I would make a motion, but if you can give me like a second, and I don't mean a second as in a second, I mean a second. You can have several seconds. I can have several. Ooh, I don't know. OK, so I would make a motion. I would make a motion to adopt the agenda with the following amendment. And that would be to remove from the agenda item 3.02, which is the approval of the public safety continuity plan for the simple reason that we are likely to have a likely discussion about that at the city council meeting and in the interest of time and potential amendments that we have that conversation or have that debate once and only once. So with that change, I would then move the agenda. I'll second you, Councilor Powell, seconded by Councilor Pine. Any discussion of the motion? We'll go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? The motion carries unanimously. We have an agenda. Thank you, Councilor Powell. That brings us to 2.01, which is the public forum for the Board of Finance. Is there anyone who is seeking to address the board? Not that I'm seeing, Mayor. OK, thank you for the help on that, President Tracy. I'm not seeing any hands raised either. I don't believe Jordan, we had anyone signed up, right? Check the box. Chief of Staff, Jordan Bell's in the other room. She confirms no participants. Councilor Pine? Just a point of information, I think our motion to adopt the agenda was intended to include another small amendment that I see in that item. Did we not update Attachment H for agenda item 3.03 per Norm Baldwin? Don't we need to add that to our action? That is a good question. Why don't we? I don't know if are you suggesting that it's maybe not captured in that enormous recommended action? What was added now? It may have been anticipated. Oh, OK. If it was anticipated, that's fine. Just wanted to make sure we were all aware of that. And I just didn't want us to not have it be reflected in the record and all that. Yeah. Mr. Mayor, it probably should have done it. I think Councilor Pine is right. I probably should have made a motion to amend the agenda with the following amendment and then probably should have read that and then made the additional amendment of 3.02. Is it, I don't know, is there any black one on the? Yeah. Eileen, I'm not sure if you're listening to this. I mean, it appears to me that what was added today and I appreciate the board's understanding that, as you can see, this is a very complicated item involving many parties and there is work going on up until now. And it's something I think we're all united and wanting to get done. This is making sure the bike path can get rebuilt at the same time as the Amtrak renovation of the rail line. It looks to me like the motion did include a point number seven, which is what addresses the license agreement. That was what was added late today. I'm not sure we need to change the agenda, but maybe I'm misunderstanding something. I think the motion was already there. So I don't think there's an addition to the motion that's needed. And I think it's properly noted for the record when the update was put up. So I'm not sure anything further is needed, but maybe I'm misunderstanding something. Eileen, do you have any thoughts? I would say that normally the council does include all of Lori's notes in its motion to adopt or amend the agenda. But I agree with you that I don't think that is necessary under all patrols. OK, very good. All right, so OK. If there's no objection, I'm going to go back to the public forum and just confirm. We have no speakers for the public forum. Close that out. And that brings us to 3.01, which is the request for authorization of a budget neutral amendment to the FY 2021 Burlington International Airport, AIP 118, project budget in the amount of $5.6 million. Team Richards is here. I saw him earlier, as well as other members of the airport team, welcome. How would the board like to proceed for a motion? Or would you like a quick briefing from the airport? Councillor Pynne. I think a motion's in order. And then a briefing from the airport would be great. So I would move to authorize and recommend the city council authorize a budget neutral amendment to the FY 21 Burlington International Airport budget to increase federal grant revenue by $5,040,000 and inter-fund transfer proceeds by $560,000 and to increase capital expenditures by $5,600,000 for total increase overall of expenditures by $5,600,000. Very good. Thank you. Councillor Pynne, is there a second on that matter? Seconded by Councillor Paul. Thank you. Shelby or Marie, would you like to do a quick overview here? Sure. I'll get started. This is a little budget amendment that we're not bringing for these. This is AIP grant 118, which is one of our largest grant that we've had to date. And it's the construction work on making this parallel taxi way has been ongoing for more than one season, for more than one year. And we started construction back up. We had the team that was doing SC Ireland was doing the managing the construction. They mobilized in the spring. And the timing of such was delayed and they had to shut down the construction. And it pushed the expenditures into fiscal year 2021. So we were unable to proceed the way that we thought we were timing-wise. We had already sort of built our budget. Due to timing, we were building our budget for 2021 and didn't realize how much of the expenditures were going to make it into this year when the construction did restart. So we are adjusting to reflect when the actual construction, the bulk of the construction is happening in this current fiscal year. Thank you, Marie. Shelby, were you looking to add something there? OK. Great. Any further discussion and questions from the council? I think we're ready for our vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion carries unanimously. Thank you, Shelby and Marie. And Jean, and that brings us now to 3.03, which is an item seeking authorization to execute a number of agreements from the Vermont Agency of Transportation, Vermont Rail System, Lake Champlain Transportation Company, and Echo Lakey Center for Lake Champlain in support of the bike path relocation and passenger rail project request.  Welcome Team Parks and DPW. And all those partners that we just read have been engaged on this matter for months leading up until tonight. Maybe I'll just labor a moment longer to say that I think this is a very exciting approval before you tonight. This is all of the pieces necessary to move the rail line, move the bike path, put it on the west side of the tracks, properly keep the Echo operation, mitigate impacts on Echo, mitigate impacts on Lake Champlain Transportation. All of that is happening here. Find a permanent location for the dinner train up north of College Street with loading from the peas lot. That's happening here, too. So this is the implementation of the announcement that was put out about a year ago of how we are going to find a way to add this critical additional service to the waterfront while continuing to preserve what we all love about the waterfront. And in fact, improve it. I think having the bike path on the west side is a huge step forward instead of that very awkward crossing twice the rail tracks in a very short space of time. This is really going to be much better in that respect as well. So with that overview, why don't we open the floor? I'm not sure if anyone's ready for a motion. We want to jump right into questions. Councillor Pine. I would like to move the item. But because of the length of this recommended action, I think I'm going to spare you the reading of that. I am supportive of that. And it is seconded by President Tracey, I believe. And you're comfortable with that, City Attorney. Blackwood, right? We can just reference the printed motion, right? Yes. OK, excellent. Very good. Are there any questions? Discussion. Excellent. Oh, Councillor Pine. I think just a brief comment and then just ask if the staff would like to call any highlights to our attention. And just for the public as well to understand what we're accomplishing here, I think it would be good to give ourselves a little bit of time just airing it because I think it's something as a community we should be excited about and embrace. And I just thought rather than let this moment slip, it was a good opportunity to do that. No, you're quite right, Councillor Pine. Who would like to kind of give an overview and a little more detail than I provided? Javan? OK, great. Yeah, I can start off by just saying, Councillor Pine, we do have a short presentation queued up for the council meeting tonight as we very much agree that this is not only a historic moment, but an important moment for Burlington citizens to understand what is being done here as there are many legal documents on the attachments tonight. So this has been a great partnership. What I think we'll do if it's friendly is have City Engineer Norm Baldwin and Comprehensive Planner, Sophie Sovey, highlight two of the slides from tonight's presentation and really run through very quickly what each of the legal agreements aims to do tonight. So, Jaype and I need actual authorization to share the presentation. OK, I'm not sure. Jordan, can you help out with that? Norm's having trouble sharing his screen. OK, I think Jordan should be able to fix that in a moment. What's that? It should be all set now, Norm. OK. Look at that. IT problems solved. OK, can you see that? I can see it. Yeah, OK, so it's an image of the project and the bike path in relation to the rail. Great. So, Jaype, and you want to take it from there, you want me to jump in? I think it would be helpful if you went through just the 12 different items and what each of them aims to do in very short order. All right, so to get people's bearings here, Maple Street's here, College Street is here, King Street. This is the bike path realignment that is being proposed. The most significant piece of realignment for the bike path is between King Street and College Street. As you aware, previously, the bike path was on the east side of the train tracks. And now it's proposed to be on the west side of the train tracks. That segment of the bike path is going to be within the rail right of way, for the most part, with some exceptions. And we can talk through all those within agreements themselves. And then La Valley Lane further south of Maple is where actually the train will overnight and store. And that design is yet to be complete, but it's progressing quickly. We have really two contours. We're trying to coordinate both these two projects at the same time under V-trans management and construction management and put it out to bid. And the premise is that by having one contract ministered by V-trans, we're limiting the amount of impact to the adjacent stakeholders and having this project advance fairly quickly. And so to do that means that we have to get into the project cycle of Vermont Agency transportation's schedule. What is most important for the council to understand is V-trans has a very narrow window of time to act, both to get under the construction admin to develop the bid docs and put them out, or work windows of opportunity for them to do that. And also they have federal dollars from the federal rail administration that are due to expire as of December 31st of this year. So a lot has to be done in that time. The only work has to be complete and build. And so we've been working very closely with Vermont Rail Systems, Vermont Agency of Transportation, and all the various stakeholders. As a result, we've identified a number of things that legally we need to have in place for them in order to bid that work.  The next slide is really the kind of inventory of the various documents that we're asking both the Board of Finance and Council to review. I can quickly go through all those. The first is Attachment A, which is an amendment to a lease agreement between the city of Burlington v-trans and VRS. Effectively, we were asked to move out of the rail right-of-way itself this past year. This is to re-establish our rights to be within the rail right-of-way. Though not permanent, still allows us to develop and build a bike facility within that right-of-way itself. Attachment B and C are finance and maintenance agreements with Vermont Agency of Transportation, which allows us, which basically, in summary, authorizes v-trans to work within our right-of-way. It creates a clear understanding of what we will do in terms of maintaining our right-of-way that they are currently occupying during the off-season. For instance, plowing and sweeping when contractors are not active, we would be doing that. It also establishes what we will be paying for non-participating costs. In other words, its items that are associated with our bike path realignment are considered non-participating costs. And in these finance and maintenance agreements, they reference that detail of what we should expect to pay based on estimates. Following along, Attachment D is resolution for easements for peas grain, actually DEF and G. These are three easements that are needed to establish property rights for v-trans to maintain two things. One, a control cabinet for the crossing at College Street. And the other is drainage that tie into our outfalls, storm outfalls, so that they can drain the rail right away itself. Followed by Attachment H, which is a police agreement amendment with ECHO. We've been working with ECHO to understand what we are asking to do differently on the parcel that they lease from us and how it relates to this project. And there are really two areas of interest for ECHO. One is we are providing shore power for VRS, and we're providing power to what was ice cream Bob's building. Ice cream Bob's building, if you're not familiar with it, it was on the east side. It's now being moved to the west side. They need power to that building. The nearest power supply is on that city parcel. It's known to be leased to ECHO. They're also looking to have shore power to the trains. There's been conversation about providing shore power to the train to avoid having the train run their diesel engines and make noise. And this is a benefit to ECHO. And overall, I guess, comfort of use of the waterfront itself. So when trains position there, they'll plug in. They won't idle. They'll be able to maintain their systems within the train itself during those times and idle in the station. The next one is Attachment I, which is an easement between the city of Burlington and Lake Champlain Transportation. Along that southern corridor between King and Maple, the bike path needs to take diverge out of the rail right away onto Lake Champlain property to be able to accommodate the bike path cross section. And in exchange for that, the city has agreed to a license agreement with Lake Champlain Transportation further south to accommodate those parking spaces that were lost in that easement handed to the city. So these are all the things that we've been working on. And it's been a challenge to kind of square all these away. You did actually see previously an easement for some pre-season work where we moved the rail alignment further east at Pease Grain to accommodate a straighter alignment and to avoid having a second track. So a lot's gone on here, a lot of conversations with all the partners. But we, I think, have reached a great stopping point to really kick this off from not just conversations but to putting it out to bid and actually getting it constructed. And I think the public really expects us to get that bike path re-established. We're trying to do that in a timely way, but in an efficient way and a least impactful way to businesses. So all this together, I think it's a great thing for the city. We need your support. We want your support. Happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Norm. Councillor Pine. With all of these agreements, all 10 of them, is there any financial aspect to these transactions or just clearly just simply legal agreement? Yes. So there is the finance and maintenance agreements or the particular financial obligations that go with this. And that is where we have the bike path that's being developed under the V-trans contract that we are going to reimburse the state for that scope of work. And so those are considered non-participating and listed in the finance and maintenance agreements. And as explained in the cover memo. Yeah, thank you. President Tracy. Thanks, Mayor. And thanks for the presentation, City Engineer Baldwin. I'm curious about we had prior conversations that talked about the high water access for LCT. And I'm just wondering how you resolved that issue in all of this because I wasn't able to really ascertain that in this. Are they going to be able to drive over the path itself in order to access there a lot in a high water situation? So I can't answer that. Maybe other members of the team can because I wasn't directly involved with the negotiations. I can take that question. The high water access is impacted in the sense that there is a shed on the LCT property that would need to be removed for them to be able to circulate behind their buildings. But there is a and there is a great change between the bike path itself and the LCT property where we'll be building a small retaining wall along the property within the rail right of way to maintain the bike path on the rail right of way as much as possible. OK, all right. And so will that retaining wall also have some sort of physical? Because I know there is going to be physical separation between the path and the train tracks. But I'm just curious. I know that that's a working boat yard. And so just wanted to understand what kinds of how you're going to separate those two uses is it going to be like a fence? Or how does that aspect work in this in all of this? Yes, there'll be besides the retaining wall, which is no higher than three feet. There'll also be a fence on that on the retaining wall. OK, so your fence is on both. OK, thank you for that. I appreciate that clarification. OK, it's hard for me to see everyone now. Norm, do you want to remove the presentation mode? Sure, Karen. OK, thanks, Norm. Is there anyone else who has any questions or statements before we vote? Councillor Paul. Thank you. Just wanted to thank very much. I know that both Cindy and Chapin spent a fair amount of time over the last couple of days reaching out to members of the TUC and members of the PAC. And having spoken with a number of those people really appreciated the time that you spent in giving us an opportunity to ask questions in advance. And also just wanted to acknowledge the amazing efforts of both Sophie and Norm in bringing this important project one step closer to reality. It's pretty exciting. So thank you. Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Paul, Councillor Jang, go ahead. Thank you. Yes, thank you, Councillor Paul, for putting this into context because I received a call from Cindy. And I'm like, why Cindy is calling me about this project specifically? And now you put it into context on member of PAC. Now it makes sense. Now I was wondering if Cindy can talk about also the cost about this. Was it budgeted? And I think it will be valuable for those who are listening. I'm going to pass off to Sophie. It is budgeted, but she'll have the current figures that are fingertips. OK, thank you. Yes, we had the realignment of the bike path budgeted in fiscal year 21. And I don't know if did you want the figures for that? OK, what? No. No, OK. Yes, and I mean, just this is not basically we are not borrowing any funds. This is not a bound. This is just moving forward. It was already budgeted. It was already budgeted. Yes, that's correct. And the costs that aren't covered in the bike path realignment are covered in another portion of the capital budget, which are cost ancillary to the rail realignment and don't have to do with the bike path. So both have been budgeted in our capital plan. Thank you. I refer you to page five of the cover mental has the precise numbers. And I would just bring this all home by saying that there are other non-participating costs that will be coming. These are costs between Maple and College Street, who in order to achieve this grand solution with storing Amtrak in the rail yard, VTrans needs to build a second siding, an additional siding, into the rail yard, which will push LaValle Lane further to the West. And the state and the city have yet to develop the design for that. We have preliminarily budgeted money in the capital plan that you all approved to pay for that. But that design work is still underway and will be coming back to you for that last phase here in a month or two. OK. And thank you. And I think in terms of timeline, when do we think with the new addition you just stated, when do you think this is will be all down and the trends will be here? When exactly in terms of timeline? Approximately. So yeah, I can tell you that VTrans is hoping if with your approval tonight at the council to start bidding this next phase of the work as early as February 3rd. And they need your approval tonight in order to get that out and achieve some of the preseason work to avoid peak season disruptions on the waterfront. All of the work is intended to be completed, if possible, this calendar year. With hope to start service on Amtrak, we understand either very late this year or in the early part of 2022. Thank you so much. No further questions. Councillor Piner. I have to confess I've looked at all the documents, and I don't see an attachment that is the cover memo that Norm has referred to. So I'm just trying to locate that. Can someone direct me to it? Because these are all legal agreements. There's no, I don't see a memo cover memo here. Really? No. I've looked through every one of them, but I couldn't find it, so maybe I'm... Councillor Piner, it looks like from reviewing this here that the cover memo is only listed in the city council item, but not in the Board of Finance item. And we can certainly pull it over, but that is a good catch. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Okay. Looks like there's no more questions. I'm looking at the board is ready for action. If it looks like we are, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. Great. Thank you. Excellent. Thank you. Good work. Great, thank you. Everyone who worked on this. Thank you. Okay. And now, I guess I'm a little... So we still are... These are related items 3.04 and 3.05, but we need action on each of them independently. Is that right? That is correct because these are easements and as easements, they needed resolutions and so they are listed separately. The others were approved by motion. Okay. So we're on 3.04, which is an easement to the state of Vermont Agency of Transportation over the P's grain lot. Are we ready for a motion here? Councilor Pine. I would move to recommend the city council to approve the attached resolution. Thank you. Is there a second? And seconded by Councilor Paul. Is there any discussion? We will go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion carries unanimously and that brings us to 3.05. The grant of an easement to the state of Vermont Agency of Transportation over the waterfront park, partial number two, to install and maintain a railroad signal control cabinet. Ready for a motion here if the board is ready. Councilor Pine. I would move to recommend the city council approve the attached resolution. Excellent. Thank you. Is there a second? Second from Councilor Paul. Discussion. We will go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion carries unanimously and great. Thank you for working through all of that. And that brings us to one more item, which is a board of finance approval only item, which is the retitling and reclassification of the code compliance officer three. And I see Danielle and Bill Ward here to help us with this. How would the board, are we ready for a motion? Councilor Paul. I'm happy to make that motion. I would like to, if Bill, Andrew and Danielle is well able, I would ask for a brief summary of exactly what we're doing. Great. Thank you, Danielle. I mean, thank you, Councilor Pine. Councilor Paul, Danielle or Bill, would you like to, sorry, I got distracted. Councilor Paul was saying you would make any motion. So first, let's get a second to that motion. Is anyone ready to make a second? Thank you, President Tracy. So now, Bill or Danielle, would you like to do a short summary of why we're doing this? Yes, I would be happy to and I apologize. I must be having some problems. I've turned on my camera, but I'm not seeing myself on the screen. So I'm assuming you can't see me. We cannot. Okay, I will try to be brief and be happy to answer any questions. So the permitting inspections department and the human resources are asking for a reclassification of a full-time exempt non-union position, grade 17, to a position that would be a grade 17 full-time union member. Same code compliance position. This code compliance position is affectionately known around the office as the zoning specialist because this is a legacy position from the code enforcement department. And this position is responsible for basic zoning enforcement across the city. The job is to investigate and resolve zoning violations and they are responding to and handling complaints from citizens and other city departments and guiding property owners through full compliance. The position was previously supervising one junior inspector and or I will say code compliance officer, one of our housing inspectors who did part-time zoning work and an administrative support person. Now that was part of the original design. The upon the creation of the permitting inspections department, the position fell into direct supervision from the zoning division manager. And as a result, the position no longer had the supervisory responsibilities for supervising the junior inspector and the administrative staff person because those people were also supervised by the zoning division manager. So in a discussion with our city attorney and the chief administrative officer working with the human resources department, we've decided that it should be reclassified into an ask me bargaining unit position due to lack of supervision and responsibilities. So we're respectfully requesting the change of this position to be a ask me position. And the net financial impact is $253.76 annually, which would be addressed within the existing department of permitting inspections budget, therefore effectively budget neutral. Very good. Thank you, Bill. Further questions for the team? All right, Councilor Jay. Yeah, I just want to understand the dynamic between the city department and also the union. And it seems that fee of 250 would be paid from the city's perspective and not the staff that is joining that union. Do I understand it right? So the staff members salary would increase by that amount annually. And that's simply because there's a difference between the grade and step within those two. So it's basically a lateral transfer from the non-union position to an ask me position, but the resulting change is a minor hourly rate change which gives that overall annual difference. So that goes to the employee on an annual basis. Okay, thank you. And the staff involved is 100% in compliance. He likes it, it's all good, right? That's correct. Thank you so much. Good, thank you again, Bill. I think we're ready to go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion carries unanimously and that is the last time on our agenda. So if there's no objection, yes. Thank you, Bill and Danielle. Out of objection, I will adjourn the Board of Finance at 6.09 PM and see everybody, seven o'clock start, right presentation? Yeah, so seven o'clock start. We'll start off with the school board presenting, I mean, the school budget presentation. So just stay on this meeting folks for members of the public and counselors. You can turn your cameras off and mute yourselves in the meantime. But yeah, we'll just stay on this channel and then come back right at seven to get things kicked off because we got a lot on our agenda this evening. I didn't call to order the Grillington City Council meeting at 7.01. The first item on the agenda is the pledge. So we'll go ahead and do the pledge before we get into motions on the agenda. Okay, next item on the agenda is the agenda. I don't see counselors Stromberg on. So, counselor Pine, are you able to make a motion on the agenda? Yes, you'll have to bear with me. I wasn't totally prepared for that but now I will shift gears and do that. Okay, motion to amend adopt agenda as follows. Add counselor Carpenter as a co-sponsor for consent agenda item 5.07, resolution authorization to permit the mailing of 2021 annual city meeting day absentee ballots to all active registered Brolin Tim voters, counselor Tracy per counselor Carpenter, semi-colon, add to the consent agenda item 5.08, communication colon 20 former elected representatives of Burlington, Ray maintaining 24 hour public safety services with the motion to waive the reading, accept the communication and place it on file per Adam Roof, add to the city council agenda item 5.09, communication Rebecca Schwartz and Adam Grunt regarding spot at Hula, outdoor entertainment permit application with the action to waive the reading, accept the communication and place it on file, note written materials for agenda item 6.05 per Norm Baldwin, note updated attachment H for agenda item 6.05 per Norm Baldwin and drafts of the license agreement attachment I and easement agreement attachment J for agenda item 6.05 per assistant city attorney, St. James, remove from the agenda item 6.08 resolution granting an easement to Resol to Vermont Railways, student bank DBA Vermont rail systems over the one dash three college street parcel to install and maintain electrical service connections or to finance per assistant city attorney Devlin per DPW director Spencer, note proposed amendment for agenda item 6.04 per Councilor Hightower, note proposed amendments for agenda item 6.09 for Councilor Hightower, note proposed amendments for agenda item 6.10 per Councilors Hightower and Hanson. So moved. Thank you for the motion, Councilor Pine. Is there a second to the motion on the agenda? Seconded by Councilor Stromberg, any discussion? Seeing none, let's go to a vote. All those in favor of adopting our agenda, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, that passes unanimously, which brings us into our first item of the evening, which is a presentation regarding the school budget from officials at the district and from the school board. So I will turn it over to Superintendent Flanagan, Finance Director, LaBri and Chair Wolk. Thank you so much for joining us this evening, really looking forward to hearing about what you all have put into the budget. Thank you very much. We will speak for roughly 15 minutes and then most importantly, we will make time available for the Councilors to ask questions. So on behalf of the school board, of which are all unanimously present on the call as attendees, we wanna thank the Council for this opportunity. My name is Claire Wolk. I am currently the Chairwoman of the school board. We wanna thank you for the opportunity to update you on the BSV budget for FY22. The budget process is never easy and COVID has certainly put an even more pressure on school budgets. The school board has focused its work on putting forward a budget that is mindful of the strain on taxpayers while ensuring that we do not compromise on our commitment to our children and our students pre-K to 12th grade and post some students in post 12th grade services. I wanna introduce Superintendent Flanagan to the City Council and to those attending the City Council meeting tonight. Superintendent Flanagan began his work in the district July 1st of this past summer and we welcome him in his first budget presentation along with Executive Director, Nathan Labry. So welcome Superintendent Flanagan. Thank you, Chairperson Wolk. I appreciate the introduction. It's great to see you all. I've had a chance to meet with many of you one-on-one as I was coming in and so it's great to see you all again. And if I haven't had a chance to catch up with you or you and you would like to talk, please feel free to reach out. Actually, the majority of the presentation tonight of the detail is gonna be done by Executive Director Labry in a minute. But I just wanted to sort of highlight upfront that our district faced two generational challenges in one year or in one half of a year, COVID and PCBs. And so we knew that the impact of COVID was going to require and PCBs later was gonna require that we be very fiscally conservative, mindful that we need to work within our means this year. So you're gonna see a budget that prioritizes our priorities of equity, engagement, and deep learning. We use those priorities to think about how we do our budgeting. We also use, we have six goals that we set for this year that are measurable equity-focused goals. And we use those to develop the budget. And so we wanted to make sure that we balance the pressure on taxpayers with what we know is necessary for student learning and for student support. I'm proud that our budget overall provides a home for in-person learning, for BHS, and for Burlington Technical Center, to schools that are not currently, don't currently have a long-term place for in-person learning. And so there was an investment that we needed to make there. But we also minimize the growth for spending. So I feel like we're able to continue our programs. The board was clear with us as we were budgeting that we make sure that we don't impact our programs. And so we've done everything we can to avoid any impact of programs. And in fact, we've supported some of our programs, particularly around multilingual, our multilingual learners and their families. So as I said, Executive Director Laverie is gonna talk through the specifics of the budget and then we'll be here for questions. Great, thanks, Tom. And let me just ask a quick housekeeping question. We have, you did receive the presentation, but is that something that I should be sharing on screen for you folks? To you, if you, you are certainly welcome to and you should be able to, if you'd like. Yeah. Stand by for one moment. Yeah, just once you're done presenting if you could just remember to get out of it just so that it can make sure it makes it easier for us to call on folks and also for the members of the public to be able to see everyone. Okay, I just have to open it up here. Thanks for that introduction. I won't linger too long on any particular slide because it is, I know, familiar. You've had a chance to review it, but we're certainly happy to come back and answer questions as we go. I'm gonna try to hit some of the high points of this year's effort as I move forward here. So as Tom mentioned, we had a number of challenges this year and kind of quantify those. We broke them down into a few major categories. As you can imagine, in any given year, wages, benefits, particularly health insurance costs increase as well as the items like servicing the debt on the major renovations that we have already done in some of our other schools as well as the work we're planning on BHS. So looking forward there, we've got a baseline budget growth of approximately 2.8 million. That's a challenge in and of itself, but you layer on top of that, the BHS downtown building, which with rent and fit up costs, we were estimating that we would need to include in our budget 2.4 million dollars to support that space, plus nearly another half a million dollars to support relocation of our Burlington Technical Center program. So altogether, those items total approximately $5.7 million of upward spending pressure on our budget. So at the superintendent's direction, we looked for a number of opportunities to reduce spending in ways that would minimize any impact on student learning. And in particular, we focused those on types of operating reductions that you see on this slide. We identified a million dollars worth of reductions that we felt were areas of the budget where we could make reductions to our spending budget without having any sort of impact on student learning. These are mostly operational items, items where we kind of reassessed our rates of growth and so forth, and felt like these were all achievable reductions. And there are a few elements in here that will require us to kind of be fiscally disciplined as we move forward. But again, we believe they're all responsible and achievable. We also identified a couple of modest new additions to the budget. These were items that are consistent as Tom mentioned with our district priorities, particularly around equity and engagement with respect to increasing communication support for multilingual families to the tune of $120,000. And also we have $100,000 in our FY22 budget that is intended to allow us to make any immediate investments that our strategic planning process this spring suggests are of the highest leverage and most critical to make quickly. So that is an investment in our future that we think is a prudent one to make. We know that won't be all of the change that comes out of the strategic planning process, but we wanted to give ourselves some flexibility to begin that work without having to wait for an entire new budget. We also looked as is difficult every year to our schools and our department leadership for additional reductions that we could make. And we were pleased to come away with $360,000 of ideas that are largely based on ideas like eliminating some vacant positions that have remained unfilled and we have not needed to utilize recently. We also have additional reductions from department and operating budgets that are not school budgets we felt were responsible. And then a modest decrease in our elementary and lunch supervision budget. Sometimes people say, does that mean that we know supervision at lunch? No, it just means that we have a budget to do some of that work. But as you can imagine, lunch looks different these days in the COVID era. And so we have some extra money there that we don't need in our budget next year. So when you add up all of these items, you get the additional spending and then fortunately we can reduce reduce the projected spending by the operational reductions I've talked about as well as I'll draw your attention to the $720,000 reduction that says first year impact of state support for BHS. We are very optimistic and we were thrilled when the governor included in his budget adjustment proposal, $3.5 million to support the Burlington School Districts fit up of Macy's this $720,000 reduction represents the kind of first year impact of not having to pay that money ourselves. So the result of all this is we were able to reduce about a $5.7 million increase down to about 3.6. So we have that increase. It still results in an increase in the budget nevertheless. And you can see that at the bottom, the proposed budget of $95 million, $100,000. So in addition to spending reductions, we also tackle this problem from the revenue side. And in that respect, there was a silver lining to COVID namely the fact that we had a large surplus money from prior years in part because we essentially didn't run in-person instruction from roughly mid-March to the end of June this past year but also because we were able to leverage the application of a lot of federal funds to spending during that period. So we evaluated the magnitude of the surplus and identified the opportunity to put $4.175 million for reducing the tax impact. That covers a lot of the one-time money that would go toward the relocation of VHS and VTC. And then the remaining amount we have set aside for future costs, which could well be associated with PCV related issues in one way or another. So we're not losing that money by any stretch of imagination but we know that there are future needs coming and we're setting that money aside. This just describes the various elements of tax rate. I won't go into that in detail here but I will quickly explain that as you look at this slide the top two variables that go into determining the education tax rates are ones that are kind of more, well, the first one is completely locally controlled. That's the growth in what's called our education spending and you can see there we have very modest 1% increase. The second variable is a variable that changed in a positive although very small way for us. That's a slight uptake in our equalized pupil count which is equalized pupils are again a way of weighting your pupils for various need factors. So it's not a raw headcount, it's a weighted formula. However, the two major items that are driving the projected tax rate increase that I'll talk about in a moment are the last two variables on the slide. That is the decrease in the dollar yield which is a state variable that essentially measures how much money is available to schools statewide through the education fund. So that's a challenge that's being faced by school districts across Vermont. We are in no way unique. The dollar yield is the same for everyone and a decrease in the dollar yield drives up tax rates. That is also a variable that is every year is subject to legislative debate and they can adjust that by changing the mix of revenues into the ed fund and so forth. And the last variable on here is a hyperlocal one that is specifically the common level of appraisal. I know that the council's no stranger to this issue but as you can see once again, the decrease in the common level of appraisal that is another variable that puts upward pressure on the tax rate. And though our tax rate gets adjusted up every time the common level appraisal goes down. This slide briefly shows kind of where we started from projecting an almost 13% increase in the homestead tax rate and through the combination of careful and thoughtful reductions as well as the prudent application of our surplus we have been able to reduce the estimated tax rate down to 6.88% with a very small growth in education spending.  We say hypothetical in part because some of the calculations are rather complex when it comes to income payers but we try to give a general feel and this is the impact as you can see in the first slide is a 6.88% that translates on a $250,000 home to an increase of $353 over the prior year. The income payer hypothetical here translates into an increase of $81 at a capita increase at a $50,000 income. There's two other slides that we tried to use to illustrate the fact that again the income sensitivity provisions that generate a tax yield result in higher wages the more you earn as that phases out. So in summary, we've made the series of efforts here to reduce the impacts both in terms of reducing spending and applying the surplus. And one other point to take away from this again is to really understand that despite a small 1% increase in our education spending the other variables that are outside of our control still result in a projected homestead tax rate increase of 6.88%. There is ballot language that we've shared this ballot language is described by law and so all we do is change the numbers that appear in there in accordance with our calculations for the year. So this is the language that we would see on the town meeting day ballot. And with that, I can stop and we can open it up for questions and I will stop sharing my screen. Thank you. Great, well, thank you so much for that explanation of the budget. We can now open it up for questions from counselors. Anyone have questions for our presenters this evening? Counselor Mason to be followed by Counselor Pine. Thank you for that presentation, Nate. I thought I understood and then I got confused and now I don't understand. Could you explain to me this potential state funding for BHS? At first I thought it was for the downtown but I heard you mention a figure of 3.5 million and then when I totaled the costs by my math, it's only 2.9 and then I saw again later. So is the potential funding for the retrofitting of BHS or is it the downtown relocation and maybe you could walk me through how it works. Yeah, it's the 3.5 million would go toward paying 100% of the fit up cost for the downtown BHS. That's getting the space ready to accommodate staff and students for learning, not just being an open kind of department store layout that it was, that's the total cost. If we did not have that money, we wouldn't pay the 3.5 million dollars upfront. We would spread it out over time, which would obviously mean that we would pay more over time but we wouldn't pay that full amount in the first year. So that's why there's a little challenge to kind of follow how a 3.5 million dollar benefit from the state essentially allows us to reduce our projected FY22 budget by 720,000. But a way to think of that is there would be similar reductions in the following three years as well by virtue of the state delivering that money to us. Okay, so what I think I'm missing is the budget, the budgeted cost for the relocation, this isn't the sum total of those costs. There are other costs that are either built into the lease or payable in the future. Is that what I'm missing? Exactly. Yeah, the fit up costs are just to construct the space. We're still gonna be paying annual rent and utilities and so forth. Okay, my other question, maybe we could go back because I had a few constituents reach out to me to try and ask how the 1% increase here worked into a 7% and my simple response was it's driven by state increases and I appreciate you walked through and I have that spreadsheet or at least the numbers. Am I correct though that the common level of appraisal that spike or that increase once the city does in fact go through its reappraisal and get our assessed values back up to 100% that should go away? Is that, am I correct in that assumption? Yes, so what would happen is that as the city's as property values on the grand list are increased we'll see a corresponding reduction in the tax rate that needs to be applied to those properties because our properties will be worth more. So it's just a way to adjust for the fact that currently Burlington properties, the grand list values are well below market value according to the state's metrics. Okay, thank you very much. And just to reiterate the 3.5 million although you're seeing it show up differently here is in the governor's budget adjustment and we testified today and Friday and we're feeling good about that. Have Councilor Pine to be followed by Councilor Stromberg. Thank you, Council President Tracy. The question I have is about the multilingual liaisons and whether or not that is a what is the portion of the increase that's being driven by that change? Again, could you just cover that and actually the second part of it is would that be a allowable way to use some of the pilot funds that used to go to support the school budget? Have you looked at that question? I would just say first from the strategic standpoint the focus on multilingual liaisons and really the language and the way that we develop this is that we are prioritizing access and support for our multilingual families 12 months of the year. So currently our multilingual liaisons are not 12 month employees and we want them, we feel like it's important for them to be working and for us to be providing that service in the summertime. So that's- Yeah, I'll be clear though. I'll just clarify. I think they should be full-time year round. I've never questioned that. It's just a question of how does the math work out and could it be funded with this, what the city used to provide to the school district and pilot money was reduced by $1.4 million several years ago. And we've invested some of that into early child, the early learning initiative, but I wanna know whether that would be a place to continue to support our children and our youth in a way that would be allowable by the agency of education. So I think, don't misunderstand me, I fully support the multi, I would like us to have more of them in full-time career positions. I fully support that. Yeah, no, I know you do. I just was clarifying for the whole, Nate, do you wanna talk about the pilot? Sure, I think that's one of those areas where it would require some deeper discussion. I know it come up in the past and as an opportunity, certainly some of the work of the liaisons probably could, we would be able to make an argument that it does not violate the rules on spending municipal dollars on education given their role as kind of cultural brokers and connecting families. Though it's a conversation we're open to, it has come up in the past, but obviously it's not something we're doing right now. The $120,000 increases for them is really fractions of a penny on the tax rate and less probably only about a 10th of a percent in the respect of the tax rating. So it's very, very modest. Yeah, and I'm not sure, I don't have the full answer to that question, but I will say that we're very disciplined about how the multilingual liaisons are and the multilingual liaisons themselves are very disciplined about making sure that their support is educational. And so that does become a question for them sometimes. So that's something that we've really, Dave, the director of English learners and her team have been working hard to make sure that the work that they do is related directly to the education of our students. I'll say Councillor Pine. Okay, Councillor Schromberg. Thank you so much. Thank you, Tom and everyone for that presentation. I just had a quick clarifying detail question. What was the contingency reduction? I saw that there was over $100,000 and I just wanted clarification as to what that is. Sure, for the past two years, we've built in a budget contingency to acknowledge the fact that some unanticipated items come up during the year. Class size enrollments can change unpredictably and we may need to kind of shuffle around. We had a contingency that originally was $500,000 was drawn down a little bit. This reduction or contingency brings it down into the $250,000 range. So we still have some flexibility, but we're gonna have to be more disciplined and we felt like the time's called for us to do just that. Absolutely, thank you, Nathan. You're welcome. Okay, I don't have anyone else in the queue. Councillor Shannon, go ahead. Councillor Shannon, go ahead. Sorry, took me up. Sorry. Thank you, President Tracy and thank you for the presentation. This is always very enlightening and I have a question about the per pupil weightings that we passed a resolution more than a year ago I believe as did the school board to ask the legislature to move forward on a study that was done that demonstrates that the per pupil weighting system which never was based on any kind of science. It was based on rough estimates as far as I can tell and when they did this study, they found out that there are many considerations affecting both students in Burlington and Winooski as well as students in the Northeast Kingdom that made our current weighting system grossly unfair, I would say. And I'm wondering what your communications have been with our legislative representation and if there is any optimism that I mean we are paying unfairly currently and until the legislature corrects this or there's a lawsuit to correct this, we will continue to pay unfairly. So I'm wondering if you have any update on that matter and this is to be really clear, this is not something that I know that you don't control this, this is not your fault, we're all kind of victims of this waiting for people in Montpelier to act. So if you have any update on that, I'd appreciate it. Yeah, on behalf of the school board, I can share with you but I'll also give the floor to Superintendent Flanagan to speak to it as well. We have a Burlington School District along with Winooski School District created a coalition and a task force group with many school districts throughout the state of Vermont to pick up where we left off, which was testifying in front of the House and Ways and Means Committee and Education Committee along with the Senate last year in January before COVID. And Superintendent Flanagan, if you would like to... Yeah, I mean, I think it's just great work of the board that's been happening as of over time, I think and of late it's picked up. So we just had a school board meeting immediately before this with our legislators in the region. And there's this coalition that our school board has developed and has cultivated and has brought together. I think there are like 15 or 20 different districts pulling together. We talked to the legislators again from six to seven and there's a lot of energy there, you know? We're not sure how it'll play out but we'll be lobbying at the State House for sure and would love the support, your support too. And directly Commissioner Mike Fisher and Commissioner Kendra Sowers are board representatives and took the lead on this. And so if you have any direct questions they would be the most appropriate to reach out to but thank you so much, Councillor Shannon for bringing it up. It is a statewide concern on behalf of all districts and the agency of education and we really appreciated your support as city councils, city councillors in that and we followed up and have followed up especially over the last four months to develop this system of communication effectively down in Montpelier. And it's a major statewide equity issue. Yeah. Well, I'm glad I trusted that you were on it and I'm glad to hear that. I think that both, I know that the city council asked for a report back from our legislative representation which we never did get, you know, COVID kind of hit and that did disrupt everything of course but I think we now have, it's such an important issue. We now have to get this back on track and perhaps we can work together to make sure that our expectations are clear that this is a problem that needs to be resolved this legislative session and I think that that needs to be a really highest priority for Burlington. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Shannon. I do know from members of the public that we are past 7.30 here. I'm gonna allow us to just finish up some of these questions because I don't wanna make our presenters from the district and the board wait. I will however allow for a full two hour public forum session as is originally attended but I don't wanna split them so I just wanna make sure that we are respectful of their time. So I'm gonna go to Councillor Jang next. That's the only other Councillor ahead in the queue.  A couple of questions and the first one would be around the homestead. It was estimated at 250,000 per household, per household, right? And was wondering why can't you adjust that number to be around 275? Let's estimate that why 250? Knowing that it is hard to find a house that costs 250 in Burlington. Yeah, that figure we originally picked to kind of be what at the time was and this was a few years ago now that was actually I believe the median price and we actually I believe we did that in concert with the city just because we were trying to have a comparable number but we certainly can project it out at other levels and be happy to do that for you if you're interested. Okay, I would be really interested in that. And I am assuming also that you have in your disposal as the second budget. For example, if the first budget doesn't pass from the voters, do you have another scenario that could be ready to look into further? I mean, we feel like we developed a good budget that really balances keeping programs and getting tax rates down as low as possible. I think the one thing to note and it may be helpful for everyone to know is that we got the tax letter in December which projected a 12% increase in taxes across the state in Burlington that was projected at 13%. We ended up getting that down to at first 10 and then to seven and then we got it below seven to 6.88. So we did a lot of work to get where we are. If we have to go low, if we have to go back at it, we're gonna be impacting programs for kids. And that's where, I mean, we did a lot of savings in this budget. It just doesn't, you don't see the savings because of all the additional costs related to the high school and the technical center and the crisis that we have there. So we're thankful for the governor's support on that and hopefully that goes through. And we really are hopeful that the citizens will see that we've worked hard to get the tax rate down as low as we possibly can. And we've decided, and we said we don't wanna cut programs for our students. We think we value the education our students are getting. We wanna give them a better education. And so, we're hopeful. But if worse comes to worse, we'll do what we need to do. But this is the low, I mean, we came in as low as we thought we possibly could. Yeah, I mean, as a parent and educator and I know how hard it is also to put this such a budget together. But always good to have a plan B. It's just part of the mix, always, always good. Now, I wanted to circle back around this presentation. And it seems to be missing all the revenues that the Burlington School District is receiving. This is simply about the cuts, with about the programs that you need about the high school. But where are the grants? Have you seen any increase in terms of grants? And the multilingual years used to be paid through Title I or Title III, which is a federal government. I feel like this budget presentation is missing key items that will definitely help us educate our constituents as to why they need to support it. Yeah, I can talk a little bit about that. You're right that there's a number of other revenues that come in. I mean, for starters, the big revenue piece that we focused on, as you saw, was the application of the surplus. That's the big change from prior years. Going forward into FY22, we don't expect any major changes to the revenue picture. The other, technically the other piece of the revenues is the education fund money that we get to close the variables. But there are a couple of big elements out there. One is the additional federal aid that we expect to get. And Burlington is poised to do pretty well in that area. That is additional relief to respond to COVID. So that is something that we will be looking closely at once we get more specific guidance from the agency of education on that. And our hope is that we can do that, not only to address the pandemic in kind of very real and direct ways with respect to what we need to do to keep our students and staff safe, but also looking at ways to use that to further our equity goals. So that will definitely be something that we're looking toward. Your specific question about the multi-lingual liaisons, they continue to receive a share of their costs are paid through federal dollars and a share of their costs are paid to our general fund dollars. And that's the portion that we are proposing to increase, but we always explore whether kind of what the right balance is there. And we have to be mindful of a variety of federal regulations around the work that they do, but they do continue to be supported by some of the federal dollars. Yeah, wonderful. And I think last question, Councillor Payne did mention it a little bit, which is the title fund, the pilot fund, you know? And from your perspective, it also tried to tie it to the question from Councillor Shannon about the working relationship between school officials and also the legislative team. Have you explored or what does, do you think it will take for the pilot fund to be returned back to the Burlington school district? Have you? We haven't explored it and I don't believe that returning the pilot funds is something that would be viable under current education financing law in Vermont. So again, there may be opportunities for collaboration between the city and the school to provide essential services to our city's youngest residents. But I don't believe simply returning that pilot money to the school is something that the agency of education would believe is conforms to current law. Okay. And now last question, and I think it will, it just depends on how you look at the issue, you know? And I don't want to get political here. But the last question is in terms of enrollment. What are the projects here? Have you seen it, will it be going up or going down or it will stay steady? Our enrollment has been declining in elementary grades for the past five years, slightly. So if you look at a bar, our elementary enrollment is going down. We think that some of that, we believe some of that is due to the current policies at the federal level around immigration and that that could change. So we're seeing a slight decline in enrollment. And that was one of the ways that we pushed ourselves to look for places where we could have savings. And some of those are reflected here. But we want to be careful because we have a thriving school system with amazing schools. I mean, I've been in lots of schools in Washington, DC. We have 110 schools in Providence. We had 44 and some of the best schools that I've seen are here in Burlington. So I don't think we, I think we want to be careful. I think the board is right to tell me to don't cut programs. And that's, I agree with that 100%. And so while there's a slight decline in enrollment, I think we need to watch it for a couple of years and see where it heads. And continue to offer great programs for our wonderful community. Okay. And I'm sorry, this is now the last question. And the last question is about allocating the school funding into the schools equitably, right? And was just wondering, and I know that the district been working proactively around that, where are you in that efforts, in those efforts, right? So that was one of my priorities coming in was an equitable budgeting process. We are working on that, as you know, on the equitable budgeting process. And that's going to be a process that there's two things happening at the same time. The first is that we're in the fifth year of a five-year strategic plan. So this year we're going to create the spring, we're going to develop a new five-year strategic plan. And as a part of that, the equitable funding model will be a part of that. So we really need to look at how we're funding our schools and make sure, along with the way the state is funding us, that we are also funding our schools equitably. Wonderful. All right. Thank you. And I'm pretty sure we'll look forward again to continue the discussion with you. Thank you for all of you. Okay. I have counselor Hansen in the queue. And if we could just please try and be brief counselors. And if you have additional questions, please address them offline because we do really need to get to public forum. So counselor Hansen, go ahead. Thanks. Yeah. No, thank you. I'll follow up with you all offline and we can get to public forum, but thank you all for being here. Okay. Any other last questions? Mayor, go ahead. Thank you, President Tracy. I'll try to be really brief. Just I feel obliged to speak to the pilot funds because it's been raised twice by counselors. And I just want to not have this session lead to reopening misunderstandings and misinformation about these pilot funds. First of all, it was $1.4 million in funds originally and $400,000 was we found when this event with the estate saying we can no longer transfer those dollars to the schools. When that happened years ago, immediately we found a way for $400,000 to be spent on budget relieving school items. So only a million dollars to begin with, not 1.4. Then after years of attempts to convince the Department of Education to invest the money in things like community service liaisons. That's exactly what we looked at and having those proposals rejected again and again, we have now reinvested all of that million dollars. After years of holding it in reserve and not reinvesting it, it is now all being deployed to areas of the city budget that are very good for kids and for the school district. We are putting a half a million dollars a year on very unusually for a local government into early learning initiatives that the biggest beneficiary of those efforts in many ways is probably the Burlington School District because of the benefits to low-income children of getting high-quality scholarships in those early years and the improvements that in terms of kindergarten readiness and reduction in special education needs, that is a direct benefit to the school district. The remaining half a million dollars was all put into various youth programs. If we were to try to undo that now at this point, we would immediately result in a less progressive tax increase for our shared constituents because on the municipal side, we don't have progressive taxation in the same way that we do on the education side. So I've been very appreciative that after the last round of efforts with the school district, which involved me and others going out of Montpelier, attempting to get changed here for the last couple of years, we've been putting our efforts into what I think are more productive joint efforts like everything from working together on the COVID response, the coordinated action between the city and the schools is very good there. Working together, supporting the school district and making this dramatic move into reopening the high school downtown. Yes, helping with the best we can, I think we could help with the statewide education funding system. I've indicated to superintendent plan again, anything I can do, and Mayor Locke can do to support that effort. We're there in full force and we're coordinating and watching that situation closely. So I think pushing, putting our attention in these other areas, working together on the new high school is a much more productive focus for city school collaboration than continuing to bang our heads against the wall with this historic legacy funding issue. Thank you, presenters. Thank you, Mayor. Anything else from our presenters that you would like to close us out with this evening? On behalf of the school board, thank you very much for your engagement and your follow-up emails individually to all of our school board members. This cycle we have four district-wide school board members that will be seeking re-election. We're fortunate to have a 12-person board working and supporting our executive director, finance director as well as superintendent Philanigan. And we do wanna invite you and let you know that we will be having a town hall shortly in the months of February, February 5th and February 17th, the virtual town hall for you to be able to see our new VHS downtown. And we will follow up with communication surrounding that. So you are informed and we'll be discussing this budget along with our downtown VHS and future VHS plans at all our NPAs this month. So again, thank you on behalf of the school board, superintendent Philanigan. Oh, just thank you. Yeah, I appreciate the conversation. Please feel free to reach out directly to me if you have any specific questions. Happy to answer any of those and also to follow up with any conversations that you'd like to have. Thank you very much. Wonderful, well, thank you. We really appreciate you being here. I know you had another meeting in advance of this. So appreciate you doing two meetings in one night and sharing this important information with the council and the community. Thanks for having us. Well, we are now going to move into the public forum. And so like I said, because we went past 7.30, I will keep us at a two hour public forum. So we'll go till 9.48 in terms of the public forum. For members of the public interested in signing up for the public forum, the way to do that is to go to burlingtonvt.gov slash city council slash public forum. And that will take you to a signup sheet where you can sign up for the public forum. This evening, our forum is, we do have a little bit of an interesting setup as a result of having charter changes as well, which require public hearings. If you are interested in speaking to a, one of the four charter changes that are currently on the table, I would suggest that folks do so in the context of those public hearings, which will occur a little bit later in the meeting. You're welcome to comment at the beginning of the meeting as well. But if you want your comments entered into the record specific to those charter changes, which is necessary if we want to consider changes to those charter changes, then I would strongly advise going into the public hearing. So I'll check in with those speakers who have indicated that to just understand where they are on it. And as always within this public forum, I will be, will I have two minutes? I'll be holding people to that two minutes for the city attorney's guidance. So I'll be allowing you to maybe finish a sentence or two after, but then I'll start to ask you to please wrap up. I'm doing this just to make sure that we're able to get to as many speakers as possible. I will be prioritizing Burlington residents. The city attorney, however, has said that we are not able to prioritize on do the progressive stacking that we have done in the context of a time limited forum. So that's going to be the process this evening. So I'll be primarily again prioritizing Burlington residents in this conversation in the public forum, but if we are able to get through that, then I will be able to go to everybody in the forum. So our first speaker is Elizabeth Allen Pennebaker to be followed by Jane Nodell, Kurt Wright, Tiki Archambeau, Zoe Kenninger, Daniel Feld, Lilla Fortunoff, Jessica LaPorte, Cora Smith, Dana Keys Gibbons, Steven Margolin, Amanda Skihan. So I'm going to come to Betsy Allen Pennebaker right now. Again, I think you indicated Betsy that you were interested in speaking to a charter change. So if you'd like to address us in the context of the public hearing, you're certainly welcome to do that as well. And that's necessary for entering it into the public record. So just wanted to clarify that. I'm going to hold off until we can get the timer up. Yeah, and I'll speak now because I don't know when that charter change hearing is going to end up being on the agenda, and I need to work tomorrow. Okay, understood. See? Yep. I apologize. I had offered to do the timer. I did not hear back from the CAO if she wanted me to, and I'm happy to do it, but just wanted to know whether or not we're where we are. I apologize. It would be great if you would do that. Thank you, Councillor Paul. Okay. So if you could just wait for just a moment, I'll do that. Sure. Soon to be getting it up just a minute. And thank you again, Councillor Paul, for taking some of the load off of the CT office during this busy election time. Not sure if you, you don't see what I'm seeing. So just a moment for some reason it's not coming up. Can't seem to get it off one thing. Just give me one second here. Really sure why it's not coming up. I have it right on here. And for some reason I can't get it to do what I want it to do. Do you have share screen ability or are you just having IT issues? I should be able to share the screen, right? Yeah, as a panelist you should be able to. I think you should be able to. Yeah. I don't know why, let's see. Should I try? Allow Zoom to share the screen and I've said yes. And it doesn't seem to come up. Okay, yeah. Councillor Hightower, if you would be willing to try it on yours, that would be really helpful. Oh, all right. Let me get off of it just a minute. I have it right in front of me. I don't really know why it's not. It might be the first of our time. Thank you so much. Sorry about that. All right. Don't worry. Okay, so if we can just, yep, that's helpful. Okay, so we have Betsy Pennebaker as our first speaker. Betsy, start whenever you're ready. Okay. Hi there. I am calling in today to talk about the Just Cause Eviction Charter Change. Specifically, I'm calling because I am a female landlord who was sexually harassed by one of my tenants. This man would call me into the apartment to look at things that allegedly needed fixing, but then when I got there, he'd insult and belittle me for being a woman. For example, he called me in to look at quote unquote, black mold that was really just mold that grew in the bathroom because he didn't clean it. And then he'd tell me that I should clean the mold because cleaning is what women are supposed to do. When I started ignoring his sexist comments, he'd call my husband to complain that I was being rude. I dreaded having to deal with the tenants and I was afraid when I went into his apartment to do necessary maintenance. This tenant also refused to stop smoking in the building even though the smoke was making its way through the vent system to a room where an infant slept in the next apartment. He told me the neighbors should move out if they didn't like it. Under the proposed charter change, I would not have been able to get rid of this tenant ever because leases would effectively have no expiration date. Thus under the proposed charter change, a young family would have to move to keep their baby healthy and a female landlord being harassed by and frightened of a tenant would have to hire a lawyer and go in front of a judge to prove microaggressions. Imagine if the landlord were a person of color and the tenant was making racist slurs. Do you really want to force the landlord of color to go to court to get a racist to stop microaggressing against them? I know that the charter change calls for a probationary period but that would not have helped in this case. The tenant had already lived there for a couple of years when I took over the management of the apartment from a male family member who was of course not subject to sexual harassment by that tenant. Under the charter change, I would have been stuck with him and there would have been no way out except via the slow and expensive path of litigation. You have good intentions but this policy is deeply flawed and could harm landlords who belong to marginalized groups. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Jane O'Dell to be followed by Kurt Wright. Are we gonna try and get into the, I think just went out of the timer and thank you. All right. Jane, I have enabled your microphone. It looks like you're muted on your end. Very good. Good evening. I am here on behalf of a group of 20 former city counselors and a former mayor to convey a letter to the city council that is on your agenda tonight. We represent every political affiliation with over 100 years of combined experience. Having served the city of Burlington, we understand the complexities of being an elected official and the weight of the decisions that must be made. We implore the city council to adopt the proposed public safety continuity plan and ensure that adequate public safety services are reliably available 24 hours a day every day. The safety of the public is the most important function of a local government and the city council is central to ensuring it. We recognize that public safety is more than just policing and agree that there should be robust debate about how policing and public safety generally can be improved. At the same time, abandoning reliable 24 hour service does not meet basic public safety standards nor does it advance a responsible conversation about reform. Please do not lose focus of the acute impact a no vote tonight will have and the undue and needless risk it poses to all residents of Burlington. Signed, Andy Montrell, Peter Clavel, David Berezniak, Tom Ayres, Brian Oban, Phil Fremonti, Paul DeSales, Richard Keane, Mary Keoh, Ed Adrian, Tim Ash, Dave Hartnett, Kurt Wright, Sharon Busher, Barbara Perry, Clarence Davis, Nancy Kaplan, Kevin Warden, Bill Keoh, Adam Roof, and Jane Nodell. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker will be Kurt Wright to be followed by Tiki Arshambo. Kurt, I've enabled your microphone. You should be able to speak. It looks like you need to be unmuted. Kurt, you're still on mute when you're on your rat. There we go. Yes. All right. First of all, I wanna thank city attorney Blackwood for making it clear that the rules that have been used for public forum previously before the last meeting were incorrect so that I'm able to actually speak now tonight so that I'm not buried on 114th person or something. So appreciate that. You just heard, city council, you just heard a list, a very impressive list of 20 former city counselors representing Republicans, Democrats, independents, and progressives in every corner of this city. For the longest time, you've really heard one viewpoint on this policing issue for the most part. Tonight you're hearing from city counselors and the former mayor, Clavel, who represented thousands and thousands of people for a long period of time. I hope you will listen carefully. We are asking again, as Councillor Nodell said, if you to pass this public safety continuity plan proposed by Mayor Weinberger, it is the responsible thing to do. The action that you took last June, in my view, and the view I've heard of many, many Brolin-tonians across the city, was irresponsible to pick a number 74 with so little study, practically no study or evaluation, really frankly, endangered public safety. It demoralized our police department in ways that we have never seen in this city before, in once very proud police department. And you have actually endangered citizens, if you don't take this corrective action, you've endangered every citizen of Brolin-ton, including all of our minority residents. So I urge you to take this corrective action. It will not totally correct the actions that you've taken previously, but it is a good start. It takes over a year to train a police officer. And you've heard from Chief Mirad tell you that we are gonna get down to numbers. We may be down to a number of 59 officers in the next year. That is scary for Brolin-ton residents to contemplate. So again, I hope now you will begin to listen to the other side of the equation on this and take a responsible action now and end the perilous path that the majority of this council has really put us on and take this corrective action. Thank you. Okay, our next speaker is Tiki Arshambo to be followed by Zoe Kenninger. Tiki, I've enabled your microphone. Hi there, thank you very much. My name is Tiki Arshambo and I live in Ward 2. Thank you all for allowing me this opportunity to participate in tonight's public forum. I have many labels tonight. I'm an IAA parent, Old North Ender. I'm a 20 year resident, former renter, current property owner, I'm a telecommuter, community activist, neighbor, so many more. One label I now wear with many thanks to this council is this Independence Candidate for City Council for Brolin-ton Central District. That latter label has afforded me the chance to connect with hundreds of residents on a personal level. So the hope is that my comments will resonate this evening. I support deliberative agenda item 6.09, the public safety continuity plan and many in wards 2 and 3 do as well. Truth be told, if the council chooses to oppose this plan tonight, you're actually doing my campaign a favor, but nobody wins if this resolution fails. And I'm here because I care about Brolin-ton. I care about my son's future. I care about a community that has never caused me to regret living here until now. Supporting this resolution is just the right thing to do in the name of basic governance. Here's one more truth. This entire community supports police reform, including the police themselves. So for just a moment of pleading, is it possible to put down the party sunglasses and recognize the genuine public safety concerns of our community? Can we look at the police from a rehabilitative vantage point instead of a punitive one? Do you not see the basic need for a destination city with an airport like Brolin-ton to have around the clock patrols? Last in conclusion here, it's unlikely that any comments gathered from this public forum will change any minds. And that's fine, I get it. But know this, your vote tonight has consequences. Those of us who have chosen to call Brolin-ton at home, Brolin-ton at home forever are watching. And I respectfully ask you to vote in favor of this resolution. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Zoe Kenninger or Kenninger. I've enabled your microphone Zoe and Zoe's to be followed by Daniel Feld. Hi, my name is Zoe Kenninger and I'm a resident of Ward 4. I'm white and I use the name pronouns and I've been a resident of Brolin-ton since June 2014 when I moved here from Toledo, Ohio. I graduated from Brolin-ton High School in 2019. And I'm here tonight to voice my strong opposition against the request to increase the number of officers in the Brolin-ton Police Department. This proposal goes against the ideals and spirit of the racial justice resolution passed in June 2020. And frankly is a slap in the face to every counselor and citizen who supported the resolution and worked to change the role of placing in Brolin-ton since. The issue here is a lack of creativity and willingness to truly challenge the white supremacist system that we exist in. The council voted to reduce the number of police officers but has not made any significant efforts to continue this radical change in public safety that this could create. There have been no real efforts to create and fund mental health services to expand social services and aid to the houseless in our city or to help those struggling with addiction on a massive scale. There have not been movements to remove school resource officers from the Brolin-ton School District, something that would definitely help reduce spending on the Brolin-ton Police Department budget while also ensuring students feel much more safe and welcome in their schools. There's been essentially no work on how to create a community where punitive law and the police force announced the main operators of public safety in order. I've seen that there are attempts in the public safety continuity plan to try and create some of these institutions. However, this falls flat because these solutions are still located within the police department and is impossible to create truly helpful equitable and liberatory systems that they're still under the control of the police. This plan will not keep the BIPOC of our community or the most vulnerable members of our community safe. It just ensures the continuation of police power. And Chief Murad's memo to the city council, he says, quote, it would likely take years to hire sufficient sworn officers to address the crisis we face, unquote. Instead of taking up those years hiring officers to uphold a racist and unjust system, I call on the city council to develop a new vision of public safety during those years instead. One that is not focused on law and order but on restorative justice and mutual aid. This is the work that needs to be done, not taking steps back and claiming that the work was too hard in the first place and that you want to stop. And finally, I want to ask all white people on the council, white people have called in tonight or are planning on calling in tonight to talk about their own safety to consider the levels of privilege that this definition of safety perpetuates. The argument has been made that many people will be unsafe with the police department forced to drop their night shift patrolling. However, the fact is that many people in Burlington will in fact be far more unsafe than the number of officers in the community increases. Ultimately true public safety is impossible unless it can no longer be defined. Thank you. Okay, if folks can do their best to please stay to two minutes, I'm gonna go to Daniel Feld to be followed by Lila Fortunoff. Daniel, I've enabled your microphone. Hi there, can you hear me? Yes, go ahead. Hi, my name is Daniel. I'm white, I use he whom pronouns and I live in ward two. I'm calling about the resolution regarding the changes to police staffing. I hope that we can all agree that police violence is a systemic issue. If not, please wake up. That means what you're considering here is giving a systemically harmful institution more power. The 30% cut is already a compromise meant to bring us in line with a national average. Haven't we already established that we have a national problem? Some of you may be trying to represent the best interests of your constituents in the North or South District. But the greatest impact of changes to policing is going to be felt by people in the central district. And to be clear, I'm talking about people here, not stakeholders, okay? Because your responsibility is to the people of the city. The resolution mentions concern about maintaining the current level of service, but the point of defunding is to reduce the level of service, which will mean fewer officers, less time patrolling and yes, less policing. I understand your concerns may be about safety, but so are ours. We're trying to reduce the amount of contact people have with violent police and incredibly harmful criminal legal system that has not fixed issues of violence within our community, but instead has led to the greatest prison population in the history of the world. Not to mention the countless other forms of carceral control that can ruin people's lives. When Jane Nodell speaks about long reliable public safety options, that is what they have led to. We are asking you to get creative in working towards real solutions for public safety, ones that don't result in cages or death, ones that actually support the people who need help. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker will be Lila Fortunoff to be followed by Jessica Laporte. Lila, I have enabled your microphone. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Hi, my name's Lila. I'm white, I'm 25 years old. I use she, her pronouns. I live in Ward three. I strongly oppose Councillor Jang's resolution to add a ballot question advising the decrease, or maybe that means it's supposed to be increased, in authorized number of police officers to only 44. I disagree for many reasons, but I quickly want to point out that the language of the resolution shall the city of Burlington maintain a minimum of 84 police officers assuring adequate staffing levels to sustain 24-hour police patrols in the city is not in line with even what Chief Murad is asking for, which is a cap of 84 officers, not a minimum of 84 officers. Please don't overlook this detail, which is actually very important. Should the amendment go forward, though, I hope it doesn't, I hope it's voted down. I do support the amendment from Councillors Hightower and Hanson. Their amendment is in line with the well-documented fact that police do not make our city safer for the most marginalized of us. When we're thinking about what's scary for Burlingtonians to not have police patrolling the streets, that is coded language for, it's scary for white Burlingtonians. It's scary for Burlingtonians who have historically have power. What is scary for the most marginalized, including BIPOC residents of Burlington, is having police patrols. We need to be very clear about that. Police respond to crimes with escalatory and excessive force. Despite the fact that since 2005, the BPD has conducted over 46 training modules designed to, quote, reduce bias and build cultural competency. In the first 10 months of 2020, there were 149 cases of excessive use of force perpetrated by police officers and 42 were against black people. That's 28% of the cases, even though black people only make up about five to 6% of the population of Burlington. An important detail that I hope we all know is the reason that Marad wants to cap it at 84 officers is so BPD can continue proactive patrol during the hours when call volume is lowest. But this would still mean, even with 74 officers, in-person response to calls would still, would be limited, but would still exist. It's not, having 74 officers does not mean that there wouldn't be nobody in the office from three to 7 a.m., 7.30 a.m. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker will be Jess LePort to be followed by Cora Smith. Jess, I've enabled your microphone. Good evening. My name is Jess LePort. I'm a Burlington resident. I'm born and raised for Monter and I think it's necessary to introduce myself again, seeing as there are so many new people who are interested in engaging in conversations around public safety reform in strong support of the police. And if you don't know my name already, I hope you understand where I'm coming from after this public comment. I, to point out what has actually already been touched on by some other residents, the veiled language of lack of patrolling should really be described as lack of surveillance. The role of policing in Burlington is far overstated for a city of its size and the 74 officers, the cap at 74 officers that was in the racial justice resolution is more than good enough. It's actually more than somebody like myself, a black resident of Burlington would want to see. I'm deeply concerned about the calls for further analysis when over nine months has gone by and there hasn't been meaningful action to create innovative solutions to restructure public safety. There have been RFPs, there's been money invested into director of police transformation but there's not been actionable change to restructure public safety. I worked for an organization that has a farm that typically has about 40 to 60 people in the height of the season available. Some of them not very skilled high school workers. This season we grew as much food, if not more with a team of 12 and a maximum of 20 people on the farm each and every day. How can a farm in rural Vermont be more innovative than public safety in Burlington? Thank you. Our next speaker will be Cora Smith to be followed by Dana Keyes Gibbons and I'll read off a couple more names just so that folks know who else is in the queue. Steven Margolin, Amanda Skihan, Jorge Fios Garcia, Grace Field, Nell Carpenter, Kelly Devine, Paul DeSell, Robert Bristow-Johnson, Grace Horlick, Mark Hughes. So Cora, I'm gonna come to you and enable your microphone. Hi, my name's Cora Smith. I'm a white resident of Ward 8. So as I'm sure you all know in the public safety continuity plan, police chief Mirad states his letter, it starts in his letter by saying the Burlington police faces the staffing crisis. He writes that under this proposed plan, Burlington can explore diverting some calls for service to civilian employees rather than armed sworn police officers and that this would allow the BPD to use its remaining sworn resources better and free officers to focus on preventing and responding to violent crime. However, violent crime in Burlington has been in decline. According to Dr. Segwino, a member of the police commission from 2012 to 2019, there has been a 37% decline in robberies, a 73% decline in burglary, and a 34% decline in sexual assaults. So why now? Why is BPD suddenly worried about their numbers to prevent and respond to violent crime? If the numbers on violent crime are decreasing, why do they need more police officers? I wanted to end by asking city councilors and Mayor Murrow why they ran for office. I want to emphasize that elected officials are supposed to make decisions in the best interests of their community, not your quote, downtown stakeholders, not your police unions, your community. Maybe you truly believe that you're doing the right thing by raising the cap on police. But this makes me think that you simply have not been listening to your community. This makes me think that you have not been paying attention to the numerous counts of police violence on black bodies. This makes me think that you're prioritizing your comfort over the physical safety of people of color in Burlington. If the Burlington police is really facing a staffing crisis, maybe we need to invest in people who can actually, effectively, and safely solve the problems that BPD seems to be struggling with. Maybe instead of throwing more police officers into situations where police often use unnecessary force, that can result in deaths, maybe you can instead stop and think for a moment about how we can actually work to create a saver of Burlington. Please do not raise the cap on Burlington police. Take the time to listen to your community and invest in support systems to make it safer for everyone. Thank you. Our next speaker will be Dana Keyes Gibbons to be followed by Steven Margolin. Dana, I believe I've located you and have enabled your microphone. Hi there, my name is Dana and I'm an essential healthcare worker living in Ward 8 and I'm calling in to oppose raising the number of sworn BPD officers. I'm not an elected official or a stakeholder, but I care about and for the people of Burlington and I know that the police don't keep us safe. And I don't think that adding additional community service positions will work within the police department out either because the culture of the police department is inherently racist and I'm just really worried that these resolutions are an attempt to undo the work of the historic racial justice resolution which you passed in June. It's clear that members of the Burlington police department are threatened by the resolution as five officers have less than June citing city council decisions. I see this as a sign that the resolution is working and just how important it is to hold the resolution. Officers who leave due to recent council decisions are saying loud and clear that they do not wanna work in a city that is committed to ending white supremacy and holding police accountable. Those are not officers that I want working here or anywhere. I've heard a lot of fear mongering around the issue of police staffing but 74 officers is in line with the FBI recommendations for a city of our size and a lot of work and research to go into picking that number originally. There hasn't been a spike in crime in Burlington recently as Dr. Suguino's data shows us. And another thing that that data shows us is that the Burlington police department disproportionately uses force and weapons against black individuals. So counselors, please uphold your commitment to addressing racism as a public health crisis and do not hire more police officers. Invest in alternatives that center BIPOC, houseless folks and people with mental illnesses. Take this sense of urgency that you've created around public safety but put the energy and the money into developing new systems so that we can all feel safe. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker will be Steven Margolin to be followed by Amanda Skihan. Steven, I've located you and have enabled your microphone. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Great. I'm prepared to talk tonight about item 6.10, the proposal by counselor Dang to add a question to the March ballot. Mostly I'm here because last week I told you I would be here to talk about this. And now I am fulfilling the things you have said to do is called accountability. And that's really what we wanna talk about tonight. When the racial justice resolution was parched past, there was a promise made to reduce the number of officers by 30% down to 73. What we're discussing now is going back on that. That's not really accountability, is it? And if you're interested in learning more, there's BPD accountability on Instagram which you can follow or for those more Joan Shannon-y folks, our comrades do post a front porch forum as well. So specifically, I want to talk about why that question is misleading and how it does not properly represent the needs and goals of the people in Burlington. But mostly I want you to listen to my tone because I'm a white resident of Ward 8 and I'm angry. And as a cis male, my white anger is valid. You listen to me or you listen to other people who claim the title father or old North under or city council candidate, but you don't listen to the voices of BIPOCs or the strong proud intelligent FEM leaders who are asking you to change this city. So I'm just going to refer to what they have to say. Please support Councillor Hightower's amendment to Councillor Dang's resolution and at least let the people learn what they're asking about in truth and vote with confidence. Thank you, Black Lives Matter. Thank you. And just a reminder to folks to please direct comments through the chair and not mention individual councils or the mayor in comments for the city council rules. I'm going to go to Amanda Ski and next to be followed by Porta de Oscarcia. So Amanda, I've found you and have enabled your microphone. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, I can, go right ahead. Thank you. I spoke last week about my experience with domestic violence to implore you to raise the cap on policing to allow proactive call response 24 seven. I won't retread that testimony tonight, but I'd ask each of you to recall it if you can and to remember that our greatest public safety endeavor is to prevent violence before it happens. Reflect upon how you would feel to know that even one person believed that they could not avail themselves of help when they needed it most. If we do not seek a remedy for staffing now, we will not be able to answer many of the low level calls that are really opportunities to abate violence before it begins. This is no question of truly raising the cap that you said in June or diminishing your plans for safety transformation. We will be below 74 shortly and we may fall to 59 by the autumn. Tonight, we just try to begin the hiring process so that we can have enough staff to address calls 24 seven and maintain special services like our detective unit. I don't think that there's one among you who believes that it's not right for substance use counselors to address substance use calls or for mental health counselors to address emotional distress. That work is valuable, it's visionary and I wish that it existed years ago to help my own loved ones. But even those calls may need an officer on scene to maintain safety. I called first call in October for a neighbor in emotional distress and they said it was too late in the evening for them to come and that they would not come without the police. We won't have an idea of how we will transform public safety until the RFP is completed and even then it'll take months to implement that vision. But I ask you to be honest with yourselves tonight. Do you envision the RFP telling us that police staffing should be cut to 59 because that's the number that we wrestle with this year. And that's not a number that answers calls for help 24 seven. I suspect it's also not a number that answers the need for safety on the scene. So that firemen, social workers and mental health counselors can do their good work. Please raise the cap tonight so that we can answer every call for help and answer it well. Thank you. Your next speaker is Jorge Dioscarcia to be followed by Grace Field or I'm sorry, File. Jorge, I've enabled your microphone. Hello to everyone. Who needs the police? Because this is gonna be the same police officer in the same system. Let me tell you, I don't need those extra police. There are enough officer in the streets of Burlington perpetrating racism using the brutal force as a resolution of everything. We need a better quality of officer police. That's true. We need a better, but no, we don't need better cars. We don't need better weapons or uniforms. We need a police officer with better training in racial equity, with more training on education. And I've been living in Burlington and I'm resident of ward number four, mean six. And I haven't seen any police officers speaking a different language. And then we saw in the education of Burlington was speaking, we need to approach the multilingual families. I haven't seen any officers speaking Swahili, Spanish, French. So that's why I think we need officers than speak other languages. And last thing that I wanna say, we don't have a monetary or independent committee than review the internal process of hiring. So this is gonna, I refuse to accept and we are gonna hire with my, we are gonna pay with my taxes, with my taxes, more police officers. Thank you. Our next speaker will be Grace Fial to be followed by Nell Carpenter. Grace, I've located you and enabled your microphone. Hi, I am struggling against increasing the number of police officers and I agree with what others have said and I wanted to run through some things real quick. So there's a lot of panic that in this four and a half hours from 3 a.m. to 7 30, there will be one officer instead of the two to five officers that are normally available during that shift. This is the lowest call time. Overall, calls have decreased 36% since 2016. Crime and the amount of crime that happens fluctuates regardless of the number of police officers because overwhelmingly, police do not prevent crime. Police respond to crime that has already occurred or respond to calls where there is not crime occurring like noise complaints and mental health calls and intoxication calls, which together make up a majority of the calls VPD receives. I wanted to highlight a couple of things from the mayor's memo, which I actually thought was directly from the police department. I was disturbed by his threat to quote, reassign our domestic violence prevention officer, a role that coordinates enforcement prosecution and services oriented follow-up for one of the most complicated fraud and unfortunately common crimes we confront. I am like some, like lots of people, someone who has experienced sexual violence. Why is there only one person whose job it is to help us? Why is that person a cop? Why can't we support our community with better solutions? The mayor acknowledged police violence against BIPOC community members and then in the same breath says, overworked under resource demoralized police officers are more likely to improperly use force. 27% of use of force cases in the first 10 months of 2020 were against black people. So basically the official city position is that having less cops will increase police violence against our BIPOC community members who already experienced disproportionate police violence. A healthier, safer community is not one with more cops. It's one with more resources. If we are really concerned about crime and public safety, we should be asking how we can better care for our community. How can we better meet the needs of the people that you are elected to serve? You can please drop up. Thank you. Our next speaker will be now carpenter to be followed by Kelly Devine. Now I've enabled your microphone. Hi there, can you hear me? Yep, go ahead. Awesome. Good evening, council. My name is Nell Carbenter and I'm a white resident of board four. I've lived in Burlington since 2015 when I came here for school. I'm calling in tonight to urge you to not approve the public safety continuity plan put forth by the mayor. And I also just wanna uplift something that Jess alluded to, which is there are so many of us on this call tonight who have called in weekly to council meetings or committee meetings. I mean for almost six months now or more. And so I think I just wanna start by naming the blatant disregard for community voice or at least a blatant acknowledgement that community members voices matter less than those with power done unto them by the city or if historically a power within the city system. And the continuity plan when it's mentioned what happened this summer the mayor fails to mention that over 1,000 people called in in support of the racial justice resolution an effort which was backed by significant research, heart and work led largely by BIPOC. You also fail to mention the hundreds of Burlingtonians who have tuned in week after week since the resolution was passed to engage with discussions about police and work to hold this council and city accountable. Once again, you're showing up well after the people organized and brought a solution to the table to use your power to block our meaningful efforts and propose your own ideas. Along similar lines, I wanna address this electiveness broadly and the data that is incorporated and highlighted in plans such as this one. This proposal and other discussions are leaning on scare tactics about what might have been during the midnight shift while turning away from data from Dr. Stephanie Segrino about a steady decrease in calls for the last almost decade while turning away from data that shows that this department the exact one you are trying to grow disproportionately draws guns and uses force against BIPOC. While turning away from data that shows that officers disproportionately patrol the old North end section of the city with the highest number of BIPOC residents while turning away from anecdotal data that has been building in the public comment for the past seven months folks tell their horror stories about encounters with the PD. I struggle to understand your words about public safety after you declare racism a public health crisis and data continue to demonstrate the lack of safety BIPOC and other marginalized folks experience at the hands of the Burlington Police Department. Thank you. Okay, our next speaker will be Kelly Devine to be followed by Paul DeSelle. Kelly, I've enabled your microphone. Okay, great, thank you. Kelly Devine, I'm speaking on behalf of the Burlington Business Association and our 200 downtown businesses. The folks in the business community are equally concerned about public safety about Black Lives Matter about how we as a community come together on this very important discussion. I really do hope that we can work together. I will say that it's hard to come on this call when people are taking their time to vilify others. I think we're all important in the discussion. I wanna thank the Joint Public Safety and Police Commission for months and months of work on this issue. And I understand from their report that they have asked for a slight shift away from what the city council voted on back in June. Back in June, we were all as a community facing some very, very significant questions. And a decision was made at that time to cut the police force based on national data. That decision has played out but also had some time to be reviewed by many people who put a lot of good thinking into it. So I would ask that the city council seriously consider adopting the resolution that makes an adjustment, a small one from that decision that was put forth back in June of 2020. My members are very concerned about that overnight shift because we have already seen over the Christmas holiday some significant vandalism that has occurred downtown. And if there are no police to respond to that or there are no police on patrol, is there a chance that there'll be more property damage? Property isn't people, I do understand that. But property is owned by people, people who care about the community. And I think that they have a right to have some protection overnight so that they don't have to worry about their property being damaged. And I also wanna remind folks that this shift in officers takes into account the fact that our police department not only protects Burlington, but also the airport. So I think it's a well thought out resolution and I'm gonna ask that the council consider adopting. Thank you. Our next speaker is Paul DeSelle to be followed by Robert Bristow Johnson. Paul, I've enabled your microphone. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and city council. I thank you for this opportunity to speak this evening. Thank you for the opportunity to share a view that you will rarely hear during public forum, but it is a view that many share in this great city. I ask that you support the resolution of public safety continuity plan. I also implore you to not support Councillor Zhang's resolution allowing for an advisory question to be placed on the town meeting day ballot. Unattended consequences are a reality in all facets of life and we are now faced with a public safety crisis because the council let raw motions take over versus pausing and working methodically and diligently look holistically at the way we police the residents of Burlington. You can now take steps to write that horrific decision that was made earlier this summer. As leaders and activists, it is your responsibility to wear many hats. We all come to the table with our own personal beliefs and biases towards this issue. That is fine, but not being able to recognize that you represent more than just one view is when trouble begins.  You are the ones that now need to look at policing from a 10,000 foot view, not from the streets. That does not make you a boat liquor as I and many others have been called.  It also doesn't mean that you will continue on with perpetuating systemic racism. It means that you have taken your oath to elected office with great sincerity. You are the ones tonight that can allow the city to become a safer place for all of her residents. Now is not the time to punt a question to ask voters what you should do regarding staff levels. That should have been taking place months and months ago. Now for a moment, let me speak to any officer or family member that may be listening. I've gotten to know many rank and file over the past several months. It cannot express how deeply grateful I am for their service. You are not perfect, you will make mistakes, but I know even with all of you that you have gone through, you will do what you believe is right for all of us. How many of our elected officials could endure the hatred and vilification that you have this past year? I doubt that. Well, please remember, many here believe in you. Trust and appreciate all you do. We in this city and city hall will help all of you in the highest regard. That will happen again. I truly believe that. Be safe. Thank you. Thank you. I have Robert Bristow Johnson next. I've enabled your microphone. Robert, I see that you've wanted, you wanted to speak to one of the charter changes. So like I said, you're welcome to do that now, but if you want your comments entered into the record and to be considered in order to change it, you should speak in the public hearings that come later. I'll leave it to you. That's what I think that I will do. I will come back to you at that point then. Thank you. Okay, our next speaker will be Grace Horlick to be followed by, and I'll read off a couple of names. Grace Horlick, Mark Hughes, Annie Lawson, Phoebe Perrin, Julia Pupko, Maria Ogden, Julie Massuga, Danielle Shaw, Dale Tillitson, Betsy McGavisk, Charlie Oscar Flemmer, Janice Ellis. So I'm gonna go to Grace Horlick now. One second. Grace, I've enabled your microphone. Can you hear me? Yes, I can, go ahead. Thanks. My name is Grace. I'm a white resident of Ward 1 in Aiyushi, her pronouns. The proposal of increasing the number of officers is going against the work and research done for the racial justice resolutions called to reduce officers. I wanna remind the council that the reason the budget of the BPD was reduced 30% was to meet the national averages of uniform officers. It was also because our community is calling for public transformation and a broken, violent, and fundamentally racist department. Increasing the number of officers is retreating from transforming our public safety. Police do not prevent crime. Not only has there been a 17% decrease in calls overall from 2019 to 2020, according to a study done by Stephanie Seguino, but there has been a 36% decrease from 2016 to 2020. And as stated by another speaker, crime has decreased on all fronts in Burlington from 2012 to 2020. The bodily safety of BIPOC individuals is at stake given the track record of our police force. We've seen many cases in lawsuits made against officers who have done this the past 10 years. To name a few, Douglas Kilburn, Mohamed Lujizo, Jeremy Mele, Mabiyar Jock, and many more, say their names. Research by the FBI in 2018 indicating that with the 42,819 residents shown on the 2019 census for Burlington would mean that we'd need 73 officers in our city. As a Burlington community member, it does not give me peace of mind for more police officers to be hired, or for more community liaisons to be hired through the BPD. These liaisons should be independently contracted from the police department. That has a track record of use of force and disproportionate use of force on BIPOC residents. We need to be focusing on doing the work to make alternative independent public safety apparatuses and allocating resources to empower and care for our Black, Brown, and white residents for Councilor Hightower and Hanson's amendment. Thank you. Thank you. I'm gonna go to Annie. I will look for Mark Hughes and Mark. I'm not able to locate you. So I'm gonna go to Annie Lawson to be followed by Phoebe Perrin. So Annie, I've located you and have enabled your microphone. Thank you and thank you for taking the time to hear this public input tonight. My name is Annie Lawson. I'm a white woman living in Ward 4 and I'm a clinical social worker. My professional background is in public mental health. I'd like to urge city council to vote no on creating a ballot question about increasing the number of police officers after already making a commitment to reduce police officers to 73. I've listened to some comments tonight that's so fear about safety by continuing to imply that all burning to a Burlingtonians feel protected around police. This just disregards the ongoing input from so many Burlingtonians who have over and over come to this forum to express how unsafe police make them feel. Please really think hard about this as you're voting tonight. I also wanna point out a principle about this situation. Allowing this question to be on the ballot would be a direct contradiction to a city council vote from several weeks ago when the mayor vetoed a previous vote that would have asked for Burlingtonians to weigh in on the question of community control of police. If the voices of Burlingtonians were not welcome regarding that aspect of policing, why would the council suddenly welcome our input on this one? Putting this question on the ballot with its extremely loaded language implies a double standard. So I'm asking my counselors, will you keep your word from June when it was very popular to talk about racial justice and police reform? Or will you apply a double standard about input on this issue when it benefits white people and the police? It's really discouraging to hear so many of you talking out of both sides of your mouth on this issue. I hope you're aware that each time you stall our disregard input from BIPOC organizers who've been working and working and working and working on this for so many months, when you keep finding reasons for them to keep coming to these meetings week after week and try to convince you that their experiences are valid, you're burdening them with additional emotional work on top of all the logistical work and research that they have done in the last year. How many more weeks are organizers going to have to keep calling into these meetings and sharing painful experiences, pleading for their safety and their rights to be as valid as others? Thank you. Okay, our next speaker is Phoebe Perrin to be followed by Julia Pubko. Phoebe, I've enabled your microphone. Hi, my name's Phoebe. I'm a white femme resident of Ward 2. I'm calling to oppose raising the number of police officers at BPD. This will be going back on the racial justice resolution that was passed back in June and going back on this resolution feels really scary. And the conversation around the proposed charter change has been even scarier because all of the fear-mongering and spreading of misinformation about the police and policing in Burlington, it's clear that the police do not keep many of our residents safe. That is a fact across the US and Burlington is, it's the same in Burlington. Let's use this time as an opportunity to reimagine public safety. Please do not vote in support of Ding's proposed ballot question. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker will be Julia Pubko to be followed by Maria Ogden. Julia, I've enabled your microphone. Hello, my name is Julia Pubko. I use she, her pronouns when I'm a former resident of Burlington, Vermont. I'm still connected to the Burlington community through one of my jobs and plan to move back to Burlington in the near future. I'm voicing my opposition to agenda number 6.10, raising the number of cops on the BPD force. In Miro's memo posted on January 24th, 2021, Miro claimed that failing to increase the number of officers will increase crime. There is no factual basis for this claim. Miro specifically spoke to the fact that reduced officer numbers will mean that they cannot handle burglaries and robberies. These have fallen by 73 and 37% respectively from 2012 to 2019. Despite 2020 being an exceptionally hard year due to COVID-19, overall call volume to the police has dropped by 17% in 2020 alone. The BPD disproportionately uses excessive force against Burlington's BIPOC community members, specifically black community members and causes harm to our houseless neighbors. Miro stated that reducing BPD numbers will cause greater harm to BIPOC community members as officers would be overworked and likely to make mistakes. This ignores the fact that use of force against black community members represented 28% of use of force cases in 2020, even though black community members only make up 6% of Burlington's population. These quote unquote mistakes are already happening and it is the systemic racism in policing that needs to be addressed and that will not be addressed by simply adding more officers. Raising the number of BPD officers caves to the fear-mongering and false information being spread by the BPD and by Miro himself. Without raising the number of BPD officers, again, officers will still be available at all hours for response, including overnight. The racial justice resolution passed in June cut the number of officers by 30% to make Burlington or the BPD the same size as police forces of cities of comparable size and crime rates, including some which have higher crime rates than Burlington. Listen to what your community has been shouting for months. There's no need to increase the number of officers black lives matter. Thank you. Thank you. And again, just please direct comments towards the chair. Maria Ogden is next to be followed by Julie Musuga. Maria, I've enabled your microphone. Hi, I'm Maria Ogden, a resident of Ward 7, employee of the Vermont Department of Health and a director on the board of Steps to End Domestic Violence and I'm representing the latter in my capacity tonight. Steps is concerned with the reassignment of the Domestic Violence Prevention Officer, a role described as coordinating enforcement, prosecution and services oriented follow-up for survivors of violence and pleads the council reconsider this. The Vermont Department of Health recognizes domestic and sexual violence as a quote serious preventable public health issue that affects thousands of remanders and we've all experienced what not handling public health crises can do to communities. Steps served the largest population of survivors in the state. We strongly support the continued funding to maintain the DVPO role within the Burlington Police Department. The role is critical in the community's ability to react and prevent domestic violence. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. As a uniformed officer, the DVPO can educate and support fellow officers insensitively and working most effectively with an already traumatized group of individuals by modeling behavior, improving incident documentation and reporting for survivors who choose to pursue legal action. The DVPO can develop a trusting relationship with community members that extends beyond that officer to other members of the police staff. This role is in bridge and linking in the linkage of advocacy for survivors and performance of the people who may entrust the safety of our community. We, you know, while we understand that officers will be available, we also think that there is a role in having a uniformed officer respond to active violent situations where it might not always be entirely safe for a mental health clinician or, you know, another support staff person to do so alone. We know that many of the homicides occurring in Vermont are a result of domestic violence. A number of those have occurred within Chittenden County in the last few years and have been pretty high-profile. So again, steps is asking that the council reconsiders the reassignment of the DVPO. Thanks. Our next speaker is Julie Musuga to be followed by Danielle Shaw. Julie, I've enabled your microphone. Thank you. My name is Julie Musuga, she, her, Ward 2. I'm here to support the continued work to defund the police here in Burlington as well as Councilor Hightower's amendment. Frankly, I'm done with the scare tactics. The Police Officers Association and Chief Mirad trying to convince us that Burlington won't be safe with a little less police presence. I'm not scared. I'm excited. I can't imagine the relief that investing in marginalized voices instead of threatening their families might bring. I was scared when Officer Coro, known for his abuse, walked into my house fully armed with two other officers for a mental health call where it was explicitly requested they did not show up as not to traumatize anyone. The Burlington Police Officers Association, whose ads and postcards we've all been inundated with lately didn't say almost anything until this summer. Look at their Facebook page. I'm not sure they even had much of a presence of any kind before the murder of George Floyd, but suddenly everyone in the city is reading a postcard full of cherry picked and inaccurate statements. It's all a campaign for the BPD to look like some sort of victim. Aside, putting aside the crocodile tears, I wanna make sure you all know this is not hyperbole. The administration has ignored its own constituents begging for their lives. Still, the mayor insists that the public needs to build trust with the police department despite the fact that Miro Weinberger himself has been hiding the truth about Do Pozo and the use of force from all of us. And now this PR campaign is just pushing that narrative further. Trust the BPD even though you have been given no reason to. Under the current administration, we've seen that BPD will fire someone immediately for perjury, but won't do anything when they kill a man. And now a series of scare tactics stands in the way of people just trying to ensure that the police department has a shred of accountability. We look to the council to see past our collective numbness on these issues and do something to mitigate them. Thank you to all the counselors who have been allies of justice. Town Meeting Day is going to tell us a lot about you. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Danielle Shaw to be followed by Dale Tillitson. Danielle, I have enabled your microphone. Hi, my name is Danielle Shaw. I'm a Ward 2 resident and I've lived in Burlington for the past six years.  I am middle class. I am privileged enough to not experience mental health issues or to experience substance misuse disorder. Some people in my position might feel that they can go to sleep at night with a reasonable level of safety in Burlington, but I don't because I fundamentally believe in the concept of collective liberation. If my neighbors are unsafe, I am unsafe. And if there are people on city council who don't ascribe to that view, you do not belong in city government. If you do not believe in collective liberation, you are governing for the haves and not the have nots and you are leaving your neighbors behind you. It's selfish, it's self-motivated and it doesn't belong in public service. And I hope you can think about that. I see a lot of people on city council who may benefit from racial privilege, from gendered privilege, from economic privilege, and it's your responsibility to use your privilege for the benefit of those who don't experience it themselves. I cannot believe, I can believe actually that city council doesn't see the lesson that you are teaching the residents of this city.  You will only act when there are daily marches in this city, when there are almost 24 hours of public comment, or when people are sleeping in parks for over a month. I'm gonna start calling in and shouting shame at you for two minutes straight. Thank you. Our next speaker is Dale Tiltson. Dale, I'm not able to locate you by name on the list. If you are calling in, I can come to you, but I do need to indicate, I need indication of what number you have you're calling in from. So if you could just email me at mtracyatburlingtonbt.gov, I can locate you and come back to you just to make sure. So please let me know if you're calling in or if you're under a different name so that I can access or find you in the public forum. And I see that our timer has gone off is- Yeah, quick point of information. I believe Councillor Hanson, great. Thank you, Councillor Hanson. Oh, wonderful. Thank you. And thank you, Councillor Hightower for stepping in and taking that over. Appreciate it. So- Can you all see it properly? Yeah, I believe that I can see it, Councillor. And again, Dale Tiltson, if you just send me an email of what phone number, if you're calling in under a phone number, if you're under a different name, I can come to you. The next speaker will be Betsy McGavicks to be followed by Charlie. So I think I've located Betsy. Betsy, I think that I've enabled your microphone. I'm not sure if that's you. If you are on, if you could, again, use the raise hand function. Okay, perfect. Thank you. Looks like you're on under my name. I will promote it to you to panelists. So there you go. You should be able to speak. Hi there. My name is Betsy. Sorry, my name is Elizabeth, so sometimes that gets confusing. But I'm a white resident in the Old North End and I used to hear her pronouns. I'm really disappointed that Councillor Dang's resolution and the Public Safety Continuity Plan are being put forward tonight. Despite the work and conversations where over a thousand residents called in to council that happened months ago, and when this council decided to reduce the number of officers on the force. Many of our community members and experts in this field have done the work. They've done the research. They've done really outstanding public outreach to put forward a plan for true public safety. We know the calls for service from the Burlington Police Department have gone down 36% since 2016, according to UVM Professor Stephanie Ciguino's research. The number of officers initially chosen was based on r