And could you let us know, President Tracy, if there's anyone signed up for public forum in the box, I only see one in the box from today, which is for regular public forum. So we should be good. I don't see any on the signup sheet either that look like they're as usual while you're looking at that. I didn't even get a motion on the agenda. Does anyone like to make a motion on the agenda? Motion to approve. Thank you, Councillor Paul. Is there a second? Councillor Pine. All in favor of adopting the agenda, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, please say nay. The motion passes. All right. So it looks like there's no one for public forum. Great. Thank you for confirming President Tracy. Is there a motion on the consent agenda? There's actually public. Oh, I'm sorry. Motion to approve the minutes as presented. Sorry, Councillor Paul. I'm just trying to confuse everyone. Sorry. Yes. President Tracy is the first. Is there a second? Sorry. That was the first and the second. My gosh, you guys. I got it. President. President Tracy is the second. Councillor Paul is the first moving on. Item 4.01 approving funds for the city's first annual Juneteenth celebration. This is very exciting achievement for our racial equity inclusion department. Before we get to that, I don't think we voted on the consent agenda. We just had a second. Guys, I'm really apologize. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed, please say nay. The motion carries. With that, I'm very pleased. I would like to introduce item 4.01 for the Juneteenth celebration. And is there a motion? Is there how. Yes. Thank you. I would love to make the motion, but was wondering if the director of the racial equity inclusion belonging and team and give us a quick overview of what is Juneteenth and why it's important. Excellent. Thank you. It looks like we have the whole team. Perfect. Thank you, Councillor Pine. And it looks like we have the whole team here. So I will turn it over to you first. Director Green. Thank you. Thank you. This is really, really exciting. And I, I'm going to, I'm going to ask that Skyler speak on this. I'm going to ask that. I'm going to ask that. I'm going to ask that. I'm going to ask that. Blaine and I are also a part of this, this massive team that includes a lot of city departments, but a lot of community members, but Skyler is leading the effort. So we're going to ask Skyler to, to speak on this on our behalf. Yeah. Just to clarify, are we talking about the, like what Juneteenth actually is or what the celebration is leading up to be currently right now? Just so I'm clear. We are going to be talking about how we're going to do this. So, we're going to be bringing that celebration officially to Burlington with a city wide celebration that is shaping up to have. An entertainment component and education component. A reunion aspects to it. That is going to take place at four to five different locations across the city. And so right now, the people working on that. Obviously myself and the rest of the REI be team, who are giving us a community vision for the Juneteenth celebration, as well as an internal city planning committee that spans multiple different departments from the BCA to planning, to parks and so on and so forth to really lift this celebration up. And so just before, you know, we can get into more details, but just an overhead view of the day as it stands so far right now, we're planning on starting with a gospel brunch and then picking off activities at different sites all across the city for people to enjoy. Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Jango. Are there any other questions for myself or for Mr. Nash? Thank you, Councilors. Yeah. We have a first and a second, so it sounds like we're ready to vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Aye. Okay, the motion carries. Thank you, REIB team and all of your committee and volunteers. We're all very excited about our first Juneteenth celebration. Gonna be a really good time. I'm looking forward to seeing everybody there. It's gonna, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. It's gonna be a great, great celebration. We have high expectations, so we're confident you're gonna help us live up to them. Yes, yes. Okay, item 4.02. This is the tiered progression program for union positions for BED. And as we are getting to the end here, I think this is familiar. How would the board like to proceed? Yes, Councilor Pine. I would move to recommend the city council approve the attached resolution. We'll second that. Thank you, Councilor Pine and President Tracy. Any discussion? Okay, are we ready to take a vote? Excellent. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Please say nay. The motion carries unanimously. That brings us to item 4.03. Corrected retroactive pay for two reclassified DPW employees. How would the board like to proceed on this item? I think it, Yes, Councilor Powell. I think it would be, I apologize, I know Councilor Chang had to stand up first. I think it would be helpful to have, for the public to have an understanding of exactly what we're doing here. Okay, I'm going to start and then I'm going to turn it over to Director Spencer. And as you can see, it's a real team effort. This really was part of a reclassification package involving several DPW members that happened in November of 2020. And for the large majority of people who have been reclassified both in that DPW package as well as others, you may recall around that same time when we're doing CEDA reclassifications. And almost all of them, it was appropriate to go back to the beginning of the pandemic for the reclassification. And so in that, frankly, Director Spencer and I had miscommunication and the two employees here are owed money retroactive pay from beyond that. But it was not processed at the time and I will turn it over to him so that he can describe a little bit more of the situation and how we got here. Thank you, CAO Shad. And thank you Board of Finance for giving us time tonight. So as CAO Shad said, these two employees had been doing additional work beyond their job description. And we had been moving a reclass forward due to multiple priorities within our shop and then transition in who our HR manager was. This did not move as quickly as I'd like. And then due to this miscommunication, these two employees were only given retro pay when the council approved it back to the start of the pandemic. And there is an additional period that we are seeking here tonight when these employees due to the capital reinvestment and demands of what the council and the administration wanted to see did work additional work beyond their job description. And so as a result, we're seeking that retro pay. There is a disconnect between the pay listed in the memo and the resolution. So if the Board of Finance is seeking to approve the resolution tonight, which I hope you will, I can assist with correcting the resolution amount to be consistent with what you saw in the cover memo. Are there other questions or is someone prepared to make a motion? Yes, Councillor Pine. It would seem that we ought to just correct it at the moment, correct? I think that's what I was just hoping we would do is just make that correction right now. So I will move it and then a second and then we can correct it, I guess. I believe that is appropriate. I do not, oh yes, of course the city attorney is here. I think that's okay, right? City Attorney Blackwood? Yes. Excellent, thank you. Okay, Councillor Pine is the first.  Did you have a follow-up question or did you want to be a second? I'm happy to second. The reason I mentioned this is because it seemed to show there was an inconsistency and I wasn't sure why that was, but now we know that it was simply an error. Yes. Thank you, great. So we have a first and a second and let's go ahead and correct that. Do we do that now? Happy to do so. So on line 10 of the resolution it should say, but should have received $7,956.02 requiring an additional payment, requiring payment of an additional $5,253.35 and then in line 12 should have received $8,548.83 requiring an additional payment of $5,441.28 and then the last line summarizing that on 17 should say Elizabeth Ross in the amount of $5,253.35 and to the DPW senior planner, Nicole Loesch in the amount of $5,441.28. These numbers are less than what was in the resolution. Yes, Councilor Paul. I just would, this is a fair amount of money. It's not a slight oversight, it's a fair amount of money. Has there, I'm not sure of what the, if we have any rules or if there's precedent for this, it would seem as though this amount of money that are there any rules about what is incumbent upon us to return to them as well, in addition to the retro pay? Yes, I'm going to let city attorney Blackwood answer that question. We did discuss that. Sorry, I didn't follow the question. The question was simply that, as I said, this is a significant amount of money that has been owed to these employees for some time. And wondering if there are any rules that the city has regarding, this is clearly an error on the city's part. Are there any rules regarding what additional compensation could be due to them? So the error on the city's part is since November. Prior to that, what the city's rules say is an employee can put in a request for a reclassification, but the city tries to get to it and do course. And in this case, the due course took some time, particularly with COVID. So we don't really have any other provisions about anything else being owed to them. Okay. Okay, I'm a little, you know, I feel like we are setting a certain, I'm not sure maybe at some point in the future, this is something that should be discussed so that we are, I mean, this is, my understanding is that this is additional retro pay being considered. And this goes back to November 7th of 2018. Am I not understanding this? No, you're understanding correctly. And the error was that you approved back pay in November, but just not, there was a mistake about how far back it should go. Right. So it was- I don't think that piece, but in terms of not getting to do the reclassification for some period of time, we do not have in our policies anything that provides folks anything other than that they get the back pay they should have gotten. Okay. All right. So the five, in the case of the first employee, the $5,441.28, some of that money is money that was owed to that employee back in 2018. Not all of it, obviously, but some of it. Is that right? Right. Right. Okay. I mean, I just, I don't know. I don't feel great about that, but I'm assuming that you're going according to the employee manual. The personal manual. We're going according to the employee manual. If you want us to look at whether or not there's a change that for fear and his sake ought to be made to that, we can certainly look at that. Well, I mean, hopefully these kinds of things don't happen too often. So hopefully we're- We have been working hard to try to get processes down so that it doesn't happen. Okay. All right. Fair enough. We can perhaps that's something that, when we have a new HR director, that that could be something that would be the HR committee that they might look into. But for now, I'll leave it at that. Thanks. Excellent. Is the board ready to vote on this? Before, can I ask a question? Yes. Mr. Jang, and then President Tracy. Thank you. I was also wondering if we have all the employees who are experiencing the same issue at DPW specifically. Are we going to get another set of employees that need retroactive pay soon or you don't know? We certainly looked at this and I will let director Spencer speak to that. Yeah. I'm not aware at this time, there are no other requests like this where a reclassification occurred and there was a confusion around how far back to go and so to my knowledge that these are the two and we're seeking to rectify that tonight. There is one where there's an instance where we may have been too generous. We're working to try to clean that one up but this is the only one where the city that city has to pay additional funds. Yes, thank you. And I think the other question is basically this has been happening since 2018, right? And I know also that we lost an HR director not long ago, maybe less than a year or so. How couldn't we just catch this like way back in 2019? I'm gonna start with that, Councillor Jang, just in that we not only lost the HR director but the HR manager who was tracking this, Stephanie Reed also left about maybe two, three weeks later. So I think the double losses there and COVID, that was very challenging and so it's very important to us to make this right at this time. This is as far as I understand a very unusual situation and we're doing everything we can to ensure nothing like this will happen but I do think because of that confluence of events where both the manager left then the direct supervisor left, then COVID hit this was an unfortunate situation. Okay, thank you. President Tracy. I just wanted to note that we do still need to actually make the amendment because we just got the amount we didn't actually formally amend. So I'm wondering if Director Spencer you might be able to restate those amounts and which lines so that we can actually just make the amendment prior to voting. Yeah, and we do need to move on. We have so many other items. Great, so on line 10, the language should be but should have received $7,956,002 requiring the payment of an additional $5,253.35 line 12 should have received $8,548.83 requiring a payment of an additional $5,441.28 and then lastly on the final line 17 and 18, Elizabeth Ross and the amount of $5,253.35 and to the senior planner Nicole Loach and the amount of $5,441.28 those are all consistent with the memo that attached to the resolution. And does someone like to make that amendment? So I would move those changes. I'll second Councillor Pine. Great, Councillor Pine and Councillor Tracy and President Tracy. And all those in favor, please say aye. Any opposed, please say nay. The amendment passes unanimously and then we need to vote on the underlying resolution and we have a first and a second for that. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed, please say nay. And it passes unanimously, excellent. Thank you very much Team DPW and Team HR for helping us to correct that. Moving on to item 4.04, the elevator contract. How would the board like to proceed? Yes, Councillor Pine. I would move to approve and recommend the City Council authorize the director of Parks, Recreation and Waterfront to sign a contract with Otis Elevator Company doing business as Bay State Elevator Company the amount of $148,493 with a contingency of $14,849 for a total amount not to exceed $163,342 for the modernization of the elevator in the Fletcher Free Library subject to final review and approval by the city attorney's office. Thank you, is there a second? Councillor Paul. Is there any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed, please say nay. The motion passes unanimously. Thank you Team DPW and BPRW. Item 4.05, the amendment for wastewater disinfection improvements, how would the board like to proceed? Yes, Councillor Paul. Thank you. I'll make a motion to take the recommended action as detailed on board docs. Excellent. And then Councillor Zheng, your second. Is there any discussion? Great. Let's proceed to a vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed, please say nay. And the motion passes unanimously. Thank you Team DPW and continuing with Team DPW. It's a theme tonight. The Vermont Clean Water Revolving Fund, how would the board like to proceed with item 4.06? Just had a question, but... Yes, President Tracy, go ahead with your question. So I was curious as to how if at all this relates to combined sewer overflows specific to that particular outfall and if this is going to at all contribute to their reduction? That's a great question. And it is World Water Day, which is why we're bringing all of these water items and why I have water in the background. This specifically is not going to do anything to reduce combined sewer overflows in that location. It would be addressing primarily the separate stormwater related erosion that's occurring at those outfalls. This outfall as well as the outfall on the other side of Route 127, the frequency of discharge to those locations has been greatly reduced as a result of the projects that we did. In the early 2010s in the Old North End, they do occasionally, this one in particular occasionally goes off but at a very infrequent basis. But to answer the gist of your question, this is really just about stabilizing that whole channel. I don't know if anybody's ever been down there, but I like to say it's about 10 megans deep and 15 megans wide. And with every rainy season that we have, it could get worse. And so we're really trying to, we've been advancing this project so we can take action and stop the erosion from occurring and potential additional damage to the roadways nearby. Okay, thank you. Any other questions or would the board like to make a motion? I just want to apologize. I know the formatting is weird in the PDF. I don't know why if you saw on your screens with all of the L's being bolded, that wasn't some sort of subliminal message you were trying to send. So we'll try to check on that next time. Thanks, Megan. Yes, councilor Pine, is that a first? I will move to recommend the city council, approve the attached resolution. Thank you. I mean, it is World Water Day. And that's a second counts, President Tracy, thank you. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed, please say nay. The motion carries. And then item 4.07, we're going to stay with our friends in water as we seek to execute an amendment for catch basin cleaning services. How would the board like to proceed? Yes, councilor Jang. Yep, I would like to approve and recommend that the city council authorize, authorize the director of public DPW to execute an amendment of the contract with Wind River Environmental LLC for catch basin cleaning services to increase the scope of service and to maximize limiting amount for an amount of 68,975 to 1,032, 1,032,674.85. I'll second. And thank you, councilor Paul. Any discussion? Great, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed, please say nay. And the motion carries. And lastly for water resources, a design of our cell antenna corral for the redstone tank, item 4.08. How would the board like to proceed with this item? Come on, this is cool. Yes, thank you, councilor Pine. Is that first? That's a first. Yes. Second. Councilor Paul is my second. And are there any questions or comments? All right, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, please say nay. And the motion carries. Thank you, team DPW. Thank you. Thank you, councilor Glock of Water. Yes, World Water Day. All right, we've got our airport team here today because we are also looking to execute an agreement for construction of the Chamberlain School, the HVAC upgrade. This is an exciting one. It's item 4.09. How would the board like to proceed? Yes, councilor Paul. Thanks. I'd like to make a motion to approve and recommend that the council authorize the director of aviation to execute a contract with Engelberth Construction for the Chamberlain School HVAC upgrade construction services in the amount of up to $1,650,912 plus an additional $247,637 or 15% contingency for a total amount of up to $1,898,549 subject to final review and approval by the city attorney's office. Excellent. Is there a second? Councilor Chang. Second. Any further discussion or questions? All right, let's vote. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed, please say nay. The motion carries unanimously. Thank you so much for your hard work, Larry, Nick, Shelby and the entire BTV team. Thank you. Gene is on as well and I'm sure he says thank you. He's on one of the cell phones over there. Gene, thank you. As always, we are so thankful for your leadership even if we can't see your smiling face today. Moving on to item 4.10 city council initiative fund reimbursement request from Councillor Jang. So question. Yes, Councillor Jang. Yeah, it seems that I need to recuse myself and should not vote on it, but can I still stay online or I have to step out? Question for the city attorney. You can stay on the line, but yes, you should not participate or... Okay, thank you. Ask questions about the fund as the person putting it forward. Councillor Tai. I would move to recommend to the council that an approver reimbursement to Councillor Ali Jang in the amount of $556.40 from the council initiatives fund for the rental of a dumpster to clean up the Lori Lane neighborhood in October 2020. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, President Tracy. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, please say nay. And the motion carries. So we are on to item 5.01, contract with Holy Construction Company for repairs to municipal buildings due to the Halloween 2019 event. How would the board like to proceed? Yes, Councillor Pine. I would move to authorize the director of the Department of Parks, Recreation and Waterfront to execute a contract with Holy Construction Company in an amount of up to $84,045 with a 10% contingency of $8,404, totaling up to $92,449 for repair to city facilities related to the 2019 Halloween event subject to final review and approval by the city attorney's office. Is there a second on the motion? President Tracy. Any further discussion? Are we ready to vote? All right, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, please say nay. And the motion carries unanimously. And we are on to item 6.01 called update on federal money from your CAO. And I see the mayor has also joined us. Anything you would like to say mayor while I pull this up and share my screen. Just good evening, everyone. Thank you, Catherine, for running this meeting up until now. I'm gonna let Catherine leave this discussion as well. She's put together a PowerPoint. This is an exciting discussion. We have very significant resources coming to us from the federal government over the next year. Some of the funds will be here within a couple of months. The balance of what is now projected to be 19 million will be coming a year from now. As you all know, we really needed this. If we didn't have this kind of revenue replacement, we were looking at very stark issues in the FY22 budget. This gives me a lot of confidence that we will be able to have a full, robust budget for FY22 that really provides all the services Burlingtonians expect and allows the city to have the same kind of nimble, energetic response to the economic recession that we've had to the pandemic over the last year. All of that should be possible without needing to go to Burlington taxpayers for more funds during this time. And I think this is really gonna allow us to help the people who need it most. We know this has been a very uneven recession, very uneven impacts. And we want to find a way to help the Burlington households and businesses, small businesses that have been really, that have borne the disproportionate brunt of this recession. This is the first of what I'm sure is gonna be numerous discussions. We basically wanted to, as soon as we, since the last time we met we got this confirmation that the bill passed basically after months and months of talking about it, the bill passed, so we know the money's coming. We don't know all of the rules that will be attached to it, although we do have a preliminary indication of what the limitations on this money is gonna be. We'll talk about that tonight. We wanted to immediately get in front of the Board of Finance and start to kind of paint the picture as we understand it and start the discussion about how we best use these funds. My sense, and this is one of the things up for discussion but I think most of these funds, we, the great majority of these funds we can kind of figure out together and appropriate through the FY22 budget process between now and the end of June. There is some current year impact that this will help us with as well but most of the decisions are gonna be, I would envision us kind of working out together on that timeline and please consider tonight the first of a number of formal and informal discussions about this. I really would like to fully engage the council and the Board on how we do this and we're gonna do that both in meetings like this and I will be reaching out to you individually as well to try to put together a consensus plan for how we move forward. So with that, I'm gonna hand it over to Catherine and I'll kind of interject as needed as we work our way through this presentation. So go ahead Catherine. Excellent. Thank you, mayor. As the mayor said, we use words like preliminary and estimated draft several times throughout this presentation because this is really meant to invite a dialogue. So with that, I will say when we, first encountered the need for a reduced budget last year, we quickly decided that we needed principles to guide us and you helped us to affirm those. So you'll see on this slide and the next slide, we feel the same thing is going to be important to drive our work this time around. So we've got on this slide, what we're calling some principles around the process and the next slide has our goals for the money. So one of our first priorities will be restoring necessary budget items, things that were cut over this past year and a half. Other things to note, most of the funds will be appropriated through the FY22 budget process. That's the mechanism that we anticipate engaging with you in formally. As the mayor mentioned, there will be lots of informal ways that we will engage with you. Federal dollars are going to be used to we envision restore those FY22 budgets fully. You will recall in FY21, we brought you budgets that were trimmed down that did not include very much for things like employee training and professional development. You really didn't include much even for things like office supplies. Really we squeezed everywhere we could. So we'll be looking in FY22 to use that money to restore budgets to something that's more normal. We'll be looking to keep our unassigned fund balance between 10 and 15%. That's consistent with our policy and with continued uncertainty in FY23. Just by way of perspective, you may remember at the end of our audit, we're at 12% now. So that's not any big change. An important principle here, you can call it the Bob Rustin principle, but really it just makes good sense. One time money needs to be used for one time costs unless there is a plan for those recurring costs. During the recovery, we had certain abilities to act decisively and impact, make quick impacts and we would like to retain that as we move forward in the recovery. And of course we need to continue to reassess as we go along. Because if there's one thing we've learned over the past year, it's that things are continuously changing. So that's a little bit about the process. Yes, Mayor. I just wanna clarify that the word necessary is used in the first and the third bullet. And I just wanna just expand on what we're thinking by that. We aren't just gonna default to restoring budget lines the way they were before to pre-pandemic levels. Certainly I think there'll be a certain presumption that a lot of budget lines will restore to those levels. But in some cases, we have found new ways of doing things. We have flushed out perhaps certain areas of spending that budget lines that really aren't needed before or things that can be done more efficiently. We're not just automatically restoring things. We're planning on conversations with department heads about these restorations. So I just wanna make that point. And then- Thank you. I'm bullet point number four. I just wanna expand on what we mean by this. The board may recall that when we passed two years ago now the unassigned fund balance policy, the policy, it basically lays out a range indicating that it's really barring really unexpected circumstances, really problematic circumstances, emergencies. It is the policy that we have somewhere between five and 15% unassigned fund balance at all times. We are recommending or we are currently thinking as we're going into this process that we wanna be at the upper end of that range when with the budget that we set for FY22, if possible, knowing that it is, I think, very unlikely even if there is a slow recovery or even if, you know, let's hope not but somehow the pandemic worsens again and there's more disruptions. It is quite unlikely that we will receive more funds than those appropriated in this bill. So given certainly where we're sitting now, the uncertainty about FY23 and whether all of those budget lines which were very significantly impacted over the last year are gonna fully bounce back by then. It seems prudent to us to try to plan now to be on the upper end of that range, not over the 15%, which essentially a policy says you shouldn't be reserving more money than 15%, but, you know, towards that upper end given the uncertainty about the future. Any questions, thoughts, reactions to these, you know, support for these principles at this point, President Tracy. Thanks, Mayor and CEO Shad, I appreciate this kicking it off with these principles. Two things that kind of stick out to me are just wanting to codify, we know that the pandemic has been really as laid bare and exacerbated many of the disparities that we face as a city in terms of race and class issues with folks really, okay. That's why I'm wondering, Mayor, I think maybe I should go quickly through this and then get comment. Sorry, President, I didn't mean that. Just wanting to see where equity falls in the conversation and if that's really important. And then the other piece being just public participation and what principle we have for checking with public. That's all. Thank you. Okay, that's good. Okay, is it okay with you, Mayor? No, I think it's a good idea, President Tracy. We tried to sort of split it into these sort of process principles and then these are the more substantive, programmatic goals, if you will. And yeah, Catherine, why don't you, and again, initial preliminary for discussion.  Okay, I'll at least get through this. And then I think we could have a discussion before I get to the numbers. So then the goals, yes. Number one, our relief and recovery efforts will continue to be racially just and that we need to continue to target our efforts at individuals, groups, and small businesses that have been most effective, most negatively affected by the pandemic. Positive local government innovations should be made permanent. We're thinking about things like, what do we do with all of the amazing work that the RRC has done and with all of the outreach we have done to the new American community. So you'll see some proposals around that and we'll be engaging you with that. Also, it's obviously critical that we stimulate the local economy and activate both the downtown and waterfront in accordance with the public health conditions. And then lastly, you'll see prioritizing these investments regarding racial justice, climate, housing, and infrastructure. So why don't I pause there and let us talk about that. I know none of you have seen this presentation because unfortunately, Laurie, I had Laurie post it very late. It's up there now. We'll talk more about numbers, but I know we would like to have your feedback both in this meeting and then both the mayor and I would like to engage with you after as well. So mayor, why don't I turn it over to you to- I'll say a couple more quick expand a little bit on the bullets and then we'll open it up. When we blow number one, when we say continue to be racially just, what we really specifically mean there is we've had this eight point plan for racially just public health response and pandemic since last June. We really want to stick to that lens with all of the actions during the recovery. Point number two, again, we know a striking fact of this pandemic which wasn't clear at first, but is very clear now is that this has been very uneven. There are many businesses, many individuals that had a great 2020 financially that did better than ever. And that's really true in Vermont I've found in my engaging a lot of our outdoor companies and our companies that are involved in cleaning or janitorial products. There's a lot of our major companies have very good years in 2020. And then there were many that had on the edge of not being our clinging to survival because the pandemic has been an existential threat to them because the hospitality industry shut down because the meals and the activities that have become such a major part of downtown, Burlington have essentially been shut down for large chunks of time. And that translates at the individual level as well. We know that many, especially service workers have seen their incomes dramatically hit and not recover yet. And so other levels of government, I mean, the federal response is not really targeted. It's a lot of the money's going out to, it's very broad in the way it's being disseminated. We think there's a need and opportunity to be really targeted in our limited but significant funds that we're gonna get here. And we wanna talk to you about the best way to do that. I think bullet three is clear. Bullet four speaks for itself. And then let me just say one more thing about bullet five, what I mean here. When I think we had a really good joint community success with using emergency funds, homeless funds to not just house individuals experiencing homelessness that needed some kind of low barrier institution. We didn't just house them during the emergency. I mean, part of our response did that, right? We had as a council pine knows well, we had sort of exceptional temporary situation at the facility at the holiday end. We had the North Beach temporary facility, but towards, but later in our efforts, we were able to take these emergency dollars, $2 million of emergency dollars and get them invested in it. What is gonna be an enduring community asset with a shelter on Shelburne Road that a new place now is owning and operating with city support. I think there's gonna be a whole lot more or at least a number of additional strategic investments like that where we can use these one-time dollars, emergency dollars in a way that supports the public health effort, supports the economic recovery, but really allows us to meet long-term needs. We've known we needed that low barrier facility year round for some time. And this seems like a principle, a good goal to have is when possible if we can make these sort of structural progress. I think that should be a goal. Now with that, I'll turn over, open the floor to any reactions at this point. Councilor Pine. I think a couple slides down, it talks about what the funds can be used for. I would just under infrastructure, I think I'd like to make a plug for specifically in this document and in our plan, our thinking to include energy and energy efficiency in that one. Cause I see that as an investment that has the climate impact, it has social and racial justice impacts, it has economic benefit and it lasts. It's something if we invest in with this one-time money, it will bring dividends for a very long time. So I hope we'll be really focused on making some of those climate related investments in a very meaningful way around, in relation to and connection with our other efforts around weatherization and energy issues, I hope we'll actually plan to devote some serious resources to that. Great, and I don't want to like go back and forth on everything that's raised, but I do just want to kind of, I think this is a good segue to this emerge slide here that these are the federal rules at this point, as we know them, I think we believe there could well be sort of more detailed rules promulgated, doesn't explicitly call out climate investments as one of the kind of allowable uses, but we want to dig into the details and understand, I agree with you, Councilor Pine, and I think as we really figure out how we're allowed to work with this money and what's funnable and what's not, we, I agree, it would be great if, I think that's an area of great common ground within city government administration, Council, and we know there's some major needs there, so I agree. Thanks, and I just want to second the comment Councilor Tracy asked about, and that is how we're going to engage the community in defining these priorities. You know, there will be some time, so I know we have our budget process that will be underway, it is underway, and we have April, May, and June to work through that. I want us to be pretty expansive and perhaps even some out-of-the-box thinking and approaches in how we solicit public input into prioritizing these resources. I think we've got a lot of interest in the community about how to direct these, and not everybody's going to be necessarily satisfied, but at least we have a process that is open and transparent and inclusive. Great, agreed. And definitely looking for specific ideas and thoughts on how we do that. I mean, I think what the kind of table stakes, the baseline public engagement will be, you know, I think the solid transparent process that we've had for many years now of multiple, first of all, I see a lot of this money being the great majority of this money being appropriated as part of the FY22 budget. That means we have the rest of March, April, May, June to do that. Of course, that doesn't mean every decision needs to be, we oftentimes create kind of reserve funds or items that may require more process after the budget passes, but we'll have our multiple meetings, we'll have multiple departments involved, we'll try to get channel 17 to help promote the kind of broadcast of those meetings. And that's sort of for starters. In addition to that, I think it's likely we'll have the additional sort of public process and public engagement of perhaps RFPs for certain areas of this money. So, you know, for example, like during the pandemic, we had $100,000 that went to food programs. We had an open competitive process for community groups to come forward and say, here are our ideas for how to use, you know, best meet that need. I bet there's some areas like that that we'll want to identify together and do that way. I'm certainly open to engaging the MPAs in new ways for certain aspects of this. Yeah, we have a, you know, we have a, I think we have an unusual opportunity here and we should think out of the box in unusual ways and make this a really a process that as many people as possible feel good about. Thank you. And then my last question is, do we know if the delegation has a read on whether or not there will be, in addition to this, which is substantial and I don't want to minimize what this is. I have, I've been hearing and reading a little bit about at least Senator Sanders wants to really implement some of his broad sort of green new deal vision and bring some program specific or some resources to bear on the issues. Some, many of which are on this, you know, sort of on these slides as well. So I'm wondering whether there's some potential, you know, additional resources that we may be discussing down the road as well. I want to hear your thoughts on that. Yes, I'll go to you, Councillor Jiang and then President Tracy, you got a little cue going here. Just briefly, it is very clear the Biden administration intends to make good or attempt to make good on their campaign promise of an infrastructure plan. There was a lot of discussion. There were multiple media accounts today in the New York times and elsewhere that they are essentially floating a $3 trillion additional plan in addition to this 1.9 trillion that is in this bill that would be broken up maybe into two bills, an infrastructure bill and then kind of a social justice bill of some sort and that is certainly something we're gonna remain very engaged in. We do believe old friend Luke McGowan is gonna be on the front lines of working with municipalities. Once he just had a second child was just born in the last couple of weeks. So we've left him alone a little bit for the last couple of weeks but he will be returning to a senior leadership role. We expect to work closely with the Biden administration to understand, yeah, on that infrastructure plan. In addition to all of that, there is a lot of talk that the moratorium of the last decade or so on earmarks may be coming to an end and that there may be additional specific opportunities there. So yeah, after, I mean, it's really quite something, Councillor Pine, when you were working in CEDA, when I started this job, we lamented many times how the era of federal assistance was over and it appears to be returning, at least for the next couple of years, with some very substantial opportunities. And we are, you know, something I wasn't gonna talk a ton about tonight, but we're trying to organize, reorganize the CEDA team to really be ready for that. With Kara Al-Mazrawi playing a leadership role, I forgot Catherine had a slide for it. So we have, I see Kara continue to play this sort of overarching leadership role, helping the downtown and the businesses beyond just her tertiary marketplace role. Taisha is going to really help us find ourselves to the mass, make sure we're looking through all of these investments and new programs and efforts through this lens of a racially just recovery and the eight point plan. We do intend at least for the FY22 year to have the RRC continue to be there. The RRC has been one of the busiest periods it's ever had over the last week because we were running these, we're helping the state run these BIPOC vaccination clinics last weekend and probably another one this coming weekend. So after a period where we weren't getting that many calls there, it sort of sprung back to life and we had to pull employees from many different parts of the city to help staff that. So we want to keep that capacity going as these different programs and opportunities arise for Burlington businesses and individuals. So yes, we want to make sure maybe the most important thing we can do is make sure that Burlington individuals and organizations can access these federally funds and we're going to stay focused on that. Sorry, I went on probably too long with that. Councilor Jang and then President Tracy. Yeah, thank you. So I mean, I think it would be wise for all of us to maybe think about to wait on before putting the challenge before the horse and waiting in order to understand better what are the streams attached to these funds? I think that could have been the first step. And also I'm requesting as soon as you receive those those strings attached to it to maybe communicate it with border finance and also the city council as soon as possible. I wanted to see that as a priority. That's the first to request. And second, I think most of these ideas are great but maybe let's try to think about them in a different context not in a reactive reactionary context but just a sustainable context because some of these ideas after these grants run out the issue about how do we sustain them would be a question. I think these are just wise things that we need to think about as soon as possible. And lastly, I tied to the question from Councillor Pine is about the infrastructure and it doesn't seem that these 19 million we're talking about another set of funds that we should expect from the federal government. So there are three things there. One is about a request and two about the sustainability of some of these programs. And yes, and the last question too. Great, Catherine, can you just flip back to the strings as we currently understand them? Just, and we'll email out these, well, it's up on board docs but if you want it as a file as well, we can circulate it. I was thinking the next slide, Catherine. So just these are the broad areas that the money can be spent on. I have heard, and I don't know, Catherine, if you've heard anything more detailed or different than this, but I believe there is an expectation that in the next week or two, there will be, this is sort of the language more or less that was in the legislation. The budget department or the federal government will be promulgating more detailed rules about how to understand these broad restrictions and what's gonna be expected in terms of documentation and all the kind of detailed questions that could flow from this. So I believe there's been a commitment to get that out to states and municipalities very quickly, like in the coming days. And as soon as we have that, we will share that. Catherine, do you have anything else to add about the rules? No, I would say that's exactly right. Everyone's anxious for them and we will certainly share them per year request, Councillor Jang, and I'm sure everyone else is anxious for them as well. Sorry, Councillor Jang, did that, was there, I think? Yeah, the other element is about maybe for the city to consider thinking about this, how do we roll it out differently instead of maybe hiring, let's say, a language access plan, people to support new Americans, but let's look into investing, for example, where they leave such as Franklin Square. How do we make that infrastructure much better for quality of life purposes, you know? That's the second element, to just think about it differently instead of just reactionary or action-oriented items. Great, great, great. I think there's opportunity to be quite innovative here and think of the things differently. Yeah, and I think that's the only way we can secure sustainability and also these funds will definitely serve those people, like in generations even to come instead of giving you $10,000 in two months it's gone and now you're back to normal, to square zero. And also look into maybe opportunities for people to own homes and start new businesses. And I think we see it all in the scale supermarket place. What they have is Burlington.org. We need to be strengthened with this in order to better support those who need these funds. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. President Tracy, thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Mayor. I was just curious about the infrastructure slide that says that there's that 3.5 million and just wondering what you're thinking might be included in that and how that would relate to the reemergence of earmarks being a possible option for us. And if we might be able to secure any additional earmarks that there are ways that we might be able to put those ideas forward if that's part of it. And then also how you see this capital expenditure relating to the capital planning going forward so that next chunk of capital work that we know needs to take place but that we still don't necessarily have a plan in place for recognizing that we do have to still come up with that plan. So just wanting to get your thinking on what this involves and how it relates to those other two aspects, those being potential additional aid, specifically earmarks and then the five-year capital plan. Great. Let me answer that by just briefly, we didn't really spend any time on this slide. So let me just kind of briefly go over each of the lines here and speak to your capital questions there. So the first line, people may recall, we've talked about it before as a board, we actually passed a budget last year that had a million dollar hole in it that we kind of basically hope we were gonna have these funds come in or other funds come in and wouldn't need to make another million dollars of painful cuts and that needs to, so this is one of the clearly things that is allowed by this from this kind of allocation and this means we don't have to do that very painful cutting. Similarly, the next 430,000 we are, we think we should move out of this sort of semi-austerity posture that we've been in with hiring freezes and very low expense, discretionary spending, number of things just sort of frozen in place. This is probably a high end, but as we kind of turn back on full city operations, there will be some expense to that and that's what that second line represents. The third line is a projection of, basically if we went back to a pre-pandemic budget and we wanted again not to have a full robust FY22 budget, that is probably about the gap between the revenues that we have from revenues and local revenues and the expenses of a pre-pandemic budget restoration. And so a good chunk of money is gonna be needed if the council agrees that we should essentially go back to normal operations. Then finally the capital needs, that presentation, what that is is a recognition that we have basically expended the 2016 sustainable infrastructure, $50 million of various pots of money and that we will be looking at a construction season right now that is not as strong as we have had for the last five years if we do not find a way to find some additional capital dollars. And so we would like to have a conversation with the council about whether somehow we can find some additional dollars, whether it's on a sign fund dollars or these emergency dollars somehow to have a really strong construction season. This would allow us again to have a very strong investment in sidewalks at historically high standards, strong investments in our roads at historically high standards, finishing the final piece of the bike path down through the Oakledge Park. This helps, there is a budget gap related to the other bike path work around the Amtrak relocation. So basically that to boil it down and we haven't gotten into the weeds even I haven't gotten into weeds yet on it but at three and a half would represent something comparable to a really strong construction season like we've seen over the last five years bridging us until the next round. As I think your question was asking, I do think we should need to have a conversation administration council about some kind of fall election for another round of infrastructure investment. We've been talking about this for some time. We knew that we had only kind of funded five years of investment. I think it's time to talk about the next five years of investment and we do have capacity within our borrowing kind of policies. So this sort of bridges us until we can have go to the voters and do that work to decide on the kind of next round of capital investment. Did that fully address your question? Yeah, no, that was helpful. Thank you, mayor. And then the other piece that I just wanted to understand is how you see CEDO playing into this specifically the specific effort and particularly around housing. I see small business support which I think is gonna be necessary coming out of this but understanding that when that eviction moratorium lifts there's probably gonna be a significant need throughout the community for support, for tenants in particular and to make sure that we don't see just a wave of houselessness emerge in the wake of this causing real pain and hardship in the community. So just wanting to see how the housing work that CEDO does already might be expanded or if there might be new work that could take place in how you see that particular thing, that particular element going forward because I'm particularly concerned about businesses, business eviction, but particularly housing evictions coming forward. Right. So absolutely we need to organize ourselves to help Burlington families, individuals through this period. By no means that I mean to suggest we're just gonna care about the impacted businesses. We care, we're gonna do everything we can to help the impacted individuals as well. A lot of that, President Tracy, I think our role will be to really help Burlingtonians access the massive resources that have been appropriated by other levels of government at the housing crisis. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been appropriated within Vermont for rental assistance in one form or another for closure assistance. And before we start using the dollars that we control to address that in some way, I think the first line of our strategy should be making sure Burlingtonians are fully aware of those opportunities. And we're gonna do that through the RRC the way we have throughout this. We're gonna have the advertisements and the posters and the flyers going to people's homes and the call center set up and the great web resources. We're gonna keep that really kind of rich and current and helpful. We have throughout this been like you thinking there could come a moment where all those other safety net efforts we find holes in them or they are fully extended. And so we have been setting some emergency dollars aside kind of to be as the sort of housing assistance of last resort. And I think we'll probably wanna continue that strategy in some forms for emergency dollars so that we can ensure that through this recovery period we're doing everything we can to help Burlingtonians avoid evictions and foreclosures. And I do think reserving some local dollars or locally controlled dollars for that will be important. More broadly or kind of medium or on the kind of structural and I think Councilor Jang was talking about this. I'm really excited that together we've almost completed all those, I think next time the council gets together we'll finish the weatherization ordinance and then we have the short-term rental ordinance coming close on the heels of that. And then we've sort of gotten through a big chunk of the share basically that shared housing agenda that we had coming out of the housing summits of 2019. I think we need to have another conversation really soon about where we go from here on housing policy work and increasing home ownership opportunities in particular and addressing kind of racial disparities is I think gonna be a really active conversation in the near future. And... Great, thank you, Mayor. Okay. And so you asked that through what seat. So yeah, CEDO housing people absolutely be engaged in that but we also, this whole effort we've set up around the RRC will also be engaged in it. So it won't just be owned by CEDO. This is going to be quick.  Yeah, and it is about, you know, it's an infrastructure but do we have any thinking around memorial auditorium about this funds we will be receiving? Memorial auditorium? Yeah. I don't believe investment in memorial auditorium is sort of squarely programmatically or maybe even within the dollars we're talking about. I'm not sure how much we'll be able to get done on that through this appropriation. Maybe there's another stage of planning or we're not. I do think between infrastructure and the possibility of earmarks absolutely more memorial auditorium, main street investments or further investments in Moran, investments in some type of cultural empowerment center that we've been talking about over the last year related to our racial justice work. Those are some kind of big items that might well fit into the infrastructure or earmark opportunities. So we have a big decision to make as a community where what we want, you know, do we continue? I think there's a lot to talk about with Moran auditorium and that gateway block and maybe some recent, you know, whether the pandemic or other events in the community have, do we just go back to where we were at with that plan before the pandemic or do we want to think about something different? It's not obvious to me which way we go with that. Okay, thank you. All right, I think we're getting close to seven o'clock and it feels like a good first discussion. Can we just go to the next steps slide, Catherine, before we wrap up? So we envision continuing this conversation with the Board of Finance the next time we gather which I think will be with, sorry, we'll be with the new Board of Finance. I think, you know, the next Board of Finance meeting is after reorganization day. And so we'll continue this conversation then. I expect we'll have more detail by then. We'll also have a schedule for you by then or for the new Board of the full budget schedule and we can talk more about additional public participation that we want to work into this year. So that would be sort of the formal process. The CAO is going to share this presentation with the full council for feedback. And I am going to try over the next couple of weeks to have some of you have had individual conversations since the election already. I'd like to touch base with every counselor before reorganization day and hear broadly about where we go from here as a city and how the council administration work together on that. And specifically kind of budget ideas I'm going to be reaching out to people individually as well. So hopefully by the time we reconvene the week after organization day, three weeks from now, we'll be able to flesh out this conversation in some important ways. That said, any additional things we should have on this list? You want any feedback on these certain next steps page at this point? Okay, again, this is the beginning of a significant conversation. So by no means should people feel there's going to be lots more chances as we've been talking about. So I think that is the end of the agenda, right Catherine? Okay. If there's no objection, then we are adjourned as a board of finance at 6.58 pm and I will turn the Zoom over to you President Tracey. Thanks Mayor, I will. If I could be pleased given hosting responsibilities I'll get us started in just a couple of minutes here. We'll wait for other counselors to get on. Thank you for that. If folks are interested in signing up for public forum you may do so by going to BurlingtonVT.gov slash city council slash public forum. And that will take you to a forum that you then fill out and submit, which I then use to call on folks for public forum. So again, that's BurlingtonVT.gov slash city council slash public forum. If you are calling in using a phone number just ask it on that form to just let me know what phone number so that I can identify you. I've had some issues with that in the past and then just would, and then I do prioritize Burlington residents. So please just let me know if you are or aren't a Burlington resident on that forum. It does ask that as well and that helps us to figure that out. So we'll get to that in just a moment but I'll let some counselors get on before we jump into the meeting itself. I'm sorry. President Tracey. Yes. Hi. I'd be happy to start off the, when we get onto the item of the agenda, I'd be happy to start off the discussion or the presentation. And I know Senator Bruce would probably be interested in going after that. Okay. I had heard from Senator Chittenden and Lyons that they would also be able to do that. So I was going to go to them but I can then come to you after that. I have a background. I'll come to you representative Odie. I'll come to you. No problem. Yeah. Just because, because I, it will be like late to hear about the Brigham decision and what I've got history. And then. All right. Yeah. If you think that makes more sense. I was, you know, I didn't hear back from too many folks today. So I appreciate you clarifying that. I'll come to you and then we'll be able to do that. Councilor Carpenter. Did you have something? I let representative Odie my link and she's now listed as me. So Oh, you may want to change your. Oh, you might want to. If you may and yourself. Go ahead and change your link. Hilarious. Okay. Uh-oh. I don't know if it's going to, it won't let me do that. It's just a pin. It doesn't, you know, the three dots. Oh, I'm pressing Ali Deng, Councilor Deng's thing. Okay. Nevermind. Got so excited, Councilor Deng. I, I pressed the wrong thing. Okay. Great. I see representative Welch joining us. Welcome, Peter. Representative Welch. I'm sorry. I know. And, um, we'll get started in just a second. Um, I just want to make sure we get the counselors. We have all get all the counselors on board. Getting on a few more counselors, and then I'll go ahead and get us started. Okay. I believe, I think we have all the counselors on board. So we'll go ahead and call to order the regular meeting of the city council. It's seven oh three. Before we get started, I just want to have a, um, a moment of silence, um, for, um, the victims of the Atlanta shooting, in particular, Soon Chung Park, Hyun Chung Grant, Soon Cha Kim, Young A. U, Xiao Ji Tan, Daoyou Feng, Delana Ashley Yuan, and Paul Andre Michaels. Thank you everyone. All right. The first thing on the agenda, um, and then we start with is the pledge. So I'm going to go to the pledge. So, um, we'll do that. A pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. So with that, I will, um, we have a, our next item on the agenda is the agenda itself. Um, we have an, an additional, um, item on the agenda, um, that it will address, uh, after we make the main motion on the agenda, um, the reason for that is that, um, we generally work that we require, uh, resolutions to come in, um, on the Tuesday beforehand. Um, sometimes there will be things that happen after that deadline happens that are, um, timely. And as I've spent our practice, we have had, um, we have what we've done is we've put that on as a motion to further amend the agenda. Just wanting to make sure that the full council is on board, um, with addressing that particular item, um, and making sure that everyone's had a chance, um, to review that and feels comfortable with it. Um, so I just want to use, just explain why that is, um, the case for, for this particular, um, meeting as it is, um, something that we've done in the past, but that we don't usually do. So just wanted to clarify that for members of the public. So, um, with that, um, may I please have a motion on the agenda? Councillor Stromberg. Yes. Um, Councillor Tracy, my connection's a little strange. Can you hear me okay? Yep. You're coming through just fine. Okay. If you don't mind, I'm just going to keep my screen off so I stay clear and then I'm going to switch my wifi after this. Um, sorry about that. I moved to amend adopt the agenda as follows. No written materials for consent agenda item 5.27 resolution corrected retroactive pay for two reclassified department of public works employees, board of finance per CAO Shad and city attorney's office. Note revised version of the, of this agenda item per city attorney, Blackwood per BOF, add to the consent agenda item 5.28, communication mark Barlow, member parks and recreation commission regarding resignation with the motion to waive the reading, accept the communication, place it on file, advertise the vacancy and send a letter of appreciation to Mark Barlow thanking him for his time served as a member of the parks and rec commission, parks and recreation commission, add to the consent agenda item 5.29, communication David White and Megan tunnel of the city's COVID-19 analytics team regarding state workplace guidance changes regarding bars and social club operating restrictions with the motion to waive the reading, accept the communication and place it on file per David White, remove withdrawal from the agenda item 6.02, resolution joining the Vermont coalition for equity in education, counselor Shannon Jang per counselor Shannon, note revised version of agenda item 6.03 resolution recognizing the 200th anniversary of the independence of Greece and celebrating democracy in Greece and the United States, full city council per counselor Paul. Thank you, counselor Stromberg. We have a motion on the agendas or a second, seconded by counselor Jang. Any discussion hearing none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of adopting our agenda, please say aye. Aye, aye, aye, aye, aye, aye, aye, aye. Any opposed? Okay, that carries unanimously, which brings us to 1.02, which is that further amendment that I was speaking about when I kicked us off. Counselor Jang. Thank you, President Tracy. I would like to make a motion to further amend the agenda with the additional agenda item 6.6 resolution condemning hate crimes against Asian, American and Pacific Islanders by counselor Jang and the full council. Thank you, counselor Jang. We have a motion from counselor Jang. Is there a second? Seconded by counselor Paul. Any further discussion on this? Okay, hearing none, let's go to a vote. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye, aye, aye, aye, aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, that carries and we will also add that to our agenda item as item 6.06. Thank you for that, counselor Jang. One change that I will note for folks as a result of a request in this meeting and I'm sorry I didn't do it at the beginning of the meeting is that as a result of our request from counselor Freeman we have enabled or added the live transcript function within Zoom. Those of you who watch on YouTube know that you or may know that you can use the CC button to turn on that function when you're streaming it on YouTube because these meetings are also streamed on YouTube but you can also turn on the live transcription function through Zoom if you would like to and that's just at the bottom of your screen and then you're able to turn it on and have that happen. So you're able to go forward with that. So that is just a clarification. So and it's our first meeting so if there's feedback on that or people are having issues, please let us know and we'll work through those. So but thank you to counselor Freeman for raising that opportunity for us. I will now move us into item number two. We are excited or at least I'm personally excited to have representative Welch with us this evening. I really appreciate your request to join us and certainly excited to hear what you have to share with us regarding the American Recovery Act. So I'll turn it over to you representative Welch. Thank you very much President Tracy and it's really a thrill to be with all of the counselors. You have a big job ahead of you and what I'd like to do report to you and to Mayor Weinberger on information you probably have had but do it personally. Number one to just go through the highlights of the American Recovery Act and number two to make certain that you know our office will be with you and at your command really to do anything and everything we can to answer questions as we go along. Just a little background here. It's really quite astonishing what our state, our country and of course the city of Burlington has been through in the past year. I mean, it was literally a year ago, literally just around right around now, a little before when we had the state of emergency declared here, I was going out to the airport in Washington and I got a call from American Airlines asking me am I planning on taking the 1030 flight? I've never gotten a call like that. I was kind of curious and they said, well, Congressman, as soon as you get here, we're ready to go. I was the only person on the plane back to Vermont and it's usually totally crowded and you know, we're in a different world for a year and I just want to salute you because you all had to hunker down and try to figure out how to contend with that when you had to close down businesses, you had to close down Church Street where folks were scrambling trying to figure out about daycare and of course everyone was really anxious about their health and they were really scared about the health of people they loved or their children, people they had to take care of and we didn't know when we'd get a vaccine. You know, fast forward and then we now have a vaccine and shots are getting in the arms. So I'm feeling much more upbeat about how we hung on here and how we're coming out the other side but obviously we've got to hang in. But the American Recovery Act has its goal, $1.9 trillion that would help us get through until the vaccine is administered to everybody, hopefully. And that means that, you know, it's like we're on a bridge walking the other side where the vaccine is, but we don't want to leave our businesses behind and we don't want to leave individuals and families that are struggling behind. So it's a big and it's a bold plan but it reflects a decision that was made that we should err on the side of doing a little bit too much rather than a little bit too little. So going through it very quickly, there's money for the vaccine. So the state and local governments are not going to be paying for the cost of the vaccine. That is a federal responsibility. The hard job is getting the shots in the arms and we're doing, I think, very well here in Vermont for that to happen. But number two, help for individuals who are still reeling from this. And this will be significant for you in Burlington and the citizens that you represent. And as you know, there's really kind of two economies out there. Some economies are doing fine. They can do their work online, but a lot of folks can't. So there's going to be the $1,400 checks and then a family of four, that would be a $5,800 check that's going to help people obviously make it to the other side. One of the other provisions in this bill is the childcare tax credit. And this is, I think rightly heralded is probably the most significant policy accomplishment in the legislation because it is going to mean that any family that has a child six or under six is going to get a check for $300 a month. And up to age 17 is $250 a month. And many economists estimates that that will reduce childhood poverty by nearly 50%. There is additional money in there to help our small businesses. And a lot of the businesses in Burlington, as you may know, I've got an apartment. My wife and I have an apartment right downtown, but it's been so tough on the restaurants. It's been so tough on our performance spaces like the Flynn where they really can't open up and get ticket sales until everybody is really safe. So there's money in there that they hope will help them. But then what you're really going to be responsible for is the local money that is going to be distributed to Burlington. And let me just say this. There was a big debate in Washington about whether there should be funding that went directly to our cities and towns. And that got resolved in favor of including cities and towns in getting direct relief and with significant flexibility so that our local elected officials would have the authority and the responsibility to make judgments about how to use that in the best interest of recovering for the citizens they represent. And even though we didn't get any Republican votes, there were a lot of my Republican colleagues who really were in favor of the state and local aid and giving some flexibility. So this is going to be a huge challenge for you and because the decisions are hard that you have to make in consultation with your constituents. But I think as you probably know, the number for Burlington is significant. Now Burlington gets 19 million directly. 19 million goes to Burlington. And then 8.3 million additionally goes to you as a county allocation. And don't ask me to explain that because we really don't have county government here but the way the formula worked, it took into account the metro kind of area situation that you have that's unique in the state of Vermont. So the total amount of money that will go to Burlington is going to be $27.3 million. The Burlington school district is going to receive a separate check for $14.3 million. And my understanding right now is that half of that allocation to your city will be distributed in 60 days and then the balance in six months to a year. Now, in addition to that, there's a $112 million capital projects fund that will be administered out of Montpelier but where municipalities in smaller districts, towns can apply to see if they can get some of their projects funded. And the use, what can you use that for? It has to be used for COVID related impacts but that's broadly defined. So it can be used to assist households for small businesses or nonprofits or you could partner with nonprofits on something like food distribution. It could be used for premium pay for essential workers. It could be for revenue loss that Burlington may have experienced as long as it's due to COVID. It also can be used for water sewer and broadband. And I know that's a big issue in Burlington but I know around the state of Vermont that has been a huge issue for many of our communities that are struggling. So you are gonna see as a result of the legislation significant financial assistance that's going to go to the Burlington School District. You as the representatives of the citizens of our biggest city are gonna be making the decisions about how best to allocate that to help your city recover from COVID and the big challenge here. A lot of times people will say to me, Peter, you've got a hard job because it's a mess down there. And it is a mess. January 6th isn't that long ago. But in fact, you have the hard job because it's one thing for us to struggle in Washington for the policy and there was a big debate about what do we include state and local aid. And I was strongly in favor of it. Bernie was strongly in favor of it. Patrick was strongly, strongly in favor of it. And we succeeded. That's the good news. But the hard, hard, hard job. Now that we have the money flowing to Burlington and other communities in Vermont is making certain at the local level, at micro level that money is well used and goes to the long-term benefit of the citizens you represent. And in a way, it reminds me of how what's really hard about the vaccines, it's not so much what we did in Washington to authorize the money to pay for it and distribute it. But it's the actual organizational efforts that have to go into getting those shots in the arms of all the people we represent with all the variability. That's involved in that. So I wanna end by saying that I'm really, really happy that we were able in Congress to, and Patrick by the way, you know, as the chair of our Appropriations Committee in Bernie as the chair of the Budget Committee, we're usually helpful with the small state minimum and the overall design of this. So we owe them a lot of money. So we owe them a great debt of gratitude, but you are gonna have a consequential job that's gonna be very significant in the long-term future of the city of Burlington. And I wish you the best of luck in carrying out that responsibility and that burden. Thank you. I'm not hearing you. Thank you for that. I appreciate it. So I will now open it up. We've got about 10 minutes, counselors, Mayor for any questions you might have or thoughts you might like to share before we get into public forum. I know that's a little bit of a brief time, but I see Mayor Weinberger, if you'd like to go and then if counselors are interested in engaging, please let me know.  Thank you, President Tracey, I appreciate it. I just wanted to say thank you Congressman Welch for joining us tonight and moreover for your many months of hard work to make this American Rescue Act possible. We are, it has already started to have impacts here on the ground. We have already taken steps to lift the hiring freeze and other really local government austerity measures that we've had in place over the last year in response to the passage of the legislation. We are reorganizing city government to be able to meet the tasks that you just laid out there and make sure that this money gets out into the community in a way that impacts and helps Brolin and Tony and it's the greatest degree possible. Just as federal dollars have allowed the city to be very active and nimble throughout the public health emergency, this money means we're gonna be really able to help people through and really help lead the recovery, lead the way out of these dark times. And we met tonight as a city, the Board of Finance, met and got a presentation from our Chief Administrative Officer Catherine Shad to begin to figure out how we do this work together.  We'll make sure that this money gets out and helps our shared constituents and the greatest way possible. We're gonna be very focused on having a racially just recovery as we have been for the last year since we've had an eight point plan to ensure racially just pandemic response and recovery. And we're gonna try to make the best we can, not only make sure that we really help the people that have been negatively impacted by COVID, this has been a very uneven pandemic. We know it's hurt certain households, individuals and businesses much more than others. We're gonna really try to make sure this help gets the people who need it. And we also are going to whenever possible just to use this once in a lifetime opportunity to make progress on some of the structural challenges that we face as a community, whether that's with the climate emergency or racial justice or our housing crisis or our infrastructure challenges. We're eagerly awaiting some of the more refined rules to figure out how we do this best but we look forward to working with you and your team to make sure we really maximize this opportunity for the people of Burlington. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Councillor Pine. Thank you. Thank you very much, Congressman Welch, for being here with us tonight and really appreciate this. The money that's coming forward in this recovery package is critical and is much appreciated. And I would just point out that 40 years ago, Burlington received a couple million dollars annually from the federal government under something called federal revenue sharing and it was eliminated. So if we had revenue sharing, we'd be in a much different place and I just wanna acknowledge that. But just to ask you if you could tell us whether cities should expect to see the notion of earmarks which I think were maligned by people because of the way some members of Congress may have decided to use those resources but I believe through your work and Senator Leahy and Senator Sanders, you can prove that earmarks are actually in service to the American people and I'm wondering whether you can speak to whether earmarks are really going to return and what are the prospects for that? Brian, they are gonna return. That was decided last week when the Republican conference agreed along with the Democrats who had done it a week before too. We have a different word for it. It's called Congressional Directed Spending. I mean, it's not just a euphemism though. This is really the truth. This is kind of an absurd situation we had. Congress has the power of the purse. It's much like you and your board have the authority to decide how to spend taxpayer money and you have to be accountable for that. And there was an abuse of that during some previous conferences. The Bridge to Nowhere, of course, is the famous one. So the new Directed Spending requirements are very strict. It has to be nonprofit. If I'm gonna promote a spending for a nonprofit in Vermont, I have to put my name on it. I have to sign a statement that I have no financial interest whatsoever. So we're trying to build in the accountability at the beginning and that would allow for the return of Congressional Directed Spending. Excellent, thanks for your great work. Thank you for that, Councillor Pine. Are there further comments from councillors or questions? Time for Councillor Hansen. Great, thanks so much, Representative Welch. We really appreciate it. I'm wondering if you could give a high-level overview from your perspective of what the restrictions are on the dollars that are coming to Burlington in terms of how we can use them. Well, I can tell you broadly that it has to be COVID-related. So for instance, a big area of concern has been pension funds around the country. Vermont also has an issue there. And that was really a bottom line non-negotiable demand by Republicans that did not be used for pension funds. And actually, that's not COVID-related because whatever our pension situation is pre-existent COVID. So that's an example of what it wouldn't be allowed to do. But broadly speaking, anything that's related to the COVID recovery, and that's impact on businesses, it's impacts on individuals, it's impact on, for instance, your nonprofit and your performance spaces. You've got a lot of that in Burlington. You'd have a lot of flexibility there. There can also be some capital spending like on many communities are really excited about getting money that might help them with broadband. Also, it's always the case that when these federal programs get started, some agencies start writing the rules and the rules sometimes are frustrating and in conflict many times with the congressional intent. We saw that with the payroll protection plan and we went back and advocated for changes in the rules to accommodate the intent of Congress and the needs of our businesses. So one of the reasons I wanted to get together with you and Rebecca Ellis, my state director is on with us, is to say, we're all hands on deck and responding to your questions as they come up, okay? And what I'm advocating with other municipal officials is if you're experiencing a problem with the rule, the likelihood, you know, is it when Nusky is or Colchester is, is probably going to affect you in the same ways. So we want to make certain that, you know, we regarded as our responsibility to you to hear your practical on the ground concerns and try to work with the administration and the agencies to get it right. Thank you so much. Okay, we have time for one more quick one, counselors. Anyone else? Counselor Paul, go ahead. Thanks very much, Congressman Welch, nice to see you. I very clearly remember you tweeting that photo of you on the plane. As a sole occupant, can't believe a year has passed since that time, but we're looking forward to better days. One of the things that's in the plan was funding for housing and funding for rental assistance. And, you know, we know that when that there is going to come a time where we're going to once again be faced with people who are facing homelessness or facing eviction and just wonder how much of, you know, ideally we would love for the 19 million that has come to us that we not have to use that money for that purpose and be able to use it for other things. However, that's obviously a significant concern in Burlington. And so I'm just wondering in your opinion of the money that is coming to the state, the money that's federally going for housing and rental assistance, how you feel about that in terms of being able to provide and for how long on for those people that are, you know, have had a bit of a more, they've had a moratorium right now, but that is not going to last forever. Now, you know, you are asking, I think a really practical and important question. There is money in the significant money in the federal bill that is going to help individuals, you know, the $1400 check, the $300 child tax credit. I mean, this is really significant. That's not to say that it's enough for some families and it's probably more than other families need, you know, quite frankly, but there's also very significant money in the plan for rental assistance, okay? So, you know, if I were in your position where I was really concerned about two things, one, the wellbeing of the people that really need to help and two, the finances of the city, I really would be coordinating as best I could with the state because they're going to have a lot of money from this program for rental assistance and you want to use your money wisely and you want to help. So, even though it's a big number, it's a finite number. And so the suggestion I'm offering is to really try to coordinate so that you know how much rental assistance can be provided with the funding that goes to the state rather than who have to pick that part of it up and then you have to make a decision about whether you think that's sufficient and you may have to supplement it with some of the latitude you have with your funds. And that's what I meant about the hard decisions that I think our local officials have to make. That is hard, but I think start with the fact that the state is getting significant money and in some cases individuals, but that child tax credit are getting funds that are going to really be a lifeline for them. Great, thanks very much. Thanks for being here. Yes, so that brings us right up to public forum. So I just want to thank you again, Representative Welch for joining us since we're sharing this update regarding the React. Very much appreciate it and look forward to continued collaboration as this rolls out. Well, likewise, President Tracey and as I said, we're here to try to help answer these questions as we go along and good luck to you. I really, really admire the efforts that you're making on behalf of the city of Burlington. Thank you. Thank you, have a wonderful night. Yeah, you too. Okay, so with that, that brings us to our public forum for this evening. Again, if members of the public are interested in speaking at this evening's forum, you may sign up by going to burlingtonvt.gov slash city council slash public forum. That's burlingtonvt.gov slash city council slash public forum. We have a very light agenda this evening and only a few folks signed up. So I let the clerk's office know that I will be giving three minutes this evening for folks to speak as is the case with our forums. We do prioritize Burlington residents. It looks like everyone who has signed up as of now is a Burlington resident. So that's not really an issue this evening. And then just want to encourage folks to please direct comments through the chair and to keep things focused on the issues that are facing our city as much as possible, not trying to refrain from getting too personal with your commentary this evening. That's what we generally try and bring to these. So please just adhere to that as best you're able this evening. And I'll go to our first speaker, who is Christine Fleming. Christine is to be followed by Lu Mulvaney Stanek, Thomas Poon, Cheryl Green, Don T. Lee Terhune, and Christy Delphia. So Christine, I'm going to enable your microphone, should be able to speak. Hello, can everybody hear me? Yes, I can, go ahead. Great, my name is Christine and I'm here to speak in support of the weatherization ordinance. Having a place to live that protects you from harsh weather is a human right. And with our freezing Vermont winters, it becomes especially important to have a living place that's properly insulated. I will begin renting in Burlington later this year and I would feel comforted to know that if this ordinance were passed, I wouldn't have to worry about having drafts in the winter or paying an enormous heating bill. Besides helping renters, weatherization is a critical component of making Burlington more environmentally sustainable. Emissions from heating and cooling make up a large component of greenhouse gas emissions. And by weatherizing buildings, we can significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the city. If we want to successfully address climate change, we must reduce carbon emissions from all sectors of our lives, not only those that are easy. Thank you, I yield my time. Thank you. Our next speaker will be Lou Mulvaney-Stanik to be followed by Thomas Poon. Lou, I have enabled your microphone. Can you hear me? Yes, I can, go ahead. Councilor President Tracy, my name is Lou Mulvaney-Stanik. I'm a 20 year resident of Burlington and I own a home in Ward 8 out in the North End. I've spoken to the council many times over the past year of the pandemic here. I joined you for public comment tonight to share a letter of importance that I wrote the mayor on Friday afternoon. I've edited the letter for brevity to fit into public comment. Dear Mayor Weinberger, I vividly remember standing next to you, Tim and Steve backstage at Memorial Auditorium late in 2011 when you won the second Democratic Caucus is a historic moment for the city and I know a momentous one for you. In the decade since then, I appreciate how our paths have continued to cross in the community. While we've not always been on the same side of an issue or a campaign, we've engaged with each other with integrity and respect. I hope you read the rest of this letter in that same spirit. Mr. Mayor, I'm writing today to ask you to consider to resign as mayor. Let me be clear, I do not make this request lightly and I've not come to it easily. I know serving as mayor has been one of the highlights of your career and I know you are proud of all you've achieved to make our community stronger, especially fiscally and most importantly during COVID which no doubt has helped save lives. Yet Mr. Mayor, there's another crisis brewing that is now at a reckoning point. How burning to move forward to dismantle our racist systems and practices. Your leadership and decisions on these issues have increasingly become problematic, especially in recent months, weeks and just days ago with the reassignment of Director Green. These poor decisions have repatuated not alleviated harm against BIPOC-Berlingtonians. When faced with feedback, you have been quick to double down on your position or shut citizens out, rather than seek to further understand and thus grow and change to be a better mayor. To be frank, Mr. Mayor, I believe your white privilege is jading your thinking and your decisions. And yet I do believe that you wanna be doing the right thing, especially for BIPOC-Berlingtonians. Yet your actions have a much different and harmful impact. During public forums, you are dismissive and defensive oftentimes to our BIPOC local leaders. This is the kind of leadership that is not only troubling, it holds our city back. As white people, it is easy to be silent. It's easy to explain things off, to not show up and to think that we totally get it. The hard truth is we will always have bias against the issue of race and the social power that comes from being white. It's hard to work to do as human beings. It's even harder to do when you're in an elected office. Mr. Mayor, I believe this is a critical moment for you and the city. We're living an unprecedented times when our leaders must grapple with immense decisions and look within themselves to do the right thing. Even if it's bold, even if it's hard, even if it means stepping back or down. We have an opportunity to transform the city not just on public safety, but on so many levels towards racial justice. Who our mayor is in this moment is gonna make the difference. With respect, Lou Mulvaney-Stanik. Okay, thank you. I'm gonna go to our next speaker, who is Thomas Poon. I believe I have located you, Thomas.  Show your face, right? I believe I've located you, Thomas. What's wrong? Thomas Poon. I have it under Schoon Poon. I'm not sure if that's the correct account. I'm not seeing a Thomas anywhere. Ah, okay. Thank you for using the raise hand function. I will go to that one. If folks, if you're on the Zoom, if you could change your name to just reflect who you signed up, the name under which you signed up. And then if you did sign up using a phone number, just if you could please indicate that phone number there. I'd appreciate that. But thank you for also using the raise hand function to help me find you. So. Who are you hearing? I have, I'm sorry, I had a Galaxy S8 signed up. Is that the right, is that you, Thomas? Or are you under Schoon? Yeah. I should be myself. Okay, all right. I don't see you as a Galaxy 8. So I'm gonna disable Schoon Poon and I have the Galaxy S8-1 enabled. So is that you, Thomas? Yes. Sorry about that. What? Hi, my name is Thomas Poon. I'm calling and representing the 15 War Street in regards to the easement. And I'm just trying to help my father out. Currently right now, I believe that we are just trying to have an easement for a parking spot for Fort 15 War Street there. It's the only residential property that does not have a parking spot throughout Wellington. Vermont gas had to come over to our property and dig up the makeshift parking spot that we had since 1940 and forward. With that, there was extensive work because there was a gas line through the sewer line. Because of that, we didn't have a choice but to allow that to happen due to an emergency. And then I believe through the public of a neighbor that complained about that there was work being done. We had no choice but to halt because the city official had to stop that based on a parking spot between the green belt and the road in the sidewalk. That being said for the record, I want to point out the fact that we have a prescriptive easement. And I believe that it's in our right to be able to realize that given the circumstances of the property as well as the land. Only available to the house and the property. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, our next speaker will be Cheryl Green to be followed by Don T. So Cheryl, I found you and have enabled your microphone. Cheryl, it looks like you're muted on your end. There you go. Thank you. I sent this letter directly to the mayor via email last Friday as part of the public record. I believe it to be clear, respectful and non-shaming and I'm going to read it now. Dear Mayor Ron Burger. This is Cheryl Green writing. I use she, her pronouns. I am white, age 73. I am an original resident of Burlington Co-Housing and Ward One. Our paths have crossed several times during your three terms as mayor. This is a serious letter. I am requesting that you consider resignation at the end of this month, March, 2021 and not be sworn in for another three-year term. Here is why. I have followed the course of the city council on Zoom for the last year, missing only one or two meetings. More recently, I attended a police commission meeting and on March 15th, the public safety meeting. On March 15th, with your announcement that you were removing Tayisha Green from her role in overseeing the contractual study of the BPD and transferring that responsibility to Darren Springer of BED, a white man, you crossed a line, not a line in the sand, rather to my thinking, a line in fresh poured concrete and that has solidified.  Your leadership style is different than what Burlington needs at this time. I wish you and your family all the best but a brave and brilliant quartet you are. All four of you need to be relieved of the stress this job entails for you, particularly in addressing the issues of racism and traditional policing. As white people, we are in a time of serious reckoning that includes deep listening. I am sure I am not the only person voicing this request for your resignation in the next 12 days. It is possible for you to resign with dignity and self-respect. Lots that's positive has happened during these nine years of your tenure as mayor. Sincerely, Cheryl Green. Thank you. Our next speaker is supposed to be Don T. Now, Don, I'm having difficulty locating you. If you could either use the raise hand function, if you've signed up on a different, if you're listed under a different name or if you've signed up using a phone number, I can come back to you if you just let me know. Mtracy at BurlingtonVT.gov. Okay, I see that raise hand function. Okay, I'm going to enable that to speak again and you should be able to speak for Don T. Can you hear me? Yes, I can, go ahead. All right, well, I once again, I'm once again speaking about 15 Ward Street in Burlington and the parking situation. I'm sorry, sir, did you already go? Nope. Okay, I'm sorry, I apologize. I just, when you said once again, I thought that you had spoken already. I apologize for that, go ahead. No, no, Thomas Poon was on about the same issue. Okay, I apologize, you're both under the same name. Yeah, nope, not at all. You could please reset the timer for this person. I really, okay, well, I really don't think I may need that long, but nonetheless. Okay, go ahead. I am backing up the fact that it is in fact the only property in Burlington with no parking after discussions with the city engineer through the Department of Public Works. The property was sold back in 1940 through a Howard Porter realtor who is now deceased. So it's kind of hard to prove, but he sold the property with the parking spot. And the resale value of you sell this property is going to kill the value of the property alone. As well, the curb cutouts been there for way over 50 years. The curb cutout is intentionally there because it is the actual parking spot and driveway for the property. And considering that Burlington has a winter parking band, I really don't know what you would expect one single family home to do about the parking situation. That is, to me, just kind of a little bit absurd. We're talking about, you know, probably 17 by 10 foot easement in the front of the property that has been there all along. As long as the property's been there, I'm sure. And we are talking to an attorney by the name of Benjamin Luna. And he's the one who guided us towards searching for this easement, searching for the easement and trying to obtain that. Now, we've already done an encumbrance permit and we want to do that and go by that. But once again, with the encumbrance permit, it states that after five years, the city's going to take back that property. That shouldn't be allowed really. I mean, they're talking about statutes and laws and rules that have been created in the last, you know, four or five years. And that property's been that way for, you know, well over 50 years. So there's got to be some amount of grandfather and there's got to be some kind of negotiation. There's got to be some neutral ground. It seems to me even very singled out, very one way. It's only one property in the whole entire city that doesn't have a parking spot. And that's because what we're fighting for is actually its parking spot. So it would make sense that everybody just saw it that way. And really, I don't have anything other to say.  So yeah, it's been there forever. Thank you. I have to say thank you. Okay, thank you. Our next speaker will be Lee Turhune to be followed by Steven Whitaker and Kristi Delphia. Lee, I've enabled your microphone. Thanks, Max. I'm calling in tonight to talk about the management of the operational and functional assessment of the police department. The decision has been reversed, but irreversible harm has been done. This decision was considered since September of 2020. And in the last two months, someone said that it had been discussed with black leaders in the community. So the repercussions of this decision had been discussed in advance. It wasn't any kind of a knee-jerk reaction. Mr. Dodson told the Joint Commission that when he was appointed as director of police transformation in September, 2020, it was always his intention that he would represent the city as the facilitator of the operational and functional assessment of the police department. But because of delays, the city hadn't started the contract yet. His tenure's coming to an end. He's going back to the Y. So the mayor needed to find someone else from the administration to represent the city, someone who shows up as pretty neutral. There's a pattern of bias here that includes the mayor's handling of the parade mural in 2012. The ongoing environmental justice issues related to the dumping of traffic into the King Maple neighborhood. And now claiming that a white male would be seen as a neutral facilitator of the BPD assessment. The mayor and all city employees have an REIB director to check them on their racial bias. Either they're not checking with her or not listening to her. I'm asking the council to create a space on every agenda for a report on our progress toward becoming an anti-racist city. An opportunity for the REIB director and staff to address current issues and present the anti-racist response as a model for our community. Like the health commissioner guides us through COVID pandemic, the REIB director can guide us towards a healthy recovery from the epidemic of racism. I think that the mayor's actions were not an isolated incident. There's a pattern of racism there that either he's got to take some crash courses from director Green or, yeah, resign. I don't think the mayor is the right person to lead our city in the next three years. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker will be Steven Whitaker to be followed by Kristi Delphia. Steven, having difficulty locating you, did you use, if you used a phone number, please let me know by using the raise hand function or sending me an email. Do not see any indication of the number Whitaker. I'm still not having it to locate you. Steven, use the raise hand function. I'll check my email again. Okay, if you are able to, I'm gonna go to the next speaker, Kristi Delphia, and then I'll try for you one more time if you could just either indicate using the raise hand function or send me an email, I can try to come back to you. Now, Kristi Delphia, I've enabled your microphone. Good evening. I am speaking from 37 years of experience of renting in the city. Time and time again, this person has shown that the pedestal that they have built for themselves by stacking up broken promises, disrespect, racism, lies and hatred is much more important than even the words of colleagues that have trusted and respected them for decades, causing their friends to throw their hands in the air. This person, she completely understand the damage that they have caused to our BIPOC community. As the people of their own faith have endured the worst atrocities by the hands of others through racism and sheer hatred that this world has ever seen. Yet their last actions were planned behind closed doors. And by the time that damage was realized, it was two weeks. Causing further pain to someone that did not deserve it. I hope this part of my comment holds the most impact and rocks this person to their core. Their repeated, disgusting actions have torn the very fabric of our community and holding it hostage through their racist actions and sheer terror by removing our ability to protect ourselves against their money and power then has the audacity to steal from it. Our democracy, our dignity, our safety, our security, our respect, our health and the most sacred thing we have in the figurative and physical sense the very life of this city have all been absolutely obliterated. This person may occupy a chair in the office named by government, but has never earned the title of mayor. Do the right thing, publicly apologize for destroying Charles Chicky Winkleman's life with Brandon Del Poso and a fake Twitter account and resign before we have to legally petition you out. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker I was able to locate, Steven Whitaker. Thank you for letting me know. So I've found you Steven and have enabled your microphone. Steven, it looks like you're muted on your end.  There you go. Sorry about that. Steve Whitaker, address list at present. I have been raising with every public official I can find since last fall, the restroom issue on the waterfront with public works, the folks that lock and unlock the parking lot by the L.A.E. Center. L.A.E. Center has signs posted on the doors, restrooms not available for the public, boat house, restrooms are locked. There was literally a thousand people out yesterday. I was counting and walking all over and I was trying to help parents with young kids find some discreet place for them to believe themselves. But I've written to the mayor's office multiple times. I've asked for an acknowledgement of receipt of the request that this is a pandemic, people need to wash their hands, people need to not be leaving potentially contagious waste in public areas. And I've gotten no response. I saw the mayor personally on the waterfront down there for a photo op and I said, I've written your office, I've asked for a response. And I just don't know what else to do, but to raise it with the whole council and point out that this is a humanity issue and a hygiene issue and a pandemic issue, a public health emergency. And really you've got good bathrooms available in the boat house that can be monitored every hour or something and similar in the parking lot and open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. or something. There's no reason not to have, there's no way to wash your hands in the new restroom in the city hall park. So I just think that both from the point of view of old people, incontinent people, unhoused people, et cetera, it's the least we can do in humanity and in public health to find the resources, you know, the extra pay for somebody to monitor and clean and refresh, you know, consumables. I just ask please, thank you. Thank you for that and that is our final speaker. Let me just check one more time. Yep, that is our final speaker for this evening. So I'm gonna go ahead and close the public forum. We will now move into other agenda items. So our next item on the agenda is our climate emergency reports. Did any counselors have a climate emergency report to offer? Okay, seeing none, we will go to our consent agenda. So I will go to Councillor Stromberg for a motion on our consent agenda. May I please have that motion? Yep, I move to adopt the consent agenda and take the actions indicated. Thank you, Councillor Stromberg. Is there a second? Seconded by Councillor Hansen. Any discussion? Seeing none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of adopting our consent agenda, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Here, none that carries unanimously. That brings us into our agenda, our deliberative agenda and item 6.01, which is an update from our state house delegation regarding education, funding and tax reform. We have a number of senators and representatives with us this evening. I very much appreciate that you are all, during a bit, but it's probably a very busy session, I'm sure, are making time to join us for this. I also wanna thank Councillor Shannon for your request to bring our colleagues at the state level to this meeting. I think it's helpful to get this update. So thank you for that, Councillor Shannon. And I believe, so before the meeting got started, I had heard from senators Chittenden and Lyons that they were interested in potentially kicking us off than Representative Odie felt that she might be a better person to kick off.  And then if other senators or representatives have additional bits to add on top of what they initially share, certainly welcome that. And I'd like to leave time for questions and comments from counselors as well. So Representative Odie, go ahead. Thank you very much, President Tracy, city counselors and Mayor Weinberger. Back in the 1990s, the decade that I was on the Burlington School Board, there was a funding formula in Vermont called the Foundation Formula. Burlington was a foundation town. We received federal funds, but little state aid to education. As a city, it was easier to raise funds with less effort, with Burlington's large grand list of real property than it was in a small town with only a handful of residential property and little commercial property. And in towns with a large scare af, for example, that contributed mightily to that town's grand list, there was very little burden on homes and non-commercial properties to raise taxes for schools. New school funding formulas were proposed in successive legislative bienniums to address issues with school funding. But it was the Vermont Supreme Court's decision in Amanda Brigham versus the state of Vermont that changed everything. The court said that the Foundation Formula did not eliminate wealth disparities from town to town and from school to school. In 1995, for example, the bottom 5% of schools spent $2,700 to $3,600 per pupil while the top 5%, 5% spent 5,800 to 7,800 per student. The tax base in Richford was $140,000 per student and in Peru, $2.2 million per student. While we recognize, said the court, that equal dollar resources do not necessarily translate equally in effect. There is no reasonable doubt that substantial funding differences significantly affect opportunities to learn. Money is clearly not the only variable affecting educational opportunity, but it is the one that government can effectively equalize. That system the court concluded which concededly denies equal education opportunity is constitutionally deficient. How and with what resources we choose as a state to fund education is up to us, the government of the state of Vermont. The mere fortuity of a child's residence to determine the resources a child should have is perpricious said the court and they were unable to fathom a legitimate governmental purpose to justify the gross inequities and educational opportunities evident from the record in the case. Finally, the court explained, we hold that the educational financing system in Vermont violates the right to equal educational opportunity under the constitution. The court did not opine about the tax rate equity, however, saying that there was not adequate briefing upon which the court could make a ruling. And so came Act 60 followed by Act 68. And with Act 60 acknowledging that students enter schools with different needs and that they need different levels of support for a common outcomes, students were assigned weights. A regular K-8 student was assigned the weight of 1.0, a high school student 1.25, then that changed to 1.13, the special education student 1.25, an English language learner 1.2 and a poverty, a child in poverty 1.25. And it was thanks to a concerted effort by then Winooski superintendent George Cross and joined by my efforts that we were able to get additional weights for ELL students. 20 years have passed and we've not updated the weights for students. When I entered the legislature in 2018, I sponsored a bill to change the weights as did others and the time was right. And the weighting study was commissioned. The results came out last biennium and it has forced conversation and action. What we all have to know is that the weights are meant to equalize, to impact local tax burdens and they themselves don't generate more revenue but they do impact tax rates. And if we were to adjust the weights upward for ELL and poverty, we would have a greater capacity to pay for schools in Burlington because our property tax rates would fall. Tammy Colby, a UVM professor and co-author of the weighting study reported to my House Ways and Means Committee and said, we don't need another study, that the weights in the report are respected in the field. Further, to those who would argue that if the weights were to change, they would not trust that we would make funding choices such as investing in teacher professional development for example, or to teach phonological awareness so that the science-based teaching of reading is employed or the nurturing of school leadership so that teaching and learning is supported school-wide or summer enrichment is offered so that some of our students who are most likely to fall behind after a summer away from educational opportunities is provided or mentoring, tutoring, mental health services and other supports are made available. To those who would question what might happen if the rates were to change as a result of updating the weighting, I pose this question. We have trusted school boards across the state to propose budgets based on current weighting and we have trusted communities to vote on those budgets across the state based on current weighting. Why now, assuming the appropriate setting of student weights as recommended in the study to some question the ability of school boards and communities to make decisions about how to educate their students. I am grateful for the Herculean efforts of the Burlington School Board to work toward a funding formula to achieve equity and educational opportunity. And so finally, in the 1990s, I came before the city council as a Burlington School Board chair and I asked the city council, please join with us to advocate for more funding at the state and local, at the state and federal level. I am so pleased that you have invited your Chittenden County delegation, representatives and senators here tonight so that we can join together to work for educational opportunity for Burlington school children and for Burlington's property tax fair. Thank you, President Tracy. Thank you, Representative Odie. I will also welcome, I know that senators Lyons and Chittenden wrote to me saying that they would also, that they also had an element to share as well. So, Senator Lyons. Thank you, Max. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here with folks and really appreciate the opportunity. Before Senator Chittenden and I weigh in on the work that we're doing currently in the education committee, I'd like to turn it over to Senator Baruth and he does have some historical perspective if that's okay with you. Absolutely, yeah. No, happy to do that. Whatever you feel would be more helpful in this situation. So Senator Baruth, if you'd like to share with us, please go ahead. Thank you to President Tracy and good evening, counselors. So I appreciate Carol's long, long history because this is an issue stretching back decades. What I'm gonna give you is the last four years and I think like the two decades before it, it's really a record of resistance to this change. So if you go back four years in Act 49, the education committee in the Senate put forward the waiting study, the house signed on and that was passed into law. It required the Department of Education or I'm sorry, the agency to conduct the waiting study. Then Secretary Holcomb simply refused. You might not remember that, but it was a very odd incident where a newly passed law was being explicitly disregarded by an agency head. Her logic was that she didn't have the funding to do it and that she as an agency head had the right then to prioritize which laws to abide by. So letters of protest went back and forth and in the next year, we passed $250,000 to allow UVM to conduct the study rather than AOE. Professor Colby managed that study brilliantly and produced work that no one has disputed on any kind of scientific level. So I think the agreement across the board is that the numbers that Professor Colby developed are state-of-the-art accurate and in need of use. So that's where we were until last year and last year the education committee passed out a bill implementing those numbers, calling on the agency to develop an action plan. That went on the last day of crossover to the finance committee and that was March 13th, 2020 and that was the day we left the building for good. So that bill died as did many other bills. I knew that I was gonna be heading out of the chair of Senate education. So one of the last things I did was to put in a bill this year called S13 that would get the education committee started on a discussion, much needed discussion about how to implement and to my pleasure. They've been doing that and Senator Campion who runs the committee now has done a great job as have Senators Lyon and Lyons and Chittenden. So with that, I'll turn it over to them to explain what S13 is. That has passed out of their committee and is now in appropriations. All right, I will come back to you Senators Lyons and Chittenden. I don't know which one of you would like to begin. Well, I'm happy to begin and we'll maybe we'll play tag team a little bit. So thank you, Senator Bruce for that. The bill that we received for an implementation plan is now has been really, I think, fully developed so that we will see a task force put together mostly of members of the House and Senate also a representative of Secretary of Education and that task force is going to look at the cold report that we have and then begin to analyze how to build equitable equitable funding for education. And just to let you know, I think we all agree it's absolutely a moral imperative that we do this. There's no doubt about it. As we took testimony and as I'm pretty sure Senator Ruth heard testimony when he was chair of education there were concerns about moving too quickly and not having some transition for schools including school districts, including Burlington and other districts across the state. So the new waiting factors will include, absolutely include ELL economic disadvantage. There'll also be a separation of middle and secondary school. So in some ways the middle school becomes a new element in the waiting process. Then there's also a new section on what's known as geographic necessity or the small schools. We think of it as a rural environment where perhaps transportation issues are different from what we might see in more populated areas. And then finally a population density factor. So actually a set of waiting factors for population density that have been elaborated in the proposal. So the task force will be looking not just at the waiting factors but also looking at how these factors fit in with education funding overall. And also fit in with the Vermont Tax Structure Commission report that came out in February. The task force will be able to hire a consultant and utilize, I believe the appropriations committee under Senator Bruce's good support will be bringing the task force $150,000 to carry through the work that's required. There are actually nine different powers and duties that are given to the task force. I won't go through all of them but simply to say that as waiting factors are added in some are being subtracted in some districts but there was a question about how to utilize categorical funding. So in one school it might be to allow for some additional funding for mental health services rather than to have that as a waiting factor but obviously would have associated costs. So to look at categorical funding could be transportation it could be other grants currently with schools. So there is a great deal of information that we're asking this task force to evaluate to look at also what other states are doing so to give us an understanding of how we might work going forward. I think I'll stop there and let Senator Chittenden have a chance to talk a little bit. We did work very hard on this bill. We see it, we're very committed to making sure that when the task force comes back with implementation with an implementation plan whether it includes any kind of transition or not that there's legislation that we can take up and we can pass immediately next year. So I think we're all committed to that and we understand the pressures that school districts are under particularly a district like Burlington where English language learners put a significant burden on the school. Not a bad burden, a good burden but one that requires support services and funds to make to allow for outcomes for kids good outcomes for kids. So I'll turn it over to Senator Chittenden. I'll be very brief and I'm serving on the Senate education with Senator Lyons and my understanding is it's a pretty much all new committee only Andrew Senator Perchlich persists and he'll be reporting out the bill that we as a committee approved to move S13 forward and I had not heard the history that Senator Baruth offered and that fits really well into now me understanding the where this stands. I didn't know that Secretary Holcomb had however you want to frame it did not move forward with the legislation. One of the first things Dan French the current secretary said to us on this is he didn't have the money to actually implement this and as well as there is a political aspect of this. So it makes sense that the revisions are now also calling for the $150,000 to implement this waiting study. So I think that makes sense as to how the committee focused on that discussion and in the efforts to move S13 forward we met with Senate Finance that hasn't been raised either. Questions have come up questions that I think Representative Odie addressed really well in speaking to that that we need to be able to educate and communicate how to roll this out to all the communities across the entire state and to do it in a way that doesn't create enough the shock that can actually in the end generate less dollars to our education fund. Questions like how to tuition to communities that tuition all their students how are they gonna be funded? We also have an email from a community that was affected by Act 46 that was engulfed into a new larger school district in Middlebury and they're concerned with a new population density waiting that they weren't considered in the study. So there are some questions that this implementation plan are gonna dig into deeper to come back exactly as Senator Lyons said this coming year we gave a date certain so that next term not next term but next year within this biennium the legislature will have before them something to enact to address these concerns these valid concerns about inequitable access to educational opportunity. I'm sure I missed a lot of things I'd be happy to share links on this and with that I'll stop talking and leave you President Tracy to guide the discussion from here. Excellent, thank you. So are there other Senate? Thank you, I see you Councilor Shannon I'll put you in the queue. Are there, before I go to counselors are there any other points that senators or representatives would like to cover? Okay, Senator Pierson, go ahead. Sure, Max, thank you everybody not on the waiting study so if you wanna divide it up that way I'm happy to wait but I am can give a quick overview of that. Go ahead, I think it would be helpful to get it out there right now and then we can transition in and I see representatives step in I'll come to you right next thank you for using the race hand function. So folks may be aware last year the legislature dialed up a sort of analysis of our tax structure and chief among those was the way we pay for schools. I've been along with Joey Donovan Bud Otterman a Republican from Windsor County may he rest folks over the years I've been down there pushing for the idea of paying for schools based on the income tax most for monitors two thirds of homeowners pay at least two thirds pay based so-called income sensitized and the folks at the top are not people who are income sensitized pay between two and 3% of their income for schools folks at the higher end are paying 1% half percent of their income. So a lot of us have pushed this it would be a great correction to a very forward thinking in terms of being a statewide Ed fund but frankly regressive tax funding in the tax structure analysis folks came up independent people data analysts tax brains came up with a good straightforward recommendation of not only paying for schools based on income tax but a way to transition it. They unlike other our proposals in years past handled renters in a way that I think is good and allows the prospect of towns and community school districts deciding to have a 3% jump in their school budget and therefore seeing a 3% increase in their tax bill a nice connection between what we're deciding locally and what I'm gonna pay locally. A lot of these kinds of reports and analysis in the past the habit of the legislature it's to take a few years for this to really settle in and then get taken up in earnest. I'm impatient personally but I recognize we are not going to take it up this year. What I'm working with my colleagues to see if we can pull off is permission for the finance committee which is the tax committee in the Senate and others to have some time to meet in the off session out when the pandemic hopefully is easing and we would have time to really dig in and answer big questions outside of the crush of the four and a half month legislative session and possibly be ready to come back in January to really pursue this. Towns, VLTC, many we've had a broad and interesting coalition who support this basic concept of moving away from the property tax for homeowners and paying for schools. So I'm hopeful we'll get there. I sort of feels like a question of when and how it intersects with the discussion we've just had remains to be seen a lot of us wonder if there's an opportunity there at any rate. So no quick progress likely but we're continuing to push in a very promising report and I'll try to send a link of that around to counselors in case you're interested in other things. They also looked at the sales tax and some other ideas but most the forefront and for this conversation was the idea of shifting to income tax for schools. Thank you, Senator Pierson. I'll go to Representative Stebbins now. Thank you, President Tracy, two comments. The first is Representative Bloomley and myself as well as a few others hosted essentially a Zoom presentation with the three commissioners who wrote the tax structure report. So if anyone would prefer to not read through a hundred plus pages and would prefer to listen or watch something for about 45 minutes we could certainly share that link. The other thing I wanted to just say in terms of process there actually have been a number of bills that have been proposed to look at how we roll out the proposed solutions in the UVM waiting report and from the House side in terms of process much of the conversation at this point has been within the Senate Education Committee. And so generally at this point given where we're at in the legislative session generally the House Education Committee is working on other things. And when the Senate bill comes over to the House that's when they'll start to dig into this. And then you'll hear a little bit more from other state reps in terms of where this is going. Wonderful, well thank you for all of that context and explanation. I certainly appreciate that from all of you. I'm gonna go to counselors. I will note that we also have invited and I also did invite our colleagues on the school board as well. So I will also, I don't wanna just invite you and then promote you to panelists and then not allow you to if you have something also that you wanted to say but I'm gonna go and have counselor Shannon to be followed by counselor Jang. Go ahead, counselor Shannon. Point of information. I was just wondering if maybe instead we can start with the school board members and then the counselors can finish. Well, I'm gonna mix it in. I'll mix them together in the order that I see folks hands. So I'm gonna go with, if you wanna get in the queue counselor I can put you in where you wanting to get in the queue or just call a point of order. Okay, yeah, I'll mix it in. I see you commissioner all well. Counselor Shannon, go ahead. Thank you very much, President Tracy and thank you to the senators and representatives that have joined us tonight. I really appreciate this. I can't think of another time that we've actually done this but this is an issue that is just so profoundly important to both Burlington taxpayers and Burlington students. There's a real urgency around this which I hope that you appreciate. I do understand that not all of our senators are from Burlington and that this new waiting proposal there are winners and losers and that your home communities, Senator Chittenden and Senator Lyons are not going to benefit quite honestly from this the way Burlington is going to benefit and Winooski is going to benefit and rural communities in the Northeast kingdom are going to benefit but your communities have been benefiting for 20 years and we've b