I'm the head of new business development and my role is really looking at sourcing technology scouting in Australia and trying to fit that into our global R&D effort. My presentation this morning will attempt to give a slightly different view, which is the view really coming from the other side, painting a picture of the global innovation environment and pose the question as to whether Australian investment, is it an opportunity or a challenge for us? I'll offer some personal suggestions on that may benefit us all working in this field. That's sort of a map of what I'm going to do. I think I'll just get into it. So just a brief introduction to Bayer. So Bayer is a life science innovation company. We're 150 years old, a couple of years ago actually, and we have core competencies in healthcare and agriculture. We believe our products are really helping to contribute to face some of the critical challenges we're all facing, which is a growing and aging world population, which require certainly improved medical care and an adequate supply of food. I think we're all aware of the challenge of food production going forward. We're very much innovation based. Our mission statement reads as science for a better life. Just a few figures to give you some dimensions. We're based in northwestern Germany and it's a pretty big company. It's actually the biggest German company by market cap now. We are investing around about 3.5 billion euros in R&D per year, 104,000 employees, 302 subsidiaries around the world and 41 billion euros of turnover. So not a small beast. Agriculture broadly is 25% of that. You can just draw a line right down through the middle. All the figures divided by four is roughly what we're doing in agriculture. And just for reference, Australia, we do about a billion dollars of turnover. So we're around about 0.7% of the world, of the whole company. So, yeah. So if we look at crop science, we have three business units. The core of our activities is still crop protection, insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, etc. We have been building up our seeds division, vegetable seeds, and in particular in cotton, canola, rice, wheat, and soybeans, and the associated traits. And we have environmental products, which are the products you use in the home, around the home, in golf courses, forestry, and so on. So after 89 years of operation in Australia, Bay crop science is one of the leading crop science companies in Australia. Our 250 staff are committed to our local mission, which we state as advancing Australian agriculture. We have the largest in-house development team in the industry, which tests completely all of our products for their performance and safety. We are one of only two international companies that have our own dedicated production facilities in Australia, and we have two factories producing around about 200 products. In 2014, we opened a $14 million wheat and all-seed breeding station on the long-run on-campus in Horsham. And finally, we have extensive sustainability programs, including five separate ag education programs. We support several rural, mental, and physical health initiatives. And we're a core member of the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative of Australia, along with a lot of large food companies. So I think over all these investments, long-term investments emphasize that we have a long-term commitment to Australian agriculture. So I don't want to make it a product presentation, but I just thought I'd highlight some of our recent product launches, which sort of indicate the diversity of technologies that we've been recently introducing. So in fact, over the last five years, we've introduced 22 new products, four of which are based on new active ingredients. I'll highlight on the top left-hand side, Sakura, which is a new herbicide controlling resistant ryegrass, which is a key resistant wheat management tool in the Australian wheat production systems. And I think it's probably the biggest product sold in Australia at the moment. Belt is a new selective insecticide that allows pest control programs incorporating biological products. And these programs are actually recognized with two national awards over the last couple of years for the innovative way in which we put a whole consortium of different companies and products together. Podgard canola is a new variety launched last year, which reduces the natural process of pod shatter in canola. So direct heading of canola is possible, which reduces the seed and yield losses. And finally, Lunar Sensation is a new generation fungicide which can extend the shelf life of different fruit through exceptional in crop disease control. So such innovations help Australian farmers keep at the cutting edge of low impact sustainable and globally competitive farming systems. I'll talk a little bit now about the innovation pipeline sort of going forward. I mean those products are sort of classically in where you might expect us to be developing products, but there's a lot of activity more broadly looking forward. So our historical strength has, and I'll just comment that this is the sort of general trends we're doing it, but certainly some of the other companies are doing it as well. Bayer's historical strength has been in chemistry and as production and biological systems evolve, there's a continual need for better, more targeted and safer chemistry. And we've kept a lot of activity in that space. Since 1990, there's been a strong focus on seeds and traits along with many companies. Trait targets have now moved from herbicide insecticide resistance to yield optimization, photosynthetic efficiency and drought tolerance. Sorry, that should have been there. Sorry, excuse me. The last 10 years have seen almost an explosion of different types of tools that have really opened up possibilities in different areas. So molecular breeding, computational biology, diagnostic tools, proteomics, epigenetics, that next one I can never say, and synthetic biology. We are getting a picture of biology in a way that we never really had in the past, and that is opening really new areas of research. I'll point at the second one, first biologics. We are now one of the leading companies in biological pest control. And again, our understanding of how these biological agents work is much better than it ever was. So we can actually start to use those to have really effective pest control. Crop efficiency is directly impacting the stress factors that are occurring in crop, of course, digital agriculture, new breeding technologies. We've all heard about CRISPR and various other new breeding, very precise breeding technologies where there's a lot of effort going into. And finally, sustainability research, which really emphasises that we're really doing a lot of activity and research about the actual end-to-end sustainability impact of these technologies and integrating them in integrated systems that ensure the long-term sustainability of those systems. With the broadening of these R&D fields, global R&D companies have rapidly increased their R&D spending. So this recent report indicates that the top six companies, which actually in a few days will be the top five companies and possibly the top four, are now investing in excess of US$8 billion per year in R&D in these spaces. So it's a very substantial amount of money. You may wonder how you can get to spend so much money. So I thought I'd just show you a couple of pictures just looking at the chemistry research. And this is our headquarters in Monheim in northeastern Germany. Around 2,000 people work at this site, but the process across the whole site, but the process actually starts at a very unimpressive building, which is really a glorified shed, which we call our Sample Logistics Facility. So that building is actually a robotic building which stores 1.5 million vials of chemicals, which is the accumulated history of more than 100 years of research at Bayer Crop Science. About 50,000 bottles are added each year and the bottles are sampled continuously. The five robots each travel 5,000 columns per year continuously sorting in what is called a lovely German English translation of double chaotic system. So the bottles I often say is that you're talking about the building or the company as a whole, but you know they don't seem to get that joke. The bottles are randomly sorted in the trays and the trays are randomly sorted in the building to continually minimize the space that's required. So the building is worth 110 million dollars and the contents is worth well over a billion dollars. So the capital investment and that's just the start of the process. I mean you know we screen about 100,000 molecules a year so as you go through it's replicated all around the world. So there's massive you know capital investment required to develop these products and it's done over a long time frame. You may have seen this sort of graph. It's roughly 10 years of extensive trials all around the world to bring one of these products to market and the costs are consequently huge. You know this external study done seven years ago showed that the cost was 250 million dollars per product. I believe we basically think about 500 million dollars per product now to bring one active ingredient to market. I want to stop here and make a point about genetic traits about what they would cost. Superficially they should be relatively cheap but when we consider all of the money that's been sunk in GM crops over the last 20 years and the fact that there probably are only five or seven or eight events that have actually been deregulated all around the world, the cost is probably the same or higher per genetic event. So you get something like 500 million dollars by reference in pharmaceuticals they always talk about a billion dollars for a new drug so the costs are very very high. So an increasingly strong feature about these global R&D efforts is that the IP is increasingly broadly held which necessitates international collaboration. Leading Australian scientists can legitimately be part of these collaborations and can help shape the direction of the research and increase the chance that the outcomes are more directly applicable to Australia. Australia however faces some real challenges in in in these collaborations and I just want to we should be very clear right about what they are. The first one of course is dollars. You know transformational R&D requires real money as you've seen and we we have a limited amount of it but having said that I think the particularly through the RDC system which really funnels the money through a number a small smaller number of doors it can be effectively allocated and it's still very attractive to international players. The second is the challenge of distance, kilometres, time, market size, culture. This sign at Qiyong I saw at Qiyong I think it's fantastic it just indicates that we're 16,000 kilometres from everywhere. We're a small distant player we are 0.3% of the global population we do well we feed 0.9% of the world population on you know on a good day and we invest a few percent of the R&D. It basically means that global major companies are not developing technology directly for Australia so we really have to figure out how we can engage with them to get their interest. Having said that it can be done and I'll give you some examples of how it has been done. I think the biggest challenge though however I've invented a new word called discolouration. We are demonstrably not very good at setting up these and managing these types of collaborations. This problem really started came to light in 2014 with the publication of the OECD STI survey which is science technology and innovation which indicated that Australian companies were third last in the OECD in terms of international collaborations. However we led the world in a negative sense when it came to business and collaboration between business and academia where we were stone dead last behind Mexico and Chile. This has impacts and we saw that it was picked up by Larry Marshall in the CSIRO strategy and then also picked up by the Prime Minister pointing out that we are ranked 10th in the world in terms of innovation input. We are 81st in the world which would be well behind many third world countries in terms of our innovation efficiency that is bringing products to market from the dollars that we spend in R&D and it even got coverage in the economist on January the 9th which pointed out that there are a few innovation based startups in Australia and only one to two percent of companies can be described as innovating. I thought that was pretty harsh however you know for whatever it is whatever the reason we are starting to build a reputation and not for the good reasons not for good reasons. Whatever the background we as a country and individuals need actively to take these challenges on and do do better seek how we can solve them. Probably best to forget you know the reasons for this and really look at what are our strengths that we can leverage going forward so what are these opportunities and this is just my my opinions. I think we should start from the fact that we have great R&D here there's absolutely no doubt we have apparently nine of the top 100 global life sciences universities conducting world class research CSIRO is undeniably a world leader and and a world leading brand as well. The Australian environment creates some specific set of outcomes which are of interest globally. We have established skills skills in low-input dry land agriculture which will become increasingly relevant under a climate changing world. Secondly we have a focus on efficient agriculture driven by a complete lack of government subsidies there is an upside. We you know we are very efficient in in what we do and you know when we do something it is really it really produces result on the ground and not to support sell one too much but point out that the PERD Act and the RDCs are really a great you know a great innovation you know in in an organisational sense it provides a one door entrance point for companies such as Bayer which really cannot be underestimated. You can go there you can get a picture of all of the R&D activities in the country and there is the opportunity for some potential co-co funding. So to give you hope I want to give you some examples of what we've done at Bayer through you know intensive engagement from our side and tremendous support from the institutes and the RDCs involved we've managed to attract some strong focus from our global R&D organisation over the preceding years. We'll start with the example of CSIRO we've collaborated with CSIRO for some 20 years in cotton and wheat breeding research as well as fundamental science research such as the invention or the demonstration of gene silencing in plants in the middle of the last decade. Bayer has marketed CSIRO cotton varieties in US and around the world since 1997 which has returned royalties to underpin further Australian research. This and other collaborations were key in convincing our company to invest the $14 million dollars necessary at Longrenong which is supporting the revitalisation of that historic agricultural campus but more importantly of all you know turning the research into reality for farmers you know creating the varieties that they can use on their farms and I've pointed out that we cooperated with those various organisations on the bottom right hand side in that partnership. Most recently we announced the Bayer GRDC herbicide innovation partnership last year which saw the signing of a $45 million herbicide a global herbicide innovation partnership which will see Australia raised to the top tier a top tier country in herbicide focus for Bayer including local testing of early candidates in Germany the subsequent testing of all of these candidates in Australia much earlier than has been done in the past and the training of 30 Australian post-doctoral fellows in advanced herbicide research and you see two happy people from Curtin University who are over there now they started on the 1st of December last year we're opening at next opening that laboratory next Wednesday it's a unique collaboration which you know places Australia at the cutting edge of of that activity of herbicide research so just to finalise so is it a challenge or an opportunity well I think it's a challenging opportunity transformative ag innovation is a global activity you know Australia needs to access global technologies to meet local local challenges R&D collaboration is critical cross country cross institution cross company Australia has unique opportunities based on our special skills and and and environment the PERD and and the ARC systems are real assets Australia however faces some key challenges which shouldn't be underestimated the distance the dollars the disc collaboration we must develop a global innovation mindset defend and grow our core structures universities CSIRO and the PERD the PERD institutions it's absolutely critical that we at least in certain areas we remain world leading and then we can attract the interest of global companies we need to build a global a long term skills in global collaboration you know it's not for the faint hearted dealing with the big companies I admit that but you know it's something that has to be done and we need to build those skills and where we are a global leader we really should take up the culture we should lead you know at a global level so I'd like to finish with my a slide of the global youth ag summit held in Australia last year another type of a broad broad-based collaboration and you can see the various institutes we we collaborated with there we had a hundred young people from around the world and they discussed the issue of global food security we developed or they developed a global youth ag declaration which we took to the FAO and it resulted in 300 international news articles and more than 24 million social hits social media hits as far as we can see all of them were positive so it's an example of what we I think we all need to do we need to actively promote our country to the world if we don't do it no one else will thank you very much


People learn six times deeper if they are the ones asking questions than when they just read something. Curiosity, you can see in babies. That's how we learn. And how do we learn when we get to be adults and we have language skills? We start asking questions. Human beings are trained to just get information and ask their own question. You learn deeper when you do that.


Today is December 12th, 2022. Thank you for joining us in person in Contoy's Auditorium and online for the Burlington City Council meeting. The time is 6.07 PM. We're going to begin our agenda this evening with a motion to adopt the agenda. For that, I'll look to Councilor Hightower. Move to amend and adopt the agenda as follows. To the consent agenda item 6.31, communication Susan Ducharme regarding downtime shopping with the motion to waive the reading, place it on file, and send a copy to Business and Workforce Development Director. I'll let her sorry. Kara Onlaswari. There is a motion to approve our agenda with the amendments as detailed by Councilor Hightowers or second to that motion. Oh goodness, we have seconds everywhere. Seconded by Councilor Travers. Is there any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any oppose, please say no. We have an agenda and I will note that Councilor McGee is joining us by Zoom. So we have an agenda with that, we will go to item number two on our agenda, which is the swearing in of newly elected East District City Councilor, Mayor Brant, and for the swearing in, I will go to Mayor Weinberger. Great. Thank you, President Paul. I'm going to ask Councilor Lake-Brant to come around and join me inside the Oval and we'll swear in there. Congratulations, Councilor Brant, and we welcome you to the Burlington City Council. We look forward to working with you and working with you on the many initiatives that we have in the months to come. Before we get to our consent and deliberative agendas, we're going to move to item three, which is a communication from the Acting City Attorney regarding an update on various litigation items. Before motions are made to go into executive session, I would turn to the administration or to the Acting City Attorney if there are any comments or information that you feel can be shared in open session. Thank you, President Paul. Now, this is an occasional practice that we do from time to time to keep the Council informed on litigation, active litigation, and by its nature, the update is all about items that are sensitive in the premature disclosure, which could be problematic. Great. Thank you. With that, I'll ask for the first of two motions to go into executive session. Councilor Shannon. Thank you, President Paul. I move that the Council find that premature general public knowledge of legal advice and information concerning the details of probable and pending litigation to which the city is a party or has a stated interest would clearly place the city at a substantial disadvantage. Thank you, Councilor Shannon. Motion made by Councilor Shannon and seconded by Councilor Travers. Is there any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, please say no. So that motion passes and with that, we go to the second motion. Councilor Shannon. I move that based upon that finding, move that the Council go into executive session to receive confidential attorney client communications, 1VSA 513A1F, in appending or probable civil litigation matter, 1VSA 313A1E. Thank you, Councilor Shannon, seconded by Councilor Travers. And I believe this executive session will just include obviously the acting city attorney, but the mayor and any members of the mayor staff, is that correct? Okay, all those in favor of the motion is made by Councilor Shannon, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, please say no. That motion passes and we expect and have on our agenda that this executive session will last approximately one hour. We'll be going downstairs to the Busher Conference Room. So for those that are in con toys, you can make yourselves comfortable. We will hope to return at 7.15. Thank you. 7.03, we're running ahead of schedule, which gives us a fair amount of time between now and the public forum. Since we aren't able to move on to our deliberative agenda, we will go to the end of our agenda, which are committee reports, city council, don't see the mayor here yet, but if the mayor does have comments, we would go to him as well. So we'll go to item number eight on our agenda, which is committee reports. Are there any counselors who wish to offer committee reports? Councilor Barlow. Thank you, President Paul. The Transportation, Energy and Utility Committee will be meeting on Monday, 1219 at 3 p.m. And we'll be meeting at 645 Pine Street. The agenda has not been finalized, but will include most or all of the following. An update on the South End Multimodal Center Feasibility Study. An update on the Lake Street shared use path concept plans. A potential Green Mountain Transit funding discussion. A Main Street Great Streets update. And a discussion of a resolution on the implementation of a carbon pollution impact fee for new construction and large existing commercial and industrial buildings. So we got the presentation at our last meeting. Great, thank you. Any other counselors, committee chairs who wish to offer a committee report? Councilor Zhang and then we'll go to Councilor Hightower. Thank you, President. The Racial Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Committee, REIV, will be meeting tomorrow at 5.30. And we'll listen very well. The address this time is going to be at Queen City Room, 149 Church Street, third floor city hall. So the agenda, we have exploration of the Racial Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Commission and BIPOC organization will be showing up to speak in favor or favor about it. We also will be receiving some update around the community engagement for the diversity arts in the Old North End Public Forum. And yeah, that'll be our agenda. Great, thank you. We'll go to Councilor Hightower and then Councilor Travers. Thank you. So for the Community Development and Neighborhood Revitalization Committee, we've got a public hearing on two Vermont Community Development Programs, which is the Licensed Nursing Assistant Training Program and the Ventilation Improvement Program. We also have a presentation from a group of UVM graduate students on property tax reform and housing for housing affordability and social justice, which I'm looking forward to and hope folks can join for that. And then Joe, Sarah and I have been going to a slew of meetings on regarding, camping on municipal lands and we're gonna report back because not all of us made it to all of the meetings, partially for public meeting loss. So we're gonna report back on all of the meetings, which included meetings with internal city staff, outside organizations, Jidden-wide community meetings and that is all. Thank you, Councilor Hightower. We'll go to Councilor Travers and then Councilor Shannon. Thank you, President Paul. The Ordinance Committee met twice over the last month or so, mainly to consider the minimum, maximum parking requirements and TDM matter that this Council sent back to the Committee for consideration while still waiting on some final edits to distribute to the full Council. There is an amended version of that matter that will be coming back to the full Council and that was unanimously voted on in favor of before the Ordinance Committee. The amended version still extends the elimination of minimum parking requirements city-wide. It also still includes important changes to our institutional parking management plans that the city's institutional organizations and CAPMA have been expressing interest in. To the extent there's been some amendments, from my perspective, address a number of the concerns raised by the city's affordable housing organizations around TDM and while transportation to man management provisions are still in the amended version for larger projects and still propose that these provisions be extended city-wide. There are a number of, in my opinion, good improvements that have been made that we'll dive into details on when this comes back before the full Council in January. But the most important change from my perspective is that it will expand the menu of options that large projects can choose from in selecting their TDM strategy. So excited to get back to that in January. And we do not have any matters before the Committee at the moment, but we know that Planning Commission is meeting tomorrow night with respect to a couple important zoning changes that we heard from the city from at our last meeting and we'll look forward to those potentially coming before the Ordinance Committee in short order. Thank you, Councillor Travers, for that update. We'll go to Councillor Shannon and if there's any others. Thank you, President Powell. Just want to let people know that the License Committee will be taking up an encumbrance permit for Battery Street Jeans at 4.30 on December 21st. Great, thank you. Any other Committee Chairs? Seeing none, we'll move on to item number nine, which is City Council General City Affairs. Are there any Councillors who wish to offer comments on General City Affairs? Councillor Shannon. Thank you, President Powell. I was going to bring this up at our last meeting, but we did not get to General City Affairs and I wanted to note the passing of long-time CEDO, actually Economic Development Director, I think was his title, Bruce Seifer, who was instrumental in really creating the Burlington that we see today, instrumental in assuring that we had lots of viable businesses on North Street in the South End and throughout the city, really a supporter of our small business community here. He was, Bruce and I, I think Bruce, every two years, would put my opponent's billboard in his yard. Nonetheless, we always had a really nice and cordial relationship with my daughter, benefited. From some items passed down from his late son, Bentley, which was a very sad loss for Bruce and his family and our community as well. But Bruce was active, it must be, to his last days. In October, he emailed Councillor Travers and I about the South End re-zoning, he always stayed engaged and we did have some great email exchanges over the years. And I don't agree with Bruce's position on this but I want to read to you some of his thoughts and I will share with the council this email that he asked to be on the record because I think that his voice is an important one without question and something that should be considered whether or not we agree. He wrote, I've been in Joan, the following letter I sent to the city planner about changing the enterprise zoning district to include housing. I'm strongly opposed to this zoning change. We need to preserve some land for business expansion in the future. For over 25 years, I was responsible for the airport industrial park. We spent 17 years getting permits to expand the airport industrial park. So VZS can expand there in the future. I would urge you to go out to see the construction now underway by beta at the airport industrial park. They're creating hundreds of jobs. The business expansion could lead to thousands of livable wage jobs located in Burlington. Long term planning is key to allow our regional economy to grow. The proposed zoning change in the south end will result in less jobs in our community. Downtown has a lot of vacant space for mixed use development. I co-authored three textbooks since working for the city of Burlington discussing strategic economic development. The second has a chapter on the south end and its future. So I'm going to forward the letter he then shared with planning for all of our benefit. I think it's important to give consideration to that voice that had a lot of foresight that we all benefit from today. And if you thought it appropriate, President Paul, I think it would be appropriate to have a moment of silence for his passing. Yes, thank you. We can only hope that he's with Bentley now. Are there other city counselors who have comments on general city affairs? Councilor Travers. Thank you, President Paul. There is an item on our consent agenda this evening with respect to a memorandum of understanding regarding the CSWD drop-off location in the south end. And I fully support that consent agenda item, which will, from my perspective, provide greater flexibility around CSWD, expanding services at the Pine Street location while allowing CSWD and the city additional opportunities to explore moving the drop-off location to Flynn Avenue. I suppose I would just like to use this point in time, though, and can certainly follow up with CSWD and city officials at a later point as well, to say that while it's not on the deliberative agenda this evening, it is very important to me, and I know has been frustrating to neighbors in the south end as well as around Burlington that services at the Burlington drop-off center have been so limited since the beginning of the pandemic, limited now, I believe just to compost drop-off. And so I really do hope that the action that we're taking tonight provides CSWD greater flexibility to act hopefully sooner, rather than later in cooperation with the city to expand services at that drop-off location to ease the concerns of folks here in Burlington who have been having to go out to South Burlington and Williston Essex and surrounding locations for these services. So looking forward to that in the coming months. Thank you. Thank you. If there are no other counselors with comments on general city affairs, we'll go to the next item, which is city council president updates. Just wanted to let people know that after the holidays, when we reconvene in January, we will have an upcoming work session and a discussion and possible adoption of council rules that a group of four of us have been working on for some time. And also a couple of presentations during the month of January and February from various first response service providers so that we can learn, we and the public can learn about the work that they do, but more on that to come in January. That would bring us to what usually is the last item on our agenda, but won't be this evening, which is item 11 updates from the mayor. Mayor Weinberger, do you have any comments to share with us? The floor is yours. Thank you, President Powell. Just two quick things as we come to the end of 2022. One, I did want to just note that serving with the council at this table under your leadership has been very welcome and appreciate all that you've done to ensure that we are working well together and with the public and with a spirit of civility and collegiality and really appreciate your efforts there. And also just wanted to remind councillors and the public that we have a New Year's Eve celebration that is coming up in just a couple of weeks. Once again, Burlington City Arts of many partners is producing Highlight, which will feature events throughout the downtown and waterfront and this year for the first time will include from five to nine a use of the new Moran frame that I think will be a nice introduction to the way in which that new facility can be a real center for arts and recreation and entertainment in the years ahead. It's a first of a series of kind of pilot events there. And so I hope to see everyone down there and out around town at Highlight. Thank you, President Powell. Thank you very much, Mayor Weinberger. That'll bring us back to the beginning of our agenda before we get to public forum. We can do item number five, which is climate emergency reports. If there are any councillors who wish to offer a climate emergency report. If there aren't any, we can close out that item. I, unless somebody else can, unless some of my colleagues can show me any other items that can be done before public forum, it's now 20 after seven. There are four people in the queue remotely to speak during public forum. I can find three of the four. Not really sure that we can start public forum until 7.30 as per our rules. Is that correct, Attorney Sturtivant? I believe that's correct. I can certainly double check your rules, but. So even if they are here, we really, we need to wait until 7.30. Let me double check. Okay. President Powell. Yes. Might we move to the consent agenda? I don't think we can vote on the consent agenda until we can. We can vote on the consent agenda. Even, even I thought part of having public forum was to be able to give people the opportunity to comment on the consent agenda. I don't, I, I, that's what I had, I had always been, I had always felt. What's that? Just preference? Well, I mean, it's, we can certainly vote on that. If that was just always my understanding was that it just gave people an opportunity if they wanted to comment. Is that, is that a, is that a preference or is that a rule? I believe it's a preference too. Thank you, former council president Shannon. All right, we can, we can certainly move to the consent agenda, which is item number six. Is there a motion to move the consent agenda and take the actions indicated? Thank you, Councillor Shannon. Is there a second to that motion? Seconded by Councillor Bergman. Is there any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor of the motion is made by Councillor Shannon. Please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Please say no. And we've approved our consent agenda. That's a very good question. Are we, are we able, Attorney Sturdivant, to adjourn the council meeting? Can we go to some of the other, for example, like the city council with mayor presiding? Yes. Wonderful suggestion. Okay, we will adjourn our council meeting at 720 and hand the floor to the mayor for the city council with mayor presiding. And I believe there's also another, there's also another meeting as well. I think it's BCA, Board of Civil Authority. Okay, thank you, President Paul. Do you think it has been our practice not to convene these meetings either before the public forum? Happy to make an exception tonight, but I think if we would have to raise, I think the way reason we've always done that in case that there is some sort of public testimony that could impact the decisions. So if that does transpire in some ways, I guess we always have the possibility of reconsidering these decisions. So with that said, I will call to order the city council with mayor presiding and we'd welcome a motion on the agenda. So moved. Is there a second? Seconded by Councillor Shannon. Discussion, go ahead, Councillor Shannon. Mr. Mayor, would it be appropriate to ask that public forum be added to our agenda so that we wouldn't have had the meeting without any public forum? So just specific to the items on this agenda? So, sure, you can make that amendment. We can see if there's any interest. I move that we add item 1.02 to add a public forum specific only to our Board of Civil Authority agenda items. Great, we are on the city council mayor presiding. So I think you made that right. So, great, thank you. Is there a second for that? Motion seconded by Councillor Travers. Discussion of the amendment. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? Motion carries unanimously. So that brings us to the public forum. Is there anyone in attendance who would like to speak to the city council mayor presiding about our business tonight? Seeing none there, I'm not able to check online and see if there's any interest. Assuming no, correct me if I'm wrong. So we'll close the public forum and move to the consent agenda and welcome motion. Mr. Mayor, there is one person who has their hand up. They have signed up to speak in public forum for the council meeting, but I didn't see their hand up before. So, Charlie, you have your hand up and I don't know if it's in relation to the city council with mayor presiding, but if so, your microphone has been enabled. Hi. Well, it's a public forum. I'm not sure exactly what limits there are on the subject. I wanted to address the idea of battery street jeans. Is that okay? I think, Charlie, that you want to speak to general items that are on either, that are coming before the city council and not necessarily before the city council with mayor presiding, is that correct? I think you're probably correct. I don't understand all that terminology. That's quite all right. We'll come back, we'll just hang in there for about five more minutes and we'll come back to you. That's fine. Great, thank you, President Paul. I'd welcome motion on the consent agenda. So moved. Thank you, President Paul. Is there a second? Seconded by Councillor Shannon. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor of adopting the consent agenda for the city council with mayor presiding, please say aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? The motion carries unanimously. So we now have three different appointments that this body will make. The first is 3.01, this is an appointment for... Sorry, I just, it seems that board talks is down. Yes. I have been having a little issue with myself. It's working for me right now. I checked to see if it was a network by going on my phone, but it's not really loading on my phone either. And actually I say it's working and I don't see all of the items loading. Oh, now that is. So I'm happy to read out. I mean, I think it's, I'd like to try to perceive, I don't recall this happening exactly before, but let's, there are two applicants for this first item, 3.01, airport commission term expiring June 30th, 2023. I would like to proceed and open the floor for nominations. The floor is open. Councilor Barlow. Thank you. I'd like to nominate Stephen Gulick. Thank you. Councilor Barlow, are there any additional nominations? Councilor Travers. I'd like to nominate Robert Eder. Thank you. Councilor Travers, are there any additional nominations? So Councilor Bergman. I'd like to nominate Dan Castigano. Thank you, Councilor Bergman. So there are three names in nomination now. Are there any additional nominations? Okay. So I'm going to close the floor to nominations. If there are no, there's no further hands there and go ahead, Councilor Shannon. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor Weinberger. I believe that we already gave consideration to Mr. Castigano's appointment at the last meeting and it can't, unless there was a, it's already been dispensed with that issue. So I'm going to vote on it again. I don't believe there's any rule to that effect. I think that as long as the position is open that we can nominate anybody we so please. And that it's not like a previous matter before the council. This is an open nomination. I think it's highly undemocratic that we would not be able to nominate the person that we think is most suited for this position. Was, I have a question. Was this re-advertised and did Mr. Castigano reapply in this round for the position? Sometimes we have said that any previous applicants would be considered in the next round. We did not make that decision when we actually voted no last time. Point of order. I believe his application is on record and he has expressed an interest and continued interest in the two meetings. And so again, I think it's just fundamentally out of order to try to stop a vote on his vote, on his nomination. Thank you, Councillor Bergman. As the chair, I'm going to rule the nomination in order. And so there are three individuals before us. Are Councillors Able, is it a concern that the back of materials are not available to folks? I can't get them. Okay. So- Every hard time to access it as well. So- Mayor, maybe, you know, I hate to do this because we're in the middle of a meeting. Perhaps you want to just recess that we'll go back to the council meeting. We can do public forum without really having board docs. And then perhaps somebody could just check and see if it's an issue in con choice or if it's an issue with board docs. Okay, given the time, President Paul, I think that's a helpful suggestion. Since we are at the time, certain 730, we will recess the city council with Mayor Presiding. I am in refreshing the page, able to get the documents. They have been posted since Thursday, so I'm reluctant not to act tonight without, but hopefully we can have that fully addressed by the time we reconvene. So back to you, President Paul. Thank you. It's now 731, we've reconvened the council meeting at the 730 hour to do public forum. There are a number of people that are in con choice, a few that have asked to speak in con choice as well as a number of people that are online and waiting to speak. Before we begin public forum, just a few items of information about the table in front of me. There is a system on the table that has three lights, a green light will shine when you begin speaking, a yellow light when you have 30 seconds left and then a red light when your time is up. We just ask that you please complete your comments when the red light indicates that your time is up. If you're in the middle of a sentence, please complete it, but just so that we can give everybody the same amount of time if you can wrap up your comments from there. We have a hybrid system for a public forum, so if you wish to speak here in person, there are pieces of paper in the corner. Just fill one out and give it to the clerk that is to my right. If you wish to speak by Zoom, you can go to burlingtonvt.gov slash public forum and a form will come up. Just fill out the form, populate the form and the answers will come into a spreadsheet that I have in front of me and I will call on you in the order in which you submitted your form. Has been, it's been our practice that Burlington residents will have first priority in public forum. We'll go to Burlington residents in con choice who have submitted a form, then to Burlington residents online, back to non-Burlington residents in person and then back to our online Burlington, non-Burlington residents. We just simply ask that you do your best to use respectful language when you're speaking to us. Please direct any of your comments to me as the chair and not to anyone else at this table and please do your best not to personalize your comments. We want to hear what you have to say and it's a lot easier to listen intently if you speak respectfully. With that we'll go to public forum and there are a number of people in con choice who have asked to speak. The first is Todd LaCroix to be followed by Fareed. Good evening Todd. While you dance around all the real reasons, the absurdity in the last few years, I warned the Democrats years ago that Trump was a real problem. They laughed at me.   The military industrial complex is at the heart of all of our problems. You are throwing all this money towards war in Ukraine. In the same newscasts of schizophrenia you talk about how we need to not have a gun problem with our children. Well you literally tell how we need more money to kill Russians. You say we need less guns and yet you don't talk about the real causes and the issues. According to the FBI itself, most crime is caused by undercovers in this country, the DEA, FBI, all these undercover agencies chase each other around. And we like to blame all the poor people and all these outcasts for these problems. Year after year we dance around the issues.  Thank you Todd. Our next speaker is Fareed to be followed by Robert Bristow-Johnson. Good evening. Thank you. I joined a gang in my teenage years for many boys that would be mostly out of the need to belong, to have somebody half year back. And when we're talking about youth violence we need to keep in mind that it's, we should be looking in the mirror if the adults are not modeling good behavior, that's what kids are gonna see. And if you're working class kid in Burlington right now this generation's already gonna be having less standards of living compared to their parents. So the outlook is pretty bleak.  And when you look at the adults running the city that's, you know, you can't be talking about gun violence. Without acknowledging that's been the way your policies have been implemented. You know, like we respond to emergencies with like people with guns, homelessness, people with guns. What about that violence?  Violence is a problem. And the city perpetrates most of those violence on poor people, on working class people, and on people who are homeless. So please step back and look in the mirror. Thank you. Our next speaker is Robert Bristow-Johnson to be followed by Jake Schuman. So this was something that I forgot to bring up before and it's kind of the last minute, but it's not too late. Good to see a new face. So nine years ago we had a very late, a very late passage of the ward redistricting charter change. It went into effect, they would have been, it went into effect in 2015. And the transitional wasn't over until 2018, two years before the next census was going to be. It was kind of like, it was almost over before the transition was over. And I suggested at that time, and I even printed something out and distributed it to council members that we could have a transition where all we have to do is apply the new charter change to the new offices being elected after the charter change goes into effect and not to the current offices that were one year in their term. And that was shot down. And I was told by an assistant city attorney that it couldn't be done. And I double-checked that with them. The chair of house government ops was Don as someone, and I know I can't remember name, and I also talked with Jeannette White, chair of Senate government ops, and also talked with a lawyer at the state capitol about it. And they completely refuted that. If you choose to, you can make this new charter applied just to the offices elected after the charter comes into an effect and allow the offices that are the counselor terms and school board terms that are halfway through to just continue to their end. The transition will be over in a year and it will be over. Nobody has a term truncated. Everybody gets to serve the term that they were elected to. And that's actually better for democracy. Thank you, thanks so much. Our next speaker is Jake Schumann to be followed by Christopher Aaron Felker. Good evening, Jake. Everything's on wheels here. I know I'm supposed to direct my comments at the president, so maybe I can ask you to convey my congratulations and well wishes to our newly seated East District counselor. So I am here today in my capacity as a resident and citizen of the city. I got to participate in an effort with many other residents, citizens, folks in collecting signatures over the last several years for two charter change ballot initiatives that will be coming before the voters on town meeting day. And I know that's not a subject on tonight's agenda, but I just wanted to express publicly my appreciation to everyone involved in that effort, including the city clerks who did the hard work of verifying all of those signatures. 4,615 people, 519 pages. By our estimates, it's between one in 2,000 hours of work that dozens of volunteers engaged in over the last several years. So I'm really excited that as we move forward, we will be engaging in a public discourse about Proposition Zero and community control of police. And I just want to express my gratitude to everyone who is involved in that effort and to the board of civil authority for receiving those petitions. Thank you. Thank you. We'll go on to Christopher Aaron Felker. Good evening. Good evening. I'm here tonight to speak on agenda item 7.04, resolution addressing gun violence in Burlington. There's a fair amount in here, so let's just dive on in. I think we can all agree that we want to limit and stop the gun violence that's occurring on our streets. Disagree with the eight year old charter change that banned firearms and establishments that have a liquor license. Yes, clearly we don't want to have guests or customers shooting it out on our streets. I know this, but this is a largely cash industry with waiters and waitresses that are leaving work at 2.30, three o'clock in the morning. And I believe they have the right, I know they have the right to defend themselves if they want to. And I believe that not having a carve out for employees to maintain safety, without that, they actually effectively become targets because the elements that are on our streets at 2.30 will know that they can't have a weapon to defend themselves. So please let's reconsider that. Furthermore, I think we all know that historically speaking, gun laws tend to be used to oppress groups. I truly worry about the expansion of gun free zones sporadically around Burlington and what that means for search and seizure. Truly, I worry about stop and frisk coming to Burlington as being the only potential way of being able to enforce something like this. So yes, we need to come together and find solutions, not knee-jerk reactions. We need to really weigh the options and the consequences. Wish you all happy holidays. Thank you. Thank you so much. We will move on. We have no one else in the, no one else in Contois wishing to speak. So we will go to the number of people we have online. The first person who wanted to speak online is Hannah Loso. And Hannah, I don't see you online. If you are online and just wanna raise your hand, I will come back to you. The second person is Charlie Messing. And Charlie, I have enabled your microphone. Please go ahead. Okay. Thanks. I get to look at the timer. This is interesting. Look at this. All I get to see is the time and that's okay. You know, the Gettysburg address was two minutes. It was. Yes, it was. Yeah. And the guy before him was two hours. So I just wanna speak about Battery Street jeans. He's clothing the homeless and we should give him a medal. We shouldn't give him any problems. He, with this incumbrance thing, I hope it all goes smoothly because he's doing a great thing. And there are only a few agencies and people, food, not bombs, is one keeping the homeless alive. I don't know if the city is helping do it. I don't know if they can, but they certainly shouldn't stop anyone from doing it. So I just wanted to speak out for that and make sure you all knew about that and knew what it represented. It doesn't matter if there's somebody on the sidewalk for a few minutes. It's okay. He takes care of his business well and he takes care of those who cannot even afford to be part of his business.  This is a lot of stuff you go through. Have a wonderful holiday. Thank you, Charlie. The next person who, next person is Milo Grant. And Milo, I found you and have enabled your microphone. Please go ahead. Thank you very much. I wanted to briefly talk about an ongoing issue that unfortunately is not actually going to go away until, you know what? And it may never go away, but the point I'd like to make is we have to take real steps to address racial disparities in policing. And in addition to racial disparities, and say traffic stops, there has continued to be an ongoing issue with an unacceptable pattern of behavior by some of our officers. I do not want to, you know, paint the whole department. But this behavior is driven by race and that's not okay. There could be inappropriate use of language or statements that are racially insensitive. It's a variety of things. We have bought up nonstop on the police commission begging at times that our acting chief addressed this issue. And I would like to see the council and I would like to see the mayor include this in part of building back the department because it is such a crucial point that people bring up when we talk about the issues of lack of trust in the department. So thank you very much. The only other thing I wanted to say was I'd like to see the Memorial Auditorium RFP be a really public process in terms of reviewing it. A lot of people in the community care about having a community space and care about 242. Thank you. Thank you very much. The next speaker is Sharon Busher and Sharon, I found you and you should be able to speak now. Thank you. I wanted to say that it's sort of, I'm equating this to like playing Jeopardy where you all are actually playing the game and I'm sitting on the sidelines and there are no hot lights and there's no pressure. I'm going to comment on procedure and process that occurred earlier tonight and just offer my insights. When I was served on the council, we were always able to do separate meetings like the local control or the mayor, board of civil authority. All of those meetings were separate and distinct and they were not linked to the rule which I believe still exists regarding the Consent Agenda and Public Forum. So I feel that acting attorney Sturtivans world is planning and zoning. I don't envy her trying to step in and do this but I would like you to look at that because I don't think that that was something that was atypical. If you look back at even past practices a few years ago, you would see that. That's number one. Number two is I did text Councillor Shannon and asked her to check the rules because I was one of the people that actually put this format in place. Public Forum is a time where people can speak about anything but frequently they're talking about things on the agenda. And so it is placed early in the agenda. So when you have your deliberative, you can consider those comments if you choose to with the Consent Agenda, those items are put on consent for convenience. And so if you don't allow the public to speak, then you preclude them for giving you input to potentially remove it from consent or change the action. So I would like you to look at that and I would like you not to adopt the Consent Agenda before Public Forum. Thank you for letting me go over. Sure, no problem. Thank you so much. The last speaker is Mark Sherman. And Mark, I've enabled your microphone. You should be able to speak now. You just have to unmute yourself. Yep, go ahead. My name is Mark Sherman and I'm one of the owners of the Outdoor Gear Exchange on Church Street. And I wanna thank you for this opportunity to speak tonight as well as to Councillors Carpenter, Barlow, Bergman, McGee and Hightower for meeting with me and one of my colleagues over the past few weeks. It's been an honor to connect with all of you. We clearly have a long road to resolve the root issues behind our current problems, which sadly are not unique to Burlington, although perhaps there's some solace in that. We also need critically to address the emergent situation at hand, effectively and swiftly, lest we see degrading safety issues and the appearance of decay to drive more and more professional hospitality and retail businesses to the neighboring hubs of Essex, South Burlington and Williston. And I look forward to continuing open dialogues with everyone at the table tonight.  I'd also like to take this opportunity to focus on a few of the ideas that have come up in these conversations, which I felt were all quite productive. First, we need to more effectively use our CSLs and CSOs throughout the city in parks, on street corners and most perhaps pressingly to my world for a better presence on Church Street to help mitigate retail theft. I'd also like to see a commitment to opening a safe injection site ASAP. With limited ability to police City Hall Park and other areas known for drug use, we are currently condoning an unsafe injection site and other unsafe injection sites that are in fact no closer to Church Street than the proposed location near Clark Street. And this will reduce overdose deaths and minimize police resources needed to respond to them. I'd like to see a commitment to fully fund the CAHOOTS model as proposed over a year ago. And I'd like to see a commitment progressive, robust and transparent policing in a way that will encourage an expedite growth of the Burlington Police Department, which is desperately needed and already approved by the council. Thank you. Thank you so much, Mark. There is one other person who in con toys who's asked to speak and that's Christopher Hesley. Is it Hesley? Hesley? Hesley. Thank you, please. A little unstable here. Congratulations, Councillor Brandt, for your extension to the council. I just want to take a moment today to recognize some folks that I think play a pretty important part, a role in our community that sometimes are, I don't think maybe get the credit they deserve. And those are the folks that do the incredible work at keeping the marketplace clean, vibrant and livable. That would be Jim Daly, Bruce Medeiros, Gabe Gagne and Alex Beers. And really as the city continues to decline and into a state of blightedness, they've really become the kind of the last line of defense. And as you walk around downtown, you see kind of a lot of things that weren't here a few years ago, yet when you step onto the marketplace, it still looks marginally as it did in years past. So I wanted to recognize them for their efforts. Secondly, I wanted to share some things that I learned recently with talking to folks in the community regarding the transient folks coming into our community from outside the state, typically on or near the first of the months engaging in what some have referred to as commerce, which I think to me sounds like a way of, you know, preying upon some of our most vulnerable here in the community. I was also saddened to learn recently from my folks that work in the nightclub industry and are out late two or three in the morning that there's apparently a rise in, I guess, harassment, both verbal and physical of our unhoused population. It was attributed to drunken college students that was the phrase that was used. I don't know if that's the correct phrase, but that was the way it was described to me and that's a little bit of a concern. We can't have that going on as sport in our community. And I think from my perspective, I think that's just another reason why we need to have an increased enforcement here in downtown. Our most vulnerable should not be preyed upon like at some kind of sport and they too deserve to the protection and be able to enjoy life with dignity here in downtown. So I just wanted to share that. That was kind of disturbing. I didn't expect to hear that. It was quite a bit of a shock and surprise and I just wanted to share that with everyone. So thank you for your time. Thank you so much. Seeing no others who wish to speak during public forum will close that item at 7.57 and we will recess the city council meeting. We will go back to the mayor for the city council with mayor presiding, Mayor Weinberger. Thank you, President Paul. So we will reconvene the city council of mayor presiding on the item that we were at when we suspended the meeting. So this is 3.01, the airport commission appointment that has three nominations for Stephen Gillick, Robert Edder and Dan Castigano. Castigano, thank you, Councillor Burtman. Are other objections to moving forward? Are people feeling, does Board Docks continue to be an issue where we're able to move forward? Looks like I had any thumbs up there. So good. Any of the applicants in attendance here in, sorry, any of the nominees in attendance here in contoys or online? And would they like to speak to the body? I don't see anyone online, Mayor. Okay, thank you, President Paul. I'm not seeing anyone here in the chamber either. So, is there any further discussion before we go to a vote on this nomination? Okay, seeing none, the way we're gonna do this is I will ask, I'm gonna call out each of the nominees in the order they were nominated and then please raise your hand and we will do that and see if we have a majority. And we have one councilor voting remotely, just one, right? And then we have two, so there'll be, there are 12 of us voting tonight, so seven votes will be necessary for confirmation. So with that, all those in favor of appointing Steven Gillick to the airport commission, please raise your hand. I believe if the clerk agrees that that is seven votes in favor of Mr. Gillick, which is the decisive number. And so say congratulations to Mr. Gillick and thank you for your interest in serving the city and the airport. I'm now gonna move to item 3.02 and I do wanna say thank you to the other applicants as well. I will move to item 3.02, the Development Review Board for the alternate position. This is for a term expiring June 30th, 2024. And the floor is open for nominations. Are there any nominations for this alternate board seat? Councilor Travers. Nominate Emily O'Hara. Thank you. Are there any additional nominations? Seeing no other councilors wishing to be recognized for a nomination, I'm gonna close the nominations. I'm gonna ask is Emily O'Hara here with us tonight or online and interested in speaking to the city council with mayor presiding? She is not online. She is not. So we will go back to the council. Is there any discussion on this nomination? Seeing none, we will go to a vote. All those in favor of appointing Emily O'Hara, please say aye. Aye. And that is a majority of this body. And thank you, Emily, congratulations. And thank you for your interest in serving on the DRB. Finally, we have a electric light commission appointment for a term that will expire next June, June 30th, 2023. This is the filling out of an existing term. And the floor is open for nominations for this position. Councilor Travers. I'm gonna, Laura Bonn. Thank you. Are there any additional nominations? I've seen, I've seen no additional nominations. I'm gonna close that. And is Laura online? Great, Laura, if you would like to make a brief statement to the city council, please go ahead and your microphone should be enabled. Great, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Wonderful, thank you. I'm really excited about this opportunity. I've worked in the energy sector for over a decade and a half and just really excited to engage in this way and serve my community and my city. And just, it's a great opportunity. So thank you very much for considering. Great, thank you. Thank you, Laura. Thank you for joining us tonight and sharing that. And with that, is there any further discussion at the council about this appointment? Seeing none, we will go to a vote. All those in favor of appointing Laura Bonn to the electric light commission, please say aye. Aye. All right. And that is unanimous. Thank you, Laura. And we appreciate your service and serving on this critical commission. And with that, seeing that we have done all the business of the city council of mayor presiding, if there's no objection, I will adjourn that body at 8.03 PM and then just give me just a moment. I will call in to session the board of civil authority and the first item on this agenda is the agenda and I welcome a motion regarding it. Motion to adopt the agenda. I'm sorry, motion to adopt the agenda. Great, thank you very much, President Paul. Is there a second for that motion? Seconded by Councillor Barlow. Any discussion of the agenda, any amendments? Seeing none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. All right. We're already opposed. The agenda is adopted and this brings us to our only business, which is the consent agenda. I'd welcome a motion to take the actions indicated on the consent agenda. So moved. Thank you, President Paul. Is there a second for that? Seconded by Councillor Travis. Any discussion of the consent agenda? Seeing none, we'll go to vote. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Are there any opposed? That motion carries unanimously and we have completed the business of the Board of Civil Authority for tonight. So if there's no objection, I'll adjourn that board at 8.04 PM. And I think with that, President Paul, if I haven't forgotten anything, I'll hand the microphone back to you. Thank you, Mayor. So we have one additional meeting as well before we get to our deliberative agenda, which is the Local Cannabis Control Commission. So we'll call that meeting to order at 8.05. The first item on that agenda is 1.01, which is a motion to adopt the agenda. Is there a motion to adopt the agenda? Thank you, Councillor Shannon. Seconded by Councillor Travis. Thank you both, Travers. Thank you both. Is there any discussion on the motion? Seeing none. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, please say no. And we have our agenda. We have one item on our agenda, which is item two, a 2022 Local Cannabis Control Application. We have one application to vote on this evening. It's been our custom before we go to a vote to see if the applicants are here. And as they are aware, the applications are heavily redacted with the city attorney's direction. But what we've done in the past is that while applicants are under no obligation to disclose business information, we invite them to come forward and introduce themselves along with information about their business. I don't see anyone in con choice. And I'm just gonna look to see if there is someone for the application for Herbmont. If you could identify yourself, I am happy to enable your microphone. I don't see anyone with a name close to that in the attendees list. And no one seems to be raising their hand. So we'll go on to the first and only application, which is item 2.01 for Herbmont. And for this, this goes before the license commit or the Local Cannabis Control Commission. If there is a motion on that, I would welcome a motion as indicated in Board Docs. Move to approve and authorize transmission of local approval of the Herbmont Local Cannabis Control License Application to the Cannabis Control Board, despite not knowing the location of this establishment or the ability to vote no. Thank you, Councillor Shannon, seconded by Councillor Travers. Is there any discussion on the motion? Councillor Carpenter. May not be germane, but Councillor Travers brought it up last time. I think this body needs to have a discussion about the role of the Cannabis Commission and, wow, support this. I don't feel comfortable about this process. And so we should go one way or the other. I think we all are fairly in agreement about that. Councillor Berkman. I would just say that perhaps this would be appropriate for us to add to the city's legislative agenda. And we are talking with legislators on Friday and because I agree, this is a bad dog and pony show, right? Not, you know, it's a dog and pony show, but it's not even a good one. So we need to get that fixed. Thank you, Councillor Berkman. I think there's universal agreement about that. Seeing no other discussion, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion is made by Councillor Shannon. Please say aye. Aye. Aye. I thank you. Any opposed, please say no. That motion passes. And seeing no other items on the agenda and without objection, we'll adjourn this meeting, the meeting of the local cannabis control commission at 810 and we will go back to and reconvene the council meeting. There are four items on our deliberative agenda and that is what we have left this evening. The item 7.01 has been moved to our consent, was moved to our consent agenda, so we've already voted on that. That will move us to item 7.02, which is a notice of decision, a hearing regarding a sworn complaint of a resident pertaining to Orlando's bar in lounge, 2022, 2023 entertainment permit. And for this item, I'll go to Councillor Travers for a motion. I move to approve and adopt the decision posted on board docs in regards to the sworn complaint of resident pertaining to Orlando's bar in lounge, 2022 to 2023 entertainment permit and to impose a two week suspension of the permit effective from April 15th to April 30th, 2023 as detailed in the decision posted online. Thank you, Councillor Travers. Is there a second? Okay, seconded by Councillor Bergman. This item is debatable if anyone does have any comments to share before we go to a vote on the motion. Councillor Hightower. Just noting my recusal since I was not at the hearing nor reviewed the materials afterwards.  I'd like to recuse myself. Thank you. Your recusal is noted as well. Are there any comments from Councillors before we go to a vote? Seeing none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion is made by Councillor Travers and seconded by Councillor Bergman. Please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed, please say no. There are 11 of us, the motion passes on a vote of nine with two recusals. And that concludes that item. I did want to also thank on behalf of the council, the Assistant City Attorney, Hailey McClanahan for her guidance in council and drafting this decision. Wonderful, great job. We will go on to, well, item 7.03 has been removed which brings us to item 7.04, which is a resolution addressing gun violence. For this, for a motion on this resolution, I'll go to the chair of the Public Safety Committee, Councillor McGee. Thank you, President Paul. I would move that we waive the reading and adopt the revised version of the resolution that is posted to board docs and ask for the floor back after a second. Thank you, Councillor McGee. The motion is made by Councillor McGee and seconded by Councillor Travers. Councillor McGee, you have the floor back. Thank you, President Paul. This resolution is the result of a process that began several weeks ago with the Board of Health. Due in large part to their efforts, we were able to turn around somewhat quickly and get our own resolution together. Excuse me, I am battling some kind of cold. Get our own resolution together for our final meeting of the year, which is this evening. I know we all share deep concern over the sharp rise in violence we have seen here in Burlington throughout the State of Vermont and across the country. On average in the United States, we lose 41,000 people per year to gun violence. That's 110 people every single day. This trend has become the tragic norm in our society and we cannot have this debate without acknowledging the fact that the United States is the only major country in the world where gun deaths happen on such a scale. It's the scale of this crisis that requires us to dig deeper into the numbers and understand the ways in which violence, especially gun violence, impacts our community. In the United States, Americans are 11 times more likely to be victims of a gun homicide in white Americans. According to every town for gun safety, in an average year, 10,308 crimes are committed involving firearm.  Here in Vermont, we lose an average of 75 people per year to gun deaths. 88% of those deaths are suicide, a rate far higher than the national average. 50% of homicides in Vermont are related to domestic violence, one of the highest per capita rates in the country. And half of those domestic violence homicides are committed with guns. There's long past time for our city, our state and our country to treat violence, especially gun violence, as the public health emergency that it is. And this resolution does that. This resolution calls for action locally and in the state legislature to increase gun safety and support organizations working to address the root causes of violence. We will not enforce our way out of this problem. We must do the hard and crucial work to address the root causes of violence to create lasting change and interrupt the cycle of harm. We can begin by working collaboratively with the Burlington School District and community organizations that support our young people and those that support survivors of intimate partner violence. And we cannot do this work alone. That's why this resolution calls for action from state leaders to do through things. First, we are calling on the legislature to repeal the law that prevents municipalities from pursuing stronger gun safety measures. Second, we're asking the legislature to act on the charter changes that were overwhelmingly supported by Burlington voters in 2014, which would prohibit guns and establishments with liquor licenses, require safe storage, and allow guns to be confiscated from known domestic abusers. We are also requesting that the legislature pass a law prohibiting those convicted of a hate crime from possessing firearms. I wanna express my gratitude to the Board of Health for this substantial effort in providing research and recommendations which provide a foundation for this resolution. I'd also like to thank Councilor Travers for his efforts in helping to draft the resolution as well as Councilor Bergman for his input. And thank you, President Paul, for your thoughts during our community session and helping to ensure that this resolution made it on the agenda before years end. I hope tonight the council will speak with the unified voice and unanimously support this resolution to convey the importance of taking these actions to prevent future gun deaths and begin to address violence in our community. Thank you. Thank you so much, Councilor McGee. Are there Councilors who wish to speak to this resolution? Councilor Travers. Thank you, President Paul, just very briefly. Thank you for those comments, Councilor McGee. I think very well stated and I wanna express my appreciation to you and members of the Public Safety Committee for working on this so quickly after we received the resolution from the Board of Health, chaired by Ward Five resident Celia Byrd and really appreciate the work that the Board of Health put into this and framing the discussion rightfully so as a public health emergency. I appreciate you working on it so quickly here in the Public Safety Committee because there's a reason why I think many of us wanted this to come back in our last meeting here in 2022, which was to have this resolution in hand to support the city and its legislative agenda in Montpelier heading into the legislative session in 2023. While there's many components of this, as Councilor McGee just spoke to, I think some of the most important components are those that are calling on our Burlington delegation and calling on their peers in Montpelier to provide Burlington as Vermont's largest city the flexibility that we really need in order to properly address gun violence epidemic that we're all facing here. Councilor McGee spoke to it that in 2014 Burlington voters overwhelmingly supported very reasonable gun reform measures that are still pending before the legislature and it would be well within their right to take those matters still up. They have not expired and their matters that our legislature could still take up. Unfortunately, we all know how many mass shootings and other incidents of gun violence have been since 2014. I can only imagine what would occur with those charter change measures if they were put before voters today can only imagine how much more overwhelmingly supported they would be in town meeting day 2023. So I appreciate this being before the council today and hope that our Burlington delegation and our city heading into the next legislative session will really use this to spur change that's much needed here at the local level. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Travers. If Councilor Bergman. Thank you. Just very briefly, I wanna say how important the participation of the Board of Health was. You know, we engaged with them. We had originally talked about the Burlington Charter changes and they responded with a much more comprehensive approach and it was incredibly collaborative and I just wanna point out something that so it doesn't get lost on lines 59 through 62 which really speak to, it's the resolve clause that speaks to dealing with root causes. At the end of the day, this is a really complicated issue and it requires us working with lots and lots of people and that it includes, when we say we, it includes our police department, it includes our school, it includes all of the social service agencies as well as other departments and you know, I have said in the past that if we don't deal with root causes we're just chasing our tail and I really, really believe that it's, there are lots of components on it and if we ignore that fundamental aspect of this, we will be here for a lot longer than we should. So I hope that we support this unanimously and then put the administrative resources of the city to bear in the comprehensive manner that this resolution really calls for. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Bergman. If there's no one, Mayor Weinberger. Thank you, President Paul. I appreciate the opportunity to just share some thoughts here. First of all, I do want to voice my appreciation for the Board of Health for weighing in on this critical public health issue and articulating a broad range of potential interventions and positions that I'm in full agreement with. I do want to note that I of course agree with the Board of Health of the Public Safety Committee, Councilor Travers, that we would welcome action being taken on these charter changes that have been on the wall, have been in Montpelier for many years without action. I was one of the people back in 2013 that helped draft those charter changes and I've given testimony in Montpelier and many years have voiced this position that maybe not as articulately, but basically that you just stated. I would say I would be equally happy, maybe even happier if the legislature took alternative action, which would be just instead of giving Burlington the sole authority to put these safe storage and prohibition for guns and bars and restaurants. They could take that action on a statewide basis as well and in some ways I think that's a more likely path to achieving this and I definitely plan to be very active in Montpelier this year as I do expect there being gun bills moving to advocate for those in that position. Finally, I do, well two more points. One, welcome the resolutions encouragement, focus on expanding the work that is happening to prevent future violence, to be exploring root causes as well as systematic interventions that we could take to prevent the type of violent spike that we've seen in 2022, prevent that from happening again in the future. There are a great many conversation of those lines that are happening currently and that the administration is engaged in and I look forward to speaking further with the council and the public about those efforts shortly. Finally, there is one note that I think would be remiss not to be spoken to which is there's a resolve clause that suggests that the city should continue to participate in the Chittenden County Gun Violence Task Force and encourages me to partner with state and federal agencies to better prevent and investigate incidents of gun violence. I just hope it's not lost on anyone. It should not be lost on anyone. How effective the Burlington Police Department has been in those investigations having resolved more than 86% of the shootings and 100% of the homicides would not want any part of that clause to be misunderstood as lacking an appreciation for that really impressive effort on the part of the department under challenging circumstances. Thank you, President Paul. Thank you, Mayor Weinberger. Seeing no other counselors in the queue will go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion to waive the reading and adopt the resolution, please say aye. Aye. Aye. All those, any opposed, please say no. That motion passes unanimously. With many thanks to the Board of Health as others have said and also to Councilor McGee for your work on this resolution and your thoughtful comments. We will move on to item 7.05 which is an ordinance Burlington Code of Ordinances, abatement and rehabilitation of vacant buildings and dangerous structures. For this item, I'll go to the chair of the Ordinance Committee, Councillor Travers for a motion, please. Thank you, President Paul. I would move to waive the reading and adopt the ordinance as amended by the Ordinance Committee and would ask for the floor back after a second. Great, thank you, Councillor Travers. Seconded by Councillor Hightower. Councillor Travers, you have the floor back. Thank you, President Paul. This is a matter that was sent before the Ordinance Committee where President Paul, you, Councillor Hightower and I met and were joined by Director Ward who's here in Contoy's Auditorium as well. President Paul, credit is due to you. I know in your role as Council President you can't speak to it as much but I'll try to speak on your behalf here. I know that there was a great deal of concern that you and other Ward 6 residents and really folks around Burlington had with respect to the tragic fire in a residential building on King Street which remained in such a condition where unfortunately there was a second tragic fire in that location which I know spurred a lot of folks to want additional change and additional restrictions around folks ability to really maintain vacant buildings and maintain structures and unsafe dangerous condition around the city. So the matter before the Council today would strengthen some of those requirements, would make the requirement more strict with respect to when a dangerous building needs to be taken down when it's been declared by the city as being in an unsafe dangerous condition. It increases vacant building permit fees which from my perspective are a good thing to the end of discouraging owners of vacant buildings from allowing them to remain in a vacant state and at the great suggestion really of Director Ward there's some language in here as well that will allow for the placement of new placards on buildings that are vacant that may present a risk to first responders if they are having to enter the building it's a placard that goes up in the building and it's a signal to our first responders to know that they may face some unfortunate unsafe conditions in the building so greatly appreciated Director Ward bringing that forward in the committee's work on this matter. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Travers. Do you want to acknowledge that we have not only with us the Director of Permitting and Inspections Bill Ward in Contois we also have Acting Fire Chief Libby who's joining us by Zoom. So if there are any questions from the Council or if they have any comments that they would like to make they are both here. Are there any comments or questions from the Council regarding this ordinance change? Okay, was there anything that you wanted to add? Director Ward, thank you so much for being here and also to Acting Fire Chief Libby for being here as well. Seeing no, Councillors in the queue will go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion to waive the reading and adopt the ordinance. As amended by the Ordinance Committee, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, please say no. That motion passes unanimously with many thanks to all who helped craft this and get us to this point. That will get us to the last item on our agenda which is item 7.06, a resolution March 7th, 2023 annual city meeting, proposed charter change regarding ward boundaries. And for this item, I'll turn to Councillor Barlow for a motion. Well, thank you, President Paul. I move to waive the reading and adopt the resolution. Thank you, Councillor Barlow. Seconded by Councillor Jang. Councillor Barlow, did you wish to have the floor back? I do not. And just to say that this resolution simply puts into words the map that we all approved last week. Thank you. You saved me the trouble of going to the Acting City Attorney for a brief explanation of that, but that is exactly what we are voting on. It's a lot of language that was carefully crafted by the Acting City Attorney as well as Planning Director Megan Tuttle and others to get us a resolution that draws out the maps, the ward boundaries in words. Are there any comments or questions from the council? Councillor Bergman. I just want to say that I obviously did not vote in favor of the map last week. I will vote in favor of this resolution because I believe that the voters have a right to vote on what we have adopted in the map. And so I think it's time to put this in front of the voters. I also think the same is true with the district and ward discussion and whether we should be having two counselors per ward. I continue to think that's the best approach, but think that opposition at this point is not appropriate. We should let the voters decide. Thank you, Councillor Bergman. Are there any other counselors who wish to, Councillor Carpenter? We'll get you a microphone at the next meeting. This is just a request for staff. We have that interactive map for the existing wards and I hope that this gets put into an interactive map so that people can go and put their address in and see where they'd land in the new configuration. You raise a good point in that. After the vote last week, there were a number of people who reached out to me and asked how they even find the map. While those of us at this table who have been looking at these maps for months know how to access them, it is not easy. And so I had asked that of the CIO, Barker, and I think that is being worked on. So thank you. If there are no other comments from counselors, we will go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion to waive the reading and adopt the resolution, which will place this item on the March Town Meeting Day ballot, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Very. Any opposed, please say no. That motion passes and that completes our deliberative agenda. And because we have already completed items eight, nine, 10, and 11, that brings us to an adjournment and the end of our agenda. I would just ask for a motion to adjourn. So made by Councilor Bergman and seconded by Councilor Freeman. All those in favor of the motion to adjourn, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, please say no. It is amazingly 8.34 and we are adjourned. Thank you for joining us this evening. This is our last meeting of 2022. Our next meeting will be January 9th, 2023. We wish everyone in our community a warm holiday season and every happiness in the new year. See you next year.


I remind members that, if the amendment in the name of Miles Briggs is agreed to, the amendment in the name of Mark Griffin will fall, and the question is that amendment 2625.1 in the name of Miles Briggs, which seeks to amend motion 2625 in the name of Patrick Harvie on a new deal for tenants be agreed, and members should cast their votes now. The vote is now closed. Can I call Jo FitzPatrick for a point of order? Thank you, Presiding Officer. I couldn't vote. I would have voted no. Thank you, Mr FitzPatrick. We'll ensure that's recorded. The result of the vote on amendment 2625.1 in the name of Miles Briggs is yes, 28, no, 89. There were no abstentions. The amendment is therefore not agreed. The next question is that amendment 2625.2 in the name of Mark Griffin, which seeks to amend motion 2625 in the name of Patrick Harvie on a new deal for tenants be agreed. Are we all agreed? Yes. The Parliament is not agreed, therefore we will move to a vote and members should cast their votes now. The vote is now closed. The result of the vote on amendment 2625.2 in the name of Mark Griffin is yes, 88, no, 28. There were no abstentions. The amendment is therefore agreed. The next question is that amendment 2625.3 in the name of Willie Rennie, which seeks to amend motion 2625 in the name of Patrick Harvie on a new deal for tenants be agreed. Are we all agreed? Yes. The amendment is therefore agreed. The fourth question is that motion 2625 in the name of Patrick Harvie as amended on a new deal for tenants be agreed. Are we all agreed? Yes. The Parliament is not agreed, therefore we will move to a vote and members should cast their votes now. The vote is now closed. The result of the vote on motion 2625 in the name of Patrick Harvie as amended is yes, 89, no, 28. There were no abstentions. The motion as amended is therefore agreed. The fifth question is that motion 2618 in the name of Keith Brown on police crime, sentencing and courts bill UK legislation be agreed. Are we all agreed? Yes. The motion is therefore agreed. I propose to ask a single question on three parliamentary bureau motions. Does any member object? No member has objected. The final question is that motions 2651, 2652 and 2653 in the name of George Adam on behalf of parliamentary bureau be agreed. Are we all agreed? Yes. The motion is therefore agreed. No. I am going to take Mercedes Villalba for a point of order. Sorry, I forgot to declare my interest at the start of my speech during the debate. I am a member of Acorn tenants union and Living Rent tenants union. Thank you, Ms Villalba. Your comment is on the record. As I was about to say, that concludes decision time. We will move on to members' business and I would be grateful if members leaving the chamber could do so quietly.