This meeting that's getting off to a rough start, but I feel confident it's going to improve. Call it to order at 5.39 p.m. and ask for a motion to adopt the agenda. So moved. Excellent. Is there a second? Councillor Jeng, thank you. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Excellent. So let's move on to public forum. And I know that we have at least one member of the public. So should definitely, oh, I see a couple. OK, I've got chat as an option. Oh, let's use the scan function. We tend to disable the chat just because of issues that we have with that. So. So it looks like there are two folks that have their hands if someone would like to speak on public forum, you can just use the raise hand function. Barb, I've just enabled your microphone. So I think you can go ahead and start. And I don't I don't think I need to pull up a timer for this group, but maybe at the chair's direction, we should limit comments to about two minutes. Excellent. Thank you. Hi, I'm Barb, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Thank you. So I'm actually waving my time for Mohamed Jafar. Do you see Mohamed? Yes. Yeah, he was just having trouble also getting in. But we're here for the proposal on the city council initiatives fund. And I will I will let Mohamed do the speaking, because I'm here just because we are having technical problems getting in. Great. Thanks for that clarification. OK, Jordan, could you enable Mohamed's microphone, please? Certainly. Thank you so much. Hi, everyone. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you. Shoot, I just I'm so sorry. I meant I'm sorry. No problem. As President Tracy said, it's harder than it looks. He has a lot of practice, but let's we'll just. OK, I'll set now. Sorry, Mohamed. No worries at all. Can you hear me now? Yes, we can. Thank you. Yes. So as Barb just mentioned, we recently submitted a proposal to increase access for new Americans with some videos we hope to create about ballot items. And we are hoping that City Council will assist in funding this project. Access, of course, is critical, and we hope that with these videos we can kind of actualize some of that access that we hope for. And so I'm just here to kind of try to answer any questions that the committee might have. And I think Barb will help with any questions that I'm not able to answer. But otherwise, please feel free to throw out anything. And thank you again for the time. Thank you. We don't usually have this as a back and forth, but given the unusual situation and the fact that we don't have a large public forum here, are there any questions from the counselors that are here on the initiatives fund proposal that is coming up? OK, I don't see any, Mohamed, but thank you for coming and speaking on behalf of that initiative. So we will be moving on to item 3.01, licensing fee waivers for ADA qualified service animals. How would the board like to proceed on this item? Counselor Paul. Thanks, I'm happy to move, move this. I but to be honest with you, I'm OK, I'm certainly OK with passing this to Counselor Chang. I'm still getting board docs up. And if you want to, if you would like to move this a little bit quicker, I'm happy to do that. So my apologies for raising my hand so fast. No worries. We are all experiencing some difficulties tonight. Poor Counselor Pine is trying to get a new laptop or a speaker. I'm not even sure, but he's in touch with me and he is working through it. Counselor Chang, would you like to make this motion? I believe you are on mute. Oh, thank you. Yeah, I would like to make the motion for the municipal licensing fee to be waived for all sprayed and neutered ADA qualified service animal and the city council intend to amend the city staff license ordinance in a competition level. Excellent. Is there a second? Thank you, Counselor Paul. Any questions? OK, all in favor. All right, I. Great. And that brings us to item 3.0 to the city council initiative fund for interpretive video explanation of the ballot questions. How would the board like to move forward with this item? Yes, Counselor Chen. Yeah, I would like to make the motion to approve and recommend the city council to approve the expenditure of two thousand dollars for the city council initiative fund to support the community led effort to produce short videos and haven't followed questions in seven different languages. Excellent. Is there a second? President Tracy, are there any questions or further discussion on this motion? Yes, Counselor Tracy. I just want to say just express my full support for this. I know that the folks who are proposing this did the similar event in cooperation with the Secretary of State's office last town meeting day hosting events. And though that's not possible this year, this feels like a great way to reach out to folks and to make sure that they're able to navigate what is one of the more complicated or unique ballots that I think folks have seen in our city. I think that this will I just from last year, I noticed, you know, I stood at the polls all day and I noticed that there were so many folks who hadn't other who I never seen at the word to polls. Coming to to vote and I attributed that in part to their efforts. So I just want to thank them for that and for trying to expand access to this really just cherished day and cherished tradition that we have of town meeting day. So thanks, Mohamed. Thanks, Barb. Thank you, President Tracy. I agree with those sentiments wholeheartedly from the clerk's office. We often get requests for these kinds of things. So I'm so excited that although we aren't able to do it, it's able to be done in the community. Councilor Paul, did I also see your hand? You did. You did. But President Tracy said it very well. I would just echo exactly what he said. Thank you, Mohamed, and to others who have also worked on this and this is probably one of the most one of the more complicated ballots that we've had in probably in the last decade and and it's wonderful to have this service because there it's it's a lot it's a lot to digest. And I think it's I think it's just it's just a great thing that you're doing. Two thousand dollars doesn't seem like an awful lot to get this work done. So it sounds like we're getting a great return on our investment, which is also wonderful. So thank you. Excellent. Item three point oh three authorization for the two point five million dollar loan from the Vermont Clean Water State Revolving Fund for the upgrade of the stormwater collection system. Yes, Councilor Paul. Yeah, I think we need to vote. We didn't vote. Sorry. Thank you. It's always something. I'm trying so much, you guys. OK, before we move on to the stormwater and Mr. Maloney, all in favor of item three point oh two city council initiative funds, please say aye. Aye. Aye. I knew we were all in favor, but thank you, Councilor Paul, for keeping me honest. So when Lori goes through this tomorrow, we don't have a problem. Want to be by the book. Now we've got the two point five million dollar loan for stormwater improvements. We've got Assistant Director Muir here, as well as Thomas Maloney. Why don't I. Turn it over to Megan. Well, is there a motion with the board like to make a motion? Or would you like to have a brief overview? I think a brief overview might be good, given the we're talking about. Yes, the complexities. Megan, can I turn it over to you? Yes, and I'll quickly turn it over to Bond Council. Well, this is actually something that you guys approved previously. You've approved this project, which is the upgrade of the collection system project, and this is sort of a housekeeping tidying up of how we're actually going to borrow the money. And with that, I will let Thomas explain those details. Good. Good evening. Nice to see everybody. As you may recall, in November of 2018, the voters approved the Clean Water Resiliency Plan for the city and authorized close to thirty million dollars of various revenue bonds. One portion of the overall project that was approved by the voters and that's being implemented is improvements to the city's stormwater collection system. In June of 2020, the city council did approve a general bond resolution and the borrowing of up to two million five hundred sixty thousand dollars for these stormwater collection and improvements with the scope of the the loan coming from the Vermont Municipal Bond Bank on behalf of the State Environmental Revolving Loan Fund. Since that approval with the Division Director Megan and I did have conversations with the Bond Bank to see if we could save the city money by doing this as a direct revenue note to the Vermont Municipal Bond Bank instead of engaging the Bond's trustee. Covenants would be the same. The note would be issued under the same provisions of the city charter, which is section sixty four B, which provides that it's payable solely from the net revenues of the stormwater revenue producing enterprise, in this case, the stormwater system. And that's only after payment at the cost of operation and maintenance. So the covenants, the repayments, the loan would essentially be the same. But as I said, that we discovered a method of reducing the overall transaction costs by not involving the bond trustee. So this would be a direct placement of this revenue note to the Vermont Municipal Bond Bank under the State Environmental Revolving Loan Fund. Well, thank you, Bond Council. Maloney, yes, President Tracy, I just wanted to ask and I was a little I just wanted to ask just so I'm clear on about the third whereas clause talking about that it would the loan may either be taken from the Bond Bank or from general bond resolution. And I just want to clarity on what each of those sources might be and what would be influential in terms of choosing one over the others. It just a pure cost thing and you'll go with whichever is is cheaper in terms of the financing option. It is the cost of the Bond Bank. We'll want to see the ultimate loan documents to have their council approve it. That is the expectation. But what we don't want to do is to stop the project it for some unforeseen reason. The Bond Bank says, well, you know, we've. I don't want to say changed our mind because they have given us indication that this is an agreeable method. But if there is some roadblock that we don't want to stop stop the project. And as I mentioned, the council that already authorized this, this is a documentation to present that we're hoping to do it this way, save the city money, save ongoing costs of a trustee. Yeah, but then ultimately, we, you know, we do want to get this project or the city wants to get this project implemented for improvement for the stormwater system. OK, great. Thank you very much. I appreciate that answer. Any further questions? Yes, Councilor Jay. Yes, so it might not be by mine. I don't expect an answer today. And if you can't. So it seems the voters approve up to nearly 30 million dollars, right? And this is not the first bound that you request into. To to borrow, right? I was just wondering now from those 30 millions, how much is left? Right. How much is left to be borrowed? After we if we approve this one, right? That's one question. And the second question in terms of the scope of work being done for in a scale from one to ten, where are we in the upgrade that needs to happen, whether it's the staff or the infrastructure itself? Is that clear? No. Two questions right there. Yeah. Yeah. Don't question it. They go ahead, Megan. So we are we are nearing completion of the sort of first phase and biggest portion. Some of the some of the systems that failed that kind of kicked off this whole clean water resolution resiliency process, the three disinfection system upgrades at the three plants and the SCADA PLC upgrade. Those are nearing completion and my anticipate will be completed before the the summer rainy season. We have also come to you for approval. I forget what the total amount was. I think it was one point six million for the upgrade to the Flynn and Fletcher pump stations that that construction would begin this spring. And then this project that we're revisiting the stormwater collection system was also approved at the as part of a larger project, which involved the wastewater collection system. And I I will actually get get that specific number to you to have to pull up the spreadsheet because I have been tracking those costs. I believe we have about eleven million dollars left on the wastewater side and my team's been focusing really hard on what those next high priority projects are. And then also that bigger, longer list that we told you about that this this thirty million dollars was going to get us started on the process, but that there's a lot more to be done. And then on the on the stormwater side, I believe we have about eight million dollars or seven and a half million dollars after we do this project. There are some funds still remaining, but we are quickly coming up with the projects that are going to spend down those remaining dollars in the next two years. Thank you. I think you answered them both. Any further questions from the board? Are we ready for a motion? Anyone? Yes, counselor Pied, can we hear you? Yes. Yes, I think you can now. I luckily, my nephew who is visiting loan me his computer. My city issued computer conked out on me today. So I've been having some challenges. I would I would move to recommend the city council approve the attached resolution. Excellent. Thank you, counselor Pine. Is there a second? Yes, counselor, trace President Tracy. All in favor of authorizing the two point five million dollar loan. Hi, hi. Any opposed? Excellent. Thank you, Thomas and Megan. Thank you. Thank you. The next item is item three point four, the GIS services contract. And you may recall, this is a bit of a follow on from an agenda item from our last meeting. Is the board prepared to make a motion or would you like to hear from one of these lovely individuals who's just turned on their camera with a little more detail? Yes, counselor Paul, I think you might still be on mute. That is what they that is what the words in front of me are saying. I would, I mean, obviously welcome discussion, but would make a motion to approve and recommend that the council authorize the director. Oh, wait a minute. I may be off on the wrong one. No, I guess this is this is the GIS, right? Yes. Yeah, it is the director of public works. I apologize. I didn't see Chapin. So through me off a little bit, recommend that the city council authorize the director of public works to enter into a contract with GIS Incorporated for the hosting and management of the GIS system for the city of Burlington for an amount of $119,800 subject to final review and approval by the city attorney's office. Excellent. Is there a second to counselor Pine? Any question or would you like any quick overview? Are we ready for a vote? All right. I feel like we're ready for a vote. All in favor? Aye. Excellent. Thank you, team DPW and team INT. Okay. Excuse me. Our next item is item 3.05, reclassification of four roles within CEDO. And we have Tony from the HR team and Katie, who is functioning as our CEDO director. If you would like any conversation, how would the board like to proceed? Yes, President Tracy. Could just get a brief explanation of what's going on with these four. That'd be really helpful. Excellent. Who would like to start Tony or Katie? Katie, why don't you do a quick overview? Sure. Happy to. So essentially with these four positions, we were, it's driven by two things. One changes in the individual's actual position descriptions due to assuming different responsibilities based on kind of grants that we've obtained through the COVID crisis. So additional grants as well as a shift in different responsibilities. So that's the three in the administration and finance division. The fourth position that is up has been taking on a lot more responsibility also than was written in their job description. So that was also updated and regraded resulting in the four positions that were bringing today. Tony, anything I missed or to add? No, that was good. I mean, some of these have been talked about for quite some time since I began about a year ago. And yeah, due to COVID, things got stalled and delayed. And we just felt that it was important to put these forward now. Thank you for your consideration. I would just add where putting on my CAO HR director in her own hat, really more of the CAO one. I guess that Katie and I have worked hard and with Luke while he was still here to just make sure that we're balancing budget responsibility with also fair workloads for staff and there are several positions in CEDO that we have strategically not filled, but that has certainly added a lot to the workload of existing staff. And that has contributed to our feeling of urgency around these reclassifications and the fact that these staff have done such an outstanding job through COVID even with that increased workload. Okay, taking off CAO hat. Is the board, is anybody ready to make a motion? Are there any further questions? Yeah, I wanna ask the question first and make the motion. Sure. So I think based on your CAO hat response, I think these are good and they are wonderful. These staff have been already doing the work necessary of all the positions, right? And I was just wondering now, knowing that these positions have been reclassified, right? Will the city still push you to fill the position that are not filled yet? Will you still trying to hire or those positions are are now canceled or something? I will answer and Katie, please jump in if there's anything I misclassify or you'd like to add. I would say that is part of an ongoing discussion as we discuss the COVID response and the FY22 budget. Katie and I are both aligned with the fact that CEDO does need more resources. And so as we are presenting the budget to the mayor, we are increasing those, not knowing exactly how it's all going to fit together, of course, but we're looking for something of a balance there. So I would say, although we've been holding off on filling those positions, they're not things that we intend to leave unfilled forever. We're hoping that as the budget rebounds, we're able to continue to keep CEDO staffed as we would like and also as is needed. We've seen some of those needs shift and so we've created some new positions in the RRC and we wanna make sure all of that's aligned and we might wanna wait for the new CEDO director. So there's a lot of considerations, but those conversations are ongoing. I hope that's helpful, maybe that was wrong. The only thing I would add to that is one of the motivations for looking at this was the resignation of one of the many unfortunate resignations and CEDO that happened this summer under the administration finance team. And I would say that with looking at how to refill that position strategically and what makes sense in terms of responsibilities, that was an addition to COVID and the additional workload that that has brought on was one of the motivating factors for looking at kind of formalizing what some staff have already been doing as well as looking at what really makes sense in terms of distribution of responsibilities. Right, wonderful, okay, thank you. Are there other questions or Councillor Jang, were you ready to go ahead and make the motion? Yeah, okay. I would like to make the motion and to recommend the city council to approve the reclassification of the community depth employment specialist one, grant management CEDO for a regular full-time, the reclassification of the community development special to AmeriCorps CEDO to a regular full-time exempt non-union grade 17 to the reclassification of the housing program manager, CEDO, a regular full-time exempt non-union grade 19 and the reclassification of the community development specialist one, public engagement CEDO regular full-time except non-union grade 16. Thank you, that was quite a mouthful. Is there a second for the motion? Councillor Pine, thank you. Oh, yes, Councillor President Tracy. Just wanted to ask if we have to read the whole motion or if, because there was more to the motion. I believe that city attorney Blackwood has been okay in the past if we haven't, but thank you. Do you have to do one or the other? You either have to reference the motion that's written or read it. So if you read part of it, you need to include any other parts that are critical. So perhaps at this point, Councillor Jang, you could just say reference the motion. Reference the motion as written on board docs. Yep. All right, I would like to make the motion and to reference the motion as written in board doc. Love it. Councillor Pine. Second. Is the second? Excellent. All in favor. Say aye. Aye. All right, excellent. Thank you, CEDO team. Thank you, Tony, as well for your help with that. We're going to keep the focus on CEDO and item 3.06 is the HUD 2020 Lead Hazard Control Grant. Yes, Councillor Pine. I'm going to move it right away. And then if there's discussion that can follow, I'd move to approve and recommend the City Council authorize an increase to the Housing Lead Program fiscal year 2021 budget accounts 301-31-305-317 in the amount of $422,868 with funding coming from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development 2020 Lead Hazard Control Grant funds in accordance with the attached budget amendment request FY21. Councillor Chen. Second. Is the second? Thank you. Any questions? Great. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Excellent. Thank you, CEDO team for that. Item 3.07 is a very interesting one that I'm excited about from the airport. Acceptance of the grant and related contract for the sound insulation pilot program and 50-home pre-qualification project. And we have the full team here. Who would like to give us a quick overview? Jean, would you like to start? Sure. I'd just like to nickel give us a quick overview. This is his program and he's been working for years on, you know, turning the old program from the home removal to this new sound program. That was one of our first initiatives. This is a wonderful day, you know, that we are going into getting this grant that we have FAA on board. The community is on board.  And I think it's going to be extremely beneficial. It'll be millions of dollars, you know, over time. This initial one, Nick will go over a little bit about it. It's about 10 houses and what we'll be doing with those and how we'll pick them. But I just wanted to say a couple of words. I'm very excited about it. And I think it's what you all have asked for. We've all talked about it. It's something we all agree on. And we've done this together. So, you know, the mayor asked for this. It was one of my first initiatives when I took over as director of aviation, he said, I want this program stopped. And I want a new program. FAA flatly said no, we don't do that. Well, look where we are today. So Burlington is doing it. And I'm really happy that we have funding. And we'll, I'll let Nick talk a bit. So I use your time well tonight, but we've really done a lot together, guys. So thank you for your support. Or counselors. I don't mean guys, counselors. Thank you. Thank you, Gene. Go ahead, Nick. So thank you. I'm just going to, I'm just going to bring it back in history just to recap what we have done for the last couple of years and break out the programs on how we get the approval from the federal aviation administration. So back in 2018 and 2019, we redid our noise exposure map. That's the essence of this program and determines who could potentially be eligible for one of our mitigation efforts. In 2019. Yeah. I don't know if you were on earlier. Airport team, but this isn't even Nick's fault. This is just a cursed board of finance meeting technologically. We will blame Nick anyhow. We will not blame Nick. We love Nick. Of course. I'm just kidding. Of course I want to use. What'd you say, Larry? You want me to pick it up from here until Nick comes back. That'd be great. All right. Thank you, Larry. So Nick was going through the history of the sound mapping and how it was determined on which houses would qualify for a purchase program, which would be over the 75 DNL. And then there's within the 65. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I was just kidding. I kept going and going and going. Okay. I'm up to now where we're at. So go for it. So I apologize if I repeat anything. Noise exposure map was approved in 2019. That's the map that shows the potentially eligible properties. Located on our website at BTV sound. The next step is to identify what we're going to be doing. What are we mitigating and how are we mitigating? That's, that's called the noise compatibility program. That's the NCP for short. That was approved in late 2020. So just a few months ago by the federal aviation administration, working with South Burlington, Winooski, Wilson and all of our neighboring municipalities to identify, like Jean said, stepping away from the acquisition and removal program and moving towards sound insulation. What's called purchase assurance, helping people sell their houses and move. If they so choose and sales assistants again, helping somebody sell their house on the open market for a fair market. Value. This program that we're showing you today is the pilot program or the very first grant that we're going to be receiving for sound insulation, which is going to include a tremendous amount of outreach to up to 60 houses, 10 for the pilot program and then 50 for the next stage of this process. We're going to be performing some acoustical testing.  That's all inclusive in this first grant, this pilot grant, as well as the design, bidding, construction, administration and then eventually construction. As well as the design and outreach to the next 50 houses. The idea here is to receive approval. This is the very important part. Receive approval on an acoustical testing plan for the entire process for many, many, many years to come, not just this pilot program to identify these next houses or these next 50 houses so we can start the design process on these houses so that next year in 2022, we can apply for the construction grant for those 50 houses, as well as design for the next 50 houses in 2023. And you can kind of see that evolution and revolving program as it lays out. So this here in front of you today is to receive approval from you and city council for the pilot program and the design of the next 50 houses. As well as to sign a contract with the Jones pain group to help us administer this as well as a budget amendment to help identify these costs and receive reimbursement. And one last item on the reimbursement. This also ties into the Vermont gas system announcement that we had just a few months ago where they are helping a tremendous help with the 10% share of this, this particular grant and the grants that move into the future with approximately $500,000 annually, as well as the remaining 90% coming from the federal aviation administration up to approximately $5 million annually. I think I said it all. So just one thing, we will be back for approval once we've identified the contractor for these 10 contractor or contractors for these 10, 10 homes pilot program. That's not in here, but the money is to do in here to do that. We'll have to come back for that. And to add what Larry said, we'll be back with that and we'll be back every year and multiple times a year to identify each step of the process as we move forward every single year, mitigating these properties. Thank you, team airport. Are there questions? Yes, counselor. Yeah, couple of questions. And I think the first one, I wanted to know if you already identified the 10 homes or houses that will be participating in the pilot program. And also if those homes are in different municipalities or are they all in South Burlington? We have not identified them yet, but there'll be the ones, there'll be in different municipalities, a sampling of each and it'll be the ones that are most affected by sound. Yeah. And why now then this proposal don't have, why aren't we only approving the pilot? Why are we approving also the other 50 homes? Knowing that the first 10, you could have identified, you know, better way or a better system or the system you have in place is not, is not well. Then are you coming back to the driving board again to be able to do the other 50? And if yes, why didn't we just separate start with the pilot bus and then the 50 overtime? We want to use our time well, counselor. It's really important that we do piggyback these so that we're able to make better use of time and then we're able, the sooner we feel, and I know you do as well, the sooner that these homes are insulated, the better off everybody is in our community. And so this will enable us to get there a little sooner by doing it the way that we're doing it. And just to establish costs. We can establish costs to move forward. Are we saying that? And just to add on to that, Jean, originally counselor, Jane, that's exactly what we're doing. We're separating these programs because that's how the FAA identified. So we can identify the cost, bid it out and then move forward with the construction. However, just recently, the FAA allowed us to move forward with the design of the next 50 houses. This is going to put us ahead of, of this process, put us ahead of coming back to redesign or, or out, accomplish the outreach on these next 50 houses and going through that cycle. So this, this is a huge advantage to us, not only to process the entire 10 houses in the acoustical testing process, which is very complicated, but also get ready to perform the next 50 houses for next year's construction project. One more thing. This will also do, this is a stimulus in some ways.  It will be at the same time of putting people to work. It will also be insulating homes and helping us with our green footprint. You know, it has multiple benefits. So when we're talking to our community members or our state, what you are doing right here is huge for our state and for the people in our local community. It's a real big deal. And it shouldn't just be, you know, stuck under the rug or something. This is huge. And it's going to go on and on and on and on. And that is because of accumulated effort from all of us. Thank you. Any other questions from the council, from the board? Yes. President Tracy. So how are the, the ongoing noise monitoring efforts that you're going to be doing? Because you were successful in seeking out the noise monitoring. How does, how do you see that interfacing with this effort? So it's somewhat two separate projects happening concurrently. So this, this will be always happening every single year. Kind of behind the scenes, the design effort. Moving forward into the construction of sound insulation. Whereas the sound monitoring project, which we. Just identified and awarded the, the contract to the sound monitoring. Company. So that we can install those in three communities. One on the north and one on the south and one on the west side of the airport. To constantly monitor noise in real time. I didn't show it display it on a website. And then correlate that with eventually correlate that with radar data. So you, so you as a citizen can go on to the website and identify. Almost in real time, exactly what you're looking at. They're similar to like flight aware or flight radar, as you look at an aircraft, but you'll associate that with a decibel level as well. So that's constantly going to be happening. Once we install that, which we're estimating within the next six months, that should be operational as well. The data collected from the noise monitors can confirm some of the noise exposure map criteria, but it's not used to create exclusively the noise exposure map. The noise exposure map, the one that we received approval from the FAA in 2019 will eventually be revised as well, which we again can take the pieces or the data points from the noise monitoring, not exclusively, but some of the data points to incorporate into the next version of the noise exposure map confirming radar data, actual flights and those sound levels into the next version of the noise exposure map that that noise exposure map will constantly be evolving as well. Typically every five years, the FAA would like to see a new map. Military and commercial. The noise exposure map is military, commercial, general aviation, which is some of the smaller aircraft transient based aircraft. It includes every aircraft. Will the sound monitoring be as well? The sound monitoring includes every aircraft. The difference with the sound monitoring is you may not be able to see the radar data from a classified military aircraft. I think I just wanted to make sure we were clear about that. Great. Thank you so much for that. Great. Any other questions? Are we ready for a motion? Counselor Paul. Thank you. I would make a motion to take the recommended action as it appears on board docs. Excellent. Is there a second? President Tracy. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Councilor Pine. How would you like your vote registered? Okay. We will have him. Not present. Abstaining. Not present. Okay. Great. Thank you. City attorney Blackwood. All right. The next item. Thank you, airport team. I know a lot of hard work has already gone into this and you are continuing. And we thank you for everything that you're doing to not only help our neighbors, but help our local economy. As you said, Jean. We appreciate that. Thank you all for your time. Have a great night. Our next item is item. 3.08. And that is an HR CT. And that is an HR CT. Item. I am happy to give you a very quick overview since I put it forward. And. That is you approved a position. For the CT office of a senior accounting analyst. I believe in August and Tony and I did our very best. To recruit for that position. It was unsuccessful. And based on feedback that we have received and. Some other changes that. You will hear about shortly in CT. Of some additional resources. We just sharpened this position description. Slightly so that it wasn't so wide in scope. So I think we will. Be able to have an easier time of recruiting. And so with that reclassification. We do need to bring that back to you before we post it again. So that is the history. And I'm happy to answer any additional questions. And I'm sure Tony is as well. How would the board like to proceed? Counselor Paul. So I just have a question on what you're saying is that by. Reducing the scope. Right. Reducing the scope. That you are. More confident. That you will. Based on. Feedback that you got. From potential candidates that you are fairly confident that you now can fill the position. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. I don't know if I can count my chickens before they hatch, but we have some leads on some candidates, including internal candidates that would make a lot of sense. And as you know, we have been. Fortunate and at the direction of the board where it has made sense. We've pursued. A lot of things that we've done. We've done a lot of things like that. We've done a lot of things like that. CLA help us with some of the capital accounting. And we've had a firm called Munich cap help us with. Some of the TIF financing and taking out some of those very niche things. I think we'll help it to be a more attractive. Attainable position. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I just wanted to make the motion as recommended on board docs. And then I had one additional follow-up after that. Thank you. Counselor Paul. Counselor Jang. Yes. I have a second or a question. That's both. I can second it and ask a question to. Perfect. Thank you. What's your question? Okay. And it seems as if I'm hearing a lot of.  You conducted interviews. You did not offer the job to anybody. Or the job was rejected or just, just that piece. We did make an offer. It was not only one candidate, but it was a candidate that we were very excited about. But it is a competitive market still despite COVID. It was a local candidate. And they found a more competitive, compelling salary offer in the private sector. Thank you. And we re ran the ad and we've gotten nobody again. As you can see, I have got rich on here and rich Tony and I got together with some of the other members of CT and realized that we could keep rerunning the ad, but really a new strategy probably made more sense. And I'm just glad that you are wearing both hats. HR and also CFO. And this is just a quick question. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for any new position. Do we also try to. You know, disseminate it internally. Before we try to send it out as well. Right. Yes, we do. An email goes to all staff. Okay. Thank you. And second. And I second the motion. Thank you. And counselor Paul, did you have another question? I did. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. And I'm just glad that you're here and attracting that candidate with a smaller, a smaller scope. Since you, since you had brought up the issue of the capital accounting and tiff financing in terms of that being, I think. You know, a lot of people perhaps don't understand that that is a. A very specialized area of accounting. There's a lot of rules with that. And I think that's a great question. And one of the reasons why the city has gone. The consultant route with that in terms of getting, getting us, you know, getting us in a, in a better place. Given that that has been an item that's been in our management letter and something that we have. We have been working on. I was hoping that maybe even though it's not directly related, but since it was brought up, I think that's a great question. I think that that effort is going. Of course. I'll give a very brief update tonight. And if you would like something more detailed, I'm happy to, to provide that. And rich, feel free to jump in. With the capital accounting. Great progress has been made. Beginning this fiscal year, all new processes. With capital with. That team. And so I think. The auditors are going to be extremely pleased. You know, there have been a few hiccups along the way, but I really want to thank our friends in. Team DPW who have worked through them with us. And I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. Especially Martha Norman Kay. Although there have been many others. And. What we are now working on is really disseminating that across the organization. A lot of that knowledge has been centralized in DPW. And we'll be getting that. Across the organization, but in terms of it being systematized. And we've been working on a number of things. We've been working on the reconciling accounts that hadn't been done for many, many years. All of that is done. And. On the TIF side, we are preparing for an audit. Probably this fall from our state auditor. So. Rich has been working and we've been so fortunate that. There's a lot of people who work on TIF. So. Marie Friedman, who has some expertise in this area. And they have been working with the firm Municap. To really make sure that everything we have is all in one place, which it wasn't always because we had so many different people working on TIF. And that it is. So I would like to thank for that. Thank you, for joining up that point, counselor, Paul, because of course we want as much work to remain in the city and to employ people where it makes sense. But it is true that with these two very specific things. We've realized it makes sense to focus on. pieces are the pieces that make sense to outsource. Okay, thank you. Thanks very much. I may I may take you up on that offer to revisit this in March at our, you know, at a future Board of Finance meeting, I think it's, it's, it's been well noted that that is a concern. Obviously not a, you know, any sort of serious weakness, but certainly a concern and think that we should do our best to, you know, to, to pay attention to, to be vigilant about the issues that were raised in the management letter and have been in there, you know, again, in, in other years as well. Thanks very much. Yeah, no, I appreciate that. And I would welcome the opportunity to brag on what the team has been doing behind the scenes. So thank you. Thank you. All right, so we have a first and a second, are we ready to vote on this item? Okay, all in favor of item 3.08 reclassification of the senior accountant analyst position, please say aye. Okay. I thought I saw the mayor join, but I don't see him anymore. So I'm going to keep going and trust that he will interrupt me if he wants to take over. So the next item is item 4.01, which is the arms, arms, forest trails design build with our friends from Parks, Rec and Waterfront. Councilor Pine.  Is there anyone opposed to the last item? No, it's good. I need you guys to keep me on track. This is what we pay you for that awesome, huge salary. Anyone opposed? No one is opposed. That's good. Okay. Councillor Paul. Thanks. Regarding the item 4.01, I would make a motion to take the recommended action. Okay, thank you. Councillor Jang. Second. All right. Is there any discussion on this item? All right. Are we ready to have a vote? Okay. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Please say nay. All right. Teams, Parks, Rec and Waterfront, thank you very much. Go forth and design and build. Thank you. All right. Item 4.02, the data center co-location agreement. How would the board like to proceed with this item? Councillor Pine is going to realize he's on view in just a second. He has realized it only because you said that. And I glad I was because there was some rather loud noise in the background. I would move to authorize the general manager of BED to execute a master co-location services agreement with Vermont Electric Power Company, Inc. for an amount up to $90,017 with additional contingency of $5,983, totaling $96,000 for data center co-location services subject to final review and approval of the city attorney's office. Excellent. Thank you. Is there a second? President Tracy, any discussion or questions? Okay. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? No. All right. The last item is a communication from me and I would also like to thank Katie Kinstead for her help in putting that together with an update on the COVID-19 budget on what's been reimbursed and how things are budgeted between now and the end of June. Any questions on that? I don't think we need to vote on it because it was just a communication, but I'm looking to Brian to tell me I'm not even going to bother city attorney Blackwood because I know Brian will keep, but Councillor Pide will keep me honest. No, you're right. It's, we don't need to approve it. You're right. I think that's obvious. Okay. Good. Well, do I have a motion to adjourn? So moved. Excellent. Seconded by President Tracy. Without anyone having any objections, let's call this adjourned at 6.40 PM. As always, thank you for your good humor and your grace. And we will see you on the same place, 7 PM. Anything else you would like to inform people about President Tracy? Yeah, so we'll go ahead and get started at 7. We have a presentation around the 2030 district and that work. And so we're going to start off with a presentation from 7 to potentially 7.30, though we may get into some of the other items having to do with just committee reports and otherwise prior to that point at 7.30, we will transition into the public forum. If you are interested in signing up for public forum, you may do so by going to burlington vt.gov slash city council slash public forum, and that will take you to a fillable form that you then submit, which will then be used for your public forum comments. We do prioritize Burlington residents. And folks will have two minutes to provide their commentary this evening. So we've got about 20 or so minutes until that time. So we're just going to stay on this channel, though. So you can rejoin us on this channel if you would like, or just stay on in the intervening period, but we will come right back to this right around 7 to convene our regular city council meeting. At 7. Oh, the first thing that we'll do is the before we get to the agenda is the pledge. So we'll do that. Thank you. And our next item will be the agenda. Councillor Pine, may I come to you for a motion on the agenda? Thank you, Mr. President. I've had some challenges in making technology tonight. If you could just bear with me here. Absolutely. Please just take your time. I would move to amend adopt the agenda as follows. Note presentation slides for agenda agenda two point agenda item 2.01 add to the consent agenda item 5.18 communication survey over be war two resident Ray City Council's vote on the city place development documents should be postponed for two reasons with the motion to waive the reading except the communication placed on file add councillors High Tower and Pine as co-sponsors to agenda item 6.03 impact of University of Vermont budget cuts on UVM community councillors Stromberg Tracy Hansen per Councillor Stromberg add councillor Jang as a co-sponsor to this agenda per councillor Stromberg. I think agenda item is what was meant there. No revised version of this agenda item per city attorney's office note councillor Shannon has been added as a co-sponsor to this agenda item per councillor Shannon note resolution litigation resolution agreement for agenda item 6.05 resolution authorization to resolve litigation and acute amended and restated development agreement with BTC mall associates councillor Paul per city attorney's office add councillor Polino as a co-sponsor of this agenda item per councillor Polino add councillors Mason carpenter and Shannon as co-sponsors for this agenda item per CAO Shad per city attorney Blackwood per councillor Paul add to the agenda item 6.06 reconsideration of resolution Ray approval of city count city excuse me of public safety continuity plan added to 1421 at 406 p.m. per COS Riddell no written material for this agenda item per COS Riddell note additional written material amended resolution for this agenda item job descriptions per COS Riddell remove deliberative agenda item 6.04 resolution honoring essential workers during the COVID-19 pandemic remove consent agenda item 5.13 Ray adoption of the Vermont community development program municipal policies and codes for purposes of accepting CDBG CV implementation grant for homeless winter warming shelter. Thank you councillor Pine for that very long motion on our agenda. Do we have a motion on our agenda. Is there a second seconded by councillor Stromberg. Any discussion of the motion on the agenda. Okay seeing none we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of adopting our agenda please say aye. Aye. Any opposed. Okay hearing none that passes unanimously and we now have our agenda. We'll next move into a presentation having to do with the 2030 district here in Burlington and we have Jenna Antonino de Mare and Eric Morrow with us and so I want to welcome both of them and thank you for being willing to share some information with us so I'm going to go ahead I believe we have both of you on. Yeah I'm here thanks so much Max. Great awesome. Yeah so thanks for being here and go right ahead and feel free to dive right in. Fantastic yeah can you allow me to screen share so I can share some of my slides. Yes let me see. I believe you should do not have that authority right now. It says host disabled participant screen sharing. Okay I made it. Yeah I think that should do it. I'm optimistic that that will do it. Okay so hopefully everybody can see my screen now and let me great let me go to this slide show and I'll play from the top. Wonderful fantastic well thank you Max and thank you everyone for letting me join your meeting this evening. I am glad to be here and excited to share information with you about the Burlington 2030 district. I know some city council members have attended past Burlington 2030 district educational events and celebrations and we have also been very grateful for the city and the mayor's support of our efforts to date and if you don't know who I am as Max mentioned my name is Jenna Antonino Damari and I have the pleasure of directing the Burlington 2030 district. The 17th district now one of 23 to join a national network and movement of 2030 districts across the United States and Canada. Our local Burlington 2030 district is managed by Burlington based non-profit organization Vermont Green Building Network. I also have the pleasure of serving as Vermont Green Building Network's executive director and a quick note to start. I understand our partner Burlington Electric Department and colleague Darren Springer recently presented to the city council about district keeping. I wanted to clarify that the Burlington 2030 district is a private public partnership and not related to the district keeping initiative. Also as Max noted please know that I am joined this evening by our steering committee chair Eric Moro who was integral in the effort to bring the 2030 district thanks Eric for being here this evening. So to begin I am going to give a brief presentation to help you better understand who we are and our mission and vision here in the city as well as services we offer to the community and then we'll open up the floor and Eric and I will welcome any questions. So established in April of 2017 our work and mission is to support ongoing local efforts to mitigate climate change and specifically to work towards reducing building energy consumption, water use and transportation emissions 50% by 2030. We help property owners to reduce operating costs, save money, increase asset value and collectively work together to create a healthier community. As already noted we are a private public partnership and I am delighted to share that that we now have over nine and a half million square feet committed to working towards the Burlington 2030 district goals here in the city. We have been very grateful to work closely with our two founding partners and local utilities Burlington Electric Department and Vermont Gas as well as our wonderful steering committee consisting of many community and professional service providers stakeholders as well as property owner members. The Burlington 2030 district now has 35 property owner members participating including the city of Burlington and nearly 50 members in total including professional service and community stakeholder members. The city of Burlington officially joined the 2030 district as a property owner manager member in 2018 so thank you for your membership and commitment to the Burlington 2030 district goals. To start I'd like to talk briefly about the 2030 district's shared vision and the collective action our members are working towards to effectively address the climate change crisis we find ourselves in today and then I'll share a bit more about what it means to be a member of the Burlington 2030 district. So lucky for us the city of Burlington and the Burlington Electric Department have been nationally recognized as leaders in renewable energy. I am proud that the city of Burlington sources a hundred percent of its electric energy from renewable generation many thanks to one of Burlington 2030 districts founding partners Burlington Electric Department. Likewise the Burlington 2030 district is very proud to support the city's ambitious and important net zero energy vision. Still even with the city and states important and aspirational greenhouse gas reduction goals we know there is much work to be done. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration the building sector consumes nearly 40% of all energy produced in the U.S. per year and according to the EIA the transportation sector consumes nearly 30% of the U.S. energy consumption. Primary sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. are not surprisingly largely from these two sectors transportation and buildings. And these buildings in the commercial and residential sectors account for over 40% of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. per year. Urban environments alone emit 70% of all global greenhouse gas emissions and this has global implications. The city of Burlington with such a large portion of its energy demand coming from commercial properties with their colder climate and older building stock is certainly no exception. However this also presents a great opportunity for the building sector for the city of Burlington. By transforming the built environment to be more energy efficient the building sector can play a major role in mitigating the impacts of climate change. By 2030 it is estimated that hundreds of billions of square feet of new and rebuilt buildings will be constructed in cities worldwide. We have an opportunity now and in the immediate future to really reshape the built environment. This important opportunity is a shared vision being put forth by this national network of 2030 districts that recognize that planning decisions not only affect building energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions but transportation energy consumption and water use as well both of which have large environmental implications. The Burlington 2030 district is pleased to be part of this national network of 2030 districts. These private public partnerships forming throughout North America that work towards and meet these 2030 challenge for planning performance goals. These targets that focus on reducing building energy consumption water usage and transportation emissions for existing and new buildings by year 2030. Collectively there are now over 506 million square feet committed throughout the 2030 district's network to these goals including over a half a million square feet committed by the city of Burlington. So joining a 2030 district like the one here in Burlington is a voluntary initiative in which building owners and managers actively participate because they think it makes good business and economic sense to do so. 2030 districts aim to ensure that any improvements property owners carry out make economic sense while saving money and reducing energy consumption. Participating in a 2030 district such as the one here in Burlington is a collaborative process a collective action. Ultimately 2030 districts properties work together as a team towards this shared vision this shared goal of reducing building energy consumption water use and transportation emissions and ultimately this strengthens our community and our city's climate resilience. As I've said I am so glad to have the city of Burlington as a property owner member and thank you for your commitment to our shared vision and goals. Moreau attended and presented at our launch event in spring of 2018 and we have been so glad to have the city of Burlington as an official property owner member ever since and key partner. One of the key ways that we provide value to our members is by developing property energy plans. To date about 65 percent of our property owner members have received one of these property energy plans from the from the Burlington 2030 district. So the Burlington 2030 district works with a team of engineers to assist property owners and managers and benchmarking energy use and setting reduction targets. A few years ago we developed a tool and partnership with Burlington Electric Department which we refer to as the property energy plan or PEP for short. Our hope is the customized PEP helps property owners make informed investment decisions. So for the city of Burlington our team put together a fairly robust property energy plan I think it's 16 pages and all and for the city we developed a portfolio assessment of 12 for 12 city of Burlington buildings and this is a customized property report which includes an energy benchmark for each property, a summary of findings and a roadmap addressing opportunities for the city to meet building energy reduction performance goals. So ultimately we hope that the property energy plan helps you to make informed investment decisions. We've provided this PEP portfolio assessment to Martha Keenan I believe Martha's on the call and her team and hope that the city does its very best to meet and or exceed any 2030 district energy performance goals for any new construction or renovation projects moving forward. So here you can see a snapshot of the first page of this portfolio assessment we put together for the city which illustrates how each property is performing relative to Burlington property type of baselines. More recently we have begun to develop and provide property energy plan updates to some of our earlier property owner members who received these customized PEPs a couple years ago. So for example in one of our recent PEP updates for the landmark Main Street Landing Building on the Burlington Waterfront we found that this particular property owner member since joining and making changes to her building saw a 16 percent decrease in her energy usage and this has translated to some significant some significant cost savings which is a real win-win and success story to hopefully inspire others here in the city of Burlington and beyond. So as the city moves forward and creating and adopting new construction and or renovation plans I'd like to share a bit more about what it means to be a member of the Burlington 2030 District and the performance goals for new construction and major renovations. So here you can see the 2030 District performance goals these are the goals shared by all 2030 districts and adopted by the Burlington 2030 District as well. So when it comes to new buildings and major renovations the aspirational goal is to be carbon neutral by 2030. But for existing buildings Burlington 2030 District members aim to reduce their building energy consumption water usage and transportation emissions 50 percent by the year 2030. While I of course whole heartedly hope that each Burlington 2030 District member does their best to work towards these goals as noted before we recognize that this is a team effort with some properties more easily able to attain or exceed the goals. I believe that the city of Burlington has a tremendous opportunity to lead the nation and bringing to fruition new construction and renovation projects that meet these energy efficiency standards put forth by the Burlington 2030 District and city's important net zero energy vision which we are so glad to be supporting. I believe we are capable of acting together to do some remarkable things and our current business as usual will no longer suffice. We only have so many opportunities to build new spaces or renovate old ones in the city of Burlington and I hope we can seize and put forth designs that meet these important and achievable energy efficiency and transportation goals which I believe can be a real win-win and save the city of Burlington money long term. I hope that my remarks this evening encourage this group and city council to work towards ensuring we do all we can to leave the healthiest home possible for our children like my daughter here and future generations. Again thank you so much for this opportunity to speak with city council this evening and thank you again for your commitment to the Burlington 2030 district. We are thrilled to have the city of Burlington as a property owner manager member and so grateful to work in close partnership with Burlington electric department and of course I would be glad to discuss ways that we can continue to collaborate and support your work going forward. So at this point Eric Moro who's also on the call with me our steering committee chair and I would be very glad to take questions and I will stop sharing my screen here and I could also just please give me back the the hosting responsibilities absolutely let me figure out how to do that let's see you just go to the little three dots in the corner you should be able to okay let me see three dots in the corner I think you should be able to no not yet there's a little blue box in your corner in the corner of your your video okay let's see blue box in the corner sorry max it's okay hmm I believe I've allowed you now to share are you going to change the the meeting host back okay let's see okay well while we're working on that Chief of Staffordale is going to work on that as well but let's open up the floor to to counselor questions we've got about 10 minutes for questions counselors so please just be mindful of that do you want to get into the public forum closer to 730 and so just if you have you know multiple questions try and get some of those answered offline just that we're able to give multiple counselors chances to ask with that being said are there any questions counselor jane go ahead yeah thank you thank you jenna for being here and also for the question during the presentation people can I can feel it I can feel it thank you for the question around this issue in one of the slides you talked about how participating in this project or program will require it for residents to be it's a voluntary right and knowing that the currently we do have a ballot item that will go to the voter voters in terms of district thermal energy and if it passes then I want to know where the voluntary piece falls into that it will no longer be because the voters will give will grant the city the power to regulate how they hit their homes absolutely yeah I think can everybody hear me okay great I just I wasn't sure if I was muted still yes thanks so much for your question and I'm glad you enjoyed the presentation my underst first I believe as I mentioned at the beginning of my presentation district heating which I think is what you're referring to is different from the Burlington 2030 district so we are a separate private public partnerships just a totally different program than the district heating initiative all right other questions from counselors counselor can't say go ahead yeah thank you so much this was really great and really helpful and yeah I guess my question would be I've talked with Eric Moro some about this but if there were any sort of policies that you all would want to put on our radar as city council that we should be contemplating that could help support a lot of these efforts sure that's a that's a wonderful question and I can let Eric speak a little bit more to your question as well I believe he's on the call too one piece of legislation that I imagine could be helpful to further bolster our effort as a program would be mandatory energy benchmarking legislation it's a kind of policy in ordinance that a number of other cities across the U.S. have adopted I know New York City has such legislation Seattle Philadelphia and some of the other 2030 districts that I know are in those cities their success as a program is certainly bolstered by having mandatory energy benchmarking which you know depending on the city I think that kind of legislation would be required for buildings over a certain square footage so certainly I could say that the Vermont Green Building Network our non-profit sponsor organization which I also mentioned I serve as the executive director of we've had an interest VGBN Vermont Green Building Network in you know advocating for this type of legislation here in the city in fact about three years ago we received a very small lintelac foundation grant us to begin thinking about you know what energy benchmarking legislation might look like in a place like the city of Burlington and would be very open to discussing more with city council ways that we can help support something like that moving forward Eric I don't know if you have any other anything else to add but sure sure that I appreciate you know that the council's giving us the opportunity to speak here and and all the questions and strongly concur that this benchmarking ordinance if it were passed will be you know of a great benefit to our mission and I think it's it's important to know that if we can make this happen in time then the results that we're looking for will be like achieved within the time frame if we push it off too long we kind of lose control of attaining the goal so there's a sense of modest urgency urgency and one thing that the 2030 district has done is worked at the Ed and Vermont gas to move forward with auto upload which is the the computer mechanization of energy data being uploaded to a dashboard that's all voluntary right now but what we've done as a district is moved ahead and prioritize those goals and those goals have already happened people can already upload their data to a dashboard where they can see their electric utility and their gas utility information on one dashboard that's the energy store portfolio manager so it's been a mission of ours from the very beginning to make this a doable thing where people can have a streamline process it's the only way it's going to happen and we've done a whole lot to bring it to that point and we're really proud to have the partners that we have and have made the success so far that we've been able to make well thank you both and I really look forward to to work in with you both on on that type of policy I think that would be great yeah thanks so much any other questions that Eric or I can help answer and thanks so much again for having us this evening yeah we have time for one or two more counselors anything else okay seeing none I'll just thank our both of our presenters thank you so much Eric and Jenna really appreciate you being willing to come here and share this information with us certainly look forward to continued collaboration absolutely thank you so much Max I'm grateful for the opportunity to speak with everybody thank you and I hope that you are now host has everything been we're good for the public for okay good so we're a little bit early um just a minute or two really for public forum but I'm going to go ahead and get us rolling on that because I think don't want to go into committee reports so I'm just going to go into our public forum um just so that folks know I'm going to be taking signups in the order that they were received I'll be first going to Burlington residence in the order that they were received and then going to non Burlington residence in the order that they were received this evening folks will have two minutes and to comment on their on their items per the city attorney's guidance do need to hold you to to the two minutes so I'll let you finish a sentence or two after that but I will start to ask you to just please wrap up certainly just want that's just the city attorney's guidance so really just trying to follow that that analysis that I've been provided and so if people could just please be cognizant of that and please just direct comments towards the chair if you have any comments and just of what refrain from some of the the from from personalizing things as much as possible and focus on the issues at hand that we're going to be discussing or other issues that you're interested in raising this evening with that I'm going to go to our first speaker I'll give a second and I want to give a shout out to councillor Paul for handling the the tech not the tech but the the timer this evening we really appreciate that is giving a nice break to our clerk staff who've been working hard to on facilitating their third election of the year so councillor Paul thank you for doing the timer this evening our can you see a camp president Tracy yes I can thank you for that right and if folks are interested in signing up just before I forget that piece you can go to burlington vt.gov slash city council which is one word and then slash public forum again one word and that will take you to a fillable form that will feed into that spreadsheet again going first through Burlington residents in the order received then non Burlington residents in the order that they were received if you did sign up using a phone number please just let me know what that phone number was by emailing public forum at Burlington vt.gov just so that I can identify you I'm in that so with all of that having been explained I'm going to go to our first commenter which is Jane O'Dell so Jane I'm going to enable your microphone good evening thank you president Tracy like to comment on the city place development agreement on your agenda tonight I applaud the council's commitment to fair labor standards for the construction jobs this project will create if it moves forward after tonight the language in the section on labor and community workforce that defines the labor standards is the same language as was in the 2016 development agreement and it is language that the council got from construction trades leaders at the time we want high wage high benefit construction jobs and we want local residents to benefit from these jobs we do not want to import our construction workforce we want to rebuild our Vermont workforce and create opportunity for Vermonters we need this project to move forward in a post pandemic world where many downtowns will fail this project is a lifeline to a better more inclusive more vibrant downtown please vote yes thank you very much thank you I was not able to locate Eric goalfield so I'm going to go to Daniel moon muntianu next Daniel I've enabled your microphone hey there could you guys hear me and go ahead right so my name is Daniel muntianu I live in ward one I work at UVM where I study biology and I'll be joining the department as a PhD student in the fall I've called into these meetings before but today I'm calling in to implore the council to support the impact of the UVM cuts resolution that's under consideration today if these cuts are allowed to continue it would be a great disservice to the college and the entire Burlington community not only is the administration proposing to gut whole departments including classics religion and geology and these departments are integral to the land grant mission of the university they've actually already cut other programs that are provide much needed support to faculty staff and students this includes the campus children's school which closed last June and also trio student support services which for over 40 years has provided extra support for first generation college students students who have a documented disability and economically disadvantaged students and that was terminated at the end of the fall semester it's clear that you know UVM is in the administration is running this like a business but that's not what a university ought to be it's a social good something like the community gardens that you see all over Burlington they're meant to educate enriched society and do a lot of other great stuff and we need to make sure that we are you know supporting this and I think the resolution will certainly send a message to the administration I you know I feel like it you know the resolution recognizes the interconnectionist between the university and the city and that students and workers are an integral part of the Burlington community and a harm to them will inevitably harm the entire city thank you thank you our next speaker will be Susan Comerford to be followed by William Keaton Carolyn Hanson and then Matthew Stobling Kurt Wright Zoe Kenninger John Collow Chihu Samson or Samson Kristi Delphia Jess Laporte so that just gives you an idea of who's coming up and I'm going to go to Susan Comerford or Comerford yeah you should be able to speak good evening support the UVM cuts resolution I'm a faculty member and the vice president of the faculty union united academics this evening I'd like to address the frayed strayed relations that currently exists between the administration and various constituencies on campus is what is viewed as a scorch earth approach to faculty and staff the people who actually teach and support the development of our students really what we want here in burlington at UVM do you as city counselors understand the depth of damage that's been done to relations between faculty staff administration and trustees over the past few years trust has been seriously broken the UVM of today is a pale reflection of the institution where I chose to throw in my professional lot I did so because UVM held and actually aspired to values that inspired me human rights social justice values and importantly our common ground in the last few years and in particular last year our cherished institution has squandered the goodwill and the esprit de corps of the very souls whose tireless commitment has maintained maintained our university through thick and thin as administrators have come and gone city counselors shared governance at UVM is in tatters rather than mutual collaboration for the benefit of our beloved UVM faculty and staff leaders have become an afterthought only invited in by the administration and token numbers when forced under pressure where is the respect in this city counselors the new president was hired without true faculty and staff heading thus breaking trust with faculty and staff where is the openness here our institution professes resistance to all forms of injustice we seek to reject bigotry oppression degradation and harassment and we aspire to challenge injustice but I pop any member of our community yet the Black Lives Matter flag was removed from the flagpole in front of the Davis Center again with no discussion in the midst of a massive movement for racial justice yes the decision was devolved devolved to the student government but with Black outdates when parents and others are on campus where is the justice in this yeah the administration closed the campus children's center this summer with no consultation with the faculty I'm really sorry but your time is up and I do have to hold folks to the two okay thank you no worries yeah thank you Paul and so our next speaker will be Will Keaton to be followed by Carolyn Hansen so Will I'm going to enable your microphone yes I'm here to speak on the UVM cuts UVM has been moving increasingly towards what I would call a neoliberal corporate model where it's not really even a university it's just kind of an assembly line pumping out people who will make big money for America the overpaid administrators at UVM they didn't really do anything other than flex their power over the students and staff to squander what little diversity UVM has for what reason I'm not really sure I guess they didn't really care about us or the faculty so would really appreciate this you know approval of the communication with UVM I also want to speak on the public safety plan I think a lot of us are concerned because we're really you know this was a kind of compromise and we're really working to build you know new institutions that will really be transformative and will actually address people's needs we don't really want you know glorified cops working with the police department we're funded with by you know by the police department although I do really think you know we definitely want you know unarmed people responding for for you know mental health calls and you know deescalating and really helping people but yeah I see my time thank you our next speaker will be Carolyn Hansen to be followed by Matthew Stobling so Carolyn I found you and have enabled your microphone good evening a cap of 74 officers is too low to support a 24-hour police department Burlington needs a 24-hour police department we really have two choices at this point eight of the officers who don't count towards the total at the airport or sell the airport to me the first one just making sure those eight officers don't count towards the total number or the cap is the easy solution nobody's suggesting or talking about selling the airport and you can do this you can do this right now you don't need to wait for the policing study that hasn't even started yet to tell you what we already know which is that staffing is at a critical level you see it's not the number of calls to the police department it's the response time if somebody calls 911 at 3 a.m it's not about a noisy neighbor there's an emergency a delay in response time even a matter of minutes because there are no officers on patrol is not acceptable not having enough officers to properly respond will compound that problem rescue fire crisis their personnel cannot render assistance until officers have ensured that it's safe for them to do so I can tell you as the chair of our state's domestic violence fatality review commission that in rural areas around Vermont lives are lost because of response time the council is micromanaging the police department and it's having a devastating effect on morale on retention and on recruitment it's too late for us to send officers to the academy this year we've missed that opportunity the best we can do is to have some candidates in place for the February 2022 academy and that's only if we're in a position to start recruiting soon I believe in and you can have a holistic approach to reducing violence please wrap up address the root causes of violence and still support an adequately resourced police department we don't have one now and the problem's going to get worse if you continue to micromanage it thank you thank you all right our next speaker is Matt Stobling to be followed by Kurt Wright Matt I found you and have enabled your microphone hi can you hear me yes hi my name is Matthew Stobling I'm a UVM student and I'm asking you to please support the impact of UVM budget cuts on the UVM community resolution this resolution will show the city that UVM is being watched by the city as it stands over 20 academic programs are going to be removed from the university these cuts are justified by administration and the board of trustees as necessary steps in reducing the deficit caused by the COVID-19 pandemic however these justifications are false these cuts are strategic move by the administration to remove the liberal arts from UVM and invest instead in job-oriented disciplines the quote-unquote deficit caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is misleading and false as UVM has a multitude of funds and reserves that could reserve the deficit and then some the first three of many professors that have been and will be laid off had combined salaries of around $170,000 while the man behind these cuts Bill Falls has a salary of over $270,000 similarly our basketball coach received a bonus of $235,000 these the priorities of our administration are clear and they are determined to go through their plans whether or not the UVM community believes in them UVM is the only state university within reach for many younger monitors it's very important that our monitors have a well-rounded education and I want to point out that the past year at UVM has been very hard faculty are fearing for their jobs and have worked very hard to provide the best education that they can under very difficult conditions all the while working under the administration they have undervalued the contributions of professors and faculty the UVM administration has always and will continue to manipulate the budget and its community as well I urge the council to see through the falsehoods that are coming through from the administration and to please listen to students and faculty that are speaking with you tonight and will be speaking with you in the future please hold them accountable thank you thank you our next speaker will be Kurt Wright to be followed by Zoe Keninger Kurt I have enabled I'm gonna have to do the panelists thing all right you should be able to speak now Kurt Kurt you're on mute okay can you hear me now let's go ahead okay tonight the city council has in front of you an incredibly important decision and that is the decision on the vote to move forward with the city place project this is a long time in the making it is a carefully crafted carefully negotiated deal and it is one that is going to benefit our downtown and it's going to benefit every resident of Burlington if approved two weeks from tonight we have an election a very important election and a mayoral election and I implore you please do not let politics come into play tonight in this incredibly important vote again this is important for our downtown it is critical to our downtown this deal is going to allow us to take back the streets St. Paul street chair it's going to and it's a great deal I think it's a better deal than we could have hoped for in these negotiations that went on through Mayor Thon negotiations so for people who vote no tonight or who vote for amendments that might imperil this project moving forward I hope you will look every business owner downtown in the eye and explain to them why you did this or look every taxpayer in the eye and explain why you did this because this is so critical to our downtown businesses are hurting taxpayers want to make sure that our taxes can be stabilized going forward these are things that are going to happen with this people that work in construction need these jobs and don't let Mr. Van Dusen's last second ploy here to derail this project work if what Mr. Van Dusen asked for was to be approved that would mean that we would be bringing in out of state people rather than locals to do these construction jobs so please don't be swayed by what Mr. Van Dusen has said and please don't let politics come into play on this this is too important to our downtown and too important to every single resident every single taxpayer in Burlington so please please vote yes on this it is critical to all of us thank you thank you sometimes if folks have an older version of zoom on their computer it does that that panelist thing that's why so it's a little different so next speaker will be zoe kenninger to be followed by john collo so we have I've enabled your microphone so you should be able to go hi so first of all I just want to say I have a request from just the port to be placed at the end of the queue for now she's not able to be on the zoom just yet onto my comment my name is zoe kenninger I live in ward 4 I'm white and I use they them pronouns I've been living in Burlington since 2015 I graduated from Burlington high school in 2019 today I'm calling on the council to fill fill the promises they made about transforming the police and public safety in Burlington I was very disappointed to see multiple counselors go against their original vote in favor of the racial justice revolution from resolution from last summer and vote in favor of increasing the cap on police officers in the Burlington police department that vote showed an extreme lack of both creativity and commitment to true transformation support for black lives and the fight against police brutality is not a trend to fall out of fashion it is something that you must strive for every day of your lives even one is not politically convenient for you despite this the council has stalled real efforts at police transformation including voting to uphold the mayor's veto of the community control board charter change something that could have significantly changed the role of policing in Burlington many of the counselors objections involved ideas of time and claims that the process have been too rushed they stated that they would have been willing to prove a change after a more lengthy process yet there have been no attempts to start this process others said that much of the charter change could have been accomplished by ordinance yet there have been no efforts to start drafting those ordinances after the events of January it is clear that the Burlington police department faces no fear of any repercussions if they attack or hurt members of our community they have also shown themselves willing to threaten members of the very body that is supposed to hold them in check right now the most important change to public safety is to make sure that the police officers of the Burlington police department are held accountable and I'm calling on the council to uphold the promises that they made in the summer of 2020 in the winter of 2020 and to work towards creating real significant changes thank you thank you her next speaker will be John Collow to be followed by Shihou Samson so John I believe I've located you I've enabled your microphone just take yourself off mute John Collow I was on the wrong one okay one second sorry there we go got the right person there you go now John you should be able to speak John it looks like you're on mute you're on okay how's that that's perfect go ahead thank you I'd like to echo former counselor Jane Nodell and Kurt writes comments by encouraging the council to approve the development agreement for city plays I think the project is going to result in many benefits for our community including housing in a downtown location promoting a walkable community and needed support for a retail sector in addition reconnecting Pine and St. Paul Street embracing some new urbanist planning goals that that were disturbed during the 60s I'd also like to caution the commission against modifying the current development agreement by inserting language requiring union labor with few exceptions the construction trades in our market are open shops why? given a dwindling labor force entering and working in the construction trades the simple reality is that all contractors subcontractors and vendors need to offer generous pay and benefits just in order to remain competitive so by inserting this requirement into a proposed development agreement is a guarantee the jobs will not be awarded to local construction professionals but to Boston and New York City based labor where union labor is much more prevalent so I really do want to echo former counselors Kurt Wright's comments that this is critically important to our downtown and good luck tonight thank you thank you our next speaker will be our Chui Ho Samson and to be followed by Christy Delphia and I'll read some further folks on the list I know that someone just said that just the port may be getting on later so they're not on I'll circle back through folks again if they weren't able to get on when I first called them then Chrysanthemum Harrell Steven Margolyn Sophie Aronson Kate Logan Julia Julia Irons Michael Scott George John George Wheeler John Franklin Caitlin Morris and Solvee Solvee Overby and that's it for that while there's other non-Brolington presidents as well so I will go to Chui Ho now and please correct me if I've pronounced your naming correctly I always appreciate that help don't worry can you hear me yes perfect hi this is Chauha Samson I am the owner of a single Papo as many of you might know to us drive across Chui from the city palace so I'm here today really to urge you vote yes moving the project forward the reason behind it is really not so much of is this is a perfect plant is this is who's gonna do it or whatever for me is how much the impact were for my business how long can I stay so it's kind of like a metaphors that do you know everybody told me to jump I jumped I'm in water already since 2017 nothing happened and then we were bad luck into COVID so my entire business since 2017 has downed trail and then for me to look at it is yeah I would like to business can survive in the end but how long because when the project starting there's gonna going to be destructive as well and I have to plan for it but I can't I cannot keep waiting and I really would like urge you to vote yes moving forward to rely on you to get stuff done otherwise I know many of you sometimes see me on the street said keep telling me you know we want to support business I'm a Bronte resident since 2001 you know I love a single pipe oh I want to support you but voting a no is telling me no you actually don't know how I feel about it so I putting my faith in your hand for all the business downtown as well I think it is really important to get this over with and in the fish and time frame thank you thank you her next speaker will be Christy Delphia to be followed by just the port if they're on and if not I can come back like I said if folks are not on I circle back and see so Christy I will have enabled your microphone Max Hey Christy go ahead I am calling in tonight on the resolution for city place I do not believe that this needs to pass I believe that this agreement does not provide for union jobs does not provide for prevailing wage jobs does not provide for jobs with family sustaining benefits does not create an apprenticeship opportunities for BIPOC communities and we therefore need to vote no on this agreement please vote no and ask mayor instead to negotiate an agreement with Devin Wood that guarantees that union labor will build city place to better support the Burlington community thank you thank you her next speaker will be Jaisal Port I've located you Jais so I'm going to go to you Jaisal do you want or do you want okay click your muted on your end okay Jaisal okay can come back I'm going to go to our next person in that case who is chrysanthemum harrow one moment enabled your microphone hi can you hear me okay yes I can hi my name is Chris Harrell I'm a word eight renter a member of the UVM union of students and I am calling in support of the resolution by counselors Hanson, Sronberg and Tracy in solidarity with the faculty and staff of UVM fighting back against unnecessary budget cuts the university administration's cuts represent an existential threat to the status of UVM as a public institution in Burlington if staff members of over 30 years are at risk to be fired despite award-winning service all of Burlington citizens who rely on the UVM for employment are at risk of losing their job and have already been robbed of their economic security during a global pandemic UVM is a public institution and that status needs to be preserved above the neoliberal agenda of the UVM administration I implore council to support the faculty at UVM and use any possible leverage tools available to you to hold the administration accountable during this time as a student at UVM this is incredibly important I you know I am a student of the College of Arts and Sciences and I am desperately afraid that many of my fellow students will have the quality of their degrees affected and you know talking to first years they are very concerned that they won't be able to complete their prospective majors so I yield the rest of my time and I'm for the council to support this resolution and take further action in solidarity with UVM faculty thank you our next speaker will be Steven Margolin to be followed by Sophie Aronson Steven I found you and have enabled your microphone looks like you're unmuted on your end but I'm not hearing I'm still not hearing you Steven can you hear me now yeah go ahead okay great hi my name is Steven Margolin I'm a Ward 8 resident I've called in several times before and this time I wanted to give you a little bit of background about myself I am a design and monetization consultant working with some really high level data projects involved in you know digital worlds it's fun stuff I generally charge about $50 an hour for this kind of consulting and I'm going to give you the next minute and 30 seconds for free because the most important work I do is looking at data and when a lot of the discussions last week about community safety came up lots of different kinds of data were thrown back around specifically counselor Mason called out that he could have looked at the same data as counselor Pine and drawn completely different conclusions and this really illustrates the first problem with data data is only good at providing answers to the questions you are already asking and the questions you are already asking are the ones that favor the status quo and benefit of the people who are already in charge so if you are looking to create a more diverse and more sustainable data set to analyze your community you need to be asking better questions and that leads to point two how do you ask better questions when I work with my partners and I give them advice on how to operate programs with daily users larger than the entire Burlington populace I tell them to ask better questions they need to find the voices of the people who aren't being heard already those who are part of the status quo those who have expected power those who are users of privilege all of them only give you the data to answer the questions you are already asking to really understand a wider picture of what you need to create you need to listen to different voices it was said last week and I'll say it again the voices of the black femmes in our community are a gift thank you Black Lives Matter Thank you we have Sophie Aronson on next to be followed by Kate Logan Sophie I'm enabling your microphone Hello my name is Sophie Aronson I'm a resident of Ward 1 and I'm a first-year student at UVM my pronouns are she, her and they them tonight I'm calling on the city council to support the resolution relating to the impact of the University of Vermont budget cuts on the UVM community like speakers before me have already mentioned the budget deficit has been fabricated and the administration does have the money that they need but they're not being transparent with staff faculty or students and I think like even if the council members are feeling ambivalent about the budget cuts themselves I hope that at least you will vote to put pressure on UVM and the administration to be transparent and clear because they are running the school like it's a business and not like it's a school and I think they really need to be taking more input from students and from teachers and faculty as well because they're really not treating the faculty and educators with value and I think that it's not respectful so I hope that the council votes in favor of that resolution and I relinquish the rest of my time thank you thank you I have Kate Logan to be followed by Julia Irons Kate I've enabled your microphone hi can you hear me yes go ahead great thank you all for the opportunity to provide comment tonight my name is Kate Logan and I'm a resident of the Bright Street Housing Co-op in Ward 3 I'm also the director of programming and policy for rights and democracy or RAD grassroots social economic climate and racial justice organization based in New Hampshire and Vermont I'm also a proud former member of the American Federation of Teachers local GTFF 3544 at the University of Oregon as well as a former field organizer with the AFT Rights and Democracy is a founding member of the Renew New England Alliance a regional coalition of over 150 labor unions indigenous groups and grassroots social economic climate racial and environmental justice organizations from every state in New England our ally the Vermont AFL-CIO has sat at that regional table with us since our first meeting the Renew New England Alliance aims to pass local and state policy that will achieve a zero carbon energy sector across New England by 2030 as well as zero carbon buildings and transportation sectors by 2040 I know that our city counselors support these goals to decarbonize our economy as well as we do in addition the alliance knows that the extractive and exploitative economic system that has created our climate crisis is also the source of the economic exploitation of workers the alliance has made it our further goal that all of the jobs that will be created through this effort to redevelop our economy must also require the most equitable labor standards this should include not only good wages and benefits but also workplace democracy that's offered by unions as well as investment in local recruitment and union-led training opportunities for Burlington area residents working for monitors deserve good jobs they also need workplace democracy union representation and workforce development in their own community this evening I'm here to urge the city council to delay their vote on the development agreement for city place until the developer can come to an agreement that will guarantee at least 50% for preferably 100% of the jobs created through this redevelopment project to be union jobs thank you thank you again sorry to cut folks off I'm just acting on the city attorney's guidance regarding the two-minute rule and making sure that everybody has equivalent time on that and so please try and so our next speaker is Julia Irons to be followed by Michael Scott Julia I've enabled your microphone hi thank you I'm here tonight as a resident of ward one and as a graduate of UVM to urge the council to support the resolution on the impact of the UVM budget cuts on the Burlington community what I would like to draw the council is attention to with respect to this issue is the way in which this issue has been framed by representatives of the administration of UVM when they speak to the press or elsewhere as the necessities of budget cuts which members of the impacted academic departments are unwilling or unable to comprehend we study literature or in the case of the geology department we fall outside the humanities and we simply can't face those harsh realities this has been the rhetoric from the administration I would urge the councillors to pay particular attention to the language in the resolution about the process of subvention this is a somewhat obscure at least previously obscure to me financial process whereby revenue is taken from colleges added to a larger fund and then redistributed my point in mentioning is only to illustrate as previous speakers have mentioned the ways in which the budget crisis put forward as the cause for these cuts has been manufactured not only a question of salaries being large for the administrators but also the ways in which money is moved around that the for example college versus sciences brings in this is a scam there is a scam being enacted upon the members of the UVM community the residents of the city of Burlington and I urge the councillors to take that very seriously and to support this resolution thank you thank you our next speaker will be Michael Scott to be followed by John George Wheeler so Michael Scott I've located you and have enabled your microphone Michael it looks like you're muted on your end and now Michael it looks like you just dropped off the call if we can get Michael back on I'll come back to them so our next speaker is John George Wheeler give me one second to locate thank you for indicating the phone number so I've enabled your microphone John John George Wheeler you're on the phone you should there you go Howdy calling in from Ward 6 my wife and I have owned a home in Burlington just in May 17 our first home prior to that we both rented for five years after college and at the end of the day you know renting and owning in this city is challenging I think everyone on this call can agree on that and you know without development of additional housing you know individuals don't even have the opportunity to even attempt to overcome that challenge and I'm calling to request approval for development of city place and you know we really need to fill that hole with something that's going to be at the end of the day good for the city and our community that development unto itself won't be the end all be all it's a step it's a step in the right direction you know delaying that decision prolongs this seemingly timeless complex that's existed in the city also prevents students young professionals even low-income families or individuals from having access to housing without moving outside the city and and having to own a car etc so you know I think this development will invigorate Burlington and Vermont as in my personal opinion the one of the the more real capital of the of the state and you know it also provides my employees to have the opportunity to stay and live in town you know that that being said let's put people to work for the next five years while this project gets completed you know that's what's important to me appreciate your time cheers thank you also appreciate you indicating the phone number that helps so much when folks do that if you are calling in just let us know you can send an email to the public forum at burlingtonbt.gov email Kate Morris is next and we have to be followed by Solvi Overby so Kate I've enabled your microphone and right before you go I was not able to locate John Franklin so Kate go right ahead okay can you hear me yes go ahead great I'm Caitlin Morris award five resident graduate of UVM and director of United Academics UVM's faculty union I strongly believe in the importance of inclusive processes for decision-making and in taking care of our people and our community that's one of the reasons I work as a union organizer many of the UVM administration's decisions and actions over the past year have created an incredible amount of anxiety and deep discontent among UVM community members on top of an already stressful time in this pandemic what many of us have been asking is for the UVM administration to be more transparent in their plans and goals to be more inclusive of UVM employees and students in their planning and action taking and to be more humane and thoughtful in their treatment of employees including in preserving income and jobs to the full extent possible I want to thank all of you on City Council for your support of this resolution and especially Councillor Stromberg for taking the lead on this it is a meaningful step and I hope the UVM administration hears it thank you thank you our next speaker will be Solvee Overby to be followed by Eliza Fairs Solvee, I found you and have enabled your microphone Hi, my name is Solvee Overby I'm a resident award too in Burlington, Seoul, North Korea can you just I'm getting a little bit of fuzzy feedback let me just may I put you guys back off I don't know it can you hear me any better no how about that no it's like a I don't know what's going on well hold on here let's just see if there's a there's audio settings that might be some background muting of some sort how about this is that any better no it's like a went away for a second well hard to know I'm not sure what to do here is it is it so is it unintelligible no I can hear you it's just distracting I just wanted to give you a chance to yeah well I'm not sure if there's any I'm using a computer with a monitor that an external camera and monitor microphone so let's maybe I'll speak slowly will that help yeah and speak loudly please and then I'll speak loudly and slowly yep go ahead all right so let's start I'm most of you know me Solvee Overby and I'm speaking on council's agenda item 6.05 the uh the development agreements with btc mall associates also known as the city city place project Burlington is definitely ready to see something happen with the current pit at the center of Burlington however regardless of what anyone thinks about the proposed new plans I asked that the city council delay its vote on the new city place development documents for two important reasons first city council should not approve those agreements until the city's new world accounting system and project management module are properly implemented to ensure accountable use of project funds the last 10 years of the city's annual financial audits reveal continuing problems with the city's capital projects accounting procedures including TIF funded projects therefore city council should not commit the city to these proposed financial arrangements until the council can assure itself in taxpayers that commitments made through the agreements can be properly managed in the city's accounting system the second reason is city counselors and city residents have really had inadequate time to review the more than 160 pages of complex documents themselves to ensure that the terms are understood and serve the city's interests this has in large part been due to the time constraints about the march elections the campaign the drafters and the proponents of these documents definitely know the agreement's terms very well however the public will discover the details in the future when it's too late to question them unless they're given adequate time to digest them this is too important to Burlington to do this as a rushed job my full communication on this is filed in the consent agenda at item 5.18 that document provides extracts and links to the 10 years of auditors management letters which repeatedly recommend that the city must improve its capital project accounting practices please wait and please delay and vote at another time certain in the future thank you thank you all right sorry about that feedback if you the next speaker is Eliza fairs to be followed by Christopher Aaron Felker Eliza I've enabled your microphone hi can you hear me yes okay great my name is Eliza fairs I'm a UVM student and resident of ward one I'm asking you to please support the impact of UVM budget cuts on UVM community resolution this resolution would show that the city that UVM so often relies on is watching its administration as it stands over 20 academic programs will be removed from the university these barbaric cuts are justified by our administration and board of trustees as necessary steps in reducing the deficit caused by the COVID-19 pandemic these justifications are false the cuts are a strategic move by the administration to remove the liberal arts from UVM and invest instead in entrepreneurial and job-oriented disciplines the deficit caused by the pandemic is misleading and false UVM has a multitude of funds that they could reach into and reverse the deficit and then some three professors have already been laid off and their salaries combined equal 170,000 dollars whereas the dean Mr. Bill Falls of called of arts and sciences has a salary of over 270,000 dollars the priorities of our administration are clear and they are determined to go through that go through their plans whether or not the UVM community believes in them these cuts came out of nowhere which was part of the strategy it was intentional that cuts were announced when they were the administration has been planning this for years and needed an event like a pandemic to justify their neoliberal plans it is challenging to organize against a powerful administration when you're grading papers finishing finals and living through a pandemic we will no longer be gaslit but the administration with claims that they are serving our best interests and that the College of Arts and Sciences does not make enough money or have enough graduates to justify a department I urge the council to see through the falsehoods that are coming from the administration instead listen to the students faculty and staff that are speaking to you tonight whether or not this resolution leads to any direct result is not important the UVM administration needs to be made aware that the city, state, and nation are watching this administration and similar administrations across the nation please hold them accountable thank you thank you our next speaker will be Christopher Aaron Felker enabled your microphone Christopher good evening terrific so I am calling this evening in support of 6.05 the city the city place project it'd be hard for me to offer a presented case more authentic than what we heard earlier this evening from Chihuahua, Sampson so I won't even really try if you support single pebble support this project being completed in a timely manner on another note we're also talking about over 400 houses new homes for berlingtonians we all everybody on council knows we have a dangerously low vacancy rate in this town it contributes every day to housing insecurity and by adding 400 homes we are helping berlingtonians secure their housing in the future I ask city council to please approve of this measure to advance city place project in a timely manner and on a different note I also support the resolution 6.03 from council Stromberg regarding the impact of UVM budget cuts so sorry to double dip but that's I had to get that in there too I yield the remainder of my time thank you I was not able to again locate Eric Goldfield I'm going to go back I've tried I've located just reported located you again I'm going to see if I can get you on Jess I've enabled your microphone Jess are you Jessica LaPorte Jess okay not okay so our next speaker try and see if we get these Michael Scott I found you I'm going to come back to you I've been able to your microphone Michael Scott it looks like you're muted on your end hello uh can you am I unmuted now you can go ahead I'm sorry for that earlier thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak I'm a current UVM student and I'm calling in support of the city to approve the city place development my knowledge of housing in Burlington is rather limited but I do know that me and current UVM students are looking to stay in Burlington and as many of you do know many of the Burlington UVM students are out of status and after they graduate college they go back to the states which they originally from I and some of my other UVM students believe that if the city place development were to be were to be put forth and produced we believe that many of the UVM students would stay put and a closing statement would be that the council to approve the approve the city place development thank you for your time I was not able to locate John Franklin on the on this so I'm going to go back now we're going to get into non-Burlington residents with David Van Dusen I believe here I know okay believe I found you David if you could unmute on your end yes thank you as president of the Vermont AFL-CIO I want to be very clear we want to build city place but here's the thing we needed to be built with union jobs there is nothing in this agreement before you not one word that would provide even one hour of union labor on this project this is a major project only through having it being done by union labor can we guarantee fair wages can we guarantee safe working conditions can we guarantee family sustaining benefits can we guarantee priority apprenticeship opportunities for women and people of color this is what we need to do we need we need a no vote on what's before you tonight we need to for Don Cinex and Devon Wood to come back with an agreement that gives mandates and says we're going to do union labor on this project we have worked tirelessly for the last six months to secure hundreds of millions of dollars potentially of funding for this through the national AFL-CIO in the 11th hour Don Cinex is looking and going in another direction we have asked him to sign a labor agreement with us that would provide for union jobs on this project he has refused to do this we believe that with a no vote we will have the ability to go back and to negotiate a fair agreement that provides for good local union jobs and let's be clear we have 1,000 members in the Vermont building trades we absolutely have the ability to build this project but look what's before you tonight is a simple question are you going to toe the line of an out-of-state developer looking to make money off the city of Burlington or will you stand with your local unions and fight to make sure these jobs are done right to make sure they are done with union labor this is a vote that will basically tell the world if Burlington is a pro-union city or not thank you for your consideration thank you our next speaker will be Tim Labombard to be followed by Liz Medina Tim I have enabled your microphone can you hear me yep my name is Tim Labombard I am president of the Vermont building and construction trades council a 32 year union member and I currently live in Chittenden County I just would like to dispel some of the fallacies that were stated there's more chance of having completely local employees if the job goes union because we're required to do so we can get people from out-of-state if necessary but that's the last resort to finish the job the wages that are going to get paid union are going to be more because of the benefits that people get I know people that go from union to non-union they may get the same hourly rate but they have no benefits or they have to pay for additional benefits the Solvig was right the lady that was talking about taking a little bit of time we have been working on this long enough and I don't think you should rush into it because the only way that there's going to be any safety for or for an employee is to be have a union contract that opens it up to any non-union people that want to come in but if it's non-union and it stays non-union union workers are not allowed to work there it's against a union contract because you know they could solve but I think the only fair way to do this is to have a union stipulation or safety for them and if we can't get that I don't think you should vote yes I should it should be a no and the reason there's a lot of housing now is because of the AFL-CIO and the labor unions trying to push for a HUD and getting that amount of low-income housing there it wasn't generated by the freewheeling and friendly developers thank you next speaker will be will be Liz Medina to be followed by Kelly Devine Liz I'm enabling your microphone hi can you hear me yes wonderful good evening everyone my name is Liz Medina I am the executive director of the Rant State Labor Council AFL-CIO I've had the pleasure of speaking with many of you and thank you for the opportunity this evening this is a very clear issue this current agreement does not have a commitment to union labor and without union labor we cannot guarantee that there will be safety on the job that it will be done well or that there will be benefits and wages that will sustain the local economy you know we aren't going to get people into apartments and into businesses if they don't have the wages and disposable income to do it we don't want to just keep building for the sake of building I've seen that before empty buildings sit around nobody can afford anything and it's just a race to the bottom we need to stand with union labor which is the way that our country has historically given working people regular people a decent way of living and being able to afford homes housing go and shop and eat at businesses so it's pretty clear to me that we need to vote no on this so we can negotiate something that does stipulate for union labor I don't think just rushing through this vote is going to get anything done any more quickly the developer has delayed and delayed and found problems with financing over and over and so there's no guarantee just by voting yes that this is going to happen any quicker in fact we've been working really hard to help the developer get the financing so we can move ahead we think we can do this better and I encourage you all to vote no thank you thank you our next speaker will be Kelly Devine to be followed by Danielle Bombardier Kelly I've enabled your microphone thank you Council President Tracy and members of the council I'm sure it's no surprise to many of you have me on speaking on behalf of Moving Forward the City Place Burlington project this project is important to our downtown business members because of the housing it brings because that's more people downtown eating shopping using our resources the reconnection of the streets is really important to Burlington's future I believe to make us more walkable to make things more accessible but now more than ever I feel like there is some sense of urgency around this project our downtown businesses as you've heard earlier tonight and will continue to hear are really hurting after this pandemic they were already hurting when the mall closed down there were some popular stores in there that brought a lot of visitors we can't get people here from Canada our tourism is down from the pandemic but the loss of the mall also reduced the number of people who would come to Burlington and we knew we had to get through that because we could see a brighter future on the horizon I know that this plan isn't perfect I also do know that the local folks that will be running the project have an excellent reputation for how they treat their employees I understand from the developers that they are open to discussing the possibility of union contract that they've worked hard on this potential financing agreement that will allow for that but in the meantime time is of the essence we need to give our downtown businesses a reason to hope a reason to stay open or reopen because we have many many that are in hibernation right now Burlington is a local downtown that employs thousands of local people the contractors involved and the new owners of the mall employ hundreds of local people we need these construction jobs to keep downtown going and we need the project to move forward as quickly as possible your downtown businesses and residents and community needs you please vote yes thank you our next speaker will be Danielle Bombardier to be followed by Alex Sturges Danielle have enabled your microphone thank you good evening my name is Danielle Bombardier I am a electrician with the IBW local 300 and I am speaking tonight to urge you to vote no on the city place agreement the agreement does not provide for union jobs currently many union workers who are Vermont residents actually travel for work because they need the benefits provided by union contractors and they'll leave Vermont offering them a job in the city of Burlington where many of them live would keep them local keep them working local and giving them the wages that they deserve bringing the workforce back home to a dignified job the job the agreement does not provide for any apprenticeship guarantees which a union agreement would guarantee that folks are properly registered as apprentices and receive proper training and with respect to housing the HUD agreement actually would guarantee more affordable housing for the residents of Burlington that being said I yield the rest of my time I urge you to vote no thank you our next speaker will be Alex Sturges Alex I've located you and have enabled your microphone hey could you just quickly try to find Jess Lapour again I know she's on so I just if we could just if you just look for her quickly is that possible yeah yeah I find I found Jess okay well can you can you let her go ahead of me um sure thanks Jessica I've enabled or Jess I've enabled your microphone hi good evening city council thank you Alex for making my presence on the line known unlike many other weeks I was not able to listen to the entire meeting um it is apparent to me though um listening into other members of the public speaking on a variety of issues how much so this city is in a few unique opportunities for change and somehow stuck in a rut of the status quo I was calling in tonight to speak on behalf of meaningful reform and policing but issues like just cause and issues like having union contracts in the city the city place building these are these are all a combination of initiatives and that are led by people raising their voice to our elected officials and I know that in the fight for true police transformation in Burlington we have been met over and over and over again with stone walls and unchanging opinions opinions where people are voting along party lines and moving forward basically what they thought even before hearing from the public and so I'm calling in tonight to say that I as a Burlington a Burlington resident still want meaningful community control of police I want meaningful progress towards accountability for police and I believe community control is one of those mechanisms and somehow in the mayor's veto this entire issue has been silenced and pulled off the agenda and I think it is incredibly important no matter what analysis is going on to continue to push forward in actually exploring pathways towards this as a resident of Burlington events recently have reminded me that it is very easy not only for me as a woman of color to be profiled but that this city does not have my back I'm very thankful for the residents who do and I'm thankful for people who continue to stand up but the police union is out of control and the Burlington police department lacks accountability and leadership and many of you on this council are enabling it thank you okay now I'll go to Alex Sturgis and again just ask that folks train seat of the two minutes per city attorney's guidance go ahead Alex hi um my name is Alex I'm a white cis woman I'm she here pronouns and I'm a lifelong resident of this area I'm glad Steven brought up his billing rate because I noticed today that all of my public comment that I've written over the past month is in one document and it's currently single space 10 pages long and I charge $125 an hour as a paralegal but the input that you've gotten from BIPOC fems keep in mind is priceless so just be aware of that this pandemic has caused immeasurable pain mostly to BIPOC and other historically marginalized folks and it's been also been the genesis of great ingenuity and innovation as people have been forced to pivot away from the things the way that things have always been done it's amazing to see what things are suddenly deemed possible in the face of a challenge like this pandemic that job that you were told could never be done from home suddenly can sale of to-go mix drinks it's legal now that officer who can never be removed from the force he's gone we can change we can pivot transformative holistic community care-based change is possible but first we've got to pull back the curtain and see who stands to benefit from the status quo because it's those folks that will continuously block that change and there's a lot of talk especially now with the emergence of the vaccine of returning to normal I don't want to return to normal and you shouldn't either I fear that some of you have lost the forest for the trees let's not forget why we are talking about policing in the first place let's not forget what your job description is let's be clear you have backed Burlingtonians into this corner about police staffing because you refuse to allow community control of the police on the ballot and by you I mean the mayor and counselors who would not override the mayor's veto don't forget they can't lives on won't street other parts of the country have managed to implement community care measures just fine community care around policing just fine according to the first six months progress report of the support team assisted response or star program out of Denver they've responded to 748 incidents none of which required police or led to arrests or jail time the civilian team is made up of mental health one mental health commission and one paramedic they handled close to six incidents a day from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday in high demand neighborhoods these numbers would have been higher if they were better staffed we can have safe nurturing healthy vibrant and equitable community where everyone feels safe but it isn't through more police Black Lives Matter thank you our next speaker will be Grace File Grace I've enabled your microphone and Grace is to be followed by Jimmy Lee's Hi Max thank you so much so I just wanted to echo what Alex and others have said I'm here to advocate for community controlled police and to also advocate for alternatives to public safety such as alternatives that include deploying mental health professionals and people who are trained to respond to emergencies to deal with the highest volume of calls that we receive in our community which are mental health calls and which are calls where people are dealing with issues like addiction and substance abuse that are not that police are not trained or equipped to handle just today the Portland street response team started and hit the streets in Portland and they are a team of non police people just like Alex was talking about in Portland that are meant to deal with all of these calls where we don't need to have police and we don't need to have people with weapons going out into our community and oftentimes inflicting more harm than good and just to speak to the person who who spoke earlier and was concerned about response times in the middle of the night there will always be people to respond to emergencies none of this has ever been about taking away emergency response capabilities we will still have a fire department and there will still be people to respond to emergencies what we are talking about is who do we want who what people do we want to respond to emergencies do we need cops with guns to respond to emergencies or do we need people who are actually trained and properly equipped to go into our community and help people in our community police are not trained to do those things and they are put in this position where they have to fulfill all of these different roles so I just I wanted to add that into the conversation I really hope that we go forward with the CSOs and the CSLs this is a huge opportunity for us to move forward and and really really transform public safety in our city so I hope we all are moving forward and taking that opportunity thank you thank you thank you all right I was not able to locate Thomas Corinne so I'm going to go to Jimmy Lee's next Jimmy I've enabled your mic Jimmy Lee's to me it looks like you're muted on your end I got it okay sorry about that I urge you to please hold off approving the city place resolution and vote no pending Devin Wood agreeing to union jobs for the city place construction union jobs are the best way for Burlington to achieve livable wages the assault on unions since the 1970s has largely been responsible for the vast increase in income inequality in this country and the static or declining income for working people the best way to support and build the building trade unions here in Burlington is to hold off on approving the resolution until an agreement is reached for union labor on city place the AFL-CIO worked hard to reach such an agreement with Devin Wood if no agreement is reached tonight before the vote I urge the council to vote down the resolution until Devin Wood and the union can come to an agreement for union jobs the project has long been delayed and there's really no rush now that requires voiding even the possibility of an agreement for union jobs any serious developer concerned about time would have reached an agreement with the union before the meeting tonight if it will take a no vote first to push Devin Wood to work out an agreement that is the right thing to do thank you very much thank you our next speaker I was thank you councilor mason for helping me find john franklin believe i've located the correct one so i've enabled that mic under glenis fox so that should i think be the right one hello hello yes is this the right yes is this the right one john franklin i have um i'm going to give this over to john franklin okay great glad we were able to find you thanks hey thank you my name is john franklin i live in ward five i'm the chair of the department of classics one of the programs slated to be caught at uvm i urge you to support the resolution on the negative impact to the city of the university's proposed cuts people choose to work at uvm primarily because they are attracted