ve enabled your microphone hi can you guys hear me yes i can go ahead okay um hi i'm ava i'm a white resident of ward eight i'm here to address items 6.04 and 6.06 uh i believe they are i want to once again urge the city council to not raise the cap from 74 to 84 officers and stay true to the racial justice resolution especially after the horrifying and disgusting events of january 7th that are clearly part of a larger pattern i'm also really concerned about a recent article by the vermont digger that states that the burlington police officers association recently um released a statement calling out police commissioners by name and criticizing them in a threatening manner um honestly i don't feel safe knowing that by pock and other marginalized citizens of burlington are actively being kept unsafe by the police i don't feel safe knowing that the police union has such a monopoly over not only the commission but the rest of the city i really hope that the right thing is done tonight and that we continue to invest in transformative justice and accountability black lives matter and i yield the rest of my time thank you our next speaker is hannah brislin to be followed by jenny pappasov or pappasov uh hannah i believe i've located you and have enabled your mic hey can you hear me i can go ahead hi my name is hannah brislin my pronouns are they them i am a resident award too i've been here for 10 years um i've been on intermittently on these calls uh for it's gosh it's almost like a year now and um you know it's uh it's really frustrating um watching the consistency that we see play out particularly in the state just far too often of you know people who who do the research but because they are only there only have the research are not the experts and the people that actually are the experts the actual ones with lived experiences are being dismissed gaslighted and ignored um that's the level of expression of anger i'm going to show this evening um i just want to give gratitude to all of the amazing individuals that that come to these forums and sacrifice their Monday nights for hours um to to speak um and refuse to be silenced uh particularly jess and ashley i know that you're sacrificing so much of yourselves and so much of your well-being to do this but you know i'm completely grateful for you i'm grateful for the hard work of activists in the city no matter how much they are dismissed no matter how much they are villainized no matter how much they are treated as less than your amazing human beings and i am truly grateful for you and quite frankly you're the only reason why i'm still in this city um and you you may be able to hold me here for a little bit longer but i don't know how much more i can tolerate of this nonsense and there's only so much gratitude to give before i am i am exhausted and i'm sure y'all are are feeling the same we need change um and we're not getting it and in the meantime we're being told have a facade put it on our face that does not truly represent what is happening in this city and then behind all of it the reality is just i'm losing my words right now because i'm actually shaking with anger um please wrap up so i'm done thank you thank you okay our next speaker i was not able to locate jenny pappas off i'll search again um jenny if you're on a different name um just you please use the raise hand function um i was able to locate marissa mcdonald so marissa i'm going to come to you hi good evening um i'm marissa mcdonald i use she her pronouns um i think there is work to be done around police accountability and more needs to be done to address the inequities and underserved and vulnerable communities that said we need to address what is happening today and that we're currently lacking an actual plan to do better specifically how and when will an increase unarmed responders mental health professionals and other trained staff we've been focusing solely on police numbers but not looking at other parts of this situation therefore i support the public safe content continuity plan um which provides the first actual steps to getting additional support staff on board thank you i'm not able to locate brinn martin um so i'm going to go to dana key's gibbons next dana i've enabled your microphone hi there thank you my name is dana and i'm a healthcare worker and i live in ward eight in burlington i've been here for about a year and a half um i've been following these meetings for the past couple of months um i'm really just calling in again to ask you to uphold the racial justice resolution that you passed in in june and don't increase the number of officers um we've seen already this year how dangerous the bpd can be for bipoc in our community and i just can't imagine that we would hire any more officers with the potential that they could harm people um in burlington we've also seen the data that shows that the burlington police department disproportionately uses force against bipoc um so i think that we really need to look into other ways to keep our community safe and really addressing how people are already unsafe who already need safe homes to live in and need health care and put money into that um and i think that we need to like really rethink this sense of urgency we have about filling police staffing when police aren't keeping all of us safe we keep each other we're safe and we need to reinvest those resources into the community so that we can care for each other thank you thank you um our next speaker is grace amed to be followed by nithaniel millerhouse um patrick johnson dav fairington christopher erin felker julia pupco and emma chaffee um so grace i'm going to come to you um hello um i'm calling to speak a little bit about the public safety continuity plan um to the progressive caucus i'd like to um address some of the things that you released in your statement um i do appreciate the creation of cso's to respond to type one calls i think that that is maybe a move in the right direction i have really serious concerns about csl's um i disagree really strongly with embedding social service providers in the police department uh when the issue that we're really grappling with the bpd is accountability and and transparency and our ability to assess efficacy and and the safety of our community um i think that nonprofit health organizations in burlington have their own soul searching to do um two um but i don't see that moving those services within the police department is is a path to get them out of the police department at all and on on that alone i would hope that you would reject this plan um i support operation phoenix rise and i think we need to stay focused um i think that the the information going out from the officers association about the loss of what they call the midnight shift which is the loss of a 3 30 am to 7 am patrol unit um has really caused a lot of undue fear in the community and people don't understand that those people will be at the station and violent calls generally come in through 911 and phone and not through patrol thank you thank you our next speaker nathaniel millerhouse nathaniel i'm not able to locate you if you can use the the raise hand function um to just identify yourself and i'll try and go back to those folks i'm not able to locate and search for them again um so i'm going to go to patrick johnson next patrick i'm enabling your microphone good evening thank you uh i want to quickly go through a very parallel public safety issue that has occurred many years ago in the firefighting uh fire prevention world we started off responding calling and responding to house fires stopping them after the fact we quickly realized that this method was extremely taxing and funding dependent um we looked as a community and as a country looked for a much more comprehensive approach to firefighting which was uh public education uh hiring scientific organizations like u l laboratories to um have uh materials that were fire retardants we did so many interesting and wonderful things around fire prevention that it saved communities money and if we do not reduce our current force and reallocate those funds to policing we won't be able to have a 21st century police force uh thank you thank you um i was able to now locate brinn martin so brinn i'm going to come to you brinn i've enabled your microphone can you hear me yes go ahead great um my name is brinn martin i use she her pronouns and i am a white female from ward five i also work in the old north end and like so many before me i'm just asking the council to vote against raising the cap of police officers more police officers do not make burlington safer and in fact make it more dangerous for bipoc people as was proven once again on january 6 if we want to be a city where i'll feel safe we need to be investing money in our communities and issues like homelessness drug addiction and mental health issues not in more cops with guns thanks and i yield the rest of my time thank you our next speaker is dav fairington dav i've enabled your microphone dav it looks like you need to take yourself off of mute on your end hey good evening uh president tracy city council and mayor uh want to thank you for discussing and considering this uh city place issue that was put in front of you earlier just want to let you guys know a lot of hard work went into this on both sides and obviously we we feel that this proposal that's being presented solves a lot of answers to a lot of questions and issues on both sides and just want to make ourselves available for any question and answer period you might have in the next week or so as you ponder this proposal and try to make your decisions and you guys know how to get a hold of us thank you great thank you so much and again we'll certainly welcome your presence at the the next council meeting as part of the as part of the the item itself so if counselors do have questions then we can also welcome that but thank you for for joining us this evening and now i'm going to go to our next speaker christopher erin felker christopher i've enabled your microphone good evening can you hear me perfect uh thank you for thank you for having this uh this public forum this evening i'm calling in this evening to support the public safety continuity plan i believe that this puts forth a a strong strategy to to move forward to build off of and and actually start to reform our system i that is i yield the rest of my time to anybody else who's calling in thank you very much okay thank you all right our next speaker i'm still looking for jenny pappasov jenny i cannot locate you if you could use the raise hand function same thing with nathaniel millerhouse nathaniel i'm not able to find you um julia popco i'm going to come to you next julia i've enabled your microphone hi can you hear me yes hi my name is julia popco i you see her pronouns and i'm deeply invested in the well-being of our community i want to voice my opposition to raising the cap of bpd officers 284 and want to speak on the unacceptable actions that continue on the part of the bpd and the bpoa as i hope you all know in 2020 statistics showed that bpd used excessive force at high rates disproportionately targeting black community members 28 percent of cases of use of force were against black residents even though they only account for six percent of the population the bpd has failed time and time again to follow protocols that are in place both in terms of correct practices prior to use of force and in terms of correctly using their body cams all of these unacceptable practices have continued in 2021 additionally the recent actions of the bpoa to publicly name and attack members of the police commission thereby potentially putting them in danger is unacceptable i urge this body to take action in response to the bpoa's problematic actions as well the fact that trends of police brutality in burlington are so already so apparent one month into this year highlights the need for action before more community members are harmed or lose their lives to the bpd this will not be fixed by increasing the number of bpd officers or ignoring the blatant acts of violence perpetuated by the bpd and bpoa both of which are inherently entrenched in systems of white supremacy this is why we need a fully independent community oversight board in addition to the police commission with the power to hold those partaking in unacceptable and violent actions accountable listen to your community we are still here and we are still shouting stop ignoring our needs and do your job black lives matter thank you our next speaker our final speaker for this evening is emma chaffee or chaffee so emma i've enabled your microphone hi can you hear me yep go ahead um my name is emma chaffee and my pronouns are she they um i'd first like to say that i think it is unacceptable to cut off black fans while they are speaking and especially to do so when this council so often throws back in their faces that you don't get enough input on issues that matter to them you do not need to adhere to this restrictive time limit change it let by puck speak and listen to them i'd also like to reiterate a point that just made earlier it is insulting and harmful to center white people in public comment when we show our inherent laziness and lack of commitment white people show up when we feel like it because our lives aren't on the line by poc folks who are dedicated and always show up when the when they are the last people who should have to know what they're doing and plan accordingly lazy white people do not and to say that we must be more considered and catered to is ridiculous and racist i'm also calling to demand that you not increase the hiring cap in the first 10 months of 2020 149 people were subjected to police force and 42 of those people were black if berlington had a population of a whole of only 149 people only eight of those people would be black this disproportionality is higher than any other recorded in the past eight years black people are disproportionately harmed in berlington because police officers are not only allowed to act first and think later but are supported in doing so by the mayor and by this council even when they blatantly disregard the already minimal and insufficient protocols that they're supposed to follow black lives matter let black them speak thank you i yield my time our next speaker i did have one more spine up who just came in um that um loaded into the sheet oscar flummer just came in oscar enabled your microphone awesome hi my name is oscar and i'm a lifelong resident of berlington please don't up the cap of officers in berlington i've already gotten past the point where i feel like words are getting through to many on this council the community will keep showing up and supporting the racial justice resolution just like we were doing a year ago but i feel like a lot of the politicians present in this meeting have just been waiting around for this inevitable white wash that was going to come out of their more privileged districts getting frightened for reasons i think are pretty unanalyzed um i didn't plan a ton to say tonight but i hope you'll stand behind the racial justice resolution and black lives matter thanks thank you so i don't have anybody else in the queue i did not was not able to locate jenny papasov or nathaniel miller house so i'm gonna go ahead and close down the public forum let me just do one more thing yep i don't see anyone else in everybody did sign up who i was able to locate was able to speak this evening and so in the order that they were received i will now move us out of the public forum phase and we'll go right into the next item we already did the climate emergency report so i'm going to come into the consent agenda and go to councillor stromberg for a motion on the consent agenda i move to adopt the consent agenda as amended and take the actions indicated okay we have a motion on the consent agendas or a second seconded by councillor carpenter any discussion okay seeing none all those in favor of adopting our consent agenda please say aye hi hi any opposed hearing none that passes unanimously um before we get into our deliberative agenda i am going to recess this meeting and have us go into the local control commission meeting um or february 8th so it gives us a second to just sign over to that agenda we'll take just a moment folks before we get back to that deliberative agenda um the i'll call the order of the local control commission meeting at 818 um the first item on the agenda is the agenda um may please have a motion on the agenda uh commissioner hanson yes i'll move to adopt the agenda a motion from commissioner hanson seconded by councillor stromberg any discussion of our agenda for this meeting okay seeing none all those in favor of the agenda please say aye hi hi hi any opposed that passes unanimously we have an agenda um which brings us to our next item which is the consent agenda uh commissioner hanson may please have a motion on the consent agenda i'll move to adopt the consent agenda and take the actions indicated thank you for that we have a motion is there on the the consent agenda seconded by commissioner freeman any discussion of the consent agenda okay hearing none all those in favor of adopting our consent agenda please say aye aye aye any opposed hearing none that passes unanimously which moves us into the deliberative agenda where there is just one item this evening uh commissioner hanson are you able to please offer a a motion for item 3.01 i move to approve the 2020 2021 first class restaurant bar liquor license application for vivid cop coffee 150 cherry street with all standard conditions okay we have a motion is there a second seconded by commissioner stromberg any discussion of this item okay seeing none let's go to a vote all those in favor um of item 3.01 please say aye hi hi any opposed okay hearing none that passes unanimously um motion to adjourn is in order so moved moved by commissioner hanson seconded by commissioner stromberg uh all those in favor of adjourning our local control commission meeting uh please say aye hi hi any opposed passes unanimously and we are adjourned at 8 20 we'll now reconvene the burlington city regular city council meeting at 8 20 and we will go into the deliberative agenda where are where we have um item 6.01 as the the first item uh councilor hanson are you able to please move that item sure uh i'll move to approve the 2021 2022 outdoor entertainment permit renewal for arts riot 400 pine street with all standard conditions okay we have a motion from count councilor hanson seconded by council stromberg any discussion of this item councilor shannon go ahead thank you president tracy when i saw this i was a little bit concerned because it extends the hours from 9 to 11 p.m and it is adjacent to to a neighborhood and arts riot has historically had very good relationships with its neighbors but um i want to be sure that that continues i had a very good uh discussion with the new owner of arts riot alan newman he explained that um he because of coveted some music will need to move outside as was noted in the application but mostly what he's looking to do during the during the week particularly is uh show movies and that was not on the list of of things for the outdoor entertainment permit so i wanted to make sure that movies got added to that um and also he he needs the late hours for the movies because in the summer you can't start the movies until nine o'clock because it's not dark enough so but but for the other entertainment he was amenable to cutting that off at 10 p.m and i wasn't sure and maybe counselor hanson has some guidance as to how best to do that can we do an entertainment permit that shuts off certain activities at 10 p.m while allowing the movies to go to 11 p.m mr newman did uh he he was amenable to that but i'm not sure if the permits can be structured that way sure i will direct that to to counselor hanson counselor hanson do you know if as chair of license if you are are you and are you able to to do that um i see lori on muting i'm gonna defer to lori and hear what she has to say if that's all right okay so when you recommend and determine what you would like for entertainment permits then they're edited as such so yes this can be clearly defined if that's what you choose okay does that require lori amendment at this time in order to do that i think you probably should um i did put on board docs what alan newman agreed to i'm not sure if anybody saw that or not um i do see that yeah i think it would be best if you made a motion based on that so it'd be clear for the minutes okay great i'm okay i'm happy to make that motion or if counselor shannon would like to i'll go back to to counselor shannon um since this was initially raised by by counselor shannon counselor did you want to make a motion to to clarify what it is that you're seeking to do here yes i'd like to um amend the the permit to read from uh from sunday through thursday the permit would go to 10 p.m for music for the list of things that's there music um hang on one second uh dj's and outdoor movies and would extend to 11 p.m only for movies okay and then uh and then for friday and saturday nights it would remain the same with the entertainment permit um for all of those things and just add to include movies until 11 p.m okay thank you we have a motion from counselor shannon is there a second into that motion seconded by counselor stromberg any discussion of the amendment counselor shannon go ahead i i believe that alan newman is here if you wanted to enable his microphone just to confirm that um i i know that arts riot is a really valued um venue in the community and we want to accommodate both arts riot and the neighbors and i think that i have what i've just offered is consistent with what their plans were but i was hoping he could confirm that sure yep so i've been able to your microphone alan go ahead contained that's exactly what we agreed to okay great thank you for for that and for being here it's always helpful when we have the applicants here to clarify any questions like this um did you want the floor back counselor shannon good thank you very much okay thank you and i saw counselor jeng did you have your hand up yep it was exactly that if mr alan was here told that he can hear talk to us directly inside of a council making this motion on the floor thank you okay thank you for that uh counselor mason uh thank you president tracy i just before we vote i want to note for the record my recusal on this matter um due to a professional conflict of interest thank you thank you for that um any further discussion on the amendment okay hearing none let's go to a vote on the amendment um all those in favor please say i hi any opposed okay hearing none that passes unanimously and we are back to the original uh permanent the original permit application as amended any further discussion on this counselors okay seeing none let's go to a vote on this all those in favor please say i hi any opposed that carries unanimously that takes care of item 6.01 which brings us to 6.02 which is a presentation from darin springer regarding district energy we'll go ahead and turn it over to darin thank you for joining us director springer hi good evening counselors i wanted to note that i am joined by michael ahern who's on camera here as well and is the senior vice president with our partner on the district energy effort evergreen energy based in minnesota so michael michael and i will both be here for questions but i wanted to provide some context about our announcement earlier today so we have good news to share on district energy earlier today we announced that we've completed the phase two work that began almost a year ago today and was delayed significantly due to covet 19 impacts on the number of our partners but we've completed that work we have some interesting and innovative findings from that effort and we have a letter of intent that's been signed by the parties to the district energy work to advance to a phase three which would cover the next three to six months work plan and take us right up to a point where we will be able to determine if we can make a binding commitment to take district energy to permitting and construction so i'll back up a little bit i just wanted to to frame that up front just as a reminder for counselors this this work with district energy started this current version of the work with district energy started back in late 2018 after we had completed our prior work with corex utilities and i had recently been named as general manager burlington electric we had reengaged with michael and evergreen energy as well as vgs vermont gas systems uvm medical center and university of vermont and looked at whether a district energy system focused on those parties as opposed to also trying to go downtown could be more economical and provide more emissions reduction in a cost effective way you know per dollar and phase one analysis showed that yes that was possible that we could get more benefit per dollar invested by having a system focused on uvm medical center with potential addition of uvm buildings and we took that to phase two we made an announcement february of 2020 phase two work included route analysis which michael and his team worked with dpw as well as university of vermont medical center it included updating the economics of the project through an rfp that evergreen issued to get indicative pricing from contractors it included a look at the potential financing and ownership regulatory models for district energy as well as a lot of engineering work with university of vermont medical center looking at the operational protocols between the mcneil generating station and university of vermont medical center because mcneil would be providing a renewable steam in this project to the medical center and potentially other buildings as well so i have i want to share my screen here briefly because i have a graphic that i think can be helpful in looking at this model that we are proposing you should be able to see it now as well this is a proposal a working concept based on the work we did in phase two and i'll walk you through it we start at the mcneil station where mcneil would generate a steam both from waste heat as well as additional production and provide that steam in a district energy pipe evergreen which has expertise in operating these systems and developing these systems under this proposed model would own and operate the district energy system as a not-for-profit entity and the benefit of that is severalfold not only would they bring their expertise to bear they would secure financing for the project the city would not be required to fund or finance the project there would be no upfront funding required from the city the construction and operational risks for the project would would sit with evergreen under this structure and they would operate the district energy system as a not-for-profit entity and provide steam under cost-based rates evergreen would then deliver the steam energy to uvm medical center and other buildings that we wouldn't attempt to include in the district energy system they would be the hosts for the district energy system essentially um vermont gas systems vgs would purchase the full output of the district energy from evergreen under this model and then you can kind of see that we have a couple of different offshoots in this graphic because we're really talking about two distinct attributes that come from the energy production from district energy one is the actual physical steam that would be delivered and would displace fossil fuel use and that would be the thermal energy the physical energy that would be delivered to university vermont medical center and other potential buildings as well but just like we have with community solar with the cow power program in vermont there is a renewable credit that's associated with this district energy and environmental attribute and under the model we're proposing and this is unique and innovative and new something we haven't discussed with the council or the public previously we would propose that the that different buildings different customers would be able to buy in essentially to these district energy renewable credits um so anybody who was a local business a local resident the city's buildings themselves could potentially participate in the district energy system by opting in to purchase some or all of their thermal energy through these des renewable credits so you can see that those credits are flowing in this model to different customers to potentially the medical center the local residents local businesses the city of burlington to help offset city municipal fossil fuel use and carbon footprint and then under this model if there were unused credits in a given year vgs would utilize those for its own system portfolio to help meet its renewable goals that have been set over the past year so this is a creative and innovative way to share some of the benefits and share the investment needed to bring district energy forward uh with the entire community potentially uh for folks who want to opt in i'm going to unshare my screen there um a couple other highlights from from the phase two work the cost of the project i mentioned we did indicative pricing the cost did go up but it remains at about 60 of the cost that was originally assumed under the 2018 plan with corex and yet this project would deliver more than 72 of the emissions and fossil fuel reduction benefit of that project so it remains cost effective we are looking in phase three at a variety of different pieces of the work plan as part of it evergreen would be working on securing financing for the system we would be looking at finally identifying any available incentives senator lehi has continued to make sure that federal appropriations include language that is supportive of district energy systems so there may be federal opportunities and we'll certainly be monitoring for those and make sure that we apply for any grant opportunities that may exist at the federal level vgs and bed would both potentially provide incentives to make this system happen so we would conclude that piece of the work in phase three there would be additional engineering work to be completed with university of vermont medical center we continue to also seek opportunities to engage with university of vermont as well to see if there are buildings that could be good candidates for inclusion in the district energy system whether right away or as part of a future expansion we would pursue regulatory approvals from that are necessary from the state to make sure that there was support for this at the state level we would identify all the different permits that would be needed we would pursue an agreement with the mcneal joint owners of which bed is 50 percent share along with our other two joint owners green mountain power and vermont public power supply authority and we would create and michael and his team would really help us with this create supply agreements so that the end of the phase three work which again would be a three to six month work plan will be in a position where all the parties will be presented with the opportunity to review and commit to a binding agreement that would take this project to permitting and construction and on the city side that would mean that we'd be needing to look at what level of commitment the city would be willing to make for its own buildings to sign up as a potential customer of the district energy through the district energy renewable credits and look at whether there was desire for a certain level of participation whether there's desire for a phase in approach for that participation and we'd be doing that with other potential customers as well so just to summarize briefly we're really trying to take this this model of community solar essentially and bring it to the district energy system to help advance this and make this a reality it's a very exciting project it would reduce thermal commercial sector natural gas emissions in the city of burlington by more than 11 and a half percent under current projections so this is really the single biggest step we could take in that sector to reduce emissions it's an exciting project we're really pleased to be partnering with great partners like evergreen energy as well as uvm mc and vgs to be bringing this forward and we welcome your questions feedback and and thoughts as we embark on this phase three work starting this week excellent thank you so much michael did you want to offer something as well i don't know that i can top what darin walked through i think he did a fantastic job of summarizing it so happy to field any questions you might have excellent excellent and it's good to see you again michael likewise max yeah all right uh next counselor stromberg go ahead thanks president tracy uh thank you so much darin and michael um yeah this is this is really exciting i love the idea of steam and thermal energy in place of fossil fuels as much as we can um i guess i have two questions what is the full timeline for phase three and i apologize if i missed that and you mentioned it um and then the other question has to do with um is there is there i wouldn't use the word risk but i will for the lack of a better word is there like or potential for excess energy to be produced to a level that can be like purchase back from i think you said vermont gases behind that um could you just kind of like clarify that side of things would they like the incentive um for people to actually like buy into this is that the best i don't know if that's the best way to ask that question but i feel like if you could just go over that part a little bit absolutely um so the the phase three timeframe is is three to six months depending on you know how quickly we can get the work product complete we have we've experienced COVID impacts obviously you know the hospital and all the partners have had different impacts from COVID that that really slowed us down a little bit in phase two we would have expected to complete this work closer to fall 2020 under normal timeframe so we say three to six months to build in a little bit of buffer to understand we still are facing COVID impacts that could delay things in terms of the the district energy renewable credits the way it would work is those would be offered two different customers we're hoping to have obviously a few significant anchor customers for that output so we would we would love for the city to be a part of that and for other customers to be a part of that but if there was an unused quantity in a given year and those were unsubscribed and they went unused and and unpaid for then the project economics really might not work and so the role for vgs in that sense and it's a critical role is essentially as a backstop to ensure that if those credits are are not fully subscribed by the burlington community or the broader community then vgs is willing to essentially fund the purchase of those credits for use in its own system and then can credibly state that those are part of its system-wide portfolio thank you so much that makes sense thank you for that i'll go to councillor hanson next thanks so much this is really exciting and thanks for all the work that and creativity that went into this proposal um by one question is you mentioned darin that it's 72 percent emissions reductions compared to the 2018 plan can you just explain why that is absolutely um so if we look at the 2018 plan was connecting to uvm medical to some uvm buildings and then also was going to run downtown and try to connect to a number of different buildings downtown so it was a bigger system although that model was uh approximately two thirds on biomass steam renewable steam and one third natural gas uh so that was a bigger system but it included about a third natural gas built into it this system that we're talking about here is a hundred percent renewable on the district energy side it's all renewable steam coming from McNeil but it's it's targeting a smaller footprint because it's really focused on connecting to uvm medical center and potentially some buildings that are in close proximity to McNeil and uvm medical center so it's it's still delivering the kind of majority the vast majority of the fossil fuel emissions reduction benefits but it's not capturing all of them because it doesn't go downtown however it's doing so at a much better cost uh you know per uh emissions avoidance compared to the prior model okay thanks for that and then my follow-up would be I think when we had spoke about this the other day you'd mentioned that the hospital oh sorry the hospital has enough thermal load in theory to take the full the full waste heat from McNeil is that the case and if so how does that kind of relate to what you had just said yeah so in terms of and Michael may want to touch on this as well in terms of the mix of energy being delivered a portion of it would be from waste heat that is essentially otherwise lost uh under current production and a portion of it would be additional steam that's generated as part of being essentially a combined heat and power operation at McNeil uh right now we're only an electric operation but under this model we would be a more efficient combined heat and power model so we'd be producing additional steam uh through that as well um and I think there is opportunity to not only supply University of Vermont Medical Center but also to have enough production to uh expand to other buildings in close proximity as well Michael I don't know if you want to add to that yeah I think that's it's a fair way to play uh stated Darren the all of the waste heat that we can capture from the from the exhaust at the at the facility at McNeil can be captured and is and would be utilized by the hospital as well as as Darren had mentioned earlier that then there would be some supplemental electric generation or combustion of the biomass for purposes of of serving some of UVMMC's load okay great thank you appreciate it you counselor Hansen counselor Freeman did you were you trying to go in the queue yes thank you um thank you for this presentation and for the update um I had a question so the the the previous COREX agreement uh had so my understanding was that the the contract was set or the tentative contract you know hypothetical that had been set up was this um 30 years of ownership and then at that point it could have been renewed and then there was also the option for local control and um I was just wondering you know it's the nonprofit model with evergreen um I didn't know if there was a similar um potential for local control at some point maybe not upfront but down the road as we were I think considering and pursuing with the COREX previous agreement with with COREX so I'm just curious if that's something that has been looked at it we have talked through that and counselor and Freeman and and our intention is to create a structure where local stakeholders would have governance of the board of of our advisory board for the for the district energy business right away upfront so it wouldn't have to wait until until some time out in the future we would structure an advisory board to the district energy system with the customers of the system with the local stakeholders that would actually participate in the in the budget setting and the rate setting for for the system up front and maybe to further address that um we don't have a we obviously we don't have a contract with evergreen right now right to build the system but um I think what I'm hearing is is you're asking if we would have some sort of an option for the city to purchase the system at some point in the future um and that's that's something we could discuss as part of phase three if that's of interest okay I mean yeah that's something you know it being a publicly owned utility um you know I'm really excited I think as you know counselor strong work hints and I've mentioned you know like the um the ability to get away from fossil fuels to use steam energy um is really exciting um the infrastructure is really exciting um I am interested in sort of long term um you know the longevity you know how um is this best um maintained as a public good and as an asset as a utility so I you know I it's interesting to hear that um stakeholders will be um potentially have a seat at the table up front but you know what could that look like down the line in terms of um this actually moving to a public utility so I appreciate um you speaking to that thank you for the presentation great I have counselor hi tower next oh great thanks um just a quick question just because this is mostly going through my board um what the expected I guess construction impacts are going to be in how we're or how you all are going to collaborate with department of public works like if there's any street or sidewalk improvements and it will mostly affect the street or the sidewalks just some logistics around that so counselor hi tower we've we've been working very closely with public works through our design process before we went out to contractors to solicit pricing it's it's a little bit of a mix of some piping in the street as as well as some piping in the boulevard um underneath the sidewalk we are also working to coordinate with public works for any upcoming other street construction work or walk path work where we could have a combined project so that nothing things aren't getting torn up twice and um and and we are they have a sense we haven't formally submitted the design for approval but we have been submitted several iterations of it and they've been giving guidance through along the way suggesting areas where we should where it will be more acceptable for us to run and less acceptable for us to run and we have we've incorporated that into all of the design and and our our goal is to be breaking ground on that distribution construction next year best case scenario we'd be we'd be breaking ground next spring with an expected two-year construction window two season construction window so constructing through the summer of 22 as well as on the summer of 23 thank you so much great any other questions from counselors i'm going to be followed by councillor paul go ahead councillor jane thank you darren and my mic michael uh for being here so i have two questions and one of them is from an engineer who texts me earlier today and he stated that the city of burnington mcneill plain what the city need to think about is to phase it out because it's only generating carbon monoxide and it seems as if only 25 percent of it is only efficient what the city needed to be talking about right now is to phase out and was just wondering if there is if there are any you know plan to to get the city there or the city is not even thinking about such plan so that's the first question yeah i'm happy to answer that one the mcneill facility is you know a key part of our being 100 renewable utility in terms of generation it's also an important facility for the state of vermont it's actually the largest energy producer now that vermont yankee nuclear has closed back in 2013 and you know i think that there's a lot of kind of misconceptions but we are fairly unique in the country at mcneill in employing four foresters who work on staff to ensure a sustainable harvest for the supply of the facility which really can ensure that we obtain a carbon benefit that there is a sustainable harvest so you know combustion plants are not typically going to be 90 or 95 efficient they are going to have lower efficiencies depending on the fuel source the benefit of district energy is it would increase the efficiency of the facility which is something that we want to see happen and it would also ensure that we are providing some additional emissions reduction benefit but with biomass it's one of the more complex carbon accounting questions that exist in and when we look at renewable technologies and with biomass you have to look at how sustainable is your harvest are you able to have regrowth or are you simply clear cutting lands and not regrowing trees and not keeping the forest soils intact if you're if you're doing this in a sustainable way biomass can have a significant benefit and be a truly renewable resource and we feel we're doing a good job of that at the mcneill facility yeah thank you and i think you and i we did talk about this specific question before and but is it is it correct what he's stating that it actually provides more carbon monoxide but it saved the is that accurate i i don't think i think if you're talking about carbon dioxide so greenhouse gas emissions um then it it has a cycle essentially where um the combustion of wood would produce emissions but the regrowth uh the sustainable harvesting sequesters emissions and so there are analyses that suggest that that can be a closed loop a carbon beneficial cycle um if you do it well and we're we're in the business of trying to do that well i'll just just cite some data you know if you look at the state of vermont um 50 percent of the new growth in forests is harvested and 50 percent remains in the forest of the of the growth that's happening every year the mcneill harvest only uses about five percent of that new growth every year so you know you probably couldn't have 25 mcneill plants running in vermont and still have a sustainable supply but if you have a plant like mcneill that's that's properly sized and that's managing its impacts you can have a sustainable harvest cycle and keep the emissions benefit intact okay so that was the question from an expert and as i say i rely on experts to get uh make a good decision now this is my question and i think about the district energy it's it is it feels it sounds so good to be true and i trust you right so it seems you stated that the city has no cost associated for this project to move forward right did i hear that right under this model there would be no upfront cost to the city uh we wouldn't be looking for a city bond for example uh we wouldn't be looking for city uh funding up front that the one piece financially for the city to consider is would the city be willing to sign up to take some of the output annually from the district energy system for its own buildings reduced its own carbon footprint in that manner and there would be a cost associated with that and it's something that we want to discuss as part of phase three is what is the city's appetite for taking on some of that responsibility okay and lastly and it seems earlier you talked about a tax credit for residents who would want to participate in business right did i get that right yes well it'd be it'd be more like what i mentioned was a renewable credit so it'd be like something where on your bill if you were a vgs customer you could check i want to have 10 of my energy come from district energy or 50 percent or 100 percent and you would pay a an additional amount to have that be part of your personal energy mix essentially okay and then the the payment or the connection about district energy from a residential perspective is not true the boolean ton electric department but now it will be true the gas or evergreen that's correct it would be on your gas bill you would have the option to make that election under this model that's right it seems them now our entity is just facilitating for this project to to to stand up and to be solidified that's our role we're doing that but we also as the 50 percent owner of mcneil we would be an important part of providing the renewable energy under this model as well thank you so much no further questions thank you councillor jane councillor paul thanks president tracy just wanted to quickly mention that district energy has been a solution that simply has been waiting for its day and that day is getting closer and closer now and uh you know i looked at the report that mentioned the number of studies that have been done on district energy i think there's been i don't know five or six um i haven't been around to see all of them by the time i got on the electric commission i think we'd already done two um but this has been something that has been going on for a very long time and literally just waiting for the right the stars to align for us to be able to move forward so to all who are involved with this this is a terrific idea to be harnessing the energy that is coming out of mcneil that we are losing um and put it to incredibly good use recirculate it reuse it um this is a terrific move forward and uh i'll be i'll be interested to hear when you come uh when uh uh you move forward with these other phases and uh um just wanted to say thanks so much and uh it has my full support thanks thank you it's our paul a mayor weinberger go ahead thank you president tracy before the discussion ended tonight i just wanted to um make sure the council and the public was clear that uh this effort has my uh full and strong support um i am really excited to be here on the the cusp of moving forward with this long desired project it was really not at all clear we would get here as some of the historic discussion we've had tonight points out but we before giving up on this we want to leave no stone unturned there's been setback after setback but we've found a way to keep moving this forward and i do see this as a really critical step if we are going to continue to meet our net zero energy city goals this is the largest single step that we can take at one time if we can if we can make this work and so i really appreciate the creative approach that has been brought to bear here i appreciate that the welcome that the council reaction to the creativity has been positive tonight i think it's really quite um i and i've said this before i think well vgs um being um at the at the table willing to help move this project over the finish line instead of seeing this as a threat is a sea change in the way in which the that utility is approaching this and i think with as we have seen in many other areas if we have all the institutions and different stakeholders within burlington pulling in the same direction just about anything is possible i think our work together in so many areas where you have the whole community working together is whether it's with the opioid epidemic or responding to the pandemic when we get many different institutions working together we can overcome major challenges here i'm hopeful that we're on the cusp of doing that again with uh with the second thank you for that mayor weinberger councillor jane quick and was just wondering if michael or darin can talk about maybe next steps especially around the non-profit organization and the mou what's next and when should we expect next step thank you thank you councillor jane so as as darin had mentioned that really really immediately now our next steps are we are working on drafting the proposed agreements that would be between the different parties researching and setting up the structure for exactly what how the business would be structured that the the entity the new district energy business would be structured and be able to facilitate the the procurement of the steam from mcneil and and sale to vgs as well as then the delivery of the steam to the to the hospital we also are speaking with the folks at uvm mc and working through more of the details of exactly how there would be an operational interface between the district energy system and the hospital so the hospital has the the confidence that this will enhance the reliability and not hinder their reliability which is of course the most important part of all of this and and and then working through a little bit more of the planning for for them the next phase which would be more of the technical work the the permitting the engineering and and the construction planning but that focus right now is is absolutely that being able to get agreements drafted that are amenable to all parties and also will facilitate the hundred percent debt financing that we would intend to deploy for this opportunity and and we would expect to come back to the council sometime in the three to six month window with probably at least two items that would need review and approval for this to move forward one of which would be for the city to participate as a customer of the district energy system and make a commitment in that regard and the second would likely be approval for burlington electric and mcneil to enter into a multi-year energy supply contract for mcneil to provide the renewable energy to the district energy system so those two items would likely be coming back to the council for review and discussion and ultimately approval if we were to advance this keep up the good work thank you thank you thank you any further comments from counselors okay seeing none i will thank both director springer and michael ahern thank you so much for being here and all your work to advance this incredible opportunity for our city having visited michael in st paul and seen the district energy system that they have there i'm definitely a believer in it and really just appreciate all the work that you've done to help burlington achieve similar gains especially towards our goals of producing carbon emissions so thank you very much and look forward to working with you on next steps thanks president tracy thank you well thank you absolutely okay so we will go ahead and shut that down and move into our next item which is item 6.03 a resolution regarding breaking out the costs of airport police services at the burlington international airport and studying how tsa requirements are met in other airports and go to counselor paul for a motion on that thanks thanks president tracy so i would move the resolution with a slight change and with thanks to counselor hanson for catching an oversight of mine which is online 27 to include the following wording after the word enforcement the following phrase with a report back to the city council at its second meeting in april which was an oversight of mine with that i would then waive the reading and ask for the floor back after a second okay we have a motion from counselor paul is there a second seconded by counselor stromberg go ahead counselor paul thanks very much president tracy so this resolution has been a long time in the making this summer during the discussion that we had on the racial justice resolution and then with the passage of the annual budget i and others had expressed concern that there are a number of sworn burlington police department officers at our airport who during their rotation at the airport are not involved in community policing as their assignment but instead are working every day at the airport providing tsa mandated police services in arriving at a target staffing level for our police department several of us had raised concerns about the the awkwardness and question the appropriateness of including officers at the airport in our authorized headcount since their service time was far removed from patrol work or from the supervision of patrol work and just by way of background for those who are listening the current vpoa contract which is the union contract provides that all necessary police work needed at the airport is done by burlington police department officers the costs for these officers at the airport their salary benefits costs associated with a vehicle are paid for by the airport and you know other other many many of the other departments in the city you know police fire parks and rec unlike those which are part of the general fund the airport is an enterprise fund and by definition is a separate financial reporting entity for which revenues and expenditures are segregated with their own financial statements separate from all of the other governmental activities it pays its own expenditures out of its own revenue revenues it is a self-sustaining entity currently in the police department there's a revenue line item that shows the payment the airport makes to the general fund budget due to staffing rotations and some unknowns when the budget is formed as to exactly which officers may be working at the airport the revenue equates to an averaging of salaries and benefits and other costs associated with staffing what this resolution would create is a new division within the burlington police department known as the airport division so that the revenues and the expenses associated with the officers at the airport would be separated as they are not engaged in community policing at this time nothing else would change regarding these officers only the creation of a new line item and a division within bpd one of the other aspects of the resolution is that all airports across the country are subject to the same tsa requirements regarding the use of sworn officers policing at checkpoints but all but but many airports handle this requirement differently and over the next two months this resolution asks the airport leadership to survey other airports of like size and report to the council again at our second meeting in april on their findings and lastly the the resolution asked the administration to report back to the city council again at the second meeting in april about how law enforcement needs of the airport can be met without including these officers in the authorized headcount at bpd the resolution um has been communicated to the ceo who would be responsible for these budgeting issues the acting chief of police and the director of aviation all of whom are supportive um i'd like to thank co-sponsors um counselor pine jang polino and carpenter for their support and i hope that the full council can be supportive as well thanks very much thank you councillor paul any councillors wishing to speak to this item the councillors wishing to speak to this item councillor jang yeah other than thank you councillor paul for taking the time to craft this resolution and to do the study i think this is exactly how we should do business before making any decision to study and ask expert to help us in this i'm just glad that you have that mindset thoughtfulness thank you thank you councillor jang any other comments from councillors okay guess everyone's ready to go to a vote okay so will the city clerk please call the roll under councillor jang councillor jang i couldn't hear your vote yes councillor freeman yes councillor hanson yes councillor hightower yes councillor mason yes councillor paul yes councillor paulino yes councillor pine yes councillor shannon yes councillor strongberg yes city council president tracy yes 12 eyes the resolution carries unanimously thank you very much thank you councillor paul that brings us to our next item which is 6.04 the approval of the public safety continuity plan um for this item i will be passing the gavel uh to councillor hanson i can actually pass it but i'll give gavel councillor hanson um so i can participate in the debate on this one thanks president tracy um so i'll look for a motion on on the resolution councillor mason thank you acting president hanson i would like to make a motion to waive the reading dot the resolution uh and then ask the mayor or acting chief mirad to speak to this item um if there's a second all right see a second from councillor shannon um so councillor mate so motion's been made in second ed you wanted to go straight to the mayor yes my apologies we did not choreograph this i'm not sure which uh individual representative of the administration or the department would like uh i also see director of police transformation dodson on is on as well and maybe the answer is there's nothing they would like to withhold and we'll just field questions but i'd like to afford that opportunity okay would a member of the administration like to i'm only seeing okay the mayor's camera's on now did you what would you like to speak marijuana burger um i thank you councillor hanson um i i would certainly um like the opportunity to speak to the council um i i would welcome um the opportunity for a short recess um given the the um numerous late um numerous amendments that have come in over the course of the afternoon um i think it would be helpful to have a significant recess at this point to assess um where we are before the discussion began so a 15 minute recess i know it's not exactly my place to call for a recess but before making i would i would be pretty sure for me to make my comments uh before we have that discussion okay um typically the mayor doesn't request the recess but uh councillor mason thank you acting president hanson i would like to request a 15 minute recess to afford us the opportunity to digest some of the amendments came in and avoid uh if possible discussion on uh motion or a resolution that may be substantially modified if and i don't know if well i shouldn't say that it's a you're a prerogative whether to grant or not okay um yeah yeah i think you know we delayed action for for a couple weeks on this to to dive in but i understand there were some additional changes i would just ask that um this be our only recess and then we dig in in public session and you know debate the merits of any amendments for in front of the public as a council um but we can we can take a recess now and then do that but may i ask a point of clarification before we go on i know councillor hightower had put in some amendments then pulled them out and put in so i'm just before we move in our our what is being proposed by councillor hightower up on board docs as the actual amendments um councillor hightower did you want to clarify yes i have pulled no amendments there were some amendments that i discussed with councillor paul over the course of the last week um but the only ones that are official are the ones that are on board docs thank you for that clarification all right um the recess has been requested i've seen councillor shannon and councillor carpenter raising their hands is this something that you need to express prior to the recess or i was just going to ask for the recess i think councillor carpenter has something else councillor carpenter uh i'm i'm not sure if this is appropriate i was um a little confused by the amendments that seem to amend to amend a section and then re re amend it and i don't know if this is more appropriate after the recess but or whether councillor hightower can i think if you could let's let's use the recess to clarify that since we're taking the recess um thank you but yeah coming out of the recess let's let's debate these amendments and everything um in in public um so we'll do 15 minutes and we'll be back at 9 29 thanks everyone all right everyone it's it's been 15 minutes if people could turn their cameras back on and rejoin all right i believe we have a we have a quorum at this point um i see councillor hightower looking to speak um i'm happy to move to make the amendment i didn't know if the if that's what we want to discuss or if the administration wanted to talk about things more generally now but i'm happy to move to make an amendment if that's this is the appropriate time point of order yeah councillor shannon um in the confusion with different things getting ideas being thrown around um if it's possible i think we'd like to to remake the motion the original motion to remake the original motion yes because we we didn't move what we intended to move originally is that eileen are you with us is that is that possible yeah it's there has been something moved and seconded but if it was if if there was confusion about what it was i think there can be clarification of the motion there there was a um amended version put on to board docs which i thought had an amendment that was not included in that when it was moved the revised are you referring to the revised version councillor shannon yes so is the revised version what was intended to be made or yes but there was a further reason revision that was not included in that is that revision posted or it's not posted it's simply to move it um with an authorized cap of 82 rather than 84 okay to me that seems like an amendment eileen could you clarify it sounds like an amendment to me as well okay in the resolution be withdrawn and resubmit it hi lean if you can move to withdraw it and the body can decide that to allow it to be withdrawn yes is that all councillor shannon yes okay great all right um councillor high tower you still have the floor and i moved to withdraw thunder i can come to you i have councillor mason i can come to you after councillor mason i think i'm sorry go ahead i well i i don't know that councillor high tower had given up the four yeah great so i'll go yeah if i i think i'll go ahead and make the motion to amend if that's okay okay can can we just can you just walk us through the amendments please yes so i moved to amend as stated in the um bpd continuity amendments removing cap increase which does a few things to the whereas amendments um notably strikes line 16 and 17 um or not doesn't strike parts of line 16 17 strikes line 28 through 29 slight strikes lines 30 through 35 and strikes in line 36 just removes the phrase which is likely later this spring in the their information um yeah councillor polano are these amendments being moved as a slate or what are we doing yes this is a slate of amendments okay all right the thank you the next part is it moves removes the entire first paragraph um the first not therefore it be resolved clause in the second one it just clarifies that since we haven't actually seen a job description that the police commission will be the one to approve that so just have to go back in front of the full council um for the second resolve clause for the community support liaison um it again clarifies that that can be approved by the public safety committee so it doesn't have to go back in front of the full council since we don't have those job descriptions and that um both the public safety committee and the director of police transformation will develop the the remaining two job descriptions and clarifies that this should come out of the burlington police department budget so these are similar in terms of intent to what had been posted two weeks ago for the original resolution but did a few more amendments okay um all right that motion has been made are folks clear on the motion i have a point of information councilor freeman um just because i think i understand that this was maybe a typo but i just want to make sure that this remove what is currently lines 67 through 85 and replace with the replace with is just a typo right it's just remove what is currently lines 67 through 85 correct no it is then replaced with the text that follows oh it is replaced with the text that follows okay sorry i think i was in tracking when you were if all of the resolve clauses and replaces them with the resolve causes answer okay sorry i just missed this okay that makes sense so thank you okay um are folks clear on the amendment uh mayor weinberger uh thank you uh council hands i appreciate the opportunity to weigh in here i'm i guess weighing in with a little bit of a alarm at the notion that the council have been the job descriptions they were all point of sorry point of order president tracy what's uh was there a second on the amendment well i i was just making sure folks were clear on what the amendment is there's not been a second yet is everyone clear on what the amendment is at this point no councilor carpenter is not not yeah unless i'm misreading i see two amendments one is to remove lines 67 through 85 and then um strike line 74 through 85 and replace it so i'm i'm confused councilor high tire can you clarify please yes so i am intending to make two amendments this is only making the first of those two amendments so right now we are only on bpd continuity amendments removing cap increase so i'm just moving that as a slate so you're moving the whole thing is a slate but then um you're i unless i'm thick here you're and you want to replace several whereas clauses with new language but then you're you have an later amendment to amend those those two paragraphs if it's okay um council hands and can i ask the maker the what the end game is what where you're trying to end up i'm i'm i'm i'm i guess i'm confused by an amendment to your own amendment is what it seems to me yeah i'm happy to answer that and that's fair i think the first set of amendments was something that had been discussed and that i think folks maybe were expecting in terms of last time whereas the second slate of amendments was something that really came out of discussion over the past week so i didn't want folks to feel like they had to vote yes on that one to get to the first set of amendments so i'm happy to i and eventually want all of them to pass um but given that some folks may just want the first amendment i wanted to make sure that we had that as a separate rather than trying to divide the question later on so your first set of amendments is a slate um all or nothing basically and then your second set of amendments is uh well i just see the second set as um just the last two paragraphs is that all right councillor carpenter are you are you clear on what councillor hightower is proposing at the moment i guess just the amendments that that she took us through just now it's not anything else posted okay um does anyone else need clarification on the amendment uh councillor palino and councillor schianna i had a a question for attorney blackwood and and then i'll follow with to councillor hightower i know i've spoken about this rule in the past and i i know attorney blackwood answered it to a certain extent i don't remember the rule or where i read it on robert's rules but i mean my here's here's so it's the it's a rule referring to amendments that take away the substance of the resolution so here we have a resolution that begins at line 67 and ends at line 85 and we have an amendment before us to line to strike line 67 through 85 essentially creating a whole new resolution by amending as opposed to drafting one and gutting the essential piece of the resolution which is you know the public safety continuity plan we've had this plan for over two months more longer than that a committee level and i'm trying to understand and how is that like we're using an amendment to gut a resolution by taking away the cap which is the whole purpose of the staffing um and essentially creating making another resolution about the cso's and the clo's and i remember reading something about that um and whether those kind of amendments are appropriate or not i that's what i don't remember okay city attorney backward would you like to clarify on that um the the this strike and replace is on the topic that the original um resolution was on it is proposing a different solution to the what is put in whereas clauses and what's happening and i think that's all within the an appropriate resolution um that you can strike that and you can propose something else and then the body can choose to vote it down and go back to the original resolution that doesn't like it this isn't like but obviously um acting chair hanson it's up to you to determine whether or not you think that the amendments are so inimical to the original purpose of the resolution that that it's there they are out of order but my sense is that they are within the subject matter they propose a different solution to the issues raised and that that's uh not inappropriate okay anything else um councillor poli know that you wanted to clarify well yeah i mean i guess my question would then be for the maker is why this process you know we have a certain level of public accountability to this plan that's been received you know a lot of attention from public response both yeah councillor poli know just to cut you off this is i'm just trying to make sure folks understand what the amendment is your question seems to be about why this is just i want to make sure people the council understands what the amendment on the table is so if folks have questions on what the amendment is that's that's fine but in terms of why or the process that we can discuss that within the debate itself so does anyone do you have any confusion about what's being proposed councillor poli know no okay councillor shannon um i'm very confused and i don't know why anybody would expect that we knew all of this was coming there was an email that was equally confusing a lot two weeks ago with not any explanation and i don't understand what's being called the first set of amendments and the second set of amendments is the first set of amendments um we got an email at 436 today with some amendments are those the first set or the second set of amendments is that what is that all in whole what's being moved here or is part of that being moved here answer hi tara yeah happy to answer that so there is one set of amendments that we're currently dealing with they are on board docs under the title of bpd continuity amendments for moving cap increase dot docx so that entire all the changes in that it's a word document so the changes are tracked is the proposed slate of amendments for this first set for this so that is the only thing that is on the table i don't think we need to worry about anything else just this yeah any other documents that are posted that's not what we're deliberating it's just the amendment proposed um councillor mason you have a clarification i mean i i think the challenge with what's been done is it doesn't show much of what is in the amendment on the one page is already there the challenge i and i think i've been able to look back and forth and decipher what's going up to three things that are going on this amendment is striking the increase in the cap online 67 to 70 this is not asking the council to approve the revised job description rather it's sending it to the police commission everything else remains the same in that resolve clause in the next resolve clause there is again a delegation to the public service committee for that for that description instead of it being done by the council and there's some additional language about that the liaison is addressing with individuals with a mental health crisis and then my under and then there's a report back date and then the last resolution merely moves the funding of this from the police transformation fund from the you know from have it come out of the police budget the challenge and i appreciate this the frustration is it's hard without an actual tracked version that shows what's changed we're all kind of scrambling trying to figure if i've mischaracterized my summary then correct me councilor hightower but that's what i believe is being changed or proposed go ahead councilor hightower i believe i i'm sorry i did i did wasn't a hundred percent listening because i was making sure that the one the version on board docs is a word document where the changes are tracked so you should be able to see a tracked document and the one that i sent you um that has the changes tracked in the document second of all yes from the part that i was hearing that did sound like an accurate summary of what was being proposed so i'm i'm sorry as a point of order i do do not see a track change versions i see the proposed resolution i see a word and then i see two word docs which have no red lines no nothing it's just straight language so if i'm not seeing something on board docs that others are can someone email it to me i think sorry i'm sorry hightower yeah i think that's probably on your word document if you go to track changes and go from simple markup to all markup you should be able to see it i think that is a your word document settings issue would some i mean would you like me to screen share it um councilor mason to show you the track changes or do you feel like you understand the amendment at this point i understand the amendment but i think it would be helpful to the public to see it so i'm sorry all markup yes there it is thank you councilor hightower okay that that makes life much easier okay great but i do believe it would be helpful to the public to see what the heck we're talking about okay i'm happy to i'm happy to screen share that i'm just doing that in a minute once we kind of resolve things because then it goes to the other screen and you can't see people who are raising their hands okay is there are there any further um clarifications um i see i a city attorney blackwood trying to get in city attorney blackwood you're muted um yes i just wanted to clarify the amendment because it's it's taking out the now be it resolved clause and it's starting would be it further resolved so so first of all i i think you need to be it resolved but also it then jumps right to saying the the council delegates responsibility to approve the revised job descriptions for the new community service officers but it doesn't um it well maybe it's just that it's backwards and it makes it in in any event are you comfortable then if we just if we at least change it so it says now therefore be it resolved that i see a nod councilor hightower okay yeah all right thank you city attorney blackwood so so yeah that's now therefore be resolved that just a technical change in the first resolve clause um any other clarification on the amendment before we debate it okay seeing okay present uh councilor tracy uh just wanted to know that there needs to be a second right okay so seconded by councilor stromberg all right i see the mayor and i see councilor freeman so now we're now we can finally debate the uh the amendment would folks still don't like me to screen share it at this time all right i'll i'll briefly screen share it just so the public can see that but to be clear not everything is in track changes their part the re changing the resolve clauses is in track changes the public still won't see the parts in whereas causes and it's okay is this is this showing up for people yes this is with the track changes councilor hanson i do have a technical point to it okay go ahead mayor ronberger i just want to clarify out of the box that you have received the job descriptions that you all received a memo from chief mirad for this item as part of the you know as part of the package for this change the job descriptions were attached to the memo it also you know has already been to the police commission um where they also had that full memo from chief mirad and so they've already weighed in and endorsed this plan so i think much of the language in resolve clauses two and three is sort of almost like out of order it's certainly not consistent with uh the reasons just given for why it's needed are not accurate thank you mayor winberger um are folks comfortable if i leave screen share at this point yes okay all right i'm gonna exit screen share um all right um i have um councillor i see councillor paulino looking to be recognized go ahead so i just want to ask the maker of the motion the amendments sort of the same kind of process question um the background being how long this has been on the table how much public input we've received from people that don't normally engage with us as councillors and and are are very invested in the public safety number specifically the three m to seven am shift that people have been demanding to us to fully staff and the purposes resolution clearly being that and the cso cl o clearly being a subsidiary issue and now we're striking that um you know it seems like a separate resolution that could have been brought on its own merits um that's so i just wonder why are we going about things this way i mean people are expecting a vote tonight to fully staff our police department or not and what we're basically doing is we're taking that part out and saying well we're going to do all this other stuff um and we're going to just not and answer what people seem to be most concerned about and i just kind of wonder i don't understand this this this way of doing things okay thanks councillor paulino and that's my mistake i should have given the floor back to uh councillor high tower to in order to to speak to the amendments made my apologies councillor high tower did you want to speak to your amendments yeah i'm happy to do that um so i think first of all um i do want to clarify i have not seen the job descriptions i think i asked for this two weeks ago and we said i was told that was the same there is language on it in the memo but i didn't see separate job descriptions um so i think those are available happy to review those um the second thing that i'll say is this is the same or in the spirit of the same amendment that i was going to make two weeks ago when this item got postponed that had also been on board dux two weeks ago when we discussed this item um was to remove to remove some of the whereas clauses and then to remove that first paragraph and put put the question of that the staffing level of the sworn officers aside i think then as now um i i'm very excited about um the community service liaisons as well as the community officer positions and hope that that is something we can move forward on i think that's something that's been proposed by the administration that there is consensus on and moving forward and that those positions um can do a lot to address the type one calls that we're seeing that folks are wanting to have answered as well as um address some of the root causes that we were hoping to do um that we were hoping to do with the racial justice resolution and i think this entire resolution is or this entire change is to get us to um moving towards those alternatives so i think the racial justice resolution in june um really wanted the attrition dollars from these police officers to be moved towards and i quote um be further resolved that the general fund dollars freed up by reducing the number of uniformed officers shall be used to reduce the demand for police services through a variety of social services as well as social justice racial justice and economic justice justice initiatives and for eight months we've kind of been on trying to figure out what those alternatives are how are we going to reduce demand um the divestment does not work if there's no reinvestment and i was told to wait six months to get an update the answer i got last month was that there would be 20 544 dollars available for alternatives in this fiscal year um i don't think that at this point we should be moving to increase the cap i think we should be moving to fund the alternatives um the decision to move from three a.m to seven a.m is a reduction i mean it is a decision and it's a decision that the leadership at bpd made based on what when they have the fewest calls it certainly sounds scary to not have um to eliminate some police services or to eliminate some police in the wee hours of the night but it's a database decision the odd thing to do to me is to make an announcement saying that you'll be reducing police shifts and expect trying to expect crime to go up because of it i would find it strange if the lou took out advertisements saying reduce security from three a.m to seven a.m every night and would take an average of nine minutes instead of five minutes to respond to break-ins but in politics our police and administration are doing that and has decided to come to us with the solution and so i'm proposing the same thing i proposed last time which is to move this out um i did try to compromise on this um i was ready to go against my instincts try to do that compromise is the only woman who identifies as a person of color in this council i unsurprisingly again had to do the like work of that compromise i do have to say huge thank you to democratic counselor karen paul for working through this with me unsurprisingly as another woman i appreciate her efforts at compromise it didn't happen it fell through and so i think i think i think my efforts that compromise fell through um and this is an effort to get to where we can compromise on which is the cso's and the cs bells i think we have a lot of disagreement on the path forward with public safety and how this relates to the number of traditional armed police officers but i think we owe it to the community to move forward on what we can deliver and what we do agree on which is this part specifically i do not personally believe that we have to raise the officer cap to 74 um i also don't think we're in a crisis we had 91 officers before now we have 81 this resolution originally said that the target should be 78 i still believe the target should be 74 um and if it should be between 78 and 74 i don't understand why we're in a crisis at 71 but i think more importantly we need to start looking for the alternatives i know that our systems have a habit of underfunding racial justice gender justice economic justice initiatives and then um calling and using the lack of resources that they give um as a race as a reason to call it a failure over and over again in institution after institution and then give up on the whole effort i understand that there is not clear compelling evidence that more officers on the street means less crime and at the same time there's clear and compelling evidence that proactive policing means more racial and economic disparities and so i am excited about this resolution and what it does to move us forward on the alternatives which i think is long overdue eight months overdue um but i cannot support raising the cap at the same time this resolution would give immediately for um for ununarmed officers to the burlington police department and up to 10 in the next few months which if you do the math with me gets gets us to 84 um officers not sworn officers but 84 officers and i am supportive of that okay thank you councillor hightower um anyone else looking to speak on the amendment oh councillor jang yep so i don't know if it is specifically about the amendment but about a point that um councillor hightower just made and i don't know if i understand uh that question clearly can i ask that question can i uh i don't well let me hear what it is i guess so basically in her um statement just right here she stated that when the council reduced the number of officers through attrition to 74 right there therefore there may have been maybe 17 police officers whose fund was supposed to be diverted to social services and it seems that i'm hearing she's saying the administration um um related to her that actually only 29 000 dollars is available did i get that right or no that's a question for councillor hightower i councillor hightower did you want to did you want to respond to that yeah so um because the but so that the intent of the resolution was to divert those funds to alternatives and start to reduce the demand for police services um we however had one million dollars in the budget that was already um allocated to attrition um and then we have a further 330 000 dollars that somehow seem immune to that resolution and are being repurposed as over time within the burlington police department which i think i do not think that it was the intent of the council when we created this proposal to just have fewer officers on patrol who are increasingly up for work but that's i think the the outcome that we are at today yeah man so basically what i just asked you saying that's true you've been asking okay and it's a true that's all i needed to understand thank you okay all right next side of mayor weinberger thank you i mean this is a point i appreciate the opportunity to speak to this and again this we have talked about this numerous times in the past as the full council but there's ongoing confusion about it and i would like to try to address this once and for all we were very clear about this before the racial justice resolution was passed and certainly there was extensive conversation about it before and they'll lead up through the budget passage in the work sessions and there was written communications with many counselors the reduction of the officer cap alone does nothing to save money because the reduction of the officer cap does not drive the assignments that police officers are assigned to and the contract that we have in place and the minimum staffing commitments that we have in place the that's one key point secondly we had already before the discussions of a reduction in the number of officers began our first drafts of the budget because of covid included 1.1 million dollars of cuts in staffing costs and attrition savings is what was labeled the idea being we were going to leave a substantial number of vacancies open and not be filled and that was already baked into the budget before discussions began of the racial justice resolution that is triple almost four times the normal amount of attrition that we budget i believe i think we normally have budgeted around 300 000 dollars in attrition savings this time was 1.1 million so this was clearly communicated and explained that the reduction of the cap was not going to result in we in likely in any new savings because we had already booked the savings that could be expected from attrition and because there would be a need because we were not the council gave no direction the council didn't say stop responding to noise calls stop don't staff stop uh you know don't have a domestic violence specialist anymore uh the council didn't direct didn't weigh in and take the time frankly to um figure out where we would cut back on public safety services that burlingtonians expect and we have not so we didn't think we certainly didn't we had not cut those back we have attempted to continue doing everything the people of burlington have come to expect to do that with less officers requires more overtime as i think would be i think people understand it's not some mysterious relationship between the two it is it is necessary if you have less officers the same number that was those people need to work more uh in order to complete the same number of duties or approximating the same number of duties so that created a problem um and we addressed that problem in the budget that since there was going to be no savings from the racial justice resolution we needed to find a way to make progress on racial justice and police transformation nonetheless that is why the budget that i came to you with had a million dollars in it for we used essentially reserves a million dollars for racial justice and 250 000 for police transformation and they're in within this budget year there is no tension between wanting to fund and move forward with racial justice and the need to cut police i actually think that um we should think about that this is an aside for future budget years i think if we set it up so that the only way we can fund racial justice is by cutting the police budget i think that is a recipe for ongoing conflict and disagreement and uh fights over this and it it unnecessarily pits these two things against each other unless you are from the perspective that less policing equals racial justice which i know some people are um if but i don't but i think many people um don't don't see it that way certainly i don't see it that way i actually think below a certain point cutting from the police budget uh actually can worsen some of our racial justice goals so i would say going forward i would recommend that we seek to avoid putting these these two important values uh and initiatives in intention with each other that's what the budget you are working under this year does and we will attempt to submit if i get the opportunity to continue to submit these budgets that's what i'll attempt to do going forward so i hope that is clarifying uh in terms of the count important question the counselor jang is asking here um finally again i the the amendment that is now before you for action is premised on the idea that job descriptions have not been submitted to you and need to go back for more further process slowing this down further i would respectfully request the council consider deleting those resolve clauses because you have had for two weeks the job descriptions they were part of chief mirad's memo uh chief of staff ridel has posted in the chat the link to to those sometimes you know staff we could have carried over all those items from last time maybe there was some confusion because they didn't get carried over again that's typically often how it happens they get published once they don't get republished when the item is continued the job descriptions are there they've been through the police commission i think we should get the final approvals tonight uh for those that would be a good outcome from tonight if there is a if there is an amendment that passes tonight okay thank you mayor weinberger i have um councillor tracy to be followed by councillors jang and paulino thank you very much councillor hanson i fully support this amendment because i think it really does the work that we need to be doing as a community to to transform public safety and to really realize the vision that was set forth earlier this summer and that vision was really predicated on the idea that we needed to fundamentally transform policing in our community that the efforts that had been made prior halting as they were as incomplete as they were as insufficient as they were were quite honestly and wholly inadequate to address the systemic racism that we see in our community and specifically within public safety that the key piece of that was the element around cutting the officers down to 74 and then and then creating these additional positions um over time in order to properly resource uh key community needs and i believe that by properly uh that by building out these positions we will be able to address those needs within our community whether it's dealing with substance use disorder issues or the vast majority of calls those type one calls that have to do with things like noise noise complaints like sometimes with traffic direction or other issues like certain types of crashes we have an opportunity here to properly resource those positions while also holding true to the vision that was set forth in that resolution and it's important to revisit that resolution a resolution that was supported by nine counselors on this on this board and that was signed by the mayor on on july 13th that resolution recognized the the deep roots that american policing had that that american policing has in the slave trade and specifically the the fugitive slave act and how that has carried forward till today till today when we have a system where people are are still disproportionately stopped because of the color of their skin where people are disproportionately used against have force used against them because of of that where we we see these disparities we have not adequately addressed them and we're in a position now i believe where we need to fundamentally transform public safety where we need to lean into these efforts and where we need to really make sure that we're making real a real effort to implement change in in service of racial justice and in line with what the what we know will bring up will bring about a better racial justice outcomes that will at least specifically prevent harm and i say prevent harm because we see again record levels of use of force against people of color but we don't see an oversight model and that's i think a key element of this is that i'm certainly opposed to to bringing back staffing levels when we have an oversight model that was just vetoed and no real account no meaningful accountability mechanism to deal with the harms that that we've seen spread out across our community i think the other piece that i that i'll also speak to is that we also see um we also just after this item we have an item specifically geared towards uh doing that that full-throated analysis or i should say a full bore analysis of what it is that uh that the that bpds operations involved so i think that for those reasons it makes sense i also think that it makes sense because we have seen a decline in in in call volume overall with the 36 percent decline from 2016 and even if you take out 2020 we see them calls it remaining down 23 percent so i guess i'm just not seeing the the rationale for for increasing officers before we've tried out these other these other positions and given them a real honest chance of of of addressing the needs of our community the social needs but then also these other functional needs that we've identified within within the the the the the resolution so i fully support this amendment because i think it brings us into line with something that we that we all can agree with which is that we need to to to that these csls and cso positions make sense and then that we continue to to look at and have this this meaningful and important conversation around bpd staffing specifically sworn or armed officer positions but that we make sure that we're doing so in an intentional way with regards to this this analysis as well as oversight issues that are i believe fundamental to realizing a more comprehensive vision of racial justice okay thank you councillor tracy i have councillors jang paulino and carpenter in the queue councillor jang i see pine and mason after councillor jang you're you're muted thank you acting president what i wanted to say will not be relevant to the uh to the amendment here but i think um real effort in in bringing change just make me think of this concept about doing things right and also doing the right things and doing the things right i think we we we we as a body we are here now crumbling with the question and i think whenever i say we made a mistake this is exactly what i was saying you know and i think in front of us we had an amendment that would prevent all of this but we did not we did not support it and it's unfortunate i'll i'll just pass i'll pass okay all right thank you councillor jang um councillor paulino thank you councillor hanson i just want to say this is the most important vote i'll take in the two years i served as a councillor um it's i have not had one person reach out to me say we need more cso's we need community service officer we need more community liaison i know some people have but here in the new north end not one person has emailed me and say you know what decrease the number of officers so that we can get more communities service officers and community liaison and the reason that is because this is a pilot program this is not even in effect as we just established there's a a vague description of the job and we're going to essentially agree right now to not even address the immediate issue that our constituents are asking us to act on regardless we may disagree with it but but i'm so frustrated that i cannot by the virtue of this amendment vote yes or no on the cap this whole resolution establishes a problem that by september 2021 it is likely there will be 38 38 officers for patrol less than 38 and that is a problem and that people want a solution to that they've been we've been we delayed it they want us to vote yes or no on that and i'm so frustrated that i can't and i appreciate councillor hightower's efforts i have no doubt the amount of energy that she put into but my original point was we can still those that's work we do in committee we established the jobs we can do that with or without we don't have to gut a resolution in order to be able to do that work we don't have you know and that's why i'm so frustrated at this you know max makes great points but again we we're still have a problem that we may disagree on how to tackle it but we don't have the the the way to deliver the problem at hand for the next nine months until we get back the assessment and that's what constituents want us to answer and so i ask i think i'm just asking councillors who are on the fence who have some reservations to really think about the problem that our constituents are asking us to deal with which is just a temporary problem and whether with this amendment we're adding to that problem we're providing any level of clarity or we're just kind of passing the buck and i think it's pretty clear thank you councillor hightower's okay thank you councillor paul you know i have councillor carpenter pine mason and strongberg in the queue um councillor carpenter um comment and a little clarification as um i read the current amendment on the floor it it does remove the paragraphs related to um the cap of the officers um as well as authorizing um the community service officers or at least it rewrites it if that amendment fails we are back to the original amendment or the original motion which at the minute sets um a staffing level of 78 and a cap of 84 there have some people including the police commission advise 82 would be better and it still retains the um four community service officers up up to 10 and i so this is more to councillor tracy's point in either version i hope we are voting for the community service officers which i think we all agree we want um councillor hightower has some subsequent um amendments um related to how that would be carried out which we can talk but i i guess i'm saying if this amendment fails we still and need to have the opportunity to approve um the community service officers with four up to up to 10 if i'm misunderstanding it please tell me but that's what i'm i'm reading and then there is of course the open ended question on the cap which could be changed by another amendment we've not seen am i understanding that accurately were you looking for an immediate reply councillor hightower i guess you want to give a quick reply yes so if this if if the amendment were to pass it would keep the cso's the same intact and the csl's it would just change some things about how it's done but it would keep the number intact if it fails the underlying resolution would also then still have the cso's and the csl's okay okay great thank you councillor carpenter um i have councillors pine mason and stromburg councillor pine thank you acting president hanson um i think that the biggest challenge that i believe we're facing tonight and throughout this conversation is we're really trying to create an entirely new approach to public safety and i think that's where we're we're struggling because we're not we don't have like a lot of muscle memory here we haven't done this we're trying to build a new emergency response model that doesn't revolve around police showing up for situations that involve mental health crises substance use disorders and other disturbing behaviors that don't present an imminent threat to public safety so i think we have to look around and ask are we alone are we the only ones doing this and it's clear that there are dozens and dozens of other communities not in vermont necessarily but across the country large and small that are really doing this incredibly hard job hard work about reinventing public safety and and i found a really interesting story that i just want to share because i did a little bit of research recently and in eugene origan a bunch of activists back in the 60s they formed something called the white bird clinic because they really felt that rather than rely on the police for for these types of incidents in the community that we need to gather medics and social workers and you know people who could really address the needs in a different way and so they put together this incredible clinic and fast forward about 20 years into the into the 80s and they decided that they would actually pilot something with the local police force that they ended up calling cahoots and it stood for crisis assistance helping out in the streets now 30 years later there's a mobile crisis response team many teams in eugene that really kind of an odd marriage of police resources and kind of this counter cultural group that they're really focused on creating new successes that are built on the idea of of a caring community of a community that actually finds a new way to address these issues and so now there's cities all over the country that are asking eugene for their blueprint for how do you do this how do you actually create this system and so what they did is they they essentially created a new dispatch program within their existing communication center and they have a non-emergency number they provide unique response to nonviolent situations and in mostly 12 hour shifts made up of a medic and a crisis social worker they respond to urgent medical or psychological crises that come up in the community that in burlington right now we depend on our law enforcement to handle and i actually think it's incredibly burdensome on our law enforcement to expect them to handle people suffering with addiction people suffering with disorientation with mental health emergencies and sometimes houseless folks who are really in danger of of harm or perhaps inflicting harm on someone else so i think they came up with a much better approach and between the two cities that it serves the cahoots program handles about 24 000 calls a year incredibly positive response and better outcomes for the individuals and for their community at large and i i did hear during one of the maryl debates that it was suggested that we're really you know kind of alone in this and we're not you know we're not in good company or there aren't many other cities that are doing this but i did a quick quick research and there's there's actually quite a few communities that are engaged in this issue so you know real quickly austin texas denver colorado aurora colorado memphis tennessee los angeles san antonio minneapolis and in many cases what they're attempting to do is actually reduce the number of law enforcement officers and in fact create a new core a new sort of civilian core a partnership that brings together the service providers in a way that really provides the support and and sort of redefining and reimagining our public safety approach that's what we're trying to do here i don't think anyone on this council set us set out to let's let's reduce the police force so we can make burlington less safe and i actually don't know that i think we've done ourselves a disservice to get really mired down in this notion that a reduction in police officers is inherently going to be a less safe community i have this debate with friends i have friends who think that's true i have people who think we should go much further um but i think you're misconstruing things to say that we are somehow willing to put the public safety at risk i think that's a i think that's really unfair i think it's actually kind of lazy to call it a a riskier approach because i think the current approach is pretty risky we've seen the results we've seen the results so we're now spending a hundred thousand dollars of taxpayer money on a consultant who's going to give us an operational assessment and one of the goals of that assessment is to identify appropriate number of sworn officers based on our real needs and to identify what agencies could be providing services to citizens in lieu of asking police to respond to everything that comes up so i'd rather have us make an informed choice we have this report look at the data so far by the way the data that we have that counselor trace you referred to earlier doesn't show that crime is up it shows that it's actually down pretty significantly and honestly that time period that folks are most concerned about in the middle of the night the the call volume is incredibly low the call volume is actually averages between zero zero and one call during that four-hour time window so i think the notion that we're creating this really dark dark dangerous place that folks are going to be at risk i think that's a real disservice i think that's really unfortunate that that has been the narrative that has emerged in this conversation so that you're either you're for safety or you're against safety and i kind of reject that that binary situation that has been created i hope that we can can do this assessment figure out what's best for burlington it's two months away this assessment is going to take place starting now and by sometime in april we're going to have a pretty decent assessment meanwhile we're making an investment in the community support officers and the community service liaisons to help us build this more caring or compassionate approach to dealing with public safety i think it's a it's really uh that's what we're faced with so thank you very much thank you i have counselors mason stromberg and freeman and i see counselor carpenter i'm looking for a second second round so we'll assess at that point same thing with counselor high tower um counselor mason first i want to note it's 10 27 so i'll make a motion to suspend our rules to allow completion of 604 605 and 606 which is the remainder of our deliberative agenda okay that motion's been made seconded by counselor stromberg um any discussion seeing none all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed okay seeing none that passes unanimously and we will complete the deliberative agenda um counselor mason you have the floor thank you yes thank you uh acting president hansen um as i'm listening to counselor pine i it's interesting i i could almost give the same speech but potentially draw different conclusions um what i'm struggling with is you know we have a report and a plan in front of us presented by the experts the chief of police um supported by the director of police transformation the plan has been vetted by the police commission with whom we have entrusted really to deal with operational matters um and their recommendation maybe didn't come back at 84 but came back at 82 um and yet we seem to be or certain members of this body seems to be substituting their judgment for those um who actually we've we've been trusted with operational control and and that's really the piece that i'm struggling with i i'm not hearing you know and and i agree with uh counselor pine that we've somewhat put in many ways the carp before the horse we've asked for a study i've said this repeatedly but it hasn't been started much less completed or discussed um the plan that was put forth was intended to be temporary until such time as that plan came forward and my belief you know based on the projected retirement numbers is that if the right number is 74 it's we're not going to have an issue hitting 74 um but to not you know start the process of hiring to fill those public safety holes that have been identified and that people are reaching out to all of us saying you know please do not allow this to continue i think it's irresponsible for us to simply say the chief is wrong these aren't real problems he should be able to move people around so you know that we do have coverage 24 seven they've tried that and they've come to us and said we cannot do that so i i disagree um you know that that moving forward with this cap that i felt you know i voted against and i thought was the wrong thing out of the gate i'm not suggesting at the end of the day that may not be the right decision but we've created this problem um and we've been afforded a lifeline to potentially solve it and i'm hopeful that this council will take it and move forward the best and i appreciate the concern that this is pitting you know public safety against um potentially achievement of the racial justice goals but i don't think it has to be that way and i got an email that i'm going to read from a constituent that says it better than i think any of us did dear members of the council i'm a resident of the old north end and i strongly support police reform i also strongly support the hiring of enough qualified police officers to adequately fill all shifts around the clock i do not believe it is morally sound to deprive vulnerable citizens of a resource to call on in times of need nor do i believe it is ethical to deplete and exhaust the team of community members whom we entrust with our grave is concerns safety and welfare i think it's absolutely necessary to review and improve police protocol to safeguard against corruption injustice and behavior that can engender both citizens and police simply removing resources from the bpd is not an effective means to that end burlington deserves deserves a holistic approach that fully considers the needs of all residents no one should ever have to be asked to sacrifice their safety or security on the on the path the responsible police reform i think that constituent stated better than i ever could thank you thank you councillor mason i have councillor stromberg and freeman next councillor so much um can you hear me okay my uh computer's weird okay um so i don't know how eloquent this is but to be i guess as transparent and candid as humanly possible which has always been my goal um i fully support this amendment um these amendments i i think councillor high tower laid it out really well and councillor tracy and councillor pine like you guys really i can't say it better than you did but i do want to add a few observations um i've had more constituents from all wards across the city um email me text me call me um about keeping the cap at the same level that it is the racial justice resolution and um so i've had more people contact me in support of that than raising it yes i hear you the folks to who wrote me and said that we want to raise the cap i hear you loud and clear um but i've had more individuals by far reach out in support of lowering it or keeping it as is um in terms of the resolution whatever our goal a little bit rather through attrition um so that's one thing i just want to that's simple and i just want to put that out there um i've also noticed that you know bpd i've never seen a bpd and the unions be so active as they are lately um regarding this topic and it it feels and i've heard from members of our community especially by pock community members say you know it's it's like you only hear from them when there's kind of this like undermining effort to to undo this this work that has been done for for months and months i mean this pain and emotional um real pull that this has been for for folks um so that's another thing i just want to put out there but my main point here is that you know one of the speakers during public forum actually said it really perfectly and it was again simple it was that hearing by pock community members and specifically pointed toward by pock them hearing them speak is a gift and i obviously i couldn't agree more um one thing i do want to point out and most of us if not all of us heard amanda gorman speak during the inauguration early january of course and even last night if you got the super bowl and my purpose in bringing amanda gorman up in this discussion is that following her um speech and her poem um i saw post after post after post of love and admiration and and a captivation of her words on social media i mean people were wild about her or are wild about her and i saw a lot of white folks myself included posting things about her in a very positive light um you know embracing the sentiments and i think that it's a perfect example of people embracing um especially this young black activist who put so much on the line there in that moment i mean that's it was huge is you know just 22 years old um she happens to say a lot of things people liked especially around unity and healing after such a heinous political mess of the you know federal level for four years um and i i noticed that we embrace people especially by pock people when they are saying things um that that we like and um when when people get on these public forums and are pleading with the council for just basic safety um you know they just feel unheard and on like just so you know forgotten in in society and and left behind and truly just not embraced and it's like you know it's like when bipoc folks are saying things that you know our traditional systems of oppression are not in favor of hearing um then the the embracement goes away and the the the the posts of love and admiration are not there when especially they need it the most and i know that these are two very different things but to me it was just like such a hypocritical moment of um realization of where we are in society and how far we have to go um so you know there's so much beauty out there and i there's so much potential and we have to get there we owe that to our community so those are kind of my maybe less eloquent words but those are my thoughts on this and i'm very supportive of the amendment brought forward thank you thank you councillor stromberg um i have councillor freeman and then i have councillor carpenter and high tower looking to get in on second second round comments um but councillor freeman go out um i was going to move to um amend something but i think someone else was planning to make a different amendment similar so i don't um i will i'll just skip for now because that's what i was prepared to say um but i think someone else is planning to address it so you're passing for now yeah i we're getting close to the end of the debate so i might just want to circle back um before we vote okay um sorry it was simultaneous okay um so is there anyone else on first round before we enter into second round of of comments for carpenter and high tower okay great seeing none so we should be moving closer to a vote then so councillor carpenter go ahead um thanks a couple different comments first i want to just have us look back at the racial justice resolution which i was very proud to sponsor part of it did um place a cap um which with a minimal of information part of it asked for a functional assessment which we're just tonight hopefully approving the other big part of it i think we're some of the items that councillor pine talked about about transformation and one of the speakers tonight said we needed to be true to the racial justice resolution and i don't think we've been true we have not done enough of that work that's the work we need to do now the proposed um resolution even if it's amended later the community service officers and the community service liaisons are in a room so beginning that process as is approving the rfb contract tonight so that's the work we need to start the fact that we're behind schedule is unfortunate but we are um and the fact that we in this this is an interim plan that we're being proposed asks to add essentially four more officers i don't is not not being true i think it gets us from here to there i mean we don't have plans in place i'm old enough in my early social work years to remember what all the work happened with the institutionalization great idea we advocated it and we didn't have plans in place and it didn't work so well so for me the goal is let's get that planning in place and not be so focused and let's get our our um average cap which we never discussed in july or june the difference between functional and effective and and all of that we're getting i believe so hung up on that piece and not really focusing on the fact that tonight we need to approve the community service officers we need to have the community service liaison we need the money to do that piece of work and get that work started and the mere fact that we need more officers in this interim period until the assessment comes back and we vet it out shouldn't be the driver i think it's getting the other work done that's really really critical thank you councillor carpenter i've councillor hightower and you're muted thanks that's helpful the only thing on the job description i just i didn't mean that to be a block the csl job description is a paragraph it's 116 words it says as much about what it's not as what it is i've written well over a dozen job descriptions um kind of in my own professional life for all kinds of different roles and i just i i think it's a little bit of a blank check i would like us to put more parameters around that i don't think it's crazy to say that we want some part of our body to do do do just around that before we just say yes so that was my only intent with that what we have i don't consider job description i think it's the start of one it's a good it's a good building block um i don't i guess i don't want to go too far into other stuffs and to other things folks from my ward who are writing me are either saying don't raise the cap or they're saying raise the cap so we can have 24 seven coverage and look into alternatives and training i think it's very easy to go back to like to go back to what you had that is the easy thing to do um so i think if that is the thing that we need to do we will do it um and i won't make myself popular in my ward by saying this but it's like i don't care if we go i've told the mayor weeks ago that i'd be fine going to 78 which did not end well but i told him that i've worked with counselor um paul and told her that i'd be fine with 79 but all of that i think is a little bit secondary because that's not what we need to hold ourselves to we need to hold ourselves to doing the transformation work which we have not done and so i think getting the transformation right making sure that that's funded that that is covered to me is step one because we are very quick to say oh um to call 10 officers leaving a crisis offer 30k in alternatives and do the attempt to transformation eight months later we say oh that didn't work let's let's go halfway back to how it was and i guarantee in eight months if we don't do the hard work we'll say oh let's just fully go back to the way it was not we missed the boat on transformation and so i guess i'm asking us tonight to prioritize transformation i agree we shouldn't be pitting racial justice and policing against each other to me this resolution isn't about racial justice i notice for others it's not for me it is about alternatives to policing and alternatives to policing to me should be funded by reductions in policing racial justice should be separate our racial justice fund is separate has not been fully allocated not even by half but it's separate this is about alternatives to policing and right now we're under resourcing both of them alternatives and racial justice so this is my plea to ask us to work on alternatives and transformation great thank you i have councillor shannon and then councillor paul and then councillor freeman after that councillor shannon thank you acting president hanson um i wanted to go through um i think we understand kind of what is being proposed but i haven't heard why it's being proposed so the first um the and also correct me if i'm wrong about what is being proposed but the first thing that i believe is stricken is um line in line 16 and 17 i think the words that are stricken are and two more are expected to leave shortly which will bring the effective number to 77 um talking about swarm swarm personnel why is that being stricken and is that is that correct that's what's being stricken there and why if the maker of the motion um if you would allow a response acting president hanson um councillor high tower would you like to respond to that um sorry i heard the first part is it about striking lines can you repeat the question yes it's just um i'm just going through this to understand why these why you proposed what you're proposing so my understanding is what's being stricken is and two more are expected to leave shortly which will bring the number to 77 and you've asked for that to be stricken and i wondered why oh yeah because it's conjecture i generally tried to remove some of that conjecture that was not factual but conjecture okay so then going to at the current level of 79 swarm personnel there are only 41 sworn officers available for patrol resulting in a need to reduce coverage i believe that was stricken councillor high tower did you want to speak to that i can so the it just i couldn't get the numbers to add up so it's just easier to one we have at least according to another part of that resolution it says that we have 81 so 79 if it's 79 then it should say effective and then 79 if you look at the proceeding paragraphs it should be minus eight minus five minus 13 which got me to 53 not 41 so it was just i couldn't quite make the numbers work so okay um when i'm done i'd like to go back to that one and get get a response from chief mirad to see it just what he has to say about that then um the next one whereas one sworn officer may depart for a long-term military deployment and in the next six months two sworn officers are known to be actively exploring other job options and one sworn officer is on extended planned fmla leave and whereas 11 sworn officers are currently eligible for or will be eligible for retirement by september 2021 so that if all left the total sworn officers would be reduced to 59 with only 28 officers available for patrol um so i assume that that is eliminated because that is conjecture that's consistent with the other okay um whereas then 36 or fewer officers are available for patrol which is likely later this spring the department will no longer be able to deploy full overnight coverage and that has been stricken because that's conjecture so um then the cap then there are um from there we move to the whereas clause is the action items and the change is to remove the change of the cap which is so that's just stricken we're not changing with this amendment we would not be changing the cap and then the job descriptions um we would delegate the responsibility for approving the job description for a bpd based community support liaison to the public safety committee and but the job so that job description has already been approved by the um police commission is that correct and we're being asked to approve we were being asked to approve the job descriptions right um who is that who was that direct um who were you directing that question to i'm happy if anybody wants to answer the question um there's been some discussion about who has approved the job description i thought it had already been approved by the police commission um councillor hightower just spoke to that and so my understanding is you're dissatisfied with the job description um so i see chief mirad and councillor hightower both trying to get in councillor shannon who did you want to hear from i would be happy to hear from both of them in whatever order you choose okay all right i saw chief mirad chief mirad first if you want to speak thank you very much uh mr president um i just wanted to clarify that the police commission saw the job descriptions because they got the same memo that you did but those job descriptions were not presented to them when we presented the plan to them we just presented the continuity plan the job description for the cso was presented to them because that's the extent current job description for the cso it's the one we use we don't anticipate needing to change it until we have a better idea of what they may or may not be able to do and it's about 770 words the csl po