We're going to get the meeting underway. Good evening. Today is Monday, November 6, 2023. Thank you for joining us both in person in Contoy's Auditorium and online for the Burlington City Council meeting. The time is 5.37. We'll begin our evening with item 1.1, which is a motion to adopt the agenda. Councillor Traverson, if you could just read the amendments. Sure. I move to adopt the agenda with the following amendments. Add to the consent agenda item 7.14, Communication, Zac, Rhys, Smole. Add to the consent agenda item 7.15, Communication, Sharon Busher, Ward 1, Resident. Re-MOU with UVM. Add to the consent agenda item 7.16, Communication, Crystal B, Refunding for Stores, Impacted by Crime. 7.17, Communication, Sharon Busher, Ward 1, Resident. Re-Gateway Block, 7.18, Communication, Oiso Makuku, CEO, Main Street Landing, Re-BTV City Council, Letter 11623.  Thank you, Councillor Travers. Is there a second to that motion? I can always count on Councillor Bergman to second that motion. Thank you so much. Is there any discussion on that motion? Seeing none, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of the motion is presented by Councillor Travers. Please say aye. Aye. Any opposed, please say no. That motion passes. And I'll note that we have Councillor Grant joining us by Zoom. The next item on our agenda is 2.1, which is a communication regarding the UVM-MOU and Main Street, Great Streets Project. As these items relate to contract negotiations, this agenda item contains an expected executive session. Before we go to a motion regarding the executive session, it's our practice to go to the administration. If there's any update that you can provide us and the community an open session, the floor is yours. Thank you, President Paul. With respect to the UVM-MOU, really the only update there is that the negotiations that have been talked about publicly in the past and that we've had executive session discussions on have continued and we are making progress and we are looking forward to discussing the state of that potential agreement with you in executive session tonight. I don't think there's anything further that can be said at this point in public about that, but we hope to have a full public update soon and certainly there will be a full public update before the Council is asked to take any action on this and no action is being requested tonight. With respect to the Great Streets Main Street project, it has been that sometime since we talked to the Council about this project that in some ways been working on for the better part of a decade, there has been a lot of conversation out in the community and that the DPW team and the team working on this has been engaged for many months in discussions with properties that businesses, residents, property owners that about the six blocks of the project and we have been where we are in this project now is we have gone out to bid for the improvements and we want to discuss those bids with the Council in executive session tonight, but before that I think it would actually be helpful for executive session discussion as well as helpful to the public for our DPW Director Chapin Spencer and Senior Engineer Laura Wheelock to give a quick update on where the project stands right now. Good evening. Great, thank you very much. We'll make this quick because the Mayor hit all the key intro points. I'm going to turn it over so the engineer, Norm Baldwin, is also here to answer any questions for us tonight. Hello. So as the Mayor had noted the last time that we were in front of the Council with any sort of substance on the project was actually back in May of 2022 but also as noted the project has been around for a little while and sorry it's a little sensitive tonight. So the Main Street project as last discussed included going from Battery Street up to Union and revitalizing the streetscape in our Great Street Standard concept that was adopted by the Council in 2018. We have a very robust team both on our design side as well as within city departments that have supported us through this project and want to recognize the substantial effort both from our designers, our departments, and our community in helping us get to this point. Quickly the project was not just Main Street when we envisioned this back in 2016 it included a larger part of our downtown projects that we've already completed in our construction with City Hall Park in St. Paul Street was the last effort there. This project on Main Street really takes a substantial reallocation of our space to provide available areas for walking, biking, parking, and our transit modes. This project also revitalizes our underground infrastructure which is something that we haven't done on a previous Great Streets project really taking a holistic look at the street. This is a rendering that came from the 2016 effort it just highlights the available space, the beautification, the availability of underground areas for our trees to actually grow in a substantial way, treating of stormwater and other improvements. Just a plan view which is really hard to see in a presentation but available to look at later on. This is just a snapshot of the different times that we've been out in the public to bring forth this project all the way from the original vote that touched on the first two blocks of Main Street back in 2015 through the vote which is actually in the middle of the screen to highlight how long this has been happening in March of 2022 where the other additional blocks of Main Street were brought in all the way down to the first blue arrow where we are here tonight looking to talk about the construction and where we are on the timeline. We were starting this timeline back in 22 when we went for our last vote. We've been through substantial design outreach to the community and we are here today at the end of our design ready to start advancing our bids to construction. That's the contact information for us and if the public has any questions after tonight we are happy to answer them moving forward. Thanks. And again President Paul no action is anticipated on this item after the executive session although here too hopefully we'll be back for council action soon. Okay thank you thanks so much for the presentation so with that we'll go to motions for executive session Councillor Travers if you could make the motion the first motion to go into executive session please. Just point of clarification with respect to both executive session items is that correct? Yes. Okay I move to find that premature general public knowledge of contract negotiations between the city and the University of Vermont as well as contract negotiations related to the main street Great Streets project would clearly place the city at a substantial disadvantage because the city risks disclosing its negotiating strategy if discussing the proposed contract terms or negotiations in public. Thank you so thank you Councillor Travers is there a second to that motion seconded by Councillor Carpenter is there any discussion on that motion seeing none all those in favor of the motion please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed please say no that motion passes unanimously so based on that vote if you can move the second motion Councillor Travers. Based on the finding of substantial disadvantage I move that we enter into executive session to discuss contract negotiations pursuant to one VSA section 3131A. In addition to that we will note that the motion will include that the mayor staff planning director Megan Tuttle, CEDO director Brian Pine the city attorney Jared Pellerin and CAO Catherine Shad will be present for the UVM discussion the main street discussion will be again in addition to the mayor staff DPW director Chapin Spencer chief engineer Norm Baldwin senior public works engineer Laura Wheelock the city attorney the CAO as well as CEDO director Brian Pine and director of business and workforce development Cara Al-Nazwari with that we'll take a second second to that motion will be as Councillor Carpenter if is there any discussion on the motion seeing none we'll go to a vote all those in favor of the motion please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed please say no that motion passes unanimously so we will be in executive session and we are going to be moving downstairs to the busher room we will plan to be out of executive session at approximately 715 I believe it is and public forum will start at 730 thanks very much. President Paul I am not seeing you as a participant in the list. Okay you just showed up and I'm promoting you. Thank you Catherine. My apologies it just takes us a couple of seconds when we get back from executive session to setup zoom we are running a little bit behind so we're going to have to come back my apologies to the chair and vice chair of the DPW commission we'll have to come back because we have public forum at a time certain of 730 so it's now 736 we will start we'll start the public forum before we begin public forum I'd like to note that we have a process for public forum and I speak for the full council as we share a strong commitment to an orderly process and one that honors all voices and respectful discourse for those that are in con toys we have a timer system that's at the table in front of me it has three lights a green light will shine when you begin speaking a second light which is yellow will shine when you have 30 seconds left and then the last light is a red light and that will shine when your time is up please complete your sentence when the sound and the light indicate that your time is up so that everyone has the same amount of time and we can keep to the public keep the public public forum moving along if you're joining us online and there are a number of people that are joining us online and are in the queue to speak we have a timer set up that's on zoom we don't have a light system when your two minutes is up and the clock winds down to zero please complete your sentence so that we can move on to hearing from the next community member we have a hybrid system as you can see both in person and online for public forum if wish if you wish to speak in person and you're here with us in con toys there are forms in the right to my right in the back of the room please complete one and then bring to the clerk in the front of the room and if you complete please complete the form as as completely as possible that's helpful um as far as the those that are joining us online if you go to the following website it's burlington vt.gov forward slash city council one word forward slash public forum a form will come up if you complete the form um and press send uh those answers will come into a spreadsheet that I have in front of me and I can call on you in the order in which you submitted a form um it's been our practice that burlington residents have first priority we will go to burlington residents in con toys of which there are a number um who've submitted a form in person and then to burlington residents online who have completed the online form then back to con toys for non burlington residents and then we will finish up with online non burlington residents um again that are joining us by zoom um we don't have a large number of people who wish to speak during public forum um so it's it should go rather quickly uh during public forum the only thing that we ask is that you please use respectful language we'd like to remind everyone here this evening and online that there are families in burlington who watch our city council meetings as their connection to civic engagement parents use this forum to teach our city's children about city government and we expect that everyone who speaks refrains from using profanity when you are speaking please direct your comments to me please face me as the chair do not personalize any comments do not speak to anyone else at this table nor to the audience that is gathered this rule will be strictly enforced again we want to hear what you have to say and we will listen more intently if you speak respectfully with that we will go to the people that are joining us in person who wish to speak the first person is uh keegan laffordy to be followed by farine paris meyer good evening our table seems to be a little bit crooked but if you can fix that that would be great hi um my name is keegan laffordy um i'm here on behalf of big heavy world um it's a non-profit music organization in burlington vermont um where uh are focused on advocating for people involved in the music industry um making the vermont music seem more accessible inclusive and equal um we're currently working with a group of youth in the community to to develop a youth led and run cultural space um this would serve as a music venue and also just a safe space for youth and teens in general um and it would be very very impactful on the youth because it would serve as a place to engage the youth give them meaningful experiences um and keep them away from other dangerous alternatives like violence um drug use uh and so it's really important that we implement a place like this um and we need the support of the city council and the residents of the city in order to do so um thank you so much for allowing me to speak and that's all i have thank you great thank you so much our next speaker is farine paris meyer to be followed by steven whitaker good evening good evening council president um i'm here today with the following identities influencing my reflections uh here as a member of burlington here is a mother um and here is a black person and i wanted to shed light on the narrative of hussein muhammad who is one of our very own who is going through something absolutely tragic that i find myself being called here today to ask how can we show up for this child for those who may not be familiar with this situation unfortunately there was a tragic shooting involving three youths and an 18 year old in a car out near bristol and with the gun that was being passed around unfortunately hussein accidentally shot it off in the rare seat killing his friend who was sitting in the passenger seat and i'm here just deeply concerned as i am when i see anti-blackness and racism being at play but my question that is haunting me uh since knowing that one of family has to prepare bearing their child who has gone way too soon is the act that we are asking that this student this child be held in a judicial system um and being seen as an adult and i think there's a lot of historical things that are at play um whether we want to ask those courageous questions or not and why is that why is a 14 year old why is a black refugee immigrant child uh being held to this uh statue yet i see other things happening in media where we're omitting the names of the white youth that were in the car and we're not using their names and we're referring to them as the 18 year old or the alleged youth but yet this black child continues to be victimized and i know that my buzzer just went off but i guess i just need to name that i feel like it's our responsibility to take um charge here with black liberation i'm speaking in a room that has a burlington mayor i'm speaking thank you in this room that has two future mayor candidates into it and it will be on us if this child gets trialed as an adult because we're putting two children now in the coffin thank you thank you so much our next speaker is steven whitaker to be followed by karen seda good evening good evening um i want to remind you of the vermont constitution article 6 that you took an oath to uphold the office all officials uh elected or appointed are strictly accountable to the people now i have called your attention at prior meetings where i've been cut off respect goes both ways by the way uh where you cut people off to two minutes or even one minute at the last meeting when i'm bringing public safety emergency issues before you and you're not putting them on the agenda i've made three calls to you in october and you did not respond to one of them so we we have a problem here with the public records appeal to the head of the agency dated september 13th uh today at the meeting they quickly gave an undated response upholding the redactions of the deal with jack wallace and the burlington harbour marina violating his lease keeping people out of the bathrooms not policing the the plaza not emptying the trash leaving the needles and the rubbers etc you all don't seem to recognize that you're creating you're aggravating the emergency of the unhoused by shutting down all the bathrooms for the season removing the trash cans where the joggers and the dog walkers put their pet waste you're you're aggravating the despair of the unhoused the hopelessness and the addiction and you can deny it on the radio as you have both you and the mayor denied it on the radio that there's a clear nexus between the lack of dignity that you're demonstrating to these folks and the public health emergency that you want to put a band-aid over so open meeting law violation i have filed an open meeting law violation that requires a the council to meet in ten calendar days ten calendar days is tomorrow are you going to schedule an emergency meeting for tomorrow because you've not been made aware of this but the open meeting violation was sent to you and you this idea that you can just shut everybody down in two minutes and thank you you're above the law thank you so much thank you our next speaker is Karen cedar to be followed by toddlacroy i actually wrote down because when i speak with passion they don't understand so i decided to use our my harvard kennedy education and write something my time okay great i stand before you today not only as a concerned citizen but as someone whose life is in danger i'm a freedom fighter who has tirelessly fought against a mentality that exists in vermont a mentality that perpetuates the belief that black people are inferior to black white people this mindset is deeply rooted and persuasive throughout the entire state this too often when i assert myself my i'm sorry too often when i insert my equality as a black person backed by federal and state law i met with resistance pushback i'm interrupted silence and dismissed first by a transgender woman who was sitting there who uh failed to recognize the importance of my message and second by unfortunately you our future mayor madame president chair of this council this is a reflection of this ongoing struggle i face on the as i speak on the behalf of those who cannot speak up for themselves i'm here to make it clear to the people of burlington and those watching hope you got my good side that i refuse to stop i will continue to raise my voice i am relentless my willpower is out of control and i will not stop once again we have to see people as people it's human rights we're fighting for the right to live in our homes the right to afford our homes the right to be free obviously my time is going to be up but i wanted to say like rosa park i have been denied housing opportunities like nelson mendela i've been unjustly imprisoned however again i refuse to relent i am prepared to leave because i have to go to graduate school and get my law degree because we got to fight a legal battle first but i wanted to let people know that the battle the marathon still continues and even though i'm heading off to graduate school my heart is still in vermont and i'm constantly thinking of my people and i'm going to get more education to come back so if i sit in this chair real action will be done i rest my time thank you very much so our next speaker is todd lecroy to be followed by dav mar good evening the world is in trouble why is it in trouble it's in trouble because we have leaders who don't care leaders who are morally and spiritually bankrupt why do we have children who have lost their minds because we have leaders and parents who don't care and are morally and spiritually bankrupt why do people not care because they've been taught to not care they've been beaten down by leaders who don't care oh while they smile pretending like they got everything under control here we are a very very very divided country and we right now have a scenario where we have what appears to be a senile person in charge doesn't even know where he is half the time and everybody's acting like it's okay well david axelrod said something today you know and it's a really disturbing thing that uh people seem to want trump back that biden and the democrats leadership right now is so disastrous that trump is doing better in the polls why is that you ask you never ask yourself your culpability in causing these circumstances no you just crack down on people for talking about it you hate your children for talking about it you just treat us with dehumanizing behavior so that it makes it okay for all the horrible things that you all do to each other left and right progressive democrat republican you all made it okay to treat each other like crap thank you very much our next speaker our next speaker is david marr to be followed by lee morrigan hello david there we go sorry about that thank you yep if we're going to get a handle on this opioid crisis we're gonna have to use every tool in our tool chest but i've heard the police politicians and ordinary citizens say that we shouldn't arrest low low level drug dealers and drug users users because we want to show kindness and harm reduction yet time and time again i've heard from people who say they only got off drugs and turned their lives around after an encounter with the police i heard it in this auditorium a few weeks ago i've heard it in the news and i've heard it firsthand from friends and colleagues so i say we should arrest low level drug dealers and people who shoot up in public but we should show kindness by giving them a choice of dealing with the criminal justice system or entering rehab now you may say that we currently don't have enough beds available in rehab facilities but have an idea the linden state university campus is highly underutilized and has everything needed to create a world-class drug rehabilitation facility it has dorms a cafeteria classrooms athletic facilities and so on and students studying nursing social work psychology and other fields could serve as interns providing synergy between the university and the rehab center so let's demonstrate true kindness and use every tool in our tool chest including the power of arrest to help our neighbors with substance abuse disorder and get them the treatment they need thank you thank you very much our next speaker is lee morrigan to be followed by parker nickles my name is lee morrigan my pronouns are they them and i'm a resident of ward seven i'm here to talk tonight about the agenda item allocating the uh uh proposed 50 000 donation and then the matched arba funds i think that's great i when i saw how that funding is being sourced i thought that was really cool um the thing that gives me a little bit of pause is i'm i'm i would encourage you to really involve the downtown workers in the input of how these funds are allocated i know that in the proposal that i read it talks about that some of these funds are going to go towards uh downtown improvements for them i recently uh co-hosted a public safety panel for downtown workers and the thing that i heard over and over again from them is they feel a lot of them feel like they're kind of like yelling into the void and not getting a response back from city council um and i heard some ideas for uh solutions from these folks and they know what they need they got great ideas great ideas that could be really uh maximize the impact of of this money and so i would just encourage you folks to take their input um i would love to see um a public hearing uh that the downtown workers could come come to um yeah and i'm really excited for for these funds i think there's potential to do a lot of good here and i'm i'm glad that our downtown workers are uh being referred to in that proposal thanks thank you so our next last burlington speaker joining us in con toys is parker nickles hi good evening good evening uh thanks for having me it's my first time coming to one of these meetings and i just wanted to say i'll look at you but i'll thank you all who are here being public servants um i'm not so uh i don't begin to understand what you all have been doing but we've all seen what's going on so i don't need to try to tell you all that there's a problem out there um i was lucky enough to grow up with our mayor we uh used to shovel uh snow off of the niles pond down in woodstock and a little bit more of an idyllic time in the world but uh um i went to uvm and i'm back a couple years ago i'm now a business owner and resident of burlington and again i know that you all have been working tirelessly so thank you for that and i'm here just to offer a real simple uh suggestion and then maybe a question that somebody could follow up on it's just a a simple concept of some low-hanging fruit uh graffiti um and specifically i don't know if the city owns memorial auditorium or who owns the why but as a former house painter i know that we've kind of missed our opportunities the temperatures have dropped but you know something as simple as you know kind of taking back what we can take back we can't fix it all right now but if they're simple things like getting uh you know 50 or 100 gallons of paint and a a squad of people who can respectfully after we talk through uh the art of navigating uh graffiti and uh the ethics of painting over it but taking back some of those public spaces that are you know kind of that low hanging fruit that every time we go to either the food co-op or drive down main street and looking at some of our basic buildings that are covered in things that none of us would do because it's trespassing um that uh if there's a way that we can be thinking about some of the easy stuff because i know you all are working on the big thing so thanks for doing it thank you very much so we'll go to those people that are joining us online um and we'll get a timer up in just a second and i do see someone who has their hand up i will i will come to you after um there's only a couple of people that are in the queue but i will i will recognize you as soon as we get to those who have signed up uh the first person um who wish uh first person who wished to speak was uh david collie and david i've enabled your microphone you should be able to speak if you unmute on your side yes can you hear me now yes we can go ahead please good thank you thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak this evening um i'm a ward one resident and i live about a block from the trinity campus of uvm so i was pleased to know that you had on your agenda tonight consideration of an mou between uvm and the city and uh we certainly need uh these working agreements to to move forward i'm also pleased that in the past city council took appropriate action uh not to vote on zoning changes that were favorable to uvm unless it was connected to an agreement about dealing with the city's housing crisis and uh uvm role as contributor to the problem as well as uh to the solutions i'm speaking tonight to urge transparency on potential uvm and city mou's and also want to advocate for the potential uh for this agreement to contribute to mitigate the housing problem i hope that you the city council will schedule an open forum to discuss this topic so the public can be informed and contribute to the dialogue the process should be thoughtful and not rushed allowing time for discussion and public input for any before any city council decisions this is really important and particularly important for ward one residents so that's all i have to say thank you for your time this evening great thank you so much the next person in the queue is devin airs and devin i have found you and enabled your microphone you should be able to speak if you just unmute on your end okay i i wrote a really long statement i don't know that i have enough time to read the whole thing i want to let you know that i live on decatur street i'm here on behalf of i don't know 10 or 12 other households of people who also live on decatur street and um share the same concern um i just want to start decatur street is a really closely close knit neighborhood we're pretty easy going we get along really well we talk our stuff out and um i'm going to cut to the chase and not read from the statement i guess because i don't have time but we have a neighbor here who has been in mental health crisis they've been an absolute free fall for about the last year um in the beginning it was a lot of um just angry shouting and stories about sexual assault and calling people perverts and it escalated into property destruction um harassing neighbors going into neighbors yards yelling racist comments to people yelling transphobic comments to trans families um it's gotten really really bad we have nights when we do not sleep at all um we have tried everything we have been calling the Howard center we have been calling the police department we have been contacting their landlord Champlain housing trust we've begged for meetings with all of these institutions i've emails with Lacey i've emails with mike oler i have emails with you know um folks from Howard and we're we're not getting traction right nothing is happening and um i will tell you that it's terrifying um we're really worried that someone is going to be hurt or they are going to be hurt and we're not only we terrified for ourselves but we're terrified for our neighbor who has been in this free fall and cannot get help thank you thanks so much not enough time to talk to you guys about what is happening this this is where where do i take this this is not enough time there will there will be an opportunity for others to respond we will have an we'll have an we'll have an opportunity later in the uh later in the meeting agenda under uh when city counselors are able to respond and i'm i'm sure there will be a response just a point of information councillor paul yes um if uh a member of the public has something in writing would it be appropriate for them to send it to the city council at city council at burlington vt.gov i believe that this person actually has but i'm i'm i will double check okay thank you thank you uh so the next person in the queue is kelly divine and kelly i found you and enabled your microphone your you should be good to speak thank you council president paul i want to start by you know thanking the council for bringing forward uh as well as um car on the swaring for bringing forward proposal to invest a hundred thousand dollars in support of downtown businesses um we as people know we hear a lot and talking a lot about public safety and i know that it's affected all parts of the city but it definitely is having a big effect on our downtown um we have talked to a lot of local businesses to ask them about the impacts of the current public safety crisis and people are reporting that foot traffic is down um and that you know their sales are dropping over the period same time last year and specifically they talk about public safety concerns as relates to their employees and um people being um afraid to walk to or from their car people quitting jobs over um not feeling safe um so anyway i think it's important that this is addressed and i appreciate it um i would say that my one piece of feedback is that um it wasn't clear in the memo about the safety program for downtown workers and um i know that it's a top priority for us and for um those with businesses downtown and those who want to visit and come to downtown so we're asking that the council consider that at least half of the money be dedicated to a public safety program that hopefully we can have a seat at the table and work with with uh representatives from the administration or the city council to come up with a plan that's going to work we have done an ambassador program the past couple of years that um added a level of safety we're not sure if that's exactly what we'd need this year but um we feel like there's something that needs to be um put into place and if we create a program like that we can use some of the PR and marketing around it to tell that story and let the larger community know that burlington cares about public safety it's taking seriously the concerns and that it wants to make sure the community knows that burlington is a safe place to come and visit shop eat out visit hang out with your friends and neighbors thanks great thank you so much there will be amended language that will come forward when that agenda item comes to us kelly just so you know um so the next person in the queue is robin loyde and robin i did find you and have enabled your microphone should just be able to unmute on your side all right we can we can hear you go ahead oh wonderful okay well like um many of you um i am i am deeply anguished with what is happening in the middle east and the reason i'm bringing it up before you is that um that our mayor spoke out about this at a rally on october 15th um in support of israel um i was there i heard him and i think perhaps now it's time for him to speak out in support of a ceasefire i can't see you all i i assume he's there i'm not suggesting he speak out at this moment but that he issue a statement in support of a ceasefire not a humanitarian pause whatever that is but a real cessation of the bombing because the number of children killed and women and people is just so appalling and we're watching a genocide unfold before our eyes so please uh and mayor weinberger will you speak out and perhaps the city council can also issue a statement thank you thank you so much our next speaker is sharon busher and sharon i found you enabled your microphone you should be able to speak yes thank you good evening uh president paul um so i sent two communications this morning so i know that for the working people at the council you didn't have a chance to look at them so um one was on the mo u and uh councilor tracy um travis rather i don't know why is it tracy i'll read them into on the consented agenda but um one of the residents from ward one spoke about um the need for increased transparency regarding the mo u an opportunity for people to understand what is in the agreement an opportunity for us to speak and give feedback prior to not on the same day as uh not as the same meeting that the council will take action so that you can consider any feedback from the residents this is a priority for burlingtonians i know you all know that and so i feel like we are in this together we want this to be a good agreement that works for both the u u vm but mainly for the city and our housing crisis and our quality of life so thank you the second communication had to do with the gateway project and the bottom line is um there are a number of different um proposals included in this agree or this document that is about to be signed if you agree to do this um i feel like those proposals should come forward and let people see them and maybe garner support for them before you sign i've learned my lesson being on the council that even though it is not a binding agreement it still is an agreement and one signed it has ramifications so i'm hoping that you will not sign tonight and give the public a chance to give you feedback um thank you so much thank you very much uh so we have one person who i believe is a burlington resident who would raise their hand um under ron's ipad um so i've enabled your microphone if you wish to speak hi karen ron want to make her how are you i'm great okay good good good um i i raised it earlier i think there's been a lot of valid um a valid points brought tonight um hard i think i'm going to seed my time right now okay thank you very much uh so we have we have one last person who's joining us online um and that is uh peter duval not a burlington resident but just for simplicity's sake that's what we only have one so we'll go to you peter and then we'll come back into conjoys for our last speaker and public forum um i've enabled your microphone peter you should be able to speak thank you for the opportunity to comment tonight i'm peter duval i live in under hill green mountain power my distribution utility owns 31 percent of mcneil generating station i attended the mcneil joint owners committee meeting this afternoon and there was an error of grimness as the financial situation of the plant was read out it was clear from the discussion that after brief wartime profits mcneil is returning to its money losing ways with a net loss of over a million dollars so far in fiscal year 24 the city council will be able to find more details when the meeting packet is put online another interesting point in the meeting uh was when freewheeling promises made to push the bed vgs evergreen steam transmission line continued in order to hold fuel consumption and emissions flat at the plant while still supplying steam to the hospital the turbine would need to be turned down reducing electrical output by three to four megawatts at the meeting bed agreed to reduce its share of electrical production this is a major uh significant um point and should be very carefully looked at thank you very much thank you very much so that completes the people that have requested to speak online we have one more person in conchoice and that's joanne margaret brown good evening i will start my comment by saying that the people who are heard uh from offstage as it were are much more readily audible than uh i think i have been in the past um i am here um also with regard to the issue in the mid east um i think we all recognize the fact that the relationship there's a relationship between behavior and its consequences and that there are no consequences over there there will be no change in the behavior um from hamas and it has been a very vicious attack from hamas i would remind you however remind anyone who's listening to me that we are already at war with a major superpower with russia we are already financially overextended in that war over committed leaving us with the prospect of severe destabilization um i echo uh the comment from the speaker from the out um the speaker who is not here tonight um there's a very grave humanitarian concern over there uh if we use the if we were able to use um un coordinated economic sanctions instead of um uh military um retaliation it uh would mean a great deal we do not really there are many many people who do not want to see a bloodbath over there and if we were able to use broad based or protracted economic sanctions it it would be helpful us thank you so much thank you so with that and unless there's anyone else who wishes to speak who is present or online we will close the public forum at age 15 and move back to item number three with our thanks to all who participated in public forum thank you for your input uh item number three is the dpw commission report and for this item we have with us the chair and vice chair of the public works commission as well as director chape and Spencer um Peggy O'Neill Vivianca Vivianco Vivianco and Christopher Demiani okay i got one right um Peggy Christopher thank you so much for being here um we're happy to hear your comments and then we'll go to the council for any questions that we might have great hi um thank you so much for having us and thank you for your work uh we thought public works was um a hot seat um it's exciting really democracy is exciting um so the public works mission as many of you know is to steward burlington's public infrastructure and environment by delivering efficient effective um and equitable public service we're here to tell you that infrastructure is really exciting but we take it for granted right we don't it's like your socks in your underwear you don't think about it until your toe is poking through on your sock right um we don't think about our sidewalk until like our sidewalk is chunked up um a lot of the projects that our great public work staff bring before us um deal with um great streets um walk bike plan our water um our combined sewer service and so we're just going to give you a quick overview of some of the projects that um that we've worked on as a commission that the staff bring to us um a note that we do have um commissioners from most of the wards i think we're just missing ward seven um so anyone out in the new north end uh position open um but um we have recognized um as you probably have heard as as well um reduce police coverage um in our city has meant that staff has been working with more robust traffic calming and roadway safety improvements as a way to use infrastructure to create safer streets for all mobility users so just kind of one example of um of what we're what we're doing there um we um we went on a field trip to um waterworks which was a great opportunity for the commission to see the different systems that um the city was piloting um to deal with our wastewater treatment plan and we just had a report um from the water division about what plans they're going to move forward with um again an opportunity to see what was going on try to address a problem and have a comprehensive solution for wastewater um and then chris is going to talk a little bit more about plan btv hi everyone chris damiani uh ward three resident row street so with plan btv as you all know um it was adopted in 2017 as the city's comprehensive plan for walking biking and active mobility uh projects include the bikeway network development pedestrian improvements such as new sidewalks crosswalks intersection safety upgrades and overall policy changes every year the commission hears from city staff the walk bike council and local motion on the progress of implementation from recommendations from the report and provides feedback on how the city can move forward on the many projects outlined in that plan the commission heard that there have been a significant progress on the plan since 2017 unfortunately much of the low-hanging uh fruit projects have been completed and new sidewalks have been one of the areas of slow progress some highlights include about half of the projects identified in the plan though have been completed or partially completed um and as a commission we will discuss some critical projects that were um that the commission reviewed over the past year when the progress was uh discussed among commissioners um we emphasize the need to make data-driven decisions uh which we have seen the department provide an immense amount for many projects over the past year and also emphasize the need to dedicate resources towards maintenance of our existing walk bike infrastructure in addition the walk bike plan allows us to not start from scratch on corridors that were identified in the plan but instead we can use that as a foundation for the more difficult projects ahead one example where the walk bike plan was put into action this past year for the commission's overview was to discuss putting painted bike lanes where underutilized parking spaces were located on platzberg ave the commission voted to follow the short-term goals of the plan to implement uh the painted bike lanes on both sides after following the department's public engagement plan and going out and looking at relevant data such as parking counts another really big project that came before the commission uh that also was talked about on the white walk bike plan um was the implementation of the bike lane on north manuski ave from north union to riverside during the multiple meetings that the commission reviewed this item many competing demands for uses of the space were discussed such as ADA parking impacts the adjacent streets local businesses and social service organizations along the corridor as well as the need for bike and walk infrastructure during the process the commission relayed to staff the importance of regular communication with all users of the corridor and relied heavily on staff to do that as well as cross collaborate with other city departments such as the work that was done with the workforce development staff and outreach to private parking lot owners to find a helpful solution to those who need to travel the corridor via automobile all in all the commission voted in favor for the bike lane and it was implemented this past summer the commission will be cognizant to work with staff and continuing to monitor the effects and make any necessary recommendations that result from that another project um that you're familiar with um that has come through the commission um through several meetings and I know there will be more um is the great street main street project um this is something it's a gateway project um it fits under our you know kind of our guiding documents as um the walk bag master plan um the commission reviewed the overall proposal for the great street main streets um including recommendation for control multiple opportunities for public comment as well a comment from the the business sector um we take these comments um very seriously and engage with um staff on where are the points what would the outreach look like um whose voices need to be included in these processes um and have moved forward with um some ordinance changes for the upcoming project including as you probably know additional dates um for more um uh more feedback and updates from the staff so key to the engagement that um public works does um and in conjunction with um the council's passage of expanding youth representation on city boards uh the public works commission really has tried to figure out how best we can include youth voice and youth perspectives on the commission um we had a couple of students um high school students over the years attend a meeting or two um their real challenges um to have a student um be able to attend a meeting at um 6 30 at night um at public works um even remotely as we have found out not everyone has access to um adequate wi-fi um the bus doesn't always run to all neighborhoods at that at that time uh so we reached out to um Burlington high school to the Burlington city and lake program um and that program has each semester about 20 students that um are really a microcosm of our very diverse um high school where there are over 30 languages spoken um and we had um consultancies with the Burlington city and lake students to gather the students input on um uh main street great street um they came to um a water division meeting and um north manuski avenue and the um old north end mobility audit so we're using this really these relationships um to continue working with that youth in that in that way to add those voices into and incorporate them into our work and then chris has a a a poignant story about um that engagement so during the the great streets main streets work with dpw staff and commissioners we heard a lot of great dialogue from the high school students involved with the city and lakes program who provided this crucial piece of youth engagement many comments that we heard from students were in reflection of their time traversing the city's first uh great street uh the first street designed to great street standards uh which was st paul students were very vocal about what they like such as the wideness of the sidewalks and how it didn't feel cramped we also heard from students who saw the street as needing more engaging elements due to its wide nature and varying skylines the best example of how this session resulted in real change for the design of the main streets great streets uh was from cosmo who was a bhs student and regular rider of the bus system who utilizes the service for independent transportation and movement around the city it was great for commissioner o'neill vavanko commissioner hogan and myself to hear cosmo's comment after observing where great streets infrastructure meets a gmt bus stop at the corner of st paul and maple where a stormwater garden infrastructure was designed to help with the surrounding impervious surface cosmo raises the issue that this infrastructure combined with a majority a majority of passengers using the rear door of the bus to get on and off provided an obstacle for people navigating safely between the sidewalk on the bus i will disclose that my job is working for gmt as a transit planner so it was great feedback to hear wearing both hats in that situation when the design of main street was being discussed at the commission level and at the level between gmt and dpw staff this feedback led directly to finding a design solution that allows for transit passengers to board and alight safely at mark intersections and we are very thankful for cosmo bringing this to everyone's attention great that's all we have any questions great thank you so are there any questions from counselors or comments from counselors uh councilor carpenter just thank you you've got a very full plate and you're going to have a fuller plate so just thank you great thanks very much uh any other counselors who have any comments about the report um that's a sign that the report is extremely well done remember infrastructure is exciting thank you so much for being here we greatly appreciate and please extend to your your other the other members of the commission our appreciation and thanks have a good evening this brings us to item number five which is climate emergency reports are there any counselors or the administration who wishes to offer a climate emergency report uh council bergman yes um you know we're inundated by uh disaster news so we might have missed it um but apparently this week published uh maybe it was published today or published last week no i guess it was published last week um uh scientists have estimated that um by early 2029 if greenhouse gas continued to be emitted at the current rate the planet may be unable to remain below the threshold of 1.5 degrees um Celsius of global warming that is by 2029 uh six years and just to be clear with that carbon budget what it means is that the net amount of carbon dioxide that humans can still emit without exceeding 1.5 degrees will run out three years earlier than the previous expected expiration year of 2032 we are in deep trouble so as we um look forward to our debates on the carbon fee ordinance on the steam pipe project i hope that uh you will join me in being absolutely as ambitious as we possibly can going places and asking for things that we did not think was possible and may be hard but that we need to and i i let me end by saying i consistently talk about my babies and i think you know that i speak of two in particular but uh this is also about all the old people who uh are going to be stuck in about 10 years in cascading of disasters like the hurricane that occurred and hit a capulco with amazing speed and that hit france the other side of the world um the same way uh in time frames that we just had no ability to deal with so um thank you for listening to my disaster talk again but i think it's really essential for us to um to take this seriously and and and the pushing that needs to happen seriously particularly as we look at the the questions that are going to be coming before us in the next month thank you thank you councillor bergman uh mayor weinberger thanks president paul we had a um exciting uh announcement a week ago monday down at the mcneil um campus where we um with uh senator bernie sanders and the president uh president garamela of uvm and others announced the opening of what we are calling the uvm solar research and training facility at mcneil this is a relocation of a facility that was outside of bronyton and was losing a site here inside of bronyton that keeps um there uh it keeps um going in important innovations and experimentation happening uh at the university it's a combination of a multi-year partnership among the city of bronyton and mcneil joint owners along with uvm and on core renewable energy there is now a 50 kilowatt there's a solar array that generates 50 kilowatts of power built by on core what is um unusual and really interesting about the way they've done this is that this array which probably um involves several uh hundred yards of arrays and there are different types of solar panels um being tested uh amongst these arrays so there are some that are double-sided and get reflections off the uh earth as well as straight from the sun um there's different types of uh cells being tested and what this does is it goes beyond some of the general research that's out there and gives very specific vermont bronyton uh research research on how these panels perform in our climate so um the bd team is excited to become the the host of this facility for the next five years at least and uh we appreciate senator sanders being able to secure $150,000 of federal funds it's a great new partnership and i think a great example of the way in which we need a lot of innovation throughout the community to advance towards our our climate goals thanks president thank you very much uh mayor weinberger um if there are no other counselors with a climate emergency report then we'll move on to item number six which is the public health and safety emergency reports is there any counselor or the administration that offer wishes to offer a report um of public health and public safety uh mayor weinberger and then we'll go to counselor grand thank you um president paul um and i just uh lost my notes here um for a second thank you um so there were three updates i wanted to give um one is about the overdose response team this was uh approved in early october by the council um a proposal that came forward from chief the chance uh in response to the challenges he he and his crews are facing in the downtown response to public uh concern and the conversations that have we've been having at the community stat table for a long time the team was deployed on the 16th of october and so far in less than a month since that first deployment has made a total of 270 outreach contacts when they do these contacts they leave behind frequently bandage kits and Narcan kits and they make referrals to community partners including safe harbor the community health center howard center and uh referral store own uh bpd community service liaisons um they responded to six over days doses last week and have been averaging 20 to 30 medical calls per week total um this is a voluntary overtime detail as a council member but it's been very well uh subscribed to so far almost all the hours are being filled each week and the chief continues to put considerable personal attention into standing up this new new program um i want to just share with the council again in the public that we um our administration continues to be very focused about improvements to our treatment system and improving access to treatment we remain very concerned that the fentanyl crisis has uh eroded much of the functionality of the existing hub and spoke system and that we need to have that system evolve and change to this evolving crisis which is presenting very differently uh than just a few years ago um in particular we think there is a uh urgent and very strong need for expanded access to methadone treatment and we are working with the with partners to explore um and push for improved transit access to the one place in chitin county where methadone access is available out on sand remote drive as well as the possibility of a second dosing uh location um we're working hard on these initiatives and we'll have much more to share on this soon and then finally um i did want to share that the detail that many downtown stakeholders have been very supportive of of having two dedicated officers on church street for most of the week um is uh going to it was originally um supposed to expire at the end of august but this too is a voluntary detail but it is one that is being extended through the end of the year the individuals officers um have chosen that assignment um and that takes us to the point when we expect um six new officers to return from the academy in late december field training beginning and we'll be able to assess how we keep a strong uh strong presence a stronger presence even in the downtown beyond that point um i know this is a detail that many downtown stakeholders were concerned about and want to share that with you and the and the public president paul thank you thank you so much mayor weiber we'll go to council grant and then to council dory thank you um so what i'd like to talk about this evening are um just some questions that i've been asking related to the numerous complaints in the city about um cases um are they being brought are they not being brought uh processing time um with the state attorney's office etc um so i want to preface this by just giving a quick reminder that if you are a burlington resident visitor um definitely watch our city council meeting from october 10th as it had a lot of very important information talking to and trying to have an understanding of the data around the cases that um are being submitted is a little bit difficult because we can't break it out just by burlington because the court system as was mentioned in our last meeting isn't able to do that but we can say that for chitin and county there are just under 3000 active cases um and those numbers include 197 pending aggravated assault cases 53 pending assault and robbery cases 176 pending burglary cases 645 pending retail death cases um and 204 operation without owners consent aka car thefts so these cases there are cases so we have to think about um if a case can be made and sent to sarah george's office then that's the first part in order for her to uh proceed with it um her office to proceed with so we have a lot of misinformation in our community um if you haven't been contacted by the state's attorney's office if you if you're a victim of a crime then that means your case was not brought to that office so that is there's a lot of additional conversations in the city about how people feel um what is or is not happening with their uh individual situation so they can ask um and get more information uh the response time right now to incidents especially online incidents is extremely uh slow due to the backlog and they see it and part of the issue is if a incident because of the backlog isn't worked within a certain period of time then that individual who's involved in the incident a criminal a criminal act can be out there doing other things before a case reaches the state attorney's office that is hugely frustrating to people um there were some examples that were given to me and i need to to verify what i can and cannot uh share publicly but they were really just very interesting in terms of when something submitted online with photos descriptions um knowing who the individuals are because they were previously trespassed and then when the affidavits actually get to the office we're talking months uh so it doesn't make people feel better but hopefully having this information and making sure that we are correcting um disinformation in the community is really important because this type of messaging gets out to people who feel that they can commit crimes with impunity because it's given the impression that nothing is being done um and i understand that feeling i hear it all the time from residents and from businesses i would just say that if you have a specific question about an incident that you you filed and if it was actually um brought to the state attorney ask ask about the status and uh that is all i have hopefully um each meeting will be able to look at other types of data a little bit differently thank you thanks very much we'll go to councillor dory and then councillor mickey thanks president paul um we heard during uh the public comment um section of today's meeting from his divine of the burlington business association and she referred to an ongoing survey that that association is doing um i thought it would be worth a moment to provide some more of the details from that survey that i think have been shared with everyone on the city council um so this is from the the burlington business association um their members report that 80 percent over 80 percent of their members report that foot traffic is down this year compared to the same time last year over 50 percent report that their sales are down year over year half of their respondents have had staff quit in the past year citing public safety concerns and over half responded yes to the question are you considering closing or relocating your business to a location outside downtown burlington um these survey results uh are unfortunately consistent with what i have been hearing anecdotally uh and what i know the rest of the city council and the mayor's office have also been hearing uh anecdotally uh and mindful of councillor bergman's uh comment on uh there being a lot of disaster related uh reports um that can sometimes drown one another out um and and and attract from our sense of urgency i do want to make clear uh that you know i cite these statistics and i cite these survey results and bring them to everyone's attention not uh as a sort of portent of gloom and doom i have a business downtown uh i'm downtown almost every day um almost every day i walk downtown uh and we have a vibrant wonderful downtown full of amazing restaurants full of wonderful cultural opportunities music the arts a wonderful hospitality uh industry and wonderful retail shops uh full of our friends and neighbors who work incredibly hard every day having said that um call this a canary in the coal mine or a red flag or whatever analogy you want to use um these are important numbers to be hearing these are important signs uh to be paying attention to and i think it's absolutely essential that we maintain uh our sense of urgency here on the council to take whatever steps that are within our power um to support our local businesses to support our downtown to make improvements on restoring law and order uh and public safety and i think it's uh very very heartened to hear from the mayor that we're going to see increased police presence in the downtown corridor uh and and we just we have to continue to make these incremental improvements because we are at an absolute inflection point here downtown thank you so much councillor doryt we'll go to councillor mcgee thank you president paul um i just want to speak briefly uh related to the public comment that we've heard from devon airs uh regarding a neighbor experiencing uh a very serious mental health crisis over a long period of time and not receiving uh much if any response from the police department or from the howard center uh and i think this points to every conversation we've had about public safety over the past many months uh our systems of care are completely broken uh and it it points to the fact that we still don't have the cares team operational even after us making some progress to stand that team up uh earlier this year i would like us to hear an update on where that's at um and i i just hope that uh we don't lose sight of the fact that a lot of the suffering that we're seeing on our streets a lot of what is being attributed as making downtown feel unsafe uh is the result of our systems of care being so deeply broken and i do not want us to turn away from that and advocate for putting more people in prison as a short-term solution to uh making the downtown feel more comfortable thank you thank you so much councillor mcgee we'll go to councillor jang thank you president and i think this is also related to one comment we heard around the safety of the child um due to an accident just wanted to report that the vermond new american advisory council did hold a meeting on friday from two to four thirty at the somali banto community association and at that meeting we invited leaders of the department of children and families and it was overall to understand um issues related to minority children being held at the um dcf custody so after those leaders left leaders of vinax stayed and had a conversation about the issue of the boy not only from the perspective of the court but also from the perspective of the mental health and well-being i think what people do not pay attention to it's one of his best friend also passed away due to an accident this is also um the the somali banto community in general are very appreciative of many people um trying to support the child and i think when it comes to legal perspective this is in into court we cannot talk about all the details but just for people to know that this child is not being left alone there were also report of appreciating vermond vt digger by not naming the child by not putting a child's picture on their reporting i think it was also uh uh uh appreciated as well just wanted to let you know we also invited the director of the racial equity inclusion and belonging of the city of polinton but she could not make it due to another meeting that she was assisting so thank you thank you so much councillor jang uh if there's no other comments councillor grant thank you um so we're in i find myself frequently talking about balance we need a balance between a quote unquote law and order approach and harm reduction and um our other types of uh the social services where we still don't have coverage 24 7 um we are in a situation where we don't have a street crimes unit and i assume will be notified when one can be set up again but that is where we are that's the reality of our situation so i want to be careful and i would encourage um everyone on the council to be very careful about what we promise the public because there's these requests for more officers and that until the um the building back of the department is going very slow we've done what we can do as a council in terms of approving pay raises approving sign-on bonuses and retention bonuses um approving a contract uh that has very very strong um protections that aren't always in line with oversight and accountability but we did that councillor rand hold on i have a right to speak i i do i have a right to speak um i don't want to get into an argument with you over my right to speak i already dealt with that earlier i agree with you but this is an opportunity for an update and and it is it is important because we still receive emails asking for this increase that doesn't exist right now and we have to be careful about promising or leading people to think that that is something that can happen um when in the immediate near future it can't and we have to be real about that and i know that's difficult and i know that's difficult and and goes against what people want to hear so that's why it's really important to have this dialogue with the people who work downtown with businesses to look at the other things that we can do thank you thank you very much uh are there any other councillors to wish off for a public's health or safety emergency report seeing none we will move on to item seven which is our consent agenda is there a motion to move our consent agenda uh and take the actions indicated uh thank you councillor dority seconded by uh councilor barlow uh is there any discussion on that motion seeing none we'll go to a vote all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye any opposed please say no that means that we have uh proved our consent agenda which brings us to our deliberative agenda with item 8.1 removed we have two items on the deliberative agenda there are time limits on these and we've agreed to those by approving our agenda we'll do the best that we can to keep to those uh those time limits just wanted to remind uh councillors of the five minute rule that five minute rule is per agenda item it is not per speaking opportunity um please self monitor and be mindful of your time i will kindly interrupt you if you have gotten beyond or are getting very close to the five minutes um and that will is just a just an opportunity for all of us to treat each other fairly and be respectful of all councillors for their time the first um as i said the first item is removed so the second item becomes our first item which is 8.2 which is a support for the redevelopment of the gateway block through further due diligence of a private public partnership and for this item we have uh the uh cdo assistant for director of director for community works Samantha Dunn as well as cdo director brian pine i believe you have a presentation for us and then we will go to a motion and then um any further discussion thanks for being here great thank you very much for the record it's brian pine director of the city's community and economic development office tonight we are um here to discuss the potential i like the word potential redevelopment of what the gateway block uh what we refer to as the gateway block which includes memorial auditorium the public parking lot the fire station the library the church is all part of that block what it doesn't mean is that it's a foregone conclusion that anything is being uh knocked down or built or any it doesn't there is no foregone conclusion i just want to be clear this is a essentially an agreement to explore the redevelopment opportunities and to gauge um public sentiment around those redevelopment opportunities and to see that we can find a way to advance the multiple goals that the community has in a way that is um cost effective given the constraints that we face as a city um we've obviously tried many different things regarding the um both the parking lot and memorial over the years that Samantha will get into in a minute but we feel that that an opportunity has um sort of come to us that will achieve many of our goals as a community around both memorial and the gateway the entire block so some of the key things that i just want to highlight is that this is really to explore and conduct what is in real estate referred to as the due diligence which means getting into great levels of detail centered around the redevelopment of the block and our goal here is with a limited city um financing capabilities given our current constraints and our obligations to such projects as the high school um that we need to pursue a public private partnership which we'll talk more about both tonight and in the coming weeks and months this gives the mayor really um you know a green light to enter into this letter of intent and i want to be clear there were comments made there's been written material submitted um we'll respond to the written materials that were submitted by former counselor uh busher because there's some really good questions asked for which we have i think uh lots of information to share with both um former counselor busher and the rest of the council and the community so we'll make that a public response to see that um the letter of intent is to fully explore the different roles responsibilities opportunities and the structure of how this would move forward in a way that both protects the public and protects the public assets and ensures that the um the goals of um redevelopment and revitalization are achieved and again in the most cost effective way i'm going to let samantha walk us through some of the background including specifically for memorial auditorium and the details of this potential opportunity that we think really merit further exploration thanks thanks Brian my name is Samantha Dunn assistant director for community works for folks that are following along with the slideshow that was posted there's been a few tweaks only of organization not any information but just uh in preparing uh some reorganization so if you look at the slide on the screen that's the one i'll be talking about um and this is a slide uh most of us have seen before here um coming to talk about memorial auditorium which i've been thinking about a lot since i started working for the city two years ago we've got a few new bullets at attempts um to redevelop this property and and we're continuing to work on it um for folks who aren't familiar with the slide uh memorial auditorium um was built in the 1920s and served the city um extremely well um for a long time in the 1990s it became clear the city was struggling um to keep up with repairs on the building um the first failed bond vote um to take care of those repairs was in 1994 so there was clear capital investment needed at that time um that was not supported by the voters um in 2016 the building needed to be closed for public safety reasons that was um closely followed by a robust public process in 2018 um to really go out to the community and understand what an adaptive reuse of this building for the community would look like the community hub proposal brought all of that information together and the city moved forward to try to find a private operator um for the memorial community hub um covid happened uh that process was put on hold the city attempted an additional um bond vote in 2021 that would have brought 15 thousand uh 15 million dollars uh to the building to take care again of the structural stabilization um and take care of code issues that would allow people back into the building it was part of a larger bond vote that also failed um in 2022 there was a million dollars in the successful bond vote um for the stabilization and future exploration of the building in the same year uh voters approved the bond for the new high school um which we've talked about many times took up uh the bonding capacity for the city and really took that um community hub option off the table as one the city could move forward with as it required um significant invest public investment um because of that we move forward um with an rfp to try and identify a private partner for redevelopment a memorial auditorium um there was a proposal selected but even before we got to come here and announce that um news that we were excited about um that team that was called baba rusa actually um but drew their proposal because of the financial um feasibility or the lack of financial feasibility of being able to rehab that building um following that we worked over the summer um to facilitate some visioning with our planning staff and um design uh local design members of our design community and stakeholders that i'll talk about a little bit later in addition to memorial tonight we're talking starting to talk now about the whole block um this was new brian reminded me there was a new public safety facility um proposed at the parking lot and made a muski that was voted down in the nineties in 2013 um the ymca looked to occupy memorial auditorium and um the balance of the block was going to be student housing i believe that proposal uh was unsuccessful for a number of reasons but one uh was because we were unable to reach agreement with adjacent property owners that's really required to look at the whole block um the 2016 was the uvm arena with a hotel uvm um determined that uh after quite a bit of study that that facility would be better off uh located closer to campus 2018 was a community hub that we talked about in 2021 the gateway block was considered as a site um for the new burlington high school um but was deemed uh to not be the right location um and then as i mentioned in 2022 we had um the rfp and selected a proposal for the redevelopment of memorial so long before i got here the city has been um working diligently to figure out um how to um create a gateway at this block um i have a few slides from plan btv um with notes directly from megan tuttle because she's unable to be here tonight um but our plan btv downtown and waterfront plan um was adopted a decade ago so in 2013 um the city spent a lot of time and a lot um engaging with public and thinking about the whole um main street corridor starting at the amtrak station which we've now successfully uh reinvigorated and um culminating at um memorial auditorium of what should be happening here um and this work provided a vision for how underutilized sites could be redeveloped and the infill buildings could help expand housing and other economic development opportunities um the plan specifically recommended redevelopment study for this entire block um including a redeveloped or repurposed memorial auditorium and possibly the fire station as well as a transformation of the city's parking lot um explored different possible intensities for redevelopment so you can see in this image um those different intensities in the in the um view and um these studies help to inform the form base code that now um is active in the downtown so what now um action for this building is required it's and it's required to address the ongoing costs and liability of memorial auditorium it's required to help us chart a direction for key capital activities in the downtown that are related not necessarily right on the block but are related it's required for us to activate under underutilized properties creating public benefit and um thinking about how we can use our our inactive or dormant city properties to address our housing shortage and as we move forward to think about that action we keep the priorities from that 2018 community engagement process front and center these were the top five um needs or uses identified in that community hub out of the 2,500 surveys that were completed but of course we do have the full list as we expand our thinking past the redevelopment of memorial um to the entire block we have additional priorities and those identified in the community survey um and the first is to make sure that the gateway block uh lives up to its name and creating attractive and welcoming entrance to the downtown that it provides mixed income housing it preserves our veterans memorials it includes public space including space dedicated to youth with opportunity for input on programming from the city and community it includes um public parking and it will grow our grand list and create long-term economic benefit for the community so some of the barriers to those previous projects we saw on the slide before um include the ravine sewer that cuts uh diagonally across the main and winewski parking lot lack of control of the um private land that brian likes to call the hole in the donut even though it's not donut shape but it was it's the pink area on one of those first slides it's a very small area that's privately held um are the inability for us to finance the 2018 vision um with limited bonding capacity and um really the cost of repairing and renovating memorial auditorium um may make adaptive reuse uh financially infeasible without public funding so the those funding resources the opportunity we see um in public private partnership is that first uh to sort of address those barriers the ravine sewer is being relocated as part of the great streets main street project um there's private investment that would help us achieve our public objectives housing crisis um requires creative approaches to city assets it would grow our grand list and other revenue streams to support city finances broadly and has the potential to advance um broader block redevelopment as been envisioned in our planning documents for the past decade the specific opportunity we're looking at um tonight is a partnership with local experienced um developers eric ferrell and joe larkin these are two uh individuals that represent businesses that have built thousands and thousands of housing units um in burlington and chinden county um they hold site control of the hole in the donut um and they have a vision for the gateway block that aligns with our city goals and priorities that comes um from a love for burlington and um a long record of securing the major project financing that would certainly be needed to pull off the project so the proposed letter of intent that went out with the packet is um i think as brian really focused on is a non binding document that would um allow us to explore whether or not partnership is feasible um it would look at the roles responsibilities i'm going to go the next slide but the print is very small roles responsibilities and capacities of of both parties um the city and the private partners uh property valuation ownership and redevelopment structures such as what what is the value of the property will it be leased or sold and in this kind of partnership um development program priorities and mutual efforts to overcome prevention potential barriers um there's a reason that this redevelopment hasn't happened uh it's because there are a lot of barriers and it is going to require um creativity partnership and and hard work to continue to figure out how to overcome those barriers um and then we'll look obviously at logistics and and interrelated details um the member of the fire department checked in with me that uh relocating the central fire station seemed funny thing to put under logistics um which i agreed we had a good conversation about it i think that it's there because we as we think about redevelopment um we also think about a recent study um that the city fire department had that did talk about relocating the central fire station and as we think about redevelopment we would want to take that study back up and make sure that was being looked at in tandem um so the proposed um next steps here um if we receive the support from city council um and moving in this direction would be to move into this initial due diligence period um the city will retain the services of jeffrey glasberg who has lots of experience uh working on the gateway block to help us with this feasibility assessment um and the goal of this period would really be to answer um key questions about the feasibility of a partnership um and if the partnership does seem feasible the parties would work together um to develop a development agreement that would obviously um have come back before the council um the public would be engaged um throughout the process this initial due diligence is really more about public awareness and making sure people have their questions answered as best we can when things are very initial um there would be much more significant public engagement in the sort of second comprehensive development feasibility phase of this project where we would be um getting uh asking for input on what new public assembly space looks like what new public program space looks like what new youth um program space looks like on this block um so you know again that would happen during that comprehensive development feasibility that we um think would would take the balance of 2024 questions that you had a question questions thank you so much so before we go to questions from the council we'll go to a motion on the item um and i'll go to councillor barlow for that motion please thank you president paul i uh move that we waive the reading and adopt the resolution thank you councillor barlow seconded by councillor shannon so we have a second we have a first in it we have a second we'll now go to the council for questions and comments before we go for a vote on the resolution councillor bergman uh to be followed by councillor hightower um thank you uh let me just pull up the the resolution don't start my clock yet please i just want to make sure what uh blah blah blah blah uh supports furthering enter it okay so let me just start with uh saying that on the letter of intent which i think is at the heart of the resolution i mean we're effectively resolving to uh you know to agree to sign on to it i am supportive of the uh the work that the the items to be addressed in a development agreement so all those things that go down there and the things that follow that like the access to the gateway block etc my issues are with the uh the language of the vision and um whatever that other thing is called and goal slash goals of redevelopment and as a process we got this not that long ago we got lots of stuff on our agenda not the least of which we dealt with in executive session so the opportunities to say well you know like on these vision and goals of redevelopment i don't like this we don't really have it now i'm going to go through a a list of issues with that if there were a way for us to break that off to bring it back to have a conversation about what it is that we think are the goals that i think would be much more um proper and more in line with us being able to exercise our fiduciary duty which we've got and right now i feel without this that i'm just gonna be a rubber stamp without even enough time to have work through in say an executive session the the amendment of this particular document so i'm looking to be able to advance this i hear this is all sort of very preliminary so it we should be able to make this happen in a way that actually meets that let me get to some details so you you made a mention of the firehouse my question would be you don't have to answer it is what are we contemplating for a location and all of that so here we say we're looking to relocate it it's like this is not right in the in the language here it commits us to something that is always used and i would do it after the fact to say look we've already we've already approved this we're on the road it's like the start of a railroad we do we i don't think we should get there let me just state for the record i do not support the privatization of the land under memorial or the firehouse or anything else i am open to long-term leases there's a distinction i don't want to sell away public property i think that the veterans memorial should be significant um i don't generally say these things but i my father's brother of whom i'm named after was mortally wounded on d-day i have his flag in my house right i take veteran stuff pretty seriously um and this should be a significant um memorial i am not a fan of the commitment being made as a stated priority for a hotel it may be that amount at a hotel would make sense there but to lay it out at the at the front end i i just don't see any reasoning for it why not do the same in this for the youth and art spaces that we were talking about and that they came from so and i like rooftop green spaces but south burlington has just mandated that bigger buildings are going to have solar arrays they're on their roofs right they've got that why are we not including those things in this including you know as a goal a thermal a thermal energy network to make sure that we not only do the best job of insulating and what have you but we're capturing the waste heat in the systems that we've got and we are then doing all of the non-emitting um thermal and electrical work that we possibly can there so that this building is not going to be contributing to that climate disaster which is awaiting us in three years right so those are my comments if there is a way that we can separate the two and come back and we can have conversations about these visions i'd love to do that i'll wait to to offer a motion to uh to strike that out to strike this vision out and get to work on it more until more comments and thank you i don't know did i make my five minutes or not just barely just barely i'll shut up then thank you very much thank you so much we'll go to councillor hightower and uh then councillor carpenter and barlow and shannon if i can remember that yeah i'll agree a little bit more um vaguely with councillor bergman which is just i think a lot of the stuff that we got out of the public input that was less specific isn't in the goals and vision which a goals and vision is generally pretty high level so i think some of the things like that we talked about a lot like keeping public ownership things like that i just want to make sure that those are included especially because it sounds like whereas kind of on the developer side it's on their sole discretion with us it's like it's in line with our goals and vision is laid out in this document i just want to make sure that some of that stuff that was in the early presentations is in there although i do appreciate all of the detail that is in there because i think it whole it's a stronger hold but i think we also want to add some of the more general visions the one thing that i will say that i don't understand and i i would like to ask that as a question if at all possible is the hotel just because if it if they want it in there that's great but i think because we've seen so many hotel projects proposed and then that happened i just wouldn't want this to be a difficulty or a burden especially when we just allowed hotels and other parts of the city including the south and redistrict i don't think it's a must have so i'm just curious where that came from it definitely came from their proposal to the city that they think it would be an important part of the success of the block okay great thank you yeah as long as we're not putting that limitation on but yeah so i would say i would before this goes back to the developer really would like to see some of those framing high level visions that we got from the community as well as i think the great kind of more detailed ones that came sounds like from their proposal thank you thank you so much councillor hightower we'll go to councillor carpenter to be followed by councillors barlow and shannon thanks um just two comments i want to make sure for the public we're clear that there was a change in ownership in that donut hole which is allowing us to to do this um the new owners are not the impediment they are the partner actually um there has not been a change well are they gonna look is that something that's on the table i understand yes they have site control it's okay that's what i meant excuse me not ownership but a different partner than the previous and just a editorial comment as most of you know i serve for executive director for my housing finance agency for 20 years it's now in 24 years i cannot tell you how many times how many people how many developers this building has been discussed with it's a behemoth it is not people view it as an opportunity but it is not and so i'm really excited about that's particularly with um the amount of potential housing that could be in there i'm excited for a hotel i don't disagree that we want to keep the visioning in there but i've visioned it for the last 24 years both professionally and personally as someone who used to go to the battle of the bands um and and so i think this is really key that your little time on that we remember how much conversation there's been on this thank you very much councillor carpenter we'll go to councillor barlow and then councillor shannon thank you president paul i'm actually really excited to see what eric ferrell and joe larkin come up with and my understanding is we're not committing anything to anything at this point um and so i'm encouraged by that but i also understand that this has to make economic sense for the developers so if they need a hotel to make it to work from a development standpoint i think we should be open to that um and then lastly i just want to say i do think that we do need a lot of community engagement on this in the last resolve clause in the resolution sort of commits us and to the um to the partners to a process to continue to engage the community and encourage public input on the redevelopment and use of the city's gateway block so i'm hoping that as they go through due diligence if we approve this tonight that that's sort of at the front end of the process um so they can we can incorporate the visioning that's been done and some of the other work um as you as you laid out for us that's been done historically on this site um so yeah thank you thank you councillor barlow we'll go to councillor shannon thank you president paul um i first i have a question which is uh there was something about naming and is it being named the gateway block is that part of the commitment i was a little no okay it seemed odd but that's how i read it so i just wanted that clarification thank you um i do agree with with councillor bergman about the importance of preserving the memorial heritage um and that was one of my concerns with thinking it was called the gateway block you know the memorial block if we're losing the entire building might not be a if we could at least memorialize it um i would note when i came on the council i was actually president of preservation burlington and this building is very dear to me as it is to i think many people in burlington be a moth or not um and i would ask that preservation burlington be included um you know now and have that conversation about what are the really key things to try and preserve with the understanding that we have had a lot of community process we have heard a lot from the community about what's important to the community and we've tried to bring that vision to reality so many times and we haven't been able to and it hasn't been supported by the voters when we've asked for bonds and i think we now have to recognize that that reality and take advantage of this opportunity because we just we we can't afford to continue the way we are now it's it's really sad and it's it's a shame for our city so having this opportunity um i do see it as an opportunity sad as i am about losing the building um i'm also concerned about the preservation of the firehouse and the um the public use that's envisioned i think the language in here is very broad um we don't know the details on that yet and that's going to be that's going to be critical i think for a lot of people um not only is it sad to lose the historic structure but the community use that we enjoyed for so long with this public asset uh oh and i understand that if we were to offer some flexibility on the inclusionary units there might be some advantage both to the inclusionary units and those who live in them as well as to this project and i wouldn't want to take that i know you know we have our inclusionary ordinance um but i would ask that other options be presented to the council so that we could consider if we think doing something different than what we currently have on the books um might be beneficial to everyone and again i really do feel urgency with this project um i wish that were not the case but i appreciate your work i appreciate um local developers coming forward uh to hopefully help us get beyond the impasse that we have had since at least the 1990s i think thanks bye thanks councillor shannon we'll go to councillor mcgee and then councillor jang and then grant thank you president paul and thank you both for the presentation and the work that's gone into the um letter of intent so far i uh the only comment that i have aside from agreeing with uh councillor bergman's comments uh relate to the um the date um at the bottom near the bottom of the letter um the execution of a development agreement on or before march 29th 2024 uh i just know that that's going to come pretty close to the last meeting of this council and uh mayoral transition so um i would just ask that to the extent that it is possible if we're going to be asked to vote on a development agreement that we get any information or details um well in advance of that so that we're not asked to make a last-minute decision on this before some of us leave the building thank you thank you councillor mcgee uh we'll go to councillor jang to be followed by councillor grant thank you president and thank you for the presentation and i am in complete agreement with um councillor bergman about the process and from my perspective process do matter here and also we know that this is not no binding document and even if you vote in support or not in support you guys will continue to do your due diligence and to work with them and i think without this also you should still be able to bring input based on what they are thinking the developers and try to trigger responses from the community about what do they think right um but at the same time i would have loved um to have a better process because i thought that this was going to come back to us in four months i made my calculation a long time ago but it seems it's it's in front of us right now yes but i think one element that i am not agreement with anybody here is we should understand our realities as well i think our love to a building and this building is not going anywhere the land is not going anywhere this community will not lose it it's just we now have people with resources to develop it for the beautification of our downtown and also to keep the historical perspective of the building i think but let's not rule out the idea of selling the building and i'm glad to see here you did not take it out you had both lease or purchase and i love that aspect about this but at the same time i'm in agreement in terms of the process with council appointment thank you thank you councillor Jang we'll go to councillor Grant thank you um so i too agree with all the comments that uh councillor Bergman mentioned um i would have liked to have seen some green initiatives or just saying that hey we're going to be looking at green initiatives and make this a a green project a green you know building like when i think about what uvm did at the davis center for example they had really specific goals to make that a green building and it was just very much publicized um i will even though it was already mentioned i will say again i have a lot of problems with the process the process not being open not including the public um in it and there was you know issues around the previous rfps and that process not really being um the public wants to know who is who's responding right and so all of a sudden we have this letter of intent and this resolution and it's just dropped from the sky i mean i know it's not dropped from the sky but as far as the public's concern and heck as far as i'm concerned i mean like today's the first time i'm hearing about it or you know when it was posted so it's a concern that we still move in ways that the intention may not be to be secretive but a lot of people care about this area a lot of people care about what's going on and a lot of people would like to um you know have the information um i'm bloated to vote against it uh but i do want to make those concerns clear and i think also we need to think in terms there was one oh should represent a meaningful connection between the hill section of the city and the church street marketplace why just the hill section i mean that location goes to the old north end goes to the south end goes down to the water why why are we limiting it in that way why is the vision limited this this is you can get to the city from all different directions so i feel we just keep discounting other parts of the city when we think about our vision thank you thanks you can't thank you councillor grant uh are there any other councillors to wish to speak to the resolution before us uh well we'll go to the first round we'll go to councillor uh traverse and then we'll go to councillor bergman i would just like to briefly say because i've heard from a number of the colleagues on the council with respect to public process here i know i've only been on the council for a couple years served on the npa for some time before this as other folks here have said i think perhaps more than any other project that i can think of in the city's recent history there's been extensive public process public feedback including through the rfp process which really exhausted a number of other options as you know with respect to this item um you know speaking frankly i'm i'm i'm actually not sure if even uh a letter of intent like this needs to come before the council or whether or not it would have been within your authority to simply engage in due diligence without coming to the council so i actually want to flip the uh narrative here a little bit and thank you uh for bringing um this letter of intent to the city council for our consideration because i very well know that you were not obligated to do that and and could have actually continued uh with the due diligence that's listed here and not come before the council until you had a draft development agreement so i'm very grateful for you being here now i'm excited to support this i know it's very early on in the process and so we'll look forward to no doubt not just the engagement that we'll be doing here with the developers but also the public process that will continue including once we have a draft development agreement for us to look at so so thank you very much for that thank you councillor travers um if there's anyone else who wishes to speak on a set for uh mayor wineburger thank you president paul and i appreciate um councillor travers that last point um i i do um i hear the concerns about from in the public forum and at this table about process and um i do think it's important to to uh call out we have all to be really explicit this is this is the very beginning we have a long way to go with this um if uh counselors who are um deliberating um supporting this or not i um would if really i think what we need to know is is their interest from this council in taking this step of working with the property owner the the the individuals uh who um have secured site control of this in holding that has been a uh obstacle to some of the past redevelopment efforts if there is a desire um for us to see whether we can work with them uh and put together a plan for the whole block i would encourage you to vote yes even if there are details of the document um or exactly the process to this point that um you have questions or concerns about there certainly um we would welcome uh input from counselors during this due diligence period i think the point that the the thing you know i think the green building um uh value should have been called out more strongly here i think it's a fair point uh you know to a very real degree i think we require any building to meet very high performance standards already so we almost think about that less than sometimes we did in the past given the uh dramatic uh new requirements we've put on all new construction which certainly would apply here but i think um uh the value of pushing even even further calling that out is a helpful thing i think we could we'll just add that um similarly if there are other thoughts from tonight counselors want to make sure are considered in this due diligence period we're in an early stage where uh that that input can certainly be given and um uh and reacted to um so i hope if people do want to try to make this work i think we need a signal from you on that tonight um and there is a long way to go to sort out the details thanks president paul thank you mayor weinberger we'll go now on a second round to council bergman uh thank you president paul um i think i was exceedingly clear about supporting moving forward and um given that i just want to um move that we amend the uh the the resolution so i'm moving to make an uh an amendment to line 21 to insert after the second word intent and before and and it's comma and then before the next words to explore the words minus the vision slash goals of redevelopment section so that's what i would ask to add to this and then to as part of this motion ask for staff to come back to the city council as soon as possible with a revised vision goals of redevelopment based on the comments of the council and the public to present to the developers so i think i have that right based on the comments so councillor bergman what you're going to need to do if you have that right now i i will and you will send it i will send that to lori um excellent but yes and let me just say if this is a process then this allows us to not let them think that this is if we vote for this this is you know what we're blanket endorsing right that we'll come back and you guys will give us something else that we can get a chance to look at and um and approve it'll be within the time frame uh i think it should be not all that quickly since everybody in the administration is saying yeah we can do that we can look at that we can incorporate that we can um look at these issues like uh re-looking at the the fire house which we need to to do in a more substantive way so with that in mind i make that motion and we'll write it out for um for lori to to do okay so i'm not really exactly 100 sure exactly what the motion is if you can say if you can if you can send that so that we can have that we'll we'll hold off on a second for just a second um you can ask a point of information but i just would like to be able to get that uh and should i send it to the full city council as well you could do that thank you thank you let's just hold off for just a second you have a point of information yes yes okay what's your point of information yeah i just do we i i'm not i appreciate what the mayor just said in terms of sorry maybe i need to go back and look at the original motion what are we approving are we just generally approving an agreement are we approving this exact language are we approving this language with suggestions as made just by the people at this table or are we approving it only as amended uh city attorney peller and perhaps you could clarify that answer please or correct or answer that question please i believe that you are amending the resolution as to the language inserted and proposed by council bergman great sorry i meant i think what do we need to do like or if we're sorry is the approved the motion on this to approve this exact agreement or is the motion on this to approve some version of this agree like how tied is are we to the letter of intent as written i guess i i'm still a little confused you you could move to approve the letter of intent as amended by if you if the motion passes as councillor bergman is presenting it before the council if his amendment passes you would then move to approve the amended version of the loi that is not a question about the changes per the motion would be made right right if we're per the resolve clauses which just says supports further exploration due diligence centered around redevelopment okay the attached letter of intent so when we say that the city council supports the mayor entering into the attached letter of intent to explore the feasibility of executing a development agreement between the parties to provide the framework do we have to amend the loi if we want any amendments to the loi yes okay thank you okay so thank you so much councillor hi tower so we're we're just waiting on councillor bergman and then we'll after we get that information we will then go to a second councillor mckay sent okay well i was just going to ask for a five minute recess for that but seems we're we're good okay so uh thank you so we'll okay so everyone should have received the amendment we'll get that posted as well can't um we're gonna if we can just wait for just a second so this is the the the motion is to move to amend line 21 of the resolution by inserting after the word intent and before to explore the following words minus the vision goals of development agreement section and ask for staff to come back to the city council as soon as possible with a revised vision for the council to approve based on the comments of the council in public to be presented to the developers so that is the motion and we need a second to that motion is there a second to that motion seconded by councillor McGee um councillor bergman did you want the floor back not unless i'm going to be answer answering or responding to other comments okay so we're going to go to councillor shannon did you want to speak to the amendment or i know your hand was up yeah okay just the amendment um i'm wondering if there is i mean the council has given feedback on this and i'm wondering if there's a way to include council feedback that you've received tonight without you know mixing this all together that's one question and two is what would it mean to sign this letter of intent without the vision and goals section which i mean i think it's it's non-binding at any rate so how can how can that be modified to include some of the things that you heard tonight short of the so i think it's still related to the amendment i'm wondering what the options are so we'll go to uh brian or samatha did you want to speak to that or do you want me to go to the city attorney i just need to hear the question again because i was talking to somebody else sorry um i'm just wondering if there is a way to incorporate the i mean of course there's 12 people here we don't all speak with one voice but i think that there were some good ideas that were thrown out and i saw you taking lots of notes on everything everybody was saying is there a way to include the feedback from the council into the vision and goals maybe make things a little bit more broad and include some of these comments short of taking the vision goals out and secondly um what's the impact of this letter of intent without the vision and goals included as the amendment suggests um so yes i think that um there are definitely a couple of options i think moving forward without the vision and goals really doesn't change the work that that i and and the city staff will be doing um so it's possible to move forward i think part of um what we're here tonight is is to make sure i think as councilor travers stated that we didn't we didn't need to come at this early stage but the reason we did is there's a lot of work to be done and we don't want to be doing that work without understanding um that the council support for moving in this general direction the idea that like we would be able to word smith vision and goals at this time in a way that makes everybody happy feels a little bit futile to me and and not the point of the exercise however i think there are good points that have been made um that i think that we could um agree to address around sustainability the historic structure um of the fire station making sure the youth programming is included in this vision goals not i think it's in the the back of the section but it's not um in this section um and then continue to answer questions that counselors continue to have or um respond to concerns or questions about other visions as we move forward with the due diligence process so i think we could i think instead of having to come back to council um with vision and goals to approve like that's going that feels like that could go on forever and is not the best use of everyone's time so i would say either take it out completely or um have a motion that instructs city staff to um amend those visions without um you know and being able to move forward with a few of the key items did that answer your question yes it did now i just have to think a little bit more about what the options are thanks did you want a moment to think about that or do you want do we want me to come back to you carry on okay all right uh councilor uh councilor carpenter um i'm still a little confused by this but based on what Samantha said but it seems to me we could keep the vision and maybe just add a statement that you will you will continue to get feedback from the council to modify or adjust them i think having them as gives us the guide it is stuff we've talked a lot about we may all not agree with all of them and i think what i hear council bergwin asking is during the process once we start it will you explicitly take time to refine these and maybe we could accomplish that by just an additional statement saying you'll you will do that yes and i think that additional statement could be added to the resolution um is probably the most straightforward way to do that i don't have a statement off that that might but if someone wants to propose okay um councilor carpenter thank you um uh i think it might be go ahead councilor shannon if you if you wish now i would actually hope that we might be able to take just five minutes to sort of figure this sort this out but if you want to speak first please go ahead i just i mean a recess might be productive i i think that we could potentially rather than throwing out the vision and goals we could add something to the last be a resolve clause that included incorporating feedback from the council in the continue to engage the community and encourage public input on the redevelopment we could add something about including council input in the vision and goals what i was thinking but so in so in the um in the in the so i think we will well it's it's now nine forty nine we'll take five minutes and perhaps we may be able to work this out i know there's been there's councilor bergman's amendment we just have received another amendment from councilor hightower we do have a we do have a motion on the floor so when we come back we will deal with that and we will hopefully move forward to uh to the to and to to the resolution so um we'll be back at nine fifty five it is now ten o'clock exactly um councilor bergman if i don't know if i did but if i did i would um defer to councilor hightower who would have a friendly amendment that i think would resolve this uh effectively okay so now we will go to councilor hightower for her friendly amendment um which the friendly amendment was sent to everyone before the break so it is just to amend line twenty one with the goals and visions amended by city staff given city council feedback so that the whole line twenty through twenty two reads be it further resolved that the safety council supports the mayor entering into the attached letter of intent with the goals and visions amended by city staff given council feedback to explore the feasibility of executing executing a development agreement between the parties to provide the framework for concert comprehensive redevelopment okay thank you so and that is friendly laura you have that yes okay so it is friendly to the maker and to the seconder um so uh that is the amendment that is before us and this is line line twenty this relates to lines uh 20 21 and 22 is there any discussion on the amendment no further discussion on the amendment oh sorry if i could just if i could just i think this hopefully means that all of the great notes just taken by city staff can be incorporated without this coming back to the city council and being voted on okay thank you so if there's no other discussion on the amendment we'll go to a vote on the amendment um i guess there is discussion on the amendment council i know it's been some time and i apologize for that but a part of me does have a question as to from your all's perspective what is the feedback that you just heard from the city council to incorporate into the letter of a tent because you know i heard some comments from some of my colleagues here on a hotel for example and i understand there's some members the council that may be opposed to including a hotel at this site i suspect there are other members of this council that are not opposed to including a hotel at this site and so i i just have an inquiry for you all as to what is the feedback that you would be incorporating here because uh taking out the hotel as a redevelopment goal is not something that i personally would approve of i think that the goal will be to um to thread the needle pretty carefully um and um to incorporate as many of the um pieces of feedback that we heard was were common themes this issue regarding the hotel perhaps a solution would be to uh keep it in but say that it may include rather than it should i mean just make it a little more optional not to be so definitive it doesn't say shall but it says should and that change would i think cover it because i we we definitely want to fully explore that there's no guarantee that it will be the end of result but i think we we want to be able to fully explore it i am supportive of the amendment as long as the reflections indicate there's differing viewpoints on some of these issues in the letter of intent so thank you for that clarification director pine thank you councillor travers we'll go to councillor shannon thank you president paul i just wanted to note that during the recess that was exactly the language that was discussed between councillor bergman myself and the mayor that that changing should to may would make people more comfortable that they're not actually firmly committed to it but they're also um there was not offer opposition in our discussions either so thank you for that thank you councillor shannon seeing no other comments on the amendment this is remember this is a vote not on the resolution this is a vote just on the amendment all those all those in favor of the amendment as presented by councillor hightower please say aye aye any opposed please say no great that puts that puts those we will now insert those that amendment into line um 2021 and 22 uh is there anything further on the underlying resolution we're now we're now on the resolution seeing none uh councillor grant the one thing that um bothers me on line 11 of the resolution saying that it's the primary point of entry to downtown berlington can i move to amend it to say is an important point of entry into downtown berlington because it's not the primary point of entry and it's just part of my whole issue of disregarding other parts of the city you can say no but where it's matter can uh councillor councillor grant can you just um can you just tell me exactly where that is on what line line 11 says whereas the gateway block is the primary point of entry into downtown berlington and it's not okay and what is what is your what is your amendment exactly um we could say is an important point of entry because we all know that everyone in the city is concerned about the state of that block the state of memorial and you know once it worked on and and all of that and that's valid but we do so much language that dismisses parts of this city and i so what you want to what your amendment is is to replace the word um in primary with important you could say is an important point of entry into downtown berlington but it's certainly not the primary point of entry i mean there's a lot of people who come into the city a whole bunch of different ways and i think we have to okay be inclusive of all those neighborhoods thank you as a point of information i think that the amendment would be uh deleting the primary and say and substituting and and important all right so the words the and primary would be replaced by an important is that your is that your um is that your motion councilor grant yes and we need a second to that motion so a second to that motion seconded by councilor bergman uh councilor barlow um that can be a friendly amendment if if it's permitted yes it is permitted you were the first uh the maker and councillor shannon you're okay with that you're the seconder so okay we will that with the the the resolution will read online 11 the gateway box is an important point of entry into downtown berlington um is there anything else before we go to a vote on the resolution uh seeing none we'll go to a vote all those in favor of the resolution as amended please say aye aye any opposed please say no that motion passes unanimously and with that we will and with our thanks so much to uh assistant director dunn and to cito director brian pine thank you so much and to everyone else who has worked on this please extend our thanks uh we will go to our last item on our deliberative agenda was at 8.3 funds for downtown support um this item is not only regarding support for local businesses in the downtown um but we also do have a presentation from the department of business and workforce development i believe we have the director car on this worry and we have a cut and you and you brought some company with you if you can just if you can just introduce introduce them and then um understanding that you have a you have a presentation for us yes hi thank you council president paul um i brought my assistant directors with me since we'll be discussing the work we've been doing for the past couple years this is samantha mcginnis and uh will clavellum president paul can i just say very quickly before car dies in especially given some of the discussion in public forum and and um i just want to uh be really clear that um as we've already had some you know discussion to be the beginning in the public safety updates the administration is very concerned about the public's public safety issues that are happening in the city right now um we as i reported earlier working on them on many many fronts um and we heard i just want to remind the public and the council of course last month we heard a report from the bpd um on various elements of how they were responding to the drug crisis and and and trying to address it um the what we're going to hear tonight is focused on um economic elements of what the downtown is facing right now and i but i just really wanted to emphasize we this is especially right now a difficult conversation to have about economics separate from public safety concerns i want to reiterate we have been we have and will continue to talk about the public safety concerns i think car her team the new department that's been in place for a little over a year now have i think some important important updates to share with the public um about the economic side and what the city is doing to support um businesses in general and businesses during this holiday period in particular that i think are timely for the council to hear so great thank you mayor wineburger please go ahead i can't share my screen lori i can't share my screen is that you or that would be kathryn if she can just give you co-hosting sure one second cap where you can send it to me you are a co-host now i am now okay thank you good evening um sorry just getting my tech here i just wanted to verbally um discuss the current climate in the downtown um and in the business community first of all of course we want to acknowledge the current challenges that the business community is facing um and be clear that my office speaks daily with businesses throughout the city um as well as various stakeholders property owners um etc um we um there's many factors that are uh impacting the business climate in our downtown which um bring us here today um before we dive into safety and security i want to acknowledge um many of them um one important being we are in an environment of extraordinary unemployment which is driving our payrolls up and reducing operating hours for many of our locally owned businesses as you all know we also have sustained high inflation we have more remote workers and we have a loss of office workers in the downtown we have high rates of retail theft as you're all aware and rates of recidivism in that area and um we have um i also want to address that i think we have had um we've done exceptionally well retaining businesses in our downtown um given covid um the so-called great recession um we have um in this challenging climate so far done a very good job of and and i don't know if you all have traveled to other towns and seen um many boarded up main streets and i think uh the team and i are very proud that we don't have that here in burlington um in addition i want to note that some of the business closures we have seen are nationals um which are responding to um different drivers um and looking at different factors and not just the local economy so um i wanted to dive into some data um about sorry to clear my screen here um we were able to um purchase uh foot traffic data from the downtown going back to 2017 um the dark orange line is 2023 um which you can see you can see we were uh when we had that unseasonably warm april you see that bump right there um i'm cursors here there we go there's that um and this data takes us through the end of august um so uh we are seeing foot traffic levels that are fairly similar to our pre-covid levels um but lower than 2021 and when i'd like to address that that enormous bump in 2021 which um many of you know is um can be attributed to pent up demand in the consumer base uh in addition to um many of our um visitors here in burlington were unwilling at that time to travel internationally so we saw a really a large influx of uh regional visitors as well during that time when we look at downtown traffic on a day to day basis um you you still see that slump that is happening um monday through thursday um but we are still seeing an uptick on the weekends um which i think can be attributed to an increase in programming that we've been doing um which i will address soon um you will note on the top however um august 2020 the peak day of august 23 was about 80 percent of august 2019 so pre-covid numbers um this is our gross receipts also known as our rooms and meals tax um unfortunately we only have data from the state through may at this point um it is tracking fairly close to our pre-covid levels and this is gross sales this also includes non-taxable items as you know we do not tax clothing um and here you can see some of the slump um that we are uh facing in terms of our challenges you'll see the note i have on the right hand side that our metropolitan area had um some of the lowest unemployment in the united states um uh some of those factors with retaining employees are is absolutely related to safety and security concerns and i believe it's also related to the labor market climate so um coming back to the office of business and workforce development um this was formalized through the budget process um in fy 23 uh but uh we were we started doing this work around covid um when covid broke out in i joined the city team in november 2019 covid as you know hit in march 2020 um and at that point the mayor asked me to take a wider business role to engage and support all the businesses given that we were facing um a very extremely unknown and challenging environment how the office of business and workforce to development is structured is in three main divisions we have the church street marketplace which um as you know manages is separated by charter it's a separate budget that we run um we are running over 100 events annually full marketing and promotion full maintenance of the street um we have incubator business programs and then our usual cultural programming that most of the public is used to in the center you'll see uh business support city wide we often run that under what we call the love burlington brand uh that's micro business support we have a very innovative revolving loan fund training and technical support for businesses recruitment retention of businesses and um other incubator programs as well off of the church street marketplace and the third division of the office of business and workforce development is the early learning initiative which is um the city's um scholarship and grant program to support the child care industry and um those lower income members of our community who are seeking child's care um and workforce training programs and working with our businesses to um structure and respond to their needs um I will have assistant director McGinnis walk us through some of the church street marketplace initiatives which is um where she focuses her work thank you Cara I'm