Great good morning everyone. I realize I'm the last talk before lunch, but also notice we have an hour of discussion So if your stomach is rumbling there are still snacks out there I assume so I apologize, but I'm going to take my full time So thank you very much for the organizers for inviting me to talk about this I'm going to talk about farm cat which is a project that I've been Co-leading for about the last year and a half with Terry Klein from farm GKB So the this project came about through a series of conversations About two years ago. We started to try to think through implementing Pharmacogenomics at geisinger. I had just moved there Mark had been there. There was an e-merge project that was you know starting to do implementation of a few variants And I said well let me ask around surely there must be code out there at this point the CPIC guidelines have been around for a Couple of years lots of places are implementing pharmacogenetics So someone must have written a script to take the guidelines and the dosing recommendations and just take a VCF file and Annotate everyone so that you know which people in your data set have the variance of interest so that you can just implement them So this has to have been done. So I started asking around No one had done this yet except for their one or two variants that they had implemented at their institution So I contacted Terry we were chatting about it And I said well did farm GKB do this and she said nope. We don't have the funding to do that yet Okay, so I started asking a few companies. So companies have these algorithms for their product. So whichever Variants are on their assay that they sell they've done this. So oh, well, could we get a copy of those scripts? Nope, that's proprietary Okay, so if a medical center an academic institution wants to implement these we either have to Buy the assay from a company and get their output or write our own scripts And so Terry and I talked and said we should be able to do this One you shouldn't have to go to a company to get this done And if even if you did and some of you will know this if you've done this You might even get different results if you run the I won't say any company names because I don't want to offend any of them but if you run two different commercial assays you might get different star allele assignments out Well, why is that it's because of the haplotype tables in the CPIC guidelines and which Specific variants they use to define the haplotype haplotypes if they used all of them Which is what you should do or whether they picked only a few and it depends on the assay that they ran So Terry and I decided to embark on this project to create this automated pipeline for annotating these pharmacogenetic variants out of CPIC and making it open source and publicly and freely available so that everyone that wants to implement pharmacogenetics can use the same Source code to do so instead of getting different results from different companies So the basis of the data that we're using or the information or knowledge for our software it comes from the CPIC guidelines We are not creating any new guidelines. We're not deviating from what's in the guidelines Currently our goal is to take the published guidelines and write computer code to then Annotate VCF files with that information and then produce reports and I'll show you that in a few slides So there are currently 28 CPIC public publications those correspond to about 33 different Gene drug guidelines that has to do with the number some of the the genes associate with multiple drugs And so this is the source of knowledge that we're using to link into farmcat And I'll show you the workflow of farmcat in just a few minutes So a little bit more about the motivation and why we decided to do this Automating this annotation process is really important Generating consistent reports so that if you run the same VCF or similar genotype data You should get the same dosing recommendations every time and so Why is this something that you'd want to do in an automated way? Well first the number of people that carry these Pharmacogenetic variants of interest is a large part of the population so we did some work in The Emerge Network as part of the Emerge PGX project So this was actually the first half of the data that we generated in emerge So it's about 5,000 people we use the PGN seek sequencing assay And then we looked to see out of the CPIC level a guidelines We just took the genes from the guidelines and those variants and said how many people have One or more of the variants in these genes that we know are important for pharmacogenetics And it was about 96% of the 5,000 people had one or more variants No We did not go through the the process of doing the haplotyping and figuring out what the recommendations were for all of these The Emerge sites have done that for the gene drug pairs that they've chosen to implement But by and large Almost everyone had at least one pharmacogenetic variant of interest So this is not something that you're going to want to manually do in a health system You can't go through everyone's genetic data manually. You have to automate this part now. We did talk earlier about how These pharmacogenetic variants only matter in the tails and so this almost seems counterintuitive to that So almost everyone in this room has a genetic variant in one of these pharmacogenes of interest However, that variant is only important at the time that you're prescribed one of the drugs for which that variant is Indicative of a response. So if you never go on the medication You just carry that variant and it doesn't do anything or at least we don't think it does anything So it's only the combination of the variant and the drug that become important And that typically is in the tails of these population-based studies. Not everyone goes on all of these medications So the first reason you're not going to want to manually do this because the majority of the people in your data set will Have a variant in one of these genes. That's a lot of data to look through manually and Then second the assignment of the haplotypes using those tables is actually pretty challenging That has to do partially with the phasing of the haplotypes So most of the assays do not provide phase or which chromosome the alleles are on if you run a snip genotyping assay You know the genotype, you know, the person is a an AA or an AC at that particular position But at another position, you don't know if the genotypes are on the same chromosome or the other chromosome That can become an issue for some of these haplotypes because it may be that it's important when they're phased together And then secondly, it's the number of alleles that you have to use to define the haplotypes So if you look through the CPIC tables There are a few variants that are typically more common and maybe not common like 30% some of them are but some could be more rare Like, you know 5% 1% But then if you keep scrolling there are lots of other very low frequency variants in some of the tables And if you didn't genotype those you wouldn't be able to make the haplotype definition that include those So a lot of people just skip them because they're rare anyway But if you read in the guidelines some of the kind of caveats or their asterisks next to some of them Some of those rare variants actually very much change the dosing recommendation So if you have one common variant and then this other rare variant You might go from an intermediate metabolizer to a poor metabolizer And so knowing those rare variants is really critical for making the definition and figuring out which dosing guideline to use And so that would argue that doing some sort of sequencing would be preferred over a genotyping chip So that you get all of those rare variants We had a conversation a side conversation earlier about how we probably don't even know all of the rare variants in those genes That are important and that's true. I'm sure we will continue to identify and discover new rare variants But there are a number of them that we do already know and so if we could sequence these genes And that was part of the reason for PJR and seek being developed So that we could sequence these key pharmacogenes pick up the common variants and the rare ones that are in the guidelines What Terry and I decided to do was to bring together the pharmacogenomics community to help us with this effort So we held a series of meetings. We included stakeholders from The pjrn c pic clingent and merge p-star and farm gkb We talked a lot about how we would engage in this process and we decided early on that We wanted this to be open source all of the code would be posted in github and shared publicly It's already there though. It is in alpha mode Which means it's not ready to be used in real time yet But all of the code is there so that you can see exactly where we are in development As I said, we had a few meetings So the first meeting was just to bring kind of thought leaders together and discuss is this even worth doing Is this a problem or have we assumed this is a problem? And everyone agreed that this is an issue and that that creating a tool like this would allow for pharmacogenetics Implementation to be adopted much more readily We then got a group of programmers together for about a week and a hackathon and had them just start putting the prototype together You know, what what are the pieces that we need? What would it take we had a lot of conversations about? Well, what if they have an exome? What if they have a genome? What if they have a GWAS chip and just decided we're using VCF files We would require users to do whatever reformatting they need to do to put in phased VCF files So that's the assumption that it's a phased VCF file and we have some kind of text that we're putting together to explain to people You know where to go to do file conversions if you had a you know, Plink format GWAS chip File or where to go to do phasing if you have unfazed data But farmcat won't do those two steps. It will just take the phased VCF We got back together in May kind of talked about where we were and what else needed to be done And then again in January of this year to kind of see where we are Talk about kind of the last steps towards releasing version one and applying for funding to keep this going So this is the general workflow of how farmcat works We take the allele definitions. So these allele definitions come from the CPIC tables Now if you've worked with these guidelines, you know that the CPIC tables on the CPIC website are Excel files We can't compute directly on those and so we wouldn't have been able to do this without all of those tables being in database format at farm GKB so farm GKB has been actually like the Kind of cornerstone of being able to write the software we take the tables From the CPIC guidelines and process them into a leo machine readable data We take the sample genotype VCF file We do some processing of that file to create kind of this normalized file that then goes into the Hapla typer The Hapla typer is the code that takes those Hapla type tables from CPIC and the genotypes and does the annotation and I'll show you an example of one of those files Looks like in just a minute it makes makes these allele calls and that's a JSON file that can go into the data reporter One other note that I want to make is that sip 2d6 does not get processed in the standard way Sip do sip 2d6 data gets processed by astrolabe, which is another tool that requires a separate license and it's released by Children's mercy in Kansas City and they've already done a tremendous amount of work to take those allele definition definition tables and turn them into something computer Computable we didn't want to duplicate the effort They've already done that part and so we've written it into farm cat to take the allele calls out of astrolabe And they go in along with the CPIC guidelines the recommendations to create the reports And so the CPIC guideline annotations are also in the farm gkb database They are pulled directly from CPIC into the database so that they're computable and we combine those with the allele calls to create the reports So the genes that we're including in version one are shown here We started with kind of the CPIC level a genes But also needed to remove a few so sip 2d6 as I said will be done through astrolabe haplotype calls HLA B and G6 PD are kind of in gonna be in a later version not in version one This was a decision not that those genes are less important they're just more difficult and We wanted to release something for the community to start to test rather than waiting until we had everything This is the kind of making sure that we don't make perfect the enemy of the good and So this set of genes can be processed in version one or will be and 2d6 can Be used and generate reports as long as you have the license to astrolabe So as I mentioned earlier, it takes the CPIC haplotype tables and this is an example of one of those files excel files From the CPIC website, so this is one of the kind of background pieces of input that are used Along with the dosing recommendations Again these come from CPIC, so we're not rewriting any of the recommendations and the haplotype or takes the the haplotype table from CPIC and your genotype files and Processes it into this kind of intermediate file So it will assign what alleles you have at every single position in the haplotype table It will also indicate whether you are missing calls at any of those positions so if you did do a snip array and you don't have a few positions it will indicate that and Then it combines with the CPIC guidelines to generate the reports So this is an intermediate report here You see all of the chromosome positions the RSIDs if it has one and then the genotype calls at all of the Positions and as I said if it's missing it will say no call and that becomes very important in the interpretation of some of the Guidelines, but this particular example of this individual had all of the genotypes present And this may be hard to see From a distance, but these slides will be available. This is an example of our current Kind of report format. We're still doing a little bit of tweaking, but you'll have each drug For which a particular gene is indicated. So here's a set of drugs the gene Whether or not there is a diplotype or haplotype at that location the allele function the phenotype and whether there were un-callable alleles so the one of interest here is I think Here's a sip to see nine which has a war friend. They're a poor metabolizer and they did not have any un-callable alleles for example Oh, and I should also say the color actually can see better here the color of The drug is also related to whether or not there is something important in the report So green means that they're a normal metabolizer. So not necessarily draw attention to it red means there's something to see here You should look at this one because this one is You know not normal metabolizer We also have a lot of kind of caveats and warnings. So this particular one has you know, please check the allele calls It wasn't that there was a no-call, but there was something related to this one that has an issue There are others that have things like un-callable alleles So to summarize farm cat stands for the pharmacogenomics clinical annotation tool And I should say that this largely not only did this sprout out of the conversations that we hadn't Developed this yet in the community for pharmacogenetics But one of the other things that I do at Geisinger is to take the ClinVar tables and take our exome data and Annotate people's VCFs with what variants they have that are four stars in ClinVar or three stars in ClinVar Two stars in ClinVar so that we can look through them and figure out You know which people have variants that that we should be looking at and I thought well Why didn't we do this for pharmacogenetics? We should do this for pharmacogenetics and so it really kind of sparked out of a lot of the ClinVar related work as well So this pipeline will automate that VCF to haplotype to guideline and reporting process I think this kind of sits in between The work that that Mary and Heidi talked about kind of these databases and resources so farm gkb Cpik ClinVar these are the the knowledge bases and then digitize what Sandy talked about You know in order to have the things to digitize The goal would be that farm cat will kind of do the annotations and generate the report that can then go into the EHR So farm cat version one is in testing our goal is to release it to the community Very soon to get feedback and have people start to test it and use it The reports can then be adapted as I said for local EHR implementation As I mentioned earlier farm cat is in get hub so you can kind of look there to see when we're releasing We'll also post things on the farm gkb blog and tweet about it once we do have the version ready for testing And so lastly, I just want to acknowledge that this was very much a community effort So it's something that Terry and I have been leading, but we wouldn't have gotten to this point without the members of PJRN and Cpik and Emerge who not only came to the meetings to donate their thoughts But some of them sent their programmers to donate their time to work on this So this maybe it's not a donation because they are funded on the projects But farm cat itself did not have a grant yet So Terry and I are working on that but it's been funded as part of kind of farm gkb and p-star and cpik Kind of related to those. I might also specifically want to name Michelle Ryan Lester and Catherine at farm gkb have really been the workforce that's making this happen in terms of writing the code and Being the expert curators to make sure that you know when we run the code that what we get out makes sense That those are the recommendations for those alleles so that their interpretation has been invaluable And so I'll stop there and take questions if there's still time. Thank you very much This is a photo of the programmers at the hackathon Question There's a wonderful talk very very interesting And I hope very productive approach. It could really speed things up a lot successfully so if if If I understand the architecture correctly if if I'm interested in just a few Pharmacogenomic sites Or or loci then I can create a VCF file that just has those variants in it So some but something that's like associated with a panel or something could could simply fly through the same pathway Yeah, absolutely now the report will say you know all of the genes that you have a no-call for right But that's fine if you're only interested in a few But part of we talked about whether it should start out. Well, you pick which ones it does And I think our mindset is that the community is gonna go towards you sequencing or a panel to Peter's earlier point We shouldn't be testing them one at a time. We're probably gonna start to test all of them So we wanted to try to be forward-thinking and develop the tool to do all of them Which would still do the one-offs for the people who are still doing just a few Thanks This is a really great Maryland for those of us that have tried to had to do this at our homegrown systems It's a tremendous amount of work. So thanks The question is about if you have a key allele that's not called in a gene, you know Something that's quite prevalent except 2d6 star 4 something like that star 10 Is it do you think it's enough to just report to the user that there's uncalled alleles? And then it defaults to the star one or should there be some higher Alert there that saying you're missing something and it could be a real risk to the patient Giving them a false sense that they have a wild type It's a good question and I may ask Terry to also come up to Mike because we talked about that quite a bit I think the what we've come to is saying Well, we will show in the report given the data that you provided This is the recommendation caveat and then add to the report these are the things that you didn't have that would change that and You know, I think I guess I don't know I don't want to I don't remember how strongly we worded whether we recommend that you Genotype or sequences other alleles dick. Can you speak to that? So? Where we do know that the information exists and you haven't tested we're pretty strong in our in the caveats And this is because as you know most companies that do this kind of testing default to Wild type or star one star one Which is what we're completely trying to avoid so that if you go in with limited data and we know for a fact for example You know that it's a deletion has a huge effect. We just couldn't overlook that aspect of it So the caveats out of farm cat you may not like them From the standpoint if you're reading the report, but it has everything in it And and it's almost like if you have this then you have this and if you don't have this then you've got this and in some Ways you almost need a computer to read it But it's it has all the caveats that you need and I think that that's what's critical and it'll be critical for things like Clinvarr and clingin because that way if you're pulling something out of one of these other sources You know what you're looking at and and where the holes are right? It's the idea of if you think about an excel An excel template or a cell when you have a blank cell You don't really know what that means does that mean that you don't that there's nothing there So one forgot to put it in that it's not applicable, you know that range So we were very explicit all the way throughout so actually related to that the VCFs are Not the variant only VCFs, you know a lot of people because the files are so large You'll end up kind of anybody who's ref ref you just remove those and your VCF is you know Non-referent alleles only we specifically say we want every allele And because it's a small set of genes the VCF won't be huge if you subset it to only the genes in here But having those ref ref calls is important because it's not that they're missing you know whether they're referent or not So I wanted to follow up on what Marilyn and Terry had said is that I think from the clinical implementation perspective I don't see the intent of farmcat as being able to be plugged in and used clinically I think it's going to be a knowledge resource. That's going to be really important But there's going to have to be a clinical decision support much as Terry referenced It's not going to be something you're going to be able to look at the report and probably be able to utilize It's going to be something that ideally would feed into a clinical decision support Tool that would then have logic built in to say if there's a caveat there Our clinicians have decided that this is what we're going to do to message the clinician about how to deal with this particular piece of information but to get to the point where we actually have the data where we can use it for clinical decision support to Quote someone very famous is huge. I Think it's going to be twofold though I agree with you from a clinical decision support particularly when we talk about You know a health system, you know, absolutely You're not going to hand someone a report, but I also think that these reports are being written in a way That when you're talking about annotating a single genome that an individual could read it And so I think it's a bit of both, but you're absolutely correct particularly as we think about these larger systems Great so, thank you Marilyn. We're going to move into the discussion phase


Continuing our discussions on the security of digital financial services here at the 17th Global Symposium for Regulators in Nassau, Bahamas. I am joined now by Ms. Sue Kelsey, who is, we have to get this title right, the Senior Vice President and Group Head of Global Production Management for Mastikot. Thanks so much for talking with us today. You're very welcome. Pretty big title. You are here to speak on several topics at GSR 17. This morning you were part of the panelists that talked about technologies that protect e-transactions and of course we understand why that would be an important topic for Mastikot, but you tell us what was discussed and why it was such a big deal for you to be a part of that panel. Yeah, sure. And thank you. So, you know, I was saying this morning that when people think of Mastikot they think credit cards, but the reality is that we are a payments network and fundamental to our business is safety and security. That is our number one priority. And nowhere is that more relevant than in this space where, you know, typically we tend to be dealing with relatively vulnerable populations. So the way that we go about treating safety and security is ultimately through layers. We put layers of security in place. So the way that I think about this is imagine the transaction passing through several doors. One door it has to pass through several doors. So what are these layers? One layer is all about data and using data. So we can use data to understand if there are any abnormalities or unusual behavior either at the card level, at the customer level or at the country level, but then on top of that we apply some very simple and easy to use solutions which are really beneficial in these audiences. So things like biometrics. You know, as an industry, we are moving away from security of things that you know, like pins and passwords, and moving to more about what you are. So fingerprints, voice, facial recognition. And that can be very helpful because just imagine the number of passwords you have to remember for your own use. It can be quite complicated. So we're trying to simplify all of that and use things like biometrics instead. You talk about this layer of security but Mastercard just made an announcement recently a few months ago that you want to speed up the transaction process. Now it must be important to keep, how do you, a challenge to keep the safety and security aspect of it through all of those layers while speeding up the process? Yes, you know, and real-time authentication is key to that. So what do I mean by that? I mean, applying these layers and having them happen at the time of interaction. So by using something like a fingerprint, that is real-time authentication. And so that allows us to move fast but also with the safety that we absolutely need for the network. Now of course Mastercard is no stranger to safety and security. It seems like you have it all downpacked. But talk about the benefit of being at this type of symposium and learning from other organizations. Yeah, you know, it's such a good point because nothing happens in isolation. This is all about partnership and collaboration. And it's great to see the private sector, the public sector all really sort of getting in a room and trying to co-solve a lot of the problems that we have. So one of the big themes that came out this morning was about that collaboration. We talked about how interoperability is absolutely crucial for success, not just from the end-users perspective because that makes it easier for them. But because ultimately we need to be all sort of be able, we need to be moving together as one industry to help solve these problems. So I would say collaboration was a definite theme that's come out. Interoperability to create the scale and to create the consistency in how we move forwards. Great, and I think this is a great point to transition to the next topic that I want to talk about, talking about collaboration. You're also going to speak on Universal Financial Access 2020.  What is that? Yeah, so we have a specific group of us who are working as a specific working group about how do we really achieve the inclusion, the digital financial inclusion at scale. And so Universal Financial Access 2020 through the World Bank and Mastercard has committed to helping to drive the inclusion of 500 million unbanked into the financial system by 2020. That is our commitment to the World Bank. And we are pleased to be on that journey with many of the partners in the working group that we'll be talking to tomorrow. So we'll be talking about new ideas and projects that we can work on together in order to sort of step change the growth. And I just want to end on a little fun note. Tell us about being able to be a part of this symposium in the Bahamas. Oh, well, I can tell you that it's freezing inside and really hot outside. But yeah, no better place for us to be able to take a moment and really reflect on the job that's ahead of us. But the palm trees certainly help. Thanks so much for joining us. Ms. Sue Kelsey of Mastercard telling us a little bit about the protection of Digital Financial Services and Universal Financial Access 2020. Thanks so much.


Real numbers have some useful properties. If a, b, and c are real numbers, then addition is associative. And that means if we have an addition like a plus b plus c, we can add the first two things together, a plus b, or we can add the second two things together, b plus c, and we get the same result. Multiplication is also associative. If we multiply three things, a times b times c, we can multiply the first two things, a times b first, or we can multiply the last two things, b times c first, and we get the same result either way. Addition is also commutative, a plus b is the same as b plus a, and multiplication is likewise commutative, a times b is the same as b times a. These properties are useful because they help us to perform some arithmetic operations, for example, 7 plus 6 plus 4. Since 7 plus 6 is in parentheses, we must evaluate it first according to the order of operations. So we find 7 plus 6, and to that result, we're supposed to add 4. But because of the associativity of addition, we can regroup the addends. In this case, rather than doing 7 plus 6 first, let's do 6 plus 4 first, and then 7 plus 10 is. Now, associativity by itself isn't very useful, and commutativity by itself isn't very useful. But, like so many things in life, they are stronger together. Put together, they provide a very useful result. An addition can be rearranged in any desired order, and likewise, a multiplication can be rearranged in any desired order. Now, it is important to remember that you can only rearrange the addends of an addition, and you can only rearrange the factors of a multiplication. Rearrangement is particularly important when we're dealing with fractions, so let's simplify 11-thirds times 5-8 times 3-11's. And by commutativity and associativity, we can rearrange those factors. And the thing you might notice here is that we have 11-thirds, and we have 3-11's, and if they were right next to each other, their product would be much easier to calculate. So let's do that. We'll switch the order inside the parentheses because we can. We'll regroup because we can. And now, 11-thirds times 3-11's is, and since I'm multiplying by 1, I'll just be left with 5-8's. So far, we've dealt with expressions that are all multiplications, or all additions. What if we have both an addition and a multiplication? Could we use commutativity and associativity to rearrange them? So is it true that 5 times 3 plus 2 is the same as, so I don't know, 5 times 2 plus 3? No. And the thing to remember here is that you can only rearrange terms if the operations are all the same, all multiplications or all additions. However, we can do something, which is called the distributive property, for real numbers A, B, and C. A times the quantity B plus C is the same as AB plus AC. So for example, let's say we can rewrite and evaluate 5 times 7 plus 2. So the distributive property says that this multiplication 5 times can be distributed amongst the addition 7 and 2. And so we can do 5 times 7 and 5 times 2, then add to get our final answer.


The United States is once again facing the threat of a partial government shutdown. On December 16th, President Joe Biden signed a bill to avoid this partial shutdown for a week as discussions continued on the budget. The budget negotiation process in the US often becomes a political tug of war as both sides use it to push their own agenda and threaten a partial shutdown of the government if their demands are not met. How does the passing of the budget take place in the US and what gives rise to the possibility of a shutdown? Eugene Purir of Breakthrough News explains. You know, the US government constantly operates on this sort of funding cliff or it really has for maybe the past decade or so when the budget negotiation process became significantly more partisan under President Obama than perhaps in past years. But things like this have cropped up on a regular basis at different times. The basic reality is this is earlier in the year, the US government will debate and fund a budget and decide what it's going to be. But they always wait till the end of the year to pass the budget for a range of different reasons. But some of them are technical and preparing different things. Some of them are political that, as I will explain in just a little bit, make it easier to sneak in sort of last minute funding request and so on and so forth. And then also some of it has to do with taking into account things that happen in the wake of the immediate aftermath of the budgetary process, which sometimes adds to or changes the contours of what the budget may be. So you have this period that often crops up, not always at the end of the year, but sometimes oftentimes at the end of the year, where the budget has to actually be passed by Congress in order to continue to fund everything through the next fiscal year. So it's not as if the lights will turn off the next day, but all of the continuing operations that need to go on for the government to operate smoothly and then everything that requires government operations, so regulations, airports, really almost anything you can imagine that requires some form of interface with the federal government has to be able to have that smooth flow to keep the flow of commerce and life moving along in a general sense. So you don't want the government to shut down for any appreciable amount of time. So this is always used by the differing political parties on both sides of the fence, depending on what the mix is in Congress and who's in the presidency to force their priorities because nobody wants to be considered responsible for the government essentially shutting down and all of the potential cascading problems. So what you're willing to accept vis-a-vis a compromise from your opponents will the threshold for that will go up. So we are in another one of those processes here now where something called a continuing resolution gets passed to sort of keep the funding level where it is so that nothing stops or shuts down as a mode to create space for negotiation to pass the broader what's known as omnibus spending bills. That's the real budget. So that's what's happening right now essentially and in this particular condensed form and current events. But it basically has to do with the politicization of the budget process. That's really what it comes down to. The current stalemate takes place at a time of transition. This is the last session of the current Congress before the Republicans take control of the House of Representatives next year. Until now the Democrats had control of both House and Senate. In this context what are the differences between the two parties? What agenda items are each party trying to push or prevent and what is blocking an agreement? Well the key points of disagreement right now over the budget are essentially over the two agendas of the political parties. You've got the Democrats who are trying to get in before they lose control of both houses of Congress, some semblance of what the agenda that they have been promising voters they would be addressing since President Joe Biden has come in. You could think about it in the context of the build back better agenda that failed in 2021. But the same basic priorities of at least attempting to present themselves as promoting social spending to a more significant degree to help working class families. On the other hand we have the Republicans who will after the turn of the new year actually gain control of the House of Representatives and they certainly want to see a significantly reduced amount of social spending. In fact the whole discussion is around non-defense spending so they want to still see a huge multi-billion, 100 billion dollar defense budget but they want to significantly cut by tens of billions of dollars spending that's going to help support working class families in different ways from housing to education to healthcare and so on. So what really is happening now is a race to the finish line for the Democrats to be able to get enough votes in the Senate caucus and I think they certainly have it in the House to be able to pass something even though it is certainly lesser than what they're saying lesser than the need in general you know they're spending hundreds of millions of dollars less on homelessness for instance than what they said they would earlier in the year despite the fact that you're in a huge homelessness crisis. So they're not meeting the scale of the problem itself and they're also even watering down their own initial proposals but nevertheless something they could at least sell to Democratic voters to say well we did something in relationship to our broad priorities here when we had all the power to do it maybe even if it's not as much as you want. While the Republicans are hoping to kick the can down the road and find a way to get enough opposition so that they can get it to the new year 2023 and vote on this new budget in a time where they'll have significantly more leverage to be able to strip out that social spending. So really what we're seeing here is a competition to see who can do the least for working class families who are facing huge problems of course 160 million people struggling to meet their expenses week to week but nevertheless not seeing much relief here from Congress and probably won't despite the outcome of or whatever the outcome may be of this budget negotiation. While the two parties may differ on a number of issues they're usually united on the issue of defense spending. In fact in recent times Congress usually allocates more money than the federal government asks for for defense. What has been the trend this year? Yes defense spending is totally sacrosanct I mean you can see even in the discussions of what's going to be cut from the budget it's always the discussion of the non-defense spending so there's actually no real disagreement between either party that no one should touch the defense spending the over eight hundred billion dollars it's being appropriated this year and it's setting a record but you know that's almost becoming in and of itself a pass a statement because you know they set a record in 2021 they set a record in 2020 almost every year the US government is setting a record for defense spending and going each year above even what the presidents are requesting what the military itself is requesting so over eight hundred billion dollars going to go towards the military budget so we're seeing here this huge significant increase in programs many of which are struggling to even succeed like the F-35 fighter and others that tens of billions of dollars have already been spent and the weapons platforms are still only barely operable we are seeing the continued funding towards the overhaul that at the end of the day will cost a trillion dollars in US nuclear weapons funding going towards that as well significant changes in overhauls in the Marine Corps and others which were acquiring a vast buildout of all sorts of new weapons that are explicitly designed based on the new doctrine of how the Marine Corps is going to be used in the Pacific Ocean to essentially prepare for a nuclear conflict with China so I mean this is what they're spending these hundreds of billions of dollars on is this great power confrontation and deliberately shaping the forces of the US military to confront up to and including nuclear war Russia and China for more videos on people's struggles please subscribe to our YouTube channel


Have you ever gotten stuck by asking really big questions such as What's my calling in life? What's my purpose? What's my niche? Who is my target market? Who is my ideal audience? These giant questions can keep people stuck for years So let me share with you a Wise piece of advice that I received from a mentor long ago The mentor is longer alive, but I always remember what he said here He said, you know, this was when I was in my 20s and trying to figure out my purpose in life And he said to me George our calling in life Can only be understood by looking backward And I thought that was so wise so what what I believe he meant by that was that when we look back and look at the patterns of Whom have we been helping? What kind of person have we been most effective at helping? What kinds of problems do they come to us for again and again and again different people come to us for what kinds of problems? Is there a pattern there? What kinds of problems and and obstacles have we overcome in our life that we might be able to help people with? Things like that give us a sense of pattern and a common thread that we start to notice go Oh That's really what I should can be helping people with next so what I'm going to suggest to you is Instead of asking giant questions like what's my calling and purpose if that gets you stuck sometimes it inspires you And that's great, but if you get stuck and not able to move forward and take action Here's what you try instead Ask smaller questions. So instead of what's my calling in life? Ask yourself. What's the next thing? I'd like to try Based on what I've noticed about my life thus far. What's the next thing? I'd like to try and if you're getting stuck with What's my niche? What's my target market? Try the smaller question. What's the next niche that I'd like to experiment with? Okay, and instead of asking who is my ideal client? Who is my target market? Ask whom have I been helping thus far? And and how can I help more people like that? smaller more practical questions that are grounded in reality Grounded in experimentation and testing Instead of this giant question that you feel if I answer this question What is my calling then am I going to be stuck if that's going to be my thing for the next 10 years 20 years The truth is We understand by looking backward But yet we live life forward, right? So When you live life forward, what this means is that society will change dramatically As has happened to us this year in 2020 that nobody nobody really Planned for the pandemic and the lockdowns and dramatic business changes who plan for that So imagine somebody who said my calling is to start a restaurant Back in february or january of this year my calling. I discovered my purpose in life It's a start a restaurant and then the pandemic hit and now everything changed So instead of asking such giant questions, let's do little experiments asking pragmatic questions About our actual experiences and what we can test next To help us understand What is the reality that is present in our life? How are we relating to the world right now and therefore what can we experiment and grow more into because good business Is always about responding to the market This is how I've developed as an effective business and I'll say for my own experience and this might inspire you I don't really have a core message Yeah, you might sit wait a second george. You are a marketing expert and coach You don't have a core message. You don't have a clear marketing message No, I don't you can quote me on that george cal says he does not have a clear marketing message And yet he has such a successful business. Why make sure that's the full quote because then people will say well Why is that it's because listen listen? I am different things to different people To some of my clients. I'm a facebook ads expert. That's how they see me. Oh george. Yeah, look when I think of george I think of facebook ads. That's that's what he's good at wonderful Please pigeonhole me. However, you want to pigeonhole me some clients pigeonhole me as oh george He's the course launch expert if you want to launch courses go to george great wonderful Pigeonhole me that way good some clients say oh no george. He he is the joyful productivity coach He he is all about getting things done in a way that's connected to our spirituality. That's what he's really good at Wonderful. Think of me as that People think of me as different ways and that's wonderful because I am all of those things And it's impossible to organize that into a core message that makes sense to everybody. Do you get me? Same same as you you don't have to do this You don't have to pressure yourself so much anymore trying to come up with this Integrated message that and it makes sense to everybody it will make sense to you I have a core message that makes sense to me. It's not going to make sense to you I don't have to tell you. Oh, I'm the integration of this and this who cares. What do you need? Let me tell you what what I can help you with. Oh, oh, that's what you need. Oh good Oh, I can help you with that now. Oh, that's what you need. Oh, I can't help you with that Let me And refer you to this other colleague so I don't mind being pigeonholed because once someone is working with me And has and I have their attention because I'm helping them Then they'll see. Oh, wow. George also does this and also does that. That's how my clients do it They come to me with one thing. I help them with that. Oh, wonderful because they heard about me They heard about them good at that one thing. I come great I help them with that and then they discover. Oh, I can help them with this one and that one Wonderful So I hope this helps you to move forward with a more joyful and experimental attitude about your niche About your work about your purpose knowing that you are all of it And it's all about helping people and it's about all about expressing your Your love as you help others. So I hope this is helpful. I'm George cow. I'm all things To many people and uh, if you enjoyed this video, you might enjoy others other ones as well This is the same thing with content. I make this one and then this one and then this one People can enjoy this one or that one. It doesn't matter. It's all about experimentation with Singular things. I hope this helps. Take care


All right, I'd like to call the meeting to order, please. All right. I'd like to call the meeting to order at 7.12. If I can please ask everyone to rise and recognize the Burlington Police Department Honor Guard. Okay. Thank you, everyone. So the first item on the agenda will be the agenda. May I have a motion? Thank you. May I have a second? Second. Thank you. All in favor? Opposed? Thank you. We have an agenda. The item 2.01 will be swearing in of the newly elected and re-elected City Council members. Yeah, new Councillors, join me in the center of the table. The duties of the Office of City Council, the best of my judgment, according to law. Congratulations. And the State of the City address. All right, thank you to our CAO and Acting President for a few minutes. Beth Anderson. Thank you for your service to the City tonight and throughout the year. Good evening and welcome to Contoy's Auditorium. Thank you all for joining us and being part of this annual celebration of municipal reflection and renewal. I want to congratulate and welcome again our newly elected and newly sworn-in City Councilors, Perry Freeman, Jack Hanson, and Franklin Paulolino to their first Organization Day meeting. Welcome. It was an honor to swear you in tonight and I am looking forward to seeing what we can accomplish together. I also want to say welcome back to the nine returning City Councilors. I'm looking forward to another year together. I want to have stand and recognize our great Department Head team. Did you guys all stand up? Thank this group for their commitment, their sacrifice, and their many talents. The City has never had a better cohort of leaders, of communicators, and innovators than we do right now. It's an honor to serve with them. Close observers of municipal infrastructure may notice that we have a new podium tonight here. This is an exciting moment in the Mayor's office. For years we worked with a music stand for our podiums. It actually achieved a certain degree of fame, seven days reported on the music stand once. It appeared in Paul Hein's campaign finance report, sorry, but it broke about a couple of years ago and we've been looking to replace it since and we finally today, this is the first time we are using this new podium, it was built by a Burlington High School student, Ali Hussein, who's here at the back of the room, working with Elliot Katz. It's really got a lot of features. It's solid maple, has two angles, it's got magnets here. Ali did this working with Elliot Katz, who is a teacher, a generator, and I do think on a serious note it is such a resource that we have here in this community, to have a generator as a makerspace that has been serving the youth of this community and turning out innovators and new companies. It's a nice, it's very fitting I think to have the Mayor's office podium come from generators. So thank you for doing this tonight. I appreciate it. I want to thank and welcome Mayor Clavel, Mayor Peter Clavel, and Betsy Ferries to be here with us tonight. It's been so great having you back in Burlington after your years are broad, and it has been a pleasure to work with you on so many fronts, most recently and very excitingly to help make the Old North End Community Center a reality. Thank you for both of you for the hard work to make that possible. And I'm fortunate to have three generations of my family here with us tonight. Michael and Ethel, who came up from Heartland, Vermont here today are here in the front row. My girls, Ada and Lee Lynn are up in the balcony. It's such a joy to be your parent and your son. And I want to say a special thanks to Stacey for your strength, your support, your love, and your incredible hard work and grace as a leader at the King Street Center. Stacey, I want to acknowledge someone who can't be with us here tonight. Last month we lost a mayor. We lost Mayor Frank Cain. Mayor Cain lived a full and accomplished life and contributed a great deal to modern Burlington during his six years in office from 1965 to 1971. And then when he returned to private life and returned up to Mansfield Avenue and raised 10 children there on the avenue. One of the privileges of this job for the last seven years has been the opportunity to get to know Mayor Cain and his wife. And they attended every one of these state of the city addresses since I've been in this office.  We remember Mayor Cain's life here tonight and we miss him. I want to begin tonight by reflecting on some of the events and achievements of the past year and what it took to make them possible. It's no secret that this has been another tough winter on our roads. So I'm going to start tonight with the same great news that I opened last year. Once again, happily the asphalt plants are about to open for the season and we'll be able to bring a permanent fix to those potholes. Until the plants open, we rely on the muscle and the hustle of the Department of Public Works street maintenance and fleet maintenance teams to keep the roads in shape and to keep our trucks and plows running. And this year, that team worked extra shifts on more than 60 days to clear snow from the and ice from our roads and sidewalks. And in the last weeks, they've been applying literally tons of cold patch and hot mix to potholes by hand to get us through until the paving season begins. And we are fortunate to have some members of that team here with us tonight. You know, Lee and Rob stand and I do want to specifically recognize Rob Green who is going to be leaving us, sadly regrettably, after 31 years of remarkable service to the city of Burlington. And Rob, it has been an honor and a pleasure to serve with you. Thank you for all that you've done for the city of Burlington. So fortunately, thanks to the Burlington voters support of the landmark sustainable infrastructure plan in 2016, we have the resources to rebound from a winner like this one and reinvest in our public infrastructure. By the end of this coming construction season, we will have repaved 17 miles of roads over the last three years, which is approximately double the typical three-year period. We will have rehabilitated nearly nine miles of sidewalks, which is triple the amount of sidewalk work in a typical, typical, typical period. We will have relined and replaced nearly eight miles of water lines for the first time in generations. And we will have created three miles of bike lanes, four and a half miles of bike ways, and rebuilt seven of the eight miles of our waterfront bike path. This infrastructure work is just one of the many areas where we have found consensus and together confronted major community challenges head on. Here are some of the other successes in the past year. We came together to spur urgent action on lake health and clean water with 92% of voters supporting the $30 million Clean Water Resiliency Plan last fall. We broke through decades of paralysis and secured strong public approval of the most significant reorganization of city government in approximately 30 years with the creation of the new permitting and inspections department that is already adding accountability, predictability and convenience to our permitting system. And we joined together at this table to unanimously support a new feasible plan to transform the Moran plant I saw into a Burlington landmark and finish the job of bringing life back to the northern waterfront. And a lot more too, it was a good year. We had a good year on many fronts. Our unassigned fund balance grew by another 15% in our last audit. The airport had a record breaking year, serving by far the most passengers it's seen since the Great Recession. Our early learning initiative is helping to create dozens of new, high quality childcare spaces in Burlington. We successfully launched the new tradition of highlight on New Year's Eve and we are replacing a lakeshore parking lot with a new park that will open in the next couple of months. As a result of these local successes and more and because of the industriousness, innovation and compassion of our residents, I am proud to report that the state of our city is very strong and for the seventh year in a row stronger than it was one year ago. The last seven years, the essential ingredient for our progress in this room has been collaboration. Despite party differences, at this table we roll up our sleeves and find ways to reach consensus and get things done for the people of Burlington. As we enter a new chapter with a new city council, I want you all to know and you all to know that I remain committed to this way of working together and working hard to find areas of agreement and keep delivering results for our constituents. Before leaving the topic of collaboration, I'd like to take a moment to talk about the opioid crisis and our efforts to fight it. For the last two and a half years, Chief Brandon DelPozo and I have led CommunityStat, an effort of regional collaboration, coordination and innovation that may have no parallel in the country. Through this effort, we have worked with dozens of partners, some of whom are here with us in the room tonight. I did see our state's attorney, Sarah George here earlier. Thank you, Sarah, for being here. We've worked with dozens of partners to implement a robust constellation of interventions and we have begun to see results. In the last year, opioid-related overdose fatalities in Chittenden County dropped by 50%. Now, you know, it is something we welcome, but even in saying those stats, I am highly aware that this progress, despite this progress, too many of our neighbors, our co-workers and our children are still dying here in Chittenden County and throughout Vermont and throughout this country. So that is why this week we are doubling down on our efforts to expand access to these life-saving addiction medicines that we believe has driven much of the progress over the last couple of years. Starting tomorrow, we will have social workers in the police department screening RSTs for addictions, including opioid use disorder, and offering immediate access to treatment to those who screen positive before they are released. We know that a large percentage of individuals who are suffering from opioid addiction, a large percentage of people who are committing crimes are suffering from opioid addiction. So, like Vermont's successful new program of providing treatment in prisons, this new innovative initiative will ensure that the criminal justice system is doing all it can to bring this epidemic to an end. Since we're in the middle of the legislative session, I feel like I have to say one more thing about opioids, and that's this. The state of Vermont, it's time for the state of Vermont to also fully embrace the life-saving potential of addiction medicines and to do everything it can to destigmatize and ease access to them. The public health science is very clear. The use of the addiction medicine, buprenorphine, saves lives, whether that use has been prescribed or not. So, when we're living at a time when thousands of Vermonters who need treatment are still not getting it, are still not ready to go into a clinical setting to get treatment, the state should stop prosecuting small amounts of buprenorphine possession just like we did here in this city 18 months ago. I urge the legislature to make Burlington's policy the law of the land by passing H162 now. So, I'm going to focus the rest of my remarks tonight on three critical areas of work facing us in the year ahead. In 2019, we must continue to focus on fiscal responsibility, including the careful stewardship of our public infrastructure. We must make progress towards our ambitious climate goals, and we must redouble our efforts to end the housing crisis that, until recently, had been worsening for a long time. I'm going to start with a focus on fiscal responsibility and stewardship of our public assets because this is the foundation upon which all of our other progress is built. It is only as a result of our work to decisively resolve the financial crisis of 2012 that we've been able to make investments like improving public safety by adding new firefighters and police officers, make additional investments in our most vulnerable infants and toddlers, and expand our youth programming at the library. The four credit rating upgrades that we've earned since 2012 aren't just gold stars. Our improved financial standing is keeping millions of dollars here in Burlington that otherwise would be sent to Wall Street in the form of bond interest payments. Last month, our Clerk Treasurer's Office published a report that estimates that since our upgrades began in 2014, our improved credit ratings have locked in total interest savings for Burlington taxpayers and ratepayers that now total more than $15 million. And, you know, as significant as that figure is, these savings are going to expand dramatically in the next few years as we take on new debt to make historic investments in the high school, in our water systems, and in other vital public infrastructure. We've also made progress in stabilizing our pension system by cutting millions of dollars of wasteful management fees, negotiating new cost sharing agreements with all four public employee unions, and improving our investment strategies. We have achieved millions of dollars of savings for taxpayers and changed the trajectory of our system. However, we have one substantial reform that we still have to implement, and that's this, to fully return the Burlington Employee Retirement System to stable ground and avoid painful crises in the future, we need to follow the lead of most public funds around the country and lower our assumed rate of investment return. I urge the BERS Board, some of who are here tonight, to reduce our assumed rate of return from 8% to 7.5% in the coming fiscal year and then to phase in reductions over the next couple of years to get us down to approximately 7.1%, which is the figure that has been recommended by our financial professionals and which is back in the mean of other public investment plans. But, you know, while we continue to plant and nurture these seeds of future financial progress, we are also happily now in position to harvest the fruit of our past work. By finishing the challenging job of saving Burlington Telecom last night, last month, thankfully not last night, we not only ensured that Burlingtonians will have high-speed internet choice for the foreseeable future, we also earned back $7 million for our taxpayers that many thought was lost and gone forever. After years of waiting, it is time for Burlingtonians to benefit from the recovery of these funds. So, to that end, the budget that I delivered to you for the upcoming fiscal year will include using a portion of the funds to do two things. One, to eliminate the property tax increase plan for next year, making good on our commitment to voters to use only the new tax authority that they granted us in March if we needed it. And two, to replace our nearly obsolete fleet of sidewalk plows. Many of our plows are so old and worn that they were in the shop instead of on the streets 50% of the time during this past tough winter, slowing our ability to respond to major storms. It is time to welcome in a new generation of BTV snow dragons. Our second major area of focus will be on the great challenge of our time, fighting climate change. Cities can and must be centers of innovation that show the world that decarbonizing our society is possible and that we can thrive while doing so. While Burlington already has an impressive track record on this front, it is time for us to make even more progress. By taking action now, not only will we address the urgent need for change, but we also save Burlingtonians money and give our community a competitive advantage. When our society finally and inevitably responds to climate change with new carbon regulations and other major shifts, Burlington will be out ahead if we continue to act now. For years, our climate efforts have been led by our beloved public utility, the Burlington Electric Department. In 2014, BED led the way to Burlington becoming the first city in America to source 100% of our electricity from renewable generation. But we didn't stop there. So for example, with my strong support throughout the last seven years, BED has invested in as much local solar generation as possible and we now have 16 times the amount of solar capacity as we did at the end of 2011. Throughout this decade of progress, BED has held rates steady. There's been no increase. In 2016, we doubled down on this progress and announced that we would work to become a net zero energy of city across the electric, thermal, and ground transportation sectors by 2030. This is perhaps the most ambitious climate goal of any city or government agency in America and we're serious about achieving it. This summer, after months of working with some of the nation's top experts, BED will release a net zero roadmap that will comprehensively analyze our current energy use across all three of those sectors and lay out different scenarios and strategies for us to pursue to achieve net zero on our planned timeline. Even as we plan future initiatives, 2019 will also be a year of action on climate change. This is especially true when it comes to ground transportation, which has been the sector that continues to be our biggest emissions challenge. That action started in January when BED became one of the first utilities in the country to roll out a special residential electric vehicle charging rate. This means that BED customers can now recharge their vehicles off-peak for the equivalent of 60 cents per gallon of gas. The equivalent of pulling up at the pump and paying just 60 cents per gallon. Tonight, and you can do it in your backyard, in your driveway, tonight, I am happy to announce another effort to incentivize electrification of our vehicle fleet. BED is doubling its incentive for plug-in hybrid purchases or leases from $600 in 2018 to $1,200. The best plug-in hybrid rebate offered by any utility in the state. There's more to come. In the fall of this year, Green Mountain Transit will add two new electric buses to its fleet with the support and incentives from BED. However, we're not gonna get to net zero simply by electrifying today's vehicles. We also need our transportation infrastructure to be updated to better accommodate different modes of travel. In recent years, we've made some progress on this front. We have begun to implement the Walk Bike Master Plan. We start 2019 as a result of some of that work with dedicated bike lanes on two of our six major roadways into downtown Burlington, and the Champlain Parkway will soon improve bike infrastructure on Pine Street as well. In the near future, we have a chance to make further progress on North Wenuski Avenue and Main Street. Only when we have a true network of continuous and interconnected bike lanes will we see our transportation pattern shift in the direction that we need. I look forward to working with this council and the public to create that network. One reason the bike lanes are so important is that in the future, Burlingtonians will have additional options for getting around our city that will benefit from this alternative transportation infrastructure. In recent years, Segways, e-bikes, and shared bikes have begun appearing on our streets, and it's clear that soon the micro mobility movement will include e-scooters and more. These smaller vehicles offer the promise of reduced car trips, transportation electrification, linkages to our bus lines, and reduced costs for low-income residents. Let's work hard to learn from the many e-scooter pilots that already took place around the country in 2018, and find a way to break through the concerns and explore this new form of transportation in Burlington this year. Finally, I wanna address what I see as the third urgent area of work that we'll tackle in the year ahead, which is our housing policy. I've spent my entire professional career building and advocating for more homes because the shortage of housing has become our largest social challenge as a reason and as a country. Building a wide array of homes from more housing for the chronically homeless to more market rate rentals is the solution to many of our key issues and concerns. Let me explain what I mean about that. How does this address a range of issues and concerns? Well, when we create more homes in our urban centers, this is another way for us to fight climate change by structuring our land use in a way that requires less energy to meet our heating, cooling, and ground transportation needs. Downtown residents produce half or less of the climate emissions of their suburban counterparts. When we create more homes, we strengthen our local businesses by addressing their top concern that our shortage of housing makes it tough to attract and retain workers and to create new jobs. When we create more homes, we share the cost of our high quality public services and amenities over a larger tax base. When we create more homes, we open up the opportunity for welcoming new Berlin Tonians into our neighborhoods from around Vermont and around the world and becoming a more racially diverse and inclusive community. And when we create more homes, we fight income inequality in the most potent way that we can as local officials. President Obama released a report just before he left office, citing local regulations that stifle housing creation and keep people from moving to where opportunities are as one of the country's major drivers of income inequality. And when we create more resources for those experiencing homelessness, as we did by opening the low barrier warming shelter five years ago, we make good on our deeply held value of caring for the most vulnerable in our community. In short, when we create more homes, we are taking a step toward a future where housing is a human right and where Burlington is the sustainable, vibrant, affordable, inclusive, and equitable place that we strive to be. Other progressive cities around the country are taking up the mantle of housing reform. In Minneapolis, a grassroots group, neighbors for more neighbors, just successfully advocated to upzone large swaths of the city to address its history of racial redlining and exclusion. In Seattle, Boston, Madison, and other cities, progressive activists are pushing the forces of the status quo to say yes to more housing with the goal of creating truly walkable, affordable, and diverse cities. Burlington faces a similar long simmering challenge. For decades, well-intentioned but highly restrictive land use rules have kept housing supply from keeping up with dramatically rising demand. As a result, the average Burlingtonian today spends more than 40% of their income on rent, making us one of the most expensive communities in the country to live. For the last seven years, we have been charting a different course with a two-part strategy. One, we have continued Burlington's proud legacy of building as much permanently affordable housing as possible. And secondly, we have also pursued policies and proactive efforts to create more homes for households of all backgrounds. This second strategy recognizes that there will never be enough subsidy to solve our housing problems with traditional affordable housing solutions alone. And that all new homes, not just permanently affordable homes, are valuable, worthy, and important. This effort to increase more homes for all, more housing supply is working. There has been an anecdotal evidence of this for a while, including last spring, when Seven Days reported that the 300 new beds in Champlain College's 194 St. Paul Street building were, quote, spurring competition to fill student rentals that once practically leased themselves. In response, some landlords are cutting rents, others are waiving deposits. We're now starting to see this progress in the data. The city recently commissioned a study of vacancy trends in the apartment market. We studied vacancy rates because very low vacancy rates drive rent increases and often other problems like poor maintenance for tenants in the city. The report findings are clear. During the years 2006 to 2011, the city produced only 67 new apartments and had an average vacancy rate of just 0.7% during that period. Over the past seven years, it's been a very different story. Housing production jumped to 579 new homes and the average vacancy rate more than doubled to 1.5%. Now, let's be clear, 1.5% is still too low. We will need to see sustained vacancy rates of twice that or more to get to our affordability and inclusion goals. However, these trends have increased new homes and rising vacancy rates refute the idea the new housing supply doesn't matter and should be seen as a call to more action. And that's what we need to do. There's a lot more. For years, we've had a consensus that numerous local regulations were getting in the way of creating new homes but progress to reform them is not happening quickly enough. An example of that is in our inclusionary zoning reform where there's great consensus among advocates and housing builders of all types that we can do better, that we can create more resources for our affordable housing trust fund and keep this ordinance from getting in the way of the creation of new types of other housing supply. But still, after two years of this, we haven't finished this yet. In order to make more timely progress, we need to bring focus and urgency to the effort of housing reform. To that end, I'm announcing tonight that the mayor's office will host a housing summit in May to review a range of key housing policies including our downtown parking policies, rule changes to create more accessory dwelling units throughout the city, increased funding of our local housing trust fund, short-term rental policies, and updates to protect renters from unreasonably and wastefully high utility costs. We will emerge from that summit with a list of priority housing initiatives, could be that list and more, that the administration will spearhead in consultation with the council, the planning commission, housing stakeholders, and the public in the ensuing months. And our goal will be to deliver draft ordinances for these priority reforms to the council for formal vetting and action by October. For decades, this community has struggled with the cost of housing. Let us resolve together that 2019 will be the year we accomplish the structural fixes needed to make housing for all a reality. For more than 150 years since our founding, Burlington has strived to be Vermont's city of opportunity, the place in this great state where anyone, no matter their race or their place of birth, their income or their gender, can thrive. Being such a place requires our continued vigilance and action by acting to strengthen our infrastructure and financial health, lead the country on climate change and reform our housing policy. We will ensure that Burlington is truly a city of opportunity. I look forward to working with all of you to make it happen. Thank you again for being here tonight and being part of this ceremony. Thank you, Mayor Weimerker. Now I'd like to open the floor to public forum. Item 302 on our agenda. Do we have any sign ups? Seeing none, we will move forward to the election of the city council president item 401. May I ask for nominations for a president for city council? Council Bercer? Thank you. I would like to nominate Kurt Wright for president of the city council. For the new members of the council, Kurt has demonstrated a willingness to work well with all members of every party and the independence that are present on the council and also works well, plays well with others and works well with the administration.  He's a great resource. He's available to discuss any issue that you want to consider to bring before the council or is on the council's agenda. He's able to work with you and discuss that. He's, as I said, readily available. What I found also, he's respectful and fair in committee assignments, which I think is really key. He tries to achieve political balance, but yet honor the requests that all of us put forward where we want to serve on a certain committee because we think that's where our constituents feel that's a priority for them or that's where our skill set is. One added quality that I think Kurt has that really makes him an excellent candidate for president is his sense of humor. I think we've all benefited from that. We have some stresses, although the mayor said, you know, the council works well and we get to consensus most of the time. That's not without stress and without issues and Kurt's sense of humor has helped lighten that sometimes when we really needed that little bit of relief, release of attention. Kurt also was quick to call to mind the fact that I like to talk. So he asked me to nominate him, so I am. So anyways, but I'll ask that all of you join me in supporting Kurt Wright for president of the city council. Other nominations, we will put it to vote. All those in favor of councilor Kurt Wright as city council president, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? It is unanimous. All right, let's get to work. I wanna thank the council for your confidence in electing me to another term. Look forward to working together with all of you and with the mayor to make our great city and even greater city over the next year. I would like to just indulge me for just one second. I wanna give a shout out to some city counselors that are here. We have Karina Driscoll in the back of the room. Karina, Mike Monty, former city councilor way back in the day, former president Bill Keough and recently departed Dave Hartnett. I'm sorry, I knew I was gonna miss someone. Terri Bureches also here from really back in the old days. And another one that I didn't see is Selina Colburn. Who else did I miss? This is a dangerous when you start naming names and you miss people. Did I miss anybody else? Earhard Monkey. Earhard Monkey. Gene Burrman, can anybody stand up if you are not a former city councilor? I think I got them all now. We also have some school commissioners and I tell you I can't see out. So just congratulate school commissioners. We thank you for your service. Any school commissioners that's here, any commissioner that's serving us, we appreciate all your service. And of course, as I said, every city councilor that's spent all of your time serving this city, we really appreciate that. So thank you very much. With that, let's move on to the next item on the agenda and that is the election of the Board of Finance. Is there a nomination? Councilor Mason. Thank you, President Wright. I'd like to nominate Karen Paul to the Board of Finance. Karen has more than capably served a number of years on the Board of Finance. Brings a unique skill set from her work and is the hardest worker I know. So I'd like to return Karen. Karen Paul has been nominated. Are there any other nominations? Councilor Tracy. Councilor Tracy. I'd like to nominate Brian Pine. Brian has been a steadfast advocate for the city of Burlington for years, having served the city for well over a decade, working in CEDO and has transitioned gracefully back into a role as a city councilor. And I look forward to him representing hopefully the old north end on the Board of Finance. Okay, we have two nominations. Are there any other nominations? Councilor Pine. I'd like to place a nomination in the name of Councilor Busher. Councilor Busher was first elected in 1987, partly because I was her campaign manager. But I would just like to say Karen, Sharon comes to the Board of Finance with not just a wealth of knowledge, but with a discipline and a rigor towards city finances that is critical to the process. She provides a perspective. She understands departments. She understands human resources. And Councilor Busher is, I think, serves the city great, not just her constituents, but the entire city. So it's my pleasure to put her name on it. Any other nominations? Councilor Cenk. I would like to nominate myself as member of Board of Finance, because I do believe that I am the only city councilor here with both a progressive and Democrat endorsement. I am a very independent, like-minded person. And I am an advocate, and also in making sure that we make sure we keep our assets steady, and also we give our taxpayers a break. I would be doing an incredible job representing the city as well as all the people in the great city of Burlington. Thank you. Point of order, Mr. President. Point of order, Mr. Councilor Mason. What's your point of order? Could you explain how we're intending to vote? I had mistakenly assumed we were doing individual, you know, but I'm not sure now with multiple candidates. That's a good question, because I had assumed we were doing this differently too. And to my surprise, we are doing it a different way than I had understood at the beginning of this meeting. So I'm a little taken aback myself. The city attorney have any, we do not normally do this. This is not the way we've done in the past, and I was thrown a curve on this. There's no set procedure in the council rules or in the charter regarding which way you do it. You're off to a beautiful start here. Point of order, is it envisioned that we will be voting for three candidates as there are three vacancies to fill? So each councilor will get three votes. We do need to fill three seats. Councilor Shannon. Would it be in order to move that we vote on a slate of three nominations that would include Councilor Paul, Councilor Busher, and Councilor Pine? You can make that motion. Councilor Shannon, if you'd like to. I will make that motion. Councilor Shannon has made the motion that we vote on a slate that includes Councilor Paul, Councilor Pine, and Councilor Busher. Councilor Zhang. Yeah, this is more of a question for the city attorney. And I was just wondering if people nominate themselves why they should not be on the slate. Since people were nominated individually, I think if we're doing slate, everyone that has received a nomination should be on that slate. So there's only three seats, and I believe four candidates were nominated. Yeah, so then is it appropriate to say we will nominate a slate in here in this procedure? I think that's up to us. And there has been a motion put on the table for a slate. Point of order. Councilor Pine, what's your point of order? It is not on customary for us to fill several commission seats at a time. And what I've seen the council do is take the names and go through each seat as though it's its own race, if you will, or its own, we basically do a tally on each one of these open seats on the Board of Order. Actually, the custom and the tradition has been, when we have had other, more than three candidates has been that there is one seat is put up, one more seat is put up, and the next seat is put up. We don't do it where we throw everybody in together like it has just been done here. That is actually a violation of the tradition and precedent that we've had for many years here, actually. So, point of order, is that the chair's prerogative to vote on individual one? If so, I would move, again, for the first seat, or I'd move in nomination, Councilor Paul. Well, the only thing is we have a motion on the floor from Councilor Shannon. Seconded, was it seconded? No. Was it not seconded? You didn't ask for a second. Is there a second? It fails for lack of a second. Councilor Mason. So, I just, if it's the chair's prerogative as to if there's a desire to go to the individual voting, I think. I think we should take one seat at a time. Okay, so I would, for the first seat, I would move in nomination, Councilor Paul. Councilor Paul has been nominated for the first seat, are there other nominations? Hearing none, all those in favor of Councilor Paul, being elected to the Board of Finance, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Congratulations, Councilor Paul. Is there a nomination for the second seat? Councilor Shannon. I would nominate Councilor Pine. Councilor Pine has been nominated. Are there other nominations for the second seat for the Board of Finance? Councilor Zhang. I would like to nominate myself as member of the Board of Finance. Councilor Zhang has nominated himself. Are there other nominations? Hearing none, all those in favor of Councilor Pine, please raise your hand. Councilor Zhang. Councilor Pine is nominated for the Board of Finance. Congratulations, Councilor Pine. And is there a nomination for the third seat for the Board of Finance? Councilor Roof. I'd like to nominate Councilor Busher. Councilor Busher has been nominated. Are there other nominations? Councilor Zhang. I would like to nominate myself as member of Board of Finance. Councilor Zhang's name is a nomination. Are there other nominations for this final seat? Seeing none, all those in favor of Councilor Busher, please say aye. Or raise your hands, actually. And all those in favor, Councilor Zhang. Councilor Busher is elected to the Board of Finance. Congratulations. And congratulations to all members of the Board of Finance. We look forward to working together with everyone. And with that, motion to adjourn is in order. Councilor Roof moves it. Councilor Zhang seconds it. All those in favor, please say aye. We are adjourned. Thank you.


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Item number SCP-1045 Object Class Safe Special Containment Procedures SCP-1045 is stored in Low Security Locker 17 at Site-21. No flammable materials or sources of open flame are to be brought within 5 meters of SCP-1045, except for testing purposes. Description SCP-1045 is a square wood-framed candle lantern, measuring 15 cm x 15 cm x 32 cm. Its sides are made of translucent wax paper, and its interior framework provides a nested support for a circular glass cup, measuring 6.5 cm in diameter and 10 cm in height. The anomalous properties of SCP-1045 do not manifest unless both components are used together. When a candle is placed within an SCP-1045 and lit, the walls of SCP-1045 depict the shadow of a miniature humanoid, as if lit from behind by the candle. The shadow on each side of the lantern depicts a different angle of the same subject. The shadow of the humanoid is always writhing, as if in pain, and it is surrounded by what appears to be semi-opaque flames. The shadow of the figure will persist as long as the candle is burning. Its motions become more frantic as the candle comes closer to burning out. All candle residue recovered from SCP-1045 consists of rendered human fat, regardless of the original makeup of the candle. Damaged DNA samples have been recovered, but the identity of the sourced individuals has yet to be determined. Addendum Testing has revealed that burning scented candles produce shadows of different figures. In addition, burning a scented candle allows the shadows to emit sound. The volume of the sound is dependent on the strength of the scent. To date, all shadows have only produced incoherent screams.


Yes! What's up, money geeks? Mr. V here, welcome to another video. In this one, we're gonna talk about Ticket Symbol, BLN Kit, Bling Charging. So this is a company that I've actually covered here on the channel, one of my top charging companies. And so they actually have some good news that I wanted to share with you guys, coupled with the fact that the market had their massive pullback that gave us an opportunity with the stock. So that's what I wanted to talk about into this video. But before we get started guys, if you're new to the channel, we check out how to earn money, how to save money, how to invest and build wealth. So if that's something that interests you, go ahead and hit that subscribe button and your notification bell so you don't miss out on new content. So again, Bling Charging is one of my top charging companies out here. Again, I've covered a lot of them on the channel here. We talked about Bling, we talked about ChargePoint, EVGo, EVBox, actually do have a video that talks about those four charging companies that I like. So Bling recently, there was news that the company actually signed a statewide deal with the state of Vermont to deploy charges across the state. So to me, this is excellent news, let me bring this up here so you guys can actually see. So here's the news, Bling Charging actually signed that contract with the state of Vermont to put EV charging stations across the entire state. So if you see companies like this start to make deals like this, I think it makes a lot of sense for us to start looking at Bling Charging again as a potential gas station. Guys, I've told you this several times, the difference between electric vehicle charging stations and your regular gas station is that these things could be placed anywhere at your grocery store, at the gym, at their mall, just name it, whereas you can't really put your gas stations there. So this is good for Bling Charging, I really like this deal. I mean, if they can continue to roll out like this and sign contracts, like this with other states, I think it'd be an excellent against here. Some of the news again, still pointing out the deal that they have for the state of Vermont to deploy charging station all across the state. So I think it's great. So if we look at Bling Charging as someone else doing his video, current is sitting at $39. Mind you, if I go back a month here, this stock got to $60, just January 26th. So again, this stock has just pulled back. So almost half of its value disappeared just because of this pullback. So is this a good time for you to get into Bling? I personally think that if you don't have Bling yet and you want to, this would be a good time to start your position and Bling and start building it. I don't know how bad this pullback is going to be. If it stops, if right now we think this is support and then we're good. If you can hold at that 39 price point, see even came down all the way to 32 before squeezing back up. So if it stays along this point, anything under 40 for Bling, if it stays, then it would be a good place to start opening your position. Again, we don't know how long this is going to last. If it's just a week and then that's good. But if it continues to pullback, then we might have some issues. That's why I don't want you to go out and just buy, let's say a hundred shares if that's what you want to buy. You can start with 10 or 15 and just see how which direction the market is going. I know you can average your way down or you can average your way up, but at least get started. Don't look from the sideline because if you don't have any charging stations, again, my whole idea is I want you to be involved in all the different areas when it comes to electric vehicles. I want you to involve with lithium mining companies. I want you to involve with battery manufacturers, involve with EV vehicle manufacturers, as well as recycling and charging stations. So one of these, this would be a great opportunity to get into Bling charging. So let me know in the comment section what you guys think about this. I think it's an excellent deal for Bling, really, you know, establishing himself as a major player in the charging space and hopefully means more states will see that and want to use Bling to, you know, deploy a charging station across them. So that's what I wanted to cover in this video. And if you're new to the channel, we talk about how to earn money, how to save money, how to invest and build wealth. So that's something that interests you. Go ahead and hit that subscribe button and the notification bell so you don't miss out on new content. Also, if you're looking to get started with investing, Weibo has the promotion where if you sign up and deposit $100, you get free stocks, links in the description below.