i'll just um speak into my shotgun right here it's on um testing one two three check check testing testing testing one two three check check testing testing testing one two three testing testing we're here in con toys auditorium testing audio on 317 so we will start with a pledge of allegiance would you please rise with me and recite the pledge of allegiance next item on our agenda is a report from mark susan the executive director of green mountain transit um regarding the incident on the bus that we've all heard about mr susan welcome thank you for being here tonight and um why don't you start walking us through this and tell us what you can about this incident sure thank you mr president um my name is mark susan the general manager of green mountain transit i want to thank you for allowing me to be here this mark i'm sorry can you pull the microphone in really close is that better yeah pull it in there you go better yep um thank you for allowing me to be here this evening to discuss this incident that occurred on may 23rd um with one of our buses uh and one of our operators and students from the admin schools the incident occurred uh where there was some um distracting behavior from the back of the bus and basically our operator decided to take it upon himself to go ahead pull the bus over and basically escort all the students from the back of the bus off the bus the safe location however it was a bus stop um but it was still the fact that he took that action uh then decided to go ahead and drive away this incident was reported to us was not reported to us for at least a day once we received the report we immediately took action took the steps necessary it happened over the holiday weekend unfortunately so once we did get a chance to look at the video we automatically brought the operator in and did our due diligence as you know we're a union shop so we had to follow the contract the way it was designed we then basically suspended him put him on paid leave until the investigation was finalized investigation was finalized discipline at disciplinary action was taken I will say this that on behalf of GMT I apologize for all the families students and community members that were affected by this this is not who we are as an organization we take safety is our number one goal and we take pride in that we train our operators quarterly they get different training throughout the year de-escalation is one of the trainings that we do we actually work with the Vermont State Police and do that training and they get that at least once a year so there's there's some tools that were available for our operator that he did chose not to use and so therefore again disciplinary action was taken moving forward we have met with the school board on several occasions and we usually do at the end of each year to discuss the school year what we could have done better what we're looking forward working together and so we have met with them we have agreed to go ahead and take some steps necessary so this incident does not occur again I will tell you that I personally plan on going to the schools and meeting with the students we also have a plan in place to possibly bring a vehicle or a bus to this to the schools and kind of teach the code of conduct to the students so we are working on moving forward and being better I will tell you that 99% of our operators are amazing and sometimes you get that one so unfortunately steps were taken that I believe we acted as swift as we possibly could and we need to move forward from this so that's a brief overview Mr. President. Thank you Mr. Sousa and I know there is a video from inside the bus as well as outside the bus but I my understanding is the city attorney has believes we cannot go into executive session on this issue and we have had concerns expressed from some parents about having this this video viewed publicly so I think everybody's aware of that but we'll open we'll open it up to questions from the city council who anyone have a question for Mr. Sousa. Councillor Jang. But it's not a question but more like thank you for being here and thank you for proactively responding effectively to the incident and I think this is what leadership should look like if there is a problem and it comes to you the first thing you need to do is to investigate it and also to find solution and I think all the steps that you have taken reading it in the media has just shown great wonderful leadership and we wonderful very happy to be partnering with you especially with the Burlington School District but I also would want to say to the parent who brought this up to the community I want to appreciate her her courage because I'm pretty sure many of this incident may be happening in the community but many people don't know but she did not hide it but also when you learned about it you did not hide it either you came right on front and then took the necessary step to put it forward I want to thank you for that thank you for your leadership I appreciate that thank you councillor Jang councillor Pine thank you Mr. President the the questions that I have or the thoughts I had when I read about this incident occurring was the families obviously when you send your kid to school and they ride a bus you're counting on the safety of them getting from where you leave them at the bus stop to the school and back and it seems like a real breach of that trust in what happened here I think the way that the officer responded indicates that if it's if it's unique and restricted to that individual I think that's one thing but I think as a culture I think I would hope you would pledge to work on the culture of the of the transit agency around this so that we can be sure this type of thing is something will never happen again you have my word I hope you'll assure us you have my word on that we will work on that thank you councillor Pine councillor Tracy so this can't be the first time that students have gotten rowdy on a bus or and that's up to question I haven't seen the video so I don't know but that a driver might have felt that students were rowdy on the bus what's this what do you talk about in terms of with your drivers in order to prepare them for these situations especially if they are driving those school routes like what's the when it's when a driver feels as though the students are you know not behaving properly or doing whatever that that that there's an issue in the bus what do you suggest what's the the tactic that a driver is supposed to use to deescalate like what can you just lay out the steps that drivers are supposed to take and why and what's what was missed here basically I can we have an operators manual that we have a training program we have an operators manual we have quarterly trainings what had occurred on this event was that there is a process and a protocol to handle situations like this and it's not just with students it's with any issue we have on our bus if somebody we feel needs to be asked to leave the bus the operator pulls over to a safe location contacts a supervisor immediately supervisors then come out we have supervisors that are on the street every time at all times when our buses are on the street and the supervisors actually come to the scene or make a decision on the radio to either have that person escort it off or they go directly to the scene and make a decision but the bus does not move from that point after the supervisor after the excuse me the operator pulls over waiting for the supervisor that did not that did not occur here okay thank you very much and I would just like to also thank you for your response to this and also the fact that you took responsibility and apologize I think that's really significant um I think that also that I would like to see you know put those steps that you outlined in terms of going to the school that seems feels really meaningful and restorative to me so I just want to thank you for being willing to go even take a few more steps and then one thing I would just say also is that I really would hope that we protect the confidentiality of students we have some video material here that includes you know kids in it and I would hope that we would just keep that as private as possible because these are these are kids and we need to make sure that we don't subject them to further scrutiny or potential bullying especially given that the buses you know could be other people could get on those buses in that particular route so just want to be really careful there I agree thank you Councillor Tracy any Councillor Shannon thank you um thank you like others I I do want to express my appreciation for how you've handled the situation but I also want to um acknowledge kind of a long-term problem with behaviors on the bus many years ago I was actually hit by one of these buses and um I I was in my car in my car ended up lodged in the bumper of a bus and it was uh in my opinion it was the fault of the driver and when I got out of my vehicle and I got on to the bus and I was very angry because it seemed like an avoidable accident the bus driver apologized and he said I am so sorry but but the kids are all screaming and they're doing these things and and I was distracted and it's a very difficult environment um to work in that doesn't mean that it's okay to leave kids on the street of course but I think that that the approach to this does need to be handled you know from multiple angles here um there have been issues with fights on the bus there have been issues with kids getting hurt in those fights on the bus um and and in the past there's been a lack of ownership on the part of the schools for the behavior that's going on on the bus and I hope that this is kind of a wake-up call not just for um bus drivers handling difficult situations but also for kids that are riding the bus and our school leadership that uh we need to all take some ownership of the things that that are happening that you know it's not good working conditions for bus drivers I don't think either thank you thank you Councillor Shannon um if I can follow up on that just Mr. Seusser so um clearly the situation was going on in the back of the bus was not safe as the bus was moving through the city streets busy city streets correct correct it was distracting and and some of the actions were not necessarily safe I mean it's probably not safe for kids either to be in the back of the bus jumping around and if a there was an accident or whatever might happen it's not safe for kids to be doing and safe for the driver because probably the accident would happen Councillor Shannon but um so as Councillor Shannon said while this was handled incorrectly and the protocol was not followed and the bus driver has been disciplined we obviously the message we don't want to be to the kids was the guy got fired and so it's okay you know to act like that um I think my understanding is there's going to be um the school department is going to be meeting with students and talking with them about acceptable and unacceptable behavior and are you going to be involved in that as well we uh I am personally yes okay thank you other questions by city councillors Councillor Busher since um thank you for being here but since this conversation is now talking about responsibility shared responsibility I haven't heard anyone say parents but parents certainly are responsible for the behavior of their children and so I'm hoping that it's not only the schools it's parents and everyone talking about what went wrong here this is an opportunity to show how things can get out of control and sometimes just having fun as a child and a bunch of your friends get involved and pretty soon it's out of control but now it's in a moving vehicle um and so I'm hoping that the parents will engage also not only the parents for these children but all parents because you know it's just happens to be this set of children but all children all people can get out of control now and again and you have to bring everyone back to understand the consequences so I'm hoping that the parents the schools and transportation and the children all get together to understand how this happened and what can be done to prevent it that's one of our goals thank you thank you Councillor Busher Councillor Hanson thank you so much for being here this issue first came to my attention in the context of one of the parents of one of the students who felt like there was a there was a racial dynamic at play in terms of the driver treating students differently based on their race so could you speak to that and speak to any work that GMT has done or will be doing going forward around racial awareness of employees yeah so we really during our thorough investigation we came to the conclusion that it was not racially based as it was stated originally that those statements were made prior to us having the ability to look at the video and once we looked at that's one of the reasons you know we pull the video immediately we did actually pull the operator off the street not knowing the outcome of even what that video looked like so we took the original steps immediately it was determined that there was no race based on this complaint our operators take training we have a training for you know all sorts of issues that may arise in the community and we understand what this community is so we do take it very seriously and we have our HR department that is certified and does several trainings year all year long about all sorts of issues that we run into to those trainings include issues of discrimination yes they do great thanks thank you councillor hanson any other councillor with a question for mr susan all right thank you very much appreciate your being here tonight and and your quick reaction to this yep thank you very much have an issue that concludes that item i am going to i am going to thank you councillor busher i am going to now recess the regular meeting of the city council to convene the liquor control commission meeting first on the agenda is the agenda councillor commissioner roof thank you president right i will move to amend and adopt the agenda as follows add to the agenda item 3.05 application for festival permit two days only wonder bar island catering vermont wine merchants wine food festival waterfront park june 21 5 p.m to 10 p.m june 22nd first session 12 30 p.m to 3 30 p.m and second session 5 p.m to 8 p.m add to the agenda item 3.06 outside consumption permit parklet restaurant poko at 55 main street june june 2019 to october 2019 11 a.m to 11 p.m tuesday through saturday 15 to 20 seats council roof has moved an agenda with amendments is there a second to the motion second to the motion councillor tracy thank you all those in favor of the agenda as amended please say aye any opposed we have the agenda item number two is the consent agenda commissioner roof i move to adopt the consent agenda taking the actions as indicated seconded by councillor tracy uh any discussion on the consent agenda hearing none all those in favor of passing the consent agenda and taking the actions indicated please say aye any opposed that passes unanimously moving us on to the deliberative agenda item number 3.01 a first-class restaurant bar liquor license application commissioner roof i move to approve the 2019 2020 first-class restaurant bar liquor license application for shacksbury llc doing business as ceo sellers at 266 pine street contingent upon fire marshal approval with all standard conditions moved by commissioner roof seconded by commissioner tracy any discussion commissioner busher thank you um in the packet there was an example of food that was snacks is this a restaurant or is this a bar and as snacks all they serve commissioner roof i'm asking the president i'm sorry you are asking the president and i will relay your question commissioner roof give me a moment uh let me see here uh i i believe that through this application they meet the requirements of offering food as part of their application any support from my committee members would be okay i'm going to recognize commissioner tracy uh so it is not a restaurant councillor busher but they will have like snacks and light fare to go along with beverages so i wouldn't characterize it as a restaurant i think they're much more focused on the beverages and that aspect of the ciders their main purpose okay thank you thank you councillor busher any further discussion on 3.01 i'll just add councillor this is this is typical we have a lot of licensees in town that don't quite serve food but they are required to have food and so that's the distinction that we're making here thank you all those in favor of 3.01 please say aye aye any opposed that passes unanimously unanimously item 3.02 commissioner roof i'll move 3.02 approval of a 2019-2020 outside consumption permit application for shacksbury llc doing business as co-sellers at 266 pond seconded by councillor tracy any discussion on this one hearing none all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed that passes unanimously and item number 3.03 commissioner roof move approval of a 2019-2020 outside consumption permit application for foes son at 213 college street six seats total 11 a.m to 9 p.m every day seconded by councillor tracy discussion hearing none all those in favor please say aye let's hear it again all those in favor please say aye thank you any opposed that passes apparently unanimously item 3.04 commissioner roof move approval of a outside consumption permit application parklet for the archives at 199 college monday to friday 4 p.m to 2 a.m saturday to sunday 12 p.m the 2 a.m max eight seats terminating on october 1st 2019 moved by commissioner roof seconded by commissioner tracy discussion commissioner busher so it's not discussion it's a comment i thought the design looked really nice and i'm really excited to see how it works so that's my comment thank you you you have approval from commissioner busher mr. mayor thank you president right since count commissioner busher open the can here so to speak i would like to point out this is one of the first applications in this new parklet program that is coming forward we got a couple of them on here and it is i agree i think it's uh it'd be interesting to see how it works i think it's an exciting innovation thank you mr. mayor all those in favor please say aye any opposed that one passes unanimously unanimously also item 3.05 commissioner roof move approval of a two-day only application for festival permit for wine bar and island catering vermont wine merchants wine and food festival waterfront park june 21st 5 p.m the 10 p.m june 22nd first session 12 30 p.m the 3 30 p.m second session 5 p.m to 8 p.m moved by commissioner roof second by commissioner tracy discussion hearing none all those in favor please say aye any opposed passes unanimously item 3.06 commissioner roof move approval of an outside consumption permit application parklet for a restaurant poco 55 main street june 2019 to october 2019 11 a.m to 11 p.m tuesday through saturday 15 to 20 seats moved by commissioner roof seconded by council tracy discussion hearing none all those in favor please say aye any opposed passes unanimously moved to adjourn commissioner roof so moved seconded council tracy all those in favor of adjournment please say aye any opposed the liquor control commission is adjourned and we will now reconvene the regular meeting of the city council at 7 28 and we will open the public forum for tonight item number 4 i have a list of people signed up to speak if anyone else would like to speak you need to fill out the form over here in the corner table bring it up to the clerk's office over here in the corner they'll get it to me and if you haven't filled out your sheet please write your name carefully so i can read it it since i do screw up the names quite often uh so we'll open the public forum you have three minutes to speak there is a light system in front of you when the middle light goes off you're down to about a minute or so when the red light goes off you need to conclude your remarks and we will be following by that since we have a number of people speaking and a lot of business to take care of tonight so we'll open the public forum with mark hughes mr hughes good evening and welcome mr president mark hughes justice for all and good evening to the council i'm here to represent isaia longmore isaia was one of a number of folks that were on the bus that were asked to get off isaia's mother's name is jade along more jade's mother's name is christine longmore and her father is richard kemp it's four generations and we're still having the same discussion that you were having 40 years ago 40 frankly i'm pissed and i think the most insulting piece of this thing is is the assertion that somehow or another if white people were impacted that somehow or another it was not directed at black people as if policy violence never directed at black people has any impact on white people which negates the southern strategy ridiculous there's a lot of work that we still need to do our proposed we get to it thank you thank you mr hughes rj lillumiere is up next good evening mr lillumiere welcome heartedly support updating our bike share fleet to be all electric having an all electric fleet will make bike share and even more compelling option than it already is increasing the number of people who feel like they can confidently use it for trips making it easier to choose non motoring transportation frees up valuable space in our city from space inefficient cars as well as reducing carnage air pollution and noise pollution with a 15 mile per hour speed limit on park's property a governed speed somewhere in the 12 to 15 mile per hour range seems more reasonable than 10 miles per hour especially if we want to make this a viable option for folks going to and from the new north end which as a ward seven resident i sincerely hope is one intent electric scooters would also be a fine addition to the city giving folks more options so they can choose a way of getting around that best fits their unique needs i believe the safety concerns around scootering have been overblown scooters have around the same capability to harm non-users as a bike i.e very little compared to cars which we readily accept and when it comes to harming the user themselves no one is suggesting we outlaw motorcycling which is 35 times more deadly to the user then driving a car we should abide the american tradition of freedom and let folks choose to use these devices if they like thank you thank you mr. lumeir jackie corbelie is up next to be followed by lacy smith good evening and welcome hi so initially i was going to spend three minutes talking about chief del pozo in the police department i'm going to start uh in preface and say that i am in full support of the reappointment of chief del pozo i want to just tell you a little bit about who i am i am a social worker i'm a graduate level social worker i've been a social worker for 35 years i work out of the police department because chief del pozo had the idea to hire me and put me in the police department with my co-workers first and foremost i think it's really important to understand the women and men who make up our police department do work that frankly many of us would not want to do every single day they're faced with making decisions that are gut wrenching and dangerous i have profound respect for this department that i have come to work in i'm concerned about the resolutions that are before us that you folks will be discussing as a social worker who's worked in east cleveland as a social worker who has seen people lose their lives as a social worker who has worked in impoverished communities i've seen dysfunctional police departments go to the cleveland police department there's a lot of work that needs to be done i work in a police department where every single day i see men and women do what they need to do to keep us as citizens safe do they need to do things differently yes do they need to have particular training potentially i think though to have a conversation about um reducing the police force and putting social workers in those places this is incredibly dangerous i am not equipped as a social worker to go out when there is crime happening in city hall park i'm equipped to have a conversation when those men and women bring that person back to the to the police department but i am not equipped to go out in the streets we had a social worker who was assaulted a few weeks ago about by a very dangerous individual i have profound respect for what the work that these folks are doing i caution you as a council to really weigh carefully what you're going to put in place what you will do by concern is you will drive these police officers into other departments i think we need to support these officers i think we need to offer them training and frankly i need i think as a community we need to give them a great big thank you they do things every single day that are incredibly dangerous and they put their lives on the line as a social worker i am incredibly proud to be part of this department i am incredibly part proud to be part of a department under the leadership of chief del pozo i'm incredibly incredibly proud to see the work that's going on within that department i would encourage you that if there is money that you're going to put into social workers you put it into reinforcing training and reinforcing the work that these folks do so thank you very much thank you miss corby lacy smith is up next to be followed by jf carter newbeiser good evening welcome good evening counselors i come to you wearing many hats a mother a person of color as well as a civilian social worker at the police department i joined the department prior to del pozo's appointment and i've been a part of the ongoing process of culture change strongly due to the chief's influence my position has a responsibility to the community to remain objective and humbled by its many perspectives it's not my job to change people's belief about policing or the inherently systemic racism that exists within the criminal justice system instead it is to show them that in spite of their beliefs they deserve to be heard protected and supported just as any other member of this community in my role i'm guided by the belief that collaboration communication as well as transparency and accountability are absolutes that are necessary for a community to trust its police department i have no doubt that the chief shares the same beliefs and it can be seen in many of the practices policies and initiatives he started in his tenure i understand and i empathize with the community's reaction to the events over the last few months i understand the need to make sure that people in power use their power for the benefit of the community and not against its community the goal of any system should be to improve over time in a way that best serves its people i know that i work for a police department that is actively trying to improve how it serves its community under the leadership of chief del pozo i struggle with the current climate of things with some expressing their feelings about this department as if it is backed i struggle with that what appears to be a reluctance on the part of counselors to learn about how this department actually functions regardless of how you feel about this chief there is obvious evidence to how he has made this police department one that other departments from all over this country seek to emulate you were all in positions of power and privilege just as the chief just as our police officers you owe it to your citizens to be as informed as you possibly can be so the decisions you make are ones based on fact please take the time to learn and move forward with an open mind as your decisions should be informed not only on the information that fits your own personal narrative but also the information that might contradict that narrative you have just as much of responsibility to the people that don't share the same views as you as the ones that do thank you thank you miss smith jf carter new visor you're up next good evening welcome to be followed by jack daggett good evening thanks for allowing me to speak and taking the time for for public comment first i just wanted to speak in support of e-bikes as an idea i think it's extremely important uh you know folks like myself uh younger folks um who are just starting out lower income folks in our community can't afford a lot of times to take part in uh different options of transportation like e-bikes that can cost thousands of dollars um but are concerned about climate change and do not want to contribute that uh to that by buying uh a car or or using other modes that that increase our carbon output as a city um obviously transportation is one of the biggest drivers of climate change um we know that uh and that's widely accepted and um i think there are you know it's good to be thinking about how this specific contract um impacts our community and the economic justice aspect of uh when we're talking about this specific contract but i think it's important that we as a community uh you know stand really firmly in our complete support for the idea of e-bikes uh and other uh green transportation alternatives the other thing i just wanted to mention as well is uh the discussion we're having around uh the police department and and reforming some of the policies and procedures and and holding folks accountable um in 2017 we had a conversation about a task force which i know has been talked about and the current mayor as well as the police chief um decried it and said no like we're not going to go with that that's actually going to halt progress um and now we've seen the result of inaction and watering down the steps that we want to take in order to make sure that uh people of color people suffering from mental illness people suffering from addiction um you know these folks don't deserve to be walking around our community and and be brutalized by the people who are supposed to be keeping us safe um i grew up mine with a lot of cops uh in my family or not directly in my family but we're very close family friends of ours i have respect and understand the position that police officers are in um but that doesn't excuse folks getting brutalized for having a drink at a bar um on a Friday night um so that so that was one thing the other thing too i just wanted to touch upon because i've heard this a lot throughout in the media in in coming to council meetings on this topic um that that our current chief and our current police department is is a lot better than other places in the country um and i would say that's true they are a lot better um but why like we we're burlington and we've had this long proud progressive tradition since the 80s of actually leading the conversation um in areas of economic justice in areas of uh you know throughout the spectrum of policy and for us to just say well we're better than some of the worst you know departments and cities in the country um to me seems like a profound mistake and and a huge ab ab abdication i don't know if i'm saying that right um of the responsibility that we have as a community to to hold these folks accountable um so yeah that's my time i i appreciate it have a good one thank you mr newbeiser jack daggett is up next to be followed by julie macuga good evening mr daggett welcome i'm jack daggett i live downtown in word three uh i'm concerned that uh burlington is not taking uh climate change and global warming seriously enough uh the sensors on the observatory in hawaii have recorded last week in all-time record high of 415 parts per million for the atmospheric carbon dioxide which is the greenhouse gas most responsible for climate change uh trees are the easiest cheapest and most effective way of reducing carbon dioxide the captive they capture carbon clean the air and provide a shade canopy something we all learned in high school biology now there are a couple of proposals on the table that would allow the cutting of almost 200 trees in burlington both proposals are discretionary and very expensive city hall park i know an agreement was reached but tree cutting won't start there until mid july so it's never too late uh we could change that uh there's some giant trees in there there's a the silver maples on uh st paul street are eight feet in circumference that's a huge tree um the res another thing that concerns me is the resurrection of the champlain parkway proposal in the last 50 or 60 years uh while this has been discussed and kicked around the right away from between home and lakeside has uh reforested itself so if something is done there those trees will come have to come down many of the city council members have children and some even have grandchildren uh even those without uh kids have nieces and nephews that they love and what does the future hold for them in the world of weather extremes the time for talk talk is ending we need us a an action program i suggest that permitting a permitting process for all tree cutting and removal uh just as a need for a permit to add an addition to a home uh such a permit for tree cutting and removal would need to go before a board of city arborists an arborist from uvm independent and a climate scientist from the rubenstein school but in the meantime i would urge us to suspend all tree cutting in burlington simply to continue to ignore the problem is flagrantly irresponsible thank you thank you mr daggett julie musuga followed by dan gilligan good evening miss musuga welcome thank you um my name is julie musuga and i live and work here in burlington i'm here to speak to you in support of the resolution relating to response to the burlington police department's use of force the public watched carefully on the 13th as chief del pozo showed his powerpoint from right here in this seat i saw slide after slide that reduced incidences of community members traumas that were suffered to statistics i heard over and over the bizarre term progressive policing this thing that we're apparently striving for but that was very ill-defined i was frustrated by all the questions i didn't have answered what's under the umbrella of de-escalation tactics for bpd why doesn't the graph of an incidence of use of force go further back than 2012 is the use of force self reported by the bpd what did del pozo mean when he said when it suits us we put body cam footage out i will always concede that police work is something that i would not be capable of doing even if i wanted to i admit that if i were in del pozo's position i would have spent my time trying to play up all the things brillington police department does accomplish i'll admit that i was even slightly relieved to hear him speak about systemic racism in a way that did a little bit more than just acknowledge it but to borrow a phrase from consular jeng having bpd understand systems of oppression is just cosmetic justice in order to disrupt the pattern of violence that we are seeing in our community we must take concrete action not just oversight not just training but action chief del pozo said we make when we make mistakes we try to own up to them and the community has clearly articulated that that's not good enough if the officers and questions are not terminated that sends a message to the whole community particularly people of color that berlington is okay with police brutality against them it says that berlington police department will fire someone immediately for perjury but wait eight months to even mention blood pouring out of a man's skull onto the pavement and give only a suspension to the person who committed that act of violence we particularly those who are white skinned or otherwise privileged constantly refer to quote unquote conversation about the future of policing i invite the council again to consider that fact is not that this is not just a conversation it's a lived reality for people in our community the future we speculated about in the obama era that the mayor and the police so often referenced was never realized lives are at stake please pass this resolution thank you miss mesuga dan gilligan is up next to be followed by jim courier good evening mr gilligan welcome and and this is for everybody make sure you have the microphone right directly in front of you so everybody can hear you and channel 17 in fact it'll need to be a little closer than than that so i would like to discuss the uh the resolutions and the underlying public concerns around the use of force by the berlington police uh i believe continued dialogue is important to clear up misconceptions and misunderstandings that exist between us in the public but right now i want to address some objective facts that haven't gotten adequate attention i believe two of these incidents in question have already been reviewed and determined by the chief of police with the council of impartial experts from outside of the police department that the officers did not use excessive force we have a use of force policy that is arguably the most progressive use of force policy in the entire state and it is based on a national standard set by the united states supreme court and recognized by the vermont supreme court while excessive force is a concern is concerned it's a legitimate concern from for both police and the public um we acknowledge that the use of force incident should be and in fact are reviewed to not only ensure the compliance with policy and the law but also to look for ways to improve our response the important thing to remember is that injuries sustained by suspects when police use force however unfortunate or tragic are not an automatic indication of excessive force physical confrontations between people including the police carry with it risk of injury force is inherently dangerous whether it is used by police or civilians it is very difficult to physically subdue somebody engaged in violent tumultuous behavior without injuring them despite our best efforts this is especially true with intoxicated individuals an unfortunate outcome in the form of an injury does not necessarily mean the officer has acted in an unreasonable manner to put this in perspective over the last nine years the burlington police have responded to just a little over a quarter of a million calls for service we have used force in 1.3 percent of those calls for service and in all of those calls for service we have caused injury to people two tenths of a percent of the time that means that there is a 99.8 percent chance that when we respond to a call for service nobody will be injured but we continue to strive and look for look for ways to improve the statistic uh on the topic of thank you mr mr gilligan jim carrier is up next to be followed by charlie messing thank you mr chairman given these heavy uh subjects that you're hearing about tonight what i'm about to tell you about is pretty trivial uh so i'm going to suggest that after i talk about it you think stop thinking about it i am against cruiser against scooters excuse me i'm against scooters here's why i saw them in nashville a few a month ago and they were basically tourist toys operated by young men and they rolled them everywhere and left them everywhere any number of cities have tried them and changed their minds portland and its wisdom is headed towards several thousands we are a bicycling family my wife has four including an e-bike and loves it and we love multimodal as a concept it strikes me though that the effort here is just to add a new mode because it's free a new technology for the 21st century atop a city designed in the 19th century i can't think of a street between the harbor and uvm that has room for another mode if you keep them off sidewalks they'll be on the streets from main to pearl the streets that go up and down the hill are incredibly tight because of park cars and shifting lanes and in the winter snow um even a single bicycle which is far more visible and predictable than a person on a scooter adds incredible tension to that traffic flow uh chape and spencer for the most part i support your attempts to drag burlington into a new century so i'll make a deal with you i'll support your multimodes if you'll design a new city design corridors that provide lanes for walking biking scooters mass transit and cars you can begin by eliminating parking i think you've reached the limits of trying to shoehorn more modes onto existing streets without removing the biggest obstacles please don't even think about it no scooters thank you thank you very much mr carrier charlie messing is up next to be followed by tom mcdonald good evening mr messing good evening a little compulsive uh hi everybody i'd like to apologize for walking out during your speech last time i had to leave and um i'd like you to consider holding your meetings at perky planet there was a gentleman here saying that their business is suffering and saying that they would have a hundred more people every day except for the construction so if you could have your meetings your open meetings with the public there instead of way out on north avenue think about it you'd be doing a lot of good to some people who really deserve it um drinking uh people drink too much i live on college street they go up and down the street howling four or five guys they're howling they can't tell they're drunk unless they're howling so they howl and we just hope that they continue walking and get going there are there there's more alcohol sold than should be hey you just turned the light fixture off this is terrible you're still only getting three minutes i was at the helm and now the wheel is broken off in my hand okay um the f-35 you can't believe how loud that's going to be um a hundred decibels is half the volume of 110 decibels is half the volume of 120 decibels is half the volume of 130 decibels uh we're talking about beyond a rock band 140 decibels is what they sound like when they take off the f-35 as you will soon see so um who knows if we can get rid of them once they're here if they're bad enough we should the other thing is the Champlain Parkway um it needs to redesign and uh though i may speak well the expert the man who brought roundabouts to Vermont and brought the roads of Vermont into the 21st century is here tony reddington and uh he really should be heard about this subject so um that's about it thank you they shouldn't serve so much alcohol to these kids they are and some of them have scooters thank you mr thank you mr messing thank you Tom McDonald is up next do we have the late system working again thank you um good evening welcome good evening i believe that that passageway between the Vermont hotel and the old macy department store is very dangerous dangerous for pedestrians and there's an accident waiting to happen if you go on the top of that passageway to the left you'll see this portable sign saying walk this way to church street marketplace as you go down midway to your right there's the garage uh from the the hotel and there are people coming out of that um um keep on going further down there's a large street traffic sign but it's the back of the sign and if you look in the front of it which is mostly covered by branches some hedges and it looks like the sign is growing out of the the the hedges you look at it and it's a full street size traffic sign which says slow congested area Vermont state law yield to pedestrians i just got this symbol of the of a pedestrian um toward i can't read my writing here toward the bottom right there's a little sign saying slow congested area so what is this is this a you know a walkway or is this a bike lane you've got a bike lane by the by the lakeside and there's no contiguous trail from that passageway to to battery across battery that you have to cross the street we all have to cross the street the bikers have an alternative um the bottom right uh if you go further down there's the end of that garage and there's an exit which goes into the park parking lot across the way and on the side of that um garage it says please walk bikes on sidewalk carry skateboards thank you and it's on both sides of that garage you can't have it both ways um bike route sign uh facing west with arrow showing direction up the ramp going up that that hill to cherry street that's nice the right side of the ramp sign it says slow congested area and this is facing east uh this is very unsettling and there are people i i live in a senior's housing place where there there are seniors with with canes and um they take it because it's it's convenient to church street and okay and at night it's it's darkest pitch thank you mr mcdonnell ben traverse is up next to be followed by almi landauer good evening mr traverse welcome thank you council president right a couple items first for the last five years i have served on the housing board of review most recently as its chair in your packet this evening as our annual report and i just want to bring to your attention the good work that this board has been doing the last few years our boards and commissions oftentimes serve as the face for the city every year dozens and dozens of landlords and tenants come before our board largely to hear security deposit disputes we've done work over the last five years to bring consistency to our decision making and to give parties a full and fair opportunity to be heard with the assistance of bill ward and patty wayman in the code enforcement office we've taken on additional additional educational efforts to educate burlington's landlords about burlington security deposit ordinances and if you review our report year after year we've been hearing fewer and fewer cases uh in fact this year i think we've met only twice when we're supposed to meet twice a month um and we choose to think that that's in large part due to more and more landlords getting on board um so that's item one if you want to review that report uh item two is i'm here as a homeowner and as a parent uh who lives at an intersection directly impacted by south end traffic uh i know that now on your deliberative agenda are a couple items with respect to the shamplain parkway um i want to thank the mayor chape and spencer and the department of public works as well as this council for your ongoing efforts to support this project um i'm certainly empathetic to uh number of people's concerns about this project and and i know that it's not perfect um but five decades of development have gone on in that neighborhood uh under the pretense of an impending parkway more recently this council approved of zoning changes that permitted the south end city market also built with the understanding that the shamplain parkway would be coming through in two weeks this council will be considering recommendations from planning and zoning to amend our zoning ordinances to allow for uh burton to submit a permit to bring higher ground to burlington burton as well has acknowledged that that project would be contingent upon the shamplain parkway going through and so uh what i would say on this point is that if you were on this council and voted in favor of zoning amendments that permitted the south end city market uh if you intend on voting in favor of zoning amendments in two weeks that would allow for uh further development of the industrial parkway area uh or if you're just concerned about south end traffic in general uh i would implore you to please continue to support the shamplain parkway and the proposals that are on your table tonight thank you thank you mr traverse almi landauer is up next good evening and welcome to be followed by liz curry welcome thank you i am also going to be talking about the proposal for higher ground to be located in the south end the far south end and i understand that that's on your agenda in two weeks but i will not be able to be here that night so i'm here tonight to talk to you about it i live in the red rock condos off austin drive so very close to industrial parkway and i have talked to a lot of my neighbors and we actually had a meeting last week with about 10 people we have a lot of concerns about this proposal the first of which is that the infrastructure is not in place at this time to accommodate the type of use that this is it's a condition it would be uh spot zoning in the same manner that city market was and uh i am a member of city market i shop in the south end city market and it's a mess around there there's there's inadequate infrastructure for the traffic that that's there and we are concerned that the same thing but even worse is going to happen if um this spot zoning allows a very large concert venue to operate in the midst of residential neighborhoods the lack of infrastructure includes um sidewalks lack of sidewalks very poor road conditions lighting a one-way bridge at the at one end and the fact that there's only one way one road that goes out of our far south end neighborhoods and that's the same road that upwards of 800 people going to a large concert venue would be using we are also very concerned about the safety issues um right now including increased criminal activity potential we looked into what happens at higher ground in south burlington and they have in the last one year had 115 calls from to the south burlington police department responding to things like um trespass suspicious events disturbance drugs assault vehicle accidents leaving the scene of a crime intoxication and sex offenses at the location of higher ground mostly between 10 p.m. in midnight when the concerts are let out uh we are aware that most of the police coverage after 9 p.m. in burlington is downtown and we are aware that most of the violent crime that we see reported in the paper happens outside of bars late at night and that is the situation that is being proposed to be plunked down in the far south end surrounded by residential neighborhoods we're also concerned about late night noise thank you very much thank you miss lander liz curry is up next to be followed by tony reddington good evening miss curry welcome good evening thank you president right and members of the council um i am liz curry i'm school board commissioner from word three and um i can only speak on behalf of myself tonight i'm a co-chair of the diversity equity and inclusion committee and um i'm speaking to the incident with the gmt driver and the students who were ejected from the bus the board has not had the opportunity to formally discuss the issue with the superintendent so these are just my comments but more formal communication will be forthcoming from the superintendent and the chair um after we discuss the issue um so being close to the situation what i want to share is my strong concern that the narrative that is quickly developed from the gmt um bus situation is that um because this was not solely a group of students of color but a mixed race group that this is not an incident of implicit bias but rather the focus is shifting to the students behavior um the students affected were of mixed race um students of color were not the only ones targeted um but what's curious to me is that officials are quick to dismiss the idea of implicit bias on the driver's part um which is understandable because we as the dominant white culture never like to be accused of racism or racially motivated behavior that results in harm to people of color especially to our kids but um i think it's important that we admit that we are all subconsciously programmed from the time we are under two years old to exhibit a preference for whites and a bias against people of color and that's been shown repeatedly through research studying babies and toddlers um as children of as children of color get older the bias intensifies for multiple well documented reasons especially because of the negative media images associated with people of color and especially boys of color so there are volumes of research that documents the presence of black children and particularly boys of color who are in a single or a mixed race group when they exhibit behavior that would normally be exhibited by all white kids um that can be perceived as threatening or negative even if it's exuberance and excitement intensifies negative reaction on the part of white authoritative figures and i think it's critical for us to reflect as a community that um all of our as whites are underlying racial bias strongly also affects white students by normalizing the behavior um that is more negative um signaling to white students that it's okay to respond harshly when people of color are involved the normalization is damaging for all our kids i know my time's running out and i want to take up a little more time to get to my point because i my introduction was long but really my point is because the city um purchases hours from the bus that the kids rely on during mornings and afternoons and we have this complicated relationship my request is that the city require implicit bias training for all of our city departments so that we begin to normalize the conversation about implicit thank you thank you miss curry and then that um requirement goes in liz i have to keep i've got to keep everybody in three minutes of the municipal department center members of the transit authority that goes into our lives i have to give everybody a three minutes thank you we have a lot of people carolin baits is up next well i'm sorry you are up next mr. reddington to be followed by carolin baits tony reddington i'm i live in award uh two on north muskie avenue and um carolin baits i'm glad you mentioned her because uh she did prepare a map that's brand new which i believe has been distributed and i i hope that you will take a look at the uh content of the map um i'm talking about the champlain parkway you've already heard some comments i mentioned one thing that's sort of puzzling is that the parkway actually shuts off uh the south end from uh queen city park road and came up plaza and the discussion is having something occur out industrial parkway uh someone access to that suddenly becomes cut off in the case of an accident or some disturbance at the intersection of industrial drive and home avenue they used to be sort of theoretical but with the parkway in place and dead ending pine street the only way to get to industrial parkway uh if the home avenue industrial drive intersection is closed is via the shelbin road there is no other way to get there and i think that it's rather interesting that uh a real problem with the parkway by dead ending at the uh as it does and for all modes of getting down to came up plaza hennifords and the place where everybody normally travels in the south end to get to activities in south girlington uh will be closed off uh and so keep that in mind that there's some aspects particularly the dead ending of pine street that are very negative they're negative for the possibility of higher ground going out there regardless of your position they're very negative for green mountain transit because we've had three incidents in the last year not theoretical anymore three incidents in the last year and a half in which the intersection has been blocked at the railroad crossing slash intersection of home avenue industrial drive and gmt lost some hours of of operation even having to go up via uh pine street which of course is open right now this is a this is this project is hard to describe because what was going on in 2006 at the last public hearing on this uh this this design of the project that was before the iphone it was a year before we had any protected bike lanes cycle track the first being installed in montreal in north america in 2007 um we have ironically not an inch not one inch of separate walk and bike facilities on on this design not one and the bear is actually part of shifting a sidewalk to a multi-use path uh in recent years the dead end is important safety is most important as far as i'm concerned because uh this will increase the injuries and so forth compared to what we're doing in the north new north end with the uh with the north avenue in which we will actually decreasing with cycle track and with roundabouts say of the number of injuries to to our residents thank you mr reddington now caroline baits is up to be followed by steve goodkind good evening and welcome miss baits um miss miss baits you have to go now we have to keep moving i thought they wanted to change places there's one more of these if you want and i've got a email me and i'll send you the pdf so you can see this map okay oh you've already started me all right caroline baits caroline street been here since 73 you and i started a business in professional photography i want to address the um fact that you want to approve without any discussion 3.2 million dollars added to our taxes without any taxpayer approval that's totally not cool nor um is i would say that that is a transparent process in this town i think we need to stop this parkway not fund any more of it and get what is considered by law a new eis the old one was started in 2006 there are no safety rules in this parkway design why do we want to build an old road for cars why do we want to build our old road that dead ends pine street how many people know this i don't think too many they all think that the reason we're building this parkway is to take that traffic off of pine street they do not know we're dead ending pine street at the road to nowhere and there's not even a walkway or bikeway to go across it then on top of that we're doubling the streets at briggs where patrick cliffs and city market need decent ways to get into their locations but we're taking brick street and dead ending and then building a parallel road right next to it and wasting two acres of land that we could use to build the houses back again that used to be there then you go even further and you go to engelsby brook which is the most polluted brook in this in the city of berlington and it's way on the high end for the state that brook does not need to have 900 tons of concrete convoluted and twisted around in it it needs instead to simply become clean and maybe a park so there are two more acres of land we can use and then why oh why are we building a road wasting two more acres of property through a parking lot i mean does that make sense and then we dump this road on lakeside right in front of innovation center where 2000 people work so imagine those people trying to get out of work and at the same time people are on the parkway please say no to this and get a new eis thank you thank you miss bates steve goodkind is up next to be followed by stephanie seguino good evening mr goodkind welcome i was going to yield my time to tony but uh i'll just keep a few words just remember when you approve the southern connector tonight which i'm sure you're going to do the at least the uh minus the maintenance agreement from 2006 2009 the city of berlington with the support of the city council actively fought against this configuration of the southern connector it was eventually approved by the federal government through their document to approve their environmental impact statement we fought against it in the intervening years this project has not gotten better what we objected to then is still a problem now in addition to that though the world has changed the laws have changed as carlin bates mentioned this needs a new environmental impact statement there's rules with wetlands there's rules with traffic there's rules with economic justice and they're just the basic design of highways that have passed this project by a long time ago i ran this project for about 15 years i probably know it as well as anyone and its time has come and gone it's amazing that it still even exists on the books the city needs a better road in the south end it needs good access it needs a complete street this is none of those things and i would urge you and i'm sure i'm it's gonna fall on deaf ears you should reject any further movement on this till it gets another environmental impact statement and we should do this thing right there's no need to rush it it's waited long enough god it's waited longer than anything anyone would have imagined to get this far and it's really not far this is what we opposed 10 years ago and 12 years ago it's no better now it's much worse and i would urge you to please not proceed with this project encourage a new environmental impact statement let's get a road for the 21st century that really does what we want and not just have to settle for what's being dangled in front of us with some federal money thank you thank you mr goodkine stephanie seguino is up next thank you for the opportunity to speak to you welcome i have been a resident of burlington since 1997 and a professor of economics at the university of vermont since 1995 among my research areas is racial disparities in policing and i have done a number of studies on burlington as well as other parts of the state my purpose in speaking tonight is to share my assessment of the status of burlington's racial disparities in policing especially relevant in light of recent concerns raised around excessive use of force and racial profiling more generally in recent days some have suggested that burlington has made significant progress in reducing racial disparities in policing and this has been in response to and in reference to referencing cheap del pozos comments on 2018 data and a very small amount of 2019 data i would like to urge caution in drawing premature conclusions on such a small amount of data in fact the data show that disparities in policing persist and in some case of in fact substantially widened since 2009 when data first began to be collected let me give you some examples in 2017 7% of all black drivers were searched by the police subsequent to a stop compared to only 1% of white drivers that is up from that is up from 3% of black drivers in 2009 compared to 1% of white drivers in other words this disparity is more than doubled over this period of time in 2017 black drivers were six times more likely to be stopped for investigatory purposes than white drivers this is a this is triple the black white disparity that existed in 2009 2010 for those of you who are not familiar with this investigatory stops are those that are based on an officer's suspicion and indeed perhaps a hunch rather than actual driving behavior of the individual and thus this is a type of stop that is especially susceptible to implicit bias especially given the negative stereotypes held about black Americans in this country regarding concerns on use of force we don't have long time series but i draw your attention to the 2016 use of force study by the burlington police department during that year blacks were roughly 5.5% of the population in burlington and yet they were 18% of driver people against whom force was used that is three times the rate of what would be expected were given the population share of blacks in the community these disparities are very very large it is highly improbable that the wide disparities i've described to you which have existed for a number of years could evaporate in one year data quality also remains an issue to give you a recent example of a black uvm graduate student who was followed through the old north end at the end of the stop the police officer failed to give her a document that recorded the stop the failure to do so would have been considered a violation of protocol in 2009 when data collection began and this is because it leads to undercounting of stops and reduces racial dis and reliability of data just one last sentence if i might one of the issues that we face is to improve community police relations and fundamental to that is to have community confidence in the quality of the data in my professional opinion then thank you miss iguino okay thank you brian waters is up next to be followed by erin star hughes good evening mr waters welcome thank you um i'm just here second what mark you said um and while i appreciate the apology from gmt management i wanted to say that everyone can see that the determination that race or racism was not a factor uh is basically wrong on its face um and i wanted to also point out that this incident came i think maybe about a week after the edmunds middle school walkout um so if anyone had any doubts about uh exactly what the walkout was about uh this seems like a perfect example um i'm also here to support the resolution from counselors freeman hanson and tracy regarding the police department particularly the sections about transparency um and especially the section about capping the force at its current size uh while i support the resolution in its entirety i don't believe that holding individual individual officers to account for using excessive force can adequately address the historic and institutional violence and racism of police in the united states especially when the police themselves decide what constitutes excessive force um and i would point out that neither burlington nor its police are exempt from that history or separate from those institutions limiting the size of the force would be a simple and effective way to limit police violence in the community and would free up resources to provide to provide much needed social services thanks thank you erin star hughes is up next to be followed by robin loid good evening miss hughes and welcome speaking for giving us all the time i first want to thank miss curry for the statements that she made um she and i had spoken about this incident earlier and i feel that she really reflected you pull the microphone a little closer thank you that miss curry really reflected and heard some of the concerns of the parents i wanted to thank her for the comments that she made here tonight i'm here myself to speak on behalf of the children i find it rather upsetting that we as a community whether that is burlington school district gmt the city council the media are all so quick to allow frankly a group of white peoples viewing of footage to be exonerated of any race-based actions no one has heard from the children about what they directly experienced and in cases of racism as in cases of transphobia homophobia sexual assault any other time a person is oppressed you do not believe the perpetrator you must ask the victim what happened or you only get one side of the story i have a direct statement from one of the students who was involved he was 12 years old he's a child of color i'm not revealing his name so that he can remain protected in the situation he says i was sitting in the back of the bus i was watching a video with headphones on with my friend i came up to see what happened and then he being the bus driver told me to leave the bus now where he would call the cops i just want to explain to everyone he asked me to make the statement to city council tonight why we and the kids were so upset we were upset because we felt like he was targeting us and that is what made us really really mad and so in this instance i feel it is vitally important to listen to what these children are telling you because this particular situation has finally brought so much to light and we are looking at this now as a community for the first time i feel but this has been going on for almost 20 years i have another child of the community who is a 21 year old woman attending university who will attest that her first experiences in racism were on a burlington bus when she was eight years old and she was denied entrance because the bus driver assumed that she could not possibly be a student this is racism these are microaggressions and this is racism and it needs to be addressed and not taken lately thank you for your time thank you miss hughes robin loyde is up next to be followed by ann taylor good evening miss loyde welcome well hello everyone i'm robin loyde maple street uh lived in vermont and uh burlington for a long time i hope the city council and the audience here is aware of the good news from the state uh from the state house which is that the state senate voted 23 to 7 in support of keeping the f-35s out of vermont they they kind of used a euphemism they said nuclear weapons vehicles but that's what is meant and um you know at the same time four f-35s happened to come and visit uh burlington to the airport and they left and people had the opportunity to hear what it's going to be like when they are coming in and out day after day every morning every every afternoon uh flying low over winooski it is going to be a disaster and i am so upset that our federal officers and our mayor supports these planes coming to vermont um they this vote really um has boosted our our um our movement uh we're holding another meeting in winooski on wednesday about this and uh i hope that the city council will pass a resolution as uh as winooski has and south burlington has that in effect supports what the state senate has done thank you thank you miss Lloyd and taylor and as our you are a final speaker oh make it good hello mr right good evening and the council thank you for all that you do and the mayor and the attorney now what is an taylor about she's about safety safety safety i'm a physical therapist i don't want people to be hurt and the last time i was here maybe a month ago i mentioned um about the lack of communication and skiing and the sport of riding but i don't think i mentioned it about bicycling and we have a chape and spencer here who is part of local motion who's now dpw okay chapein you have wisdom there's no communication or very little of it in bicycling we need to talk to local motion we need to talk to all the bicycle renting businesses and put a ring ring on the whatever this is handlebars thank you very much this is what 67 looks like um and i'm getting hammered with advancement and cancer so but that's nothing uh so anyways we must communicate i was on the bike path just i don't know four or five nights ago oh my god you know the bike path is not about racing your damn bicycle and showing how damn cool you are even though i like that aspect to a certain degree when i ride we must communicate we must say ring ring i'm passing i'm on the left i'm on your right yoo-hoo because when i was chained to that tree on the waterfront to save it mr morrow it i i for two weeks i interviewed people i interviewed everybody i possibly could pedestrians said i am so scared of the bicyclist they never say anything they don't let us know and it's scary so pedestrians why i said no e-bikes on the bike path is because the less motor vehicles the better let's just have pedestrians and if we're going to have bicycles then we've got to teach everybody to communicate ring ring and i tell skiers yodel ely hoo why do you think the swiss yodel would you please let people know down below that you're coming so you don't crash into them like what happened to me at snowbird utah this year so let let us work on communication let us work on safety thank you miss taylor because that's what we need thank you miss thank you miss taylor and if i hear somebody yodel lehi whoing behind me on the bike path i'll know it you but that was a serious issue i appreciate that so that concludes tonight's public forum and we will move to item number five the consent agenda councillor busher yes i'll move to adopt the consent agenda and take the actions indicated councillor busher has moved to adopt the consent agenda is there a second second my councillor ruff any discussion hearing none all those in favor of passage of the consent agenda please say aye aye opposed here none that passes unanimously we have passed the consent agenda item we're on to item number six on the deliberative agenda and that is a communication from mayor weinberger regarding appointment of the new cito director mr mayor thank you president right um if it is okay with president right i'd like to ask uh the nominee luke mcgallin join us here welcome luke so good evening everyone um i'm excited to be bringing to you tonight an appointment to uh be the next cito director um in luke mcgallin um you know this is always a critical appointment for the city i think there's you know perhaps uh perhaps with the exception of the the police chief i think this is the appointment um with the greatest amount of public interest um this is particularly important time i think for the cito appointment in that uh we have been through an extended um transition period and um uh we are seeking to bring that to an end with with tonight's appointment and i think we have an outstanding candidate uh before you as a result of a extensive search process a national search and an extensive uh process with a uh committee made up of uh both different members of the city team as well as people from outside city government a committee that included councilor brian pine um we have uh through that process brought forward luke mcgallin who i am very confident will be an outstanding cito director in the years ahead here are kind of the three um main themes or strengths that i see uh in luke that i hope you will also see and and share my support for first of all um luke is a rare candidate that has an extensive uh record both in the public sector and from the private sector something that i think is uniquely important for the cito position given the broad range of uh responsibilities that the community economic development office has he has a track record starting very early at the beginning of his career as a community organizer for uh uh then candidate barack obama um and all the way through his variety of roles of bringing diverse groups of people together to accomplish important tasks and importantly he has spent recent years working to help small businesses and entrepreneurs something that we look to cito to play a key role in so with that uh president right i am excited to put uh luke mcgallin's nomination before you and i think luke is available to answer any questions if uh make a short statement if that is the pleasure of the council thank you mr mayor you have the floor if you'd like to say a few words uh thank you members of the city council members of the search committee uh fellow government employees uh and city officials it's a real honor to be here uh it's been interesting as i'm sure it always is uh to you to hear from uh members of the community and what's on their mind uh i am grateful to have the opportunity to return to public service as the director of burlington's community and economic development office uh as the son of public servants uh i remember early dinner table arguments about the role of government uh in making people's lives better uh the responsibility we all have uh to serve our communities and to keep our government accountable um in a family that included seven kids sometimes those arguments took a back seat to who would do the dishes but i promise you that these lessons were taken to heart i believe a city like burlington is a platform it allows us to achieve our collective goals and aspirations and unlock the potential of all of our citizens in the midst of affluence and growth uh too many still struggle and as it has been throughout its history um impression is that cito is uniquely positioned to address these challenges to adjust problems like inequity to help those who can't afford safe places to live and to address the effects of crime and conflict more justly i especially want to work on helping people communities that have traditionally been left out uh climb the economic ladder i started my career as a community organizer on the obama campaign i worked and in the obama administration i worked on issues like health care reform the repeal of don't ask don't tell and the recovery act i worked in the private sector helping to launch a successful tech company that supports small businesses around the country and here in vermont i built my own business uh to help other businesses and nonprofits grow finally i've worked most recently on an impact uh a social and environmental impact fund that identifies the companies and founders tackling our most serious global problems i've managed teams across departments and functions and i've seen the truth that if you don't measure it you can't man manage it and i've especially learned uh from my first boss in iowa uh that our work is always to respect empower and include the constituents we work with and i've done that uh on campaigns in the white house uh and then in my work in the tech industry if i'm lucky enough to join the sido team uh i hope to bring what i've learned to help make progress on some of burlington's most pressing problems and i look forward to working with you on these goals i look forward to making burlington the most livable just and connected city in america thank you thank you mr mcgallin any brief questions councillor pine mine's actually not a question i'll let councillor busher go first councillor busher i don't have a question either okay councillor pine you're going first i am actually um privileged to have served on the uh selection committee that chose um luke mcgallin as a candidate to bring forward to the full council let me preface it by saying that my first involvement with city government was really through um through sido and uh i've known every director since sido was created in 1983 and uh luke would be the 10th director that has served this department for burlington with a um a mandate from the city council to promote affordable housing promote economic development waterfront development neighborhood revitalization and a whole slew of other things with a main focus and a lens on on social equity has been the key driver and um i would say this process of selecting the candidate for this position was unique in the in the 10 directors that have been selected for sido luke is the only one who actually went through a hiring process all the others were picked by the mayor and um that is a tradition but i think the mayor uh broke tradition here in a good way um patrick brown served on the committee our hr director served on the committee former sido interim director londonville served as did a couple of employees from the department and um luke was selected among uh 10 people who were interviewed and the committee felt that uh his background brought a fresh perspective a commitment to the three big focal goals of our community around diversity equity and inclusion with a real focus on ensuring that we build a durable sustainable economy that supports our values and and really ensures that the folks who are often left at the economic margins are included and so uh the the committee came forward with a unanimous recommendation uh to the mayor as as our charge and uh as someone who has a long connection over nearly two decades connection to sido um i'm very confident that luke will bring the passion the drive and the dedication to ensuring that we uh more more develop as a community but don't leave anybody behind council pine um could you also put the motion on the table to approve the appointment i would move approval of luke mcgowan uh his appointment as sido director thank you council pine second by council busher and council busher you're out of the floor thank you um i'm just really excited for tonight because i seized the moment and got a chance to meet with luke in advance of this um meeting and i i really like the idea that we are using someone that has your skill set as the head of sido um and i think that the issues that you worked on which we didn't really talk about as much but climate change and energy policy are are really priorities for our community um and so it would be really good to tap into your knowledge base and and have you bring in external resources and contacts for us health care reform is obviously continuing um housing as you referenced quality of life and you know counselor pine spoke about you know equity and diversity and the importance of just um sustainability we had um and this is no reflection on the current mayor but um mayor peter clavelle was a really big person for sustainability in fact we really expanded our um intervail and talked about really producing our own food so we wouldn't have to transport it it was really important to be able to sustain yourself because that saves our climate too and so i'm i'm really going to look forward to having you be able to tap into that also so welcome to burlington um and i can't wait to engage with you and learn from you so thanks again thank you counselor busher counselor jane thank you president and welcome thank you for being here um i mean i was looking at your resume and i just did notice that you didn't spend at least five years in a one specific job you know it was a lot of moving around um and was just wondering you know are you planning to stay around for at least a couple of years that's my first question yeah certainly planning to stick around here as long as you'll have me here in burlington so i moved to vermont originally to be closer to my wife's family and now that we've had our first son who's a year old and we've realized the benefits of being close to uh grandparents and additional babysitters i don't think we're going anywhere anytime soon so the plan is to be here uh and i'm committed uh to vermont and to burlington now from a screen um speech writer perspective you know in a political spectrum and now you're coming here in charge of an office that's task to make sure that people here are lifted up and you probably have seen that cedo has become something else over the past couple of years it's all about developments development development and even recently we heard the mayor stating that yes since you don't have experience around development he would be hiring somebody else to do that work you know but what i'm interested about me personally is to lift the people up and also specifically around equity diversity inclusion and if you can lay on some of your performances around that area thank you for that question um and yeah as the mayor has said and i completely admit i don't have development experience myself lou could you pull the microphone out a little bit closer can you hear me a little bit more you gotta be right on it okay all right they're perfect yeah so i'm not a developer and what was most interesting to me about this role and as we discussed with the mayor is actually what i hope to bring to the table is actually improving the capacity of cedo to accomplish its other goals so housing affordability and development is a key kind of tenant of what of what cedo does but it's not the only thing that cedo does it's work around uh community justice uh is especially important to me and what i see as the mandate of any office cedo included uh is only as good as the capacity of the team to get the job done so i've worked with large teams bigger than cedo's team i've worked um sort of at every level from carrying papers around uh to the accountable person on teams on the campaign and uh at thumbtack the company i worked on and what i learned is that if you can manage the team well accomplish uh set goals in a collaborative way um and actually work on the professional development of a team you can get a lot more done and so i believe in the cedo mission i believe the mayor also believes in the cedo mission i know he does and i the reason i think and i hope i'll be able to accomplish this job is that management expertise that i'm bringing in for cedo so i don't know if you answered my question but it was more specific about equity raise base you know what have you done in your career that's what i think we will be able to find out but another question that i have for you is basically you have a lot of experience around business how businesses how you lift them up and how you bring them even together uh but do you think there will be changes now from a business owner perspective and now leading a department a city department and also you will be working with a lot of businesses here do you think what would be the hard thing for you to shift from the private to now the municipality governance uh that's a great question thank you um i think something that i've done in my career is i worked in politics and government first and then moved to the private sector and making that move it was um a real learning experience to see often how much more quickly things can work in the private sector how you can sort of um you know often sort of get things done make mistakes in a way that you just can't in the public sector coming back uh i want to use the experience of approaching problems in an innovative way and apply that to the work in public service um i think it would be hard for someone who'd always been in the private sector to jump into government um and so i'm feel fortunate that i've had years of experience already in government and so it hopefully won't be too hard and what i'm lastly what i'm really excited about is you will be moving to burlington so that's that's that's amazing that's that's great um and really looking forward to hear from to work with you and thank you so much for joining the team thank you councillor thank you councillor jang uh councillor freeman go ahead councillor freeman thank you president right and thank you uh luke i don't think we have had a chance to meet yet so it's good to meet you and uh welcome and uh yeah so i you know i'm very interested in sort of the economic development that we have here community development and um i think you know something that we've seen talked about a lot at least on a national level is this aspect of sort of a rigged economy that's not really supporting working people um you know people are not making livable wages and um you know a real emphasis on a market that um tends to overproduce and intensely deplete resources and i'm just curious to hear your perspective on what we can do here as a regional economy um to really support something that's going to sustain us in the long term for working people and um for the for the environment thank you for that question councillor um so i think one of the uh programs i'm really passionate about working on is making it easier uh for small businesses especially super small businesses sole proprietors individuals um to launch their own companies and businesses that then can become the employers of the future so sort of equalizing equalizing the ground so that um people who want to be entrepreneurs want to support themselves through whether it's um you know whatever their kind of desire is uh they often face uh challenges access to capital uh regulatory barriers that i think the city and especially cito can spend more time um sort of shepherding that process i think that's a more sustainable way uh to create business uh to create create economic opportunity in a city um than potentially other policies so that would be something i would work on um you know i think it's such a broad uh mandate and a broad question you know i'm going to spend uh especially kind of my first uh few months on a job is just listening and so i would hope uh to meet with every one of you and continue the conversations that i've had with stakeholders in this ecosystem uh just to not kind of come with hey here's my set of solutions for all these problems uh but to gain a full fuller understanding of how did we get to this place and with that diagnosis come up with better solutions that will be more lasting and sustainable thank you thank you councillor freeman i think we should be ready for the vote so all those in favor of approval of luke mcgown as the new cito director please say aye anyone opposed that passes unanimously congratulations mr mcgower thank you gowan all right item number 6.02 is a communication from the mayor mayor weinberger regarding mayoral appointments for fiscal year 20 mr mayor thank you president right um you know as we've just had an example of uh the responsibility the privilege of uh nominating our department heads is um really one of the best parts of the job um as is i'm getting to spend time with the individuals that we together have assembled into our department head team over the years i think the group of department heads that the city has now is highly committed highly skilled they are strong communicators they are committed to working together across department borders and they are also very committed to working um out with partners outside of city government which is really essential i think to the success of municipal government people are extremely fortunate to have the group of individuals we have committed to serving the people of burlington it's uh it's really uh the honor of my life to get to to work with them day in day out and i hope the council will uh strongly support their reappointment um as i've laid out for you in the in the memo of may 30th thank you president right thank you mr mayor so we have a slate to be moved in front of us councilor jane i recognize you um i would like to make a motion to divide the question um on the police chief appointment separately from the slate and we need a second and we have a second from councillor busher the motion has been seconded and city attorney blackwood we we need to have a vote on this correct well i think first you have to have a motion on the table to divide we have to have the motion first okay councillor paul uh thank you president right um it's my pleasure to make a motion to confirm the mayor's appointments for fiscal year 2020 moved by councillor paul seconded by councillor mason um now councillor jane would you make your motion again i would like to make a motion to divide the question and by taking the appointment of chief del paso separately from the slate councillor jane has made the motion seconded by councillor busher uh we do need to have a vote so is there any discussion on the motion hearing none all those in favor sorry it's a non-debatable motion this is a non-debatable so there is no discussion non-debatable and all those in favor of dividing the question please say aye opposed let's have a show of hands all those in favor please raise your hands seven and opposed is seven four so the motion to divide passes and we will vote first on chief del pozo is there anyone who wants to speak on the motion for chief del pozo we will actually need a motion to get chief del pozo first out there right would somebody like to make a motion to approve chief del pozo because it's being voted on separately councillor is that right point of order wasn't that part of the initial motion i think i think what you did in in the amendment even even though it wasn't exact was okay you divided it and you're deciding which one all right so he's already out we don't need a motion to he's already on the table correct okay all right so chief the chief's nomination is on the table is there anyone who would like to speak to it yeah i would like to speak to it take the time to speak to it and i think just people who showed up here in front of public forum did state very well many people in this community are not happy about the chief's work he demonstrated negligence negligence since he came here that was the only city department that has so much controversial in putting him into office racism exists discrimination exists we cannot accept to have a chief for police who would allow such wrongdoing from people of color in this community without saying anything on top of all of that there was a man who died here in our community because of an interaction with a police officer the examiner medical examiner of this state did make a report but the chief questioned that report and no one said anything that's one thing the second thing he went outside of the state to question the findings eight months after an incident occurred here in this community something happened chief did not tell us mayor did not tell us city attorney did not tell us none of them told us and they did respect it the council body for those reasons i am not voting for the chief del paso to be reappointed in as a chief of burlington thank you thank you councillor jank any other discussion mr mayor did you want to say something yeah president right i just i'm not going to deconstruct every statement just made by councillor jank but i disagree with virtually everything just said it's not right and i strongly support the reappointment of chief del pozo i think he's been a great police chief for the people of burlington i think he has earned the support of vast numbers people within the community i hope the council will strongly reappoint him tonight thank you mayor weinberger any other discussion hearing none uh councillor hanson yeah i just wanted to share for we have big crowd tonight just wanted to share my vote i'll be i'll be supporting the the reappointment not because i don't share some of the serious concerns that were raised but because in the forthcoming resolution that i sponsored you'll see some of the ways that i would like to address these issues so i do take the concerns very seriously but i will be supporting the reappointment thank you councillor hanson where else that okay all those please raise your hands all those in favor of the reappointment of chief del pozo please raise your hands those opposed chief del pozo's nomination is approved by a vote of nine to two congratulations chief del pozo okay now we are back to the slate the slate has been moved and seconded is there any discussion on the slate the rest of the slate hearing councillor jank yes for the rest of the city department heads thank you so much for the incredible job you do every single day putting your reputation putting your knowledge and expertise in getting things done keep on doing the great work we have a lot of work to do and together i'm pretty sure we can get there thank you all for the work that you do thank you councillor jank councillor busher um yes i just wanted to note in the communication from the mayor that um ron redmond thank you thank you councillor busher thank you councillor busher thank you very much thank you for that um anyone else hearing none all those in favor of approval of the slate please say aye aye any opposed there is none that passes unanimously congratulations to all of our reappointed department heads and now mr redmond where are you mr redmond where is he mr redmond ron redmond come on up we would like to present you with a bouquet of flowers from the city council on behalf of the city and um what councillor busher tried to jump the gun on us was ron redmond is leaving we are very disappointed to see you go after incredible run but on the behalf of the city council uh thank you for a tremendous job for all these years from the church tree marketplace you will be sorely missed congratulations everybody everyone appreciate all the great work and best of luck mr redmond on future endeavors item number where am i 6.03 as a special event indoor entertainment permit councillor ruff to president right i will move 6.03 approval of a one day only special event indoor entertainment permit application for zero gravity 716 pine street june 12 2019 5 p.m to 8 p.m dj craig mitchell amplified music yes and dancing no oh right well i'm against dancing i got a reboot on the screen president right seconded by seconded by councillor bine and you have a question councillor bine or is your second yeah i'm just curious how would the committee have determined that craig mitchell dj could be done without dancing it's a serious question but um i don't you have an answer for that councillor ruff or that's one of the harder ones we did not that this came today uh the committee did not did not uh did not look at this one so we're taking this up for the first time here uh but i i agree president uh president right that councillor puns correct i'm not sure how you get through an event with craig mitchell without dancing so we'll have to see how it goes we will await a report on that any other questions discussion hearing none all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed that passes unanimously item number 6.04 uh was yes item 6.04 is a public hearing regarding the fy 20 common area fees for the church street marketplace and a little bit more work director redmond yes yes yes this is our annual presentation to the city council um the marketplace is funded primarily 70 of its budget from a common area fee charged to property owners about 30 property owners in the district the way it's done is it's two dollars and eighty seven cents per square foot ground floor that method of allocation has been determined uh it has been approved since 1991 um at our april public hearing um the commission voted unanimously to approve uh the maintenance of that fee we hit we are keeping the fee at that two dollars and eighty seven cents rate we've done so since fy 17 we feel that during the city place construction that it's important to level that fee so we are we are managing to make our budget work um and so the commission is unanimous on that we had no one protesting that at our public hearing in terms of property owners all right uh we're ready to open the public hearing so we will open the public hearing on the uh common area fees for the church street marketplace district is there any member of the public who would like to speak in the public forum tonight in the public hearing anyone want to speak going once going twice going three gone so we will close the public hearing and item number 6.05 is the resolution for allocation method and standards for common area fee formula and establishment of common area fees for the church street marketplace for fiscal year 2020 council roof i'll move we waive the reading and adopt the resolution seconded by seconded by councillor busher and councillor busher has a question um i i wanted to ask did any property owner uh speak against keeping it at the fy 16 or 17 fee when you held your public hearing no no so everyone's in sync with that absolutely thank thank you councillor busher any other questions for mr redmond it's your last shot to do it i know this is my last public hearing wow i waited just no go ahead councillor jane my councillor jane so redmond mr redmond can you please clarify if it's true the fee owners of church street marketplace the property owners they pay that levy tax and on top of that they pay the just the general tax is that is that accurate that's correct they pay property tax plus they pay the common area fee plus they pay the two hours free parking tax okay and how did you work with them and letting them know that this your levy levy tax is subject to increase how did you work with them how did you communicate with them about do they know yes they're very aware of it they're it's a small group they've been working on it they govern themselves they developed a method by which they would tax themselves back in 1991 so we keep them informed they're very very familiar with this whole process for sure thank you thank you thank you councillor jane and there's those flowers again okay are ready for every all those in favor of the resolution please say aye aye any opposed passes unanimously congratulations again mr redmond item 6.06 is a resolution response to burlington police department's use of force councillors freeman hanson and tracy councillor freeman i move to waive the reading and adopt the resolution and did you want the floor back after yes please and seconded by councillor hanson councillor freeman you have the floor back yes so this is the resolution in response to the burlington police department's use of force it originated from a meeting of the black lives matter of greater burlington about probably over a month ago folks got together a fairly large group to discuss the incidents that had happened in september with officers bellivance campbell and coro and in regards to use of force and these this resolution really comes from the demands that were set out from that meeting just to reiterate those demands were to in that petition which was created was signed by 700 people so the those demands were to terminate those three officers to request it or to prohibit them from being hired at another sort of agency a governmental agency to require that all officers are wearing body camera and that the audio be turned on at mental times and that we limit or rather cap the current police force and that we instead sort of divert funds to community support to social workers and this so we i and we many of us myself worked closely with the city attorney's office and was to you know what came you know i tried as best as i could i think to reflect those demands in this resolution there were so many obstacles and conflicts around hr laws as we heard a representative from the union speaking about how there are very clear rules around disciplinary procedures these are you know laid out very clearly in departmental directives in the union contracts we have an ongoing you know litigation with the city so but i did i did our best and so what the resolution is as now it you know in order to reflect that one of the things that it does is ask that that standard operating procedure reflect that officers that are found to have used brutal or excessive force are terminated and that would be just standard operating procedure and that that those proceedings be made public and that also with the body camera footage you know that was all pretty much able to be maintained other than we included aspects around sort of individuals privacy you know including like minors and this like and then the the interest around capping the department sort of stayed as stated and i i do support this this is something that i've been thinking about quite a lot i've looked into it quite a lot i um i want i want this resolution i want our department you know i do i hear that folks can to speak about better training um and i think that is absolutely needed and that's something that needs to be addressed at the state level um the training is is short it's 17 weeks as i understand it um there are a lot of i i do want to make sure that we are supporting that department as much as possible to be able to use all other sorts of reason go through all other reasonable methods before having to result in force so but i do think that this resolution sort of it clearly outlines an expectation around force around excessive around brutal force and around violence and i think we can do that for our community so and around transparency and accountability so thank you thank you councillor freeman councillor hanson and i just i just wanted to clarify because we did work a lot with the city attorney's office on this and this first clause um was was worked was the one that had probably the most attention paid to it and i think what we're talking about here is taking the steps necessary to move us towards a policy in which um we would we would uh terminate officers who've been determined who have been determined to have used brutal and excessive force um so it it isn't imposing this rule on the existing um force or it isn't imposing this over top of or in conflict with the existing union contract but rather um moving us towards taking the necessary steps to to getting there um so i just wanted to clarify that piece of it and this is something that i've i've worked a lot on as well i think it's it's going to be very important to maintaining a high standard that we would want to see in our community i think it's unacceptable when we see community members um being severely injured by police officers and it's really important that we set a precedent and set a high standard um for those incidences and i think ultimately that will not only support our community and safety but also will support um trust and um trust and abidance uh of the community in terms of our police department respecting and trusting them and working with them um kind of requires that that level of of trust and comfort so that's what this is about to me um and i think this is really about accountability and in the final piece it is about um moving over time um to focus on the drivers of crime um and and addressing root causes of crime um as the solution um so that we wouldn't have to have such a large police force in the first place because we would be working in ways that would um reduce reduce drivers of crime so that's what that last piece is about the final resolve clause um so i'll leave it there for now thank you thank you councillor hanson uh who else was getting in the queue councillor busher councillor busher then councillor polio um so thank you president right um um so this is difficult because there are many aspects of this resolution that i agree with um but i do have some concerns um so um like for example lines 25 through 28 if if this is still the same as what i printed out which talks about um the importance of social workers um in in trying to um address the underlying cause of interactions etc i certainly think that we've heard that tonight from the social workers that actually are part of the police department and we know that there are people have certain skill sets to help diffuse situations or could potentially diffuse situations so that the outcome would be a better one for the officer for the individual and for the community as a whole so that's something certainly that's aware as clause um i think that i also believe that um there needs there could be access to the body camera footage um i'm not sure i know that thank you for sharing that you've worked with the city attorney's office i just didn't know about these dates if those were reasonable i didn't know whether or not if you released the footage and then there was someone that um came in um later and wanted action in a specific incident whether or not that would violate that whole process because the community already formed an opinion i wasn't sure about that release i i couldn't really speak to it but the thing that really is the most troubling for me is um the final be be it further resolved that says we cap the number of police officers at the current number and work towards shrinking the force and freeing up funds to be used for the hiring of social workers now i certainly i i actually went to the mayor and talked about the importance of in the in the budget looking at how we could potentially have better access for the police department 24 7 with social workers that's not the be all and end all but i was looking to do something right away as opposed to delay um so i understand that but i feel that we have we have a number of 105 i know that sometimes we over hire forgive me chief if i'm misstating some things but i've learned in the past we try sometimes we over hire because once they go to the academy not everyone makes it through not everyone comes back and actually is hired into our police department so we need some flexibility there the other concern i have is that i was thinking that if i'm there and i'm the sole police officer and then my backup is a social worker will that social worker have a gun what if what if someone needs to defend the police officer in the incident how will all of that play out and will we put the social worker at risk and will we put the individual will there be a worse outcome if we don't really have the right number of people to support each other in the roles that they play and so i wasn't convinced that that approach was the right approach for our community um i'm i really want social work and i want social workers and i want diffusing um um deescalating skills available and present when we need them but i also want the backup for police when we also have a very violent situation because nobody knows what they're really going to go to you don't know what you're going to see and so i feel like this balance is not right and so um although i spoke to a lot of things that i thought were really good in this ultimately i think we will get to this point and accomplish a lot with the next resolution that will give us a little more time to talk about all of this bring people in engage and ultimately um make good choices for the department and the community thank you thank you councillor busher councillor polino my question is directed to the sponsors and i am mostly curious about line 46 capping the numbers of police officers and shrinking the force i have some serious concerns about any community that would cap the numbers at any point um and how you came about to whatever number that we currently have is being the appropriate number and subject to the future needs of the city so councillor polino we can't go back and forth asking questions you can pose through me any questions that you have and then i can go back to the sponsors afterward so councillor president right i won't be supporting this resolution i can state line by line why um this resolution raises serious concerns for me um you know public safety was a main concern of mine before i got on the council and it still remains i've dedicated my life work to this uh line 22 says you know we are less safe that concerns me i have felt completely safe in this town i understand we have to do things differently i understand mistakes were made and i understand that the public wants accountability and oversight and i'm all four meaningful reforms but line 46 says as i stated that we have to cap the number of officers well we don't know what's going to happen in the future you know part of the reason we have less crime today is because we're doing things differently we're hiring a social worker we're working on the opioid epidemic line 37 councillor polino i need you to pull the microphone closer we're having trouble hearing thank you um line 31 35 and 37 are very anti-union and that deeply concerns me um you know as a union and a bargaining unit they have rights and there have been long-standing practices behind those procedures and uh confidentiality um a union for example can refuse to wear an axon camera and at that point we'd be faced with a serious crisis here in burlington if we passed line 37 requiring all officers to wear body cameras so those are my main concerns i have other concerns but thank you councillor polino and if the sponsors want to respond to your your comments they can at uh after others have spoken councillor mason to be followed by councillor shannon thank you president right um i will not be supporting this resolution rather i believe the more measured inappropriate responses embodied in the resolution that we'll be taking up next um the proposed resolution to me is a little overly politicized it ignores established policies and procedures on use of force and the fact that there's an existing disciplinary procedure and specifically i have concerns it calls out three officers uh for conduct and insinuates violation of policies and procedure procedures that to me is rendered you know by us based on a cursory review of body camera camera footage and news reports and ignores the full amount of information that was available to the police chief and the commission when they conducted their own internal internal investigation to me we should not be subjecting our opinion for theirs secondly while i appreciate the desire and push for public transparency on violations of use of force policies this demand ignores the fact that the disciplinary process is carried out and is not transparent and carried out because it's a personnel matter these matters are uniformly conducted across the city in private and to make this a public particip participatory event will face strong opposition from you know the bpoa and i would guess every other union um we should not be in the position of publicly chastising city employees finally i object to the insertion of the council's judgment on staffing levels uh at the police department for that of the chief and his team based on their evaluation of the public need uh it is my opinion that they are best equipped to articulate that need i respect that there is a demand for social workers and i would look to the chief working with the mayor to come forward if that's needed to not make those positions available in lieu of officers but in addition thank you catholic thank you councillor mason councillor shannon thank you president right um i have a few concerns with this um starting with the first resolve clause um that says we would effectuate policy which is that officers who have been found to have used brutal or excessive force be terminated um i certainly think that their that termination of of an officer using excessive force is an important tool to have in the tool chest but i also think it's somewhat of a spectrum and a gray area um i think we try to define what is excessive in our policies but that's still somewhat subjective it's reviewed by multiple people to establish whether this particular incident was excessive use of force and i don't think that every um every determination of excessive use of force is necessarily equal so i could see that we may want to point out to an officer that this was inappropriate it was excessive use of force and we need to do this better and use that as a learning experience and correct that behavior if the violation was perhaps not that egregious as some others i think that it might have actually the counter result that you're hoping for because if if you knew that by saying this is excessive use of force that that officer would be terminated it may well seem like an inappropriate penalty for that particular incident officers are faced with with and and required to use judgment over and over and over again and i don't think we can expect them to be perfect every time we want them to be perfect every time and i'm sure they want to be perfect every time but that's not a realistic expectation and i think if you put that heavy a penalty on saying this incident was not done the way we want it to be done you lose an opportunity for officers to learn and to learn to do it better as others have said several of the next resolve clauses really are issues that are negotiated in a union contract and i think it's disrespectful of that process to uh to kind of preempt it here um the body cam footage i do know of police incidents where if that body cam footage were released it would be very harmful and embarrassing to the in fact perpetrators of crime in some incidents um and there are a lot of people in our community who who may have a a bad day and they may do something inappropriate and this will be exposing um i think some things that you may not intend to expose in the process of releasing all of this video footage and the idea of capping the number of police officers and shrinking the force over time is counter to everything i have seen every mayor in my tenure try to do both progressive and democratic mayors we've actually been trying to increase our police force and it's not easy because we have very high standards for our police officers and we want to only really hire the very best people so we can't we've often been in situations where we have budgeted for more police officers than we've been able to hire um because we need police officers and i know in my neighborhood there are times when we call the police because we need them but they can't come because they are uh they have higher priorities downtown so i don't think that my constituents want us to hire fewer police officers at the same time i do agree that the social workers that um have really been initiated by by chief del pozo have been a great addition to uh to the police department and if we can hire more social workers at the same time we're hiring police officers i certainly fully support that um but i think we even heard from the social workers themselves who are working within the department that they can't do their work without the support of the officers um and and they're not supportive of this idea so i think that we do need to figure out how to better support our police department so that they can do the job that they aspire to do for all of us in the community because we do have community based policing here um and we are all part of this so i um will not be supporting this thank you thank you councillor shannon i have councillor pine councillor tracy councillor jane councillor pine you're up next thank you mr president um the resolution has a number of um aspects that i i agree with and um councillor busher i think some that are pretty well so i won't spend my full was it five minutes i have no um i won't spend as long on this as i might otherwise but i would say that the um the clause that is most concerning to me is the one that other councillors have spoken about with the limit on the number of officers assuming that today we know what our needs will be and assuming that we have somehow been given special power to decide that and determine that is something i'm not comfortable with it's not a it's not a position that i feel comfortable with and i think that it's um it's the it's the peace of this resolution which is perhaps the most objectionable and will lead to its defeat tonight and i'll be voting against it thank you councillor pine councillor tracy thank you president right i um will be as a one of the co-sponsors on this resolution um i will be supporting the resolution i think that it goes a long way towards addressing um the issues that we have i don't see it as being mutually exclusive to the other resolution that we have on the table but rather um part and parcel to the the broader work that we have ongoing when it comes to addressing issues of anti-racism in our community and i think that it's important that we recognize when um folks of color come to us with uh requests um that we validate those requests and that we bring do our best to bring them you know to the to the table and and give them a full hearing and that's what exactly what this resolution intends to do but it also intends to do more than that which is actually uh build in accountability and transparency when it comes to policing in the city of burlington and i think that it does that in a variety of different ways um with regard specifically to accountability i think that it is important that we establish um better and clearer and more meaningful uh disciplinary discipline for brutal and excessive force so um when we talk about um what happened in this in the incidents on main street we see officers getting two weeks uh for causing someone a brain injury two weeks that's it we saw people who drank beer which also is a problem get three weeks so i think that there's a real problem with the amount of discipline that's being given out and i think that saying that um and basically voting against this resolution feels like to me like we're saying that we don't need to to look at this at this discipline and that we don't need to increase the discipline that we have uh on the on the table to to really treat brutal and excessive force uh as it should be which is that it's a very serious offense and that folks should be terminated for it um in addition to that i think it's also important that in the interest of transparency that we also bring those um those uh those names out and that we actually create an opportunity um for the public to learn more about what goes into these things uh and make sure that they have an opportunity to understand these disciplinary proceedings involving brutal or excessive force in this case we see a real lag in a real uh and a real transparency issue where we have um disciplinary proceedings happening and then months and months later we find out about them and uh and we don't have any you know way of uh we need to to do better in terms of creating uh loops where we're actually understanding what is going on when it's going on so that we can effectively respond because i wonder in in some of these cases um you know if we miss an opportunity to respond in due course what could then happen later on so i think that it's important that we address them when they happen that's really the second resolve clause and why i support that um when we talk about body camera footage i think that that's really been helpful in terms of um addressing and moving towards greater transparency with with regards to police officer conduct in the city uh and having the audio is also a crucial tool uh for us of course there are certain concerns that we need to maintain in terms of citizen privacy and i think that this resolution does address those concerns but that we do need to to move towards having um more uh more access and more accountability built in by having these cameras present when officers are there uh when we talk about um the um the officer the the other piece around um capping the number of police officers i think that that that it's important that we have this conversation and that we talk about uh shrinking the force over time it's not an overnight thing it's as it says it's overnight it's not prescriptive in terms of how you would do that it's really trying to engender a conversation and not just assume that the 105 number that's permitted is where we need to be but to to have an ongoing conversation about that and work towards towards shrinking that it's important to note that we have we've really hovered around 100 officers so we've never really been able to reach that 105 so to say that we need 105 we don't know that because we've never reached that i think there's also an opportunity cost present there if we're paying for for police officers that's money that we're spending in one way that we could necessarily be spending in another and i think that we're seeing increasingly diverse challenges in our downtown with regards to issues of substance substance abuse uh or substance use uh disorders i'm sorry and um also with regards to um mental health issues uh issues and and just a variety of different uh different things that are coming to the fore that a police officer may not necessarily be the best person to address those issues and what this resolution is trying to to say is that we need to have a variety of different uh of different individuals who are equipped to who are best equipped to deal with these so by taking those officers and and trying to to eventually transition some of them towards social work i think we're trying to be more responsive actually to some of the trends that we're seeing in our in our community but that have nevertheless remained intractable largely because we continue to have the same strategy which is police and and those kinds of which is policing um i would just also say that in general that i think that it's really important that we um move forward with resolutions like this to indicate our seriousness around these in addition to having a task force because i think that it's important that we uh really set forth on clear values going uh into that while also having other conversations at the same time and again i don't see them as being mutually exclusive but with regards to that i think that we need to we absolutely need to make sure that we're treating uh brutal and excessive force as it should be we shouldn't treat it as uh an opportunity for a learning experience uh you know someone's traumatic brain injury uh someone's death should not be a learning experience plain and simple so i think we need to support this resolution to send a clear message thank you councillor tracy councillor jang and then councillor hanson um thank you president and i think you know the first time the resolution came to my attention i said i'm not gonna vote for it because we have to make the distinction between what as elected officials have to do and what community members ask us to do and this resolution if you look at it it's mostly people who are discriminated organizations wonderful people in this community they this is their demand one of them some people of them would attack in this community and no one among the city councils when we heard about it no one stepped up and said this is wrong until right now nobody made a statement to call what happened here including the mayor nobody right at least if we don't do anything people who leave and work here people of color ask us to demand we need to acknowledge it and what i like about this resolution again mostly is all the where our clauses compare to the other resolution on the floor where they refuse to put all the facts on that resolution but this outlined all the facts from a to b from where we were to how we got here read it maybe it's not perfect but we have the opportunity to make it better to ask for better policing in our community we do have it but just saying i'm not voting for it it's again what max is saying you sending a message what happened happened we don't care i'm not voting for it that's how it sounds like i think there are a couple of amendments here that we need to make to make it better because we did not do anything people ask to take action let's acknowledge that at least we again are talking about here trust how do we the first where our clause says to serve the public build the community trust and ensure the safety of all community members i think just that will not make me want to vote against this but making it better yes there is another point that many people talked about here which is about social workers we are fortunate at least i am fortunate to be have great relationship with great police officers here today john mirate deputy of operation came to parent university and he taught a class there today and he brought two sros but if you look at him just his presence he dressed down sometime you see police officers with gears but the way he looked i mean nobody don't feel unsafe around him because the way he carried himself the way he just you know look neat and everything to me that's a part of social work you're doing service to the people who are against you who are scared about you you making them feel better you making them feel safe that social work jockey who spoke here came also to parent university at least twice to speak to parents about the opiate addiction about her work and most recently the police department did add additional social workers so to me i think that demand i talked about this with the counselors that this is you asking already exists and to me that aspect of that resolution need to be striked to take it away the last one from 46 to 48 i think we need to strike it and that's the first i would want to make a consulate president can we make amendments right now are you making an amendment i would like to make an amendment to strike number 46 to 48 part of the resolution councilor jang has moved to strike lines 46 to 48 is there a second to that amendment hearing none that amendment fails councilor jang do you have anything else councilor jang that amendment failed for lack of a second well i can't and you can't sort of talk back and forth will all right so no problem the other amendment that i wanted to make is specific to the first resolve class uh line 29 to 31