. She came back to the restaurant. I think a day or two after we had gotten that second letter and then when she was putting all the mail together she saw that we had some letters from the city. So she happened to open them at the restaurant and saw that we were late. I called Lori right away to find out what we needed to do. And then after about 24 hours everyone decided that I needed to pay the taxes and then try and do it, appeal for a tax abatement. And so I feel like we're doing 50% of our business. I'm trying to make it through the winter time. I have not that 16 or it's almost $1,600. That's a lot of money when you're doing 50% of your business. I haven't taken the salary out of the restaurants this March except for the small window of time we've had for the PP pay. And I could use that money to pay bills to try and make it through the winter where sales are even going to be going down even less or if we're even are available to stay open. And so I was just pretty taken back that considering I was in a pandemic we've never been late in our taxes ever. Normally Linda pays the taxes earlier and because I told her not to come to the restaurant work there because she had pre-existing conditions and she and I had a miscommunication and I don't know like if she did every right maybe I didn't communicate it right but it just feels pretty harsh to be able to have to pay $1,600 because we were a couple of days late in taxes when if we weren't in all the pandemic we just it would have never happened because the taxes she would have been working there and the taxes would have been paid. So I think that's it from an economic point of view and from a I think a human point of view and I know someone's late on taxes or they're late on taxes but what I would say to you is the fact that two weeks after we got closed down the city got in touch with me to ask me if I would cook food for the shelters. And so every while we were closed every Wednesday I went myself and picked up food from city market I brought it to the restaurant on Thursday I worked with two other volunteers in my restaurant opened up the restaurant we cooked food for 200 people on Friday I would go back to the restaurant package the food and get it ready for the city from volunteers that come deliver the food. And so I do that the whole time from March all the way through the end of September when the program ended and I'm getting ready to do the Thanksgiving day dinner it's your 30th year doing that and we're gonna probably do a thousand dinners the city has asked me to cook 650 dinners for your shelters and other people plus everything that I will do with people coming in and I'm gonna do my own deliveries as well. And so from a human perspective it doesn't feel really good to me that the city doesn't think that it might be unjust manifestly to make an exception and again I get it if I just said to you I forgot to pay my taxes I get how you have to compartmentalize that but I just think this is a pretty extraordinary times and things that went on and so I was only not only was I disappointed from a business perspective but I was disappointed from a human perspective because I try and do the best I can to get back to the community. So thank you for my time thank you for your time and thank you for letting me revisit it and put some color on the situation. Okay, thank you for that. Are there discussion from counselors? Counselor Hightower, go ahead. Yeah, if I'm allowed to just have a question as a freshman counselor is our vote supposed to be only on finding a fact or like I guess what is our like legal purview in terms of how we can vote is this like completely judiciary in terms of we are just supposed to do findings based on that? Or do we have more leeway in this? And that's not a question necessarily for President Tracy but for whoever can answer it whether that's Eileen or... Sure, I'll look to city assessor Vickery if you could please weigh in. The counselors want to bear in mind the facts of what if it's legally collectible or uncollectable if it's legal and if it's manifestly unjust and the manifestly unjust part is tends to deal with hardships. And the other component I think that David mentioned is that they made an error. So around a time where there was a lot of confusion. So I think you wanna as the committee you wanna weigh those factors and make a decision based on that testimony the information that's been received and keep manifestly unjust in mind, I think. One of information for... Sure, go ahead, Councilor Polinom. Councilor Hightower, I think that I can try to as best answer any questions you have. We deliberated hard and I can just tell you that all requests for that meeting were COVID related. It's unfair to me to say something without a question though I think because I could just tell you what we were deliberating, which would be unfair. But if you have a question, I'll try my best to answer something. I think Eileen also wanted to say something. Yeah, of course, yeah, I'll go to Attorney Blackwood, go ahead. If I understood your question, Councilor Hightower, generally if you accept the findings of the subcommittee you accept the findings of fact that they have made. If you intend to change those findings of fact in any way then you need to make findings of fact as part of your motion to say we find the facts to be other than what the subcommittee found and you have to do that in the context of the legal basis or those three possibilities that the assessor mentioned. And I think in this case, primarily you're probably looking at manifest whether or not it is manifestly unjust. So you need to make that finding as part of your motion. Okay, that's helpful, thank you. Okay, Councilor Jain, go ahead. Thank you. And I think a couple of questions and I'm getting to a point and this is for the committee members and was just wondering if you explore the avenue of working with the customer in setting up a payment plan. And also that's one question. The second question is also are there any late fees associated with the 1,000 and could those be waived? You know, can you work with the sweet water with a payment plan and also waive? So I was pleasantly surprised, Councilor Jang, it was my first hearing that all taxes were paid. They were paid within days of essentially the testimony that they found the payments to be late. So what they're requesting here is abatement of those penalties that you spoke about is to waive them. They've paid them already. Yes. Everyone did. Okay. And now those late fees, can you set up a payment plan for that? Is that possible, Mr. Jang? The recommendation of the city clerk's office, which is that basically it's not really recommendation. Basically your penalty is assessed by how late it is. So the recommendation is you pay it as fast as possible and then you apply for the abatement, which is what everybody did. Any further questions, Councilor Jang? No. I serve in the, yeah, not putting questions. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. I have Councilor Paul to be followed by Councilor Mason. Thank you, President Tracy. So my question is actually for the, probably for the CAO, I'm Catherine Shad, I believe is still on his, yes. Of course. Hello, Catherine. So my question is the, how, if you know, how many properties or however you want to, if it's dollars or properties, but preferably, you know, individuals were late for COVID related reasons that did not contest those late fees and penalties. In other words, somebody was late. They came to your, they communicated in some way with your office and they were told, you know, we certainly, we understand just so you know. And it's in the letter, I believe as well. You know, this can be appealed to the board of tax, but to the tax abatement committee and then the full board. Do you have any idea of the number of people who might fall into that category? Unfortunately, Councillor Paul, I wouldn't have that data. I could certainly get you, excuse me, the number of properties or taxpayers that paid late, but I would have no way of keeping, of knowing the reason. I don't believe we keep track of any of that. Okay. And then just as a point of reference in under normal circumstances, are you at all familiar with how many people, individuals, property owners are late with their taxes? How many under, you know, in any given tax payment? That is definitely a question that I feel like I should know and I don't. But if you wanna just give me a minute, I actually have those figures fairly quickly. If there's more questions, I'll just dig those up and come back if that's okay with you, President Tracey. Absolutely, yeah, for sure. I can go to Councillor Mason in the meantime, and then I'll follow it up with Councillor Hightower. So go ahead, Councillor Mason. Thanks. I'm sorry, Councillor Paul finished with her questions? Yes. Okay, so first I have chaired this committee for a number of years. I was not sitting on the committee, but I wanted to make clear a response to Councillor Chang's question. The request and abatement is penalties in interest. This is not about the tax, this is penalties in interest for late payment. I'm curious if the chair is willing, you know, this committee is a hard committee to serve on because, you know, oftentimes you have to establish a rule and then, you know, sort of stick to that rule. And we have been pretty consistent that late payments, you know, absent some type of city error, you know, we're not, we were not granting abatement requests over the course of years.  So what's not in this decision is sort of the discussion at the committee level in terms of how did you factor that, you know, into your deliberations. It sounded like in your lead-in you were maybe looking for that question. I don't know if you might be able to shed a little bit of light of how, if at all, you know, that distinction worked into your deliberations. Absolutely. President Tracey may respond. I think that we all went into it with a different mindset than when we ended up and through deliberation. And I certainly at the outset struggled with this application the most in large part. And there were a lot of questions about, because I remember talking to businesses at the time, March and July. And the turnaround here was, I think it was seven days or something, you know, for the, that we're talking about interest being charged. So very fast. There was a weekend and it was just like, some people weren't even checking the mail. That's the one counselor Paul pulled from consent due to COVID, which is totally understandable at the time for days, you know, according to news reports, they were putting the mail and quarantining it for three days. So we took it all into consideration. And I think in the end ended up sticking to a blanket rule, which is in, you know, honestly, somewhat harsh because you're talking about a business that probably had the best lifeline to the RSC and what was going on downtown than any other, other than maybe like, you know, I mean, they're across the street. I think what sealed the deal for me personally was that they received the notices and that the website was up when running and that it was incumbent upon the owner to basically check the website. And I totally understand that we struggled over hitting business with more taxes at a time when they had just been open, I think for two weeks at the time that this payment was due. And, you know, there's a personnel aspect to it. Obviously there's a bookkeeper here unlike our other applications. So we struggled with that too because we understood that person not to be in the office. Thank you, that is helpful. So, Councilor. Okay, I had Councilor Hightower next. Was there anyone else on first round?  Go ahead. I think the conditions here are so unusual. This is not something we've ever encountered in modern history because of COVID. It does seem that the, at least the findings of fact that you've presented here and the comments from the taxpayer suggests that, you know, there was a series of unfortunate events that led to this outcome. But I do share Councilor Jiang's idea, notion that we should work with the owner to create a payment plan so that it's, if this is the required decision based on past precedent and that's just how we do it, I think we ought to show a little bit of flexibility around how to pay it. You know, that's a, this, because there's another one coming, the next item, for the same property or it's a much smaller amount. But I just want us to be, hopefully we can find a way that is recognizes the limitations, financial limitations during the time of COVID and yet is consistent with precedent and past practice. And it is always an issue of equity and fairness to all taxpayers when you do these issues. I know that, but I do share that view that we should try to be a little flexible right now because of the conditions we're living in. Thank you. You Councilor Pine, anyone else on first round? Okay, seeing none. I'll go to you, Councilor Hightower. CEO Shad, I'll come to you if you have that answer that Councilor Paul was looking for. I do. Thank you for giving me some time to look that up. So for total delinquencies, we have 587 taxpayers representing 613 parcels. But it is important to note for context that 17 taxpayers representing 21 parcels, excuse me, represent 25% of that. And then the rest of it is as you would expect smaller amounts. Okay, thank you for that answer. So Councilor Paul, did you have something you wanted to follow up on that? I'm sorry. I just want to make sure, thanks, President Trace. I just want to make sure I understand this. So 586 taxpayers representing 613 parcels were late in paying their taxes during one, no. That is our total. For when? For how long? That is all of our, those are basically all of our delinquencies. I don't have the number for, I think that is, I guess I don't want to say for sure that that is this year without confirming. I don't know if there's anybody else from the CT's office, but I believe there may be, there are old people in the city there are old delinquencies that I am aware of. And so I guess it would be, it may be helpful to make sure those are not included. I don't think they are. I believe I've gotten them out of there, but I would want to confirm that. Okay, I mean, I don't know that we're going to be able to confirm that this evening. No. I'm just trying to understand how many other people there are who for whatever reason are late with their taxes and they're charged interest and penalties and do not come before this board. We're just in the interest of fairness and I'm just trying to understand. So I guess that's about as close as we're going to get at this board. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Councilor Hightower. Yeah, sorry. I have one more question than just a comment, which is, and I apologize. I was not adequately prepared for the taxes meeting. Sometimes I forget about the side meetings, but Councilor Pauline, if you can just speak to a little bit, what put items on the consent agenda versus the deliberative agenda? I had the same question. Basically, I think because we were unanimous, it's they went on consent and unless a counselor pulled it, it like, well, actually, I don't know about the sweet waters one, but the other one was pulled. Maybe City Assessors, Bickery can say why sweet waters was on deliberative. Councilor, are you able to speak to that? Yes, sweet waters was on deliberative because David asked for it to be on deliberative. And I think he has a right to speak as well. So as anybody would. So that's the other. Yeah. And then the other part of it was, I had unfortunately just missed. I had assumed that all of the consent items were yes, and I just looked at the deliberatives and assumed they were no's. So I guess I would have hoped, and maybe this is my freshman Aivite showing through, but that given COVID, we would have had a lower standard for what it takes to obey penalties and interests. I obviously don't feel comfortable now saying yes to one application just because it has to be, but if somebody goes through the whole process of requesting an abatement, it feels like special times call for special measures. And I wish we had taken that a little bit more into consideration and changing the rules for a few of the meetings in 2020. So I'm a little sad to see that this wasn't something that the city considered doing, especially because it's not the actual payment of the taxes that's just penalty and interests, but those are my two cents. Thank you, Councilor Hightower, Mayor Weinberger. Well, I mean, to Councilor Hightower's point, I think, I mean, this is our opportunity to make the decision. I support, listen, we set up a whole program directly aimed at supporting people exactly in the situation that Mr. Mellancamp is in. We know that our downtown merchants are facing enormous pressures and threats right now. We set up a program to make it possible to waive these, exactly this type of interest payment and a buck for a mistake with the application we would have granted this. I'm inclined, given these unusual times to grant this request in this situation. Sorry, just to, if I can speak to that again, President Theresa. Go ahead, yeah. You stop for me. I think the only reason that I'm not comfortable with that is I don't completely, having not looked or not gone to the committee meeting, I don't know, and maybe Councilor Polina can speak to this, how different this one really is from the other ones, in terms of if they were all COVID related. I don't want to necessarily have just one exception because they asked for it when a whole bunch of other people also asked for an exception. I can try to my best and looking at, so I recall this being the only business. There was another one that owned what we all know as the property, the actual physical property of the African market on North Street, which everybody's seen the story that they're moving. That owner is technically a business owning a commercial property, but that one was granted. That one was an error in the city having the wrong address for the bill. And it was a recent purchased, recently purchased property, just to give you an example of what one we did unanimously grant. The other one, Councilor Paul pulled, so we'll get to that one. The other one was, I would say, a tough mention of COVID in the sense that it was reported in the, every hearing is different, right? So Mr. Milikov showed up, other people didn't. When someone shows up, you have more information, you're able to get more of a discussion going. We talked, I mean, the very confusing piece to the mayor's point that I was really sympathetic to is that we did waive these taxes for the following bill. And then we did waive some taxes during this month, but not this one. So I forget which, I think it was the personal property tax up until, so it's like, if you're a business owner and you're shut down and you're trying to keep track of like three bill, three or four different taxes, you're being told different, we were very sympathetic to that. So the one I'm talking about, the Appletree Point Road was a residential house and that person just said they were a healthcare worker and basically they just kind of like missed the bill and they were very busy and stressed. That was basically the basis of the application. So on that basis alone, we didn't feel that it was enough, like Mr. Milikov provided, clear details of exactly what happened. And the last one, which is 2.07, trying to remember just opening that one up. Oh, that one was a property. Basically, they admitted that they forgot to pay the bill. They didn't actually refer to COVID on that one, but obviously it was a lot going on in the world at that point. But they admitted that they just forgotten, they have never forgotten, but this time they just forgot and they did not appear as well. So we weren't able to ask clarifying questions on that one. The person here for that counselor, Paul's pulled the item 3.03 did show up and did provide the basis that I already said that she was an elderly person and she's lived in Burlington. She owns these like six properties and she was watching the news actively and basically was taking things very seriously, including the fact that she was quarantining her mail and she was reading these reports about us waving, again, which we then extended, right? We did do an extension of these payments the following FY1. So I think she was basically confused and we're talking about, again, less than seven days from when it was due to when she got the bill, didn't open it and then they all paid like the day they found out. I mean, it was pretty remarkable. Okay, thank you. I'm sorry to take up the next time like this. No, it's fine. It's a tough issue. I'll take one to my jar. Yes, thank you. I have Councillor Freeman to be followed by Councillor Pine.  Thank you. I wanted to quickly weigh in. There were three as Councillor Polino just pointed out that stood out as being COVID related. The first one we addressed as a committee was item 2.06 on the consent agenda, which was the abatement for 147 Appletree, request for abatement for 147 Appletree Point Road. This was a healthcare worker and the committee voted unanimously no on abating the taxes. I felt that once we got to making a decision on sort of a COVID related issue and it voted no, that once we got to these requests for abatements as Sweetwater is the 118 Church Street and also the properties owned by Lafayette Holding that it was ultimately creating different exceptions for sort of the same issue and qualifying in a way that felt too subjective. I think tax abatement committee is so in some ways ruthlessly difficult because it's so hard not to hear the subjective cases and make subjective ruling, but it always feels really important for me on the committee to try to apply the same rule sort of across the board, especially because I think unconscious bias or just bias in general can play into things. Like you have two property owners who are expressing or who are requesting abatement for COVID related issues that are potentially posed at this point given how the council votes to receive abatement whereas the healthcare worker was not and I think those biases of around as a worker, a healthcare worker versus a property owner, people who already have potentially access to sort of networks in the city or financial, well, certain financial standing or whatever, those are things that I think can play into scenarios like this that concern me around the way that we sort of would conduct abatement and sort of decide on abatement. So I was sort of like an either it would be, I think my feeling on it was that either all three of those would be abated or none of them. And since we had sort of gone with the ruling on no on the first one, I was like, my idea was to keep that consistently. I think it's incredibly hard. I could see it really going either way. I agree that these are, it was like, unbelievably extenuating and also like excruciating circumstances that we've been through. This has been an incredibly tough year. I do just, I just did want to point out that sort of aspect around my thoughts on it in general and also the reason why I had ended up voting the way I did in committee. Thank you. Councilor Freeman, Councilor Pine. I have to say, I was leaning toward proposing that we reverse this decision as from what was recommended but Councilor Freeman just persuaded me not to do that. Councilor, I'm sorry, are you? I'm done, yeah. Okay, Councilor Carpenter, go ahead. I wonder if Assistant Vickery could clarify that the first circumstance that Councilor Freeman talked about, I thought that was a third quarter late payment due to COVID but not a fourth quarter when we, there's sort of two things. The Sweetwaters and the Lafayette properties have stated they did not understand they had to file an application and part of our rationale was the sense that that had been fairly well advertised and made available and other people did or they were not late. The one circumstance that was a single family residence, there's two circumstances. One was, was that a third quarter payment which was not at the time? I mean, there was no option for deferring at that time. Am I right on that? Can you weigh in? Yeah, go ahead City Assessor. Thank you. My understanding is that Sweetwaters was part of this committee and knew that there was supposed to be an application that was supposed to be filled out. I think there was some miscommunication given the fact that there was a lot of confusion at that time with other forms from the state and the federal government.  What are you gonna do with your staff? How are things gonna play out? So I thought there was a lot of confusion there and they just missed it. Miss Lafayette, Joanne Lafayette Holdings, she, I think that she just missed that there was supposed to be a form to be filled out and was assuming there would be an extended deadline. I think that's to separate those two out. Was the, I believe it's the apple tree property. Was that a third quarter delinquency as opposed to a fourth quarter delinquency? I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I don't see the date in my notes, but I'm gonna guess it was the fourth quarterly payment. Okay. That's more likely, but I don't have that in my notes. Okay, are you also at Councilor Carpenter? Okay, anyone else in the queue are we ready to vote? Councilor Freeman, go ahead. I think this was, I'm looking at the document for apple tree. It was that the tax and interest is no, is not paid in full by April 13. I think for me, the reason why, even though it was earlier than the late quarter, the late payments on the other in terms of the quarter that they were, that was in delinquency. I don't know if that's the proper term, is that like for me, when I, as being in like also in a healthcare setting, like March and April were by far the most stressful time of my life this year, and we're just like unbelievably stressful. And so it actually made a lot of sense that it was that time period that it was delinquent. And so it actually, for me, just seemed pretty, just like that just, I think it just impacted people differently. And I think even though the city created a structure, I think we can, like my feeling around sort of the way that the US, I mean, we were, Burlington has done an amazing job in a lot of ways. I mean, Vermont has done an amazing job, but because of sort of the overarching structure in the US, we were so late, I think, in a lot of ways at understanding the response to COVID and the sort of degree. And so we did put things in place in terms of people being able to ask for being able to make late payments and these sort of things. But to me, like it kind of was staggered a little bit later than when it actually hit. And so like the underlying principle is understanding that COVID and the pandemic has been just like incredibly stressful. And so that was sort of the underlying principle behind why we would be considering this. And then I still felt like even though I could see why we would then abate if we were not obeying for one, then it should be at least just consistent, even though it's an incredibly difficult decision. So that's just the explanation on the quarter in terms of that one property. Okay, Councillor Paul. Thank you. And thank you for giving me another run at this. So I do remember and I could have my facts wrong but I do remember the number of years ago there were properties that are on the lake. They're in the new North end that had extensive, extensive flooding to the point where the properties were completely unlivable. And the city, the city sent them a tax bill. And they didn't really wanna pay it. And it was, I remember spending a long time discussing this. There are a few of you on this meeting that probably remember this. And I believe that in the end we recognized that it was an act of nature. And there were a number of them that were abated. And that was also for the tax payment as well. You know, I probably should be a little bit quicker in terms of working on this. You know, I did read the other ones, the one particularly with the properties. It appeared as though there was a lot of cross and the cross currents which is why I took it off consent. I don't know what the protocol is here. We all voted in favor of the consent agenda. But I am swayed by what Councillor Freeman said. I think that if you're going to do this for one that you should do it for all. And I don't think I really feel really good about 2.06. There is a protocol for a motion to reconsider the consent agenda and at least be able to take 2.06 off consent and deliberate on that. And so I'm asking the city attorney if that's a possible, if that's something that we can do and how to do it. So attorney Blackwood, are you able to answer Councillor Paul's question about reconsideration of the consent agenda? If you could give me just a moment to think it through, that would be helpful and come back to me. Okay. Okay, yeah. That was my only question. So I'm happy to, I'm happy to see my time. Okay, were there other councillors looking to get in the queue on this item? And okay, Councillor Jang to be followed by Councillor Carpenter.  Yes, and I think this is a question maybe for the mayor. And we're just wondering if, when you asked Mr. Malenkov to step up and serve the city in the capacity of being in the task force, did he receive any stipend from that? No, he was just a volunteer. That's right. It's a group of downtown organisations that have worked with the city throughout the pandemic for two-way communication for us to be hearing what small businesses need help with right now and for us to be pushing information back out to them. And he's one of a number of participants and none of them receive compensation for the task force. And the other question maybe for Mr. John, John, yep, John. And over the past couple of years, have we come across the same issue with the same property with sweet water? I don't believe so. You don't believe so. I don't recall any times where they have come before the board. Thank you. Okay, Attorney Blackwood, go ahead. So yes, I think you can reconsider this year within the same meeting and this requires someone who was in the majority, which I think it would be unanimous. So anyone could make a motion to reconsider a particular item. And I think probably you would need to make a motion to read to, I think you would first have to go back and make a motion to reconsider the consent agenda. And you're going to have to pull it off the consent agenda and then you're going to have to vote on, re-vote on the consent agenda without it and then vote on that, I apologize. No, they're still delivering and delivering for 30 minutes after mic. Okay, so thank you for that, Attorney Blackwood. Attorney Blackwood, can I just ask, would we need to take care of this item of business before making such, before such a motion was made? I believe you currently have a motion on the floor and pending on this item. So yes, I think you would need to do that. Okay. President Tracy, if I could, I'll make a motion. Councillor Paulino, Councillor Paul, so I'm going to go to Councillor Paul because this was a question that Councillor Paul had asked. Thank you. Point of information. Yes, okay. Can't we move to table this until after reconsidering the consent agenda like the other motion? Sure. If we want to do that first. Sure. Just to get into it. Sure. Yeah. This is some real, some real parliamentary Robert's rules, we really interpret ourselves for the Robert's rules paces tonight, Councillor. This is really, really pretty interesting. I'm going to go to Councillor Paul because this was your question and I just wanted to give you a chance to. Thank you. So I just want to make sure, am I in order or out of order if I were to make a motion to reconsider the consent agenda at this time? I believe you're out of order at this point. I am what? I believe you're out of order at this point. Then I will wait until I am in order. Okay. So now I have Councillor Carpenter was in the queue.   I guess I'll defer for now. Okay, Councillor Shannon. I think that we, in adopting the consent agenda, we took the actions indicated on each item. So I would argue that we can just reconsider a single item. And with that, I would move to table this item and to reconsider item 2.06 on the consent agenda. Attorney Blackwood, are you able to make that? Is that a? That sounds reasonable to me. Okay, all right. Okay, I'll, I will allow that. Is there a second to that motion? Seconded by Councillor Paul. Any discussion on that motion? Okay, hearing none, we'll go to a vote on the Councillor Hightower. Go ahead. Sorry, just a quick question. Just wanted to make sure I get Councillor Polina's take. That was the only relevant item to be pulled in terms of COVID. The only one that in your discussion, you all felt bad about not. That's really that so explicitly, right? I mean, we're talking about, what is it? What was the exact, I just had it up. The exact. The exact opinion. Well, the answer is explicitly, yes. But you have to understand, this payment was due, all of these payments except for the one in April we just talked about were due June 12th. So Councillor Freeman pointed out that 2.06 April payment to that person is equivalent to the June payment for sweet water in terms of like where they were at with COVID. So explicitly it would be the one Councillor Paul pulled. 2.06 we granted, the 2.05 was a person who bought a very large apartment building that live out of Florida. And they said that they, again, they didn't testify and they said that they weren't used to paying taxes. I forget, I think basically receiving a tax bill by mail that they get it by email or it was the quarterly, they weren't used to the deadlines because in Florida it's different. I guess it's once a year and I have four times or something like that. I forget the exact. So as a technicality, they also just bought that property. But again, we felt like they had lawyers on both sides. This is something that you do in a very complicated real estate closing where obviously you're told, hey, by the way you're gonna pay this or that. Unlike 2.04 where that happened but we sent the bill to the wrong address and the person said, I didn't get the bill. 2.07, the last one was a person with the residential property on Lake Street that just said, I think it was, that was the one where I said they didn't cite COVID but it's clear that it was a factor for them, I'm sure but they didn't put it in the application that that had an effect. Let me see here. Okay, that's, thank you. I'll set. So we're on the motion to table and to reconsider the consent agenda item. Councilor Freeman to be followed by Councilor Carpenter. Oh, I think mostly Councilor Polino addressed Councilor Hightower's question but I think these were the main ones where it was like the primary if not like the sole reason in the sense. Yeah, that's why these I think were stood out to me. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Councilor Carpenter. Well, just to clarify again, the Appletree property did not have an opportunity to defer the other two Lafayette and Sweetwater's could have deferred it had they filed the paperwork. So it's a, I just want to make that point. Okay, was that, I'm sorry, was that a question you were looking for an answer or were you just trying to make? No, just making a point. Okay, thank you. All right, I appreciate that. Anyone else on this, the motion to table and then to and to reconsider that item on the consent agenda. Okay, so we'll go to a vote on that. So all those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Hearing none, that passes unanimously. So we've tabled this item for now that we were just discussing. Now, let's go back to that item on the consent agenda that we reconsidered because we had a two thirds majority that would allow for reconsideration. So let's go back to that item that we've just voted to reconsider on the consent agenda. May I please have a motion on that item itself? Councilor Powell, go ahead. Councilor Powell, I got you. Go ahead. Thank you. So I would make a motion that we grant the abatement request for penalties and interest of $578.64 and adopt the findings and reasons on, well, I'll leave it at that interest of $578.64 recognizing that this is manifestly unjust. Okay, thank you for that motion. Appreciate that, Councilor Powell. It was very quick. Second from Councilor Shannon. Is there any further discussion of this motion? Councilor Hanson, go ahead. Yeah, I'm just wondering if the committee itself or the chair or any members can weigh in on whether or not they still agree with the decision they made at this point or if they've changed their mind? I can speak for all three when I say we struggled really hard, we did them in different order. I think we did Mr. Mellonkopf and 3.03 first because they were there. And so by the time we got to these, we sort of, it's like Councilor Flurman already said, we had basically developed a de facto rule where we felt like we wanted to act as a rule where we felt like we wanted to act as just the fairly to everybody. So I think I will be supporting it. Yeah, I agree that if we apply this consistently, then I would support granting this abatement as well as the other COVID related request for abatement. Okay, thank you, Councilor Freeman. Anyone else on this item? Okay, so are we ready to go for Councilor Mason? Go ahead. I guess I appreciate that, but I'm not sure I'm understanding when someone says we apply this, I'm not sure what this is. Is this a COVID related reason behind not filing one's taxes? Is that the this, if no one wants to answer that, that's fine. I'm just trying to understand what is the articulated policy that we're now following. Okay, Councilor Mason, I'll go to, it looks like Councilor Freeman has an answer. Councilor Freeman? I mean, this person specifically cited, I don't know if I have it open anymore, but the reason they didn't, I'm trying to go back to it. Was that your question? Yeah, I mean, I was trying to read it. I mean, my read of it was it was pretty shut down, but this person was a healthcare worker, obviously an essential worker, and asserted that they were not as attentive because of fatigue. Or stress, I think that, so like the aspect around how we're being, like we've made it allowable that are like permissible that the person has underlying conditions with the sweet water property, the, there's so many initials, the person who was collecting the mail. And so that was like a subjective reason that that was like more permissible that we grant the abatement. Like it just, it seems to me that if we have one reason around sort of, it's not, to me, it's not, the reason why we're abating it or is it's not explicitly like quantitative, it's not just like cut and dry. There's a qualitative aspect to it. And so the consistency to me is around, is around, I mean, those components of trying to, yeah, deal whether you're an essential worker and, or whether you're, someone on staff is now, having a hard time getting to the mail or whatever it is, there's just a lot of sort of qualifiers that have made this an incredibly difficult time. So again, I think that's why I was sort of on the fence. It's, it's hard because it's so hard to say it's a hard and fast rule, but I feel like if we do one, then we should do all three of them because all three of these folks, like solely said that because of COVID, it was incredibly difficult and I did not pay my bill because of my tax payment. Great, Councilor Mason, I'll come back to you. Does that answer your question? Yes, thank you. Okay, were there any other Councillors wishing to speak to this item? Okay, seeing none, all those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, that passes unanimously. So that leaves us, that brings us back to the, well, we had tabled the other item 3.01. I believe when you put something on the table, you need to make a motion to bring it off of the table. Is that correct, Attorney Blackwood? Yes. Councilor Freeman. We can move to take 3.01 off the back of the tables at the motion, I don't know. Remove it from the table, yeah. Remove it from the table and to grant, can I do this one? Let's do the remove from the table and then the other one, sorry to be. So sorry. It's okay. So there's a motion to remove it from the table as seconded by Councilor Shannon. Any discussion? Okay, hearing none, let's go to a vote on removing it from the table. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, that passes and we're now, we've removed it from the table. So now we can bring it back for consideration. Councilor Freeman, were you wanting to make a motion on that? Yes, please. I move to grant the abatement request for penalties of interest of $1,583.87. Okay, and are you able to include in your motion just the condition under which you're... Manifestly unjust. Okay, thank you for specifying that. We have a motion. Is there a second? Seconded by Councilor Pine. Any further discussion of this item? Okay, seeing none, looks like we're ready to vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, that passes unanimously. So now we're on to item 3.02, which is another request for abatement of taxes with regards coming from Sweetwater's LLC. I'm gonna come to one of the committee members. Are you interested in making a motion on this? For, I'll make a motion to deny the abatement request of penalties and interest in the amount of $578.64 and adopt the findings. Well, I'm sorry. I'll make a motion to grant the abatement request of penalties and interests of $578.64 for the findings previously made regarding collection. You're on mute, Councilor Paulino. Sorry. I have multiple screens that I navigated off the page and I was reading off another item. Sorry, I'm with you now. So we're 3.02, right? Yep. Gotcha. All right, motion to approve the abatement request of penalties and interests of $147.01 with the same basis previously stated by Mr. Milankoff regarding Sweetwater's for the same property, different taxes, different penalties and regarding the finding being that it manifests and just based on the current natural disaster pandemic during the time the misinformation regarding when and which deadlines were due for these specific taxes and penalties. I second the motion. Okay, thank you. From the motion, Council Paulino and the second, Councilor Freeman. We'll go to the city assessor as we did in the last case, city assessor, can you just explain what's going on here with this item and then we'll go and then we'll move David from Sweetwater's another chance to weigh in on this as well. Sure. This item is related to business personal property tax that Sweetwater's has and it's a similar situation where there was a late payment and penalties and interests were applied and it was missed due to a lot of confusion and you see it I guess as a hardship it's manifestly unjust. Okay, thank you for that. I'm gonna now give David Milankoff from Sweetwater's a chance to just address this item if you'd like to. I think we got quite a bit of context in the last one. So David, if you wanted to address this again though but I just ask you to be a little bit more brief this time around just so that we can keep the meeting going. Sure, I can be concise. Well, it was the same situation and I think it was all part of the same tax bill. So I don't think I have anything else to say except for thank you for the approval of the last one. I appreciate it. Sure, okay, great. Thank you for being here this evening and for giving us some context to that. I'll turn now to counselors any further discussion of this item? Okay, seeing none. We'll go to a vote on that. All counselors in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, hearing none that passes unanimously which brings us to our final item on the tax abatement agenda item 3.03. Counselor Freeman, go ahead. I move to grant the abatement request of penalties and interest of $2,134.23 on the finding, on the reason being that it's manifestly unjust. Okay, second. We have a motion from Counselor Freeman a second by Counselor Stromberg. Any, actually let's now I'll go to City Assessor Vickery for an explanation of this one. Okay. The Joanne Lafayette holdings has, I think it was five or six different properties. Same situation. She thought that penalties and interest would be waved and that she had more time to pay her tax bills on these rental units that she manages and owns. And her request is that it's manifestly unjust because there was a lot of confusion around that time as to when to pay it and she missed it. She made mention that she didn't want to touch her mail for a few days and that's why more penalties and interest were applied from the delinquent notice and that she paid it as soon as she found out. Is there anything else? Okay, all right. Thank you for that explanation. Counselor Polinot, did you have something to add? I just want to confirm it, but from memory, she paid it the day the interest was assessed, which I found to be remarkable. So it's like if she had, you know, and there was like a, there were COVID restrictions with how to pay your taxes at the time as well. I forget exactly what was the situation for that, whether it was a drop box, but just wanted to point that out. Okay, thank you for that. I've looked for the petitioner not able to locate, looks like that person to have them speak to this item. So I will now open the floor for counselors if you have comments or questions. Okay, seeing none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, hearing none, that passes. So barring objection, any objections, we are adjourned as the Board of Tax Abatement, brings us to our final meeting of the night, which is the Board of Civil Authority, which I'll turn over to Mayor Weinberger. Tracy, I will call into order the Board of Civil Authority at 9.30 p.m. And the first item on the agenda is the agenda. I would welcome a motion on it. Councilor Paul. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'll make them to adopt the agenda as presented. Great. Is there a second? Second from Councilor Stromberg, any discussion? We will go to a vote. All those in favor, adopt the agenda, please say aye. Any opposed? We have an agenda and that brings us to the consent agenda. I welcome my motion on that. Councilor Hightower. Move to adopt the consent agenda and take the actions indicated. Excellent. Seconded by Councilor Freeman. And any discussion? All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries unanimously and that brings us to the end of the agenda and without objection, President Tracy, we are adjourned at 9.31 p.m. Great. Thank you, Mayor Weinberger. So with that, we will reconvene the city council, the regular city council meeting at 9.31 and we will go into our deliberative agenda, which is item, which begins with item 6.01, a resolution on the approval of the language access plan. I'm gonna go to Councilor Pine for our motion and before we get a presentation from the CIO's office. So, Councilor Pine, can we please have a motion? Yes, I would move that the council approve the language access plan as proposed and as outlined and request the floor back very briefly after a second. Okay, so we have a motion. Is there a second? Seconded by Councilor Stromberg. Go ahead, Councilor Pine, you have a floor. Mr. President, if we could just highlight for discussion, hopefully, maybe IT director Low can answer the question about whether the implementation plan that is also part of this resolution would result in a clearer path for folks for whom English is not their first language to access and utilize city services and programs. So if you could just answer, help us with that because of what we had heard earlier was an applicant asking that he was partially here to understand some of the process and the condition. I just wanna revisit that briefly and if you could, thank you. Great, thank you for that. I'll turn it over to CIO Low at this point. Thank you, Council President Tracy and Councilor Pine. Very happy to be here tonight to talk briefly about the language access policy. And I'm joined by my colleagues, Pet Kiyomunivon and Carolyn Felix, who've done a great deal of work to advance this policy. I also wanna thank Joy Hovstatt and Eileen Blackwood in the city attorney's office, the city and our committee and Councilor Jang, who have done a lot of work kind of repeatedly engaging on this and over the last couple of months. We have a very brief, effectively four-slide presentation to kind of explain what this is and how it will work. And Councilor Pine, I'll make sure to address your question as part of the presentation here. So, Council President Tracy, is it all right to share my screen and speak briefly? Yes, please do. And are you able to see the screen here? Yeah, I can see the screen. It's still in the, it's not in like the display mode. It's still showing the full PowerPoint. Okay, as long as you're okay with that, I'm gonna just scroll through with the... I think that's fine. Councilors also have it on board docs as well, but yeah, go right ahead, Councilor. I see, I hear a low. Okay. So, the language access policy basically follows federal guidance from the Department of Justice around language access. And federal law requires that cities set aside resources when any more linguistic group reaches the 5% population threshold within the community. That's not yet the case in Burlington and I'll turn it over to my colleague briefly or in a moment to speak more about the current situation in Burlington. But despite that, the mayor has wanted us to proceed with developing language access policy for our community. If you were to approve this policy tonight, you'd set in motion a series of steps, a needs assessment and an implementation plan that would result in a series of resource allocation and prioritization questions being resolved for the city to make sure that there is meaningful access across all city departments for language access. The goal really is to provide timely and meaningful access to all our residents. Councilor Pine, you asked a specific question about whether the example we heard earlier in public forum, whether this plan would help address some of the challenges that that individual had faced. And the way this works is that the policy is providing a set of criteria by which the city would make judgments. So this kind of implementation plan that you would see again in the future is based around four criteria laid out in federal law. If city attorney Blackwood wants to correct me, I'm certainly would defer to her, but the criteria I believe are the proportion of people who have what the federal government terms limited English proficiency who are served by a program, the frequency with which those people come into contact with the program, the nature and importance that the program or initiative or service has in people's lives and the resources available to the grantee, which in this case would be the city and the cost. And so those criteria are how those questions are adjudicated in our policy. We distill it basically down to emergency and essential services. We really want people to be able to access services in the city. So let me turn it over to Pet here and then we can come back if you have additional questions. Thank you for having us speak on this really important matter. Why do we need the language access policy? Well, in a sense, you all know that city of Burlington is a pretty vibrant city. We attract a lot of diverse cultures and visitors across our city. But over the past few years since the 80s, we've grown in our demographics, particularly in non-speaking residents due to resettlement. And then in addition to we've also, we attract a lot of visitors from our neighbors in Canada. As Brian had mentioned, there is a federal requirement that if you have one specific language that exceeds over the 5%, you would need to provide the language services across your city departments for municipalities. We are not there, but that doesn't mean that it's not the right thing to do and the equitable thing to do. And we want to develop a way for people to have meaningful access, get information what they need and also to be represented in city programs and civic engagement. So this way, having this policy will ensure consistency across our city departments so that we can train our city departments to our staff to have consistency around how to implement interpreter and translation services, what needs to be implemented and also to provide a much more centralized coordination support for our city staff. So I'll turn over to Brian again to talk more about what this would do, more in the logistics. Thanks. What this would do is it would lead to effectively some significant restructuring within our city. We have currently across well over a dozen city departments a variety of different translation and interpretation services that are offered, some of which work well, some of which don't, some of which maybe don't always appreciate how time has evolved since they were initially put in place. And so a big part of this effort would be standardizing those contracts and those resources making sure that we're consistent across city departments. There would be a likely reclassification of an existing position that would come back to the council through the board of finance to and be informed by a needs assessment what is happening in our community, what's happening in our city and how do we need to apply these resources and the reclassification would centralize responsibility for that significant responsibility in one position in the city that one individual would manage a variety of different contracts and trying to standardize the current system. The other thing I want to flag for the council we made sure to flag with CDNR as well is the city is committing to providing emergency essential services, those things that meet those thresholds laid out in the Department of Justice guidance. There may be some services ultimately that need to be balanced against other budgetary or programmatic constraints. That's something that would be informed by a needs assessment but it's something that I do want to flag here. And then I'm going to turn it over for the last slide to my colleague, Carolyn Felix. Thank you Brian and thank you counselors for listening to this plan for this evening. I think that one thing that's very critical here is having a clear understanding of the need in Burlington, especially across the various language groups. And so one of the first steps would be to conduct a needs assessment and the policy outlines a requirement for a needs assessment to be conducted and updated every three years. So we can continually check in on the community needs. The needs assessment would be conducted in partnership with the INT department, with CEDO and with racial equity inclusion and belonging department as well as other community organizations. And it's kind of a three tiered approach. There would be a desk research phase. There would also be city staff engagement and surveys and community kind of focus groups. Although I anticipate there will probably be remote focus groups. And the goal would be to have the needs assessment completed by April 1st of 2021. And then from there, based on what we learn and updated data, updated census data which will be released in December, we can then put together a more formalized language access services implementation plan. And that implementation plan would be implemented in part with INT support, support from our racial equity and inclusion belonging department and led by CEDO's community engagement specialist. And I'll turn it back over to Brian or others if there are questions, President Tracy. Great, thank you so much to the three of you for that wonderful presentation. Was there anything to add, CIO Low? No, nothing further from me, Council President. Okay, great. So let's open the floor to questions and comments from counselors. Councilor Pine, go ahead. I recall a couple of years ago, understanding that the New American community in that is often referred to as Bhutanese or Nepalese, that they were approaching a significant number. Is there a reliable way to, I mean, the census is a pretty slow and kind of not a very accurate count of every population. So I think I just am curious about how you derive that number, those numbers, when you look at that 5% figure. And so if you could speak to that. I do think it's based on census data. So I don't have an alternative source to the census to drop on that. But it is the three year sort of rolling American community survey, not the 10 year count that has done the decennial census that is just wrapping up now, right? It's not that one. Correct, I think it's a five year rolling, but yes, correct. Okay, so you have those numbers for the various populations, population groups in Burlington for whom English is not their first language? Yes, and our numbers put that at about 14% of the total population. But then within that, there's no one group that is above 5% of the total population, no one linguistic group above 5% of the total population. And then lastly, any estimate if, I guess it all depends on what happens with federal relocation program, refugee assistance relocation programs, right? Because that under this administration has halted to a standstill really. So I think it seems like it's largely driven by what happens at the federal level and where those priorities are as far as, folks from what countries are being prioritized by the State Department, I think. You may know more about that process than I do, Councilor Cain. I don't know that I should weigh in too much there. I do think that 14% figure is a notable figure. It's a significant part of our population that is non-English speaking. You're not English speaking is the first language. Okay, thank you. I would also add that when we're talking about limited English proficiency, it's not just populations that are non-English speakers, but we're also talking about hearing impairment, vision impairment. So we're talking about other disabilities too. Great, I'll second Councilor Cain. Okay, other Councilors? Councilor Cain, go ahead. Yes, I think it would be important to really thank Brian and Caroline and Pat for the outstanding job that they have been doing. And this is since maybe last year. And what I like the most is their approach in making sure they hear directly from those that will be affected or will be served better. I think that patients and Brian in some cases in weekends, he finds a group of new Americans and bring the policy forward. I think, I don't know how many, many times we read this, redo, revisit, read, so many times. And it also would be important to point out that this is all about where are we going? Because seven months ago, you look at the city website, there were almost no meaningful translation and now it is already happening. Ballots, even the ballots people are voting, those ballots are now translated. It's all on city's website, right? And some issues that are happening here, water, hour break, the tweak turn around, I really do appreciate it. And I think this is all about where are we going? And it is a policy that really construct the road in which we should walk in carefully and meaningfully in order to implement something that might work for many people. I just wanted to say that. Thank you so much for all your hard work on this and looking forward to the Finnish project, right? And in collaboration with you, of course. Thank you. Any further comments from counselors? Okay, seeing none, we'll go to a vote on this item. All those in favor of adopting the language access plan, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, that passes unanimously. I want to thank the city team for bringing this to us in such a great presentation this evening. We will now go to item 6.02, which is a public hearing regarding front yard parking. This is actually the public hearings for all of the zoning items. So for those folks who are interested in speaking to those specific items, and I believe one of the folks who did sign up for the public forum, Alicia D. Mario, had noted that they were interested in speaking on these items. So if folks are interested in speaking just to the zoning items, this is part of the statutory requirements of adopting a zoning changes that we open a public forum prior to the consideration of these items. So I'm going to go ahead and open the public forum for the following items. The consideration of front yard, ZA 20-07, front yard parking, ZA 20-08, convalescent home lot coverage, ZA 20-09, 311 North Ave, rezone parks lot coverage standards, WRM height exemption, ZA 21-01 day cares and preschools in RCO, and ZA 21-02 temporary tents. So we'll open the public forum. So if anybody's interested in speaking to any of those specific zoning amendments, please use the raise hand function in the Zoom, if you would like to speak to any of these items. Again, if you'd like to speak to any of these items. Okay, I see that Alicia D. Mario has raised their hand on this item. Alicia, go ahead. Hi, thank you for having me this evening. I am here representing Birchwood Terrace. I'd like to thank you for everyone's efforts thus far in assisting us in all healthcare operations and obtaining appropriate parking in the city of Burlington. We've stemmed, our parking situation has stemmed back to 2017-2018 when the parking, with the parking ban on North Ave and it created what we found to be an issue with parking for the skilled nursing facility. We are zoned for 45 parking spaces to run a facility of 144 beds. We have over 100 employees who work there daily as well as staff, visitors, vendors that come. I really just appreciate the fact that you have made the exception or recommendation to add convalescent care in the inclusionary bonus which is consistent with practices elsewhere in the city. So thank you for that. I was saddened to hear that we did not approve the one to two parking spot ratios but I am happy for the small victories that we have. So thank you for the consideration in allowing this inclusionary bonus for healthcare and convalescent care. It's very helpful in allowing us to operate efficiently and take care of the city's frail and elderly population. So thank you. Thank you for those comments. Are there additional members of the public interested in addressing these zoning amendments? If you are, please use the raise hand function that's part of the Zoom and you can, okay, see none. I'm gonna go ahead and close the public hearing on items and we'll move into the zoning amendments themselves. I'm gonna come to, so that will be moving on to item number 6.03. Councilor Mason, may I please have a motion on item 6.03? Yes, thank you, President Tracy. I'd like to make a motion to waive the reading, waive the second reading, adopt the ordinance as drafted and ask for the floor back after a second. Okay, we have a motion as our second. Seconded by Councilor Stromberg. How you have the floor, Councilor Mason. Thank you, President Tracy. The front yard parking amendment before us as noted in Scott Gustin's memo has been before the ordinance committee bouncing back and forth with ordinance for probably over a year, year and a half. This latest iteration attempts to address the consistent concerns over the potential for parking between a residential structure in the street even when not actually within a front yard setback. This sort of got kicked off when it became apparent that there was an interpretation from the DRB that was inconsistent with the planning offices interpretation. So that's what sort of started this and it has gone back and forth. I appreciate even when discussing on our caucus last night there was even a little bit of confusion. So I have asked Scott Gustin and I know David and Megan are both here to maybe afford a little bit more background discussion in terms of how we got here and also the interplay between this proposed amendment and the outright ban on front yard parking that is in another provision of our ordinance. So with that, I'm not sure, Scott if you're the lucky next speaker, but I'll turn it over. Thank you. Sorry, if you have something to add, go right ahead. So sure, this amendment tonight is a site design standard for basically for where dryways can be for residential properties. That's really all it is. There's no new policy here. The zoning code has had this provision for 20 or 25 years. As Councilor Mason noted, there was a, the DRB had a different take on what the present reading actually meant versus how it was implemented. And we have the discussion. Do we want to clarify it and continue to implement it as intended or go a different route? And there was merit found in keeping the provision and simply clarifying it. So again, it's just, it's a site design standard for where dryways can be for residential properties. The outright ban on parking on the grass is something different. That's actually under a separate city ordinance under chapter 26 and basically applies to the city center. It doesn't apply towards four and seven and parts of five and six. I will point out that if you simply decide to park on your lawn and do it long enough that the grass dies and the dirt gets compacted, you've established a de facto unpermitted parking spot and that can sometimes be a zoning enforcement action. But again, that's, that has nothing to do with the site design standard in this amendment tonight. Okay, thank you for that clarification. Are there, the floor is open for Councilor Comments. Okay, seeing none, we'll, oh, Councilor Chen, go ahead. Yeah, and maybe this applies to citywide and not on the specific neighborhoods. This, yes, this applies citywide to residential properties. Yeah, thank you. Any other questions or comments from Councilors? Okay, seeing none, we'll go to a vote on, on the zoning amendment. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, that passes unanimously. We'll go now to item 6.04. Councilor Mason, may it please have a motion on that? Yes, President Tracey, thank you. I'd like to make a motion to waive the second reading of the ordinance. Ask for the floor back after a second. And I also, when my motion would like to send the communication from the Planning Commission that we received to the Public Works Commission. Okay, thank you. Is there a second to that? I see Councilor Stromberg. Thank you for that. You have the floor, Councilor Mason. Thank you, President Tracey. So this proposed amendment as Mr. Mayo noted before came to the Ordinance Committee and sought two things. The first was to adjust the maximum permissible law coverage to 44%, which is consistent with the inclusionary zoning allowance. And the second piece was to adjust the minimum parking requirement from one parking space to two patient beds. The Ordinance Committee, as Mr. Mayo noted, did move forward the first, but not the second. And I wanna explain why. There was some concern at the Ordinance Committee that this, you know, I appreciate that there's an issue just at Birchwood, but if implemented this amendment would apply citywide. The other concern that the Ordinance Committee felt was, it seemed odd at a time when we were bending over backwards and spending an inordinate amount of time trying to reduce reliance on parking and vehicles and transportation and demand plans and everything else to turn around and double the size of the parking at this facility that's on North Avenue, on a major bus line. Having said that, we were sensitive to the specific requirements of Birchwood and we were, you know, there is a parking waiver that is still available to Birchwood should they choose to go down that path. So for that reason, the committee, you know, did not act in support of the second requirement increasing the number of patient beds. I wanna call to everyone's attention, there is a memo that if this passes will be referred to DPW that sort of walks through that the Planning Commission put forth explaining how some of this is due in part because of the resident only parking and then, you know, in some of the adjoining streets that is currently in place. So many of the nurses who might be able to park or staff, you know, on an adjacent public street are not able to do that. Again, I don't think that's something we're gonna be able to solve tonight, but I think it's important, you know, again to get this before Public Works Commission and make them aware and as well as us of some of the consequences of resident only parking. So with that, I also note there are many members of the planning staff here who can answer any specific questions from counselors. Thank you for that, bottom of there. Any questions or comments from counselors? I see none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, hearing none, that passes unanimously, which brings us to our next item, item 6.05. Councilor Mason, can I come back to you for another motion on that one? Yes, thank you, President Frazier. I'd like to make a motion to waive the second reading about the ordinance as presented. And again, ask for the floor back after a second. Seconded by Councilor Hightower, you have the floor, Councilor Mason. Hold on, let me turn the paper. Thank you, President Tracy. This proposed amendment seeks to rezone 12 acres that were acquired in 2016 as part of the transaction involving the Burlington College property. It seeks to rezone it as city parkland but also as a technical cleanup tries to eliminate a conflict between our existing ordinance and form-based code. And finally, it eliminates the waterfront RM height exemption, which my understanding and David will correct me if I'm wrong, really only applies currently to a very small sliver of property on Depot Street that is not really developable. So, David's saying yes, he's not speaking. So, with that, I will note again that planning staff is here to answer any specific questions on this amendment. Okay, thanks for that. Any questions or comments from counselors? Okay, seeing none, we'll go to a vote. Oh, Councilor Shannon, did you have something? Yes, thank you, President Tracy. Why are we changing the height limit on undevelopable property? We're taking it away. My understanding, David, but my understanding is we're bringing it down. Correct, I'm happy to speak to that. In the waterfront RM zoning district, there was an allowance for additional height that was created specifically targeted when it was created back in the 80s or 90s to what was the Catholic diocese property, the orphanage property. Because of the way it was defined, it was a distance from the shore and a certain elevation. There was a small sliver of it that actually extended to a small section of RM, WRM, that's off of Depot Street. It's really not applicable anymore now that the Catholic diocese property is developed as Cambrian rise and where it remains is really an area that's undevelopable at that height limit. So we're just removing it and cleaning up the ordinance. Okay, thank you. Okay, any further discussion? President Tracy, if I may. Yeah, go ahead. Thank you, I just wanted to clarify, there was a typo that we found. And so there's two versions of the amendment on Bordax. I just wanna clarify that you're really passing the one under consideration is identified with city council second reversion in the title in the attach maps. Thank you. Thank you. Councilor Mason, is that? No, yes, my apologies. The city attorney's office informed me of that and I forgot. So thank you, Ken, for reminding us. Okay, thank you for that clarification. Is there any further discussion of this item? Okay, seeing none, we will go to a vote. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Hearing none, that passes unanimously, which brings us to another zoning item. Item 6.06, may it please have a motion on that, Councilor Mason? Thank you, President Tracy. I would like to make a motion to waive the second reading, adopt the ordinance as presented and ask for the floor back for a brief introduction after a second. Any other motions or a second? Seconded by Councilor Hightower.  Thank you, President Tracy. This amendment originates from a request made by the Windowsky Valley Parks District on behalf of its tenants, the Ethan Allen Museum and the Forest Preschool. As a result of changing needs, there was a look at the zoning ordinance and it currently, as currently drafted, it's limiting the expansion of Forest Preschool in two ways by limiting the gross floor area of the facility enrollment to 20 children. After planning office looked at this, the ordinance committee was presented with these amendments, which will address those limitations. The recommendation that was approved by the ordinance committee was to amend the CDO to eliminate the distinction between large and small daycare and preschool facilities as there is no material difference between them and also remove the gross floor area limit on their size relative to museums within the RCO districts. As with a number of these other proposed amendments, the ordinance committee has heard no opposition or even for support for that matter. These have sort of gone through without any comment. Thank you. Thanks, Councilor Mason. Any discussion of this item? Okay. Seeing none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? I have to abstain.  Are you recusal? Yeah, recusal. Yeah, recusal to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. Okay. Okay. Thank you, Councilor Pine. Councilors, if you have recusals, please state so at the beginning of the item before the debate. Thank you though. So that passes unanimously with one recusal noted of Councilor Pine. Our next item is 6.07, yet another ordinance or last ordinance of the evening, Councilor Mason may please have another motion on this one. Thank you, President Tracey. I'd like to make a motion to waive the second reading, adopt the ordinance as presented and ask for the floor back after a second. Okay. We have a motion and seconded from Councilor Hightower.  Thank you, President Tracey. This is the easiest of them. This is a COVID related amendment exempting the zoning ordinance to provide additional flexibility in the temporary structure provisions to exempt tents, which we are availing ourselves of during this pandemic as defined in the National Fire Protection Act 101 from requiring a zoning permit, provided that's for up to 100 day period and also remaining contingent on the fire marshal's issuance of a temporary tent permit. Thank you. Okay, is there any further discussion of this item? Okay, seeing none, let's go to a vote. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, that passes unanimously. Thanks to the Ordinance Committee for moving all those along and for those members of the plan for joining us this evening providing explanations where necessary. That brings us to our final item of the deliberative agenda, which is a communication in line with an earlier resolution that came from the City Council. I'm gonna go first to the Charter Change Chair, Joan Shannon, and then had to be followed by Attorney Blackwood. So, Councilor Shannon, go ahead. Thank you, President Tracey. On our agenda, it says we're going to accept the communication and place it on file, but if you're willing, I'd like to not make a motion at this point. I'm hoping that all of this work doesn't just get placed on file and the Council has some different options as to what to do with it. So, is it okay if I kind of introduce, start the introduction of what we've done, why we've done it, where we're going, and then turn it over to Attorney Blackwood, if that's all right with you. Sure, go ahead. Okay, thank you. So, the Council, what was referred to the Charter Change Committee was this, that the Council, acknowledging the need to change current policies regarding discipline and oversight of our police, requests that the Charter Change Committee review options for who makes and review disciplinary decisions and report on the various options to the full Council in October. So, we worked diligently, didn't quite make that October deadline, but here we are first meeting in November. This was a lot to wrestle with. There are, of course, infinite options regarding who might make disciplinary decisions and after doing some wrestling with it ourselves, we asked Attorney Blackwood to do some research and see what's happening in other communities. And so, that is the document that's before you, looking at different police oversight bodies in different communities, as well as recommendations from the ACLU. And I wanna, it was really a tremendous amount of work and research that Attorney Blackwood put into this to help us kind of make sense of some options. And I am so grateful to her for that work. So, the Committee has referred this back to the Council, but at the same time, based on this work, the Committee has also looking at some possible charter changes, well, a really a rewrite of this section of the charter based on these recommendations and the recommendations of the ACLU. That may be what the Council wants us to do, but you haven't really told us that that's what you want us to do. And it's a little bit in conflict with what you have told us you want us to do. So, I want to also bring your attention to the racial justice through economic criminal justice resolution, which at that time, you asked the Charter Change Committee to review and propose amendments to the charter, to the City Charter that authorized the Police Commission to approve by simple majority any disciplinary decision, including a decision of non-discipline, the Police Chief wishes to implement in a use of force case with such approval, including the right to impose a new and different discipline as the Commission deems appropriate. That didn't have a report back deadline. Attorney Blackwood has drafted something that is responsive to this request, but that is in conflict with going in this other direction of creating a new body with new authority, which is the road we have started down. And at the same time, we have the Joint Committee of the Public Safety Committee and the Police Commission that are also doing a lot of really important work, working with the community to determine what our policing needs are, that arguably needs to come before we completely restructure the oversight body and the disciplinary process. So, I'm hoping that the council might give some guidance tonight. As to what you would like your charter change committee to do at this point. And if you want us to continue down the road that we are on working on this charter change, or I mean, it is taking a lot of particularly city attorney resources to do this and I'm concerned about that. I don't think that that's, by our council rules, we're not supposed to use a lot of staff resources without the approval of the council. So, if that's what you would like us to do, I would like a motion to that effect if it's more appropriate for this to be working in conjunction with the Joint Committee then perhaps this should be referred to the Joint Committee. And I'll also just note that one of the advantages of creating that Joint Committee and the work that they're doing is that it is a more diverse body and a larger body than the Charter Change Committee. And it's including the police commissioners and the police commission has not been included in this work up to this point. So I'll leave it at that and turn it over to attorney Blackwood to kind of give you a brief run-through of this. I would really encourage everybody to dig into this work because I know that attorney Blackwood isn't going to be able to go into all the detail that's there but it is really important to read it carefully. Thank you. Councilor Shannon, attorney Blackwood. Thank you. So this, I hope you have a chance to look at least skim through these materials because there's a lot of information and there are a lot of options. I think the key issue here is let me start with the question that was referred to the committee which is options for police discipline. And in most communities in the US police discipline matters are investigated by an internal affairs officer within the police or a bureau or supervisory officers and decided by the police chief or other command staff. But some communities include various civilian bodies in that and one of the big issues that has come up around police reform in the last, certainly highlighted in the last number of months is enhancing the role of civilian oversight. So this document that I prepared and a lot of what I reviewed is really looking at what are the models of civilian oversight? What are the options? How do you look at that? How do you pull that civilian oversight into police discipline? So one of the primary resources and if you don't have time which you probably don't to look at everything it would be good for you probably all to skim the National Association of Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement called the COLE. It's guidelines for communities that are trying to work their way through these issues. It gives you a good overview of some of the issues. It takes you through starting with kind of goals. What are the goals that the community is trying to meet? Because one of the key things of all of this research is that there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 160 different communities that have these police oversight boards. And according to these experts that have looked at it no two are the same. So there is not a single best practice in how do you do civilian oversight? It's very tailored to each community. And that's why it's taken the Charter Change Committee so much time to kind of think about this to look at this. But when you look at goals and certainly the goals can include things like improving public trust ensuring there's an accessible process for members of public to make complaints ensuring thorough and fair investigations of alleged police misconduct ensuring transparency in the process all of those things and many other goals seem very clear to be goals that Burlington has or what we're looking at and how we wanna look at these issues. One another key piece is that there have been lots and lots of calls for an oversight body that has independence from the police department that in and of itself doesn't isn't just another arm of the police that the public is able to see it and see that there is some independence. So those are pieces. There are a number of other key elements that I think will come through as we look at a variety of different options here. The ACLU has submitted a position paper with a model that they have put forward and a lot of that is what's gonna get that will come out I think as you get into some of the details here. But in general, it's widely considered there are essentially three different models or three different functions that a civilian oversight board can do. The first of those is a review board and that is basically that the independent, the body can be independent but it allows the police department to conduct investigations, it can review them, it can act on, it can take information, it can have staff, it cannot have staff. It generally doesn't adjudicate complaints, it doesn't like hold hearings and have findings to determine discipline but some of them have appeal rights. Again, these are all over the board but generally a review board is sort of seen as the initial level and in many ways the review board is very similar to the police commission that we currently have that where the police department consults, they can send the police department back and say, hey, we don't really like what you recommended chief, we have these questions, we think you should do this differently, things like that. And it generally is the primary issue is being able to provide civilian input into the police process. Smaller communities around the country tend to use this review model because it's the least costly model and yet it provides a role for civilian oversight and that can be a broad role. It can have a very, that review board can have some authority but it is sort of the smallest level role in the materials, there are some examples of this kind of body. The second level of or the, and these are kind of in more progressive levels of the way that folks think about how you move through this because one of the recommendations that, that on the poll and some of the other advocates say is that a community should do sort of the lowest level of intervention that meets its need. And in this instance, one of the reasons why Burlington is considering greater civilian oversight is because of some lack of public trust around decisions that have been made in the past. And that's a reality that we're all looking at and considering as, and that seems from all of these reviews to say, yeah, that's what you're supposed to do. If what you have isn't meeting everybody's needs is it's not building public trust then you'd try the next level. So the investigative model is the next level and this is a board that is fully independent of the police department. It has paid professional staff that conduct investigations and does, and so it wrote, they interview witnesses, they gather evidence that it is a very much more robust system. That system is built in with the staff and a board and then the board takes the results of the investigations, makes findings on those and either can make recommendations or can make disciplinary decisions on the investigation. There are also many, many hybrids of this where this independent board only investigates certain kinds of allegations or it chooses which allegations, which complaints from members of the public, for example, that it is going to investigate. And the police departments in most of these situations still have their own internal affairs bureau that conducts their own internal investigations on matters that the investigatory or board does not do. And then the third general type is what they call an auditor or monitor model. And this is a model and it's based on the theory that it is less individual discipline matters that make change in police reform than large pattern and systemic review and analysis and change. So that based on that theory, this third group of boards has a, it has a board, they generally have a staff that closely monitors and audits police practices and individual disciplinary systems. But with a lot of focus on trying to use data and look at what kinds of complaints are we getting? How doing research in those, so what can we do to address those complaints on a systemic level? If there are, if use of force, if there is too much use of force or use of force, people aren't comfortable with what digging into what kind of training needs to get changed, things like that. Looking at the big systemic issues, that's kind of the third model of these. Again, as I said, many of these systems combine elements of all of these three functions or models in them. So just moving forward through and in the report, I talk a little bit about some of the strengths and weaknesses of each of those different models. And then in part four of the report, I picked a number of different communities that had some element of similarity to Burlington and some of them are larger, some of them are smaller, but that had some issues and laid out for you here a little bit about how those boards were constituted, what their level of authority was and the kind of models that they have. And I did them in a chronological order starting with Denver, which first started up this independent monitor and auditor role. They were one of the first communities to really robustly put that kind of monitoring and analysis in place. And they started in August of 2005. So they've had some time, there are links to annual reports and things from that department that are very interesting. I also suggested looking at Farmington, New Mexico, which the Police Assessment Resource Center, which is another advocacy group for civilian oversight reform, did a report for Farmington. Farmington is about Burlington's size and so it was interesting in how they recommended that a smaller community would be able to have the elements of independence, but still have the police department continue to conduct investigations, but would have a director of this independent body that would help structure the investigation, work with the police department to do that, would observe the monitoring and auditing the processes that went along. I also put Chicago in here because Chicago has made a lot of changes over the time and currently is still contemplating more changes because there are folks there being very active in working on options for how these various boards can operate. I included Ferguson, Missouri as an option just because it has been so high profile, it's been operating under consent decree and it's a much smaller community than Burlington. So, but it has put a lot of time and energy into trying to reform its police department. I included Charlottesville, which is closer to Burlington's, but they have a, they have more, they have closer to a review system, but they have done some enhancements to that system that are very interesting in terms of having an independent employee for that board and having that board have some broader representation. The newest model that I found was from Madison, Wisconsin, which was just adopted in September and it's a kind of updated, modified version of what Denver does. It's a much larger community than we are, so, and this is our first police oversight agency, so they haven't had one before. And again, they are giving them a fair amount of authority. Under Wisconsin state law, it appears that they have, they already have civilian, they operate under something like our old commission system, so they have a police and fire commission that already has involvement in hiring and firing of folks, but more the civilian board is set up to do a lot of the monitoring and looking and following the investigations closely and making recommendations for that, the other board to make decisions. So, there were out of all of this, there's a lot of consensus about various elements of what should happen that it's key for these independent boards to have access to any and all records of the police department, have full cooperation, access to all the management, access to all the policies that they should be able to review all the citizen civilian complaints that come in, even if no matter what their role, whether they're doing review or monitoring or investigation themselves, that they should look at all of those, that they should make policy recommendations for the department, that mediation should be a piece of what is offered to citizens, that there should be a lot of community outreach and that that's one of the things the civilian board should do as part of its role that it should analyze patterns and trends and deal with data and should be able to recommend all kinds of changes and that there should be annual and almost all of the systems have quarterly reports from these boards that are in writing and available to the public so that there's a lot of information about numbers of complaints, what they look like, what's happened to them, what kind of discipline, virtually all of these do not include names of complainants or officers and folks like that, things like that, for the most part. So there are a number of different areas in which these various systems vary between what the jurisdiction of it is, who does the investigation, who holds hearings, who has subpoena authority, if anybody, making findings, making recommendations and I've reviewed some of that and in this report, I then also posed several questions and summarized what the ACLU and public comments that have been received by the Charter Change Committee have archivaled it. Certainly the ACLU and all of the comments recommend that Burlington have a charter change that includes a civilian board with investigatory and disciplinary authority. The details of all of that is part of what the Charter Change Committee has still been talking about. So that includes my report. All right, thank you for that. I didn't want to interrupt you, but it is 1031 so we do need a motion on suspending the rules. So is someone prepared to offer a motion on suspending the rules? We just have, this is our last item on deliberative and we do have the executive session as well. Councilor Stromberg. All right, I move to suspend the rules. I don't think we need to add more, right? That's the last one. Are you meaning to include both this item and the executive session in that motion? Of course, yeah. So I would move to suspend the council rules to include the rest of this item and our executive session. Okay, excellent. There's a motion to suspend the rules. Is there a second? Seconded by councilor Shannon. Is there any additional discussion of that? Okay, hearing none, we'll go to a vote. Requires two thirds. All those in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? Okay, hearing none, that passes unanimously and we have suspended our rules to complete this item and deal with the executive session item as well. The floor is gonna be now open. I had councilor Paulino and then I'll follow up with councilor Hightower on Carpenter. Go ahead, councilor Paulino. Thank you, president Tracy. I reached out to councilor Hightower earlier today and I wanna share some of my thoughts. You know, I had the pleasure of serving on the special committee with her and I'm just so impressed by her work and dedication to herding stray cats, really. We all have different opinions. We're all committed and deeply invested. So she's been doing a really good job as a result of that. I don't mean to unnecessarily wanna be first but since I am, I plan on making a motion to refer. So I'll make the motion but not in an effort to stifle conversation. So to refer the options of who makes and reviews disciplinary decisions and report to the special committee for consideration. And so that's my motion. And I guess for the second, I'll discuss why I'm making it. That would probably be the best way to do it before I forget. Okay, thank you. So we have a motion. Is there a second to Councilor Polino's motion? Seconded by Councilor Carpenter.  Yeah, so back to that committee. So that committee is super specialized. You know, we have Randall Harp who served in the previous committee who's very knowledgeable. We now have Professor Guino who already at her one meeting showed great value to the team focusing on substantive matters. And we're really slugging through word for word, these RFPs, we're gonna get them out. And I just think it would, one, we have to bring this item there, like period. If I said nothing else, we would have to do that. That would only be fair. But I guess the second question is, you know, we're doing a top-down assessment. And I heard the word a lot of public input, public complaints, public options from city attorney Blackwood. And we're gonna hire someone to do exactly that, to do a survey to the community to tell us what they think about BPD. That's just one of them, you know. The other part is that we're gonna pay someone, a lot of money to give us a top-down human resource assessment of this department to sort of give us an idea of what the problems are from, I guess, you know, an executive managerial to an employee level and what can be fixed. And I just think that if we jump to conclusions on how to reform the police commission without that information, we'd be putting ourselves at a great disadvantage. So that's my intent. For right now, I just wanna be able to discuss this in that committee, that's all. And then we go from there, who knows what's gonna happen, but that's the base of my motion. I'm not doing it to stifle communication. So I wanna keep it broad so people can just talk about what attorney Blackwood said. Thank you. I have a counselor Hightower in the queue. Great. So, I'm gonna also try to speak kind of broadly to address both counselor Shannon's point and counselor Polino's. So I guess the first thing is kind of an observation slash question is to step back because I do think that there's, I certainly feel, and I think probably a lot of us and certainly the public feels a sense of urgency around this. So I have not delved as deeply into the substantive matters as I think the folks on the Charter Change Committee have. And I think the thing that we kind of wanna prioritize getting done quickly is the, to me the valid question and the getting that whole process around Charter Change started. And then I think the part that we wanna do slowly is figuring out the exact structure, who's on it. And so I guess the question for me is as someone who hasn't been following the Charter Change process is how much those can be parallel process. I wouldn't want it to come out of Charter Change Committee without an understanding of what, like, yes, we heard about all those models, but to some like you were talking about like the auditor monitor model, it doesn't sound to me like that necessarily requires a huge Charter Change, because why would we require a chart? Maybe that's not true. I see counselor Shannon smiling, but it's like, how much of a Charter Change do we need to collect data and to make recommendations? That sounds like it's already in the purview of our current police commission. Whereas the investigatory sounds like it needs much more Charter. So I guess if we're looking at these, at the end, Attorney Black would list all these things that are very common throughout all of the different models that we looked at. And I guess I wonder if we look at that list of things that are common. Can we start, can the Charter Change Committee start to build a list of things that we know that we'll need, that we can get in front of voters and in front of the state even while we're still debating what that exactly looks like for Burlington. Councilor Shannon, go ahead. Thanks. I don't think, maybe you want Attorney Blackwood to answer this, but I think that when we're diving into these details and there's, how much we really have delved into these details is actually pretty limited. I would say Attorney Blackwood has really delved into the details at this point. And she has kind of presented us with some options, but those details are in the Charter Change because it's a major change from what we have now. Right now, who our Police Commission is, is in the Charter. And there's kind of a simple Charter Change that gives them more authority that was presented, but we haven't forwarded that to you and instead have been working on that more detailed change about how do we appoint these folks? What is the process by which we appoint them and what are their powers? That's those details that you're saying maybe can wait until we do this other work, that is exactly what we're working on now. So the Charter Change is pretty detailed. And I think that the less detailed Charter Change that is what you had requested in the Racial Justice Resolution is probably not ultimately what you want to end up with, but it's kind of an interim Charter Change, maybe before we can hash out all of those details because it's a lot. And I'm concerned that this small group is, and honestly an all white group is wrestling with all of these details while there's other work going on in your committee and that the commission is not part of this discussion either. So I'll leave it at that. Great, and President Tracey, do you have stuff for? Yep, go ahead. Yeah, and then the other thing is I do, it is a lot to make decisions and to come to consensus in a 10-person committee. So I don't think I support council members of Paulino's motion quite yet because I do think I would like the Charter Change committee to at least narrow down the universe of what is possible and give some direction to the joint committee before we hash out details there just because it seems, again, it's really like writing RFPs with 10 people. It's like a hard thing to do. And I also think that exploring an entire universe, getting 10 people to do all of the research is incredibly difficult. So I know it's also difficult, but I think I feel better asking three counselors to do that work than to ask seven citizens. And so I think I would really like a little bit more direction from the Charter Change committee before it goes to the joint. Okay, I have Councillor Carpenter to be followed by Councillor Freeman and Shannon.  Thanks. This is more for Attorney Blackwood, but I wish someone could speak to me around what has to be in the Charter and whatnot. So stepping back, the problem we ran into earlier this year, when particularly the discussion around discipline for the three officers that we talked about was very limiting thing in our Charter that gives authority primarily to the chief, higher in fire, and that was not adequate. That was clear. And what we all said was we need to fix the Charter because that's just too limiting and too narrow. I have done little research on this, but it appears that Burlington has more in its Charter around police discipline than most any other municipality in the state. So I'm just wanting to understand before we even talked about which structure is the best, how much of it has to be in the Charter and how much of it is under the purview of the council to decide and recommend. So I guess if Attorney Blackwood could kind of answer some of that, that would be helpful for me. Or Attorney Blackwood. Depends a little on what you're trying to accomplish. You could have very general authorizing language in the Charter that is similar to a lot of the other general authorizing language that says that for example, that you can have a civilian oversight board and it can have these powers. It can do these various things. One of the difficulties that you face is that one of the largest issues that many folks have struggled with is the role of the union and in the union contract in setting out what disciplinary process will look like. And so one of the things that I think folks are looking for is for the Charter to have more in it that says, you know, what this is what the process is going to be rather than leaving it up to the bargaining process to come up with that. Does Burlington have more in its Charter about discipline oversight than it's typical or is that consistent with other communities? I don't know in terms of comparing it. It certainly has more than it has about other areas and other folks for hiring, but a good portion of what it has in there is fairly standard. Well, it was set up for the during the commission system and it lays out a lot of the due process that officers needed to be guaranteed. So it lays out a lot of that currently current law requires most of that anyway. So it wouldn't have to be in the Charter. Right, you don't necessarily, I mean, my sense is there are a lot of due process rights that wouldn't necessarily have to be. I mean, the ACLU would still say to you, you know, you wanna make sure that employees are clear on what their due process rights are, but they're probably are part of what is there now that don't need to be in there. And there are probably other things that you may want to have in there given everything that you all have been hearing from members of the public about the police and the public trust or lack thereof in the police. Thanks. Okay, I have Councillor Freeman to be followed by Councillor Shannon and Hansen.  Thank you, President Tracey. In regards to this motion for the communication to the committee, I don't, there's so many things to respond to. Struggling at this hour to collect my thoughts. To me, I guess I'm a little bit, I'm not really understanding how that like, there's this aspect where I just don't understand like why? Like I understand that there's an intention to get input and also specifically around the police commission, which is the current body that has certain sort of aspects of being able to review and certain aspects of oversight that are very limited, but are still, you know, at least the body that is designated for those powers, whether they'd be limited or not at this point. But like, for like, it seems in a, like in the sense of this moving through the city, it just doesn't make sense to me. I don't know if it seems like, it seems sort of like in a bureaucratic sense, it just seems very odd. Like, because of course the police commissioners who don't actually have, they can review it, but they can't, they don't have any powers in terms of the charter change language itself, I mean, the model. But this was sort of the whole conversation that we got into around the fair and partial policing policy, which is that we have this police commission that doesn't actually have like the powers vested in it to actually make policy. And so it seems sort of like a matter of like formality, which I don't really understand at this junction when there's so much urgency from the community and the amount of testimony that we've been getting at Charter Change Committee and the urgency around wanting it to be on the March ballot, the amount of testimony that we've gotten, we've had hours, I don't think we've had less than a two to three hour meeting while meeting weekly, you know, at those meetings. And so, and of course police commissioners and public safety committee members can come to Charter Change Committee and weigh in. And there's nothing more that they're going to really be, I mean, I guess they could take a formal vote as a committee and review these models as a committee. But I just, I mean, are we also going to send the Charter Change language once that comes back from Charter Change to the committee? I guess I just don't really understand. So maybe once I get through other points, I don't know if you'll allow it. I would be curious to hear from Councilor Pino who maybe we don't throw motion on that. I think I just wanted to make a few other comments which was just that I don't, regarding the language in general to the Charter, I do think that we should, the draft that I put forward to the committee is extensive and goes through all the details. The amount of work that was done on it was extensive. So I guess I disagree to the point like I have, I feel like I have delved into the work. I feel like I've been reading and researching oversight models for years at this point. And this is the culmination of all that research and all that work. The draft is extensive. The committee is working with City Attorney Blackwood to sort of review it and go over it. So I do actually feel like we are in a pretty good place. And there's been so much public testimony and so much input that I feel like, and by the time it comes to Council and there are hearings on it potentially that they would actually have a lot of pretty good input. And I guess the only other last point that I wrote down here was just that I don't really understand why we would go through the effort of putting language forward to the voters that was like an intermediary change, which is, I believe Councilor Shannon, you're referring to the change to section 184 as opposed to the changes that I proposed, which were to sections 189 and 191, which are more, sorry, 189 and 190 of the charter, which are more extensive and like a more extensive shift in terms of what the community is asking for. It just sort of seems like, that doesn't really make sense to me. To get to your point also, Councilor Carpenter, I think that unlike and maybe some other aspects of the charter, this does have to be, there are aspects of it that are general authorizing language, but it also does have to be somewhat specific, but I think that's okay because I think we have done extensive work and have heard extensively from the community, from various folks advocating for various models. And so there's actually quite a bit of work that's been done. So far, and there's quite a bit of language that's drafted at this point. Thank you, Councilor Freeman. I'm gonna go to Councilor Shannon now to be followed by Councilors Hansen and Stromberg.  Thank you. I just wanted to speak to Councilor Hightower's request. I really respect that it is hard to move 10 people into a place where you can make decisions and it's valuable to narrow the universe. So we had the same challenge in the Charter Change Committee because we got this report from Attorney Blackwood and it is kind of overwhelming and Councilor Freeman did bring forward a draft of a resolution that we didn't debate a whole lot. We referred that to the city attorney asking the city attorney to then add to the work that Councilor Freeman had done, her input as well as that of the ACLU and kind of redraft that. And we have gotten a lot of public input but from the same point of view. And I think that what we've done I mean, it wasn't completely monolithic. Some people liked one version or another version but we haven't done, I think that the focus of the Joint Committee is really to do some public engagement and to pay for some help in doing that public engagement. And that's the piece that we're missing at the Charter Change Committee. And I don't think you want us doing it in parallel either but the universe from this report, the universe has been narrowed because there's a draft Charter Change and in that draft Charter Change, Attorney Blackwood defines certain decision points, make suggestions and says you can kind of go this way or that way. So we do have something at this point that narrows the universe from the document that you have before you tonight. And if you wanted that referred to you as well, I think that that's an option. Thank you, Councilor Sh