with me how difficult it can be to find enough good paying work here in our state and some have felt forced to relocate to neighboring states as a result while there are of course other factors at play here too this ordinance is a great first step in guaranteeing that taxpayer money will go towards quality jobs that will retain and attract workers in our state so we know we will have to make a lot of significant public investments in our infrastructure in the coming years to address the effects of climate change I also think this is a really important step in toward a just transition for our local economy in the face of all the work we're going to have to do for climate change so I hope to celebrate this victory with you all later and I hope this does indeed pass and I look forward to working with you all more on this thank you so much thank you our next speaker will be Larry Mokwin to be followed by Jim Richards Larry have located you and have enabled your microphone good evening counselors thank you for your time my name is Larry Mokwin I'm the Vice President of the Vermont building and construction trades council I'm here in support on behalf of the building trades and its members of the proposed changes to your prequalification of construction contractors ordinance what this ordinance will really do is create a community standard for all construction workers that work public projects in the city of Burlington it'll create a level playing field based on wages and you guys will get bids based more on performance instead of bottom theaters I think if you guys weaken the language any uh any more than what we have in the last 20 something months going through this process I think it would allow the opportunity for these contractors to cheat and no no ordinance is any better than the enforcement of it and without any liability the ordinance will will be set up to fail I want to thank the ordinance committee for all the work they did it on it and the whole council for taking the time to deal with this problem that I believe is in Burlington we've had contractors on WCAX telling you that they are starting labor at $16 an hour which I'm not positive but I think maybe below your livable wage this year again I hope you guys will pass this tonight I thank you for your time and have a great evening thank you I our next speaker is going to be Jim Richards to be followed by Isaac Bissell and someone who signed up as Alex Jim I have located you I have enabled your microphone Jim Richards looks like you're on mute Jim Richards President Tracy do you have me now yes I do go ahead okay sorry about that first time I'm doing doing this I'm Jim Richards of Aerodyne Corporation a general aviation stakeholder at the airport for 20 years Aerodyne is an American manufacturer of parts used in our aircraft repair operations and exported to other countries our products decrease the carbon and noise footprints of small aircraft by enabling them to fly higher with lower fuel consumption we contribute to the community by use of Vermont vendors whenever possible offering STEM internships and by offering our aircraft for angel flights our jobs pay at least twice the Burlington FY 22 livable wage and include comprehensive health care and education benefits. Aerodyne is a good example of the attributes you seek for business growth in Burlington I thank counselor D'Ang for his recognition that existing general aviation stakeholders at the airport are at risk of being damaged by disproportionate pressure on airport management to accommodate the interests of a single newcomer private party my business is being negatively impacted by daily shutdowns necessary to protect sensitive equipment one of my neighbors is losing ramp critical to his business counselor D'Ang has told me he believes the resolution to be a good start personally I only see it thus far as better than nothing because it does not adequately address the continuing inequity of a single newcomer private entity impacting the interests and prospects of many existing stakeholders the resolution calls for a plan informed in part by the needs of all general aviation stakeholders I respectfully suggest an amendment to add an item nine requiring equitable treatment of general aviation stakeholders without preference for any single stakeholder or any group of stakeholders less than 80 percent of all stakeholders thank you very much thank you Isaac a cell I'm not able to locate you if you're not signed on as the name that you signed up with if you could just rename yourself I'm going to go to the last speaker that I have signed up Alex I believe I've located you Alex I've enabled your mic so you should be able to speak believe it's Alex Poppin yes excuse me yeah Alex Poppin here I'm a 15 year member and organizer for local 693 the plumbers and pipefitters local and I've also spent a vast majority of my time working in the city of Burlington over my career and I just want to come on and say how important it is that I feel the feel it is to get this the amendment to the the proposed amendments to the responsible contract ordinance passed I think it's going to go a long way towards uplifting everybody in this in your community as well as the surrounding areas and also hopefully maybe be able to bring in some of the local people yeah actually that actually live in the community and maybe keep them working in their community I'm not going to take up too much time here but I just want to emphasize how important it is that we maintain a high level of dignity for the people that work in these trade jobs thank you very much for your time thank you I'm still not able to locate Isaac Bissell or Ronald Lloyd who signed up earlier but who I was not able to locate so with that I'm going to go ahead and close our public forum for this evening thank you all to our to our speakers this evening for respecting the time limits and maintaining the decorum of our body what we will do now is transition right into our agenda pick up where we pick up with item number four which is climate emergency reports are there any counselors or Mayor Weinberger wishing to offer a climate emergency report this evening okay seeing none I will close that item and we will go to our consent agenda counselor Stromberger you will please make a motion on the consent agenda I move to adopt the consent agenda and take the actions indicated I have a motion from councillor Stromberg is there a second second seconded by councillor McGee any discussion of the consent agenda okay here none we're going to vote all those in favor please say aye hi hi hi any opposed that carries unanimously brings us right into our deliberative agenda for tonight where we'll go into item number 6.01 which is a presentation from Superintendent Flanagan Nathan Lavery who's the director of finance for the district as well as school board chair claire wool thank you so much for being with us it was great to to get a chance to at least share some virtual space with you with all three of you when we had our our joint meeting last week I look forward to hearing more about the budget this evening but again thanks for being here really really appreciate you coming and sharing this this crucial community information with us excellent thank you President Tracy what I can give a quick intro and then executive director Nathan Lavery is here to talk a bit about our budget going to some of the detail and then chair wool is here to wrap wrap wrap us up we're will be available for any questions you have so we're looking forward to the opportunity to present our FY 23 budget to you tonight one of what we have done in this budgeting process is to take a disciplined approach to to our budget and we know we have a building that we are we are going to be presenting to taxpayers soon with a bond in November of 2022 we also have American resource plan funding the ARP funding that has allowed us to to introduce some new initiatives so while our our budget that we're presenting our local budget is conservative we have been able to invest in exciting and innovative new initiatives for our district the the American recovery plan allows us both to implement new initiatives around academic achievement social emotional learning and well-being and attendance and engagement while also allowing us to continue to implement the COVID precautions that we that we needed so we've we've purchased in the American recovery plan funding masks filters testing Chromebooks but we've also had the opportunity to utilize the funding to expand to additional pre-k classrooms to bring in a new literacy curriculum for our k5 to implement restorative practices through restorative practices specialists in each of our schools and to implement a mental health and assessment to understand better where our our students are and to implement k home visits for our kindergarten students before the school year started and home visits for our older students now and in addition to that through the American recovery plan we've been able to set aside 10 million dollars for our our building project which is slated for 20 August 2025 is is our goal so overall a disciplined approach to the local budget because of that American recovery plan funding that we have and also you'll be happy to see that the the ed fund is healthy so we're presenting to you a budget that does in that does have an increase because every year our our wages benefits and utilities and other kind of year over year items continue to to cost more but we we the ed fund is healthy so you'll you'll you'll see that that will have an impact on taxpayers that I think will be the city will be happy about so with that I'll kick it over to Nate to walk us through the slideshow great thank you very much um is the slideshow I share my screen or um is that something that's going to be put up on on the screen for me to talk through so you let me see let's make sure that you can share your screen um you should have co you're listed as a co host um so you should be able to to share your own screen I will do that stand by so um you know that the council has had an opportunity to review this presentation already so I will move quickly through some of the preliminary slides here um quickly uh touching on some of the higher points uh and moving right into some of the financial implications for for the budget I do want to just remind folks generally and this is at the end of the presentation as well that this coming Tuesday or a week from this coming Tuesday rather is going to be the board's final review and approval of the budget which will then be submitted to the city by the january 20th 20th deadline for inclusion on the march ballot we provided some base uh baseline budget benchmark so folks could have an understanding of where we've been over the past few years including uh this most recent year which again was a relatively uh modest increase in in spending and rates in part um due to some of the savings we're able to achieve operationally but the big things that are driving our debt uh this year as you've been heading in plan again mentioned number one the two and a half million dollars that's that's new spending but on existing uh costs wages benefits and so forth so there's no new programming or anything in there but that's the cost of continuing to provide the services that we provide from our local budget one of the major costs that is um not new this year but is new in the relatively recently um that we've been budgeting for are the costs of downtown bhs we've not added more money to the budget we uh first included funds to pay for the rent utilities costs of that space for the budget year that we're operating in right now so we have not increased the budget for that purpose but i think it's important to know that those costs are baked into this budget and then as superintendent plan again mentioned we have significant funds through the american recovery plan esser funds federal funds that are not part of our total budget they don't drive increases in property or income tax uh property tax education tax rates here in vermont but we do have substantial funds that we are putting toward recovery and a superintendent plan again mentioned putting toward the construction of a new uh burlington high school and technical center campus one of the really exciting new features of our budget process this year um was our recent equitable budgeting process and a key element of that process was to allocate resources based on enrollment and then have an additional allocation which we call the rise allocation or uh and and this um this acronym rise is recognizing injustice and seeking equity and the idea of this allocation which was drawn from existing sources of funding and federal funds so again not kind of new tax supported money the idea was to allow schools to make equity oriented investments on a school by school basis so rather than having a kind of one size fits all approach to this sort of spending we turned it over to our principals with support from their individual school advisory groups to identify investments that they thought could really help move the move the needle in terms of how we better serve students at each of our in each of our learning communities so i've listed here some of the main types of investments that were identified for those who are interested but again i think uh as as important of as the actual elements or the ideas that they came up with our art is the fact that this is a process where we allocated the funds to the schools not simply based on enrollment but also based on an assessment of the needs in in the school which we did by looking at things like the number of students who come from families who are living in poverty or the number of students who are English learners and so forth so this was an exciting new element there's some materials on our website for folks who want to want to learn more these were some of the new investments that were identified moving on to the tax rates here i've defined the major driving variables that go into tax rates i won't give you this i know before but on the next slide takes each of those variables and shows the status for the coming year and you can imagine increasing spending increases tax rate the percentage increase in spending and frankly spending per pupil is looks relatively high that's actually driven only in part by the increase in actual spending associated with the wages benefits and other kind of standard cost increases it's also a reflection of the fact that we have somewhat less one-time money in this budget going toward supporting baseline operations which is a good long-term practice it makes that number look a little bigger this year but that that's the explanation for the increase in education spending equalize people count down that's a bad thing when it comes to tax rates that puts upward pressure on the tax rate but the good news is the dollar yield which is super intended again plan again mentioned is kind of a reflection of how much money is in the ed fund that number is up significantly meaning that the education fund broadly can support a higher level of spending without having to increase taxes and then the real change the major major change from every year that I've been doing these presentations frankly is the common level of appraisal we recently got the updated letter from the tax department that shows our common level of appraisal is now over a hundred percent in the past that number has been as low as the mid 70 percent so when that happens that means that property tax rates get adjusted up because our property is assessed at levels that are below the market so this doesn't gain tax bills it's important to understand that as the common level of appraisal goes up that means that that properties are valued higher for tax purposes and therefore the tax rate can be lower to generate the same amount of money so it's a pretty confusing formula but the key message here to understand is while the common level of appraisal is going to help bring tax rates down what will actually help bring tax bills down is the homestead dollar yield is to say the amount of spending that the ed fund can support we're going to provide a couple scenarios here estimated tax implications and as you can see just as I mentioned before you've got some pretty large changes particularly in the property tax rate again because that is a function of not only the dollar yield but also the common level of appraisal and based on our current projections we have some modest decreases in actual tax bills but that again being partly a function of the amount of money in the ed fund so we should caveat in as with the case every year that the homestead dollar yield is something that set legislatively it is a process that goes on in Montpelier the governor makes proposals the legislature debates those proposals and ultimately they pass legislation establishing that rate for the coming year so we're always estimating at this point in the process but our current estimates would actually produce slight decreases in in tax bills under this hypothetical scenario and I should also mention when I kind of compared this to a prior year I essentially compared this to a lower priced homestead the prior year kind of adjust for the fact that we increased that we increased the value of the same homestead so I didn't compare this to someone whose homestead was 361 thousand dollars last year I used a lower figure that was proportional to the change in the CLA we do have actually well now this is this is updated from from the earlier presentation so we've one of these variables that we can cross off the list the CLA and we're doing some work our estimates for our fund balance and our state revenues so we have a little bit more work to do on the budget and the next slide shows what we imagine doing with our fund balance our fund balances surplus funds from the prior year and those have to be incorporated into the budget cycle for the year that is coming up so using 3.6 million dollars of that fund balance we typically require about a million and a half dollars to support ongoing operations but we are also going to add 600 000 dollars to enhance the downtown BHS space we know that there's a need for more doys noise doors noise mitigation and security features and so forth of that space so we have to continue to invest in that space to ensure that it provides an adequate educational facility for our students it's a temporary space at some level but when you talk about being there for potentially five years it's not that temporary so it's important that we make some ongoing investments in that space and then lastly we identified another million and a half dollars that we want to set aside in addition to the federal funds that Superintendent Flanagan mentioned so another million and a half dollars toward our building project again those funds that we're setting aside are all we're doing that with the intention of reducing the need to borrow and then therefore the burden on on taxpayers long term of the new facility so as I mentioned we got a couple more steps in the process coming up but it all culminates on in March with the town meeting day budget vote so we are looking forward to that opportunity and I will turn it over to Mr. Wolf. Thank you very much I want to thank our solid leadership team of Superintendent Flanagan and Executive Director Lavery for your presentation and speaking to the council and the mayor and the public tonight we are a disciplined team working together to ensure equitable budgeting year after year with our school budgets and we recognize the support that citizens of Burlington City Council and Mayor have given to us and we entrust that responsibility very seriously we look forward to this year especially under the needs of our single high school and technical center here in the city of Burlington and look forward to your support but tonight tonight's school board presentation budget we appreciate you reviewing it and would be happy to answer any questions thank you. Great well thank you to the three of you for for sharing all that information with us at this point we'll open it up to to counselors with any questions or comments again it helps me just in terms of identifying speakers if you could just please use their raise hand function which is at the bottom of the screen so any counselors interested counselor Shannon go ahead. Thank you President Tracy and thank you very much for the presentation it's always very helpful to us when we're talking to constituents to be well informed about these things which really impact our constituents I was hoping with the with the reassessment it's really hard to have apples to apples comparisons and to figure out what this does mean to our taxpayers because the taxpayers burden has shifted to our residential taxpayers you know even with the school budget the school budget could go down and still have a major increase for our homestead taxpayers so I was wondering if it would be possible for you to provide us of course not right in this moment but at some point tell us what was the average use the average homestead taxpayer that you use from past years in comparison with average homestead taxpayer this year and give us that comparison as well as um telling us what a taxpayer at say 300 400 500 600 000 would be paying based on this the budget that you have laid out as far as you can determine and then I also have a question um as far as the cl a when does the cl a when is the cl a determined each year it's determined just annually and not readjusted is that correct so um the second question I can say that the cl a is uh the the number that's going to be applied for education tax rate purposes is distributed by the tax department usually in late December or so of every year by the time we see letters that's a tax department calculation they're looking at what they know of values and they're looking at things like uh I believe sales and other real estate data to kind of to come up with that to their their assessment of the degree to which property in a community is assessed for tax purposes at at market rate so that's every year there is an opportunity for it to be appealed I know the city for example has appealed some properties in the past but you don't appeal like the cl a as a whole you appeal kind of specific um big property but yeah so that's an annual an annual process and then see your first question we can certainly look at doing some other hypotheticals but I think uh it's worth me maybe trying to articulate this little more clearly than I did during the presentation which is that hypothetical property taxpayer that I illustrated um what I did was in prior years I had used a hypothetical homestead value of $150,000 and I had calculated the tax burden and the increase or decrease in taxes um for the purposes of our application every year what I did this year was take a $150,000 homestead um and I increased it by the change in the cl a while that's not a it's not the way the cl a actually works essentially in a hypothetical sense I said hey if if a home last year for the purposes last year was valued at $250,000 and this year all values went up by 40 odd percent I'm going to increase that $250,000 homestead um so I you know it's like you said it's not a perfect correlation but that's what I attempted to do if I had simply taken a $250,000 homestead and calculated a uh hypothetical tax impact on that for this budget the tax bill would have looked extremely low right but really we know that $250,000 homestead last time around is now a test of the higher value so I I made an attempt to do that it's not perfect but and I think you you may complain it's hard to really do apples to apples and every taxpayer situation is unique I did attempt to um do something that was a little more illustrative of of what someone might actually explain understanding that in that case um I don't think that that gives a good picture on the homestead side because homesteads increase so much more than other categories so could you could you um get the information from the tax assessor or maybe you have it on what the average increase is for homestead taxes or for homestead assessments rather then start at that $250,000 increase it by the average increase on on homestead values which is different than the CLA and different than what it is city-wide and also but also show it in comparison with that $250,000 home last year so you're essentially comparing hopefully something like the same on the income side of the equation why did you use $50,000 is that the average income of the average homestead owner no it's just the figure that we have used recently it's on the low end of the income levels that are um that are high enough to exceed the circuit breaker it's kind of provision in our tax code but as you know the income sensitivity phases out as household income goes up so that's on the lower lower end could we also get a little bit more information on that as you know different points of escalation on that thank you we may be able to do that calculating that is a little a little trickier but we may be able to come up with a few other taxpayer scenarios uh income payers that is great thank you so much thank you councillor shannon i have councillor barlow to be followed by councillors mickey and carpenter go ahead councillor barlow thank you president tracy um i have two questions the first is about the downtown bhs rent i see a majority of the rent and fiscal 23 is being used paid for by the fund balance and fiscal 22 and that's good news um but but i know from conversations we had over the summer the lease agreement requires the district to pay about i think it's it's about 266,265 thousand dollars in property taxes as part of the lease agreement and i'm wondering if there are assumptions about the city continuing the abatement of the municipal tax and the calculation and additionally i'm interested to know if the district has been given any relief from the state for the um education portion i know that the city and the district were going to collaboratively pursue that when we spoke last summer so the answer to question number two is we don't have any additional relief in the fund i know that our legal council has had conversations uh previous this was going back a few months at least now um with the agency of education or maybe the tax department off to look that up but in any event uh there were some conversations there um we did not get to a resolution it's probably something worth kind of re reigniting um with respect to your question about uh the budget yes we assume essentially a continuation but only of the municipal portion that the city has agreed to is an assumption in the budget okay thank you um my other question was around the um the five percent decrease almost five percent decrease in the equalized people count and i'm wondering if the district has an explanation for that are the students leaving because of the high school situation are there is there a decrease in resettlement activity or is there something else um and as a follow-up to that do you think it's a blip or is it a trend well i can i can start and and superintending and playing and maybe they want to uh chime in here as well but i would say first of all the um equalized one thing to support and understand is that equalized people count is a two-year uh includes a two-year average uh daily membership and due to covid last year there was a essentially like a grace period where they froze those counts so now everyone's kind of dealing with the the fact that when you unfreeze them you kind of catch up over a period of time so i think that it looks a little more dramatic year over year than it may have been had they not kind of provided that one-year relief um in terms of the what's driving it i couldn't like i don't know for sure although i do know that we have that certainly the change in uh immigration at the federal level resulted in fewer families with students coming to our community for a period of time that may be changing um and we know that we have a great opportunity to welcome some uh some afghan uh members to our community but the um but that certainly was one of the things we did see that trend over uh kind of the prior few years and we also know that generally speaking enrollment has been declining not as rapidly obviously as some other areas of the state but that that has you know we have experienced some of that here in burlington yeah yeah i'll just add that we are you know we are looking at we're sort of constantly looking at our enrollment our enrollment um has has dipped down slightly but as as nathan explained it's a two-year account so it's um this is showing a trend over time and um so it's something that we're definitely keeping keeping our eye on okay thank you thank you great i have council mickey to be followed by council carpenter thank you president tracy and i appreciate you all presenting this evening um i have a question about i think it's for superintendent flanagan regarding the district's plan with this budget kind of an overview of how you all are building capacity for el programs throughout the district and what that might look like yeah thank you for that question that we've taken our el programming uh very seriously um the one of the things that we did actually in in the last budget that's carrying into this budget um with the leadership of of uh adin haji on the board and uh miriam edesham kating our el director um and we we we um made our multilingual liaisons uh 12 month employees and made their pay competitive with um or essentially the same as those same positions in winewski uh that was a that was an initial um priority of of of mine coming in because i came in in the summer of of the um of covid of the pandemic and we were really wanting to get a lot of messaging out and it was right away that i learned the multilingual liaisons just weren't they were available to work some but they had taken other jobs in the summer and they just weren't around 12 months and it was clear that we were we needed to not only do we do we really need them in the summer but we also needed to make sure that we were um we were paying them um a competitive wage and fairly so that was an early priority and then in terms of specific programming for students we we have we um our school board is taking the lead on advocacy at the state level regarding the weighted pupil so uh i don't know how much background you have on this so i apologize if i go if i'm going too deep so i'll stay to our surface and we can talk more if you'd like to talk more but uh the state commission to study of uv from uh that uvm records in the american institute of research um did and it said that we have an antiquated weighted formula that disproportionately impacts districts with uh high high percentage of students who qualify for free and reduced lunch and students with who are english learners and so um the the commission of task force that task force has been working on this and they are presenting a categorical they're right now recommending a categorical fix on the ELL weighting side that we disagree with a hundred percent so um your your advocacy i want you to all know that i think most probably all of you do but um just wanted to sort of double down on that and the fact that we really are going to probably need to do some heavy advocacy at the at the legislature at some point soon that being said we are we are doing a lot to support our english learners and and and and their instruction and their programming um we've have a new uh co-taught ELL classroom at uh Champlain so we're doing some some innovative uh or some new not all that innovative but new practices um around co-teaching which is which is interesting uh and i think is you know we're watching to see how that's going and it has been going well uh we also have specific classrooms to support uh students who are brand new to the country uh and so we have we have specific classrooms those have been great to see this summer this year we've had we have one at IAA that was empty in the beginning of the year and now it's have has a lot of students in it and it's really just so great to to see them uh uh the students and and teachers kind of come together um around around that and then the the other thing that we've done is to bolster our our communication so this is not specifically to english uh learners and their their program but it's how do we communicate with our families we have added um we've ended into a contract to provide translation um and and interpretation services uh so that we can do right now our multilingual liaisons uh read the information that we put out and and they and they put it out to to their communities we want to continue to do that as much as we are doing and more but we also want to make sure we're getting uh families information in multiple modalities so uh we we've stepped up that game so that's a that's a huge priority for us 16 percent of our students our english learners um they're they're students who have have amazing assets to bring to our our community and our district um and and we we need to really make sure we're doing everything we can to support them great thank you so much um I have one additional question um regarding um an update on the capital bond that was passed a few years ago and sort of um where we're at with some of those capital projects uh at our other schools in the district um kind of maybe how the pandemic has hindered some of those yeah so we we do have a plan what actually the the pandemic has hindered it but not as much as the the high school and having to adjust and and put our energy toward the high school um and also swing space so one of the challenges we know IAA is one of our schools that is in most need of of uh upgrades of uh to the facility right now um and we don't have good swing spaces to to do that construction so that's a big piece of what we need to incorporate into our strategy for upgrading the facilities outside of the high school Nate I don't uh can you talk a little bit more about where we are with that yeah I mean we I think you you said it well we we're not um we haven't been able to do probably as much as we would have liked quickly as we would have liked but it is been driven more a question of of the bandwidth that that we have um we actually are to be a little more we are looking at doing some significant work at IAA in the coming year and um you may if uh um including uh doing a major um uh what is it uh roof work um in the coming we may you may have heard we've had some water infiltration issues and at that campus so we're going to be doing some major roof work there and and actually going out to pre-qualify bidders very soon so at least speaking that's that's one of the major things that is on the horizon um probably uh I would say we have we have in terms of our total process the good news is we are well kind of within that capital plan um I think the challenge that we are actually encountering is that that capital plan was really about and that and the funding for was really about just investing or reinvesting in what we already have it isn't about growing our facilities expanding our facilities or kind of changing them in any specific way to respond to uh new needs that might be out there and so I think that's just an important thing to to bear in mind when we think about that plan sometimes people think oh we can use this to add you know extra classrooms here that's not what it what you know the funding was not calculated for that purpose it it's about really just kind of revitalizing the infrastructure we do already have so there are going to be some some big challenges in that area in the future I'm sure in some interesting conversations but otherwise it's it's going reasonably well it's just that we have to kind of pace ourselves as we move through through that plan great thank you thank you counselor carpenter thanks um really just a couple comments um Nathan was talking about and counsel Shannon was questioning about the presentation of the homestead credit versus the praise value um I just want to point out that CAO shad hit a ton of work and her staff when we're we were trying to figure out this lag on the homestead credit issue so we have a lot of information so I hope the two of you can get together and analyze it further around um what the reappraisal did to increasing people's homestead credit and not um I think there are several legislators in Burlington who are poised to present um changes to that formula if we could sort how it it works for our residents so again I'm just um encouraging the school department to get together um with CAO shad and sort out all that information um and it was broad it wasn't just like everybody over 50 got an increase because it increases were from 50 to 100 and it depended on your income and and so just we need to do more work on that my other this is probably still more editorial and uh superintendent um planigan um mentioned it the waiting formula very nerdy um I think we all on the call understand it but somehow we have got to get that word out to parents and constituents there's a statewide election there's a governor a lieutenant governor and Chittenden County senators who may not have Burlington in their sites running for re-election so it's got to be a high priority issue and we've got to figure out how to articulate that to the voter because it's really a state issue and I think our brilliant folks are fine it's everybody else so I hope we can work together on that absolutely yeah and there there is a you know about this but there is a coalition uh where we have a number of members on that coalition that statewide there's a connection in a way this this proposal impacts us and the way it impacts small rural districts um so it's you know there there's definitely there are many districts across the state that are impacted by this but certainly for us we we do end up getting more funding for our English learners uh and overall through this but not nearly as much as the weighted formula um tells us that we would so thanks thank you thank you um Councillor Carpenter I don't have any other counselors in the queue anyone else interested you can use the raise hand function you are okay not seeing any I want to just thank Superintendent Flanagan, Chair Wol and Finance Director Lavery for this presentation and for answering all the detailed questions from counselors this evening um we'll look forward to seeing that that finalized budget um as you indicated that should come at the next school board meeting is that right that's correct January 18th okay great so folks are interested in following the process that's the next step in that process um before it gets placed on the ballot the town meeting day ballot and one last I just want to share Councilor McGee um you know the state is is expecting over 260 refugees coming by the end of February um Chittenden County is uh I think earmarked for around 160 so we are poised and and prepared um and you know again we take great pride in being a sanctuary city and a resettlement city you are appreciative of the um you know the federal government's leadership in in making that happen so thank you for that question and yes lastly IAA is one of our our oldest schools um and we are on top of those capital needs and began earlier this summer um and so thank you very much because we too as elected officials um hear that concern for that community and we are cognizant of it so thank you very much thank you very much appreciate it um have a great night all um we'll move on to our next item item 6.02 which is a public hearing regarding the downtown Tiff district and the Great Streets project before we open that public forum however I believe we have a presentation that will just give us a little bit of context for that um so am I trying to get over to you director Spencer or you director Pine director Pine go ahead thank you very much president Tracy the and the rest of the council uh tonight we will be discussing the downtown tax increment financing district and uh hopefully by the end of our presentation here uh the council will have enough information and the public will be uh at least aware and begin to learn about the the intentions with the downtown tax increment financing district also called the Tiff district with me tonight is the DPW team Laura Wheelock and Chapin Spencer as well as David G White not to be confused with our former city planner David is our consultant who has prepared the um financial materials that you will be um well first of all that informed our decision and our ability to go forward with this request and hopefully will be uh information that uh the council is um informs your decision to uh whether to go forward with a ballot question so our public hearing tonight is really to provide a an overview of the of the project the need for the project um and the um mechanism the tax increment financing and how it works uh and I think I want to just highlight a couple key points before others join me in this presentation this opportunity is is what we refer to in the memo uh that was provided by director Spencer and myself as a once in a lifetime opportunity to really make a transformative investment in all of the public infrastructure of our core downtown street main street without raising local property taxes and I think that's an important point a nearly 30 million dollar uh investment without raising local property taxes I just want to reiterate that and it's really this part of the project is a culmination of a planning and development process that really began uh a decade ago with the voter approval to create the downtown tiff district and the subsequent approval by voters to borrow the first installment of capital to fund the first projects that will be discussed in a few minutes so that information I just also want to highlight that this is a this is a not just a once in a lifetime opportunity but it's also an opportunity that if if the city is not able to take advantage of uh of what's available to finance capital needs in our downtown it expires it expires a year from march so we have until next march to um to really do all the work necessary to bond we have to bond by march which means all the preliminary work necessary to know the project scope and the costs and the estimates and the bids and all of that needs to be done well in advance of next march so that's why we're that's where we're coming to you tonight um a quick at a quick at a high level the redevelopment of main street from union street all the way to battery street will substantially upgrade the infrastructure and streetscape to support the local businesses the jason businesses and our community that uses those businesses um it will allow us to make what are essentially environmentally oriented improvements around storm water um making the street both environmentally more sound and aesthetically much more pleasing uh and the results of that are are are are multiple there's multiple positive impacts from that um we think that the the project as you will learn tonight and and as we go forward toward the march vote um will really meet the needs of a diversity of users pedestrians cyclists um motor vehicles and public transit with a real emphasis on pedestrians and cyclists and investing in that infrastructure in the core of our downtown if we can make the investments in the storm water um management the investments that are part of this project it will reduce the pollution of lake champlain which is a priority for I think virtually everyone both on this meeting but throughout the community and by reinvesting in the utilities um and the details of that will be discussed both replacing and and reconstructing and relocating in some instances we are making an investment that that probably has um not been made in in in over half a century and it needs to be made in order for our downtown to be strong and vibrant and so I just wanted to provide that context before we uh go forward um tonight we're going to have hopefully this information will provide you with a detailed description of the project and our DPW team will provide that David White will present the financials and then we will have an opportunity to um answer questions but I want to highlight in the memo that the council got uh there is an error that I I just want to you know take full responsibility for because this memo um came with my name on it so I think it's important to just do that halfway down through page two um it refers to the the the original taxable value of the TIST district it's often referred to as the um the OTV the original taxable value is is it about 170 million that's correct that's correct but the memo says that today's taxable value of our district is 375,500,000 that actually is what we project the value to be at the end of the life of the district the actual value today is is 285 million so we were off by um you know by a fair amount however that doesn't affect any of the other assumptions it was just a um essentially a math error and it made it into the memo and we will correct the materials going forward but I wanted to at least for the council and for members of the public to know that you know we discovered that and we just wanted to be upfront that that was a um just a mathematical error so without further ado I'm going to ask my teammates from DPW to um to to introduce the project. Great thanks director Pine we're going to have senior engineer Laura Wheelock give an overview and I'll help wrap it up. All right so uh Brian did an excellent job beginning our uh our slideshow our slideshow today um we're going to go a little bit through the VEBSI approved TIF projects which is the Vermont Economic Council um what is TIF and how we're going to get the funding for this for the downtown a little bit about the march 2022 bond vote and uh time for some questions and answers at the end. So the approved project from the Vermont Economic Council is Main Street six blocks from Union to Battery as well as the ravine sewer between Union um and the block between Union college Winooski and Maine. It's a little bit confusing um when we first went for the first part of this vote uh back in 2015 we worked on two blocks of Main Street. These two blocks have both voter authorization as well as previous VEBSI authorization. We went in November to receive VEBSI authorization for these other three components of this very large project and this is what's going for the march ballot this year. A quick reminder of what Great Streets Main Street was in 2016 the city undertook us uh an effort to create downtown street design standards for the streetscapes. This was rebalancing the use of the right away with pedestrians transit vehicle bicycles creating new public amenities improving existing ones creating new spaces addressing community needs within the right of way and most recently with Main Street is adding in and improving utilities that are underneath the ground uh as well as putting a heavy emphasis on stormwater improvements within the streetscape and I add in construction because as the city has already worked on construction of St. Paul Street and City Hall Park under the Great Street standards we've learned a lot and realized that that needs to be an active part of the conversation early on. Main Street's effort reached a point where we have this beautiful concept in front of us and it is just a concept and it's not a final concept it's not a final design it's an idea of what Main Street can be. Rebalancing the use of the streets with dedicated pedestrian space space for adjacent businesses to be able to interact within the streetscape utilize the streetscape or just enjoy the streetscape providing amenities that are recommended in the bike walk plan for the bicycles dedicated separated facilities out of the roadway still providing plenty of space for parking for vehicle travel for transit improved lighting these are just the things that you're seeing on the surface the Main Street project in front of you right now also includes below the surface rehabilitating replacing upgrading improving water and sewer infrastructure relocating electrical and relocating communications to allow for all of this infrastructure and this is the streetscape project this next slide takes a little bit but this is to remind you what our Main Street today looks like this was taken this fall we have green belts that are eroded because the lack of pedestrian wide pedestrian facilities they're eroded from our metered parking this is a very wide green belt and trees are not thriving in it we have stormwater needs for stormwater surcharges within our project area our pedestrian infrastructure in this area is aged there are streetscapes that are very barren and dedicated to only two uses street trees that are not in green belts are barely surviving there are accessibility challenges throughout the entire corridor because Main Street is an old street the buildings on the street are aged and they are from a different design standard era the existing infrastructure is cracked and deteriorated and I highlight this slide because Main Street's construction under the downtown TIF could be two to three years it'll be significant but it'll be significant when it's completed if the bond vote doesn't pass and this once in a generational opportunity and investment in the street isn't able to come from that funding source you're looking at 20 to 30 years of slow incremental improvements to address all of these concerns in this large project area the other portion of the project is the ravine sewer this is a 1800s era sewer that crosses between College Street and Main Street it crosses under a portion of the library right behind fire station that's on Wenusky Ave and across the parking lot just west of Memorial Auditorium in this section the sewer is a redstone tunnel and while it is not in failing condition or even significantly deteriorated condition it is not a structure that we can allow development or redevelopment on top of and so the gateway into the city is a surface parking lot and it will have to remain a surface parking lot until we have the ability to either reinforce rehabilitate or relocate this sewer it's historic view of what and where the sewer is located this is the church on College Street we have fire station on Wenusky Ave Memorial Auditorium for orientation the ravine redstone ravine sewer runs underneath the library behind the fire station and through this area into Main Street it is a deeper utility it's more than 20 feet in the ground but unfortunately any development or improvement of this surface parking lot would expose it and and significantly impact it and so I'm going to let this I'm going to turn it over to David White to be able to explain how the city intends to fund this project. Good evening everyone for those who don't know me I'm David White president of Whitenburg real estate advisors and we are under contract to the city of Burlington to both help with the city place project and the TIF districts I want to start by being clear because some people get confused that Burlington is the only community in the state that I know excuse me Milton does too it's one of two communities in the state that has two TIF districts Burlington has the waterfront TIF district and the downtown TIF district so the waterfront TIF district is shown with this kind of fuchsia colored or purple outline I'm excuse me no I take that back it's the orange one thank you Laura you're you're doing a very nice job there the downtown TIF district I'm sorry the purple the fuchsia one is the designated downtown at any rate the blue area is the downtown TIF district and actually wraps around the waterfront TIF district and so it's a little bit confusing because the two intermingle around the area here's church street and this is the Burlington town center soon to be Burlington city place area and this is the old Macy's hopefully and currently high school so we're talking about the downtown TIF district only which is this blue area if you could move on so what is TIF for those who aren't familiar with TIF and how it works it's fundamentally an economic development tool and it and it what it does is you set up a geographical area which is what we showed in blue on the map and certain properties are in others are out and within that area you establish at the time the TIF district is first set up what's called the OTV or original taxable value OTV and that taxable value whatever it is on the day when you establish the TIF district that taxable value is locked in and all the taxes from that continue to go where they've always gone to the education fund to the general the city's municipal general fund etc and you don't touch those taxes so you've locked those in but then the municipality borrows money to make an investment in infrastructure and it not just any infrastructure you can't use it for general city purposes but rather for infrastructure that's specifically targeted to enable public I'm sorry private developments to occur that would not otherwise occur and so you tie the the public investment to the private investment and with the private investment presumably the value of those properties go up and as a consequence of those going up you have increased taxable value and that's where the the word increment comes from it's what's the incremental value and you take the taxes off of that incremental value or a portion of them I'll talk about that in a moment you take a portion of those taxes and those are used to pay the debt service for the bond you issued to make the public investment and then that full circle occurs where you've used you've public bonding authority to make investments that stimulate private investment that increase the taxes that then pay for the bonds and the city of burlington's been incredibly successful with its waterfront tiff district and to date with its downtown tiff tiff district to make the economics work and they're paying very very well in fact in the state of Vermont all the tiff districts are all paying their own way there's not a single one that has failed to pay its own way next slide please so this graph is a little bit challenging to read and I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it but suffice it to say that the way it works for the downtown tiff district is that 75 percent of the educational taxes the new incremental educational taxes go into the tiff district 100 percent of the new municipal taxes go into the tiff district and it's the combination of the 75 percent of education and 100 percent of municipal that pay the debt service and one of the key things to keep in mind there is that particularly that 75 percent of educational taxes are funds that the city would not otherwise have available to stimulate or to pay for the the investment that then in turn stimulates the private development next slide please so with regard to the downtown tiff district it was established in 2011 so it's about a decade old the first debt was incurred in 2016 and the final date as brian said earlier that new debt can be incurred is in 2023 and we actually are fortunate because the legislature over the last couple of sessions has extended it twice one year each time for all tiff districts in the state and that's directly because of the pandemic that they have done that the final year in which the state can use education excuse me the city can use education tax increment is 2036 so we only have a limited period of time about 14 years left where in which we can retain the education increment and use that toward debt service next slide please so previously and laura i think touched on this a little bit but not a lot but we have done the city has done projects with the tiff district already the saint work on st paul street the great streets project work there that has dramatically changed that area was paid through tiff the marketplace garage had some repair work done through tiff the browns court parking area there was brownfield cleanup done there and all part of that project that resulted in the eagles landing project and then also when the city hall park was upgraded there were some stormwater upgrades done on main street at that time because it just made sense from a timing perspective to do it at that time next slide so the proposed public investments are basically what laura talked about the great streets project from main street from south union to battery street it includes the subsurface utilities as well as the relocation upgrading of the ravine sewer in addition to that there are what are called related costs in this case we're talking about a million four hundred and seventy thousand which is what's estimated to to do the design work the operations of the tiff district and the audits and so forth through the entire life of the tiff district from from now through 2036 so for the next 14 or 15 years we're estimating just shy of a million five that in costs that help operate the tiff district and so we're looking at in what's coming before the city council and ultimately the voters is approval for not just the bonding for the capital costs but also the use of the incremental taxes to pay the related costs that help this all come about next slide please so currently as you look at the downtown tiff district where do we stand so the original taxable value was 170 million dollars roughly back when it was established in 2011 currently it's 285 million and again i thank brian for taking credit for the error on the the statement in the the memo but it was my error he trusted my numbers and i made that mistake the correct number is 285 million as the current value in the tiff district but the incremental value look at that number for a moment it's 115 million we've already gained through the work that's been done in this tiff district that's a 66 increase now previously the voters have already approved 10 million dollars in bonding laura referenced this and the earlier projects that i mentioned a moment ago were paid through this and the debt incurred out of that 10 million was five million four hundred and twenty thousand so that means out of what's already been approved by the voters of 10 million there's still four million five hundred and eighty thousand of authority that's been approved that the city could incur based on current approvals and we do expect to tap into that authority as we do the great streets and ravine projects next slide please so as we look forward and what we think will help be stimulated as a result of this great streets main street project what are the private projects and we're being very conservative in our projections there are only three specific projects that we're relying on one is the proposed hotel at the ymca that's well known the second is and this is less well known but that cht champlain housing trust is working with the vfw on their facility their property on south muniski avenue for a substantial redevelopment there but that is a real project that's underway not construction yet but in terms of all the planning and moving forward and then also a more modest project but still material on south champlain street at 151 to 157 south champlain street those are very real projects in which we have a very very high reason to have a high degree of confidence that they will proceed and so those are included in our cash flow projections for the tiff district in addition to that we have made the assumption that there will be just general growth in terms of other property owners doing miscellaneous improvements on their properties that will add about 1 per year to the value of properties in the tiff district overall there are other projects that we're aware of some very significant potential projects that we're not including because at this point they're somewhat more speculative they're not as far along and so we have chosen to be conservative and not included them in our projections next slide please looking at the tiff district as of july 1st the beginning of the current fiscal year for the city there was just shy of a million eight as a positive tiff fund balance and that gives us a good kick start as we go forward from here and as we look forward over the the next 14 or 15 years from this year through 2036 when the tiff district presumably expires we have we have done very detailed projections and expect that the revenue will grow over time from a low of about 2,450,000 to a high of about 3,575,000 during that period of time and the highest annual debt service estimate we have during that time and this looks at all the existing debt that the tiff district has already incurred that five million in change that I referenced earlier plus the anticipated debt that we're talking about this evening if you combine all that together in an individual year the highest amount of debt service we anticipate is about 3.1 million dollars and but the revenues that were projecting combined with the existing tiff fund balance show us that we're very have a high degree of confidence that the tiff fund balance will be positive throughout the life of the tiff district next slide please so what does that look like and this I'm not going to spend a huge amount of time on this slide because they're the numbers are so small that I doubt anybody else can actually read them but what this particular slide is it accumulates all of the information about what the existing debt services what the related costs are projected to be what we expect the tax the tax revenue to be and it looks at the cash flow year by year by year and if you look at the kind of light green column that's toward the right of the screen you'll see that all of those numbers are in black and that's because we're expecting a cumulative positive balance in the tiff fund throughout the life of the tiff district in an individual years the revenue that year might be less than the debt service that year but cumulatively we expect a positive balance and our degree of confidence is pretty darned high that this will be the case I want to caution you of course that under law the city's full faith and credit is pledged if something goes totally awry the city is still obligated to pay but I will give you my personal assessment that I think the odds of that are quite slim next slide please so as we look forward the key thing before the city council this evening and as public hearing is the proposal that the city council put on the march ballot a bond vote to authorize new bonding to finance the costs of the main street great streets project and the ravine sewer work and the new request is for $25,920,000 now this is in addition to the 10 million that's already been approved which means cumulatively the tiff district will have incurred $35,920,000 in cumulative debt of but the the the new debt that would actually be issued would be that $25,920,000 plus the $4,000,000 that has not yet been issued out of the original 10 million in addition to that the request would include the $1,470,000 in related costs and we as I showed in the prior slide and have said a couple of times we are confident that and our projections show that there will be sufficient increment we've issued or put together a public notice that has a lot of detail and I would certainly urge anybody interested to review that public notice for more details next slide please great thank you David to to bring it home any project of this magnitude requires a very extensive public engagement process and we are prepared to do that here you'll see on the left there's two overlapping outreach efforts the first one should the council approve the ballot item to go on the ballot we'll have five or six weeks to work with the public on education around the ballot item and then between February and May will be a second engagement process surrounding the development of the concept plans you saw conceptual renderings from senior engineer Wheelock earlier tonight but those are our initial and we want to engage with key stakeholders to understand what are the elements to make up a successful generational improvement on this key gateway street on the right you'll see some of the stakeholders that we'll be meeting with and I want to thank the many departments engaged in this from CEDO church tree marketplace business recovery planning and and many others who will help us reach many of these stakeholders here is a timeline that lays out really how this unfolds as we project over the next three to four years in 2021 we accomplished a fair bit we achieved a vetsy approval of this entire main street six block proposal and the rehabilitation or relocation of the ravine sewer we also secured the design consultant for the project so moving into 2022 should the council approve this going on the ballot we have that education of voters as you see in that top green line the bottom green line will be the overlapping effort to work on the concept design for main street and the May 2022 is an interesting decision point right there where we hope to get the council's approval on line and grade of the road that is where you evaluate the concept plan that's been developed with the public and and hopefully vote to proceed that would result in us continuing design work as you see in that lower green line through to June 2023 at which point we have final plans and put the project out to bid for a fall 2023 construction start and a minimum of two years of construction how the construction is sequenced will depend in large part about how we engage with stakeholders and how we want to approach the project to minimize construction disrupt but we know from working on st. Paul street early engagement of stakeholders and doing assessment work early which we are doing here will help minimize disruption moving forward next so we really appreciate the time that you've given us here we're happy to answer any questions as part of the public hearing tonight and I will just say that not only are there eight departments contributing here but the number of stakeholders engaged to pull off a 30 million dollar generational reinvestment without impacting property taxpayers will take all of us working together thank you thank you director Spencer I am the team that presented it really appreciate just all the information you've shared with us before I open the public hearing however I'd like to to see if counselors had any comments or questions that they'd like to that they'd like to offer and then we'll go ahead and open it up to the public the the public hearing so any counselors interested in commenting or asking questions at this time counselor Barlow go ahead thank you president Tracy and thank you for that presentation it was super informative I mean a couple of notes here could you could you talk about the the ravine sewer there's talking about either relocating or upgrading and is it which is is it both and how do you estimate cost if you don't know exactly how you're going to tackle it and what would that look like when you fill in it looks like a big cavernous um sort of pipe that one could even walk through it looks like would you fill it in or how would they how would you go about that uh so the approach that our water resources department has is we've done um an engineering estimate of what we think our worst case is which is relocating and constructing a new pipe that would go along our streetscape go under our streetscapes and and reconnect but we don't know that that's the the perfect or the the final answer and so we have to take measurements and study the flow this spring do more condition assessments um hire a consultant to be able to help with final evaluation of where we will get with the the preferred alternative or or the ultimate selection and that's really what the vote and the funding will do is allow for that work to occur but the costing for the project then is based on worst case then generally what we think the worst case is which would be constructing off its existing alignment okay thank you and my other question was we often hear people that are sort of against tiff um um saying that one of the arguments against is that it competes with education funding and I was wondering if maybe I'm not sure who maybe David could talk about the relationship on the education tax increment that's realized by the work and its effect on local education tax rates but that's sure I'm clear yep no I understand the question believe me I've heard this question numerous times um and uh you know the basic concept of tiff is that the investments that the private investments that occur that um generate the incremental taxes for the most part would not have occurred but for the public investment that tiff financed um the the concept here is that if you think about downtown burlington for a moment and all the incredible investments that have been made over decades whether it was the uh converting church street to a pedestrian mall whether it was creating the downtown parking lot uh downtown parking garage whether it was um the previous uh investment just done on st paul street those things directly make downtown a place where people want to be where businesses want to be and where property owners are willing to reinvest and that they create that investment stimulates and enables new private investment and that but for the public investment the private investment would not have occurred and so the tax generation that's going on here are taxes that the state wouldn't have had the education fund would not have had and that the fact that the way this is structured is that the new taxes 25 percent of our going the education fund is a net gain for the education fund these are taxes they never would have received otherwise and once the tiff district is finished they suddenly get this windfall of all the taxes because the debt's been paid off and so the concept here is what what is often called but for but for the public investment these private investments and the new taxes would not exist and we've seen it over and over and over again we've seen it i mean think about burlington's waterfront for heaven's sake do you think the private investment would ever have happened there if the public investment had come first and the answer i think clearly is no so um i understand people who uh ask that question it's a fair question but i think the evidence is solid not just in burlington but other places like saint albin's or hartford that tiff generates private investment that otherwise would not have occurred and therefore the new taxes are not being taken away from anybody because they wouldn't have been there otherwise okay thank you that was very clear thank you councillor barlow councillor mason thank you councillor barlow for that question i mean it is it is a very real question we got as recently as last week from the number of school commissioners so i feel better informed to address their concerns now um i want to circle back to the ravine because i am not sure in all the years of discussion of development of the superblock that i never heard that because of the ravine there was no development you know other than the surface parking lot at the corner of main in south anuski is this a new discovery or what have we just always assumed that that would be done by a you know whoever did the redevelopment of the superblock because if not my jaw is a little bit like wait we never knew this before i'm sorry laura it's not new may i jump in i'm sorry laura but if you look back at the original approval of this tiff district it specifically references the ravine sewer it's not new and it may not have been talked about that much it may not have been in the forefront but this is not new it was part of the original approval but we didn't understand the magnitude of it back then the way we do today laura i'm sorry i cut you off no i i wanted to make sure that either you or brian had a chance to speak to the fact that it was part of the original um creation of this district and recognizing that it did need to be a project as david mentioned it is a little bit more sizable um mostly for the fact that the tiff has capacity to be able to do something significant so that the city can do something significant with this block in the future in no way voting for this project does that guarantee what's going to happen with that it just provides the opportunity for it to be something other than a surface parking lot and i want to make sure that everybody's very crystal clear our water resources group is in a no way shape or form concerned that the ravine sewer is in active failure it's just really in the way of significant development ever occurring on that block at this point in time that is correct and i think it's fair to say councillor mason that one of the challenges in past generations is there wasn't the same uh full awareness we're talking decades ago where projects were built on top of the ravine sewer and those propose a very substantial risk to the city including some municipal buildings so we are really trying to do what's right but for this investment the the better use of a surface parking lot is the gateway to our downtown is not going to happen i think there's a universal agreement on this that the use of that as a service parking lot is not its highest invest use and uh well i i appreciate i thought i knew a lot but there's certainly a lot i don't know so um thank you for that thank you councillor mason don't have any other council carpenter go ahead um this might not tie in but i speaking of the sewer ravine i've heard the fire station is not in good shape and is very affected by that ravine is that at all consideration in this conversation so with this work it'll be identifying how everybody in that block area does connect to the ravine how how their connection would be replaced adjusted corrected um i think that there would be significant impacts to to many of those properties um with this work in a positive way and if i may add um you know i'm aware because my firm was involved with uh a study a few years ago of the a couple of the fire facilities including that one that it doesn't that facility does not meet the current fire department needs and standards and i know that they would love to replace it um that said the ravine sewer itself is behind it is not under it um and to laura's point if this were addressed i think it would ease the potential for that site to be redeveloped for other purposes i will say that it's obviously a significant historic building and and my personal guess this is not a professional opinion a personal guess is that it would be adaptively reused as is as a historic building rather than demolished and replaced but nonetheless dealing with ravine sewer becomes an important piece in what ultimately happens on that site regardless of whether the fire station continues there or ultimately moves okay council carpenter they don't have any other counselors in the queue so we'll go ahead and move it into the public forum side of there or the public hearing side of things so i will go ahead and open the public hearing um i um in order to speak in the public hearing um as a member of the public if you could just please use the raise hand function at the bottom of the the zoom screen and i'll just um call on folks um that way if you folks who are interested in commenting this is only to be commenting on the tiff district so nothing else that's on the agenda or else that's going on the city this is only to be focused on this tiff issue that we just heard about so please focus your comments on just this issue itself and all the other public forum comments um comment rules apply in terms of just respecting decorum and all those of our features so see one person representative china to be followed by karen law representative china i've enabled your microphone thank you can you hear me yes go ahead i know you can because my name just appeared okay so um thanks for i don't see a time limit but i still think this will be less than two minutes so i just want to say i'm excited about um the great streets project um as a social worker um you know i'm sorry representative china i messed up with the with your uh your your um mic there sorry about that that's my fault i think a lot of people wish they could do that to me um so um but it's okay i'll just back up luckily i had just started so um thanks so um you know as a social worker we look at the connection between people in our environment how people's behavior shapes the environment and how the environment shapes human behavior and um on isham street we've done work to turn our street into a garden walk walkway and it's extending to surrounding streets and we had this vision of a garden walkways crisscrossing the city in burlington being the emerald city of the of the green mountains and this beautiful you know urban permaculture and so the great streets and this vision for main street fits into that and i've been you know my office is at 200 main street which was shown in the presentation and um the corner floods um you know because because and the infrastructure is crumbling um it's you know it'll be wonderful to have an office looking out on a garden walkway after all these years and um you know the the environment in that area on main street does affect human behavior in negative ways it um there are incidents of crime and loitering and problems bait and and some of it has to do with the infrastructure and the city's done things like put up giant metal gates and stuff to try to disperse people but ultimately that actually i think reinforced some of the negative behavior but this is the way to go because garden walkways really do you know improve human behavior in so many ways there's evidence showing they reduce violence um and um you know if we do this right we can make these streets more accessible for people um one of the i like being on main street it's accessible to my clients most of my clients are um have Medicaid they use public transportation or they live in the downtown or old north end area um so i like being there um it's it for my clients i like the businesses around me um i'm excited about the vfw's new housing um proposal and i'm hoping they'll be more creative affordable housing built in that area um my only concerns is that if the tiff is supposed to promote private development so that it increases taxes what will that mean for long-term affordability for small businesses like mine in this area um my my concern is that you know my landlord's been able to keep the rent affordable but could um if the development is not done in the right way in that area could it actually cause rent increases that displace our local businesses a few years ago in an mpa when i expressed this concern uh one city official said that businesses like mine don't necessarily belong downtown and that social services could be you know on the outskirts of the city and i actually think that's really the wrong way to think about this our downtown should have a diverse range of businesses of all kinds um and you know because downtown increases accessibility for my clients it promotes inclusion and right now we really need to be thinking about how we invest in improving the social determinants of health and social inclusion is one of those determinants and so for my clients it's important to be able to come downtown because if we're going to treat social anxiety we need opportunities for social exposure and for support and if we're going to build social skills we need social settings and if we're going to treat trauma we need we need opportunities to build connection and belonging and so in the recovery from this pandemic we are going to need more opportunities to reintegrate people not to isolate them more and so i would just end by saying if we're going to truly create great streets i hope we can create public outdoor spaces that bring people together in new and exciting ways and improve the social determinants of health and promote social and economic recovery for everyone and i believe we can do it with this project and i'm excited about it and i look forward to the public engagement that's coming ahead so thanks for letting me speak today thank you so we don't do a back and forth but i did hear a question about small businesses um and how this might impact small businesses going forward from representative chino so did anyone on the team want to speak to that piece um david i'll take a crack at what i think is the essence of representative chino's question which is if these investments which are public investments spur additional private sector investments will that in fact put upward pressure on things like rents for offices like his own and and small businesses and the answer is is not necessarily however it may so we don't have a guarantee that it won't and i don't want to pretend we do what i would say is that the goal isn't to increase taxes per se it's to spur invest additional private investment that raises the values of some of the properties that are underutilized or unimproved and need to have new investment made in them in order to bring them uh perhaps up to a higher standard and um up to an exceeding code um there's a number of downtown tax incentives to get people to do historic preservation and make their buildings energy efficient and make them a handicap accessible all of those positive improvements result from this type of public investment so the the question is a good one what impact does this have on local small businesses if we're successful the the vitality of the downtown is enhanced by the private the public investments so that it it does exactly the opposite it actually supports a strong vibrant local small business economy sorry i uh the screen has gone down can folks hear me yes okay we can see you too better than before others sorry um the next person speaking that i see is karin long um karin i've enabled your microphone i'm sorry can you hear me now yep go ahead okay great thanks so i understand tiff somewhat but the whole idea of tiff if it is to increase the value of those properties so that we can pay back this money that we are buying it has to finance this huge amount of money we're borrowing we need all those properties to improve we need to ski rack we need all those places on main street to like rethink their property i mean that's where our goal is that's what would be the goal of this if you want more money coming from these properties so what brian was just saying is totally true that it is going to drive out the other people i think um i'm upset that this is coming to us on january 10th and you want us to vote on march whatever it is third or fourth that's five weeks isn't enough time to understand this at all and i am aware of great streets and i remember one of the problems with that design people didn't like the idea of how many parking spaces were going to be removed because you're going to take away the parallel parking and we already lost the parking garage so i've been to these meetings a lot and i just remember at dpw meetings that was one argument people had so and i know the stuff on south or north wunuski is just slogging along because people are upset about the parking spaces so what what is the number of parking spaces that will be removed and you know how are you going to deal with this it seems like you want the money but then you are going to figure it all out because i saw that chart where you're going to get the approval but then on down the line you're going to meet with the owners there and all these other things so shouldn't you know really what you're going to do and then come to us for the money thank you thank you did someone on the team want to speak to that question i'm happy to address one piece of that question which is that the new the taxes we're relying on here are for very specific projects they're not they're not we're not trying to increase or are expecting to increase the value of everything in the district that may happen over time it happens naturally over time as properties go up in value but the focus here is on stimulating some very specific projects and over time also relative to the parking question one of the things the city has learned is that we actually need less parking than we thought we needed that we've got a lot of excess parking in this city and then it's more how it's used and how it's allocated and so it's a parking management problem more than a parking quantity problem other than very extraordinary times of year yeah and so i can expand upon that a little bit um and karen is right the previous effort obviously takes a look at the existing space within the street and tries to optimize the way that is being used to allow more opportunities within the street and that is still an active conversation and that is a reason why it is an active conversation past march this concept is not final we are restarting the conversation with our community and we're going to put months into that conversation before we ask the city council to give us their blessing to continue to move this design forward towards a construction project and the reason why it is important to vote on the funding source and this is how previous tiff projects have actually proceeded forward in their plan the funding source requires the voters not just the city council or the administration but it requires the voters approval to be able to use it otherwise the city is just risking its own funds and so we do need voter authorization to really move forward and put a reasonable amount of money into a design consultant to be able to work with the community and work with staff to address the concerns and the ideas that are going to come out of the public process i think that was just add the deadline of march of 23 is when the city if we don't issue bonds by then this opportunity is no longer available and we can't go back and ask for it to be reinstated once it's gone it's gone great thanks for taking on different pieces of that question all three of you don't have anybody else raising using the raise hand function anyone else from members of the public interested in commenting i'm asking a question use the raise hand function at the bottom of the zoom one once twice okay we'll go ahead and close the public hearing i want to thank all of our presenters this evening for just joining us and for engaging with both the council and the public on this issue director pine in terms of next steps we should see this at an upcoming council meeting again for for a vote is that correct yes our plan is to have it come to the council on the meeting on the 24th okay so our next council meeting will be actually taking action on this yeah great thank you for that clarity and appreciate all the work on this from the the entire team thank you so much all right for your time we will move item 6.03 around the general aviation task force that item was removed and will be on our january 24th agenda so that brings us to item 6.04 which is an ordinance regarding applicability of minimum efficiency standards counselor mason thank you president tracy i'd like to make a motion to suspend the rules place the ordinance amendment in all stages of passage and request the department of permitting and inspections to report back to the ordinance committee in a year regarding the status of implementation and ask for a floor back after a second please okay we had a motion from councillor mason seconded by councillor hanson councillor mason thank you president tracy first i want to point everyone to the memo if you did not have an opportunity to take a look at it very well put together memo in terms of process but for the benefit of the public the council adopted a weather weatherization ordinance on may 10th of 2021 at that point in time we were fairly certain we tasked the standards applied for those with exceeding a certain threshold but we tasked both BED and permitting and inspections with going back looking at we recognized that there were some issues associated with contractor availability with rebates etc we asked those guys to go back take a look at that and come back to the full ordinance committee in the full council with their recommendations in terms of how do we get from where we are today to where we hope to be once the ordinance is fully implemented that they did come back we had a hearing before the ordinance committee probably three weeks ago i would say there was the only modification to the recommendation was an acceleration um on between the 50 and 60 btu's the majority of the committee felt a more aggressive time lame timeline than what was recommended would be best so there was a shift in essence from the final year out from being january 1 2026 back to january 1 2025 the pushback by me on that was that you know in essence we all acknowledge there's i think as chris burn said you know asking for something to happen doesn't mean it's necessarily going to happen you know there's there's a queue and trying to force people through the queue is only going to create some administrative work on the city side but regardless of that the full committee before us and what's before us today is to accelerate that time frame and if i'm i'm wrong and my colleagues are correct and we do have the availability from a workforce development perspective kudos to them if not we'll deal with it or a further council will deal with it in 2025 or 2026 um i want to thank both bd and permitting and inspections for doing the hard work and just coming to us and letting us digest and make recommendations um i see a number of i won't introduce everyone who's on on the call right now but if there are specific questions relating to the schedule that's been proposed i will defer to what looks like at least six people uh experts far more expert on this than i so with that i'll turn it back to you councillor tracy thank you councillor mason are there any um questions or comments from councillors councillor hanson go ahead yeah i just want to thank um councillor mason and councillor high tower for working on this in ordinance committee and and all the staff members that work so hard to to develop this um this is a really exciting proposal i think it's it's really critical from the standpoint of the climate emergency and it goes hand in hand with conversations at the state level to really accelerate um weatherization throughout the state and so i'm excited that in burlington we're making aggressive policy to to accelerate weatherization here and specifically targeting rental weatherization where we do have so many you know burlington is majority renters and so many of them are paying really high um heating bills and living in pretty uncomfortable situations um during the winter months so i think this is going to make a huge impact not only on the climate crisis but also on the cost of living in burlington and also on on quality of life um for tenants so really excited to hopefully move this forward tonight and thanks to everyone who has worked on that great thanks councillor hanson anyone else uh mayor weinberger go ahead thank you president tracy i just uh wanted to um offer my appreciation uh as well to everyone that has worked hard on this and put us in position to start making progress on this next year buildings within this ordinance this is a major priority coming out of the housing summits that we hosted back in 2019 and um it is very clear that we cannot get anywhere near our our climate goals if we are not doing everything we can to weatherize the housing stock and i do believe this ordinance is allowing us to finally get to a substantial number of units that had um not um not really um been subject or we've not been successful at reaching in the in the many years of prior efforts this is ensuring that all homes are brought to uh do meet these proper standards for for both climate goals and for livability goals so thank you everyone involved it's uh i appreciated this was something we could do with consensus between the council administration i'm excited to see this take the next step thanks mayor um our next um council high tower yeah i just wanted to agree i guess with everything that's been said before me um i think for folks who don't know some of the history behind this this was i think councillor hanson originally ran on this on his first run and then the administration really ran with it i think at the housing summit so it's been a long time coming but i'm really excited that it's here and yeah just a huge thank you again to the administration and the city team for the staff team for making this happen and like um councillor mason said bringing us really well thought out um proposals that we could just react to and i'm going to say this just because i hope that a lot of the um unions are still watching based on the next item that like councillor mason said this is a workforce development issue so i hope that there can be some great partnerships to make sure that we've got the workforce to do a lot of this good work in the next few years thank you president tracy thank you anyone else you're ready to go to a vote okay seeing no one else will go to a vote all those in favor please say aye hi any opposed that carries unanimously brings us to our final item on the deliberative agenda which is another ordinance councillor mason thank you president tracy i make a motion to waive the second reading adopt the ordinance as amended and ask for the floor back after a second we have a motion from councillor mason is there a second seconded by councillor hanson go ahead councillor mason uh thank you president tracy continuing with the sort of i would say collaborative effort not only among parties but between the council and the administration um i am pleased to sort of bring back and i had to look at my notes it's shocking to me that councillor pine introduced this a year ago it seemed like it was a month ago but um what is before us is is a slightly there has been some you know some revisions from its initial introduction um there were some concerns raised by the city attorney about enforceability as it related to the school district liquidated damage etc through a course of hearings held by the ordinance committee with much input from the city attorney's office and others um as well as input from unions trades persons and others um i feel what we have finally are putting forth before you tonight is something that is is responsible that that does um elevate and recognize um the competitive environment we're in um and trying to provide support for you know higher wages for our skilled contractors also is is i think respectful of the challenges we face in getting contractors to apply for these positions um but i think sort of build a a middle ground in terms of um requiring adherence to labor standards and other but also recognizing um these are competitive jobs um i want to thank the city attorney's office as well as all those who participate in the process and getting us to the final i want to make an introduction i forgot that i would like to move councillor facie i should have been clear there are two versions on the system i wanted to move the one dated one ten 2022 and i'll explain for everyone's benefit the only modification from the earlier versions we had made an amendment to the definition of government funded project the city funded project but we did not change it in its reference throughout the document so the only change from the one that was on the system dated one six and the one ten is making the modification to use city funded project not government funded project throughout great thank you for clarifying that councillor mason which version you were moving appreciate that thank you any comments from councillors councillor hanson yeah another really exciting one out of ordinance committee really was happy to work on this in committee and and thanks to everyone who worked on it thanks to former councillor pine and um councillor council president tracy for for kicking the ball off on this last year getting the ball rolling and and to all the the union folks who also you know called in and participated and helped us kind of sort through this um really everyone that helped this is this is a big deal and really excited to to support this great anyone else mayor weinberger thank you president tracy um i i just uh also wanted to acknowledge that this uh there this is a a change that um there has been discussion of making for a number of years and which has been a priority of numerous organized labor trades as well as others interested in ensuring that city projects are are done right and meet high standards and i do in some ways um see this you know this is as a comparable to what we do with the liberal wage ordinance where when the city is making investments directly when the city is procuring services we can ensure that our values are upheld and that the uh the work that happens related to those projects are are compensated fairly i think what we're doing here tonight is consistent with state policy that is already in place and i just want to make it clear that i fully support it and i'm glad that we were able to reach closure on this after discussion and work for a long period of time great thank you mayor anyone else okay we're ready to go to a vote i see no one else um we'll go to a vote all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed that carries unanimously thank you to um everyone who worked on this as well um and i will go to um committee reports having now completed our deliberative agenda are there any committee chairs wishing to offer a report councilor handsome great thank you the transportation energy and utilities committee we were going to meet um we were going to have a meeting i think i don't even remember on the 11th or 12th maybe or sometime next week but we're not we've canceled that our next meeting is going to be on tuesday the 25th um at 5 p.m thank you thank you any other committee chairs wishing to offer a report this evening okay seeing not oh councilor jane go ahead racial equity inclusion belonging have a meeting on the 18 5 30 and we will be receiving a presentation from burlington school district equity inclusion director henry sparks about race racism related issue in the school and community thank you thank you anyone else any other committee chairs okay now we'll move on to item number eight general city council general city affairs i'm wishing to comment on general city affairs this evening okay seeing none we'll go to city council president update the one update that i just want to relay that i've already shared with you all um is that we do have a a need for two renters and one commercial property holder in order to fill out the identities that were laid out in the reappraisal re-raisal ad hoc committee resolution um that came forward so we those applications are available on the board and commission um website um vacancy page um the application um the applications are open for just those positions so not the other positions for which we've already had applicants um that that meet those requirements but just those those folks that just folks with those identities um so that we can fill out the rest of the committee um would really appreciate just the councils um and and others um assistance in getting these filled out um we were we were supposed to to fill have the committee um assigned already but we didn't have those applications and i don't feel comfortable appointing the the just a partial committee um and getting that started partially because i think that there was some intentionality to the resolution so please encourage folks that you know who um who are burlingtonians who do fit those identities to please apply um it'll be open again through friday so please again um have have folks apply to that um that particular position um with that i will turn it over to mayor weinberger to close us out thank you um just two topics i'd like to speak to tonight one i just um want to uh make sure it's clear um in a way that wasn't spoken through directly after the uvm presentation earlier tonight um our the administration's thinking um is that uh the planning commission is prepared and ready to start reviewing this proposal at that level and staff is uh is prepared for that as well if counselors would like further discussion um at the council level before the planning commission begins its work of course um please let me and mega know basically of course the council will be the recipient of the planning commission's work and uh can will have to further engage it when they're done but if folks think that further conversation either informally or through a work session some sort would be helpful as the planning commission is beginning its work but please be in touch and we'll uh we'll work with you on that um the the other item i the other thing i want to speak to is just uh a week ago um today uh burlington lost a wonderful member of our community when alan paul who is uh c councilor caron paul's father passed away peacefully at his home that's the reason that council paul was not with us tonight missing perhaps her first city council meeting ever um i was touched by all that i learned about alan when i joined caron uh her family and friends in the paul family at the online memorial service and then at the burial at the hebu holy society cemetery afterwards alan's life was he was very involved in the life of uh city burlington a number of ways um wanted to to note his passing here tonight and this in his 90 years on earth alan paul managed to touch the lives of countless numbers of people in numerous ways certainly through the love he showed his wife of 67 years lc his three daughters and their spouses his grandchildren and great grandchildren also through his work as an attorney where he provided decades of legal services to many clients and through the numerous community organizations force he volunteered to make our city and state even better during his life of service alan helped grow the legal profession here in burlington and in bremont um in a number of ways founding one of the preeminent law firms in the city that is still going strong today paul frankin collins and also in supporting the founding of the remand law school and serving on its board and as its board's chair he also served on the board of trustees of the university of remand which was his alma mater alan loved horse racing and golf and practice and taught the virtues of working hard and playing hard notably and relevant to this body um uh the city council um alan served as an elected member of the uh the organization that came before the city council the burlington board of alderman and he represented uh what is today basically ward six it um i know has been very special to our colleague karen to serve in the very same ward as her father there is so much more about alan paul that was special and interesting and if you've not had a chance i suggest that you read the beautiful obituary in seven days and on behalf of the city of burlington i want to wish our colleague karen and the entire paul family love strength and happy memories of how may his memory be a blessing thank you president tracy for the opportunity to share it thank you so much and certainly want to extend heartfelt condolences to the entire paul family for their loss with that our um our meeting agenda is concluded so a motion to adjourn is in order she moved moved by councillor megey is there a second second seconded by councillor mason any discussion seeing none we'll go to a vote all those in favor please say aye any opposed we are adjourned at nine fifty eight we'll see you in a couple weeks folks