All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. And I do see, I think I heard you, Councilor Hightower, right? You are here with us and voting. Yes, I am sorry, just migrating rooms. Okay, great. The next item is the public forum. Is there any member of the public who would like to address the board of finance can use the raise hand function. If you are on the zoom with us. And you would like to be recognized in the public forum. I am not seeing any raised hands. So I'll close the public forum. And move to the consent agenda. The first item on the consent agenda is. The consent agenda. Take the actions indicated. Are we ready for a motion on that item 3.01. So moved. Thank you, Councilor Powell. Is there a second? Okay. Seconded by President Tracy discussion of the consent agenda. Motion. Seeing none will go to vote. All those in favor of the motion. Please say aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. And we, the consent agenda is adopted. Okay. We have now. Eight items for recommendation to approval and recommendation. The city council followed by there will be one item that is a. Units approval only item. Star point with 4.0 one authorization to the branch electric department revenue bonds for a net zero energy projects. Team BED. Joining us here. And Darren maybe could just, you know, this is a significant authorization. So maybe could just say a couple words about it. Glad to mayor. Good evening. Stephanie's Wheelock, and also Emily Byrne, who is our new director of finance at Burlington Electric and Thomas Maloney, our bond council. So before you, you have a few different items that are all related to our net zero energy revenue bond, which was approved by voters December 7th special election. This package will enable us to go ahead with issuing the bonds and was approved by our electric commission. In addition, there are changes to supplemental resolution in supplemental resolution 16 to the bond resolution to do a few things. First, to extend from 120 days to 180 days at the end of each fiscal year, the amount of time we have to provide our audited financials. We ran into one issue at one point with this several years back where we had a challenge being able to get the audited financials issued within the 120 day period. So having the 180 days is certainly provides a little additional security for us in terms of meeting that deadline, which is part of the bond resolution. Secondly, it will ensure that in the future, we are able to include what we're terming energy efficiency energy transformation projects within our potential future bond issuances. This kind of expands the scope of what we may be able to go to issue for in the future as it relates to net zero energy and really is consistent with the way we're starting to treat some of our incentive programs at Burlington Electric, thinking of them as being regulatory assets and capital investments as opposed to ongoing year-to-year expenses, the way we've been treating them. And then lastly, expanding to include money market funds in the investment securities that are eligible within the bond resolution. So supplemental 16 accomplishes those three changes. Supplemental 17 and the general resolution that you have are primarily focused on helping us to have approval to issue the 20 million for net zero energy revenue bonds. And I'll pause there. I know myself or our team could answer any questions that you might have. Thank you, Darren, for that. Thanks to the whole team for the hard work on this. It's I think really quite exciting and hopeful that we are moving forward with this and the voters supported the bonds so strongly. The floor is open for discussion or emotion. Councilor Powell. So thanks, Mayor. I have a question. Would there be an issue with making a motion for items 4.0102 and 03 together or is that not a good idea? We see we have a bond council here. Thomas Maloney. Welcome, Thomas. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. For the council and for the board of finance, there's one resolution that is being proposed for presentation for the full city council that incorporates and adopts both supplemental resolution number 16 and supplemental resolution number 17. So by acting on that one resolution, the council would authorize not only the amendments and approve the amendments and authorize them being to the general bond resolution as the general manager explained, but then also would authorize the up to 20 million of revenue bonds for the electric department and further into the net zero energy program. There is the delegation that goes to the chief administrative officer of the city in terms of those done historically with the final terms and rates for authorization with the caveat that the total interest costs cannot exceed a four and a half percent threshold. Otherwise, it will have to come back to this, to the board for actual authorization. Current rates, that's not expected, but there's certainly some uncertainty in the market. But at the current levels, it's not expected to be over the four and a half percent threshold. So with that, I guess what I'm reading from that explanation is that it's okay to make these together. That's correct. Yes, it should be all as one approval if the members of the board of finance so determined. Yes. All right. Well, with that said, if I might, I would make a motion to take the action as recommended in the board docs for items 4.01, 4.02, and 4.03. Thank you, Councilor Powell. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Councilor Jang. Thank you. I must say that Thomas, I'm confused. What I'm seeing on board docs suggests there are three different resolutions that have different language. They seem to be three separate resolutions we're acting on. Is that not the case? There are three separate resolutions, but the one resolution relating to authorization that's by the City Council that incorporates and adopts the other two resolutions that are attached. They're incorporated by reference. They're attachments. So by acting on... I see those are resolutions simply from the board of electric commissioners. That's correct. So the Council is approving and adopting those resolutions for the bonds. But it's done in the... by the single resolution contained... I'll open up the board docs as 4.01. That's correct. So is that the only one we really need to act on? And the others are just informational? I believe so, but 4.01 does incorporate the resolutions that are identified in 4.02 and 4.03. Okay. Sorry. I don't recall us ever doing it quite this way before, so just sorry to believe for this, but I just don't want to screw this up somehow. So the board docs recommended action for 4.02 and 4.03 says recommended action to recommend that the City Council approve the attached resolution. The attached resolution appears to be a resolution of the board of electric commissioners. You actually want us to do that? I don't remember ever doing that before. No, I... Mr. Mayor, I don't think that's necessary. I think if the board... if the board of finance and the City Council acts on the resolution in 4.01 by approving 4.01, it will incorporate and be approving the department's actions contained in 4.02 and 4.03. All right. That makes sense to me. Is everybody clear on that? Councilor Powell, I didn't mean to... You should want to get back in. Sorry if I cut you off. Okay. Okay. So after all that, we're just getting more act on 4.01. Would you like to make that motion, Councilor Powell? Maybe you already do. Yes. As I was trying to save us all sorts of time, I guess I wasn't able to quite do that. So I would make a motion to take the recommended actions... recommended action to recommend that the City Council approve the attached resolution in item 4.01. Great. Is there a second second by President Tracy? Discussion of 4.01. Great. Seeing none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Are any opposed? The motion carries unanimously. Thank you, everyone. So I'm going to now simply just move to item 4.04. That's what we're all agreeing I should do, right? Yes. Okay. All right. 4.04. Then thank you, Team BED. We'll see you at the Council. 4.04. Shelburne Street, Roundabout, Budget Amendment, Utility Agreement, Supplemental Agreement Number 4. This is an e-contract. Welcome, Chapin and Laura. How are the Board like to proceed on this? Chapin and Laura, can one of you give a quick overview of what's going on here? In your engineer wheel, we'll do that. Actually, we're going to give this to Olivia. This is her work. Hi. So for the Shelburne Street Roundabout Project, we have a utility agreement with the State of Vermont. This agreement allows the City to be reimbursed for 100% of the costs incurred for the oversight and inspection of the water and sewer infrastructure being installed as part of the project. That oversight and inspection is being performed by a consultant, Aldridge and Elliott. Our Water Resources Department also has their water distribution team spending a significant amount of time in the field, and our water resources engineers are providing a lot of technical review for some of the field engineering and the changes being made in the field. So we're coming to the Board of Finance tonight to seek authorization to enter into an amendment of this utility agreement. The amendment includes money to reimburse our Water Resources Department for this time spent on the project, which was not originally anticipated. It also covers an additional amount of money for Aldridge and Elliott's work. There have been a few construction delays just related to the presence of ledges throughout the project, which has significantly slowed the schedule and just kind of stretched out the need for Aldridge and Elliott's oversight. So the amendment covers that additional amount of money. The motions also ask for authorization to enter into an amendment with Aldridge and Elliott to cover this work as well as an overall project budget amendment. Great. Thank you, Olivia. The floor is open. Questions or are we ready for a motion? Well, as this is sort of in my backyard, I'll make the motion to take the action as recommended on Board Docks. Is there a second? Okay. Great. Seconded by President Tracey. Further discussion? All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? The motion carries unanimously. And Chapinage, U.S. is it? Yes, one piece on this item. Thank you for the approval is that it was listed as a deliberative item on the council agenda tonight. That may have been erroneous. If there's a need for it to be on deliberative, we're fine with that. But if friendly, we'd welcome it being moved to consent if that's possible. Are you looking for a motion? Add that to the motion or no? Looks like President Tracey would like to speak to this. So go ahead, President Tracey. Yeah, I mean, I would be fine with that. I think we should take care of that at the at the agenda approval at that. So if you could just ask that to be updated, maybe send that to Lori, Lori Elberg, and just ask Lori to update that in the agenda motion for tonight's main council agenda. And we can take that. I will do that. I just want to make sure there was no interest on your part. President Tracey or others to have it on deliberative. Thank you. Yeah. No, I haven't heard any concerns from folks. It seems pretty straightforward. So I'm okay with that. Great. I'm going to move now to 4.05, another DPW. We got DPW items the rest of the way here. Reclassification of a previously approved water operator position. Keep in how would you like to summarize this?  This is basically reclassifying a previously approved water operator position. This is the ninth water operator that will allow us to put the senior plant mechanic on day shift to help us get more proactive capital work done at the water plant. And previous approval had this as a tiered position coming in at a grade 15, 16. In further consideration in talking to the union, the interest was to have the tiering conversation as part of the upcoming collective bargaining. And as a result, we have a retiring senior plant mechanic coming soon. So we need to get out in front of this and unfortunately can't wait for those negotiations to occur. So in the short term, we're seeking to just reclassify this to a regular water operator at grade 17. And HR manager Lynn Reagan and Jenna Olson from Water Resources are here to answer any questions. Great. All right. I said to you both how would the board like to proceed? I have a question.  Yes, I wanted to understand the operator's license. I believe it's called the C4 or equivalent. Can you explain what it does it entails? Yes, it is a license requirement for operation of the water plant, the drinking water plant. And it is a licensure that our operators need to secure for their work at the plant. Every chef needs to have a mechanic and an operator on at all times. And so there is a basic operator's license so that they can just provide the basic functions to operate the water plant. And then there are, you know, continual tiers of licensure from there that allow them to do more complex tasks. And also, thank you. And I think also, you know, it seems you can hire somebody for disposition without that license, but there is a requirement as part of the memo that that person would need to actually have it within 1.5 years. Did I get that right? Right. Okay. So I want to understand then why would you want to move from grade 15 to 16 and straight to grade 17 without making sure that you will actually have, that person will be hired, will actually have that license. Yes, that is a good question, Councilor Jayne. This arrangement currently exists with our grade 17 water operator positions. These are existing positions. We had hoped to have a more entry level position to create a tiered, to create a ladder, a career ladder within the water resources, the water plant team. Given the conversations with the union, the thought was to have those tiering conversations as part of collective bargaining. So this is really just matching the other existing water operator positions with this ninth position. Okay. So I mean, I feel like, you know, looking at the job description, this is a very entry level job, data entry job, right? And also, you know, the requirements, the education requirements are high school or equivalent. And from my perspective, I think it would be better if, for example, the job description would say there is possibilities to move to grade 17 upon receiving the grade C for operator's license. I'm more comfortable with that than to just approve a $76,000 a year for someone who doesn't have a license. You understand what I mean? Sorry. I do. The challenge is that these are, well, they may not require a lot on the front end in terms of education. There is a very high bar in terms of professionalism and knowledge in the industry to operate our potable water plant. And these positions already exist as grade 17 positions already with the year and a half to get your necessary licensure. And we do have a good job shadowing program where if a member does not yet have their license, they work with a team member who does have a license. Thank you. Mr. Mayor, you're muted. Twice. I was just saying, I believe we still need a motion or further questions here, Councilor Hightower. Yeah, I'll move to recommend the City Council approve the attached resolution as listed on board box. Thank you, Councilor Hightower. Is there a second? I think it might present Tracy. Discussion? We'll go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion please say aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? Opposed. Okay. I think for these remote votes, we are supposed to do a roll call just if there is not, you know, it's just to be totally explicit. So I will quickly go through the roll. President Tracy? Yes. Councilor Paul? Yes. Councilor Hightower? Yes. Councilor Jang? No. And I will vote aye. So the motion carries by a vote of four to one. This brings us now to 4.06. Authorization for up to $280,832. Step one, loan from the Vermont Clean Water State Provolving Fund for Tertiary Treatment Pilot Study at the Main Wastewater Treatment Plant. Any quick opening remarks on this? Champion, you like to share? Yes. These three items are tied together and are part of a very exciting package to advance the city's water quality work. They seek to authorize loan application and execution for state revolving fund loans and for authorizing related contracts with a consultant team, oil tanner. The total value of the work is around $1.2 million but because of the loan forgiveness that the state is offering of $350,000, the amount to borrow is around $780,000 collectively between these three items. Over the last couple of years, with the integrated water quality plan, we have been putting together a plan, one of the first in New England for merging both our stormwater and wastewater permitting and there are two main efforts here under way. One is to reduce our phosphorus discharge and two is to reduce both the frequency and volume of combined sewer overflows in our collection system. So there's three items here. This first one is for tertiary treatment technology evaluation. This is looking at upgrading main wastewater treatment plant to remove additional phosphorus from our effluent. This alone is indicating to help us meet our total maximum daily load, our TMDL reductions under our permit requirements for both our wastewater and stormwater systems and then the second and third item are related to our CSO reduction efforts in terms of the Pine Street CSO storage tank, preliminary engineering of that work and some additional modeling, the hydrologic and hydraulic modeling efforts. I'm happy to answer questions on any of these. Jenna Holson is here to also answer any questions. These are very exciting investments into our increased commitment in improving our water quality of lake shimpling. Jenna, is there anything you'd like to add? Just that I have shingles on my face so I don't, Zoom can't help me right now. So that's why I look like this. These are projects that are really integral to our integrated water quality plan that I will be coming to present our final plan for in the coming weeks. We're starting with Conservation Board March 7th and then we'll be presenting to City Council, Board of Finance, DPW Commission and the TUC throughout the month of March. So there will be more information to come. I think the key thing that I just want to hit home is that we're requesting this authorization now rather than after we do those presentations in March because these projects are really dependent on capturing spring rainfall and if we wait until after March then we're going to miss that really important data set and we could push the, we could end up pushing the project out an entire another year which is just, it's too long. Thank you Jenna. That combined with the loan forgiveness that the state has that may be disappearing we did not want to miss that opportunity for $350,000. Right so we all, we have existing possibilities for subsidies in addition to you know being able to potentially seek ARPA funding right now and so we also really don't want to miss those and really important funding opportunities. Thank you both for that. Kester, hi Tara. Yeah just a question which I know the plan is coming but a question on yeah what the plan is for this being a pilot and then if the pilot proved successful with the plan is from timeline I guess really not specifically on the plan. Sure so that for the integrated plan that the tertiary upgrades at main wastewater plant are like really the key component to the integrated plan. The pilot study isn't, it's not, it's not a pilot study I guess to be clear on whether or not we should pursue tertiary treatment it's what type of tertiary treatment so the pilot is basically you know according period for folks that manufacture this technology to demonstrate to the city what they can do so we will be piloting different technologies and identifying which one is you know most effective and most cost effective at our plant in particular. I think another important point to make is that our main wastewater treatment plant has a wet weather treatment system and so that makes it a little bit different. It means that the phosphorus inputs you know coming into our plant and the effluent influence are a little bit more intense it also means that there's a lot more variation and so we want to make sure that we're piloting enough of those different technologies that we're you know maximizing that that phosphorus capture. If all goes to plan I think you know we are aiming to have the tertiary upgrades start sometime in the next year to year and a half so I would say that the upgrades themselves probably be starting in earnest probably towards the end of 2023 to the beginning of 2024. Okay so not not likely to be the spring flow for next year but. No no I don't think so I mean just with the way the process goes with funding and everything I would say it's probably more likely that the upgrades would start in the middle of next year at the earliest. Great thank you so much. President Tracy. I'm wondering if we might be able to move these three items in concert so I'd like to move if possible and if the board is okay with it item the taking the recommended actions on items four point the recommended actions and board docs I'm sorry in items four point for items four point oh six oh seven and oh eight you're on mute again here. I have no objection to that and I'm not seeing a city attorney jump on the race I'm concerned about that so let's proceed with that motion is there a second second by Councillor Jang so motion has now we do have Dan here are you with the motion with the items being moved simultaneously. Yes I'm comfortable with that I think it's it's appropriate. Okay great uh any further discussion of items four point oh seven through four point oh eight. Four point oh six through oh eight. All right four points oh six through four point oh eight. Okay seeing none we'll go to a vote all those in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. Are there any post? Motion carries unanimously. Thank you John. Thank you very much. I went through the shingles up around the eye no fun uh good luck go to have the doctor check that out. Oh yeah. Talk to you uh talk to you soon. That leaves us with just five point oh one one and um we have Max and Cindy here to speak to this exciting first time in 37 years replacement of uh playground equipment at Callahan Park and um as in all of our recent playground uh upgrades or replacements just focused on quality uh materials and um I think it's exciting have it the major frequent user for many years of that park it's exciting to see this coming forward after an extensive we should say uh after planning process with the community there which did touch on uh some guidance that the team is working with so with that the floor is open for five point oh one. Cindy do you want to add anything to my my overview there? I think you know I think that's good I would just ask if Max does Max has been overseeing this project as he does um all our penny per park projects and does really a fantastic job with it. Max is there anything that you'd want to touch on there? No I actually thought the mayor did a pretty good succinct job there of sort of summarizing uh where this project is at and we're really excited to get moving forward with getting that equipment replaced and getting the fresh new playground in Callahan Park. The floor is open for our motion or discussion. You know if you can just pardon me for one more second Councillor Paul could you just remind us of how we have been uh kind of like just to address any questions there might be about why Callahan how we have been yeah I've been sort of in an orderly way um replacing uh this is it's not our first replacement in the past few years you've had a focused program on this can you say anything more about that and how that's funded and how you go about that Max? Yeah so Callahan has been on our list uh for replacement I mean since I started here it was sort of scheduled for around FY 21-22 timeline for replacement we work pretty closely with our grounds manager Paul Morris and a couple other people on our team basically evaluate all of our playgrounds comprehensively throughout the city looking at their age and also looking at just how the equipment is held up over time and what level different parts have sort of deteriorated into and what needs replacement and then what things can still get replacement parts based on their age so we've really taken a pretty comprehensive look internally at all of our playgrounds throughout the city and what is in highest need um now in terms of how we've been sort of approaching it is over the last couple years we've allocated um I might get the dollar amount here wrong I think it was $50,000 over the past two years just to replacing parts and pieces that were damaged and needed replacement because they presented a health and safety risk to our community and we were ordering those parts and getting in either contractors as needed to help with that or getting those parts for our grounds team to put in at various playgrounds throughout the city um and then before that going further back we've just sort of been looking at each of these playgrounds and as we can we are working through that list from oldest to newest best condition and sort of prioritizing our replacements based on the available funding and based on how much we think we can get done given the need in a particular park so like Kallahan Park which is a pretty high-use park that is serving age ranges from as young as two years old up to 12 in terms of sort of your typical playground use uh that means you need quite a bit more structures quite a bit more features and so that's kind of driving your cost up to a higher range so when we were looking at all the different playgrounds that are kind of highest need like the ones that rise to the top were Oakledge like Kallahan and then places like Letty where there just isn't a playground yet and so those have sort of gotten ranked quite a bit higher on our list um and those are also ones that have a much higher dollar value so we kind of have to stagger them in terms of thinking about any for parks dollars and what we have available year after year and then we're trying to get fit in some of our smaller playgrounds like Smalley things like Champlain Street Park where they're serving sort of a younger user group maybe have some smaller features and therefore a lower price range kind of mixed in with those other playgrounds so that we can kind of manage to chip away and get all of these playgrounds replaced on a somewhat timely fashion yes i'm happy to um so just uh make a motion to take the action as recommended in board docs and thank you there a second thank you thank you my counselor Chang thank you for their discussion yes i have a question for uh mr Bandowski um i was just wondering between the three four contractors um it seems you you you choose based on scoring you know compend compound whatever you call it but if you look at it it's very similar in terms of the price and you know the memo is saying it's specific why you made your decision is about the timeline of completion you know are there all the elements that you have not shared in here and also the all the the contractors which one of them all of them actually which one of them are local basically um and also which one of them you worked with in the past so four questions right there sorry yeah um i'm not sure i heard the first one of those four questions uh i think i heard the last three okay i'm gonna so the first one is about you know the elements you use in making the in keeping in scoring component okay more yeah gotcha so um so first off the things we look at are like overall budget and sort of what like in each of these proposals that we get there's sort of a detailed budget breakdown of what we're getting so it'll tell you like what pieces of equipment you're getting what they cost what's the installation fee um how much of a discount they're giving you on their like a list price on each of these items what's your shipping charge all of those different things so within our budget even though the total budget is coming in at eighty thousand dollars there's sort of some different things to pick through and sort of look at there um and part of the reason you're seeing across all four of these proposals that the budgets are fairly similar is because this is sort of a design build type project where it's uh playground manufacturers they have like a design team that sort of works for the manufacturer and then they have their own staff that they send out who are certified installers for these pieces and all of this has to do with warranties and liability around playground equipment and parks basically and you want to make sure that whoever you're working with has all of these credentials and these systems in place so that we as the city are not carrying all of the liability say if like a pipe uh that's one of these manufacturers put in turned out to be faulty and broke or something like that and somebody got really badly hurt because of that so we're looking for people who have all of those credentials and we're telling them like hey our maximum budget for this project is in this case eighty thousand dollars and we need you to be designing and proposing within that budget so that's why they're going to see that and they are going to want to know uh basically try to be cost competitive with what they're giving you within that budget so from there they we're looking at those discounts like how much of a discount are we getting between them um we're also looking at you know did they submit everything that they were supposed to so what's the quality clarity and completeness of their proposal um we are looking at their proposed design so in this case we ask that each proposer is submitting one to do designs along with their proposal we're looking at you know what types of pieces have they included are they explaining the different sort of um physical and mental uh sort of activities that are being targeted by these different pieces within that it does it show some thought in terms of thinking about like the social emotional development of kids of different ages and their physical development how well are they using the space is there a lot of empty space that really could have been programmed a little bit more with the pieces of equipment that they're giving us and in this case because we've completed our master plan already we're also looking at what is the community told us they want to see um you know we had a list of different features different like slides you know climbers and things like that that were sort of in a chart that was provided with our RFP for manufacturers to reference and coming up with their proposed design here and so we're looking to make sure that those things are showing up and in particular here at Callahan we've heard from the community which was also advertised again in our RFP that people really wanted to see natural materials in this playground and that was uh I would say probably one of the bigger factors in going with the with choosing to recommend ComPan for this award um and then to move on to some of your next questions so we have worked with um Pettinelli and associates most of our playgrounds in the city currently were put in by Pettinelli and associates in the past they are the only local playground supplier in the state of Vermont there are no other vendors that have a base of operations here which I think is part of the reason that in the past that's what was done um and I also think this is before I started working here and you know this is going back to probably the 90s now I think probably there was less of a process around putting playgrounds into our parks during that time would be my guess uh I think there was a close relationship with staff and Pettinelli at that time and so he was the local vendor and the local guy that everybody went to and I mean you'll see his playgrounds and also most of the schools in the area he's kind of a very common vendor for people here so we still work with him quite frequently for repairs and we certainly solicit from him for proposals on any of our replacements we also have worked with UltiPlay who was the next highest scored proposal on this project and there the playground that we got from them was installed pretty recently in 2015 up at Star Farm Park and then we have not I don't think ever gotten a playground from the last vendor on this list but that is a vendor who we work with for supplying park furnishings throughout our city so I think commonly our standard park bench which is a nice black benches that you see throughout a lot of our parks we purchase through them which is Emmy O'Brien based out of Massachusetts um hi and did I get all your questions Ali? I think so but I mean I appreciate again there is so much work that went into this it's not just here I'll prove it but thank you for providing them in details I appreciate it thank you thank you yeah okay the motion has been made and seconded are any further questions or are you ready for a vote we'll go to a vote all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye aye are any opposed the motion carries unanimously and thank you Max and Cindy thank you thank you that objection the board of its agenda is done and we will adjourn at 6.8 p.m. handed over to you President Tracy do you want to say anything about process for yep thanks mayor appreciate it um so we'll get started with our regular city council meeting at seven so we've got a little break here stay on this zoom we'll use this zoom going forward so just stay on this one you can turn off and mute for the time being um if you'd like um and if you're interested in speaking at public forum this evening the way to sign up and do that is by going to burlington vt.gov slash city council slash public forum that's burlington vt.gov slash city council slash public forum and that'll take you to the forum that you'll then fill out to sign up for public forum and we'll have public forum at seven thirty this evening thanks folks seeing we have a number of counselors on board i'll give it another minute before we get into the meeting still waiting on a few more counselors we'll just give it a little bit longer okay let's go ahead and get started um others we'll just can join we do um looks like we do have quorum so um first item on the agenda is the pledge so we'll do the pledge pledge next item on the agenda is the agenda itself um believe um i don't see councillor stromberg councillor hanson are you able to make that motion no problem i move to amend and adopt the agenda as follows add to the consent agenda item four point one one resolution appointment of acting inspectors of election for march first 2022 annual city election for councillor tracy with the action to waive the reading and adopt the resolution add to the consent agenda item four point one two communication to that board lions reshort term rentals with the action to waive the reading accept the communication and place it on file add to the consent agenda item four point one three communication julie marx founder and director vermont short-term rental alliance ink regarding when bans on short-term rentals go wrong with the action to waive the reading accept the communication place it on file remove agenda item 5.04 from the deliberative agenda and place it on the consent agenda as item 4.14 per laurel welock per city council president tracy add to the consent agenda item 4.15 communication regarding bba comments regarding mask ordinance with the action to waive the reading accept the communication and place it on file thank you councillor hanson and councillor hanson i'm sorry did that motion include okay the okay the item um the moving of item 4 5.04 to the consent agenda just wanted to call folks attention to that because that was undeliberative and then at board of finance we had a request from staff that um given that they hadn't heard any concerns it's a relatively um straightforward item that um they would like for that to be moved to consent so the board of finance felt okay with that and so that's why we did that um this evening just wanted to make sure everyone understood that okay we have a motion on the agenda is there a second second seconded by councillor McGee any discussion okay okay all those in favor of adopting our agenda please say aye hi hi any opposed that carries unanimously brings us we're not at 7 30 yet so we will um move past that and come back to the public forum item um we'll do we won't take care of any um deliberative business prior to the public forum so I will go to climate emergency reports next do any councillors have any climate emergency reports okay I don't see any um so um we'll move on I do see councillor Mason is in the attendee section and so if he could be promoted and if I could also please be given hosting responsibilities just so that I can enable mics when we get to the public forum that'd be great um council Hanson is that in a hand for climate emergency reports the the mayor was trying to oh I'm sorry mayor attention yeah certainly go ahead mayor no problem thank you uh President Tracy councillor Hanson I just wanted to mention um we will um I believe um it is just checking where it is I I believe it's in the consent we just took action at the uh at the board of finance and it is in your consent agenda tonight that we will be um council will be authorizing uh us to go forward and um uh take the steps necessary to bond for 20 million dollars um for the net zero energy revenue bond and um I just we've talked about this previously but it is a significant milestone that didn't should pass this is um a really very significant amount of funding a large amount of which is going to go towards uh the infrastructure incentives um investments necessary to make it possible for us to pursue our net zero energy city goals by 2030 and I didn't um want the climate emergency reports to pass without uh noting that that development and that step towards actually securing these funds and starting to invest best thank you President Tracy thank you mayor anyone else with climate emergency reports okay next we will move um through the deliberative agenda down into the other reporting items so we have item number six which are committee reports are there any committee chairs with an announcement to make Tracy yes yeah council jane go ahead yeah on the 15th the racial equity inclusion and belonging committee met and we received a request from um some members of the state around for the city of Wellington to declare um not racism as a public health emergency but the declaration of inclusion um so the item is already ready but at our next meeting city council meeting it will be submitted in order for the full council to weigh in um this also has been in collaboration I believe with the uh with Jordan Reddell this administration who put us in contact with those folks but our next meeting you'll see it on the agenda um thank you thank you councillor jane any other committee chairs with the report councillor paul then councillor hanson thanks president Tracy uh the next public safety committee meeting will be uh not Tuesday next Tuesday but Tuesday the Tuesday after which is the 8th of March um we have finished section one of the cna report and we'll be starting with section two which is shorter um and are hoping to be able to get the section two and three on uh on the 8th of March um and the meeting time which I believe will be 530 but will be posted to the city calendar thanks thank you councillor hanson yeah the transportation energy and utilities committee is going to meet this Thursday at 6 p.m uh on zoom and we are going to be looking at the bike share program um and potential options moving forward on that we're going to be looking at south end construction coordination plan um the main street project that's on the ballot um and then other infrastructure projects coming up so um yeah 6 p.m thursday thanks thank you councillor hanson anyone else you also still need hosting responsibilities transferred over to me and I do still see councillor mason in the attendees so if you could um either make me host um or promote him or do both um that'd be great I know that councillor mason chairs know a number of committees so can whoever has control of the zoom please make me a host and promote councillor mason thank you okay now we got councillor mason on board any other committee chairs okay councillor mason go ahead I thought you might have something yeah thank you president tracy um I just want to report the ordinance committee is scheduled to meet um on march 2nd our agenda has not yet been sent a set but I would envision it will include a discussion of planning commission comments to parking minimums thank you great thank you any other committee chairs okay not seeing any so we'll move on to the next item which is a city council general affairs anyone like to speak to city council general affairs anyone like to speak to city council general affairs okay not seeing any other councillors but um I did have something that I did want to say I specifically wanted to to comment on the resignation of director green um this is um to me a devastating loss to our city um and my feelings of loss stem directly from this the unbelievable work that director green has done in her time with the city of burlington been so impressed with everything that she and her team have done during her time in burlington um if folks don't know director green built the racial equity inclusion and belonging office from the ground up um this was a department that didn't exist um and the work that the department came to came to do over its time and was work that really honestly was not happening in the city in any concerted fashion prior to its existence and I can say without question that the work of the reiby office and the staff in that office and in particular director green has absolutely blown me away it's been unbelievable to watch that team do that work at under director greens leadership seeing it unbelievable transformative events come to our community like tuneteenth see targeted programs like ipoc business support and director green just making that happen by going out and raising money in our community and making those things happen herself going out um and standing up a by pock vaccination clinic to make sure that no one was left behind in our vaccination efforts doing other things like making sure that our commissioners and counselors are trained i know i'm in that training program now and i'm getting so much value from the conversations we're having there um there is just you know the work on the reparations task force the work though the list goes on and on and on the work is absolutely incredible and that's what makes this loss so devastating what makes it so sad for our city because this is a this is just a tremendous loss for our city and i think it's also a time for us to take stock of of of what happened here you know what went wrong um i think that what we're hearing and what what actually happened there's a significant discrepancy between those two things this is um someone who worked incredibly hard under very difficult circumstances doing this kind of work is not easy under any circumstances but certainly not under the under you know constant constant public pressure and scrutiny and questioning and attacks that director green and her team have experienced over the last years it's unfortunate that come to find out and know that that work is made more difficult by the the the obstruction that she experienced to her during her time working in and with this administration and i find it deeply disappointing that we find ourselves in this place and that we have not heard acknowledgement or an examination um thoughtfully of what went wrong in this relationship and an acknowledgement of that we heard a commitment to do better in the state of the city address but we have yet to hear how that is necessarily represented by this and i'm very very disappointed by that tonight so i feel a need to express that i think that this situation indicates yet again the need for the racial the off the r.i.b. office to be made independent to have their own ability free from political interference interference in their that the crucial work that they do i also think that it's an important an important time for us to really take stock of this this office and all that the team and make sure that we're giving that team the support that they need through this transition because they i know that um that director greens leadership and putting together that team and supporting that team was absolutely crucial and i don't want this loss this unbelievable loss for our city to to to to have us lose ground as i'm afraid it and unfortunately might so i i really think that we need we need to do more to take responsibility within this situation um specifically around this around this issue and i just wanted to speak to that tonight i think it's incredibly important that we acknowledge what went on here take responsibility uh and and not just pledge to do better but actually do better because we haven't seen that happen here don't see any others wishing to speak for general affairs councilor stromberg thank you so much sorry i was me i just got home um um yeah i cannot say it better than councilor tracy but i when i first heard of the resignation i wasn't surprised given the many many elements that director green had to overcome to even stay as long as she did um i had written now a big big and i think writing is a very good outlet for anybody but i wrote out a very very long um kind of statement on the facts and i realized that i wasn't really focusing on what director green had brought to our community and i was rather focusing on the negative as to why she might she may have resigned or um kind of just i went into that that direction and i wanted to restructure how i'm looking at this because we do need to move forward as a city we owe it to the people who have made their voices heard and have shared their stories and it is incredibly incredibly sad i we all have worked with director green in very different capacities all of our perspectives are different um and i think that as individuals we've been impacted in a very positive way by her one way or another um and i'm just i i am so so thankful to have ever shared any space any screen any conversation with director green um i think that you know we we owe her so much more than we could ever repay back in our in our lives and i i just i'm really really really sad that she's leaving but i know that wherever she is and wherever she goes into the world it's going to be amazing it is amazing she brings an energy um and that you know energy is nor neither created or destroyed i am just i'm so proud of her um it's never easy to put yourself out there it's never easy to to say to say things that you know are are hard to hear in the moment and it's hard to it's it's incredibly difficult the last two years i i as a counselor for the first time in my life i i've never experienced these two years before just as a life but i think just looking at the big picture like we as a collective whole as a human humanity as a city we've never just experienced you know with the pandemic and um overdose and just so many different elements that we've kind of hit together all at once um it's it's been very intense and we need to name that doesn't matter our politics or our beliefs or anything like that like it has been intense across the board and i just i i think that director green really brought such an even healed incredibly strong voice to the table and i've learned so so much from her and i i yeah i'm incredibly grateful i'll be grateful for the rest of my life and i hope to in some way or another work with her again in the future because i i'm just i'm really gonna miss her and i think she's some incredibly valuable and yeah thank you thank you to director green i appreciate everything you've done is there anyone else comes with jane um thank you president tracy for you know i think speaking beautifully about this and also counselor stanberg it has been very clear and that we have a long way to go when it comes to racial equity inclusion and and belonging i think you know if we all remember i think race was at the center of the 2021 state of the emergency speech from the mayor but you know we all know with the resignation of director green you know that the words that we have heard have not been backed by action and from my perspective you know like you said we should not use another black leader in the city for political purposes and also i wonder even if the words we heard in the 2021 state of the emergency speech were actually from the mayor you know i think this is a huge loss for berlington this is a huge loss for people of color and people of color again let me remind you all especially the mayor that we should not we are not um object that people need to use when they want and also or to make political gains i think the declaration of racism as public health emergency uh was one element of you know political moves but you know i think any moves that people make should be backed by the allocation of resources necessary um and we hope that this would be like a lesson and i hope that the leadership team that worked with teisha green will at least stay and will in order for us to figure out about next step teisha green again thank you so much for your leadership thank you incredibly for you what you have done in the city of berlington and hopefully in the future you may come back to continue thank you thank you council jane anyone else okay don't see anyone so move on to the next item which is city council president update um just wanted to draw folks attention to the fact that we have a ballot informational meeting um as we do um every year we have a ballot informational meeting um just running through the questions and providing basic information that's at five o'clock tomorrow evening um for folks that's another zoom meeting um so if you are interested in learning more about ballot um questions um you may attend that um and though we'll give a short rundowns on each of the different ballot questions that are going to be that are on the town meeting day ballot i know many folks have already voted but many have not and so this is just yet another opportunity to learn more about what's on the ballot um no deliberative action is being taken though this is just an informational meeting for folks so just wanted to call folks attention to that um mayor weinberger had let me know that he would like to keep but his comments um at the end of the meeting um just to take into account um any public forum comments um or be responsive to those so um we don't have any other non-deliberative items and we are a little bit ahead of public forum but we do have quite a few folks signed up and if people we aren't able to locate people in this here in this little five minutes here um i'll come back to them and keep looking for them just to make sure that if they were um not right not on at this point so um if we could please have the timer up on the screen great and thank you to david cunin from the mayor's office for stepping up to to do that this evening very much appreciate it um super helpful um to me to keep that time um i'll read off a couple of speakers but before i get into the public forum um just want to let folks know that we'll have two minutes per person tonight so you'll each have a little bit of you'll have two minutes at the end of the two minutes i'll say that um your time is up and i'll continue to say that um so please at the two minutes respect when i ask when i say that your time is up your time is in fact up um out of open meeting while we are required to have give each person in the forum um the um the the the two-minute timeframe and hold them to that so um that's what we're going to be doing this evening in terms of um the forum itself um if folks can just please um not use profanity um please stay focused on issues and direct comments through the chair um so please um and please respect that um also please um with other speakers um in the in the queue please don't go after other speakers it's fine obviously to say that you disagree but sometimes we've had issues of people um really going after people and um when we're in person it's an issue of interruption but um in this case um just make sure that just please try and again stay focused on on on the issues um at hand and um we will be going to burlington residents first as is our our practice um those are folks who have affirmatively indicated that they are burlington residents um we'll go through them first and then um switch over to non-burlington residents if you are interested in speaking at the public forum um you can sign up by going to burlingtonft.gov slash city council slash public forum and that will feed into a spreadsheet um and we will call people in the order that they are received again though prioritizing burlington residents first and the order that they're received and then um non-burlington residents to follow after that um so with that um I will go through the first couple of speakers that we have this evening um and then um just so that you know who's on deck so I have Kent Cassella to be followed by Diana Carlisle and Gear Sherwood Smith Mark Jasmine Daigle Arnold Madison and Stephen Margolin that is not everybody who signed up but um it just gives you an idea of who's there so if folks can just try and stay closer um just so that we're ready to go um when we um when we get to you with that I will um start the public forum itself so looks like I've located Kent Cassella Kent I have enabled your microphone. Thank you again I want to ask the council to consider a regulated and registered short rental presence in Burlington our tourist economy needs it and short-term rental helps the economy thrive please reject the chapter 18 short-term rental ordinance I've spoken to several restaurant business owners and they shake their heads and ask why we want visitors to come and spend their holidays in Burlington without their gold and platinum credit cards are we going to tell the marathon runners the Grace Potter fans the jazz wine and brewfest enthusiasts to stay out of town or stay at one of our luxury hotels for instance the Hilton garden tonight is a mere $195 or the Hilton is $199 the Marriott is $279 and Hotel Vermont is $318 a night I can't afford that and this is off season I guess come in come come into town they ride their bikes into town they dine on church street they have a creamy at the Burlington Bay or ice cream bobs maybe they stop at the echo and take a take a cruise on the spirit of Ethan Allen or the whistling man because my short-term rental is priced well below the least expensive hotel in Burlington the Burlington page on the Airbnb should have a little caption that reads welcome to Burlington we do not support short-term rentals please look elsewhere for accommodations this ban is hurtful and your proposal saddens me it's a mistake and it's short-sighted and it shows little top consideration of the hard work that we tried to reach an agreement with the city council please keep Burlington open for everyone thank you very much thank you her next speaker is Diana Carlisle to be followed by Anne Gear Diana I've enabled your microphone I would like to speak at the short-term rental time I understand it's not a two-minute limit then is that correct so there is not not a public hearing specific to short-term rentals there are public hearings that are specific to other items on the agenda this evening those being the adaptive reuse definition the historic preservation rehabilitation bonus and permitting adjustments we held our public hearing regarding short-term rentals at the last meeting so if folks are interested in speaking only to those items you are correct there is not a limit on on those specific items but if you are interested in speaking to short-term rentals the time to do so is now and folks will have two minutes this evening so that's it two minutes okay well I'm yeah I'm speaking about the short-term rentals and I'm speaking about requiring the owners to live in the houses that they rent out and prevent all the negative consequences I want to read from the article in the Burlington Free Press about the spike in burglaries how to help how to help the police what to do to keep public safety and one of the major things to me was communicating with neighbors and watching out for each other and when you have a short-term rental like we do on Lakeview Terrace the young couple that we had hoped would move in didn't they're part of an investment corporation LLC there's no people to watch out for anybody there's cars in the driveway but essentially it's a house with no face and that does not help public safety or anybody I also it's a personal thing this is where my mother and father were and did so much to keep Burlington and make Burlington a better place to live mother went my mother went and had the clean air so that the Moran plant didn't spew ashes we need laws sometimes when things are not going well and this is a law we need um this is not an inbeat it can happen to any house on any street in any area and when it happens the neighborhood suffers and people that want to buy a house at a decent rate suffer we have four long-term rental houses across the street we see the people we know the people providing a housing need two big doubt duplexes across from that old stock young people live there they can get their start they could be employed which is what we need for all the tourists at the short-term rental people want to send down to Burlington um and if that duplex is not able to be rented out um that takes away housing for people so please let's make housing for people not businesses your time is up thank you all right our next speaker is Anne Gear to be followed by Sherwood Smith believe Anne is participating for another account um I've enabled I believe Beth Sightler um is in gear with you um you're a little muffled I can't hear you how about now that's perfect good thank you good evening that picture is of my daughter how I wish I looked as well I'm here to testify in support of councillor Shannon's amendments because I believe that they can't clarify some redundancies specifically I'm referring to short-term rentals they offer needed modes of oversight that currently are not in place and they acknowledge the necessity of preserving long-term rental stock unregulated parameters can actually inadvertently lead to a glut of short-term rentals and except for desirable high-end options there can be more than is needed in this finite market at the same time it can reduce the availability of much needed long-term rentals and it's for these reasons that I cannot support councillor Carpenter's recent amendment to have more duplexes available for short-term rentals duplexes are among just a few long-term rental options available although they still aren't adequate to the need and it will be deleterious to Burlington's efforts to have more rental housing available if we have a reduction in this particular housing stock and I wanted this time to thank you all for your years of work on this issue and I'm sure you are as anxious for resolution as we are thank you thank you I'm our next speaker is Sherwood Smith I'm sure I'm not seeing Sherwood the next speaker after that is Mark and I'm not seeing Mark in here so I'll go through the next person after that is Jasmine Daigle Arnold Jasmine able to locate Jasmine the next speaker after that is Madison not able to locate Madison so the next speaker after that is Steven Margolyn even I've located you and have enabled your microphone hello can you hear me yes go ahead yeah I'd like to put in a comment about Director Green's departure and to echo the comments shared earlier by city counselors at my great disappointment in this turn of events I believe Director Green and their office provided significant support to the city in addressing depressing issues of race relations in the way that the city all agreed was an important issue two years ago when the office was created to see such obstruction exist and continue to minimize the impact that these offices have is a great disappointment and leaves me untrustworthy of what my government can provide to see good opportunities squandered wasted and misused really leaves me wondering at the ineptitude of our city government uh mr president if you could please direct these comments to the mayor I think it's shameful that such obstruction exists and put good people like Director Green out of the job if anything we need to openly and willingly embrace diverse voices that push for more equity to create Burlington as a better city I mean if we want all these short-term rentals to come in they better feel safe vacationing right it's a shame that we don't have an office dedicated to that anymore so I want to use this time to let my frustrations and disappointment be known um Director Green deserved better and the city of Burlington deserves better and both of us are being let down by the current administration thank you thank you our next time our next speaker is Robert Bristow Johnson to be followed by by Jeffrey Desina Robert I have located you and have enabled your microphone okay well sort of be a fly in the ointment but I want to make the board of civil authority a little uncomfortable about passing up on our opportunity and the authority to look into the house redistricting plan from the state so normally the state defers to the adjustments preferred by the local bca um I know that the house gov ops committee through a curve ball at us uh uh uh last week or two weeks ago with the 11 with giving us a new representative we're gonna get 11 reps instead of 10 um and they drew out a map but um it looks like that the uh uh most popular city in Vermont has been given this blank slate and they're going to say meh we'll pass whatever you have the opportunity to weigh in with the state and tell the state how best to redistrict our city and you're going to pass on that so we get this gift falling out of the sky of an additional rep um the there are warts in that map from state from the house of government opportunity government operations committee and those warts can be fixed if you just take a look at it um so the information is there for you to look at I've been trying to keep you folks appraised of this for the last months about this and it only looks like maybe February 7th was the first time that you've been paying attention to this so the question is does it look like our bca is functional enough or dysfunctional enough that it might be able to look into and weigh in on 11 rep map from the house government operations committee and give feedback to the hgo suggesting changes that benefit the residents and voters of city actually serving this constituents in the city at a time when you'd think that voters of the city are paying attention we have to live with this map for 10 years are we the only municipality in vermont that looks like it can't do what other bca's in the state normally do and use their authority to inform the state government on how best to redistrict our city that's the question for you thank you our next speaker is jeffrey descent desina jeffrey to be followed by um christopher herron felker jeffrey i've located you and i have enabled your mic good evening um just wanted to chime in to give my quick support to miss tuttles and miss stetson's recommendation to the mayor on ending the mask mandate or allowing it to lapse on march 3rd i think they provided solid evidence that the coven 19 pandemic in vermont has reached a waning point and poses a little threat to much of this community and um such policies no longer seem appropriate so i want to thank them for their good work and i hope the council will take their recommendation seriously that is all thank you thank you next speaker is christopher erin felker um to be followed by we'll transition back to we'll transition then to burlin non burlington residents uh savannah sly roy hill cocosha wafiq fauer julie marx adline caron um that gives you a couple of ideas of who's coming but i'll go to christopher erin felker first christopher i'm enabling your mic there you go you should be enabled perfect thank you thank you president tracy i'm here this evening to speak in opposition to deliberate of agenda item 5.10 on short-term rentals in the last two years i've spoken with many burlington short-term rental operators they consistently tell me that many on council do not understand how short-term rentals work and unfortunately many have no interest in learning um so here are some facts uh whereas short-term rentals represent a combined total of just 1.2 percent of burlington's housing stock and whereas short-term rental alliance has announced that approximately 95 percent of their burlington members will not place their rental units back on the long-term market um it goes it seems that governmental actions to attack short-term rentals are not going to provide the results this council intends truly these restrictions will have no impact on stabilizing the rental market in burlington and will likely result in more negative unintended consequences to our economy uh attacking air bnb is neither prudent nor proper housing policy it's basic grandstanding and scapegoating and as such i encourage you to vote no on 5.10 tonight that being said it is with the it is with deep regret and a somber heart that i announced that today peggy lores passed away peggy was a proud lesbian a feminist a loving mother a carpenter and a friend to many in burlington she was the director of r u12 now pride center of vermont and was an organizing member of the first gay and lesbian pride in burlington peggy was a trailblazer for gays and lesbians and a tenacious advocate for women's rights both here and abroad i'm grateful for knowing peggy honor to learn from her i'm proud to have called her my friend very well peggy and thank you for everything thank you thank you next speaker is i'm going to be savannah sly to be followed by roi hill um if folks are interested in signing up to speak at the public forum the way to do so is to go to burlington vt.gov slash city council slash public forum will take you to a fillable forum that then feeds into a spreadsheet from what we call you know look for savannah now i'm not able to locate savannah so i will go to roi hill roi not able to locate you either so i'll go to coco shah i don't see coco on so i'm gonna go to wafiq fower don't see wafiq on here i will then go to julie marx to be followed by adline believe i saw julie on yes i see julie on julie i've enabled your mic so you should be able to speak hi thank you um i'm speaking on behalf of the vermont short-term mental alliance and its members to strongly oppose the short-term mental ordinance proposed by councilor shannon and caution the city against taking such an extreme stance against an activity without data to warrant it as communicated to you by email the very company that city staff has proposed to enforce this ordinance grant a case or host compliance put out an article entitled short-term vacation rental bans gone wrong which highlights the multiple cases where cities have been sued for attempting to ban owners from operating a short term rental and add to that list the town of conway new hampshire who just recently lost in court against their resident vacation rental owners as well our assessment is that this is this highly restrictive ordinance restrictive ordinance will cost the city hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenue and economic activity and diminish the amount of capital investment being added to brillianton's aging housing structures from the beginning our primary recommendations for regulating short-term rentals have been to implement a registration and monitoring system first so that regulations are formed by real data and evaluated impacts it's disappointing that this does not seem to be the direction the council's going to take banning short-term rentals will be ineffective towards the goal of creating more housing according to the vhfa there are 17,118 housing units in brillianton 199 our whole unit short-term rentals that's 1.1 percent a ban will have no impact on housing we urge you to reject the proposed ordinance and put through a registration and inspection system for short-term rentals effective immediately postpone further str regulation until you have real evidence warranty the need for specific impact mitigation if you can't wait for data please consider counselor carpenter's amendment which will invite more positive outcomes than the shannon ordinance thank you very much new our next speaker is adline adline i'm not able to locate you and if folks can just please if you can sign up if you can use the rename function to just be signed into the name that you signed up on for that just so that we are able to look better locate you so adline i'm not able to locate you karen i'm also not able to locate you so i will keep going i have next eric and debbie handley located you and have enabled your microphone can you hear me yes go ahead i'm here again to talk about the short-term rentals in brillianton we've worked you know for over two years with the planning and zoning and ordinance committee and the joint committee and and i think this latest proposal this most restrictive proposal that counselor shannon wants is is not what the planning and zoning recommended and i would like to have everybody look at counselor carpenter's proposal allowing off-site hosts and adding a low-income rental to that unit you know that would that would allow more short more affordable units in the city of brillianton in allowing people to still have an air bnb that contributes a lot of money to the city of brillianton makes people afford lodging in brillianton especially during graduation weekends festival weekends the marathon and and other things like that if the council votes on 501 right now the most restrictive proposal out there you know you're not going to add any affordable housing to the city right now like the proposal that counselor carpenter has on there people are going to lose jobs all these people that clean these short-term rentals um and i just think it's it's a very very narrow it's just very too restrictive um and and it's going to lose like other people have said a lot of money meals and rooms taxes air bnb you know contributed 120 000 to the city of brillianton in 2019 i agree we need registration fees for short-term rentals and i think we should be able to work something out thank you thank you our next speaker is abbott stark abbott i've located you and have enabled your mic hi there can you hear me yes go ahead okay thank you everybody for um continuing to listen so much on this issue i mean as i've shared uh you know that i'm a started a business here in brillianton and that several people you know it's a very young company several people who work in the business do short-term uh rental themselves just to make ends meet as i have done and um i have a couple of low income tenants i feel like i kind of represent the gamut of the issues associated with this um and you know at this same time i'm very passionate about creating more housing in brillianton um so i i appreciate how much work has gone into crafting the amendments that have come to the uh table this week and we're really interested to hear folks's comments i've also heard uh from some other people that you know this would especially at a time when we're considering raising taxes it would be a real shame to have to lose out on the rooms and meals local option tax that i know at least air bnb is 120 000 as of 2019 um and there's more because there's also other services like brbo that contribute money so um i've heard some ideas generated over the last couple weeks that we um pay a special tax um and i uh i've seen both from the administration and from other counselors that perhaps a local tax um would or an offset for loan come housing or short-term rental from short-term rentals might be a possibility so i just wanted to say thank you for all the work that's been done thank you i do not see any other speakers and i've gone back and looked for all the folks um who had signed up before and who we were not able to um locate just looking one last time just to make sure that no one has that signed up was on there okay i am gonna close the public forum for this evening and we will um now get into our agenda we have already completed item number three if you could just please take the timer down when you get it thank you very much appreciate it again thank you david for helping us without this evening and also just want to the reason david was covering that is because our clerk's office the city clerk's office is very very stretched with the election coming up and also just wanted to take a second to thank them for their work um getting making this election run smoothly it's a big endeavor so thanks to the clerk's office for your work supporting the council and also the elections um the next item is item number four the consent agenda um councillor stromberg may please have a motion on the consent agenda and move to approve the consent agenda and take the actions indicated we have a motion from councillor stromberg is there a second seconded by councillor hanson any discussion okay go to a vote all those in favor of adopting the consent agenda please say i any opposed that carries unanimously we will now move into um the deliberative agenda but before we get into the deliberative agenda we have a number of other meeting structures under which we conduct business um this evening we have three of those in play the city council with mayor presiding the board of civil authority and the license uh the the um the and license and so i will go to each of those before we get into and continue with our deliberative agenda they are um so i will reset first recess the city council meeting at 756 um and go to the city council with mayor presiding meeting and turn it over to mayor weinberger thank you president tracy i'm going to call into order the city council with mayor presiding at 755 p.m and the first item on the agenda is a motion to amend or adopt the agenda um can i have a motion on the agenda councillor mason thank you uh mayor i'd like to make a motion to adopt the agenda as presented thank you any is there a second for that motion seconded by councillor hanson uh discussion of the agenda all those in favor of the motion please say i hi hi anyone opposed motion carries unanimously um that brings us to the consent agenda um can we have a motion to adopt the agenda consent agenda take the action syndicated councillor mason so moved to mayor for a second take my councillor yee thank you any discussion of the consent agenda motion seeing none will go to a vote all those in favor of the motion please say i hi i'm very opposed motion carries unanimously the consent agenda is adopted now we have um the opportunity to point to positions the first is 3.01 conservation board appointment for a term expiring on june 30th 2025 the floor is open for nominations councillor mason thank you mayor i would move the appointment of kyle tansy i don't know whether they are present but if they want to speak so we do have a tradition of allowing uh applicants to speak so um a little sometimes more challenging to do in this forum but is kyle tansy available and interested in speaking i do see is raised his hand president tracy can you um uh given the mic mic should be able to speak okay kyle go ahead and uh you're invited to address the uh c council hey thanks everyone uh i didn't actually prepare anything to speak because lori told me that i wouldn't have to say anything tonight so i'll just keep this brief and say it would be an honor to get to serve on the conservation board um and i appreciate your consideration tonight so thank you everyone great thank you kyle uh for uh for your interest and thank you for sharing your words are there any um any other nominations i am going to close the floor for nominations and uh open the appointment up for discussions any any discussion about the conservation board appointment seeing none we will go to a vote all those in favor of the motion please say i hi hi hi i sorry i didn't say that right all those in favor of appointing kyle tansy to the conservation board please uh please say i uh or raise your hand hi hi hi are there any votes against tansy it passes unanimously and i asked just we'd have to do a roll call if it was not unanimous uh congratulations kyle uh thank you for your interest then and serve in the city um we now have an opening on the board of health for a term expiring june 30th 2022 that correct is this just to serve out remaining just slightly surprised by that uh is somebody resigned okay so this is just this is to finish the um remaining months of uh the current term so the floor is open for nominations anyone like to make a nomination ship councillor mason uh thank you mayor i would like to move the nomination of joshua freeman gerry pretty good are there any additional nominations seeing uh none um will close the florida nominations is mr gerry uh with us and would you like to address the board looks like gerry is here so um thank you president tracy for help with this and go ahead uh mr gerry hi uh thank you mayor uh i think it's a great opportunity uh currently in the pre-med track at uvm uh in their post back program and i also work as an emt so i'm interested in learning more about uh the public health initiatives that burlington currently has going on and uh you know seeing what i can bring to the table to uh to assist and help out so uh thanks very much for the opportunity and uh that's all i have to say very good thank you for your interest in serving um on the board of health um are there any uh additional so i already closed the floor nominations so we will um open the floor for discussion i don't like to be recognized we will go to a vote um all those in favor of the appointment of joshua gerry to the board of health um uh please say hi hi hi hi hi hi um are there anyone is there anyone voting no so congratulations um josh thank you for your interest and um without objection that is the end of our agenda for the city council of mayor for presiding so i will adjourn adjourn that body at 8 o 2 p.m and uh president tracy was it your thought that i would now convene the board of civil authority yes please mayor okay very good i will call the board of civil authority to order at 8 o 3 p.m and would welcome a motion regarding the agenda okay councilor mason uh thank you mayor i'd like to make a motion to amend adopt the agenda as follows add to connor le france 476 north avenue and nicole gordon oh sorry connor le france i are independent 476 north avenue and nicole garen democrat 476 north avenue as 8 eos for ward seven per ward seven ward clerk flurry add to the consent agenda item 2.03 communication robert bristow johnson read 2022 from monthouse redistricting within burlington with the action to waive the reading except the communication and place it on file thank you um councilor mason is there a second on that motion thank you councilor borough all those in favor of the motion please say aye hi hi hi are there any opposed the motion carries unanimously we have an agenda that moves us to a motion to adopt the consent agenda as amended and take the actions indicated um could is there a councilor ready to make such a motion councilor mason i would make that motion mayor one great is there a second second by councilor mcgee discussion of the percentage on a motion council hands yeah i just wanted to i'm wondering if uh you could provide an explanation of why we're why we're not discussing the new proposal from um from the house around the 11 member district just to clarify for us in the public councilor hanson um sure i would i think it's a it's fun it's maybe not uh just want to make sure it's not violating some kind of pro uh process here but um i here's my understanding of how we got to this point um there was a deadline for formal comment to be made to the the house um government office uh and i see the city attorney rickerson has turned his camera on and he may be able to speak to some some of the details here a little bit better than me but basically there was an opportunity by statute for us to provide comment um i believe met several counselors and numerous members of the public did avail themselves of that opportunity we did have um discussion as a body as well um and um i took the actions that we did uh there was a discussion of potentially meeting again as a body before the deadline that was going to be challenging um a variety of scheduling reasons and when the mayor's office communicated to counselors about those challenges and the uh suggestion that instead of trying to convene another meeting because of those scheduling challenges the counselors make their comments individually since it also seemed there was not likely to be consensus um there was no uh i don't believe there's any response to that communication um or concerns raised uh so a special meeting was not called uh now we are are beyond the the deadline and um that's i think how we are where we are and i i don't think you're aware of anyone who you know what the deadline passed had wanted to take further action so the agenda was set the way it was but dan can you uh add anything to that um summary sir no i think that covers a great deal at ground um the deadline that you refer to is actually in statute um the statute that was passed by uh the general assembly stated a february 15th deadline uh for formal comment from the bca on behalf of bca i did file a letter with the house government operations committee reflecting the vote that the bca had taken um in regards to the uh proposal that either there be two member districts or one member districts um but not a mix and match uh of those districts um the process as it goes through in the house um now notwithstanding that deadline the the house government operations committee is just simply working forward so if individuals or um anybody wish to uh make comment about that submit maps or any type of statement they're certainly free to do that um it's just that this formal deadline that we were pressing up against has as passed um and the pressure that was created by that i believe had expired but certainly you know as as long as this process continues to move through the legislature there's an opportunity to contact legislators and express opinions or or strong feelings about the particulars of the redistricting process great thank you i believe the item on the floor um is it used to be 2.01 the motion to adopt the consent agenda as amended and take the actions indicated are there any any further discussion at this time seeing them we'll go to a vote all those in favor of the motion please say aye hi hi hi motion carries unanimously and that brings us to the end of our roller to quarter civil authority agenda and i will adjourn without objection the bca at eight oh nine p.m and i believe um at this point uh is our custom for me to hand over the gavel of the local control commission back to president tracy although i do vote on this commission thanks mayor so i will convene the local control commission at eight 10 p.m um first item on the agenda is the agenda commissioner mason thank you commissioner tracy i'd like to make a motion to adopt the agenda as presented we have a motion to adopt the agendas are second seconded by commissioner hansen any discussion okay those in favor please say aye hi hi hi any opposed that carries unanimously brings us into the deliberative agenda and item 2.01 commissioner mason i would make a motion to approve the 2021 2022 first and third class liquor license application for a1 bakery llc dba august 1 149 south shamp plain street contingent upon fire marshal approval and all standard conditions okay we have a motion seconded by commissioner hansen any discussion okay all those in favor please say aye hi hi hi hi hey any opposed that too care that carries unanimously brings us to item 2.02 commissioner mason thank you commissioner tracy i would make a motion to approve the 2021 2022 outside consumption permit application for a1 bakery llc dba august 1 149 south shamp plain street thank you seconded by commissioner hansen any discussion okay we'll go to a vote all those in favor please say aye hi hi any opposed that carries unanimously brings us to the final item on this agenda 2.03 commissioner mason thank you i would make a motion to approve the 2021 2022 first and third class liquor license applications for mcca enterprises dba money waters 184 main street with all standard conditions a motion seconded by commissioner hansen any discussion okay we'll go to a vote all those in favor please say aye hi hi hi hi any opposed that carries unanimously we are that completes our local control commission meeting agenda for this evening so we are now adjourned at 8 13 p.m brings us back into our regular city council meeting where we will pick back up where we left off with other items that are in the same vein as the local control commission item starting with item 5.01 and entertain indoor entertainment permit application counselor mason all right let me get switched meetings here sorry president tracy we are on agenda item 5.01 correct yes okay thank you i wouldn't move that we approve the 2021 2022 indoor entertainment permit application for a1 bakery llc dba august 1 149 south jam plain street with all standard conditions thank you the motion is seconded by councilor hansen any discussion okay not seeing any so we'll go to a vote all those in favor please say aye hi hi hi any opposed that carries unanimously brings us to our next item on the deliberative agenda which is 5.02 an inner indoor entertainment permit counselor mason thank you president tracy i would move to approve the 2021 2022 indoor entertainment permit application for mcca enterprises dba muddy waters 184 main street with all standard conditions thank you counselor mason we have a second from counsel hansen any discussion okay not seeing any so we'll go to a vote on that all those in favor please say aye hi hi hi any opposed that carries unanimously thank you for all those license getting us through all those licensing items we will now move to another topic item 5.03 the nature-based solutions to climate and an addendum to the open space protection plan i believe we're going to get kicked off with that with a presentation but before we do that may i please have a motion on this item did not have someone counselor hansen sure i move to approve the nature-based climate solutions and addendum to the burlington open space protection plan and incorporate into the plan btv comprehensive plan when the comprehensive plan is next updated thank you counselor hansen we have a motion as or a second seconded by counselor mcgee okay did you want the floor back counselor hansen okay great so we have um scott gustin and steve whitman with us as well as zoe richards from the the conservation board so welcome to to all of you um scott i believe you're going to kick us off is that right i will but before i do that um president tracy we have one more uh of our group taj shotland and the attendees if you could promote them to panelists that would be excellent absolutely in my apologies yep i i've actually wait a second um i made them i gave them speaking i need to give them panelists there we go okay taj i think i got you as well i apologize for that there we go great perfect okay great we're all here so um i'll introduce folks who are here and a little bit of background on the addendum and then hand it off to the rest of the folks here tonight so i'm scott gustin i work with the department of permitting inspections in the zoning division but i also work a great deal with the conservation board um and after a bit more than a year of outreach and work together in this group we have this nature-based climate solutions addendum to present to you tonight so i'm here with uh zoe richards and rebecca roman the chair and vice chair of the conservation board we have steve whitman who's been our consultant working on this project with resilience planning and design and we also have taj shotland who works for trust republic land but he also does work with nature-based climate initiatives and he can help us out in with metrics uh for quantifying um nature-based climate solution benefits there's six major components to the addendum they pertain to urban forest and tree canopy our waters and wetlands lawns fields and small open spaces agriculture and community gardens green infrastructure and finally and all-encompassing uh equity inclusion and equity inclusion and relationships so i think above all the addendum is a framework and an invitation to participate in burlington's climate work this is really something that anyone who lives in the community can participate in in a hands-on way to enhance and expand our green spaces it also serves as a transition to a comprehensive rewrite of the open space protection plan in the coming years and with that zoe and rebecca i'll hand it off to you great thank you scott um and i'm just really happy to be here tonight um with this uh i hope close to finish document um and i want to thank uh the conservation board for their really hard work on this document and my co-chair um or vice chair rebecca roman um for steering me through this process and scott who's been super helpful in zoning and also um dan kay hill who's not here who's the city land steward who's been extremely helpful in this process along with alicia daniel who's our city naturalist um and our consultants steve and linds who helped us with this document and basically um before i hand it off to the consultants and to taj to talk a little bit more about the details of the document i just wanted to give the council a little bit of a frame and i think you know um we're really excited to share this document because what it really does is outline how nature is critical infrastructure for the city of burlington it's really easy to take that for granted but we really rely on it um this is an example trees provide extensive cooling um they help us avoid emissions um they provide carbon sequestration flood mitigation filtration and lead to lake health um you know without looking out for our natural systems we'll lose them and that's a lesson from a lot of other cities um and we really until you lose some of them you don't realize how critical they are in fostering um the city that we want to live in there is a lot of groundbreaking work that's going on in burlington um and this document outlines some of that work um and we hope that it will support and help to grow it and we really want to put a lot of conservation related work um in a climate action frame which is where where it really should sit um and that's what this document strives to do where we know we need to get to net zero it's something that we really have to do for the planet but nature-based climate solutions in burlington is something we have to continue to do to make the city habitable in the face of warming that's that's one of their more significant values um we feel like this document provides a path forwards for doing that um and it has an implementation matrix and we've worked really hard with city staff to sort of figure out um and create a to-do list really in this document for nature-based climate solutions and with that i'm gonna um turn it over to steve wetman who was the consultant who helped us um work on this document and i believe i can screen share some slides is that okay uh yes all right thank you let's see the other alternative was reading the plan to you but they said i couldn't do that i think you should why don't you try to try to share your screen uh it's not letting me oh okay let me okay switch there it is it's it's there now thank you so much and i won't take too long with this we just wanted to give some visuals and highlight a couple of the things that scott and zoe have said so thank you for the opportunity just to kind of run through the framework that was created in creating this addendum to the burlington open space protection plan with this nature-based climate solution focused what we ended up doing in creating this was identifying early on the process that nature-based climate solutions for burlington were defined as actions with protection restoration and stewardship components that alone was not quite enough so we went further in the development of the framework and as scott said we have these these primary themes of urban forests and tree canopy water and wetlands lawns fields and small open spaces agriculture and community gardens are kind of all fitting in as different types of land cover and land use that have different types of activities and different types of nature-based climate solutions that lend themselves well to those environments but throughout all five of those we saw opportunities for equity inclusion and relationships and continuing work happening within the city so what do we mean by forest and tree canopy uh as as zoe alluded to the biggest thing is trying not to lose existing canopy and where we can to plant trees and to work with members of the community to craft new solutions related to tree canopy for agriculture and community gardens opportunities to promote soil and water conservation um anywhere we can in burlington's open spaces as well as expand community gardening opportunities which have been incredibly popular in the city and support other kinds of food security related to water and wetlands uh both protecting remaining wetlands but also identifying places where wetland restoration can take place or where vegetation along surface waters can be restored or enhanced for more ecological value and then with lawns fields small open spaces many of these places that are controlled by um city or are you know along the edges of roadways and neighborhoods as we see in one of the images here there are a lot of new approaches to sustainable grassland management and ways to manage these spaces both for capturing carbon but also public space for gathering and other things so pocket parks and continuing to work on connecting the open spaces within the city and green infrastructure both identifying opportunities to retrofit and restore existing spaces within what is you know largely an urban environment but also creating new standards that will guide new development to help green burlington as development continues so this was just intended to kind of give you an overview of all of the many actions that have been put into this this implementation plan that zoe referred to that's going to give lots of work ahead for boards and committees um and i'll stop sharing but that gives the framework and then the actions and the various boards committees and staff um the steps that they'll be taking will fit within that and i yeah go ahead zoe as i said i think now um we we uh have tash shatland um i've been participating for a couple of years um in a national group um through the urban sustainability directors network um which used to be called the urban drawdown oh tash you'll have to help me the urban drawdown initiative and now it's called the nature based climate solutions initiative um and we wanted to sort of put our work in a in a national context for you all to to show you what other cities are doing around um the country um so you can see sort of where we fit in and and and how this movement is growing that it's not just here in burlington but it's um really um gaining a lot of traction and focus and energy um all around the country and so i'm just going to pass it over to tash who i think is going to share a couple of slides with you and then we'd love to welcome any questions thoughts you know before maybe you all go to vote awesome thank you zoe all right let me share my screen and launch this power point uh so as zoe mentioned again my name is tash shatland i'm the associate director of the trust republic lands national climate program and i work nationally but i'm based just down the road in in south burlington and uh i wanted to as zoe mentioned put in context this amazing work that's happening in burlington uh in the context of what other cities are advancing through this nature-based climate initiative and the nature-based climate initiative it's a group of leading cities from around the country about 50 cities that are working together learning from each other around how to apply innovative nature-based climate solutions to develop to deliver climate health and equity outcomes so before i talk about the network of cities i just wanted to put this work into concept into context our natural climate solution is really that important and the general consensus is yes we cannot meet the goals of the paris climate accord which is that un framework for for advancing climate action globally we cannot meet those goals without more effective management of our natural resources and there's lots of ongoing research but one peer reviewed research that was put out a couple years back now showed that the us through improved land management could absorb 21 of our current net annual greenhouse gas emissions so that's it's just huge so over the past couple years cities that had previously focused mostly on renewables and transportation and more traditional climate strategies realized that they had this untapped potential to deliver climate benefits through land management and so the urban sustainability director's network as i mentioned launched this initiative and it's led by a host of city staff a core team of folks which i'm a part of science advisors and we're all providing technical assistance creating new tools and resources to help cities really advance this work and elevate best practices and i think there are a handful of cities that are emerging as leaders in this work san francisco's new climate action plan has a focus on nature-based solutions city of boulder just launched a new natural climate solutions division actually within their city government and now i think with the this open space addendum burlington is going to start to be recognized as a leader in this field which is which is incredibly exciting and i just want to emphasize one thing in particular about this initiative at the heart of it is this new way of defining climate action it's a realization that climate action can no longer just mean mitigation right we need to reduce emissions quickly uh but based on our current trajectory and past emissions we're locked into some significant climate impacts in our communities they're going to impact the livability of our communities and so reframing climate action around this holistic approach that brings together climate mitigation climate adaptation and equity and cities are pursuing these goals through a a variety of of nature-based solutions and i just want to highlight a couple burlington specific statistics so uh we all know that heat waves are a challenge but these are some projections for burlington itself from an analysis by the union of concerned scientists and so you can see burlington like other places are going to see a rapid increase in extremely hot dangerous dangerously hot days and that's exacerbated by how we've designed and built and invested in our communities in burlington and and elsewhere we've essentially created these inequities that make some parts of our towns hotter and other parts of our town because of urban heat islands basically densely developed area of lots of buildings and concrete no vegetation are amplifying those those heat waves and so what do we do about these issues if cities are starting to really invest in nature-based solutions because they provide a whole bunch of climate benefits and scott was getting at the the the power of this initiative so start putting numbers on quantifying those benefits so i just want to end with this slide with a little bit of data and the emerging science around nature-based solutions and how they benefit our community so they absorb stormwater runoff so green infrastructure can reduce flooding protect water quality filters out 10 filter out 95 percent of major pollutants and reduce runoff and flooding by as much as 90 percent uh they cool urban heat islands so zoe mentioned they can uh reduce extreme heat there are a bunch of cities that have participated studies that show that densely forested parks are as much as 17 degrees cooler than uh nearby neighborhoods that lack adequate trees and green space they also connect people through active transportation build social cohesion which is a key ingredient in climate resilience they protect against flooding and they have a significant benefit in sequestering carbon so these are just a few examples of the nature-based solutions the benefits that nature-based solutions provide we're working to further quantify these benefits at national scale as well as at a local scale and i just want to end by saying how excited i am to see this work happening right here in our backyard in berlington i think it has a huge potential to deliver impact locally but also to serve as sort of a beacon of progress that other cities around the country that are part of this network can really learn from so thank you thank you very much appreciate it maybe i could just add one more thing and um tosh i can put you on the spot but one of those slides i think showed um and i just want to highlight this is not something for us to solve this evening but that you know the un estimates that a third of climate action should come from nature-based climate solutions but currently it's receiving one percent of the funding of in terms of climate action so i think that's something for us all to collectively um wrestle with you know what are we doing as a city where are we putting our funds how can we shift that up a little bit i think we're really poised to deliver more nature-based climate solutions but having the adequate sort of support staffing to do that i think is going to be important and i think we start to outline some of that in the implementation matrix in the document you know what do we need to do to start to deliver on some of this so that's not an action item for tonight but i but i just want to throw that out there and and i also just want to open it up to rebecca who um in case there's anything she wants to add before we open up to a wider conversation or questions nothing to add everyone did everything so great but i'll chime in if there's a question i feel super excited to answer great thank you well we're happy to entertain any questions if you have them we have a question president tracy sure go ahead council jane um thank you so much zoe taj and team uh for your work this is this is just amazing now i've been also following the conversation in south burnington about land use issues you know a lot of developments happening there and i was just wondering instead of focusing on only burnington what will it take to expand this at least to shittenden county uh view in communication with the planning commission what will it take to have a bigger white uh around this work so jane to whom were you directing your question um any of them who can answer okay i can take a stab at it okay go ahead so i mean we can go and we can go in a real hurry from just burlington to global right i mean this is a global problem um but we can only get there by acting locally um so burlington and south burlington are both part of chitlin county and chitlin county has a regional planning commission and that regional planning commission has of course what else they have a regional plan um and part of that plan addresses open spaces and and climate adaptation um what you're seeing tonight this addendum is incorporated by reference into the city's comprehensive plan so set another way all the pieces fit together at least on paper in terms of active outreach um i think that's something that would be worthwhile uh rather than simply having the plans line up and be in agreement which is always a good thing i think there is room for collaboration with south burlington and the rest of the communities in chitlin county and the region and um yes well i was just gonna say i could just throw one more piece in there is that you know we're really trying to build some of those regional connections you know in as my when i'm not the chair of the conservation board i direct the burlington wildways partnership and you know this spring for the first time we're having this city nature we had it last year a city nature celebration and we're going to do it again this year and we're teaming up with south burlington winooski and colchester um and we've just started to plan for that and this is sort of the ways in which they're very excited about some of the work that we're doing in burlington i think it's sort of the beginning of seeing us like as in as more of a functional eco region so it's an abstract answer to your question yeah but i mean this is just amazing and i like it would be imperative to just extend your great work to the surrounding communities yeah but thank you so much yeah thanks president please thank you councillor jane i don't have anyone else in the queue councillor councillor stromberg thanks president tracy thank you so much for bringing this forward um this is something that i actually studied a lot in college um especially having to do with like vegetarian vegetation and water quality um so i very much appreciate this on like a very personal level um and i'm just very curious to like kind of see how this works and goes forward um one question i do have is i and i might have missed it i apologize um the timeline of kind of the rollout of how this is going to be integrated is there kind of like a broad timeline that you have in mind um on this i'm whoever can answer that well i mean i can't say i i maybe scott can get back to that question in a minute um i will say that a lot of that the work that's outlined in the implantation matrix is happening um and it's happening by many different institutions within the city everything from the parks department to the interval center and so this document helps give support and um and framing for a lot of groups who you know are really working on this but but but we don't see it as climate action you know we grow 30 000 trees in the interval um the interval conservation nursery does and i suspect nobody in the city knows that um and they're used for restoration and the work that they're doing is really sophisticated it's really climate informed um and they're really focusing on lake health and you know i won't i won't talk too much about the details that's one of the reasons that i felt very motivated to get this off the ground was to really try to give you know support to groups that are doing this to recognize this work as climate action and to have this invest more in it ultimately thank you thank you so much i think this is definitely absolutely worthwhile i think it goes hand in hand and works symbiotically with a lot of the other initiatives absolutely shouldn't be invested in thank you great hey counselor hanson great yeah thank you all so much this is amazing and a reflection of so much work i'm sure just from the from what i've heard um you all have been working really hard on this for a long time and it's paying off um we're lucky to have um such a proactive conservation board um taj i guess you mentioned this i think on your last slide just around the quantifying um are we doing anything to try to quantify these um these benefits that these enormous benefits that nature or natural areas in burlington are giving us yeah great question so we started working with a handful of pilot cities started out with three and then advanced to nine pilot cities around the country to run that quantitative analysis so we had to advance we worked with researchers at csu and others to sort of advance the science to the point to be able to quantify the different benefits of turf management and compost application and um restoring degraded habitats and what are the actual uh benefits for carbon sequestration and so we advanced that work in nine pilot cities now we're sort of regrouping figuring out the lessons learned from that initiative and we're excited to try and take that and apply that and support that uh work in in burlington it hasn't started um but it's certainly something that we can do to to support uh to support the conservation board and and this broader plan great i look forward to learning more about that and yeah i would just say um for you all the yeah continue keep up the great work and continue to advocate be proactive you know don't be shy with advocating to council as we're navigating a lot of these decisions around land use and development um i think we need to i think this is a big step towards integrating that indoor decision making but i think there's still this isn't gonna automatically ensure that um this you know this framework is integrated into our decision making so i think as much as we can continue to incorporate it and as much as you all can continue to to advocate and help us um keep keep these issues forefront as we make decisions that would be that would be great yeah and i'll just say one more thing which is i think you know we're back and i've talked about this a bunch but i i hope that no one sees this as like this is like a development versus conservation kind of issue it really isn't that there are so many ways to have dense green lush enliven cities um and so that the i don't ever want to see these things like played against each other because that's not what it's really about it's about how do we do the best we can in our urban ecosystem to make sure that you know that that we that um we have a livable livable habitable cool carbon sequestering city and there's lots of creative ways to do really cool stuff in the urban environment and that's what we're really looking to yeah and i'll just chime in on that and bring it back to allie's comment earlier about thinking on a landscape level and when we look at the state and think on a landscape level like and development has to be something that we consider within our cities and this is more about how do we like zoe said how do we balance it and how do we continue to have resilient communities alongside the development that's happening um which includes food security and stabilization of our uh steep slopes i'll stop there understood yeah and i yeah that makes sense and i just think you all have especially now that you've developed this have a level of expertise uh and awareness on these issues that we don't have on the council so just wanting to keep that line of communication open um as we're making decisions that relate to this and wanting to hear from you all um i love that feel free to reach out to us or invite zoe and nita to chime in i'm always excited to share my opinion so great thank you so much anyone else okay not seeing any other counselors really appreciate the presentation and sharing all this great information and answering your questions this evening look forward to continued collaboration with you all thank you still have a motion on the table regarding this item was there any further discussion of that motion itself okay not seeing any we'll go to a vote all those in favor please say aye hi any opposed that carries unanimously thanks again we will uh item 5.04 was removed um or when i'm removed was placed on the consent agenda i'm sorry uh is item 4.14 which we adopted earlier so that brings us to item 5.05 which is a communication um from megan tuttle and nancy stetson regarding the municipal mask mandate ordinance um before we get into that piece um just wanted to get a motion to accept the communication may please have that motion councillor jane uh i moved the motion as indicated on board thank you councillor jane is there a second seconded by councillor hanson did you want the floor back councillor jane no okay great i see we have megan tuttle with us megan isn't nancy joining us is there a are they on i don't think that nancy will be joining us on zoom this evening oh i do see actually nancy is on um has she joined okay yeah great if you would like to yeah that would be fine i wasn't sure if she would be able to make it okay great yeah i've promoted them to panelists and so should be able to join us should be joining in just a moment she's not responding president tracy i think that this actually coincides with her a little one's bedtime so i would just expect that she might be trying to listen okay great okay all right well why don't you kick us off then um okay so the communication that's on your agenda was from nancy and i about to the mayor about the current mask mandate um you have adopted this mandate in december and readopted it twice um since then to extend it to its current expiration date of march third um and as a reminder this is a mandate that was authorized by a special assembly of the vermont legislature at the end of last year um essentially our recommendation is that uh with the current state of the pandemic in vermont and with omicron's most acute phase having passed uh we recommended to the mayor that we allow the mask mandate to expire on march third as it is currently anticipated to do um we understand that that the current phase of where cases are and and all of the um hospitalizations and other metrics that we've been monitoring the state to not suggest that the pandemic is completely over or behind us but we do understand that the way that cases and other key metrics have been trending suggests to us that this acute phase is um really ameliorating and that um it would be an appropriate time for us to lift that mandate and focus on the um promotion and greater uptake of individual actions that we have been talking about for for many months now um so happy to answer any questions specifically about what was in the communication that we shared with the mayor or if the mayor would like or dan would like to weigh in at all um about those questions sure thank you director tutel i see city attorney richardson has turned on his camera and the mayor as well mayor did you want to speak to this uh sure i'll just briefly say um i appreciate very much the analysis um uh megan and and nancy the way work they've done throughout the the pandemic to give us to put us as as policymakers in position to make key decisions informed by data and informed by the latest in science and what other governments are doing has um really been uh just an enormous boost throughout throughout the last two years and i think they've done that job uh very thoroughly again here and i feel after reviewing this data it was clear to me that i i did not support although i have been in the past a big supporter of strong uh mask uh actions mandates fabrication of masks and when the omicron was um uh headed towards us in december i did support the reinstatement of mask mandate i don't believe that such action is still justified um at this point given where we are in the pandemic and i think like where we are with omicron specifically and i think uh you've seen um that thinking broadly adopted uh by many jurisdictions over the last few weeks i think we should follow suit happy to try to answer further questions but that's basically where i'm at thank you mayor city attorney richardson did you have anything to add no i can i can just add from a legal perspective you know what the effect of this is um if the city council doesn't uh ops not to renew the mask mandate it naturally inspires um the city council would be able to revive this mask mandate um in a future vote if it so felt um that was appropriate but i would just remind the council overall um that under the guidance from the state authorizing and enabling statute our authority to an ability to uh promulgate a mask mandate ends i believe in april of this year so um you know the question is you know whether if in if in march there was a change in the data or policy or direction of the council if they wish to revive it they could um but short of the state extending it um such a revival is it can only last until the end of april okay thank you attorney richardson um council high town where i saw a hand did you have a question or comment yeah and i think this is to um megan but and maybe the mayor's office but um i i think i'm also supportive of um not extending the mask mandate and at least because i think compliance when folks are not excited about masking anymore it gets really difficult the majority of the bba has said that they don't want to do this but i guess i just want to note i think that there's still some of the members of the bba did ask um us to extend it and then there's also i know a lot of folks who are still feeling really vulnerable given that you know where we were one and a half years ago we were still being much more cautious than we are now and i understand that you know we're gonna kind of move forward with a different risk calculus but recognizing that that's really hard for some people i just wonder what the city can do through the crc or anything else to encourage especially you know like restaurants is one thing where you're just kind of assuming the risk but things like grocery stores things like that to continue to encourage some level of mask wearing yeah i that's a great question um i think one of the important things that we've been talking about is scheduling another covid briefing in the near term to help share information with folks about you know really what they should be thinking about at this phase of covid um especially as we come down from the omicron peak and part of that messaging can be talking about more recommendations around mask wearing than mandating mask wearing um i think one of the other important things to share is just about how our understanding of and and the availability of high quality masks has really changed the landscape of mask usage over the last couple of years in particular with the quality and availability of k and 95 masks um really helping people understand that that does offer a level of protection even if you might be the only person wearing a mask where at previous points it really required all of us to be wearing masks in order to provide that level of benefit and pay that protection so um that's something that we're looking to do in the immediate term and we are also exploring whether you know we can obtain some uh number of masks that we could help provide to the community to help increase access as well great thank you man anyone else come to jay thank you and this is one for the city attorney um you know i know that our policies does not govern the school district so if we lift the mask mandate will it you know include the burnington school district as well or they have their own policies about how they want to move forward with this they have their own policy and when we first promulgated this uh or when you first promulgated this uh ordinance actually that was one of the statutory limitations that the mandate could not extend into the school district so whether you extend it or not it will have no effect on the school district thank you and if if i may add just as well um i believe it is still within individual institutions and businesses rights to be able to require masks if they wish this is just not saying that the city is mandating that each business do that that's right that that remains a private right that any any business or institution has the right to do so yeah um and megan haven't you heard of any of the new variant coming in i've been hearing at least someone told me that he read two different article that there is a new virus let's say in japan but the scientists don't understand it yet i know it has nothing to do with this but just was wondering if you heard of it um i have heard that or i do understand that um there isn't a sub variant of omicron um that many people are watching and i think in some cases um you know there's a concern that in some communities that have experienced that sub variant of omicron it might just delay their um peak receding um and as far as other kind of emerging variants of concern that's something that we continue to watch and um kind of do some research on and bring that forward to see if it's something that the city needs to really address in terms of um changing our posture or policy around thank you so much no more question president please thank you councillor jane anyone else councillor stromburg thanks so much um yeah i just wanted to voice that i'm very supportive of us following the data and taking seriously and adjusting one need be you know different mandates and kind of health evaluations along the way so i i am very supportive of us lifting this mandate um and also just want to like caution i think councillor jane brings up a very good point like we are still in this we're still kind of going through a lot of the developments the world is an ever-changing place and we should just be prepared to in the future and i don't want it to happen but be prepared to have to kind of reinstate a mandate if need be um but i do think it is one of those things where it's important to recognize how well and how good we've been as a city overall um in in in listening to this mandate and and and making sure that we're being safe for one another and and we've gotten this far because of that so i do want to name that and say that you know it has worked thus far and um to some extent and yeah i adjusting as we go and this is one of those adjustments that i'm very happy and and excited to make so yeah very supportive of lifting that tonight thank you councillor stromberg i don't have anyone else in the queue mayor weinberger thanks for this and tracy i just wanted to quickly um share that i i completely agree with the sentiment just expressed by councillor stromberg and and others that this is uh this is a decision that we're making based on the science and the data and the state of the pandemic now um we can be i think hopeful that the omicron wave was the last major wave of uh this incredible two-plus year pandemic we do not have a guarantee of that there certainly could be new variants there could be conditions of change again um if you know in the coming months we certainly are looking at the fall as the time when we may there there's at least a real possibility that we have to deal with some new development with respect to this pandemic we will continue to watch very closely um all of these developments we will continue to have an infrastructure set up within the city to monitor monitor developments and to be able to make changes as necessary we will continue to be a very close touch with the Department of Health and you get medical center um and we will not be complacent uh on this um we also even beyond that um i think we are starting conversations about how we ensure that pandemic planning uh beyond the COVID pandemic is something that is well integrated into our emergency preparedness and that may call we may well be coming to you in the months ahead with um some uh uh ideas and long-term thinking such as you know we're asking ourselves at least the question should there be some kind of supplies that are stockpiled on a permanent basis and we have systems in place um to refresh over time uh we're starting to look at that as well so um yes i think this is the step we should be taking now will be important i think it's important to say now as we're taking this that just because this is the right decision at this moment does not mean uh that the science and the conditions might change again and requires to take new action thank you mayor anyone else okay we'll go to a vote on the motion to waive the reading accept the communication place it on file all those in favor please say aye hi hi we opposed that carries unanimously this to our next item which is a series of public hearings regarding zoning amendments again as i said at the public forum this is only to speak specifically to z a 21 dash four dash 20 or z a dash 21 dash oh four adaptive reuse definition z a dash 22 dash oh one historic preservation rehabilitation bonus and z a dash 22 dash oh two permitting adjustment so those are the three items there um we'll get to the public hearing in just a moment for that um if you are interested in addressing the the council on only these items you may do so um by using the raise hand function and i'll just call on folks that way again only these items uh you're able to speak to no other topics are not you're not able to address other topics at this point but prior to doing that um i just saw um scott gustin turn on his camera so scott i just wanted to see if you might be able to give an overview of the each of these ordinances prior to the opening the public hearing so that folks have a knowledge of what to comment what their comment might be commenting on sure i can do that so um there's three separate amendments here uh two of them are related um one is the revision of the definition for adaptive reuse and really all we're doing here is tweaking that definition so that it's in agreement with the federal department of the interior's standard um adaptive reuse basically is taking a historic building and reusing it for a contemporary use other than what it was originally built for so think think of loft apartments and your typical mill building somewhere that's adaptive reuse so we're simply changing the definition a bit to line up with um federal standard in doing that uh that had implications and this is the second amendment that had implications for an existing adaptive reuse bonus in the residential districts and so we it looks like more is going on than is actually going on here um we have relocated the adaptive reuse bonus and put it under section 548 which is the historic preservation criteria and have renamed it between relocating and renaming it and making a slight adjustment to the residential conversion bonus uh there's really no difference for an applicant between the two of those this is really at risk of being repetitive this is this is sort of like rearranging the deck chairs but hopefully