Great. So people are showing up. That's great. Hello, my name is Andy Simon. This is award five NPA for January. I'm going to be moderating the first part of the meeting until we get to the candidate forum. So, and then Nate Lanteri is going to take over. I want to just run through our brief introductory slides for those of you that might not be out. I have to go somewhere else here. Hold on. I can get them. I'm getting, I'm feeling proud of myself from being able to do it. So I'm going to let, I'm going to, I can get there. That's not where I am now. Let's try again. There. So here we are Ward five NPA. This I just want to point out that this logo was designed by Amy Radcliffe from Gotham City draft graphics in Ward five. And we're, we're very pleased with her work. So if you have any, any graphic graphic design to do contact Gotham City graphics. Here are guiding principles. We provide a safe space and a welcoming forum for everybody that shows up whether virtually or in person. We endeavor to be as accessible as we can, both physically accessible, at least in, in our various modes and to engage with all community members from whatever their perspective and to minimize barriers to participation. And along with that, we do our best to be respectful of all cultural economic political differences and we value diverse perspectives. And we hope that most of the time it's fun and creative as well. We never endorsed political candidates. And we try to be as nonpartisan as we can in all of our activities. The steering committee. Many of them are here tonight. And that will be changing actually. We're expecting a big turnover in the steering committee so if you are interested if you're listening to this, and you are interested in serving on the steering committee. I think we will notice very soon about availability of steering committee posts. And I think everybody who is currently on the steering committee would agree that it's actually a very engaging and fun way to serve the community so I encourage anybody to step up and join the join the steering committee. Over the next month or two. We have steering committee elections in usually in April or May but but we're going to be down to a bare bone steering committee pretty soon so we will accept early nominations I think we'd like to thank Sam Heinrichs who's there on site, anchoring the space for us at 645 Pine Street and is been doing a great job. And as Cito liaison for the NPA, thank you Sam. If you're not familiar with a zoom webinar format, you can go down to the bottom and, or sometimes to the top I guess to, and raise your hand. You can unmute. You can start your video if you're not if you don't have video. And that will get you oriented if you're ever having trouble speak up and we'll try to help you get get going. The agenda tonight. We're going to have public forum. That's usually scheduled for 20 minutes. We are going to do a brief election of the board five representative to the community development block grant advisory board. Then we'll have two candidate forums, starting with school board and then city council, and then Brian Pine or someone from Cito is going to talk to us about their, their proposal for a ballot item. And then we're going to have a downtown tax increment funding to do that great street a great streets makeover of lower main street. Here's our web page. We'll come back to this one. This is just to. You added you added that. Okay, it's not that in there. And public forum is going to open now and here are the brief ground rules. Please say your first and last name when you, when you start talking. Let us know where you live. We're going to have the board five or your street name. If you have an affiliation if you're speaking from some organization, please identify it. We're trying to limit people to five minutes max. And I as the moderator will let you know when four minutes is open. So for public forum is open. I know bill is here to speak at public forum. So why don't you go first. Cool. Yeah. Thank you. I really appreciate having the opportunity to speak with some folks. My name is bill Morris. I live on scarf avenue. My family and I have been in ward five for eight years before that we were up in the New North End, but I've lived in Vermont most of my life, and perhaps more permanently for the past couple of years I've been working as an elections official. I think I've probably seen many of you folks at BED on election day. But I am here to say that I am running for the post of inspector of elections. This will be voted on town meeting day. And I would appreciate your support in us in seeking that position. I just say, I'm running as an independent because I think it's essentially a non partisan position. It's about making voting as easy as smooth as possible. But that said, I do have a platform. I think that the things that I've seen over the course of the pandemic with voting accessibility have been absolutely wonderful. The universal mail in ballot system and the citywide drop boxes have absolutely increased voter turnout and that's something that is of great importance to me as a, you know, as a citizen, seeing an engaged electorate. And I think that a summary of my platform for this position is just to say I think voting should be as broadly available and as easily accessible as possible. And I think from the position of inspector of elections I'd like to take the responsibilities on that can drive that forward. So if you if you think anything similar if you if you agree with my general sense there, I would appreciate your support on town meeting day. And I think this might not be the moment for it but I'm also happy to take any questions. And my email is bill at Bill Morris that IO, if you want to hit me up there. But otherwise, thank you for your time I hope I've made it in under the four to five minute range. You actually have two minutes left if you want to say anything. No, I'll spare folks I think I mentioned this at a candidate forum earlier but I'm fortunate in this case that inspector of elections has a very narrow portfolio an important one but a narrow portfolio. And I think I've, I've already expressed how I, you know, my general sense of it. So thank you again for your time folks. Thank you. Thank you very much. Who else is here for public forum. Anyone else would like to speak for public forum. Billy. Yeah, I will. I'll say something quick for public forum. Hi I'm Billy Clark I'm one of the ward five and PA steering committee members I live on Locust Terrace. I forget what else I'm supposed to say I think that's it to start off. I just wanted to express my gratitude for this neighborhood and for this group in particular just the NPA and and you know, our community as a whole. So I am currently on day 16 of being quarantined in my house after the Omicron variant has very slowly made its way through all four members of my household. And we are all relatively symptom free now we took our first walk outside of the house today. I just wanted to say how nice it has been in a time where so many government institutions are falling below where we may want them to be to have had the support of my neighbors and just everyone around to get through this really stretch. Very much looking forward to getting the kids back into their daycare right down the street. But yeah, it's it's been an adventure and I just wanted to express my gratitude to any and all who've helped out so, and just to tell everyone to try to pass that spirit along. I've seen so much of that in the neighborhood and it's, it's heartening in times where we're not always finding that kind of support. Thank you Billy. And I'm glad you're getting outside now. Carolyn, you have to unmute Carolyn. I see your hand raised. There you go. I just wanted to know how many inspector of elections we have per ward. Is it one or two or three or four. That's actually three. And they're on a rotating electoral cycle. So one position is up this year. I think there'll be another next. And there's also a ward clerk, Michael Healy who administers the entire system. That's also an elective position. I'm not sure when he's up for. So we just have one one opening now. Right, exactly. Okay, thank you for running. Yeah, for sure. That's it. All right, I didn't understand this panelist saying that someone was asking for. There's wish. Okay. That's all right. You were asking about us to be a panelist or something. It's just just so you could speak Carolyn and show. Oh, okay. Thank you. Michael, did you want to add anything to that about the, the ward clerk or the inspector of election position. I'll only add that Bill has been an amazing part of our team and I hope people will elect him so he can keep doing it for three more years. Good, good plug. Anybody else for public forum. Oh, Joe, you want to go. Raise my real hand. Sure. Okay. How much we're going to comment that there had been some emails that we got for as a steering committee about street lighting. There was street lighting project that moved in through the addition neighborhood and think Lyman Richardson was the most recent spot. And just some thought that it's got a lot brighter. And the Wellington Electric Commission met last week. And there was a presentation about the street lighting and some discussion that followed that that might be interesting to folks so I'll make sure that the YouTube video link is in the minutes. But if that's something that you've been keeping an eye on those projects are going to continue to move through, you know, various neighborhoods, they've definitely been to my block. And, you know, I hope that they can push some of the light levels down personally, but we'll see what happens as that process moves forward that they're kind of adjusting their targets, I suppose. So hopefully they'll adjust the targets. We need a little bit of community feedback. Can I ask you a question about that. What, what has been when you've been talking to be ED what has been the rationalization of the rationale for increasing the light level. Well, there is a specification. Was it the illuminating engineering society. Yes specification that's being followed. There's different classifications of roads, you know, like a out on children road to be a higher light level than in the middle of say, you know, the grid of the neighborhood. So that's part of it, but there actually is a number for the average amount of light hitting the sidewalk and then average amount of light reflecting off of the roadway. And also the minimum of each of those that they try to sort of you know because there's lighting fixtures and they try to balance it out across the entire area. So, they're trying to follow that but the questions are, you know, maybe we could do a little bit more follow up on on measuring afterward. To make sure that those modeling targets were actually hit. Because I think in some cases, it's a little bit uneven. But I'm putting a lot of my opinion into this. Unfortunately, I shouldn't do that. If you're interested in this topic. I'll, I'll share that and then we can potentially have DPW in or sorry, Burlington Electric in in the spring is what I was hearing might be a good time. And they could present on what's coming up next and if anything has changed as far as these, you know, levels. Thank you. That might have been four minutes. Sorry. No, that was that was a great explanation. Nate, did you want to say something. Hi everyone, Nate Lanterri live on Pine Street. And I'm also on the steering committee. But in my life outside of this world, I work at CV OEO on their housing advocacy team. And I just wanted to plug two resources that exist for folks, whether you would need to use them, or someone you might know, they're really great. Housing stabilization instruments that are available both for renters and for homeowners. For renters, the program's called the Vermont emergency rental assistance program. It has some pretty flexible guidelines in terms of who is eligible for it. It's really just an income based thing, but the income levels are pretty high. Regardless of if you owe back rent, or even if you are just trying to, you know, kind of stay stable in this time. It's able to pay for up to 12 months of your rent and your utilities as a grant. So in Burlington where housing is so expensive, this could be like a really, really significant thing, especially for for low or medium income families. So that again was called the Vermont emergency rental assistance program that's being run by the Vermont State Housing Authority. But if you'd like some assistance with an application CV OEO, which is actually in word five, it's word five nonprofit on South Champlain Street, can assist you with applications in that. So if you are a homeowner and need assistance bang for either mortgage or back property taxes, as well as utilities and a few other resources, a few other sources to. There's another program called the housing assistance program. Also known as HAP or might be homeowners assistance program. Regardless the acronyms HAP, and it's being run by the Vermont Housing Finance Authority, VHFA. Both of them great resources VRAP has been rolling for a little while so the process to get into it's a little bit smoother. The homeowner assistance program is a little bit newer so there may be some kinks at this early stage but relatively easy to apply for all things considered and it can make a really huge difference, either in, you know, your own stability and staying in this community or someone that you might know. And both of them you can get assistance at CV OEO to apply for those things so just a plug. You know, these kinds of stabilization things might not exist in the future it's, I guess the one benefit of COVID is that there's actually funding for for social programs so I recommend all folks if you think you might be eligible just at least explore it. There's a lot of stigma against social, you know receiving social support but at this time it's it's such an essential thing. So use it that's why we have them. That's my plug and that's all. Thanks everyone. Thank you Nate. Anyone else for public forum. These make some noise or raise your hand. Well, seeing no one raising their hand. I think we should move along to the next item on our agenda which is the CDBG. The Community Development Block Grant Advisory Board representative election. We've so far had two people who have expressed interest in in the position this is a position volunteer position that serves on an advisory board that that distributes federal money that comes in as a block grant into Burlington, divided up by the advisory board. And it's a very important job with with some responsibility for showing up to meetings which I assume are virtual these days. With Nancy has Nancy Stetson who's here today has served the last two years thank you Nancy serving on that board and last last meeting Nancy did a little explanation of what that entailed and and what the benefits to you personally are. And I guess this not in a monetary sense but in a sense of public service and learning about how this how the city works and how these funds are distributed. Is there anyone else besides Ilona Blanchard and Nate Lanteri who've expressed an interest already who is interested in putting their name forward for this position. Not seeing anyone or hearing anyone. So I what I would like to do we're going to do a little election but I would like to do is give each candidate a chance just a minute or two to present yourself. Just give a little description of who you are and why you're interested in serving Ilona would you like to go first. Hi. Sure. Sorry. So sorry. I feel like I'm terrible at this and I'm so Ilona Blanchard. I've lived in the city of south of Burlington I work for the city of south Burlington and community development. I've lived in Burlington since 2012 and in Ward 5 since 2013 we live on South Champlain Street. I have a strong interest obviously in community development. I've actually spent CDPG funds so I'm a little bit familiar with the program. But especially I'm very supportive of the types of initiatives and projects they can be used for both capital and for community operations operations of community organizations of those types of supporting those types of outcomes and so I was interested because I have not been involved in the community as much since I've moved here more just on my street and with my neighbors but not so much on a broader scale and this seemed like a good opportunity to very sort of start to give back to the wider community in an area where I do have some knowledge but also would learn a lot definitely from about what's going on specifically in Burlington and the particular needs of the greater city of Burlington and be able to contribute in terms of helping to look through applications and evaluate them in terms of each other. Thank you very much. Nate would you like to tell us who you are and why you're interested. Sure thing. Hi everyone. Nate Lanterri. I've been a Burlington resident since 2015. I've been in the south end since 2018 and for the past few years and pretty much like my whole adult life I've really just been so fascinated with the way that this like massive I always think of it in this metaphor this massive ship that is a city what goes into actually steering the wheel of like what is the machinery behind making this place work. However, I've never really seen behind the curtain of what that what that machinery actually looks like. I've kind of been tangentially getting involved in different ways, you know through the past few years and just kind of various community development related things. Starting with a study community development in school at UVM and did my senior thesis on the Burlington planning system. And that was kind of my first taste of really getting involved and and through these past few years I've kind of been trying to figure out ways to just get behind that curtain. I keep getting back to this current metaphor and it's not really going anywhere. So, yeah, that's really it I've never been in a position where I'm actually helping make the decisions on how money is spent in this kind of urban urban planning world is urban development world. I've always been at the the grantee stage. So kind of getting that perspective change. How do different bodies interface with the city. How does the citizen board interface with the city. How does it all get wrapped up in public participation and engagement. How is it solicited, you know what nonprofits are going to be participating in this and applying for it. All those things that sound so dry are just like infinitely fascinating to me. So, really I'm just hoping to serve in this committee to one get that. I can't leave it peek behind the curtain, see what's going on. And just to kind of continue giving back to this place that I've really loved and if you know just kind of tried to find ways to continue to get back to it because it's given me so much. So, if I got your support I'd really appreciate it and you know but it sounds like we'll be in great hands regardless of who ends up on this committee. So thanks everyone. Thank you, Nate. Now I'm going to turn it over to Joe dairy to explain how we vote. Joe, could you take that over. Are you there. Yes. Okay, great. Yeah, sorry I meant to unmute before I did the screen sharing clicking. All right. So, I guess I don't have screen share on but that's a pretty big font. What we'd like to do is, I, is there anyone other than our Cito rep in the in the room in on pine street I guess there we could have like a paper ballot is what I was thinking of course I'm not there to help. Otherwise I would like people to go to NPA five dot org which is our website slash vote and pay five dot org slash vote, and then there's just a link there to the Google form. And that makes it. That's just seem like the least awkward way for us to administer this election. It looks like I already had one or two or three or five responses. I guess it's working. Okay, I'll just leave that screen share open for a moment. And then I, I don't know maybe we'll, you know, move on with the next item and circle back to this, you think to announce the decision. Let's give people a minute because I'm going to vote to just to get to get to that site and see if anybody has any troubles with it. The form. Right. Is, is everybody finding their way there that wants to vote you can do it over. Okay. No, I can't find I can't get there. Can you give us a few more minutes please. Absolutely. And you can continue voting. Throughout the meeting, I don't think that you need to do it. Right away. I think that would be fine. It could. We probably will should have a endpoint. So that we can announce the winner but I think you should take your time getting there and and if, you know, in the course of the meeting if you're having still having trouble we could do probably stop for a minute and have a little tutorial if anybody needs help. Andy, I go to that site but then there's nothing telling me where to vote. Yeah, that's just a little underlined link I guess I could have made a little bit more bright. I don't understand this. If you click January 2022 CDBG, it brings you to the form. So it doesn't look like a link but if you just click right on that title it'll bring you to the form. And it says yes all right but then there are a whole bunch of underlines which ones do we click on. There about eight click underlines on here so I don't know which ones we do for the voting string. Maybe I'll show you what it looks like for me and then you can tell me why it doesn't look the same. So this is npa5.org slash vote. And then you just got this guy. The idea was that you wouldn't have to type in this whole mix of characters on the Google form. So we are trying to make it a little bit less typing. So this is what it looks like you have like our little, I guess I could have gone a little smaller with this image. And then right here is a link for CDBG. Right and you click on that and then you have 18 different things you can click on. Well click on it. See. Oh, well, I didn't get that. I have a whole list of. No, I didn't get that. You know, you could also, let me just do this real time. If you want to email your vote to like our mail list, we could probably tackle that too. Right. We can only vote for one person. Generally. Yeah. We don't have a, we don't have an alternate. So, yeah, I guess if it was a steering committee, you could vote for up to nine, but. How does it work? You bring your. That's right. The typing contest. Yeah, that's the right, that's the right address. So you see, I, I'm still sharing right. I typed the. I make this bigger. Let's see if I can break screen sharing about that. It's not going to work. I found it. There it is. Now it's huge. More five NPA and our score BTV at Google groups.com. That's our email address. It's even more typing than the original thing, but probably will work for you if you're having trouble with the forms. You may have to be logged into a Google account or something kooky like that. So, maybe I just didn't experience that hurdle. Hi, everybody doing. If anyone needed that email address. Go ahead and do it that way otherwise you can use the form. And let's give it, I think we should just like go through the next agenda item and then circle back one or two items. And then come back to announce. Let's do that. And if we, if we need more assistance, we'll, we'll go to that. Right. Or you can just email that. If you want to, you can email that list for, for assistance to the extent we can figure out how to help you in this. It was easier when we just tore up little pieces of paper and just be like, pass them around. Yeah. All right. The next item on our agenda is candidate form. And I'm sorry, Joe, can you stop your screen share so we get off that. Thank you. And Nate, in his many roles tonight is now going to be the moderator of the candidate forum for school board and then for city council. Thank you, Nate. Of course, and thank you all for joining us tonight at our ward five candidate forum. It should be really interesting conversation, get a chance to hear from school board candidate as well as some city council candidates. Just as a reminder town meeting day is on March 1st, first Tuesday of the month I'm pretty sure it's the first this year. It is in fact March 1st. And ballots should be coming out in mid February. So be on the lookout for those. That's why we're doing this so early traditionally the NPA candidate forum is in the February meeting, but you know, timelines change so we change with them. We're going to start out with our, our school board forum. From my understanding there is only one announced school board candidate in ward five. And I would say if you happen to be a school board candidate, and you're on this call and you are not yet announced. Now would be a great time to do so. Otherwise, we're going to just go forward with it being one candidate in this forum. So, without much further ado, I can introduce our school board candidate and then is Lucia Campriolo. She'll be joining us for this forum tonight and typically in these kind of settings we would have a you know a little bit of time for back and forth, but you know, because she is the only candidate. There's going to be a little bit more of an abbreviated session in terms of that. So, just in terms of layout. We're going to start with a four minute opening statement where Lucia can kind of just run through whatever she would like to do and then we have some more targeted questions that have been solicited from you all. So, that's a reminder to all folks who are joining us tonight. If you ever see a chance to get engaged, if you ever see a chance to ask a question of your candidates, typically on front porch forum, fill it out. It takes just a minute and it helps us out and it helps kind of create more of this community sense as we're going through these things. So, with that, Lucia, the floor is before that, I'm going to pause one more time because I see Andy is raising his hand. I just wanted to add that I did confirm with Jordan Butterfield at CCTV that they are also going to have a candidate forum for the Ward City Councilor and School Board positions. And the date hasn't been announced yet because of the fact that the deadline for candidacies hasn't expired yet, hasn't happened yet. So, there will be at least one other opportunity, a formal candidate forum to listen to the candidate for the two offices. Thanks, Andy, for that. And be on the lookout. Now that we have this heads up, we'll post it on front porch forum once the date is finalized. So, now without much further ado, I'll pass it to Lucia for your opening statement. Awesome. Hi, everybody. Thank you so much, Nate, for the warm welcome, Andy, you as well. Thanks so much to my friends and colleagues on the steering committee for hosting this conversation. And thanks to you all for choosing to spend your time in this way tonight. As Nate and Andy said, my name is Lucia Cambriolo. I have lived in Burlington, South End for about six and a half years now. My husband Joe and I moved to Burlington when our oldest daughter, Angeline was 15 months. She's now in second grade at Champlain Elementary School. And our younger daughter Sophia is four and a half. She moved up her last year of pre K at Pine Forest Children's Center, which is just down on Flynn Avenue in our neighborhood as well. So, some of you might know me from my service as steering committee member on this word, words NPA, or as a board member at Generator, which is the maker space over on Sears Lane, where I chair the fundraising committee. My husband spent a lot of time in that space doing some very cool things. I also serve as a board member with the Vermont Association for the Education of Young Children where I participate on the finance committee. And professionally, I'm the chief engagement officer at Let's Grow Kids where I lead our organization's fundraising campaign to resource the work it takes to transform Vermont's zero to five child care system. Oh dear. Am I still here? Okay, great. Sorry, I just got a funny zoom message that I had been signed out and that is likely because we have had just a rotation of book buddy sessions with grandparents all week. Well, we've had some outages in our child care. But good, glad to know I'm still here. So, yeah, so upon learning that Mike Fisher and to step down as our wards school board commissioner, I reached out to him to learn a little bit more about the role. And I have to say, after my first cup of coffee with him my initial reaction was whoa. It was an even bigger job than I realized, although I was fully prepared to hear him describe it as incredibly hard work and also very rewarding work. He didn't totally scare me off. I was still curious. And so I began adding the friends neighbors community members community leaders a handful of board members who are currently serving, really to learn more about the work and also to hear what's on the horizon for the district. So Mike and I kept having coffee I continued my listening to her and I also spent some time reflecting on what motivates me and brings me joy. And I landed on two things.  But more broadly my commitment to children and also to supporting vulnerable populations has been central to my career over the past two decades in a variety of ways in several sectors. And secondly, I'm motivated by a challenge like my current job, for example, where I'm leading this $50 million fundraising campaign to resource let's grow kids mission, which is to change policy and substantially increase public investment in Vermont's childcare system. This is something that no state in the country has achieved for its children. It's incredibly challenging work. It's motivating and it's rewarding all at once. So it's really with a passion to serve a commitment to children and being a parent of now almost two children in our public school system that I see no better time than now to raise my hand and run for Ward five school board commissioner. So just to close, I want to thank Mike Fisher for his service over the past several years and also for his support throughout my campaign. I'm also grateful to many neighbors who've shared their time and insights with me over the past several weeks, and I look forward to continuing to meet many more of you along the way. And then again, I'm grateful to you all for being here tonight and for the conversation that we'll have together. Thanks. Thank you, Alicia, right on time. And if I do this, it's backwards dang it. I'll still do it anyways and it'll you'll you'll be able to talk. It'll be enough. Thanks. Yeah, so it's normal. It's normal for us it's mirroring it on on your end. Oh, it looked normal for you good to know. Okay, that's weird that it does that, but we'll roll with it. Yeah, so we have a few questions for you, Lucia that like I said they came in from from folks who responded to our forum that we put out. So we'll go through these and, you know, about three minutes on each of them that kind of gets us right at the time that we're looking at. So the first one for you is, what do you think are the three biggest challenges ahead for the school board. And then how will you contribute to dealing with them. So it's kind of a bigger question, but really not for that. Great, thank you. So let's see three challenges to come to mind quite readily for me facing us in 2022 and the ones that I'll highlight tonight include the high school and the pandemic. I'm going to start with the high school, which is perhaps the biggest and most immediate challenge facing not just the school district but our entire community. And that's financing the high school. So we are in the unfortunate position of having to raise revenue in a moment when taxpayers are stretched and stressed. And at the same time we need a high school that our community can be proud of and that our students deserve, not just to fulfill our obligation of providing quality education to our children, but also in order to attract more families to Burlington who will contribute to our city's tax base. So I really see the challenge being before the district, developing a plan that is physically palatable that leverages all available funding sources and that honors education as a cornerstone of a healthy community. Shifting gears a little bit as it relates to the pandemic. You know, as we approach the two year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic, I cannot help but think daily about how stretched our administrators or teachers and our staff are, as well as of course, our families and our students. And I also think a lot about the external pressures that the pandemic has placed on academic achievement and its accentuation of disparities that existed already among our students within the district. And so I'm hopeful that over the course of this year that we'll find ourselves in a different position from a public health perspective as we move through 2022. However, I worry about how we will position ourselves as again a district and a community to fully recover in the coming years and support the generations of students, the generation of students rather who whose academic lives have then upended. All right. Thank you, Lucia. And let me restart my timer. That brings us to our next question, which is, how do you plan to engage word five families, both the children and their parents in school board decision making. This is cool. Okay, great. So thanks. So I think the place to start with this question is to reflect that I really think of the school board as doing two things primarily, community engagement and governance. Within the governance bucket, you have kind of financial oversight, support and oversight of the superintendent, policy development monitoring, but ultimately community engagement and governance are entirely interdependent. Stakeholder participation is what informs good policy and it's absolutely imperative. So I think what I would share is, let's see, there are a handful of formal ways in which the school board supports community engagement. For example, board meetings, committee meetings, just like these NPA meetings, those are open meetings, the public can participate. There is an opportunity to both contribute to the conversation as well as to listen and to learn. Those meetings are publicized on the BSD website, materials are provided, and I would encourage folks to tune in if they're able. And then there are community meetings like this one, like PTO meetings, other community meetings that I think are good opportunities for community members to access and contribute to district-wide conversations. Opportunities to raise concerns, raise awareness, and be in community with other stakeholders who share an interest in our district. I think advisory groups are another kind of more formal mechanism in which community members can participate in decision making, and I would cite the examples related to the strategic planning process that's underway right now with parent advisory groups, student advisory groups, etc. But I also realize that the formal nature of these forums can also present barriers to participation, and so I see great value in leveraging our ward's community-based organizations that have deep connections to families within the district, so that we can ensure that we're supporting those opportunities to participate in spaces where families and children are naturally gathering. And lastly, I will say that I think some of the most rich and valuable participation comes from students themselves. So students are living in our education system every day. Their personal experiences reveal a lot about what's working, what's working well, and what's working less well. And on a personal note, I am incredibly inspired by the student activists who are right now calling upon lawmakers in Montpelier to pass policies that promote climate change and equity and anti-racism in Vermont schools. Great. Thank you, Lucia. And this is the last of our scheduled questions for you, but at the end of it, I'll also give you time just to do a one minute kind of wrap up closing statements, share your links and stuff. So this is kind of a combination of a few questions we put together around people waiting and funding for schools. So how will New Vermont people waiting formulas affect Burlington? And from your perspective, what needs to be done at the state level to more equitably fund our schools? Okay, so the first thing I want to do is acknowledge that I am not an expert yet in education finance policy, and it might be a high bar to aspire to become an expert, but I sure will try. I am learning a ton and I'm really eager to continue to learn. So what I can offer now is really that the people waiting factors report of 2019, which was commissioned by the legislature and researched by folks at UVM and also at Rutgers. Basically concluded that Vermont doesn't currently recognize the actual costs of educating some of its students, including those who attend smaller schools, who come from under resourced families and households who live in rural areas and for whom English is either a second language or English language learners. What it means is that school districts in Vermont, like Burlington school districts that serve more diverse populations are underfunded. So the 2019 report made some recommendations to adjust the weights to create equity within the funding formula. And more recently, a legislative task force made a set of different recommendations on the subject that are currently under review with the House and Senate. So, you know, again, ultimately to fulfill our obligation to all of our students, our district requires adjustments be made to the state's funding formula. And I think the good news in this conversation is that there is a role for all of us and all of you. I guess this is my CTA moment for you. And that's to advocate for equity and fairness within our funding formula so that districts across the state and in Burlington have the resources they need to do their jobs. And so what I mean by advocate is you can contact your legislators. You can go online and look them up if you don't know readily who they are. You'll find all of their contact information across the House and Senate and you can reach them directly and lend your voice to the conversation and reflect to them what's important to you in the funding formula in your hometown in Burlington. All right. Thank you so much, Lucia. And yeah, you got one minute, just kind of any closing thoughts, any links anywhere people can get back in touch with you. So yours for a minute. The link thing is hilarious because I have a square space website so it's the most complicated link of all time. But I know that Scott Paddock will put it in the minutes and I will read it out as well. But first, I just want to thank, thank you, Nate, for monitoring tonight's conversation. It was fun. And really just that I had three goals for tonight. The first was just to introduce my candidacy for award five school board commissioner. And the second was to reflect for you some of the values that I would bring to the role. And the third is to invite you to support my candidacy on March 1 with your vote. So I hope that I think I did accomplish those goals. You'll choose on March 1. I really welcome the opportunity to continue the conversation. And so, again, I know Scott is going to put a whole bunch of good contact information in the notes. But you can find me and this is where I really laugh. Interesting decision on my part. Lucia for spelled out for be as in Burlington S as in school D as in district. Thank you, Lucia for joining us tonight. And with that, we are going to shift our gears a little bit over to the second of our two forums. This being for the word five city council seat. Yeah, we have two candidates that are here tonight. We have been traverse and for read Menarsia. And as a reminder, the election will be on March 1 with ballots coming out at the middle of February so be on the lookout for those. And if this conversation is so inspiring to you and you want to get involved in your community, you can the NPA is always looking for engaged folks to help out and join this team. It's a pretty fun and flexible body that we can do a lot of things that some of the other arms of government in our city can't do. So that's my last pitch might not be my last pitch but it is a pitch. And with that, I will have been and freed can on on. Sorry video and join the screen and I will try and spot you guys. Let's see. So that's one spotlight. And here is number two. All right. And I'll do myself as well in a moment because I'll give you time queues throughout. Same deal as with Lucia four minutes for an opening statement can kind of be whatever you want it to be. And then we'll have a series of questions where it'll be three minutes each and I'll give you. You know, I'll give you my phone on the screen at one minute left in each of those chunks. And then at the end one minute for closing statement. So for me, I have Bill and you have built and maybe I did that. Yeah, you might have done that. Very appreciate that. Thank you.  All right. Yeah, I guess that's just my end. So with that, let's start with our opening statements. And we'll just start it alphabetical. So Ben, why don't you start with your four minute opening statement and like I said be on the lookout for my cues for time. Great. And thanks, Nate. I guess I should start just in case my dad's watching I should start and say that my name is actually pronounced Ben Travers not traverse, but you guys can call me whatever you want. So thanks for everyone for coming out tonight on cold evening. So many of you are feeling this pandemic perhaps more so now than at any point in the last couple years. My heart goes out to the parents in particular who seem to be dealing with contact tracers or close contacts on a daily basis. I agree with Lucia here thanks as well to the ward five NPA for hosting this forum. I think I'm the most senior now steering committee member for the work five NPA I'm in my fifth year. I've been on your end organizing many of these forums deeply respect the work that goes into it and the work that you're doing for the community. So thank you very much. Same goes as well to our great representatives from CEDO and from town meeting TV. So like I said, my name is Ben Travers. I've been a resident of Burlington for most of the past decade. I work as a lawyer downtown and our family of five lives on South Crest Drive in the addition neighborhood. I just finished a couple hours ago cooking dinner for my three kids. My oldest daughter Lola is a first grader right down the street at Champlain Elementary. My four year old Jack and six month old now Zoe go to preschool here in Burlington. We love this city. We love our neighborhood and we are invested in its future. I'm running because I believe local government plays a unique role in our day to day lives. The water from our faucets, the lights that are on in our homes, the sidewalks, bike paths and roads we take to and from work in school. The parks we play in with our kids are all local government. I'm running with the intent to recommit our city council to these local issues to work as a fair minded consensus builder and to listen to and respect all points of view. I don't enter this race with a particular ideology or political agenda. My commitment is to view every decision through the lens of whether it's making life better and easier for all my neighbors from all walks of life. I understand the importance of community. My family would not have made it through some tough times without the support of friends and neighbors. Our community in our neighborhoods, our schools, our workplaces and among family and friends is what props us up and allows us to thrive. In Burlington, I'm driven to serve that community that makes the city so great. This is why a couple years ago I joined the Burlington Parks Commission that I'm now the chair of to be a better steward of our outdoor spaces. It's why five years ago I joined the steering committee of this neighborhood planning assembly where I've worked with my colleagues here to I hope from your perspective as neighbors build more open and inclusive spaces for community dialogue. It's why a number of years ago when I was a renter in the five sisters, I joined the city's housing board of review to assist tenants and landlords in resolving security deposit disputes and uphold minimum housing standards. It's why during the pandemic, I've regularly delivered food and other essentials to neighbors throughout Burlington. I look forward to discussing the issues tonight and as the campaign moves forward, such as issues related to housing, affordability, how we can help our houseless neighbors, how we can ease the tax burden placed on board five neighbors in particular in the wake of the recent citywide reassessment, how we can help families find more affordable quality childcare, how we can continue to make public safety reform in a responsible manner, still founded in racial equity and justice, and how we can expand upon opportunities to have community driven projects in our parks. Finally, I want to say hello to my friend Farid. Congratulations Farid on getting the progressive party endorsement. I consider you to be a friend. I hope you feel the same way about me. I've appreciated our dialogue over the years. Look forward to our discussing the issues tonight and keeping that dialogue going forward through the campaign and thereafter. Thanks very much for having me. Thank you Ben. So Farid it is your time for an opening statement you have four minutes. Hi. Hi, my name is Farid. I've lived in Ward five in the five sisters for most of my life. I am joining this race as a volunteer for a electoral campaign project to bring more direct democracy to Burlington. We have a set of charter change that we would like to present to all the voters. And we would like your support and your signature so we can vote as a city to incorporate some of this direct democracy mechanism into our elections in November. I believe that Burlington is a very unique community and I feel blessed to have been living here most of my life. I do know there are a lot of incredible things going on in the community. And although we are now facing multiple challenges with the pandemic, the climate change and all these other major things going on in the world as a community. We have what it takes to not just survive but also to thrive. I do think participation is key. And whenever there is important conversation happening, such as this one where decisions are made where visions are discussed. The first thing we should always do is to look around the table and see who is not there who is not present whose voices are not being represented. And I think we could do much better as a community on that front. I'm running to promote direct democracy of Burlington as an outlier in Vermont, in terms of voters ability to propose solutions and to make to enact policies that are popular. I think majority rules. So please take some time to check out our website. There are two charter change that we want to put on the ballot for the November election. And we will be collecting as many signatures as we can on the town meeting day. So please check out proposition zero dot org and people for police accountability dot com. These are two charter changes that we are hoping to incorporate into our city charter. One is to hold our police department accountable to an independent body that's also accountable to us. And one, the other one is to set up the mechanism and to grant the, the voters are Burlington the power to put ballot questions on during the election and to initiate a ballot measure using by collecting enough signatures. So proposition zero dot board. Place, take a look. And people for police accountability dot com. And I do consider Ben a friend and I'm really. Very defrost there for a second, but I think we got you now. It was just during your wrap up anyways. And no problem. And sorry for distracting you with me dropping my phone. So something that you mentioned kind of goes into what our first question is going to be and we're not starting with a softball folks, the future of policing and public safety and still a major question in Burlington. What do you see as the future of public safety? Do you support and then these are kind of two second secondary aspects of it? You know, touch on them if you can support the CNA report and do you support an independent independent police review board. So freed I'll start with you for the sake of parody. So, um, I heard the mayor say that he would like to be able to live in a community where the police is no longer necessary. And I do think most of Burlington share that sentiment. Unfortunately, I do think there has been a loss of trust. In our law enforcement. And I believe that there needs to be a lot more accountability mechanism in place for the Department of the city. I mean, if even if Burlington Police Department has perfect record, any government, any part of the government that is empowered to take a life should always be should always have more scrutiny and should be the standards of behavior should be set really high for any part of the government that we empower to not just save life but to also take lives. So, and that's with any agency and I do think like looking at the history of the department, it is it is troubling to me to see how many people have been killed under this administration. We have had more civilians died behind the police. In the last 10 years, I compared to like all the other previous administration combined and to me that's not acceptable. And so we got to do much, much better when it comes to holding the police accountable and how to rebuild like that the trust that's been lost between law enforcement and our community. Thank you. And, Ben, same question. Future of policing and public safety is still a major question Burlington. What do you see as a future of public safety. And then as an aside, do you support the CNA report, and do you support an independent police review board. Great. Thanks, Nate. So, in talking about policing and public safety, I think it's important for me to first acknowledge that my lived experience is different than that of many of our neighbors. And I think when we look at policing and look at public safety, it's important that we put ourselves into the shoes of others who have very different lived experiences than my own. I agree that that law enforcement is unnecessary. But what I do think is that securing our public safety requires a comprehensive approach, considering all of our diverse communities that does not rely completely on law enforcement. I think that we've put law enforcement in a position to do to do much beyond traditional police work and we need to find ways to change that. There's no easy answers. But some ideas is continued investment and alternative public safety resources like community service officers, other mental health professionals, restorative justice programs. I will say, for example, on the Parks Commission, we played a role in the development of this new position that we'll see in the next couple years of an urban park ranger. It'll be an education driven position in our parks under the parks department, not the police department to the end of also enforcing rules and regulations in our parks. I like the idea of alternative resources like that. You asked specifically about the CNA report, the city council in a bipartisan fashion ended up voting in favor of that if I was on the city council at the time. I likely would have shared that vote. But we don't have a police chief right now. And I think we need to restart the effort to hire highly qualified police chief who will ensure that we recruit, retain, train law enforcement officers dedicated to our community and committed to eliminating bias policing. I'd also agree with free to the extent that I'd like to explore how to best establish an independent body with the authority to fully investigate claims regarding law enforcement. And finally, if you don't mind, you know, because I think public safety when we talk about public safety is a broad issue that goes beyond just policing. I just want to take the opportunity to note that I think we could also invest in innovative approaches to prevent opioid overdose and recommit our community to saving lives lost to that other endemic in our community. Thank you, Ben. And I just want to be conscious of time it seems as though we did not schedule enough time for for the session of our meeting unfortunately. Brian Pine, I see is on our call. Would it be okay. You could even just do a race handler a thumbs up if we went just a few extra minutes on this. I see that he on video on turn this video on. That's a thumbs up there it is. All right, so we'll we'll go. It's a 20 work run. That's the second thumbs up so we'll go until a 20 for this. And that means I get more questions to ask you all. So shifting gears a little bit. But what can city government do to support and ultimately house Burlington's houseless residents that I will start with you then. Yeah, great. So, for our neighbors who are houseless and I think it's important that they are our neighbors. I mean, I consider the folks were living down in Sears Lane to be our neighbors here on board five. I believe we need more open transparent and empathy driven practices. I know free did a lot of work with the folks who are living down in Sears Lane and I think that the folks who are living there and our other houseless neighbors around the city deserve a whole lot more empathy, as we provide diverse supports for individuals that have differing needs. So again, I think a comprehensive approach is necessary to actually achieve housing first for all. So some ideas are for the short term, creating and identifying additional emergency housing options based on the state's hotel motel model. We need a long term solution. We need to dedicate more significant resources to the development of more long term stable housing with appropriate resources. I think we also need more low barrier or no barrier housing. And for those shelters that currently exists, we need to provide them with resources to ensure that folks can stay there that they don't have to leave with their belongings during the day and return in the evening. This is also a creation of a position full time position in the city a housing advocate to address the houselessness crisis and to end homelessness in Burlington in partnership with other community organizations. And look, this is not just a Burlington issue like so many issues this is an issue that's felt in in not our community but all of our surrounding communities and to do more. I think we need to work closer with federal state and regional partners. I think I saw representative bloom Lee on here I know that she's dedicated to this at the state level and we need to be working with those partners to do more on the issue. Thank you Ben. And for a same question, which is, what can the city government do to support and ultimately house Burlington's houseless residents. I think you do begin the question kind of saying this was somewhat unrelated to the first question but I see the question of public safety and housing actually is to be very interrelated. I first found out about serious lane and the homeless encampment about a year and a half ago. There were some discussions about how to remove them in the main way that was happening, but there was not much involvement by the community and members of the neighbors were renters and definitely there was no involvement by the people who are actually living at serious lane. And I saw the pattern repeated over and over again. When I first learned about search lane there was four people living there, and over a year and a half like the city made promises about how they would not come up with a solution for serious lane. But none of those promises as materialized, where, when the city also closed down all the other encampments, everybody then ended up at serious lane so we went from for unhoused individuals living there in July 2020 to what we saw two months ago where there was like almost 2000 people living there. I do think housing is a human right. And I've heard people in charge also say that, but you know it's time for me to reconcile why like if we have so many people in making the decision actually profit up housing, how can that be a human right. And I'm not sure what the answer is, I do know Boston, New Mayor recently took a different attack with their homeless population like they actually started building this tiny home that ended up costing the city about $6,000 per individual and think like how much money we actually gave out for example to the police officer $10,000 each like we actually could have housed every homeless person in Barley for not much money and probably save money in the long long term. All right. Thank you for reading. Our next question is another word five specific one here and that is where do you stand on the conservation of the barge canal Superfund site. I will start with you. I'm actually not as familiar with this issue and I'm still learning about what is involved, but I do know that there is a concern about the condition of that location with it being a Superfund site or being right next to one I don't think we should be building housing there. You know, like, it would probably be more affordable but it's because the qualities and so good. I do think it's important to conserve the open spaces that we have and your Barlington actually has pretty diverse ecosystems that are going to be really useful to all of us. It's preserving. I do know that there is an alternative proposal being worked on by a grassroots community organization about what to do. And a safe open space would be the people I would probably be listening to and hoping to present us with what other options we have other than building housing in like in this location. Thank you for reading and then same question. And that is, where do you stand on conservation of the barge canal Superfund site. Yeah, so I've become pretty familiar with this issue not nearly as familiar as folks here like Andy Simon and Ruby Perry who've done great work through the save open space coalition put together I think now over 500 signatures of neighbors who are seeking to conserve that space. As I mentioned before I serve on the parks commission they came to the parks commission with that petition and we invited them to come and give a great presentation at our last meeting and joined to hear it and joined to hear the vision of that group as what that space can be. Admittedly, I need to learn more I mean I know it's a Superfund site and I know that it's a brownfield site and I need to learn more about the extent to which any development of that parcel beyond conserving is is is even feasible given the condition of it right now. I know there's some folks in our community who say that it is. I do believe that Ward five can play a particular role in addressing the housing shortage in Burlington. I do think that there could be targeted amendment of our zoning ordinances to allow for more development of certain areas of Ward five to allow for the construction more housing and for the development of more affordable housing. I don't think we can do that as a blanket approach for all of the south end or all of Ward five even for that matter. And I don't think we can really make any progress on deciding how if at all to amend zoning ordinances until we really engaged in robust community dialogue on the issue. We've had multiple meetings and meetings really where the city comes in with a blank canvas where we meet with neighbors and hear community values and take in those community values, including those held by those folks who want to conserve that space before we make any decision as to how any area of Ward five should be rezoned or developed for further housing. Showed you my time but you didn't need it. All right. So this is our last of our regularly scheduled questions. So again three minutes on it, but we're going to do one bullet point question after the fact. We'll see what that means when it gets there for just some quick brief responses and then you'll have a you know just a little bit of time at the end to figure out where where folks can find you after. And the last of our regularly scheduled questions is if elected. How will you balance your own views without of your constituents and other counselors, particularly when they differ. So let's see who'd be first Ben would be first on this one. Yeah, so this is a bullet question night. It's supposed to be quick time whole time. So I agree with a comment that freed made in the beginning right I mean Burlington is a unique city more than any place I've ever lived in my life. Burlington is full of neighbors who want to actively contribute to the future of our communities. And we need to ensure particularly a city councilors representative we need to ensure that our neighbors have available avenues to contribute. And I agree we need to do better to ensure that everyone has a seat at the table. So you know I would support more robust community engagement processes I mentioned it in the context of housing but really we should be doing that on all sorts of community issues. On the parks commission I was proud to play a role in I think some great community engagement processes on Kellahan Park and on Perkins pier for example. And those processes through multiple public hearings to meeting with different constituency groups changed my initial views as to what was important and what was valued in those parks. So that's specific to those parts but but I would bring that same mindset to my role as city counselor. I also think we need to do better about bringing public hearings into the community to hear more voices rather than expecting community members to come to con toys auditorium or to log on just in the evenings to zoom if we continue here. And finally, you know the city has this great program called the trusted community voices program it's a new program that was set up here in the last couple years or so. It's built with the intention of working with people who are already trusted voices in different diverse communities around the city. You know, if I was city counselor, I'd love to work with read for example on the people's kitchen because I know that they are a trusted voice in many communities that historically have not had a voice in a lot of city decision making. So that's how I would balance out my own viewpoints. You know, again, I don't enter this with with political agenda or bias on any particular issue. You know my role is to hear all voices, respect all voices, value all of them. It's not really about my viewpoints it's about the community to do points that that's the role of a true representative. All right, thank you Ben and freed. If elected how will you balance your own views without of your constituents and other counselors, particularly when they differ. I honestly don't have a good answer to that because I, I do say I do share the frustration that was born in Tony and tap with city hall, especially as you know we were facing this challenges last couple of years. You know, I feel like the, you know, the city council as it spends now the way it set up the form of the way we make our decisions. There is too much power being being concentrated in too few people. First of all, like the city council is not going to be representative of Burlington because it's a pretty self selecting group like only people who can afford to run will run even the NPA. Most people, most Burlingtonians don't show up at the NPAs because they can't afford to. So I do think, but you know there's a role for elected officials to serve as a convener of the different voices in our community that different interests that our larger city contains. And I do think it is time for Burlington to catch up with the rest of the month and actually give voters more power while we should do as update our city charter. There are like several sections there that could use an upgrade. You know, it might have worked great for a different time as we look forward to the challenges that are ahead of us. We need a way for voters to have more input. We need voters initiative process so that neighborhoods could develop localized organic solutions that can then be be presented to the whole electorate. And we could assign resources more democratically to participate in budgeting and other other innovations like that. So that would be my answer is to like get more more people to participate. Right and thank you both so that that's the end of my my full questions. So with this time minute minute both any kind of last statements that you'd like. I had another question kind of for time is a good one, but you know kind of for time. So, so with that one minute for you know closing statements where people can find you any other kind of information that you want to share so free the floor is yours. I hope people will really seriously consider our charter proposals and to support us by side giving us the signatures for our petition. We hope to bring this to the ballot for the November election. If you have more questions, please, you can call my phone<PHONE_NUMBER> or go to the website proposition zero dot org and hopefully the accountability dot com. All right, thank you for reading and Ben time is yours. Yeah, thanks Nate. Thanks to everyone who showed up tonight thanks again to the word five NPA for hosting to CEDO to town meeting TV. And thank you for read again for for the discussion I'm sure you and I will continue to talk as the days and weeks months move forward. Since I have announced my campaign here. I've been really lucky to receive some broad support from a number of folks in our community, like representative to bloom Lee represent Gabriel sevens former representative Mary Sullivan and our city counselors. I should take a moment to know, you know whether whether you agree with him or not. On every issue chip Mason has volunteered a lot of his time and service to our community over the years and just want to take a brief opportunity to thank you again whether you agree with him politically or not for his service to our community. I hope that you all will join in supporting my campaign as well. You can reach me at Ben Travers my name on the screen at gmail.com. Everyone's given their phone number so I will to find it<PHONE_NUMBER> or at Ben Travers dot com and I look forward to keeping the discussion going. Thank you both for not only joining us tonight but also for being willing to serve our community. You know it really is a big ask not only to, you know, potentially serve as a city counselor but even to just do this process of running so thank you both for for keeping things strong and engaged in our community and and I'm sure that whoever comes out of this in the end on March 1, we will be served well. So thank you both. And with that let's see can I unpin you. I will. There's one spotlight removed and another spotlight removed. That's got to remove my own. All right, so with that, we get into our final agenda item of the night. It is a also town meeting day focused spot and we are going to be joined by the director of CEDO, Brian Pine who will be speaking on some potential changes to the downtown TIF district but I'm seeing a hand raised from from Carolyn. Yes, Carolyn. Would you kindly at least post everyone's phone numbers. I didn't catch them. Yeah, sure thing. Those will be in our minutes which are have been taken so well by Lucia for a long time and she has passed off that duty over to Scott for this month. Those can be found at the CEDO website for the NPAs. They typically get posted within about a week of the event. Is there a chat we can do? Unfortunately, there is no chat in this function. Okay. Based on just the way this webinar form works. Thank you. They will be in the minute so be on the lookout for those. And with that, I will pass the mic over to Brian. Thanks a lot Nate. And we really appreciate the opportunity to be here tonight. I'm Brian Pine. I am the director of the city's Community and Economic Development Office since last June. Before that I was a Ward 3 city counselor. And a few years before that I was at CEDO for a little over 18 years. And before that I was a city counselor. So if you, I sometimes have to remember what role I'm in here but right now I'm hoping that in a few minutes here I can at least go through some slides. And give the NPA, you have almost 50 people here so it seems like a pretty good turnout tonight but provide you with enough information to pique your interest, you know, answer questions and direct you to places where you can get more resources. So the topic tonight and I'm going to ask for the permission to share my screen because I'm going to run through some slides. So Sam, I think you're on. I would also ask if Laura Wheelock could be promoted to a panelist and I want Laura to be here because she's my colleague from the Department of Public Works as an engineer who knows this project, every aspect of this project. So when I say this project it's often referred to as the Great Streets Project for Main Street and we'll go into the slideshow here momentarily. I am going to share my screen. Sometimes I'm a little clumsy at doing this so bear with me. All right, I think I've got it. Looks like you can see my screen. Do you also see the video portion of my screen where you're all your faces are as well I can never can tell if that's there but I'm going to push that way over to the side maybe I can even get it off of there. I'm going to hide thumbnail there we go. So, here we are tonight and I want to start with a basic overview of we're going to cover quickly basics on what TIF is approved TIF projects that are already approved for our downtown, and what what we're proposing to go forward on the March ballot, if the city council can then open this up for some questions. So what we start with is a basic description that there are two TIF districts and and TIF tax increment financing is essentially a economic development tool that emerged across this country and Vermont has had a statute that allows for TIF districts for at least the last two years and the idea is that you, you finance you cover the cost of public improvements in a designated area of your community, and you make those public investments with the, the knowledge of private development that will increase that the value of the district, you capture the increase in value only you don't capture the original tax value. I have a diagram will go into this a little bit more but I want to at least start with that basic, you capture the new growth in value that results from the public improvements that are made by the city. You then use those those those increased values the increased taxes coming from the properties within the district to cover the payments to repay the bond that you've incurred to make the initial investment so it's a little bit circular, but we have a diagram that I think will help in a few minutes. The waterfront TIF was created first in the 1990s, and that runs all along the waterfront here you see it in kind of a magenta color, and it does have a slice that goes right up. That includes the entire property that includes mace the former Macy's the current Burlington High School, the parking garages, the hotels in the West Lake housing that's in there, as well as what the city place property and the properties that go right up to Church Street in that area. So that's the waterfront district this is the downtown TIF district so this is really an important distinction and the blue hatched areas here on the map are the downtown TIF district. So just for background this district was created by the voters of Burlington in March of 2012. However, it was approved as a concept at the Vermont Economic Progress Council, which is the state body that decides and makes essentially approves both TIF districts and TIF bonds before their issue they they review them and so Vepsi will refer to it as the Vermont Economic Progress Council allowed or enabled our TIF district, which started in 2011 with voter approval in 2012. We first incurred some debt in 2016 and I'll talk a little about that in a minute was a $10 million bond for public improvements in our downtown. We have until the end of March of next year so a little over a year from now and to incur additional TIF debt. After that we we don't have any ability to basically finance public improvements using this tool. We could go to the voters and seek a tax bond increase through regular taxes, but TIF again is a way to fund public improvements without using additional burden on today's property taxpayer so it's it's all about the new increment that results within that district. So I know it gets rather wonky but I'm I'm trying to give it at least enough description for folks. So the final year that we retain education fund increment is 2036. After that, all the tax value goes back to the two taxing authorities that Ed fund at the state level to fund the statewide education program and at the city level to fund city services so that's the that's essentially how the model works. So really it's described I think best here as the difference between the original taxable value at the start of a TIF district to its current and projected end value so it's really that delta that difference that's the increment part of of the word TIF. The most increment is from new private sector development within the district. That's where most of the increment comes from. There's additional background growth because properties over time just become increasingly more valuable and that's just a natural trend that happens. Unless of course your economy is going the other direction and your property values are going down but that has not been the experience in Burlington and it's not projected to be. So the original taxable value of our district starting in 2011 when it was created by Pepsi was 170 million today's value same exact properties is 285 million so that's a delta of 115 million new value within the district. It's not all of that new value that gets captured to cover the public improvements. It's 75% of the new value of what would have gone to the Ed fund gets captured and 25 the remaining 25% goes to Montpelier for the education fund. So the original taxes that were generated by all the properties in the district all of those values all of those dollars generated by tax property taxes go to the Ed fund and the city. It's the new value the new growth 75% goes to finance cover the financing of the bond the repayment of the bond and the other 25 goes on to Montpelier for the Ed fund. All of the municipal portion of the tax increment is captured to retire the bond so that's that's all of that value what we've anticipated based on the numbers that we have excuse me. Is at the end of our district life of 2036 the new value value of the of the whole district is is estimated to be at 375 million and I could talk a little bit about the assumptions that went into that. So, I am going to keep going. I think there was a diagram there that was helpful I hope. These are the projects which have already been approved and have already occurred have already been paid for with a $10 million bond that the voters approved in 2016. Paul Street Great Streets so the project that completely rebuilt St. Paul. From Main Street down to Maple Street. The public improvements, or should say the public garage at the marketplace underwent significant repairs to bolster the structure there. This is a former Browns Court parking lot. It had Brownfield contamination issues those issues were remediated using tiff dollars in order to create a development site there and stormwater upgrades on Main Street adjacent to City Hall Park as part of that project. So just to just to highlight what we're proposing here. We have from South Union Street, which on this corner is Memorial Auditorium running west, all the way down to Battery Street so it's the six blocks that we're seeking to, to get approval for however, we already have voter approval for the two blocks right in the center. So the block that run from Church Street down to from church to pine are already approved by the voters so we're really looking for we kind of have the meat in the sandwich already but we need the slices of bread on either side I guess is the best way to describe that. So this is what the project looks like. And I won't pretend to be a an engineer or a, you know, designer so if there are questions about the actual project, Laura is really that person. But overall, the goals listed over here on the right of this slide rebalancing the use of the right away. So really from curb to curb but even going further from building face to building face so we're looking at everything in that realm, creating a wider sidewalk to make it more pedestrian friendly handicap accessibility full accessibility, creating a tree belt that currently is not there, and a dedicated bike lane with retaining parking that would be going from diagonal parking to parallel parking to a bridge or some very specific changes in addition, creating sort of a more of a community feel and a sense of a place, and, you know, giving people opportunities for gathering there's benches, there's there's bike facilities here. It is a it is these improvements are designed to make the public right away a place for for everyone sort of treated in a more kind of, I guess, egalitarian way. These are the stormwater improvements that come from this project that are pretty significant in terms of the stormwater that is generated by all the impervious surface, currently on Main Street, and that's a big part of this project as well. So, I just we just wanted to highlight some of the existing conditions existing conditions are the term used in, in sort of projects engineering and the planning and design world. The main things on Main Street are, you know, it's, it's not a, it wouldn't mean anyone's definition, perhaps of a blighted area and the traditional sense the word, but it is a very tired piece of public infrastructure when you look at the conditions of the of the green some of the sidewalks curbing. You've got some failures at key pedestrian points, such as the crosswalks and the the ramps to the crosswalks. You have very significant issues with accessibility in front of storefronts and all of these improvements or I'm sorry all these deficits in our infrastructure are intended to be to be addressed that's the scope of this project. An additional piece of this project which some of you may have may already know this but there's a very large ravine that runs through Burlington that originates really way over near Riverside Avenue and runs all the way down to I think it's ultimately might end up in Anglesby ravine in the south end. You can see on the map here, there's a fuchsia line that runs through the Fletcher free library behind the fire station, and then over to the parking lot through the parking lot at the corner of Maine and across Main Street over to what used to be the hood plant and then down 230 St. Paul Dekker Tower so it goes that way. The idea here is that in order for us to get private sector development on the corner of Maine and Mnuski, we need to relocate this sewer line because it's it's a it's a it's a real risk in terms of public infrastructure to build a significant sized building which would be suitable for this location, given that it's the core of our downtown. But there's there's really some, you know, clear engineering assessment that says that putting a building there with the sewer line through the ravine is, you know, as a recipe for real problems and so the idea is this project would also entail a relocation of that portion of the of the sewer so the ravine sewer would be moved is at least the concept here there's you know some alternatives about relining it potentially but I don't think that's realistic. We don't know that yet so more work needs to be done to determine that part of the scope of work. So overall the project description is streetscape lighting stormwater transportation facilities, as in public transit public seating, as well as some as subsurface utility upgrades, reconstructions were necessary replacements and extensions. You know, addressing issues like water lines and fire hydrants and improving the water pressure relocation or possibly upgrading of the ravine sewer for a total project cost of $30 million $500,000. So we have the basic finances that I mentioned earlier is we have already approved $10 million. It says from 2012 but it actually was approved by the voters in 2016, but that was from the initial 2012 was when the district was approved by the voters. So we've only we spent remaining to be used towards Main Street is 4,580,000. What we've already spent is the 5,420,000 so we do have a sizable balance that gets added to the bond question that will go. Okay. Okay, maybe someone's phone is on, or something else is going on but a little bit of entertainment there on an otherwise dull topic but so we also have related costs which I was asked to explain these tonight for the Board of Finance again if we could explain, pardon me what the related costs include related costs are everything listed here. And it's also for the life of the district is for the entire lifetime of the district. There's annual monitoring and compliance by the Vermont Economic Progress Council so they perform an audit. Sorry, the state of auditors performing an audit on the Waterfront TIF district. Those types of audits have to be paid for with with with TIF dollars and so what's different here though is we don't include this amount in the amount that we borrow this this 1,470,000 for the life of the district is the cost to manage the program and manage all the projects within the district over the entire life of the district, but it's funded with the annual revenue that comes from that the incremental growth in the tax value. So rather than borrow the money because Pepsi has said, we don't want you borrowing money to cover these costs but you can use actual increments so it's essentially cash flow from the district. You can use that to cover these expenses and that's the proposal. It goes to the voters as well. So in a quick summary, the Great Streets project as well as the ravine sewer is what essentially makes up the scope of this project. We have a new debt request of $25,920,000 of which I'm sorry and there's additional related costs of 1,470. The total over the entire life of the district from the time it was created in 2012 is 1,848,000 and we've projected increment from new private development. It's a very conservative estimates on just just what we know of right now as development that will move forward based on what we know of permitting and financing and other other indicators that show how far along a project is. And this taxes do not increase to repay TIF debt. So when we talk about things like a bond for the high school, they are completely and totally unrelated to each other. And I just want to reiterate that the revenue to repay the bond for a TIF district is funded by growth in values only within that district so it doesn't rely on going to the rest of the city. However, we do have to disclose as part of this process, VEPSI requires this in the legislature honestly said this was good was best practice and so they're going to require it. We need to tell voters when we're presenting this that we have to pledge the full faith and credit of the city, even though this is not a bond similar to a general obligation bond that you issue for something like the high school. You still need to pull pledge the city's full faith and credit otherwise, when you go out to issue the bonds, you're going to find very little interest from the bond market in terms of buying those bonds. So that's the project in a summary and I probably went too long. And time for questions Nate do we have time. Yeah, yeah I mean we've got some folks here we might as well take them. So if you like to ask a question. Feel free to use that raise hand function and I will kind of look through and see if we can get your questions answered. I see one from counselor john Shannon so counselor Shannon the floor is yours. And thank you Brian for the presentation. Can you explain. This is a question my husband asked and I didn't have a good answer so I thought I'd ask you. How does the, how does general appreciation within the district. The increment. John that's a great question I think it's one that is often not considered I referred to it a little bit when I said background growth. And that's really the same thing so as our district values grow. The way Tiff is structured in Vermont as it is in most places, we get to include that in the increment so that is considered increment only within the district so only for those properties in the district but yes that is part of the math. Thank you. Right and see one other hand raised for all me. So all me you can unmute yourself and ask your question. Sure thanks. I guess I have a couple questions but sprinkled amongst more comments. I've been kind of uncomfortable with Tiff as a concept ever since I learned about it. And I don't, I don't really think it's really very genuine to say that taxes don't increase, and maybe technically they don't, but that revenue could be used elsewhere. And it seems to me that we're sort of mortgaging our ability to use tax revenues for more serious human needs like housing or education. And you know the great street plans other than the storm water which I think is very important for our lake quality. It seems like it's sort of icing on the cake it sort of strikes me as oh it's nice and it's pretty, but I think we have, you know, an incredible tax burden in Burlington. There's too many projects going on all at once with the high school and we have these with these unfinished projects of Memorial Auditorium and Moran plant and, you know, climate change efforts and there's just so many needs.  What if there's another economic downturn, like there was the last two years especially affecting commercial, then are the values aren't going to go as much go up as much as you're predicting they will and then where are we. I'll try and answer that but I think I'm going to ask, I'm going to ask Laura to speak to the fact that the infrastructure on these six blocks is in need of significant new investment public infrastructure so that's a need we need to pay for one way or another. There's no way to pay for it that actually doesn't put the burden on the taxpayers of Burlington so I just want to be clear. The other notion is is that the revenue would be there anyway and that's actually exactly what TIF is is there to dress it's it's the but for but for these public improvements. The increase in revenue at least in the area surrounding the improvements would very likely be much lower may not occur at all and it would be certainly much lower and so new development is likely to take place at a level that generates new revenue for the for both the public and the public. So it's I think it's a I think it's a probably something that gets a bad rap because in other jurisdictions in other states there's a different law around how to functions in Vermont it's very very narrowly defined what you can use it for you can use TIF only for public improvements within the public right property you can you need to also show that you have adequate growth of values projected and it's really those projections have to be really solid so Laura could you just talk about what the project with the needs of the mainstream going to be whether we get TIF or not. Yes, Brian you've you've hinted to it and other communications about the last time significant work was really done on Main Street and it was decades ago it has a cross section that doesn't necessarily serve Burlington's current community or the community that it's developing into. And so there's a strong need to be able to rebalance spaces on Main Street that are underutilized for various members of our community and and and storefronts. You know there was a comment about the possible economic downturn throughout the last two years we've used space within the right of way of the downtown to keep our businesses going and to provide spaces for our community members to be outside. That was really one of the fundamentals that this project, you know that's maybe the icing on the cake is that it provides a harder scape streetscape that can infiltrate stormwater through the whole thing, but it also provides more space that we can use. And again, you know the the photo speak for themselves are the condition of Main Street is old and and the other funding options are a lot more challenging to talk about. Right and thank you both. I see one other hand raised for Andy Simon so Andy you can unmute yourself. Hi, thank you. I'm really glad that Laura you're standing in front of the St. Paul Street Great Street project because actually what I'm really glad about is that the Main Street project includes a bike lane, or bike lanes because it was one of the disappointing aspects of the St. Paul Street makeover was this put all of that effort into the into that stretch of street from from Main Street to Maple Street and then not have a bike lane there. So I'm really glad that Main Street plans include a buffered bike lane in both directions. My question is about the, the, what do they call it the the lot that's next to Memorial Auditorium. Besides moving the sewer, which obviously needs to get done. What, what are the contingencies in terms of the streetscape that are based on sort of the unknown development that will happen eventually into that into that that block, you know the Memorial Auditorium renovation, whatever gets built in the parking lot where the motel was.  That's a good question for Laura I think because I think what you're asking is, what if we make these improvements and the uses all start to change right I think Andy is that ultimately what you're asking. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's one of the helpful things that the city did back in 2016 adopted in 2018 was create the Great Streets design standards for this area of the city and so the design of this project is going to continue over the next year and a half or so. And I anticipate the construction, especially with the ravine sewer of the street level amenities will be years off. The earliest that construction might start on Main Street would be 20 end of 2023 more likely 2024. And so, hopefully by then after planning with the ravine sewer there's a little bit more known about Memorial Auditorium they'll be a little bit more known about what the surface lot might have for potential and then the city could start that effort. And that relates to rearranging the spaces you know that the fundamental infrastructure is there, you have limited driveway access standards so you know there could be maybe one new opening within this area, and ultimately any development that happens in the downtown that disturbs more than 100 feet of curve has to put back their project to the Great Street standards. So, there's, it would be restored. If it got disturbed. And I see one other hand raised for from Alana so kind of looking at the time. And thank you all for staying, you know, in half hour late we really appreciate, you know these discussions. So with that, I'll pass it to a lot of for the last question of the evening. All right, so thank you very much. I happen to be a big fan of districts and just wanted to both recognize that not only is that development that would not occur but the city and the state both get 25% of that new value it doesn't all go into the district that wouldn't be there otherwise. And, you know, just from this economic downturn that we've had we've seen that downtown has come back much faster and that's because of the higher level of investment and those downtown support everything throughout the city. You know, we tax our houses, but our houses do not return the same revenue that our downtown's do. So my question is, for Main Street, for the Great Streets project, I saw that there is a meeting I think it's next week, and I was curious is that the same presentation. Is that 100% engineered already are you still taking comments on that project or questions, I guess on the design of that project. It's a great point to allow us to speak to our schedule so unfortunately with the trying to be able to use this funding source there is a shorter period of time. The concept is not closed. We are starting our concept level conversation with the neighborhoods, the community, the various committees, boards that exist February 1st, that is the first community meeting and advertisement for that should start going out this week. We're also going to hold focus meetings with businesses, stakeholders, underserved members of our communities to ensure that everybody's voice does have the opportunity to make it into this project. And these conversations are going to continue over the next few months. You know, our hope is that we can have a solid concept for how the bike lanes, the sidewalk, the amenities, the art spaces, the stormwater, the parking are all configured on the street in the May time frame for this year so that we can go to the city council with that. So a long period of time to engage and converse as to how this will be rearranged. The city is putting forward a proposal to help to move this forward based on our past outreach efforts in the 2016 2017 timeframe from what we heard and hoping to restart there. Alright. Yep, we hope to be back next month if that's if there's time. Yeah, I think that we have you in pencil right now on February so if you'd like some more information from Lauren from DPW be sure to join us on I believe it is let's see the third Thursday is, I'm looking at April, February 17. So like some more information, you can join us then. Brian and Laura, thank you both for joining us. Do you have anything? Yeah, I have one final thing to say and that is just that the comments from Almi really made me reminded me of one important point which I think we made but I just want to make it again. The public improvements are for the public good that would otherwise not be possible without this tool. We don't have other sources so I just want to be clear. People wonder can't you fund this all these other sources federal government's got all this money they're spending. We have lots of other capital needs we have a new high school need we have all these other needs. The only way we're going to make this kind of transformation on Main Street is with this. This is the way we're going to do it it's really not going to happen. Otherwise I just want to be just want to be really clear about that thanks. Yeah, thank you any other any other last points any other like contacts or. You can go to our website at CEDA so at the city of Burlington which is Burlington vt.gov and then go to the CEDA homepage and you have to go within the find find the tiff stuff we're going to raise we're going to elevate its profile on our web page but. You can get lots of stuff there you can get this presentation, you can get more of the details to all the assumptions that went into it. All of this is public information we're going to keep pumping it out there and and raising awareness because we think this is the kind of thing that once people learn about that they see this as a as a real thing to advance the public good. Thanks. And great streets also has its own website great streets btv.com and it also has links back to CEDA's webpage, as well as the other information about the great streets project and its outreach that's upcoming. And thank you both for joining us and I'm sure we'll get those links into our notes before I have you I'm seeing one hand from from counselor Shannon so counselor Shannon. I just wanted to say that I do strongly support this, and that for all my years on the Council, you know we've done several tiff votes, the same issues and concerns are always raised it is very complicated and it's a little bit hard to both understand what we're going to achieve. But this is a huge benefit to the city at no cost to the taxpayers. And it's, it's a way to kind of leverage improvements in our in our downtown. And it's always received broad support from all parties from progressives Democrats Republicans. And I hope that the voters will support this. Thank you. Thanks for your time. Thanks a lot. Yeah, thank you Brian and thank you Laura thank you to our candidates. Thank you to Sam for holding the fort at 645 pine. It's been a great resource for us. Thanks to CCTV isn't joining us this month but they're always a great, great support. And to all of you for joining us. As I mentioned before our next meeting is going to be on February 17 at the same time seven o'clock. And I'll pass it to Joe. Yeah, so I have to mention the completion of the election results in the meeting so it goes in the minutes. And it looks like there was 33 votes and Lana was elected as our representative to CDBG. Very long. Congrats, Lana. And I know that you will serve us all well. With that, I think that was close. Thanks Nate. Yeah, no worries. We'll find another spot. And with that, thank you all for joining us and we hope to see you next month.


I mean, if you think about his position in Ukraine, if you think about his position in Israel, but particularly Ukraine, it is dramatically different than the position of Orban, the position of Trump, the position of many, many, many of the people who will be at CPAC. So it'll be interesting to see how he presents himself and how he is received, how he's received.