We call the order of the city council meeting at 6pm. The first item on the agenda is the agenda. Is there a motion on the agenda? If counselors can please turn on their video. They're able just so I can see folks if they're wanting to be recognized. Okay. Is there a motion on the agenda? Someone please make a motion on the agenda. I moved to amend. Sorry. Sorry. Thank you. No written materials for agenda items. 3.01 UVM code enforcement update to spring move that per Gail. No. No. No written material for consent agenda item. Six 10 communication Catherine. CIO. Regarding calendar. 21. Add to the consent agenda item. Six point one three communication. Sarah Denny regarding requiring masks and stores with the motion. To waive the reading except the communication place it on file. Add. To the consent agenda item. Six point one four communication Mary Campbell regarding masks. With the motion to waive the reading except the communication place on file. Add to the consent agenda six point one five communication. Martha Day regarding. Masks. Add to the agenda item. Six point one six communication Mary Campbell regarding. to waive the reading except the communication to place it on a file. Add to the Consent Agenda Item 6.17. Communication regarding vote on mask mandate. Add to the Consent Agenda Item 6.18. Communication, Carl and Ellie Potter regarding retail consumer masks. Add Councillor Polino as a cosponsor for Agenda Item 7.06. Resolution COVID-19 emergency order wearing face coverings for crime and retail stores. Note revised version of this Agenda Item per City Attorney's Office. Add Councillor Polis cosponsor for Agenda Item 7.07. Resolution remove everybody loves a pure eight mural sponsored by Pine Dang, Carpenter, Stormbreak, Hanson, Perry and Pine note proposed amendments to this Agenda Item per Councillor Carpenter. Second. Councillor Hightower we have a second from Councillor Paul all those in any discussion on that seeing none all those in favor please say aye. That anyone opposed that passes unanimously which brings us to item number two city place update from CEDO. We'll start with a public update and then I believe there is a request to go into executive session following that. Councillor Paul. I just a point of order. Did you prefer to just wait until we were out of executive session and going into the public forum before the Pledge of Allegiance or how did you? Oh thank you for that. I was going to plan to just go out of executive session once we actually started the normal meeting at seven to go into that. So but thank you for that clarification. No problem. Sorry about that. Thanks. No problem. No. It's okay. I was looking at this more as a work session. So anyways, Mr. Mayor would you like to kick us off or Mr. Glasberg are you going to be starting us off? Thank you President Tracey. Jeff Glasberg, the city's lead on the project will kick off the update. Okay. Go ahead Mr. Glasberg. Thank you very much for joining us. Thank you President Tracey. First I just wanted to start on a personal note with a thank you to the city councillors and the mayor for the extraordinary efforts that have been made over the last two months by the city that really benefit the entire state. So thank you for all that hard work. Secondly I wanted to acknowledge a number of new councillors who have joined us. I would look forward to the opportunity at some point to meet with you to be able to provide a more in-depth background to a complicated project. So we'll just dive in this evening but I do look forward to that opportunity to set the frame for those councillors and all of us just as a reminder of the expected outcomes for the city from this project. The first was the restoration of the St. Paul and Pine Street right-of-ways re-establishing the city street grid. The second was incremental tax revenue often referred to as TIF, tax increment financing, incremental tax revenue generated by redevelopment sufficient to pay for those improvements on St. Paul and Pine Streets as well as improvements to Bank and Cherry Streets. Thirdly, a substantial number of housing units are to be developed including additional affordable units in the downtown. Fourth, a mix of uses including retail and office space that would create substantial new jobs within downtown. And fifth, a range of ancillary benefits including public access and environmental goals. So again that was the broad range of outcomes expected by the city. In terms of an update for the council on where this stands, when I was last before the council on February 10th, I reported progress on some fronts and a lack of progress on others. At that point the developer had conducted two well-attended public engagement sessions to review what I'll call City Place 2.0, a revised program and plan for the development of the site. A third session which was associated with permit application requirements was held subsequently on February 27th and that was specifically for neighboring property owners but also included the broad public. The developer continued to refine its design and program and preparation for submission of their permit applications. And to preserve TIF capacity, the city had presented a request to the state board, VEPSI, Vermont Economic Progress Council back in December, requesting a project change. VEPSI deferred action at that time pending submission of an amended development agreement among the city and BTC mall associates documenting the revised project program and related business terms. Based on the input from the council on February 10th, an amended development agreement was delivered to the developer on February 18th. Since March, there has not been significant progress on the project. The permit applications for the main redevelopment site as well as 67 Cherry Street, the former Macy's property, those permit applications were not submitted prior to the stay home work. Had they been submitted, there still would have been delayed but they were not. Certainly COVID has had some significant impact on project progress just in terms of the team and their working effort and the response due on the proposed revision to the development agreement is unresolved. It has not been forthcoming. The developer continues to voice confidence in Burlington and in the project over the long term. However, I'm a realist and I believe that some new challenges may lie ahead. Certainly recovery of downtown retail businesses as well as a picture of what the retail environment in general looks like going forward may be some cause for concern. The availability of commercial financing for some program elements could be difficult to obtain over the next 12 months. And finally, the long-term health of UVMMC and their need for office and administrative space is something that may be questioned in the near term. As a result, the purpose in coming before the council tonight was to try to provide this background and specifically to try to reset the city's expectations of the developer regarding the timeline and terms for that development agreement amendment to move that process forward and specifically would like to discuss with the council in executive session some of those points of negotiation. And with that, I'm happy to try to address comments or questions you may have at this point. Thank you, Mr. Glassberg. Are there questions from the council? Councillor Pine, go ahead. Sure. Thanks, Mr. President. Jeffrey, if you could for the council and for the public, I guess give us at a high level, if you were in our seats and your constituents asked you, what's the likelihood that this project is going to come to fruition at this point? Help us answer that question. So I want to clarify that you're asking about fruition, not a specific schedule question, correct? Yes. Oh, this is still a very highly desirable site in the center of a vibrant downtown. I think the prospects for redevelopment of this site remain very high. Has this been a saga? Absolutely. Are people frustrated? Absolutely. But the basics that make that location valuable don't change. Thank you. All set, Councillor Pine? Yeah. Okay. Other councillors? Councillor Hanson, go ahead. Thanks. And so to kind of follow up on that, the other half of that question in terms of timeline, do you have any sense of what scale of timeline we might be looking at for this? That question will ultimately have to be answered by the developer, but Councillor Hanson, while it's possible that construction could commence this calendar year, I'm skeptical that that will be the case, and I would anticipate delay. That hasn't been told to us, but I think realistically, we may expect that. Thank you. Yeah, and I understand and I want to make sure the public understands this is your estimation based on the discussions that you've had, and rather, I don't want people to take that as fact, which you've made clear. I just want to reiterate for the public. Thank you. And it's directly responsive to those concerns that I outlined for you that are my opinion in terms of what those new challenges may be. Right. That's great. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Hanson. I see Councillor Freeman and then Mason.  Thank you, Councillor Tracy. Thank you, Jeff, for bringing this update. As I was just listening to your response to Councillor Pine and Councillor Hanson, I was just, because I've been, I was thinking about this, and when the media reached out, of course, questioning about a timeline and et cetera and so forth. What I basically said is that if, I guess, my question is around, I understand we have very specific frustrations around the way that this project has not come to fruition under what we had anticipated going along from now, but I have to under, like I have to think that maybe during this time there are just general, a lot of general uncertainties in sort of construction and in that trade sort of broadly. And what I said was just that, you know, I just want to make sure that as we reopen and return back to business, that we're doing it safely. And so I guess I'm wondering, in that, so now I feel like I'm having a hard time parsing out what are sort of the underlying issues that were maybe already present where Brookfield was struggling to be at capacity just under normal circumstances to bring this project to fruition versus like the COVID sort of impact and how some of that might, even though it feels frustrating to have a further delay because we've had so many delays, how some of that might just because we are in the middle of this pandemic. So I don't, does that make sense? Yes, Councillor Freeman, I'll try to respond. So the presentation of what I described as City Place 2.0 was an effort to try to address market conditions and construction costs and have a plan that was more responsive on both points. I think the question you're asking is whether despite that the impact of COVID may require another look at that plan perhaps or if it may impact the implementation of that plan. And again, this is the developer story to tell but I think realistically, certainly if you're a banker looking at this, the situation has changed even if the plan has not. So I think it will take a little time for market conditions to settle out or financial markets to settle out. Those are likely impact. Am I answering your question? Yeah, sort of. I just sort of, I guess, so I hear what I heard you say is that it's, if I heard correctly, that we're not anticipated to, that the project is not anticipated to break the ground with rents within this calendar year. Is that correct? But I heard you say that. I'm sorry, I had a moment with my internet connection. So I think it is still, it's conceivable that construction could start this calendar year, but I'm skeptical that that will be the case. Right. So I'm just anticipating, I know we've heard a lot of people say like there's potential issues with seeing like an upsurgence in just the health issues and everything coming back in the fall and that being, I understand it's going to impact market conditions, but it's also just going to impact people's capacity to be at work. So I guess I'm just, I just wanted to keep that in mind as much as I want to see sort of a project being actualized or at least some sort of movement on this thing that feels like just basically a hole in the ground for a really long time and just trying to sort of think critically about all the moving parts that we've found ourselves in with this sort of sudden public health emergency. But I'll, I'll stay tuned and listen and for the executive session as well. Thank you, Councillor Freeman. I had Councillor Mason followed by Councillor Hanson. If other Councillors want to get in, please let me know.  Thank you, President Tracy. Mr. Glasberg, thank you for the presentation. I want to talk for a second about timing. When we last left off, the developer had articulated, you know, the delay would be, any delay would be associated with permits and litigation in light of, or at least what I heard you say, which is no, neither municipal permit or the municipal permits for either project were not applied for. And my assumption is they didn't apply for the Act 250 permit. My assumption is that that's going to blow us well beyond this year.  So my assumption is that also pushes us back. And after that question, and I'm sensitive to we're going into executive session, I'm just curious from a process perspective, where we're going, you know, as a council before COVID hit, we were sort of providing input on the amendment to the development agreement. I'm guessing we're not on that track anymore, because it sounds like you haven't had a meaningful conversation with them to better understand how this pandemic is impacting their plans. And I can't see you, Jeff, so it's odd to forgive me now again. Do you want me to respond at this point? Please, if you would. Okay. So the first distinction I would make is there were two discrete permit processes. One was for reuse of an existing building. And if there's a demand and a customer, that's a project that could potentially proceed in the nearer term than the redevelopment of the mid block. So I just wanted to make that initial distinction in terms of timing. And in fact, the reason for executive session this evening would be to get your further input on pursuing that development agreement amendment track. Also that comes from Mason. Yes, that's that is helpful. Thank you. Okay. So I have Councillor Hanson next. Councillor Hanson, you have already spoken once though. So are there any other councillors who are on first round who haven't spoken yet, who'd like to get in? Okay. Seeing none, go ahead, Councillor Hanson. Great. Thanks. So Jeff, you mentioned a couple of times it's the developer's story to tell, which is true. So do you have any sense of their willingness to come before the council soon and give an update directly? Yes. We're going to propose a timeframe for that. And that's part of the series of actions that we want to review with you in executive session. But there is the expectation that they should be back before the public. There was some momentum. There wasn't some good will being rebuilt. And all of that has come to a stop. The effort should be to restart that process. Okay. I appreciate that. And I appreciate you sharing that with the public as well. I think that is beneficial for the public. And I don't think that it undermines our negotiation at all. So that's helpful. And thank you. Thank you very much, Councillor Hanson. Are there other councillors with questions? Councillor Paulino, go ahead. You're on mute. Sorry about that. I don't know if you recall, but Brookfield had publicly said, I think at their last appearance, that Macy's was, I think according to them, an unknown at that time. It was clear, at least to me, based on their comment, their public comments that they hadn't, they certainly weren't publicly committing to starting Macy's first. And then, which always made sense. And then doing the big one, it seemed that they wanted to include it as a package. One has that changed. And my other question is, what kind of contact or do you feel you've been having the last 60 days since February with them or meetings? How has that changed when you were meeting more regularly and you were having the, you know, you were doing the lead up to the permitting process? Sure. I want to answer your first question. Could you remind me, I've got the second question written down. So the first one was about how they said basically that the relationship between the two projects. They said, I think I asked them in the public hearing, when are you going to start or do you have a start date for the Macy's project? Which I think we were all concerned with losing the, you know, this great tenant that could not just create downtown jobs, but downtown revenue. And their answer was basically, I don't know. And it was kind of cryptic and it was clear to me that it was a package deal. You know, we'll start Macy's if our amendments get approved, or at least that's the sense I seem to get out of it. To some extent, that may be the case. I think the line is actually somewhat simpler. And that is an assurance of an agreement with UVMMC to secure moving ahead with that project. And this becomes of a piece, because just as the residents of Burlington want to know what's going to happen with the overall project, so does UVMMC. So to some extent, Councillor Polino, they, they remain a package, although there was the capacity because it's an existing building that doesn't require as extensive a permit process. There was the potential to be able to move ahead, in fact, with that renovation piece first on 67 Cherry Street. Have I answered that question? What, so have they indicated to you that they're willing to put shovel on the ground for that building? First, without having a final agreement on the design of the bigger block? I'm thinking about your question. I'm not sure if we framed it exactly that way. The plan has always been to move these along simultaneously with the ability to start Macy's, the former Macy's sooner, because it exists and it's a simplified permit process. Okay. Also, Councillor Polino? Yes. Okay. It is 6.30. So are there any other Councillors want to get in just wanting to start to move us towards the executive session? Anything else? The Council. Jeff, just wanted to ask you on my, for my part about the hotel use, you know, I think that this crisis has really revealed how becoming, how being too dependent on tourist dollars, carries with it certain risks. And I think that that's been really made obvious through this. And that's something that I've really had as a concern just in general with hotels, given that there are so many hotels already planned or being built in the area. What is the conversation around that particular element of the project look like? There has not been in depth further discussion about that element, President Tracy. Your concern is shared by a range of investors and lenders. And I think, you know, realistically to obtain financing for hotel properties, it will take some time to see occupancy rates come back before there's going to be a willingness to invest new dollars to create new inventory. You reference a deep pipeline of a number of potential projects within the market area. Some of those may fall by the wayside or be delayed perhaps. There are certain unique characteristics to this site as compared to a number of the other projects that were in the radar that may speak to a continued market demand for this site. And certainly just taking it up a level, if you will, the ability of this site to support, I'm going to say, other public gathering opportunities, meeting convention development within Dantan Burlington would speak to a unique type of market for that hotel use as compared to some others that are in non-metro, non-Dantan locations. So you're correct. I think it's going to take a while for a market to come back for financing those properties. And lenders and investors will want to be assured that there's demand for that. Okay. Thank you very much, Mr. Glasberg. So anyone else? Okay. Seeing none, Mr. Mayor, will you please just clarify what the request for executive session is based upon? The request for executive session is to have discussion with the council about ongoing negotiations with the developer and to get the councils input into those negotiations. Thank you very much. Is there a finding based off of that explanation? Someone prepared to make a motion with regards to make a finding? Councillor Hansing. I might need help, but I would find that due to the need to enter into a discussion about ongoing negotiations with the developer premature disclosure, disclosure of which would put the city would undermine the city's ability to negotiate that we go into executive session that sufficient. Attorney Blackwood, is that a sufficient motion or sufficient finding in your mind? I think that's probably good enough. Yes. Okay. All right. So we have a finding. There's a second from Councillor Mason. Any discussion on that finding? Okay. We'll go to a vote. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Seeing none, that was unanimous. Now we need that second motion, which is based on that finding motion to go into executive session. Is there anyone prepared to opt for that motion? Councillor Stromberg. Based on that finding, I move that we enter into executive session. Do a motion. Is there a second? Seconded from Councillor Paul. Any discussion on that? Okay. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Hearing none, that passes unanimously. We will go into executive session. Would you please clarify who's to be included in that executive session and how councillors are to get on to that executive session? Do we have another link in our inboxes? Yes, you should all have just received an email from Jordan, which has a link. And if the executive session could include City Attorney's Office, Mr. Glasper, Mayor's Office. Okay. Wonderful. All right. So we'll be back on this at seven for the members of the public to start the regular City Council meeting. We'll go into executive session right now. So switch over to that, and then we'll come back to this. Once we get all the councillors right back online, we'll go ahead and get started with an important update from Code Enforcement and the University of Vermont regarding the move out. I just want to make sure that we have all the councillors on. Seen only a couple so far. Give everyone a chance to get back on, and then we'll turn it over to our two presenters. We have Gail Shamp Noise and Bill Ward with us tonight. So thank you to both of you for being here. And before we do that, once we get everyone on, I also want to just take a moment and do the Pledge of Allegiance. So nine councillors. We're still missing councillor Shannon, councillor Mason. Oh, I see you, councillor Mason. Okay. Um, see, don't see councillor Jang. Here's Carpenter, and still missing councillor Jang. Oh, you're here? Okay. I believe we're just missing councillor Shannon. Okay, now we have councillor Shannon. All right. So would everybody please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you councillors, and thank you to our presenters also for being patient. I apologize again for being a few minutes late to this session. We will go ahead and turn it over to Bill Ward and Gail Shamp Noise from the University of Vermont. Bill is our the head of Code Enforcement and Permitting for the City, and we have a presentation from them and after which councillors will be able to ask questions. So, Bill, are you are you going to get us started? Yes, I am. Are you able to hear me okay? Yep. Okay, so I'm just going to give a few updates on the move out on communications, plan for trash removal that we see this time of year, and then some logistical updates about move out, and then I'll turn it over to Gail for much more detailed presentation from UVM with the PowerPoint, and then I'll come back to be discussing some of the move in strategies. So, as far as the specific communications, our team at the permitting inspections department, specifically it's the housing division, we're working with UVM in Champlain College regularly on making sure that our communications are consistent with theirs. In fact, that's part of why UVM is here tonight because Gail and I work really well together, and I think it's been about 20 years she's been doing the move out. The last 10 have been with me. The Resource Recovery Center this year is a new tool for us, and we're using it to both provide information for renters and for property owners, but also help with move out questions or problems specifically that renters have special needs during the COVID-19 emergency, or for property owners if they have issues, they can contact us through the Resource and Recovery Center. On the same website, there's renter frequently asked questions. UVM has a very similar one with student specific move out questions, a frequently asked questions page, and the housing division manager Patty Wayman in our department has set up a group email list so that we can communicate directly with a group of all the property owners so that we have communications on move out issues and guidance about things like cleaning, just normally cleaning between tenants, but there's a very different kind of cleaning that we'll be looking for this time of year. Many of what's happened, many of the things that have happened so far are pretty evident by just talking with renters and with property owners. I've seen them out, I've witnessed it myself, give an update about what's happened in just a minute about what I've seen on the streets, but we're a regular communication of Vermont apartment owners association to make sure they're staying consistent with our message as well. Gail's going to be giving details on the trash events that we have, but we have a couple coming up. It's not going to be the standard move out, but we will have something available for renters and we also will be patrolling regularly. Our code inspector is part of the code division, we'll be out patrolling and we know that people are watching. We have an overflow dumpster so that city staff can handle some rogue issues if they end up on city property and I know people are watching because one resident reported my license plate this weekend on Sunday when I was out removing trash they thought I was actually dumping, so it's encouraging that people are watching and seeing what's going on out there, so we asked them to stay vigilant and let us know either through resource and recovery, but particularly see quick fix for illegal dumping related issues. I can tell you we've handled 151 issues of trash closed since April 1st and the average time to close is 1.6 days, so we're on it. We'll try to do our best to stay at that rate, get things cleaned up quickly. This weekend when I was out I saw both Saturday and Sunday had an opportunity to speak with 18 different groups that were moving out to get some real data and those folks that had U-Hauls or were moving vans, 70% of those folks were in-town moves and 30% told me that they were same-day travelers, so they had traveled from out of state here getting belongings and they were returning to their state once they got things packed up. The primary reason they told me they were doing the same-day travel was because there's no hotels for them to stay at. What I saw though firsthand on both days this weekend was a high level of cooperation between renters and property owners. A lot of folks who are moving are moving in early to their new place and for those that aren't, they seem to be moving into storage facilities. I checked in today with the U-Haul manager on Riverside Avenue, he told me there were 50 of their trucks that were out in Burlington this weekend that had been rented, 40 of them were taking items specifically to storage facilities and the trucks were being returned, so he had some real-time information that helps me know that a lot of folks are already moving out, which is encouraging, sort of flattening the curve on the move out. We've also been working with the move out companies like Busca and Local Muscle, I called them to see what their availability would be if renters needed them to help with move out. I've also asked to see if they have estimates if we need to help out or if UVM can be prepared to help us. If renters can't do it themselves, if we get their call through the Resource and Recovery Center, we will work with tenants to find a way to help them out. I don't want to go too much further into details that Gail will be speaking about, but I will turn it over and then talk about move in when Gail is done. Thank you very much, Bill, and I just want to thank the Mayor's Office, the City Council, and all the staff for the Resource and Recovery Center for the phenomenal work that they're doing to help with impacts of COVID-19 on our entire community. I really appreciate it. For those of you who are not as familiar with our office or may need a little updating, what I'd like to show is just a few of the things that our office does do. Our students have to live on campus for two years, and then in their second year, we do off-campus living workshops, and we're also going online with our off-campus living workshop program, so they have the tools that they need to be successful off-campus. And then once they're off-campus to provide them with all the support and resources that we can and identify issues that face both the students and also the non-student neighbors, we work a lot with student-neighbor relations, and then we have a restorative approach. We want to do things with people in the neighborhoods, not two or four of them, and we do a lot around dialogue when things happen, because we've created relationships with individuals in the neighborhood. We have a better chance of things being timely, getting things conflict early is really important, as well as coming to some good resolution. And then we also provide some neighborhood grants, so if students and non-students in a neighborhood want to do a project, we'll help them not only with funding, we ask them what they need and what would help, and then we also provide staffing, and we have our students come, we have the upper bound program come, just a couple of examples, and we work a lot with, for example, the Burlington Health and Rehab Center as well, so we have a lot of neighborhood partners. And so that's a little bit about what our office does. I just want to stress that I work with the off-campus population, so I know questions may come up about the on-campus population or the full opening of campus, but in my prior conversations with counselor Max Tracy, I talked about that that's that I'm the right resource for the off-campus, and that if other things come up, I'm going to refer to Joe Spidel, who's our government relations liaison with the city. And then on that second slide, just a few of the things that we are doing, and Bill mentioned spring movement with 19 style, so we have come up with a plan for alternatives this year, and then the other is we have an off-campus life newsletter, and it goes out monthly. We've actually been sending it out weekly and sometimes twice a week, because the COVID orders from the governor are coming out on a regular basis. We want to make sure everybody has families and students have the best information, and also we wanted to make sure that we started in April with some of our moveout information so students were prepared. And then one of the ways we did that, if you want to go to the next slide, is we did a survey of students, and we wanted to find out a number of different things, and the survey went out in a off-campus like newsletter. These were preliminary results, because our survey results, the survey finalized after I got the information into Lori Olberg, so I'll just let you go, I'll just go through some of the things that I think that would be most relevant to this conversation. So 856 students filled out the survey. For those who are currently living in their off-campus rental, 529 of them, 187 of the students were not living in their rental, and you may be familiar with when spring, when we had our spring break, most of our students were away, and the university made that decision to do online learning, and some of the students never came back to the community, or they came back, and then they left after that virtual learning went on for the entire semester. So that's why we wanted to break it down between those that were still living here and those that had left, and then we asked how many students were planning on living in the Burlington area for the least period starting on June 1st, and that question was asked of the students who were living there now, and so 68% or 352 individuals who answered the survey, they're actually in Burlington now and staying in Burlington and moving in on June 1st, and then there were 136 of them who said no, they're leaving the city. So just wanted to let you know that there's a lot of movement going from one rental to another in Burlington, and then we asked of those students who have left, we asked if they're returning to their rental to move out their belongings, and 101 said yes, so that's 101 that will be coming back into the community to get their belongings and leave again, and then 49 said no, they already had their belongings out, 49 people, so I just wanted to give you an idea of the movement that might occur there, and then of those people that are coming back to get their belongings, 40% of those people are going to stay in a June rental, so they're only making one trip into Vermont, so those are some of the information that we were able to gather about what the movement might look like, and then we also wanted to know what's the week when most people are moving, and it was the week of May 18th and May 25th, so that gave us some really good guidelines for when we should have these alternative events for Spring Move Out project, and then if you go to the next slide, and so here's what we've done so far for Move Out actions, so we work with Bill and Code and his whole team, which are remarkable, we've been really good partners for a lot of years, and this is our 20th celebration of SMOP, and it's kind of the most unusual we never could have predicted, but because we have such a good working relationship, we were able to move pretty quickly into what that alternative might look like. We do that off-campus-like newsletter, which I've mentioned, we did a special Move Out edition, and we've done Move Out tips since April, and then we're doing door-to-door flyering the neighborhoods this week, and that will include both information about the alternative Move Out events, as well as a lot of the safe distancing, wear a mask, and some of the other order information that we thought was appropriate to hand out. We do social media posts. I did an update to the Mayor's Office and the City Council in a May 1st communication to the City Council and the Mayor's Office. Bill had referenced already that we're trying to keep the FAQ sheets on both UVM's official COVID-19 site, as well as the City's up-to-date with Move Out and Move In information, and we did this off-campus survey that I just talked about, and then we did a live Teams event with President Garamella and our Vice Provost, Annie Stevens, and also with Vermont Tenants in our office, and it was all about Move Out tips how to have a successful Move Out in the City. And then the last slide is about Move In actions. So going out this week is a communication from our Vice Provost, Annie Stevens, and it's to rising juniors and seniors. So they're the current sophomores who are going to be moving off campus in their junior year, and then the current juniors who will be seniors, and then also graduate students and medical students, and it's what they need to do and what they should expect coming back to Vermont, and we are constantly updating the governor's orders, but that is primary piece of the communications. And then we also know that the parents and the families, it's really good for them to have that kind of information in hand. So we're also sending it to parents of the undergraduates who will be living off campus. And then we also hope to do another survey with our current sophomores moving into their junior year to get an idea of when they're thinking of moving into the city. So that would be if that gets the go ahead, we'll do that this week. And with a short turnaround time, we're finding out that most of our students answered the survey within the first two days it's out. And so it's enabled us to do some of these quicker turnaround surveys when needed. And again, social media post and then updates to the mayor's office and the city council. Jordan, Jordan, if you have the move out or the move in slide that I had sent to you, I just want to have a couple of quick bullet points. I know Gail touched on a couple of them, but I think it one it says we didn't get a chance to go over the specific notes that each of us was going to say, but it does say there's a lot of partnership because the some of the things I'm going to say will overlap. But first, I want to remind everyone and anyone that's watching particularly that the move in that will happen after June 1 or through the fall right now the governor's quarantine order remains in effect. So quarantining is for anyone entering Vermont from out of state. The University of Vermont is going to be communicating as Gail said in the coming days about direction for students. And the city has been and will continue to put to have input into the communications. We're lucky to have good partners. We're working with UVM to understand the need for the storage for renter belongings and we're hoping that items that need to be stored until fall. UVM has the capacity for helping students, but there's also capacity for folks that can look to local movers information I shared earlier for moving out. And for those that do still need help and can't get the resources themselves, the city can help through their resource and recovery center. The city and UVM are going to be working on comparable support for off campus students. That's again June 1 through the fall move in. We are working on a protocol with UVM in the state of Vermont for a supportive isolation or quarantine program for renters who are returning to Vermont from out of state on June 1. And we are also asking that UVM the state work with us on a testing protocol to have in place by June 1 if we can for move in. And we expect ongoing work on this right up until the end of this month. So some of these are still being finalized, but there's a lot of information we have just shared want to hit a lot of that at a high level and answer questions if you have them. Excellent. Thank you very much, Bill. If you could just go off of the screen share mode just so I can see all the, okay, great. All right, I see Councilor Hightower, Councilor Shannon and Councilor Carpenter. Go head, Councilor Hightower. Thank you, President Tracy. I guess I had thanks for the update. First of all, appreciate all of you being here to present. My question is kind of beyond the move in actions. I know that we still have the governor's order in place and you talked about one communication in terms of what students can expect coming from Vermont. I think I'm a little worried about like renorming for students and what that looks like in terms of like just Vermont having higher precautions than most than many of the other states that they'll be coming from. And I know that there's always the governor's orders, but I find what is most effective is just what peers are doing. And so if the, if UVM has thought it all about what that renorming looks like and what it entails. And thank you for your question. So for the renorming in every communication we put out, we talk about wearing masks, the six feet of distance. We've also used like the catamount as an example, the six feet, trying to get some visual pictures about what that might look like. I will explore that a little bit more because maybe some personal stories. We had shared a few of the personal stories that came out of our early survey about what students were experiencing here, how many of them had roommates who came in and they were not doing the self distancing and they were feeling very vulnerable. So I appreciate you bringing that up. I think those personal stories as part of our off-campus life newsletters have a huge impact. So those are some of the ideas. But thank you for that question. Councillor Shannon. All right. I'm sorry. Councillor Hightower, are you all set? Yes. Thank you. Okay. Councillor Shannon. Thank you, President Tracy. And thank you both Gail and Dale for the presentation, but also for your work too because we're reinventing a new wheel here and I appreciate all the effort that has gone into that. I have a question about, you know, I understand you have surveyed students. I don't understand how you're tracking students. It seems like we are going into a mode of contact tracing and we have a quarantine order. So I'm wondering if UVM knows where their off-campus students are and if you know on an individual basis who is coming from where, where they're residing and have the ability to make that, you know, individual intervention to talk about the things that you've presented, that it's our expectation and it's the law that they comply with. Thank you, Councillor Shannon. One of the things that we've done in our survey, we asked students where they're living and we get the, what we kind of know historically as the areas where they're, it's most prominent. So that's around the Loomis Street area and then the others around Buell and Bradley. So we have those addresses. Also, Lisa Kingsbury from Campus Planning Services, she also does a survey every year to see where students are living and we share that information. So we have a pretty good idea. That's why when we did the spring move out alternate project, we knew which neighborhoods to go into. So that's one thing. Most of our students are coming from out of state and most of them are from Massachusetts and New York. So I think we do need to move into notice that look for contact tracing approach. And so I will bring that information back from this conversation to people that are looking at both the testing and the contact tracing. Can I continue? Yes. That sounds to me like the answer is no. We don't know where they are on an individual basis. We do know probably all of us and particularly people who live in the neighborhoods know which houses are student houses, which neighborhoods are student neighborhoods, but we do not know which students are living where and where they have come from. Is that correct? It is. In Katzak, when I have a call or a case and somebody doesn't have a name, I usually have to go knock on the door. We are trying, we've done a much better job in our registration when students have to sign up for registration of getting their local address, though we can look into the local address database and see what the addresses are there. We can't provide where individuals are living because of the FERPA protection, but we can call you the numbers of students that might be in different neighborhoods, for example. And Lisa Kingsbury again has that information. Well, I'm not necessarily looking for you to provide it to us. I mean, it would only need to be provided to us if you wanted our help in working with those students. But I think that it's important for the university to know where they are and for the university to be doing the work to make sure that they are compliant. So I hope that that is going to happen. It's getting kind of late in the game for that to happen. Well, we already do that through, as I mentioned, changes in the way that we do registration. So when students register for classes, we will have their local address. Before we had trouble with students not providing the correct local address. Sometimes it was their home state or their on-campus address. And now that's significantly improved. When did they register for classes? I'm trying to think of when that comes up. I know it's in June, but I don't have the exact date. But haven't students registered for classes already for a classman? No, no, a orientation I know is coming up for registration. I'll check that, Joan. I'm not sure. Okay. Thank you. Well, thank you, Councilor Shannon. It is 732. So I'm going to ask that we go into our public forum. Gail and Bill, are you able to stay on for after the public forum? Is that okay? Yes. It is a time certain. So we do really need to get to that. I have Councillor Carpenter and Freeman still in the queue. Are there others that want to get in the queue? I can email my question to Gail. That's perfectly fine. I want to welcome all questions. We'll come back into this item. I want to make sure that everyone gets their questions because I know this is an issue of great interest to the community right now. So with that, we'll recess this item with the idea to come back after public forum. If I could please ask City Clerk Bovee to help with the public forum on just a second here. But if you are interested in joining the public forum, I would just ask that you submit an email to publicforumatburlingtonvt.gov. That's publicforumatburlingtonvt.gov and we'll get you in the queue to speak on the public forum. Looks like we have quite a few folks already signed up. So City Clerk Bovee, can you please call the first speaker for this evening? Yes, our first speaker tonight will be Robert Kiernan. Robert, you should be able to go ahead. We can please get the timer up. Well, let's wait till we get the timer up just so that folks can see that. And we're going to have that on the shared screen. Chief of Staffordell, are you able to get that timer up on the screen for us? Sorry, President Tracy, this is Olivia. Oh, Amy's got it. Great. Yep, I can do that. I was actually thinking, from what I've heard, we have quite a few folks in public forum this evening and a very packed agenda. So I was going to set the time at two minutes this evening. Sure. Thank you very much. Okay, can you reset that and then make sure that we have Mr. Kiernan online? On here. Have you got me? Yep. Okay. Go ahead. Thanks for the public forum tonight. For your consideration tonight, the proposed resolution to issue a city council COVID-19 emergency order to require wearing face covering in retail stores is appropriate and will hopefully receive strong affirmative support. Thank you, Councillor Shannon, for developing this resolution. Many Berlingtonians are hoping to see city council action as well towards the recent efforts by the Berlington and actually statewide restaurant industry, asking for community support and development towards their workers and for the economic contribution this industry provides to our city. Their petition to save Vermont restaurants has received well over 5,700 signatures as of today. I'm also reminded of last year's council's deliberations about the downtown business district improvement plan that was comprehensive but was not approved in 2019. This is a timely concept to reemerge now to support the needed regrowth of Berlington economic health. My statement would be that a spirit of innovative planning should prevail during a time that sees the COVID-19 pandemic creating numerous economic and cultural challenges. In contrast, Agenda Item 7.07 brings forward a council resolution directing city departments to provide resources and significant spending to tear down store and hide a mural that seems to be disliked by some in our community. And to do this over two years ahead of schedule that was agreed upon in October 2018, this new resolution is not in the public interest in my opinion, especially during a time when city finances are severely challenged and there are current health and economic concerns of a much higher priority in our city and state. As an example, sorry, say again. Please wrap up. Okay, I'm wrapped up. Thanks a lot for listening. Thank you very much. Is there a next speaker? Our next speaker is Sarah Scortino. Give me one moment and I will enable your microphone. Okay, Sarah, you should be good to go. Sarah, are you with us? Hi, can you hear me now? Yes, thank you. Great. Well, thank you for having me. I'm just here to speak in support of Councillor Hanson's resolution to move buildings in Burlington off of natural gas and towards renewable energy. I'm an environmental study student at UVM and a leader in the movement to divest UVMs endowment from fossil fuels. I really chose to come here because of what seemed like a commitment to environmentalism and I was upset to be let down by the reality of our irresponsible and hypocritical investments. As a student who's really passionate about the environment, I feel similar reservations about living in a city still partially relying on fossil fuels, including natural gas, while I try to work towards a better future. I'll be a tenant in Burlington in two short weeks and will be begrudgingly making monthly payments to Vermont gas and this does not make me feel very proud to be a Burlington resident. I know the same goes for my peers and yeah, I just feel ashamed to be going to a green school that's finding the fossil fuel industry and to soon be relying on natural gas in my apartment, which is an unsustainable and carbon-intensive and inequitable energy source. I wonder when do the lies stop? When will the institutions that I support and the cities in which I live actually live up to the narrative that they promote? This resolution is an essential step towards making Burlington truly green. Strides have been made, but renewable energy is essential in order to address the climate crisis and as a city largely led by progressives, we have the potential to lead the way in efforts towards greening urban areas. Therefore, we really do have the responsibility to do so and this includes the essential task of switching to renewable energy in all sectors. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker. Our next speaker will be Evan Litwin. Evan, you should be able to go ahead. Evan, are you with us? Are you able to hear me now? Yes, if you could please set the clock one second. Evan, can we just get that clock reset? Okay, perfect. Go ahead Evan. Hi, good evening. Tonight you have a proposal before you to change the number of units at the Cambrian Rise Development Project by over 23% from 770 to 950. After all is said and done, roughly four to five percent of Burlington's entire population will be living on this single 21 acre parcel of land. Additionally, its only entrance and exit point will be via North Avenue. My concerns tonight are more about process, system, and transparency than about anything specific to the proposal, although concerns certainly exist, including the one about increasing the height of the buildings. Assumptions that the height increases will be, as the memo states, little noticed by the general public, assumes consultation that hasn't happened. 75 feet above grade means that the existing four-story buildings that people now live in could potentially be in the shadow of six or seven story buildings, perhaps eight when slope is taken into account. My concern lays with the rushed and discrete nature of the new proposal. The public through our elected body is being asked to consider the memo while referencing working closely with Mayor Weinberger for several months was only dated April 23rd during the height of the coronavirus situation. The residents have had little or no notice or opportunity and I am just to address this, I'm just going to jump ahead for time. Therefore, I see this as a critical moment for the identity of the new progressive led council to set the standard for community input, transparency, and dialogue with the city's developer community. What might have been acceptable under the former council may not be today. Therefore, I ask that the committee either reject this proposal or allow Mr. Farrell to withdraw it until such a time that community input, feedback, and reasonable participation can be garnered by the council and any other appropriate entities. And I will leave it there for now. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker. Our next speaker will be Miko Ozeki. Just one second. And you should be able to speak now. You'll just need to unmute yourself. Hi. Can you hear me? Yes. Hi. My name is Miko Ozeki. I'm the market director for the Burlington farmers market. I just wanted to provide a quick update about running the farmers market. This year is our 40th season and we are operating on starting on June 6th and going until October 17th. We have shortened our season dramatically due to COVID-19 and have dramatically changed our setup in light of the farmers market guidelines from the Vermont agency of agriculture to provide a safe food hub as well as a shopping experience for Burlington residents and those who are visiting the Burlington farmers market in general. And so one of the quick things we want, I wanted to kind of give an up, our biggest concern is for us and under the agency of agriculture's guidelines, we as staff as well as vendors are all required to wear facial coverings and gloves and knowing that there is a measure that is out there in regards to retail shops having facial coverings and gloves. We would and in particularly to sorry for customers, we would like to see the same extended to events like ours since we are a recurring event that is going to be happening over a period of 20 weeks for the safety of our own vendors as well as staff. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker. So I just wanted to say I have someone named Norman Fisher who signed up. I don't see you on the Zoom call, so if you could just email public forum and let me know how to identify you, we'll get you in queue. But next while we're waiting, I will move to Trav Friar. Trav, you should be able to speak. Okay, you hear me? Yes, Trav, go ahead. Hi everybody. Trav, I'm a resident of the Old North End. I just wanted to voice my support for Jack Hansen's resolution to help move Burlington off of fossil fuels. It's a really small but necessary step, and I thank everyone for supporting it. That's really all I have to say. Thanks. Thank you very much. Okay, our next speaker will be Jeff Nick. Jeff, you should be able to go ahead. Jeff, do we have you on the line? Can you hear me? Yep, go right ahead. Okay, hi everybody. Jeff Nick here. I'm the chair of the Church Street Marketplace Commission, and I'd just like to comment on a couple of the agenda items tonight. First of all, it is our hope, the commissions that the positive business climate we all enjoyed a few months ago bounces back quickly, but we certainly have our work cut out for us with we're now up to eight vacancies on the street, which is very concerning, and we know more will come. Our focus, the Marketplace Commission, is ensuring that shoppers and visitors alike are comfortable venturing back downtown in this new era of social distancing. It's very important. We know there's going to be some apprehension, and we must do everything we can to really eliminate that and make sure we really feel safe venturing back downtown. So to that, the Marketplace Commission voted unanimously to support Councillor Sharon's efforts to require masks to be worn while shopping, and the retailers I've talked to also appreciate that and support it. So I think on balance, the folks visiting Church Street will appreciate the effort. And a quick trip downtown today or walking on Church Street, I would say 90% of the people already had masks either on or in their hands, so I think the shoppers are ready for this, so I'd appreciate it. The other item I'd like to comment on is the idea to remove the mural, and there's many reasons that mural was put in place and it's enjoyed by many, but there are the unintended consequences of what will happen without a plan to replace that mural. And I think it's pretty evident to all of us now that that wall would just become an alleyway of graffiti if that is removed and not replaced with anything. So we really hope that you would reconsider the implications of removing that mural. Thank you very much, everybody. Okay. Thank you very much. Next speaker. Again, folks, if you're interested in speaking, you can email publicforum at burlingtonvt.gov. It looks like we've tracked down Norman Fisher. I will go ahead and allow you to speak. My daughter is the text expert, and she was the one who set me up on this. So anyway, I'm on now. I believe that the, I'm opposed to moving the mural, but particularly with COVID-19, I regard it as a reckless and dangerous action, particularly in the light of two things. First of all, the deceptive and weak intellectual basis of the report, and second, the failure to ever bring in the issue of free speech. On the first, I was involved. I tried to get on the panel, but I didn't. Okay. So they didn't get me on, but I came to a number of the meetings, and I was struck by the fact that two of us who knew a lot about art history, I'm a retired professor of philosophy, were not on. Okay. That's one thing. Maybe that's nothing, but most of the people, five out of the seven people on the panel seemed to be just gun whole and getting rid of the mural. But even more serious than that is that at the July 31st meeting, Gary, the Carolus who didn't want to get rid of it, wanted to have a motion, and the chair of the meeting didn't allow him to have a motion. And when the thing finally went into the report, it was not signed. There's no way of knowing how many of the people on the panel, the seven people actually supported the motion to get rid of it. Carolus didn't. I suspect that at least five did, but this is a conceptual problem. Okay. It's deceptive and also the weak intellectual background to this suggests that people on the council should look at all the, all this is on the record. Second point, which I've spoken on extensively in 18, fall of 18, late summer of 18 is the total lack of discussion of free speech. And this is a glaring contrast to what happened in those. You can wrap up your comments, sir. Yeah. Well, this is a glaring contrast to what happened in LA and San Francisco. There was a rich discussion of free speech. Many left this, which I am, supported free speech and didn't want those reals taken down. So I hope that the council, before they vote on this reckless and dangerous action, look into this. Thank you. Next speaker. So it also make an announcement. I had a Brian Druer signed up to speak to who I don't see on the call. But in the meantime, let's move to Lori Fisher. Lori, are you with us? Give me just one second. Not seeing Lori. So in the meantime, we'll move to Dale Tillett. Dale, are you with us? This is a test of the emergency broadcast system. Can you all hear me? Yes, I can hear you, Dale. Thank you. Thank you. Go ahead. Thank you, Mr. President, for taking my comments tonight. I will be addressing the issue of the mandatory masking up of customers in retail establishments. And I also hope the surrounding communities of Burlington take a look at this and also join into this. I would also like to thank in particular the mayor's office, Councillor Shannon, Paul, Jang, and Polino for responding to my messages on the issue. Well, every cough is not a COVID-19 cough. Well, every sneeze is not a COVID-19 sneeze. Every cough or sneeze should be treated as one. And with the 20% of the people that I see that are not masked up, that puts our lives in danger. As I said, my unofficial but personal observations are that roughly 20% of customers are not masking up while visiting retail businesses. Simply said, those unmasked that cough, wheeze, or sneeze must be declared a hazard to my life and anyone else around. Enforcement will be a challenge for all. And I hope the city emphasizes that with our health officers for them to get out and observe what is happening and report back issues that need addressing. In closing, if a volunteer is needed to ask customers to mask up, I am your person. I will do the best of my ability to educate those that are ignorant or arrogant of the situation with subtle comments such as no mask, no service. Again, I thank you for your time. You have a busy agenda tonight. Good luck. Stay safe. Stay healthy. Thank you. Okay. Our next speaker will be Charles Messing. Charles, you should be able to speak. Hi, Charlie. We can hear you. Hi, Zoomers. That's Charlie, by the way. Okay. I got all kinds of things to say in only two minutes. Joan, that's great that you've been working on the masks and the safety. I really think we have to make it known to the new kids that it's not just something they can, you know, brush off, you know, toss a beer can or a red bull can over their shoulder, forget a mask. I mean, what's the difference? You know, they're trying to be jolly and I'm not being watched. I'm away from home now. We really do have to make sure people know what six feet is. I see every day people are too close. So I hope we can do something about that. Pine Street, I am for the new street. I think it will be better, much better. City Place, I'm sure wondering what's going to happen with that. The mural, I don't like the mural, but as you know, I don't like parades. Outside, outside, it's going to get hot. And people are going to want to be in air conditioned places. Recirculated air, recirculated water is exactly what the virus would like. And we have to remember that. We have to be very careful of anything like that. Opening things up means cleaning up a lot. This must be really something. You've got a new council and all of a sudden you're sailing the ship and here comes the storm. So good luck. I couldn't do what you do. Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak. Have a good evening. Thank you. You as well. Okay. Our next speaker will be Tony Reddington. Tony, you should be good to go. Tony, are you with us? Tony, are you with us?  Tony, are you able to hit that unmute button, Tony? Okay. Well, why don't we go to the next speaker? And if someone from the clerk's office could please continue to work with Tony Reddington to get him on the line so that we can hear Tony speak. That would be wonderful. And let's get that next speaker going and then again, we'll come back to Tony. Sounds good. Our next speaker will be Tom Proctor. Tom, you should be good to go. Tom, are you with us? Yes. Good evening. Thank you for letting me speak this evening. My name is Tom Proctor. I live in Ward 1 and I work at Wrightson Democracy. I just wanted to say this evening that I support Councilor Hanson's resolution to help move buildings in Burlington off of natural gas and towards renewable energy. I think it's a critical way we can move forward on addressing climate change. I believe that everyone on the city council believes in climate change. I know that it's critical we address climate change in any way and every way that we can. One crucial way to address climate change is to end our reliance on fossil fuels. And I believe this resolution is the first of many steps in which we can take to make this reality in Burlington. So thank you, Councilor Hanson, for bringing this resolution forward. Thank you. Were you able to get Tony back on the line? I can give it another try. I haven't heard from him, but Tony, you are unable to speak if you can unmute your microphone. Tony, are you with us? Okay, well, let's keep trying and let's move on to the next speaker. Okay, our next speaker will be Charles Simpson. Charles, you should be able to speak. Okay, got it. That sounds like Tony. Yes. Okay, let's go with Tony first and then we'll go to Charles. Tony, thank you for bearing with us. I appreciate it. You have two minutes. Go ahead. The button showed up when I hit it. Okay, thank you, President Tracy. My name is Tony Ruddington. I reside at 125 St. Paul Street, Ward 3. I speak on behalf of Pine Street Coalition. With an year will have passed before our Pine Street lawsuit filed last June 6, will get passed the U.S. District Court door. One of many unaddressed laws, policies, and plans as well as changes on the ground detailed by Pine Street in 2018, environmental justice impacts on King Maple gets addressed only because of Pine Street actions. Burlington's standard for street design is really the North Avenue Corridor Plan adopted in 2014. It features two pieces. One, cycle track or protected bike lanes from top to bottom and roundabouts that cut injuries and fatalities 90% at key intersections. There's no need to restate the current parkway design contains not a single inch of sidewalk, not an inch as safe as separate and safe bikeway is required by Vermont's Complete Streets Law and contained in our own planned PTB walk bike. No need to restate that six traffic signals compared to the basic roundabout spews out a yearly average of more than 3,500 gallons of gas and global heating emissions. No need to restate our largest waterway. Engelsby Brook jammed into a football field length of fight. No reason to restate. Mayor Clavel fought through and against the design that brings 29% to 37% more traffic to the part of low income minority King Maple neighborhood where 30% have no access to a car. In sum, we believe that New Street, which we distributed for the first time this weekend to the council is a way in which the city, the city, those who are opposed to the current design, the federal highway administration and Vermont, VTrans can come together with minimal changes in the environmental documents committing to get a street that our city and our south end can enjoy and the wrap up is off the wall. Thanks, council. Thank you. Do we have Charles Simpson? Charles, you should be able to speak now. Very good. Thank you. My name is Charles Simpson, the resident of ward six with some academic background in urban planning. The Champlain Parkway is presently envisioned by DPW is a legacy project rooted in traffic and mobility assumptions decade old and now thoroughly outmoded. Rather than being truly multimodal, it adds not a single foot of separate bike walk pass and actually remove some existing sidewalks. At time when we must stimulate local manufacturing and jobs, this roadway designed squander six acres of industrial potential of the enterprise district by slicing it open with a limited access highway. As we worry about climate change, it impedes preparation for floods by submerging Anglesby's book in a 200-foot culvert that restricts its ability to absorb strong water. And it barricades Pine Street on the border with South Burlington, frustrating connectivity standards. When a consensus is growing to reduce off-street parking requirements in the city core to make our city more pedestrian friendly, why build a new limited access parkway whose purpose is to funnel yet more traffic downtown? We're lucky that Burlington is a city in which citizens are deeply involved in public processes. The city, the Pine Street Coalition, a group of 200 residents as Tony just indicated, has developed an alternative plan and we recommend that to you watching the clock here as well here. Okay, so I request that the Parkway project be referred to the Transportation, Energy and Utilities Committee for further analysis and public comment, including a discussion of the Coalition's New Street proposal. This is the best forum for a full discussion of the question. And if I, I guess I, okay, that's it. Thank you very much. Thank you. Me, you're on mute. Our next speaker will be Joanna Rankin. Joanna, you should be good to go. Can you hear me? Yes, Joanna. Thank you very much for taking my comments this evening. And we've talked over the years, over many years, almost two decades about noise measurement and tracking equipment for the Burlington airport. It's the only way we'll have an objective measure of the, of the loudness of the aircraft that are using the, the airport. And I just want to report tonight that, that some of us have talked to Robert Duquette, who's the FAA Northeast New England representative. He's looked at the, at the noise studies from the last two decades. And he says that there's absolutely no reason why Burlington cannot apply for an FAA grant to fund noise measurement and tracking at the airport, which would give us an objective measure of the, of the levels of noise and their health and other kinds of, of effects on the community. So I asked the council to, to encourage or, or instruct the airport management to, to submit a grant. It has to be done quite quickly because the, the deadline has been extended this year due, due to COVID, but the deadline is within two weeks. So I mean, it's, it's in mid June. So kindly start the process to submit this FAA grant. Thank you very kindly. Good evening. Thank you. Our next speaker is Graham Turk. Graham, you should be all set. Yep. Can you hear me? Okay. Yep. Go ahead, Graham. Perfect. Thank you. So I'm going to speak in favor of councilor Hanson's resolution to help move buildings in Burlington off natural gas. I think first we, we know that ducted heat pumps can meet the need for Vermont winters using Burlington's 100% renewable electricity supply. Efficient electric heat will drastically cut emissions. This will also keep money in the city and apply downward rate pressure by spreading Burlington electrics fixed cost over higher sales. And this has an awesome flywheel effect because more electrification means lower rates, which in turn means more favorable economics against fossil fuel alternatives. So the proposal, I really see the saving Burlingtonians money in the long run, moving the city closer to net zero and improving air quality by reducing point source emissions, which is truly a win, win, win. It's an opportunity for the council to demonstrate its commitment to Burlington's net zero energy plan because heating represents such a huge share of Burlington's emissions and also may be an impetus for, for district energy from the McNeil plant, as that would be a clean alternative to the existing fossil fuel infrastructure. Just a quick comment on the Cambrian rise proposal. I hope that if we're allowing more units, we are also being vigilant on how that impacts transportation and not getting stuck in the old paradigm of subsidized parking. And lastly, just wanted to thank all counselors and the mayor for your dedication and continued progress through the pandemic and jumping through hoops to allow public participation through zoom. So thank you all. Thank you. Okay, our next speaker will be Lisa Lax. Lisa, you should be all set. Okay. So my name is Lisa Lax. I'm a 37 year resident of ward one. And I want to thank the council for making it possible for us to speak tonight. I want to speak in favor of counselor Hanson's resolution to help move buildings in Burlington off of natural gas and towards renewable energy. The city government has begun some really exciting initiatives and plans towards reducing the effects of climate change with its net zero plan. And Jack's resolution is a logical and necessary step towards meeting these goals. So that's all I have to say. Thank you very much. Thank you. And if members of the public want to get into the queue for public forum again emailing public forum at Burlington VT.gov is how you do that.  I have sent out messages to Brian Drewer and Lori Smith. If you can contact me, we'll try and get you to a chance to speak. But the last person I do have signed up is Mark Hughes. Mark, you should be good to go. Mr. President, good evening. Good evening, council. And thank you for all your hard work that you've been doing this unprecedented time. I just wanted to just speak out on behalf of the Racial Justice Alliance. We're fearful that there are some of us that are still left behind. Pre-COVID-19 Black folks had an unemployment rate of about two times that of and also a median wealth of one-thirteenth out of whites. And also many were pre-unemployed with no benefits underemployed struggling to start businesses previously incarcerated or under the control of the Department of Corrections unbanked. And many had no sufficient tax filing history. Recently, the center of responsible lending estimated that upwards of about 90 percent of businesses owned by people of color have not been or will not likely be eligible for the Paycheck Protection Program. So there's a lot of things that are happening. COVID-19 is definitely exacerbating all of those known racial disparities in housing and education, also obviously in employment health services access, the justice system, everything that was clearly outlined in the Attorney General's and Human Rights Commission's Act 54, racial disparities and state systems report and recommendations that stated December of 2017. That wasn't enough. We've got all kinds of challenges right on the health front, right here as well. And I think that was documented just very recently by the health department. So all that to say this is there's still work to do. And I stand at the ready to work with you. I'm looking forward to working with the DEI folks as well as continuing working with the mayor, as well as Taisha to bring the bearer all to the power that we can to make sure that these challenges are resolved and closing. I would just say that definitely thumbs up Counselor Hanson on the buildings, taking the buildings off of natural gas. I think that's a great move and it's time to do it now. Thank you, Counselor Shannon, for the massive business. Those of us who are people of color in a precarious place with our health and this virus, but also many of us, 80% of us are on the front line. And finally, I'll just say the mural, yes, take it down. It's racist and gentle in Parkway. I think you should kick that over to the diversity, equity and inclusion committee since it's an environmental justice issue. Please wrap up. Thank you for your time, Mr. President. Thank you, Counsel, for your work. Thank you. City Clerk Bovier, or do we have any additional speakers that are waiting to get on or that we're still trying to identify? I did hear from Laurie Smith that you'd like to speak, but Laurie, I can't identify you on the call if you could reply to my email and let me know. I'm right here on the call. My name is on the screen. Oh, there you go. Okay. And I prepared for a three minute comment. I will do it as fast as I can, but I hope I can get through it, please. Thank you very much. And we'll get that right up. Okay, go ahead, go ahead, Laurie. Good evening. My name is Laurie Smith and I live in Queen City Park in South Burlington. I first want to thank all of you for your efforts towards managing our Queen City and your efforts to improve the quality of life for all who live, work and recreate in the region. Lately, I've been following the efforts of the city to get the Champlain Parkway completed and the efforts of the Pine Street Coalition to improve the design of the project and ensure that what gets built is a model for transportation infrastructure in the 21st century and is in line with the climate emergency resolution adopted by the City Council on 9-23-19 with reduced pavement, promotion of bike and pedestrian transportation and minimized environmental impact. I have been paying attention to this project for decades and have witnessed the struggles that have plagued its completion. After listening to the DPW Parkway presentation at last week's council meeting, and listening to the legal conversations at the Pine Street Coalition meetings, it has become clear to me that there are major differences of opinion about what modifications can be made to the project design while maintaining the ability to construct the project in the near future. The Federal Highway Administration rescinded the record of decision for this project last October. That action has significant implications for the project and potentially creates an opportunity for the city to make alterations to the project design. Rescinding the rod also potentially opens the project to new levels of appeal when a new record of decision is filed, leaving the project exposed to the possibility of further extensive delays if the city and the Pine Street Coalition do not work together towards a settlement that can be accepted by all stakeholders which would enable the project to move forward uncontested. I encourage the council to consider briefly continuing any decision to allocate further funds towards this project to provide the time needed to ensure clarity about what options are realistically available to improve and complete this project. If there's a viable alternative, let's go for it. At the very least, taking a short pause referring to the Duke would provide an opportunity to clearly assess the options. Please do this and please take care of traffic coming to get the problems relieved for the people that live in the south end. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. City Clerk Boby, do we have anyone else in the queue or trying to get on? I did just get a couple more emails. Next up we have Alex Binzen. Alex, you should be all set. Okay. Hello. My name is Alex. I live in the old north end. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I'm here to voice my support of Councillor Hanson's resolution to move Burlington buildings towards renewable heating. According to the Netsier Energy Roadmap, heating accounts for almost half of total emissions in the city. Sustainable heating technology is available at affordable prices and now is the time to move ahead. Thank you. That's all I have to say. Thank you for that. Last up I had Michael Mullen contact me, but Michael, I don't see your name on my list. If you can tell me what you're logged in under, I can let you speak. That's the last person I have signed up. Give a moment to try and get that. Anything, City Clerk Boby? I haven't heard back from him and I'm still not seeing anyone listed under the name Michael Mullen. Okay. I'm going to go ahead and close that item and we will go back into the presentation from UVM and Gail Champt-Noise. In the queue, I had Councillors Carpenter, Freeman, and then Jeng. Councillor Carpenter, the floor is yours. This is a quick question. For some reason I've had two families contact me today about their children who are moving from one to another apartment in the city of Burlington. The problem is they're going to be without housing for three to five days while the landlords are sanitizing 60 apartments. Typically, they go home or bunk up with a friend, but they can't do that in the stay-at-home thing. So I'm just asking, Gail, what options are you? Do you have any supports for those kind of residents? And I also just noted that in your flyer, it says the hotels are not open until the 15th, but I thought they were open in the 22nd. Your question. And was that the UBOUT special edition? Because that was a main element. Yeah, I can't. It was the one that was sent to us. I don't know what tradition it was. Okay. So after that went out, then the governor's orders. There was a letter that went out to the hospitality community. And so one of the things that changed is if you are a Vermonter, which these students are that are in between housing, that you would be able to go stay in lodging after May 27th. I think that that was made in a second. Yep. Okay, thank you. So we've gotten information to our students, so that could be one resource for them. We also said, I know that a lot of our students don't have jobs anymore and our stuff is in many of us economically. So the student financial services will try to work out if there's any care money that could cover their situation. As long as they reach the criteria for financial aid, as much money is available. So that's the information that we give them. And what you just said, we'll also share up in our survey when we ask students what else they want to say about their off-campus situation. So some of them are using storage and, as you said, finding other places to live in the meantime. But it has been very difficult. Is that all, Councillor Carpenter? Okay, Councillor Freeman. Thank you, President Tracey. And I, my internet did cut out in the beginning of your presentation. So if any of these questions are, I just have two questions are repeat. I can just let me know and I can take it offline and we can follow up afterwards. But yeah, I appreciate the presentation you were coming and speaking tonight. I was curious if there's, is there any regulation around the sanitization of the units that folks are moving in and out of? And again, if I missed this, because it was already part of the presentation. No, it's not. Well, the regulation is basically from the Vermont statutes for essential maintenance practices. That's not specific to COVID related, but it has to do with lead paint. So buildings that are pre-1978 require a specific cleaning between tenants. That's part of why a lot of the leases end several days before the first of the month to give time for property owners to do that. But there are the current CDC and health department guidelines for cleaning residential properties that would be in effect, but not specific Burlington regulations. Okay. Yeah, so I guess that kind of gets up to my follow, like a follow up question to that, which is just, you know, if so it sounds like some, based on some regulations, some will be sanitized, but not necessary. So you're saying all of them will be because of the CDC, or I mean, I understand. Well, they should be. And that's part of the reason why we have a code enforcement office, the division of permitting inspections handles complaints from renters who get to an apartment that's not clean. We get those on a typical year. We can get calls, you know, anywhere from June 1st up to, you know, sometime in August that someone's moved back in. There's no one there and the place wasn't clean before someone comes in. So if someone asks you that question, by all means have them call us at the permitting inspections department. That's why we have deputy health officers to go out and do inspections of those properties. If they're not properly clean, our inspectors would first we'd ask for voluntary cooperation from property owners, but we issue written orders to the property owner to have them corrected and brought back into compliance. And part of that goes from the inspection. So we would again be the point of contact. It's a city staff and there are five of us that can handle those types of complaints. I don't expect we'll have too many based on what I saw this weekend. There's quite a few cleaning crews out with property owners. But if you do have those issues, by all means definitely have your constituents contact our office because we can help. Okay. Thank you. And yeah, my, so then my this the, I understand that the city is able to regulate some of this, but also some of it is going to probably fall on the state or if we needed to have increased regulation, is there been any need to communicate with the state in any sort of increased sort of process that they're looking at in terms of regulating this period? I am, I am just sort of generally worried about the contaminants because of the amount of turnover, not just with students without, but just the, the least turnover major. Yeah. I think the state's probably going to be limited to just providing guidance. I don't believe they have the capacity to do onsite inspections or follow-ups. That's why I definitely would encourage anyone who has a question to call us because we're the resource in Burlington. Yeah. Not just specifically towards inspection, but just sort of in general, I know during some of the early initial conversations, like, you know, we realized that you couldn't outright prohibit anyone from moving, but I just, I'm, I've been trying to reach out to the state to understand because I think Burlington is in a unique position being a municipality, having this level of high density and having this huge least turnover to be in a position to be more vulnerable during this time. And I don't know if, you know, I'm happy to also follow up with the administration or just sort of folks in general, but I was just sort of, I've been looking to sort of tease out this aspect of, yeah, what this means going forward generally. That's part of what we're doing with being out there because sometimes people aren't familiar with what our resources are, but part of my surveying, people who are moving out this weekend was to do exactly that, to make sure they're aware of our resources and that we are available. Those are perfect opportunities. When someone does have a problem, they would let us walk right into the rental unit and we'll be there when folks are moving back in too for those types of things, walking through the neighborhoods. And so again, whether it's a call to us or while we're out checking in with folks, we will be available to check individual apartments. If folks have a question and you can also reach out to me directly, we can follow up this conversation afterwards as well. Okay. Yeah. Thank you so much, Bill and Gail for your presentation. I super appreciate it. Thank you, Councillor Freeman. And Code Enforcement Director Ward, are you able to just share that? You said give us a call or the contact information. Can you just reiterate that contact information for the public? Sure. 8-6-3-0-4-4-2 is our office line. But I think a lot of folks have my direct contact, both my desk phone and my cell phone because it's listed because I'm Burlington's health officer through the Vermont Department of Health. We get a lot of direct referrals that way and we have our administrators check in with a staff member to make sure they're available. We assign our team of inspectors so that we try to share the wealth and don't overwhelm any one individual, particularly myself. I get those calls because my a variety of different numbers are out there but the office number is the most direct way. Okay. Thank you, Bill. So, Councillor Jang, let me know that he has passed on his thing so the queue is currently empty. Are there any other councillors wishing to ask questions? Councillor Stromberg, go ahead. Yeah, just a clarifying thing and I'm more than happy to take this offline with you, Bill. And it's also nice to meet you. So, cleaning is one thing and disinfecting is another. So, Perry's question kind of brought this up for me mentally. If you walk into a place, it might be clean but how do you know if it's been like properly disinfected and how are we enforcing that in terms of the turnover? The best way I would say first using their own senses as a renter moves into a place and often they know immediately their senses say something's not right. The next best, whether they think it's clean or if it's been sanitized, asking. Right? Asking the landlord what process was followed to make the place ready for the move in. But again, typically people can use their own judgment and when someone says, oh, we've gone top to bottom, everything's clean and you can look within a short distance of where you're at and you can see that that's not the case, then you can probably distrust the rest of the things that are being said. It's probably not clean top to bottom. That's a perfect call for us because it's also not just during COVID times, most of our homes are older. So, if the horizontal surfaces have not been clean, there's a greater hazard related from the dust particles that they're from the lead paint. So, we get those calls, we expect some of those. But again, I think people using their best common sense and judgment when they walk in, if it doesn't look clean, it's probably not sanitized. But asking the property owner or property manager who's turning the keys over, what steps did you take to sanitize? And we can make sure I'm pretty sure they're available on the website, but definitely folks can check them either through the CDC or the Vermont Department of Health, but we'll make them available through our departmental website as well. Thank you. Sure. Any other counselors wishing to ask questions on this item? Seeing none, we will go ahead and close this item. Thank you, both of you for being here and sharing this important information. I'm sure that should others have questions that come up, please feel free. I would assume to direct them to you recognizing that Gail is really here for the off campus and that as she said, if you have questions regarding to the on campus and some of the fall related questions that Joe Spidell is a good contact for you in that regard. But thanks again for being here and for waiting through public forum as well to come back on to make sure all questions were answered. Hope you have a good night. Good night. Thank you. Good night. Okay. So that will move us into our next item, which is climate emergency reports. One thing that counselors reminded me about with these reports is that there are not questions with these. If you have questions just about something that someone says on their report, please follow up with them offline. So with that said, are there any counselors wishing to offer a climate emergency report? Councilor Hanson. Great. Thanks. Yeah, just a couple things to flag. So two of the resolutions that we passed in January, I just wanted to flag and follow up on there was a resolution around a study of free transit that was due back for this meeting. And obviously timetables are affected by COVID. And city staff have been doing amazing work, you know, responding to the COVID crisis. So obviously it's understandable that these timelines haven't been met, but I do want to flag them so that as city staff are kind of returning back to some of the non COVID work that that this is flagged and for the public as well. There was a, so the Fair Free Transit study was one and then there was a resolution about use of parking revenue to support alternative transportation. That was actually due back in in March as well. And then one other, one other thing to flag is the issue of rent weatherization that got rolling all the way back. Oh, I'm sorry, the issue of rental weatherization that began all the way last summer, the idea of mandating landlords to weatherize rental units, that issue is going to be coming back after a bit of a hiatus. And that will be coming back in ordinance committee when we meet on June 3rd. So looking forward to that and just wanted to flag that. Thank you, Councillor Hanson. Other Councillors looking to offer a climate emergency report. Okay, seeing none, we will go into our next item, which is the consent agenda. Is there an a motion on the consent agenda? Councillor Stromberg. All right, so I move. All right, I move to amend adopt consent agenda taking the actions as indicated note written material for agenda item 6.10 communication Catherine Shad CAO regarding calendar for fiscal year 21 budget process per CAO Shad. Add to the agenda item 6.13 communication Sarah Denny regarding requiring masks and stores. Add to the agenda item 6.14 communication Mary Campbell regarding require masks on customers shopping in 05401. Add to the agenda item 6.15 communication Martha Day regarding community customers wearing masks in retail stores. Add to the agenda item 6.16 communication Maya Campbell regarding COVID retail response. Add to the agenda item 6.17 communication Kathy Rulo regarding vote on mask mandate in stores. Add to the agenda item 6.18 communication Carl and Ellie Potter regarding retail customer masks. Thank you. We have a motion. Is there a second? Seconded by Councillor Paul. Any discussion? Seeing none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favour, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That passes unanimously. We'll now move into our deliberative agenda and item 7.01, which is a communication but also there is action requested. So if we could please have a motion on the item 7.01. Councillor Mason. Thank you President Tracy. Excuse me. I'd like to make a motion to authorize the Director of Public Works to execute contract amendment number 16 to the contract with Clow, Haber and Associates for Engineering Nine Services for the Champlain Parkway Project increasing the total contract amount by 824,940.96 cents and the local match obligation by $16,498.82. Subject to review and approval by the city attorney's office. And I don't need the floor back if there's a second. Okay. We have a motion seconded by Councillor Paulino. We'll go ahead and open up the floor to discussion. Well actually let's go to actually let's go to Chief and Spencer and Director Spencer and City Engineer Baldwin for just a brief recap of what we're doing tonight. I turn it over to City Engineer, and our Baldwin is prepared to give remarks. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you members of council for this opportunity to speak. At the May 11th City Council meeting the staff presented the project update. Obviously there was new councillors to not familiar with the project so it was important that we share that information and frame the project in its right context. The department has requested the Board of Finance and City Council to authorize execution of the contract amendment 16 that was referenced in the amounts that Councillor Mason had suggested. There are additional tasks that are required to complete the National Environmental Policy Act for permitting to finalize the contract plans and bid documents and advertise the project for construction bidding. DPW anticipates the previously authorized contract funds will be fully expended by mid-May without an executed contract to consult their sub-consultants will stop work on this project. Failure to execute a timely contract amendment to continue to advance this project will jeopardize the current funding sources. This project has a favorable cost-sharing ratio of 95% federal, 3% state, 2% city local match compared to other recent grants which are typically 80% federal and state, 20% city local match. Other than that, I believe that members of council had an interest in having this issue brought to the TUC and staff and the department supports that concept but we really firmly believe that in order to avoid challenges in the future with our partners in this process that we need to move ahead with this contract amendment in a timely manner. So with that I'll be available to answer any questions. Thank you City Engineer Baldwin. I see Councillor Hightower and then Councillor Mason, Councillor Hightower go ahead. I actually have a point of order first which is I, sorry for not knowing Robert's rules quite as well. In order to refer this to TUC, do we need to amend the motion or is that a separate motion if we wanted to do both? Sorry to clarify. So can you can you say a little bit more about what you're hoping to do? Yes. So I'm hoping to both authorize this as moved by Councillor Mason but then also to move some discussion of this to TUC for a report back. I believe that that would be an amendment to the action. So are you prepared to, is that correct? Attorney Blackwood? Yes. So Councillor Hightower are you prepared to offer an amendment? We can always come back to you if you'd like to take a moment to think about it. Oh that would be fantastic. Thank you. Okay all right. I'll go to Councillor Mason for now and then we can come back to you after that. Go ahead Councillor Mason. Okay I would have questions about the amendment if that were made but since that's not made my question back to Mr. Baldwin relates to norm or you referred to these additional expenses in order to compliance with NEPA. How much of this is being driven by the Environmental Justice review that or study and work that's scheduled to commence or is commenced but it will be continuing over the next four months? It's been a mute. So obviously there's a significant amount of effort that goes into continuing to complete the public process that's still outstanding and to complete the NEPA process but it's an unpredictable thing in terms of how long this would take and what it would require. So we're giving our best guess but certainly there are other items that we are working through but this is the most critical path item in itself. Thank you. Okay Councillor Hightower are you prepared to offer your amendment now or would you want me to move on to other councillors? Sure um I would move to amend by saying that I would also like to oh goodness actually I don't know how to say this. Give me another minute. Okay are there other councillors who are interested in speaking? Councillor Pine and then Councillor Shannon. Councillor Pine? Sure um I think that um what Councillor Hightower was was alluding to was essentially approving the contract extension or or essentially the amendment to the contract and allowing for the new concept or the concept of changes to the to the project being discussed at the Transportation Energy and Utilities Committee and if that were so is is there anything in that process in that sequence of events that creates concerns for for the department in terms of just keeping this moving along in a somewhat orderly and predictable fashion? City Engineer Baldwin are you prepared to answer that? Yeah so we we have no issue or problem with continuing to have a conversation at the Duke level about the project but we really need to get get these contract amendments executed otherwise we we stand to being kind of jeopardy of two things one is obviously we made commitments to council before we proceed with any work that we would have contracts in hand and completed and executed the other is if we don't execute the contract and don't advance the work then our partners at the federal and state level may consider this a not advancing the project in a timely manner and decide to pull our funding and and that could be a risk. Councilor Pine do you have further questions? Only to know that I just want to make sure that if we do like there has been a proposal yet to refer but I have a feeling we're about to hear one so we will get into the detail of that a little bit more but I just want to make sure that staff you know the Duke is busy if it doesn't happen until sometime in in June it doesn't like that's a problem it sounds like what really would happen is the committee would discuss the alternatives being advanced by folks like the Pine Street Coalition I think that's the gist of what I believe would would occur at the committee level right just yeah. So to give you a little kind of deeper understanding I think many of the proposals that Pine Street Coalition are bringing up can be provided a response in terms of what's the consequence of some of those decisions are then the council can weigh those but those are significant and would likely base the project at risk of I guess being closed and then you would have to restart a project that would be under a different funding recent funding schedule. Thank you that's helpful that's it. Okay thank you councillor Pine I have councillor Shannon Hansen and Freeman in the queue and then I'll come back to the amendment councillor Hightower councillor Shannon go ahead. I was just going to offer an amendment but I think if councillor Hightower is ready I assist if you would like. Okay fair enough councillor Hightower are you ready? Um yeah I would amend the motion to adopt the action and refer the issue of the parkway to Tuke for further review and information and would take it back after a second if possible. Okay when you have a motion to amend is there a second? Seconded by councillor Shannon councillor Hightower you have the floor. Okay and I apologize for that and thank you for hoping on that language um yes I think it's just I I know that this has been through council many times I don't want to delay the action which is why I would really like to authorize the execution of the contract amendment at the same time I think there is several new councillors on the issue of the parkway and it's a pretty complicated issue I would like to have that larger conversation and I know that Chapin's made himself available which I very much appreciate but I'd like to have that larger conversation with some of the other councillors as part of a public process that's not necessarily taking up hours of of time here so I'd really appreciate the opportunity to go back and discuss some of the things as a new councillor with a more in-depth conversation than we can have here. Thank you councillor Hightower we I have councillor Shannon Hansen and Freeman in the queue but we do have an amendment discussion I can come back to you or come to you councillor Shannon if you would like to discuss the amendment um your your pleasure. No I don't need to thank you. Okay councillor Hansen go ahead yeah. Can you just repeat it it's really hard for me to hear it I'm not see it I'm so sorry. Absolutely councillor Hightower can you please. I'm so sorry. No not at all I'd like to amend the motion to adopt the action and refer the issue of the parkway to Tuke for further review and information.  Sure yeah I think I think Mike at least one of my questions is mine. Sorry your mic. Yeah I think at least one of my questions I believe is relevant to the amendment. Okay go ahead. Um so if we if we approve this contract how far does that take us like how long does this extension go?  If we extend this contract how far would that take us how far would that extension go of the contractor is it's or how far do we expect that it would go? So our intent with that is to arrive at a construction phase of construction. So so this sixteen dollars this sixteen thousand dollars is enough to get us all the way to the construction phase that's what that's presumed we don't know all the challenges that we'll face but that's what we believe will arrive at. Okay that's got it and what what is the next step whereby which you all would be looking to the council for approval of something? I would assume it would be going to a stage of getting the work and going to award the work for construction. Okay I'll just be check-ins along the way. It's not our intent to get to the end without periodic check-ins. Point of order. Yes. So we're we have an amendment on the floor we're talking about the underlying motion so I want to just raise that. Okay these questions are all about the underlying not the amendment we have an amendment on the floor that we should be anticipating. That is an in order motion councillor Hansen please just keep your comments specific to the amendment I can come back to you once we get the amendment done. I'll hold off until after the amendment then. Okay councillor Freeman I had you in the queue you can speak to this or I can come back to you in the regular motion your pleasure. My comment was to the underlying resolution so I will keep my comments to do that. Okay does anyone else like would anyone else like to speak to the amendment? Okay councillor Paulino then councillor Mason councillor Paulino. I just have a question for I think the city attorney mostly about procedure and I have no problem with the amendment's intent I just think that this issue is at Duke it always is at Duke we can ask any city councillor to member can ask director Spencer and and just engineer Baldwin to do a presentation on the parkway. We usually only get those when there's been significant changes and with some input from the administration usually as to sort of clarification direct and direction of the project so that we're not just having a meeting without sort of a goal in mind but I guess is this kind of I see this as a request monetary request for engaging in services much like a border finance request so is such an amendment moved doesn't the issue always lie with Duke? Attorney Blackwood. No the city council works by your committees your rules have said your committees take matters only when they're referred from the city council so it's not out of order to refer add something to referring a matter to the committee. Does that answer your question councillor Paulino? Yes thank you. Okay councillor Mason. Thank you President Tracy my comment somewhat relates to the same the language used in the amendment is to refer the parkway issue prior to the amendment being made there were however with specific reference to the proposed plan from Pine Street Coalition so from my perspective if I'm voting on Duke taking up the parkway the coalition's plan my vote is no because we heard last week from my perspective that plan is dead on arrival and having to expend valuable time I vote no I don't know what the parkway issue means so I'm not sure if it's possible from the maker to maybe clarify or if if the intention is to keep it vague then I'll have to make up my mind how to vote. Okay councillor Shannon. Thank you President Tracy my the amendment did not specifically refer a new plan but I know in my discussions with councillors there's there's been a lot of discussions about different things and you know where where we might be able to make some tweaks to it and and where we can't and I think it's important for the council to understand those parameters and I would welcome the two kind of pushing on that and um understanding where those parameters are because I I don't think that that is really obvious to people and I know councillor Mason and I have had the benefit of um a really long history of being able to look at some some different options and I think that we have been reasonably persuaded that we've pushed as far as we can on some important issues but not all the councillors at the table have had the opportunity to do that and I think it's better to do that in committee than on the council floor so for that reason I will support sending this issue to the to the two committee and I hope that councillors that have questions will attend those meetings when when the committee takes it up thank you councillor Shannon councillor Freeman was that out did you want to get in the queue okay councillor carpenter um I just like to agree with councillor Shannon I think a review of potential tweaks or why or why not we cannot do them in a public setting like a two hearing or a two meeting would just be helpful and informative um so we can move on and I think there's many reasons why some of the suggestions can't be done practically talk about it and move on and maybe there's a few others that we could look at I heard um Spencer say there's going to be the allowance for a few changes along the lines but we don't want to hold the project up we just want to understand it better thank you councillor carpenter does anyone else would anyone else like to speak to the the amendment councillor mason go ahead thank you president president tracy I mean I will be voting no I thought we covered this last week the letter from the state that was made a public record was crystal clear that the only changes would be allowed with those that came out of the mitigation efforts relating to the ej so I respect um we may have a difference of opinion but from my perspective this is an easy vote for me thank you thank you anyone else on the amendment seeing none we'll go to a vote with the city clerk please call the roll councillor carpenter all right councillor jane yes councillor freeman yes councillor hansen yes councillor hightower yes councillor mason no councillor paul yes councillor paulino yes councillor pine yes councillor shannon yes councillor stromberg yes city councillor president tracy yes 11 eyes one day that passes so we are back to the original motion as amended in the queue I had councillor hansen and freeman councillor shannon the floor is yours if you want to get in the queue to speak to the main motion please just let me know I do not thank you okay councillor hansen I'll go back to you great thank you um so yeah this is I mean this is a scenario that I feel like is difficult on council where we're faced with sometimes decisions that feel like non-decisions or feel like we don't really have a choice because what we're being presented here is that if we if we vote no the city could be at risk of losing 14 million dollars and also if we vote to spend more time on it we could lose money due to you know outstanding payments that need to be made on on work already done or contract so I guess just a comment or a request is that and this isn't to put fault on anyone but I think just going forward as much as we can try to have these decisions made at a point in time where there's actually more of a decision to be made and that we actually have the opportunity to make that decision without putting the city in financial risk I think that would be very beneficial to to try to get ahead of these decisions so it's not we're not so late in the game where by delaying at all or by saying no we put the city at financial risk because that's a really tough place to be in as a city councilor and especially for me I'm in general I'm very skeptical of this project and skeptical at moving forward but of course I don't want to cast a vote that's going to make the city lose money so it just it just puts it in a tough position so I just want to highlight that but I do appreciate the fact that DPW has made themselves available to explain this complicated issue for those of us who don't have all the history and who are trying to keep up with a lot of very differing and strong opinions that we're hearing about the issue so my other my other question this was sort of already asked but I want to clarify um from DPW can you quantify at all how much of this particular extension is going towards the um environmental justice efforts because I don't know if you can respond to that I don't have that detail here with me yes councilor I don't have the dollar amount in front of me um but it is most of this work um which is most of the work that will be happening between now and when we bid for construction um our consultants will help us with the outreach as well as completing the environmental justice review and the other portion of the work is just completing the bid documents and the final design okay great well that's that's helpful to understand and that that makes me a little bit more comfortable with this particular well and do is there was a point raised in public comment by marcus about potentially involving the diversity equity inclusion midi or perhaps involving the the dei director um taisha green um is there any plans for that not at this point we are working with our federal partners about following their process of and we can certainly ask that question but I think it's it's really in their court to decide how they want to proceed with this process we're having to follow that process okay that makes sense yeah I think to the extent that we can keep those folks in the loop or involve them um I think that would be a good use of those that committee in that position um as long as it doesn't obviously violate the federal process I think it'd be good to um include them um so I guess yeah I guess I'll I'll leave it there I'm glad we're going to tuc and I think given how stacked the you know backed up and stacked the tuc agenda is this might need to be a separate meeting so I'll just throw that out there it might need to be its own its own tuc meeting I'll just throw that out there for the chair and others to think about okay thank you Councillor Hanson Councillor Freeman thank you President Tracey um my question was also followed about the environmental justice portion and I just um was wondering if you could remind me about the process and I think you basically just spoke towards it a little bit but it is really just the process um the federal um sort of side is going through and do we I understand that we are basically providing information on you know locally but I guess my question is like are we do we have any local process around that and and what kind of engagement does that entail with people who are then directly impacted um and is that all just driven by the federal um requirement well certainly our intent is to not just do the minimum what federal federal rules require we are trying to meet or exceed those requirements and we've done extensive amount of public engagement and we'll continue to do that and maybe more than what even the federal government requires so we uh are very trying to be very thoughtful about that we're also um we are in a situation where the federal government rules change over the years with the life of this project along with the census data is updated until we're we're trying to track and follow both obligations while still trying to do what we think is appropriate to our community okay yeah that was helpful and I didn't mean to imply that that we that there was not a process I just you know it's being initiated initiated by you know the the federal government then um I was just curious to hear sort of what we were um what we are planning on the local side so I have a lot of land-grade concerns about this project and um I have a feeling I might be the only person so so plan so vote against it so would it be helpful for Susan maybe you explain maybe what we're proposing in terms of upcoming public conversations that would be helpful to yeah making uh Councillor Freeman a little more comfortable about that yep sure um we have for previous outreach and the outreach going forward have been working with CEDO as well and relying on some of their resources to help us engage with the community we've also been in contact with some of our community partners including the King Street Youth Center Burlington Housing Champlain Housing as another way of reaching out to the public upcoming we do plan due to the current situation to be hosting more virtual and online resources that will help to educate about the project and also welcome more feedback right because I would understand that some of this outreach has probably been pretty limited like based on the timeline of when we were given the new stipulations in terms of the environmental sort of justice component so to speak so I mean when I'm sure I'm just trying can you job when did that like when would your outreach have started and when did when would you when one would have been the period of direct communication I promise this will be at the end of my pretty much the end of my questions I know we have a packed agenda tonight so we've previously uh back in September we did host a public neighborhood meeting for the Maple and King Street neighborhood as well as open house as part of those efforts in September and October those efforts included translated meeting flyers and interpreters available our upcoming outreach we anticipate to be in likely July when we'll be doing another round putting more materials out for the public okay thank you okay okay so we have so next I have counselor Shannon just want to note for folks that we are just at a little past nine we still have six items on deliberative so let's try and move ourselves towards a vote on this counselor Shannon thank you I just wanted to um note uh counselor Hanson had asked to get this information sooner but um in in this case I know that director Spencer had told us not not last week at his update but in the one prior to that many months ago that this was coming forward and I don't know how much more of a heads up than that our staff can can give us I think that they have kept us surprised of that and I would note that the previous administration and the previous director in 2010 came to to the council and asked us to approve an amendment that covered all of the spending from 2006 to 2012 and that was retroactive and put us in a position where we could not vote no because we're voting on reimbursing ourselves for years and um I very much appreciate that this administration has been proactive in bringing these amendments forward in a timely and a regular way so thank you very much for that thank you counselor Shannon I don't have anyone else in the queue again we do need to kind of move towards a decision on this are there any final points that counselors would like to make counselor Hanson please have already spoken to please kind of get us moving towards yeah no I'll be quick I just want to clarify your mic thanks yeah I just wanted to quickly clarify I wasn't trying to clear I wasn't trying to criticize staff I just think there's a timing issue where we're making it where we're making decisions sometimes on things where if we if we go one way the city's losing money and I think that as much as we can avoid that timing issue and be able to make decisions that are yes no decisions where whether we vote yes or no we're not causing the city to lose money as a result of that vote I don't know how difficult that is with the timing of contracts but I think that's that's what I was getting at thank you counselor Hanson all right so any final remarks mr. mayors are you trying to get in yeah I just want to speak to the last point quickly and just make it clear that the reason that the city now needs to make a decision about whether to go forward with the project or to pay back millions of dollars is because time again for decades your predecessors made that decision and committed the city to go forward with the project knowing that there would be consequence if there was a later change in mind this is this is the way that this agreement with the other partners has always worked we are spending their money there's always been an assurance that if we were to change our mind in the future about the need for the project that that that change would come with the consequence of having to repay the money so I just want to make sure it's clear to everyone involved in this it's not like these decisions haven't been made it's that they've been made in the past and there are consequences to making those decisions in the past this was already the case and the CEO owed millions of dollars repayment by the time this administration started in 2012 we're already many millions of dollars down this road which is why so much effort has been made in recent years to improving the project within the within the limited boundaries of what was possible with the issue with the with the permits already having been issued by 2012 we have always since 2012 been working within the boundaries of a project that was already permitted and that you couldn't go back to square one and that still remains the the limitations of our decision making today thank you mr mayor um anyone else okay seeing none we'll go to a vote with the city clerk please call the roll counselor carpenter you're muted sir counselor carpenter i'm sorry counselor jang yes counselor freeman no counselor hanson yes counselor can you just speak in your mic please yes yes counselor high tower yes counselor mason yes counselor paul yes counselor paulino yes counselor pine yes counselor shannon yes yes counselor strongberg yes city council president tracy yes 11 eyes one day that passes um which brings us thank you to our the to director spencer and city engineer baldwin for joining us for and and uh and uh engineer mulzon i appreciate that as well really appreciate all of you uh coming us two weeks in a row to present to us that brings us to item number 7.02 um a ordinance on streets and sidewalks excavation and obstruction permits um is there a motion on that count counselor strongberg go ahead uh oh i lost it sorry someone else have it up and ready to offer a motion motion counselor paulino go ahead so it's uh a motion on item 7.02 um to um i thought i had it up counselor paul go ahead counselor paul do you have it yes i'm fine with that um so i'd like to make a motion to waive the second reading and adopt the resolution adopt the ordinance okay i do not need the floor back after a second thank you second from counselor mason um any discussion on the on this side well actually can we have a uh a quick um explanation of what it is this ordinance is before we go into to the um any discussion on it um counselor mason go ahead thank you president tracy i'm sorry i was waiting before to get recognized to make the motion realizing my video was off so my apologies um for the benefit of uh the the council this is um some minor amendments these are updates that were brought forth by department of public works um kelan mona and the public works commission um they were intended to bring the insurance amounts up to it had been who knows the last time this had been updated bring uh insurance amounts for um anyone doing work in our right of ways up to current standards also bring the fees in line with uh 2020 there were also some language updates some of this language dated back 50 70 years um it came before the ordinance committee multiple times we kept asking kelan with additional um uh things to update not because there was anything wrong this did come before the ordinance committee at our last ordinance our meeting and was unanimously adopted so with that open the floor for questions thank you counselor mason are there any questions with regards to this ordinance okay seeing none we will go to a vote all those in favor of the ordinance please say i hi anyone opposed hearing none that passes unanimously which brings us to our thank you again to the team at dpw for again staying with us on that item and being there to answer questions next item is a public hearing uh regarding community development block grants and home proposed allocations for 2019 2020 action plans for housing and community development before i open the public hearing i just want to go to um i believe that we're going to have some representatives from cito speak to that item um then we will open that public hearing um if anyone is interested in speaking to that particular item again you can email uh public forum at burlington vt.gov that's public forum at burlington vt.gov so um i'll turn it over to uh director mcgowan um from cito to just explain um what this is regarding thank you counselor tracy can you hear me yes good uh so i'm luke mcgowan for those of you haven't met i'm the director of cito i'm here to present our uh plan for the deployment of cdbg dollars here in our community and so just before i jump into the presentation you know i'm going to be brief and clear which doesn't always go together with hud compliance issues but i will do my best uh to do this quickly so just to step back for one minute for the new counselors who haven't had a chance to work with this program so cdbg is a community development block grant it comes through hud a federal agency and it is meant for local communities it's a funding source for local communities to address the roots and consequences of poverty um the city receives these block grants and then awards them in two ways one to local organizations that are addressing those roots and consequences of poverty and also the city operates its own cdbg funded programs here in burlington we have a very extensive and nationally recognized process for bringing community feedback together with the city team and the council to make recommendations namely we have a public advisory board that reviews all of the projects and makes recommendations uh to us so what we're presenting to you is largely a set of recommendations that have been extensively vetted by the community so now if i can do this quickly i'm going to share my screen and just run through a presentation just confirm folks can see my screen yep we can i can see it yep great um so what is happening this year is slightly different than in normal years so we have uh what is normal is we have a entitlement from 2020 and that's $765,000 that's effectively sort of last year's allocation of dollars and that process has gone through this public advisory board and they have made recommendations to us on how to allocate those dollars we also have in response to the crisis an additional $450,000 through the cares act which was the federal response to the coronavirus and it's to be used for response and recovery efforts in our community we are now running through the timeline in a pretty accelerated way to get these dollars as quickly as possible into our community so we've run through our process with the advisory board we've solicited input from cvnr on what we're proposing we have now published our plan and we're in the middle of a public hearing to take input and commentary on our plan we are targeting city council and board of finance approval on june 1st and that would bring us to a submission to HUD by the 5th which really puts us in range of having these dollars arrive in burlington by the end of june at the earliest so that's kind of tending HUD's process of seeing what comes from us and then approving that and letting us start to fund these projects HUD has made some important changes they've recognized kind of the urgency of getting these dollars into the community so they've allowed us to hold virtual public hearings which we're doing now they've also allowed us to reduce the public comment period which is normally 30 days we've reduced it to 15 days they've also given us some additional flexibility we have essentially evaluated two buckets of needs one is those identified by the 2020 entitlement process and that cost is there that's that $765,000 amount we've also identified new needs as a result of the pandemic and that those are namely rental assistance small business relief a low barrier shelter that is available year-round and additional food access funds what we're proposing to all of you uh to the council and to the community is to follow the advisory board recommendations for the 2020 entitlement funds and we are also proposing to use the additional covid funds essentially in two ways we're splitting that amount by 50 percent towards the rental assistance program 50 percent towards a small business support program that supports low and moderate income business owners and employees what you're seeing here is essentially the recommendations for the 2020 entitlement year and these are divided into sort of two groups one is for public service awards and the other is for development awards and that you can see those development awards here we also run city programs with these cdbg funds and you see those listed here and most of these are long-running city city programs and this is just a little bit more detail about how we're breaking down the rental assistance and small business assistance funds and you know i kind of want to make a point that we're sort of using different funding sources to meet the many community needs that we have we made the decision that the cdbg funds were best suited for the rental assistance and small business assistance programs and we'll be leaning on other sources of funds to sort of meet the other needs that we identified i also want to say the kind of details of the programs are being crafted as we speak we're continuing to get new guidance f