Welcome to boards 4 and 7 NPA meeting. It is a pleasure to see you all.  Thank you to Domino's Pizza on North Avenue for donating a pile of pizza. So awesome rock and roll. We're gonna get started. We always start with introductions and ground rules. So why don't we just start real briefly by going around the room with introductions. I'll start. My name is Matt Rober. I live in Ward 7 and obviously I'm on the steering committee. My name is Lee Morgan. I live in Ward 7 and I'm on the steering committee and also on the Parks and Rec kitchen. I'm Olivia Taylor. I am Ward 7 and on the steering committee. I'm Jeff Clark Ward 4 and the steering committee as well. Yep Phillip Peterson and I work for Public Works. I'm here to present and actually I live in the new north end. Norm Baldwin, Public Works City Engineer. So the mic is for Zoom. It doesn't project in the room. Thank you Jeff. Chapin Spencer, Director of Public Works. Steven Hamlin Ward 7. Sandra Gezzo Ward 4. Nancy Strong Ward 4. Shannon Ward 4. Sorry. Martha Frank Ward 4. Art Frank Ward 4. Amy Payne Ward 4. Amy Biloski Branch Ward 4. Frank Bosak Ward 4. Frank's wife Ward 4. Chris Haseley Ward 3. Church Street Marketplace Commissioner. Robert Bristol Johnson and I'm in Ward 7. Nancy Comstock Ward 7. Jeff Comstock Ward 7. Sarah Carpenter Ward 4 City Councilor. Brian Tim Ward 4. Sarah Hernandez Tim Ward 4 and I'm also the new public information and community engagement officer for the Burlington Police Department. Hi Scott Rogers Community Development Manager with CEDAW. Peter Ireland Ward 4. I'll be doing City Council Ward 7. Mark Barlow City Councilor North District. Colin Larson. I'm pretty sure I'm in Ward 7. I'm Dan Castergano Ward 4. Jesse Warren visiting from Ward 5. Tevin Goldberg also visiting from Ward 5. Carol Odie from Ward 4. Sal Milichamp. Now Ward 7. Martha Mulpis Ward 7. Robert Depper Ward 4. Maybe we can go to our zoom audience. It's not a lost video. We can see. Am I up? Bob Hooper remote from Pennsylvania. Representative with Carol and chair of the retirement board. Thank you. I believe that we have a microphone or a speaker working in the room now. So we'll keep on moving. We have always ground rules and I was not prepared to speak tonight or lead tonight so I don't have my fancy one so I'm just going to wing it in our little sheet in front of us. It's just a reminder for ground rules to listen to other speaking, respect the agenda, respect those that are speaking, share your opinion politely and treat people respectfully. I always do remind people that this is being recorded by Channel 17 and broadcast via zoom. So there's a record. It is difficult to do that. So is that not working? Because it won't project. Can we? You need to speak up. I need to honor. So we're going to start with community announcements. Is there anybody present in the audience? Sarah? We've all got notices on Thursday, June 1st, 4.30 to 6.30 is the meeting for the comprehensive planning around Letty Park. And I encourage you all to go. They're really looking at a lot of interesting things and different things. They've had several planning sessions but it's getting more serious. I think if you go on front porch form of the park department website you'll see it. I think at 4.30 if you let them know there's hamburgers and hot dogs and at 5.30 they're going to kind of walk through the planning process. So please try to attend. Thank you. Someone else? Gentleman in the back. Thank you. Hi everyone. My name is Tevin Goldberg and as I said I live in the South End in Ward 5. I am together with my roommate, colleague here, Jesse, we run an organization called Democracy Creative which is located in the Soda Plant building down on Pine Street. And we are a design lab for democracy in Community Meeting Hall that is working on a number of kind of fun projects trying to make democracy more accessible, imaginative, and effective. And so one thing that I'm trying to get the word out about, we've been going to every NPA. We're almost done. To announce this information session that we're holding in City Hall a week from today on May 31st at 6 p.m. it's about Citizens' Assemblies. And this is an idea that has actually kind of grown a little bit out of the NPAs because a fairly prominent thinker on the subject is Terry Boricius who is a City Councilor here in the 1980s and kind of got the NPAs going back in the day. He's going to be talking along with another expert on Citizens' Assemblies. Am I being gestured at? Increase my volume, okay. Things are doing something. The mic is for this. Yeah, yeah, no, I know, I know, yeah. So to get to the point, you may have seen there's some flyers out there by the sign-in sheet but anyway we would love if as many people as possible could come because we're very enthusiastic about the potential of Citizens' Assemblies to address a lot of problems with democracy and particularly representation of people because they work with random wateries. So that's kind of the big difference between them and an NPA. Sortition is the fancy word and some people like it, some people don't. But anyway, you can come and decide for yourself on 6 p.m. a week from today in City Hall. Thanks. You'll have to come. The mic doesn't go any further. Okay. I see it. Hi. Can you take a moment and remind the room of our friendly rules for the announcements and opinions? Can I make one more announcement? I think Martha's going to speak. Martha, and then there was somebody else in the back. We'll come back in. I just want to report that Heineberg Center had a talk of ages last weekend made over $5,000. So thanks for the community support. Accepting donations. Was there a hand before we go back to Sarah over here someplace? I think Sandra. Sandra Gezzo. My concern getting to City Hall is my safety. I'm very uncomfortable approaching the building. So are we going to have security guards there if we want to go to this meeting? I mean, is somebody going to be there so that we can get from car to City Hall safely? I'm sure other people feel the same way that I do. I think Sarah was. In the vein of Heineberg, I just want to announce that it's put it out on our Facebook and my Facebook. For the next four Thursdays in June, the Heineberg Center is having a series on how to manage aging. Things like moving, how you manage all of that. What are your options? What are the legal options? So look on Facebook or look on front porch forum. It's Thursdays, 6.30 to 8 at the center. Sounds good. Hi, everybody. My name is Dan Castragano. I live in Ward 4. I just wanted to let everybody know that yesterday at the airport, we had over 30 people at a rally that I helped organize with a group called Safe Landing BTV. And one of our demands is to immediately ban private jets at the airport because of wealth inequality and climate injustice. And so Charlie and Towne Meeting TV were there yesterday. And I'm looking forward to the City Council's response to our demand. And so if you want to get involved in that campaign, go to SafeLandingBTV.org and at Safe Landing BTV on social media. Thanks. My name is Sal Millichamp. There's a block party. June 10th, Cambrian Rise. Come if you can. Nancy, right behind you. Chris Hansley with the Church Tree Marketplace Commission. I'm wearing a couple hats tonight. Marketplace did commission is not recommending any increases in the common area fees or the downtown improvement district this year. I'm not going to be coming as a formal recommendation to the council if it has not already arrived. I am one of the three resident commissioners on the Marketplace Commission. I live in the heart of downtown on college, above Patagonia in the archives bar, right in the heart of everything. Particularly interested in hearing from people who live in Burlington about anything that may be on their minds regarding the marketplace, everything from public safety to accessibility to snow removal and anything in between. And then one of the other hats that I had worn right up until a minute ago was that I was on the ad hoc committee for reappraisal. We delivered our final report to the city council on May the first. Shortly before we finalized that the state decided to wait into that. So there may be some action there. But I'm hopeful that moving forward we will have a better process that does not result in people getting really whacked here on their taxes. So I'd encourage you to check out the report if you've not had an opportunity to do so. Thank you. I just had a request for anyone to respond that it might be the gentleman that spoke about the event. That's at City Hall. Someone had a comment in the audience that was concerned about their safety. Yeah. I can try to answer that. So we're not going to have security there, but there's often a police presence right at the base of Church Street these days. They'll park police cruisers by there. I can inquire about maybe seeing if they can be there at that time. But in general, I mean, I'm on Church Street all the time and I think you'll be okay getting in. I mean, you might have to find somewhere to park. But yeah, sorry. And yeah, we'll think about that. We honestly had not really considered security for the event, but yeah. Thank you. Without further ado, we're going to go to Ali and then move on. And there's one more Ali. Thank you. One more. Thank you. Martha Frank Ward for I just want to echo the concerns about City Hall Park. I had relatives visiting this weekend and there was no police presence and it was not a very comfortable place to walk through. So I would really welcome more dialogue on that subject. Thank you. See no further hands. I'm going to grab the reins. We're going to move on to our first conversation, which is potholes, patches and plans. And I will pass the baton to Chapin Spencer, our director of the Department of Public Works. That's a good idea. I'm trying to figure out where I can sit to. That's probably a fine project. Great. Thanks for having us tonight. I'm Chapin Spencer, director of Public Works. I'm joined by City Engineer Norm Baldwin and Public Works Engineer Phillip Peterson. It is great to see so many NPAs have food. Many NPA meetings as I attend, dinners may be a thing at the past at my house. So thank you. So let's see. We wanted to quickly provide an update thanks to Bridget who invited us here. About this year's paving and patching and pothole strategy. I know. We'd all agree in this room that Wellington's roads are not perfect. Correct. Right. Here to explain what we've been working on. I'm great to have the full new North End City Council delegation here tonight. As we work through balancing resources and priorities to make the best decisions with the resource. So. There we go. We're in 2016 for the sustainable infrastructure plan. And the first. Water resources. Water main and sewer main replacement effort. And as you can see in the chart here. Sorry. We go back that. Paving numbers have increased in terms of mileage. Most of them have increased. We've been able to double the amount of mileage. Sidewalk construction nearly triple. The mileage. And previously we had not had dedicated funding for. Replacing or rehabbing water. And sewer mains. Thanks. So our work is largely informed by you all. Our plans that we put together. Council and community input. The funding we're able to secure. Intergovernmental coordination. If there is an electrical upgrade underground. Or if there is a water or sewer upgrade. And also private development. If there's a major development. We want to coordinate our investment as well. I think we have a lot of work to do. I think we all understand that. There are challenging headwinds with. Funding our infrastructure costs.  The city is no different. The top right. You'll see the price of asphalt. Has gone up far faster than inflation. I am pleased this year. We were able to get a competitive bids for paving. We had three bidders this year. Last year. We've only had one. So it is an effort on our part to get a bid. Put out on the street that will get as much attention. It's possible. I'm pleased this year. We got a number of competitive bids. Funding is obviously an issue. Voters were generous again in 2020. 22. The support of a smaller bond. 23.8 million dollar bond. In the last couple of years. The support of a smaller bond. 23.8 million dollar bond. In only budget in two years of paving support. Which was last year and this year. So next year is going to be another tough year. Especially with the high school, which limits our overall ability to bond for other items. And then federal. Everybody hears that there's been a. Infusion of federal funds. Unfortunately. Routine maintenance of paving is not. Ineligible activity for those funds. So we are on our own to make that happen. And lastly, climate change that freeze thought cycles, which we've all seen water getting into the pavement and freezing. Pops pavement. It's not our friend. Thanks. So thank you. And thanks for letting us present here tonight. So here's just kind of a brief overview of paving specific to the new north end. So since 2017. You pay approximately seven miles. Of streets in the new north end. And in that same time, there's been approximately 20.7 miles of paving city-wide. It's about a third of our. Paving resources have gone towards. Paving's. I would say one effort that's pretty specific to the new north end is crack ceiling. So the streets in red. Are streets that we've dedicated quite a bit of resources in in the preventative maintenance. Crack ceiling isn't always like the most fascinating or interesting thing that we do, but it is very good effort towards preventing problems. Here's more of a specific breakdown in terms of new north end paving history. As you can see by year, there's been some major efforts towards new north end paving. And then other years less. So we do have a data driven process. We have a lot of new north end paving. We have a lot of new north end paving in our work. Last year was a pretty heavy new north end year. Our paving for this year. We have two streets left over from last year's contracts. Birchcliffe Parkway, which is the south end street. Flynn have. Which is also a south end streets. Other streets that are part of our 2023 contract would be Clark street, Pearl streets, Riverside Avenue, And then we have a lot of new north end paving. Other contracts, the SRF work, which is state revolving funds work, the water main work that's happening on Lakewood and Tallwood. And then work that's happening on Champlain Parkway. The state is also doing some class one paving. You've probably seen them on new ski avenue, Shelburne road. South Willow Street. That's a continuation of work from last year as well. And here's a breakdown of our current patching plan. And then we have a lot of new projects. And then we have a lot of new projects. Are their patches, but I would kind of. Categorize them as smaller paving projects, battery streets, the northbound lane. I'm sure you guys have all driven on battery street and can see the delamination and running. That's happening in the northbound lane. The Beltline ramp near Manhattan drive. Also some running and delaminating. And then we have a lot of new projects. We have the Maple and Pine street between Queen city park road at home. Those are all streets that are kind of getting our attention. And the reason that they're getting our attention is because they're arterials. They're highly traveled streets. And not just local, local roads. We do have some next steps that we're undertaking. Norm Baldwin, myself and one of our senior engineers, we have a patching plan to collect some data. We have several engineers that are working together to collect data on streets without, within the city that require patching and to prioritize kind of a patching plan. We're hoping to have that patching inventory completed. By August 2023.  And we're hoping to have that patching inventory completed. And we're hoping to have that patching inventory completed. On the street should be taken care of, but maybe not necessarily the entire street. And I think it was a project with that. And that is, I think the thing that catches the most attention for us is when you see a series. When you see a series of potholes together in a cluster. And it's, it's, it's a challenge for you to traverse that section of road. So there are roads that are reasonable shape except for that road. And one of the biggest concerns is that, okay, how is this going to fare through another winter free saw cycle that we're, we're experiencing through this process. And unfortunately there is so much, so much funds that we have available. And we're just trying to make it stretch as far as we can. And if there's given what we have for limitations, we're going to seek to pursue other funds to. Kind of enhance or improve what we're already in, in play. So we're going to go into this slide here where we are trying to find additional funding in partnership with the counselors. We're only able to pay about 1.3 miles ourselves with street capital funds this year. The state's helping this, the water work is helping add to that for a total of six miles citywide, which is a significant number this year. We're looking at a previous year's paving contingency as those projects wrap up. And FY 24 street capital tax rate. The voters have authorized a greater tax rate than what the budgets in past years have, have needed. And so there is opportunity to modestly increase the street capital tax rate, which will be a conversation that we will need to have with the city council in the next few weeks. Should additional funding be able to be secured for FY 24. In evaluating the scores of North, North end streets, there will absolutely be an additional new North end scope of work as part of that enhanced work. Correct. So tentatively on our list for a paving contract for FY 24 is North Avenue. We've applied for what's known as a town highway grants or V trans class two grant application was submitted back in March. To secure funds to do paving on North Ave. And Sanford road from North Avenue to Oakland Terrace. Both of those streets are definitely on our plan for CY 24 paving contracts. So responding pot holes, we know that there are issues out there and we want to be responsive. And you'll see here that C click fix really is our predominant tool. Street maintenance our service level goal is to get to all potholes within two days. And we also can take if there's an urgent issue that either has caused damage or may cause damage are after hours and weekends phone number is accessible 24 seven and we have crews on call. That can respond nights and weekends to that word. We also store asphalt over the winter so that we have hot mix to work with in addition to the cold patch. Cold patch is a wintertime material when the asphalt plants aren't open. But as people have seen it doesn't stick the same way and it's not as durable as as hot mix. So next slide is how to reach us. The customer service line here a six three nine zero nine four is a number that you should have available to you. We have a email and the construction portal of folks have gone online is a great tool for seeing what works. We have in capital across the city has for this coming year. And I would just say the last piece is Vermont alert. The numbers wrong. The numbers wrong. Great. The number up there should be nine zero nine four. As I said, we will text that in the PowerPoint. This presentation will be provided to someone on the MPA.  And then Vermont alert. Who here signed up for Vermont alert. Excellent. Good. Your neighbors are. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. This is a really important tool in terms of if there are roadway closures. If there are water disruptions. Any urgent items that need to be communicated. We have over. I believe 9,000 people in the city who are signed up to the statewide school. Great communication. We'll keep it short of that. Because I think the community conversation is going to be the most important part. Thanks so much for having us. Thank you. Any other questions? You have many people in this room from Ward four. The apple tree point Strathmore. And beyond. The 2024 tax reassessment that I hear correctly. Do you want to just elaborate? Please. It's an effort to. Generate funds through an increase of. A tax base. So. This. We are exploring all options for trying to add resource. As you heard from Philip, we're writing state grants through the town highway program, et cetera. One potential consideration is that as part of the overall tax rate is made up of a general fund tax and then individual dedicated taxes. One of those taxes, you know, there's penny for parks and others, but one is the street capital tax. Our understanding is that the rate that has been authorized by voters has not been the full rate that the council has approved budgets for in the past. And that there is a modest amount of an additional tax rate that could be authorized should the council in reviewing the budget find that additional paving and patching is a wise investment given where we're at. So that's part of the FY 24 budget process to discuss and to decide together. I have a question. I think Philip, I think you said, I think I heard you say since 2017 you've paved seven miles in the new north end. Are any of those miles duplicates? It seems like North Avenue. Well, North Avenue is a pretty big street. So it's broken into sections, right? So we've done North Avenue. So from Sherman to New North Street in 2021. And, wow, another section. They're not duplicates. They're not. To your question, it's everything in the new north end street grid plus route 127, which was paved a number of years ago. Happy to break it out street by street later if you're interested. But just in my head time flies and it seems like North Avenue has been. But what is the life expectancy of or is that too vague? The hope is 20 years. 20? Wow. The way that we design streets now. So if I'm looking at a street and like the pavement thickness and how long we want it to last is we would like them to last up to 20 years. OK. It's a function of soil condition. Traffic. Commercial traffic. That's a big one. And the climate. Drainage. Drainage. So there's a number of factors, but you can't say definitively each street's going to be X years. Right. And what you find in the city is, unfortunately, in the Irwin streets were redeveloped. They didn't have great sub base. So that would require us if we want a good structural sub base to take the whole street down at least 18 inches. It's very expensive cost prohibitive. So what we're doing here is we have a shorter life cycle of these streets in order to kind of at least have a rideable surface and have it spread among the system. Worth noting the system is 96 miles of roadway to be maintained. So it's not inconsequential in terms of the cost it is to maintain that system. And if you compare against 20 miles that's been complete versus 96, you can see in that period how we're making progress. But it's, but progress is in many people's minds not to where we want to be given that someone could just somebody's street. So we see that, understand that, and we would love to see more resource, but we're, we're in competing in those interests of other needs the city has. Thank you. There's somebody in the back and then we'll go back around. Hi. Thanks. Thanks for coming. If this is a little too off topic, feel free to let me know and I'll try and talk about it later with you all. If we were trying to identify as a community some points in the new north end to make more progress on the walk bike plan from 2017, I know we've got the Letty Park project right now. What sort of solicitation process would we go through to try and like initiate a project? You know, I know you have a Plattsburg and North Ave on the 2024 plan. If you're doing a repaving of that, you know, would an intersection redesign beyond the table, even if, you know, we could put together some kind of low cost pilot program, you know, I want to be cognizant of the financial restraints that the city's under. So we have a senior transportation planner on, on staff Dayton. Right crates. I don't know if you've met Dayton or talked with him, but we have a long list of transportation projects we want to complete. And our goal with that is to leverage other people's money to complete those projects. If you have something that's not on that list that he's maintaining, certainly have a conversation with him and see how what our next steps would be to address what your concern or your interests are. Just we got a grant for shared use path connecting here over to, uh, to Ethan Allen Parkway. There are a number of other projects underway. The Burlington Walkway Council would be a good advocate, a good outlet for kind of your interest and engagement and happy to continue to have the conversation. We're proud of the progress we've made, but there's still a long way to go. In the front in green. Yeah. Oh, sorry. Mark. Are you sure? Throw it over after. Just chuckle. Okay. Um, a number of years ago, the street department went to the algorithm theory about addressing needs. This was a while ago. Um, I think it was in the last 25 years and we didn't use algorithms before that. Now the algorithm arrangement for, or the theoretical arrangement, lists for Burlington streets to be repaved every 20 years and the sidewalks 50 years. Um, I live in an area where the original sidewalks are still there. Um, and they are breaking apart and a couple of them have been fixed. But I guess my concern is, and maybe you can address it and maybe you can't, what about the streets that don't last 20 years? Do, does that, but then they become really bad. Where does that fit in as far as repairs go?  Residential streets typically would, given they don't have the commercial traffic. If you, if you follow some of the technical pieces to maintaining a street truck traffic, commercial traffic does 10 times the damage of a passenger vehicle. So that's a substantial impact. If you look at major arterials, those are typically the streets that you'll see that commercial traffic on and suffer quickly or go out of service, more quick than say a residential street. But that's not to say residential streets are unimportant. It's just how far do we make the money go and what is the greatest impact in terms of making a system serviceable. Right, so if there's 20,000 cars on this street versus 300 cars on this street, how do we make that dollar go as far as we can in terms of being serviceable to the broader public? So can we just try and patch it out until 20 years goes by or how does that work? Well, we're not fond of the patching solution, but it's, it's patching is a means to provide a serviceable street in the balance of use of that street. So if you had a reasonable condition road and you had one segment was like, oh my God, I got to drive through that every day. We would try to focus on putting a small localized patch to it. Now we understand that if we came next year and did repaving, we've lost the value of that work in order to repay the whole street. So we're trying to be strategic about where and when we do these patches relative to the longer range plan of significant work or repaving. So it's a very hard balance. Think of it as a very low cost speedboat. Do you want to spend any money on this? If, if that's what the community wants, then we can, we can easily accommodate that. We've got time for two more questions. Okay. Hi, Martha Frank again. I live on Cumberland Road. I've lived there about 33 years. Our street has never been repaved and Art and I have counted 30, 30 potholes. We'll speak together because I don't want to take up the time. There's 32 potholes between 70 Cumberland and 90 Cumberland. And we keep patching them. And again, I appreciate all you're doing. This is not a criticism. I understand the issues. But you just mentioned people zigzag for six months through these potholes. And you mentioned a section of the street. Maybe we can just fix the section instead of keep patching. We've been patching for five years. And I just hope that we could, you could reconsider. Again, not a well traveled road, but you have to see people weaving in and out and people that live there understand that. Including folks on bicycles. And I do want to say that we did have it patched, I think about a week ago. We had called the city a while back and about a week ago. And it's all coming up again.  It would be interesting to see what the cost is. We also watched the people fill the holes. It was done rather haphazardly. None of those holes were cleaned out. There was just some asphalt thrown on it, tap, tap, tap, and off they went. And it's literally all coming up again. We do believe our street is hollow. If you take a stick and you poke it, all of our neighbors think it's hollow. So thank you. Yeah, I would just say that I've driven your street. I'm familiar with it. I actually drove the network a week ago. And my biggest concern is with some of these streets that were developed by private developers, they weren't developed in a way that you would follow a standard practice and were substandard in their road section and then their subbase. And as a result, they don't live or last as long as you would reasonably expect. And so, you know, for those streets, my belief is that we need to do what they call pothole. In other words, we would find a localized location, cut out a square, excavate, identify how much asphalt you have, how much structural subbase you have, and prepare ourselves for what cost it would take to properly restore it to something that is reasonable. In other words, if you had, say you have poor subbase and there's not a lot we can do, because that's just way beyond the reasonable cost. But if it was, say, an inch and a half thick of asphalt, that's not enough. We typically have at least three inches for residential streets. So these are the kind of things we're looking at. And yeah, that's a technical detail, but you need to have context, I think, to understand that. We need to look at it, because I know my heart is in the hole. Can we joke about it? Yeah. I was recommending that we do some pothole in there. I'm going to jump to Zoom. Bob Hooper's been very patient. Yeah, I have two questions, actually. One, where gray meadow intersects with the street that is not Loado, but it comes straight down. That's been patched a lot of times that I have seen, and it also just comes right up. And the people who live there right on the corner, because it used to be a dead end, take a fairly good exception to it. But Spencer, my question goes back to when we redid North Ave in the project that gave us the bike lanes and went down to 2, who is responsible in the city for quality control because as soon as that job was done, and it looked really nice, the first rainfall, the driest place on the road where the drains were, everything else was an intertube due to standing water, which hastened at minimum the collapse of the surface. How are we making sure we're getting what we're paying for? I get you. Because we didn't do that. So North Ave itself, we had a deep dive focus on drainage on North Ave from, I guess, Ethan Allen to Shore Road. And there was some complexity to that drainage system itself where it wasn't draining within the sub-drain elements of the system of conveyance. And the street is extremely flat and had no crown. And I don't know if you're referring to before that work, but I drove that coming here. And yeah, there is some bird bass at Edge of Road near Driveways because of driveway cuts, but generally has been draining successfully. So I'm not sure what section you're referring to, but we have had... Primarily in the area of the co-op, the bank up through that section. And on the east side, more than the west. Interesting. Well, we did some drainage improvements on that west side last year. And to Norm's point, my understanding is that drainage has been performing much better than prior, but we can take a look at the east side as well. Sure. Ali, did you have your hand up? Last question. Thank you. Thank you. I do not have a comment, but also I'm going to add a question. I just wanted to say, you know, yeah, that this is not easy from the perspective of an elected official. The contact information they provided here, I think you should add your city councilor. Your city councilor as a point person to connect with them. And I just want to be really appreciative to Chapin, Norm Baldwin that's not here. You know who I mean. Your communication person, because they have been very responsive. And no one now in Road 7 is complaining about roads, is complaining about sidewalks. Right? I think I'm not saying that all the city councils are not doing their jobs, but what I'm saying is we are elected also to walk on the streets, to drive on them, to identify the issues, and to fight for those issues to be solved. I think it's an important element. One thing that I wanted to say is North Avenue, soon you will hear, you will read your engagement. We received a grant from the CCPC, CCRCP, in order to look at North Avenue, and see plain. Re-envision North Avenue. If you drive your cars, just look up the electric poles. It makes this neighborhood so ugly, and we need to put them down on the ground. We need to put some more arts. We need to put better trees. We need to put better lighting. But that's not the work of Chapin, but that's the work of the voters. If we need our neighborhood to be beautiful, and soon you will be contacted to engage into this conversation. What are your hopes and dreams for North Avenue? But I really wanted to say thank you so much, whoever invited them here today, because Brigitte, thank you Brigitte for bringing these people today. Yes, they done great work.  But I just hope that we fight for what the New North End deserve. And that fight can't be done without the people that you elect to do that fight for you. Thank you guys, and keep up the good work. Thank you gentlemen. Appreciate it. Thanks for you guys did great job. Thank you. Feel free to call us anytime. Happy to serve everyone. And thank you. Thanks for joining us. All right, we're going to jump right in. Let me introduce for community discussion about needles and parks. Our only work is a parks and recs commissioner. Yes, thank you. We're going to jump right in. I want to make sure our Narcan training has the full allotted time. So what I'm going to do is I have a little presentation. And then if there are, I might have a little time for questions about process. I have comments about this topic. These connect with me afterwards. I'll have to be giving you folks my email. So we want to make sure we're sticking to our time. So my name is Lee Morgan. I live in Ward seven. I am a parks and rec commissioner. And I have dug into my first big project on the parks commission. So I think we all know that improperly discarded needles are a problem in Burlington. They're cut, they're kind of everywhere. They're concentrated in some areas, parks and streets, city hall parks, a particular problem. But they're pretty much everywhere. And after, you know, what I've observed, also looking on a C-click fix, which I'll be coming back to and seeing some of the tracking of the needles and also hearing people speak at different public meetings. I've decided that this is a good task for my role in the parks commission. So this is important because for a lot of reasons, it's really a public safety issue. We don't want needles laying around. It's, you know, bad for kids, bad for pets. It's bad for the environment. It's also bad for people suffering from substance use disorder. It's just bad all around. And so we want to do what we can also for our city workers who are dealing with it one way or the other. And we want to make sure we're doing what we can to increase their safety as well. So process. So this is the approach that is going to happen. So right now, I'm kind of in the initial public input phase. And so I'm talking to people and especially in different areas of the city that I'm not getting to, get kind of a gauge on what the problem is like. And also I'm, as many ideas as people have, I am open. I'm hearing some really creative solutions, some more plausible than others. But it's, all the ideas are great. So what else I'm doing as I'm engaging with all of the different departments that even remotely come into contact with this issue, because I think looking at all sides of it are incredibly important. So after my public input phase, I will be meeting with departments. And then I will, and also while keeping my parks commission updated and start looking into and researching research proven solutions. So see what other cities are doing that are comparable to Burlington. We'll also look at things that maybe haven't been implemented yet, but really taking kind of a research-based approach to this. I'll also be engaging towards the middle and end parts of this process with people currently suffering from substance use disorder and people in recoveries, specifically people who use needles in the course of their addiction, because I think any solution, however feasible, is just really going to be limited in the success by the compliance of people who do use needles. And I think a really important context is nobody has really figured this problem out. And a huge part of that is, our country is being decimated by the opioid epidemic. And we'll be talking more about that during our Narcan training, but this, I mean if, some of you are more experienced in this and have more exposure than others, but yes, the opioid problem is huge. It's huge in Vermont. It's very big in Burlington. And I think it's important to have grace with everybody, with the city, with each other, as we're trying to figure this out. There's no real good one size fits all solution for the needle issue. If there was, we wouldn't have a needle issue. So, you know, this is going to take some time and patience to figure out, but it's an important thing to get started on. So after I kind of reached the point where it looks like we may have some possible solutions, then I will be engaging again with department heads in the city council and the mayor to look at what would even be feasible to be adopted in the city. Again, everything, money is always going to be a limiting factor. So, you know, I want to make sure we're not at the end presenting a possible solution that is just not going to work for the city. And then, so the next step, when we reach a solution that looks like could be implemented by the city, what I'll do is I will write a resolution and present it to the parks and rec commission and look to pass a resolution at the parks and rec commission level. And then when we have a pass resolution at that level, engage with NPAs, try to get more support for the resolution and then at that point, present it to the city council and at that point, my hope is to, when we're presenting a solution and a resolution to the city council, we have the research, we have budgets, we have engagement and support from all levels of the city. And at that point, I'm hoping that the council can then take it on and put it through whatever process they need to do, which I don't envy because I know it can be complicated. So in the meantime, what can you do? For those of you who don't know about C-Click Fix, the gentleman that just spoke a little bit about it, it's an excellent app. There are so many problems you can address on it. So C-ClickFix.com or you can find it in your app store on your phone. And it's an app. I know Olivia's very experienced. Olivia keeps our neighborhood pretty free of the transphobic stickers via the C-ClickFix app. It alerts city staff to a problem, whether it be a pothole, needles. It could be garbage left on the side of the street. You can post a picture. And then that communicates to city staff who will then use the app to delineate that to the appropriate city staff. And you can also monitor it. It'll let you know when it's updated, when it's noticed by a city staff, and when it's resolved, it's a great app. It's also helpful, particularly with the needles and people start using the C-ClickFix app more often because that's going to help me in my data process and tracking where the needles are concentrated. And then also, please contact me. My email is L-Morrigan. I'll spell that. So it's L-M-O-R-R-I-G-A-N at BurlingtonVT.gov. That's my commission email. And yeah, and I'll also, I'll hang around for a little bit after the meeting. And so I'm just looking here, ideas, people's experiences. You can send me pictures. Like the more information, the better. I'm a very data-driven person. And so we have eight minutes where, if people want to have first quick, there's questions about the process. And then if we have time, ideas or comments, and eight minutes, I'll open up the room. Sarah, just two comments. Just, I can't really reiterate enough about using C-Click-Fix. It seems like a pain. It is a little clunky. But it is how we keep the data on all of these things. So you can still send an email. And that's fine, but it compiles data. I know the Parks Department is putting in more portlets all around the city in the parks. Will there be sharps containers in those? I don't know. Okay. I will find out. I'm grateful to the Parks Commission for the more portlets. I guess this is just a small thought. I know that the library has been giving, or has gun locks available for people. So maybe there's a way that you can work with the library to do something with that as well. Thanks. Oh, hi. Hi everybody. Yeah. Can you hear me? I did just want to make sure that I wanted to point to a bill that was actually passed in the House and the Senate this session called H-222, which is an act to reduce overdoses. And part of that bill is a syringe disposal program. It's going to vastly increase the syringe disposals that we have in the state. For those of you who travel up to Canada, you can't go far without seeing that they have a really great syringe disposal program in almost all of their buildings. And we're hoping to have that kind of an expansion. But it's a bill that I would recommend you take a look at. It's got a lot on opioid antagonists, for example, drug checking and so forth. But the goal is just to reduce and lower the amount of deaths that we've seen in this overdose opioid crisis. But it is exciting to have that kind of disposal program to your point about the syringes. Thank you for your work. Okay. Martin, you said since that bill passed, does it have an act number? Because that's easier to find passed bills by their act numbers. Let me find out. I was just looking up as age 222. It may not have an act number yet. In the current session, in the legislative thing, they keep the bills for two years. So you can still get it by the bill now, and then it turns into an act. For now, I would just search it as age 222. Great. This is Sal again, Sal Milichamp. I go to the UU Society Unitarian Universalist, and it's located right down from Howard Safe Recovery. So that's where individuals are getting the needles, and then they often stop by the UU, and then they use the needles, and then they're left. What we have finally done, it's taken a while, is to get the needle boxes and put them up where people usually are using, and also we've worked very hard to connect with the individuals who are in need. So connecting with the people, and also we have volunteers that regularly are picking up with the long arm pickup things, and we're just, we're signing up to do this, to keep the grounds clean, and it's everyone's job. You know, this is where we live, these are our neighbors, the people who are using are our neighbors, and we all need to work together for this. But it has taken time, but it is worth it, and the Narcan is worth it too, definitely. Thank you. Thank you. I haven't been here in Vermont for that long, but I'm wondering if anybody's ever talked about a needle buyback program or anything like that. Yes, actually, this gentleman here suggested it at a recent city council meeting. I mean, at this point, everything's on the table. I mean, it seems to me that it wouldn't be that hard to have these disposal containers that spit out a quarter of a nickel every time, and then it's an incentive to give it back, you know? Yeah, yeah. And if it's still full, all right, a little bit more. That's a dollar. It's definitely... that will be investigated. Excellent. Just for a point of information, Burlington staffs and supports a group called ComSTAT, which is really a group of the opioid treatment providers. They meet every month and talk about a lot of things, but it's a group. Lee, you certainly should connect with them. It's more treatment provider focused, but Scott Pavek, I can't remember his name, is the coordinator. So he's a person through me or any of us we can get some ideas to. So thanks. Great. And I think with that, we are ready to... There's actually one more gentleman in the green and sweatshirt, and you've got two minutes. I just want to say thanks for... No, we're going to run your buck. I just want to say thanks for taking a lead on this, Lee. As you know, the issue is particularly acute in City Hall Park. It's my neighborhood. I'm over there a couple times a day or a couple times a week.  And one of the things I see, particularly in summer months, I see the various preschools, I think, from the Y in different places coming through the park. My big concern is not so much a question of if, but when somebody comes into town to visit and they decide to have a picnic and they have a three- or four-year-old toddler running around who just coincidentally happens to step on a sharps. And I think there's a significant liability for the city. So I'm very glad to see that the Parks and Rec Commission and you are taking this on. Thank you. And thank you. We've dedicated for this at several meetings. So I appreciate it. It's a team effort. Yes. Take the city. Are we... Is Grace joining, buddy? So we're going to jump around if it's okay. Our next presenter is going to join 15 minutes late. So if it's okay with Mr. Hooper and the rest of the legislature, we're going to move to legislature updates. All right. Bob said thumbs up. At least one of them. Who would like to begin? Do you want to begin, Bob? I think that Carol and I worked out a system last time where we sort of co-presented. And we might want to do that. Do you want to do that, Carol? Okay. Oh, Carol is here. Please come up. Okay. Carol will have like detail, but the thing that I would like to probably make the, the biggest update about is that. People are working on the motel program. It's incorporated in the budget. The budget is in danger of being vetoed. And at this point in time, there are a lot of Burlington representatives who aren't in a mood to vote for an override. That puts the school funding. Child care system. A whole bunch of stuff on the line. So. That's, that's kind of the situation that I think we're looking at. Carol has her. Papers with her. So I'm hoping she'll expand and expound. Okay. So. We, we passed a budget. This session and some of it will really help with some of the. Issues that we're going to be facing as the motel program ends. So during the pandemic, we had a lot of issues. The federal government gave the state's money to house people because it was very important that people will be isolated and so forth. So that housing, that temporary housing, and we put a lot of people into motels has dried up and we've, we now have to figure out what to do next. So in the budget, we put a lot of people into motels. And we're going to the department of children and families to help people experiencing homelessness. And that $10 million will be going out in flexible grants. That enables people working with people who are homeless, like the department of children and families to, to respond to short-term needs. And so we're going to put a lot of people into rental help them with the furniture or car repair or transportation costs, relocation expenses, anything to help people get into regular rental housing. It also gives $15.2 million to emergency rental assistance program funds for three years of housing, and to say community partners would be things like the Howard Center, helping people to figure out how to stay in the housing that we get them, getting mental health services, if they're disabled, getting help with that, if they're older, getting meals on wheels, whatever people need to be able to stay in housing independently. And then millions more, like one million, five million, millions and millions more for voucher programs, rental subsidies, family-supported housing programs, for when the winter weather gets cold, for adverse winter. And so that's, those are some of the things that are in this budget. Now, those kinds of funds could be going out now to start helping people now because there are a couple of dates where people will start to have to leave the motel program, but it looks like the governor would veto the budget. That means that we can't, the money will not start going out until we have a veto session. The veto session is scheduled if we need it for, it looks like we'll need it for the 21st, 22nd or so of June, and so that's when we would hope to override the veto. There is a lot that's good in that budget and we need to help. The places that are going to need to help the most, of course, are the cities around the state. And some of the places where, where the motels are located, Shelburne, Colchester, many in Rutland, many places around the state. So we need to, we need to have a budget. We can't afford not to have a budget. Do you want to say anything more about that, Bob? Well, just a, I mean, a lot of people are throwing blame around on this. The governor should have had a plan in place for this to end. We knew that the federal funding was coming to an end. And basically saying, okay, the program's over, move out to the like, I think 3000 or so people that are in a motel program is sort of untenable. We'd like to do something else, but the other side of that coin is for most of the motels that we are renting the rooms, they're costing about 150 bucks a night. So it's a tremendous amount of money for the state to take on. And as, as Carol illuminated there, there is a lot of money going out to other help, but just not permanent motel lodging. I wish we did not lose the federal money. But the federal program ended kind of puts us in a bind. So I'm great. Thanks, Bob. I had someone just said, be sure to introduce yourself. I'm Carol Odie. Along with Bob, we represent the far new north end of Burlington. It's called district 18 now. And, and we, we are state reps and in the state house. Okay, so I have a few highlights in the different areas that I can go over in agriculture, food, resiliency, and forestry. That's one of our committees. We have the right to repair bill passed that will allow consumers to repair their own agricultural and forestry equipment. And that bill is pending in the Senate. It's a very important bill. Farmers lose crops. They lose all kinds of time when they can't repair their own machinery. The organic dairy crisis. You'll see a lot of places organic milk and our organic or organic products and our organic products here in Vermont. We're doing very well until other products flooded the market from huge, huge organic dairy and huge organic farms in other parts of the country. So in order not to lose more organic farms, we have some one time emergency relief for those farmers. Often they're dairy farmers. And we, that will prevent a lot of schools, a lot of, excuse me, a lot of farms from going under. Bob, do you want to say anything about that? People have a tendency because we talk about farm equipment. That's the first bite at the apple, I think, for self repair. Apple computers, your, your iPhones, things like that are kind of closely guarded technology that the company doesn't let out. So we're hoping that the right to repair your own stuff eventually expands. It's very hard to take a $300,000 tractor down to the John Deere dealer 200 miles away. That's, that was a priority this year. Yes. And as Bob said, that may expand to other things that you would like to repair in your homes and businesses. Universal school meals during the pandemic, the federal government paid for universal school meals. That meant that not only do people who didn't have the money to buy their own meals get free meals in school, but all kids did. Then Vermont said, okay, we'll expand that for one more year, which, which legislature did. And now the legislature has acted to expand that permanent. Every year the legislature will decide how that is paid for. And this year they decided that it would be paid for at the Education Fund. It doesn't need to be paid for at the Education Fund, but that's what they decided to do. We decided to do last year. And not only does that increase student participation, of course, in eating at schools. It, it also allows our, our meal planning at schools to mean that our, our school meal services are buying more from Vermont farmers. And that's very good for Vermont farmers. And that is a huge thing for me. More and more, the most we can buy from Vermont, the better. And Bob, you know, we have Marjean Gulick here, who's the state senator. Oh, she's separate? Okay, all right. We have a small farm, farm diversification grants. And that's to help small farmers improve their financial resilience by diversifying more. So, we could talk a little bit about what's in the budget and what's important to all of us in the budget. One thing that's in the budget is up to $16 million. 15 point, maybe one or $2 million. We were able to secure to help our city take down safely our high school that has CCBs in it. So that's a very big deal. And we worked all of us so hard on that. So very excited for that. That was quite historic. I mean, that was a really, I'm state representative, Emma Mulvaney, sorry, this was at 8.30. And I was buzzing from another meeting a month earlier. I just want to say the growing delegation. So all 10 House members and our Senate colleagues over on the other chamber really worked hard to make sure that the state really understood the unique situation that Burlington High School was in related to how things have been changing on CCBs and I was just really proud of that moment of us all standing together regardless of party, regardless of differences on other issues because we really advocated for Burlington and conveyed how important this was that Burlington kids were Vermont kids and we really needed to collectively do this not only for Burlington, but if another school were ever in such an extreme situation that we would show up for that community as well. As a matter of fact, really, most bills on the House floor are voted on unanimously or nearly unanimously and most bills come out of committees unanimously or close to unanimously. What you read about in the paper is where we disagree. So just kind of take heart and know that people's voices are heard and we're working together on solutions to Vermont's biggest problems. So what's in this $8.4 billion budget and why does it sound like so much? Well, we have a lot of one-time money from the federal government and thanks to Senator Patrick Leahy so we have to spend some of that money quickly. We can't wait to appropriate it. It might take us some time to spend it. We have to definitely make plans for how we're going to appropriate it so we can get it out of the door and get it spent on things that matter. Like housing. Expanding affordable housing. We have $109 million for that. $102 million for emergency shelter and support services for unhoused Vermonters. For recovery housing and transitional housing for Vermonters. Exiting prison and housing for young people. Exiting foster care. We have raised provider rates that almost $100 million in the budget for that.  So you can see big emphasis on older Vermonters. One in three Vermonters are older and we need help. Everybody. And when we do the right thing in the professions and serving Vermonters then we can keep our emergency rooms free for emergencies and we save money that way too. Child care. Very exciting. We passed a multi-year transformation. We had employers come to us. We had employees come to us and please help us with child care. So we have to make it affordable for families. We have to make it to provide financial stability for childcare providers and boost pay for valued early childhood workforce. We are losing people who are working in childcare all the time. So does anybody want to take on some of the things I just said? That's also a matter for Vermonters to consider in terms of economic development. We probably all know somebody that has told the story of coming to the state and not being able to find childcare and going back home. So these things that don't seem like they're that interrelated actually are and the demographics of our state has a tendency to not change as quickly because we don't have as many facilities available for new people to come in, establish themselves and get on with their life here in this beautiful state. So that's another reason childcare is in the budget that it's important that this gets passed. I just want to know you have about 10 minutes left on your agenda. I know it's fine. My colleagues will speak to some of the things that they want to speak to in the budget or address some of the things I've talked about. I just want to mention on childcare is one of the reasons I actually ran for office. I have a three-year-old and an eight-year-old and just so folks know what that actually looks like for working families we're going to increase the subsidy which is called CCSBAC for families to receive 100% subsidies so free childcare will go up to 175% of the federal poverty measure so that's more than what we often have. CCSBAC is such a big political investment but the additional part of that is that we'll then have a tiered process for other families after 400% of the federal poverty measure which is upwards to about $105,000 for households and while that seems high many Vermont working families are spending something upwards to 20-25% of their income if they're more than one kid in a childcare center and as we know, because the ratios that we all value that's not going into the pockets of early educators and so the other side of this is that we're putting significant investments as Carol was saying into early educators which are largely women. It's a economy job that's been undervalued for years so I was incredibly proud that we put that together that had a really significant amount of support in the House and Senate and I think it's such an incredible investment. We also continue to get more early educators into that field, something we started last biennium which is continue to invest in the loan forgiveness programs for folks who want to go into that field because obviously student debt is going to be a huge barrier for anyone going into any field but we want to make this as easy as possible for significantly investing in it. So I'm really proud of that one. I want to just briefly go back to the housing piece in the budget because this is a critical thing facing Burlington and the whole state and I know Councillor Carpenter asked at least us to address this. While we have a lot of significant investment in affordable housing within the big budget $8.4 billion budget we miss something. We miss something really significant about the ending of the motel voucher program under the general emergency housing program and this is actually why I ultimately voted no against the budget as did about 17 or so of us progressives and Democrats for that matter and I'm not going to make this partisan but I want to flag the reason we were so concerned and had to vote no is that we are headed towards I will use the word crisis. We have about 2,000 households which includes 700 children about to be evicted from this motel program May 31st and June 30th without a just transition for these folks and what's going to happen is that communities in Burlington are going to be receiving end and we don't have the support systems and our own resources ready to stand up really I think a livable situation for these folks and so what we're trying to call for is that there's still time in this process to fix this piece. It's one relatively small piece within an $8.5 billion budget to come up with a much more humane and supportive response for these vermonters. Most of which are vermonters they're not from out of state most are from right here in Vermont. It's not just on the governor it's on us in the legislature and I really hope that we take this seriously and bring advocates to the table and really come up with solutions so that we're not facing a significant issue back here in Burlington and in Montpelier in Rutland and in Brattaroe where these 2,000 households are just pushed out into tents and sleeping bags that's essentially what the temporary solution is and that's not a solution that's not a humane solution so I wanted to flag that separately I can stick around but I'm significantly concerned about this and I wanted to flag that for people in Burlington in particular. Hi everybody, Martin Gulick I am Senator for Chittenden Central one of three senators for the Chittenden Central District happy to be here tonight I did want to follow up on a few things one was the child care I serve on both health and welfare and education so the child care bill was a big part of the work that I did this year I did just want to let folks know that in the end child care ended up getting sort of split into two parts one which is the birth to three which is child care and another which is sorry birth to two really because three and four year olds end up getting placed in pre-K or early education and that part of the child care landscape was actually sent over to the education committee part of a study for the upcoming year so what we wanted in the initial bill called S56 was really to place more pre-K students in public schools because there's a lot of capacity right now with declining enrollment and this demographic cliff that we're heading toward we actually have a lot of capacity in our public schools and we were hoping that we'd be able to place more four year olds in schools where folks weren't comfortable with making that shift quite so quickly so it will be a study but we're hoping at the end of the day that we'll be able to find a way to place more students in our schools while also making sure that we help those folks who do have private businesses in any way that we can so I did want to bring that up just to echo the housing situation it's great that it's been brought up tonight we had an amendment in the senate two of my colleagues, senator Vihovsky and senator Hashim and that was an amendment to the budget to find funds to continue housing folks until a more permanent solution was found sadly only about five of us voted for that so it did not move forward but it is it's going to be, this is going to be a problem that's going to really face our cities and not so much the rural areas so I agree it's important to speak to your representatives your senators the governor unfortunately this has become a reactionary moment for us even though we've known that this was going to end so it is a shame that we didn't put more programs in place so that our cities like Burlington doesn't have to bear the brunt of what will potentially be a crisis in other states in other states governors have figured out how to transition from the pandemic housing to what happens next and they've done that in different ways and right now the legislature has had to step up and work on this in a different way than they might normally the head of our house and human services committee representative Teresa Wood is starting weekly meetings with the agency of human service leadership we're going to have a small group of members from across the state join her and there's a new feedback form for the agency of human services so if you are a community provider or a town, someone in the town city council or whatever I don't know how you're going to organize it but if you need something and you're hitting barriers we'll gather that information quickly in an organized way and make sure it's addressed and we'll be getting that form this reminds me of what happened during the pandemic when the department of labor was not getting out on employment two minute warning checks to people who needed them and pandemic unemployment assistance and it was blamed on the computer system but I ended up being one of the people who volunteered to help Vermonters get their money and we had about 30 of us 35 of us and we helped I don't know 3,500 or 4,000 I can't remember anymore Vermonters get what they needed just by talking to people and getting their last four digits of Social Security their names their cell numbers and their stories yeah I'll just quickly say and we were able to really help with that a lot and this is what we're doing again we're stepping in where it hasn't been done there's just one other brief thing because I know it's been brought up here before so it's a different topic so gun control and the common sense gun policy it's been brought up in this MPA before so we had two bills move forward H230 and S which Martín can maybe fill in my brain H230 had a chunk of different pieces including now there'll be a we'll see what the governor does of course but a three day waiting period 72 hours before purchase it will be safe storage required in the state of Vermont besides easy access to guns expanding what's called red flag laws which is the emergency response protective orders to allow family members to also start that process that was not the case under current law and um that was the thing that was not included which I tried to put into the mix based on Burlington's Charter Change attempt about eight years ago was to add barring guns in places that serve alcohol it was a charter change we passed eight years ago that went nowhere in the legislature that was not picked up so I did attempt to bring that back into the conversation but that did not pass our four charters since I seem to be the queen of charter changes in Burlington that let you all know about them they're related to elections ranked choice voting for all elections locally um all resident voting and then some boundaries and polling locations those bills are now in the hands of the governor and he has to act within about the next three or four days based on the when he got those bills so we should have an answer and in theory unless he vetoes it um we should be able to be in place for next election changes so stay tuned sorry perfect timing yeah I'll just use my prerogative as a member of the spirit committee thank you so much I feel that we have done you all a disservice for all the work that you've done and we've given you such little time that's very very quick question in how we can help you what was the timing of the governor's veto for the funding bill he hasn't till Saturday he needs to hear it from us before Saturday well he's yes okay he hasn't till Saturday it might be tomorrow thank you thank you thank you I need to speak on behalf or folks who are not always a fan of everything that the legislature works on or accomplishes and so my concern with that context my concern is about the timing of the veto session and unfortunately it sounds like that's going to occur before our next NPA meeting and my question is is it necessary that the budget when you go back to the veto session does the budget package have to pass as one big package the way it is and have this brinkmanship quite about the housing program or is it possible to split out parts of that budget and pass those funding measures separately so that this doesn't turn into a all or nothing contest the way it's being framed now because there's stuff in there that I appreciate and there's stuff in there that I don't and I the budget is a bill so it would be based on the veto of the bill not individual components there is no line item sort of veto here okay but when you go back into live session is it possible to split parts of that budget bill apart new bills can be introduced but they have to go through the whole process which is three readings other chamber three readings back and forth so it's tricky yeah okay so as I said it's my I've got a lot of pressure to just cut it off I'm going to move on I apologize I'm going to have a long answer thank you and we're sorry we're out of time thanks folks we have one more presenter a certain amount of time for training so I'm going to skip now to Grace Keller to talk about overdose prevention actually the Howard safe recovery regarding overdose prevention and we're going to talk about it Narcan training and information Grace I'll give it over to you hi thanks everybody for having me I'm going to speak really quickly because usually this is a 40 minute training but I will also give you all my email if there are any questions and feel free to reach out we can also set a time to talk it's really important to have a program coordinator at Howard Center safe recovery for I worked there for 15 years I would love to take one quick second to and say that what they're talking about with housing is a real thing and it's actually devastating I hadn't been in Burlington in a long time I've worked in homeless case management for years and we really need to look at this it's compassion it's going to affect everybody so I'll move on but thank them for their hard work on this it's not it should not be an option so Narcan is a nasal spray it reverses the effects of opioid overdose and gets the person breathing again it's an incredibly safe medication it was FDA approved in 1960 so it's been around for a long time and it was used in emergency rooms and ambulances in 2013 Vermont made it legal for me to for the health department to provide it to people like me and for me to be able to provide it to anyone who might have had an overdose we've had people clients walking through the humor and found somebody overdose that they didn't know in their car and open the door and save their life with Narcan so unfortunately with the state of things right now in Vermont we are all at risk for finding somebody who is overdosed so I can give it to any of you she has Narcan there I also have given out we've given out 30,000 doses out of to me personally if you need more you have somebody you're worried about you have a group of people you're worried about we really want to get this to everybody it's incredibly safe so I'll talk a little bit quickly about how it is safe and what it does also I'm not used to talking this fast so sorry about that but also I will talk about how to recognize science and mode and how to administer so Narcan we all have opioid receptors in our brains and overdose is just a flooding of those receptors so they fill up, they spill over and the brain shuts down and it stops telling the body to breathe so an opioid overdose is not actually a heart attack it's respiratory distress and loss of brain function the reason this medication is so safe is that the only job it has is it has a stronger affinity of those receptors so it goes in and binds to them it makes the opioids off and then the brain resumes normal activity I did the majority of the testimony for the overdose prevention Narcan bill in the House and Senate in 2012 in 2013 so I called poison control and asked them like what happens if a kid gets a hold of this because that's what we would all worry about is medications and kids and they said you don't have to do anything because again this medication only has one job it goes in and it binds to those receptors so A if the kid gets it we obviously don't want kids to get anything they shouldn't be getting but it's like spraying a liquid up their nose wherever kids sprays it and also if you give it to someone who's not overdosing but you think they are it's not going to hurt them so it's worth the chance and it's worth the attempt if you have somebody that is unconscious and unable to respond to you so we'll talk about what that looks like and how to recognize that but I always like to talk about the safety first because it is an incredibly safe medication it's very it's been used for a long time and again poison control if you call them and say my kid drank four doctor peppers they're like oh better get them checked out at the emergency department for them to say nothing you have you don't have to do anything it's incredibly safe so I have administered it also over 20 times so we can talk about that again you'll have my email but it is very safe one of the other things I'll hit the myths up front too is that there's a there's a lot of talk about people coming up frustrated mad potentially even sometimes people talk about violence that is not what happens with the nasal spray we have had 1800 people come back to say they've used it to save a life we do a survey with all of those people we've never had anyone report combative we've never had anybody report that they were physically assaulted or even attempted physically assault when I've done it the person looks like what you see when somebody's fainted they wake up they're confused they don't know why you're there and sometimes they get afraid because the this people who use drugs often have fear or trauma around law enforcement and we'll talk about good Sam in this talk to but really what it is is a time for compassion just like any other medical intervention I've had family members who woke up from other diabetic shock and things like that and they're you know struggling or angry or so this is just like any other intervention and it's a time for compassion it's also a time to get rid of the stigma when people talk about how people react to a medical situation but I can tell you I've never seen it I've never seen anyone come close to it I have seen fear and I think that's when we can talk about the good Sam law and tell people that they're safe and they're immunized and we'll get to that point so Narcan is a nasal spray it comes in a box like this it has an expiration date on the top it has an expiration date and the best is to get stuff that's not expired but if all you had was something that has expired you can go ahead and use it it won't be it's not going to hurt somebody it may not even be weaker is what they're finding but and in on the direction on the box and in the device in the packaging for the device there are directions I tell people to become comfortable Because if you look at the directions, they're actually more complicated than the device, the device is a nasal spray. They're there if you need them, they're in the packaging if you need them. I just know that I've now graduated to readers the last thing you need is another barrier when it is a nasal spray. And it's pretty self explanatory and intuitive if even if you didn't know what you were what you were looking at. So the box comes with two doses. I take the doses out and put them in my bag. That's fine. I just would always keep at least two doses together. And if you're high risk, or work at a program at high risk around a lot of people. You may want to consider keeping more doses because unfortunately, even in Burlington, we've had tragedies where two people have overdosed at the same time. So, but to keep the two doses together. It's just best practices with the manufacturer wants you to do. So I'm going to show you how to use it then we'll show you how to recognize the sign because I think this is what really demystifies it for people. So you just take it out of this little plastic packaging, it has a tab so it's very easy to pull.   And you spray. And what's nice about it is there is some resistance you might have heard that click.  And it will also deliver the entire dose so you don't have to worry about dosing each one of these is one dose and there's two doses in a bag in a package. What's important is that if you give the first dose and nothing happens or very little happens in two to three minutes you continue to give another dose, and you can give doses every two to three minutes until help arrives. Now this is a very scary situation if that happens, you might feel the tendency to go quicker than two to three minutes. Ideally, we want people to wait because it is being absorbed through the mucus membrane.  But again, it's going through the mucus membrane and it's getting the opioids off those receptors. And if you recognize signs of an overdose that's another piece that I know that is concerning for people. Again, one of the nice things is is that if you give it to someone who's not overdosing you're not going to hurt them. So, I would say, try it, but we'll talk about it too. And in Burlington, again, we're talking about homeless population. We're talking about we're having different populations of people. There's an increase in elderly overdose, because people are prescribed opioids and they take more than by accident take more than they have I know when I have antibiotics there's times where I'm like did I take this today. So, you know, it's a good practice just for everybody to be aware of the signs of overdose and how to use Narcan overdose often can look like sleeping so if it's somebody you're worried about. If you make them up from their nap they may be annoyed at you for that problem, but it is good practice to check especially if it's somebody that you're that there's a reason to be concerned. But the other telltale signs is somebody can look like they're sleeping their finger and lips turn blue fingernails turn blue, low or shallow breathing because it and or a gurgling sound. There's times that you should be you could be concerned about overdose and again, those seem very simple and easy to see, but it's worth, you know, just going through these very deliberate steps so that people feel like they feel confident on how they would respond to an overdose. I give people really deliberate steps because I think sometimes it gets overwhelming. And if you do these steps in order, or out of order, you're still really moving towards getting somebody help, rather than if you get overwhelmed and not do any so I really want to keep the steps deliberate. If you come upon somebody your concerns overdose lips turn blue fingernails turn blue they don't look right they're in a different position, they're sleeping in a place they wouldn't be. They just say they say something to them quite loud try and wake them up just by talking to them hey hey hey, if they don't respond to that. You can take your knuckles, just like this and a fist, and rub them on their chest bone. And if you rub it on your own chest bone pretty hard you can feel it's a pain sensor, you want to rub it hard enough, or you can do it under the nose, and you want to rub it hard enough. And if they don't respond to that it means they're non responsive and you can give them Narcan. The reason that I say, keep it where we keep it very simple from the health department's perspective and training. We don't want people to have to get into whether there's a pulse because again it's respiratory and distress not necessarily the heart distress. We don't want people to have to guess a lot it's really about whether they're able to respond to you or not. They say I'm fine and then go back even if they go right back to sleep. They may need medical care, but they don't need Narcan yet it's if they cannot respond to you is when you would go ahead and give them Narcan. So, again, very simple rub the chest bone or under the nose, and if they don't respond you can give them Narcan. Now the next step is pretty deliberate also. If you are the only person there we tell people to give Narcan first, and then call 911, because it gets them the medication working in the system. Again, if you do the other way around getting those steps done is really important. But if you, I would, if you're the only one there give the first dose it doesn't take very long and then call 911. In Vermont we have this amazing law speaking of our legislators. It was the best of law in the country at the time. It's called the good Samaritan 911 law. If you call, if you call 911 in the case of a drug overdose the person overdosing and anybody helping them cannot be charged with a drug crime in the state of Vermont. So they can't be charged with possession of any amount sales of any amount delivery which means I gave it to you or you gave it to me but we didn't exchange money. Even if the person does not survive. They also can't violate probation parole house arrest restraining order or conditions of release. So really what the help the legislature did that year was focus on saving a life and and really getting people to call for help. So it's the person who's overdosing and anybody helping them. And it also includes underage drinking. So if you think about college kids who are afraid to call for help. But what it means is that if we're all at a party and somebody overdoses. So the automatic response we are hoping for will be that people will feel comfortable calling for help. And it means that if we call if there's an overdose, we can all work together and immunize ourselves and help the person.  All of us, including the victim are immune from prosecution for that long list of stuff. There are exceptions if the person is in the car and driver's seat of the car and the car is on they can be given a DUI and may. Or if there's there are children present and that person is responsible for caring for those children. They DCF can be called DCF could be called if there were children present anyway. And there could be charges about. You know, the effect that that might have on a child. But other than that, we went really broad to really focus on the idea that we need to save a life and call for help. So that's a lot of information all at once. I want to also do a short video on rescue breathing. Again, this is like the quickest I've ever done a training. But I also think if we do that really quickly, we can have some time for questions. Storage wise, you want to store it at room temperature as best you can. You can store it. It can go in high and low temperatures. It just shouldn't be stored in high and low temperatures like for unfortunately for Vermont that means the car is not an option. Our cars are room temperature like today, two days out of the year. So we really it should be it if it's someone who's homeless or spends a lot of time outside. I tell them an outside pocket in the summer and inside pocket in the winter. Again, we're not sure that it affects it. And it's better than nothing absolutely. But that's what the manufacturer is saying currently. So I'm going to share my screen show a quick video. And then we can ask for quick questions. Also, my email is just grace K at Howard center.org. You won't shock me. If you're thinking at someone else's, you can ask me anything. You can tell me it's private. I won't share it. I don't share them anyway. But I just want people to feel really safe and comfortable asking questions. These are really important issues. Okay, so we're going to share my screen hopefully. And okay, this is a very like one minute video basically and I can put it in the chat afterwards. It's just about how to do rescue breathing. Chest compressions in an overdose situation. Helping a person breathe by doing rescue breaths and chest compressions is important to keep the brain alive during an overdose. These steps may also be taken if you have given naloxone to a person who is overdosed and are waiting for the medication to take effect. These are the signs you should look for before beginning rescue breathing and chest compressions. The person is unconscious and not waking up. They don't respond to shouting or rubbing knuckles on the breastbone or between their upper lip and nose. They are not breathing normally. To begin rescue breathing, if the person is not breathing, follow these instructions. Open the person's airway by placing one hand on the forehead and the other hand on the bony part of their chin. Gently tilt the head backward, slightly lift the chin. Make sure their airway is clear.  Take a regular, not a deep breath. Give one rescue breath for one second. Give a second rescue breath for one second. You will know you have given enough air when you see the person's chest begin to rise with the breath you give. As soon as you see chest movement, stop that breath. Be careful not to give too much air. If the person's chest doesn't rise on the first breath, try repositioning the head or the airway and trying another breath. To give chest compressions, follow these instructions. Once you have given two rescue breaths, do 30 chest compressions. Here's how. Place the heel of one hand on the center of the person's chest. This is the lower half of the sternum. Place the heel of the other hand on top of the first hand so that the hands are overlapped and parallel. Push hard and fast, two inches deep for anyone over the age of one. Allow the chest to fully return to normal position after each compression. For every two rescue breaths, give 30 chest compressions. Within the space of a minute, you should give between 100 and 120 compressions. For guidance, try to imagine giving compressions to a normal beat of row, row, row your boat. Keep doing rescue breathing and chest compressions. Stop if the person begins to breathe normally on their own. They regain consciousness or wake up. You are exhausted and can't continue. EMS, police or other trained first responders arrive and take over care. Although the risk is low, mouth to mouth rescue can transmit infectious diseases. Consider your own safety before providing assistance. Devices such as a pocket mask or face shield are designed to protect you while you deliver rescue breathing and should be used according to the manufacturer's recommendations. The Good Samaritan Law provides some legal protections to anyone who gives. Okay, I got that last part in already. So, am I there? Can you all see me? Yeah. Okay, there I am, right? And the last thing I want to say is if you don't have Narcan, it's important to call 911 as quickly as possible because any ambulance in the state after 2013, any ambulance in the state will have it. Also, any police in the state other than there's one police department somewhere in Southern Vermont that doesn't but Burlington police, whoever gets there first will have Narcan. So, if you don't have it, definitely, definitely give them a call as quick as possible 911. And also what I want to say really quickly is you can give extra doses every two to three minutes. It may not look good for a little while. What I can tell you is that because of fentanyl and that maybe I'll come back another time and talk about fentanyl. It's a very powerful opioid. It can take multiple doses, but I don't want people to do is give up. So just keep doing the dosing. I also understand that some people aren't capable of doing rescue breathing, which is why I really was deliberate with the other steps. You can't get down on the ground or you can't do you have breathing issues or there's some reason why you can't then make sure that you're calling 911 and doing, doing the nasal spray part as, as, you know, I think people can get scared and not do any of them. So that's why I want to just be very deliberate. Sorry to spew all this, all of you, but I'm, I'm passionate about this if you can't tell so feel free to email me. I do see a hand over here. If I also don't know how, if I can go over, do we want to just grab Robert's question real quick or how do we do this. Not really a question. Just congratulating grace. Excellent presentation. Two weeks ago I had a friend who went into her daughter's room and found her in that blue condition did not have anything available at the time to help her, and she died. You walk out of the room, take up a couple of those things, because you never know when you're going to be the person who is there. It might be your neighbor out in the front yard yelling. It might be somebody you run into on the street or an airplane or some other place, but you can't do something if you don't have something so get something. Thanks. I'm so sorry to hear that rubber and what you're saying is true it's it's a very easy it's there's a lot of stigma around it but it's a very easy thing to do to carry to have. And it's a nasal spray if all you do is spray the nasal spray up somebody's nose you are getting them well on their way. You also don't want to be in a position where you don't have access to this very safe medication. But I'm, I'm, I'm horribly sorry to hear that and in Vermont. We are I can I could talk about this all night so I won't but I've been at my job for 15 years and we're losing people it's such a high rate it's it's really preventable. But I can come back another time. I could also you're on about the housing piece. And so, again, I'm not supposed to get too political but that is critical and I think we are already and the effects are going to be a wave of devastation that's going to start coming very quickly if not and already has so sorry. Um, you know, I'm not a, I'm not bringing all that much hope sometimes but I'm just being really direct so. Well, we're pretty deep in the hole. Yeah. And we have ways out. I had two questions. Where can we get. If you're not here tonight. Okay. There's, I think they did pass some out if there's not enough. You know, bring it to your house. Yes, I'm going to get it. And this is more of a suggestion for you. I think every business, public business should have it in their first aid kit. Last month, there's, there's two overdoses in Hanifords. Right down our road. So I hope on the public side, we can get businesses to keep it and then I just, if I want to tell my mother to get it, where can I get it? Oh, so this is great if you went to health department's website, especially if you have a friend that's in another part of the state, they can just type their address in and they'll tell them the closest spot. It is in pharmacies, but you'd have to pay for it and there's a lot of places to get it for free. So, but that's the other piece. I'll tell you really quickly. I think five percent of the people that have died in the last social autopsy we did were restaurant workers and construction workers. So I am doing a focus towards them. So if anybody has any connections, I'd love to get in. Those are Department of Labor statistics. So we know that that's dramatically under reported. I worked in restaurants for years. I'm saying it publicly. I was never on the books. He was a carpenter. He always struggled to find places to be on the books. So we, we know what populations we're losing, but I do agree with businesses. It's, it's a really safe and easy thing to have. Sounds like it maybe should be part of the needle exchange network. It is. That's where I come from is the syringe exchange. Get a needle, get an arcane. Yep, exactly. And so, yes, if anybody else has any questions, also, if you don't feel comfortable getting it tonight, reach out to me and we'll find a confidential way to do that. You know, again, I've given out over 30,000 doses. So I don't even notice. Don't, you know, don't feel any shame around coming to me about that. When we're questioning the back of the room. I just want to say thank you for putting the training on. I think this is incredibly important. I will definitely take you up on your offer for some Narcan. One thing I did want to point out, I have family members who have had the opportunity to administer Narcan here in the city. And one of the things that came as a bit of a shock and surprise to me is not everyone is really happy that you gave them Narcan because you just ruined their high. And I have talked to a number of people who have had to administer Narcan and have actually been verbally and physically assaulted afterwards. So, once you administer Narcan, make sure to take a step back and, you know, be prepared to get yelled at.  And that's the most important thing. And thank you again for your work. Thank you so much. And again, I don't know if you're here when we talked about that part of the presentation and the statistics that we see, we've had the 1800 people come back and say they've used it. We have not seen that. So, I'd be happy to talk to somebody who went through that. I'd love to help and, and, you know, hear their experience because I do these trainings all the time. So feel free to give them my email to giving out my email to everybody. But yeah, I need to hear those stories. Like I said, I've been working on this a long time. So if, you know, I've never seen it or heard it, but I doesn't mean it didn't happen. And I want to make sure that I am reflecting those experiences accurately. So feel free to give anybody my email. But I like your message that let's keep people alive too. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm really happy to be here. I appreciate it. Thank you so much for the work you do. I think this work has exponential life saving potential. I'm only here because people interrupted my death 15 years ago and now I help others and the people that you instruct save others who will save others so thank you for putting that the world. We really appreciate it. Thank you so much for saying that I can tell you that safer recovery has 5000 clients and they are, you know, the most resilient powerful people that is a silent population in the community that we don't see and we don't know their stories but some of the stories that you hear and then you see them getting out of a tent and going to work or going to get their methadone or even getting out of a tent to, you know, go to the bathroom in the middle of the night I know I have a client who's in her 60s and as a female, like the resiliency in this population is not anything you will have ever seen until you start, you know, stopping and talking and being compassionate to people and I'm sure everybody is I just the stigma is really devastating and so I think, you know, the accomplishments that some of these people have and the stories that they have, you know, are things that we would never imagine when you're when you're seeing what's going on in right now so thank you all for being the ones that are interested came and and I'm happy to to meet up with anybody. Last thing Robert there is a group support group for parents. It's called team sharing Vermont, and I think it's on Facebook. By Kimberly Blake who's a doctor in the area that lost her son. And I know that that group I've worked with that group they really get a lot of power and support from each other so I think even the hospital gives out her cell phone so it's a really, you know, a horrible thing to have happen but I think also the one of the best times for having somebody else who's been there. So feel free to tell your friend about that or have them connect to me and I will. So sorry. All right, well thank you all and sorry to keep you I know it's late. Take care. Thank you.