e say aye. Aye. Any opposed the local control commission is now adjourned at 811. Thanks folks for in Commissioner Mason for all those motions and moving through it if those just for members of the public just to clarify all of these items that we're dealing with having to do with licensing issues have to do with our herd at a committee hearing beforehand that's why we're able to move through them relatively quickly and these items are deliberated out there so they come to us having received feedback from that committee but we do discuss them here in case counselors have further questions to add or questions so in that sense that just to kind of clarify and I usually have the chair of the that committee a counselor Mason in this case move those items that's why I was going to that particular counselor just to clarify for that for the public now we do also have some of the items that have to do with entertainment permits which this committee also hears that come on to our deliberative agenda which I'm going to call our city council meeting back into order at 812 and we'll get to two more items before getting into the rest of our deliberative agenda that are also licensing related so counselor Mason may now have a motion on 5.01. Yes President Tracy thank you I would move to approve the 2021-2022 indoor entertainment permit application for M. Dunn's Tavern DBA T. Ruggs Tavern 149 Elmwood Avenue with all standard conditions. We have a motion from counselor Mason seconded by counselor Freeman any discussion okay hearing none let's go to a vote all those in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed that carries unanimously which brings us to item 5.02 counselor Mason. Thank you President Tracy I would move to approve the 2021-2022 outdoor entertainment permit application for Huskies Capital LLC DBA Vermont Lake Monsters with all standard conditions. Okay we have a motion from counselor Mason seconded by counselor Freeman any discussion on this one okay seeing none let's go to a vote all those in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed that carries unanimously all right thank you for all those motions counselor slash commissioner Mason and we will now move on to a couple of appointments that we have this evening. So before I invite the person who is being appointed Karen Durfey to share any remarks with the counselor I would like a motion and I understand that counselor Carpenter is going to be offering the motion on this item so counselor Carpenter go ahead. I am very pleased to move the appointment of Karen Durfey as the Human Resources Director for the city of Burlington. Thank you and I don't believe we need a second for an appointment so I thank you for that did you want did you want to say anything further counselor Carpenter? Yes yes I wasn't sure if we needed a second just that I'm really very pleased to do this I serve as the chair of the Human Resources Committee and about two weeks after I got appointed last year the Human Resources Director left so I don't know if it was anything I did or not do but I know that it's been a really tough year for the city to be without that position it's very critical particularly given the the year that we had and I know the staff and the mayor's office and a number of department heads have been been looking long and hard through this last year to find a candidate that would fit our city and it's always such a pleasure to get someone who's my neighbor number one and a local Burlington resident number two and somebody that comes I think with a lot of experience in Burlington businesses Karen as you may know worked for the city market for a fair number of years and really ran operations there and I think through her work as in that role intersected tremendously with the human resources function and so she just brings a lot of varied and deep experience in managing personnel through her through her work in that venue as well as her more work excuse me more recent work with the Echo Center so I think she'll just be a real plus with her knowledge and more importantly her more recent knowledge is being a city police commissioner and understanding city government so she just brings a lot of I think multi facets to our government and we're really really looking forward to having that position filled and for the HR committee to get working as issues come up and Karen brings her new energy to the department. Thank you Councillor Mayor Weinberger did you want to speak? Thank you President Tracey sir Councillor Carpenter just shared a lot of what I appreciate and I'm excited about in bringing forward disappointment of Karen Durfee tonight and she said it better than I had so I won't repeat it all I will just say I am very excited at the prospect of adding Karen to the the city team and bringing all of that experience in this region those skills and really her commitment to the community to bear in the human resources department and as Councillor Carpenter suggested a really critical time we are coming out of this pandemic we are in a period of a lot of hiring we're in a period of trying to make cultural change within the city city team and make the city a better employer and a more inclusive employer and I think Karen is exactly the right person at the right time for this work and I'm proud to be bringing forward her appointment tonight. Thank you Mayor with that I will turn it over to to Karen Durfee if you would like to to share some remarks with the council and then councillors if you have questions or remarks of your own I'll come to you next. Karen would you like to address the council? No thank you very much Sarah Carpenter and thank you Mayor Weinberger I've been addressing the council I feel like I've talked to most all of you on the phone thank you so much for giving me your time and your patience and some of us talked for a very long time some of us talked for a short amount of time thanks to Jordan also and Mayor Weinberger for getting you know this process going through a weekend and thanks to Catherine Shad and the HR team the position has been filled not filled for about a year so I think everyone I have met with a very talented HR team that has been working remotely through a very difficult year and I'm very excited to lead that team and you know with a lens of inclusivity so I'll stop there and see if anybody has any questions. Okay wonderful are there any questions or comments from councillors? Councillor Hanson to be followed by Councillor Pine. Thanks and nice to meet you virtually Karen and it was good to meet you by phone last week and connect and talk a little bit it was really helpful to have that conversation and get your perspective and one of the things we talked about I just wanted to raise here was I don't have a lot of experience with the HR position I haven't I haven't served on the HR committee but I was pretty deeply concerned January this was around late 2019 early 2020 with an investigation by the HR department into into the former Deputy Chief Jan Wright's social media misuse and Vermont Digger for folks who don't know this had good coverage and really dug into it but VT Digger really uncovered much much more than what the internal investigation did and they did so in a much shorter amount of time so I was wondering if you'd be willing to just speak a little bit to your your you know your approach in the role around you know independence and thoroughness in terms of investigating if and when issues do come up with you know city officials as they did then because I found it really helpful to hear your perspective on that privately but would love to hear it here as well if possible. Sure thank you Councillor Hanson one of the reasons that I really really appreciate the work of HR and especially in the municipality and within that agency which is the police department is there are there is a contract and there are policies and procedures and when you have both of those in my experience and I have led some pretty significant investigations it makes it easier to be transparent and be very clear because you're operating it with actually two sets of agreed upon rules that should complement each other so I think when you and I were spent you know spending time on the phone talking about that I'm not going to pretend that I was aware of everything that went on with the investigation but I'm a very transparent person and I will look to and I'm very specifically excited to be working with the Burlington Police Department I won't go into you know plans and details but I think you can expect from me I'll be very quick on the turnaround I will be working with the city attorney's office but I think we have enough tools at our disposal not to have something like that happen again. Did that answer your question? Yeah thank you I appreciate it. Thank you Councillor Hanson. Councillor Pine. Thank you President Tracy the Karen if you were to be able to fast forward so you've been in this job for a few years and you look back what would you hope as HR director that we you're known for what are you what do you hope that people look back and say Karen did this at least you know had some tough times perhaps because these jobs are hard but at least she got this part done what would that be for you? That's a long list I'm a very ambitious person but I think you know overall you know I'm really looking forward to working with Director Green and her team. I really feel that inclusivity is a lens you know and if we're really looking to forward this work the way the mayor laid out in his speech we really do need to use the inclusivity the REIB lens on everything and it's not hard you know these are systems HRIS is you know those are systems applications are a system Neil Gove is a system recruitment is a thing so I think you know to answer your question Councillor Pine I wouldn't say that I would be looking for myself to be you know getting the accolades but the city was a much more inclusive employer and a great place to work and people just cannot wait to get here and serve. Thank you that's awesome. Yeah okay any other councillors wishing Councillor Freeman? Thank you so I did serve on the HR committee in my first term and did work with former director Deanna Plova before she did leave and one of the things that came up was a report that I requested on workers that were exempted from livable wages and that report came back to that committee it was determined that it was around 140 workers and I noticed based on the equity reports that the city had created in previous years where it shows that seven percent of folks who work for the city are folks of color unfortunately it's double in terms of folks who don't make livable wages who are for the city it's closer to 14 percent and I expressed that as a concern and the response that I got at the time was well you know we're trying to increase our diversity in our workforce as a city these are entry-level positions and folks of color are they're accessible you know maybe to folks of color that's where we're recruiting right now and that's why the number is higher and I always felt like that didn't really quite that doesn't sit right with me and so I do want to make sure that as we're looking to be an inclusive employer we're not doing that in a way that is ultimately inequitable because we do see like when I think you know studies show that they're when like inclusivity measures are created it doesn't necessarily create inclusivity at all layers of sort of like pay rather and so that's definitely a concern that I had and and you know I just hear you speak about your you know interest in collaborating with REIB and I'm just sort of curious to hear your perspective on that you know I'm you know you know absolutely interested in appointing you tonight to this role I would just be curious to hear your perspective as someone who's coming into that position. Sure thank you Councillor Freeman for that I want to share a little bit about my experience with that we did have a situation like that I think most folks shop at city market no city market as a you know we weren't always you know two stores and everything you know this you know this you know I've been gone a long time now so I can't pretend what that environment is like but we did have a situation where you know folks were hired into specific positions because they were accessible and I worked really hard and a lot of folks worked really hard to get to eradicate a grade one within the bargaining unit so that was the low wage it wasn't it wouldn't hit livable wage back of you know that in that time and so we just got rid of it there doesn't need to be a great one we need to have folks being able to get a livable wage and you know it includes insurance benefits which most folks took advantage of back in those times but you know if something's not working you don't need to keep it and I think that's what's really exciting about this HR our role right now is you know HR has been traditionally a certain kind of way and I've avoided it I've decided you know I've loved operations for a really long time you know I've been an operations person for a long time but you are doing human resources but to commit to that that means you're committing to humans and that means that you are going to be looking at livable wages and you're not that's not an inclusive practice and and you know there's another thing you know there's a phrase and I think I heard it in another meeting from director green and another woman this is not a book club you know we're not we are if the city's going to take this work seriously then we're going to have to do things like that doesn't work anymore I don't care if it's been around for 30 years it just doesn't doesn't work so hopefully um counselor Freeman to answer your question I'll be really active um you know because every time you come into a new position there's you know the hope that there will be equity and expanding on certain things and then you get inside and things are different so um I'm you know hoping for the best and I'm gonna you know keep on doing that work and I that's that's where I want to be with my work and myself thank you thanks for sharing our perspective thank you okay and counsel jane thank you president Tracy and Karen derby glad that you are here in front of us here today I am particularly um excited and also appreciative um that you stepped up um to feel this position you know uh and I think what you represent is is key because you are a woman of color and also you have been very involved in the community before this position I have never known about you until recently and I think we met the first time when we were doing the mural you know black lives matter on just and you know you also resident of the new north end but I just want you to understand that I am truly appreciative of your level of involvement from the police commission to uh being there and providing information to the public about what is happening not only about the police but also just about city affair in general your level of commitment to the city is is inspiring and I'm so glad that you stepped up to feel this position and another element too is you contrary to all the people who are appointed but they do not reside in Burlington but you are I think that's a problem we already checked and I'm so glad that you're here you live right here and uh that said I was just wondering if you can tell us from your perspective how many people actually work for the city and of that data do you know the percentage in uh uh people who are uh non-white people working for the city of Burlington um just was wondering if you can answer that quickly I don't I don't have that metric um I think there's about 300 employees in the city and you know if I had to you know I wouldn't guess about um the population of color because that wouldn't be fair I don't know the answer to that but I do know there's about 300 employees okay I have yes I would imagine I would imagine that the percentage is similar to the percentage of you know representative representation of the city but I don't know the answer yeah um thank you I mean basically it is uh just coming to there would be definitely a learning curve because I mean based on your experience and you know your education I think this is a big job that you're stepping into and there are also a lot of things involved um and I'm just looking forward to work with you and please know that we are all here to support you for success and I'm very proud to be um uh you know voting in support of your appointment and uh congratulations thank you okay I don't have any other counselors in the queue did anyone else council Shannon go ahead thank you president Tracy and I just wanted to thank you Ms. Durfee who I've been getting to know really as a police commissioner over maybe the last uh year or two and I'm so impressed that you want to come and contribute in this way to the city and I think that your your voice and your insights are going to be really helpful to us and I would actually also um echo counselor Freeman's concern I think that that's a really valid point that I hope you'll be digging into but I've seen um I've seen your people skills and I think our human resources department is really going to benefit from the contributions you have to bring to the city so thank you for for stepping up and being willing to join this team thank thank you council Shannon any other counselors wishing to comment okay seeing none let's go to a vote all those in favor of appointing Karen Durfee as our next um human resources director please say aye aye any opposed that carries unanimously congratulations really appreciate it look forward to working with you um and certainly welcome welcome you to come back to the council with all the great work that you're going to be doing um as a as as now director Durfee so congratulations got a another appointment of a an assistant city attorney position and for that I will go to um counselor mason for another motion on that appointment thank you president tracy I would like to make a motion to approve the appointment of Jared Pellerin as the uh city's most recent assistant city attorney and ask for the floor back for a brief comment after a second I don't believe you need a second counselor mason so go ahead then I will I will speak um I think well I won't speak for the rest of the council but I know the the department I am most often interacting as the city attorney's office and I I realize through my interactions how short staffed they are and um I am encouraged by Jared's qualifications he's eminently qualified and I I hope his experience working for the city of Albany proves especially helpful to us moving forward and I certainly know uh he will be a welcome addition to an understaffed department so I hope this is unanimous and I hope he is able to start as soon as possible thank you thank you counselor mason um attorney city attorney blackwood did you have have anything that you'd like to offer or may or wine burger yes president tracy I would just like to briefly um again echo everything uh counselor mason just said certainly um having Jared added to the team right now is critical um he is coming with a lot of really um point in relevant experience he's worked for the city of Albany he has has legislative experience he knows this region having grown up just over the other side of the lake I think he's going to be a great addition to the team and hopefully have the council strong support tonight thank you mayor city attorney blackwood I apologize or was there something you wanted out as well I just wanted to say thank you for considering this and I hope you all support this nomination we are looking forward to Jared who just blew us away in this interview uh with his experience and his great answers to all of our interview questions wonderful and Jared did you want to share any remarks with the council and good evening everyone thank you mayor wine burger and Eileen for bringing me to the table here this evening and it's nice to see you all virtually I hope to meet everyone in person soon here but I wanted to just quickly thank you all for the consideration of my candidacy for the position of assistant city attorney I believe my personal desire to work in a capacity that enables me to impact the community through public service along with my personal love for Burlington and the shores of Blake Champlain make this a really exciting opportunity I have always been drawn to public service and that is another large reason for me choosing to pursue this opportunity and I genuinely believe in doing work that benefits those around me and producing work product that hopefully will lead to positive growth and change and through team effort nothing is impossible so I look forward to making hopefully a positive impact within the city of Burlington and I again thank you for your consideration wonderful thank you for joining us um counselors any comments or questions okay seeing none let's go to a vote all those in favor of appointing Jared Pellerin as assistant city attorney please say aye aye be opposed the appointment carries unanimously thank you welcome as well to the city of Burlington and I'll just also say that I look forward to working with you as well so thank you for joining being willing to join the city of Burlington team as well all right that brings us into item 5.05 which is a communication from director Almasraoui regarding the graffiti cleanup initiative director Almasraoui I will turn it over to you. Hi yes um so this was a memo um written to mayor Weinberger and CEO Shad who had asked me to initiate an interdepartmental team to um basically address a lot of the um complaints and concerns that we had been receiving from citizens and business owners um uh regarding what is viewed as um a vast increase in the graffiti in our city um I in this memo am suggesting um three phases uh phase two and three are not fully fleshed out yet and the team is meeting um frequently and um phase one as you can see here involves um hiring a team of 10 employees temporarily to um address what we see as the the current situation and try and ameliorate and ameliorate and remediate it um we have received some questions as to why it's not more of a community initiative um and so I'll address that up front that is because we have assessed um the city team has even met on site in the city to view um what is considered vandalism and to remediate some of these um some of the graffiti requires um power washers paint solvents um and things that we would need waivers for and the um ours the safety manager for the city hadn't had concerns as did the city attorney's office so we um moved in a direction where we were recommending hiring um to handle the sort of the wave that we have right now of graffiti and then moving forward to um try and put in a lasting solution to assess graffiti as it comes up because um even today we had a resident who um reached out to the city regarding um graffiti that was racist and we had to move quickly to remove it um and we also are looking to obviously engage in longer term projects involving um art classes aerosol art classes um things of that sort with bca but I don't have full details on those yet as the team still works those out okay thank you for that director on this rowey I will um go ahead and open it up to the council uh councilor barlow go ahead um thank you president tracy um and thank you cara for that um what are the plans for um other graffiti in other parts of the city that aren't identified in the current initiative and uh secondly what how should residents communicate um the existence of graffiti uh to your office sure so the existence of graffiti is normally communicated through the app called c-click fix and that lands in director ward's office permitting and inspections and I can see he's here with us tonight um and that's readily used and he responds as best he can given um his role in the city um and initially as we were doing a rough inventory um we have seen that the majority of the graffiti right now is in the downtown core which is why we uh chose the geography that is outlined in the memo was that councilor okay other okay councilor pine for thanks for this um this information and for your efforts um on this issue what I'm wondering is there was a bill would remember it was called a um graffiti response team that might not be the right name but it was through community justice center and it was a collaboration with code enforcement and bpd was a little bit involved but it was really more citizen there was a lot of citizen involvement and so groups of citizens were engaged in this issue if they were motivated and cared about it to to sort of go out and address the um the graffiti in the community is that is that still an idea that deserves support or is uh is there some issue with doing it that way so that team no longer exists in the city and a lot of that had been um and now I can't remember her name um and the burlington police department the sort of the community liaison carolyn I believe was her name um who's no longer with us um and so that team um disbanded and is not currently funded um in addition director ward and I have discussed more community involvement after we deal with the amount of graffiti that has accumulated over this past year um and that would involve as you as I believe director word has shown a lot of people he has a graffiti wipes some of those are very effective um but there needs to be training with them for example if you do them on the back of a stop sign they work if you use them on the front of a stop sign you'll take the red paint off as well so um we had discussed and uh director ward had also suggested that after the initial clean clean up we can work with different neighborhoods and maybe have um neighborhood teams people who want to be involved with graffiti more frequently and help teach them how to remove it okay and um this is going to sound a little strange but when I was a kid growing up one of my friends parents decided since they were writing all over the walls at home they gave them a wall that was just like the graffiti wall of the house and we all just did stuff on that wall so is there an idea that that might work in the community that we create spaces for people to go and express themselves or is that just like conflicts of the whole idea of sort of the spontaneous nature of the way this works I guess um I think whether that's effective or not maybe I can't respond to that and and we're looking to engage artists um further to understand that however allocating a wall has definitely been discussed um there has been discussion about perhaps whether we could have a wall up for example where the old midtown motel was which has now been taken down um that might be a nice central location um where people could express themselves um why an individual might tag something that is not a designated area I can't necessarily speak to but I do think a graffiti wall would be a welcome addition to the city. Thank you. Thank you Councillor Prine, Councillor Jang. Thank you President Tracy. Um so on March 22nd I did receive a communication from Bill Ward um Director Ward um and you know just telling me what exactly the city is doing in terms of graffiti removal you know and I followed up with a couple of questions and I'm just going to ask those questions here um and I think one of them just three questions one of them do you know how much time um you know those cleaners are spending around this issue and what will be the monetary estimate including the cleaning supplies also being being brought I have not received those answers because I was waiting to basically bring a resolution that will call for a task force around this area and I think one of the questions also many people here talked about it are the community members and or stakeholders involved in the cleaning but it doesn't seem none of the community members were involved in this and it seems this is coming from the city down to the people and I think this issue is such an important issue that in that that affects every single person here right I would have loved for maybe what you have started to open it to the community members you know and I have representative from business community you know to to serve on the task force artists to serve on it because these discussions when they happen at the community level or stakeholder level I think the important what is what really need to be done will be discussed and then decision will be made by the community with the city and to get this done and we will never come back to it again the second question that I ask is what is currently being done in terms of prevention for graffiti to not happen again and also surveillance in protecting buildings from graffiti you know I think those are important element and to me it will be imperative for the group that you already built to start to enter this question and I'll forward you all the communication directly to you I would love to please consider bringing a resolution and creating task force where people such as Leela Fortunoff who spoke in front of us here today and all the people could also come and have a lengthy and valuable discussion that could move the city forward and make Burlington an aesthetic and beautiful city for tourists and also residents just yourself and please consider including the community yes and thank you councillor jane for that I think this initial this memo is simply addressing phase one right now which is the actual physical cleanup of the city and the amount of graffiti that again has accumulated over the past year in terms of how the city is going to be handling graffiti moving forward if you'll see at the bottom of the memo I suggest that we bring in youth organizations the CJC who had previously been involved in graffiti remediation issues I suggest we bring in members from the arts community broadly this is merely the actual physical cleanup response that we're hoping to initiate this spring so but I do actually agree with you that I think more voices at the table will be helpful in terms of addressing how the community views graffiti how we value it or don't value it as we heard as you said we heard multiple people in public forum addressing it and how we think the best way moving forward that includes all of these perspectives with it yeah um thank thank you I'm glad that you're thinking of you're thinking about it that way and I love the the idea of that graffiti bus I don't know how you call it it's a van yes yeah the van it's just amazing and it can also play all the all the roles as well um yeah no further questions and thank you and looking forward to also be part of this because this is important great thank you thank you councillor jane councillor hanson great thanks and yeah I'm I'm looking forward for sure to that deeper community process and engagement with different groups on how we can move forward um I was wondering so for this initial phase one for to hire folks to clean up in the materials um where is that funding coming from and sorry if I missed this earlier um if ceo shed is with us um I don't know if she is right now um so uh so we are looking at hiring um 10 individuals 40 hours a week for four weeks and that was our initial um assessment and I see catherine's with us now um I just didn't want to misspeak on the funding buckets that you use ceo shed um and the question is the funding for the 10 temporary employees um we do have um some funding for restoration of seasonal employees from some of our line items that have come in ahead of revenue such as local option tax um so as a part of some of the that restoration we've seen that for instance in dpw um and in the library um there are some funds and we will allocate those um to permitting and inspection okay I that's that's interesting and I think worthy of maybe a deeper conversation maybe right not maybe not right here or right now but um I guess that just for me raises questions around um prioritization I guess of this versus restoring some of those seasonal positions that were cut um are any seasonal positions being restored yeah just to clarify all of the seasonal positions that people have asked for have been restored and now we're adding these so every um every uh request that I have gotten from department heads um I have said yes to and now this is a new request and I have said yes to that as well okay I I think that's that's worth I would love to hear more about which positions have been restored and thus far and which haven't I didn't actually realize that that's great news um and would love to hear which ones yeah haven't haven't been restored and um what we're thinking going forward in terms of some of the positions that were lost um this fiscal year so maybe we can follow up offline or at a future meeting um and and discuss that great I'd be happy to great thank you any other counselors yeah quick okay go ahead counselor jane um thank thank you yes so this item was posted as deliverable and it seemed it's only a communication I don't know if any action from the council is needed um that's that's when it's a question for you president we're not approving a policy here we are just accepting communication so if you'd like to make a motion to accept the communication that that um director alness rowey has written um now would be a good time to do that if you'd like to do so I will do it I will I'll be happy to do it um but before I was also wondering if director can answer the question by having those 10 temporary positions will it infringe the union rights as well so I have had communications with the city attorney's office um and while I do not have a law degree so I don't and I don't have the email up in front of me so I don't want to quote exactly but we have um looked into that in terms of being able to hire temporary employees for these jobs so I did get clearance from the city attorney's office all right um then that said I am happy to accept the communication and place it on file making a motion president Tracy thank you okay so we just have we have a motion to accept the communication and place it on file is there a second to that motion seconded by councilor pine any further discussion of this item okay seeing none let's go to a vote um all those in favor of accepting the communication and placing it on file please say aye aye any opposed that motion thank you director on this rowey for your presentation and we will now move on to item five point oh uh oh six which is a resolution um the creation of burlington aging council councilor pine thank you president tracy I would move to approve the resolution and request the floor back after a second you have a motion from councilor pine is there a second seconded by councilor carpenter go ahead council pine so the the question for the council of how we prioritize and focus our responses and our resources as our conversations around older residents of our community was kicked off in a in a substantive way a couple of years ago when the council was asked by both of our existing senior centers whether we could increase our support for them so it was mostly around funding of senior centers that they brought this conversation to um to ahead but at the time the council decided to take a broader view of the issue and spent quite a bit of time really kind of a deep dive with with seniors themselves and with stakeholders and um folks who make their living working directly with seniors and who who focus on the issues facing our older residents and I think what was really um uh one of the most important recommendations in addition to funding our senior centers was for the council this city council to decide and discuss how to ensure that the needs of our seniors were in the at the forefront of our planning and our allocation of funding and uh and that we bring to the forefront issues affecting our older residents and uh we as a community have um we've asked our older residents over the years what they value and what they want uh the most from our community our city and our community and overwhelmingly folks say we want to be able to stay in the community that we love uh and and grow old and and age in place is really what folks want and so uh this effort here is really a an attempt to elevate the needs of of our of our older residents and to you know include more people because the notion of as we age um big part of how we stay healthy is to stay connected to other people and to stay connected to our community and for us as people who who are still sort of maybe in our working life in the middle of our working careers to be able to look to some of our older residents and draw their knowledge their experience their expertise you know there's just so many contributions that older folks can make to to our community that I think the goal here is to really bring that to the front and to the center and not to have that be sort of a footnote or or sort of a an extra consideration but have it really be central to the work we're trying to do for our community so I'm really excited about this council and I hope the full council will this council will support uh creating a an aging council we um uh worked out at the community development neighborhood revitalization committee for the last few months and uh the we we asked our stakeholders though to come up with the plan if you will so that's what we've we're presenting here tonight thank you thank you pine and councillor pine just for clarity you don't set the top on board docks it says updated version is that that's the one yes exactly okay all right just wanted to be sure so that counselors who are referring to that we're all working off the same document so thank you for that introduction councillor pine has their comment need a discussion from the council councillor carpenter I just certainly want to um support what councillor pine said and it's been a really um fun process to work with all the providers on on advancing this and I want to acknowledge that um it started with the um summit that predated me it got sort of put on the side because of COVID but in fact the city and the city office did a great job in pulling together providers senior providers during that period of time and really has supported them well and I think it it made everyone realize that this is an effort that we've got to continue um and really um give it authority there's been attempts over the years to kind of um put together a council like this and sort of loses steam after a while and I think this provider group was energized by the tough year they've really had uh and and seeing what they can do if they work together and I hope the city's energized by the fact that um they can provide a lot of input they will need support from us so you're saying what's the ask the ask is um that we continue to support this effort and take advantage of um all of this expertise and take it seriously really legitimize it um so um I think that is what we're asking you um Cameron did want to say a couple words so if if that's okay I'd love to have him speak on behalf of the provider group which has really um done a fantastic job in in shepherding this wonderful thank you for that councilor carpenter I will um enable Cameron's microphone Cameron you should be able to speak and go right ahead can you all hear me yes go ahead so first of all I want to say thank you um of course to cdnr so councillors uh carpenter pine and high tower has been fantastic to be able to help push this through um and then thank you to city council for for uh you know taking this time to acknowledge this opportunity and then in the vote I want to say I'm speaking to you as a Burlington resident um I uh lived down the street from chip I ran into him at the stop sign and we did the awkward uh you know you go you go thing and then also as a member of uh senior management at a non-profit that operates residential care homes one of which is Ethan Allen in the new north end so um this group um we spent a lot of time um putting together the focus areas the membership and the deliverables um the focus areas was really the easy part we all live it every day um it's sort of an endless list I hope you all have seen what we put together which laid out um you know each of the focus areas I think there are about 10 of them um and then the membership makeup which is just simply who should be a part of it but I want to say this is not a simple um task at hand but it's an excellent step forward and you know this group really believes that providing for Burlington residents for the future means caring for that the most vulnerable residents today and that vulnerable population are the older adults we want to really give a voice to the folks who most often do not have one and um you know COVID exacerbated an already challenging situation for many senior providers and even organizations that maybe just moved working we saw every single focus area every single issue exacerbated by COVID and this is the opportunity to capitalize on that momentum if we can call it um I hope that you all have seen the letters of support that I sent you I have many more that I could send but this community is ready to do this and I know that we have a team of people who would gladly jump aboard and help to move this initiative forward and I'll just end with uh you know in Councillor Carpenter's point of this has sort of been tried in the past is it was important that we try to combat that by making some clear deliverables and what we came up with was the Burlington plan on aging which would would sort of work as a guiding document for the city for other departments and other committees to have issues that that impacting older adults older adults to sort of focus on um so I'm very hopeful uh and I would love an opportunity to serve and I think many of the members of this group would as well so I uh I want to thank you all for taking the time to vote and I hope uh you guys are all in favor so I'm happy to take any questions if there's anything but uh if not thank you for giving me the opportunity great thank you for thank you for that um Councillor Jang go ahead um thank you President Tracy and also thank you CDNR for putting this resolution together Cameron thank you so much for your ongoing advocacy and I think I attended at least one of the meetings at CDNR and the discussion was just amazing and to tell you the truth you know this is something that I'm really passionate about and as a candidate for mayor this was one of the initiative I wanted to achieve as a mayor and but you know the elements the vision that I had and this is somewhat similar but still different but I think it would be important to point out one aspect here um is these members will be appointed by a combination of both the mayor and also the city council which is key but my previous vision was just this was supposed to be a mayoral initiative and not requiring this much of representative to serve in this council but a fewer but also to for those people also to receive some type of intensives as well and some intensives can uh are very simple such as just having access to parking passes or having a 400 dollar stipend at the end of the year but all of those are details um but um one question that I have which is one organization I think is is missing here and they do amazing job through for the region which is H well I don't see them having the area agency of aging I think they would be valuable because their scope of work encompasses a lot of what this group will be uh asking to do such as access to meal transportation long-term care you know public benefit I think if we can amend and at least have a representative from agencies of aging it would be critical uh for because their input would be valuable um yes can I make that actually so um I believe the first membership is an organization providing advocacy for all the adults we saw cove uh community of Vermont elders and age well as that first um membership area so a change to the language would be totally fine age well was obviously the really the first on that list because they are um you know across multiple areas you know reaching older adults on a daily basis so to be clear age well is the the thought was there in that very first section but we didn't want to just say an area agency on aging because there are other advocacy organizations like cove um which does excellent work sort of in a different way so that advocacy piece was the first one but any amendment on that I would you know I think we would all totally support um then if you don't mind or if you just can approve this resolution knowing that we are talking about we having a designated area of aging uh agency of aging as a representative I think we can make the amendment now if you open to it or CDNR members so are you making can counselor jay are you making a motion but let's discuss first uh well counselor pine uh are you open to that my only caution oh go ahead mr. council president tracy okay um my only caution is that we tried to lay out the criteria that we were trying to fill and I don't think we named any you know specific um organizations rather than you know we stuck to to broad criteria as the as the category we are seeking for representation so I think I'm more comfortable with that because I think it is we're not calling out a specific um entity to serve and I think that gives um us as the mayor and the council the flexibility that is going to be appreciated I believe I think that's probably and I understand the intent what you're trying to do counselor jen um but I just want to make sure that we you know don't get into a place where we perhaps they're too busy they don't have the capacity they can't do it and then we have a seat that you know we we don't feel so that's my worry okay yep um okay thank you and you know the mother of act I mean I think they are a little bit concerned because they were not one consulted and two they also did not because of their scope of work they were not consulted and also their the name of their agency was also not included in here and what I'm saying is because I received a couple of chain of emails um that they advocating and I'm I don't even know why one of them did not show up here to speak in in in that area but I'm the middle man trying to make sure that those with expertise are also included but uh it's up to you boss thank you okay councilor carpenter do you have something with reference to this this issue yeah I just a couple I mean they were invited to an original meeting and I think what um councilor pines trying to say is we laid out credend some people may double dip if you want if you want to call it that I mean you you know because there's a lot of criteria there and so somebody might represent two interests um you know as opposed to just one interest so I think we tried to kind of keep it flexible I think the other thing because it was a really good planning group is nobody's intended to be excluded um I think once the group gets going I mean you could have had 50 people on it and so at at some level you have to you know name it and for full disclosure I was an area agency aging director I don't know if councilor jane knows that but in my first early career that was my job and I served on a on a group called the long-term care consortium of chitin and county but again we had to have sort of this double dipping of people might represent more than one one interest so I don't think there's any intent to be exclusive and I hope they their staff will be active participants in the meeting that the council's schedules in the future thank you council carpenter all right councilor I had councilor hanson in the queue great thanks um yeah thanks so much to everyone who's who's worked on this I'm definitely very supportive of it and one thing I wanted to raise or ask since we're all together talking about this um is and I haven't been able to participate in the process so maybe this has been discussed but um I think something that's really lacking in our culture in our society is just um social interaction across generations I did notice that there was the bullet around social inclusion but um just curious what the discussion has been within this around trying to get create opportunities for seniors to be able to interact with other other generations socially um because I think that's something that is great and lacking can respond to that um the discussion that we had with the community partners that that worked closely with older um older adults was very much on that topic uh came up frequently was multi-generational or intergenerational opportunities and that that's part of what this effort will result in more um sort of harnessing those opportunities that are there creating new opportunities for that and really interjecting in lots of people's minds thinking about seniors and connecting seniors to younger generations in ways that we haven't always been at the forefront that's great thanks councillor pine that's super exciting and really looking forward to that aspect and just all of this work in general um it's super important so thank you all for working on this and excited to vote yes okay any further councillor comment it will be quick so Jane go ahead yeah um so yes and I was just wondering also if there is any timeline um for the Burlington plan on aging to be submitted or presented to the council like in two years three years or councillor pine I had to mute myself and then I had to scroll through the resolution to find that section um the the idea was that the the first sort of order of business would be um you know for the the the development of the plan but it we didn't specifically um say get back to us with the plan by this date but um you know that very much is uh you know at the top of the list for for the group because that's really what they that's their charge is to create a plan on aging and to you know work with the council and the community and engage the whole community around this um around this effort so you know it's going to be it's going to be their top priority uh I think we'll see something and maybe Cameron could speak to how quickly he thinks the group can can do that but uh I think it's going to be what they're going to dig into right away yeah and I'm happy to so Vermont puts out the plan on aging and expires in 2022 so the you know at least my hope would be something that could sort of take effect either in 2022 or 2023 but uh you know this this is going to be an evolving thing I mean I'm looking at the on the uh you know adult services division website it's a 66 page document so it for the the entire state it's going to be sort of enormous to unpack um but you know sooner than five years sooner than six years I mean as soon as possible but this first group will be really interesting in terms of what it's able to achieve and set precedent for sort of uh engaging the idea was from our perspective to have it stagger with the state plan with the older americans act to sort of when that comes out we can you know the the council would make adjustments specific to burlington so uh council general have an answer as to the date um but that would be the number one you know you know initial for sort of business I'll be very happy to support this no problem and was just wondering maybe if cdnr have that information in one of their committee updates to just maybe mention if that group set a timeline in bringing forward and looking forward to this to evolve and thank you all so much for putting it together thank you thank you I don't have anyone else in the queue are we ready oh mayor weinberger go ahead thank you president tracy um appreciate the chance just to um make clear the administration's full support and really enthusiasm for this measure um in reflecting as many have noted the on the last year covid really laid bare um many of the great weaknesses and disparities uh discrepancies in our in our society and one of them most dramatically brought forth by the pandemic certainly has been the weaknesses in our in our treatment of of the elderly the lack of resources in key areas the understaffing in many skilled nursing facilities and if there is going to be any progress that comes from this incredible period we need to grapple with those disparities we need to build on what covid also did which was force us all to work together in new ways by by necessity and one of the things that happened from the very early days of the pandemic was the city was engaged with our senior providers at a level that we never had been before we had multiple conference calls in the opening days of of the pandemic with our senior providers and those calls pretty much they have continued to this day there are not that many things that we have done throughout the pandemic that was a strategy that proved its its value and its value amongst all the partners to each other getting people together that way and it is certainly my hope that having this formal body will ensure that we hold on to the lessons that we've learned over the past year and make meaning out of out of the losses by making this part of our society of our city stronger than ever and I think that we are not the only ones to have come to the realization that much more I mean a lot of new investments need to be made amongst our seniors this is also certainly something that in the Biden administration's various proposals they are talking about fundamentally reshaping the way in which we invest in in healthcare for seniors and I think to have this body active engaged resource as that kind of conversation is going on at the federal level could prove to be extremely valuable to the community to the city and certainly the administration will will work hard to properly support this group getting created and then getting off to a great start so thank you to everyone involved in bringing forward this resolution tonight thank you mayor I don't have anyone else in the queue we're ready to go to a vote okay seeing none let's go to a vote all those in favor of the resolution please say aye aye any opposed hearing none the resolution carries unanimously next item we had a couple items that were removed and will potentially appear on another city council agenda those items being 5.07 and 5.08 which brings us to 5.09 which has to deal which has to do with a public hearing regarding the community development block grant and home proposed allocations for 2021 and the 2020 action plans for housing and community development before I open the public hearing I will go to Katie Kinstatt for a presentation just so that we have some additional context on what it is that we are what it is that the hearing is being held on this evening President Tracy yeah before my apologies for interrupting even though we're not voting on anything this is a public and this is a public hearing I have a professional conflict of interest with the CDBG grant program and will not be listening to the public hearing and not voting on it when it comes to us okay thank you very much for letting us know that I appreciate that Councillor Paul I will now now turn it over to Interim Director Kinstatt hi I'm sorry am I on my internet cut out at the worst time no worries okay so are you okay if I present a few slides just to give it overview of the plan it'll be wonderful perfect okay so we're here this evening to present an overview of two draft action plans this provides an overview of our entitlement funds which essentially is a formula allocation from the housing urban development departments so the two action plans that we're going over today are our entitlement 2021 plan and this covers an implementation period from July of this year through June of next year we are fortunate to have received about $760,000 for community development block grants and another $414,000 for home entitlement funds in a normal year we would only bring one action plan to you for review but as we'll talk about in the next slides we were able to use some of the flexibilities that HUD provided and that resulted in us kind of doing some funding um switches between our 2020 plan or 2021 plan and so we are also bringing to you today a substantial amendment to our 2020 action plan and there's about $100,000 that will be reallocated within the 2020 funds and these funds were available to the city of Burlington beginning in last July so to give you a some background on the timeline we launched this back in January when we accepted applications for different programs we convened an advisory board to review the applications in February and March and the recommendations were finalized in April where we're at today is a public forum to solicit input on our proposed uses and yet to be completed tasks include presenting the CDNR in early May we're still working on confirming the date for that and then coming back on May 10th to the city council and board of finance to seek official approval so that we can submit to HUD before the May 15th deadline where this plan is due each year so to give you a little bit of background to help understand decisions we've made before I dive into some of the slides where we talk about the specific programs that were funded two important takeaways one from last year which is that we have a special provision where our public service cap which just works with how much funding we're allowed to allocate to specific types of projects was lifted for entitlement years 2019 and 2020 to help communities like Burlington better respond to COVID we typically have a lot more demand for our public service dollars than for our development dollars so that was helpful but that was not extended to our 2021 funds again one of the reasons for bringing both plans concurrently and then another positive piece of news that we can bring to here today is that the advisory board decided and was able to fund all CDBG applications that were received as there were sufficient funds available so I'll just jump into now some tables where we can go over the awards that were made so there's a lot going on in the slide I apologize but I just want to be able to present everything in a format just so people can easily digest the awards that were made this year so these awards that we started with are the public service they're divided into three different categories you can see in the third column the amount requested and then whether it is funded from the entitlement 21 plan or entitlement 20 20 funds um so within new services we funded the Sarah Holbrook Community Center within housing and homelessness we're able to provide three grants to USRI Vermont pathways Vermont in a new place of note is that we're really excited to have two new applications from USRI in a new place so they're not CDBG grantees and we reached out specifically to make sure organizations knew that we are welcome to working with recipients even if they're not accustomed to receiving CDBG grants in the past and especially within the sector of housing and homelessness we intentionally open that where in normal years we go with a public service we focus either on new services or housing and homelessness we decided to do both this year just because of the needs faced in our community during COVID the third category is economic opportunity and we are able to fund the two applications received from CBO and from resource so just in summary all public service applications that were received were funded how we were able to do this working with the 15 cap for our 2021 funds was by looking back to our 2020 funds and using funds that weren't expended during that period and reallocating them to more urgent COVID priorities moving on to our development applications again we received three applications in the categories of economic development and then again in housing homelessness and we were able to fund all three the awards went to CBO mercy connections and CHT the fourth line down here is a program that was defunded it was defunded because they didn't they received the funds last year but they were able to get 100% of the funding through the state and so they returned the funds to us and they were repurposed for COVID specific work the final category are programs that are funded within CEDO and within the city and we have listed here four programs plus admin that were funded this year there are some so I'll just go through those sorry the first one is economic opportunity so we're doing a targeted populations job training the second category is brown fields and then within housing we have funding available to our housing improvement program so this last section is a little bit confusing because we simultaneously funded and defunded essentially the funds weren't expended due to focusing our efforts on some other priority and not moving a lot of housing improvement program projects during this year so we wanted to prioritize some of the public service programs in the housing sector that were responding to specific COVID needs with our 2020 funds but we had sufficient development funds remaining from our 2021 to be able to fund CEDO programs which will continue operating through this year into the next fiscal year so with that that is a whirlwind overview I apologize for speaking quite quickly in going through the material so fast that it is quite late this evening and I would welcome the public hearing to receive input from the community we will take that into consideration be able to discuss it at CDNR within our team and then as needed make amendments to our plan before we bring our final approval on May 10th so with that we can either I assume oh I'm very sorry that's CDBG we also have home funds that I did not yet discuss so with the home funds we have three categories that we have decided to award one is for its TBD so essentially we award those projects on a rolling basis based on applications that meet kind of the priority areas where we'd like to fund the second category is for a CHOTO for an operating grant so community development housing sorry a community housing development organization of which there are two that are qualified in Burlington Champlain Housing Trust and Cathedral Square Corporation and so there is about 20,000 set aside for an operating grant for our CHOTOs and 62,000 set aside for a reserve project so as I already jumped ahead with that we can open the public forum for further inputs and we look forward to questions and feedback so thank you great I appreciate that if you could just please go out of share mode and I will now open the public hearing if you are a member of the public wishing to comment on these recommendations please use the raise hand function okay well I see Lilla I'm gonna I've enabled your microphone you can use the raise hand functions at the bottom of your your screen to raise to identify yourself if you're wishing to speak Lilla I've enabled your mic so go right ahead thanks president Tracy hi everyone again I'm Lilla my pronouns are she her and hers and I live in Ward 3 um yeah I'm just gonna dive right into it so I appreciate the presentation that was helpful although still have a lot of questions about like what the those programs actually entail I know there's a 78 page document that I have not read I guess just to give a little bit of background on where I'm coming from and and my perspective which is not one of particular expertise um I have never experienced housing insecurity I have even though I'm I don't have a very high income personally I have a lot of intergenerational wealth and financial privilege afforded to me from my family so I'm not speaking from personal experience just trying to convey things that I've observed and also um through uh some mutual aid groups have gotten to know a lot of folks in the community who are unhoused and housing insecure um and uh I'm gonna try to convey some of the things that I learned from them about um what they think of different programs that are currently existing in Burlington and and what they wish existed um so yeah I guess firstly I just want to say that the process of determine I'm raising an issue of how the process of determining where this funding was going to be be allocated to was very inaccessible I know that there were public hearings but but they were not well advertised um as as far as I know um but and especially um to the people who are going to be receiving the funding um which obviously are the most important people to hear from about where the funding should go um I have no idea to what extent housing insecure unhoused and poor folks were involved in the proposals or the review process of the proposals but none of the folks um that I talked to who um are part of the mutual aid communities that I'm a part of or at the um the cvoeo uh daytime warming center that was at the vfw knew that this was happening at all um and I just happened across this public the came across um the public hearing on the meeting agenda when I was looking at it on Thursday and so I've just sort of had a few days to try to ask people their opinions um about this and try to get more information about how this whole process works um and then on top of the advisory and decision-making process about where all these funds were going to this hearing tonight was not well advertised to the public at all like I said I only happened upon it by chance because I was going through the agenda um but if you don't know about city council meetings or if you don't know how to navigate board docs and also if you just don't have computer access or wifi access your voice is going to not be included in this public hearing which is ridiculous um since a lot of unhoused folks don't have access to computers or wifi um yeah I'm just this seems like kind of a formality like a lot of decisions have already been made um and I would love to know was did the advisory committee seek out um ideas and opinions from unhoused folks or housing insecure folks low income folks who are actually going to be using these um the the programs that it's that are being funded or are they just talking to the organizations um who are distributing or who are facilitating these programs um so that is really questionable to me um yeah I also um just and me and then my friend Abby who's also going to raise their hand um are just going to be speaking from um what we learned from folks in the community who are unhoused or housing insecure um and just trying to convey their ideas to the council um since they don't have wifi and computers and can't be here themselves um and then I just want to say this out loud because I know that all of this is going to be documented and recorded and um is just going to be on file but and I think because this frequently gets forgotten that those experiencing houselessness or housing insecurity are the people who know what they need themselves they are experts on their own experiences and should be able to decide what resources they need these resources should not be withheld from someone regardless of whether they're sober or not if they have a pet or for any other reason I know a huge barrier for people um to get access to services and housing is whether they have proper documentation and ID um it's ridiculous that folks are denied housing if they don't have ID um people deserve housing but when everything needs to be documented and reported um you know like who is staying where how long they've stayed um etc human beings get shortchanged because of bureaucracy um and I just want to name that that is a problem um yeah again my biggest recommendation is that in between now and I believe May 10th that people on the advisory board meet and talk with unhoused and housing insecure people if they have not done so already and even if they have talk with them more um those are the people who need to be heard on these issues ask them what they need ask them where they think the funding should go to um a concern that I have in regarding to where the funding is going is that um a new place is being funded um a new place has a lot of religious ties and also requires that people who are staying there maintain sobriety and have they have other strict rules rules as well um those restrictions may work for some people but I know many people who um have had really bad experiences with a new place um and that's another reason to talk with unhoused folks people who are actually staying at a new place rather than the people running a new place um I know uh so yeah so a new place is um able to how they have Champlain in now and their housing folks um and that's sort of in addition into this hotel program where folks are able to stay at hotels and I know that that is a state sponsored program um really appreciate Brian Pine for explaining some of this to me and hopefully that hotel program will be extended so more folks are able to continue to stay at the hotels but if that were to end you know at the um at harbor place at the days in at the quality in if at the holiday in if those hotels are no longer able to be housing for folks that would mean that a new place is one of the only um you know short-term housing um and it's really restrictive and so I think that that's pretty problematic um let's see yeah I I think that there is a plan for Champlain Housing Trust to get some funding to build new low barrier um apartments I don't I saw the number 24 for number of units that's not merely enough um and I'm also really curious about what the barriers to staying there will be again folks deserve housing regardless of their sobriety status regardless of criminal record anything like that um so yeah just starting to think about what's going to happen when folks or if folks are not able to stay at the hotels there are hundreds of people staying at the hotels right now um and it would be amazing to get those folks into permanent housing um into apartments um if the hotels do close there's definitely going to be people who are needing to live outside and um folks choose to camp outside um and I know that in the past there have been um just a lot of there's been a lot of criminalization of people living outside and so um I think that depending on what happens with the hotels the city really needs to make sure that the police are not going to be antagonizing people who are either choosing or are forced to camp outside um on how folks are often criminalized for just simply existing um you know there's the people who have businesses on church street really don't like unhoused folks to exist because it's unsavory for tourists um and that is just absolutely despicable um I have major concerns about how the police usually quote deal with unhoused people they destroy people's property they slash tents they confiscate objects they arrest and find people and are violent towards unhoused people um and so there I know that there's going to be more people living outside this summer the summer and the city cannot allow the police to criminalize people for existing um I think it would be amazing if there was funding that um dedicated for a camping area or a place where people could go and set up their tents um I know that there was uh the the north beach campground was designated for that last summer and I don't think that that's necessarily an option this summer but you know talking to folks seeing where they like to camp already where they feel safe to camp and then designating those areas as places where they can actually exist legally I think would be a great step and would not cost that much money but could be a great use of these funds um I'm gonna leave it there but Abby is gonna continue um Abby's what Abby says is basically gonna continue on what I have said so I'm gonna leave it there thank you okay thank you um and if we could just keep please keep comments directed specifically to the the the recommendations within the public hearing I think that we're wanting to hear feedback on the recommendations and within the within the the the cdbg funds so that was the the guidance that I've received so I will recognize Abby Abby hello council um thank you so much for your time tonight as I mentioned earlier I'm a housing advocate at the daytime warming center which was operating at the vfw post in Burlington from mid-january through this last sunday um if you have not heard about the center uh it operated as a free food distribution site provided free clothes safe use kits tents blankets hygiene products and many more material resources free of charge we also had two computers and one phone for community use and we worked securing emergency housing for unhoused community members through this work I've had the privilege of developing relationships with a lot of Burlington residents who unfortunately due to the accessibility of this meeting are unable to participate in the meeting tonight uh during my last couple of days working at the center I collected testimony from these community members and I would like to start by sharing them with the council tonight quote the dwc is a place that I feel safe it helped me a lot it helped me so much every day just to come here get coffee feel clean you knew that if you were cold there was a place to go and people were so nice that's what it was for me I wish it didn't end end quote quote it's been wonderful you could come here use the computers get food clothes it really helped a lot of people and I hope the city finds some way to keep this going for everyone especially the computers because they've been really popular end quote quote it's been a nice experience because I get to meet people I got some stuff done here got my taxes done it really helped me out it did benefit me in small little ways it got me out of my apartment where I live gave me somewhere to go to socialize a little it was nice it would benefit to have another space I think it would because people still need help end quote quote my personal feeling is that we need to stop just putting people in hotels stop having these big service providers help the homeless and simply house people it seems like it would be a lot more efficient and less expensive skip the hotels skip all of the people who have to be employed to help the homeless and just house the people taking it to the next level would be unhoused people working taking classes things like that to be more productive citizens I see friends that they go to five different hotels they get thrown out because they have a dispute with one of the workers they smoke a cigarette in their room or they're in their room with a friend that they've known for many years drinking a beer so then they get sanctioned they get thrown out for 30 days and it seems to me that that should be illegal because the government pays a lot of money for these people to stay there and they're kind of just living their normal lives smoking a cigarette drinking a beer and it's not uncommon for people in workplaces or neighborhoods to not getting along so they have the same problem sometimes in hotels and if they don't they have a dispute with a worker then they have to stay outside for 30 days and some of the conditions out here as we all know are very harsh to be sanctioned in March when there are still storms is too harsh they could literally die be frozen isolated all by themselves in some park and so once again the answer is housing the warming station is really important because it can offer all of those things to housing to people who are homeless or marginally housed or getting evicted or they've had their phone service cut off while they're getting evicted and then they lost their job and they have no food we need a place for people to reorient and get their daily needs met I've never seen any place like the warming shelter that would help people to use the phones use the computers to get personal hygiene products and clothes in the wintertime and then some assistance from these professionals who help people either with IDs or housing or whatever it is that people are requiring assistance with there really is a need for it there must be approximately right now with the hotels 100 people sitting around in the street looking for food and different things when people lose their hotel rooms there's easily going to be a couple hundred people out there every day looking for assistance or food or clothes and to have a place like this open is really important to Burlington because Burlington's homeless population is small enough that it can be worked with at something like the warming shelter where the professionals are helping people to get the housing so I think it's really essential that this place continues to exist in some form not at the bfw but in some other location there are many of them vacant buildings around that could be used for a place like this there's a lot of vacant often spaces and properties I think it's really great that we do have the serious services that we have in Burlington and that we can relatively easily people's needs for food with the food shelf but another crucial addition to this formula downtown is food not bombs because they're there seven days a week rain or shine every day to give people food so food not bombs is really important but in between this and food not bombs people are having a better life downtown so really the only thing I can say is I hope the warming shelter can continue continue in some other location and I'm really grateful that I had something to do with it it was the best experience of you know having a place and needing services and getting help it's the best experience that I've had in my entire life it's wonderful really really wonderful and quote quote this place is like a home and quote so that was just a small sample of the community's view and I find it very unfortunate that there has been little effort to include them in the meeting tonight since as a stakeholder group they will be disproportionately affected by the outcome of these housing funding projects as I mentioned earlier I serve on the police review committee for the city of Montpelier and what we have done to accommodate unhoused individuals or community members without phone or internet access is to open city hall and have a computer there so that they can participate in these zoom meetings we've been able to do this in a way that is COVID safe and socially distanced and I urge the Burlington City Council to adopt a similar procedure so that you're not excluding this constituency it is my view informed by my work with this community that permanent community resource center a permanent community resource center needs to be allocated funding and opened immediately I hope from the testimony that I've gathered you can see the real need for a center that is providing essential resources for the community I'm very grateful that the city particularly CEDO partnered with CVO to make the warming center happen for the months that it did but the community's need for a site like this hasn't gone away just because it's getting warmer out we need immediate action and funding to meet the needs of the community who have been frequenting the center and relying on it I and the rest of the daytime warming center staff are dedicated to this cause and would love to work with the council or the committee to share our knowledge and experience to make this happen also unless the hotels are given more funding to continue to house this community there will be hundreds of unhoused people losing their shelter after the month of June they will be without housing on the streets and if the Burlington citizens are concerned about graffiti I doubt they will react positively to seeing unhoused people in town we need to prioritize funding spaces to house this community it's my view that we need to convert vacant buildings to shelter into shelter for the community as well as provide a designated area for the community to camp in this must be unbothered by police presence who in the past have slashed tents and destroyed these people's property I am wondering how the city plans to meet the needs of this community as they lose their housing because from what I can tell in the funding there's no addressing that impending crisis I think that it should be treated as such with swift action to meet the needs of this community thank you thank you so anybody else wishing to speak in the public hearing you can use the raise hand function anybody else Councillor Carpenter are you wishing to I just want to bring up a point that's in and for another meeting and maybe Katie can come back there's several intense planning processes with the Chittenden County homeless alliance and the consolidated HUD plan that really looks at a lot of this so this is a very narrow public hearing for one pot of money but if the council's interested we could ask Cedar to come back and inform us on those planning processes yeah certainly and thank you for just taking the time to provide your input on the issues housing and homelessness is very important to us and we are very happy that our small pot of CDBG funding is not the only funding that we have to tackle these issues I would be happy to talk more to explain how the process works with the advisory board and just the history there but in a nutshell we really try and use our CDBG funds to bridge gaps the other state and federal funding sources can't provide so if you take the funding that we gave for a lot of the providers working with individuals experiencing homelessness in Burlington it really is around case management and access to services to plug them into much larger pots of money that are available to find housing to find vouchers we have the continue of care which has its own multimillion dollar grant um we're fortunate unfortunate where we are in the crisis and that unfortunate that there's just a lot of uncertainty around housing especially those that are currently in the hotel system but fortunate that the state has allocated perhaps up to 250 million dollars to solving some of those issues so yeah as mentioned Councillor Carpenter we'd be happy to come back again to discuss these issues in more detail we certainly believe they merit kind of in-depth discussion further but within the context of our limited CDBG funds as you mentioned it is kind of just one piece of the funding pie that we have available and that we are kind of presenting today to get seek approval and seek input for how we have proposed to allocate these funds I'll also comment as a former user of these funds they're horrible to use they're not flexible so you have to really narrow narrow the projects that fit the federal guidelines and thank you I think the city does a good job in putting them in the difficult hole that the federal government gives us with that particular program thank you thank you for that I will go ahead and close the public hearing and this will come back to the full council for further discussion we'll go to the CDNR community development neighborhood revitalization committee and then to the back to the full council at our next meeting on the 10th so we do have a another public hearing to follow this which is 5.10 of public hearing regarding a boundary at 925 north avenue I'm going to go ahead and open that public hearing and if anybody I'm going to actually lower any hands that were raised in the last one if anybody has any comment I will go ahead and open this well actually I'll go to councilor mason for an explanation and then we'll open the public hearing thank you president tracy I was just as a question of process are we opening a public hearing for all three of the proposed ordinance changes that are up for second reading are you going to do them individually president tracy I will open all three actually okay so if you could just please give an overview on all three of the the the zoning amendments then I will open the public hearing and then we can go into each of the the three items 5.11 1 2 and 1 3 sure I was planning on doing it when I introduced but I'm happy to step that up so the first proposed ordinance for which there's a public hearing relates to a request for a boundary line adjustment at the elks club which is located at 925 north avenue this proposal seeks to move in essence the back of the property I guess on the west is a currently it's a separate you know there's a line that separates rl from rco conservation the proposal is to in essence move that boundary line adjustment to the west it would add about 2.4 acres to their parcel the applicant went first or has been in discussions with the city about this for a long time for anyone that's visited the elks club their impervious surface is you know there's a big parking lot and a big building as such it has rendered them unable to make any modifications to the property to accommodate I would say the need and the services that that they offer the public this request will afford them if approved would afford them a little bit of flexibility in order to a come into conformance currently it's not conforming and be a little opportunity going forward Mr. Lawn she was here I think and spoke in public forum before the ordinance committee spoke of one example they were was adding an additional structure with picnic tables underneath it and the like this was unanimously approved by the ordinance committee after much discussion and I know that both Scott Guston and Megan Tuttle are here to answer any specific questions the next proposed ordinance change for which there's a public hearing is one relating to the parking garage illumination standards this one was a little less controversial this simply seeks to update our ordinance to remove specific request to a lighting standard which expired many many years ago and consistent we were slowly trying to update our ordinances to not be tied to specific standards this is just a standard as adopted by the IESNA I don't know who the IESNA is but Scott or Megan could answer that question I put this in a technical update column then finally the third ordinance that we will be asked to consider tonight relates to some amendments to the shoreline setbacks and buffer the amendment seeks to establish a maximum front yard setback for shoreline properties in the waterfront residential districts and to provide a measure of shoreline naturalization upon development of shoreline properties the way it was explained to us currently it's measured as an average so in essence you would look to your neighbors on both sides and given what exists on the ground today this has the unintended consequence at times of forcing a property to move you know develop in the front where the lake is as opposed to the back which is completely inconsistent with our policy goal so I'm trying to think the other provision in that amendment also speaks to what's called shoreline naturalization and was intended to develop a threshold for improving shoreline conditions by allowing for some and Scott can explain this to those of us vegetative regeneration the only change the ordinance committee made was a small tweak to what was changing from no mo to low mo to reflect the reality of it was not a no mo zone in front it was just a low mo with that I will be quiet president tracy and allow the public hearing to open wonderful thank you for explaining each of those councilor mason to get things started I will go ahead and open these public the three different public hearings uh perspective to the items that councilor mason just explained to us which are three separate zoning amendments if anyone is interested in speaking on any of the three or a combination of the three commentary now in the public forum you may again use the raise hand function if you are interested in participating is anyone interested in participating can the raise hand function should be at the bottom of your screen anybody interested in commenting on any of these zoning amendments okay seeing none I will go ahead and close the public hearings relating to the these three zoning amendments and we will now move into the actual amendments themselves which the first of which is the boundary at 925 north avenue counselor mason may please come to you for a motion on that amendment yes president tracy I would like to make a motion to waive the second reading adopt the ordinance as presented I do not need the floor back after a second or would again note the presence of planning staff if there are technical or specific questions thank you thank you for that we have a motion from councilor mason is there a second seconded by counselor barlow any further discussion councilor hanson just to note that the um the I don't know if it's the owner of the property or just the director of the aux club but they they were here for public comment I don't know if they're still on but if they are folks could ask questions um leave yeah I I do see that rozer is still here and I know that he and I spoke before the meeting and he indicated that he was available if there were any questions specifically for the alks I think I am here to do address any concerns okay any questions on this item okay seeing none thank you for being here and being willing to answer any questions um rozer really appreciate that um thank you for your consideration yep for sure all right seeing none um I will take this to a vote all those in favor please say I hi hi can you post that carries unanimously the councilor mason may please have a motion on five point one two thank you president tracy I would like to make a motion to waive the second reading and adopt the ordinance as presented we have a motion is there a second seconded by councilor hanson any any discussion from the council okay seeing none let's go to a vote all those in favor please say I hi hi can you post that carries unanimously and our next item is uh five point one three councilor mason may please have a motion on that as well thank you president tracy I would like to make a motion to waive the second reading adopt the ordinance okay we have a second motion from councilor mason a second from councilor hanson any further discussion seeing none let's go to a vote all those in favor please say I hi hi hi any opposed that carries unanimously as well thank you to our planning staff as well as the ordinance committee and councilor mason for making I think the most the most motions I think I've ever seen a councilor make all right so that carries unanimously and we are now on to our final item which is five point one four which is a communication from the city attorney's office which is the on the annual report on the livable wage ordinance attorney black what I see you've turned on your camera are you able to give a overview of the report itself certainly as you those of you who have been doing this for a while know that each year under the ordinance the city attorney's office reviews the contracts of the city to make sure that the certifications have been provided and we provide you with a list of the city contracts and those certifications we use a a program now called contract works that that maintains all of the city's contracts and we've had some issues with with exactly how it runs reports so so it's very possible that you will find so we've done our best to try to make sure that all the city contracts are covered in this report but it's possible that some of them are in contracts works and didn't come out because we kept finding little anomalies in addition my office has been working on making sure that the places where there are a few blanks in the where the certificates are not up to date and making sure that they come in and get up to date we also reported to you what has happened in the last year and this has been a anomalous year because the the city has relied on a designated accountability monitor who who receives complaints of refers them to our office and works with us on identifying entities that we need to audit they resigned at the end of June we put out an RFP and because of COVID I mean frankly because of COVID we were late in getting that out but when we got it out we got absolutely no responses whatsoever except that I got a a communication from a couple of individuals who said hey we don't qualify under the ordinance um but you know we have some ideas about how you might do this I am have been putting that together into a memo to come to you and I hope to have that to you I have something to you for the next meeting about what that proposal looks like that I think is actually going to be pretty effective in trying to make sure that that we're testing the accountability of the little wage but I will absolutely say because of COVID and shortages of personnel in our office that we did not do a wonderful job this year of of ensuring enforcement of that ordinance thank you attorney blackwood there just is there a discussion from the council councilor hightower to be followed by council hanson yeah this isn't so much discussion I guess as um I mean a question is much just a comment which is I'm really glad to hear that you've been getting feedback I think that the original memo that we received um from the worker center also had some feedback on what they think we should do so yeah I think I'm glad you're putting that together and I think it's really up to us like as a council to clarify some of the ordinances and general processes to make sure that um yeah this is uh something that this is a program that will be successful um going forward and kind of overcome a lot of the challenges that sounds like have been discussed in the community and that we really tackle that so thank you for doing that work councilor hanson yeah I agree with that I I think we need to step up and and take action on this and make sure that we're doing our due diligence um um my question was just around um some of the line items in the report where it's a blank where there's a blank on the date for the livable wage um certification received what what does that mean um it it means that somebody who entered the information into the computer didn't enter that in um the and the way that that this occurs is that each of the individual departments enters their contracts in as they come in and we've been working hard to get everybody making sure that they get all the fields that end up coming out in their report centered and and sometimes they aren't in in other instances it may be that um there there's some blanks where some contracts came up that I noted didn't even fall within the livable wage ordinance they were under $15,000 so there's there's one or two of those um and there are various explanations like that for each one there are a few where we did not find the livable wage certificate and we are working to follow up with those departments thank you that's our point is there a point at which it just becomes most effective from a monitoring perspective and just a cost effectiveness to just keep it to keep it in house somewhere within the city I'm not saying it has to be your office it is your office yeah that so that's a piece of what I'm going to recommend is yes bringing some of it in house and I mean the big picture is bringing it in house and stepping up the audit piece of it because that's what we've found has been the most effective tool to finding out who's really doing it which is requesting records having somebody review those and and taking enforcement based on that and we have existing personnel to cover that or we need to we need to ramp something up and within a proposal is going to be about hiring okay personnel to do it okay okay thank you sir freeman yeah I was just going to say that I um I appreciate um councilor hightower ring of those points um and also the um conversation around you know having it be in house versus not and maybe having a designated personnel it sounds like I turn you black with it um you were going to maybe be making some recommendations about that I'm just um interested in looking forward to thinking about ways that we can focus on the compliance piece um so be the audit piece and then you know really just you know any other loopholes that are existing that um are are causing issues that's all thank you okay any other counselors wishing to comment on this counselor pine are you gonna be moving it thank you that'd be wonderful I would move to waive the reading accept the communication and place it on file okay we have a motion council pine is there a second second by councilor hightower any discussion okay hearing none all those in favor please say aye aye aye opposed that carries unanimously okay so we have now completed our deliberative agenda which and we did uh we already did committee reports which brings us to city council general of city affairs any counselors wishing to comment on general city affairs counselor pine just want to note that a um a sad moment has arrived in the history of burlington today when coffee cup bakery closed its doors um they have laid off their entire workforce and uh that's a that's a it's a tragic thing for the folks who rely on their jobs the jobs that they had there and um it's uh it reminds me that we in vermont have not really grappled with the the concept of ceding some rights to the workers that are afforded to people who live in mobile home parks where they get a chance to make an offer to buy the to buy the park that they live in ought to be the same way for workers who whose companies are sold out from under them and they are told literally when they come to work they were told actually you can go home we don't have a job here anymore that's unfortunately how this um this this transpired and i think it's i think it's a travesty i think the fact that um um you know i i'm sure the comp the finances were complicated i i understand that you know you got to be able to pay your bills but um the uh i think in in many other instances companies which were uh overburdened with debt they were able to work out agreements to uh to actually have them less debt burdened and to have the the jobs continue and so uh i hope we can find a way i think this is a will there's a way to to give workers a little bit of agency in that process so they don't just end up coming to work and being told you can now go home you don't have a job and uh many of the folks who work there um are going to be you know i'm sure they'll be able to find something in this economy but those were those are pretty decent jobs for uh for folks who were um maybe not as uh skilled on the on the in the labor market so i it's a sad day for folks just wanted to note that thank you councillor pines any further comments on general city affairs councillor jane thank you president tracy i have two items and i think one of them um is to address my deep gratitude to director vickery yep and and team i know that uh lately they have been receiving a lot of questions about the reappraisal and i also value um the process that has been taken so far i know that it is not perfect but i just want director vickery and team know that we are here as resource and also he can utilize us as much as possible to deliver great wonderful updates about what is currently going on and also appreciate also catering uh chat for outlining you know a summary about where things are at and i was happy to see that there was over 1160 property appeals and just far and 72 percent of those appeal have been already scheduled i think this is not a perfect process but um we all need to come together in making sure that this is not a responsibility of one department alone but this is a responsibility of all city officials to come together and provide as many information that are accurate and also timely as possible so vickery we are here um and please utilize us as much as you can that's one the second item is to also share to all those listening that we are going to have the second dog meeting um the issue about dogs have been uh increasing lately and we had one meeting on the 30th of March it was well received and well attended and the discussion was very um proactive and also solution oriented i think no one has a crystal ball in some of these issues because it doesn't affect a lot of people but we should not just wait out there or try to dictate what we need to do but i think what we have established are city councils of the new north end and also councilor john shannon it's a right step to the right direction and also to say that the second meeting is scheduled for the 28th and it will be at 6 p.m. and the information about the zoom meeting will be shared soon why i am excited about this is because this information coming out we already have expert yesterday received an email from a dog trainer who really want to be part of this conversation and who already want to educate about some dog behaviors that people need to know about uh yeah so the 28 at 6 p.m. the asum and the information will be shared so thank you councilor carpenter barlow shannon and old as well as cindy from burnington passing recreation for bringing the city residents together to solve the issues uh thank you thank you councilor jane any further comments on general city affairs councilor hightower and i apologize if this was addressed in board of finance it may have been but i missed the meeting which is um i guess to expand on ali's i'm sorry councilor dang's comments i think that you know every appraisal is really tough especially i have it on one department but like given some of the issues that we've had in terms of getting out to the system um getting through to the system um i hope that you know that we will i know that we're already late but that like we make sure that the window is open long enough that everyone who tried to get a reappraisal will or to get a um to get an appointment will be able to do that um and won't won't miss out on that um and that also to the i'm and i know everybody's already working on this but i just feel like we do have to voice it um to the extent that we can give preliminary expected new tax rates um that'll be really helpful because i know it was a lot of very shocking for folks to see the figures and it's really hard to know what that means when you don't have even an estimate of what the new tax rates are um so just wanted to voice voice the voice that i know a lot of people are really frustrated and it's kind of an uncertain time for a lot of people thank you councilor hightower anyone else on general city affairs okay we will go ahead and close that item um for city council president updates um one thing um that i wanted to make sure that um counselors and members of the public are aware of well counselors are aware of it because you've gotten your committee update your committee assignments for this year but for members of the public i um have assigned committees um for the counselors um those being the standing committees of the city council if you're interested in seeing those they're available um on board docs on the consent agenda as item i believe it's five point um uh four point ten um and then they're on the city website um which is probably your easier place and you could bookmark that it's city burlingtonbt.gov slash city council slash standing dash committees and then that's a place where you can go um and find count who's on each committee um their contact information um as well as um the staff person who works with that committee so um if you are interested in um some of the committees like for instance we reference the community development neighborhood revitalization committee tonight you can see just um where those committees are um and then um they um and that who's who's going to be part of those committees the other piece that i also just wanted to draw counselors attention to was that um uh board of finance meeting next week um believe it five thirty on monday um which is not does not correspond with a council meeting there's not a council meeting at the same time as we normally um do so that that meeting will be specific to budgetary items um and recovery information in that conversation um that we started this evening but um i think we have further discussion to engage in so just want to put that on folks radar and um note that people are um certainly able to participate even if you're not on board of finance and certainly encourage that and then that we do um also have um a number of uh budget hearings coming up over the course of may and we'll be announcing those as we get closer to um those those dates but we will have a number of budget meetings um throughout the month of may um to discuss the budget um with that i will um turn it over to mayor weinberger to close us out thank you president tracy um i'd like to uh focus my comments on three issues want to speak briefly about the latest um with covid infections um speak to some of the reappraisal issues um discussed tonight and uh i do just have a comment about the livable wage report finally um first of all with respect to covid infections there were seven infections in chitlin county today that is the lowest number we have seen by my eyeballing of the dashboard in many months and does seem to be part of a sustained now downward trend in new infections we've gone from uh over 70 a day as a seven day average to now approximately 20 and um there is real hope as vermont continues to vaccinate more and more folks that these uh these numbers can be sustained and and go even lower um it again to to quote uh requote uh president biden on this i think he captured it well just because the end is in sight does not mean that the end is here um we continue to hear uh hear this from fellow mayors as well that people uh there is a real risk of people letting down their guard in this period sort of tragic to see some people getting infected between the time that they get their first shot and when that first shot takes hold people um really need to keep up their vigilance if they are not fully vaccinated yet for just a a few more weeks um and continue this um continue this positive trend with with respect to the um reappraisal um i want to say um that uh we have been pushing the consultant that we are working on in this tyler technology is very hard to respond to um uh the challenges uh in the opening days of this reappraisal they had not conducted this uh appeal um process during covid and they were clearly unprepared for the issues that would come up in the virtual environment and working um in in this way we have been um numerous senior city staff has been uh engaging with them daily to get them to quickly improve their processes to accommodate the very significant number of burlentonians who do have concerns about the initial assessments of their property um that system seems to be starting to work better 833 as of earlier today burlentonians have succeeded in getting a appeal scheduled um and it's the uh the weights um uh and and backlog appear to be getting significantly better we're going to continue to monitor this um i am aware of this new petition as of tonight and we'll work uh to to get a substantive response to those uh petitioners and those concerns we heard in the public forum um as quickly as possible finally i just uh want to um uh just um i i go it was a little late game i hand up during the the level wage discussion and it just it it just strikes me tonight is the last time that uh eileen is going to be giving this level wage report and i really think it just needs to be said um that uh while uh proper attention was given tonight in discussion of the continued improvements to the system that um uh we want to try to make a need to make there is no individual who has done more to improve the implementation of the current system than eileen blackwood the the until eileen wrote a report nine years ago um uh detailing the many flaws with the system uh at the time there was essentially no virtually none of the contracts that the city made a minor percentage that were in full compliance with with the uh with the ordinance it is now a very rare occurrence that there be that there be contracts that are out of compliance um and the fact that we even are having this report tonight was a a recommendation um of eileen's in that report nine nine years ago uh that and i think it's uh a tribute to her that i think this is a um system that will outlast her this has become part of our culture now that we check in and the implementation um of this important ordinance and on an annual basis and uh this will not be the last uh uh uh report um that comes out and we will continue to work to improve this system and that ethic has taken over in many other uh implementation um uh efforts uh as well so thank you eileen for your service uh on on this important function councillor president tracy that's my report for tonight thank you thank you mayor appreciate that and with that a motion to adjourn is in order so moved moved by councillor pine second by councillor hightower any discussion seeing none all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed carries unanimously we are adjourned at 10 24 p.m. thank you